Keep in mind while reading this that this is my opinion, I expect people to disagree with me, but if you plan to disagree just do it in a civilized manner. I don't want people raging because of this.

I'm going to break this up into 2 sections, the 2 types of servers that are most popular, Survival and PvP.

I am also going to tell you what I hate about these types of Servers, if your Server has one of these qualities don't be upset, this is only my opinion.

Survival

I personally like close knit Survival Servers. When I think of the perfect Survival Server I think of a Server where everybody knows each other, where new members feel welcome not like a lost kid in a department store. The perfect Survival Server in my opinion would be one where you can log on and be welcomed by everybody. I personally prefer Vanilla Servers because I played Singleplayer for a long time before I really branched out into Multiplayer. What I look for in a Vanilla Survival Server is where people talk to each other and build relatively close to each other, preferably with a Spawn area for shops and such. When I play Minecraft I enjoy looking at others builds and showing off my builds to my friends. A server where you can pull a good natured prank on your friends, or just join the Skype chat and talk to the people behind the Minecraft character. I personally like Whitelist, it filters the young kids that are so immature that nobody wants to play with them, or the griefers, or the people that are generally just unpleasant to play with.

Now, this is the type of Survival Server that I hate to log on to. You see the ad "Semi-Vanilla" so you put the IP in, there are 80 people online, you log on regardless. Once you log on you are presented with a HUGE Spawn with portals to go to different worlds, PvP, Creative, Survival, Vanilla, RP, Skyblock, about anything you can think of... Now why would you go and say "Semi-Vanilla" then in the first 15 seconds of being online I can tell that you have 50+ plugins. Trying to talk on these servers and make friends is nearly impossible too, the chat is just flowing past that even someone trying to spam a message would be drowned out. You give it a chance and go to the Vanilla portal, once you get past the spawn protection border there are no trees for thousands of blocks, penises, 1x1 block towers everywhere, lava, and griefs, this is not "Semi-Vanilla" if your Server is like this, don't call it Semi-Vanilla. It isn't.

PvP

PvP servers are much different, I look for PvP servers with a world border of about 5000 blocks. Not too large for there to be no risk of being raided, but just small enough to find other bases occasionally. I don't like grief servers personally, I don't mind being raided but I don't like logging on and just having to abandon the whole base because it was completely blown up and lava poured everywhere, that isn't necessary in my opinion. Just raid the items and move on.

I have many more complaints with PvP servers. I hate servers where you get perks that are completely unfair to the rest of the players if you donate. Now I understand from the Server Owners perspective that they need to make money to keep the Server running, but if you get diamond god armor for donating then you're basically paying to win at that point. That isn't fair in my opinion, what about people who don't have very much money and look to Minecraft as a stress reliever after a log day of school/work? They just want to log on a server and have fun, but they can't play any PvP servers because just by paying money you can become basically invulnerable, and if you do die you can just /kit god and get your diamond god armor back. Another frustration I have with PvP servers is when there is no world border, you have no risk of being raided and you have no chance of actually getting a decent raid.

Now before any of you accuse me of making these things up every single one of these complaints HAS happened to me before, and in some cases more than once. These are the types of servers that I look for, and the types of servers that I avoid. Everybody is different though, so I'm interested in what you all look for in these types of Servers, and what you disagree with. Just keep in civilized please, if I offended anybody by saying of this, I apologize but I think if you take offense to something, maybe its true. Thank you for reading, and have a good day.