Community Contributors: February 2019

At its very heart, osu! is almost entirely driven by its community. And at the heart of our community, the efforts of an outstanding few make themselves known. Today, we take a moment to reflect on some of these people, and award them the recognition they deserve.

Perhaps the most prestigious of all profile badges awarded, the community contributor badge is expressly granted to those of the osu! community who have gone utterly above and beyond the norm in their enduring contribution to the well-being of the game and its community.

We are proud to announce the latest set of community contributors in what is the largest number of additions made since the initiative started back in 2013.

Please note, however: this list is by no means exhaustive, and only represents the acknowledgement of continued, consistent contribution across a long period of time as observed and noted by the osu!team.

Community

HappyStick

All but leaving behind a successful streaming career and tournament series of his own, HappyStick's jaunt into the deeper affairs of the community has proven instrumental in the continuation of the osu! World Cup series in the wake of its previous organizer's farewell.

Beyond his award-winning smile, HappyStick has proven himself to be an invaluable addition to the osu!team, heading the new osu! Coffee Hour series, generally spending many sleepless nights setting up and streaming World Cup matches, creating tools to ensure that it is easier for others to run them, and so much more.

We could say many more things about HappyStick, but foremost among them is how thankful we are for his continued contribution.

juankristal

Something of a living meme among the osu! tournament scene, juankristal has been perpetually blamed for everything and anything that has gone both wrong and right for countless years.

For once, we are delighted to firmly pin the blame on him for the continuation of the osu! World Cup series as a whole, stepping up to lead the INTENSE organization required to schedule, oversee and generally maintain multiple multinational tournaments.

The workload involved in running the osu! World Cups is immense, perhaps far greater than most people realize, and juankristal has not only stepped himself up to do it out of a sheer desire to see it done, but has excelled at it, allowing the series to be continued without so much as a blip.

WalterToro

A mainstay force within the Global Moderation Team, WalterToro is not your ordinary chat moderator. He is everywhere: in the osu!wiki team, in the tournaments scene, and wildly active in the Spanish community to say the least.

From refereeing matches to refereeing people, we are very thankful for WalterToro's incredible work ethic and tireless drive to do what needs to be done.

clayton

From his involvement in the development of the new website, to reviewing countless improvements and additions to the osu!wiki and various newsposts, to assisting with the maintenance and general day-to-day tasks with Project Loved and much more, clayton has done almost everything there is to do, and continues to keep doing it.

Getting things done is what keeps osu! alive and moving, and there is perhaps no better example of this than clayton in recent times. We are supremely thankful for his efforts over the past few years.

VeilStar

A formerly gigantic presence in the technical support team, VeilStar's help has been chiefly responsible for hundreds, if not thousands of people getting to enjoy osu! to its fullest.

Having since departed the team and osu! in general to pursue things elsewhere, we'd like to express just how thankful we are for his assistance over the years.

Stefan

The very picture of an unsung hero, Stefan has single-handedly maintained the beatmap packs by himself for years regularly and consistently, completely without being prompted and entirely out of a drive to keep the project alive.

Thousands of users have Stefan to thank for their regular bundle of fresh maps to play, and we're extremely thankful for his incredible dedication and persistence.

Naxess

On the subject of unsung heroes, Naxess' has pioneered the development of a suite of tools that have essentially come to shape the way the Beatmap Nominators and the Quality Assurance Team handles the constant influx of new beatmaps and things to check.

Once Aiess and now Victoria, Naxess' creation stands guard in many a Discord server to guide masses of modders as they navigate through the challenges that come with ranking beatmaps, providing a service that hundreds of people now take largely for granted.

His efforts have not gone unnoticed.

Kurokami

A long term member of the Beatmap Nominators, then the Quality Assurance Team, Kurokami has been a regular presence in beatmapping-related affairs for literal years. His most notable contribution is his leadership of the Beatmap Spotlights project, and its continued effort to bring only the highest quality of beatmaps to bear for the community's appraisal.

Through thick and thin, Kurokami's ceaseless direction of the project has kept it alive where circumstance would have doomed it to be forgotten, and it is this sheer determination and drive to see something done that we are tremendously grateful to benefit from.

p3n

Our initial reaction to p3n's name being raised was universally: "how does he not have this badge already?"

