A register of things too important to lose
In September 2013 the server was arguing about whether to wipe the map and start again. Out of that argument came a quieter idea, and a better one. PosterAnonymous proposed a register: a list of builds so important that they would be protected even if the person who made them never logged in again, and first in line to be carried over if the world was reset.
I would like to create a forum-based registry of historically important builds on TWiTCraft. These are iconic builds, such as Leo's Mansion at spawn, that would be protected from removal even if the owner(s) of said build quit playing on this server.
The method was simple. Everyone posts their top five with rough coordinates from the map. He takes the top twenty and opens a vote on the first five to be preserved. He went first, and he was careful to add that none of it bound the moderators to anything.
Nobody voted for themselves
PosterAnonymous did not nominate any of his own work, and without anyone proposing it as a rule, that became the rule.
DragonofHalo312 listed five and then apologised for not knowing the map well enough. SkyerCorp deliberately skipped the obvious winners so he could name quieter places instead: “I purposely left off builds, that I believe will already be popular such as Legida's build and the Citadel, so that I can mention lesser known but yet still iconic builds.” Sandale. Sheep Port. Edgemerian's Castle. Minion5051's Glass Cube. Bladelands.
Another poster opened with “Although I adore my home, I am going to be a gentleman and follow Poster's great example by not nominating any of my own builds”, and used one of his five slots on someone who had been away for months and had just come back and started working again.
Laustin_D_Woods, whose Observatory was being nominated by nearly everyone, came in to say thank you and then take himself out of the running:
I would like to say that I am enjoying all the love that the Observatory is getting lately. I knew when I started building it that it was going to be impressive but I was not expecting the reaction that it has been getting in the TwitCraft community, so thank you all for that! With that being said I will also follow Poster's lead and not vote for my own build.
Legida was not on the forums, so PosterAnonymous relayed his list and then posted a screenshot of it “to hopefully prove that I didn't make them up myself”. edwin nominated two, was told he had three more choices, and came back with the full five.
FreonKnight and the airfield
The best post in the thread is FreonKnight's, and it begins by listing five builds, none of them his, and promising to explain later why the Airfield is not among them.
I am very honored that the Airfield has been nominated for Historical status. Thank you all! After working at SFO, NAS Moffett Field, and NAS Alameda developing my knowledge of aviation, and making sure I stayed within FAA specifications and scaled it properly, I only recently finished Runway 18/36 (with Night Landing Approach Lighting System) after over a year, complete with under-runway support rail.
Then he lists what is not finished. Four planned hangars still non-existent, including one modelled on Hangar One at Moffett Field with the airship USS Macon inside it. Taxiways still being paved. The ramp down to the underground hangars not built. Surface-to-air missile batteries few and far between. Artillery, modelled on Iowa-class battleship turrets, still in development.
It's obvious that I bit off way more than I could chew, and I'm practically logged in every day.
He goes on to say that the village attached to the airfield is no different from Sky5 or Lakedale, so he has no expectation that its lots or shops would be preserved either.
What they picked
The first five were never formally voted on. What survives is the nominations themselves, which are a better document anyway: this is what a community, asked without warning, said was worth keeping.
Nominated once each: Hyrule, Lakedale, the TWiTCathedral, Edgemerian's Castle, Minion5051's Glass Cube, Bladelands, Android_FA5's SciFi Desert Compound, the Hanging Gardens, Fairy Tail Castle, Stormfront, and the whole Department of Transportation — which Warriorbox nominated with a caveat: “I know it's spread all over and not strictly 'a build', but it is still an epic construction.” Honourable mentions, ruled out for being unfinished: the SGS HQ Tower and Hyrule Castle.
Five of the ten lists were written by someone declining to name their own work, which is why the two builds their makers refused to nominate — the Observatory and the Airfield — still finished level on five.
Robrotheram's sixth pick, offered outside his five, was the Lighthouse of Lag, “for just saving the memories of the tps drop when it ran” — a building nominated for historical preservation on the grounds that it used to crash the server.
Warriorbox's own list was the Aquadome, the Citadel, Legida's builds, the Observatory and the DOT, and she added the line that anyone who has ever tried to write a history will recognise:
There are many builds I have not seen (to my shame). These are the ones I have seen.
Under it, as under every post she made, four lines of Homeward Bound.
Afterwards
The map was reset on 6 January 2014 and nothing was carried across. The Aquadome, the Citadel, the Observatory, Legida's castle and the airfield with its one finished runway are all still standing in the October 2013 snapshot, which is the closest thing to preservation any of them got, and the reason you can still go and look at them.
Source: forum thread t888, all fifteen posts, read in full. The tally counts the ten posts that contain a list of nominations, including Legida's as relayed. Coordinates in the thread are the posters' own. Quotes are exact.