Joe Hills here, writing as I always do from Nashville, Tennessee!
I’ve returned from about a month of traveling and am back at the reins of the newsletter this week, with Tommy assisting me.
Thank you very much to Tommy for working on the newsletter while I was away and thanks to everyone on the Discord for being flexible with our vacation mode experiment. I haven’t seen a lot of communities try something like this, so I’ll be writing a standalone blog post on how vacation mode went as a resource to others that you can expect later this month. I’m in the outline phase of that draft, and will be reading the feedback y’all share in Joe-Hills-Meta > #feedback-vacation-mode as I evaluate where the experiment succeeded and fell short. If you have questions or feedback you’d like to see considered as I write, please try to share those in the #feedback-vacation-mode channel by the end of the week.
We are out of vacation mode and the channels on the server are writable again, but that five-week break was only my first step as I work on shifting out of crisis-mode and re-focus on long-term planning. The last few years have been incredibly stressful for many of us, and I’m proud that with y’all’s help, I’ve been able to keep things going day-to-day despite many wild uncertainties.
It’s time to move past day-to-day survival, though, so I want to thank folks for their continuing patience through January as I use this quarter to reflect, re-visit, and re-evaluate in preparation for future strides.
I’m also trying to use the extra energy and focus provided by the channel culling to improve my creative output. If y’all have any thoughts on how my creative work in October and November compared to that earlier this year, I’d love to hear it in Joe-Hills-Meta > #feedback-creative
Our next quarterly meeting will be held on January 21st, 2023 at 11am US Central Time, and the current agenda is:
Creative work in 2023: episodes, streams, and songs
Vacation mode moving forward: how it will work and when to use it – Joe
Review accessibility implications of screen readers and consolidated channels -Meep and Joe
Frequency of channel culling – Joe
Adding channels back to discord – Joe
Review server emotes – Kindalas
If you’d like a topic added to the agenda, please submit it via Joe Hills Meta > #next-quarter-new-business-agenda-requests.
Empires Crossover
Grian’s Rift has stranded us on Empires SMP, but I’m figuring things out as I go anyway with a little help from my friends:
I appreciate False extending an invite to the Hermits to participate in the EmpiresSMP segment of this year’s Love Tropics fundraiser benefitting Project Seagrass. Over $8,000 was raised during our two-hour segment alone toward a weekend total of over $25,000! Thanks to everyone who stopped by and contributed! It was fantastic seeing so many familiar names in the donation queue.
Minecraft Server News
Categories created for each SMP server
Our server operators Yirggzmb and ToxxicGlitter requested new categories and channels for their SMP servers, and I delivered! You can find those in the category list directly below the S9 server categories.
Upcoming Petitions
Modded: on-server, Sunday November 13th, at 11am US Central
DS9: on-server, Sunday November 13th, at noon US Central
Vanillish: asynchronous via SMP: Vanillish by Yirggzmb > #vanillish-petitions
Weekly Pinball Tournament
Monster Bash Results
Congrats to Forganty for securing a sweet Halloween victory on Monster Bash!
This week’s tournament: Medieval Madness
This week’s table is one of my favorite of all time, and I hope you have the chance to play it yourselves someday!
The exploding castle is incredibly cool in real life, but Pinball FX3’s simulation of it isn’t bad either! This tournament is open through Sunday night, and details for joining are available in Activity-Sign-Ups > #weekly-pinball-challenge
It’s Tommy time! Community Liaison ThatTommyBoii reporting for newsletter duty!
First and foremost, Happy Halloween! If you celebrate with costumes or confections, tricks or treats, scary cinema or spiced coffee, I hope you have fun! For those who don’t celebrate there’s still discount candy to look forward to!
Now let’s get into the news!
Pinball FX3 Tournaments
Creature From The Black Lagoon results
A previous champion rises from the dark, congratulations to WrexVerdi!
This week: Monster Bash
Who will be the victor this week? Hopefully not just Frankenstein! Get into the Halloween spirit with this table, information to join can be found in Activity Sign Ups > #weekly-pinball-challenges
Minecraft Server News
DS9
The Halloween build contest has concluded! Thank you to Outpost Not Kansas for hosting, and congratulations to MagentaAvocado with Team Earth Kingdom and Elijah for winning first place!
If you’d like to see their float, along with all the other participants, you can view this VOD of the contest and judging.
Information on the next holiday parade float build contest will be available soon. Stay tuned!
Everstorm Obituaries
There aren’t any obituaries to report for the week, phew!
If you have yet to check out the Everstorm server, you can find information on it in Realms and Servers > #everstorm-october-2022
Modded 1.19 Fall
ToxxicGlitter has announced the date for his first ever server petitions! Join the server or send in a proxy on Sunday November 13th, at 11am US Central Time! For the mod list and information on Toxxic’s server you can check Realms and Servers > #modded-1dot19
Discord Server News
Today’s the day! We’ve made it to the end of our first vacation mode! Joe will be unlocking all of the channels, and I look forward to chatting with y’all again!
I know I’ve said it before, but I want to again thank everybody in our community for being so patient and understanding with our need to have vacation mode. You are all amazing, thank you so much!
That being said, I would also like to remind folks that we strongly encourage feedback! Please let us know your thoughts and any questions, comments, or concerns over in Joe Hills Meta > #feedback-vacation-mode.
I’d also like to request some feedback on the last few newsletters, as I have been writing them solo for the duration of this vacation mode. Please direct all thoughts on that topic to Joe Hills Meta > #feedback-newsletter. Thanks!
HermitCraft Episodes and New Short
If you’ve been out of the loop, something big has happened on Hermitcraft… It’s a lot to unpack, so I’ll let Joe’s new short open that can of worms for you!
If and when you’re up to speed, here’s some new HermitCraft episodes to enjoy!
Meet-ups and Conventions
Music City Multi-con has ended! If you missed it and would like to plan ahead to see Joe at a convention, we’ve got one confirmed event next year!
We’ll keep you posted if anything new gets added to the list!
Thanks to everyone who stays up to date with the newsletter! I’ll be back with Joe next week for more newsletter-y goodness. I hope you have a great day!
This has been TommyBoii reporting for newsletter duty.
It’s Tommy time! Community Liaison ThatTommyBoii reporting for newsletter duty! We’ve got a lot of things to share today, and I couldn’t be more excited, let’s get into it!
HermitCraft Charity Stream Event
On October 23rd, GoodTimesWithScar organized a charity livestream event benefitting Gamers Outreach. They provide children’s hospitals with gaming carts to give a sense of normalcy and joy to kids.
The original goal of the stream was $25,000. As I currently type this, we have reached over $435,000.
This is bigger than huge, it is absolutely incredible. To everyone who donated, watched the stream, spread word about the event and who support the hermits in general, thank you so much!
This was all because the Hermitcraft community is one of the kindest and most supportive communities you could find. Thank you again and again.
The donation page is still open, if you missed the event and would like to donate you can do so here.
Additionally, Joe pledged to shave his beard on stream if we reached $250,000 and I am very pleased to be able to link you to the VOD of that stream now!
Congratulations Joe and Badger!
Speaking of Joe, congratulations to him and BadgerSpanner! For those who may have missed it, Joe proposed to Badger and they are now engaged! The community extends all their love and support to the two, and we hope they have a happy and wonderful life together.
You can see the engagement photos over here at Badger’s twitter.
Congrats again, and much love!
Pinball FX3 Tournaments
FunHouse results
The fun doesn’t stop, Forgantly takes another win!
This week: Creature From The Black Lagoon
To get into the spirit for Halloween, we’ve got a spooky themed table from the Universal Monsters Pack! Can anybody end Forgantly’s reign of terror?
Minecraft Server News
September Everstorm Survivors
WizardOfDocs made several daring supply runs under the six noses of two Withers, and then moved into Gem’s castle and got distracted by skyblock.
MJ used Zedaph’s lab as a base of operations and found Evil X’s stash of Totems of Undying while under the not careful watch of two Withers!
Laxmi13 didn’t die because people who came before her created a safe place to hide from the wither.
October Everstorm Obituaries
mercurialvoid overestimated their ability to take on a group of skeleton horsemen
WizardOfDocs made a valiant effort to help MagentaAvocado with their phantoms.
Darth_Skellious was hunting for skeletons and one knocked him into a hole that had two creepers in it…he did not survive.
Qwarkeh helped make some weapons, and then got complacent and turned her back to the woods. HISS, BOOM!
Modded 1.19 Fall
ToxxicGlitter has updated the modded server! There has been some patches as well as additions, you can find all the information in Realms and Servers > #modded-1dot19.
Toxxic will also be holding his first minecraft server petitions!
For those unfamiliar, our minecraft petitions involve the players having a meeting with the server’s creative lead in which they bring their woes, grievances, annoyances, or any other sort of issue they might be having.
