Disclaimer
This proposal is not put forward against any individual.

Since BN rules are not amendable by users who are not a member of the QAT/BN teams, this proposal is worded in a way it is capable of becoming an RC.

Rule

This rule only applies to current members of QAT and BN teams. If a map of A (a member of BN/QAT) is nominated by B (another member of BN/QAT), the map in question is not rankable, unless one month has elapsed since B's nomination, to the extent that B's map is also nominated by A within one month before or after B's nomination in question. This is to prevent abuse of public power for private purposes.

Examples
1. A's map is nominated by B on 5th May. The map is rankable, until B's map is nominated by A on 7th May. Then A's map becomes unrankable until 5th June, and B's map becomes unrankable until 7th June.
2. A's map is nominated (qualified) by B on 5th May, seven days later (12th May), it is ranked. Then B's map is nominated by A on 12th May. A's map is not unrankable because it is ranked already. However, B's map becomes unrankable until 12th June.
3. A's map is nominated (qualified) by B on 5th May, then B's map is nominated (also qualified) by A on 6th May. A's and B's maps are unrankable (disqualifiable whilst they are still in the qualified section) until 5th June and 6th June respectively.
4. A's map is nominated by B on 5th May. B's map is nominated by A on 6th June. Both maps are not affected by this rule.

Rationale
The rationale is that public functions shall not be abused for private purposes. Certain extent of circle jerk is permissible, because it is deemed a reasonable exercise of power, and thereby the one month restriction.

Discuss
1. whether you agree with this proposal and the reasons for your disagreement/agreement;
2. whether you agree with the two one month restriction (there are two, one being that after circlejerk, the map becomes unrankable for a month; another being that circlejerk within one month makes the map unrankable) and the reasons for your disagreement/agreement.


EDIT: Although this proposal's fate seems to be decided, I want to defend it because it is not one that is so unreasonable:

To continue my post. (and my apology for sounding like a pompous ass as some people call me, I don't speak like this but when I write a whole post I just can't control)

Many BNs (and some members of the community) find this proposal rather irrational. Please allow me to explain. And whilst reading it, please forget that you are a BN(or QAT), but an indiscriminable member of the lot of this community. Because this proposal is not for the benefits of one particular class of people, but for the good of the general community.


Equality
Ordinary users cannot nominate maps. Some of them, who are relatively new or not famed, may struggle to find a BN to achieve their dream of ranking their first map. They may send ten inbox messages per day, for a week, until they have contacted all person capable of pushing their maps forward, and, no answer; or they may in-game PM some of the BNs, and be ignored. Some of them are lucky, or maybe their maps despite being their first ones are very good quality, they have the fortune to get a 'yes' from a BN, and that makes their day. You, indeed, have experienced this phase. Helpless, you have felt the struggle and sorrow.

BNs, in the contrary, have one button more available to them. And this button changes their fate. The nomination button. They can bubble for bubble. They can qualify for qualify. After becoming a BN, I believe few are still experiencing the struggle and sorrow I mentioned above.

I do not mean to put forward this proposal to 'punish' the BNs who nominate other BNs' maps. My intention is never any similar to this. I believe that BN's nomination power should be 'regulated'. 'Punish' is the wrong word; 'discourage' is even less accurate. Let us leave this game aside for a moment and get back to the real life. Although we all come from different countries, we share one thing: there are law which regulates people of power.
Civil servants such as policemen are binded by those law, so they are not benefitted by their privilage. They do not, simply because they have the power to arrest (and the power not to arrest), exculpate their colleagues when they have committed a crime. They are regulated by the law, and should they break them, there will be consequences. People working in the finance industry do not benefit from the information they receive from their job. They are, as well, regulated by the law, that they cannot use their confidential knowledge gained from working at the company to make a profit. They are all equal to other non-civil servants and non-bankers in the game of crime and finance. If a policeman breaks the law, he is seen to be as culpable, if not more; if a banker benefits from the confidential information he has to use it personally, the finance industry will collapse, because invertors will always be disadvantaged.

Osu! does not have such 'law' (rule in the context of a game). If we cover our eyes from this brute fact, it is not unlike we are saying "All animals are equal some are more equal than others". The purpose of this proposal is that BNs are exercising public power. As such, their private side (mapping) should not overlap with their public side (nominating). Their maps can still be nominated without being unrankable for a month, as long as they do not 'nominate for nominate'. That is, if a BN keeps his private side from his public side, he has done no wrong.


