Nobody likes having their map disqualified, and much less being forced to make changes on a map you don’t agree with. On the surface, vetoes appear to only serve those only purposes, and so their existence has been controversial for years.

With the changes to vetoes last year and those we are looking to implement, this blog should hopefully address some of the concerns surrounding vetoes, as well as explain what we are aiming to see going forward.


Why do we have vetoes?

Vetoes have been a very contentious feature of the osu! ranking process for several years, introduced before even the NAT existed.Their purpose is to grant Beatmap Nominators some level of control over what reaches ranked on a more subjective basis than that of the ranking criteria. The general idea is that if two nominators can say a map is ready, then another nominator should be allowed to say the opposite.

There have been several controversial maps created over the years, and vetoes have allowed community to bring up their concerns in a (relatively more) controlled and serious manner. Such discussions would almost certainly have much less of an impact without the existence of vetoes.

In a way, this also serves as an indirect quality assurance check, a feature of the ranking process that has unfortunately been disappearing over time. A lot of the more outlandish and creative maps are usually at risk of being vetoed, and the deviation from the standard means that the extra attention is probably necessary to ensure that quality is where it should be. If a map is at risk of being vetoed and upheld, then there’s a discussion as to whether the map is ready for ranking.

The serious nature of vetoes ensures that discussion will happen, and that the mapper doesn’t brush off the concerns brought up. While we understand that it is frustrating to have your map blocked from ranking, vetoes are a necessary evil in our system. For now.


The problems with vetoes

The problem with vetoes can pretty much be summed up as being a frustrating and miserable experience to all those who interact with the system.

Nobody enjoys being told your creative work is of low quality.

Nobody enjoys having your creative work blocked and put under scrutiny.

Nobody enjoys reading and writing thousands of words of futile discussion.

Nobody enjoys trying to change the mind of a person whose mind can’t be changed.

Nobody enjoys being forced to accept an opinion you don’t agree with.

In our never-ending pursuit of content and quality in the ranking system, there will inevitably be parts of it that are simply not enjoyable. And while there have been attempts to mitigate these frustrations over the years, they are still as prevalent as ever.

Unfortunately, these frustrations combined with the serious hammer down nature of vetoes have led to some very heated discussions and opinions being voiced, both within vetoes and regarding them. Such a hostile environment leads to even more frustration with the system, leading to a vicious cycle that’s just unpleasant for everyone involved.

Vetoes also tend to draw in crowds beyond just the relevant parties of the map. While there are no issues with having silent observers, in fact it’s probably a good thing that we do, the piling of opinions from several parties into one single thread has also led to confusion and frustration. This unfortunately has also led to harassment towards the initiator of the vetoes, further discouraging people to interact with the system.

The effectiveness a veto has on improving the quality of a map has also been called into question several times. While this point is harder to argue for or against objectively, there is some concern over whether changes following a veto have improved their respective maps significantly.


The changes from last year

Last year we made a change to the veto mediation process so that more than 70% of mediators had to agree with the veto before it could be upheld, up from 50%. The idea behind this change was that a stronger nominator consensus was more likely to represent the opinions of the wider community.

After those changes, almost every veto that has progressed to mediation since has been dismissed. Those that weren’t were upheld by a very small margin. However, we have also seen a lot fewer vetoes being placed.

While you could draw several different conclusions from these observations, the concern that has been brought up to us several times in private is that, despite having strong opinions about the quality of a map, people aren’t bothering to go and veto because the odds are stacked so heavily against them.

People are now afraid to even mention vetoing a map for fear of being ridiculed, and with the chance of a veto being dismissed being much greater, vetoing can feel like a futile cause.

While we expect those who initiate a veto to have some confidence in their opinion to hold, we don’t think we have struck the balance quite right.

Originally, we had hoped vetoes would still hit mediation at any steady pace to judge how fair the ratio is. Instead, what ended up happening is that it completely came to a dead halt.

Because of the threshold changes and the community issues, the cards became too highly stacked against anyone having opinions on quality in ranked. We have seen this reflected with many people that hesitate to be able to speak their honest thoughts, because of how hopeless it is.

Many nominators don't want to vote at all during the mediation step, because such a high ratio means even a relatively majority opinion barely matters. This is not healthy in an environment that assumes some amount of give and take is happening, instead of only taking.


Recent poll and what we’re looking to change

The poll can be summed up as this:
It must change, because the previous changes were too overt and didn't work the way many people that voted in the previous thread had expected (based on what was written). There are clear issues that must be addressed.

50/50 is basically expressing - try a full go back, any majority is a majority. We would then work in a different direction from there onwards.
60/40 a smaller step back - still prefer a super majority, but one less extreme and more balanced based on historical vote results.

Alongside the threshold change, we are also making it so a veto does not immediately disqualify the beatmap. This change should hopefully remove some of the frustration around having a veto placed on a map, as well as give us access to replays should they be relevant to the discussion.

These changes alone don’t change everything, there are other changes we'd like to work on, such as better moderation of posts in Qualified to stay on topic, and ideally prioritize the mapper's response first and foremost. There have also been suggestions to include the wider community in the process, instead of just limiting it to beatmap nominators, as well as anonymising the veto initiator.

