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Activity of BNG: Do we need a minimum activity requirement?

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Sonnyc
7,761 posts
Joined June 2008
Topic Starter
Sonnyc

Monstrata wrote:

I think BN's should be actively helping mappers and pushing maps forward. The goal of a BN is to nominate maps that they feel are worthy of a scoreboard. But currently there've been a lot of complaints about a lack of BN activity, and I think those complaints are valid. We used to have a minimum "quota" of maps to mod, and nominate per month in order to remain active. I think the old BN scoring system was good in that respect, as it kept BN's in check.

I'm curious as to what quota BN's would consider as an acceptable number of maps to mod per month? I know it really differs from person to person, but I think if we can agree on a minimum (it can be quite small) we can begin to work around that to build a system. For me, I think 6 mods and 4 icons a month is a generous number, but one that the average if not busy irl BN's (not the super active S *cough* onnyc*cough* BN's) can manage. What do you guys think of this number?

Adding new BN's is a solution to inactivity, but I think pushing current BN's to be more active is just as viable.

Wafu wrote:

Monstrata wrote:

I'm curious as to what quota BN's would consider as an acceptable number of maps to mod per month? I know it really differs from person to person, but I think if we can agree on a minimum (it can be quite small) we can begin to work around that to build a system. For me, I think 6 mods and 4 icons a month is a generous number, but one that the average if not busy irl BN's (not the super active S *cough* onnyc*cough* BN's) can manage. What do you guys think of this number?

Adding new BN's is a solution to inactivity, but I think pushing current BN's to be more active is just as viable.
About this concrete number of mods and icons, it's hard to say. (I'm not saying this because I was a bit inactive previous months) Just limiting someone to do "at least this and at least that" might be a bit forced. I agree that no activity at all leads to nothing and should be avoided. But specific number of mods ignores anything else the BN is doing. He might decide to just help newbies for one month and will give them advices more often, but will make just few mods because of that. The result might be more useful than 6 mods, yet it's not considered. "Icon 4 maps" is a bit question of luck. Having this forced might discourage BNs from modding maps that need modding and they'll rather focus on maps with great quality so they can achieve those 4 icons, therefore new mappers get almost no feedback whatsoever. If you decide to mod like 10 maps a month, it might happen that few will ignore you completely, few will make up reasons for issues that make no sense and you might suddenly end up with just 2 icons. The problem is that the activity is not tracked, only mods and icons are, so nobody knows how much you maybe helped during the month. What I mean is, rather than tracking mods and icons and setting number of maps you have to mod/number of maps you have to icon (I'm also aware we have pop, but previous system which you're referring to was considering them as lower priority), we should track every activity related to modding or helping people (in terms of beatmaps of course). Considering only mods and icons isn't perfect.

Yes, adding BNs would solve some inactivity problems a little, but we have to be aware that the number of BNs should be controllable. Organization could boost inactivity a little bit too, that's why I propose to try it.

Okorin wrote:

I dont think forcing people to nominate a set number of maps a month is good idea, but just like for the bn test people should probably keep a certain modding activity instead?

The problem i have with a minimum amount of icons is that some could end up rushing multiple icons just to be considered "active" which obviously isnt the greatest thing for the avg quality

Natsu wrote:

About the activity I'd say that is better to have a minimun of mods per month instead of icons. But having not activity requirement at all is bad IMO.
Bringing the topic of activity requirement at this thread, which was at the other thread. This topic has some relation with the old BN score, and feel free to discuss that here.

Since several opinions regarding the minimum activity combined with BN score has been arisen, I'd like to drop my opinion too. Even the BN score had several positive functions regarding activities and some quality standards, we can't deny it showed several side effects at the past. Due to the scores mostly focusing on the "numbers" of mods, icons, and dqs, it was unintentionally focusing on "quantity" rather "quality". Even myself can't deny that I focused "quantity" as a higher priority. Then, is such value something appropriate what we should be striving for? Can't conclusively say yet since our internal vision of our own isn't setted, but I strongly believe quality gets a higher than quantity for now.

Maybe some very minimal requirement of activity can be setted to assure BNs are doing their job properly, but if that requirement is setted too high, the focus will move to quantity instead of quality. Also I believe BN scores shouldn't be any positive indicator of something, but some objective "number" that has no more meaning than indicating one's objective activity. Actually even those "objectively intended numbers" could have side effects on making BNs to focus on quantity more. In that case, only having a minimum requirement without some extra activity data will work out more properly imo. (Besides, the BN score stuff treated DQ as some kind of a penalty, which resulted a misconception of DQ for the community. I personally doubt if score will make things better.)
riffy
osu! Alumni
8,061 posts
Joined December 2010
riffy
I'd personally say that we should focus on the results, rather than an actual kd/mods/icons goal.

