Well, Minecraft is going through really hard times, after being bought my M$, some guy issued an DMCA complaint over the server modding code, thus affecting all server modding community, as so, there are no plugins and means to mod the server into what we had before, mcmmo, no cheat, etc, etc... it's impossible.
Today I've put an 1.8.1 server open at mcs.twkgaming.com.
Weird terrain, custom mapped, vanilla, hard, all there to conquer
I'll be there a few times too, when possible, around 13h GMT and at night.
As it has no plugins, and I didn't had the time to deal with the server own access levels, it's whitelisted only for a few who ask for access rights and I decide if yey or ney access, it will be very restricted, for well known players only, 20 slots.
I'm not trying to get this community up atm, as far as maybe other stuff and services, but minecraft for the moment, at least on the public side, it's stalled, and until then, server will run vanilla.
Have fun there, see ya.