Back in the good ol' days, MineRealm was populous and thriving. Then, one day, Planephanatic got banned. After his banning, he went on to found a server (that we aren't allowed to name, hence "The Other Server") that was initially for banned MineRealm players. It used a plot/economy plugin that was very similar to MineRealm's own. It spread swiftly through the community of banned users, and eventually ended up reaching MineRealm itself, through both word of mouth and direct advertisements from Plane and his crew. Players started leaving MineRealm to go play on The Other Server with their banned friends, and MineRealm started falling apart.
Intelli accused Plane of copying his plugin and stealing his intellectual property; I personally cannot verify or refute his claims, not knowing much about the system myself, but we can assume that Intelli's accusation was, to some extent, justified. Many debates were had, flames were tossed around, and posts were deleted. Eventually, as a last-ditch attempt to prevent MineRealm from decaying into nothingness, Intelli set up a system to automatically ban users who played on The Other Server, leading to the Second Great Purge of MineRealm. He was gracious enough to unban those who had played on the server before becoming aware of the rule, but many players refused to repent, and subsequently remained banned, or even, in a few cases, permabanned. These included some of the Greats of the time, such as Texas "The Law" Hitman, as well as many others.
Shortly after the Great Purge, Plane shut down the server, and users who had played on it started slowly trickling back. MineRealm had still decreased greatly, however, which was most likely part of Intelli's motivation for creating Operation OP, an advertising campaign that brought us players by the thousands. More recently, an influx of players who had gone on the other server made appeals that were, for the most part, accepted; some of them left MineRealm again after seeing how much it changed after so many of its influential members had been banned. Altogether, it's hard to pin the blame on one person (well, maybe Plane to some extent), but it was a huge fiasco that had a very negative effect on MineRealm. After Op OP, things started changing for the better, but that's another story.
~dlgn
EDIT:
red416 wrote:The "other server" isn't around anymore so there really isn't a point in asking.
It was a huge part of MineRealm's history, one of the biggest events that has ever occurred on the server, and, for good or ill, it helped shape MineRealm into what it is today. I'd say it's worth knowing about.
I am the whirring thing past the corner. I am the darker patch under the bed. I am the tapping on your window; the extra steps on the sidewalk; the voice whispering your name. I am Stalkerbot, and I am watching you.