I'll try to make it as short as possible. So, basically there are a few ways to monitor activity. The first one is based on the amount of mods per period of time. The idea is not bad, but it's not really effective, as it does not take quality into consideration at all. Focusing on the amount of icons results in people desperately looking for quality maps or spamming icons in a rush, that can not bring anything good as well. So, there is something I've been thinking about for a while.

Since the moment BN managers were mentioned, I thought of somebody asking BNs about their results every now and then. Something like activity reports, so that there would be some conversation between people. A BN manager would encourage less motivated people in the team, or simply answer their questions and provide some solutions to their problems, the same manager would monitor actual quality of modding activity, instead of just numbers.

Here's a quick fraft of what a BN mamanger or Activity Manager would do
  1. Monitor activity (this includes checking the amount of mods/icons, but it also means making sure that BNG memebers actually help out beginners and don't just limit their activity to iconing maps)
  2. Assure quality of the mods (this is important, as we still need to keep the quality of ranked maps and not just rely on QAT)
  3. Work out possible solutions when there are any problems (we shouldn't just kick people or stress them, Nominators are people and they have their own lives, after all)
This would make much more sense than any scoring system. We just have to make sure that BN managers are qualified enough to fulfill the duties.
HappyRocket88
4,322 posts
Joined May 2014
HappyRocket88
I have zero experience regarding the impacts the BN score system gave to the actual BNs who had to get involved into it, so I'll remain neutral since I can't speak how stressful/beneficial/useless was for them. I agree with Sonnyc that placing a limit of mods/icons that each BN has to reach wouldn't work well because it's likely they will just mod/icon the maps that are needed to be "active" and don't do anything modding related until the new cycle, when that's not the point of being a BN.

I find Bakari's idea very interesting since it does show the approachable and strict a BN manager could be without the need of becoming this minimum activitry requered a dictatorship. I guess this could be a possibility to start seeing us as a team instead of users of an individual group of people who nominate maps.

What I wonder is somethign related to the second point: Would the manager have to look out the mods of every single BN to assure we're doing it right?
Wafu
1,703 posts
Joined June 2011
Wafu
Agreed with Bakari as it goes in hand with the opinion I said. I also claimed that rather than kicking BNs, we could have a bit more nominators. That's so nominators don't have to stress if they can't get to the game for a month or two, simply kicking him might seem sensible because he's inactive, but his skill doesn't change - Once few BNs take a pause, other BNs can mod instead, I think everyone has a point where he's not modding much. Nominators should be able to have some vacation once per time. Checking everyone's activity however could be a little struggle. In some cases, you'd really have to ask who did he help, because not everything warants kudosu or something is done only in IRC, so it's harder to monitor.
Nozhomi
Global Moderator
4,575 posts
Joined May 2013
Nozhomi
Totally agree on Wafu statement here. Nothing much to add~
Cherry Blossom
3,185 posts
Joined October 2011
Cherry Blossom
Managers always kicked for inactivity.
They did it for GM, QAT etc. But they quit / get kicked, as alumni. And they can get back when they feel ready to be active again.
But a BN doesn't have the same privileges, and he has to wait for new BN applications if he gets kicked.
Then if you say that a BNs should not get kicked, then alumnis should not exist anymore and everyone from that group must be QAT or GM.
Not most of alumnis are inactive though.

Concerning BN score, people just saw it like a "contest" between BNs, and many of BNs didn't hesitate to "yolo bubble/qualify" in order to get free bn points, because they heard about a reward, that never existed.

I don't have anything agaisnt nominating a BN manager, but i really wonder how long it will work. And if a single manager will be enough active to assure this kind of job. And i really wonder if it can be done by a single person. If you apply this idea, then i think there should be 1-2 more managers. Or 1 per region/continent.