Looking even further into the future we would ideally like to see a full overhaul of vetoes entirely. Either by completely rebuilding the system from the ground up, or by ripping the whole thing out in favour of an entirely new strategy for quality. We’re not sure where to go with this just yet, but hopefully our observations and your suggestions can help shape the future here.


-- NAT

60/40 seems much more reasonable and logical approach than 50/50 due to the fact that the difference between 60% agreeing and 40% disagreeing is much more important in of what ''majority'' is rather than 50/50 which seems to basically indicate that there is not significant lead in either direction, which isn't what vetos are supposed to indicate if I'm not mistaken.

Sadly, the reason why people don't want to veto is due to the toxic environment it creates like you've mentioned, and I don't think there is much we can do to fix how instantly disqualifying a map and preventing it to be pushed would help solve it.

Maybe to make it that a vetod map stays qualified unless the veto result requires for it to be disqualified, and if the veto gets dismissed map proceeds to ranked status?
That way, the map will not have to be reset on its cooldown (which is also a factor that annoys people I'd say) and if the veto is dismissed the map doesn't have to be disqualified and the post can be resolved.

Due to the nature of vetos, it is 2 sides with different views clashing at each other in a debate. Both sides can have valid opinions but disagree on a base level which is why it more often than not leads to mediation.

BNs also assume that if their veto gets dismissed that they will be severely punished by the evaluators for stopping the ranking process (at least that's how I see it) though I never vetod a map myself.

I believe setting the threshold to 50/50 would only spark the toxicity even more due to how close the result is to being completely different. 60/40 is a nice balance in that regard.

I do agree that 70/30 was a bit too much.

Perhaps a wild idea, but an idea that I would put on the table for discussion, increasing the amount of BNs/NATs ''required'' to initiate a veto to 2.
Sometimes, starting a veto means a single person (not always but sometimes) has to defend their opinion against 3 mappers by default (2 BNs + mapper) which can be stressful and discouraging.
Which is why I proposed this.

Note: I haven't given it much thought, but perhaps some discussion about it wouldn't hurt

As for voting on vetos, I think it should be mandatory to at least pick which side you are on, not mandatory to maybe go in depth as to why.

suggested improvement:
1 person to veto -> 2 person to veto, dont waste others time for mediation if u dont have same amount of confidence in veto than the 2 who nom the map.

delete veto system, it creates way more negativity than it helps. not healthy for community.

player should treat ranked section as garbage dumping ground by BN, if u dont agree with a map being ranked just become bn and nom map that should be ranked. its subjective anyways u cant please everyone.

it really doesnt hurt anyone that a mountain of garbage has 1 extra garbage thrown in there. u have to search hidden gem anyways. improving meta, tags , searching and filtering of ranked section is more positive and helpful than veto system.

as player, are u more happy that a map u like is ranked or if a map u hate is not ranked?

Agree with making vetoes take 2 BNs. Also am somewhat in favor of exploring the option of anonymizing the vetoers to prevent whats happened in the past, though I'd prefer even NAT cannot see them (osu! Staff and perhaps lead NAT could see it unanonymized to minimize the potential of leaks)

Probably worth mentioning that 60% threshold and keeping vetoes in qualified is currently in PR, and is what we'll be going with unless there's some last minute objection.

This is a change the vast majority of the BNG didn't even want, but a vocal minority. I respect the 60/40, but there are way more important things NATs should be working on in my humble opinion.

I'm against vetoes not from a modding/mapping perspective, but more so from a resource perspective.

Beatmap Nominators are there to nominate maps. Meaning they find a map, they do QA work related to ranking criteria and their own mapping principles and place a leaderboard on it so the community can see the map with a spotlight and enjoy that content. It's a job that essentially you ally your music taste with mapping taste towards ranking beatmaps created by the community.

Considering the large pool of songs and mapping styles out there, it was logical that BNG would become a bigger group that
encapsulates many different preferences so that everyone has a chance of getting their map ranked. This also means that some ideas would be pollar opposites, but with enough respect to each other, no one should be bothered by what other people are ranking.

Coming from a point of view that multiple different types of maps and content can be ranked and co-exist in the ranked section, a veto is counter-productive in any shape or form. A veto is essentially a BN dealing with a map that he would not rank himself, but 2 other BNs judged the map to be fitting toward the ranked section, but the vetoer himself judges of poor quality in his own criteria.

Because of a divergence of mapping opinions you're forcing 3 BNs + mapper to discuss something they will fundamentally disagree upon at the end of the day, and later on, when the veto is placed, you will force at this moment, 100+ people who already are focused in their BN work to stop everything they have planned to deal with a map they never intended to deal with in the first place which is not related to their job as a BN.

We should be more focused in how to make the game feel more alive and in making life easier for BNs to do their work, and not making it even more convoluted and complicated because some people still feel like the ranked section should be gatekeeped for some weird reason that I can't relate at all, especially as a person who was gatekeeped when starting in mapping back in 2017 and saw the ranked section open up for more possibilities.

Edit: Okay RandomeLoL, since you're bringing up data, by a small margin of people the 60/40 won over 50/50. There was no option to keep current system or to delete the veto system, so the question itself was already biased and oriented enough.

Want to let my bias clear, coming from a mode who has been mostly beneficiated by the Veto system.

