Problem:

The current BN entrance evals are confusing, demoralizing and feel like a complete shot in the dark if you're able to make it in or not. Currently the best way to get BN when you start from scratch is to mod a couple of maps (potentially hurting them, if you do not know how to mod exactly), submit an eval, get vague feedback back, refine modding, submit eval again, get feedback, etc.

This process is not only extremely inefficient, taking not only a lot of frankly wasted effort every time it's repeated (from both applicant and evaluators), but it's also demotivating for the applicant to have to go through the cycle of thinking they're good enough, getting rejected with some pointers, thinking they're good enough again, getting rejected again, and so on and so forth. BN evals require some modding knowledge that only really the evaluators / people who have passed it can really grasp exactly - it has some very vague concepts that you would almost never learn on your own and, even if specifically given to you, can cause a fair bit of confusion and take some real getting used to.

Alternatively, you can learn from someone who knows how to mod already and is willing to spend their time and effort to help you improve your own modding, which is assuming you have a connection to someone who has that knowledge. This is a much more efficient way, but it's gated by a bunch of social engineering and games and whatnot.

Solution:

Merge the two things together. Make BN evals clearer by tying them to a group modding mentorship system so that people get quick feedback on the things they've done wrong and can have a compendium of things available to understand what (specifically the BN type of) modding is all about. This would not only make applying a lot simpler and easier to understand, but would also take away a lot of the NAT's workload - which is individual evaluation of many "easy fail" candidates, as well as make their work have clear timeframes and not pile up.

System implementation / archetyping:

BN applicants sign up at the start of a 2 month cycle if they have over the minimum kudosu amount.

NAT review entrants and deny people with poor behavior - this is already done in BN evaluations, just on a case-by-case basis.

People who pass this preliminary check get put into a group chat / crash course where you have resources that can help you understand the modding process. These include, but are not limited to: prerecorded explanatory videos, direct chat with the mentoring team where not only you can ask individual questions but also discuss things with the other applicants, weekly discord calls with example mods by the mentoring team, etc.

Every 2 weeks, the applicants would have a mini-eval where they submit a single mod and get it judged by the mentoring team, then have custom feedback as to what they did right and wrong with their mods (this not only is less work than a regular eval since it's only one map, but it's also direct feedback of a mod you basically JUST did, which can help your modding almost immediately). You can skip ONE of these exams but not any more, due to any reason (not available, out of town, illness, boredom, etc), if you skip two or more you're kicked from the cycle and the group chat. This is to prevent people from getting in who are not committed to being a BN since it's a lot of consistent work.

At the end of the cycle, you take a full eval, reduced to just another mini-eval if you've done well in the last couple, and if you pass, you get into the BNG as a probation BN. If you have a neutral / barely failed score you're welcome to stay in the group chat for next cycle. If you fail poorly on this last eval, you have to take 1-2 cycles off, to avoid overloading the groups.

This is a revised version of what my personal experience was: I constantly failed BN evaluations myself, and felt extremely in the dark about why and what to improve on. Then, with Seto Kousuke's "experiment", I and a couple of others were given a chance to get into the BNG after a months' worth of modding lessons and personalized tests and it was not only an opportunity that taught me a lot, but I've never looked back, being a BN who's never been probationed since.

This should be a much better way to proceed with the evaluation process, if not to get people invested in modding through personal interactions, not only with mentors but also with their "classmates", then to not have them just throw darts at the eval process until they finally make their modding just right, which has not only been extremely frustrating in my personal experience but has also been a common gripe I have seen repeated over and over by other people similarly frustrated with this process.

What would the mentors have to gain with this? This could be answered with a range of things, as it's really up to the NAT / staff, but my proposal is to give mentors in this process, if they're volunteering BNs, half or more of their minimum activity already guaranteed, or to give them Discord Nitro or some other form of small payment, especially if they're NATs and already have a reduced minimum activity.

I'd love to hear if anyone has any frustrations with the current evaluation system and whether they would consider this a better approach to things.

