@MagicalMapmaker That is kind of weird, though...shouldn't they respawn?

Animals/passive mobs have a spawn cap like hostile mobs but much lower. Chances are the mob cap is permanently filled by player animal farms and just animal sitting around in the world.
Animals do spawn when chunks get generated though, so go exploring.

Wow what an epic adventure. Looks amazing, been wanting to visit since my parents went on holiday around there and sent me a postcard and this has made me want to go even more!

ok

It's mainly bug fixes, most of which are fairly minor. Only really useful one is that you won't get stuck in farmland any more if you jump on it and it turns into dirt.
Oh and the game is now called Minecraft: Java Edition, yay...?

Should be fine although a couple of your doors aren't valid because of how the stone brick are arranged on top. If you remove all the stone bricks all the doors will be valid.
Also keep in mind the max number of villagers you can breed is about 1/3 the number of doors, unless you breed them vertically out of range of the villager count to make an infinite breeder.

@minesy 599 blocks by 599

I'm sorry I have to ask: Why?
Why not 600 by 600?

@AttackTeam suggested this a few weeks ago and people were quite positive about the idea. Would be a great way to add even more individuality to the server.

What issue with cartographers?

People don't seem to be aware of this but when cartographers first unlock their explorer map trade the maps will point to the nearest structure in unloaded chunks. I.e. the nearest undiscovered mansion/monument.
If you really want to try to find an unexplored mansion I'd suggest breeding a cartographer as close to spawn as possible and unlocking his map trade, giving you the best chance that the map points to a mansion inside the border.
(assuming Crafty has fixed the issue with mansions not generating in reset chunks, anyone know?)

If this is an issue with just new players, then you could just move the portal somewhere else in spawn. The portal is currently directly in front of spawn so it tends to be the first thing new people go to. If this is the issue then there no need to move the portal so far away. Just don't have it be the first think people see when they join the server.
TBH I'm not sure this is the issue, I suspect most of the players afk in the end are not just new players, but that just my guess.