At this current point, I do not think it is feasible nor a good idea of getting rid of the Veto system altogether. Kneejerk changes have proven to be a thorn to everyone's side, and if the Veto system would be to be removed later to be needed again, the difficulty of doing so would be immeasurable.

In my humblest opinion, some of the biggest problems with the system aren't really systematic faults, but rather how the system itself is being used and perceived.

Neto wrote: 59346s

This is a change the vast majority of the BNG didn't even want, but a vocal minority.

Saying that this change is something the "vocal minority", or that the purpose of Vetoes is to simply "gatekeep" maps from being ranked are both generalizations I really cannot . In fact, 111 Nominators voted on the Veto threshold adjustments vote. Only a handful of which sided with keeping things as they were by voting and commenting on the 60/40 option. This is way more mixed than these comments make it appear to be, so let's just please work with the data we currently have rather than throw statements akin to "Most people" so nilly-willy.

That said, I wholeheartedly agree that this is one of the last things we should be talking about, and that there are many other aspects both the NAT and the BN group in tandem should be focusing on to improve everyone's experience.

Drum-Hitnormal wrote: 69x30

suggested improvement:
1 person to veto -> 2 person to veto, dont waste others time for mediation if u dont have same amount of confidence in veto than the 2 who nom the map.

The idea of needing 2 BNs to start a Veto was discussed here. To say reception was lukewarm at best would be an understatement.

---

Personally, I'd still like to explore the idea brought up here, to give s a say on Vetoes, alongside other measures such as anonymizing the Vetoer, or allowing the NAT to act as a "filter" for what Vetoes should/shouldn't go to mediation.

Additionally, adding safeguards such as holding an interim discussion between all BNs prior to any veto would be another solution. We do this in Mania by hosting threads, trying to discuss issues before jumping to a Veto. Communication is key, and I do not think waiting for a map to be Qualified or Veto'd to discuss these things is the way to go.

I'll keep my opinions very short so everyone can read my points with a quick glance.

- I'm also not a fan of vetoes, I would've deleted it ages ago. The veto system has never been good, only generates toxicity and grudges between different parts of the community, but we live in a society. People like drama and really like to argue, so you guys do you.

- Not a big fan from reducing the threshold from 70/30, this just goes further away from what peppy initially wanted. However, 60/40 doesn't seem that bad when we could've we gotten something way worse (back to 50/50) I guess, I'll take it.

- Making 2 BNs initiate the veto is going towards a better direction as it would reduce the bias by a tiny bit, but wouldn't solve the problem.

- Having partial community impact on veto votes would be pretty cool as we know that the BNG can have a very different opinion and views on mapping. I like the idea of allowing people with at least 1 ranked map/GD to be able to participate in the voting process.

- Treating a veto as an "open post" and not disqualify the map would be ideal, would just lock the map's position in the ranking queue instead. If a veto goes to mediation and it gets dismissed after 7 days, the veto post would just be closed and the map would continue in the queue, no disqualifications needed.

I think those are my points so far, might edit or add something later.

suppose we delete veto system
whats the worst cases?

1. players complain about a certain mapping style, they will always complain, even with mediation ing, they need simply not play the map, or giving it 1/10 rating, map is not intended for them

2. player complain about broken pp, this is dev problem or player skill issue, should not be solved by veto system, peppy can always just unrank and kick bn who abuse

3. people complain theres garbage entering ranked section, u cant stop this no matter what. no one owns ranked section

i simply dont see how veto helps anyone

-White wrote: 4e4k47

Agree with making vetoes take 2 BNs. Also am somewhat in favor of exploring the option of anonymizing the vetoers to prevent whats happened in the past, though I'd prefer even NAT cannot see them (osu! Staff and perhaps lead NAT could see it unanonymized to minimize the potential of leaks)

An anonymous veto system would be the most effective solution. In addition, BNs could be given the option to anonymously submit concerns within the BN guild, with each concern requiring a certain number of anonymous votes to trigger action. Vote counts would remain hidden until the threshold is reached, preventing bias or premature influence. This would also offer a more effective and low-pressure way to implement the idea of involving more BNs before a veto is formally posted. Even NAT leaders should not have access to the identities of voters or submitters—except in cases of clear malpractice, where limited disclosure would be necessary for ability.

-White wrote: 4e4k47

Agree with making vetoes take 2 BNs. Also am somewhat in favor of exploring the option of anonymizing the vetoers to prevent whats happened in the past, though I'd prefer even NAT cannot see them (osu! Staff and perhaps lead NAT could see it unanonymized to minimize the potential of leaks)

While this could be a good option to protect vetoer(s) from harassment on social media or the same 'discussion' page, it's also a double-edged sword.

Anonymizing their identities leads to potential harassment targeting individual , either from of the BNG or the NAT. Even if both groups are required to act civilly by adhering to the Community Rules and the Code of Conduct, this would open the possibility for both groups to act in bad faith, being safeguarded by anonymity.
While BNs and NATs could veto maps because they dislike the style, they could also do so because they (for one reason or another) dislike the mapper. While this may have happened in the past, disguised as 'mapping quality' reasons, allowing to do so repeatedly in complete anonymity is dangerous.

This could work if the identity of the vetoer(s) is revealed after the process has ended, though this would still leave them unprotected from harassment.