Cheers,
Dada

Sounds really good in theory, however I don’t think this is a sustainable model. Hands on mentoring - even if it’s just once every 2 weeks per person - is a lot more work than just quick feedback every 3 months per applicant.

I don’t think there are many people who would want to or would do this for long without heavily burning out. In addition, by submitting an application, participants are 100% committed to applying, whereas in this model some people may drop out half way through - leading to a waste of time and effort.

I think this is a great idea. It's really hard to naturally develop intuition for the types of issues most BNs and NATs look for since there are no good resources which list out those sorts of things or how to start looking for them more closely. That on top of the fact that it's pretty hard to go out and find good BN-level mods makes it difficult for newer modders or modders who keep getting denied to actually improve at issue finding, despite nominal feedback every time they get denied (as that feedback is clearly not sufficient to avoid the time wasted from their apps having to be evaluated over and over for no gain).

I would definitely like to help out with such a system if it were to be implemented and supported.

Fully agree with this, and I'm sure the Community Mentorship Program organization team would be happy to help facilitate this. I've been advocating for this among certain groups for a while as well.

needs Human Resources but yea i been sayin this Fr

Sounds cool to me, just let any member of the BNG become a mentor and most importantly give good incentives so that we can reach a good amount of signed-up mentors (ideally about 1/3 of the group). Reducing the minimum activity to 1 or 2 is a very good reward as you mentioned (and no I don't think it's counterproductive since the member will be spending time helping others join the team rather than nominating maps themselves, which will result in more nominations from the team in the short-term period). Titles and badges would also be super great.

Really looking forward to this, I can see a lot of people supporting this idea and willing to help to organize this modding mentorship if needed. I encourage NATs to post their thoughts here so we can know their opinion.

I strongly agree with this proposal.

From the view of someone who has failed this application process over and over, the fact that so much went into each of those applications and so little came out of it (usually just an essay with a few paragraphs) if you fail is pure frustration. Apart from that, the feedback that were given were sometimes demotivating or not helpful enough for the amount of work put in. Words like "Follow mapper's intent" or "focus on overarching issues" at the end of my evaluations doesn't tell me how to exactly do that as a modder. Therefore, this model would likely be a great help for someone in a spot similar to me.

However, I still feel that this model could be unsustainable like wafer mentioned if not enough people put effort into it. Just the evaluator part of the NAT is definitely not enough to carry this process out and we definitely need BNs and experienced modders to help make this work which I deeply hope that is the case because that would improve the experience of becoming a BN massively. This may also increase the number of BNs and give more opportunity for mappers throughout the community as well.

Overall an excellent proposal, I can't wait for this to be implemented if it happens.

this would be really cool! tho i feel like returning bns wouldn't like it cuz they are forced to learn things that they already know just to apply again, maybe keep the current system too only for those who already know what they're doing?

dPeace wrote:

this would be really cool! tho i feel like returning bns wouldn't like it cuz they are forced to learn things that they already know just to apply again, maybe keep the current system too only for those who already know what they're doing?

considering that returning BNs (who left on good terms not too long ago) already have a shortcut by skipping probation I can totally see this not applying to them, and this being focused on first-time BN applicants

all in all an extremely based idea, especially considering that sometimes your evals can be a diceroll from my experience speaking to multiple bns/bn candidates and this definitely feels more refined and streamlined. the question is whether bng/nat actually have resources for that lol

Godsenger wrote:

the question is whether bng/nat actually have resources for that lol

I definitely argue they do. Probably not enough to help every applicant, but even 1 new bn would make this worth it.

Huge vouch

wafer wrote:

Hands on mentoring - even if it’s just once every 2 weeks per person - is a lot more work than just quick feedback every 3 months per applicant.

I don’t think there are many people who would want to or would do this for long without heavily burning out. In addition, by submitting an application, participants are 100% committed to applying, whereas in this model some people may drop out half way through - leading to a waste of time and effort.