Incentive
Then some people may say 'then BNs will have no perks being BNs. They cannot bubble for bubble, it is like policemen receving no salary.' My answer to this is simple. 'Bubble for bubble' is not the only thing you get from being a BN, although it is the only public function a BN gets. A BN is more exposed to the community and therefore are more famous; is more respected because they have more power; their maps get more attention because they are known to people. I disagree with Kurai that the 'bubble ofr bubble' problem is ancient. This problem did not exist before because BATs and MATs in the past observe the convention that they should not 'bubble for bubble'. Some extent of circlejerk existed maybe because they were of the same nationality or they were good friends. But these were not matters as to their only public function -- to nominate maps. If in the past so many people were willing to become BATs and QATs, why do you think now all BNs are after the 'bubble for bubble' perk to become BNs? If so, are we not depreciating and devaluing the nature of BNs? Should BNs all about this kind of utility? Of course no. But the system apparently makes all of us think this is what BNs are all about.

Voluntary Work
Some also say BNs are voluntary workers. This does not entail that their use of power should not be regulated. Please allow me to continue to use those real life examples. Voluntary workers' power is still regulated. Even unpaid UN (United Nations) interns (they are not paid) will not be permitted to use their power to make a gain.
Moreover, the voluntary nature of BN means one very important thing. The whole job is voluntary. If one is not satisfied that his power is regulated, one will not become a BN at all. Only those who are enthusiastic enough will become BNs, or those who are satisfied that they gain fame at least from conducting their BN work, will become BNs. Is that not a better consequence? Is it not better than those BNs who work because they get utilitarian perks of making their maps ranked quicker?

I am Sorry
I am sorry. My apology to all BNs who are angered. My apology to all people who find this totally unreasonable. My apology for causing such drama. Many say I have the goodwill to put forward this proposal, but I am walking on the wrong route. I am sincerely sorry. I lament the inequalty between the powerful and the non-powerful. I came back as a mapper, and I reflected on how hard was it to rank my first map -- Luv Letter. I looked at what the situation is now, and couldn't believe it has not bettered, but worsened.

Now, come back to this game and QATs and BNs, you are no longer an ordinary individual out of the lot of this game. You are privileged. You are authoritative. And then think back how hard you ranked your first map. Do you think something needs to be changed? Do you think the inequality is sort of the source of discouragement to new mappers like you once were? Does power have to have an limit smoewhere? I understand that this proposal is soon to be repealed. But think again what we should do now.

no more sotarks maps aww man

glad i didn't get accepted :hyperdab:

edit : actually, two weeks seems fine. if people want to speedrank weeb songs then circlejerk seems good

Isnt it easier to just force people to not nominate maps of the same users more than once per month?

hi-mei wrote:

Isnt it easier to just force people to not nominate maps of the same users more than once per month?

the purpose of this proposal is not to limit how many maps one can rank per month, but to limit the arbitrary abuse of power.
And apparently, the QAT and BNs are not doing anything to prevent that. I guess there should be one person to speak out and see if people agree.

Everyone will be in support of this because circle jerking seems unfair, until they get bn k_hand

I understand your frustration but what you get out of the mapping scene is what you put into it and BNs tend to put a lot into it. So, they can get something out of it too. I mean it wouldn't really be a huge deal if such a thing was implemented but I really don't see the point. Adding an arbitrary delay does nothing to actually fix a problem (if there is one)

obviously im biased as a BN

EDIT - biggest problem I have with the proposal is that the 'issue' with 'circkejerking' is that time spent nominating a bns map could be spent nominating a non-bn map. But this proposal doesn't actually do anything about that. the BN will still be nominating another bns map, just at a delay. So all this proposal does it make it look fair on the surface, while actually just wasting everyones time.

I see how you're trying to discourage blatant b4bs here but this is actually just placing an unneeded burden on bns who use m4m as a way of getting mods. If 2 bns m4m, chances are that since they're bns theyre going to have a solid understanding of mapping and good mapping skills to support that. So even if both maps being nominated are perfectly okay, you're really just holding these maps back from getting ranked for pretty much no reason.

I think something should be done about a guaranteed exchange of bubbles, because no bn should be pressured to nominate anything they don't want to. There are far better ways to handle this, such as
- restricting nominations between nominator A & B for 1 month or so, after they nominate eachother maps
- moderating how many bn maps vs. non bn maps a bn mods
- etc.

Sure you can call me biased because I'm a bn lol, but right now your propositon just causes unfairness in the ranking process.

If I'm reading this correctly, on top of it not truly fixing any apparent unfairness that may happen - this could be easily evaded

Like, instead of just A and B you could have A nominates C, B nominates A, C nominates B. The bigger that circle gets, the harder it'd be to keep track of, or just even do accidentally on the BN's end.

