forum

[Rule Change] Difficulty names.

posted
Total Posts
29
Topic Starter
Maruyu
Regarding a recent case of clear difficulty naming abuse, I'm going to have the propose the change of this rule.

Right now we have:

A difficulty's name must indicate its level of difficulty, with the exception of the hardest level of difficulty in a set. The mapset's hardest difficulty may use an appropriate custom difficulty name, unrelated to an username. Mapsets may also use a complete set of custom difficulty names that clearly indicate their level of difficulty to the player. Marathon maps with a single difficulty may use free naming.
Should be added something like "No potentially offensive difficulty names allowed", meaning it'd be changed to something like:

A difficulty's name must indicate its level of difficulty, with the exception of the hardest level of difficulty in a set. The mapset's hardest difficulty may use an appropriate custom difficulty name, unrelated to an username. Mapsets may also use a complete set of custom difficulty names that clearly indicate their level of difficulty to the player. Marathon maps with a single difficulty may use free naming. Potentially rude or offensive difficulty names are NOT allowed.
Right now, the ranking criteria is allowing for ridiculous difficulty names in marathon maps to go through. It needs a change, before someone decides to use start using absurd difficulty names and then BATs won't be able to do anything because "Ranking Criteria doesn't say I can't".

In case a reference is needed, t/210946&start=0 (Ranked 27/09/14 with difficulty name "cancer".)
Myxo
I fully support this.
The problem with your wording is that you are not allowing Marathon maps to be named "Marathon" anymore (or similiar names), so you have to change it a bit.
Also "Marathon maps with a single difficulty must follow the hardest difficulty rule, and use an appropriate custom difficulty name related to the song as well" is a bit useless since you could just write "Marathon maps must use an appropriate custom difficulty name related to the song as well"
Lust
Agreed.

Unless such a thing is specified, it will be abused to no end.
Mao
True, have my support.
Kaguya Hourain
Yep, seen some complications myself. Time to fix this.
Nwolf
This makes sense, yes
pkk
yee +1
Nozhomi
I agree with this go !
Lach
Imposing even more restrictions on difficulty naming is entirely draconian. If you think a name is distasteful, take it up with mapper, the bats who qualified it, and the qat. Please don't make rule amendments just because one thing (that probably won't stay that way for long at all) got through.

You may not like it, but one might argue that Maware is the embodiment of cancer. in which case, it does have something to do with the song.

This should be a "use common sense" thing, not a "hey someone did something i don't like, let's make sure nobody can have fun" thing.
Topic Starter
Maruyu

Lach wrote:

Imposing even more restrictions on difficulty naming is entirely draconian. If you think a name is distasteful, take it up with mapper, the bats who qualified it, and the qat. Please don't make rule amendments just because one thing (that probably won't stay that way for long at all) got through.

You may not like it, but one might argue that Maware is the embodiment of cancer. in which case, it does have something to do with the song.
I don't think a name is distasteful. It IS distasteful as a fact. Jokes aside, cancer is a serious illness and should not be taken lightly and most certainly not made fun of. Don't get me wrong, I use it all the time in private conversations, but if something like this gets ranked then it's something permanent. We could argue all day about what it means or about what it doesn't mean, but the word is offensive. Period.

Also,

Yuzu- wrote:

If anything, just add something like "Refrain from potential offensive names"
This is supposed to be a debate, I think.
Lach
Okay, go complain about that specific map, and abandon this thread.

You don't have to go on about how serious cancer is. It's obvious. The word itself is not offensive.

"an evil or destructive practice or phenomenon that is hard to contain or eradicate.
"racism is a cancer sweeping across Europe"
synonyms: evil, blight, scourge, poison, canker, sickness, disease, pestilence, plague;"

The mapper is referencing a mapping style, or specific technique.
Topic Starter
Maruyu

Lach wrote:

Okay, go complain about that specific map, and abandon this thread.

You don't have to go on about how serious cancer is. It's obvious. The word itself is not offensive.

