t/352803

I hate to keep on making this an issue, but I've been a little distraught with all of the controversey coming from a lot of recent staff drama. The fact that the game has had a net loss of 5-6 QATs to the team over the past 6 months, while also having a constant downward spiral of BNs (often times coming from unhappiness with the team rather than inactivity, from what I have seen), as well as just a negative attitude about modding in general, it's obvious that something should probably be done about this.

I'd love to try to step in and save this myself. But the huge curve of 3 months of constant modding for me is a little too much for me to handle, plus school and borderline MDD caused from school stress has made that literally impossible. So, instead, I'd like the bring this topic up once again

Is anything going to happen with this? As I stated in the previous topic, THE BN AND QAT WERE INITIALLY ADDED TO BE A TRANSITION PHASE TO THE NEW MODDING v2. I was added to the team when it was first started, and currently that was about One year and 4 months ago. The last time I had ever heard anything about any sort of progress regarding this was During the last thead I made about this, which was literally about 4 months ago., and while a few things came from that, I really haven't seen much afterwards. I haven't seen much of any sort of progress towards implementing new systems, or even towards systems that were being worked on (ie. Realtime BN ranking).

I don't want to sit here and say that the staff are doing a terrible job, because that's not my intention. However, I just desperately want to see something done to fix the problems arising in this game with this constantly decaying staff. Even though mental health and real life reasons haven't let me be on here as much as I want, I still care about this game immensely. And since I have no power in the staff or really any relevance in the game anymore, this is the only way I can think to get any sort of action done.

Please don't let this thread be ignored like the last one.

Wait for new forum design!! HYPE!!!
would be something I expect regarding this topic.

Anyways something like modding the qualified maps are happening in the current situation.

i mean, i just automatically assume that literally everything is going to be fixed when osu next comes out

Midge wrote:

i mean, i just automatically assume that literally everything is going to be fixed when osu next comes out

But when is osu!next happening

Someday
I'm still waiting for modding v2

had a connection error, thought post didn't send.
@Mod: pls delete, thx

Reditum wrote:

But when is osu!next happening

Cutting edge was planned to be released as stable around now, but got pushed back due to players having issues running it on their machines. If you look at the graphs here, a bit less than 10% of the users are on the new versions, which means that a lot of players are still having issues. Also looking at the frequency at which players are reporting issues in #cuttingedge at slack, almost all of them haven't even tried the new versions or out right decided not to report what issues they are having. The more people test the cutting edge versions, the more bugs/glitches will be found, the more issues will be fixed, the more confidence peppy will have releasing cutting edge to stable. Once that happens, all the new feature that we hype osu!next for will finally start to follow.

Seriously, report any graphical or performance issues dealing with cutting edge here or here.

So a rough estimation would be mid or 3rd quarter of 2016 at the rate things are progressing. But who am I to predict that?

But honestly, the rate at which the map-ranking team is decaying will reduce the mapping community to a select group of predetermined people by the time next comes out. I mean, there's already far fewer new mappers in the ranked board (relatively) and there's definitely a decrease in overall quality as our focus is mainly on safe maps. I'm just speculating here.

Whether or not moddingv2 will fix that wholly depends on how that system will work, but with the current system as it is now, it's really not working. Waiting until then can really only hurt the mapping community.

Yeah, people talk about modding v2 like it would fix all modding issues, but considering how many complaints there are right now (from in- and outside of staff) I doubt the new system will fix anything.

I kind of miss having BATs.

Please don't let this thread die

For the love of christ, someone please let us know what's going on. Someone please give me hope

I was told a while ago that the lines of communication would be opened up

I was happy to see that when I had exposed many activity problems within the BN, that I immediately was able to have legitimate discussion from the higher-ups about how to fix the issue

But this is the 2nd time I've made this thread, and not the first time I've discussed this with people

I want to know. that's all I want. I want a line of communication that will let everyone know the progress that the team is making on making sure that this game runs as effectively as possible and lives up to the promises that it wishes to keep

This is a "test run", but nothing has been changed for almost a year in terms of the process of the BN in terms of how it is designed. It seems to just be a new form of the BAT, without forum power and without any sort of relevance other than being work slaves, often times under-appreciated for the work they put into the game. The only changes that I've been able to see are the removal of BNs and the removal of systems, without the implementation of new systems. We're still waiting for real time BN Ranking, which kind of died out with no real explanation. I get continually told that this is not a permenant system, and to accept the changes that are happening, but I'm seeing no changes nor a transition into the permanent fix. It almost feels like I've been lied to. As a former active modder, I was really excited to be able to be a part of this ever-changing system and actually hep make those positive steps towards the most effective system where as many mappers and modders could be happy. However, I'm just here literally sitting on my ass and waiting for something to happen, because I literally CAN'T do anything. I've completed a WHOLE SEMESTER of school without any major changes to the structure of the team, nor can I really remember anything happening over the summer.

