I had a much nicer post a few minutes ago, but failed to input my email address and subsequently lost it. Therefore, I am going to vent my self-hatred partially at you, it is no fault of your own, however.
I have no knowledge of the gate. Steering clear.
"the stone house not the wood house.. yawn.. "
--Can anyone guess why you are so often held in contempt?
Perhaps a relative location or further description would aid in locating the thing to which you were referring. I will assume, though lacking any more info, that you are speaking of the castle(as Mr__X calls it) near their newly designed pyramid.
While I dislike neither you, Injate, nor anyone on the server as of yet, I couldn't very honestly care much less what anyone thinks of the water. Unless they discuss it and volunteer to fix it, perhaps we like it that way, since we made it. Maybe it is a respite from the common uniform placid water one encounters everywhere. It could be a symbol of turbulent things to come should one trespass.
Everything at or near spawn is not exactly public. Why should it be? Clearly two varying viewpoints.
I have no contention with your comment regarding the lava bug.
The count of gold, assuming 9 ingots from each block, stands at 702. While that is a lot, it is a ways from 900. From whence did we receive this vast quantity one may ask. It was chosen, by Asniper, as payment for dirt he desired for the construction of his floating continent. The 18 diamonds used in construction came from my personal things, of which 26 remain. The obsidian came from Maelstrom and myself, much of which may have been left over from constructing Isengard. The iron, again, came from both our supply, with the vast majority being from Maelstrom as he has done much more mining than I. My contribution was the 18 blocks I had in my chest at the time. The clay was procured during a 4+ game-day-long "clay-sailing" adventure some distance south of Nick's pyramid in the water surrounding the desert; mostly on the islands for whatever game-reason. Plus the 6 stacks of clay balls Maelstrom obtained doing the same thing some time after I began. I believe it to be relatively little, considering that I think it took less than one 64 stack to accomplish that roof and I have 5-6 64-stacks of clay bricks remaining. I hardly think that justifies "LOTS".
The mines you saw with obsidian in them whilst snooping are...obsidian mines. Perhaps that attests to the non-removal of other resources? Especially since they are quite old, pre-dating the usage of the lava bug.