Okay, firstly, I'll be summarizing my thoughts (and, hopefully, by extension, the community's feelings).
Let's start with a misconception.
In general, the protests regarding map quality have had nothing to do with map quality in reality, but instead in a perceived (and very real) lack of Variety and Expression. Players and mappers alike will colloquially refer to this as "maps suck nowadays" but they're not talking about the actual quality of the structure or the patterns here.
That said, I'm largely in agreement with much of what's been said in the overview.
Ephemeral, you have really hit the nail on the head when you said that the current ranking system contains people who have lost their fire. Props to you for being the first staff member to publicly recognize that the issues we face are motivational and directional rather than structural.
A more flexible system that allows for more active interplay amongst its members will absolutely be more chaotic and less organized, but you are absolutely right that the one thing the previous MAT/BAT system never lacked was passion. People still care as much as they used to, but they lack the capability of fully expressing themselves due to the nebulous nature of changes - there's no sense of agency at all, anymore.
I can get into the nitty-gritty of each individual idea proposed here, but that would sort of defeat the purpose and in general these things can be discussed much more thoroughly over time than in one big wall of text. I'll avoid doing that.
And... that's it. I can't really say much more here. I'm actually in full agreement with most of this and it's the first time I can remember in my entire history of this game where I say that I think this can really pan out and be an effective step forward. I was really hesitant about your general naunce of being "for democracy and community-driven systems", believing you to have become naive or overestimating the general capabilities of random people, but this is a much more balanced skeleton of a plan than I've ever seen in this game's history.
I'm happy about that.
Let's start with a misconception.
This issue has been going on for years, and is more related to the qualification system as a whole rather than the most recent change, although admittedly the tiering change certainly exacerbated it.GitHub wrote:
One T2 BN noted that in the process of forcing less experienced BN to only be able to bubble maps coupled with the more experienced T2 BN being pressured to solely qualify, the maps that were receiving the most attention were considerably safer, more uniform maps that may prioritize criteria 'safety' over creative exposition and general enjoyment.
In general, the protests regarding map quality have had nothing to do with map quality in reality, but instead in a perceived (and very real) lack of Variety and Expression. Players and mappers alike will colloquially refer to this as "maps suck nowadays" but they're not talking about the actual quality of the structure or the patterns here.
That said, I'm largely in agreement with much of what's been said in the overview.
Ephemeral, you have really hit the nail on the head when you said that the current ranking system contains people who have lost their fire. Props to you for being the first staff member to publicly recognize that the issues we face are motivational and directional rather than structural.
A more flexible system that allows for more active interplay amongst its members will absolutely be more chaotic and less organized, but you are absolutely right that the one thing the previous MAT/BAT system never lacked was passion. People still care as much as they used to, but they lack the capability of fully expressing themselves due to the nebulous nature of changes - there's no sense of agency at all, anymore.
I can get into the nitty-gritty of each individual idea proposed here, but that would sort of defeat the purpose and in general these things can be discussed much more thoroughly over time than in one big wall of text. I'll avoid doing that.
And... that's it. I can't really say much more here. I'm actually in full agreement with most of this and it's the first time I can remember in my entire history of this game where I say that I think this can really pan out and be an effective step forward. I was really hesitant about your general naunce of being "for democracy and community-driven systems", believing you to have become naive or overestimating the general capabilities of random people, but this is a much more balanced skeleton of a plan than I've ever seen in this game's history.
I'm happy about that.