As some of you may have already heard, a proposal is currently being ed around that outlines several key changes to the BN/QAT designed with the intent to fix some of the long-standing issues with the system. Formed from a composite collection of many people's concerns and suggestions, this proposal (titled as 'the Upheaval') represents potentially the next step in the BN/QAT system going forward.

You may read the current draft by clicking on this link.

This proposal represents the collective changes that (hopefully) you would all like to see. It is not solely 'me' pushing this - these are all concerns and issues raised by others, perhaps even months ago. Understand that these concerns and suggestions come from your fellow participants in the system - not from me.

Summary of what the proposal covers:

1. Current BN tiering system is dissolved and replaced with a 1-2 month probationary system with provisions for promotion/demotion based on conduct
2. BN receive increased acknowledgement via a forum title and some sort of visual identification (currently a purple name a la MAT). This particular point is temporary and will not carry over into the 'moddingv2' version of the Beatmap Nominators.
3. Long, consistently serving BN will receive a special title which they may choose to wear upon their retirement from the team. This will apply retroactively to all qualifying, currently-retired BN.
4. The most active BN will be determined every 6 months via a composite consideration of successfully qualified beatmaps and overall modding activity, and will receive the Elite Nominator title plus suitable accolades for their efforts.
5. Divisions will receive more attention and reworking by of the QAT to better reflect active participation in them by those who are interested.
6. QAT will be freed from istrative obligation (regarding busywork and the like) and will be encouraged to check qualified maps of their own volition again. A new reporting system will be linked to the internal QAT channels, allowing them to fill their primary obligation as of the team - to respond to complaints about improperly qualified maps.
7. QAT will be encouraged to consider minimalist revisions of the current Ranking Criteria to promote higher quality beatmaps whilst also removing unnecessary roadblocks to alternate mapping styles entering Ranked
8. The de-facto leadership of the QAT will be determined by applicants expressing their interest, and placing themselves before a combined vote of the BN and QAT. The top two applicants will be considered as the QAT leadership, and will work closely with a member of the osu! team (myself, currently) to see the day-to-day affairs of running the team kept in order, and also to tackle any issues that may arise.

Understand that this is a proposal, and nothing is currently certain in it. It is not a catch-all, fix-everything-at-once measure. Things will require revision and reconsideration should this proposal become reality. The intent is clearly to apply these changes with any extra changes that people may point out during the revision process, and hopefully make things a little better for everyone involved in the system.

Thus, your thoughts on the matter are important.

If you have any thoughts, concerns or opinions on anything listed in the proposal, please post them below in a single-post formatted however you wish. Refrain from commenting on other's opinions or the like for the time being - we'll have an open-ended discussion thread on that at a later date.

Okay, firstly, I'll be summarizing my thoughts (and, hopefully, by extension, the community's feelings).

Let's start with a misconception.

GitHub wrote: 5e3g6a

One T2 BN noted that in the process of forcing less experienced BN to only be able to bubble maps coupled with the more experienced T2 BN being pressured to solely qualify, the maps that were receiving the most attention were considerably safer, more uniform maps that may prioritize criteria 'safety' over creative exposition and general enjoyment.

This issue has been going on for years, and is more related to the qualification system as a whole rather than the most recent change, although ittedly the tiering change certainly exacerbated it.

In general, the protests regarding map quality have had nothing to do with map quality in reality, but instead in a perceived (and very real) lack of Variety and Expression. Players and mappers alike will colloquially refer to this as "maps suck nowadays" but they're not talking about the actual quality of the structure or the patterns here.

That said, I'm largely in agreement with much of what's been said in the overview.

Ephemeral, you have really hit the nail on the head when you said that the current ranking system contains people who have lost their fire. Props to you for being the first staff member to publicly recognize that the issues we face are motivational and directional rather than structural.

A more flexible system that allows for more active interplay amongst its will absolutely be more chaotic and less organized, but you are absolutely right that the one thing the previous MAT/BAT system never lacked was ion. People still care as much as they used to, but they lack the capability of fully expressing themselves due to the nebulous nature of changes - there's no sense of agency at all, anymore.

I can get into the nitty-gritty of each individual idea proposed here, but that would sort of defeat the purpose and in general these things can be discussed much more thoroughly over time than in one big wall of text. I'll avoid doing that.


And... that's it. I can't really say much more here. I'm actually in full agreement with most of this and it's the first time I can in my entire history of this game where I say that I think this can really pan out and be an effective step forward. I was really hesitant about your general naunce of being "for democracy and community-driven systems", believing you to have become naive or overestimating the general capabilities of random people, but this is a much more balanced skeleton of a plan than I've ever seen in this game's history.


I'm happy about that.

Woah, this sounds cool

posting in an epic bread

pretty cool stuff, i like it

Oh my god this is awesome ! really good idea

I really like this idea

TLDR: returning to newBAT system of 2014

hej

xxdeathx wrote: 5i2247

TLDR: returning to newBAT system of 2014

a la MAT,h

sounds lovely

bless

"The most active BN will be determined every 6 months via a composite consideration of successfully qualified beatmaps and overall modding activity, and will receive the Elite Nominator title plus suitable accolades for their efforts."

I feel like this should happen more often than twice a year. 2-3 months sounds more appropriate.

Ephemeral wrote: 4k296t

[*] QAT will be encouraged to consider minimalist revisions of the current Ranking Criteria to promote higher quality beatmaps whilst also removing unnecessary roadblocks to alternate mapping styles entering Ranked

this is p neato

yes please thank you very much

yes we need good mania ranked maps kthx

I don't have a real presence in the mapping community but these changes sound good to me :-)

Weber wrote: 3b4q6h

"The most active BN will be determined every 6 months via a composite consideration of successfully qualified beatmaps and overall modding activity, and will receive the Elite Nominator title plus suitable accolades for their efforts."

I feel like this should happen more often than twice a year. 2-3 months sounds more appropriate.

Indeed, that would be better I think, and that would encourage BN's to make a "better" work regularly (if I may say so)

Shiirn wrote: 234850

GitHub wrote: 5e3g6a

One T2 BN noted that in the process of forcing less experienced BN to only be able to bubble maps coupled with the more experienced T2 BN being pressured to solely qualify, the maps that were receiving the most attention were considerably safer, more uniform maps that may prioritize criteria 'safety' over creative exposition and general enjoyment.

This issue has been going on for years, and is more related to the qualification system as a whole rather than the most recent change, although ittedly the tiering change certainly exacerbated it.

In general, the protests regarding map quality have had nothing to do with map quality in reality, but instead in a perceived (and very real) lack of Variety and Expression. Players and mappers alike will colloquially refer to this as "maps suck nowadays" but they're not talking about the actual quality of the structure or the patterns here.

Want to speak out what i think because mapping vairety matters a lot to me

I think the only people in the end who decide the amount of innovation and creativity that go into the ranking system are the mappers themselves. A map that uses perfectly meta aesthetics, comfortable flow, very safe style, etc, is obviously much easier to rank than something that pushes rc boundaries. So if mappers feel more comfortable mapping in that way from experience then they'll do so, and push those for rank. The thing that will most stop them from pushing experimental types of maps is the boundaries that the ranking system provides- so it does have to do partly with the qualification system, but there can't ever be a perfect system (even though we can come as close as we can). There has to be some sort of quality assurance for ranked maps in the first place.

Removal of tiers will open up a lot of availability for bn mods and therefore qualifications, making it easier to push maps in general. So this availability will probably (and hopefully) give them more confidence to push something more-or- less against the mapping meta

Weber wrote: 3b4q6h

"The most active BN will be determined every 6 months via a composite consideration of successfully qualified beatmaps and overall modding activity, and will receive the Elite Nominator title plus suitable accolades for their efforts."

I feel like this should happen more often than twice a year. 2-3 months sounds more appropriate.

I agree with weber tbh, I do feel it should be slightly shorter. Perhaps 3 or 4 months, 6 feels a bit too long

I don't really care about these rewards title and stuff, but yeah this draft is definitly a better way to handle map nomination by far.

Hoping we will see this soon in action~

It's great to see active changes and reactivity to how previous changes have went. Though I can't help but think lots of these elements seem awfully familiar. Where's our protobubbles at?!

I want to discuss one other point, but I may be entirely misguided. My apologies if that's the case.

I find it fascinating to consider this point here:

QAT will also be strongly encouraged to consider minimalist revisions of the current Ranking Criteria to promote higher quality beatmaps while removing unnecessary roadblocks to having alternate mapping styles enter Ranked.

There's a pretty bent homogeneity in modern mapping, that "alternative" mapping styles can get pretty scrutinized subjectively despite no apparent violations in the Ranking Criteria. These would be interpretations of "intensities", "emphasis", etc. I hope we can see QATs and therein, nominators and, most importantly, the everyday modder in the community to receptively treat a variety of styles openly through this.

I hope that the QAT leadership will be forefront, open-minded, and overall inclusive in this. The more toxicity and friction, the less motivating it'd be to eagerly discover and promote unique maps deserving to be Ranked and recognized.

I do hope that everyone keeps those thoughts in mind when moving forward.

This thing is pretty cool, hope gets in action too owo

I think this sounds pretty damn good coming from the osu! staff :^) (/s) (please don't kill me)

But yeah, i see this pretty much completely as a positive thing for all of the mappers and nominators

The QAT changes would make more sense overall considering that they are supposed to be the finest cream of the modding (and mapping) community. Currently, as it reads on the draft, they aren't really working like that right now. Atleast that's my expression as a person from the std mapping and modding communities. And if people in the QAT desire that aswell i think it would be better overall.

Also i think this plus the suggestion that they would promote higher quality beatmaps (and some other stuff i noticed on the draft such as maps getting classified if they need revision) could be something that would ACTUALLY increase the map quality atleast on some level

Agree with the others ( Werbee and Kisses ) about the idea of rewarding BNs
Just one through the half of a year isn't really so motivational to write many mods and do other important things. Maybe giving rewards every 2-4 months is better, or keep 6 months but give these rewards to more people, like 2 or 3 would be just great imo

Other than that is just great, hope it will be "ranked" soon xd

This sounds very promising.

Though, the reason why QATs stopped disqualifying maps on their own was mainly the will of peppy himself, so I don't see this change reverting unless you can actually convince him.

Also, I don't see the need for BNs to take part in the voting of a QAT leader - Simply because the BNs will never have the full insight on what each QAT is doing and how well they are doing it, it's going to be more of a popularity contest than anything.

i kinda agree that rewarding BN activity should be done every 2-3 months, as 6 months seems such a long time
but overall looking pretty cool

I agree with Desperate, in the same way that many mappers may not know what BNs are doing internally, BNs do not know what QAT are doing. So it really would just be a popularity contest, instead of a meritocratic one.

Agree with Desperate-kun, Let keep it handovered to the experienced/authorized.

