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How you can help!

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Topic Starter
peppy
I've been wanting to make a post about this for a while, but have been holding off while I get things in place on the site and in my head. As you are probably aware, the osu! community and ecosystem is growing at a constant rate, but the team hasn't grown in size at all. I'm sure with a community this big, we have a lot of hidden talent out there, so the idea of this post is to reach out and tell you all that we are always looking for help and input, as well as outlining the current areas where you can immediately jump in and help out!

Firstly, from a personal perspective I am already completely saturated. I spend all my free time on osu! (or osu!stream) and do not have any more resources I can throw at it. This means that most of the stuff that gets done on osu! is based on my personal priorities. This doesn't mean that it has to be a limiting factor — there are so many opportunities to make osu! more awesome without needing the access or abilities of a developer.

Here is a current list of areas I can think of where anyone can help out, ordered by the most important in my eyes. I'll try and keep this updated as I see things come up, but don't hesitate to make suggestions (preferably in this thread) if you have any.

Help out with the wiki!

In order to keep the content on the website as fresh as possible, I'd like to move all sections containing text to the wiki. This includes FAQ, ranking guidelines, all our forum-based guides, the history/information sections. While we have made huge progress already (thanks to a few very dedicated users), keeping a wiki up-to-date is an ongoing process which basically anyone can help with. There is also a lot of translation opportunities remaining to make the content accessible in every language known to mankind!

Where to start:
  1. Go through all the FAQ and other information sections on the osu! site, and make sure the info is easily accessible (and complete) on the wiki. If it isn't, add it in (you can begin by just copying, pasting and reformatting). Use the wiki "talk" pages to discuss any changes if you are not confident, or go straight ahead and update old information you come across.
  2. Watch the recent changes list as often as you can (bookmark it :p), and make sure people aren't adding useless or incorrect information. Keep a tab on what is being worked on and chip in if you can!
  3. Make sure the information on the wiki is as concise, clear and beautiful as possible. Tidy up any formatting issues you find, and push people in the right direction where required.
  4. Make this post into a wiki page :D! Translate it to more languages — we need help from more than just english speakers (fact: over 75% of the osu! community doesn't speak english)
Help keep osu! friendly and safe!

We have moderators doing their best to keep chat under control, but there are 25 channels (and counting) and even more forums, making it hard for us to cover all activity every minute of the day. Fortunately, you can help us very easily!

Where to start:
  1. Follow your favourite channels on in-game chat, and forums on the web.
  2. If you see something happening which disturbs you (or would generally be found inappropriate), use the !report command to notify moderators.
  3. You can use the !report command for anything that happens anywhere in osu!. Your reports will always be read.
Help answer technical, beatmap and gameplay support questions!

Every day I try to take care of any outstanding tech support questions, but a lot of these can be answered by anyone who has spend time around here and knows how things generally work. Even if you don't think you know stuff well enough, you can follow along, read and learn, then start helping at a later point!

Where to start:
  1. Choose a forum: Technical Support, Beatmapping Help, Storyboarding or Gameplay and Rankings based on what you find most interesting.
  2. Mark the forum as read using the link at the top-right.
  3. Follow any new threads, reading each one and helping out where you can. You can use the unread icons to make sure you keep up!
  4. Read the available guides and polish up on your osu! knowledge. Hell, contribute to the guides if you can!
Help check/mod beatmaps!

While we have set teams that handle the approval process, there's nothing stopping anyone from helping out. It starts as easy as posting in pending beatmap threads leaving your positive feedback or constructive criticism. When you get good, there's no reason you can't join up on one of the approval teams :).

Where to start:
  1. Look through (or search) the Pending Beatmaps listing for artists/songs you like (or just choose ones at random).
  2. Play the beatmaps and leave feedback in threads.
  3. Read the Modding Guide and learn the basics of more technical modding.
  4. Read the Ranking Criteria and become familiar with what makes a map rankable.
  5. Join #modHelp and #modReqs on in-game chat and join in the conversation (or just follow along).
  6. If you have the time and dedication, making a Modding Queue thread and have people start coming to you with requests.
Join some user-run projects and contribute to making them happen (or making them better if they are already actively running)!

There are quite a few proposals or projects in action, including tournaments, larger beatmapping projects, third-party application development projects and other unique ideas. Go contact the people involved and show that you are interested, and offer your help if you have skills that could be used.

Where to start:
  1. Browse the tournaments forum. Tournaments take a lot of man-power to organise and to make happen without hitches, and you can help out by just sitting in as a spectator judge for matches in some cases.
  2. Check what's going on in General Development. This is a low activity forum where more serious projects happen.
  3. Join a beatmap project and learn how fun collaborating with others can be!
  4. Start your own project! If you have a cool idea, then give it a shot. If you need some kind of input from me, don't hesitate to ask (though I prefer helping when I don't need to dedicate too much time).
  5. Bring the osu!monthly back to life, I miss it :(.
and last, but most definitely not least:

Avoid being negative! Make people happy!

