It's been a while since our last announcement because the bundle of updates we're making today have required considerable development, and hopefully, it'll be worth the wait!
Combatting Leaks
As many of you have already seen in the initial thread, we have adjusted our policies pertaining to the usage and funding of resource leak sites in order to actively combat their funding, sustainability, and practices of extorting our community members.
Additionally, we've published a wiki dedicated to providing our creators with the resources necessary to step up and participate in the war against leak sites. The wiki includes a means for getting your content removed off of these leak sites, as well as reporting the services that these sites depend on for their illegal and immoral activities. This wiki can be found here: https://www.mc-market.org/wiki/reporting-copyright-violations/
We strongly encourage everyone to participate in protecting themselves and their fellow content creators from the criminals that thrive off of their hard work.
The past few months have been massive for resource growth on MC-Market, and our focus has been to prevent and discourage leaks. With this, we have introduced major features to our resource system.
Additionally, we've published a wiki dedicated to providing our creators with the resources necessary to step up and participate in the war against leak sites. The wiki includes a means for getting your content removed off of these leak sites, as well as reporting the services that these sites depend on for their illegal and immoral activities. This wiki can be found here: https://www.mc-market.org/wiki/reporting-copyright-violations/
We strongly encourage everyone to participate in protecting themselves and their fellow content creators from the criminals that thrive off of their hard work.
The past few months have been massive for resource growth on MC-Market, and our focus has been to prevent and discourage leaks. With this, we have introduced major features to our resource system.
Resource Updates
Our resource system has the potential to be the fastest, safest and most convenient method of buying and selling with all of the benefits of manual deals, and none of the deficits. We have been hard at work creating the functionality necessary to connect us to that potential.
Purchase Restrictions
Resource authors now have the ability to set resource-specific requirements that users must meet before being able to purchase the product. Many leakers are banned members attempting to rejoin our community on new accounts. By setting purchase criteria for your resource, you protect yourself from new or potentially untrustworthy members, giving our staff team more time to catch them and ban them before they can leak again.
The available criteria are as follows:
Tracking Pages
Resource authors have long battled against fraudulent "Item not received" chargebacks, and with little means of proving to PayPal that the buyer received the item, it has been hard for our sellers to win these disputes.
Effective today, tracking pages are available for every resource transaction. Each transaction's tracking page will be located at https://www.mc-market.org/resources/track?trans_id=<trans_id> which will display all updates to the transaction's status, license changes, as well as download information (count/timestamps).
When fighting a chargeback, provide a link to this tracking page within your PayPal dispute as evidence for the product having been delivered.
Coupon Codes
Resource authors are now able to create coupon codes ($ off, or %$ off), with optional usage limits (usage count, expiration date, etc). Information on who has used these codes is available in your resource's marketplace-purchases tab.
Additionally
We have also changed resources so that:
AbleGamers Charity FundraiserPurchase Restrictions
Resource authors now have the ability to set resource-specific requirements that users must meet before being able to purchase the product. Many leakers are banned members attempting to rejoin our community on new accounts. By setting purchase criteria for your resource, you protect yourself from new or potentially untrustworthy members, giving our staff team more time to catch them and ban them before they can leak again.
The available criteria are as follows:
- Days registered
- Account upgrades
- Post count
- Reaction count
- Purchased resources count
- Reputation score (positive and negative)
- User has purchased a license to [x] resources
- Resource author-specified user blacklist
Tracking Pages
Resource authors have long battled against fraudulent "Item not received" chargebacks, and with little means of proving to PayPal that the buyer received the item, it has been hard for our sellers to win these disputes.
Effective today, tracking pages are available for every resource transaction. Each transaction's tracking page will be located at https://www.mc-market.org/resources/track?trans_id=<trans_id> which will display all updates to the transaction's status, license changes, as well as download information (count/timestamps).
When fighting a chargeback, provide a link to this tracking page within your PayPal dispute as evidence for the product having been delivered.
Coupon Codes
Resource authors are now able to create coupon codes ($ off, or %$ off), with optional usage limits (usage count, expiration date, etc). Information on who has used these codes is available in your resource's marketplace-purchases tab.