This sounds awesome, I feel like these changes, especially the removal of the tiered bns, well help a lot with the mapping scene and people's willingness to expand beyond the generic and safe style. Also it'll encourage BNs to be more active with the acknowledgement / rewards.

However I do also agree with Desperate, in which since the BNs don't have a ton of insight on what the QATs are doing, the choosing for a leader of the QATs will essentially be a popularity contest.

If the QAT became more transparent then it would be good to at least have BN insight. This is a fault of the QAT's not being transparent enough imo, not a fault of us "not being qualified to vote for QAT's".

Mappers may not know what BN's are doing internally, but there are methods to finding out, and what BN's are doing are not nearly as secretive as what QAT's are doing in any regard. As well, we can also comment on the actions of QAT's based on what we know, or what they have been doing on the public-facing front.

For example, we know pishifat does a lot of videos and gives a lot of insight into mapping theory. We also know he qualifies a bunch of maps, sometimes with minimal modding if any (and I'm sure there are people who've come to question these "yolo ranks"), we also know he participates in or had participated in BN test creation and that he is involved in helping with the Ranking Criteria changes.

I've always questioned why QAT's needed to be so secretive in the first place. Why weren't BN test answers released? People can learn from them, especially the Part A answers (considering they are not private information as anyone who participated in the BN Test received the answer sheet).

So no, I disagree with Desp, I think BN's should be able to vote, but I believe they should also be given a better insight into the behind-the-scenes actions of QAT's. We shouldn't be barred from voting just because "we don't know".

An upheaval to me would require that the blatant favoritism amongst BNs is addressed. Quick bubbles are ed around as favors that will be returned in the future in some way or the other. I am not going to name people but public cases of this are well recorded and should be no surprise to anyone. I don't even want to know how bad this truly is when you are an insider that has access to these advantages.

The problem is that nominators are naturally mappers and have a lot of influence in the ranking process. This creates an obvious incentive for favoritism to help each other out with their own maps. When those who are in charge of running the system are actively participating in it as individuals themselves then there are going to be problems.

Connections are too big of a driver in the current ranking process. Those with access to the people in charge are highly advantaged compared to those that do not. When getting hold of a BN is incredibly frustrating for some, while others can simply post a short message in a private discord server to get things rolling quickly I do not consider it a fair system.

GaterRaider wrote: 224k4u

An upheaval to me would require that the blatant favoritism amongst BNs is addressed. Quick bubbles are ed around as favors that will be returned in the future in some way or the other. I am not going to name people but public cases of this are well recorded and should be no surprise to anyone. I don't even want to know how bad this truly is when you are an insider that has access to these advantages.

The problem is that nominators are naturally mappers and have a lot of influence in the ranking process. This creates an obvious incentive for favoritism to help each other out with their own maps. When those who are in charge of running the system are actively participating in it as individuals themselves then there are going to be problems.

Connections are too big of a driver in the current ranking process. Those with access to the people in charge are highly advantaged compared to those that do not. When getting hold of a BN is incredibly frustrating for some, while others can simply post a short message in a private discord server to get things rolling quickly I do not consider it a fair system.

That may be true in the most part, but BNs are experienced mappers. We can't tell apart from what is made from connections and honest actions, I agree that we should also stop this from happening as it seems unfair with the majority of the mapping community. Monetary rewards such as er is enough for incentives.

What this needs to be addressed is to make a rule (if this does so happen and if this will ever so happen) to prevent this from happening. Things such has "icon for icon" should be discouraged as it is unfair already as BNs/QATs already by what we regular have to go through (for example the modding queues). Suspicious activity should be discouraged and even be punished by doing so.

Some BNs may choose to indirectly help a mapper because of favoritism while the mapper he so chooses to help doesn't know it. There should be a lock to prevent a specific BN iconing one mapper's maps. This can't fully stop but at least prevent the idea of speedranking in such a way too.

GaterRaider wrote: 224k4u

An upheaval to me would require that the blatant favoritism amongst BNs is addressed. Quick bubbles are ed around as favors that will be returned in the future in some way or the other. I am not going to name people but public cases of this are well recorded and should be no surprise to anyone. I don't even want to know how bad this truly is when you are an insider that has access to these advantages.

The problem is that nominators are naturally mappers and have a lot of influence in the ranking process. This creates an obvious incentive for favoritism to help each other out with their own maps. When those who are in charge of running the system are actively participating in it as individuals themselves then there are going to be problems.

Connections are too big of a driver in the current ranking process. Those with access to the people in charge are highly advantaged compared to those that do not. When getting hold of a BN is incredibly frustrating for some, while others can simply post a short message in a private discord server to get things rolling quickly I do not consider it a fair system.

your right that thats not fair. but theres no way to prevent some people simply having more s or connections with people as long as the system isnt entirely automated. hell in pretty much anything in life those who have the s are usually better off in some capacity.
heres hoping the incentives for more activity amoung bn's in general make it easier for those frustrated people to get with bn's on of them just being more active.

I like this change, and already can see some positive respond from mappers and modders I know. Hope we can get to details soon and try this scheme out. These days I'm not mapping or modding due to graduate school works, but this encourages people like me to think about if we get some time to do some thing to serve our mapping and modding community again.

But what you are suggesting doesn't exactly apply to what we currently have, Monstrata. If we were totally transparent about what we do today then we wouldn't call public voting on who is to lead our team into question based on the public not knowing for 100% of what we do. The transparency thing can be fixed though going forward - just depends on the timing of that vote then - really.

The tier split was a measure that was trialed and labeled as optional from our side so I am not too sad about seeing it go away. A probationary system itself seems all right, but i'm not sure how to detail it - i.e. determining how someone "fucked up" because then we would like need to have bad performance incurr actual punishment and thus would need to measure individual performance in some way which i don't know how to do in a scalable way yet.

I mean the other way suggested is just jinxing people based on vast majority vote within qat in which case i can already hear the accusations of being biased for kicking BN x in my inbox?

The reward/acknowledgement stuff was repeatedly asked for so no qualms there.

One idea for subdivisions working better was not doing this in a top down manner and just throwing people into teams because that's usually how teambuilding irl works - you get thrown somewhere and either get along or you dont. That is BNs choosing which subdivision they wish to be in (which would probably need like a "you can only change subdivisions once every 3 months so you don't troll the living hell out of everyone responsible for the scoring" which I could probably foresee happening).

As we've said multiple times the QAT are not discouraged from bubbling or qualifying maps as of right now. The formal authority for vetting qualified was revoked on Asymmetry so if you want to bring that back we also kind of go back to the community relying on the QAT to check all the maps they dont like

Which i have mixed feelings on personally.

I don't know how the future scope of what QAT does is different from what QAT currently does because almost all of what is listed is things that we do already and we don't actually do much more than that

Something something this rewards system is gonna fuck over non-std bns

maybe have an averaging system? Possibly concerning the total mods per mode, taking the amount done per capita to have a more balanced representation of which are contributing more relative to their mode's activity.

delet hybrid bns

Regardless of the changes that go through or any criticisms of the proposed ones, I'm really glad that the osu!team is taking action to help BNs. Keep it up! 👌

QAT's checking beatmaps again is a step backward though yes. Current dq system is better in that regard.

But what do QAT"s even do at this point now? Perhaps now that we're pushing for more transparency it would be nice to actually get a breakdown of what you guys do? (Preferably more than a 1 sentence summary like on the osu blog xP)

I'd also like to ask (Nifty sniped me) about how exactly non-standard gamemodes will be handled, especially concerning the "Elite Nominator" title. There's a large chance that the other modes will naturally fall behind due to mapper/modder count and activity. Personally, it might be nice to separate standard from osu!catch, osu!mania, and osu!taiko--like how we treat BN applications now. This would create two (possibly) evenly matched groups of people with a "fairer playing ground". Also, with two elite nominators, we avoid the "this mode is easier because it has x BNs". Of course, if this has already been considered, feel free to ignore this comment.

Yehaj this is better boi

Really great idea, I that.

down with tiers

Desperate-kun wrote: 4t6a2l

This sounds very promising.

Though, the reason why QATs stopped disqualifying maps on their own was mainly the will of peppy himself, so I don't see this change reverting unless you can actually convince him.

Also, I don't see the need for BNs to take part in the voting of a QAT leader - Simply because the BNs will never have the full insight on what each QAT is doing and how well they are doing it, it's going to be more of a popularity contest than anything.

Monstrata wrote: 4ov70

If the QAT became more transparent then it would be good to at least have BN insight. This is a fault of the QAT's not being transparent enough imo, not a fault of us "not being qualified to vote for QAT's".

Mappers may not know what BN's are doing internally, but there are methods to finding out, and what BN's are doing are not nearly as secretive as what QAT's are doing in any regard. As well, we can also comment on the actions of QAT's based on what we know, or what they have been doing on the public-facing front.

For example, we know pishifat does a lot of videos and gives a lot of insight into mapping theory. We also know he qualifies a bunch of maps, sometimes with minimal modding if any (and I'm sure there are people who've come to question these "yolo ranks"), we also know he participates in or had participated in BN test creation and that he is involved in helping with the Ranking Criteria changes.

I've always questioned why QAT's needed to be so secretive in the first place. Why weren't BN test answers released? People can learn from them, especially the Part A answers (considering they are not private information as anyone who participated in the BN Test received the answer sheet).

So no, I disagree with Desp, I think BN's should be able to vote, but I believe they should also be given a better insight into the behind-the-scenes actions of QAT's. We shouldn't be barred from voting just because "we don't know".

Kinda agree with both here, as it is I don't think BNs should be weighing in on who a QAT team leader would be, but it's certainly true that there needs to be a lot more transparency or at least clarity on the part of the QAT.

MashaSG wrote: 2c3b26

Agree with the others ( Werbee and Kisses )

MashaSG wrote: 2c3b26

Werbee

Absolute Zero wrote: g2o14

I'd also like to ask (Nifty sniped me) about how exactly non-standard gamemodes will be handled, especially concerning the "Elite Nominator" title. There's a large chance that the other modes will naturally fall behind due to mapper/modder count and activity. Personally, it might be nice to separate standard from osu!catch, osu!mania, and osu!taiko--like how we treat BN applications now. This would create two (possibly) evenly matched groups of people with a "fairer playing ground". Also, with two elite nominators, we avoid the "this mode is easier because it has x BNs". Of course, if this has already been considered, feel free to ignore this comment.

To expand on this idea,

I don't think putting standard in one group and the other modes in another group is a good idea because while they are all less active than standard, they aren't as active as one another, not even close iirc.

My suggestion is to have each mode receive their own elite nominator but at different intervals than standard.

So if Standard is every 6 months, mania could be every 10 months. Taiko every year and CTB ever 14 months as an example. These time scales might seem long and they might be but it's just an example. This is the best way I can think of doing this without having the modes directly compete against one another.

