Hello!

Many of you guys would be already awared of the size of BNG is nearly resembling that of the old staff-BAT in the 2014. Within this situation, I think we should revise the idea of us BN working as an individual. But before making a proposal for us to work as a team, I'd like to start from setting a vision made by ourselves which would be the ultimate purpose indicating a goal of our overall conduct. More likely, a "code of conduct: BN (ultimate edition)" or something.

One of strong code we are asked was "don't fuck up". But is this the biggest value we should be chasing? I assume not, and rather feel there should be a stronger value we should strive for.

Any kind of opinions are appreciated. Let's just throw out what we think, and try to discover if there is any common points!

1. Helping new mappers.
2. Providing mods to the community.
3. Nominating good maps.
4. Asking for a disqualification.

These would be some general actions that several BNs are committing, and expect to be answering. However afterall, these are some detailed approaches, and we can discover a common goal inside these conducts.

<<Increasing the Quality of Ranked Beatmaps>>

The above statement is what I deem BN should be working for. Lending a hand for new incomers, who will be the future generation of mapping, to improve in mapping will increase the quality of ranked beatmaps in the long run. Giving opinions to existing maps and providing the proper direction of mapping will also improve the quality. Nomination is some kind of a personal approval according one's quality standards, and these nominated maps will eventually get the chance of getting ranked. Disqualifications happen to assure the map reaching its full potential, also affecting the quality of ranked beatmap category.

Eventually, I've got a strong feeling that the vision of BNs should be strongly related to beatmap qualities afterall. This will lead to another discussion that will be a lot controversial, regarding "what is a beatmap quality" v2, but guess I'm leaving this for now.

I actually admire the input you've done so far with this process since it does show your will to re-word what we us BNs should work for. I also agree with the goal/vision we should aim is to increase the quality of ranked maps apart from the other we do as BNs as helping new mappers, modding on our own accord, etc. I guess it's something related to nominating high-quality maps, because I think they go hand-by-hand since one can't exist wth the other.

Loctav wrote:

Ultimately, all parties involved in the ranking/mapping process have the same ultimate goal - to get cool stuff ranked and available for play as quickly as possible with as little issue as possible.

- Changes to the Quality Assurance Team

Brought a sentence that was made in another place.

The "cool stuff" part would be something important on that statement, since the term will be highly related to the beatmap quality. Mappers should be making cool stuff at the first place, and modders reducing the issues present in the map. Then as a nominator, since we are the ones who give a direct opportunity to get a map ranked, its likely to nominate cool stuffs and leave non-cool stuffs.

To speak more generally, will it be appropriate to consider all these procedure being done to maintain above a certain quality / or to maintain a high quality for ranked beatmaps?

Everything above sounds very reasonable to me. Increasing quality of ranked maps.

I would personally like to focus on "as quickly as possible with as little issue as possible" from Loctav's quote. Although I don't know about the other modes' communities, many mania mappers can attest to the difficulties of finding an available BN. At some points recently there have only been two or three active mania BNs at a time. This means that a lot of great maps get sent to graveyard, while the mappers have to wait months (or years) to get just one map ranked. I feel like we will be fully fulfilling our role when the process of ranking maps becomes less stressful and more timely.

Will quickly drop my thoughts here then~

I think as a team, our goals should be :

1. Continue to increase mapping quality.
2. Find a agreement on what should be the quality standards for a qualified map. The rework of RC would go pair with it.
3. Try to help new and promised mappers.
4. Try to give more attention to #modreqs, who in my opinion should be more a tool more used for people to get a mod instead of always asking BNs all the time and get denied due to the high amount of mods requested.

I can't think to something else for now. Will edit if find more.

Well idk if that counts, but my personal goal (although I'm inactive right now) is striving for variety. Both music and map type wise (which in mania means other keymodes than the most popular ones mostyl, or just unusual mapping styles)

i also think we should be pushing for the innovation aspect of mapping. that is the only way for mapping to evolve

Copying/pasting.

Nozhomi wrote:

I think as a team, our goals should be :

1. Continue to increase mapping quality. So BNG should have "higher standards" of mapping concerning the quality of the map, this includes that before pushing a map forward, there should be enough mods on it, and if possible from BNs or experienced modders, or even players if the map is challenging. Any feedback is useful.
2. Find a agreement on what should be the quality standards for a qualified map. The rework of RC would go pair with it. Rewording RC is to make things more clear for mappers, especially those who are not 100% comfortable with "how to make something rankable".
3. Try to help new and promised mappers. This means, being fair to everyone, and avoid some kind of favoritism to some mappers that are more experienced, or your friends.
4. Try to give more attention to #modreqs, who in my opinion should be more a tool more used for people to get a mod instead of always asking BNs all the time and get denied due to the high amount of mods requested. yea, atm people see modhelp like "do a wish here", even if they know there's a probability of 0.01% that a BN will pick their map.