Additionally
We have also changed resources so that:
- Resource authors are now able to view their own deleted resources
- Resource authors will now receive an alert when their resource has been approved
- Resource authors will now be alerted on site whenever a user charges back is refunded for a resource purchase
- Purchase history will now be retained for future usage after a paid resource is removed from sale
- Resource authors will no longer have the ability to give the same user multiple usage licenses to the same resource
- There is now a minimum file upload size in order to submit a resource
- Resource authors are now required to submit a new resource version in every update, solving the problem where same version updates didn't update the attached file
- Removed ability to upload resources with tar.gz file extension
This year we are raising money for AbleGamers! AbleGamers is a charity assisting people with disabilities to play video-games through a combination of technologies such as mouth controllers, eye gaze, and custom controllers. They're an absolutely fantastic charity based in the US and I'm so glad that we are raising money for them this year.
We have an exclusive pink to orange gradient username colour available this month for $25 which will be permanently added to your account and a $75 exclusive AbleGamers medal available from the Account Upgrades page. In our last fundraiser for Make-A-Wish, we offered a 3-month rainbow username colour to three users through an auction. Instead, this year we are offering 3-months of rainbow for $200 to all users, which is also available through Account Upgrades.
I am also personally going to match all pink to orange gradient name colour donations made by users and cover the transaction fees. This means that, for example, if 40 people purchase the colour, I will donate $1,000 to the cause.
For the first time ever we have also created a brand new forum category specifically for users to sell products or services where the proceeds go to our fundraiser! Our new AbleGamers Fundraising forum is the perfect place to post service offers or products where the proceeds go to our fundraiser.
Below is a list of some of the frequently asked questions that we have had in previous fundraisers:
Can I pay the $25 but change my colour back?
Yep! If a pink to orange gradient isn't your ideal colour then you may swap back to any of the other colours you have purchased in your account preferences!
Can I donate in other ways?
You sure can. If you wish to be super generous and donate even more, please create a support request or PM me and we'll make sure that all the money you send to us goes directly to the cause. Alternatively, check out our AbleGamers Fundraiser forum and buy products or services from there!
Can I gift this to a friend for a medal?
Unfortunately, we do not allow you to gift the name colour or medal to anyone, you can only receive it if you donate for yourself.
What happens to this colour after the 30 days is up?
In 30 days, this fundraiser will be over, so this colour will be removed from being purchasable on the site forever. You will still keep the pink to orange gradient colour and medal, and will be able to pick it forever once you have it. If you purchase a rainbow gradient, it will expire after 90 days from the time of purchase and no longer be available to use.
What does the colour look like?
I intend on using the new gradient colour that you receive for $25 for the entire month. The rainbow colour is also currently being used by MCMCon if you would like to see what it looks like.
We have an exclusive pink to orange gradient username colour available this month for $25 which will be permanently added to your account and a $75 exclusive AbleGamers medal available from the Account Upgrades page. In our last fundraiser for Make-A-Wish, we offered a 3-month rainbow username colour to three users through an auction. Instead, this year we are offering 3-months of rainbow for $200 to all users, which is also available through Account Upgrades.
I am also personally going to match all pink to orange gradient name colour donations made by users and cover the transaction fees. This means that, for example, if 40 people purchase the colour, I will donate $1,000 to the cause.
For the first time ever we have also created a brand new forum category specifically for users to sell products or services where the proceeds go to our fundraiser! Our new AbleGamers Fundraising forum is the perfect place to post service offers or products where the proceeds go to our fundraiser.
Below is a list of some of the frequently asked questions that we have had in previous fundraisers:
Can I pay the $25 but change my colour back?
Yep! If a pink to orange gradient isn't your ideal colour then you may swap back to any of the other colours you have purchased in your account preferences!
Can I donate in other ways?
You sure can. If you wish to be super generous and donate even more, please create a support request or PM me and we'll make sure that all the money you send to us goes directly to the cause. Alternatively, check out our AbleGamers Fundraiser forum and buy products or services from there!
Can I gift this to a friend for a medal?
Unfortunately, we do not allow you to gift the name colour or medal to anyone, you can only receive it if you donate for yourself.
What happens to this colour after the 30 days is up?
In 30 days, this fundraiser will be over, so this colour will be removed from being purchasable on the site forever. You will still keep the pink to orange gradient colour and medal, and will be able to pick it forever once you have it. If you purchase a rainbow gradient, it will expire after 90 days from the time of purchase and no longer be available to use.
What does the colour look like?
I intend on using the new gradient colour that you receive for $25 for the entire month. The rainbow colour is also currently being used by MCMCon if you would like to see what it looks like.
