@Silver_Sonya Valgys and R4iscool1, thanks for your responses. When you're done discussing my civility and intelligence, please post something that isn't off-topic. I'm not going to reply unless you want to discuss the server or anything from OP post.

Yeah I never discussed your civility or intelligence but if you want to discuss OP there's plenty of rebuttals I have made to your arguments and the basis on which you made them if you want to address those, since nothing is going to change till you can provide clear logical points.

@Silver_Sonya As I said, you're the one bringing anger to this conversation and trying to speak about anything else but not about the prosperity of the server. If you have nothing to say but to attack me - then it's probably better to say nothing at all.

What makes you think I'm angry?
I haven't once attacked you either for that matter.
Finally I do care about the prosperity hence why I oppose your changes as I feel the community prefers the way things are and they would be negative.

@Silver_Sonya Well then don't bring on time/money stuff in the first place.

Then don't bring up players are who we have to thank.

@Silver_Sonya Thanks but the only troll here so far is you, others seem to be looking for a way to make CM even better :)

Far from it, I'm working to maintain the good community we already have and people enjoy instead of changing things based on the whim of a very small percentage of users at the expense of the majority of users.

@Silver_Sonya For starters – Not attacking OP on sole grounds that he brings feedback now and not when Dawn wants it.

I never attacked the OP I disagreed with his arguments and logically refuted them, that's not an attack it's a discussion about the future of CM.

@Silver_Sonya Can't agree more. Feedback is extremely valuable for any project. Let's hope that eventually more and more mods will learn to accept feedback peacefully and will look for the ways to satisfy as much players as possible.

What mod's can't take feedback peacefully ? I think all our mods listen to the actual community not just a small segment of it and work to make the community better based on the actual communities feedback.
What does taking feedback peacefully even mean.

@Silver_Sonya Someday you'll be surprised to find out that its all the way round. Only customer/user/player-centric projects are successful in the long-run.

I really appreciate Crafty's and your work. I really do. But please leave all the "incalculable amounts of time" and "for free" nonsense for yourself. I personally don't care how many hours you spend and for how much money you do what you do and neither should anybody.

I appreciate the lesson in your personal economic philosophy but I'm not interested. We are player centeric though, we just don't recognize you to represent the player base as you act. 7 players agreeing with you on the forums does not come close to representing the total playerbase or the community especially when 8 disagree.

Yeah I wasn't surprised that you only really cared about yourself and not anyone else, especially when I found out who you really are.

@Silver_Sonya 10/10 verifier-skill, well played!
As for the actual answer, here:
This is exactly how much it is your business when, how and where I play.

I take it from your lack of argument and giant clipart however that you have no response to any of the actual rebuts of your points. If you are going to start trolling take it elsewhere.

@Silver_Sonya Aiming to be among the shit-tier servers? Nice.

Not true in the slightest when you take out non vanilla servers, despite their poor voting records which resign them to the bottom of the top 10 they still have more players that many servers above them.
One peaked at 80 and other at 45 which is bigger or the same as the ones you cited.

@Silver_Sonya Amazing how you managed to understand the situation correctly but failed to make the right conclusion.

Players are saying it's OP. It doesn't matter if it is or isn't. They don't like it. End of story. Players are the ones who make this server great, they are the ones who vote for it, they are the ones to thank for it and they are the ones to speak and be heard.

I do appreciate all the work admins do but after all this server is about the community, not the admins.

You see this is the big flaw in your arguments, "Players say this", "Players say that".
What players, 8 on the forums ? Do we let 8 players dictate how the server is run ?
We've already established you don't represent the community so why do you keep on acting like you do ?
I and the staff don't accept your opinion that the players don't like this because you can't provide any evidence they do.

Crafty is the one to thank for Craftymynes for putting incalculable amounts of time into it for free, then the staff who do similar and finally the players that make the community great.

You keep dodging this question too if you don't play which I verified why do you care about CM being great or not ?
Do you have any reason or just want to complain.

@Silver_Sonya
( ttps://ibb.co/eqCXT5 )

I hope you eventually change your mind before it's too late :)

I don't understand why you care if you don't play.
However as I and valgys pointed out map resets our downtime during that period and the current lag issues are far more likely culprits.
You have yet to explain how people who didn't know such thing till 6 days ago could leave months ago as well.

Just for some more comparison here is some other vanilla server stats.

I'm sure this isn't our most active period but I don't really see cause for concern yet, us having competition in voting has also created problems bringing newer players in.
It certainly isn't for the reasons you suggested either way.

@Silver_Sonya R4, you should really get your own thoughts instead of defending and repeating every nonsense other staff have to say.

I made a post just as big as Cepheids detailing my opinions on what he said so such an assertion is clearly false, instead of weakening you argument with childish comments like that why don't you just detail it instead.

@Silver_Sonya Max connected player stats (Total / Change in %):

Dec 16 = 78 players
Jan 17 = 70 players / -10%
Feb 17 = 67 players / -4%
Mar 17 = 60 players / -10%
Apr 17 = 52 players / -13%

I don't know where you guys live but 4 month worth of exam-weeks doesn't make any sense to me.
Last year there's been a constant growth from January to June.

(link in case img does not display: https://ibb.co/caJuO5)

Where are you sourcing this data ?
For any valid analysis to be made of player data we need a reference point using other similar vanilla servers too, otherwise we cannot know if it's a general trend or isolated to CM.

@Silver_Sonya I especially adore how you and Baron truly believe that if something doesn't make sense to you it must be invalid ("meaningless repetition of something already shown not to be valid"). Who decided OP's points are invalid? They're still valid for me. And please take a look at the summary I've put together for you. The thread is full of people that (OH NO) would like to see problems addressed.

You may think they are valid but that's irrelvant to the logical content of those points, I put that they are invalid since I rebutted the reasoning he used in many of his points and showed that most of the points were fallacious or based on false information.

Also as a native English speaker I'm unsure where you got such an obscure definition of invalid, for example when you google it the first result for the adjective is.
not valid, in particular:
(especially of an argument, statement, or theory) not true because based on erroneous information or unsound reasoning.
Which agrees with both our usages of it.

@Silver_Sonya Post number / agree or disagree with OP / (name):

1. OP post
2. Neutral (GrinningBobcat)
3. Admin post (Blackened_Dawn)
4. Mostly agrees (STRANGER_)
5. Agrees (Retrochewy)
6. Neutral (GrinningBobcat)
7. Neutral (Pimpcy)
8. Admin post (Blackened_Dawn)
9. Agrees (GrinningBobcat)
10. Agrees (_Confederacy_ )
11. Admin post (CraftyMyner)
12. Mostly agrees (OtherGreenGamer)
13. Admin post (CraftyMyner)
14. Admin post (R4iscool1)
15. Neutral (OtherGreenGamer)
16. Neutral (Sofatroll)
17. Neutral (GrinningBobcat)
18. Neutral (_Confederacy_ )
19. Mostly agrees (Jordi223b)
20. Mostly disagrees (pand1024)
21. Admin post (R4iscool1)
22. Disagrees (TimmyBoyT)
23. Neutral (Pimpcy)
24. Agrees (Cileklim)
25. Neutral (Pimpcy)
26. Admin post (Blackened_Dawn)
27. Agrees (Cutebot)
28. Admin post (R4iscool1)
29. Disagrees (Zane_Truesdale)
30. Agrees (Cileklim)
31. Disagrees (Cellexya)
32. Agrees (Cileklim)
33. Disagrees (Cellexya)
34. Agrees (Cileklim)
35. Disagrees (Cellexya)
36. Neutral (GrinningBobcat)
37. Disagrees (Dennari43)
38. Disagrees (Jordi223b)
39. Admin post (CraftyMyner)
40. Admin post (R4iscool1)
41. Admin post (R4iscool1)
42. Neutral (Retrochewy)
43. Neutral (Shiba_Ina)
44. Neutral (Cileklim)
45. Admin post (R4iscool1)
46. Disagrees (TheForgotten20)
47. Neutral (ghostassasin81)
48. Neutral (Cutebot)
49. Neutral (ghostassasin81)
50. Neutral (Carl_Sagan1)
51. Agrees (Constantium)
52. Admin post (R4iscool1)
53. Neutral (GrinningBobcat)
54. Admin post (CraftyMyner)
55. Agrees (TacoJesus)
56. Admin post (CraftyMyner)
57. Admin post (Venetorem)
58. Admin post (Blackened_Dawn)
59. Neutral (TacoJesus)
60. Admin post (R4iscool1)
61. Agrees (Silver_Sonya)

However, instead of listening to the community you guys keep ignoring it.

