Preface:
This is a long post. If you will not take the time to read it, then that's on you. There are things in this post which will upset many of you, on various levels. The only advice I have for those whom this upsets: Get over it, or leave.
I felt I owe the community an explanation as to why Minecats is currently shut down. I also feel it is important that the community understands Minecats' history, and the paths we've lead to get to where we are. It's been an interesting and complex 6 and a half years.
=======================
Minecats started when Cindy had an idea over Christmas in 2013. She and her son Awexdio proceeded to create a new Minecraft server, opening December 24th, 2013. In 014, I met Cindy in a support channel for a plugin, Essentials. At first, I gave her no more attention than I would give any other person. But, over time, our friendship grew. One day, we realized we lived somewhat close to each other. At the time, I was in Pennsylvania helping my friend move from Tampa to the mountains, and helping him build a really awesome cottage for him and his family. We came back down to collect more of his stuff to move to Pennsylvania. I told Cindy I would be back in Florida. We decided to meet each other in person. Shortly later, She flew over to London, England for Minecon. My friends and I went back to Pennsylvania. At this time, I started working directly with the servers, on the back end. Our friendship grew into a personal relationship, and by August 2015, she decided she wanted me to move in, and our relationship flourished. By this time, Awexdio had lost almost all interest in Minecraft, and Minecats. Cindy changed jobs (got a much better one) which limited the amount of time she could easily give to Minecats. I stepped up and took over more responsibilities for running the servers.
I stayed mostly invisible, behind the scenes for a good long time before taking any in-game responsibilities. Some time in mid 2016, I took the "SysOp" title in game. I seen myself as a link between Cindy and the community. My job was largely to implement changes Cindy wanted, to take issue reports from the staff, to fix those things, and to enforce the rules Cindy laid down. This is the agreement Cindy and I had at the time.
The great exodus came. Certain staff members felt jaded, igored, and passed by - by Cindy and I both. A lot of emotions were flying because I was now in charge. Some staff dug up dirt on me. Oh no! It looks like I was arrested! When I confirmed and accepted that, with no worry - lies about me began. Things which I could only refute, but which there was no proof (because these accusations were completely made up lies) This didn't seem to matter to many of the staff, for which began a covert propaganda campaign against me, thus much of our userbase left - either believing the lies, or not wanting to deal with the drama. On a daily basis. I became increasingly disgruntled at these people. At one point, a certain ex-staff claimed ownership of the Survival server, removing all mention of Cindy from the server, and claiming it as their own, completely and in whole. At Cindy's order, this staff was banned. She was beyond furious at this. This caused even more players to leave. This situation probably could had been handled better. We live, we learn, we try to do better from the lessons in our lives.
Time after time, we had staff who, for what ever reason, kept going this route. Feeling as though they owned the server which they were admin on, acting as though they were above the rules. Becoming uncooperative and attempting to take control while knocking Cindy and I out. At one point, an admin attempted to ban me from the server.
About this time, Left2Die was removed from Minecats. This was the one server which Cindy did not actually own or operate, but which was linked with Minecats, for common advantages. The owner did not tell us he was leaving Minecats, and instead set up a proxy to his new server. He banned Cindy and I from connecting. To a server linked to our own network. Cindy, again, was furious about this. She was betrayed.
Since 2018, Minecats has not been profitable. We reacted by moving to less expensive hosting, by moving the forums, cutting costs where we could without adversely affecting the Minecraft servers as little as we could. Even at this, the cost to run and operate Minecats is still quite expensive, with monthly bills increasingly paid out of pocket. Other than 2 donations in 2020, every aspect of Minecats has been paid out of pocket. This is money which I could easily use for other things - from games, to computer parts, to woodworking. I could literally pay for a new vehicle for the monthly costs of running Minecats. This is even considering that Minecats is hosted from our home now. We made the decision to move to home hosted in early to mid 2019.
