there are 4 difficulty-name-related rules right next to each other that make this whole thing really confusing -- not only are the actual allowances vague (as demonstrated by the "possession" discussion at the beginning of this thread, and BaAR_Vendel's previous thread), the reasoning for these various rules and how they interact is not at all clear.
since the scope of this thread seems to be broadening to all of those difficulty naming rules, I will repeat my thing about OP's diff name but now looking at this whole block in RC:
RC (numbers added for reference) wrote:
1. Difficulty names in a beatmap must be clearly progressive and accurately indicating of their respective difficulties, excluding:
- The highest difficulty of each game mode.
- The highest difficulties of each game mode with a similar level of difficulty, applying only to Insane and Extra difficulties (e.g. the Insane difficulties of a ENHIIII set or the Extra difficulties of a ENHIIXXX set).
2. A beatmap's custom difficulty naming must follow a common theme or pattern related to the song or difficulty and must not be misrepresentative. A difficulty name is misrepresentative if it implies a different difficulty level (e.g. naming an "Expert" difficulty as "Normal").
3. A difficulty's name must not solely consist of one or more usernames. Words that happen to be usernames are acceptable within difficulty names as long as they relate to the song.
4. A beatmap host cannot indicate possession in a difficulty's name. (e.g. Beatmap Host's Insane). Conflicts caused by beatmapping multiple songs with the same metadata and collaborative difficulties are the only exceptions. Guest difficulties, however, may indicate possession with its creators' username or nickname.
take the diff name
FLUXIE Mix from beginning of this thread. the immediate reaction from 2 NAT members is that this would be allowed. according to OP, some amount of BNs did not agree. anecdotally, I've encountered other mappers frustrated that they can't use a diff name like this, yet haven't heard of any players dissatisfied with them (in previously ranked maps).
checking against RC:
- allowed, as long as it's the top diff
- allowed, as long as you consider the fact of writing the mapper's name + "Mix" to be "related to the song or difficulty". this is not always interpreted that way, see Nao Tomori opinion above for example, even though this isn't the exact rule they were talking about.
- allowed, but this is almost certainly only by technicality of the wording and not supportive of the rule's intention. "Mix" is more or less a filler word and doesn't change that all the diff name is saying is the creator
- allowed, as long as you interpret "possession" to be in a purely grammatical sense. I will just say this seems ridiculous because it implies "FLUXIE Mix" should be allowed while "FLUXIE's Mix" should not... as if there is a meaningful difference in form or function
so sure it can be pedantically justified to be allowed if that's what we want. you just have to interpret the entire block of rules to be as nonfunctional as possible, be proficient enough in English to understand the possibility of certain technicalities, and hope that nobody else will question the intention of RC beyond its literal words.
these rules are due for a rewrite regardless, but especially so if a diff name like "FLUXIE Mix" is intended to be allowed.
and I will spare it for now but I could go on a whole other rant about how stupid it is that we pretend a mapper's name is somehow any less of a difficulty indicator than a fucking poem or a literal line of code or a reference to a video game with a playerbase overlapping like 0.1% with osu