I'm going to use harsh language, but the staff has dished out some harsh language as well, so I'm hoping they can take it. Things are NOT working. Things are NOT being run effectively. What I see is 2 relatively silent staff managers (one of which hasn't logged on in 15 days, the other who hasn't logged on in 8 days), and an overworked staff manager who has managed to get almost everyone to hate him, and has effectively, with many citing him specifically, caused some of the strongest contributors to the game to quit modding or caring about the game. The head of the game project is focusing on other areas, and relying so much on his managers that it takes complaints like these to get him to even notice that things aren't going as well as they should, nor can he dedicate a lot of time to fixing it. The QAT team is a dwindling team of people who really seem to have lost passion for what they do, and hasn't had any new additions since June (for osu!standard), so there are no new fresh ideas on how to make things more effective, nor is there opportunity for those who are working hard to have any chance of effectively being able to contribute even more. People are continually removed, yet people are not continually added. The BN is a group of disgruntled players who have been pretty much felt like they are being treated like children. They are given the privledge of ranking and bubbling, but yet are never given any sort of information on when either things are changing, or how they're even doing in the team. I literally feel like a broken record saying this, but the fact that I have had conversations TODAY AND YESTERDAY with current and former BNs about how they feel about the team, I have to be a broken record. It's almost like you guys don't trust these people to be able to have opinions and discussions on what should be done, so you just go like "okay new rule figure it out" or "okay you guys have to work together" when I was constantly told that I was supposed to only be working as a lone wolf. There's a reason that so many people have stopped modding, and it's not just school commitments or other things. That is a factor, but when I actually, you know, speak to the BNs, I learn that it is so much more. Most people keep the title just because they want to have the title, or because they were like me back when I was on the team and thought they could do something to change things. A lot of times I see people just be instantly shut down because "this is how things are", and I see random rules being added unofficially because "this is better." It's frustrating watching good people have to go through that shit. And the fact that 4 QATs have been removed from their positions, and no other QATs have been added is frustrating. Plus, adding new BNs has been really inconsistent even though there are many removals from the BN. It's almost as if you guys just stopped caring. And I think that's the frustrating thing. Nobody honestly gives a fuck anymore. Hell, even I don't give a fuck. Wanna know why? because I constantly constantly try my best to contribute, but it seems as if I can get nothing done.

Loctav wrote:

A As much as it is nice to see that you want to help out with things, there is a multitude of options you can factually use to improve osu! in any way. You don't need a red name, a green name and a "Lock thread" button for that. Because these are the sections of work that do not improve osu!, but just keep the place clean and maintained.

And as far as I understood your motives, you want to inprove things, not just keep them clean. Start with that! You don't need any green name as gratification to be an admired and respectable person within this community.

I really want to improve things. I am trying to hard to improve things. But it's all for naught, I feel. I feel like a stalker at the staffs door. I knock every day, and at this point it's just becoming similar to the sound of the wind, just in the background and ignored, while I watch easily fixable problems crumble down, and I watch good people lose all hope for the game. Every day, I see on Facebook about some new scandal that has made more people turn away from the game, and it pains me so much to see that, and it pains me so much that I have to agree with these people, because I want these problems to be fixed. I want to stop being lied to. I want this game to survive.

Well, there's nothing I can do and none from staff aside from peppy looks into the Development-forums without getting poked anyway - that's my experience at least.
There are certainly a lot of things that could be better. I think the active staff members are actually doing a good job but the structure that is worked with doesn't fit them.

From what I know, it is better to tackle down a problem in small pieces and start resolving those pieces one by one. How is it possible that osu!next will be able to fix all things at once by miracle? What Reditum said made me realize that that's exactly the reason why I, as a modder, stopped working hard and started being a lazy mapper/modder.