Another scenario in which this could work, and that in my opinion is a better option, is to involve a neutral third-party group such as the GMT. Since their responsibility goes beyond the scope of vetoes, they would be able to prevent such cases of malpractice to ensure a safe environment, being able to take action if they observe any misconduct or power abuse.

Preface

The existence of this thread is confounding. You guys elaborated on why the veto system sucks and lists all the negatives as a whole, yet somehow it seems that the effort is put into repairing this system. Calling this system a necessary evil to preserve "quality", when the entirety of the post explicitly elaborates on how the end result is a significant pain the ass to everyone involved with slight improvement to the "quality" of the map is counter-intuitive to this post's existence. In layman's , this is the equivalent of attempting to revive a dead cow.

"Quality" has never been the main catalyst

It gets worse when you realize the insanity of this system's purpose to preserve "quality" when the idea of "quality" differs from one person to another. No one has been able to properly define what "quality" is, and, quite frankly, this is a meaningless buzzword thrown around just for the sake of it. Sure, I agree that quality is subjective, but having a powerful veto system put in place on the grounds of "I don't like this map" is quite crazy.

In an ideal world, a BN notices something they dislike enough in the qualified section, they'll post about something and veto it. In practice, however, no one has bothered to veto because there are too many maps in the qualified section. So, how does a BN get the final push to veto a map? Historically, from the osu!std gamemode, vetoes recently have always stemmed from elevated attention from the playerbase (usually PP or high SR or some unconventional style).

Sure, there are plenty high SR, unconventional style, and PP maps ranked by the month, but I'd argue that these maps don't garner enough attention for anyone to care in the slightest. And this is true for even before the 70/30 rule was implemented. This proves that "subjectivity in preserving quality" is bullshit simply because no one would give a damn if it weren't for the elevated attention that specific maps garner.

back in 2022 when a slew of vetoes were thrown around? Sure, one may argue this is great for the quality of the ranked section, right? However, the fact still stands that even back then, vetoes consisted of relatively minor issues compared to the severity of the veto itself. This is why I believe that even if BNs check the qualified section constantly and post vetoes, there will still be a negative push-and-pull balance.

I would also like to take the time to remind that veto mediation has never been "the opinions of each BNs" but rather "whether the majority opinion-holders agree with how you map". This has always been evident as vetoes have been used to target a specific subset of mappers, or a certain person, both successfully and unsuccessfully throughout the history of existence in this veto.

I'll ask everyone a question back to the post's premise: Do you guys still want to keep a system so inherently flawed for the ever-weakening justification of "keeping quality"? Do you guys wish to a landscape where your creativity, or your style is at risk because the majority of opinion-holders can brush it off simply because "I don't like it"?

If the system is to be kept:

It seems that the post's intention is not to gather opinions, but rather to announce change, as a PR request has been pulled after a vote that forces a change. In this case, if the idea is to, again, fix a system that is explicitly itted to be flawed, then so be it.

Recently, vetoes have garnered significant attention from the wider community. Perhaps by educating the community on what a veto is and encourage their involvement in the vetoing process, we will see less death threats and pressure on a certain individual. I do not believe adding more BNs or an anonymous system to veto will change the system. If such changes were to be implemented, then the veto system, once again will be in the chaos it has always been from the start.

To close this post, I will once again re-state the fact that the veto system is a flawed system that even the NATs themselves know about it, yet, somehow we are back again arguing on how to fix the system for as long this system exists.

Thank you for tuning into my TedTalk.

These changes are okay at best but definitely don't really do anything to solve or improve any of the issues regarding the current veto system. I have to agree with most of what SupaV said - especially the fact that this post seems like a logical contradiction. On one hand, vetoes are claimed to be a "necessary evil" for the sake of quality assurance, but on the other hand there hasn't been any proper quality management in years now. Vetoes affect less than 1% of ranked maps so it can hardly be called a tool for quality assurance checks when nobody checks the remaining 99+% of maps (and a good portion of vetoes is unjustified or gets dismissed anyway).

I only see 2 options that make sense going forward:

1. Fully embrace the "laissez-faire" mentality a lot of people have adopted by now and remove the veto system entirely. This means accepting that there is content one dislikes and/or has lower quality in the ranked section (which has been the case until now regardless).
2. Address the actual root problems with vetoes and establish a functioning quality management system that encomes all qualified maps, not just those that happen to be noticed by someone willing to place a veto. I already know people will say things like "that has been tried before and it didn't work", which is why it needs to be done a bit differently than in the past, but this topic is a whole other story so I won't go too much into detail now.

Serizawa Haruki wrote: 294t5w

1. Address the actual root problems with vetoes and establish a functioning quality management system that encomes all qualified maps

This was once attempted with the introduction of Quality Inspectors. Perhaps a good time to revisit it if this is the path ahead of us.

That said:

Serizawa Haruki wrote: 294t5w

but on the other hand there hasn't been any proper quality management in years now.

For osu! ? Perhaps. But other modes consistently peruse the Qualified section for improvements on up-to-be-Ranked sets. All from the hands of people whose main responsibility isn't to check other people's work.

My opinion on the matter is similar to that of Vetoes. It is not the systems which seem to be broken, but the use given to our existing tooling. Let it be a lack of incentives, let it be the consistent PvP which discourages anyone from taking part on any public discourse considering what we've seen from more notorious discussions.