Every day I see negativity on osu!. People complaining about each other, people complaining about cheaters or "rank farmers". People seeing change and whining about it. While I think we do better than a lot of other online communities out there — that drop to levels of throwing insults at each other all day long (hi youtube!) — there is still room for improvement.

Where to start:
  1. Be friendly to each other. Life is too short to argue.
  2. Don't complain about cheaters. Just report them and get on with your day. They may have taken your top rank, but a simple "!report <username> seems to be cheating" can fix this in minutes to hours.
  3. Go out of your way to mediate negative situations and turn them into more positive outcomes.
By no means a completely comprehensive post, but I hope I have shared some insight as to what can be done to make osu! more awesome than it already is :).
Derekku
I definitely approve. Let's keep heading forward and staying positive! : )
Azure_Kite
An excellent notification. I think people should take stock from this and, hopefully, help out more with the community! :D
ursa

peppy wrote:

Avoid being negative! Make people happy!
The one I want to keep :)
YodaSnipe
You know what would be awesome? Being able to change/add things to the osu! client.
Topic Starter
peppy

YodaSnipe wrote:

You know what would be awesome? Being able to change/add things to the osu! client.
Go play with the SDK then. You show more interest, i devote more time.
YodaSnipe
I didn't know this existed! Is it on the forums? /looks
Topic Starter
peppy
It's even linked in my post above ;).
kutark
(fact: over 75% of the osu! community doesn't speak english)
it is true.
just like me before.
but now, i'm learning English.
i think play OSU! can let me learn English better.
=v=
YodaSnipe

peppy wrote:

It's even linked in my post above ;).
y-yeah... I can't read...

sorry~
SkyDevil
GoGoGo~! ./Ill look for beatmaps/beatmap projects/tournaments~ (because i love that)
YodaSnipe
btw having a lot of support for tournaments is huge in my eyes. lesslunatic started organizing a Ladder tournament, and it'd be nice to see a lot of support for that and perhaps more new tournaments in the near future!
Mara
Nice list.
SkyDevil

YodaSnipe wrote:

btw having a lot of support for tournaments is huge in my eyes. lesslunatic started organizing a Ladder tournament, and it'd be nice to see a lot of support for that and perhaps more new tournaments in the near future!
I saw that tournament , but rank 10000+ will be rejected :(
YodaSnipe
Make a 10000+ tournament then :P
Colin Hou
We have 1139 pending maps, that's just wow
Cygnus
At Last!
Kyshiro
I'll try to help out a bit on the Wiki I suppose, there are a few topics that are kinda outdated, also I could translate them to Dutch :3

Keep up the good work on Osu! :3
lepidopodus
Well, I wanna contribute, at least to something about Taiko and its community or organizing something like TWC or expanding my influence over Taiko mappers lololol something like that. If I had more time...

I'll try do something when I take back my life from my school works lol
Stefan
I hope this all could be done as soon as possible.
Kami-nee-chan
Nice. It would really help if there would be more staff. Unfortunately, I doubt I'd be able to help. >:(
Topic Starter
peppy

TheNutritiousGuy wrote:

I hope this all could be done as soon as possible.
It's not about getting it "done"; it's an ongoing thing. This is just a message telling you all to get involved more :P.
stana
I've just started osu! not too long ago, and already love it. I'll be sure to help where I can.
[Luanny]

peppy wrote:

Help keep osu! friendly and safe!

peppy wrote:

Avoid being negative! Make people happy!
Yeah... we really need it.
Well, this is a game, some people should have more fun here instead of complaining about everything.
Even with some ~trolls~ we have a very happy and active community and I'm sure most of users here wants it better everyday, day by day and will support it too.
\o/
Total support!
Elly-chan
As soon as school's out, i'll be back and active in the osu! community with helping out new players, the wiki, and modding beatmaps! ;)

I LOVE YOU OSU!. ♥
jjrocks

peppy wrote:

  1. Bring the osu!monthly back to life, I miss it :(.
Oh my XD Well we do have plans to restart the entire o!m next month with a bit more content and with slightly more dedicated people.We'll be more than happy to bring it back and don't worry, it'll be better than ever when we do c:
-Athena-

Elly-chan wrote:

As soon as school's out, i'll be back and active in the osu! community with helping out new players, the wiki, and modding beatmaps! ;)

I LOVE YOU OSU!. ♥
Kami-nee-chan
I can't wait to see what osu!monthly is. xD
Kyshiro
http://osu.ppy.sh/wiki/Dutch

Will just leave this here, In case any dutch person comes by. Working on it
ham02042
please someone translates peppy's stense in korean...
bomber34
I think I start translating stuff from english to german on the wiki ;)

My biggest problem is time. School and other stuff take a lot of time and the free time I have on weekends are for other stuff next to osu!
I am also one of these people who try to avoid mistakes to hard.
But I guess to do nothing is worse than doing anything.

I hope i can get more active :3
jenny the girl
i wanna help with the scores in osu! if i can help you all out with something
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