So, let's go over what we're actually paying for:
4 Virtual Private Servers (VPSs) for the gateway addresses (us. uk. eu. and sg.)
Several VPSs for the forums, website, Minecraft vote catching service (where we count your votes for Minecats), and other services
Business ISP account
Buycraft account
our Electric bill (for running the servers, and the air conditioner to keep them cool)
Licensing for various software
Domain name registrations
Then there's the one-time purchases we've had to make:
Battery backup units (UPS)
Server hardware
server upgrades
plugins
other software
When all is said and done, we spend $7,500-$10,000 a year to operate Minecats and the associated services.
In early 2018, I decided we would continue to operate Minecats as a hobby, which I would use to continue to practice and expand my knowledge and skills as a system admin. I made this decision because the community is great, and I didn't want that to disappear. I didn't want Minecats to be remembered for some short time as "a great place that was" Not because of some nostalgia or emotional attachment I have to the thing, but because I really love to see the friendships that are made, and blossom both in game and in the rest of the community. I love seeing the awesome things people make - even the really creative, yet inappropriate builds - I gain much amusement from certain builds. I took it upon myself to take the financial hit to continue running Minecats because of the wonderful community, my ability to continue to learn from the community and new system admin techniques and skill, and my interest in these things.
For quite a while, I have been wanting to step back away from in-game management. I have been wanting staff to step up, to take over operating the games and managing the in-game aspect of the community. My attempts to move towards this has been met time and time again with failure. Staff taking too much control and ignoring what Cindy and I want, not taking enough control at all and using their staff position as a social status, or straight up leaving.
At the end of the day, Cindy and I are legally and financially responsible for Minecats. As such, it is nowhere near out of the question that our instructions, rules and policies be followed. And yet, they are not.
Over the last month, we went from being very excited with a large potential to get things rolling on the right track to having 2 higher staff leave, other staff being condescending, players being extremely rude, and seemingly nothing being done.
(1 of 2, please read the rest in the comments!)
This is a long post. If you will not take the time to read it, then that's on you. There are things in this post which will upset many of you, on various levels. The only advice I have for those whom this upsets: Get over it, or leave.
I felt I owe the community an explanation as to why Minecats is currently shut down. I also feel it is important that the community understands Minecats' history, and the paths we've lead to get to where we are. It's been an interesting and complex 6 and a half years.
=======================
Minecats started when Cindy had an idea over Christmas in 2013. She and her son Awexdio proceeded to create a new Minecraft server, opening December 24th, 2013. In 014, I met Cindy in a support channel for a plugin, Essentials. At first, I gave her no more attention than I would give any other person. But, over time, our friendship grew. One day, we realized we lived somewhat close to each other. At the time, I was in Pennsylvania helping my friend move from Tampa to the mountains, and helping him build a really awesome cottage for him and his family. We came back down to collect more of his stuff to move to Pennsylvania. I told Cindy I would be back in Florida. We decided to meet each other in person. Shortly later, She flew over to London, England for Minecon. My friends and I went back to Pennsylvania. At this time, I started working directly with the servers, on the back end. Our friendship grew into a personal relationship, and by August 2015, she decided she wanted me to move in, and our relationship flourished. By this time, Awexdio had lost almost all interest in Minecraft, and Minecats. Cindy changed jobs (got a much better one) which limited the amount of time she could easily give to Minecats. I stepped up and took over more responsibilities for running the servers.
I stayed mostly invisible, behind the scenes for a good long time before taking any in-game responsibilities. Some time in mid 2016, I took the "SysOp" title in game. I seen myself as a link between Cindy and the community. My job was largely to implement changes Cindy wanted, to take issue reports from the staff, to fix those things, and to enforce the rules Cindy laid down. This is the agreement Cindy and I had at the time.