For the first part of your answer - surprisingly no, it's either about the same effort or less, depending on how frequently they eval. There's also real benefits to be had with a strict and cyclical approach (encourages less slacking / late evals which are currently a big problem with the system especially if the NAT is in stuff like holiday season (e.g right now) in which case stuff can be scheduled around problematic times rather than not scheduled at all. You can ask anybody involved with the Seto thing or Seto himself and they'd all probably tell you that the work in maintaining something like this is not really scary, at least not as scary as it looks.

"I don't think there are many people who would want to or would do this for long without burning out" - people already eval as NATs burning out immensely right now because it's at the end of the day a slog of a process with a over 80% fail rate so you're just going through the motions as a part-time job right now. This system would allow you to essentially eval people in a group manner, while also giving them feedback directly so most of the "easy fails" where they clearly don't have the knowledge of anything in the process would be minimized greatly.

"In addition, by submitting an application, participants are 100% committed to applying, whereas in this model some people may drop out half way through - leading to a waste of time and effort." If you're 100% committed to applying as a BN and you can't stand a 1-2 month internship / tutoring period then you literally should not become a BN, because that's what initial probation tries (and fails, currently) to do. Also, since the mentoring is distributed to a class as a group, not much if any time or effort are lost at all.

Great idea. It would need to have quite a lot of resources speaking from my experience as intern teacher in school, but I like how do you adapt it for BNG scenario like this.

I can see that BNG is quite intimidating at first, and this idea will make it way less scarier while still demanding the applicant's commitment to become the future nominators.

First, there may be some oddities because my English is not good.

I very much agree with dada's post.
I have had 5 bn apps in the past.
Each one I have done the best I think I can, but the feedback has said the same thing and I am working on improving it, but I don't know if this has improved it because there is no one to actually ask.
The first time (3/8/2021), the feedback was short, about 5 lines.
(I guess it can't be helped that the mod was very simple)
In the second one (6/21/2021), it increased to about 7 lines, but still not very useful feedback.
The third time (2021/9/19) this time I posted a total of about 130 mods, but with about 10 lines of feedback.
Fourth time (5/24/2022)Here I tried a very new wording. Then I was told the wording was forced, but honestly I didn't know much about what it meant by itself.
5th time (2022/12/9)Here I tried to improve on the wording that I was told last time, but here the wording was kept to one line and it was the same thing that I was told last time.

I don't know if feedback alone can improve things like this at all.

I have heard from ex-bn that there has been some improvement since the last exam at examination items, but I am not at all sure if that is true or not.

also, I understand that it is important to know what kind of mod to do, but I also felt that the TEST results (the 20 point one) did not make much sense.

So I thought those clarifications and the mentorship that dada mentioned was a very good idea.

definitely agreed.

about the payment though, i think it would probably be healthier not to get money or anything monetary involved considering the general approach the game takes with contributions. (unless peppy would be willing to accept bounty requests from evaluators involved in this mentoring thing)

Frankly i think (myself included) there would be bns who would prefer to do this instead of nominate maps. Making these people responsible for mentoring in exchange for significantly reduced activity requirements (not completely removing them) I think would work. I don't think monetary compensation would work for this at all

Just give them osu supporter like peppy gives to the GMT if there needs to be that kind of incentive. All in all it would be nice to have some sort of group class kind of activity for
the BNG and would love to sign up if something of the sort happened.

Local Hero wrote:

Just give them osu supporter like peppy gives to the GMT if there needs to be that kind of incentive. All in all it would be nice to have some sort of group class kind of activity for
the BNG and would love to sign up if something of the sort happened.

i dont know if you're aware but BNs already get free 1 day supporter every day (so its essentially infinite as long as u stay a BN)

How have no NAT commented on this when feedback so far has been nearly universally positive :doggothonk:

wafer wrote:

I don’t think there are many people who would want to or would do this for long without heavily burning out.

The Community Mentorship Program does exactly this and it seems to be working quite well. (afaik, I have not participated myself) Additionally, I know a few people who get consistent feedback from a BN so there are definitely some BNs willing to help in this. If there still is too little interest from BNs you could force new BNs to actively participate in the mentoring program proposed by Dada.