Nothing much to say, but I believe emphasizing on ranking variety of maps(as kamikaze mentioned) should be one of our objectives. People do have different quality values so by ranking different variety of maps(different mapping style mostly) we will be able to conform to most of those values. As we are the 'gateway' for maps to be pushed into the ranked status, we should be the one who does that for the community.

I'm not sure how will this work but that's just my(rather simple) opinion.

Cherry Blossom wrote:

Nozhomi wrote:

I think as a team, our goals should be :

1. Try to help new and promised mappers. This means, being fair to everyone, and avoid some kind of favoritism to some mappers that are more experienced, or your friends.

Being fair to everyone is an important thing, but seems this needs some kind of a clarification regarding the "favoritism" you are talking about. Basically BNs are free to mod whatever they want, and we can't force people to not check maps what they want to because everyone would have a different mindset on this. Some may want to help good maps especially, and some may want to do a favor for their friend.

Instead what I can see a point about "fairness" could lie on one's "consistent quality standards". Doing a favor to one's friend by modding it will be never a problem in my view, but applying a different quality standards for their friend's map with that for other's will definitely be an unfair conduct. Such inconsistent manners should be avoided if ever happens, since it will fail to achieve a high quality of ranked maps.

Sonnyc wrote:

Doing a favor to one's friend by modding it will be never a problem in my view, but applying a different quality standards for their friend's map with that for other's will definitely be an unfair conduct.

Exactly.
There's nothing wrong with helping some friends, but doing it always may be annoying for others, and considered as "favoritism"

favoritism? favoritism is not only a bn's but also every modder's right, though modding fairly is just moral.
rationally, we can never avoid favoritism totally. try to achieve a balance between your friends and stranger to keep a nice reputation is what i suggest :3
btw, sonnyc is really a hardworking bn through his active queue, so it's not bad for us to accept mods from modding queue in forum, i'd like to encourage you guys attempt to resurrect your queue, they would work well

Favouritism, yeah like iconing your friend map without mods, there is clearly a difference of helping a friend and lower your quality standards because is your friend.

I guess having some hard rules as before would be nice, the main problem with BNs nowadays is that there is a careless feeling like DQ isn't a bad thing so let's yolo and see if the map made it to rank it. Before when we had a score we was really careful to put icons, was alot better if you ask me.
The map is fine and rankable let's icon it, this is what we see nowadays, but there is no more Lets improve this map.

Another thing I saw is that some BNs from certain game mode iconing maps for other modes, yes there is no more specific BN per mode, but what is the point of doing a test if we could make for example the CTB test and then go ahead and start iconing standard or taiko maps.

What we should have first to all is harder BN rules, a BN manager that is closer to us, change our own mind and kick people without a single icon or mod in a month, let's be honest everyone who complains about not finding BNs mainly complain because they see a list with 70 BNs, but only 15 modding in reality.

About new mappers they always will have a hard time, is the same problem when you are new at something work, life or any game. We all was new mappers at certain point and we all did pass the same, there is no really a way to do a shortcut unless you improve your mapping really fast, the tutor program seems promising to bring up new mappers tho!

just my 2 cents, good that you bring this on, Sonnyc.

Natsu, what do you mean by "What we should have first to all is harder BN rules"? o:

Hope the favoritism topic was settled down.

Natsu wrote:

I guess having some hard rules as before would be nice, the main problem with BNs nowadays is that there is a careless feeling like DQ isn't a bad thing so let's yolo and see if the map made it to rank it.

What we should have first to all is harder BN rules

Just a harder rule without anything else would only make some people finding its hole, and abuse it again. Maybe you are aware that things that should not happen are still happening. What will be needed to get things properly done then? A stricter BN rule that regulates some unwanted behaviors, or a proper mindset of everyone about how things should be done?

I believe it's the later one, and that's why I brought up this thread to start with the vision we should all commonly have. A core value that is brief, but clear enough.

I've got some personal opinions regarding the BN scores at the past, but since it's all over and partially off-topic which I want to bring here, I will keep that topic off for now. Even the system of BN scores or any other things have changed now, the meaning of "nominating a map" itself has always been the same. "Giving an opportunity for a map to get ranked".

