Firstly let's state some obvious stuff:

Currently to apply for the position of BN you have to achieve a certain modding "activity" threshold, which is equal to about 4 mods per month over the course of 3 months (with some additional math behind it which allows for a tiny bit of flexibility).

"A mod" is counted whenever you get rewarded with at least 1 kudosu on your post on a mapset.

From what I know (correct me if I'm wrong) this is supposed to make sure that before the application is sent you've proven enough dedication over a period of time so that you do not completely die out of nowhere if you were to get into the position of a BN.

The issue:
Due to how the current mod activity count works the 3 month requirement is just more of a hassle than a determinant of one's consistency with modding.

With only 1 kudosu needed per mapset to get a modding point per month, it is super easy to cheese your way around the system by downloading random maps from some modding queues and then just scanning them with Mapset Verifier to post very obvious stuff like missing tags, no combo colours, etc, etc. Basically, you can get a month's worth of activity in like 5 minutes, then just do it 2 more times and the requirement is fulfilled.

The proposal:
I think that with the activity requirement being pretty much a needless obstacle, it would not really hurt anyone to remove it completely. There are already rules in place to stop people from brainlessly applying without having too much idea about how modding works/spamming BN apps from multis (200/150 kds requirement).

Additionally, while applying for BN you have to provide from 2 to 4 high-quality mods that show the applicant's ability to mod different aspects of a map. I think it's safe to say that the application mods are usually much more polished than the "standard" ones, and getting these mods done is probably more of a "commitment test" than spending 15 minutes over the course of 3 months.

If removing the threshold completely would be too much then something like getting rid of it once someone has applied once could work as well I think.

agree

agree

bump

idk

kano

didn't read i'm doing social interractions here instead of a twitter

disagree

agree

@jounzan not quite i only asked to check the post =]

.

olsonn wrote:

@jounzan not quite i only asked to check the post =]

ok sorry lemme rephrase

It is a basic metric for NATs to check whether an applicant is active recently or not.

Removing the requirement is basically telling NATs to manually check each and every applicant of their activity, which heavily increases their already piling workload, not to mention the amount of people who is willing to "take a chance" and apply for BN without any barriers, which one-up the workload yet again.

If you are trying to apply for BN but is unwilling to pay even the minimal amount of effort to meet the activity requirement, they really shouldn't be a BN in the first place because being a BN requires some degrees of dedication.

Pinned for now so it doesn't need to be bumped for visibility.

OP sounds reasonable in my opinion, though I would still keep activity checks for BNs that are returning after being removed for activity - got to show somehow they improved on what they got removed for. Though in those cases it's not checked via mod score anyways (as detailed on wiki/en/People/The_Team/Beatmap_Nominators/Becoming_a_Beatmap_Nominator#rejoining-after-being-removed-from-the-beatmap-nominators )

Especially since application mods need to be in the past 6 months anyways, it's hard to achieve 3 very good mods if you're not active in general, and that's the main thing we'd look at. Similar to what olsonn is saying.

I think it's worth testing out. The mod score system as it is can be finnicky and make applying on one day versus another hard to predict your score and work with.

If it only increases workload of how many apps there are to process without leading to more people coming into BN though, it may have to be re-evaluated if such a change is worthwhile.

Would want to know what other NAT think to change anything, but that's my 2c.

agree

ye

agree

I think that as long as you can prove that you can provide a quality mod consistently (that doesn't necessarily mean big quantity of mods, nor mapsets modded).
Many people can be very fitting for the role, but they are just busy people who probably have time only on weekends, and that alone makes them not considered for the position, because they would have to make stupid amounts of work just to apply. If they just could keep doing like 1/2 quality mods weekly, and then if they get accepted, keep taking care of 1/2 maps weekly, I think that would be nice.

I think it kinda serves as a threshold to stop people from just applying willy-nilly, especially when they're not prepared

It's kind of a good motivator for newer modders to actually get out there and mod some but I do think 3 months is kind of dumb

Probably just doing 2 months is fine? You'd be able to prove that you're atleast making an effort on activity + would still provide motivation to new modders + would discourage people who aren't ready or are trolling around from applying

agree, noffy pretty much summed up why the threshold is unnecessary - it's basically just a check on a check on a check

@wafer people already can't "apply willy-nilly" because of the 6mo rule (mods sent must be made in past 6mo) and the 200 kudosu minimum. worst case scenario we'll get 1 or 2 ppl applying with bad 6mo old mods and those are not difficult to deal with

