Minecraft Forums

Edit note: this thread was previously an announcement in the Minecraft Server Hosting section and has been moved to this section to be Archived.

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There are a number of changes coming to the Minecraft Server Hosting section, these changes will roll out on March 2nd 2016, this announcement outlines the changes, the timeline and what you need to do to.

The first major change is that we will no longer allow hosts to advertise on this forum unless they meet requirements that demonstrate they are a business we can trust to provide a quality service to our members. Prior to a host being able to create a thread in the public Minecraft Server Hosting section they must submit an application which will be reviewed by Minecraft Forum staff. The application process and requirements for hosts are outlined in the "How to advertise your Minecraft Server Host on the Minecraft Forum" thread.

How this impacts you:

• As of today the Other Hosts section no longer accepts new threads.
• On March 2nd 2016 The Other Hosts section will be archived, it will no longer accept new posts and be removed from the forum list.
• If you have a thread in the Other Hosts section and are able to meet our requirements please submit an application to be moved into the Minecraft Server Hosting section.
• Any business who can't meet our requirements will no longer be able to advertise on the forum, this includes posts, signatures and in private messages.
• If you are a host already in the Minecraft Server Hosting section you are grandfathered in under the old requirements and do not need to apply again, however we encourage all hosts to review our new requirements and make their best effort to meet them.

The second major change is that we are retiring the Hosting Requests section. This section was originally intended to be a place for individuals to post about their needs and receive offers from various companies, unfortunately the section has become primarily used to request sponsorships and the majority of paid requests could be met by any of the companies who advertise here. This section will be archived on March 2nd, it will no longer accept new threads or posts and be removed from the forum list.

How this impacts you:

• If you are looking for a host you should browse the Minecraft Server Hosting section, using individual hosts threads as a place to ask questions about the service(s) they provide. If you need a custom package look for a host with the "custom" prefix, and if you need a sponsorship look for hosts with the "sponsor" prefix.
• If you are a server host you should keep the opening post of your thread up to date with the services that you offer, including their availability, and reviews from your customers. Your thread is a place to list the services you offer, receive reviews on your services from our members and discuss with potential customers.

The third change we're making is a refocusing of the Hosting Discussion section. The Hosting Discussion section will only accept threads around the topic of operating a hosting business and running servers, including threads on security best practices, panels, billing solutions and the Minecraft hosting marketplace. Support threads will be moved to their appropriate sections. Short term this will involve archiving the Hosting Discussion section and long term we will bring in a new section appropriately placed and named for the subject.

These changes are necessary to ensure the long term integrity of the Minecraft Server Hosting section. If you have any questions this announcement is open to replies.

Quote from Biggen1»

How about those of us wanting to offer a host for free with no payment required? For example, I've got a production machine in my business that is underutilized. My plan is to setup a VPS and offer it up as a sponsorship. Again, I'm not a web/game host and it will be free of charge. Just want to give back to this community.

The focus of the section going forward is providing a place where people who want to create a Minecraft server can find a reliable and trustworthy business to depend on. It's great that you want to give back to the community in that way, but your situation is an absolute minority and the sponsorship requests here are massively under served: for every dozen sponsorship requests maybe one gets filled, this is a poor experience.

If you want to help support a Minecraft server through sponsorship your best bet is to find a small established server that is looking for room to grow and get involved with that. That will guarantee your resources are put to good use and you have a real impact in the community. Most new Minecraft servers fail, if you were to fulfill sponsorship requests in the Hosting Requests section you'd have a constant stream of empty / abandoned servers.

Thank you for taking the time to provide your feedback, please let me know if you have any other concerns!

Quote from WoBHosting»

Hi Citricsquid,

Just checking in - will anything need to be done for the MCPE hosting section? Your post didn't mention MCPE so I figured that would be left as is for the time being. We already have a post in the official MC hosting section, I assume that carries over so to speak.

At this point I'm not 100% sure of the plan. I'm leaning towards consolidating the sections and allowing hosts in the main section to indicate that they offer MCPE hosting through the prefix system, and the existing MCPE hosting section will redirect to the filter for that prefix in the main section. Threads in the section will either be moved to the main section, or if the host already has a thread in the main section it will be archived.

Any thoughts?

Quote from LordSkout»

So all the [secured] hosting companies will obviously love this. The rest... not so much. forum should be a lot less utilized though. There won't be any place on MCF to request or offer hosting sponsorships, then? Your suggestion of finding a server that needs room to grow... leaves nowhere for that to actually happen. Not on MCF, anyway.

I'll be sad to see the Hosting Requests section disappear. I've met some interesting people there and learned a lot. It's the only section of MCF outside of the main news page that I read on a regular basis.

I see where you're coming from, and the requests section can have a legitimate use for some people. The problem is, 95% or more of the threads in that forum are people wanting a free server or a sponsorship who have no idea what they're doing, with most of the sponsorship requests falling through and hosts just end up advertising their paid services more often than not. If someone really was looking for a sponsorship, contacting companies directly about it would be a much better way to go, since companies often won't look for you, you look for them.

Most of the people posting in the forum don't follow the recommended guides or templates that are stickied either, so we also end up having a bunch of three sentence posts demanding a sponsorship for a factions server or some other old and overused concept. It really gets frustrating to look at, and it's not the intention of the forum. People don't seem to get that.

These changes have now been implemented. I will leave this announcement up for another week as a point of reference for those who may not be aware of the changes. Long term we're going to look at making further improvements in this section.