I'm not saying that this is entirely someone's fault if not mine, but when you open the pending beatmap subforum and you find yourself into an ocean made of a ton of maps with the same style principles it is kinda depressing. Basically my brain dies out of boredom because no one tries to make something interesting, but they just go "for ranking" a map. But oh well, I guess this is just my personal opinion here.

Returning to the real topic, if the staff encounteres some sort of problem developing the modding v2 or whatever the problem may be, they could start by asking help to people who are interested in helping for real. Even if a colored name on the forums doesn't help much you should at least give more details about what's going on. If I really want to help I'd dig myself in threads explaining how things work, but there is no such thing anywhere because the staff keeps everything secret for some reason. Since the staff has some sort of plan for this (I hope so) they could make a "to-do list" or whatever, and who wants to help or has some ideas may start working with no worries. How can I even imagine what might be helpful or not if I have no idea of where the staff wants to go and how?

I may add something later...

Personally I am sick of reading walls of text about what's not working with the Modding System, even if it is valid in this case. Everybody is aware of the huge amount of problems it has.

As a single person, all you can do is suggest something that could be changed for the better. A solution. I know that some QATs including me have tried that. The problem is that you can never have an overview of the whole situation as a single person.
For serious changes the whole team has to get together (in theory even the community should be included, but how do you want to do that if not even the team can get together properly) for a meeting of some sort. We have had that multiple times in the past, but it never happened regularly. To be completely honest, it just happened once each time, then there was a months-long break, and it happened again in a different form. The reason is that it's really hard to get multiple staffs together, and it is really hard to discuss properly in a large group without turning in circles. So to speak, if you want to consider everyone's opinion, it's a complete mess and most of the time opinion vs. opinion. And you can do literally nothing about it.

From my point of view, that is the reason why changes are made very slowly, or not at all most of the time. The only noticable changes since I am part of the QAT were seemingly spontaneous decisions by Community Managers or peppy, that came as a surprise for EVERYONE.

As a conclusion, your concerns are valid, however from my personal experience there is no solution to these problems involving the community, the BNs or even the QAT to an extent that you would expect. The only thing we can do is to do our best (as modders, BNs, QATs), try to keep activity and mapping quality in the ranked sections as high as possible, try to support new mappers etc, these things you always tried to do and everyone in theory should do. In other words, making the best out of the situation, because it doesn't matter how bad the system is, we can always have fun with mapping and modding and there will always be super cool new maps to support and all that. Then at some point there will be a spontaneous change to the system coming from the higher ups, most likely with osu! next, that everyone will be surprised about. If it's for the better or for the worse, we have to wait and see.

From my experience any suggestion how things could be changed for the better get ignored. If you're lucky 5 people read it completely and 1 answers. You're much more likely to gain responses by opening a topic with completely unreasonable critique as people will be disgusted and feel obliged to correct things.
That's not really motivating and it also doesn't really fit the attitude of the active staff managers.
I remember how a thread discussing the OWC setup here got deleted due to the sole fact that discussing and criticising something beforehand is useless because stuff needs to be DONE and if it doesn't work out you can do better next time due to the collected experience.
That's imo also the attitude peppy always had when doing things for the game and part of the reason why osu! had such a positive development.

That attitude is like completely absent regarding the mapping scene, instead the current system is somehow kept alive by its users. I have no insight what's happening behind the scenes but even for communication across time zones I don't see why one wouldn't set up a group on slack with people who have a lot of experience regarding the system and its changes in the past and try to figure something out that could improve the situation - small things or a big plan doesn't matter.

In case some idea comes to mind to someone just call me, maybe I'll be able to start modding again and above all, having fun doing it.
Regarding this I'd really like to help, either if the project starts from me or someone else.

Also yeah, I agree with Desperate regarding the "wait", even if we are more on a stand still right now, but oh well...

PS: what I said in the previous post was just to avoid starting something which has nothing to do with what the staff plans on doing in the future: a clearer objective brings also a clearer solution

Endaris wrote:

That attitude is like completely absent regarding the mapping scene, instead the current system is somehow kept alive by its users. I have no insight what's happening behind the scenes but even for communication across time zones I don't see why one wouldn't set up a group on slack with people who have a lot of experience regarding the system and its changes in the past and try to figure something out that could improve the situation - small things or a big plan doesn't matter.