But , you should keep in mind that BNG is not really a "team", each BN is free to do whatever he wants as long as it fits BN rules.
Kibbleru
osu! Alumni
5,846 posts
Joined August 2013
Kibbleru
i dont think we should have a set requirement, rather if somebody is inactive and is noticed, he should just get kicked
Okoayu
Nomination Assessment Team / Elite Nominator
4,959 posts
Joined May 2012
Okoayu
for that you need a threshold to define when inactive starts and then you're back to counting stuff
HappyRocket88
4,322 posts
Joined May 2014
HappyRocket88
Not modding/nominating mapsets for one or two months could be an initial reference. o:
Monstrata
Elite Mapper: Aspirant
4,642 posts
Joined May 2013
Monstrata
I think we should give "inactive" BN's a warning before kicking them. Like "You've been inactive due to not modding for a month. Please mod x amount of maps within the next two weeks or your BNship will be sunk."
Natsu
8,076 posts
Joined September 2012
Natsu
I think 1 or 2 months without a single mod is alot of time already, the problem about keeping inactive people is that the active group looks bigger than what actually is, anyways i think checking activity by kudos is the best way, i dont see how much pressure someone would feel for being asked to earn 1 single kd every month or 2. Also take in mind guys that inactive people are a bad example for the other nominators, * I can keep my badge doing nothing *

What monstrata said also makes sense a warning before kicking them
riffy
osu! Alumni
8,061 posts
Joined December 2010
riffy
And what if I get sick of modding and focus on mentoring beginners? I still do work as a Beatmap Nominator, I still help the community. There is no kd/icon ground to prove that, but there's still a lot of work being done! I used to help out people as a BN, and I always had to give that up and go mod something, so that I wouldn't be considered as inactive.

A lot of stuff happens when a BN is involved into community well. I believe that we still need people to actually talk and monitor the amount of activity rather than just "kick" those who haven't icon'd for a while.

Since I was the one to start the whole BN-manager topic here, I'd like to stress that this is a job that should be done by at least 3 people, and that kicking any member should be allowed only when all three managers agree it's necessary. Basically, just like any group leaders, they would monitor the group and participate in their work.
Natsu
8,076 posts
Joined September 2012
Natsu

Bakari wrote:

And what if I get sick of modding and focus on mentoring beginners? I still do work as a Beatmap Nominator, I still help the community. There is no kd/icon ground to prove that, but there's still a lot of work being done! I used to help out people as a BN, and I always had to give that up and go mod something, so that I wouldn't be considered as inactive.

A lot of stuff happens when a BN is involved into community well. I believe that we still need people to actually talk and monitor the amount of activity rather than just "kick" those who haven't icon'd for a while.

Since I was the one to start the whole BN-manager topic here, I'd like to stress that this is a job that should be done by at least 3 people, and that kicking any member should be allowed only when all three managers agree it's necessary. Basically, just like any group leaders, they would monitor the group and participate in their work.
But Bakari, that's the same problem as the map contribution you can't measure it and the main task of a nominator is to nominate maps, not mentoring. The BN is a group with a test every 3 months (I think), so there is no issue with kicking inactive people, since we can take the test again and rejoin when we feel like doing BN stuff.
Sonnyc
7,761 posts
Joined June 2008
Topic Starter
Sonnyc
What is an activity as a BN? How to measure those BN activity?
Guess these questions should've been solved before asking something like this topic,,

Natsu wrote:

But Bakari, that's the same problem as the map contribution you can't measure it and the main task of a nominator is to nominate maps, not mentoring. The BN is a group with a test every 3 months (I think), so there is no issue with kicking inactive people, since we can take the test again and rejoin when we feel like doing BN stuff.
What I can agree with the bolded statement is that nominating maps is an ability as a beatmap nominator, but I couldn't 100% agree that it is their main task. What if I interprete the goal of a BN is to maintaining ranked beatmaps above a certain quality, and think "nominating maps" just as one of the "means" to success the "goal"? Perhaps nominating isn't the main task for me then.

But guess what? Such different interpretation towards "goal as a BN" will make proceeding the discussion harder, because people are talking from a different perspective at the very beginning. But what if people can make some general agreement regarding that, and start the discussion from a common beginning? I believe those can show us some kind of a direction for everyone.
Natsu
8,076 posts
Joined September 2012
Natsu

Sonnyc wrote:

Such different interpretation towards "goal as a BN" will make proceeding the discussion harder, because people are talking from a different perspective at the very beginning. But what if people can make some general agreement regarding that, and start the discussion from a common beginning?
That's why we need more comunication with the managers, for example I dont consider teaching mapping or mentoring someone as a Nominator task, for me atleast being a BN means looking for quality maps an move them to the qualify category, also answering questions from mappers and participating in discussions . Maybe we need a post like: p/5068249 .

