This is a t proposal with Basensorex, as this matter is something we've been discussing since I started modding and applying for the BNG.

We planned on making separate proposals for each topic, but we realized that the issues we mentioned were all correlated and the solutions all affect one major aspect. The BN application system.

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=== THE CURRENT SITUATION === 5dh61

With the recent changes of NAT and BN viewpoints on ranked maps' quality (community/forums/topics/1930032) from last year, many things in the mapping and modding scene have changed, particularly quality standards which have overall become much more lenient.

Subjective concerns are now far less relevant when ranking a map, allowing maps that couldn't be ranked before get ranked, like older sets and loved maps. The veto system now has a higher uphold threshold which has resulted in overall lower BN anxiety on evaluations, since you are now only punished by upheld vetoes and serious disqualifications/unrankables.

That all changed, but something really important didn't. The BN application process.

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=== THE ISSUES === 6y2w1s

--> Issue #1) BN applications are still the same.

As someone who has failed many BN applications before, I couldn't help but feel hopeless when trying the standard application method, making them feel doomed no matter how hard I tried.

After analyzing many failed evaluations, I can assume the standards have not changed. BN applications are still in that same state, mostly focusing on hyper subjective concerns to keep modders from getting in. There are no new applicants (that haven't been a Beatmap Nominator in the past) that have recently gotten in using the standard application method.

If the NAT/BN expectations and viewpoints have changed towards being focused on objective concerns, why shouldn't BN applications do the same? The mods you make on a BN application are definitely not the same you do on your daily BN routine.

Being aware of subjective stuff is important to differentiate a rankable map from a good map, but these things only help once you are already a BN picking the maps you want to push for ranked. Having a failed application over subjective points is just backwards to me.

That being said, the only realistic option to get into the BNG nowadays for most people is the official BN mentorship.

--> Issue #2) The BN mentorship is good, but it's also way too unfair.

The official BN mentorship is a 2-3 month program that was created to turn modders into Beatmap Nominators.
We currently have an average of two mentorship programs per year with a high acceptance rate into the BNG when compared to standard BN applications and many new BN additions each cycle.

The only issue I have with it is that something this good is so hard to have access to for the majority of the modding community.
I was told that the choosing method of mentees is randomized, but I believe that enough isn't really fair, since it pretty much just turns the most efficient application method into a gacha. There are many promising modders that try to apply for it, but sometimes don't get picked due to bad luck.

When comparing BN mentorship applications to the standard application procedure, there's an insanely wide gap in rates of acceptance. In the last mentorship cycle, 80% of standard mentees were brought into the BNG (and all performed perfectly fine too!). Meanwhile, it's been actual months (over half a year it seems?) since the last person to get in through the normal application process, not counting those with previous BN experience for obvious reasons.

While obviously they're not equal samples of modders due to the filtering that goes on when mentees are selected, that alone, in my eyes at least, can't explain this wide of a gap between acceptance ratios.

I think the BN mentorship should really try to accommodate modders from a wider range of skill levels, so they can someday become BN after some time and effort.

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=== SOLUTIONS === 2m4b2c

Reworking the whole application system sounds like a huge amount of work, and I don't think we are ready for such big change all at the same time.

My proposals are much simpler, realistic and I feel they should have been adjusted and implemented since the viewpoint rework.

These proposals are not mutually exclusive, they can be merged together into a new proposal as well.

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--> Proposal #1) Increase leniency for BN applications and resignify the Probationary BN role.

I feel like sometimes objective and subjective issues can get a little confusing as they are not black and white, and more like a gradient.
Sometimes even objective stuff is subjective sometimes (like timing simplification for gameplay) so why even make subjective stuff such a decisive thing when accepting or failing applications?

With the new ranked map viewpoint, BNs should primarily do objective checks, making sure metadata is correct, identify and fix unrankable audio files, make sure spread makes sense with progression rules, etc. Anything else subjective should just be up to mappers or not matter as much on the final decision. The subjective part should be relevant when it comes to accepting maps. Why not give modders a chance at that?

If the objective part of the application was fine, but you still have questions about the subjectivity of their mods, just give them that and guide them to their Probationary BN role.

At the moment, the Probationary BN role feels completely abandoned. We have ZERO probation BNs at the moment (in osu!std). Since you can't even get demoted from full Beatmap Nominator, why is probation not being used for something else now?

Trial BNs were created to give a chance for the barely ing/failed applicants and see if they would do a good job. Not many were successful, but with the new NAT and BN viewpoints, it is clear that it's something that can be brought back.

My main proposal is to try lower standards for standard BN applications and use probation for what it should be used for, similar to how Trial BNs worked. For people to learn how to be a BN.

Evaluations of Probationary BNs should mainly focus on the objective checks that everybody must get right, with lesser emphasis on subjective checks aside from perhaps just your typical housekeeping mods that have relevant intersubjective agreement between mappers (e.g. broken stacks, broken colorhax, grouping, etc.).

If we apply our new standards, more applications should be ing and new should be entering the team.

This of course should still come with the caveat that mistakes made during your probationary period will be punished far more strictly than those same mistakes committed by full BNs, to ensure that these new BNs have the capability to be responsible when they become full BNs.

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--> Proposal #2) Make the BN mentorship more frequent and create more classes.

Having more mentors, not only NATs, but also experienced BNs would be something extremely positive.
With more mentors, you can have more mentees per cycle. It's rather simple.

I understand there are other factors like availability, how willing and how good at teaching a mentor can be, but these are internal discussions among the organization team, I'm just bringing it up as a possibility so something can be discussed or done about it. Perhaps having an application period for BNs interested in becoming mentors can be held and those with promise can be handpicked by NAT to assist in the mentorship cycle.

Making the mentorship more frequent would be cool, with the addition of more mentors.

NATs could also manually redirect failed applications from the standard application method that are still promising to the official BN mentorship (or, at least, more often than is done now).

Another thing that could help is to make the basic classes and guides be something more automated through recorded classes and leave more specific subjects to the mentors. Maybe even teaching how to use programs like Mapset Verifier and integrating it as an official tool for Beatmap Nominators?
Then, after some classes, you could have a small test about the overarching stuff you learned.

However, this should not be the most relevant part of their application, since they would be receiving , and applying that as a Probationary Beatmap Nominator.

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=== COUNTER-ARGUMENTS AND COUNTER-COUNTER-ARGUMENTS === 6w62i

--> Counter-Argument #1)
"Current BN application standards are the only real line of defense for having some amount of quality standards in new BNs."

Please note that despite application standards being made more lenient under this proposal, I still maintain that Probationary BNs *should* have strict evaluations (far stricter than full BNs) for any issues that do come up in their nominations, including those subjective issues enforced through vetoes.