Possible issues:
It requires BNs to be active for a longer period of time in less active modes to receive a title (but the trade off is less competition)
Hybrid BNs get shafted

The most active BN will be determined every 6 months via a composite consideration of successfully qualified beatmaps and overall modding activity, and will receive the Elite Nominator title plus suitable accolades for their efforts.

'Successful qualifications' need to go. There's only so many maps that deserve to be qualified, so when those maps get qualified, what maps are the bns going to look at? They might resort to qualifying unfitting maps. Qualtiy is a subjective term, but Modding activity is more accurate because mods can be analyzed for proper reasoning despite how much of the mod was applied, so I think this should be kept. One form of activity I'd like to add is participation in events. As in, bns who become judges of tournaments receive 'extra credit' for example.

Second, it's about the bn awards. I'm glad the staff have noticed motivation as an issue, but I still question it's effectiveness.

I feel bns & qat should be paid for their activity. Whether it be actual money or osu er, they need some form of consistent payment. A tag is cool, but then what's after that? Having a monthly payment or award would encourage them to stay active. The bns do work that a game developer would make money off of, so I think this is where they lose motivation.

Litharrale wrote: 1j231n

Absolute Zero wrote: g2o14

I'd also like to ask (Nifty sniped me) about how exactly non-standard gamemodes will be handled, especially concerning the "Elite Nominator" title. There's a large chance that the other modes will naturally fall behind due to mapper/modder count and activity. Personally, it might be nice to separate standard from osu!catch, osu!mania, and osu!taiko--like how we treat BN applications now. This would create two (possibly) evenly matched groups of people with a "fairer playing ground". Also, with two elite nominators, we avoid the "this mode is easier because it has x BNs". Of course, if this has already been considered, feel free to ignore this comment.

To expand on this idea,

I don't think putting standard in one group and the other modes in another group is a good idea because while they are all less active than standard, they aren't as active as one another, not even close iirc.

My suggestion is to have each mode receive their own elite nominator but at different intervals than standard.

So if Standard is every 6 months, mania could be every 10 months. Taiko every year and CTB ever 14 months as an example. These time scales might seem long and they might be but it's just an example. This is the best way I can think of doing this without having the modes directly compete against one another.

Possible issues:
It requires BNs to be active for a longer period of time in less active modes to receive a title (but the trade off is less competition)
Hybrid BNs get shafted

this doesn't work
at all
monstrata bubbled 6-7 sets yesterday
the most active ctb bns may icon 6-7 sets per month (usually less)
no matter what time scale is used, different modes can't be compared at any level because of the sheer difference in amount of maps
elite nominator needs to be mode exclusive or any non-std bns will have literally no chance at the title

Desperate-kun wrote: 4t6a2l

Also, I don't see the need for BNs to take part in the voting of a QAT leader - Simply because the BNs will never have the full insight on what each QAT is doing and how well they are doing it, it's going to be more of a popularity contest than anything.

Well, in any social environment, popularity is a strong value, even for good as for evil, I think that before hinder BN vote for QAT leader, let's try it, and if this does not work (as did not work in 2014 with newBATs), then it will be limited to elite nominators or so...

---------

I'm only worry about Beatmap Nominator rewards.


It is really cool and I'm very happy that BNs finally get recognition for their hard work! but...
If the measure to get the "Elite Nominator" title is only how many mods they did, this will be abused. I mean, some maps are more easy to mod (like short songs), so think in a way to avoid an eventual abuse is something that worry me :S

I want to the most helpful and nice BNs to get the Elite Nominator title, but not to the lazy who made the minimum to get a title ^^U

--------

Okorin wrote: 351eu

The tier split was a measure that was trialed and labeled as optional from our side so I am not too sad about seeing it go away. A probationary system itself seems all right, but i'm not sure how to detail it - i.e. determining how someone "fucked up" because then we would like need to have bad performance incurr actual punishment and thus would need to measure individual performance in some way which i don't know how to do in a scalable way yet.

It is a very important question.
Clear rules are important to avoid unnecessary drama!

seems good

Okorin wrote: 351eu

The tier split was a measure that was trialed and labeled as optional from our side so I am not too sad about seeing it go away. A probationary system itself seems all right, but i'm not sure how to detail it - i.e. determining how someone "fucked up" because then we would like need to have bad performance incurr actual punishment and thus would need to measure individual performance in some way which i don't know how to do in a scalable way yet.

Well, you could do it based on whether they get striked in that time (just from a behavior point of view). I think at this point, the idea of tiers changing the quality of ranked should probably be abandoned since it clearly didn't work... so using a probationary period to make sure the new guy doesn't dick around and do dumb shit would make sense before promoting him to a full BN.

Really these changes, just 2 comments i'd like to comment on.

i agree with what weber said about the elite nominator title being handed out more regularly, 6 months is a bit long so i would suggest 4 month intervals maybe. If this is getting handed out seperately per gamemode i would suggest keeping it at 6 months for the modes with less BNs though.

I also feel like the BNG having an influence on choosing the QAT leader would be a good idea, since it would give them a little bit more control and avoid ending up with someone in charge who is disliked by most of the people they are in charge of. I feel like it's only fair to also give the BNs a vote, seeing as the person ending up in charge will ultimately be responsible for not just the QAT, but also many decisions regarding the BNG. I still somewhat agree with desperate-kun though, while this could be fixed by making the QAT more transparent a more immeriate solution would be weighting votes, so that the total weight of all BN votes = the total weight of QAT votes, thus not resulting in the people who know most being outnumbered and outweighted by a larger group with less information on the matter.

this is a good civilization.

Good idea imo~

Chromoxx wrote: 585r2c

weight QAT votes

as far as i know, some amount of weighting will happen if both qats and bns are voting


in response to the actual post, i don't have much to complain about. when surveyed by ephemeral, i mentioned some issues i had, and they're all handled with this proposal. most questions i initially had about the proposal were answered before this was published as well

the only things i'm still not fully on board with (possibly because i need more clarification) are:

A new BN addition round will begin immediately. The new will enter at the probationary level.

considering there's a bn addition round for non-standard modes in progress and starting another one at the same time is impractical, "immediately" isn't gonna happen

The most active BN member every 6 months as determined by a composite consideration of successfully qualified beatmaps and overall modding activity will receive the "Elite Nominator" title

you already know that high activity isn't the best determining factor, so i'm gonna assume this is just a poorly worded way of saying "highest scoring BN according to the formulas being organized by jbh"

this might solve the concerns some people have about non-standard bns being a disadvantage too.

Divisions will be merged together into larger but separate units based on overall activity, with attention paid to common cooperation and friendships existing between divisions at the moment. This one is a bit nebulous and may require further consideration.

i agree with that last sentence. "larger but separate units based on overall activity" has me pretty confused. like, bigger groups means less active participation per person, which isn't great, and does "overall activity" mean organizing people according to how interested they are in bn activity? i don't really know lol. i personally think the size of groups is okay right now, though their could use rearranging in some situations.

i am in of letting nominators group together with people they're familiar with though, and even choosing who their leaders are (to a degree, since equally sized groups are gonna remain i assume). it's a lot easier to get things done with people who are already comfortable talking with each other

also, having a clear objective seems essential for running these divisions, so i'm glad this "each subdivision checks certain qualified maps" idea is being proposed. if it were somehow tied to checking certain bubbled maps as a group, i'd be for that too, since working together on map promotion is kinda the point of these subdivisions. i'm probably in the minority when it comes to that though.

The 'report a map' thread will be closed, and the functionality shifted to a 'report this map' button on the beatmap's web page. These reports will coalesce at certain thresholds within the #qat channel on the osu! internal discord, and all QAT will be expected to review these maps for potential issues as soon as they notice them.

i must have overlooked this whole paragraph when i first read this because i didn't realize how potentially annoying it is. the "report this map" button will need an option to write the reasons why a map is being reported, or the possibility of linking to forum/moddingv2 posts. if it doesn't allow that, it won't be at all useful, since qats will have to check an entire mapset instead of the map's specific issues. if this is just a different way to notify qats of the current types of reports, i'm okay with it

QAT will also be strongly encouraged to consider minimalist revisions of the current Ranking Criteria to promote higher quality beatmaps while removing unnecessary roadblocks to having alternate mapping styles enter Ranked. They will do so under the leadership of a self-appointed leader(s), explained more below.

this is already happening for the standard-specific ranking criteria, which probably needed it the most. i'm not disagreeing with this -- i'm just letting people know


i'd personally give the proposal a greenlight if these minor concerns were handled

Minor concerns are to be discussed - he's penned out a draft addressing concerns that should be hammered out. It's a much more friendly and open way of doing things than vague hints for months then a surprise overhaul that does fuck all.

To be honest, I'm sick and tired of getting blamed for not being transparent enough towards other of the modding community. The Pandora's Box opened, so I'm more than grateful to speak out about this proposal and other relevant topics if needed. I don't see necessary to communicate it personally to Ephemeral.

Let me give my humble opinion about the current proposal. I'll try to sort out the things I agree on and viceversa:

Dissolution of the current BN tiering system

The current BN tiering system will be dissolved, and replaced with a probationary system.

New BN will enter the system at this probationary level. We will call it 'T1' just for the sake of familiarity. All existing BN will be promoted to 'full ' (aka, T2) and will be allowed to both qualify and bubble maps at will.

Probationary will not be permitted to qualify - only to bubble. The probation period will not exceed longer than a 2 month timeframe, with most people ideally out of probation after QAT review after a one month time period.

Full may be reduced to the probationary level at any time by QAT consensus if their conduct is deemed unacceptable, or they repeatedly make large mistakes or oversights.

Probationary that prove problematic for whatever reason will be opened up to a QAT consensus vote for dismissal from the BN. This must with a significant majority (66%+).

A new BN addition round will begin immediately. The new will enter at the probationary level.

This was actually discussed in the last meeting we had. It's a great responsability to the BNG and newcomers should take their time in order to get used to their new function. As a reference when I ed the BAT a few years ago there was a non-written rule that newcomers weren't allowed to icon anything for at least 1 week, so they get used to their new work environment and read up the needed info.

Let me put the cards on the table now. Mao, Nardo and I are currently organising the future BN Applications. Given that making a test for them isn't a thing anymore, it's much easier to plan future cycles more regularly which will probably happen every ~1.5 months alternating all game modes. Taiko/Catch/Mania are already running so the next cycle would be osu!standard only, and so on, making 3-monthly full cycles. I'm all for introducing the trial/probatory period already in this current cycle and end it when the next applications open. That means, it'd last a bit more than a month to see if a newcomer is suitable for the position or not (more or less what was proposed).