Don't think it's fair pinpointing all of this to Vetoes. If anything, like it or not they are currently the very last line of defense for some Nominators who would otherwise not be able to hold a proper discussion while a map is Qualified. This is why the mention of "necessary evil" is necessary due to the lack of a viable alternative.

Just a quick, overarching reply to everyone who's pissed about vetoes in general above:

Vetoes are the leverage - they're the single tool that allows someone to bring up a quality concern in qualified and actually have it be acted upon. If a quality concern is in any form subjective, the only incentive for someone to "fix it" besides either assumption of good faith or vague, non-binding standards that you'd need to also subscribe to is the stick - the threat of a veto. No system in this game has, historically, been sustainable with just the assumption of good faith, and people can and will exploit or push boundaries beyond what's sensible or acceptable just to do so.

Keep in mind that with vetoes not working as the tool described above, there is an active discouraging force to disqualify the map for any reason other than the smallest, most inconsequential of fixes (or things that just straight up break the ranking criteria / unrankables that should really be caught before the act of qualifying). To have someone fix or alter a map in a more fundamental way, no matter how much sense it makes or outrage the current version causes, is actively discouraged - it would be like waving a white flag and assuming guilt in the part of the two nominating BNs, to it that they overlooked a critical and (at least in theory) obvious point of contention or flaw in the map's design. To it that, they would also have to take responsibility for it, which would be flagged in the NAT's eyes as a major or severe DQ. If you're telling this hypothetical me, that's a mapper, that they can either listen to criticism and get both of their BNs in trouble potentially, or they can just steelman their own original viewpoint and not do so, I know which option I'm taking, even just for mere self-preservation.

This is the key, this is the fulcrum where vetoes are required as leverage, and where they are a necessary evil. If you think that the mere concept of upholding quality, even if subjective, in the ranking section is a bad concept, you will dislike this. And you will be appropriately replied to with the current situation as a historical example: Throwing away anything as a goal or aim of the current system is an inherently nuclear option. Once the goal is discarded, it's so unbelievably hard to restore in cases of changes in community viewpoint or necessities for future, unforeseen circumstances - you are currently seeing one example right here: vetoes worked before. People didn't like them, were really vocal about them, then we punted that system to a threshold where we had it basically sunsetted. Now, we see the bad parts of doing that, and restoring it even halfway back to its origin is being met with 50x more resistance than the opposite action: people will gladly and silently accept when you give them freedoms, even if they don't require or actively use those freedoms. Taking them away is extremely hard, though.

This is the first change of many in this veto system to make it actually work for both sides. You can see that we both made vetoes less nuclearly severe to the mapper and BNs if it's a contentious issue, but also made the threshold for that contentiousness slightly less absurd. We plan on doing more to restore a goal we threw away in a panic, which is that of quality control, and to keep, again, both sides in mind. Don't panic.

how about a "i dont care" option for people pulled into mediation instead of forcing them to agree or disagree, they might just pick a random one

how about doing a poll asking whats worse to game health between a problematic map being ranked vs BN/NAT/Mapper quiting over veto drama?

RandomeLoL wrote: 6j2w4

Serizawa Haruki wrote: 294t5w

1. Address the actual root problems with vetoes and establish a functioning quality management system that encomes all qualified maps

This was once attempted with the introduction of Quality Inspectors. Perhaps a good time to revisit it if this is the path ahead of us.

No reason was ever given as to why it was discontinued or what the problem was, but I think the idea of it is pretty good so it's definitely something to consider.

RandomeLoL wrote: 6j2w4

That said:

Serizawa Haruki wrote: 294t5w

but on the other hand there hasn't been any proper quality management in years now.

For osu! ? Perhaps. But other modes consistently peruse the Qualified section for improvements on up-to-be-Ranked sets. All from the hands of people whose main responsibility isn't to check other people's work.

Which people are you referring to exactly? Sure, I can't really talk about the other modes, especially since the official quality assurance page on the BN site is no longer visible (does it even exist still?). However, there have also been several unranks in these modes in recent years, and I'm pretty sure lots of less gamebreaking issues regularly slip through as well, simply because not every single map is thoroughly checked. And even if this was strictly a osu!standard problem, it wouldn't really change the validity of my statement.

RandomeLoL wrote: 6j2w4

My opinion on the matter is similar to that of Vetoes. It is not the systems which seem to be broken, but the use given to our existing tooling. Let it be a lack of incentives, let it be the consistent PvP which discourages anyone from taking part on any public discourse considering what we've seen from more notorious discussions.

I'd say it's both honestly, the systems themselves and consequently, the way they are used. After all, it was a systemic decision to neglect QA issues.

RandomeLoL wrote: 6j2w4

Don't think it's fair pinpointing all of this to Vetoes. If anything, like it or not they are currently the very last line of defense for some Nominators who would otherwise not be able to hold a proper discussion while a map is Qualified. This is why the mention of "necessary evil" is necessary due to the lack of a viable alternative.