I believe the "line of defense" for quality standards in BNs *should* be during this probationary period since it gives far more modders a shot at being BNs in the first place, which gives them the experience needed to do great work as full BNs, something far more important than the overly subjective wall that is the current BN application process.

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--> Counter-Argument #2)
"If these proposals are to be accepted, NATs would have a far higher workload in managing BN mentorship cycles, as well as enforcing strict probationary evaluations and an even higher amount of normal evaluations of full BNs."

The current NAT is capable of pretty smoothly dealing with their current workload of evaluations and mentorship cycles. I do not believe that an increase in workload is unmanageable at the current level.

However, I can definitely see how in the future these changes might lead to too much workload, the solution for which is obvious: run trial NAT cycles more regularly to increase the workforce and distribute workload more efficiently.

(Note: even if there aren't enough people wanting to become NAT at this exact moment to accommodate for a higher workload, having more people becoming BNs, in general and in the long term, will create more people who do want to become NAT, so that won't really be a concern.)

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--> Counter-Argument #3)
"Why do we even need more BNs? There were more standard ranked maps last year than ever, clearly having more BNs isn't needed."

Firstly, most of this proposal isn't really concerned with "increasing the amount of BNs". We're far more concerned about the fairness of both current methods of applying, since one of them is virtually useless for almost all modders while another is extremely effective at getting applicants in.

However, even given that, simply stating the fact that we've been getting more maps ranked as of late doesn't really capture the full picture. The reality is that standard's ranked map count is actually proportionally smaller to all other gamemodes when ing for active players.

While we don't have perfect numbers on the active playerbase per gamemode, you can get a rough idea by checking the active player counts of each country on the country leaderboards. Through this method we can get a decent estimate that the standard playerbase is about 3-4x the size of all other gamemodes combined.

Despite this, the amount of ranked maps last year in standard was only about 1.25x the size of all other gamemodes combined.
You might be able to make the argument that other gamemodes don't have as much depth as standard does which makes the modding workload lighter. We'd argue this doesn't really seem to be the case however, since the amount of BNs in standard versus in the other gamemodes is actually very similar, only about 1.15x as many, meaning that the same amount of work is being done proportionally based on amount of BNs.

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TL;DR

--> Increase BN application leniency, focusing more on objective checks, since those are the most meaningful issues that BNs must know how to deal with once they're in, especially with the general shift towards less subjectivity when applying quality standards. (Something akin to Trial BNs, with a lenient application, yet strict probationary period)

--> Make official BN mentorship cycles more frequent with larger classes, to reduce amount of gacha "luck" one must have to be accepted into a class due to the randomized selection process. Create room for a wider range of modders who might not be as close to becoming a BN, to foster greater volume of experienced modders over time. Can also allow vetted experienced BNs to in as mentors for the cycles if more manpower is needed, or just have more NATs to deal with larger amounts of classes.

I think the problem you're observing w/ bn applications being too hard and unchanged and the like doesn't seem as bad as you're making it out

From reading the failed applications of the past few weeks nad months, people either failed because basic modding that would impact your checking as a BN was missed, behaviour, or both

re-introducing the bureaucracy of trial bns seems like a weird idea to me as well because that trial was tried and didn't really end up working so it was discontinued lol

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BN mentorship being good is nice to hear! But making it more accessible is kinda impossible without literally burning out the people running it so I'm not quite sure what you want to do about it; just throwing more people at the problem is going to dilute the quality of the material taught a lot i think. Vetted BNs being asked to participate and stuff does happen but that depends on people's willingness to engage with that

I find posts like these to be quite interesting given the rather vague implication of increasing leniency. I've glanced through the public evals just like everyone else and I want to understand where the NAT could be more lenient without just ing everyone who can run Mapset Verifier and work a spreadsheet. As you noted there is some grey area moments within the modding context for maps whether it be timing, gameplay, metadata, and so forth, however I do not believe that many of these applicants are failing due to not pointing out subjective issues than failing to understand general RC and its application. These rejections come with that aim to adjust the applying modder with directions of improvement.

Probation under said implementation would come at a cost of increased NAT involvement with inexperienced modders which would lead us back to the same strained relationship between "community" and BNs/NAT where the strict scrutiny for probation bns would feel more hostile than being just rejected beforehand. While I do believe there is merit in providing opportunities for newer modders to learn the ropes, BN mentorship and application , as they are now, provide ample opportunity. An expansion of BN Mentorship is less a matter of policy than with manpower as it is not enough to simply be aware of how to perform as a bn but to be able to effectively instruct and commit time and resources. Logistics and motivation do not arise voluntarily for everyone and it is important to understand so under that context. I will note however that the BN mentorship cycle to cycle has only grown in the amount of on average.

To be blunt, I am not sure what is the purpose of such a proposal from either a practical or symbolic point of view. If this is a practical intent to actually increase leniency beyond current standards, we run headfirst into questioning the necessitation of a Beatmap Nominator as "only objective issues" can be solved with a piece of software and some google searches. if this is a symbolic intent to accept unprepared modders into the BNG and seeing the outcome, we only have precedent of hastily accepted bns missing vital issues on initial checks and shipping into qualified, exacerbating the current issue with qualified dqs/vetoes being emotionally intensive for mapper, bn, and player alike which could have been avoided with a more capable Nominator.

I am not personally against more BN's applying and coming through and among others am very invested in the future of new modders and mappers whenever they do ask me for and opinions on various mapping related issues. I do believe however that the system, as it stands now facilitates this process correctly.

"leniency“ is something you can't quantify since for time and time again, it comes down to purely feeling. and thus, i don't think we attempt to see each other from this point of view.

i'd like to shift the attention towards the "line of defense should be the probationary period". the current application system incentivizes the applicant to overperform, only to be subject to much more lenient quality standards in the BNG with many barely modding, or not modding anymore. plenty of recent applications have the "lack of overarching modding", "lack of content" or "lack of impactful modding" put into their evaluation , which while one may argue in the grand scale of things is probably true, the opposite is generally fine for staying in the BNG, which quite frankly isn't reflective of the application.

why is probationary better as a quality check?
i am a graduate from the BN mentorship. i thank my mentor for improving my modding and the evaluators for letting me in. however, i didn't necessarily learn how to be a BN in there. most of the things related to BN work such as quality standards, what's safe and what's not, modding etiquette, rechecking, etc. are learned from being a probationary BN and actually nominating the maps. this is why i inherently believe the actual "gate" in letting you into BNG should be the probationary period instead of heavily overweighting the BN application.

accepting someone with a high skill ceiling doesn't matter if the person fails to perform consistently as expected. probation has proven to be a more accurate quality check if one can be BN. it's also a fact that you don't need a high modding skill ceiling to be BN, you just need to not fuck up, aka being consistently performing.