Having this group modding classroom thing be more anonymous compared to the Mentorship program would be a big pre, so that you don't run the risk of people being left out because the 'teachers' don't like them; if you have something more anonymous you have contact with more 'students' but less intense with each of them. If the 'student' does not like this, they can try to get in one of the unofficial mentorships programs.

PukPow wrote:

Words like "Follow mapper's intent" or "focus on overarching issues" at the end of my evaluations doesn't tell me how to exactly do that as a modder.

Just wanted to throw in that this is very recognizable, while this tells you what is wrong with your mods, it does not help in improving your mods.

If something like this is being organized, then I'd love being part of it Thanks Dada for bringing it up.

The core idea is not bad but I think it could be developed further because some aspects were not considered:

1. This process may not be suitable for every applicant because
   - not every modder is a beginner starting from scratch, many people have some or even a lot of experience and knowledge about modding so it's probably not always necessary to go through this kind of mentorship
   - some may want to learn modding by themselves or by other means and may not want/be able to do this
   
   

   Godsenger wrote:

   dPeace wrote:

   this would be really cool! tho i feel like returning bns wouldn't like it cuz they are forced to learn things that they already know just to apply again, maybe keep the current system too only for those who already know what they're doing?

   considering that returning BNs (who left on good terms not too long ago) already have a shortcut by skipping probation I can totally see this not applying to them, and this being focused on first-time BN applicants

   But even if you make it optional or only apply to first-time applicants, there's a bigger issue left unsolved, which is my next point:
2. The current method of evaluation may be problematic in itself, not only on a procedural/logistic level but also on a content level (as in, what is considered good/bad, what criteria is used for the assessment etc.). I explained this in more detail in another recent discussion: community/forums/posts/8886661
   To add onto it, due to the current practice of judging modding quality, the way people mod has changed to fit these standards. In other words, people have adapted their "modding style" to be in line with so-called "BN app mods", which are mods specifically made for applications. These are not only focused on fulfilling as many criteria as possible, but also focus on specific types of suggestions/problems and specific keywords. Essentially, modding has become more homogenous because the "BN app mod" standard is considered good. But I think it's important to remember that there is more than one right way to mod. For example, if you look at old modding threads there are some differences compared to present-day mods, and I don't think these were necessarily worse. However, it's probably less likely that someone applying with that kind of mods would be accepted, so maybe it's necessary to take a step back and try to see it from a different point of view.
   I also just want to point out that my suggestion in the other thread and this proposal are not mutually exclusive, I think the modding mentorship idea is helpful regardless.

I think I huge problem of this proposal is that it requires a lot of effort from a lot of different people. It can work if there's a lot of motivation for the project but history shows these don't work out more often than they do.

Something that requires a lot less effort over time would be a bunch of well experienced bn/nats going over a few huge mods each explaining what is good or bad about each suggestion, and what they would (or wouldn't) say instead, bringing up suggestions the modder may have missed. could be a text post somewhere or a video on youtube, as long as it's something that could be easily linked to for bns-to-be to show them *all* of the expectations of a nominator.

i am a victim of three (3) rejected apps, i agree

also there's no std mentors in the latest community mentorship cycle lol

stzur wrote:

also there's no std mentors in the latest community mentorship cycle lol

This is factually untrue and I don't know where you got this idea from

yoooo sounds rlly cool

while this sounds like a great process in theory, in practice NATs aren't teachers, and teaching requires a totally separate skillset from what evaluators currently have

i simply don't believe we have the manpower to make such a transformation as it sounds like it would require loads more effort than currently. plus, environment would be totally different with different goals and practices so there's a decent chance many current NAT would not enjoy it or prefer it over the current process even if it is the better process for applicants

what i definitely do agree with (and think is actually reasonable) is the need for more modding resources like videos or wiki articles, and we're slowly working on expanding this with some ideas that have been floating around for a while now, which you can hopefully see soon (and may already be seeing a mini-preview of in the latest app feedbacks!)