Nobody is pinpointing all of this to vetoes, it's just a closely related topic which was brought up as reasoning in the initial post. The issue is not the existence of vetoes themselves, it's the incoherence of wanting to preserve this "last line of defense" for the sake of quality, but at the same time showing a lack of enforcement of these quality standards (such as RC guidelines etc.) when it comes to all the other maps which aren't subject to a veto, as well as not trying to create a system that allows for more consistent quality management. That's why it often feels unfair, tedious and pointless when a map gets vetoed. Besides, these changes fail to address many longstanding issues of the veto system, so this alone is rather disappointing.

hi, i will be entirely upfront to say i do not like vetos at all.
i've never really been fond of the idea of an immediate wall to ranking something until a full group decides

my suggestions, and votes i give a big +1 to are:

1. the imbalance between nominators needed to qualify vs. nominators needed to veto should be resolved.
i think 2 nominators for a veto would be a great thing, as it would help add equal weight to both qualification & disqualification. i know some people aren't as interested in this for a variety of reasons, but all of these suggestions rely on each other to be the most effective in my opinion.

2. i think anonymized vetos would also be nice for those two bns involved
i feel like part of the worry with 2 nominators is that double the people would get flack for a veto, which i absolutely do not want. i'm against the veto system but i'm also against straining interpersonal relationships on the team as well

i think a page through bn.mappersguild to request a veto would work well, and NAT bot could send the veto message anonymously. if it is really wanted, i think NAT could also leave thoughts on if a vote is justified or not, i trust mania NATs to follow the best interest of BNs and the community at least

3. 60/40 split on vetos sounds perfectly reasonable to me
although i do enjoy that 70/30 is the current ratio to , and this largely benefits my interests involving vetos (making them as minimal as possible, allowing the most free range on mapper ideas), i think 70/30 is too strong at ignoring bn opinions

4. i think adding an "i am indifferent" option to vetos would also be great
i get that we want as many varying opinions, but i feel like the opinions we want are from people who care the most about a map.

for example, if we have a 7k map being veto'd for a reason very relevant to 7k mapping ideas, i don't think it's reasonable to call every 4k bn to give an opinion as well, especially when many 4k bn opinions like my own wouldn't affect me, but could affect the map that i am indifferent about.

5. player opinions. please.
this is an especially relevant topic to the mania group, especially 4k. there's not many 4k bns who can play the top level maps that we want to push. i think if there was a way to also include player opinions to some amount (whether it be cascading voting like content review, or weighing players as 25% of a bn vote (example number))

i think having player opinion for what players actually WANT to play in the ranked section, or want to be promoted in the ranked section is a very positive thing for the community overall. i think we should encourage mappers to make what the players actually want & will enjoy, especially if it is harmless to the ranked section to be put there.




that's about all of my thoughts. i am strongly biased on this, and i will be very honest that if these changes i suggest are implemented, it could strongly affect the outcome of a current potential veto that i am currently invested in as a mapper & player. do feel free to take my thoughts with a grain of salt, the entire shaker, or hell even the whole salt mines if you feel like it

Dada wrote: 6n4h3w

vetoes worked before. People didn't like them, were really vocal about them, then we punted that system to a threshold where we had it basically sunsetted. Now, we see the bad parts of doing that.

1. I'll be real, where's the bad part of doing the 70/30 split? What is the map that got ranked that shouldnt have gotten ranked since this change was implemented? Like, if 50 BNs wanted the 50/50 split meaning they hate some maps that got ranked but didnt want to veto the maps, explain to me the reasoning, I want to try and understand your side. If you can't say it out loud tho, the problem is not the veto system, but something else entirelly. It just means you guys want to play mapping pvp but don't want to put your name on the crossfire. That's why I'm against making things anonymous. You guys want power but not the responsability that comes with it. That's just wrong.

2. Historically speaking (before Naxess and BN site were a thing) maps that got vetoed should have been ranked back when they were vetoed, because years down the line the maps were ranked later on. In most cases, the vetoer just straight up disappeared, map had to find 2 new BNs after a long time. Not no mention the cases where the mapper just gave up on mapping for a long ass time, came back years later to rank the said map. I only ONE map that got vetoed that NEVER got ranked, that was soulfear's map. Basides that one, every map eventually got ranked but in a context that the map had already lost the peak of its relevancy. Also, the changes forced by vetoes are mainly irrelevant when it's not a remap situation.

3. Vetoes are only a thing when a map breaks the pp system or the mapper is limit testing mapping as a whole, either from a design perspective or a difficulty perspective.

At this point in time, do we really need to care about such things? Everything that could be done to break mapping standards in osu!std was done already. No name dropping, but you guys know who you're and what you ranked. Same goes for high star rating and for pushing pp meta stuff. The game needs all this content to feel alive, why gatekeep it?

4. At no point, my main concern was adressed in this reply or anyone in favor of vetoes. BN work SHOULD be about curating and promoting content to the game, not doing subjective curation of what other BNs like and want to publish in the ranked section. Making 100+ standard BNs HAVE to check a map they never intended to get involved with to give an informed opinion is not a good option under any circunstance. You're wasting resources that could be focused in promoting maps for the game instead.

Drum-Hitnormal wrote: 69x30

how about a "i dont care" option for people pulled into mediation instead of forcing them to agree or disagree, they might just pick a random one

This is a reality in many vetoes and just goes to proof my point.