I have to disagree with pishifat's statement though, the probation time should be implemented asap with the current non-standard cycle. I don't see the point in waiting for the next applications to get this done.

All and all, I'm totally fine with this topic.

Beatmap Nominator acknowledgement

Full of the Beatmap Nominators (aka: not probationary ) will once again receive a forum title and the purple name they were once known for in the past.

Probationary do not receive this until they become a full member.

This is a temporary change and will not be carried over into the new system. Nominators under the new system (new being the automated system referenced in the past) will receive a different form of visual identification, yet to be determined.

This way, people that find BN via the forums will know that purple equals someone that can help. There will be no need to consult tier lists or anything of the sort.

In addition, long-serving BN (>1.5 years) will qualify for a special title which they may choose to have applied to their when they retire. What this will be is still being considered, but probably something involving community and modding somehow.

The purple color and the title were proposed already like... a year ago or something? I believe it was an almost unanimous consensus but it was turned down by the dev's side back then. Even if the new webpage is under developement, making a tiny change in the old one as this shouldn't be such a fuzz.

I'm also fine with the rest of the statements in here.

Beatmap Nominator rewards

The most active BN member every 6 months as determined by a composite consideration of successfully qualified beatmaps and overall modding activity will receive the "Elite Nominator" title permanently, and 6 months of osu! er, plus 3 months that they may gift to any of their friends.

This will also be featured as a standalone news announcement complete with social media ment.

Other rewards will be considered as time goes on and new systems are announced.

There's currently an active discussion about this topic within the BNs/QATs and opinions are getting gathered. JBH will handle the whereabouts of the modding activity, pondering the factors that might influence on it.

As other people stated in this thread, I'm also kind of sceptical about the impact on the non-standard game modes but I'd rather wait and see how it turns out. Maybe splitting up the standard with the taiko/catch/mania score isn't the only possible solution to this issue, so further discussion would be appreciated.

Apart of that only concern, exceptional BNs should definitely get such reward.

Divisions

Divisions will be merged together into larger but separate units based on overall activity, with attention paid to common cooperation and friendships existing between divisions at the moment.

This one is a bit nebulous and may require further consideration.

Some of the divisions were merged already, but it only occured on catch and mania by now. I'd rather wait up until the new BNs come to see if merging some other divisions would be possible.

A few asked yesterday to be moved into other division because they believe they can work better with X person for whichever reason. I'm not for shuffling all completely but rather take into consideration these individual concerns, as long as they communicate it to the leader of the correspondant subdivision. People claim for transparency and I claim for fluent and honest communication whenever there's a problem. Without knowing exactly what's wrong, it'd be impossible to look for a solution.

I can see this happening in osu!standard, but not in the near future. I'll stay neutral about it, as the merge already happened within my own division and JBH's.

QAT changes

QAT will be no longer barred (or discouraged) from bubbling, qualifying, or vetting qualified maps on their own.

The 'report a map' thread will be closed, and the functionality shifted to a 'report this map' button on the beatmap's web page. These reports will coalesce at certain thresholds within the #qat channel on the osu! internal discord, and all QAT will be expected to review these maps for potential issues as soon as they notice them.

QAT will be encouraged to return to checking qualified maps of their own initiative and interest, and a solution will be made to try to automatically allocated newly qualified maps to certain divisions for checking and approval.

My current idea for this is a Discord bot will notify divisions in their channels when a newly qualified map is assigned to them. I'm open to other ideas.

QAT will also be strongly encouraged to consider minimalist revisions of the current Ranking Criteria to promote higher quality beatmaps while removing unnecessary roadblocks to having alternate mapping styles enter Ranked. They will do so under the leadership of a self-appointed leader(s), explained more below.

Let me be clear about this. QATs were NEVER discouraged or prohibited to actively participate in the ranking process of a beatmap. On the contrary, I'd just quote one of our concepts while ing the QAT: "QATs, as former of the BNG, are still allowed to participate in the ranking process of the beatmaps and therefore it's encouraged that you still mod and qualify beatmaps on your own accord."

Talking about that "report this map" button thingy, that was another thing that got proposed about a year ago if I recall correctly. The short-term solution should've been the "report a map" thread before such tool could've been implemented, yet it failed to be done by the devs until now. It'd be much easier for modders to report a map with such a tool to avoid in some of the cases being blamed by the mapper and in the worst of the cases getting insulted or alienated for it. I believe anonymity could be a double-edge weapon when this get implemented: You'd get the less confident modders to report a map, but also some trolls that want to harm a mapper or click the button just for the lulz. But hey, we'll be there to filter out the not-so-serious reports!

About checking actively qualified maps like in the past, I can see it happening on non-standard modes since the workload is far smaller than in standard. About the previous statement of allocate newly qualified maps to certain divisions, I'd like to propose that the qualified map nominated by certain division shall be checked by the same division (eg if Bonsai qualifies a map, Okorin should be notified in this case). That way we'd kill two birds with the same stone: A fairly high amount of qualified maps (if not all) would be revised, and also the subdivision leaders would have a better overview about what their nominate.

I'm also not sure about what's exactly meant about "alternate mapping styles" getting into Ranked: 2B-like maps? TAG4 maps? Aspire-like maps? How deep should the RC changes to make this happen, taking into that it's almost totally re-reviewed by the ubkrc? How would those beatmaps impact the osu! program itself? If I recall, Catch proposed while ago introducing multiple objects per beat (double notes, overlapping sliders/spinners, etc) but I getting an answer like "it'll break the game" so it got turned down immediately.

In this case, I'd like to get my ideas heard out before their implementation. I'm all for the "report a map" button, redirecting the report directly to the correspondant QAT in order to keep a realistic workload. I'd also like to know how much would this proposal affect the current RC.

QAT rewards

Long-standing of the QAT (>2 years) will receive a profile badge denoting their tenure and marking anything significant they achieved during their time on the team.

They will be afforded a permanent place on the osu! Alumni should they choose to retire. They will also receive osu! er equivalent to the length of their service on the team once they retire.

Some of this is already the case, but I figured I'd state it again just to make people aware.

Another topic that got proposed while ago, but just got applied to that made in a certain period of time an "outstanding contribution" but got turned down to get applied for the "long-standing contributors".

Nothing else to add here, I do agree with it.

Returning agency

Should this proposal in full, the leadership and direction of the QAT will no longer be determined by a nebulous group of people officiated by the "staff".

The leader(s) will be determined by an expression of interest, followed by a combined vote from both the QAT and the Beatmap Nominators. The top scoring aspirants will be considered the de-facto QAT leadership, though they may number no greater than two.

Before clarifying this further, you must all understand that the BN/QAT system is a system in flux. It has been a standalone 'workaround' to the non-availability of an automated system that is supposed to fully regulate BN appointment automatically, with the QAT designed to fill a literal quality assurance role in that regard. It will change significantly from what it currently is at some point in the near future. When that time is exactly, none of us can say.

The scope of the QAT's leadership will be largely limited to day-to-day affairs and ensuring the smooth addition to and running of the Beatmap Nominators. QAT leadership will be expected to engage with both the Beatmap Nominators and the QAT as a whole, and generally be active and engaged of the community of their own right.

The QAT leadership will work closely with a member of the osu! team to help them get things going and to provide consul for any systemic changes they may wish to make.

For the time being, that member will be me (Ephemeral). Understand however, that I will not be assuming direct leadership of the QAT under any circumstances bar an absolute necessity. My time has long since ed, and it is well past time for the newer of the community to begin having their say in the game's future direction.

I'm okay with the idea of getting a leader that can get a direct communication with the higher staff. It's in fact one of my concerns that we could only rely on Loctav/Ephemeral as they work actively with the devs, instead of letting us know beforehand which of the proposals could even get implemented, as most of them would need some coding abilities and/or implementation in the webpage.

I'm also not that happy with the way to choose the leader(s). I can see people agreeing on BN/QAT voting, but my fear is that it ends up being just a pure popularity contest instead of truly choosing someone for their leading abilities. We used to have until then a quasi working environment, even if we're all just volunteers we behave as we are in a job company, and as an in such there is a clear hierarchy High Staff>QATs>BNs and people stick into it. Electing a leader by pure voting would rather killed that purpose and turn the system into a more or less political way. Translocating this proposal into a real example, the leader of the company won't be normally chosen by the that belong to it, but by a CEO or whoever gets responsible for the personnel management. As this cannot be implemented totally in here, voting should occur. If people disagree that the voting should be solely handled by the QAT, I'm okay to get the BNs into it as well with a certain weightening of the votes in favour to the QAT.

Another point that gives me the creeps is the "automated system that is supposed to fully regulate BN appointment automatically". Well... wouldn't that imply that BNs would be treated as just numbers that contribute towards the beatmap ranking? Which factors would be taken into : just quantity of mods, or also the quality of it? At which cost should people get into the BNG if their mods are purely consisting in "move to x:340", "fix blanket", "add D", "move to column 1", "add NC", and also the neverending lines of ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ without some kind of manual/human regulation?. Sure the number of ranked beatmaps would flourish, but constructive from the modders would drop drastically and so would the quality of the future beatmaps. You know, I learnt most of what I know about beatmapping after reading such useful mods from great modders. As a beginner a few years ago I respected and learnt from the old MATs/BATs as I considered them as an example to follow. Having an automated system would mostly disregard that concept for the future generation of mappers/modders, which I believe is an insult or a mere trivilisation of something we achieved to build up.

As said, I don't totally disagree with the voting concept of the future leader(s). It'd just need some regulations imo.
On the other hand, I'm totally against an automated system to regulate new BNs for the already stated reasons.

tl;dr Most of the proposed things were already considered by us since months, yet got turned down to happen or just got ignored. I'm more than happy to see things rolling once again and I hope this proposal gets accepted and not ignored once again. I'd also like to see my concerns taken into consideration before greenlighting it for real.

The automated BN appointment system is a whole other kettle of fish and is something of an inevitability - it is also well beyond the scope of this proposal as far as implementation goes. It has been the modus operandi for the 'moddingv2' concept since its floating several years ago. Doesn't mean that it can't be changed, but this proposal isn't really the place to do it. To be extra clear, it basically isn't even a consideration in these changes. I mentioned it to provide some perspective on where things will eventually go, and nothing more.

Map reporting would come with comments included where applicable. Reports made without comments would be weighted less significantly than ones with clarification. Coalesced reports that are made known to the QAT would be considered to have sufficient weighting by the system (due to either the high quantity of specific categorized reports aka incorrect timing, unsnapped notes, etc or a select quantity of detailed reports) to be enacted upon.

The idea behind the BN having a say in the vote of the QAT leadership is to instill people in the position who have the confidence of both teams. Confidence in leadership is an excellent predictor of a tenure's health in regards to engaging with and taking from the community. While I can understand that there may be some concerns about it devolving to a popularity contest, the equivalent weighting of QAT votes to match the size of the overall BN should provide the means for the QAT to make their preferences known with equal strength to those of the BN, and thus mitigate the effect of popularity on the equation.

