I decided to make a new post here to give a bit more background and to sum up what was said in the previous post & its replies:

The issue: Griefers

• This is not an issue about building in the darklands. If you keep an ender chest somewhere or a chest of sand that you mined, and read for transport out of the darklands, someone can steal it. You do not need a cathedral in the DL to be griefed.
• This is not even an issue so much about the stolen stuff. We can accept that stuff gets lost sometime, as it happens with bugs etc. It’s a bout the people who steal or damage. We do not want them here.
• This is also not an issue about rank, or what makes people an Architect. It’s about the fact that people who stick around are almost 100% decent people. That does NOT mean that all new people are not decent. But you will only have new settlers being caught griefing in 99% of the cases. If we can prevent the new people from dropping right onto a treasure of stuff to steal when they go through their first portal, there will be less temptation and thus less griefing. The people who want to steal will leave the server because there is nothing they can take. If there was a different system such as online time to give people a higher rank than just days since registration, I would have done so.

The Solutions:

• Alternative portal: This would mean that we make another portal for settlers to the darklands. All it would cause is make it a bit more difficult to reach the current DL spawn and whatever is built there. We would have a bit of confusion where which portal would be and why you need to switch portals etc.
• Protected Zone: I would create an area (most likely around currently built houses) where everyone (including Setter+) can build except settlers. Settlers would not be able to open chests etc. We could build a nice fence or treeline to mark the area, and a easy to access railway that brings you to the border. There would be a bit of confusion since I cannot display a message like “You need to be Settler+ or citizen to open this chest” in case someone tries to open one but cannot. For me personally this seems the best solution.
• Do both. Then we do not need the railways since people pop out somewhere else and we are 100% safe that people do not simply walk to 0/0 coordinates and still grief there. That also depends how far the alternative darklands portal is away from the current one.
• Anything else?