So vast and numerous are p3n's contributions over the years - from creating a major metric used by the Quality Assurance Team to weigh and compare the activity of a modder in a given period of time, to entire written drafts and improvements on the basic modding/ranking system, his previous and enduring leadership of both the Beatmap Approval Team and the current QAT, assistance with the osu! World Cups and so, so much more.

shARPII

Departed from the osu!team since early 2018, shARPII was once the primary manager of the Global Moderation Team. Not merely content with one herculean task, shARPII also decided he'd write a utility to help the osu! World Cup staff handle the arduous process of handling multiplayer games from a referee's perspective, coding the program which is now affectionately dubbed Script-chan by the tournaments crew.

shARPII's passion and drive to improve upon and iterate some of the oldest remaining fixtures of the game's volunteer groups led to substantial improvements made for everybody, and we really cannot thank him enough for his time with us.

Project Loved

Formed from the ashes of the old Loved Captain's Pick system pioneered over a year ago, Project Loved has continually evolved and improved upon itself, becoming almost a secondary content stream from the efforts of its organizers, week in, week out.

Few community-run projects have sustained such momentum and attained such reach in all of osu!'s history, and it is only fitting that the first batch of new community contributors for 2018 originate from the ranks of this much beloved project.

Toy

The primary drive and chief organizer of Project Loved, Toy's efforts to revitalize and shape the Loved beatmap category are at the very heart of the program, and it is very safe to say that without him, it would simply not exist.

Beyond this, his contributions towards moderating the defacto osu! subreddit and his endless encouragement and positive attitude are shining examples of the things that make the osu! community as special as it is, and it is with great delight that we welcome him into the midst of the community contributors with his 22nd profile badge to boot.

Yes, you read that right.

Kaifin

Never far from the fray, Kaifin's continued assistance in the day-to-day affairs of Project Loved have had an immeasurable impact on its consistency and persistence overall.

The longevity of a project is built upon the backs of people like Kaifin, and we are very grateful for his continued support.

The Captains of Project Loved

At the heart of Project Loved are its Captains, who painstakingly sift through the endless catalogue of coveted maps to be placed up for voting each cycle.

Largely unsung heroes, the Captains listed below have all spent hundreds of hours invested into the project since its inception, and their work has been instrumental towards its success.

This list is not exhaustive - there are other Captains who have helped and continue to do so, it simply expresses those who have been with the project the longest.

Zak

Backfire

Tenshichan

Kamikaze

Pope Gadget

The Community Mentorship Program

Founded in July 2016, the Community Mentorship Program has run for over two years at this point, helping hundreds of novice mappers find experienced creators to help guide their learning of an increasingly difficult and complicated craft.

We thus, commend the immense contribution made by those who have helped and continue to help run this project, for managing such a large group of people so consistently for such a long period of time is absolutely no small feat.

Yuii-

Responsible for building the foundations of the project and an acclaimed 2-year+ Beatmap Nominator to boot, Yuii-'s presence in the Mentorship Program has been instrumental in its creation and continued existence.

Halfslashed

Very much the forward 'face' of the project, Halfslashed has been deep in the thick of the social aspects of leadership, being largely responsible for the deluge of speedmapping and other mapping contests that form the bulk of the competitive scene within the program.

Mir

An effortless generalist and a former mentee of the program himself under Shiirn, Mir's presence in the project was confined to no one particular domain, but showcased his ability to coordinate and implement at a level that would later speak well in his favor for his entry into the Quality Assurance Team.

Mun

Once a former mentee himself under Shiirn, Mun's efforts have spanned across dozens of domains within the project, primarily handling moderation and evaluation related tasks pertaining to both mentors and mentees.

J1NX1337

Responsible for handling much of the busywork that often accompanies managing a project of such size and consistency, J1NX1337's efforts were instrumental to the continuation of the project, and while not all work is exactly glamorous, such things are certainly no less important towards making things happen.

Development

ekr

Responsible for considerable contributions to the osu!lazer project, ekr's efforts have been focused foremost on reviewing code and making grand steps towards development of the game's input system, essentially rewriting it from scratch.

Noted specifically as one of the few developers brave enough to delve into the core architecture of osu!'s framework, ekr's work ethic and willingness to get involved is highly valued.

As mentioned in previous years, we cannot really stress just how important community contribution is to the future of osu! as a whole.

Unlike many other game projects on the web, much of what drives osu! originates almost wholly from its community, meaning that individual people can have a massive influence in making the game awesome for everybody else.

We hope to see the trend continue well into our second decade of clicking circles, beating drums, catching fruit and smashing keys!

—osu!team