Something similar is happening right now to create a new Ranking Criteria. Maybe the idea can be used for other fields regarding the mapping system later.

Yeah, I read that one on Loctav's Twitter.
I can't see yet how a new RC could affect mapper's and modder's motivation but I guess you could surprise us.

Desperate-kun wrote:

As a single person, all you can do is suggest something that could be changed for the better. A solution.

Basically to make a solution, shouldn't one know what and where the new modding system is aiming?

But anyways, 19 qualified maps in this period demands one obvious solution, unless
1) the mapping quality of overall mappers had decreased
2) the current situation is one of the beta version of moddingv2

It took me a few days to get to this because I had to mull over just like what to respond with because like

uh

no

I think it's really unfortunate to have that sort of mindset. It's honestly kind of the mindset that both hinders progress and lets one person get way too much power. The fact that people in the higher up positions have literally given up and now just wanna "wait for surprises" like a puppy waiting for treats from his master is honestly the stupidest thing I've heard.

I'm dealing with another game right now, Toontown Infinite (save the "hahah cdfa plays a kids game" for later), and it's probably the most terribly run thing I've ever seen. The communication is awful, the staff just sort of takes its time doing EVERYTHING, and the players who are really dedicated to the game really are sort of left in complete nothingness. For instance, the game has been down right now because of a server transfer, because one person got pissy and quit the team, the person hosting the servers. We were told it would be a 2 day operation, but now it's approaching day 8 of the transfer, and the only information we've received is one message, 6 days in, saying"It'll be done by the end of today, maybe tomorrow". Tomorrow referring to today. . . which is ending in 40 minutes, with no game nor information. It's literally awful. People are literally quitting and giving up hope daily. It's just simply not how to run a game that makes people want to play it, and the reputation of the development team is ruined forever, because now everyone sees them as slow, sloppy, lazy, and unable to communicate with their team. Imagine if someone were to say "oh yeah just wait for the next big surprise.", and then spend literal month waiting for something that isn't happening, all while things are taken away from the game with no replacements. That's just not how things work

It's what's happening with this game. Yeah, there's nothing I can really do except make these threads and bitch and whine and complain about it, but I just want this game, more than anything else in my heart, to just uphold the promises it makes and I want people to actually seem like they give a shit. If I had the power to do it myself, I would seriously head up this shit and design a new system for the BNs and QAT that are closer to the original ideas for the "community modding" that modding v2, in theory, wanted to achieve. If I didn't have to worry about school, I would seriously devote a LOT more time into this game to making it so that we wouldn't have to deal with playing the waiting game, and we could instead focus on at the very least making it known that progress has been made and that the staff wasn't lying to me when they said 'BN isn't a permanent system, so we're not going to take your suggestions, CDFA". I want to provide solutions, and I feel that the presentation of many problems should be the starting point for solutions. Sometimes it's stuff that I feel should have been common sense. For instance "Manage your team by removing inactive members, especially since your method of managing your team is defunct" was something that literally anyone with some sort of leadership skill should know how to do. There should be monitoring of the team to make sure that people are contributing as much as they can. And I know the staff's view on this is a little different than mine (The staff's view is moreso of a "any help is help", but not modding for months was simply unacceptable), but still.

As for communication, trello existed for that reason, as well as the beatmaps subforum. You don't need to have a real-time conference call to get things done. Is it helpful, hell yeah, and it gets things done a lot more efficiently, but you have to make adjustments for different situations. Additionally, working with all of the "higher up staff members" would work like this

AUS:
Peppy
Zallius (Maybe? I don't know how much he'd deal with BN stuff)

GER:
Loctav
p3n

AMER:
ztrot

It's a little bit of an annoying spread, but it's small enough to where everyone is able to still meet at a somewhat decent time (someone's either gonna have to get up early or stay up late, plus I don't know work schedules, but yeah). The staff isn't spread apart in many different countries, which is nice.

