The QAT Gazette: August 2018

Modding discussion feature requests, potential changes to hybrid mode mapsets, and an update on awaited Beatmap Nominator applications — all your mapping and modding news from the past month is inside!

Opening

by JBHyperion

Hello again!

The summer vacation is coming to an end, for most of us heralding the return to school, university or work. Whether this inspires excitement, dread, or any emotion in-between, a healthy dose of mapping and modding news updates is surely just what you need! If you're here to keep up to date with Beatmap Nominator rule changes, new and upcoming Ranking Criteria updates, or recent meetings of the Quality Assurance Team, we've got you covered. Scroll down to find your own little slice of information heaven!

Before we begin though, please join me in showing the utmost appreciation for some of our longest serving contributors in the Beatmap Nominators — alienflybot, Kagetsu, sahuang and Strategas (two years of service each), Kibbleru (three years) and Gero, jonathanlfj, Natsu and smallboat, each with a staggering four years of cumulative service.

From the Quality Assurance Team, we would also like to recognize the incomparable efforts of Deif and p3n, who have served admirably in their respective fields for an incredible four years.

It is no exaggeration to state that their tireless efforts have helped shape osu!'s mapping and modding communities into the successful force they are today, having assisted and mentored a countless number of mappers along the way. Each will receive a profile badge acknowledging their length of service which they are encouraged to display with pride!

Within the Beatmap Nominators

by Protastic101

This month was fairly relaxed, without much movement in or out of the Beatmap Nominators. Applications for the Beatmap Nominators have not yet opened, but there are some exciting new changes to the way applications are organized that will surely be worth the wait. Read on to find out more!

Status of Beatmap Nominator Applications

Some of you may have noticed that Beatmap Nominator applications were not announced on their usual schedule. For those wondering where applications are, we are in the process of revamping the scoring algorithm, to better account for the recent mass-migration to beatmap discussions, and to create a more transparent and streamlined experience for both applicants and the evaluating team. Therefore, applications will be postponed a little to avoid any possible imbalances in modding score as a result of an untested system.

This gives future applicants an opportunity to increase their modding score in the meantime, to ensure they meet the threshold once applications do come out. Regardless of when applications re-open, consistent effort and contribution will always be highly valued, so make sure to continue modding regularly in the meantime if you have aspirations to join the team!

Beatmap Nominator Retirements

This month saw the departure of six of our hard-working Beatmap Nominators: some old, some relatively new — Ascendance, Cerulean Veyron, Fii, Garalulu, riffy and Sieg. Whether it’s for university study, military service, or simply a well-needed rest, your contributions have been greatly appreciated and we wish you the best of luck in whichever path you now pursue.

Within the Quality Assurance Team

by Raiden

Most of this last month's news and developments centered the discussion and outcomes of a Quality Assurance Team meeting. Usually we like to hold these publicly, but sometimes time isn't on our side and we really need to discuss things at short notice, so apologies for that! A recap of the key aspects of this meeting can be found below.

QAT September flash-meeting

The flash-meeting was held in order to follow up on the somewhat unfinished topics of our public August meeting, covering both these and new issues that required our attention.

The most notable discussed topic was the making of a feature requests listing, directed at the osu! developers. We brainstormed many quality-of-life implementations that we believe would make our job as QATs a smoother and more productive experience, some of which are listed below:

• Creating a list for a Beatmap Nominators' nominations that were reset or disqualified. This would be useful to better monitor and judge each Nominator’s proficiency.
• Ability for QATs and Global Moderators to edit posts in beatmap discussions. This would allow the removal of harmful or off-topic content from discussion posts, whilst retaining useful components.
• Prevent mappers from being able to resolve discussions when their beatmaps are in a Qualified state, as this makes it unnecessarily difficult to keep track of post-qualification modding.

Once these proposals are properly discussed and finalised, we will work with osu!'s developers to determine what aspects can realistically be implemented and how the modding discussions system can improved further still.

Ranking Criteria Discussion

Another important topic at this meeting was the change to the criteria of hybrid (multiple mode) mapsets. While this was certainly discussed during the August meeting (with a community poll running afterwards), there were still some flaws and unexpected outcomes that we decided it would be wise to address before proceeding.

Hybrid mapsets have recently been seen as a “shortcut” to the Ranked section, reducing the robustness of the beatmap checking process by requiring only one Nominator per game mode. They are also slowly becoming obsolete, considering that all game modes now have more than sufficient levels of content in the Ranked section.

These aspects caused us to reconsider if we really need to continue accommodating hybrid mapsets, and as such, we will be holding further discussion and possibly another community poll on this topic in the near future in order to decide how to proceed.

New Quality Assurance Team additions

Please give a warm welcome to our newest osu!catch roster addition: ZiRoX! A long-serving Beatmap Nominator of 3 years, who had a primary role in the remaking of the osu!catch Ranking Criteria, has joined us in order to assist with disqualifications, future Beatmap Nominator applications and evaluations. Make sure to wish him luck as he settles into his new role!

Summary

by JBHyperion

Thus we arrive at the end of another month's news. Hopefully you've enjoyed reading as always! September will no doubt bring further exciting developments, including the continued debate on hybrid mode mapsets and QAT feature requests, as well as the return (hopefully) of Beatmap Nominator applications, so please look forward to it!

Thanks for reading!

—JBHyperion, Protastic101 & Raiden