I decided to write my personal concerns and disagreements for the current BN qualification process and why BN tests should replace the current system. I will try to be brief as possible by giving some reasons about why i think this current BN apps qualification process doesn't work very well, in my opinion of course. Also my English isn't very good so please forgive me if you see any grammar mistakes or so.

1st reason: Modder doesn't have the full chance of showing his complete knowledge about RC since there's a probability to mod maps that may not have any unrankable issues at all. Let's be honest, if you participated in the last two or three BN apps, you tried to mod maps that had a lot of unrankable issues so you can show the QATs that you know the RC well enough. But let me give you a simple example of why this current BN app process doesn't work practically at all. Let's say that a modder is good in pointing rhythm & playbility & hitsounding issues around a map/maps but none of them had any unrankable issues so he didn't point out any in this whole 3 month period. What do you think it would happen to him? Would QAT members make him BN or not? Obviously not, because he would get this kind of silly decline message by saying ''your mods had potential but it didn't seem that you know much of the RC''. This scenario could actually happen with this current BN qualification process and don't tell me that it couldn't.

My final conclusion and a possible solution for this: The main point of the BN applications is to test the modder's knowledge in a more practical and simple way and not by criticising his modding history to come up with the conclusion about his knowledge around RC. On the other hand, BN test can give him this oppurtunity 100% to test his skills in finding unrankable issues so he can convince the QAT members that he's ready on being a BN or not.

2nd reason: QATs are criticising/judging modder's points for maps that they don't even check. Like what's the logic behind the current system by reading these small essays of a modder for a map that QATs don't even justify/confirm them in actual act??? Is this a type of contest about who's writing the best possible BNish essays for some random pending maps out there? With the current system everything can be faked, by pointing out issues that they don't even exist in a map or fake mutual agreements between a mapper and modder. Or this possible scenario of a mapper who is trying to defend his map from a modder's suggestions/explanations for possible problems because he's egoist and silly and eventually influence modder's modding history in a negative way that will get criticised by the QAT members.

My final conclusion and a possible solution for this: BN tests where modder's points can be simply criticised/justified by the QAT team with their knowledge!?

3rd reason: A person's interest about participating in the BN apps doesn't need to be proved by this forced active modding requirement thing in a certain amount of period. In my opinion this 3 month thing is pointless simply because each person can have his own real life problems and can't mod in this exact amount of period that a BN app cycles requires to. An other possible example is that a person can get easily demotivated with his failure in a BN app cycle and won't participate again because he finds it tiring and pointless in wasting his time over and over again by modding maps, which in the end of the day we don't want people to give up like that but instead we want them to get motivated even more to contribute in the game.

My final conclusion and a possible solution for this: Current method is holding back a lot of modders with potential out there and in my opinion there is no need to be forcedly obsessed with modding 100 maps per month. The best solution in my opinion is that a modder will need at least 50 kudos in order to participate in the BN apps just like how it was (I guess? If it's false then you can correct me)

Second possible solution for the current system: Minimizing the activity requirement thing for applicants who failed on the past cycles to 2 months, then 1 month and finally again to 3 months if he's gonna fail on the third time. In my opinion this would be a good step of mixing his last attempt in a cycle to the next one so the applicant doesn't need to prove his interest for being a BN over and over again. You may say that the 3 month is required to track his quality of his mods but as I said it would be a good idea in mixing his past failure in joining the BNG or how close he was to be a BN with the next one to expand his chances even more, not by this devided 3 month cycle period judging his mods for this specific period, you know that people are improving in general, no need to judge him in a certain amound of period, his skills/interest can be tracked in a more ''gathered'' way instead of the current way.