Reputation Moderators
We have made more changes to the staff team since our previous announcement than we ever have, including introducing an entirely new staff role to help moderate reputation. Reputation moderator is a new rank on MC-Market between being a chat moderator and moderator with the ability to handle reputation disputes between users in order to decrease response times.
At the end of last year, we had a total of 12 staff members and today I'm very proud to announce we have expanded to 18 staff. In summary, the changes made were that:
At the end of last year, we had a total of 12 staff members and today I'm very proud to announce we have expanded to 18 staff. In summary, the changes made were that:
- Ellie, Harry, Kuchy, roy and Aelin were promoted to chat moderators
- aliensushi was promoted to moderator
- Energy and Harrison were promoted to reputation moderators
- Zeiyon was promoted to resource moderator
- Lotus was promoted to scam resolver
- Jayson was promoted to system administrator handling our new infrastructure
- YourPanda and Capaldi resigned from their position as moderators
- hohos was demoted from being a chat moderator
- Brent W was demoted from being our system administrator
Server Infrastructure Upgrade
In the past few weeks behind the scenes, Jayson has been working to optimise our backend server infrastructure to ensure that we are able to mitigate attacks and decrease load times throughout the site.
Through automating our responses to attacks, we have been able to disable "Under Attack Mode", reducing the number of users prompted by JavaScript challenges. To accelerate page loading speeds, an OpCode cache has been enabled and additional resources have been allocated to processing and caching, such as Redis. Blockscript has also been re-enabled to better protect the market by blocking users from logging in with a VPN or proxy unless they have a supreme upgrade.
For a while now, the embedding of images hosted by untrusted external servers has been blocked out of concern for the security of our members. When you load a page with an embedded image, you connect to the web server providing the image, and thus expose your IP to them. This could have enabled third party websites to log our users’ IPs, and in cases where the embedded image’s viewers is restricted, such as with private messages, even associate those IPs with particular members. However, the embedding of images hosted by external third parties has been re-enabled with the addition of an image proxy. This proxy acts as a mask that does the connecting to the external host for you, and then serves you the resulting data. Your IP is therefore only ever exposed to MC-Market and its image proxy.
We have also introduced a status page to the site to ensure transparency with performance and downtime which can be accessed at https://status.mc-market.org or from a link in our footer.
With our infrastructure upgrade we are also moving to faster servers, and have scheduled the move for the 8th of July, 2019. We will finalise a specific time and duration closer to the date, but during the migration the website will be unavailable.
Through automating our responses to attacks, we have been able to disable "Under Attack Mode", reducing the number of users prompted by JavaScript challenges. To accelerate page loading speeds, an OpCode cache has been enabled and additional resources have been allocated to processing and caching, such as Redis. Blockscript has also been re-enabled to better protect the market by blocking users from logging in with a VPN or proxy unless they have a supreme upgrade.
For a while now, the embedding of images hosted by untrusted external servers has been blocked out of concern for the security of our members. When you load a page with an embedded image, you connect to the web server providing the image, and thus expose your IP to them. This could have enabled third party websites to log our users’ IPs, and in cases where the embedded image’s viewers is restricted, such as with private messages, even associate those IPs with particular members. However, the embedding of images hosted by external third parties has been re-enabled with the addition of an image proxy. This proxy acts as a mask that does the connecting to the external host for you, and then serves you the resulting data. Your IP is therefore only ever exposed to MC-Market and its image proxy.
We have also introduced a status page to the site to ensure transparency with performance and downtime which can be accessed at https://status.mc-market.org or from a link in our footer.
With our infrastructure upgrade we are also moving to faster servers, and have scheduled the move for the 8th of July, 2019. We will finalise a specific time and duration closer to the date, but during the migration the website will be unavailable.
Hosting Company Verification
We have introduced a new verification process and subforums to the hosting forum to make it easier for users to find companies that are legally registered and to reduce clutter. Rather than having a single hosting forum, we now have a forum for Verified Game Hosting, Verified Other Hosting, and Other Hosting forums. All threads have now been moved into the Other Hosting forum, and we encourage all established hosting companies to fill out the form if you haven't already so that your thread can be moved to the verified forums here: https://www.mc-market.org/tickets/new?category_id=7
The requirements to have a thread in one of the verified forums are that you must provide proof that a business has been registered for at least 6 months, you have a positive status within the industry, and your current hosting thread must be at least 90 days old. Lotus will be handling all applications for verification.