The great exodus came. Certain staff members felt jaded, igored, and passed by - by Cindy and I both. A lot of emotions were flying because I was now in charge. Some staff dug up dirt on me. Oh no! It looks like I was arrested! When I confirmed and accepted that, with no worry - lies about me began. Things which I could only refute, but which there was no proof (because these accusations were completely made up lies) This didn't seem to matter to many of the staff, for which began a covert propaganda campaign against me, thus much of our userbase left - either believing the lies, or not wanting to deal with the drama. On a daily basis. I became increasingly disgruntled at these people. At one point, a certain ex-staff claimed ownership of the Survival server, removing all mention of Cindy from the server, and claiming it as their own, completely and in whole. At Cindy's order, this staff was banned. She was beyond furious at this. This caused even more players to leave. This situation probably could had been handled better. We live, we learn, we try to do better from the lessons in our lives.
Time after time, we had staff who, for what ever reason, kept going this route. Feeling as though they owned the server which they were admin on, acting as though they were above the rules. Becoming uncooperative and attempting to take control while knocking Cindy and I out. At one point, an admin attempted to ban me from the server.
About this time, Left2Die was removed from Minecats. This was the one server which Cindy did not actually own or operate, but which was linked with Minecats, for common advantages. The owner did not tell us he was leaving Minecats, and instead set up a proxy to his new server. He banned Cindy and I from connecting. To a server linked to our own network. Cindy, again, was furious about this. She was betrayed.
Since 2018, Minecats has not been profitable. We reacted by moving to less expensive hosting, by moving the forums, cutting costs where we could without adversely affecting the Minecraft servers as little as we could. Even at this, the cost to run and operate Minecats is still quite expensive, with monthly bills increasingly paid out of pocket. Other than 2 donations in 2020, every aspect of Minecats has been paid out of pocket. This is money which I could easily use for other things - from games, to computer parts, to woodworking. I could literally pay for a new vehicle for the monthly costs of running Minecats. This is even considering that Minecats is hosted from our home now. We made the decision to move to home hosted in early to mid 2019.
So, let's go over what we're actually paying for:
4 Virtual Private Servers (VPSs) for the gateway addresses (us. uk. eu. and sg.)
Several VPSs for the forums, website, Minecraft vote catching service (where we count your votes for Minecats), and other services
Business ISP account
Buycraft account
our Electric bill (for running the servers, and the air conditioner to keep them cool)
Licensing for various software
Domain name registrations
Then there's the one-time purchases we've had to make:
Battery backup units (UPS)
Server hardware
server upgrades
plugins
other software
When all is said and done, we spend $7,500-$10,000 a year to operate Minecats and the associated services.
In early 2018, I decided we would continue to operate Minecats as a hobby, which I would use to continue to practice and expand my knowledge and skills as a system admin. I made this decision because the community is great, and I didn't want that to disappear. I didn't want Minecats to be remembered for some short time as "a great place that was" Not because of some nostalgia or emotional attachment I have to the thing, but because I really love to see the friendships that are made, and blossom both in game and in the rest of the community. I love seeing the awesome things people make - even the really creative, yet inappropriate builds - I gain much amusement from certain builds. I took it upon myself to take the financial hit to continue running Minecats because of the wonderful community, my ability to continue to learn from the community and new system admin techniques and skill, and my interest in these things.
For quite a while, I have been wanting to step back away from in-game management. I have been wanting staff to step up, to take over operating the games and managing the in-game aspect of the community. My attempts to move towards this has been met time and time again with failure. Staff taking too much control and ignoring what Cindy and I want, not taking enough control at all and using their staff position as a social status, or straight up leaving.
At the end of the day, Cindy and I are legally and financially responsible for Minecats. As such, it is nowhere near out of the question that our instructions, rules and policies be followed. And yet, they are not.
Over the last month, we went from being very excited with a large potential to get things rolling on the right track to having 2 higher staff leave, other staff being condescending, players being extremely rude, and seemingly nothing being done.
(1 of 2, please read the rest in the comments!)
