In addition, perhaps a marker in the marauder's map to indicate that someone has turned off pings or something like that?

I think it'd be very useful with a three-stage toggle; active - inactive - busy/do not disturb/muted, where active and inactive is automatical based on site activity and busy must be manually applied in order to mute the pings. As staff, the option of busy is an important one as we actually work on the site; while we're technically online and active, what we do often requires focus and it's always a bother to be tagged and pinged when you're in the middle of something. To be fair, even regular members who "only" play for fun often put a lot of work and focus into their writings and would be equally bothered by distracting pings and the chat calling for their attention. 

It's a function that will require some thought and consideration in creating, but I'm sure it'd be a most appreciated one!

(I automatically imagine this to be like a traffic light, green, yellow and red, if you need design suggestions :P It's a colour code that almost everyone knows and will understand without need for words that would take up space on the marauder's map or in the toggle itself)

An additional thought could be to change "guidelines" to "guidebook", which would be more accurate... Although I suppose technically each site can do that on their own.

Guide or guidebook seems like a more accurate choice of word, as guidelines are closer to rules in meaning (as far as I know, at least).

So, rename it Rulebook and Guidebook in addition to relocating the links to them?

Another idea would be to split it into categories, like books, food and drink, supplies and other items. It'd make it a lot easier to find things as you'd know where to look rather than scroll through a jumble of items.