Why couldn't discussions happen like the Ranking Criteria subforum for this kind of stuff? Hell, even have it like the BN subforum, where people can just watch but only the staff can say things. Or at the very least give an EVEN MONTHLY update about these things! The saddest thing is that there is a perfect medium, the osu!weekly, that can get this stuff spread out to the community! (And the staff consists of a former really strong BAT member, as well as a staff manager, so it wouldn't be an unknown subject to them). I remember peppy saying that he wanted to make the entire process of updating the modding system a public thing, even opening up a discussion board for it (which I wasn't able to participate in thanks to my job having the shittiest LTE service I've ever seen in my life, lol), but then nothing came of it.

Instead, the only news that ever happens is done SOMETIMES through twitter or ask.fm. Which is the worst way to deal with things. Firstly, not everyone uses twitter or ask.fm, and I'm often times left in the dark about "oh well Loctav said this on ask.fm so it's gonna happen".



I like this image because it's talking negatively about people using third party platforms to discuss osu!, but at the same time, it's the only way that staff ever talks about ANYTHING, and even then it's always very vague. It's not like there's [b]multiple mediums in the game that communication can be done in, such as osu!weekly and the beatmap nominators subforum, which at this point is pretty much a dead forum[/n]

This is all, of course, assuming that there IS something to communicate, you know. Which is my hope. My hope is that there's actually SOME progress being made on actually moving to a new modding system, and not just using BN as the new system, while continually begging people to believe that this is still some transitional period.

Here is a timeline of what has happened since. . . uhhhh. . . let's just say since I left the team

February 2015: Reditum is removed from the BN (Or technically March is when I lost the title. It was weird. Staff was doing something where they tried to have me keep the title but not have any power. Not sure why they were trying to do that.)
April 2015: Pinned topic made regarding BN conduct. Third party platforms discouraged for BN usage. BNs can now be removed upon Staff Manager's discretion, when previously they could only be removed for having a low score or misconduct related to beatmaps.
April 2015: Last BN ranking is posted
June 2015: Real time BN ranking information is posted. No updates have been announced by p3n since.
June 2015: Last addition of a new o!s QAT (3 removed since addition)
June 2015: Last addition of a new taiko QAT (2 removed since addition)
July 2015: Limitations put on BN. Only 8 ranked maps per 24 hours, in a cycle, differing from the previous system, where 8 maps could be ranked in one day, starting from when the date counter said the new date. Additionally, the system is automated, so accidental 9 map days could no longer happen, nor could maps be ranked all at the start of the day.
July 2015: #nominators is created
July 2015: Last addition of a new CtB QAT (2 removed since addition)
August 2015: Discussion board opened up for spreading information regarding the updates to the modding system, open to the public for discussion (Getting this date from the ask.fm post I made when I got banned for my internet connection causing me to spam the channel, so sorry if the date is wrong)
September 2015: Cap is removed (Without announcement from Staff Managers, discovered by ZiRoX in the developers section)
September 2015: First major purge of inactive BN members, after a complaint thread is made in the development subforum.
September 2015: Qualified maps no longer have scoreboards (thx 2 anonymous buddy for reminding me of this )
October 2015: Last addition of new BNs.
November 2015: Last addition of a new o!m QAT (0 removed since addition)
December 2015: 2nd major purge of inactive BN members (including some subjective removals based on quality of activity rather than inactivity)

Plus the change of the role of the QAT, which I really don't have dates for, mostly because they're not documented very easily for me to find without having to do some searching around.

Note that I quit the team 11 months ago, roughly. February 5th is the official 1 year anniversary.