one of these resources may also be a semi-official modding mentorship separate from current mentorship, but that also requires tons of effort and depends on how many people are interested. i know mod mentorship was a thing there at some point (might still be?) but i don't think it ever got the attention it deserved

UberFazz wrote:

one of these resources may also be a semi-official modding mentorship separate from current mentorship, but that also requires tons of effort and depends on how many people are interested. i know mod mentorship was a thing there at some point (might still be?) but i don't think it ever got the attention it deserved

This sounds very promising. I don't remember mod mentorship was a thing outside of the community mentorship program and some people hosting their own unofficial mentorship program, so maybe the reason for the lack of attention would be the lack of advertisement.
Having a clear goal like 'if you behave yourself, keep up and don't drop out, you are very likely to become a bn', which would be possible since the program is somewhat official, will make people more incentivized to actually participate and/or spread the word.

UberFazz wrote:

while this sounds like a great process in theory, in practice NATs aren't teachers, and teaching requires a totally separate skillset from what evaluators currently have

So we can bring in more NAT to handle this initiative, and/or train existing NAT on how to teach. Seems like an important skill to have if we intend to teach people how to mod better, including for existing BNs. Maybe this is why people complain that the feedback seems arbitrary and unhelpful?

UberFazz wrote:

i simply don't believe we have the manpower to make such a transformation as it sounds like it would require loads more effort than currently.

Bring more NAT on board, or allow BNs to assist with this (as per the initial suggestion)

UberFazz wrote:

plus, environment would be totally different with different goals and practices so there's a decent chance many current NAT would not enjoy it or prefer it over the current process even if it is the better process for applicants

So... you admit this might be a better process, but because existing NAT would enjoy themselves less, they will veto it? I would have assumed they would like to help prospective BNs. Maybe you can elaborate on this, because I see zero reason a better system should be rejected because some NAT prefer the status quo. I'm really unsure what anyone loses doing this, as evaluators would still be needed... It seems that the current NAT only enjoys (and is good at) telling people why their modding sucks, but not actually explaining how to make it better?

UberFazz wrote:

what i definitely do agree with (and think is actually reasonable) is the need for more modding resources like videos or wiki articles, and we're slowly working on expanding this with some ideas that have been floating around for a while now, which you can hopefully see soon (and may already be seeing a mini-preview of in the latest app feedbacks!)

I hope we will see a public announcement on the NAT twitter or forums or something with information on this, when it is appropriate! Transparency=good. Though this is definitely a good step in the right direction. Though, seeing that this is a part of Dada's proposal, I'm surprised that the current NAT would enjoy doing this work.

UberFazz wrote:

one of these resources may also be a semi-official modding mentorship separate from current mentorship, but that also requires tons of effort and depends on how many people are interested. i know mod mentorship was a thing there at some point (might still be?) but i don't think it ever got the attention it deserved

The Community Mentorship Program (CMP) is semi-official. It would absolutely be possible to integrate this "BN Pathway" program into the existing mentorship system, or for the NAT/BNG to create their own (the Mentorship Program could assist with this, if that's wanted). An isolated Modding Mentorship did exist (run by Cheri). I took it over (when Cheri left) and merged it with the Community Mentorship Program, which is primarily run by Okoratu, Uberzolik, and Yaspo. The biggest issue that we see in our program is that qualified mentors have no incentive to actually mentor. However, if this was combined with the BNG's processes, we could incentivize mentors to participate, and give more publicity to it. The group classes Dada proposed I think would be a better system for something like this than the existing individualized mentorship formats, as it significantly reduces the workload an individual mentor must do per individual mentee.

