Nomination Assessment Team

See also: Beatmap Nominator evaluations, SEV rating

The Nomination Assessment Team (NAT) is a team that moderates the Beatmap Nominators (BN) and ensures the beatmapping side of osu! stays functional.

Members of the NAT are distinguished by their red username and user title. They have site-wide moderation permissions, like the Global Moderation Team (GMT), and also possess the ability to nominate and reset nominations on beatmaps, like full members of the Beatmap Nominators (BNs). For most purposes, NAT members are BNs with different responsibilities. Therefore, all BN rules and expectations apply to NAT members, with some exceptions for activity.

All members of the Nomination Assessment Team are sworn to uphold the Contributor Code of Conduct in addition to the normal Community Rules.

Note: To report a member of the NAT misbehaving or breaking the Contributor Code of Conduct, please contact the account support team.

Responsibilities

The NAT is responsible for a variety of mapping-related tasks, with each NAT member falling into one of two subgroups: evaluators and advisors. Each subgroup outlines the responsibilities of its members.

Evaluators

Members of the evaluator subgroup are primarily responsible for:

• Evaluation: Evaluating the proficiency and activity of both current Beatmap Nominators and applicants. See Evaluations for more details.
• Nomination: Nominating at least 2 beatmaps per month. This helps evaluators keep up to date with the mapping/modding community when evaluating current and aspiring Beatmap Nominators.

  • Modding activity and other contributions may be used as a backup metric when evaluating activity.

Evaluators are in high demand due to the sheer volume of BN applications. They, unlike advisors, therefore occasionally look for new members to join them and help ease the workload. This is why BNs who wish to join the NAT are primarily judged based on their ability to evaluate, and most NAT members join and stay as evaluators.

Advisors

As a group, advisors are required to maintain:

• Communication: Promoting transparency and maintaining good relations with not only the rest of the mapping/modding community, but also within the NAT itself. This includes, but not limited to, making announcements, participating in discussions about proposals, asking/answering questions through surveys, and updating the ranking criteria as well as other documentation.
• Development: Developing and maintaining tools and websites to help improve the ranking process (such as Mapset Verifier, Aiess, or the NAT/BN website).
• Moderation: Handling user reports and assessing inappropriate behaviour of Beatmap Nominators, as well as processing beatmap content reviews. This subcategory is a joint effort between the NAT and the GMT.
• Miscellaneous maintenance: Included but not limited to:

  • Handling vetoes.
  • Maintaining the RC Test.
  • Judging nomination reset severity.

Advisors make sure that BNs and other members of the mapping/modding community remain informed and feel heard, in addition to maintaining the components required to keep everything running in the mapping/modding scene. Advisors are generally made up of experienced evaluators that prefer to focus on managerial matters regarding the mapping/modding scene.

Dividing the NAT into two groups is necessary for the overall organisation and productivity of the group, allowing for a more streamlined assignment of tasks. Delegating tasks keeps NAT members from being overwhelmed while simultaneously avoiding a diffusion of responsiblity.

A member of the NAT can engage with any task within either subgroup despite what their subgroup may be listed as. For example, if a member of the NAT is an evaluator, they may still make announcements or participate in discussions about proposals. Assigned subgroups only describe what each member is formally responsible for.

Activity

Depending on their subgroup, each NAT member has different activity requirements. Evaluators are expected to consistently evaluate both applicants and current BNs, while also keeping up to date with the mapping/modding scene on their own through modding. Advisors are expected to uphold key parts of the ranking process on a case-by-case basis.

Members who are found to be inactive will be confronted by other members of the NAT. If a timely resolution to their inactivity is not feasible, they will be removed from the NAT. Members of the evaluator subgroup working on other mapping-related projects may be moved to the advisor subgroup to better reflect their contribution.

Promotion to the NAT

Before joining the NAT, a user must either be a full member of the Beatmap Nominators, or a former NAT member still involved in the community. Most NAT candidates are initially considered based on their commitment to helping the mapping and modding community, and further demonstration of their ability to contribute to a multitude of NAT responsibilities is usually the basis for being promoted.

Since all new NAT members start off as evaluators, it is important that NAT candidates are exceptional in assessing the proficiency of others. Full BNs may be given the opportunity to participate in mock evaluations or temporarily join the evaluation team, giving them an opportunity to practice. NAT candidates have a much better chance of being promoted if their evaluations are thorough and come to similar conclusions as the NAT (or have supportive reasoning otherwise).

The NAT keeps tabs on potential NAT candidates over long periods of time, and occasionally convenes to decide if a candidate should be promoted, similar to how BN evaluations are done. BNs are also allowed to ask about joining the NAT if they want to receive feedback and make sure they are being considered. However, depending on the activity and skill set of current NAT members, there may not be a need for new ones. New NAT members will likely be promoted only when one of the current members is becoming less active, or there are new workloads requiring more members, etc.

Becoming an advisor

Evaluators who show proficiency in the advisory tasks outlined above, to the point where their current or planned contributions are indispensable and far outweighs their necessity as an evaluator, can become advisors. This is as judged by a designated member in the team capable of this, currently UberFazz, whom NAT members may ask advisor-related questions to.

Before adding a new advisor, the addition is sanity checked with the rest of the NAT in case of objections. If no issues arise, the new advisor will then be subject to activity expectations depending on their specific situation. If the contribution of an advisor is considered lacklustre or unnecessary at some later point, again as judged by the designated member, then they will be moved back to being an evaluator.

Team members

Note: All NAT members speak English in addition to the language(s) listed below unless noted otherwise.

The Nomination Assessment Team group page lists all of the team members. In addition to areas mentioned below, all NAT members take part in reviewing audio and visual content included in beatmaps.

osu!

osu!taiko

osu!catch

osu!mania

Notes