to prove my point, i was kicked right after probationary for excessive yapping, a non-modding problem. the probation period has shown the NATs that i am not fit for BN more comprehensively than if i were to apply manually, where it simply judges something that i wouldn't realistically do everytime as BN, such as wallmodding entire sets.

what do i suggest then?
if possible, a longer probation period with more maps nominated. field work is much more essential than theoretical work, so letting the potential applicant ease into the probation period will be a much more representative 1:1 judgement if the applicant is worthy to be BN. in this longer time the potential applicant will learn and get used to how BN work is supposed to go.

where i stand
i don't think every person should become bn, i don't know whether or not we can share a common view on "quality standards", however, this doesn't mean that i want "drop all safety measures from BN app and let everyone in", no. quite frankly, i can't quantify what "be more lenient" is, however, i'd like you all to consider utilizing the probation period as the judgement call instead for a more accurate representation if a person is fit to be BN overall.

a more representative 1:1 judgement will inherently be fairer and less of a headache for both parties involved, applicants do not need to prepare for something they most likely wouldn't use in the BNG and the evaluators don't need to gamble and use guesswork to let someone in purely by feeling.

i'd like to hear your opinions about this.

Malphs wrote: 205f3j

I was told that the choosing method of mentees is randomized, but I believe that enough isn't really fair, since it pretty much just turns the most efficient application method into a gacha.

It was random for the first cycle, then it changed to community-mentorship-program-style where mentors pick their mentees.

I completely agree that evaluations should be done on a more practical level and that the current application system is disconnected from what actual BN work looks like. The "learning by doing" approach can be applied to a lot of things, including modding, but it's currently not implemented in the recruitment process. This means that there are a lot of people who would probably be good BNs, but they might never get the chance to actually learn and put their abilities into practice, just because they didn't figure out the intricacies of how to an arbitrary application process. It's like applying for a job but instead of a simple job interview to roughly guage someone's skills (comparable to the recently abolished RC test) and probation period to see how they're actually performing at the job (so basically like probationary BN), they have to demonstrate their knowledge in a tangentially related manner without clear instructions and grading methods.

This proposal mentions "relaxing standards" and "increasing leniency", but I don't think it's an accurate description of what's being suggested or what should be done and might therefore sound more negative than it actually is. It's more about improving BN apps by increasing fairness, objectivity, accessibility and efficiency. These changes don't aim to and wouldn't reduce or relax the actual quality standards expected from BNs.

Okoayu wrote: 4p331x

I think the problem you're observing w/ bn applications being too hard and unchanged and the like doesn't seem as bad as you're making it out

For some reason, only NAT (and a few BNs but certainly not all) seem to think it's not a problem, so only people who are on the other "end" of the application process and not directly affected by the outcome. Pretty much everyone else who has undergone this process can recognize the flaws and relate to the frustration of not knowing what is expected and having to try over and over again just to have a chance at ing if you're lucky.

Okoayu wrote: 4p331x

From reading the failed applications of the past few weeks nad months, people either failed because basic modding that would impact your checking as a BN was missed, behaviour, or both

But that's exactly the point, even if someone made some mistakes on their mods (which is subjective anyway), they could learn how to avoid them and do better by practicing modding as a probation BN or whatever. Right now they are expected to know and get everything right before even starting and without any resources to learn and improve. Candidates who fail currently have 2 options: give up or waste months/years continuing to try (unless they are lucky enough to be mentored as stated in the OP).

Okoayu wrote: 4p331x

re-introducing the bureaucracy of trial bns seems like a weird idea to me as well because that trial was tried and didn't really end up working so it was discontinued lol

From what I understood, the suggestion was to repurpose the current probationary BN role as something similar to the concept of trial BNs, not literally re-introduce that system in the same way, therefore there would be no additional bureaucracy. I don't think the experimental phase from last year didn't work because it's a flawed idea, just the way it was implemeneted wasn't thought out very well.

Okoayu wrote: 4p331x

BN mentorship being good is nice to hear! But making it more accessible is kinda impossible without literally burning out the people running it so I'm not quite sure what you want to do about it; just throwing more people at the problem is going to dilute the quality of the material taught a lot i think. Vetted BNs being asked to participate and stuff does happen but that depends on people's willingness to engage with that

I mean, it's hard to make concrete suggestions when there is little to no transparency on the BN mentorship program. How often is it scheduled to run? Was the test run for mania with BNs as mentors successful? If so, can it be done for all modes? And if not, what was the problem and can it be solved?
Also, Malphs did mention the idea of recording certain lectures or whatever it is that can be used as learning material in order to save time and work.

Local Hero wrote: 5t6x1x

I find posts like these to be quite interesting given the rather vague implication of increasing leniency. I've glanced through the public evals just like everyone else and I want to understand where the NAT could be more lenient without just ing everyone who can run Mapset Verifier and work a spreadsheet. As you noted there is some grey area moments within the modding context for maps whether it be timing, gameplay, metadata, and so forth, however I do not believe that many of these applicants are failing due to not pointing out subjective issues than failing to understand general RC and its application. These rejections come with that aim to adjust the applying modder with directions of improvement.

What can be changed is to avoid highly subjective judgements that are based on preferences for certain mapping styles or philosophies, like is now done for evaluations of existing BN. Instead, focus more on "intersubjective" and objective issues if anything.

Local Hero wrote: 5t6x1x

Probation under said implementation would come at a cost of increased NAT involvement with inexperienced modders which would lead us back to the same strained relationship between "community" and BNs/NAT where the strict scrutiny for probation bns would feel more hostile than being just rejected beforehand. While I do believe there is merit in providing opportunities for newer modders to learn the ropes, BN mentorship and application , as they are now, provide ample opportunity. An expansion of BN Mentorship is less a matter of policy than with manpower as it is not enough to simply be aware of how to perform as a bn but to be able to effectively instruct and commit time and resources. Logistics and motivation do not arise voluntarily for everyone and it is important to understand so under that context. I will note however that the BN mentorship cycle to cycle has only grown in the amount of on average.

I believe you're laboring under the misapprehension that only inexperienced modders are failing BN apps, but in reality it also includes people with lots of modding knowledge and experience, which highlights the problems of the current system.

Local Hero wrote: 5t6x1x

To be blunt, I am not sure what is the purpose of such a proposal from either a practical or symbolic point of view. If this is a practical intent to actually increase leniency beyond current standards, we run headfirst into questioning the necessitation of a Beatmap Nominator as "only objective issues" can be solved with a piece of software and some google searches. if this is a symbolic intent to accept unprepared modders into the BNG and seeing the outcome, we only have precedent of hastily accepted bns missing vital issues on initial checks and shipping into qualified, exacerbating the current issue with qualified dqs/vetoes being emotionally intensive for mapper, bn, and player alike which could have been avoided with a more capable Nominator.