While I can see where it's coming from, I don't think this proposal as it is would really, genuinely, help.

bandaids can't fix a broken leg

can you save this proposal for next year, i just joined

on a more serious note, what is this proposal trying to solve?

i think 1 month is too much

"circlejerking" isnt a problem at all for a number of reasons:

1. the job of bng is to push forward quality mapsets, and bn's are typically really good at making quality mapsets, so bn's pushing each other's maps is good for the game
2. bn's get literally nothing for all the volunteer work they do to promote quality content to the ranked section, b4b'ing is the only thing close to an incentive they have for being in the bng (but again, most don't need that anyway bc their maps are usually easy to rank whether they're bn or not)
3. as an extension of the first point, it typically doesn't take very long to check a set made by a bn. it's usually really easy for a bn to fit a b4b icon into their schedule without it being detrimental to the rest of their bn work

what is there to even worry about?

"bn's only rank each other's maps"
you can take a look at qualified section at any point in time and there's always more non-bn sets there than there are bn sets.

"bn's are circlejerking shitty maps to rank"
bn maps can be vetted by community just the same as other mappers' maps, maybe start pushing back against them in qualified if you think their maps are so shitty

"new mappers can't get their maps ranked at all"
first of all, this isn't true, as shown by the massive list of rookies mca just put out. and bn's were all once new mappers, too, and they didn't have such issue. maybe those new mappers that can't rank their maps should put more work in to contributing to the community instead of bitching on reddit/modhelp/twitter/wherever. a big part of the ranking process is becoming someone who people will actually want to help, and most people don't want to help idiots that whine about circlejerking all the time.


even if circlejerking is an issue, your proposal is nonsense:

1. such a system effectively results in bn's losing out on potential bn's for their own sets. why would anyone ever want to be a bn when it makes their maps harder to get ranked
2. it's virtually impossible for higherups to ensure people are obeying the rules. bn's pump out a lot of maps, and with each map creating a wait time, qat would be spending countless hours tracking wait times and scouring qualified. they also have no incentive to do this, since qat also "benefit from circlejerking". this is a massive, unproductive workload for people that have far better things to do with their time.
3. arbitrary wait times only delay issues instead of fixing them, bn's can always just wait out the time period to circlejerk, or even just extend their circlejerk as large as they need so they don't get flagged by the system as circlejerking

trying to stop people from doing the only thing that makes their countless hours of volunteer work remotely worth the effort is rly, rly stupid

Your heart is in a good place. I like that you want to encourage the BNG to reach out and look for more maps to nominate outside of their social circle.
However, the problem here is that you're trying to encourage them to do so by disincentivizing ranking other nominators' maps in general, since this proposal would then cause them to lose one potential nominator on any given map they have ready to rank.

If we wish to encourage people to nominate maps not based on who mapped them, but based on the merit of the map, this is focusing on the wrong thing, and it is the wrong direction to go. All I can see this doing is penalizing active nominators by preventing them from nominating maps that may very well deserve nomination, and penalizing active BN/mappers by discouraging BNs from taking their requests.

Penalizing bns for nominating appropriate for ranked sets seems a bit unfair. Also I'll remind that if you feel someone from bng\qat is abusing something you can report it here.

The relationship between the growth of non-bn maps nominated and restricting BNs to nominate other bns' needs to be substantiated. If bns are restricted to nominate their fellows' maps, will they then, really nominate more non-bn maps? Maybe no. In my opinion, bns should be encouraged to check, nominate or just put more effort more non-bn maps instead of being confined by this demoralizing restricting frame.


Additionally, it is betraying the idea of the entire modding ecosystem to define a map questionable/not able to be qualified just by who nominated it. Whether the map is qualified for being ranked should be oriented at the content of the map itself, I mean, from a more technical perspective.


Circle-jerk does only happen amongst BNs, but the whole community. From post above, there are some ideas on setting restrictions on the proportion of non-bn maps nominated. However, even if such restriction is implemented, there will always be alternative solutions: BNs could find their close non-bn friends to play the non-bn roles.

Most importantly, in this proposal, circle-jerk was pre-defiend as an abuse of power, which needs more elaboration and reasoning as well. Not all the people agree with that, as some posts in this thread have aready illustrated.

Hi, I have one word for this proposal, and that word is:

absolutely not what the fuck

I'm actually in full support of this! Except instead of a 1 month cool down I feel 24 hours is a bit more justified. Agree with everything else though!

Instead of trying to prevent people to act one way, it would probably be more efficient to encourage them to do the opposite. For example: encourage people to mod maps regardless of who the mapper is by making it more rewarding (iirc peppy planned to have an algorithm that chose a map to mod for you, and if you modded it, you got more kudosu. Of course no one really cares about kudosu nowadays, but that does not mean that this system could not be improved to fit our current needs).

This problem is ancient, it already existed when I joined the game back in 2009, and I don't think, from my experience, that it is possible to stop people from favouring their friends or using their nomination priviledges for their own benefit. Just make it worth for people to mod/nominate maps, regardless of who the mapper is, and you'll already have an improvement.

bringing incentives for people to rank non bn maps instead wpuld be a better option than punishing bns for nominating bn maps