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 Rhythm Incarnate 777 posts    |
The chances of you reading this in Off-Topic are pretty slim, however I feel this is something that needs to be addressed.
You have said yourself in the past several times that you do not have the spare time to manage the BAT yourself, this thread is assuming that this is still the case. You have left this responsibility on the BAT manager/Community Manager who may or may not be doing a fine job, the problem I am seeing time and again lies in what the BAT itself is. BAT appears to be a group of members who are given, among other things, the power to moderate the community, whose entry requirements are based entirely around their ability to mod maps. I think it might be obvious what I am going to say now but the problem is that you are basically employing fine dining critiques to manage public security. What I believe needs to happen is a split in the responsibilities a BAT member is given, they are made a BAT member for their ability to mod maps not their ability to manage and moderate the community. I understand that removing the moderation powers of the BAT leaves the number of moderators rather short handed to the 14 GMT/GreenBAT members, thus I see three probable outcomes. The creation of a new team specifically for community moderation. This would require the overall management of someone who you trust extremely well to uphold what your ideals are for the community, something which you have said yourself in the past is a highly uncommon occurrence. The expansion of the GMT/GreenBAT. I personally do not consider this outcome to be very likely as the GMT/GreenBAT seem to be a group purposed for osu! development. The dismissal of this idea. Fairly likely to happen, either due to a lack of correct information on my part or a lack of foresight or desire to change the current situation on peppy's. Posting this in Off-Topic for discussion/feedback (Although expecting it to be fairly terrible due to current community circumstances).  awp wrote: I mean, Off Topic is basically a giant trash can, but I'd still get pretty angry if I saw someone taking a shit in my trash can. |
 Rhythm Incarnate 3,438 posts  |
Shit's about to get real.
But I think BATs are chosen on more then just the ability to mod maps. I was talking to a lot of people who complained that they didn't get MAT positions, and I told them that it was because although they were good modders, they didn't exemplify qualities of a good player. Unless I'm mistaken on the process, there's a lot more that goes into being a BAT then just modding maps, but maturity within the community and the ability to be a leader and stuff also exist. Hence why I'll never be a BAT no matter how well I mod ;D. Need help looking for a BAT? Check this out!
Interested in the status of my graved maps? Click here! Modding Policy: Open to all requests. Please look at my usepage for details! Current Kudosu Ranking Rank: 36 Youtube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/CDFAnyan |
 Rhythm Incarnate 2,141 posts |
[Official mode]
I appreciate the post quite a bit, Shellghost. You raise some very fine points that have been indeed pointed out both to the BAT as a whole and peppy himself about the hiccups and roadbumps that the BAT system has. I would like to point out, however, that being a BAT is not purely about mapping and modding, although to become one you essentially have to be a mapper or modder due to how promotions work. Being promoted to BAT also implies the maturity to be able to moderate your fellow person, and while it's not the most integral part of being a BAT, it's a requirement. It's quite possible to argue that whatever mystical screening process judges this is sometimes faulty, but at the core, that's the concept. But you're also right on another point - because moderating as a BAT is not a requirement, nay, it isn't even really encouraged outside of "answer reports kekeke", there are no "dedicated" moderators for the forums, especially certain sublanguages (I'll talk about the sublanguages in a bit). While I approve of the forum moderation ideas, putting them into actual practice is more difficult. In regards to sublanguage moderators, due to how Bancho is coded, it's not possible for a person to be granted rights only for one channel, so any moderators for a language must A) Be able to speak the language in question very fluently, B) Be able to speak English to communicate with other moderators fluently, and B) Be trusted enough in both their language's community AND the 'core' english community. Basically, sublanguage moderators in-game such as La Cataline, senaya, and Dragvon are there because they're trusted enough to be moderators anyway, with the added specific purpose of moderating their respective languages. These kinds of people are very hard to come by in this community, so can generally be counted on one hand. On the other hand, shellghost, with the way the system works, you will also end up with BATs that are more into the moderation aspect of it as well as the modding. As a shameless plug, I'd like to think I'm one of them - I certainly don't actually play this game =p. The general populace can't really tell these "moderator BATs" from "modding BATs", so that's an unclear distinction. I for one welome any PMs (in-game is fastest~) regarding something you have questions about / want to report quickly. I also notice that the "report post" function isn't often used. Try spreading the word around about that - it highlights threads with a huge-ass, annoying exclamation point to moderators. [un-official] non-shitpost ilu shelly!!!1 naer valhalla post if thread has good content! |
 Chat Moderator 2,120 posts  |
The biggest issue with the BAT from what I'm seeing is that they don't reply to report equivocally. Depending on who you ask and how well they are informed a report or a dispute can swing either way, which is something that should just not exist. friendok is like pandora's box in the community that no one apparently has the heart to ban him since he is constantly allowed back on after numerous infringements but on the other hand some BATs keep locking every thread he makes, so that has to show somewhere that they don't want him here, else he'd be on mod queue since forever.
