Not looking to judge, just looking to collate a list of reasons why people AFK, so that they can be addressed potentially and made obsolete.

The lag is silly on this server 50% of the time, and removing reasons to idle is the most obvious place to improve on that. Any time that people are motivated to do that is a game design flaw, in my opinion, and we can and should address the same needs using mods, etc. to make the server smoother.

For example, one clear reason I already know about is waiting for things like cocoa, pumpkins, and cactus to grow. This is very easily addressed by updating realisticbiomes to treat them just like it treats wheat and carrots. I.e. growth is based on a real world clock, not time the chunks are loaded. There are some very minor logistical questions to answer with that, but the laziness of not figuring out those small complications is not a justifiable reason for having 30% more people online than there should be, etc.

Similarly, if there are other reasons for AFKing, I think we should brainstorm about those too.