Server Listing Guidelines
Last updated
These are the rules for listing a Minecraft Bedrock server on LecternMC. They apply to the listing you submit and, in a much smaller way, to the server behind it.
Listing is free, takes a few minutes, and goes live immediately with no queue. There is no approval step to pass, which is why these rules exist: the check happens after you publish rather than before.
Two things these rules do not cover. Your LecternMC account is governed by the Terms of Service. Our community spaces are governed by the Community Code of Conduct. A problem with a listing is normally dealt with as a listing problem and does not touch either.
These are requirements rather than rules. The form will not accept a listing without them.
- Two-factor sign-in turned on for your account
- An address that answers, without the port on the end
- A name of 3 to 60 characters
- A tagline of 10 to 120 characters
- A description of at least 30 characters, up to 1000
- Between one and five gamemode tags
- At least one region
- An icon and a thumbnail, uploaded through the form rather than linked from another site
Two-factor is required because a listing can be transferred to another account, which makes it worth stealing. Images are uploaded rather than hotlinked because a linked image breaks the day the other site moves it, and it hands every visitor's address to a server we do not control.
Rule 1. The listing must be accurate
The address, port, gamemodes, regions, name and description all have to match the server a player actually reaches, and they have to keep matching when the server changes.
This means that if you move hosts, change the port, retire a gamemode or rebrand, you update the listing at the same time. Editing is free, immediate, and there is no review step.
This does not mean a server that goes down for an evening is breaking a rule. Servers go down. What we act on is a listing that has stopped describing anything real: an address that has not answered in weeks, or gamemodes that quietly stopped running months ago.
Inaccuracy is the most common reason a listing is removed, and it is also the easiest to fix.
Rule 2. List only a server you run, or one you are authorised to list
You must control the server, or have permission from whoever does.
This means somebody else's server is not yours to submit, even if the listing you write is flattering and accurate. It is not yours to claim, and the owner cannot correct it or take it down.
If you list a server on behalf of an owner, make sure they know. When ownership changes hands in real life, transfer the listing too, so the person answerable for it is the person running the server.
Rule 3. One listing per server or network
One network gets one listing, however many gamemodes, subdomains or ports it runs behind that.
This means a network with survival, bedwars and skyblock on separate addresses lists once, and uses gamemode tags to say what it runs. The same address cannot be claimed twice, and the second attempt is refused rather than quietly creating a duplicate.
This does not mean two genuinely separate servers with separate owners and separate communities have to share a listing. They do not.
Running several listings for one network is the fastest way to lose all of them, not just the extras.
Rule 4. Every field must suit a general audience
Sexual, graphic, hateful and discriminatory content is not allowed in the name, tagline, description, links or any image.
This means the whole listing, including the icon, the thumbnail, the banner, and anything at the other end of a link you add.
We hold the listing to this standard whatever happens inside the server, because a listing is public, unavoidable, and read by people deciding whether to join. A large share of them are children.
Rule 5. Do not impersonate anybody
Do not present your server as another server, as another brand, or as LecternMC.
This means name, artwork, tagline and description together. A name one character off a well-known network, that network's logo as your icon, or a description copied from theirs are all the same problem, which is a player believing they are somewhere they are not.
It also covers presenting yourself as official, affiliated with Mojang or Microsoft, or as part of LecternMC.
Rule 6. Do not claim we back you
The Verified mark and Featured placement are applied by us, by hand. They cannot be requested through the form, bought, or implied.
This means you should not write that your server is verified, featured, partnered, approved, sponsored or ranked by us unless we have actually done it, and you should not imitate the mark in your own images.
Verified says one thing: somebody here checked that the listing describes the server you would actually reach. It is not an endorsement, not a safety rating, and not an opinion about your server.
Rule 7. Do not manipulate your ranking
Rewarding players for voting is fine and always has been. Vote rewards, crates and vote parties are all normal and none of them are a problem.
Manufacturing votes is different. Votes cast from gamertags you control, automated voting, paid vote services, and asking people to vote from alternate accounts are all manipulation.
Reviews have their own version of this. Paying for reviews, trading rewards for them, and reviewing your own server are not allowed, and buying reviews will lose you the listing outright.