"an evil or destructive practice or phenomenon that is hard to contain or eradicate.
"racism is a cancer sweeping across Europe"
synonyms: evil, blight, scourge, poison, canker, sickness, disease, pestilence, plague;"

The mapper is referencing a mapping style, or specific technique.
And someone who has absolutely no experience in mapping should know this?

First impressions count here; people download this, read the difficulty name and are like "wtf?". They don't google the meaning and they don't go wandering around asking exactly what's behind this name, they just look at it.

Just the name "cancer", by the meanings you wrote brings a "bad omen" that has no logical sense towards the song at first glance and as such isn't even justified.
Hard
I would go with the offensive names. But I like stupid names. I think the rest should be up with the mapper doing so and also it's about the BATs not bubbling those diffnames. They can say "I won't bubble this". I had a diff and I called it Hard's Harder and people told me I can't rank this and it's okay and now it's a normal name so let's just stick with common sense.

"But no offensive names" is a good way to go.
Lach
:cry:

Yuzu- wrote:

Lach wrote:

Okay, go complain about that specific map, and abandon this thread.

You don't have to go on about how serious cancer is. It's obvious. The word itself is not offensive.

"an evil or destructive practice or phenomenon that is hard to contain or eradicate.
"racism is a cancer sweeping across Europe"
synonyms: evil, blight, scourge, poison, canker, sickness, disease, pestilence, plague;"

The mapper is referencing a mapping style, or specific technique.
And someone who has absolutely no experience in mapping should know this?

First impressions count here; people download this, read the difficulty name and are like "wtf?". They don't google the meaning and exactly what's behind this name, they just look at it.

Just the name "cancer", by the meanings you wrote brings a "bad omen" that has no logical sense towards the song at first glance and as such isn't even justified.
People will either think "Haha this is funny because it's referencing the song", or "oh my FUCKING god this is SOOOOOOO offensive, I had a friend whose grandmother died of this like 10 years ago, this is SOOOO offensive, I'm going to go post about this in the thread like the retarded white knignt I am"

I'm not disagreeing that it's distasteful in more ways than one, but to change a rule, even slightly because of this is plain fucking retarded.
Topic Starter
Maruyu

Hard wrote:

I would go with the offensive names. But I like stupid names. I think the rest should be up with the mapper doing so and also it's about the BATs not bubbling those diffnames. They can say "I won't bubble this". I had a diff and I called it Hard's Harder and people told me I can't rank this and it's okay and now it's a normal name so let's just stick with common sense.

"But no offensive names" is a good way to go.
This thread was based on the fact that an offensive name came up. What I wrote first can probably be rewritten, and yes, "no offensive names" is probably the way to go.

@Lach, I agree that my first proposal was a bit too strict, but the "possibly offensive names" thing needs to stay. This includes cancer. You can have a difficulty name not offensive for 100% of the community instead of just a part being okay with it and another part thinking it's offensive.
Charles445
"Potentially offensive" is too broad, people get offended over very many things as of late, and adding a rule like that would open up a new can of worms.

We shouldn't strictly disallow all diff names that could be considered offensive, it should stay case-by-case, as it has always been.


In the specific situation of "cancer", the only issue present would be the connection it has to the disease, as the mapper the map is parodying is okay with it.
Now, the use of the word "cancer" in the context of the internet either refers to something that is perceived as a potentially spreading problem, or something so bad as to give the user cancer, as a joke or insult ("that post gave me cancer" is a commonly used example).

I'm not sure how this use of cancer would be offensive to those with cancer, though. If anything, this constant comparison to something not desired and/or widespread and problematic only supports the notion that cancer as a disease is a huge threat to many human lives.
Bara-
I don't think this is needed.
If there is a 'bad' difficulty name, modders, and especcially BAT/QATs will let you know if that's the case.
Like Charles445 said: 'It should stay case-by-case, as it has always been'.
Topic Starter
Maruyu

Charles445 wrote:

"Potentially offensive" is too broad, people get offended over very many things as of late, and adding a rule like that would open up a new can of worms.

We shouldn't strictly disallow all diff names that could be considered offensive, it should stay case-by-case, as it has always been.


