So, just some thoughts. I've heard the discussions, but I think there's some global consequences to think about.
It seems to me that the more/less homes discussion is a consequence of a different discussion...what's really going on here is people want to do more of a local-community-vanilla style build, whereas homes, tp, and excessive use of creative turn the game into a "go off on your own and build creatively" situation. The arguments I've heard for cutting homes down basically boil down to this...
...and that's ok, but I have a concern about that. We never had that as a rule, and to now be like "hey people way out with your own builds, now you can't bounce back to them easily because other people want to play like this" that sucks. Part of the unspoken promise of this server is if you do insane long-term builds, we'll do what we can do to protect them. Playing on a server for 2 months and then having it disappear sucks...we are a 2.5 year old server and that's an implicit promise in our model.
/home is just a way to bounce to a far away location without having to walk...in a way it's no different than /tpa or /tpahere...or /mv_tp or /spawn for that reason. I don't feel that cutting out /home would solve the problems/complaints, and at the same time it would dramatically change the game for people who are just doing their thing. Also, to cut homes out, to actually accomplish anything other than annoy people with a bunch of homes, we have to cut out other commands as well.
There's a compromise in here somewhere though. I understand the need for a more-vanilla, command-less experience. Lots of ideas have been bounced around...second server, with some hack to tie in the chats and stuff? That's 2x the maintenance, 2x the bandwidth, 2x the cost, it's easier to upgrade a vanilla server than a plugin-based server, member changes have to be made 2x...it just sucks. It's a crappy solution, and it'd be a hard fork in the community.
There's been an idea I've floated for a while...I think it's the best compromise, but it's a big ass technical hurdle. How about a vanilla world. While in this world...no commands will work other than /msg and such. You can't /spawn, /home, /tpa, /tpahere, etc. You can't /mv_tp in/out. The only way in or out would be a command block in main world spawn...that would enforce a /clearinventory before sending you, and the only way out without dying would be a command block in vanilla world spawn. There's some shortcomings here...there'd be no working nether/end portals (as is the case with any multiverse world). Also...we'd knock out any Admin commands in this world...just owners for maximum control of grief-fixing and such. (though I don't think we can do a by-world /deop...) I need to do some research, but at the minimum I would like to demo this idea...expect me to build a "vanilla world hub" somewhere in spawn soon to test the command block setup.
There was another idea I had recently and hadn't even talked to Mike about yet...but I haven't thought it all the way through yet. We make a new class of /Member, maybe called /Member_Vanilla, with the reduced permissions set...then members can request to be in one or the other. Basically, you could elect to be in a group of people with more restricted gameplay modes...which kind of locks you to the type of gameplay people are requesting. This then also doesn't bother people (like pwn) that build far and are just keeping to themselves.
Thoughs? Nothing is decided yet.
surfrock66
Mike