They may request a solution from the server lead, which is open for discussion to the community members attending the petition. You can also send in a proxy if you are unable to attend. The results vary greatly depending on the server lead.
If you would like to attend there is a poll in Realms and Servers > #modded-1dot19 to select a date that works best for the players. Make sure you vote and keep an eye out for the results!
Discord Server News
As many if not all of you are aware, the discord has been in vacation mode for a few weeks now. We are quickly approaching the end of this vacation mode, and you can expect to see the discord back next week!
October 31st is the day we shall be transitioning back, I hope everyone is excited!
As always when we try new things, we greatly welcome feedback. Once the discord is fully open members will have access to Joe Hills Meta > #feedback-vacation-mode to let us know what they thought.
I would again like to thank folks for allowing us to have vacation mode. Thanks for your patience, see you on the other side!
HermitCraft Episodes and Stream VODs
Some folks may have noticed a change in Joe’s youtube channel. In an effort to tidy things up, Joe has created four new playlists for stream VODs. Now you have a convenient playlist for craft streams, Minecraft streams, Dracula reading streams, and pinball streams!
The King story concludes!
With the story of Ren the King coming to an end, we felt the need to share RenDog’s episode, as it starts off with an epic poem crafted by Ren and Joe! If you missed Ren’s video, you can check it out here!
Joe’s HermitCraft episodes
Meet-ups and Conventions
Pinball Expo seemed to be a lot of fun based off the chatter folks in attendance were having! If you’re interested in a meetup, you can catch Joe at the following conventions!
This past week has been fantastic, there is so much love here y’all. I have never been more proud to be a part of such a lovely community. I can’t begin to express my gratitude, so let’s just continue being excellent to one another!
This has been TommyBoii reporting for newsletter duty.
It’s Tommy time! Community Liaison ThatTommyBoii reporting for newsletter duty! Sorry to keep y’all waiting, it’s tricky getting all the report-worthy news together in a timely manner!
Joe has hopefully been enjoying his vacation so far, so it’s my turn to write the newsletter again. Let’s see what’s in the news!
Pinball FX3 Tournaments
Space Station results
Another victory goes to Forgantly, how stellar!
Doctor Dude and his Excellent Ray results
Double congrats to Forgantly for the win, most excellent my dude!
This week: FunHouse!
If you’re like me you’re a dummy who’s waited too long to try out the pinball challenges, come join in the fun this week in FunHouse! Details to join can be found in Activity Sign-ups > #weekly-pinball-challenges
Minecraft Server News
DS9
Our first parade float building contest following the B’hala build contest is quickly approaching! Join us on Saturday, October 29th at 10am US Central Time to participate in our Halloween parade, hosted by Outpost Not Kansas!
There are still 4 spaces available for folks to reserve a spot, otherwise feel free to ask to join somebody else! Sign ups can be found in Activity Sign Ups > #oct-29-halloween-parade
DS9 Petitions
Our September petitions for the flagship vanilla server was held on the 1st of the month, if you’d like to see how that went you can do so over here.
The next petitions will be held on November 5th at noon US Central time.
Everstorm
There aren’t any obituaries to report for the week, phew!
The server will be resetting today, October 18th. This is an exciting iteration, as we are test driving some server side mods that would serve the same function as plugins such as CoreProtect. Be sure to keep an eye on the Realms and Servers > #everstorm-october-2022 channel!
Modded 1.19 Fall
After many discussions and testing, Toxxic’s modded server has launched! Some of the features include the ability to request to teleport to another player, additional advancements, concrete slabs and more! There are even mods developed by Toxxic himself, so be sure to check it out!
You can find the full mod list and see how folks have been progressing in Realms and Servers > #modded-1dot19-fall-next
Vanillish
Trick or treat! Server operator Yirggzmb has certainly done a cool trick to give players on the Vanillish server a treat! In celebration of this spooky month Yirggy has declared that sweets are actually good for you! Cookies, cake, and pie will all fulfill more hunger and saturation until the end of the month!
You can join Joe’s discord and gain access to all the servers by becoming a Minecraft Player tier patron over at Joe’s Patreon.
HermitCraft Episodes
Meet-ups and Conventions
Joe held a few impromptu meetups over the course of October, hopefully all the folks able to make it had fun! If you’d like the opportunity to see Joe with a scheduled time there are a few conventions he’s planning to attend below.