Oh, we also have the Graduation Program in CMP. It teaches people how to mentor/teach, in the hopes of bringing more competent mentors out there.

for first few points, "just get more NATs" isn't as easy of a solution as you make it out to be as the process is difficult and candidates are already hard to come by. adding more requirements will limit this even further and make them *even harder* to find, so clearly not a feasible solution. same issue with trusting bns with it: we need the right bns for it AND they also need to enjoy the process (aka two of the biggest reasons that have killed off stuff like the self-regulating bns idea + qah)

for the next point, you must remember that NATs are volunteers. if they don't support a new system that's forced on them, they will simply quit, no matter the reason, and then we're left in an even worse position than before. not saying that they for sure won't like the idea, but that it's possibly a deal-breaking flaw of the process if the majority don't support the idea of doing more/different work

UberFazz wrote:

the process is difficult and candidates are already hard to come by

If you really want more NATs then make the process easier. The teacher NATs don't need to be good at management for instance so aside from teaching they need the same competences as BNs.

If NATs quit because they don't agree with this system then you need to be sure that there are enough people who'd like to be a NAT and one way to achieve that is by having a more open attitude - instead of saying 'you have to be able to do (list of things) or you won't become NAT' you can say 'if you like to be NAT then we can teach you what you need to know'. If you rely on the candidate's resolve to fight a system in place because the current NATs don't want to change it then the NAT is doomed.

Needing this more open mindset applies to all official things, which is also the reason why this proposal is brought up for the BNG specifically.

UberFazz wrote:

for first few points, "just get more NATs" isn't as easy of a solution as you make it out to be as the process is difficult and candidates are already hard to come by. adding more requirements will limit this even further and make them *even harder* to find, so clearly not a feasible solution. same issue with trusting bns with it: we need the right bns for it AND they also need to enjoy the process (aka two of the biggest reasons that have killed off stuff like the self-regulating bns idea + qah)

for the next point, you must remember that NATs are volunteers. if they don't support a new system that's forced on them, they will simply quit, no matter the reason, and then we're left in an even worse position than before. not saying that they for sure won't like the idea, but that it's possibly a deal-breaking flaw of the process if the majority don't support the idea of doing more/different work

To see that the majority outside (and inside) the NAT is going to support this idea or not. If it's possible, it would be nice to hold some sort of survey about how many people would like to support and/or work for this new system to put this concern to rest rather than arguing about it in this thread. If you have my personal opinion, I think the majority would like this to happen. However, we lack evidence of that on both sides of this problem.

UberFazz wrote:

for first few points, "just get more NATs" isn't as easy of a solution as you make it out to be as the process is difficult and candidates are already hard to come by. adding more requirements will limit this even further and make them *even harder* to find, so clearly not a feasible solution. same issue with trusting bns with it: we need the right bns for it AND they also need to enjoy the process (aka two of the biggest reasons that have killed off stuff like the self-regulating bns idea + qah)

for the next point, you must remember that NATs are volunteers. if they don't support a new system that's forced on them, they will simply quit, no matter the reason, and then we're left in an even worse position than before. not saying that they for sure won't like the idea, but that it's possibly a deal-breaking flaw of the process if the majority don't support the idea of doing more/different work

Just say you don't personally like the idea and it would be a bit more straightforward and easy to parse.

How about giving this system a trial run for a cycle to see if people enjoy it or not? Run the idea through NATs and choose 3 or 4 who are down with it, then give some 2-3 BNs who are also excited about it a shot at being mentors and just try it out. Speaking in hypotheticals is well and good but actually seeing if something works for real is much more important AND you can see what kind of burnout you get after a cycle to see if people would really be more burdened (personally I have my doubts about that).

In addition, the whole "we don't have NAT who are interested in running it" is a moot point imo because we have Yaspo, uberzolik, Radar, Okoratu, etc who are literally running a mentorship program for modding, and the extra work the NAT would have to do to implement is quite literally say "yeah, these guys will handle it for us"... what I'm saying is that it wouldn't require hardly any NAT effort in the first place, assuming you leverage existing groups who have already done a lot of the legwork and proven it's success.

And yeah, Dada is right. Let's run a trial to see how it goes.