4th reason: (Note: This can be also told for the BN Test.) Possible QAT's personal dislikement for a person which can influence his overall possibility of being a BN or the exact opposite scenario. We are humans, right? Our relationships sometimes can't be that good and this is completely normal but not for the BN qualification process. QAT members and speaking for all the people in general can somehow get influenced by an overall propaganda from the mapping community about some mappers/modders saying like "this X mapper is famous for his maps so he deserves to be a BN" or "this X modder is known for his non sense modding so why would he even be a BN". I know that QATs are trying their best in order to qualify people that have potential on being BNs but I still trully believe that in the back of a normal human's head will also criticise someone by feeling and not by objectiveness.

My final conclusion and a possible solution for this: QATs obviously know their job but it wouldn't hurt if a new system was made in a way where the QAT member could critisise(talking about the current system)/judge his answers(talking about BN Test) in a way that he couldn't see the actual name of him and just simply test his skills as a modder, not as a named person. Afterwards, the names who got positive criticisms/successfully passed the test would get revealed by an other community manager so we can ensure the objectiveness of this whole qualification process.

These were my major concerns about the current system and I would love to hear any opinions or confortations about this subject.

Thanks for reading!~

1. First point: You can literally just read the RC while unsure about something when modding a beatmap and after some point you kinda remember almost everything for your gamemode + general issues and you only need to consult it some random times. It's not like a test is really needed for it.
   Plus, that's why we have probations. If someone ends up qualifying a lot of beatmaps with unrankable issues they definitely won't pass probation, depending on how severe the issue was.
   
   
2. Second point: A person's will and activity is required for joining the BNG. It's completely pointeless if you join the BNG and start having your own personal life and don't mod anything else after that, and you can only assure someone will be active enough after joining by your score. With the current kudosu system, if you have a decent amount of kudosu, you can join even by modding a single map in one of the 3 months.
   The current threshold is already too low, there's no reason to lower it even more.
   
   
3. Third point: Frankly speaking, all the QAT members are qualified enough to judge someone without holding grudges against them. It might be part of human nature, as you're saying, yes, but you're not judged by a single QAT member, but a lot of them. So, if one of them for, some reason I do believe it won't happen, gets angry at you - and most importantly, it's not your fault, because behaviour also counts in the judging process - you will have like 8 other people to judge your modding skills.

Apart from that, the biggest issue in the BN test is that people also were cheating on it, which is completely unacceptable, and most of the time you won't even know who did it and who didn't.

That's why I think the current system is better than the previous one.

From my personal experience BNs test are more "artificial" compared to the current system.

I took 3 tests and failed all of them (some with very fewer points others bigger ammount required) and that also happened with a lot of good modders, Rizen probably being the best case to point how awful it could be. But one thing I'm sure about it is that taking the tests was entirelly different experience compared to how I usually mod. It took me in one of the tests 12~16 hours to complete it and the final result was a 3 thousand wall text for a 4 diff E/N/H/I spread. I don't think that creating an essay showing off a lot of english/RC knowlodge and also checking for broken AR values (AR: 9,35) etc, is what we usually do when working on mods. We have a limited amount of time to check a huge number of pending maps and the tests didn't really work well to simulate how you handle your routine with modding activity.

The "Judge Impression" was also something that works similar to what currently is going on, but instead of 3 QATs you now have way more people involved with the apps, which increases the perspectives regarding mapping and that can make the BNG a more plural group that will check different maps. I think the current system is not perfect as well, but it's more practical compared to the tests. The effort required to make those can and should be used to something else imo.

Kuron-kun wrote:

1. First point: You can literally just read the RC while unsure about something when modding a beatmap and after some point you kinda remember almost everything for your gamemode + general issues and you only need to consult it some random times. It's not like a test is really needed for it.
   Plus, that's why we have probations. If someone ends up qualifying a lot of beatmaps with unrankable issues they definitely won't pass probation, depending on how severe the issue was.
   