Thanks to everybody who reads the newsletter, it means a lot! I hope y’all have been enjoying the more relaxed vibes of vacation mode in the discord, we appreciate being able to have it!
This has been TommyBoii reporting for newsletter duty.
I’ve restructured the Discord and enabled vacation mode per the plan outlined in Newsletter #21.
The only deviations from the plan were:
Had to create a new category called “Yet Another Zone of Archived Rooms” after the first one filled up. I didn’t know categories could even get full, but live and learn, I guess.
Decided to keep the Friend Codes room writable to facilitate activity in the #players-wanted room.
Thanks for your patience while we give all this a try! I already feel like I’ve got some extra brain cycles free, and hope to re-invest them in the future of this community and my creative work over the course of the next month.
Minecraft Server News
Upcoming petitions for DS9 & modded:
If you need something, show up and let us know!
Our next two server petitions sessions are scheduled for:
October 1st at 2pm US Central Time
November 5th at noon US Central time.
DS9: Halloween parade sign-ups now open!
As of this writing, we have about half the parade float slots filled for the October 29th Halloween parade build contest.
Our guest judge will be Halloween enthusiast and expert Lucy Western voice actor BadgerSpanner!
Sign up now in Activity-Sign-Ups > #oct-29-halloween-parade
Toxxic’s Modded Server Progress
Toxxic sent me the world configuration and mods list for his upcoming server, and I will be setting up a test world for him to review this week.
If all goes well, we’ll be launching soon!
Signs of Autumn!
Tennessee Game Days Fall 2022
I had a great time at Tennessee Game Days last weekend! You can see photos and my thoughts on some of the games I played in this series of tweets:
Just played two games of The Isle of Cats. My 9yo and I liked that it comes with a streamlined simplified ruleset called “family mode” to help new players hit the ground running.
Tennessee Game Days Spring 2023 is coming up March 3–5th!
The best way to be alerted when tickets go on sale is to sign up for their newsletter at: https://tngamedays.com/email.html. Tickets sell out quickly, so keep an eye on that!
We’ve also got a channel for folks looking to coordinate their TGD travel on our Patreon Discord under Meet-ups > #mar-3-5-tgd-spring-2023.
Weekly Pinball Tournaments
Tales of the Arabian Nights results
Congratulations to Forgantly! Tales will be told of his victory!
This week: Space Station!
It’s an old-school space-themed pinball table by Bally Williams. Tommy says it is out of this world, but I don’t think he has actually played it. Find out for yourself! Tournament details are in Activity Sign-ups > #weekly-pinball-tournament
Meet-ups and Conventions
No confirmations yet on the October meet-ups, that’s in my queue for this week. Here’s the conventions I will definitely be at, though:
Expect a lot of bonus streams the next two weeks in advance of my trip. I can’t promise when they’ll be, as I’m working around the royal collars, but I have a lot to get done!
Until next time y’all…
This has been Joe Hills from Nashville, TN. Thanks to ThatTommyBoii for his help as always!
Joe Hills here, writing as I always do from Nashville, Tennessee. We have a lot to cover, so let’s metaphorically grab our ink blasters and transform into squids to fill our tanks! Or just read.
Here’s the high level overview of the conclusions of each of the six agenda items:
1. Discord Prune scheduled for September 22nd
Every few years (number TBD at a future meeting), we’ll prune down the number of channels heavily, with the intent to add some back at the next quarter’s meeting. Some Discord features that have been enabled by default in the interim will also be reviewed and possibly curtailed, such as allowing file uploads.
To discuss and provide feedback in general about the pruning, please use the Joe Hills Meta > #feedback-structure channel.
To make specific proposals for consideration at the next Quarterly meeting to be held on January 21st, 2023 at 11am US Central Time, please post those in Joe Hills Meta > #next-quarter-new-business so that Tommy can ensure they are added to the agenda.
The categories and channels that will persist after this year’s pruning are:
Activity-sign-ups
All-specific-except-for-general
911-emergency resources
actual-rules
current_events
feels
general
identity
introductions
live_event_chat
small_victories
Consume
Arts and entertainment
Bookclub
HermitCraft
Create
All spam channels are kept
work-in-progress
Games
friend-codes
gaming-general
minecraft
pinball
players-wanted
Joe Hills Meta
Announcements
Feedback-accessibility
Feedback-everstorm
Feedback-newsletter
Feedback-structure
Meeting-discussion
Next-Quarter-New-Business
Realms and servers (keep all)
SMP categories and channels (keep all)
Travel (rename to meet-ups, re-focus on individual event channels)
2. Discord Vacation Mode
As proposed in Newsletter #16, the Discord will go into vacation mode when Joe is traveling, setting many of the channels to read-only.
