This is something I've been increasingly frustrated by recently, since moving to DarkSun in smp5. I wish that there was some sort of system so it's easier to remove protected blocks, sounds bad at first, but hear me out. All of the blocks placed in DarkSun are from 2019, some people haven't been online in over 3000 days and have things placed like torches, crafting tables, or even dirt in random placements in the town. The best example is the boat-ice tunnel to get from DarkSun to the Pigmen and Guardian farms, There is a single Granite block inside on the path, so you have to go around it. The first time you face it it's annoying, the second time it's frustrating, but after that, you know which side of the tunnel to go through, but this is a 3 block-wide tunnel, and the boat takes up two, using that tunnel and having to remind yourself which side to use is relatively annoying knowing that the person who placed it hasn't been online in over a year. I was talking to FHZHNL and my boyfriend about this and we came up with an ideal solution: to have blocks be protected by default but become unprotected after a year or two has passed- obviously would be difficult to work around and figure out the moderation side of everything but it would help handle the random streak of torches in the middle of nowhere or protected dirt blocks. ^ A quick idea to help handle moderating that system could be just to have a form in the forum, if you want your build to be protected even if you are going offline for a long time you could fill out a form with all of the information, saving mods time on questioning people about it There could even be a request system, like there is a massive Jesus statue near where I set up in DarkSun, it isn't protected but let's say you went with the idea I suggested and built something amazing, like a huge statue, or a farm, or even a house, then you could request it is protected even when you're offline for over 3000 days. This is a quickly thought-out suggestion, but it sucks that if anyone wants to build somewhere and there happens to be a torch there then they have to reach out to staff to have it removed when it's a single block and the person who placed it hasn't been online in forever. I know this has likely been requested a gajillion times but hopefully this is a new way to see it?? doubtful, but wanna throw my suggestion into the ring either way!
IDK about having them auto unprotected. In shared areas it can indeed be a pain to sort out. Thankfully staff are pretty quick to sort it out for people if the owner has been offline for enough time. Personally I don't think I would want it, if for some reason I took an extended amount of time off and come back to find all my blocks unprotected. It might be easier in the long run to keep everything protected and ask for mods help to unprotect certain things case by case. I think a better solution is allowed persmission in established areas, much like town. By default having no one allowed to place anything (just in your alloted area), this would prevent griefing especially but also those random blocks as you suggested. With permission, those blocks could still be removed if the person was given rights to do so. This could be something already planned with empires and has been talked about many times, just might be a better solution.
Oh for sure! That is an amazing solution, and they have something similar- like you can /vouch if you are friends with the offline person, but the issue is just how long all of that process takes, finding somebody who's friends with a really old account can be impossible if you weren't around when the blocks were placed, or even waiting for staff to get back to you can take days or weeks on the unrealistically long side. It's fair to not want blocks to be unprotected and is a great solution we already have, but this server has a lot of all-time players that have gone into the wild, thrown down a crafting table, and then left. Where I'm building the area is covered in torches, which makes sense for farms or houses but this is just a flat dirt platform, why are torches in areas like that protected in the first place? Especially if the person shows no interest in returning to EMC anytime soon, it's just frustrating. Maybe it's just me, most likely is, but I don't want to have to bother a staff member for 3 torches I need to be removed in the wild haha
As ThaKloned mentioned, staff can help with many of these situations. Especially when it's random blocks that obviously don't belong where they've been placed. Also, is this located in a claimed outpost? Claimed outpost owners usually (not always, depends on circumstances) have precedence over the block "owner." If you know who the outpost owner is, then they can quickly and easily request any of these types of changes. Sometimes staff won't intervene unless the outpost owner is engaged, again depending on the circumstances. If the blocks in question are owned by the outpost owner, who has gone inactive, that actually makes things more difficult. Staff typically won't do anything in this situation, since again it's technically the owner's outpost. Agreed there are definitely some improvements to be made with AntiGrief and outpost ownership, but these changes are complicated when considering the age of the Frontier and how many shared outposts exist, both official and unofficial. Edit: Also, have you tried messaging the derelict player on the forums? I think by default EMC forums send email notifications for new forum private messages, so the derelict player may still get an email with your request.