Neither is the case, I think you're not interpreting this correctly. I tried to explain the purpose in the first 2 paragraphs of this reply.

I think a lot of this discussion is being held under the mistaken idea that bn applications come through at the same rate they always did before and therefore the fail rate is even worse than it was before. I understand this isn't fully transparent, but at the same time a lot of time would be saved by asking for those kinds of numbers first instead of making an entire system of ideas based on assumptions and only getting facts later.

This is a little challenging to gather concrete numbers on out of a hat even for myself due to the need to manually filter out bn res, but generally the trend the last several months has been there is 1 application at most every week or every couple of weeks. Having an entire 3 applications in progress like we do right now has become more unusual. It's a lot different from the 3-6 a week we would often see before.

A big reason for that is a lot of people who were competent modders and did struggle about applications managed to more readily get in when the application process changed last year. Now we much more rarely see the same people applying again and again because a lot of them got in or get in with fewer tries and hurdles to go through. And beyond that even more people that regularly struggled about learning it did get in through bn mentorship. Oftentimes picking regularly-failed applicants to be mentees was a preference for mentorship too.

I do have concerns that it becomes preferable to try to become a BN mentee due to it being so much more effective for a multitude of reasons and that discourages people from applying altogether. However I don't think that is entirely avoidable by just changing the application process. Getting hands on from one or more NAT or BN on demand or at least weekly is going to be far more effective than every 2-3 months no matter what form the occasional takes or what the standards are for it. The majority of the trial probation period of this proposal just comes off as moving this mentorship process into during being a BN, which while marginally more helpful, is also more destructive due to actively affecting real maps entering real ranked and the public shame or friction for anyone that didn't go through (while the mentorship rate is high, it's not 100%).

That said, as far as group growth is concerned all the changes in 2024 have been working tremendously well.

For full bns let's check some historical numbers

March 2022: 71 std bns, there was a previous all-time peak around this period
July 2023: 45 std bns
Oct 2023: 43 std bns
Jan 2024: 53 std bns
April 2024: 64

Until it goes up drastically starting summer last year, eventually bringing us to our current 102

And for years and years before that, it was always stuck at ~60 standard bns at most.

So the timing of this proposal comes off as really strange, it's being treated like there's a huge problem when there's already been improvement never seen before in the game's history. Also coming from people concerned about map playcount, doubling the number of maps just further decreases how worthwhile getting anything ranked feels due to the more limited exposure there is when there is more and more maps sought because... reasons?

I think we genuinely hit a point where a lot of people that were trying before are finally added to the group and that leads to fewer applications and fewer brand new additions due to just how dramatic and all at once of a change early to mid-2024 has been. I'm sure this trend will change going forward as we get through that period of having added so many people and more people come into learning modding etc.

I have quite a few thoughts on the matter. For the record, these are the opinions of someone who has experienced the system on another mode and context. But the short version is that the attempt at making everything objective is idealistic at best, impossible at worst.

Regarding the Trial BN experiment.
In the June 2024 NAT Gazette it was announced Probation was somewhat going to act like it. The Trial BN as a concept sounds cool, but any implementation of a standalone group would add needless complexity. I'd focus the attention to Probation and asking ourselves if we're following through with our original promise.

Regarding applications.
The purpose of applications is to show a 's modding backbone. Think people misunderstand that, and make the assumption that just because someone fails (or es) the application process, it will instantly make them a good BN. Arbitrarily lowering standards at the application step may lead to an overall reduction of quality standards altogether.

Mentorship.
Mentorship has proven to be effective at getting new, prepared manpower into the team. For no reason other than learning on a week by week basis with the help of a mentor proves more effective than getting every few months. That should not be news to us. I'd encourage having some of these resources public in the future. As an addendum, BN mentors have worked quite well for mania.

I do not think this is something that will be solved with more cycles or people. It's like wanting to add more lanes on a highway. It is a very taxing task, and can lead to burnouts.

On that note, I do want to emphasize that neither BNs nor NATs bite. I'd like to believe most people would be willing to occasionally help those who ask them questions. While it won't be on par with a dedicated mentorship program, s should not fear to reach out to NAT and ask for further . Cannot stress enough that we don't want to fail people. That is not the goal.

Other than that, I basically with everything else Noffy said. Even on our mode, we're starting to see how the pool of available people that are both capable and interested in lending their time is dwindling.

I have to agree with this post here.
As someone that wanted multiple times to try and apply as bn, it just happens everytime I end up not doing it because of the low amount of new bns actually accepted from just these applies (to say things, yearly I can count them with one hand), feels just like you already know applying ends in a failure, and I know I am not the only one thinking that due to the amount of discussions I've had about it in the past.
Usually people get rejected for something that wont even be mentionned on actual bn modding, on mostly pretty niche stuff and sometimes wouldn't even benefit for the map. (way to say most of these denies are on subjective stuff)

Current system makes bn mentorship the only viable way to get in bng at the current time, which completely negates the utility of applying cuz now people would just wait for mentorship to get in... "get yourself carried by the ones who "know" " some would say, it completely negates people's own effort to get they own modding knowledge and instead just get to learn one take, cuz it's actually the only thing that works to get in here, which I think is pretty one sided here and not satisfying at all.

p much just gonna reply to every general point or idea pointed out in the thread that i disagree or have qualms with.

before u read this dont take it as me being pissmad even if it comes across that way, this is just something that i genuinely care a lot about and i think a lot of the criticism here is just unfounded.


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Okoayu wrote: 4p331x

I think the problem you're observing w/ bn applications being too hard and unchanged and the like doesn't seem as bad as you're making it out

i think having a bn application system that systematically does not work for its intended purpose is really bad actually.

bn apps through the normal application system are simply not effective at either ensuring that an applicant knows how to mod as a bn or at giving them genuinely useful advice for "improving" at modding.

the purpose of a system is what it does: if not a single person without prior bn experience is ing bng through this application system, even after several applications, then clearly the system is not working as intended.

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Okoayu wrote: 4p331x

From reading the failed applications of the past few weeks nad months, people either failed because basic modding that would impact your checking as a BN was missed, behaviour, or both

this is objectively untrue, when you say they "failed basic modding that would impact your checking as a BN" your definition of that basic modding is completely detached from what a lot of bns actually do in their day to day work.

the truth is that most bns pick maps that they already think are subjectively good. their "basic modding" is mostly unrankable checking and housekeeping mods, yet if somebody applies with an actual realistic bn mod of that sort what theyll probably get in their eval is an assortment of buzzwords eg "lack of timeline modding", "not enough impactful modding", which if applied to actual bns we would shrink all the way back down to 2023 levels.

