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2 Apr 2018
The QAT Gazette: March 2018
The QAT Gazette: March 2018
Restructuring of the Quality Assurance Team, more communication and transparency regarding decision-making, and a greater focus on actually ensuring quality in the Qualified section again... Big changes to discuss this month, so read inside to find out all the details!
Opening
by JBHyperion
Welcome back everyone! JBHyperion here with another month's worth of news and developments!
As some of you may already be aware, it's been another busy month in our fair community, though you've hopefully come to expect that - these articles wouldn't be very exciting if there was nothing interesting to talk about after all! Thankfully, it's also been a month of tremendous growth. With growth comes change, and with changes comes an exciting opportunity for us to tell you all about it!
One of these changes is that for the first time in months, I won't be presenting this issue alone! Who knows what could happen, so let's get started right away!
Within the Beatmap Nominators
by Protastic101
Last month we opened the Gazette with some fun little statistics about the current rate of beatmap qualification and the impressive showing made by our hard-working Beatmap Nominators. I'm pleased to say a month later that our progress continues at an incredible pace, with currently just shy of 120 brand new beatmaps on their way to Ranked status.
New Beatmap Nominator Promotions
With the ever increasing number of pending maps submitted daily for modding and nomination by helpful members of the community and our hardworking Beatmap Nominators, we've added new members for osu!taiko, osu!catch, and osu!mania. Please welcome our newest additions to the Beatmap Nominators:
Nepuri, -Kazu-, Faputa, hikikochan, Ascendance, Sanyi, JeirYagtama, Arzenvald, AJamez, and error_exe777!
Additionally, mancuso_JM_ and Kisses are now qualified to check osu!taiko maps alongside their original qualification in osu!
Less than a month in and they've all worked hard to bring new content to the Ranked section. Congratulations to everyone and may your time in the Beatmap Nominators be an enjoyable and exciting experience!
Beatmap Nominator Retirements
Just as we say hello to new members, we must also say goodbye to old friends who have left to focus on other things. Please say farewell to Naotoshi and xfraczynho and show them appreciation for their hard work in osu! and osu!taiko respectively. Their efforts have positively impacted this community and paved the way for new members to follow in continuation of their work. It is much appreciated!
Creation of the QAH
The Beatmap Nominators have been internally split with the creation of the Quality Assurance Helpers (QAH). With the large influx of newly qualified maps every day, there was no easy way to ensure the quality of all these maps without going back to the old 2014 model of having the small team of QATs checking multiple maps all the time.
As a result, the Quality Assurance Helpers was started in order to get Beatmap Nominators more involved in the checking of Qualified maps to keep this a community driven effort rather than the opinions of only a few Quality Assurance Team members on every map in Qualified. Any full member of the Beatmap Nominators is allowed to join and leave at any time they wish, and activity requirements are fairly low to avoid burn out.
Even if you're not a Beatmap Nominator, don't fear because you can still report Qualified maps yourself in the Report a Qualified Beatmap Here! thread, the same as before. The purpose of the Quality Assurance Helpers is to streamline this process and make sure all and not just some maps are checked. Everything else remains the same as before. If you have concerns over a beatmap, post your concerns and it will be looked over by a member of the Quality Assurance Team!
Within the Quality Assurance Team
by Raiden
Overview of the new workfields (Branches)
"In the beginning, there was chaos." Not any longer, though! One of the most important changes within the Quality Assurance Team has been the creation of the work branches. In order to keep the QAT's workload organized and proportionally divided, we have now the following branches of work:
- Disqualification branch: this branch's purpose is mainly to check the reports made by the Quality Assurance Helpers explained above, inform of their validity and disqualify maps accordingly. Members: Mao (L), Myxomatosis (L), Fycho, Lasse, Mir, -Mo-, Gabe, Raiden, Nardoxyribonucleic, JBHyperion, Deif, Kurokami, Asherz007 and Protastic101.
- Applications branch: the purpose of this branch is to judge Beatmap Nominator applicants of their respective game mode every 6 weeks. Members: Deif (L), JBHyperion, Raiden, Doyak, Fycho, Kurai, Lasse, Nardoxyribonucleic, Asherz007, Protastic101, pishifat, Kurokami, Mao, Myxomatosis and Naxess.
- Divisions branch: the Divisions branch is in charge of managing the various Beatmap Nominator subdivisions. Members: Naxess (L) and Mao (L).
- Gazette branch: as the name implies, the members of this branch are responsible of publishing the monthly QAT Gazette which you are reading right now! Members: JBHyperion (L), Asherz007, Protastic101 and Raiden.
- Spotlights branch: its purpose is the management of the monthly Spotlights. Members: Kurokami (L), Nardoxyribonucleic and Mao.
- UBKRC branch: the members of this branch take the lead on the Ranking Criteria reworks. Members: pishifat (L).
Members marked with an (L) are the designed leaders of each branch.
New Quality Assurance Team additions
People join, people leave. That's how communities evolve throughout history. And the QAT is no different.
Thanks to the QAH initiative explained above, we have determined some of our Beatmap Nominators were qualified enough to become part of our team. With the addition of the new branches also explained above, each one of the new QAT members is assigned to one or various branches, making our duties more organized.
Please give a warm welcome to:
- Gabe, who will partake the Moderation branch;
- Feerum, an old hand who just couldn't stay away and is back once again to rejoin the Disqualification branch;
- and finally, Lanturn, who will assist the Metadata branch.
Quality Assurance Team retirements
Not everything can always be good news, for it is at times of loss when one really appreciates what one had
- After 5 years of service and countless efforts made for the team, being both in the BAT and the QAT, the judge of mapping contests, co-creator of Beatmap Nominator tests, our long-lasting member Irreversible has made the decision to work on his own. He will still hold the Olympiad contests, though, so stay alert! The Mapping Olympiad is the ambitious successor of the old Monthly Beatmapping Contests.
- We also bid a fond farewell to Okoratu, one of our former QAT leaders. He has chosen to follow his own path while continuing to contribute to the mapping and modding scene by remaining a Beatmap Nominator. Being one of the pioneers of the United Beat-Knights of the Ranking Criteria, he worked tremendously hard to make our Ranking Criterias a dynamic set of rules that adapt to the evolution of the mapping scene. On top of that, he is also one of the founders and main organizers of the Mentorship Program as well as one of the promoters of Mapping with Rewards, making his departure indubitably a great loss for the QAT.
Summary
by JBHyperion
And so another month of updates in osu!'s mapping and modding community draws to its conclusion. Many thanks to Raiden and Protastic101 for their contributions in this month's issue - hopefully you enjoyed a slightly different perspective on things if you're too used to my ramblings by now! It's a little scary to think that a quarter of 2018 has passed by already, but we have achieved so much as a community in that short period of time that I can't wait to see where we all end up... There truly are no brakes on this hype train!
Thanks for reading, and we'll see you all next month for more!
—JBHyperion, Protastic101 and Raiden
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