Currently, there is a discussion in BN server on whether it would be possible or appropriate for the NAT to remove vetoes altogether. While this would remove a substantial amount of the power held currently by BNs, it would also (arguably) be more aligned with the current direction of NAT, in which subjective concerns are no longer impacting evals.

Also, to be specific, this proposal is specifically tailored to standard and may not apply to other game modes. Feel free to leave opinions/comments about the possible removal of vetoes in this thread.

EDIT: Apparently all modes need to be consistent on vetoes, so this would have to be applied for every mode not just standard

I think if the direction for the ranking criteria is ultimately going to be 'don't punish bns for subjective issues', then yes, we should remove vetoes.

They exist as a way to escalate and resolve subjective quality posts without going in an endless loop which is unnecessary in the landscape that is currently envisioned by peppy

This does mean that BNs will be more reliant on NAT to resolve pending posts on their maps though, so a process for dealing with subjective posts that do inevitable arise on maps should be figured out I think

always wanted this from years ago

pls do it for mania too

ranked section should be free and full of variety, it doesnt belong to any specific individual, experienced mapper or not.
subjective issue is not a problem/deserve the time of many other BNs that can be used in promoting more contents to ranked

wafer wrote:

This does mean that BNs will be more reliant on NAT to resolve pending posts on their maps though, so a process for dealing with subjective posts that do inevitable arise on maps should be figured out I think

This is precisely one of the reasons why I think vetoes should still remain. In the absence of a better way to deal with subjective issues, I really don't see how opening the faucet without having even built the sink is going to be helpful.

As for why it's not something appropriate: contrary to popular belief the NAT doesn't really have any power over Vetos. This was done under the idea that both the NAT and BN group all have the same responsibility and same power when it comes to placing a Veto as to not have any kind of abuse between one branch and the other. The NAT simply manages the process and mediates as needed, or acts as mediators when the respective mode is call for a Veto.

Imo giving NAT more perms over BNs over Vetos opens up a slippery slope, as it is entirely on the NAT to decide what's a worthy veto. If anything, the definition of what should be Veto'd should be way more clear. Sure, it's for subjective issues. But some issues hold more weight over others.

From my experience, in our mode, Vetos have served an important role several times. They're not seen as "the fun police" or "literally 1984", but rather a necessary and an useful last resort resource to gather up the opinion of the entire BN group on subjective yet impactful matters.

I really would not want this proposal to affect the other modes. We don't suffer of the same issues, and the optics on Vetos are vastly different. And in most cases these are even avoided by favouring discussions between BNs before even nominating a potentially controversial map.

Lastly, and this is an unrelated/related tangent. Would Vetos be seen in a more positive light in the case community members could vote on them if they were to work in a similar way as the current Content Reviews do? Giving some weight to the overall community opinion could be beneficial. Though the weight of it should not be a majority, as I believe a curated group of BNs' experience should be favoured more on these matters.

ok based off of these responses i retract my support

Although I am in support of this system being removed only for standard, as long as the veto system has to stay consistent across modes (- Hivie) and as long as it works fine for T/C/M modes, I don't think we can remove the system for one mode only. I can see the vision though.

I don't believe the current overall rhetoric behind vetos is healthy for the game and it has never been. Just about every veto ever has resulted in very toxic discussions as NAT always having to remind replies to stay on topic.

Just my 2 cents, but imo this toxic discussion isn't entirely due to mappers having strong opinions about their maps but also the overall "scare factor" that vetos hold in the ranking process. For years, vetos have been seen as the worst thing that can happen to a bn and this is undeniably why the discussions become so toxic in a farce to defend each side with no subsidence. I think a way to solve the veto issue is simply make punishments for vetos far less severe (since they are subjective, afterall) so that discussions become more productive and less "scampering to save their positions as bns" vibes.

I think this should especially be the case where mediation votes have a significant amount of "no" votes but is still upheld (maybe this is already the case, not sure).

Ryuusei Aika wrote:

the veto system has to stay consistent across modes (- Hivie)

why is this? I don't see any technical reason that the whole veto thing couldn't just be ignored for maps of std only

pretty much agree w randome, though.

Vetoes serve little purpose now since maps with pending posts keep maps in the qualified state which gives time for discussion (bns/nat review and opinion dropping). I'm not sure if this is what vetoes were for at some point aside from getting attention to "subjective" issues that should be looked at before it eventually gets ranked.

quality standards shouldn't be so unclear that people assume everything is subjective which makes dumb stuff keep getting through, some clear guidelines should be put in place so that the issues raised on vetoes aren't becoming commonplace so that they can be addressed appropriately without vague ideas on what a fine line between good v. bad is.

honne wrote:

I'm not sure if this is what vetoes were for at some point aside from getting attention to "subjective" issues that should be looked at before it eventually gets ranked.

Not really, these are unrelated. The pending post feature was added to avoid maps getting ranked with potential issues being missed. And even then, a map being held off by a post must either be DQd to allow more discussion, or if it's not worth the discussion it is closed (for very, very subjective issues mostly).

I think as soon as completely dropping a mapping idea, be it "large spacing", "representing intensity", "overdone improvisation" and the like and the only proposed solution would be getting rid of the idea a veto is pretty pointless

It stops the process at a point where both parties disagree, yes, but the outcome will hammer one side into doing something they absolutely can't stand and have apparently (fruitlessly) tried to communicate.

