MCRank Late December 2025 Release Notes: Security, Monetization & Platform Maturity 🛡️

We've been hard at work since our last major release, and this update brings 75 commits packed with security hardening, monetization features, admin tooling, and quality-of-life improvements. Here's everything that's changed.

---

🛡️ Bot Protection with Cloudflare Turnstile

We've integrated Cloudflare Turnstile — a privacy-friendly CAPTCHA alternative — across all critical user actions to protect against bots and spam.

Protected Actions

• Adding servers — Prevents automated spam listings
• Voting — Ensures votes come from real users
• Submitting reviews — Blocks fake review bots
• Profile editing — Protects user accounts
• Server deletion — Adds verification before destructive actions
• Gallery uploads — Prevents image spam

How It Works

• Invisible challenge that runs in the background
• No annoying image puzzles for legitimate users
• Server-side verification via Cloudflare's siteverify API
• Automatic audit logging of failed verification attempts
• Custom useTurnstile React hook for easy integration

---

📝 Comprehensive Audit Logging

Every user action on MCRank is now logged for security and accountability.

---

💳 Subscription Billing System

Server owners can now feature their servers with flexible billing options powered by Stripe.

Pricing Options

Plan	Price	Features
One-Time	$5 for 30 days	Single payment, no commitment
Monthly	$5/month	Auto-renewing subscription
Annual	$54/year	10% savings vs monthly

Subscription Features

• Upgrade path — Switch from monthly to annual with prorated credit
• Customer portal — Manage billing directly through Stripe
• Webhook handlers — Automatic feature activation/deactivation
• Featured badge — Prominent "Featured" overlay on server cards
• Homepage placement — Dedicated Featured Servers section

---

⭐ Server Favorites

Players can now favorite servers to easily find them later.

Features

• Favorite button on every server card and detail page
• Favorites page in dashboard to manage saved servers
• Profile integration — Choose which favorites to display publicly
• Server stats — Favorites count shown on server pages
• Sorting option — Sort server directory by most favorited
• Dashboard stats — Total favorites count for server owners

---

🚩 Unified Content Flagging System

A comprehensive system for users to report inappropriate content across the platform.

Flaggable Content Types

• Minecraft servers
• Server reviews
• Gallery images
• Blog posts
• User profiles

Flag Reasons

• Inappropriate content
• Spam
• Harassment
• False information
• Copyright violation
• Other

🖼️ Server Gallery with Community Uploads

Server owners can now showcase their servers with image galleries.

Features

• Multi-image upload — Upload up to 10 images at once with batch processing
• Lightbox viewer — Full-screen image browsing with navigation
• Approval workflow — Owner uploads auto-approved, community uploads require review
• Reordering — Drag-and-drop to arrange gallery order
• Turnstile protection — Bot-protected uploads with single token for batch
• Image optimization — Automatic resizing and CDN delivery

Management Tools

• Gallery management page for server owners
• Approve/reject community submissions
• Edit captions and metadata
• Delete images with confirmation

---

🗞️ Server Updates (Owner Blog)

Server owners can now publish news and updates directly on their server pages.

Features

• Markdown editor with live preview
• Tags for categorization
• Deep linking — Each update has a shareable URL
• SSR support — Instant loading and SEO-friendly
• Expandable cards — Collapsed by default, expand inline
• Sitemap integration — Updates automatically added to search engines

Update Pages

• Individual update pages with full content
• Related updates suggestions
• Back navigation to server page
• Social sharing buttons

---

🔒 GDPR-Compliant Account Deletion

Users can now request account deletion with a 30-day hold period for recovery.

Deletion Process

1. Request deletion — User initiates from profile settings
2. 30-day hold — Account hidden but not destroyed
3. Cancel option — User can restore account during hold period
4. Final deletion — Account and related data permanently removed

What Gets Hidden/Deleted

• User profile
• Owned servers (marked hidden)
• Reviews (marked hidden)
• Personal data

Privacy Policy Updates

• Detailed Account Deletion Process section
• Clear data retention timelines
• User rights documentation

---

🔐 Server Deletion with Email Verification

Deleting a server now requires email confirmation for extra security.

Process

1. Click delete on server settings
2. Receive 7-character confirmation code via email
3. Enter code + complete Turnstile verification
4. Server permanently deleted

Safety Features

• 15-minute code expiry — Codes expire quickly
• Rate limiting — 1 code request per 2 minutes
• Turnstile verification — Bot protection on final step
• Audit logging — Full deletion trail

---

🔧 In-House Minecraft Server Status Library

We've replaced the third-party node-mcstatus library with a custom implementation for full control.

Features

• Java Edition support — Server List Ping protocol with SRV resolution
• Bedrock Edition support — Unconnected Ping protocol
• Zero dependencies — Pure Node.js using net, dgram, dns
• SRV records — Automatic resolution for Java servers
• MOTD parsing — Clean, raw, and HTML formatted output
• Response caching — Built-in cache expiration timestamps

Why We Built It

• Full control over query logic and rate limiting
• Better error handling and timeout management
• Improved MOTD parsing with edge case handling
• No dependency on abandoned/unmaintained packages

---

🎨 User Profile System

We've refactored player tracking into a user profile system.

Profile Features

• Custom avatar — Upload or use Discord avatar
• Bio — Short description
• Social links — Twitter, Discord, YouTube, etc.
• Visibility settings — Control what's shown publicly
• Server showcase — Display owned servers on profile

Profile Pages

• Public profile view at /players/{username}
• Profile edit page in dashboard
• Player directory listing platform members

---

🚀 Performance & SEO Improvements

PageSpeed Optimizations

• Responsive logo images — WebP format with multiple sizes
• Lazy loading — Images load on scroll
• Image optimization — Proper srcset and sizes attributes

SEO Enhancements

• Add Server landing page — Marketing content for /add-server
• SSR for landing pages — Search engine crawlable
• Sitemap updates — Server updates included
• robots.txt fixes — Proper Allow/Disallow rules

Homepage Improvements

• Latest Servers feed — Recently added servers section
• Featured Servers section — Paid placements
• Live Vote Feed — Real-time vote updates

---

♿ Accessibility (WCAG 2.1 AA)

Comprehensive accessibility improvements across the platform.

Color Contrast Fixes

• All text meets 4.5:1 contrast ratio
• Fixed mc-stone, mc-grass-dark in light mode
• Updated hover states to emerald-800
• Sidebar navigation active states fixed

Pages Fixed

• Homepage
• Blog
• Server Directory
• Server Detail
• Top Servers
• Players Directory
• Dashboard
• Player Detail

Testing

• Added AxeDevTool component for development testing
• All pages pass axe-core color-contrast checks
• Light and dark mode verified

---

🐛 Bug Fixes

• Fixed MOTD parsing for servers with extra array but no root text
• Fixed Turnstile re-render loops in server deletion flow
• Fixed subscription status validation
• Fixed Live Vote Feed duplicate icons
• Fixed timezone handling in analytics charts with Luxon
• Fixed offline servers missing offlineSince field
• Fixed server updates subscription issues
• Fixed canonical URL conflicts

---

🙏 Thank You!

Thank you to everyone who's been using MCRank and providing feedback. These features were built based on your suggestions, and we couldn't do it without you.

Have questions or suggestions? Join our Discord community and let us know!

Happy crafting! ⛏️

— The MCRank Team