Here is the final mechanism for that:
Vacation mode would start at least one day before I leave, and end at least one day after I return
Set all channels to read-only except:
#players-wanted
#spam-servers-you-operate
Minecraft Server channels
Activity channels for events during that time (like Tommy running Gartic Phone)
relevant travel channels (like, if we’re in vacation mode because I’m driving through Ohio, New York and Massachusettes, the meet-up channels for each stop would stay open)
#live-event-chat (while streaming)
Any issues that arose on the Minecraft Servers would be dealt with by server operators, and reviewed within a week of my return
Any issues that arose on the activity channels would be the responsibility of the organizing staff member to address, and would be reviewed within a week of my return
Any issues that arose on the travel channels or #live-event-chat would be addressed by myself, as I’d be monitoring them to coordinate the meet-ups or during the streams
3. Modmail tutorial
Tommy has requested three hours to work on creating a text tutorial and a short video tutorial this month. I’ve approved that time.
4. Rules channel visibility
Per suggestion from Kindalas, the #rules channel has been renamed to #actual-rules. It has also been moved into the more prominent “All Specific Except for General” category.
Additions or changes to rules will be made in the #actual-rules channel, then announced in the #announcement channel as well as the newsletter.
5. New rule explicitly prohibiting hate imagery and dog-whistles
Final text: “No creating or sharing imagery that has been co-opted by hate groups, such as swastikas or Pepe the frog.”
6. New rule prohibiting celebrations of bodily harm or death
Final text: “No celebrating the bodily harm or death of a real person.”
Minecraft Servers
Upcoming Petitions
Our next two server petitions sessions will be October 1st at 2pm US Central Time, and November 5th at noon US Central time.
Toxxic’s 1.19 Modded Server
Toxxic is still accepting feedback about his upcoming server launch in Realms and Servers > #modded-1dot19-fall-next.
The exact launch date is TBD, but our current plan is for Toxxic to turn over the config and mod list to me by the end of this month, so that I can have a version of the server ready for testing the first week of October.
Everstorm obituaries
NJ went spelunking underwater and drowned one block shy of air.
DottyMatrix, on a lovely tour of Castle Hohenzollern, stared death in the face… and its other face… and its third face.
Deep Slate Nine: Halloween Parade Float Contest
Congratulations again to Not Kansas, our victors in the B’hala build contest, who will be hosting the Halloween Parade Float build contest the last weekend of this month.
Exact time and date were TBD at time of printing, but I can announce that our in-studio guest judge will be BadgerSpanner! Update: October 29th, 2022 at 11am US Central time.
In terms of parade float size, each float must be 24 meters or less in length, and allow 8 meters of free space ahead of it.
There are only eleven spaces, so if you’d like to secure a spot, sign-ups will are now live in the Activity Sign-ups > #Oct-29-halloween-parade channel.
Weekly Pinball Tournaments
No Good Gofers results!
Congratulations to WrexVerdi for taking 1st place on No Good Gofers!
This week: Tales of the Arabian Nights!
Our next table is Tales of the Arabian Nights, which features a spinning genie lamp! And a blue genie! It’s totally not licensed!
Meet-ups and Conventions
I still don’t have the details locked down for meet-ups during my October trip, but hope to have those ready to announce next newsletter. Thanks for your patience!
As I’ll be traveling extensively next month, I’m going to try to cram extra bonus streams into my schedule whenever I can. Since the Royal Court has an irregular collab schedule, I won’t be able to commit to announcing those in advance, so thanks for your patience there.
Also, don’t tell anyone, but I’m kind of curious how long I can go without changing the stream title.
Until next time y’all…
Thanks again to ThatTommyBoii for helping compile this newsletter.
This is Joe Hills from Nashville Tennessee. Keep adventuring!
Purpose of this meeting’s first item is the discord is getting too big and fickle to run
Every quarter we’ll have a quarterly meeting to decide if what we decided last meeting is viable
Give ample time for proposals to be addressed and for folks to weigh in
Even if not everything goes through everything gets to be considered
Anything not already on the agenda goes to next meeting
1. Discord channel pruning
Significant change, our discord has 100+ channels, has grown organically over 7 years, intimidating to new people, no good mechanism for adding/removing channels
Cull channels this month and review what are the needed channels in January
Joe requested Tommy begin the 2023 first quarter agenda and add the first two items, adding back any discord channels, and channel culling frequency. Tommy creates this.