This is a very flawed way of looking at things, for a start most of the community is not represented on the forums and even fewer comment on it regularly so drawing what the community wants from the forums is faulty reasoning.

Number 2. Staff are part of the community too our opinions count too, being staff doesn't invalidate your opinion on how you want things to be run. We play the server too and have the right to have our say, we are part of the community. I'm not an admin nor is vene nor is anyone with blue tag either.

Number 3. You are counting people twice for unknown reasons, people posting twice and getting counted twice does not mean their opinion counts for two.
Also you misrepresented some people, for example nowhere does Othergreengamer say he mostly agrees all he stated was he would like more clarity on certain rules and he received it and was happy.
Jordi also says there is a problem only if they aren't requested to be destroyed which they are.
So when you count the erroneous votes you put in the tally in your favor and counting every person only once is
AAAAAAAA That's 8 for agree
DDDDDDD 7 for disagree
So clearly the interpretation that most of the community agrees has no real evidence to support it.
15 players does not represent even a faction of the community.

@Silver_Sonya Just an example of how community concerns are being ignored (same applies for many other complaints):
Community: We don't want to see other people getting OP or unobtainable items as bday gifts.
Admins: They're not OP.
Community: Doesn't matter, they're unobtainable and create an unpleasant precedent.
Admins: The player is trusted.
Community: Promise not to give such items in the future?
Admins: Such items have special vanishing flags on them.

Again you are not the community you have no evidence to support that the community agrees with your assertions here beyond less than 8 forum posters so please stop representing yourself as such and label, it as your own opinion.
But yes FYI, the items are not OP
nor does your definition of vanilla not containing custom items hold bearing on how CM should be run
and the items have vanishing flags making them unobtainable to anyone other than the player intended to receive it.

@Silver_Sonya It is obvious that the community is upset (again, bday gift case is just an easy-to-explain example). This will probably affect some players' decision whether or not to stay on the server. Max connected players stats are decreasing for 4 month in a row now (for a total drop of 33%, 78 players in Dec to 52 in Apr).

It's obvious you are upset leading to this post but once again I stress you are just saying the community agrees with you and have no evidence to actually support that assertion, no more than If I said the entire community agrees with me always on every matter.

Upset over what though, most of the complaints have not only been rebutted but more importantly these concerns were only ever raised 6 days ago, most players were unaware of the gift so how could they possibly leave due to it ? It's more specious reasoning.
Trying to attribute any sort of decline solely to that is just disingenuous, if there is a decline and it's not a trend the reason is far more likely the current lag problems with vanilla which affect us as the largest by far vanilla server especially.

@Silver_Sonya So maybe it's the right time to get off a high horse and (instead of marking all complaint-posts as invalid) say something as simple as:
Community: We don't want to see other people getting OP or unobtainable items as bday gifts.
Admins: OK, this is not going to happen again.

inb4 who are you, you don't even play here, your comment is invalid

I don't think anyone but you is on the high horse and we will mark any point that is fallacious like a couple of yours above as such. Or should we just listen to every point regardless of it's merit ?

SilverSonya: I say the community doesn't want to see this happening.
Admins: You are one player and do not represent community and we feel your concerns are unwarranted.

Also facts are fact regardless of source but given the fact you don't play it does seem to suggest that rather than wanting CM to succeed you just have a bone to grind instead and would do so regardless of the merit of the complaints.

@TacoJesus The reply couldve been that easy instead of smart remarks

What's smart about explaining that Exam weeks change server population?

From my own extensive experience of using VPN with minecraft Mojang does not ban accounts or IPs except in exceptional circumstances they do however Rate limit logins meaning they will only allow a certain amount of logins or attempted ones before refusing anymore on an IP.
This seems to be less prevalent however with IPs already associated with the account. After 24 hours they do seem to remove this limit.
Im pretty sure they do not ban public vpns either however the IPs on these servers are used often to try crack accounts meaning they can often be limited and they may manually ban some IPs for suspected accounting stealing.

So in conclusion using VPNs is fine but you may need to swap around IPs to find one that works, you could also buy a VPN which provides a unique static address to for more permanent security that would always work.