I think that's not healthy, it does not produce useful discussion and the whole process is inherently negative by design.

If it's a position where both sides can agree to come together and reach a compromise, the veto is in most cases not necessary to begin with, so I think we wouldn't be losing much by removing them and hoping that reasonable people will be, on average, more reasonable

Mania doesn't have the same problem with vetoes that standard does, as such I don't think this will be helpful for other gamemodes (or just mania, not sure how it is for Taiko and catch)

I've done two vetoes so I have experience in the reactions received and how it goes. People are bound to get upset no matter how valid the veto is, no one wants to go through that which is understandable. But it's helped us a lot with some really important discussions in the past and to this day, I really don't think it'd be a good idea to remove that.

Imo a big part of the stigma against vetoes is how a lot of people don't understand how it works. Lots of people still think it isn't for subjective issues that are impactful (that's the entire point), and should be for objective issues (that's called unrankable and gets DQ'd anyways for those).

And it's sort of an unwritten guideline that a discussion on what the concern is should be held first before heading straight to a veto. That's where a lot of the aggression and confusion has come from in the past - immediate vetoes without any proper talk beforehand.


Then there was the RNG factor of picking a selective number of BNs which really did not help with the view on vetoes, which only stopped recently.

I think with the recent change of having every BN in a gamemodes participate in a veto and wafer's proposal to increase the upheld threshold to 2/3 instead of 50%, it will improve the way vetoes work considerably and maybe even people's views on vetoes.
That would be good for mania but I think that'd be good for standard too, though I don't know how big of an issue it is for standard to consider removing it altogether.

People will always be upset over a veto no matter what anyone does, so the best we can do is improve on the current system instead of removing it altogether imo.

Whether it's a BN or not, as well as if it's objective or subjective <- which is what the veto system is all about, it would get rid of plenty of quality concerns some may have with a map, this proposal sounds like it basically revokes rights to speak out about it - sharing opinions should not be something to be afraid about which is what removing the veto system would enforce in such cases IMO

Monoseul wrote:

Imo a big part of the stigma against vetoes is how a lot of people don't understand how it works. Lots of people still think it isn't for subjective issues that are impactful (that's the entire point), and should be for objective issues (that's called unrankable and gets DQ'd anyways for those).

And it's sort of an unwritten guideline that a discussion on what the concern is should be held first before heading straight to a veto. That's where a lot of the aggression and confusion has come from in the past - immediate vetoes without any proper talk beforehand.

There might be some people who don't understand how vetoes work but for the most part the issue people have with vetoes is not that they're for non-objective problems, but that the reasonings used for vetoes often feel like someone forcing their own view onto the mapper because they don't like the map instead of improving a map that has a genuine quality issue. Another big reason why vetoes are widely disliked is because they only happen sporadically on specific maps, while there are usually many other worse maps getting ranked just fine. If quality assurance was enforced more consistently across all qualified maps, it would feel less targeted and people would perceive it less like a personal attack. But obviously this would only make sense if vetoes were only used on maps with severe, tangible problems and not just because of a difference in mapping style taste, but I suppose it's difficult to establish a set of guidelines for this which most people can agree with since the views on mapping can be extremely divisive.

Regarding immediate vetoes, these still happen sometimes even now, precisely because it's only an unwritten guideline and not an actual expectation BNs have to follow. Of course this often makes people even more upset, so it should be a requirement to have a discussion beforehand.

RandomeLoL wrote:

Lastly, and this is an unrelated/related tangent. Would Vetos be seen in a more positive light in the case community members could vote on them if they were to work in a similar way as the current Content Reviews do? Giving some weight to the overall community opinion could be beneficial. Though the weight of it should not be a majority, as I believe a curated group of BNs' experience should be favoured more on these matters.

I definitely think this would reduce the negative perception of vetoes at least a little bit because right now the only people who have a say are BNs and the NAT so everyone else (mappers/modders and players) feels powerless and like their opinion doesn't matter at all. Giving more people the possibility to vote, even if weighted less, would potentially make the outcome align more with the overall community opinion which seems like a good change.

This is such a simple and effective solution to a multitude of problems currently plaguing osu. It's astounding that it hasn't already been implemented.

Vetoes have a massively negative net value.

There are no downsides to their removal that would outweigh the damage that will continue to be done to the game and the community if they remain.

Let's see how the veto uphold threshold proposal goes before considering this one, as the ranking criteria is not immune to loopholes, and we still might need some sort of way to gate out maps that are technically rankable but objectively bad.

I think overall vetoes should still exist, it's better for BNs/NATs to stop the qualification if there are clear objective reasons. But yeah I do agree that subjective vetoing will just only gonna cost more drama than it should, cus mappers alike have their own POV of mapping in general. Really BNs/NATs nominate the map mainly because they subjective just love how the map plays/represents the songs. It's kind of unnecessary for others to stop it cus they have their own subjective thought of the map, it only gonna make things more divided than ever before.

tldr; vetoes of subjective thought should be removed, vetoing should only be used for objective means. If they want to point out something subjective, it should be a suggestion or multiple BNs/NATs reporting the same subjective issues for a veto.

I think vetoes are still for subjective stuff though, objective issues as defined by the RC only need a disqualification and don't need to go through the veto process. We still need something to handle stuff for things that are technically rankable but the mapping community do not want to see.