@cynplytholowazy
yes, it is a basic metric for NATs to check activity
but it doesn't provide reasonable data, since as i've said, you can just cheese your way out of it without having to commit much, and that says like 0 about the person's actual activity

currently you could literally just replace the activity with a button on the application site that you have to click once a month for 3 months before you join and nothing would really change

as for workload yeah, i am aware that this might mean more workload for NATs, but i think it will just cause an initial influx of many applications which then would probably dwindle down to the usual, maybe to a slightly above the average level

agree

multiple times i've reached activity threshold just by periodically finding bg source or checking metadata, neither of which take time usually lol

UberFazz wrote:

agree, noffy pretty much summed up why the threshold is unnecessary - it's basically just a check on a check on a check

@wafer people already can't "apply willy-nilly" because of the 6mo rule (mods sent must be made in past 6mo) and the 200 kudosu minimum. worst case scenario we'll get 1 or 2 ppl applying with bad 6mo old mods and those are not difficult to deal with

Oh thisis kinda true

Kk yea then this is fine dont c y not to remove

agree

sure

nice

agree

can agree that the current implementation is a relic from the past; worked better when modding the entire mapset gave 1 or 2 kudosu. Also agree that there is some redundancy in it being cheesable and a hurdle in getting it down right.

Though, personally do think some form of activity requirements should persist as a presence check. I wouldn't have a ton of faith in applications who use the only 3 mods for the past 6 months to apply - how are they going to manage their BN activity?

So, I'd propose the following:
- Remove them, see what happens. If it's smooth sailing without them thanks to the other limiters, then life's easier for everyone.
- If that goes south somehow, use the modscore calculator as a recommendation rather than a restriction. Manually check if the applicant is consistently present through the applicant's modding page. This should be pretty quick, can literally just scroll through for a minute. That way, the baseline activity requirements are ideally a bit lower, more flexible and also more meaningful. Being able to see where their kudosu came from adapts to the cheese strats.

As I'm going to go into a bit of detail and ranting I'll summarize my point in bold so it is crystal clear:

I fully agree that the current system is flawed, acting both as a bottleneck and artificially forcing applicants to wait no matter if they are already prepared or not.

As for the long version:
I am not a fan of this current system. Never was. While I must admit that I myself used these 3 months before submitting an app to truly hone some of my skills, this just felt like a bump that would only work for people who are starting to mod.

Beyond that, I do not see a use on having a recurrent limiter such as getting some arbitrary numbers that as OP explained CAN and WILL be exploited. Why do I not see this use? Because the applicants being tested are inadvertedly going to be tested for the mods they submit and a previous background check on the user. The NATg is already forced to check their mods in depth before making a choice. That's where the "Can this person become a BN?" question gets answered. The limiter only works as a pre-activity check that on practice isn't even a valid metric to base off as activity on one person might change DRASTICALLY even while inside the BNg.

Yaspo is however correct in one thing. With no way to "objectively" qualify a person's willingness to commit to the group, how can that information be gauged? I believe there are more ways to understand how involved someone might be in the project. And I personally also believe that all current NATs possess the ability to discern this from their experience.

Overall, I'd vouch to try it out. Maybe if this increases the workload in the NATg we could maybe think of implementing a Wave-by-wave application to better manage workflow? This problem is completely out of my scope of knowledge as it's basically not my turf to tread in.

In conclusion, I'd say that from my experience this would be a good change to explore in the short term.

I agree.

I have applied maybe 5 or 6 times in the past, but took a massive break from modding (and osu in general).

For my last few applications, I have seeked further NAT (QAT at the time) advice and have usually gotten either positive or neutral feedback with only one or two areas that needed improvement. (Most recently, I was told to mod maps with more complex concepts)

Now that I want to return and attempt to apply for BN again, the three month wait limit is moreso annoying than useful. I was most active before modding v2 and think I had about 600 individual mods (like wall text type mods that only granted one kudosu) before the switch. Yes, this isn't impressive especially compared to others, but as far as "will this person be active as a BN" goes I think it does show that I will have some commitment to the role.

Maybe if removing the threshold would put too much strain on evaluators, we could have an "exception" system that allows people above a specified kudosu count to bypass the threshold. Or, perhaps change the threshold to a # of mods instead of months of modding. (An example would be require 20 mods of activity for applying instead of three months of activity.)

The biggest argument against this would be that people could abuse the system and do a bunch of single suggestion mods. I don't think this would be a massive issue since only the mods people submit will be evaluated (unless an NAT wants to see more I guess) and people are able to abuse the current system as well.

I do think that time limits in-between applications are solid, however.

After further discussion with the NAT, this is now adjusted for taiko catch and mania, so I'll be unpinning for now.

You can see the full change here, or read the becoming a bn wiki page

https://github.com/ppy/osu-wiki/pull/6918

We'll see how it goes with TCM first, and consider whether we can do that for standard in the near future. We'll probably be adding more NAT first to help account for the increased workload that would entail if it does lead to a significant increase in applications.