A big portion of how people working in a system feel about it is tied to the perceived 'strength' of their leaders, and confidence is a very big factor in that.

The proposal focuses on considering revisions for the RC as a newer focus. This is already the case for some of the QAT. Okorin's already proposed a set of 'thinning' for some commonly used guidelines by either revising them or removing them. I don't foresee too many explicit rules being changed, but then again, all of this would be encomed under the traditional RC changes and the engagement with the community that comes with them. There'd be plenty of opportunity for everyone to have their say in these changes.

Considering by the looks of it, BN's and QAT's of non-standard game-modes have it easier, wouldn't it be more efficient to bring in more standard BN's in this rounds probationary status?

Also, If I were a BN I'd love to have more filtering options for the pending beat maps listings, and more incentive to push maps made by newer players to ranked standards without as much fear of backlash from QAT (within reasonable limits, of course, I'm not suggesting we should incentivise them to bubble maps that are low quality but I'm saying if a map is a good quality it shouldn't have to rot for months in the pending beat maps section just because the mapper is unknown and the sheer volume of maps constantly being ed).

Me personally if I ever feel like random-modding something at this point I ain't got nothing to work on other than SP (which doesn't always speak for map quality) and the reputation of the mapper who made it, and I dislike the fact that mappers with a reputation can breeze through ranked while there's still maps several months or even years old in the pending beat maps page who's only got 2-3 views by BN's. I feel like more filtering options for beat maps in the pending beat maps listing would help find maps worthwhile a watch both for community such as myself and BN's who's actual "job" it is to promote content suitable for ranked. The additional incentive to find and push high-quality maps made by aspiring mappers should also make the ranking process more enjoyable for aspiring mappers because currently, it feels like an uphill battle for respect in every way imaginable.

I hope the probatory period will include mod/icon checks.
The reason why I was all for tier system was to avoid people yolo iconing or just in general poor modding ing through the system if the person gets lazy. I believe this should happen towards everyone in the BNG, not only new additions (just less frequently I guess).
If QATs will give about these mods, overtime the situation should improve. Teaching people is what the system needed thus far but never happened (so we were technically supposed to learn on our own if something didn't work right for them, but it did for us BNs).

Aside from that, I really don't have much to add to all the stuff being said above me. Hope this goes well and better than the tier system.

If I may contribute something, I'd say that whatever the formulas to decide score will be they shouldn't include just raw amount of mods/icons: we know we are volunteering for this "job" and having the pressure of modding a lot in order to even be part of the competition doesn't sound right.
Instead of adding score increase/decrease upon qualifying or getting a qualified map dq'd I would rather have a "praise" based system, where either the mapper or the other BNs give points to each other upon good behaviour/modding skill (maybe let the QAT do the praises too???). This way I believe that even working a lot but superficially won't give you a head-start on those BNs who might have stuff irl to deal with and can't afford the same amount of commitment.
Commitment is still commitment tho, and can't be ignored, that's why if the BN receives a lot of praises he should still be winning the competition.
This would also encourage less active ones to take part in the competition since they won't be demoralized by the abyssal gap the previous scoring system created (heck, I people getting 50+ mod/icons per month. How would I even want to contribute myself when you see such big numbers I might never be able to match? What if I spend more time trying to make the mapper happier about his map and not just qualifying it?). Again, if the gap is created based on really good contribution I don't really mind, but I find that harder to happen, hence why more encouraging to contribute myself, even if on a smaller scale whenever I don't have as much time on hand.
Some score detraction should obviously be there tho, like not respecting the Code of Conduct or doing a sloppy work.
Ideally, you could make each division check the others and ensure they do a good job: if they do, they should raise praises for those BNs, if not they should report it (with eventual score detracted to the BNs in question), but this is just a vague idea. Better ways to handle this may come up (maybe upvotes for modding v2?)

Anyway, I hope I explained it well enough.
We'll see how this "new" proposed system evolves

Bubblun wrote: 583t3z

The most active BN will be determined every 6 months via a composite consideration of successfully qualified beatmaps and overall modding activity, and will receive the Elite Nominator title plus suitable accolades for their efforts.

'Successful qualifications' need to go. There's only so many maps that deserve to be qualified, so when those maps get qualified, what maps are the bns going to look at? They might resort to qualifying unfitting maps. Qualtiy is a subjective term, but Modding activity is more accurate because mods can be analyzed for proper reasoning despite how much of the mod was applied, so I think this should be kept. One form of activity I'd like to add is participation in events. As in, bns who become judges of tournaments receive 'extra credit' for example.

Second, it's about the bn awards. I'm glad the staff have noticed motivation as an issue, but I still question it's effectiveness.

I feel bns & qat should be paid for their activity. Whether it be actual money or osu er, they need some form of consistent payment. A tag is cool, but then what's after that? Having a monthly payment or award would encourage them to stay active. The bns do work that a game developer would make money off of, so I think this is where they lose motivation.

its

Naotoshi wrote: 4j3i37

I think at this point, the idea of tiers changing the quality of ranked should probably be abandoned since it clearly didn't work...

Please don't assume that everyone thinks the way you (and certain other people that speak out in public) do. The tier change has improved the quality of ranking in a sense that there are less maps qualified that were considered "very bad" by the community - The border isn't very clear, but if you look at the reports lately you'll notice 99% of them are about more minor things than we had before the tier split.

To remain the quality standard we have, or even improve it, while implementing the proposed system, the QATs will need to make sure to find a method of selecting those BNs that isn't just "anyone who didn't get striked", otherwise this is a huge step backwards. The actual maps those people qualified need to be taken into .

I can agree with a large part of this proposal, but there are a couple of things I'd still like to say.

In addition, long-serving BN (>1.5 years) will qualify for a special title which they may choose to have applied to their when they retire. What this will be is still being considered, but probably something involving community and modding somehow.

While I agree that awarding long-serving of BN (or QAT) is a good thing that gives these people something permanent once they retire but it doesn't really help them in any way. Of course, if I retired, I'd be much happier to have a permanent title than nothing, but these people could also be given an opportunity to return to the BN without as many restrictions as other people. e.g. Taking a half year or even a year break will not make you forget all the modding/nomination process, so you could easily enter the probationary BN. (And for these people, the 2 month period could be shortened) I'm not saying that every BN that has been in BN for 1.5 should be able to leave and enter BN as they'd like to, but returning after a break shouldn't be such a big deal if they were reliable in past.

Divisions will be merged together into larger but separate units based on overall activity, with attention paid to common cooperation and friendships existing between divisions at the moment.

I'm a little bit afraid of this one. I don't know how much larger units it should be, so maybe it's not that bad, but I've seen more communication in the small subdivision than I've seen for my entire BN hip. You get to know to people in smaller groups much easier and you are more likely to actually work together. I personally consider a small group to be a very good option as with larger groups, a serious communication is rarely established.

Apart from these two things, I almost entirely agree with the draft (and if I don't, it's a minor difference that I can deal with).

Good luck with this, I hope this will become a success.

Deif wrote: 6h6j6d

I have to disagree with pishifat's statement though, the probation time should be implemented asap with the current non-standard cycle. I don't see the point in waiting for the next applications to get this done.

oh, i was under the impression that the probation period was only going to apply to the mode with tiering currently. applying to everything does make a lot more sense though, so i'm all for that

Let's the party shall we

Tier System and Subdivisions

As far as I'm aware anything proposed currently applies to all modes unless explicit stated otherwise. I agree that the proposed probation system offers a reasonable compromise between "improving quality" as was originally envisaged by the tier system, and improving output, which has dropped slightly as a result of the more convoluted pathway to ranking. Also BNs now have a clear way to progress and don't feel demotivated to heck by the lack of it. As leader of a non-osu!standard subdivision, I can't say I really lived the tier system unfortunately, so my thoughts on the matter are limited to: "my team and I are equals and we get along well and discuss stuff I enjoy it." I really hope the subdivisions idea can be retained, as the opportunities for discussion and teamworking it has created has certainly improved (in my opinion) the recent quality and quantity of ranked catch maps, and long may that continue.


BN Ranking and Rewards

As some others have mentioned before this post, I sent out a survey to all BNs and QATs yesterday asking their thoughts on what aspects and factors should be considered when devising some kind of inclusive ranking system that is fair to everyone and truly reflects the best of the best Nominators (or even if they want to see a ranking system at all). I agree with comments that quantity alone is a wholly unsustainable metric for performance if we want to maintain or even improve the quality of ranked mapping, so I hope that this will give us the insight we desperately need. Naturally, I want the results of this to be made available for all to see once available. Regarding the Elite Nominator title being inaccessible to smaller game modes, I can understand the calls for more regular awarding to more people, but this unfortunately devalues the whole point of the reward significantly. "If everyone is Elite, nobody is Elite." An option thrown around was the idea of multiple rewards in tandem with the Elite Nominator title such as er, merch, etc. to still reward consistently high performers without throwing out tens of Elite titles, which I can see as a reasonable compromise.


QAT Transparency

Whilst the QAT blog does offer some transparency, our point of view was that proffering all these proposed changes and then having to potentially renege on them later would do more harm than good. I've had to put on hold or scrap entirely more than one article because things were simply changing too fast that by the time I was ready to push them they were hardly relevant anymore. Maybe that wouldn't have been the end result, but in any case the cards are on the table with these proposals so I'm happy to make the most of the situation. If people want more transparency we could maybe see about opening up QAT meetings to public observation, similar to the way dev meetings work.


QAT Leadership and Direction

I'm interested to see how the new QAT leadership idea pans out and although I'm acutely aware of the "popularity contest" critique, I see no reason not to allow the BNG a say in the matter, since they will be significantly affected by whatever we decide after all. This will hopefully come naturally as a result of increased communication and understanding - as a team we are a curious mix of some wanting to take the lead and others wanting to be led, so as with the BNG, some communication, understanding and of course, empathy will be required. I hope that in any case, we can have clearer communication with both the BNs and mapping community on one side, as well as the developers on the other. Far too often it felt like we received no or sense of direction from those above us, which I think is probably the main reason why we've been so hesitant in putting out updates and proposals like this in the past.


tl;dr my current points of interest are:

1. Reach consensus on BN ranking system since a quantity-based solution is not sustainable
2. Ensure parity or alternative solutions for non-standard modes regarding BN rewards
3. Enable better communication between QAT (and by extension BNG) and developers

Assuming some assurances can be provided regarding these topics, I'd give this the all clear.

Wafu wrote: d5i1

I'm a little bit afraid of this one. I don't know how much larger units it should be, so maybe it's not that bad, but I've seen more communication in the small subdivision than I've seen for my entire BN hip. You get to know to people in smaller groups much easier and you are more likely to actually work together. I personally consider a small group to be a very good option as with larger groups, a serious communication is rarely established.