Joe specifies that activity sign ups would remain as it currently functions, channels being created as needed for activities. No objections.
All specific except for general category, 911 emergency resources would remain as is.
Current events would also stay as it makes us unique as most other communities discourage political discussions, and Joe finds it high priority
Feels is experimental but we are still looking to keep it. A note is that the ability to send images would be removed.
The channels that would keep image sending capability would be channels that require it, such as spam-photos-you-snapped and collaborative channels such as the minecraft server channels
Joe states keeping the discord similar to older models such as forums keeps it runnable for him, as things being different from the norm is valuable for Joe
Identity is important to keep as it also is unique for us and encourages education and understanding.
Kindalas asks if the moderators feel comfortable with the Feels and Identity channels
Joe clarifies yes, but should they become an issue those channels would be placed into read only mode
Maahes says that he does not feel he has a strong identity to use the identity channel but has learned from those who do
Meep likes having identity makes them feel like they can express their identity that they can’t talk about anywhere else
TheQueenAsteri suggests combining Feels and Identity
Kindalas opposes
Joe explains that there is a difference in the spaces for somebody looking to talk about frustrations and somebody wanting to talk about identity
NJ also opposes as it would muddy the waters
Mantuamakers says people who want to speak about identity can feel safer with a reserved place rather than combined
DottieMatrix asks if Joe if the channels that dont specifically have to do with him be moved elsewhere or be made in other communities run by members of this community
Joe says yes, that this is something he is actively looking to encourage
Interior decorating is going away as it serves as a reminder to Joe for past plans not coming to fruition
Specific channels such as international emergency would be removed and discussion could be moved to current events or feels
The number one thing for Joe to keep, even with a theoretical 10x increase in members would be the live event chat channel as discussion in one chat (ie youtube or twitch) would get too large.
Small victories will definitely be kept as it genuinely helps folks to be able to post when they accomplish something.
Unrest would get a suggestion for replacement in January
Virtual cafe was created as a second general but is not needed. It can be revisited in January.
Animal crossing category is getting culled completely
Consume category
Book club will be kept
Food channel will be culled, it does not make the cut and will be revisited in January
Kindalas requests food be a small victories topic
Joe states its best to be revisited
Hermitcraft will be kept as it makes sense for there to be a place for HermitCraft fans to discuss content
Cultural channels (arts and entertainment) would be consolidated into one channel for things such as music, tv, dance, etc
Create category
The spam channels will be kept separate as different creations deserve their owns spaces to be viewed or posted
TheQueenAsteri feels that when photos are posted in the spam-photos channel they get drowned out by pet photos
Joe states that he doesn’t want to run a topic-specific community that is outside his expertise.
If a differentiation could be provided in January’s meeting it could be revisited as Joe believes it is out of scope for today
Centuritron loves being able to post their crochet stuff
Misterlantz believes photos and art could be combined
Joe wants to protect the different arts
Kindalas states asking staff to differentiate between pet pictures and artistic pictures is a lot
Joe agrees and that’s why it may be revisited with framework in January
Meep explains worries about consolidating so many channels in terms of accessibility, a lot of issues comes from the screen reader not handling messages properly and causing a lot of trouble for them to stay chronological to the discussion
Joe states that is good feedback and greater reason to switch from discord to another platform, though that is out of scope for today’s meeting. He would like for Meep to provide alternatives that are more accessible.
Joe makes a note to review accessibility implications in the January meeting
Lets plays would be culled, Joe encourages community members who are fans of other series create their own spaces to discuss
Works in progress would be kept
Programming would be removed with revisit in January
Streaming/recording would be removed with revisit in January
Writing would be removed with revisit in January
Games category
Friend-codes would be kept
Minecraft would be kept
Pinball would be kept
Players wanted would be kept
All other channels in the games category would be removed
Joe Hills Meta category
Announcements would be kept
Feedback accessibility kept
Feedback everstorm kept
Feedback newsletter kept
Feedback structure kept
Meeting discussion kept
Next quarter new business kept
Rules would be kept
All other channels in the Joe Hills Meta category would be removed
Maahes suggests feedback structure be combined with next quarter new business
Joe disagrees
Tommy agrees with that disagreement
Xhille suggests having a feedback category in addition to the meta category
Joe declines
Realms and serves category channels would all be kept
SMP category channels would all be kept
Misterlantz asks if the -next channels need to be kept
Joe clarifies that those channels are consolidated when the servers go live
Misterlantz agrees but mentions there is 2022 experimental next and vanillish next
Joe agrees that the channels should be renamed to be feedback channels as they exist to give players a space to discuss changes for the servers
We will come back to this as Joe wishes to discuss it with the server operators
Travel category
Would be reduced to a meet-up channel and individual event channels
Tommy asks for clarification of when the channels would be culled and how, all at once or rolled out?