1. I'll be real, where's the bad part of doing the 70/30 split? What is the map that got ranked that shouldnt have gotten ranked since this change was implemented? Like, if 50 BNs wanted the 50/50 split meaning they hate some maps that got ranked but didnt want to veto the maps, explain to me the reasoning, I want to try and understand your side. If you can't say it out loud tho, the problem is not the veto system, but something else entirelly. It just means you guys want to play mapping pvp but don't want to put your name on the crossfire. That's why I'm against making things anonymous. You guys want power but not the responsability that comes with it. That's just wrong.

>Veto system completely stops working because mediation is now nigh impossible
>Vetoes become about painting a target on your own back for 0 upside and having 0 leverage to push changes
>"Where's the bad part?"
>Entirety of my original post is about the bad part of that happening

If you don't wish to interface with the veto system discussions beyond the surface-level "vetoes are bad mmkay" no matter what someone types then it's really tough to consider your points.

"You guys want power but not the responsibility that comes with it" I'm sorry, what? It doesn't matter how ed a veto is or how unpopular it is, there are still going to be people on either side (defenders of the veto or critics of it) who take it too far. Every single person who's vetoed a map in the last couple of years can attest to this. Most people now don't even want to bother because it's just assumed that you're an enemy of the mapper and the BNs, no matter what the reasons for vetoing the map are, or how mild, good-intentioned, or even just earnestly inquisitive the veto is.

But no, you should definitely get death threats from people for vetoing a map. That's part of the fun, isn't it?

2. Historically speaking (before Naxess and BN site were a thing) maps that got vetoed should have been ranked back when they were vetoed, because years down the line the maps were ranked later on.

Most of the maps that are vetoed are supposed to be ranked - there's overall few vetoes that essentially say "this map is unsuitable for ranking in its current state and it cannot be ranked without basically remapping it completely". Maps like Spelunker or Searchlights are recent examples of this ("concept vetoing"), and it's noteworthy to say that Spelunker only got ranked with a re-mediation on the previous lenient veto threshold of 70-30 and Searchlights got barred even in that threshold. The usual veto, at least ideally, has to do with either a single section, single difficulty, single aspect of the map, or collection of specific patterns - things that can and should be fixable if the mapper just dedicates a bit of time or thought into it. If an earnest, reasonable discussion about the problem is the carrot (which my previous post already gave reasons as to why only that doesn't work as of current), the veto (or even just the threat of a veto) is the stick.

Those vetoes, whether they're upheld in mediation or not, won't stop a map's ranking for long - they're easy fixes, barring the edge case where the mapper's own pride or ego doesn't want to adhere to the results of mediation.

3. Vetoes are only a thing when a map breaks the pp system or the mapper is limit testing mapping as a whole, either from a design perspective or a difficulty perspective.

At this point in time, do we really need to care about such things? Everything that could be done to break mapping standards in osu!std was done already.

Bad argument - not only is std not the only target of the veto changes, but things constantly change with this game. You don't know the next exploit, you don't know the next genius idea, and you surely don't know how lazer is going to change the game in the future. A lack of imagination or disregard for future-proofing is no argument worth considering.

Not only that, but as explained before, vetoes don't only exist in this edge case.

4. At no point, my main concern was adressed in this reply or anyone in favor of vetoes. BN work SHOULD be about curating and promoting content to the game, not doing subjective curation of what other BNs like and want to publish in the ranked section. Making 100+ standard BNs HAVE to check a map they never intended to get involved with to give an informed opinion is not a good option under any circunstance. You're wasting resources that could be focused in promoting maps for the game instead.

If a BN curates content, who curates the BNs' curation? NATs? Oh, that didn't work out, people didn't like it when we did that. GMTs? Oh, that doesn't work, quite literally examplified by your own historical case. BNs? How? Oh, through vetoes.

It is, in a cruel twist of irony, a direct consequence of the liberalization of quality standards that we have to uphold and even fortify vetoes. This "waste of resources" is the only thing that stops us from having to retake the reins and uphold QC ourselves, because someone has to do it. If you don't wish to do it yourself...

Dada, I believe I'm speaking for the opposition as the problem isn't panicking. It's about how the NAT's mentality seems to be hellbent on fixing a veto system that has been ineffective throughout a multitude of different iterations spanning multiple years.

a) Bad generalization of veto results
I will first contest the point where you mentioned that vetoes worked. They did not work. Generalizing the results this way does not justify all of the shit that hits every single party involved in order to get what is often a comparatively underwhelming result.

In fact, I think your second paragraph describes this inefficiency properly. A mapper whose map is getting vetoed will steelman and defend their version to the last possible moment. I believe the two changes implemented doesn't address the nature of the vetoing. A "soft veto" has been done multiple times before, where a BN/NAT member will post concerns on a mapper's map. The mapper will defend this which leads to a veto regardless. There will be no tangible change to mitigate the chaos.

b) "Quality" and bad actors
Next， I‘ll talk about how there has been this obsession in the usage of "quality". "Quality", which is a terrible buzzword and a horrendously unquantifiable definition of standard, by the way, does not justify the existence of the veto system. The BN pool is the largest it has been historically, each with a different idea of "quality," encoming different ways of mapping. If the NAT as a whole thinks that fixing the veto system is a good way of "quality control", I'd wager that the NAT as a whole is cluelessly incompetent about what the word "quality" is as a whole.

