At the moment, Artist effectively exists simultaneously as a “proof of capability” as a Builder, and a reward for being active on projects.
However, it only gains one real extra permission over Builder, so is mainly the former: a recognition of you, not a reward in the form of permissions.
Further to this, the idea that it is a reward for activity on projects is thrown out the window when we recognise that some Artists only became active on projects to achieve the rank, then once they have the clout, stop working on projects.
You will have noticed that we’ve stopped demoting Builders for inactivity. This will continue to be the policy for the forseeable future. As a Builder, we encourage you to work on projects, but won’t demote you for deciding to do your own thing in the community. It’s a chilled out rank - help or don’t help, no biggie.
Artist, however, will become more of an “Active Team Member” rank. You’ll still have to do a largeplot to be promoted, but you will be expected to continue working on projects. If you stop working on projects, you’ll be moved to Builder again. In this way, freebuild can be considered a reward for helping us out as a team.
This does not mean we will be demoting Artists for general inactivity. We will, however, be looking to demote artists who are active, but show absolutely no interest in helping out the team. There is nothing wrong with this - but Builder is the rank for you, not Artist.
If you have any questions, feel free to ask. We will be implementing this policy in two weeks.