How to Control Status Ping and Player Sample Information

Direct answer

Hiding the player sample in the server list is not the same as preventing users from joining. On Java servers, settings such as hide-online-players affect status-ping display, not authentication.

Recommended procedure

Decide whether the goal is to hide the hover-list sample, the online count or the entire server-list status.
Review the active Java server’s server.properties and any proxy/status-plugin settings for player visibility.
Change only the appropriate setting and restart if required.
Test the status screen from an external Minecraft client while another account is online.

Why this matters

The Minecraft client receives a server-list status response before joining. Server pings, join permissions, whitelist access and actual player presence are different layers.

How to verify the result

Observe both the displayed online count and hover/sample list; test a normal player join separately to ensure access settings remain unchanged.

Version and compatibility notes

Different proxies and MOTD/status plugins may replace the vanilla status response. Do not claim this setting offers privacy against other in-game plugins or admins.

Official references

These sources were checked for the current MSH revision. Version-sensitive details should always be confirmed against the project documentation for the release you run.

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