Over my years of playing this game, I without a doubt have been losing hope in the many of the servers that are running these days. As a server owner myself that has been hosting and running my own server for just about 2 years now, I'm here to share my observations with you all and what I believe needs to change in the servers running these days.

Pay To Win:
Pay to win, well all know it, and I bet many people have gone to accept it's existence. It is something we all have gotten used to over time, but that was never supposed to be the idea behind what a server should be. Paying for a rank that gives you an in game advantage over other players is such a dull move. This forces other players to feel as if they too need to pay in order to stay ahead on their favorite Minecraft server. Or it makes the player demotivated, and pushes them away from the server and starts to push those servers to losing their playerbase. The playerbase is the foundation to any successful server, no one can deny that, without a playerbase, the server is a barren wasteland that houses nothing but unmotivated staff members, and empty server events.

Confusion Amongst The PlayerBase:
Speaking on the playerbase, I constantly see servers throwing players into a server expecting that they know what to do. If you played a lot of servers in the past, you may know how to weave your way around those obstacles. Though for someone new to the game, they have no clue what they are supposed to do. And for any new server starting off, you know that your player base, nor your staff is always there to help out the player who might need it. Even so, this is reduced slightly by the holographic displays plugin, and simply announcements every 5 or 10 minutes in chat giving a list of basic commands for the player to do. The average new player only spends roughly anywhere between 10 to 120 seconds on the server at a time. This means you have to either never sleep and always be there for your playerbase, or simply put what I prefer, a help book in their inventory when they spawn. which tells them what they need to do in order to fully get started.

Untrusted Staff:
As I mentioned previously, the playerbase is the foundation to any successful server, but of course, in order to get a successful server, you need just a server in general. That is where the staff comes into play. Something I have seen over the past year or two is the growth of untrusting staff with permissions and access they need to have in order to do their job. Not too long ago, I wanted to do some research on how other servers were running these days in hopes of improving the server I run. So I applied to a server in which I will not name. I had successfully achieved the Admin role on that server and began the work requested of me while I was simply observing how they ran their server. Though as my time on that server grew, I noticed how little I had to work with. As an Admin, I didn't have access to /gamemode, /ban, /pl, or /pardon just to name a few.

In case no one here knows the true job of the Admin, let me enlighten you. The job of the Administrator is to monitor the console, and make sure nothing goes wrong. If there is a bug that is breaking a plugin, or not letting the server launch, then it is the job of the Admin to scroll through hours of logs to figure out what is wrong. They plan events, they manage the staff team around them, and they make sure things move smoothly. They are essentially equivalent to the rank many know as "Owner".

So when I confronted the actual Owner about the situation, asking why I had so few perms, and no console or file access. He simply responded "I'm the only one allowed to see that stuff". Refusing to let me self get angry I pulled away from the situation and accepted his claim.

I do understand why letting someone touch such valuable information was so scary, and I understand not wanting your server to get stolen, griefed, or trolled. Even so, there is always the use of backups which in my opinion is overly helpful. But entrusting your staff shows them that they too are able to trust you. It also allows them to do the job they signed up for. Personally I don't wish to see Admins get treated as over glorified mods, I want to see Admins on servers working how they should, along side the Owner, creating something bigger than themselves for the community to enjoy.

Thanks for reading and let me know if I missed something. (Or misspelled something)
-AutoGear