There really isn't a whole lot here. I fished a lot to find things to put inside here, and I know I'm forgetting things, mostly things that were sort of done on a whim without any real announcement. This includes MANY rules changes (many of which did not even go through the ranking criteria subforum), a lot of drama, and a lot of confusion and misunderstanding. A lot of the dates also included are notions of inactivity, most the dates showing the last additions of things. It is important to allow contributors the chance to be able to join the QAT, and the chance to be seen as legitimate contributors who can work in a more executive level to participate in the ranking process. New members allow for new ideas, as well as renewed vigor into the motivation of the team as whole, as well as a fresher knowledge of "what is being a BN like, and what can we do to improve it." The fact is that while not a lot has happened in the past 6 months in terms of actual development, the attitude and struggles of being a BN has changed in the past 6 months, but no new voices have been promoted to be able to share these ideas and implement fixes to them with a relative amount of authority. It not only makes the team dull and stale, but it also ruins motivation. When someone works for a while and receives no positive reinforcement for a long time, they eventually lose the will to mod, and if they are constantly hit with negatives instead of positives, they lose all will to work and eventually become inactive. The fact of the matter is that BNs have constantly been restricted and restricted, getting block after block, but not once have strong BNs been rewarded for their consistent dedication, nor has anyone even received a progress report. Much like the ranking system in general "DQ first, discuss later", the BN have sort of had to fight for their own lives, hoping they don't fall into the "Ban from team first, appeal later." This mostly happens because there's the idea of "community approval", but also attempting to have really strict standards onto what can and cannot be approved. There needs to be a distinction of "Do we let the community choose what they like, or do we have a team of qualified individuals who make these choices." For the qualified individuals, they need to be trained and instructed on what to check for. I know things are a little stricter now, but when I was added to the team, I hadn't modded in MONTHS and had no idea of what things I was supposed to look for. It was a lot of "oh god I hope when I press this rank button that I don't get yelled at", and a lot of times I got yelled at because I also had too much balls and would rather rank and get yelled at than just leave a map alone. pishifat created an amazing guide on what to look for in terms of unrankability, which would have been great to receive as a BN, to use as reference and to have accountability if I miss something. Additionally, since people are just added based on mod posts rather than their ability to discern what is a good and bad map, they should be trained on being able to do this. I can have a really short mod post for a really bad map, or a really long mod post for a really good map. The skill of knowing what is high quality is seriously such an important skill that BNs don't get. Additionally, how the fuck are BNs supposed to know what to look for if it keeps on changing all the time?! I shouldn't have to make a ranking criteria thread AFTER a map gets DQed over something that had never been an issue before. BNs shouldn't HAVE to learn about new rules from a random QAT DQ, but should be informed of new rules via a group PM or an announcement in the BN subforum, and these new rules should be created after discussion in the Ranking Criteria subforum. Yeah, there's gonna be a shitton of rules, but if you want to run a strict ranking criteria, you're gonna need a lot of rules.

I kind went off topic but I still think it's worth saying.

Unless a moderator wants to close the thread, I'm still going to scream out that someone please give the community answers about what kind of progress is happening. I don't even really care if it's a link to a peppy blog or something, I just need something to give me the faith that I wasn't lied to a year ago when my attempts to creative positive change were defeated because "a new modding system is being created and this is just a transition period."

Do you really think I don't give a shit about what you are saying? Do you think the Community Managers don't give a shit about what you are saying?

"If I had the power to do it myself, I would seriously head up this shit and design a new system for the BNs and QAT that are closer to the original ideas for the 'community modding' that modding v2, in theory, wanted to achieve."
No, you wouldn't. You would maybe try, and then there are other people who will show you that it's bullshit and not working what you have come up with.

Repeating this is pointless, but I'll do it anyway. I will try to put it in really simple sentences so I don't have to write a wall of text. Everybody knows that the problems you mentioned are true. However there is a reason for everything, why it's not working the way you imagine it and why it is in reality not that simple as you imagine it. You will see soon enough when changes are about to happen. And even if not, what is exactly your problem? You and me shouldn't bother thinking endlessly about a new Modding System. Think smaller. Mod maps, help new mappers, help clearing bubbles by contacting BNs / pointing out issues / getting BN yourself, isn't that the things that matter in the end? I will continue disqualifying mapsets. You and I are helping much more with that than you would even think.

I should probably not reply to this thread and let a Community Manager reply instead, as I am not the one who should say these things and I can't really sort my thoughts. However I am trying my best to reply to your walls of concerns. The only recommendation I can give you is what I have written above, you and me can't do nothing about all the rest.

Okay, Reditum's post is a bit too long, so I may have forgotten something, but I agree that the current situation can be improved. The main question now is how. Recently, BN suddenly were able to qualify multiple maps per day. Was anything said about it? No. I suddenly found out, after trying so I could show someone the 'You already qualified a map last 24Hrs' message. Even something as simple is this already wasn't properly communicated. I know it might be hard PM every BN/QAT about this change, but a notification would be something they could do.

