Hey there, guys.

I'm one of the developers behind PlanetMinecraft. I hope this post isn't against the rules of redirects/ad links, but this is more about the concept itself and less about us trying to advertise.

We take ads seriously at PMC. We've always been against certain advertising tactics (we have rules against forced paywalls, for instance, as well as other rules to prevent commercial advertising using our systems). While yes, like most sites we've had our fair share of malicious ads, we do consume all of your reports about ads and we forward them to our ad provider who handles them all. We'll never force our users to see ads, and obviously our ultimate goal is to have everybody not require adblock and to have a safe environment there.. but sadly page ads have devolved over the years into memory-eating Flash applets or incredibly terribly programmed JS code that locks the page.

I've noticed a really crazy trend through; ad link services, such as adf.ly and adfoc.us have been huge in Minecraft's community. Honestly, I think Minecraft may have been the reason for these systems to pop up and thrive, which is crazy. We've generally always allowed adf.ly and similar services for download links for content that people make, because we do agree that content creators should be credited properly for their creations and compensation for making free stuff is always nice, especially if the don't have a job.

My main concern though is that these services have gone way too far, in my opinion. They are continuously avoiding ad blockers, forcefully redirecting you to ads even that they must have hardcoded or something, and even providing malicious content directly to people.. and it doesn't seem like they are listening to reports about it either.

I'm not sure what to do about this. We shouldn't be standing around letting these places do this, but at the same time so many people rely on these services for small amounts of extra income to help them continue creating stuff. What -can- we do to prevent this from becoming a bigger problem than it already is?

I posted a poll on our Twitter account, offering your vote may help us figure it out: https://twitter.com/PlanetMinecraft/status/730960028388065280

If you've got any opinions or paths you think we as a community (and I don't just mean PMC, but other sites like MCF that also allow these links) could take to help the content creators find better, less malicious services, that'd be awesome!

I am going to go off on a little bit of a rant in this post. Bear with me because I am going to cover some relatable feelings that middle/high schoolers may get.

First off, a little bit of backstory. My name is Mason. I am thirteen and in eighth grade. I have played Minecraft since 2012, the release of 1.2.5. I started playing Minecraft because my mom was in the hospital with her second brain tumor, and she was being treated in another city. This means I was staying at my second-cousin's house with my dad and brother. My cousins were playing Minecraft. And, after about a week of watching them, I decided I wanted to buy the game. A noob, 10 years old, and a hundred miles from home, I purchased my personal favorite game of all time.

Since then, I played for years. Sometimes I would take a 3-6 month break. But around sixth grade, so 2014-15, I started to lay off a little. I got into TF2, which would later turn into an addiction to CS:GO. When I started CS at the end of 2014, I completely stopped Minecraft for about eight months. This brought me to the beginning of eighth grade, August 2015.

For eighth grade, I moved back to my hometown and went back to my old school after living in another city for 5 years. I started playing Minecraft more frequently. But, as I got settled back into my old school, I noticed the kid that got picked on a lot for playing Minecraft. He was dubbed the "Craft God" among his peers, prone to incessant harassment about playing Minecraft.

Note: We have personal laptops at school, so many kids play games during class.

Craft God was called this because he plays Minecraft. He enjoys the game, but his parents are extremely disapproving of video games. In fact, he can not play at home except for a few hours on weekends. I notice, during the school day, that Craft God is extremely hurt by his title. People will constantly sing a parody of Eminem's Rap God into his face, calling him the Craft God.

This is a message to both the name-callers and the victims. Like seriously, if you are making fun of someone for a game they play, think about what you play. I guarantee it you have played one of these games: SLITHER.IO (A game where you run into snakes and eat balls), AGAR.IO (A game where you are a large ball and you eat smaller balls), FLAPPY BIRD (A game where you were a bird and you tried not to hit Mario Pipes), COD (An extremely unrealistic, no skill shooter with a cancerous community) or BLOONS TD (A game where you place monkeys that pop balloons). If someone makes you their "Craft God," just tell them that.

Now I don't play Minecraft obsessively. Yes, I know a lot about the game and probably have over 2000 hours of actual gameplay on it, but I don't constantly talk about it like I used to. Now, don't get me wrong. I understand where all the hate is coming from. Minecraft is labelled as a "terrible graphics" block game with a fanbase of "squeakers and eight year olds" as well as "pedophiles and rapists." The game may seem childish to some, and that is their opinion. But seriously, not something to bully someone over.

Thanks for your time guys. I feel like I got something off my chest.

Mason

A lot of people want colored Subtitles, so I made a Resource Pack just for that.

• Sounds relating to Hostile Mobs are red.

• Sounds relating to Bosses are dark red.

• Sounds relating to Passive mobs are pink.

• Sounds relating to Blocks are green.

• Sounds relating to Liquids are blue.

• Everything else is white.

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