A ranking that can be bought is worth nothing to the person reading it, which is the whole reason anybody consults one.
How you run your server is yours. We are a directory rather than a regulator, we have no reach inside a server, and we cannot moderate one.
The rules below are the exceptions. They are here because a player found your server through us, and there are a few things they should not have to deal with as a result.
Rule 8. Never ask a player for their Microsoft password or account details
No Bedrock server needs them, and there is no honest version of that request.
This means any prompt to sign in with Microsoft to verify yourself, claim a rank, enter a giveaway, or prove you are not a bot. It applies wherever you send players, including your website, your chat server, and links posted in game.
This is the one rule with no version we will discuss. A listing that leads players to a Microsoft sign-in page that is not Microsoft's own comes down immediately and permanently.
Rule 9. Do not scam players
Taking money, items or accounts under false pretences.
This means paid ranks or items that never arrive, giveaways with no prize, promises attached to payment that you do not keep, and anything designed to separate a player from something of theirs by lying to them.
This does not mean we arbitrate whether a rank was worth the price. That is between you and the buyer. Never delivering it is what makes it ours.
Rule 10. Do not make players install software outside Minecraft
Resource packs and behaviour packs are fine. Minecraft downloads and applies those itself, the player accepts them in game, and requiring one is ordinary Bedrock server design. Nothing in this rule touches them.
What is not allowed is anything a player has to install on their device to join you: an installer, a launcher, a modified or custom client, a connector application, or any file they have to run themselves.
Malware of any kind falls under this rule and under rule 12.
Rule 11. Do not run a server organised around hate or harassment
Discrimination or targeted abuse as a matter of how the server operates, or tolerated by its staff.
This does not mean we handle arguments between players. One player being unpleasant to another is for your moderators, and we will not step in.
It does mean a server whose theme, rules, staff conduct or culture is the discrimination is our problem. A server where slurs are the norm and nobody stops them is our problem too, because at that point it is not an incident, it is how the place runs.
Rule 12. Nothing illegal
Do not host, share, request or link anything the law does not allow, and do not use your listing to reach players for anything illegal.
An API key is created from a listing you own, and only after that listing has been verified.
Rule 13. Keep your API key on your server
The key goes in a request from your server, never in a page, a client, a resource pack, or anywhere a player can open.
A key is a password. Revoke one the moment you suspect somebody outside your server has seen it, and rotate it by creating the new key, deploying it, confirming traffic has moved, then revoking the old one.
Rule 14. If you report player data, tell your own players
Reporting is optional and most servers do not do it. If yours does, the gamertags, Xbox IDs and skins you send are your players' data rather than yours, and they should know it is being sent.
We are not qualified to and do not try. We take no view on:
- How you moderate, or whether your staff are fair
- Arguments and fallings-out between players
- Whether a rank or item was worth what it cost, as distinct from never arriving
- Whether your server suits the age of anybody playing on it
- How good your server is
A listing being here means somebody submitted it and the address answers. Past that, a player is making the same judgement they would make anywhere online.
Accuracy first. Rule 1 problems are normally a correction rather than a removal. We would far rather tell you what is wrong than take a listing down, and a listing put right is usually restored.
Deliberate breaches take the listing down. Rules 2 through 12 are things somebody chose to do, so the listing comes down without a correction step first.
Rules 8 and 12 are immediate and permanent. Credential phishing and illegal content do not get a conversation.
Repeating something reaches the account. One bad listing is one listing. Coming back to do again what a listing already came down for is an account matter, covered by the Terms of Service.
A removal is not a deletion. Votes and reviews are kept, so a listing that comes back brings its history with it. Your account, your other listings and your uploads are untouched.
Appealing a removal. Contact us at [email protected] from the account that owns the listing and we will tell you which rule it was. Say what you think happened, even if you are guessing.
Reporting a listing. If a listing sent you somewhere it did not describe, tell us and say which one. That is the part we can act on.
Something that happened on a server rather than in its listing is normally for that server's own staff, with rules 8 to 12 as the exceptions. If one of those is what you ran into, tell us.
We update this page when the rules change, and the date at the top is when the wording last changed.