Anyways I feel we can talk things during months and never get an agreement, mainly because of the lack of participation from the other BNs, we are like the same 6 people talking always. Maybe when we create threads like this we should pm everyone in the nominator group.
Kibbleru
osu! Alumni
5,846 posts
Joined August 2013
Kibbleru
maybe thats already a good way to tell whos imactive xD
Wafu
1,703 posts
Joined June 2011
Wafu

Natsu wrote:

That's why we need more comunication with the managers, for example I dont consider teaching mapping or mentoring someone as a Nominator task, for me atleast being a BN means looking for quality maps an move them to the qualify category
The thing is that nominating a map can take some hours - You need to mod it, wait for response and fixes, if something is not fixed or something is still not alright, you need to remod it, sometimes several times and in the end, you can nominate it. However that might take from about 4 hours to a week, before the mapper responds, before you recheck it again and maybe several times. Helping people by giving them advice, answering their questions, showing few examples of what he's doing wrong, why, why shouldn't he do it and what should he do instead might take like 20 minutes, because IRC allows you to be a bit more personal and faster. In the end, instead of directly nominating a map which could take like 4 hours and more, you could help many people to get their map to a statement when it's worth a nomination. That might happen after a month before the mapper realizes and fixes all the errors, but you can gain a quality mapper into the community, or at least you can bring his map to a good statement and some nominators might notice it. Rather than hunting few nominations per a month, you can help a lot more within a shorter time. So by helping 4 guys per a week (well, having an hour each day of weekend is pretty doable for people who are more busy for nominating), you can help more than nominating like 3 maps per a month. I don't think that our primary goal is nominating, if the other stuff we do can lead to nomination after some time, but in higher count.
Fycho
Global Moderator
2,486 posts
Joined August 2012
Fycho
Make a minimum activity -> People only mod maps that under the minimum to get them not being kicked.

This will even decrease the modding motivation of BNs, I am pretty sure similar things happened when old BAT days.

Currently BNs mod/nominate maps are mostly in their interests or responsibility or other personally purpose, which are higher than being forced to mod maps.

The problem is how to increase the motivation of modding, we need to figure about it, while Kudosu/BN score don't work.
Myxo
osu! Alumni
3,103 posts
Joined December 2012
Myxo
It would make sense if the whole QAT managed the BN. Who would be more suitable for the job?

Imo QATs should keep contact to the nominators in their region and talk to them regularly, finding out who doesn't have much motivation or time left or in other words, who is inactive. I feel like the communication between QATs and BNs is really low atm with a few exceptions, so it would definitely help to encourage QATs to do this.

Also, I don't think anyone would get the rights to actually kick / add BNs, so that will be done by the community managers anyway. All a BN manager would do is talking to people and observing people and literally anyone can already do that. It's just the question who actually wants to do it and to what extent.
riffy
osu! Alumni
8,061 posts
Joined December 2010
riffy
I like the idea of QAT monitoring BNs and actively communiting with them, never thought of it from this point of view, Nao! Maybe we should assign QATs who are willing to do this kind of monitoring to certain BNs, so that we could keep things well-organized?
Sonnyc
7,761 posts
Joined June 2008
Topic Starter
Sonnyc
Sufficient opinion seems to be gathered here, and it seems QAT members are now assigned to monitor BN members. Not sure if this reached some consensus, but I feel it is good to get archived now.
Seijiro
osu! Alumni
3,438 posts
Joined April 2013
Seijiro
Since not everyone reads the blog, better leave a link to it (since just by looking at this thread it doesn't seem like anything official yet): http://osuqat.tumblr.com/post/151525615 ... -gazette-4
Sonnyc
7,761 posts
Joined June 2008
Topic Starter
Sonnyc
We revisited internal organization problems in terms of leadership and task assignment. The QAT is a rather small group with currently 14 members and is auto-regulated with a clear task assignment as explained on this blog a few weeks ago. All members have a closed and trustful communication with the rest of the team. Loctav does keep an eye on the group and helps with the organisation and with some of the decisions that we need to take, so he is already the manager of the group. The QAT as a group oversees the work of the nominators and helps them whenever they need assistance, so every QAT member is also a “BN Manager” in this analogue.
Nominators have been inspected about their activity. The modding activity especially of the taiko, catch and mania nominators have been revised and also some behaviour-related single cases have been investigated. We decided that there is no need for a purge at this point, but the less active members will be contacted by us to offer any possible assistance.
Also quoted these two. Thanks!
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