Joe specifies it would be culled on September 22nd as that is when vacation mode would be implemented
Misterlantz asked if when the channels are pruned would they be moved to the archived rooms category
Joe clarifies yes, culled channels would be moved there and everything being renamed would simply be renamed
ButterflyGirlKMC asks if there would be a general gaming channel
Joe clarifies no, discussion could be kept to general or if they wanted someone to play with that would go in players wanted
Mars states gaming is a core cultural value
TheQueenAsteri asks if gaming could go under arts/entertainment
Mars states it is too big a topic to be brushed into general
Centuritron states gaming general is nice to keep gaming in one place
Maahes is in favor of a general gaming channel to allow for space of culled channels such as animal crossing
Joe agrees that keeping gaming general would help measure scope for things in January
2. Vacation mode
Joe has needed a way to disengage from his work since 2008 and has not had that way.
Joe has dreaded taking time off as he feels like things would blow up without him
He would like to hire someone full time, such as Tommy on a salaried position, to be fully trained to take care of things.
We aren’t there yet and we will never get there at the current rate of things if Joe were to burn out.
Joe wants to make this all last, so the short term goal is for Joe to be able to have the discord “closed” when he goes on vacation.
It would begin at least one day before Joe leaves and end at least one day after his return
Anything that goes wrong would be reviewed the week after Joe returns from vacation
Channels would be set to read only except for spam servers you operate, the minecraft server channels, any activity channels, relevant travel channels, and live event chat for any streams
Joe adds on that players wanted could be kept open as well
Joe specifies it’s not the community’s fault, this was an issue before the discord was open
Joe will be traveling starting September 23rd until the end of October and this is the first good time to enable vacation mode
Consensus is that this is a necessary and good change for Joe to take to maintain good mental health
This means vacation mode will be activated September 22nd and end on October 31st
Kindalas asks if there would be no server petitions
Joe clarifies yes there will still be petitions, dates will be announced in Newsletter 21
Not Kansas’ Halloween parade build contest will also still occur, planned date is Sunday October 30th, the exact time TBD
3. Modmail tutorial
Tommy will create a modmail tutorial to explain what it is and when to use it and how
4. Rules channel
Make the rules channel easier to find
Joe asks if putting it in all specific category would suffice
Em agrees it’s easier to find there
Xhille says we could use bots to automate the process of new members reading and accepting the rules
Joe declines as this is not what he wants
Tommy suggests renaming the channel so it is higher in the alphabetic sorting of channels
Maahes suggested A list of rules
Kindalas suggests Actual Rules
Joe enjoys this proposal the most as it involves malicious compliance with community member’s requests
Rules channel was renamed to Actual rules and placed into all specific except for general category
Establishing staff and their roles is the next agenda item
Joe suggests he could draft that during his October break as he will have the time to create it then
Specifically in the times he is between trips
Scheduled for September 26th which is a Monday, Newsletter day
Notify current members of rule updates/changes
Joe states that we don’t really add rules often, and that a @everyone would not be needed as we would announce it in the appropriate channels and newsletter
Tommy agrees that an @ would not be needed
Folks seem fine okay with not requiring an @
Implement discord’s “start screen” feature
This feature is for public/community servers, we are unable to roll this out for our server as is.
5. Adding specific rule that disallows using media co-opted by hate groups
Community agrees we need to add that rule
Joe asks best way to implement it without needed to constantly update rules
Tommy suggests a rule that gives pepe and swastikas as an example and ending it with etc to included items as needed
Xhille suggests linking a URL to a list of known hate imagery
This creates problems of people arguing what is and isn’t hate imagery
Tommy’s suggestion is accepted and will be added by release of Newsletter 21
Joe suggests also removing nitro ability to use custom emotes
Some community members seems saddened by loss but agree on it’s value
6. Adding specific rule that disallows celebratory messages or media as a response to a person’s death
Joe clarifies that he does not want to encourage any violent action but that also he doesn’t want to contribute to issues of aggressions or violent extremism
Joe opens the floor to a concise statement to be added to rules
Final wording is “No celebrating bodily harm or death of a real person”
This will also be added by release of Newsletter 21
Mantuamaker asks if there was room to discuss it if the person harmed was someone they knew and abusive
Joe clarifies that it would not be appropriate to celebrate here but rather in a private discussion.