Another thing which surprised me is the low number of qualified maps. Only 20 maps are currently qualified. Some time ago, it was 60+. I am wondering as to why this number dropped a lot. Was it because of the problems caused by Bearizm's map? It seems as if many BN/QAT became afraid of ranking maps, especially speed ranking. I asked a QAT if he could check a map of mine, which was 8 days old. He said it was fine, but I needed to wait and to get more mods, just in case not a speedrank drama like that would happen. But why did one thing influence behaviour of most BN/QAT? I can recall, that I also felt the same way when I was checking a EN spread. I refused to bubble it, despite the quality being good. The fact that it was an EN spread on a rather strong song was what caused me to think that way.
Now I recently had a talk with a QAT, explaining that Bearizm's situation was completely different. The problems didn't neccessarily come from the spread, but from the quality and the 'Fuck you all' mentality. Now I understand that, and I felt better into iconing maps with such spread.

One more thing, soon there will be new BN, for the non-standard modes. Is there a reason as to why it's only for those modes? I believe standard had the biggest hit when it came to the total of 3 BN purges, last 6-7 months.

And before I forget, the fact that QAT are removed, and not being replaced is already fixed. The QAT work on a different base. People mod it, then they request a DQ by the QATs, who then DQ it, they first DQ, then discuss. This actually makes every modder some sort of QAT, with only the QAT having the power to control the DQs. Perhaps this is also a reason as to why the qualified listing is so small now

In all honest guys, at the end I didn't continue reading. While I can agree with a lot of things some of you said, there a two things which should really mind you and give you some time to think about:

Discussions are important but we know that this didn't work very well in the past, whatever the reason was. Yet, it's tried to do it again. First of all you should do things without relying on the staff or try to discuss with it. Loctav isn't wrong in this point, especially because it is hard to talk from user to staff since things happen out of ones vision. That's the reason why you should rethink the way of how you try to settle stuff. Instead of trying everytime to request huge changes (which even staff didn't settle yet), you probably should (as Desperate said) think in smaller dimensions. Work with the current system and try to draw your own benefits for you and the community. Taiko did that too. We didn't wanted to wait anymore for changes from staff side, so we started to mind our own buisness by flowing with the water: We made a local ranking system within osu!'s global ranking system and have now a much better situation than the time when we were just discussing and waiting. We even came so far that other gamemodes got our attention in this matter (#1, #2).

Then I want to mention one thing about the assertion that it is hard to get the community / team together. I don't think so. The true problem is rather, that we are not having a leader for groups like QAT / BN. We don't need people who find each other. This will be nearly never the case. We need people who bring people together to work. Right now, we don't have anyone. Loctav is the closet person you can talk to when it's about BNs, but he has a lot of other things he has to mind, especially tournaments, so there is actually no one you can really refer to about QAT / BN stuff. What we have right now is like an anthill without a queen, which makes the ants not work sufficient and organized, hence, they die out. My point is, leave all that discussion of how the system could be and blah out. Right now the BNs must work mostly by their own anyway, so instead of trying to get in contact with a "ghost-leader" in the staff, try (now we come to my first point again) to work with the BNs. Try to organize yourself, find people who can do that and who people trust. Only in this way you will be able to make significant changes. Everything else is just meanless talking since there are things which are out of our vision.

I hope you understand my point guys. As I said, I can agree with a lot of things you said and a lot of these things I experienced by my own in the last 6 years I've been here, but it's all for nothing as long as we don't have someone / or some guys who lead things and tell BNs /community what to do. For my part, I already do stuff for Taiko with my team and it works. What's your part?

I'm sort of unhappy that nobody really wants to tackle these big issues though, just under the pretense that "it won't work." Like, yeah, I've talked about this a lot, and yeah, 'it's hard to get things done, but they're literally so important and integral to the functioning of the game, that if someone in the higher ups isn't going to talk about this, then SOMEONE has to. I agree that I shouldn't be worrying about this. These are things that Loctav or p3n should be bringing up to a higher party. But they're not, which is why I feel morally obligated to step in.

I think the world of Taiko is much easier to handle than o!s. Even with CtB or o!m, you have people pretty much just crowding around one small group of people. When drama happens in alternate game modes, it has much more of a severe and home-hitting effect than when it happens to o!s people. Spy's removal, ursa's removal, CLSW's removal, OnosakiHito's removal all devastatingly rocked the ENTIRE community. It's not super hard to get lost in there. However, organizing osu!standard is a HUGE task, with people from many different areas who don't entirely all really care to unify. The removal of Garven, Asphyxia, Lust, Atrue, etc. really didn't have much impact on the mapping community as much as the other communities.