Some people just are not BAT material regardless of their skill mostly because how partial they stand in the community and I appreciate the effort that is put into the selection criterium, but the point still stands that the aspect of knowing how to moderate a forum isn't looked at or isn't look at enough. I don't want to re-enter the debacle of WOJJAN 4 OT MOD but we definitely need more moderation forumwise. I however can't tell if the issue lies that we need more people or that we need better people. If this is about Off-Topic, I think that we are actually doing quite well with our current moderators (Ephemeral, Loginer and Shiirn occasionally) but we just lack a definition. peppy himself has Off-topic all wrong thinking that that's just the place where you post spam and go HUEHUEHUEHUEHUE all day. phill's ruleset is heavily outdated and is more of a general principle than a clear list of things you can get banned for. OT is supposed to be the place where rules are more lenient, but the rules are very much still in play, and that part is what escapes most users, even modmins and peppy himself. Once we have a ruleset and moderators who will ban for overturning that ruleset we, on our own, are good to go. |
 Rhythm Incarnate 2,263 posts |
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osu! Alumni 2,010 posts |
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Chat Moderator 2,120 posts |
I've had the chancy honor of speaking with our lovable scamp Sakura Hana about the portuguese OT thread, and though it hasn't brought much aid since the same PM I sent to Loginer and peppy and the big man came down to lock it personally (which I by the way think is a terrific move on his part, I much appreciated his intereference) I did learn that regarding the decision to make those threads in the first place peppy himself didn't have much to do with it. Sakura Hana interpreted the words her said, which was not much more than "if it's in OT then it's alright but otherwise give them a warning" which I assume meant "in OT shitposts get dealt with anyway sooner or later but deal with it more fervorously if it's in the place you don't post crap" and unless I'm mistaken Sakura Hana took this to mean "make a thread in OT for their shitposts," which wasn't the intention at all.
There is a thin line between contentless posts and shitposts, and it's often hard to concreetly tell which is which, since it's a matter of both objectivity and subjectivity. That makes OT one of the hardest forums to moderate. But it's still a good one to have around. The difference lies that in GD, every post is expected to have content, and every thread is expected to have purpose and isn't just "I ate a grape today" whereas in OT there's threads and threads designed just for the unimportant stuff you'd else see end up in GD. OT has become the gangbunch of osu! which isn't much more than injokes and glue, but it's our gangbunch and many people would have little reason to stick were it to be taken away, me included. Ask yourself, Lybydose, why you lock threads in OT if you feel that's the case. Last edited by Shiirn on , edited 2 times in total.
Merged TRIPLE posts. Use the edit button.
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Rhythm Incarnate 777 posts |
Thank you Shiirn for correcting me on several parts.
In description and theory the ideal of what the BAT is seems fairly solid however in practicality it's simply proving otherwise far too often. I still believe a distinction between who the people are that rank maps and who the people are that moderate the community would be a step in the right direction. Of course as a side note, this isn't to say that a member has to either rank maps or moderate, you yourself provided the fact that there are people who are considered competent in doing both and I in no way desire to halt them from doing so. However the self management of course would lead to criteria leniency which leads to slight shifts in internal ideals, which I believe a split in responsibility would have it's impact on the community upon unfortunate circumstances softened or diminished entirely if there wasn't such a large amount of power in the position. Sub-language moderation might be another matter although I think it does still tie into this discussion. Not personally knowing much about coding gives me no grounds to suggest so but I would personally consider altering the coding of Bancho to allow specific language moderation. Actually, that wouldn't really solve anything on the matter since you still need to be able to communicate with the Sub-language moderators fluently for quality assurance... awp wrote: I mean, Off Topic is basically a giant trash can, but I'd still get pretty angry if I saw someone taking a shit in my trash can. |
 Rhythm Incarnate 6,555 posts  |
This is too interesting to be on Off-topic.
Also, I'm agree with Shellghost. |
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Rhythm Incarnate 2,141 posts |
 Rhythm Incarnate 2,042 posts |
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Rhythm Incarnate 2,141 posts |
.............good point, where'd it go.
Last edited by Gonzvlo on , edited 1 time in total.
Ask Wojjan o3o
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 osu! Alumni 1,378 posts |
[22:14:42] <@ppy> use !report
Anyways, I agree that more forum moderation is necessary. However, I don't think adding a whole new team is necessary. Given that both BATs and MATs aren't managed very well in the first place (ztrot isn't MATman anymore; jericho is inactive; and there is no BAT manager other than peppy himself), I think it'd be worth focusing on people who already have the power to moderate (and getting them active). |
 Beatmap Appreciation Team 7,757 posts  |
The thing is, the sections after "Beatmaps" in the forums are like a big contradiction, an Off-Topic section should mean that the threads posted in it should be unrelated to the main forum's attention (in this case osu!), General discussion should be related to General osu! discussion, things like videogames and otaku culture should be in the off-topic section since they arent related to osu!.
But then that's my idea of an off-topic section i guess. On the BAT moderation, BATs are given the ability to moderate forums if they so want to do so, they are encouraged to help out with moderation, not discouraged from it. and even if they do heal the scar will remain and nothing will ever be the same |
 Global Moderator 3,712 posts |
Fwiw I had said I'd be more than willing to take on the extra workload again but I've been turned down for one reason or another, in regards to the MATman stuff
R.I.P Darleen you were like a 2nd mother and you will never be forgotten, always cherished 8/24/66 - 5/30/13 http://ask.fm/ztrot1515 |
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