They published this like one week ago: https://osu-ppy-sh.jeuxcrack.net/community/forums/topics/589351

Ephemeral wrote: 4k296t

1. QAT will be freed from istrative obligation (regarding busywork and the like) and will be encouraged to check qualified maps of their own volition again. A new reporting system will be linked to the internal QAT channels, allowing them to fill their primary obligation as of the team - to respond to complaints about improperly qualified maps.
2. QAT will be encouraged to consider minimalist revisions of the current Ranking Criteria to promote higher quality beatmaps whilst also removing unnecessary roadblocks to alternate mapping styles entering Ranked
3. The de-facto leadership of the QAT will be determined by applicants expressing their interest, and placing themselves before a combined vote of the BN and QAT. The top two applicants will be considered as the QAT leadership, and will work closely with a member of the osu! team (myself, currently) to see the day-to-day affairs of running the team kept in order, and also to tackle any issues that may arise.

Sadly, from the past till present day, there is obvious inner circlejerk group within BN/QAT which just push maps made by certain mappers without even taking quality into consideration, not mention players community voice and negative . I highly doubt this change will ever take a place to remove this behavior, it sounds more like "calming words for enraged community which complain about lately terrible quality of maps and inflating pp map meta".

One thing what I could suggest is take a close eye who rank maps, which maps and what is player community about them to recognize which once makes "ranking process and criteria" a living joke. Maybe reprimand then to stop and put some effort to push increased quality over quantity or at the end remove them completely from team and replace with experienced mappers willing to help.

Map fitting ranking criteria is one thing and should be executed but common sense should also be applied when "something is wrong" in term of community (which in my personal opinion should be observed since this game is fully community driven), making recheck on maps with bad isn't bad thing and could end up with increasing overall quality, shifting meta and consolidation of community which at current state is very visibly split into 2 fronts: players who only want performance points and accept current state of mapping and players who prefer "put more effort into making a map which will present both - play ability in term of ranking criteria and quality in term of overall output (general players attitude towards map and performance points)". I really believe both of this groups can be pleased at same moment, it is just matter of QAT/BN being 3rd party persona and not a "friend of [xyz]" when it comes to ranking.

Cheers

xxdeathx wrote: 5i2247

I still question it's effectiveness.

its

oops

Lemme this party too.

Deif wrote: 6h6j6d

To be honest, I'm sick and tired of getting blamed for not being transparent enough towards other of the modding community.

Couldn't agree more. So yeah, I'll give my opinion to the proposal too:

Dissolution of the current BN tiering system

The current BN tiering system will be dissolved, and replaced with a probationary system.

New BN will enter the system at this probationary level. We will call it 'T1' just for the sake of familiarity. All existing BN will be promoted to 'full ' (aka, T2) and will be allowed to both qualify and bubble maps at will.

Probationary will not be permitted to qualify - only to bubble. The probation period will not exceed longer than a 2 month timeframe, with most people ideally out of probation after QAT review after a one month time period.

Full may be reduced to the probationary level at any time by QAT consensus if their conduct is deemed unacceptable, or they repeatedly make large mistakes or oversights.

Probationary that prove problematic for whatever reason will be opened up to a QAT consensus vote for dismissal from the BN. This must with a significant majority (66%+).

A new BN addition round will begin immediately. The new will enter at the probationary level.

We discussed the probation period thing in the last meeting and I'm all for it. One potential problem I have is the "All existing BN will be promoted to 'full '" thing as I think that we should not just blindly "promote" all of our current BNs. In my opinion, it might be better to look at all current T1s and decide case by case who we can put into the "regular " already and who we'd like to go into the probation period first in order to prove themselves again.
So yeah but all in all, I'm fine with this point.

Beatmap Nominator acknowledgement

Full of the Beatmap Nominators (aka: not probationary ) will once again receive a forum title and the purple name they were once known for in the past.

Probationary do not receive this until they become a full member.

This is a temporary change and will not be carried over into the new system. Nominators under the new system (new being the automated system referenced in the past) will receive a different form of visual identification, yet to be determined.

This way, people that find BN via the forums will know that purple equals someone that can help. There will be no need to consult tier lists or anything of the sort.

In addition, long-serving BN (>1.5 years) will qualify for a special title which they may choose to have applied to their when they retire. What this will be is still being considered, but probably something involving community and modding somehow.

I think proposing this again and again already dates back to 2014, so yeah, I think it's about time that they get it. I don't really see why we'd do it temporarely though, can't we carry it over to the new website like QAT/GMT colours and titles?
Anyways, I don't even think this needs further discussion anymore as it has been discussed countless times already. I'm totally fine with it.

Beatmap Nominator rewards

The most active BN member every 6 months as determined by a composite consideration of successfully qualified beatmaps and overall modding activity will receive the "Elite Nominator" title permanently, and 6 months of osu! er, plus 3 months that they may gift to any of their friends.

This will also be featured as a standalone news announcement complete with social media ment.

Other rewards will be considered as time goes on and new systems are announced.

Not really sure what to think about the Elite Nominator title being handed out for activity only as Elite to me rather means that they are good with what they are doing rather than spamming mods like a machine. Otherwise, I'm fine with the concept.

Divisions

Divisions will be merged together into larger but separate units based on overall activity, with attention paid to common cooperation and friendships existing between divisions at the moment.

This one is a bit nebulous and may require further consideration.

We are already discussing how we could make the divisions function better. I don't really think merging them is that reasonable though if we'd actually for example make them optional, i.e. making BNs who want to be loners work alone and let BNs who want to work together form a division under a voluntary QAT lead. But yeah, I agree with reworking the division system in general.

QAT changes

QAT will be no longer barred (or discouraged) from bubbling, qualifying, or vetting qualified maps on their own.

The 'report a map' thread will be closed, and the functionality shifted to a 'report this map' button on the beatmap's web page. These reports will coalesce at certain thresholds within the #qat channel on the osu! internal discord, and all QAT will be expected to review these maps for potential issues as soon as they notice them.

QAT will be encouraged to return to checking qualified maps of their own initiative and interest, and a solution will be made to try to automatically allocated newly qualified maps to certain divisions for checking and approval.

My current idea for this is a Discord bot will notify divisions in their channels when a newly qualified map is assigned to them. I'm open to other ideas.

QAT will also be strongly encouraged to consider minimalist revisions of the current Ranking Criteria to promote higher quality beatmaps while removing unnecessary roadblocks to having alternate mapping styles enter Ranked. They will do so under the leadership of a self-appointed leader(s), explained more below.

I mean we were never discouraged from bubbling or qualifying but yeah, I don't think it's bad to allow QATs to disqualify on their own again (in case we are allowed to).
I'm all for adding a "report a map" button to the map listing or whatever. That would actually make reporting much more accessible (I have seen people not even knowing that the thread existed). Also:

Deif wrote: 6h6j6d

I'd like to propose that the qualified map nominated by certain division shall be checked by the same division (eg if Bonsai qualifies a map, Okorin should be notified in this case). That way we'd kill two birds with the same stone: A fairly high amount of qualified maps (if not all) would be revised, and also the subdivision leaders would have a better overview about what their nominate.

I think this is a really good idea and some divisions like oko's and mine partially already do this with highlighting the division once they icon or in my division we recently put the bot into our channel to show eachother what the division are doing.

Talking about "alternate mapping styles", if it's really about 2B or anything, I think it really depends on what state loved is right now (I haven't followed current developments there). But yeah, not really sure what is meant by alternate mapping styles.
Mostly fine with this.

QAT rewards

Long-standing of the QAT (>2 years) will receive a profile badge denoting their tenure and marking anything significant they achieved during their time on the team.

They will be afforded a permanent place on the osu! Alumni should they choose to retire. They will also receive osu! er equivalent to the length of their service on the team once they retire.

Some of this is already the case, but I figured I'd state it again just to make people aware.

Nothing to say here, totally fine.

Returning agency

Should this proposal in full, the leadership and direction of the QAT will no longer be determined by a nebulous group of people officiated by the "staff".

The leader(s) will be determined by an expression of interest, followed by a combined vote from both the QAT and the Beatmap Nominators. The top scoring aspirants will be considered the de-facto QAT leadership, though they may number no greater than two.

Before clarifying this further, you must all understand that the BN/QAT system is a system in flux. It has been a standalone 'workaround' to the non-availability of an automated system that is supposed to fully regulate BN appointment automatically, with the QAT designed to fill a literal quality assurance role in that regard. It will change significantly from what it currently is at some point in the near future. When that time is exactly, none of us can say.

The scope of the QAT's leadership will be largely limited to day-to-day affairs and ensuring the smooth addition to and running of the Beatmap Nominators. QAT leadership will be expected to engage with both the Beatmap Nominators and the QAT as a whole, and generally be active and engaged of the community of their own right.

The QAT leadership will work closely with a member of the osu! team to help them get things going and to provide consul for any systemic changes they may wish to make.

For the time being, that member will be me (Ephemeral). Understand however, that I will not be assuming direct leadership of the QAT under any circumstances bar an absolute necessity. My time has long since ed, and it is well past time for the newer of the community to begin having their say in the game's future direction.

I don't really see a problem here with having QAT leaders themselves but I voiced these concerns before and I'm still holding on to them: I think that if we have BNs vote, it will end up as a popularity contest and that will result most likely in a non-functioning leadership.
So yeah, I'm against this point for now, not because of the idea of a leadership but because of the way these leaders are elected.

tl;dr I'm fine with most of the points mentioned in the proposal except for two things:
1) I disagree with instantly promoting all current T1 BNs to "full " as I think it should be case by case who goes there and who should prove himself again in the probation period.
2) The way QAT leaders would be elected according to the draft makes me fear that it ends up being a populatity contest and thus end up in a disfunctional leadership.

is there a TL;DR of this TL;DR?

Kondou-Shinichi wrote: 492i9

is there a TL;DR of this TL;DR?

tl;dr: is aight, some problems

jeez, I struggle to understand how this stuff works any more. It's weird how this system's been constantly reworked for like a decade and all that's happened is it's gotten progressively more complicated and confusing without, as far as I can tell, getting much more efficient.

Mao wrote: 2t6n4x

We discussed the probation period thing in the last meeting and I'm all for it. One potential problem I have is the "All existing BN will be promoted to 'full '" thing as I think that we should not just blindly "promote" all of our current BNs. In my opinion, it might be better to look at all current T1s and decide case by case who we can put into the "regular " already and who we'd like to go into the probation period first in order to prove themselves again.
So yeah but all in all, I'm fine with this point.