-White wrote:

This is factually untrue and I don't know where you got this idea from

pls you know damn well i meant modding mentors, the only ones are for taiko and mania

stzur wrote:

-White wrote:

This is factually untrue and I don't know where you got this idea from

pls you know damn well i meant modding mentors, the only ones are for taiko and mania

Oh gotcha. Yeah i commented about that. This also isn't a new cycle. The new cycle will start in feb, so just wait a bit

vouch for proposal, sounds like a potentially great system, definitely better than current one for sure

only gripes i have with it is that there doesnt seem to be any solution for former BNs/already competent modders who dont really need extensive crash coursing to know how to be a BN
id propose joining the cycle for like 2 weeks and doing a couple mods just to display theyre still capable of modding and then get a fast track to full BN

apart from that maybe make the cycles shorter? idk how most other people are but im pretty sure you can realistically learn pretty much everything you need to know in a month rather than 2, perhaps doing an eval a week rather than every 2 weeks

even if the system happens to not be successful id still really enjoy seeing it tested out for a cycle or 2 either way, im willing to give anything a shot at this point

id be down to help out with the mentoring too so hmu if this happens

Basensorex wrote:

vouch for proposal, sounds like a potentially great system, definitely better than current one for sure

only gripes i have with it is that there doesnt seem to be any solution for former BNs/already competent modders who dont really need extensive crash coursing to know how to be a BN
id propose joining the cycle for like 2 weeks and doing a couple mods just to display theyre still capable of modding and then get a fast track to full BN

apart from that maybe make the cycles shorter? idk how most other people are but im pretty sure you can realistically learn pretty much everything you need to know in a month rather than 2, perhaps doing an eval a week rather than every 2 weeks

even if the system happens to not be successful id still really enjoy seeing it tested out for a cycle or 2 either way, im willing to give anything a shot at this point

id be down to help out with the mentoring too so hmu if this happens

When I pictured this I made it 2 weeks instead of 1 week to ease the load on the mentors / not make it like a full-time thing.

Also yeah, people who've already gone through the BN system and left on good terms modding-wise (maybe got kicked for activity or just left) shouldn't be subjected to this.

I would imagine that only failed applicants should be offered a spot. Making nearly every applicant go through this is a little crazy.

agree^

i dont think i will ever get a ranked map ...
i had connections that where willing to rank my maps but they quit BN

now i have to rebuild my mapping reputation all over again

qwt wrote:

i dont think i will ever get a ranked map ...
i had connections that where willing to rank my maps but they quit BN

now i have to rebuild my mapping reputation all over again

i don't think that this is relevant to the topic

i support this

in personal experience i just had to apply feedback they gave me n i got in 2nd try, but ive defo seen ppl struggle w improvement cuz as u mentioned they didnt have the resources or connections w others resulting in being demotivated or not improving at a good pace as even w quick nat feedback it wasnt clear to them what they should be doing as a bn

the incentives are nice too, cuz its shifting the focus on some bns who dont wanna just be nomination bots n help out up n coming fellas who wanna do what they do

tho i dont rly like the idea of givin discord nitro n such, not a fan of monetary incentives for video gamma, maybe super bn™ or less needed activity reqs would b a good start for ppl who wanna help out n doesnt seem abusable n should be reviewed by nat or bn volunteers jus in case

I never said anything and sorry I'm bumping this but I agree. I've seen with some people from the latam region that it's hard to grasp what a "general issue" is without hands-on mentoring, since you dont see BNs/NATs doing too many general-issues posts when modding (since when you get a map with general issues, you just move on to the next one lol)

Language barrier is a thing with latam and Spain as well tho so I know this is not the best sample, but modding mentoring, when you have been deemed as being "super duper close" would be neat, and I'm trying that right now with some peeps, I'll let you know how it goes.

i failed bn app 6 times
did 2 cycle of mentorship as mentor
never got mentor before learned mapping and modding on my own

definitely understands the struggle of ppl who fail to become bn simply cuz they not aware whats exactly expected and how to get better.

but the biggest issue i see is mentee who quit halfway is really killing motivation and waste time for mentor. its way more taxing to teach than to nom maps.

to start, maybe have a BN/NAT maintained guide to become BN? that touch on all aspects of modding with real examples of good mods and bad mods

more or less implemented now