Live uptime plus enough monitoring data to prove that uptime is real.
TrueRank v3.1 rewards servers people can actually trust.
TrueRank is not a paid placement board and it is not a vote counter. It is a transparent discovery score that prioritizes reliability, real activity, community trust, and useful listing information instead of raw vote volume or one oversized metric.
Current formula: TrueRank v3.1 · recalculated every 15 minutesThe current scoring model
Every active listing is recalculated every 15 minutes. TMS stores the current score, rank, and each component so staff can audit a ranking instead of guessing at an opaque algorithm. The current v3.1 base model totals 82 possible points before the visible Non-P2W or P2W classification adjustment, and final scores are bounded to the 0–100 display range.
Recent average and peak player activity, with a hard scoring ceiling.
Review quality and vouches, both weighted more heavily when recent.
Votes matter, but cannot overpower a stable and trusted server.
A complete, usable listing helps players make an informed choice.
Reliability is the foundation
A server that is unavailable, inconsistently reachable, or newly monitored should not be able to jump to the top from a burst of votes.
28 points: uptime performance
TrueRank blends the most recent 7-day uptime with 30-day uptime. The recent window reacts to current problems, while the longer window prevents one good week from erasing a larger reliability issue.
- 7-day uptime has a 65% influence
- 30-day uptime has a 35% influence
- Offline checks lower the score automatically
7 points: monitoring confidence
Brand-new monitoring data gets partial confidence. A server earns full confidence after a full week of one-minute checks. This means new listings are welcome, but do not receive a proven-reliability score on day one.
- Confidence rises with completed checks
- Full confidence after 10,080 checks
- No monitoring data means no reliability points yet
Real player activity matters, but it has a ceiling
TrueRank uses recent average players and peak players collected by the monitor. v3.1 deliberately caps how much player volume can influence the formula, so one large network cannot dominate the directory solely because it has more simultaneous players.
12 points maximum
Player activity can contribute at most 12 points to the current model. A server still receives meaningful credit for healthy player activity, but activity alone cannot outweigh reliability, trust, votes, and listing quality combined.
- 72% of activity value comes from recent average players
- 28% comes from recorded peak players
- Counts are transformed logarithmically before scoring
Scoring caps, not display caps
TMS continues to display actual monitored player counts. The scoring system simply stops awarding additional player-activity points after the defined ceiling.
- Average-player scoring saturates at 100 players
- Peak-player scoring saturates at 250 players
- Player counts above those values do not gain extra TrueRank points
Why this protects fair discovery
Going from 0 to 20 active players is a major discovery signal. Going from 600 to 800 can still be meaningful to that community, but it should not erase every other signal for every smaller server. v3.1 gives large communities credit while preserving a path for stable, trusted small and mid-sized servers.
Player activity = 12 × (72% capped average-player share + 28% capped peak-player share)
Community trust beats empty hype
Reviews: up to 11 points
Higher ratings contribute more than low ratings, and recent reviews carry more weight than years-old reviews. A flood of mediocre reviews cannot outpace a smaller set of strong, current community feedback.
- Rating quality is included, not review count alone
- Review influence gradually decays over 180 days
- Historical feedback remains visible without permanently dominating
Vouches: up to 9 points
Vouches are a separate community trust signal. Like reviews, they decay gradually so recent support matters most and stale popularity does not become permanent rank ownership.
- Vouches are time-weighted over 180 days
- They cannot independently carry a listing to the top
- They work alongside uptime and player activity
Votes still count. Vote spam does not.
Votes have a maximum of 10 points. Only current TopMCServer votes count. Imported IPS5 vote history is preserved as history, but is not treated as new activity. Each vote has the most value when fresh and smoothly fades over 14 days.
What this changes
A server with a vote push can improve its standing, but it cannot leapfrog a more reliable, active, trusted server solely by collecting votes. Votes help discovery. They do not buy ownership of the rankings.
Listing quality matters, but only a little
TrueRank awards up to five points for helping players actually use a listing. A current server address, a substantive description, a website, and a Discord link are simple signals that the listing is maintained and useful.
Players need a real server address.
At least 160 characters of meaningful information.
A direct path to more server information.
A visible community contact point.
How we keep TrueRank fair
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Scores are explainableTMS stores each listing’s score breakdown. Staff can verify why a rank changed instead of guessing at an opaque algorithm.
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Scores are recalculated regularlyTrueRank v3.1 recalculates every 15 minutes, while score history is retained for movement over time.
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Old activity fades naturallyVotes, reviews, and vouches use time decay. A server cannot live forever on a one-time popularity burst.
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Paid placement stays separateFeatured placement is a labeled discovery placement. It does not buy votes, alter the formula, or add hidden TrueRank points.
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Smaller servers still have a pathPlayer activity is logarithmically scaled and capped, while reliability plus current community trust remain major ranking signals.