The act of nominating a map would be one of the "work for" parts that I'm asking in this thread. Then what's the value we should be pursuing by that act? Having an answer on this will be sufficient without any need for hard rules.

the problem is what do we do with the people that don't follow that 'vision'? kick them? that only worsens the problem of 'not enough BNs'
i think it's very had as group to get every1 to have the same mindset. Some people may only be in BN just for the benefits, and others are in it to legitimately help people.

personally i am in this role because it labels me as 'somebody you can ask for help about mapping related issues' and i like what i do. less of the; ask me for a bubble, but that is a part of the job too xD

having a hard rule accomplishes what we ultimately want, however in a more negative way. We don't want to encourage BNs to mod by saying 'you have to mod this amount of maps or you will be fired'.

Ultimately it's deciding on whether we want a more relaxed environment where people can do whatever they want. Or a strict environment where things are done.



back on to topic, i believe some things we should strive for is simply quantity, quality, and efficiency.

quantity is important for all the mappers out there looking for a ranked map. there are probably dozens of maps that are ready to be ranked, just need some BN noticing.
quality is also an important factor (self explanatory)
efficiency is something that i believe will not only encourage more BNs to mod, but also increase the quantity and quality of out-coming ranked maps. For example, there is already a program that checks almost every unrankable issue that is in the ranking criteria (Modding Assistant) (side note: trust me this program combines the qualities of any other modding tool you have ever used before). This tool personally makes my job as a BN 100x easier, since it takes out the tedious things that i would otherwise have to check for. (of course take the tool with a grain of salt, because no tool is perfect). Then comes judging the general quality of the map. If you are experienced, then this step could come particularly fast. The last thing we need is motivation. When it comes to this, a little goes alot. cough* forum title, colored names, etc LOL

HappyRocket88 wrote:

Natsu, what do you mean by "What we should have first to all is harder BN rules"? o:

I mean before we have to do things well or get kicked, now we just need to do a random icon every 3 months and we are fine, since there are no penalties or activity requirement, so we lost the sense of responsibility. People iconing modes that have no idea, skipping pop bubbles, etc.

Kibbleru wrote:

quantity, quality, and efficiency.

Basically this, but for this we need to have motivation, responsibility, human resources and a good organization. that's why I was asking for a manager that is more active and closer to us, since we are lacking a leader.

Kibbleru wrote:

the problem is what do we do with the people that don't follow that 'vision'? kick them? that only worsens the problem of 'not enough BNs'
i think it's very had as group to get every1 to have the same mindset.

That's not how I want the vision to be setted, and worked. When it comes to small details, everyone will have different mindsets. Those can't be the same even as a group, and shouldn't be the same. Rather, those details will all have some kind of a "common" direction heading at. I expect vision to be a super "obvious" thing that could be agreed for ALL members even for the ones with the most uncommon mindset. We should have to see things larger at least for this topic.

Whether we wish or not, being a BN and nominating puts makes ourselves in an important role of forming a high portion of this game. We are somehow expected to act in some kind of a behavior, but no one will tell us straightforwardly. Only we can decide ourselves where we should be commonly heading for is what I'm feeling.

Motivation is also highly important for getting things done, but motivation never exists alone. It always has a motivation "for" something. A clear vision, and a strong motivation is all what we need.

Natsu wrote:

that's why I was asking for a manager that is more active and closer to us, since we are lacking a leader.

Sorry if I step in this conversation although I'm not part of the BNG, but this line made me think.
You're saying you need a leader or some sort of manager able to keep order among the group... then what about making one? I mean, one you guys choose among yourselves. As far as I know the BNG is a group of users with the special ability to nominate maps.
I underlined users for a reason, because this means you're literally free to do whatever you want as long as it doesn't go against the community Rules.
No one said that even if you are a group you can't make a leader you decided among yourselves. You are the BNG and you know what it is like to be you, therefore you are the ones to decide how you want it to go: you need a leader? Make one. Too many people to get everyone together? Make small groups with a leader each. And so on so forth. (Hint: hello Discord, hello Slack, hello Trello, hello <insert external organization program/site here>

I guess that if you really put your mind to it you guys (either in small groups or alone) can find a solution suitable for your needs if you break down your problems in a proper manner by discussing, even if it looks like you already have a general idea of what should be done, yet an unclear one on "how". But again, if you guys meet up in a Discord or Slack server and discuss things out you'd probably get something done, instead of posting on threads 6 hours apart from each other.

Notice this is purely my opinion as a member of the mapping/modding part of the community.