I've tried the Minecraft Forums in the past, however they never allowed the thread to be publicly visible, so I gave up on them. I agree Towny is ideal for larger servers, however we didn't really have a choice in the matter, since Factions went down the dependency route.

Due to the current way people can buy and sell things, that means people can easily rank up just by selling dirt. Without scouring logs, Ops+ wouldn't know what they've sold in order to earn a promotion, and automating the process would lead to exploits.

As with Donations, I've always been a bit sceptical about it, since the donor will essentially be paying for the service, meaning we'd have to give them something good in return, that other players won't have, and it could get awkward if they do something to warrant a ban. They could use their 'I paid for it, and they're refusing my access' excuse, which would even stand up in court if they decided to do that. Meaning I'd either have to unban them, or refund them. In addition, most of the current community members are under 18, so it's not exactly easy for them to donate. The only person who donated to us in the past was KSISniper, who instead was paying for a service, of Hawknet running his Minecraft server.

One way around the donations issue, is to have a clause of the Terms and Conditions state what happens during a donation, and what the donor is entitled to. This would also have to be shown to them before their donation too.

And it's good to see you again Ammar! I hope to see you pop into the server, even for only a small while.