Status Update - 18 October, 2014
Hello everyone,
Another week has passed, this time around we’d like to give you an overview of what’s been happening across the whole of the project.

Sponge Status
To continue on from last week’s update, the API is still scheduled for a release in November. LexManos has also announced that he is starting to update Forge to 1.8, as soon as this is done, we will be able to work on implementing Sponge. The Sponge team appreciate your patience during this time, rest assured that our developers are hard at work designing and building our API in order to accommodate for the boundless creativity and passion of the Minecraft community.

Forum Changes
As many of you have no doubt noticed, we have changed the default forum page from the “Latest” view to the “Category” view after much community consultation. We have also properly ordered the Categories, on the basis of importance and relevance so that we may provide a cleaner and more elegant landing page.

Rule Changes
We’ve recently made some changes to our rules and guidelines by adding the following statements:

• Don’t advertise in any form on any Sponge system. This includes but is not limited to advertising your favorite server hosting company, the server you play on, some piece of software you use for fun, another game, or whatever. Some exceptions are made in Off-Topic sections and are solely at the discretion of moderation staff.
  

• Do not attempt to make a sale or sell anything on Sponge websites or systems. This includes but is not limited to plugins (mods or any variation of the term), art assets, services, or any work to be provided. If it comes to our attention that a plugin hosted by Sponge is being used as a promotion as a for-sale "lite" version, we reserve the right to remove the plugin listing. What constitutes as a for-sale "lite" version will be decided at the discretion of Sponge Staff.
  

• We aim to comply entirely with the Mojang EULA, to that end any plugins, services, posts and/or links suspected of violating the EULA may be removed at the discretion of the Sponge Staff or at the request of Mojang AB.
  

In short, do not advertise and do not engage in monetary transactions on any Sponge system. However, advertisements may be allowed in a limited form, though only if specifically allowed by Sponge Staff. Paid Plugins/Services are entirely forbidden, whether for the purchase of a plugin or a service cost for that plugin, “Freemium” Plugins/Services (Those with a free base level and paid enhanced level) are also banned from any Sponge-hosted system.
Donations are however still permitted, so long as the donation has no impact on the functionality of the Plugin or Service, suspected “Crippleware” will be removed. Furthermore, we will be engaging in complete compliance with the EULA, anything we suspect of violating the EULA can be removed by the Sponge Staff.
As always, we reserve the right to change our rules and guidelines at any point at our discretion. You can read the Rules & Guidelines HERE.

Donations
Now, we've been getting a lot of offers of donations from many people throughout the community, however we don't feel ready to accept them before we actually have something available for you to use. Rather, the best way to help us out is to donate to LexManos of Forge, it is through his efforts that we will have a platform to build on. You can donate to him at his Patreon6, remember that helping him out is helping us out.
-Just don’t ping him if you in any way value your life.