2. I agree aswell about this cheating issue but in my opinion is still better to make a more securative test so QATs can judge someone's modding abilities in a specific map/test where they all did a mutual agreement for some issues around the map and not just criticise his modding history when they don't even have a small view in the actual map. With the current logic, I can go to a mapper and tell him ''I'll post some unrankable issues, can you resolve them all so I can show that I know the RC?'' So in my opinion in both systems we have cons and pros about this subject but I still think in my opinion that the best solution is making a more updated BN Test where the user can't cheat that easily(don't ask me how, I'm trying to think, I would appreciate any ideas about this).
   
   
3. Second point: A person's will and activity is required for joining the BNG. It's completely pointeless if you join the BNG and start having your own personal life and don't mod anything else after that, and you can only assure someone will be active enough after joining by your score. With the current kudosu system, if you have a decent amount of kudosu, you can join even by modding a single map in one of the 3 months.
   The current threshold is already too low, there's no reason to lower it even more.
   
4. I dissagree here for a simple reason: after his successful pass in the BN qualification system it will be his own decision to mod actively or not, this is not the systems' problem. Take this for example: As a student I managed to pass an examination for admission to a university but then for my own reasons I decided to not step there even if I had passed. Is it university's problem? No, it's completely the student's. What I'm trying to tell you is that each person can have his own personal reasons in being active or not. An other con of the current system is that the kicks for inactive BNs is estimated around 3 months of inactivity or something which is ridiculous if you ask me. It should be at least 1 month so the QATs and BNs don't beat around the bush all the time.
   
   
5. Third point: Frankly speaking, all the QAT members are qualified enough to judge someone without holding grudges against them. It might be part of human nature, as you're saying, yes, but you're not judged by a single QAT member, but a lot of them. So, if one of them for, some reason I do believe it won't happen, gets angry at you - and most importantly, it's not your fault, because behaviour also counts in the judging process - you will have like 8 other people to judge your modding skills.

It's true but think of that: an ex-BN wants to participate in a BN qualification process but he managed to do some mods that aren't very worth in making him an actual BN. On the other hand, a regular user who's trying modding maps wants to participate too but he also managed to mod some maps in a more non BN way. Well I believe that every person can think on which guy they would forgive and pick just because I explained the human nature's philosophy. The ex-BN. So I come up with my point again where the QATs in the system's process can't see the names of the modders and just judge him with objectiveness. I can't really think of anyone who doesn't want this procedure but I really wonder if there's a person who is against on this idea. I would love to see his actual reasons and ideas.

Apart from that, the biggest issue in the BN test is that people also were cheating on it, which is completely unacceptable, and most of the time you won't even know who did it and who didn't.

That's why I think the current system is better than the previous one.

Thanks for sharing your opinion!

Net0 wrote:

From my personal experience BNs test are more "artificial" compared to the current system.

I took 3 tests and failed all of them (some with very fewer points others bigger ammount required) and that also happened with a lot of good modders, Rizen probably being the best case to point how awful it could be. But one thing I'm sure about it is that taking the tests was entirelly different experience compared to how I usually mod. It took me in one of the tests 12~16 hours to complete it and the final result was a 3 thousand wall text for a 4 diff E/N/H/I spread. I don't think that creating an essay showing off a lot of english/RC knowlodge and also checking for broken AR values (AR: 9,35) etc, is what we usually do when working on mods. We have a limited amount of time to check a huge number of pending maps and the tests didn't really work well to simulate how you handle your routine with modding activity.

I think for what happened with Rizen is simply QAT's failure because there were different opinions about some issues on making the map unrankable/unsuitable for the ranking status. As I said, it would be better for the QATs (which they are expanded even more than the past) to sit down and make mutual agreements in a BN test to avoid this kind of stuff that happened to Rizen rather than criticising his modding history before 3,2,1 months on maps that they don't even actually check to come with the conclusion and justify modder's point in a practical way like ''ok, that's why he stated this thing for this part of the map, fair enough'', I just find the today's process really funny and failed. Wallmods still exist for today even in the modv2 thread, community can't escape that easily from those. I see a lot of people saying that moddingv2 helped to destroy wallmods but I don't see any thing like that. It just helped to avoid these smalls essays around the map, not the actual modding.