In the specific situation of "cancer", the only issue present would be the connection it has to the disease, as the mapper the map is parodying is okay with it.
Now, the use of the word "cancer" in the context of the internet either refers to something that is perceived as a potentially spreading problem, or something so bad as to give the user cancer, as a joke or insult ("that post gave me cancer" is a commonly used example).

I'm not sure how this use of cancer would be offensive to those with cancer, though. If anything, this constant comparison to something not desired and/or widespread and problematic only supports the notion that cancer as a disease is a huge threat to many human lives.
If you're going to go ahead and keep this criteria as is, then please tell me where it says that it's a case-by-case thing. Right now, I just see "any name is allowed". BATs can't halt a rank, it's not written anywhere at all.
tiper
Personally, I don't find that "cancer" diffname being any offensive, but I would avoid using it because of those who might find it offensive. My opinion doesn't really matter, though.
It can be a guideline. Just to make obvious things more obvious.
Charles445

Yuzu- wrote:

Charles445 wrote:

Right now, I just see "any name is allowed". BATs can't halt a rank, it's not written anywhere at all.
If a map is perceived as able to be improved somehow, the QAT can stop it from being pushed forward. It doesn't have to be listed as a rule.
It happens a lot actually, with spinners in particular. There are no rule specifics for objects soon after spinners, only a very broad guideline, yet lately the QAT have been enforcing it as rule on Easy and Normal difficulties based on perceived potential improvement.

The Q is supposed to stand for quality, and QA often does not involve strict adherence to rules.

With that said, an actual written guideline for this sort of thing would be fine, as it is effectively an unspoken guideline as-is. Not a rule, though.
Topic Starter
Maruyu

Charles445 wrote:

If a map is perceived as able to be improved somehow, the QAT can stop it from being pushed forward. It doesn't have to be listed as a rule.
It happens a lot actually, with spinners in particular. There are no rule specifics for objects soon after spinners, only a very broad guideline, yet lately the QAT have been enforcing it as rule on Easy and Normal difficulties based on perceived potential improvement.

The Q is supposed to stand for quality, and QA often does not involve strict adherence to rules.

With that said, an actual written guideline for this sort of thing would be fine, as it is effectively an unspoken guideline as-is. Not a rule, though.
Sure, at least it'll mean something. Fine with me~
Zare

tiper wrote:

It can be a guideline. Just to make obvious things more obvious.
pretty much this
this wouldnt work as a rule because we can't set strict limitations because what's considered offensive is really up to the person, and the internet tends to always have the kind of people that are effectively offended by anything, and we really couldnt please them all even if we wanted
ETHICALMOUSEUSE
name/naming things depends on context, if you don't understand the context in which spoken - probably shouldn't be playing osu
that applies to many other real life scenarios as well, its been discussed to death already
Stefan
agree with tiper and Charles about adding this as Guideline. Whetever if people want to argue with "but that's a guideline so I am free to use this" this should be handled case-by-case. It's known that it's already like that but it should be officially now. Supporting, especially if it becomes as guideline. Custom difficulty names should be used in creative aspects, not to act stupid.
Kibbleru
guidelines for such topic like this is way too subjective .-.

people have different oppinions.

but i suppose it should be added in if it wasn't already
[Nemesis]
I support this. I wanna my map to have more custom names! :3
xxdeathx
My $0.02 on this topic:

I hate the Maware remix song that jonathanlfj mapped. It is so annoying, nothing like the awesomeness that was the original. He may be an elite mapper, but not even an elite map of that song can disguise the fact that it is super annoying. You know what else is annoying? Cancer. Hence the diff name.

Enough people complained that it got unranked, he changed it, and now it's back. But it was an accurate description of the content in that beatmap and I would like to see more creative diff names like it. Leave it on a case-by-case basis, as Charles said.
69653863
strip off ANY restrictions regarding difficulty naming and handle stupid names per map basis
that is what modders (AND BATS AND QATS) and the whole modding process is for
Lust
Flaming. This is pretty much common sense already (the discussion has seemed to come to a halt anyway).
Please sign in to reply.

New reply