The requirements to have a thread in one of the verified forums are that you must provide proof that a business has been registered for at least 6 months, you have a positive status within the industry, and your current hosting thread must be at least 90 days old. Lotus will be handling all applications for verification.
Ads Manager Updates
Information provided on the main page of our Ads Manager has been completely rewritten to include more details about advertisements before you purchase, including statistics. As per usual, we have once again adjusted the pricing of advertisements purchasable through our Ads Manager system, which is done every few months to guarantee a balance between the wait time in queue for popular forums and the price. A list of these changes can be seen in the spoiler below:
We have introduced a new advertising position which is only visible to users without Premium at the bottom of the sidebar on the homepage. Unlike our sidebar banners, this advertisement will be square and available for purchase for $50/week. Bottombar banners are no longer able to be purchased per day, instead, they are now $50/week and topbar banners now cost $25/day.
We have introduced a new advertising position which is only visible to users without Premium at the bottom of the sidebar on the homepage. Unlike our sidebar banners, this advertisement will be square and available for purchase for $50/week. Bottombar banners are no longer able to be purchased per day, instead, they are now $50/week and topbar banners now cost $25/day.
Cracked Streaming and Subscription Services
Rule 5.4 already covers the sale of content which you do not own or have the right to redistribute, however, we are extending the explanation of this into rule 5.4.2. This new sub-rule explicitly forbids the sale of any cracked content, stolen content, or content containing personal information.
While it is not always possible to determine whether or not particular accounts being sold were obtained through cracking/theft, certain genuinely purchased accounts provide no profit to the seller if sold, and can be assumed to have been obtained through illegitimate means. MC-Market's staff team will be removing all Netflix, Spotify, and VPN account sale threads with this in mind.
While it is not always possible to determine whether or not particular accounts being sold were obtained through cracking/theft, certain genuinely purchased accounts provide no profit to the seller if sold, and can be assumed to have been obtained through illegitimate means. MC-Market's staff team will be removing all Netflix, Spotify, and VPN account sale threads with this in mind.
Other Changes
Along with these updates, we've been fixing bugs and introducing other minor changes since the previous announcement. To be made aware of changes as they happen, please follow our Twitter. Changes we've made are as follows:
- Added Videography & Trailers forum
- Added ability to up threads in Server Showcase & Discussion forum
- Added new censor to dozens more pornography websites
- Added ability to view banned members profiles
- Added subrule 1.1.1 to clarify TOS violations
- Added several new trophies
- Added new splash messages to Cloudflare countdown page
- Removed requirement for users to have at least one post to request usernames
- Removed rule 1.8.2 due to it being redundant
- Removed Kik and Email forums, merging threads with Other Social Media Accounts
- Removed Development Discussion and Server Showcase & Discussion forums, merging threads with General Discussion
- Removed Advice & Assistance subforum, merging threads with Feedback & Assistance
- Removed user title ladder functionality so non-custom titles will all now display "Member"
- Adjusted the organization and display of our wiki pages
- Adjusted rule 1.6 to be more clear
- Adjusted minimum password length from 6 to 8 characters
- Adjusted warning points given for promoting competitors from 35 points to 15
- Adjusted warning points given for misrepresentation of self from 5 points to 15
- Adjusted several warnings to now expire
- Adjusted Investments & Loans forum to have higher requirements to post and added new requirements to view content within the forum
- Adjusted "Hymart First Day" medal to now be called "April Fools 2019"
- Adjusted "Private OG Accounts" forum to now be named "Private Accounts"
- Adjusted "Design & Graphics" forum to now be named "Design & Media"
- Adjusted "Feedback" forum to now be named "Feedback & Assistance"
- Adjusted URLs for several forums to be more consistent
- Adjusted BBCode in warning messages to ignore user submitted content
- Adjusted description of Videogame Items forum for clarity
- Adjusted several forum icons to be more appropriate
- Adjusted reactions available in several forums to remove inconsistencies
- Adjusted forum title from "Minecraft Market" to "MC-Market" in new tabs
- Adjusted Dark Blue name colour to now be slightly lighter for readability on dark theme
- Adjusted username requirements so at least 2 letters or numbers are required
Thank you very much for your patience with the release of this announcement, it has taken months of work to be able to develop the improvements and is incredibly exciting to finally release them!
Mick
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