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Okoayu wrote: 4p331x

re-introducing the bureaucracy of trial bns seems like a weird idea to me as well because that trial was tried and didn't really end up working so it was discontinued lol

made it pretty clear in the post that the point is making probation similar to what trial bns were, not literally adding trial bns back in. probation is pretty useless atm so theres no need to readd a role when we can use an existing role differently.

also because of the sheer lack of transparency from the nat nobody actually knows why the general opinion is that trial bn "failed".

a few got kicked, a couple resigned, yet we still have people that either stayed bn since then or reapplied and made it just fine after already having had real experience. to me that seems like the whole point of the system: let people in with more lenient apps and if they fuck up their probation (trial) they get kicked, but they actually accumulate the experience of being a bn itself which is far more important than arbitrary application standards.

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Okoayu wrote: 4p331x

BN mentorship being good is nice to hear! But making it more accessible is kinda impossible without literally burning out the people running it so I'm not quite sure what you want to do about it; just throwing more people at the problem is going to dilute the quality of the material taught a lot i think. Vetted BNs being asked to participate and stuff does happen but that depends on people's willingness to engage with that

to be quite blunt, this is your problem and not ours.

we've already made suggestions on how to improve the accessibility of the mentorship program eg recorded lessons/tutorials, the organization of that is up to those who hold the responsibility of managing mentorship (nat), and the efficiency of how theyre done is what really determines how much people get burnt out.

ill even throw you a bone and say that one of the best things you could possibly do is just making the mentorship discord public to view (not chat in), allowing anybody to use resources provided, whether that be recorded classes or written guides or given to mentees etc.


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Local Hero wrote: 5t6x1x

As you noted there is some grey area moments within the modding context for maps whether it be timing, gameplay, metadata, and so forth, however I do not believe that many of these applicants are failing due to not pointing out subjective issues than failing to understand general RC and its application.

people are 100% denied over purely subjective issues, even if theyre related to the rc (which full bns themselves disagree about all the time), not every applicant misses offscreens or unsnaps or metadata or audio issues etc, a lot of them prove that they could do the day to day tasks of a bn perfectly fine yet get rejected because their subjective modding wasnt up to nat standards.

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Local Hero wrote: 5t6x1x

These rejections come with that aim to adjust the applying modder with directions of improvement.

the from rejections clearly doesnt help people apply for bn better considering the amount of people who repeatedly apply without getting accepted, unless you can prove to me that the vast majority of applicants are illiterate you will never convince me that the is in any way worthwhile.

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Local Hero wrote: 5t6x1x

Probation under said implementation would come at a cost of increased NAT involvement with inexperienced modders which would lead us back to the same strained relationship between "community" and BNs/NAT where the strict scrutiny for probation bns would feel more hostile than being just rejected beforehand.

i have no idea where this notion is coming from, i genuinely cant think of an example where the community was outraged because some new probation/trial bn was kicked for whatever reason. people only get pissmad about somebody getting kicked once theyre already an established bn and have done notable things to be widely recognized eg having really high activity, nomming a lot of 1st ranks, nomming popular farm maps, etc (think malphs in this regard with how his kick was perceived by the community).

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Local Hero wrote: 5t6x1x

To be blunt, I am not sure what is the purpose of such a proposal from either a practical or symbolic point of view.

practical and i have no idea why you would think we're just trying to make symbolic gestures here

the point is that a system that exists to fulfill a certain purpose should be effective at doing so, if you have a standard application system that 1. does not get people in, and 2. does not help rejected people improve, then you have a system that isnt worth keeping around.

thus you have this proposal giving you potential solutions, eg either change how the system works to make it fulfill its purpose or make the alternative system that does work more accessible (or both!!).

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Local Hero wrote: 5t6x1x

If this is a practical intent to actually increase leniency beyond current standards, we run headfirst into questioning the necessitation of a Beatmap Nominator as "only objective issues" can be solved with a piece of software and some google searches.

yeah, but thats what bns mostly do already.

as stated earlier towards oko, bns arent out here accepting maps they subjectively dont like and then spending their entire day giving subjective improvement advice to the mapper. instead, theyre picking maps that they already subjectively think are good then making sure the map doesnt have any objective issues that would prevent it from being ranked.

describing "only objective issues" as solvable with software and google is technically true but also diminutive for no reason, like yeah thats most of a bns job in the current ecosystem, i dont see the point of trying to ascribe a negative connotation to it.

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Local Hero wrote: 5t6x1x

if this is a symbolic intent to accept unprepared modders into the BNG and seeing the outcome, we only have precedent of hastily accepted bns missing vital issues on initial checks and shipping into qualified, exacerbating the current issue with qualified dqs/vetoes being emotionally intensive for mapper, bn, and player alike which could have been avoided with a more capable Nominator.

those bns who take their chance and blow it by not giving a shit about whats in the map they just shipped to qualified get kicked and everybody who actually cares stays in, the long term benefits far outweigh any short term issues that arise.

also this has absolutely nothing to do with dqs/vetoes being emotionally intensive for the community, that type of thing only happens for subjective dqs/vetoes that have an ardent community of people willing to defend the map over, aka completely unrelated to objective issues.

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Local Hero wrote: 5t6x1x

I do believe however that the system, as it stands now facilitates this process correctly.

please demonstrate how the current standard application system is doing its job of either getting people into bng or helping those who get rejected. until you can do that ill never take a comment like this seriously.


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-White wrote: 4e4k47

It was random for the first cycle, then it changed to community-mentorship-program-style where mentors pick their mentees.

to be clear, we asked hivie about this and the answer was that it was random.

however it being different now doesnt rly matter since, in a way, mentees being picked introduces a completely separate and probably worse problem when it comes to who gets the ability to the bng.

ideally, ud just have a certain set of requirements for applicants eg amount of kds, time spent modding, having had previous failed applications, etc, and then randomly select people from that pool. to reduce luck factor refer to half of the proposal which is about making mentorship more accessible for as many people as possible.


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Noffy wrote: 5c416y

I think a lot of this discussion is being held under the mistaken idea that bn applications come through at the same rate they always did before and therefore the fail rate is even worse than it was before. I understand this isn't fully transparent, but at the same time a lot of time would be saved by asking for those kinds of numbers first instead of making an entire system of ideas based on assumptions and only getting facts later.

if you have the numbers then i would gladly like to see them (although this type of thing should be publically available to start with, and it would help if any inquiry about having more transparency in these areas wasnt cast aside for no real reason).

however, we were never under the assumption that bn apps came at the same rate today as they used to, obviously that would be odd considering every other aspect of this game is trending downwards numbers wise (except for playcount but we'll get to that after).

even so, even at the peak of applications, i doubt that the rate was this bad, considering you at least actually saw people getting in, something we havent seen for literally half a year at this point.

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Noffy wrote: 5c416y

A big reason for that is a lot of people who were competent modders and did struggle about applications managed to more readily get in when the application process changed last year. Now we much more rarely see the same people applying again and again because a lot of them got in or get in with fewer tries and hurdles to go through. And beyond that even more people that regularly struggled about learning it did get in through bn mentorship. Oftentimes picking regularly-failed applicants to be mentees was a preference for mentorship too.

there are still plenty of people with multiple applications who've never had the chance to , this is plainly visible in the public eval archives (not even counting those kept private), theyre not exactly rare, even if there used to be more of them.

under a working system, at some point, these people should have been able to get in with the they received. as i said towards local hero, unless you can prove to me that most of these people are illiterate, then i wont be convinced that the system is working as intended.

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Noffy wrote: 5c416y

That said, as far as group growth is concerned all the changes in 2024 have been working tremendously well.

referring to this whole section:

id like to repeat, as said in the proposal, our intent here isnt to just "increase the amount of bns", thats an obvious outcome of the proposal if it comes to fruition, but not the objective.

the point is that, as it stands, there exists 2 different bn application methods: one which is completely useless at its intended purpose, and another that is really good yet inaccessible for wide swathes of willing applicants.

this is the core of the problem that this proposal is trying to address, we dont care at all about the idea of "having more bns" in and of itself.

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Noffy wrote: 5c416y

So the timing of this proposal comes off as really strange, it's being treated like there's a huge problem when there's already been improvement never seen before in the game's history. Also coming from people concerned about map playcount, doubling the number of maps just further decreases how worthwhile getting anything ranked feels due to the more limited exposure there is when there is more and more maps sought because... reasons?

i dont think the bng being bigger now than before has anything to do with addressing the issue we have here.
the perceived problem ur addressing is "theres not enough bns" when again thats not the core of the problem we have at all.

as for comments about playcount and ranked map count, id beg to differ on the idea that having more ranked maps makes getting stuff ranked less worthwhile. despite having a record amount of ranked maps last year, yet less plays per ranked map, the top end of the spectrum had waaaaaaaay more plays and notoriety among the average player than in 2023.

what this means is that these maps did something that made them stand out, whether pp or song (or both), even among a much larger pool of maps than in previous years.

personally, i prefer competing in a large pool of maps with more people interested in the standout maps of the year rather than having years like 2022 or 2023 where nothing of note really got ranked and everybody was just defaulting to playing old maps instead.


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RandomeLoL wrote: 6j2w4

Regarding the Trial BN experiment.
In the June 2024 NAT Gazette it was announced Probation was somewhat going to act like it. The Trial BN as a concept sounds cool, but any implementation of a standalone group would add needless complexity. I'd focus the attention to Probation and asking ourselves if we're following through with our original promise.

for the 2nd time in this reply, we never suggested reimplementing trial bn as a standalone group, the whole point was that the currently useless role of probation should be used similar to how trial was used.
as for the promise, id say the numbers speak for themselves considering basically nobody has ed since then in standard.

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RandomeLoL wrote: 6j2w4

Regarding applications.
The purpose of applications is to show a 's modding backbone. Think people misunderstand that, and make the assumption that just because someone fails (or es) the application process, it will instantly make them a good BN. Arbitrarily lowering standards at the application step may lead to an overall reduction of quality standards altogether.

we quite literally address this exact criticism in the post, the whole point is that the competency of bns should be tested in the probation phase and not in the application phase, eg the whole concern about quality standards being reduced is moot.

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RandomeLoL wrote: 6j2w4

I do not think this is something that will be solved with more cycles or people. It's like wanting to add more lanes on a highway. It is a very taxing task, and can lead to burnouts.

the analogy is far more accurate as "add more schools in your country" than "add more lanes on a highway".

if there was 1 school per country then we'd all be fucked since only a tiny portion of people would ever get the chance to get themselves educated, based on their geographic position rather than merit.

the lack of teachers is addressed by having more students in the first place, since to become a teacher you need to have been at some point a student.

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as for supa and haruki, i think they generally make good points too.

supas description of his own experience and the points gathered from it are very good at giving a rough outline of the reasoning behind this proposal and why the problems mentioned need to be addressed in the first place, so if u havent read it i recommend u do.

aight peace till next reply

Basensorex wrote: 5f5j5a

the whole point is that the competency of bns should be tested in the probation

My point wasn't really discrediting that, but rather explaining the need of applications. I personally find it quite hard to seem someone perform well as a BN with a poor modding backbone. You can then make the argument maybe we should change what we're focusing on said applications, which I would then have to agree with if we want to make it more practical. That I don't disagree with. But an arbitrary leniency does not seem the way to go. If anything, we should make it more "predictable". Like something you can work towards, and not be perceived as a gamble.

Other than that, which is also addressed in my post, if this is how Probation is being perceived, then we can make active efforts for that to make the case. The Trial BN section was in response to other people's comments.

I do still stand by the comment on "adding more lanes". You can only go so far before it becomes unsustainable. The current goal should be to streamline the current model.

As one of the last people who ed via the regular method and not the mentorship, I just want to say that I've spent more time in those 3 mods than I did in the total nominations I've done in the past 6 months.

Trying to make a bullet proof BN App is near impossible. I've spent 6 months cooking my last app. After many mods done, many different maps checked, many other modders opinions on my mods and rewrites, trying to make sure I could make an app that couldn't be denied, I still got a NAT saying one of my mods didn't improve the map and that my suggestion made the map worse, while the mapper who got the map modded said otherwise when he eventually replied to my mods...

I don't think you guys understand how absurd from the outside the whole BN App system looks.

Noffy wrote: 5c416y

I think a lot of this discussion is being held under the mistaken idea that bn applications come through at the same rate they always did before and therefore the fail rate is even worse than it was before. I understand this isn't fully transparent, but at the same time a lot of time would be saved by asking for those kinds of numbers first instead of making an entire system of ideas based on assumptions and only getting facts later.

Nobody claimed that applications are coming through with the same frequency as before, or that the fail rate is worse than before. In fact, the proposal mentions that this has been a problem for a long time and hasn't really changed in the past few years. So no, it's not based on assumptions at all.

Noffy wrote: 5c416y

This is a little challenging to gather concrete numbers on out of a hat even for myself due to the need to manually filter out bn res, but generally the trend the last several months has been there is 1 application at most every week or every couple of weeks. Having an entire 3 applications in progress like we do right now has become more unusual. It's a lot different from the 3-6 a week we would often see before.

This is true, but it's not really relevant when looking at it as a ratio instead of absolute numbers, which is not affected by how many people apply at a given time, and is still so low. I actually went ahead and calculated the percentage of applicants who . Based on the current NAT , it's 194 out of 696 (all time), resulting in 27,87%, which is actually a decrease from the data I analyzed last year, where it was 32,13% (may partially be due to different people being in charge). Just like last year, this is still significantly lower than all the other modes, where the rates are 46,45% (taiko), 68,67% (catch) and 50,11% (mania). Keep in mind that these numbers include reing BNs and those who were part of the BN mentorship, so the actual rate of regular BN apps is significantly lower.

Noffy wrote: 5c416y

A big reason for that is a lot of people who were competent modders and did struggle about applications managed to more readily get in when the application process changed last year. Now we much more rarely see the same people applying again and again because a lot of them got in or get in with fewer tries and hurdles to go through. And beyond that even more people that regularly struggled about learning it did get in through bn mentorship. Oftentimes picking regularly-failed applicants to be mentees was a preference for mentorship too.

Sure, but you're leaving out the other part of the reason, which is that a lot of people gave up after trying once or twice and feeling helpless, or didn't even bother trying at all due to it being so difficult and time consuming.

Noffy wrote: 5c416y

I do have concerns that it becomes preferable to try to become a BN mentee due to it being so much more effective for a multitude of reasons and that discourages people from applying altogether. However I don't think that is entirely avoidable by just changing the application process. Getting hands on from one or more NAT or BN on demand or at least weekly is going to be far more effective than every 2-3 months no matter what form the occasional takes or what the standards are for it. The majority of the trial probation period of this proposal just comes off as moving this mentorship process into during being a BN, which while marginally more helpful, is also more destructive due to actively affecting real maps entering real ranked and the public shame or friction for anyone that didn't go through (while the mentorship rate is high, it's not 100%).

A potential solution to the concern of affecting real maps entering the ranked section would be not to let these new BNs place actual nominations but only theoretical ones for practice, and if they do well, they'll be promoted so they can actually nominate maps.

Noffy wrote: 5c416y

That said, as far as group growth is concerned all the changes in 2024 have been working tremendously well.

For full bns let's check some historical numbers

March 2022: 71 std bns, there was a previous all-time peak around this period
July 2023: 45 std bns
Oct 2023: 43 std bns
Jan 2024: 53 std bns
April 2024: 64

Until it goes up drastically starting summer last year, eventually bringing us to our current 102

And for years and years before that, it was always stuck at ~60 standard bns at most.

So the timing of this proposal comes off as really strange, it's being treated like there's a huge problem when there's already been improvement never seen before in the game's history. Also coming from people concerned about map playcount, doubling the number of maps just further decreases how worthwhile getting anything ranked feels due to the more limited exposure there is when there is more and more maps sought because... reasons?

I think we genuinely hit a point where a lot of people that were trying before are finally added to the group and that leads to fewer applications and fewer brand new additions due to just how dramatic and all at once of a change early to mid-2024 has been. I'm sure this trend will change going forward as we get through that period of having added so many people and more people come into learning modding etc.

As already outlined by Malphs and Basen, the goal is not to boost any numbers, but to make the process easier and better.

The current number of BNs is fine so this isn't the problem, however we can't be sure that it will stay that way. People will eventually resign or be kicked and there need to be new people coming in to make up for it, so it's a necessary measure in the long run.

Regarding the number of newly ranked maps, nobody said this should be doubled or increased at all. Yes, it can be overwhelming and may reduce the significance/attention of each map if too many get ranked in a certain time period, but this is not a good reason for keeping new BNs out. If anything, I think the potential issue of the high number of ranked maps should be tackled by focusing more on quality rather than quantity, for example by bringing back the importance of modding and having more rigorous quality checks, which is a whole other story.

While there have been various positive changes last year (which are much appreciated), this doesn't mean things are perfect now. Certain issues have persisted and there is still lots of room for improvement, just because it used to be worse shouldn't be a reason for not trying to improve further.

Also, on the topic of BN mentorship: Some of the mentee picks are questionable, for example why do former BNG/NAT with years of experience need mentorship? Even if they "forgot" how to mod (which isn't really a thing), should they really take precedence over others?

for the sake of discussion and not stalemates, I'll reply to the certain points that can be discussed so that the average mapper and NAT can see each other.

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@Noffy:
you stated that the current system of the BN application has much less of a fail rate and competent modders managed to get in much more easily. You also expressed your willingness to state the numbers to your statement. For that, may I request the stats of applicants after the system change in the form of numbers without names.

1. How many have applied and how many of them were repeat applicants. If possible, please include the total rate and on which try they became BN.
2. Since you've mentioned BN mentorship having a preference for people who have applied, how many people in the four cycles have a recent BN application, as in the past year.

sharing would benefit the non-NATs to understand what we're working with and potentially understand each other. even if you'd like to state privacy, I merely requested numbers, not names, which I believe is reasonable.

i'd also like to mention that BN growth isn't necessarily the motivation, but how lopsided the acceptance rate of applications is compared to BN mentorship.

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@RandomeLoL:
it's good to see that you'd reevaluate if probation is meant to be stricter and how an application misrepresents a person being a good BN.

with that said, it's established that a BN doesn't need to mod very much. suppose you truly think that probation should be stricter, and you'd like to maintain quality standards. then what's with expecting the applicant to have a nearly perfect modding backbone when having a stricter probation (which is more representative of BN work) solves the issue that you seem to be mentioning? if you weren't keen on failing people, what's the issue with letting them in and giving them a shot at probation?

from what I'm reading, there seems to be some contradictions within the viewpoints that you've presented, and i want to understand from your perspective as a NAT: what would be your ideal version of the system, without pedaling back and saying that the current system is fine, as you've clearly expressed your qualms about the current system.

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i'd like to see responses from NAT so that potentially we can discuss more, as the average bloke and NAT can't necessarily seem to see each other's perspectives.

I'll try to make my point clearer as to avoid that potential contradiction.

Just to drive the point home, keeping things stupid simple:
- Yes, I am in favour of changing the application system.
- Yes, I am very much in favour of going for a more hands-on approach to applications.
- I do still believe that whatever system is chosen, it has to be able to judge a candidate's modding backbone.

I could go much into detail on what the current system sorely misses. But my main concern is that it does not seem like the correct approach to take on a game of all places. While on paper the system is fine, I do think it's somewhat incongruent with what the game needs. We're here to have fun after all, and seems like the current app method misses the mark on this regard.

For transparency sake, I've been pushing for a more hands-on model internally. Akin to the Trial BN test, but way more simple now than Probation BN is meant to take on that role. All I can say for now is that the app process as a whole is being discussed.

That said I do think it's important to state that no application process will be perfect. Denials will occur. If the dissatisfaction came from denials alone, I would be more reticent in changing things. But this dissatisfaction clearly comes from the process itself rather than the result. The point of the changes should not be to artificially lower the barrier. We can make things more accessible to the average Joe without simply lowering standards as originally envisioned. So long the process can be enjoyed and applicants can get something of value out of it, even when they fail, then I'd see that as a win.

All of these are directed to NATs (only for circle-clicking gamemode).

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RE: Fairness between BN mentorship vs. BN application.

We can prove that by having BN mentorship mentees apply for BNG via traditional application process after BN mentorship instead of just whooshing them into the BNG.

This has been my question for a quite some time: How many of those BNs that came through the BN mentorship would actually the BN application process?

1. If a lot of them ed - then good, BN mentorship must have improved them a lot.
2. If not, then it just shows that the BN mentorship is being more lenient.

^Obviously this is not practical workload-wise, but I am just asking hypothetically on how many of these BN-through-mentorship guys the NATs would if they were actually evaluated through typical BN applications.

My own impression is that BN mentorship is more lenient than the BN application.
But is the BN mentorship too lenient? Or is the BN application too strict?
Maybe a bit of both? I don't know - I don't have as much information compared to the NAT to work on that.

But if the difference is enough for people to share a collective opinion that "let's BN mentorship to BNG instead of applying normally", then the NAT are operating these two systems way too differently.
And now this is just a matter of what you guys could have done more to avoid such a perception.

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RE: Whether BN applications should have been more lenient.

Statistics-wise, barely anyone (apart from returning BNs) ed BN applications in the past 6-7 months or so.

If you think your evaluation//comments on BN applications are fair and has no need to be more lenient, then does that mean the majority of people who applied were just not good enough at modding to the BN application?

1. If so, then you guys should start from how the community in general could have been "better" at modding.
2. If not, then you guys might have been rejecting applicants who are good enough at modding.

My personal opinion is a bit of both:

1. People don't have much incentives to just mod maps these days, so people improve their modding less when they have less incentives.
2. You guys' /evaluation will not always be 100% accurate, and that could be caused from a myriad of factors, for example:
   
   1. Maybe the NAT evaluating that BN application is looking at a mapping style/song genre they are not totally proficient at?
   2. Sometimes NATs have different opinions and the applicants are not sure which side they should follow.
   3. Or perhaps the applicant selected maps which have a lot of total drain time/difficulties that it becomes harder for NATs to evaluate properly?
   etc., and these things happen all the time. I get that you have the group consensus thing to avoid these types of situations, but most of rejected applications available to the public were evaluated by only two NATs (probably because these applications are not very close to ing?), so it is not much of a group thing.

Personally I think you don't have to necessarily lower the ing standard, but you could have at least lowered the threshold between Fail/Neutral so that the BN application can be fairer/more accurate by having more people evaluating.
^(This is based on assumption that three NATs will evaluate the application if the first two NATs' verdict are not Fail.)

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That said, I agree with RandomeLoL that modding should be a fun environment for everyone. Not just modding to become a BN, but also modding in general as a whole - I believe we have been lacking that in the past recent years, and would be nice to see if you guys have some sort of ideas/measures to rejuvenate that kind of modding environment again.

Again, all I said here applies only to the circle-clicking gamemode.

That said, I agree with RandomeLoL that modding should be a fun environment for everyone. Not just modding to become a BN, but also modding in general as a whole - I believe we have been lacking that in the past recent years, and would be nice to see if you guys have some sort of ideas/measures to rejuvenate that kind of modding environment again.

The new website with the hype system and star priority removal killed the incentives that people had in the past to become "modders". The new mapper experience back then would give you incentive to actually go out of your way to mod maps so you could earn kudosu and "hype your own map" and people would also activelly seek mods in their maps to get "hypes". It was also an opportunity for newer mappers to interact with experienced mappers via modding and learn things from their replies.

The truth is the only people modding nowadays are doing so to become BNs, mappers only want the minimum BN mods on their maps and most of the learning process of modding and mapping is now outside of foruns and done via discord, where it is not public available anymore compared to being able to read map threads.

>I agree with Electoz that standards of BN mentorship and BN Apps are mismatched in difficulty and should be revised.

If the point of the system is to make modding more productive and, most importantly, enjoyable, for the average bloke, fundamental changes have to be done to the system.

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The current BN Application system is an incredibly inefficient and quite frankly, sluggish loop. An average of 21 days or more is needed in practice for applicants to receive what is often basic of things that they could improve for the next attempt. However, as of recently, there’s been a growing trend of concern where buzzword-style such as “Lack of content”, “Mods ignore mapper intention” or “Modding is overly on the surface”, and so on. Quite frankly, like this feels like the applicant is more likely to at the mercy of the evaluators rather than basing it off something quantifiable.

From an applicant’s perspective, waiting at least 21 days for basic is incredibly tilting. Ironically enough, BN mentorship operates almost 1:1 to the way BN Apps work, but with significantly faster loops. This simple fact proves that the BN App is inefficient for both the applicants and evaluators. If I’m being honest, the BN App system would be better off just being wiped out for something else.

With this in mind, if a new system or revisions were to be made, it should prioritize faster delivery and something i’d like to call “evaluator consistency”

- Faster delivery is simple, since the BN App can be summed up to just , it can always be faster. Usually, the first week or so the application just sits there untouched. This shouldn’t increase workload, but even if it does, we head to the 2nd point:

- “Evaluator Consistency” is where an evaluator from the applicant’s previous app gets rolled over to the next app. This ensures that the evaluator knows who they’re dealing with and can give more targeted to the applicant instead of getting conflicting from different evaluators, as seen in more recurring cases. I’d also like to mention that the metric of “improvement” is better judged from the same person’s point of view. This is also why the BN Mentorship works wonders.

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About the disparity between BN Mentorship vs BN Application

I applied for BN a month ago and was denied. For context, I ed BN Mentorship, did my BN work well, and got a behavior kick that doesn’t concern my modding level, but it made me reapply with standard .

I’m not arguing publicly that I should be in the BNG, nor am I upset about being denied. But the fact that I completed mentorship, and performed well, yet still denied entry under standard at least proves how much easier it is to enter the BNG via mentorship.

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Aside from RandomeLoL, there has only been complete silence from the other NATs. Merely dismissing the views from the wider mapping/modding community with “the system is completely fine” is sad, as the same opinion has been floated around for years. Considering that the NATs are supposed to represent and lead the community, it’s ironic to see that the opposite is happening.

I urge discussions to be done internally if they haven’t been done already.

Just for transparency sake, we've been kickstarting internal talks about the processes - not just the app. While there's no telling what will come out of it, the overall sentiment on apps is that they need to change. Hopefully this thread is but proof of it.