If you're still picking T1's then it's not probationary and you're still trying to keep the tiering system. You should read this change as "tiering system is gone" not "tiering system is now more lenient". I think you misunderstood the point if you are fine with it :\. Only new BN's would be on probation which makes sense since they are new. If you have issues with current BN's why not talk to them instead of trying to keep them from being full ? You're trying to be transparent right? So maybe you can discuss with them instead of judging them without letting them know what qualms you have with their current mode of operation. As well, how do you judge how BN's would have "proven" themselves? By only nominating maps you think are high quality? What if they have a different definition of quality to you? Many of the new BN's who got in through the BN Tests have been following your guys' concepts of "high quality maps" for too long, and it's caused mapping to become stale. Don't expect that to continue. There used to be multiple definitions. Now, mapping quality has become too streamlined.

Mao wrote: 2t6n4x

I don't really see a problem here with having QAT leaders themselves but I voiced these concerns before and I'm still holding on to them: I think that if we have BNs vote, it will end up as a popularity contest and that will result most likely in a non-functioning leadership.
So yeah, I'm against this point for now, not because of the idea of a leadership but because of the way these leaders are elected.

First of all, what's wrong with a popularity contest? QAT's like pishifat and Okorin are popular because they put themselves forward, and are a lot more transparent in what they do. They are also a lot more active at least from what we can see as BN's and mappers. Maybe it's time you guys stopped being all secretive?

Also, I'd rather have a QAT in charge that is popular and can get along with the BN ecosystem than a QAT who might be "better" (very subjective too) at their job, but has very little from the people they want to lead. You only fear the QAT leadership will become dysfunctional because the unpopular QAT's (You, Cryptic, Doyak etc...) won't have a chance compared to pishifat/oko/maybe kwan if shes staying. But do you really think they will create a dysfunctional leadership? What criteria do you think determines a good QAT leader? And why do you fear that other QAT might not meet that criteria?

Mao wrote: 2t6n4x

Deif wrote:
To be honest, I'm sick and tired of getting blamed for not being transparent enough towards other of the modding community.


Couldn't agree more. So yeah, I'll give my opinion to the proposal too:

Desperate-kun wrote: 4t6a2l

Naotoshi wrote: 4j3i37

I think at this point, the idea of tiers changing the quality of ranked should probably be abandoned since it clearly didn't work...

Please don't assume that everyone thinks the way you (and certain other people that speak out in public) do. The tier change has improved the quality of ranking in a sense that there are less maps qualified that were considered "very bad" by the community - The border isn't very clear, but if you look at the reports lately you'll notice 99% of them are about more minor things than we had before the tier split.

To remain the quality standard we have, or even improve it, while implementing the proposed system, the QATs will need to make sure to find a method of selecting those BNs that isn't just "anyone who didn't get striked", otherwise this is a huge step backwards. The actual maps those people qualified need to be taken into .

You shouldn't assume the tier shift has improved mapping quality either. That's a really big assumption... Nao's assumption is at least built on the fact that 99% of people here abandoning the tier shift. (It's not actually 99%, i'm just using your rhetoric ;3)

Desp wrote: 54135

The border isn't very clear, but if you look at the reports lately you'll notice 99% of them are about more minor things than we had before the tier split.

99%? You should check the thread again. Many of the issues that were reported in the thread were also reported even before the tier shift.

Desp wrote: 54135

To remain the quality standard we have, or even improve it, while implementing the proposed system, the QATs will need to make sure to find a method of selecting those BNs that isn't just "anyone who didn't get striked", otherwise this is a huge step backwards. The actual maps those people qualified need to be taken into .

I'm actually really looking forward to this. Mapping has become stale, and you can see that in the community response. Quality is good in most maps, but mapping is too streamlined towards a certain "high quality standard" through correct emphasis, aesthetics, slider designs, flows, etc... The issue really is that right there is "the quality standard" as in only one standard of quality, whereas previously there were others. Look at old maps since you seem to enjoy them. Spacing was a lot more radical, and emphasis wasn't always correct. Some old chinese mappers, AngelHoney/fanzhen/kiddly had a habit of emphasizing red-ticks in jump patterns instead of white ticks which for mappers today is "incorrect emphasis, since white ticks are stronger". But they were (and still are) great maps to play. New Gravity is still one of my favourites, and it employs this red-tick jump idea.


Mapping quality doesn't need to be "improved" honestly. From what I see, if a map is following the mapping meta, and it was sent back 2 years, it would have been very high quality. The issue is that many people now map with this current "meta" making it no longer a rarity. If everything is high quality, only the very high quality maps are now high quality, and everything else is just average.

Ephemeral wrote: 4k296t

Refrain from commenting on other's opinions or the like for the time being - we'll have an open-ended discussion thread on that at a later date.

I would remind this to MrMonstrata, it seems it has been forgotten already

Dropping my two cents in this.

Dissolution of the current BN tiering system

The current BN tiering system will be dissolved, and replaced with a probationary system.

New BN will enter the system at this probationary level. We will call it 'T1' just for the sake of familiarity. All existing BN will be promoted to 'full ' (aka, T2) and will be allowed to both qualify and bubble maps at will.

Probationary will not be permitted to qualify - only to bubble. The probation period will not exceed longer than a 2 month timeframe, with most people ideally out of probation after QAT review after a one month time period.

Full may be reduced to the probationary level at any time by QAT consensus if their conduct is deemed unacceptable, or they repeatedly make large mistakes or oversights.

Probationary that prove problematic for whatever reason will be opened up to a QAT consensus vote for dismissal from the BN. This must with a significant majority (66%+).

A new BN addition round will begin immediately. The new will enter at the probationary level.

I can't say much for this as a non-standard division leader, but I do agree with the proposed probation system. New BNs will need to tinker with their new tools and get accustomed into the rules and guidelines of being a BN to determine whether or not they actually fit as a member of the BNG. I think 1-2 months is a good enough timeframe to decide that.

After reviewing what's proposed in this, I'm fine with it.

Also, there's already a non-standard BN addition round in progress, so I'm not sure how another addition round will work when there's one that's currently underway. Probably in a month or two?

Beatmap Nominator acknowledgement

Full of the Beatmap Nominators (aka: not probationary ) will once again receive a forum title and the purple name they were once known for in the past.

Probationary do not receive this until they become a full member.

This is a temporary change and will not be carried over into the new system. Nominators under the new system (new being the automated system referenced in the past) will receive a different form of visual identification, yet to be determined.

This way, people that find BN via the forums will know that purple equals someone that can help. There will be no need to consult tier lists or anything of the sort.

In addition, long-serving BN (>1.5 years) will qualify for a special title which they may choose to have applied to their when they retire. What this will be is still being considered, but probably something involving community and modding somehow.

I think the name color was proposed before but somehow wasn't really implemented, though I'm not sure why these changes are only temporary and don't carry over to the new system. I don't think it should be that hard to implement name colors in the new website.

I definitely agree to giving rewards to BNs that have stayed for so long and have spent a lot of their time in modding and helping out in the community. They should be given those kinds of rewards if they deserve it.

Beatmap Nominator rewards

The most active BN member every 6 months as determined by a composite consideration of successfully qualified beatmaps and overall modding activity will receive the "Elite Nominator" title permanently, and 6 months of osu! er, plus 3 months that they may gift to any of their friends.

This will also be featured as a standalone news announcement complete with social media ment.

Other rewards will be considered as time goes on and new systems are announced.

This one is currently being discussed among the BNG/QAT. I don't really foresee titles being given out for people that only that threshold, and I believe there should be more variables taken into in determining how BNs will get rewarded for it. (e.g. Did the map end up in the Spotlights? Did the BN qualify a map from a new mapper?)

Gonna throw out a suggestion here. For non-standard game modes, the requirements should be lower since standard provides a lot more content that gets ranked than these modes. One major factor for this would be how much content each game mode produces, so standard requires more activity to be given a reward, then mania, then taiko/catch.

JBH is gathering up ideas on what kinds of rewards should be given, what criteria is needed to be given rewards and how they should be implemented, and discussion for this are currently in place, so we'll see.

Divisions

Divisions will be merged together into larger but separate units based on overall activity, with attention paid to common cooperation and friendships existing between divisions at the moment.

This one is a bit nebulous and may require further consideration.

Already happened with catch and mania, and on my side it's actually much better than it was before. I do like that we're now able to communicate much better and that we're able to work together if some of us needed help with checking a map.

Not sure how this could work on the standard side though, so I won't say anything about this for now.

QAT changes

QAT will be no longer barred (or discouraged) from bubbling, qualifying, or vetting qualified maps on their own.

The 'report a map' thread will be closed, and the functionality shifted to a 'report this map' button on the beatmap's web page. These reports will coalesce at certain thresholds within the #qat channel on the osu! internal discord, and all QAT will be expected to review these maps for potential issues as soon as they notice them.

QAT will be encouraged to return to checking qualified maps of their own initiative and interest, and a solution will be made to try to automatically allocated newly qualified maps to certain divisions for checking and approval.

My current idea for this is a Discord bot will notify divisions in their channels when a newly qualified map is assigned to them. I'm open to other ideas.

QAT will also be strongly encouraged to consider minimalist revisions of the current Ranking Criteria to promote higher quality beatmaps while removing unnecessary roadblocks to having alternate mapping styles enter Ranked. They will do so under the leadership of a self-appointed leader(s), explained more below.

We haven't been discouraged of modding / bubbling / qualifying for a long while now. In fact, we are actually encourage of doing them while we do other thing. This change was made around a year ago or so iirc.

I'm alright with a 'Report a map' button, but I'm wondering on how non-standard game mode maps will be decided. If it's a taiko map, then the taiko divisions should be the ones that are checking it. Reported catch maps should be checked by catch guys, mania maps should be checked by mania guys, etc.

I also believe that how the button works should be more expanded upon. The criteria needed for the report to submit would be a link to the post, a short sentence or two explaining what issues the map currently has, and something that checks to see if the map has already been reported. As an example, someone wants to report a map, and if the map was reported before, it should show that it's reported and that people are currently looking into it so it prevents people from reporting the same map over and over.

We're also undergoing making changes with the Ranking Criteria for all modes, so I can only say that this is currently happening as of now.

QAT rewards

Long-standing of the QAT (>2 years) will receive a profile badge denoting their tenure and marking anything significant they achieved during their time on the team.

They will be afforded a permanent place on the osu! Alumni should they choose to retire. They will also receive osu! er equivalent to the length of their service on the team once they retire.

Some of this is already the case, but I figured I'd state it again just to make people aware.

Overall agree to this. It's nice to feel rewarded for the stuff you do every once in a while, but only if you earned it.

Returning agency

Should this proposal in full, the leadership and direction of the QAT will no longer be determined by a nebulous group of people officiated by the "staff".

The leader(s) will be determined by an expression of interest, followed by a combined vote from both the QAT and the Beatmap Nominators. The top scoring aspirants will be considered the de-facto QAT leadership, though they may number no greater than two.

Before clarifying this further, you must all understand that the BN/QAT system is a system in flux. It has been a standalone 'workaround' to the non-availability of an automated system that is supposed to fully regulate BN appointment automatically, with the QAT designed to fill a literal quality assurance role in that regard. It will change significantly from what it currently is at some point in the near future. When that time is exactly, none of us can say.

The scope of the QAT's leadership will be largely limited to day-to-day affairs and ensuring the smooth addition to and running of the Beatmap Nominators. QAT leadership will be expected to engage with both the Beatmap Nominators and the QAT as a whole, and generally be active and engaged of the community of their own right.

The QAT leadership will work closely with a member of the osu! team to help them get things going and to provide consul for any systemic changes they may wish to make.

For the time being, that member will be me (Ephemeral). Understand however, that I will not be assuming direct leadership of the QAT under any circumstances bar an absolute necessity. My time has long since ed, and it is well past time for the newer of the community to begin having their say in the game's future direction.

I'm not sure how I feel about this one. If anything, QAT Leaders should be evaluated by the staff on how they work / act around others and how they're going to lead the whole BNG/QAT once they're appointed. I'm aware of the 'popularity contest' aspect that's been going around, but this voting system is more of a double-edged sword that can either be very beneficial in leading the whole BNG/QAT or can backfire in a way that things don't change or become worse.

More transparency and communication is always beneficial between the BNG, the QAT and the staff though, and as such should be more encouraged.

---
tl;dr These are pretty great ideas and there are some that I think are not so great, but we'll see how these get discussed and implemented in the system we currently have today. I would very much appreciate that some of the concerns are addressed as well.

BN receive increased acknowledgement via a forum title and some sort of visual identification (currently a purple name a la MAT). This particular point is temporary and will not carry over into the 'moddingv2' version of the Beatmap Nominators.

I always wonder why BNs didn't obtain this kind of identification like old MATs from the beginning of BN/QAT change. This would be 100% correct if it wasn't "temporary" but permanent. Do not forget that if we have the possibility to play every day some new qualified > ranked maps this is given by the BNs hard work that should be recognized by others as well. They deserve to be recognized with some different colour in the forum/game chat like old MATs system.

The most active BN will be determined every 6 months via a composite consideration of successfully qualified beatmaps and overall modding activity, and will receive the Elite Nominator title plus suitable accolades for their efforts.

This is actually cool. This would push BNs to work more and better. I mean better because if this comes to be true they could try to nominate maps that are not 100% ready for ranking just to show their activities for the hunger of power making troubles with the future QATs' work. (Well I am kinda pessimist but we must see all the aspects of each propose).

QAT will be freed from istrative obligation (regarding busywork and the like) and will be encouraged to check qualified maps of their own volition again. A new reporting system will be linked to the internal QAT channels, allowing them to fill their primary obligation as of the team - to respond to complaints about improperly qualified maps.

Finally? I always wonder so far what QATs were related to mapping/modding system since they are doing only moderating actions.

QAT will be encouraged to consider minimalist revisions of the current Ranking Criteria to promote higher quality beatmaps whilst also removing unnecessary roadblocks to alternate mapping styles entering Ranked

This is so cool. But being the BNs experienced modders and mappers as well they could contribuite to this too.

GaterRaider wrote: 224k4u

An upheaval to me would require that the blatant favoritism amongst BNs is addressed. Quick bubbles are ed around as favors that will be returned in the future in some way or the other. I am not going to name people but public cases of this are well recorded and should be no surprise to anyone. I don't even want to know how bad this truly is when you are an insider that has access to these advantages.

The problem is that nominators are naturally mappers and have a lot of influence in the ranking process. This creates an obvious incentive for favoritism to help each other out with their own maps. When those who are in charge of running the system are actively participating in it as individuals themselves then there are going to be problems.

Connections are too big of a driver in the current ranking process. Those with access to the people in charge are highly advantaged compared to those that do not. When getting hold of a BN is incredibly frustrating for some, while others can simply post a short message in a private discord server to get things rolling quickly I do not consider it a fair system.

You are right by a side, but not on the other one. There are a lot of cases you mentioned that are true, but don't forget that BNs are anyways experienced mappers. If they get a map modded and even nominated by his BN friend, you can't do anything with this, but you can't even negate the fact that if they get the nomination this means that the map is ready to be qualified and ranked. You can not make this a BN's fault because when they mod a BN's map he is working for him like he does for everyone else.

Furthermore, I would propose to give much more importance to the Kudosu system too to "find" a good solution to the problem GaterRaider mentioned here. I mean, it's true that mostly of the ranked beatmaps are from experienced and well known mappers. I modded some maps that could be potentially qualified but the mentioned mappers are unknown and mostly are rejected when they ask privately a mod to a BN even if they think from other modders beatmaps are cool and respect the ranking criteria. It's just an idea I write here because I do not know where else I could propose. All modders with more than 200kd can vote a modded beatmap (this would make the queue's more active than asking it privately on the game). I mean, they can vote map on some parameters like the flow, the structure, the innovation and so on only after they received the kudosu (or people will give random kd just to get some points on their maps). There will be created a ranking of these voted maps that can be checked only by BNs and QATs where they can choose which maps to mod that are considered already good for qualifying. This would be nice for unknown mappers (that have for example 0 ranked beatmaps but a good quality of mapping) to be chosen by this "ranking" beatmap system instead to try to have the impossible luck to reach a BN's queue in time. Sorry if this is not related to the post but I wanted to propose this anyways.

Mark ranking process great again

Mashley wrote: 134c1t

jeez, I struggle to understand how this stuff works any more. It's weird how this system's been constantly reworked for like a decade and all that's happened is it's gotten progressively more complicated and confusing without, as far as I can tell, getting much more efficient.

the more things change the more they remain the same imo, just under a different name from before
agreed tho

Anxient wrote: 44g60

this is a good civilization.

All BN and QAT should get osu! er regardless, is the very least that they deserve.

I'd be very surprised if the QAT did not have temporary er anymore. All BATs certainly did, you had er status enabled by virtue of being a BAT.

Transparency

I'm glad this is a thing that's being spoken about. I'm very aware that the transparency between QAT and BN failed in many instances, but I also was not happy about the transparency within the QAT and higher levels. Looking forward to this for sure.

Dissolution of the current BN tiering system

While I still do believe that the reasons for tiering are valid, it didn't work out as intended and brought a bad climate into the community. So generally, I do agree with this propose.

The probationary system makes a lot of sense to me, as the way BNs will be elected is good to determine modding skill, but doesn't make sure that the BNs are able to keep up good attitude in the daily BNG-life. Following the CoC etc. etc. is an important matter, too.

Beatmap Nominator acknowledgement

Good

Beatmap Nominator rewards

Good

Divisions

As stated in this paragraph itself, it does need some further thoughts about how it will be implemented in future, hence why I need to think about it further as well. Teams are a good approach, but as of right now, I feel like some divisions don't work out as intended. While certain people are very active, others are not - and this is were motivation levels can be influenced in a negative way. The whole thing with the rewards should not be division based, as I've stated somewhere else as well. These kind of rewards push competition where there shouldn't be, hence why they shouldn't be a thing in the first place. People are too diverse in of activity and motivation!

QAT changes

Looking forward to the report a beatmap button. Not quite sure how to understand it, but what do you mean with divisions in this case? It's an interesting thought that certain divisions check certain maps, but it would increase the workload of the BNG immensely (if you mean these kind of divisions) - I'm unsure as of how this will be received.

What I hope most is that the QAT-role won't be degraded to istrational stuff any longer.

QAT rewards

Good

Returning agency

Okay

tldr: While I agree with many points stated, some things still need more thoughts. Generally, it's going into an interesting direction though!
Change was needed, and I'm glad to see that stuff is moving right now.

My turn.

Current BN tiering system is dissolved and replaced with a 1-2 month probationary system with provisions for promotion/demotion based on conduct

I for real can't tell much to the Tier System because it was only a osu! thing. But from my view i this idea. And like Irre said above, "Following the CoC etc. etc. is an important matter, too."

Long, consistently serving BN will receive a special title which they may choose to wear upon their retirement from the team. This will apply retroactively to all qualifying, currently-retired BN.
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The most active BN will be determined every 6 months via a composite consideration of successfully qualified beatmaps and overall modding activity, and will receive the Elite Nominator title plus suitable accolades for their efforts.

Absolute this. BN's do a ton of work for osu! and their community, everyone put his free time into this voluntary hobby. Some rewards for their work should have happend already long ago xP
If i right several things like colored names were discussed already in the past but never made it into live because of reasons.

Divisions will receive more attention and reworking by of the QAT to better reflect active participation in them by those who are interested.

Hmm.. with "by those who are interested" you mean you want to make participation into BN division optional? If so i don't know if this is such a good idea. Divisons should get a part of the BNG hip for the sake of the community. Within division the BN's work closer together and have someone to ask if needed without bigger trouble. A highlight is enough. Right now the division thing is running actually pretty cool and smooth (Maybe just some are a bit inactive but then just drop a whip there).

QAT will be freed from istrative obligation (regarding busywork and the like) and will be encouraged to check qualified maps of their own volition again. A new reporting system will be linked to the internal QAT channels, allowing them to fill their primary obligation as of the team - to respond to complaints about improperly qualified maps.

As far i know we were never discouraged to check qualify maps. We always could do that, just not DQ on our own when for playability changes. I as example did check a lot of maps since the reporting system started and did disqualify them if something was against the RC. For massive playability stuff i just did drop a mod if necessary and asked an other QAT to look over it.
The new reporting system sounds cool. I would totally give it a try. It would also be easier to handle DQ then so green light to this point from me.

QAT will be encouraged to consider minimalist revisions of the current Ranking Criteria to promote higher quality beatmaps whilst also removing unnecessary roadblocks to alternate mapping styles entering Ranked

I put a big "Under Construction" sign here. A rework of the ranking criteria for all modes is currently going on.

The de-facto leadership of the QAT will be determined by applicants expressing their interest, and placing themselves before a combined vote of the BN and QAT. The top two applicants will be considered as the QAT leadership, and will work closely with a member of the osu! team (myself, currently) to see the day-to-day affairs of running the team kept in order, and also to tackle any issues that may arise.

QAT leader: Good
Letting BN vote in this: Bad.
The QAT leadership should be decided only within the QAT itself. There are like.. 5 times so many BNs as QATs so this could end very fast in a popularity contest. The one who is most popular gets leader. But overall i'm all in for this. I'm all in for someone to poke me all two days with a stick i shall do something here and there. Having a leader who organize stuff properly will be cool

Oh and to the QAT rewards, i guess no one of us has something against it, correct me if i'm wrong xP

Overall green light for most of the changes