Happy New Year to everyone, I wish you all the best for you and your families/friends in 2017, as well as our 4th year that Big Sister has been operational!!! :)
And with the start of the New Year comes the long-overdue end of an era... and not a moment too soon, I feel.
Effective immediately, on January 1st, 2017, both Cayfie and I are stepping down as the Big Sister server owners, and will retire as Honourary Deputies. While I will still pay for the servers and assist with any kind of consulting, it is Hannah and Spookster that will succeed as the owners of Big Sister and Little Brother, and so they will handle all major decision-making, including staff management and server maintenance, going forward.
As for why I am retiring... it was always my intention to either close the server in 2017, or keep it active but retire as owner -- and as events unfolded, it became clear that the second scenario was going to happen. On top of that, I am simply tired... managing a Gulliver server is hard enough in itself, but add to that three years worth of a strict whitelisting, a large diligent staff to coordinate, plenty of projects, lots of players to interact with, MCEditing, and a whole lot of other technology (half of which was left untouched by me), and I'm, quite frankly, beyond exhausted. In fact, the last few months have seen me largely absent in my own server, preferring instead to socialize with staff and players on Discord, or engage in real life activities and hobbies...
In short, I can no longer be a robust Owner, and in many ways I never was the best Owner you could get {simply the only one who stepped up to the plate with a balanced approach]. Both Hannah and Spookie have demonstrated their incredible technical skills, social skills, loyalty and growth potential during these past three years, so I feel they are the best choice for a much-needed injection of young blood into our community. I will still be around of course, but I will watch from afar my vision come true -- you are all now self-sufficient, and I can sit back and relax as you do justice to our rich three-year heritage!
Thank you all for your wonderful support! I know you will make me very proud! <3
UPDATE: See? Hannah and Spookie are already astounding me with a new and improved server manifesto: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/189780982331736065/265031841713618944/2017.pdf