As I said before, I would LOVE to be a leader. But here's also the thing. To be a leader, you have to have authority. The reason you were able to have people follow suit in Taiko and follow along is because you had the authority, both as a long-standing member as well as a QAT, to be able to do such a thing. You're not just "the angry old guy who won't shut up about BN reform", but rather "The older taiko QAT guy that people disagree with, but has the ability to organize these things". This would be a project that could definitely be headed by one of the QATs, since they have the ability to command some sort of respect and authority, and even at that point, not everyone would listen due to the vast spread of BNs existing in the o!s world. Plus also, not being in the BN also doesn't let me do much (and the fact that apps never re-open consistently, and the fact that I really don't want to spend 3 months modding when I'd hope that my 1021 kudosu, modding history, and previous experience on the BN would prove my value to the team).

It's ironic talking about "bringing the BNs together", because during my time on the team and many times ranting about the team to QATs afterwards, I was constantly told "BNS ARE NOT A TEAM THEY WORK INDEPENDENTLY.", which was always a qualm that I had. But every time an issue comes up, BNs are constantly told to "just work together." Like it's just really contradictory, and I don't know what the end goal really is, and the staff has such poor communication skills that I can't figure it out.

I really don't want to keep beating a dead horse, but I want to keep discussion alive. Unless by some grace of god I somehow make it into the BN (aka. never), then I want to at least inspire someone else to take charge and work on unifying the game modes, as Onosaki said, and hopefully the wrath of Loctav won't reign terror on them and punish them for their devotion to the ideals and progression of the modding system.

This is honestly the most frustrating thing I've dealt with. It's crazy how I'm less than a month away from my 1 year anniversary of my quitting from the team and many of the same problems I quit over are still existent. Yeah, a lot of that was fueled by a personal feud between Loctav and I, and yeah, I've gotten past a lot of that, but the point of the matter is that at the end of the day, things need to get at least worked on. Notice how I'm not saying "fixed" but I want to at least know what the fuck is going on every so often.

The Taiko Community isn't easier to handle because of it's size. It's easier to handle because of the mentality of our people and how older guys educated us in the past. People respect and listen to each other; that's why it is easier to handle it (though, there are more reasons, yeah). Otherwise it could be easily hell as well. But discussions nearly always end calm.

Managing osu is a huge task. Indeed. But that doesn't mean you have to make it huge right at the beginning. If you, for yourself really believe, that your mindset is in this matter fine, try to find opinions (as you did here) and then see about BNs who might be interested to work with you together. You don't need to have all BNs on your side. They are free to do what they want anyway. But you can start to ask around who might be interested to do something with you or in general together. Normal user, BN or QAT. It doesn't really matter as long as you respect every user and try to bring things forward. Don't forget, most of my osu time I wasn't BAT/QAT either.

Anyway, that's actually all from me. What I said above is of course the light version of how a community could work. But try to do the first step and don't think you can't do anything. Everything else is up to the staff.

I'll see what I can do. In the past, many multi-BN queues have existed in the past, and then pretty much died.

The ideas I have for how exactly to manage a community and staff require a relative amount of authority (and are very conservative relative to the mindset of many of the staff), so while I can't implement those, I can at least spend some time thinking over what exactly would be effective given the amount of authority I have and given what I can realistically do.

It's a little more challenging, because at the time I was a BN, I was pretty much mutual with 75% of the team, including many of the "key players" in the group, and many of the staff and QAT were on my side. Nowadays, I am only mutual with 10 of the BN (and only actively talk to maybe about 5 of them), and close with MAYBE one of the QAT (and I actually have some QAT blocked, lol), plus many of the higher ups have purposefully decided to ignore me due to my "constant complaining"

Is this going to be effective? I don't know. Is it going to fix the problems that exist in the community? Hell no. But what do I have to lose, lol.

Well
We have this thread
It wouldn't hurt if that'd be open more often

Well Lexia kind of fell in the same boat as me where she just kinda lost hope for the game after she was removed, so unless someone else heads it, it's really not going to be much.