Xhille says those examples can be discussed without being celebrated
It’s Tommy time! Community Liaison ThatTommyBoii reporting for newsletter duty! It’s always such a joy for me to be able to write to y’all, so let me get right into it!
Pinball FX3 Tournaments
Our weekly pinball tournaments continue on and everyone is killing it! It’s so awesome to see folks participating in such a fun game, let’s see how y’all scored!
Red and Ted’s Road Show
This table seemed like quite the trip! Congrats to Mr.Hardluck for the win with an insane 919 million score!
Cirqus Voltaire
53 million points is nothing to joke about, another win for Forgantly shows he’s not clowning around!
This week’s table
If you’ve been reading this newsletter and have yet to join in the pinball fun what are you waiting for? Go-fer it! This week the table is No Good Gofers, you can find more information on how to compete in Activity-Sign-Ups > #weekly-pinball-challenges.
And if you’re not in Joe’s community discord, you can join us by supporting him on Patreon!
Fall Quarterly Meeting 2022
Those of you following the newsletters and announcements in the discord will know we’ve got some changes coming up. We’ve have a lot to discuss in our Fall Quarterly Meeting.
That’s going to be on this Saturday, September 17th, at 1pm US Central time.
Here’s our current agenda, if you have any items you’d like to request please do so in Joe Hills Meta > #next-quarter-new-business-requests. Thanks!
Discord channel culling – Joe
Discord vacation mode – Joe
Modmail documentation and tutorial – Em and Dahlia
Clarify rules and structure – Phali
highlight rules channel
establish staff and roles more clearly
notify current members of rule updates/changes
implement start screen to introduce rules
Clarify what constitutes hate speech or images in rules – Maahes
Formally add “no celebrating any deaths” to rules – Tommy
Minecraft Servers
There’s not too much to report on for some of the servers, but let’s check in anyways!
Deep Slate 9
The B’hala build contest was a huge success! There are some final parade dates that need to be finalized, so please be sure to check if your team has submitted your preferred holiday options! That would be under S9 Working Group Consolidation > #ds9-bhala-parades.
Some of the holidays taken include Halloween, Earth Day, and New Year’s, so y’all can look forward to plenty of parade building contests to come!
Modded 1.19 Fall
Our server operator ToxxicGlitter has been hard at work creating our next upcoming server! With the challenges faced with the experimental server, the community agreed to have our modded survival server move to be run by Toxxic! This is a great outcome, as he has proven his developmental skills by creating his own mods which will be featured on this server.
You can see the progress of this server in Realms and Servers > #modded-1dot19-fall-next
Vanillish
If DS9 is too busy or chaotic for you, and you want to stick with a vanilla server, I’d like to remind folks about our Vanillish server! This one is run by server operator Yirggzmb, and features a more comfortable and chill vibe. Functions include keep inventory, a command to teleport to spawn, and other fun vanilla-adjacent features!
See what folks have been up to in Realms and Servers > #vanillish-general
August Everstorm Obituaries
Here’s the final roundup of obituaries from August’s Everstorm, rest in pieces everyone!
elimemeguy was slain by Zombie after a noble effort to survive until reset.
NJ nearly survived, but was smote by a smitten enderman.
August Everstorm Survivors
Wizardofdocs fought the End Wither with Void, got stuck on the dragon Island briefly, but brought home the beacon and moved into Void’s attic for a nice long nap
mercurialvoid brought a bit of spring into the ice waste, fought the Enderwither with Wizardofdocs, and bridged a thousand blocks for a final flight
September Everstorm Obituaries
QuiltyMel died to a Wither approximately 30 seconds after logging in for the first time.
Chefnutmeg died one island from spawn to a skelly while fleeing a wither skull
mercurialvoid ran into two withers and withered away in cleos gym
MisterLantz died to a pair of spiders while trying to flee a wither health bar
HermitCraft
There’s been two episodes of HermitCraft from Joe since the last newsletter, check them out!
