Working on ranks

Recently, I have come to realise something about the current state of Arcator: the ranks that we are using don't quite work.

The step from Default up to VIP works very well as an anti-griefer measure, but VIPs shouldn't really be called "VIPs."

Builder and Builder+, while a great addition and good step up from the previous setup, are only really here to allow rank progression; to allow users to feel that they are becoming more respected on the server. There must be a better way to provide this, rather than fracturing the blacklist and padding out ranks.

Having to wait until Builder+ for Creative is a joke, it is difficult to grief with and should be afforded to whatever-the-equivalent-of-VIP is. Additionally, we have Admins and Mods who don't do those respective jobs; they have it purely because they don't deserve to be as low down as Builder+ is. Making Builder+ into a prestigious rank, affording limited WorldEdit powers and more, would allow players to be given great building power but not the responsibility and requirement of being on staff.

Mod and Admin are more or less perfect, except that the blacklist seems too strict.

Admin+ works perfectly.

Owner works perfectly.

At the moment, I think a new system should be trialled:

Replace VIP with Trusted, a single rank covering VIP and Builder.
Replace Builder+ with something like Architect, affording powerful tools.
Loosen the blacklist.

This leaves Trusted very sparse, so some sort of points progression system would be added. Staff and possibly Architects would be able to give points to Trusted users for being helpful, acting well in the community and making good builds. There would be no leaderboard or competition, and there will be strict criteria for awarding points hardcoded into the system, which would be a plugin hardcoded by Kieraan.

Hence a Trusted user's name might appear as:

[Trusted][25] hikiko101:

The 25 denoting 25 points awarded by staff. No extra features would be given based on points, to avoid an RPG style system developing on what is and will stay as a true freebuild server.

All points would therefore do is replace clumsy promotion systems with a simple affirmation of a user's continued contribution to the server.

I discussed this with several important individuals on IRC last night. I would now like more input on whether these problems exist and what you think of the solutions considered. None of this is final and not all of it will neccesarily be implemented.

NEW! TrustPoints plugin specification: http://pastebin.com/EnfUrJjA

So, to reiterate: