osu!mania Community Mentorship Program
2017 Spring Cycle
Hey everyone, Blocko here!
The Community Mentorship program is a way for new and learning mappers to get into the mapping community by having a more experienced mapper and modder help them on their way.
Along with juankristal and Feerum, I now present the the second cycle of the osu!mania Community Mentorship Program. (Last cycle announcement post can be found here.)
Program Details
- This program is osu!mania only. If you want to host a different version of this program, contact Okorin or Yuii-!
- This program operates on a 10+2 week cycle basis (10 weeks for the program and final 2 weeks of buffer time). During this timespan, a mentor is bound to a mentee. The buffer time is used for reorganisation, reflection and simply taking a break.
- Everything regarding this program is organised in one Discord server. Hint: get Discord.
- Cycles culminate in a small-scale mapping event. Each mentor-mentee pair will present a map they created within the cycle to illustrate the progress they've made during the program.
- Mentor/Mentee pairings are free to continue for more than one cycle. These mentors may not be eligible this cycle unless they want to take on more mentees than in the previous cycle (specified below).
- Mentor/Mentee pairings are free to part ways within the buffer time. In case they do not get along, there is no reason to force anyone. These scenarios are evaluated on a case-by-case basis while aiming to not leave any mentee behind for no reason.
- You must not be restricted from osu! when signing up for this program in any role. If you got yourself into a situation like this, we do not deem you as suitable for participating in a program of this nature.
- The only roles that are mutually exclusive are mentor and mentee. This means any other combination such as Helper/Mentee, Helper/Mentor are valid.
- The following deadlines are fixed, there will not be any exceptions to these:
- Mentor sign-ups start on 26.02.2017 and end on 11.03.2017 0:00 UTC+0.
- Mentee sign-ups start on 12.03.2017 and end on 25.03.2017 0:00 UTC+0.
- This cycle starts on 26.03.2017 and ends on 17.06.2017 UTC+0.
Mentor Criteria
FILL OUT THIS FORM TO APPLY AS A MENTOR
CLOSES ON 11.03.2017 0:00 UTC+0
- Mentors who were removed from the program for any reason will not be reconsidered unless there are special circumstances. If your behaviour / general absence / lack of commitment gives us reasons to remove you, you will need convincing reasons to come back.
- You should have more than 2 hours a week at your disposal for this program. Explaining and discussing mapping related things tends to take time.
- Each applicant will be considered on a case-by-case basis. We reserve the right to choose who will be mentoring in this program and will explain denials accordingly if prompted to.
- You should …
- have osu!mania beatmaps of any kind as they indicate experience with the process as well as giving/taking constructive criticism.
- have encountered mentoring or teaching previously. Experience never hurts.
- have a predictable schedule so that the chances of you suddenly disappearing without any traces are low.
- have a more or less clean record. People who are known for bad behaviour in the recent past should reconsider their behaviour before taking a teaching position.
CLOSES ON 11.03.2017 0:00 UTC+0
Mentee Criteria
FILL OUT THIS FORM TO APPLY AS A MENTEE
OPENS ON 12.03.2017 0:00 UTC+0
CLOSES ON 25.03.2017 0:00 UTC+0
- Prior mentees who want to be part of the program again can only do so for four times in total. This equals about a year of being on the program which should be more than enough time to get into the mapping community.
- Mentees who were removed from the program for any reason will not be reconsidered unless there are special circumstances. If your behaviour / general absence / lack of commitment gives us reasons to remove you, you will need convincing reasons to come back.
- Each applicant is eligible for any mentor. If a mentor who was not your first or second choice wants to mentor you, we will notify you.
- You should invest more time than your mentor into the program. Given that they are supposed to help you make progress, this entire program only works if you actively work on it.
- You must be able to take criticism. You are here because you aim to improve how you map so therefore taking criticism is necessary. Familiarise yourself with the Code of Conduct for Mapping and Modding on the Ranking Criteria to know what this means.
- Your availability and timezone should match the mentors you are applying for. This is recommended so it's easier for both parties to communicate with each other.
OPENS ON 12.03.2017 0:00 UTC+0
CLOSES ON 25.03.2017 0:00 UTC+0
Application Process
Due to the amount of confusion this process seems to cause among applicants, what follows is a process description:
Due to the amount of confusion this process seems to cause among applicants, what follows is a process description:
- People willing to be mentees will apply via the form on this thread and end up in a spreadsheet.
- The mentors will be able to see all applications because they can choose anyone that shows interest in the program according to their own criteria.
- Most mentors look for someone that wants to be mentored by them.
- Some proceed according to their own, different criteria.
- Mentors may start making their choices starting two days after applications open. Because making a choice for this matter excludes other applicants, we aim to minimize the amount of denied people on the expense of not giving some the choice to apply to that mentor due to being late. In that regard, this process is in a first come, first serve basis.
- As an applicant, you can apply multiple times if you wish to update your application. Among giving more reasoning for some points other reasons to apply again would be that the mentors that you wished for chose someone else. Only your latest application will be considered.
- After a mentor selected their mentee, the potential mentee will be notified about this and invited into the Discord server via forum PM. May also be a PM via Discord. People who were chosen by a mentor that was not put as their first or second choice will receive a PM asking if they wish to join as the mentee of that mentor instead.
Helpers Needed
Due to the sheer size of the project, we do need helping hands to keep track of everything. The tasks for a helper involve the following:
Due to the sheer size of the project, we do need helping hands to keep track of everything. The tasks for a helper involve the following:
- help keeping track of activities by poking a few participants of the program on a regular basis.
- discuss problem cases to ensure reasonable decisions and calls.
- help organising / planning Discord-internal events.
- be a contact person for organisation related questions.
Code of Conduct
- As a mentor, do not resort to using authority over rational arguments. If you find yourself doing this, you probably do not have good arguments to begin with. Treat everyone equally instead of assuming authority.
- Repeated misbehaviour on the Discord server can and will get you excluded. You really have to try our patience for us to do that, though.
- Make sure to drop us a message if you happen to have some things coming up which will impact your activity. Not that we are interested in your personal lives too much, we just happen to keep track of activity and progress so you disappearing without anyone knowing you did causes confusion.
- Please report violations of the Code of Conduct for Mapping and Modding if you encounter them. We investigate cases individually and will take measures accordingly. We just cannot act if we do not know what is going on, though.