“Ok, the new world has not been online for long, and already I’ve noticed a few things that vex me. Several tendencies have carried over from the old server, and I’d like to nip them in the butt. Little annoyances that are within all our power to change and help the server live up to it’s ‘awesome’ moniker.

So I submit to our little community a few etiquette rules to help improve everyone’s experience. These are not really meant to be enforced, or official rules of the server by any means (“No griefing” for example, would be an official rule; punishable if broken. These are more suggestions, like saying please and thank you). Feel free to discuss the issues that I, or others, raise – as well as add your own rules. If you do have anything to add, please keep examples as anonymous as possible, this is not the place to call out each other for poor etiquette.“

New forums, and I feel this topic cannot be emphasized enough. It deserves new life. Much of this is copied and pasted from the old thread, although I’ve added one or two.

Without further ado;

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1) When collecting lumber, please try to get the entire tree. A forest full of hovering tree-tops just looks silly, and should be avoided (unless it’s part of your build). I’m not saying to manually remove all the leaves – just after you mine the visible portions of the trunk, look up and punch/axe the remaining wood within the leaves. Leaf decay will take care of the rest.

So if you do not have the patience to remove all the wood from one of the large oaks/conifers, which may involve building a temporary column to get up higher. Please instead opt to cut down one of their smaller nearby cousins. … which leads us to;

2) Please replant. Unless whatever you are building necessitates the permanent removal of a (section of/entire) forest, take a few minutes after collecting wood to spread a few saplings around. You don’t have to plant them in the same place, or even follow the original density of the trees. Just make an effort to replant some of them – that forest may have been someone’s back-yard, and they may prefer the forest to open grassland. (and each tree on average drops more than enough saplings to replace it’s self, so there’s no excuse)

Similarly, when collecting things like cactus and reeds from the wild, try to leave the bottom block intact. The top will grow back, and the resource will be available to the next person looking for some in the area.

This also goes for crops – harvesting wheat/nether wart produces more than enough seeds to replant everything and still have seeds leftover. Pumpkins/Melons will regrow from the same stalk, but if you accidentally destroy that? plant a seed!

3) If you’ve built up a column of [whatever] in order to get a better view of something, for a screenshot, or even to explore where you can’t normally travel, please remove them afterwards. Several of these columns dotting the landscape, and it just starts to look stupid and lazy. To better facilitate their removal after their use has ended, it may be a great idea to build them out of sand or gravel. If you fell off of one not built out of easily removable materials, you can build a second one right next to it, stand on the line between them, and remove both columns at the same time.

These columns are also often used when exploring new lands – they provide an easy to follow guide to where you were before you died, or even to find your way back to where you started from. That said, once they’ve outlived their usefulness (you’re connected to a main road/rail/nether), please take them down. Again, to better facilitate this, it is advisable to construct then from sand/gravel.

If you are using them to claim/mark territory, a good idea might be to add a sign to them, so others know what they mean.

4) ASK. Along the lines of what Kristin posted; Ask. Nine times out of ten, if I have a resource in my chests you want/need, I’ll probably give you some of it. Heck, if I don’t immediately need it and I can replenish in short order, you can take the whole stack. But for the love of [deity], ASK!

And just in case this is not clear to some (who am I kidding, to any of us that care enough about the server to be on these forums, this doesn’t have to be spelled out); that means if the owner of the chest is not online, and there is no sign indicating you are free to take what you want; chests are strictly “look, but don’t take“. (and, really, you probably shouldn’t even look. Someone comes up behind you and sees an open chest infront of you… doesn’t look good.)

5) Nether Etiquette. Sadly, Minecraft often just plain sucks at placing placing portals. And it doesn’t work like some people assume it does. Gates are not linked by any kind Of ID system wherein over-world gate ‘o42’ is always linked to nether gate ‘n42’. Gates work PURELY off of the coordinate system.

When you create, activate, and travel through a new gate in the over-world, Minecraft attempts to place a corresponding gate in the nether, but the ideal location is more often than not in the middle of solid rock, mid-air, or a pool of lava. The game then starts looking outwards for an existing gate that is close enough, or generates a new gate at the closest ideal location. This generated gate is often so far from the propper coordinates, that going back through it? it can’t find an overworld gate at its corresponding location. So IT creates a NEW gate in the overworld. likely out in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere, or in a random cave.

So! best practices;

A) Before stepping through a new gate;

-a1) Ensure you have at least a diamond pick, a lighter, 10 obsidian, and a sign.
-a2) Press F3, and take note of your X and Z coordinates (example -> [-1234x, 654z])

B) Stepping through;

-b1) Determine if you came through someone else’s portal. A generated portal will be square and use 14 obsidian. But look for signs that this may be part of someone’s nether-base.
-b2) If there are no signs of it belonging to someone else, take your pickaxe to the obsidian of the portal and remove one block to disrupt the portal. (or take it all! free obsidian!)

C) The way back (machine);

-c1) take those coordinate readings from a2 and divide them by 8 (example -> [-154x, 82z]). This is where you need to build the connecting gate.
-c2) getting to that location may involve digging into netherrack, or building a platform over lava
-c3) once the location is reached and the new portal constructed, place the sign on or near your portal. This will inform other users who built a new over-world gate that connected to yours, that this is yours, and it should not be destroyed
-c4) step through. You should now be back in the over world next to the gate you originally entered.

D) Congratulations! your base now has a foothold in the nether!

6) Nether Fortresses. Hey, I get it; you want Netherbrick, and short of asking a mod or someone with creative, the only way to get it is to take it from these places. That is fine. But mining willy-nilly all over the place just turns them into swiss-cheese, creating falling hazards (often into lava) and giving ghasts a clear line of sight. Also, it just ends up looking stupid.

First – Take a good hard look at a nether fortress. See how it doesn’t just hang in the air? see the supports? Those are pure solid netherbrick, and they reach from the fortress down to netherrack. Hollow those bad boys out! keep a stack of netherrack on you to get back up, and depending on the height of the supports, this can net you several stacks. Per. Support. Heck, some of the main rooms don’t even have ‘supports’ they’re just solid all the way down to the ground.

Second – Also note that in many areas the ceilings and walls can be a few blocks thick. Instead of taking out the entire thing, just mine out the inside, leaving the outer shell intact. Some fortresses are massive, just dropping the floor by one and raising the ceilings by one will likely net you more than enough for your projects.

Third – Start disassembling the Ramparts – each netherfortress typically consists of two separate sections The first consists of large solid rooms with walls and ceilings, the second is more spread out, and often more open-air. Although if it intersects with solid netherrack it will hollow out areas to make paths. Often these ramparts end abruptly, so what would it hurt if you shortened their length a little? (this area also has supports to hollow out)

7) You are smarter than a dinosaur, go the fsuck around! I want to believe this is just the work of griefers. But sometimes I wonder if, occasionally, it is a few of our regulars who, like the dinosaur in that clip from Sesame Street, should just go extinct. Seriously, whether the nearest exit or entrance to a structure is 10, or 200 meters away – use it. And if, for the sake of argument, it’s a life or death situation and you MUST exit through the wall… Put the damn wall back where it was! (And if there is no entrance/exit? Then the creator doesn’t want you in anyway.)