Beatmap ranking procedure
See also: Rank (disambiguation)
Beatmaps can be promoted to the community by following the beatmap ranking procedure and entering the Ranked category.
Feedback
A beatmap's creator can mark their submissions as Work in Progress or Pending. Beatmaps in both of these categories are intended to receive feedback from the osu! community.
Modding is the process of receiving constructive criticism on a beatmap and is beneficial to improving its quality. Users ordinarily post feedback on a beatmap's discussion page or discuss issues with the beatmap's creator directly.
Newer beatmappers usually need extensive modding to create beatmaps that meet the Ranked category's quality standards, and often they're required to recreate their beatmaps from scratch.
Before being nominated for ranking, a beatmap needs to receive hype posts from at least five different users.
Nominations
Beatmap ranking status displayed on the discussion page, with hype and nomination progress bars partially filled.
A nomination is a vote of approval, which indicates a beatmap's readiness to become ranked. It is given to completed beatmaps of sufficient quality, as judged by the nominating user. As a minimum requirement, these beatmaps must follow the ranking criteria and have 5 or more hypes.
Nominations are given by Beatmap Nominators (BN), a group of experienced modders. Members of the Nomination Assessment Team (NAT) may also nominate beatmaps, however that is not their primary role.
It is recommended to receive mods before requesting nominations from BNs, however five hypes are the only pre-requisite.
Qualification
Beatmaps that receive two nominations per each available game mode are moved to the Qualified beatmap category. Qualified beatmaps have score leaderboards, but do not reward players with performance points. When a beatmap stays in Qualified for at least 7 days, the ranking queue is able to move it to Ranked.
This beatmap category exists to provide beatmaps wider exposure to the osu! community with the hopes of discovering potential problems. Problems can be reported to members of the BN and NAT from a beatmap's discussion page. Unlike Pending beatmaps, Qualified beatmaps cannot be updated by their creators, so feedback can only be applied after requesting a nomination reset.
Nomination resets
Nomination resets help ensure that modders, BNs and NAT members check over the most up-to-date version of a beatmap before it enters the ranking queue.
Nominations can be reset when a beatmap is updated by its creator, or when a member of the BN or NAT finds a problem in a nominated beatmap. They can also be reset by members of the Global Moderation Team when the reason involves inappropriate content. If a beatmap is qualified when its nominations are reset, it will be disqualified and removed from the ranking queue.
Members of the BN and NAT occasionally veto beatmaps they believe have quality issues that are unrelated to the Ranking Criteria.
Ranked
Beatmaps that have passed through the qualification stage have completed the ranking procedure. They have score leaderboards and reward players with performance points.
Ranked beatmaps are only unranked under exceptional circumstances when issues are found shortly after they reach Ranked status.