The "Judge Impression" was also something that works similar to what currently is going on, but instead of 3 QATs you now have way more people involved with the apps, which increases the perspectives regarding mapping and that can make the BNG a more plural group that will check different maps. I think the current system is not perfect as well, but it's more practical compared to the tests. The effort required to make those can and should be used to something else imo.

I really dissagree wtih you here because you put both systems into a one ''bag''. Today's process is completely different than before, QATs for today's process are criticising modder's points for such random pending maps by having a 0 view on them and they are just judging the way the modder has stated his points. Like, how can a QAT can come up with the conclusion that this modder is ready for being a BN when they don't even see the freaking actual map and justify/judge modder's points? It's like a team wants to hire a footballer just because of his good attitude/good criticisms that he got when the team haven't even watched his skills in the football playfield. Hope you understood what I'm trying to say and thank you as well for sharing your opinion!

I would love to hear more opinions!

I personally like BN tests, but completely returning it will possibly make the same mistakes happen again. One is cheater issue, other is having potential nice modders neglected etc. Yet, I do think BN tests have got its positive aspects one of which I agree is the RC understanding part as you stated at the first point of your post. Revivng the part A material of the original test and providing rc related questions to qualify possible bn candidates might be a possible compromisation imo. Though it will need an extra amount of time consumption among qats. Part B stuff is about an artificial situation which won't normally happen. I think is replaced to the current system.

Regarding activity point, bns are people who are constantly active so the 3 month thing will be something that qualifies people in their position.

being good at modding =/= having good quality standard

low quality maps won't be improved a lot even if they are modded by 12721 times, bns should focus on promoting more quality maps instead of improving their modding skills, i'm not against modding but it doesn't help a lot with the ranked section. in this case the old bat system before 2014 was better because old bats had their own standards and it wasn't like the current bn system which means mod=icon
the previous bn tests were just some mistake checks and rc tests, it's like teaching people to make a ranked map, instead of a quality ranked map.

so i don't think bringing the bn tests is a good idea

As if modding isn't serious enough already, I think we need to be more relax on modding matters not more serious.
Bringing the test back will standardize the way people mod, which will definitely affect mapping and how people mod (they will mod and map according to the set standards)

Current app also focuses on "Attitude/Tone of Delivery" Which I believe is more important than modding skill. BNs are supposed to be role model for other people and be a good community member. Because I think modding really doesn't improve the map much (if at all)

The RC rarely comes into play when actually modding and nominating the maps, most of your decisions come from your own judgement using your own experience based on a lot of circumstances.

Cheating in an online game test is so unethical and unfair to those who took the test honestly, not to mention so petty. Do they even have any integrity?

Hi.

Get the BN test back as it was, is just a bad idea. This was replaced because their multiple problems, so it is nonsense imho, try to get back something that we actually know will not work well.


About your point about RC knowledge, this will be interesting something like the A Section of old test, but personally I think this will not be very relevant at end, because anyone into mapping must know the RC, and even if they forgot something, those issues could be caught in the qualified section.


About people's activity in modding, what is the point of be a BN and don't be an active modder... I mean, If someone does not have the time to play the game as a modder, they must focus in what is important for their lives.

Now, I don't see how less activity time or less kudosus will improve something here, just lets take someone as example: me.
I was very active in modding, I actually have 390kudos (when kudos were something useful as measure lol), but I don't have time now because my work. Sometimes I used to mod maps at weekends, but not at a constant rate. Even if I wanted to be in the BN group, I just do not can, but even with less activity to join, being a BN at this moment could be more stressful that not being in BN.
The activity and kudosu restrictions are something positive, not a problem.


About QAT personal influence, all this system is about human interactions, and it is something you can't automate. Even if sometimes we are not agree with the judge of someone, the skill of resolve conflicts is very important here in this game as out in the real world.



As final words: look to the past to learn the errors, not to commit them again.

o/