Quality aside, since the system was, I quote, "borne out of assuming a mapper is doing things not in good faith", I'd like to touch on how the veto system itself encourages it to be used in bad faith. I have mentioned in my post, which evidently no one bothered to read, that historically, certain mapping styles, certain people, have been very easily targeted by the veto system with varying degrees of effectiveness. I do not believe the veto system is a necessary evil to prevent bad actors, in fact, the contrary has happened: bad actors have consistently used the system to their gain.

c) Leverage
If the intention of the veto system is to act as a leverage tool, an ultimatum, it's incredibly inefficient and no one would bother vetoing unless the map/mapper garners enough attention, which is getting less likely as of present, as I have mentioned in my previous post. And this tool isn't a good leverage tool either, as the hate is solely directed to the person vetoing it. Once again, the veto system and its newest changes doesn't reduce the probability of this.

I have an idea floating around in my head, I will list it down here.
1) If a map is truly found problematic, 5 BNs or a larger number of BNs than the nominators write up their concerns and submit them to the NAT.
2) The NAT discusses and opens a system for the BNs to vote agree/disagree with their reasoning in the BN site. The vote threshold doesn't matter, the NAT will judge the contents and decide what is the appropriate path for the mapper.

This way, the burden of quality falls to the NAT as a whole. Quality is quantified by the NAT, the team meant to assess nomination. The issue of hate is also spread much more evenly, instead of one person, we have 5 BNs and the NAT.

I understand that the hate might be too much for the NAT, but I'd like to mention that as leaders of the mapping community, you guys have to take more risks than anyone involved. Feel free to brush me off as I've been kicked for behavior, but I have stood with what I said and worked to better myself in the past year. However, as a person who has participated and lead organizations both online and offline, I believe I'm qualified to tell you guys as a whole: if you don't want to take on the risks, don't be the leaders.

d) Closing
The veto system and its changes doesn't work and the NAT is sluggish to implement changes in comparison to how quickly the mapping meta is evolving. The idea of being the leverage, the ultimatum in maintaining quality is inefficient and even with the changes doesn't do its job. The opposing wants a system where it isn't upheld by some vague buzzword of "quality" and a system that works to uphold mapping perspectives from the mapping community as a whole.

As a side note, my DMs are open: I believe debates and discussions like this are helpful in determining the better cause for the mapping community moving forward.

Serizawa Haruki wrote: 294t5w

The issue is not the existence of vetoes themselves, it's the incoherence of wanting to preserve this "last line of defense" for the sake of quality, but at the same time showing a lack of enforcement of these quality standards (such as RC guidelines etc.) when it comes to all the other maps which aren't subject to a veto, as well as not trying to create a system that allows for more consistent quality management. That's why it often feels unfair, tedious and pointless when a map gets vetoed.

I strongly agree with Haruki's take—the core issue isn't the existence of vetoes, but rather the inconsistency in how quality standards are applied across the entire ranking process.

This very thing causes (1) the need to provide walls of text when, in most cases, it feels like you're reinventing the wheel for the trillionth time—as many people pointed out during the Ren'ai veto, (2) vetoes that would apply to other maps with the same reasoning are overlooked, generating frustration due to the inconsistency in the application of said standards, (3) having to choose between continuing to believe these standards can actually be enforced, or simply ing the wave of "laissez-faire"—an attitude that not only contributes to systemic indifference toward higher difficulties but also fosters excessive leniency about low diffs, spread, hitsounds, etc., where people openly oppose something but simply don't care anymore.

SupaV wrote: 1g335n

I‘ll talk about how there has been this obsession in the usage of "quality". "Quality", which is a terrible buzzword and a horrendously unquantifiable definition of standard, by the way, does not justify the existence of the veto system. The BN pool is the largest it has been historically, each with a different idea of "quality," encoming different ways of mapping. If the NAT as a whole thinks that fixing the veto system is a good way of "quality control", I'd wager that the NAT as a whole is cluelessly incompetent about what the word "quality" is as a whole.

It’s true that “quality” is a broad and subjective term but dismissing it outright as a “buzzword” misses the bigger picture. The fact that different BNs have different standards doesn't invalidate the pursuit of quality; it proves why systems like the veto exist in the first place. When mapping styles are so varied, and when not everything problematic can be captured by the Ranking Criteria, some mechanism must exist to challenge cases that fall into gray areas. You just ignored what Dada said above: You don't know the next exploit, you don't know the next genius idea, and you surely don't know how lazer is going to change the game in the future. A lack of imagination or disregard for future-proofing is no argument worth considering.

To argue that the NAT is “cluelessly incompetent” for attempting to refine this system is not only unproductive, it ignores the reality that subjective quality control exists in every community-curated system. Music, film, publishing—all rely on trusted individuals making judgment calls within a structured process. The question isn’t whether quality is subjective (it always has been), but whether the tools we use to mediate those judgments are fair and balanced. The core issue is what Haruki said above.

SupaV wrote: 1g335n

I have an idea floating around in my head, I will list it down here.
1) If a map is truly found problematic, 5 BNs or a larger number of BNs than the nominators write up their concerns and submit them to the NAT.
2) The NAT discusses and opens a system for the BNs to vote agree/disagree with their reasoning in the BN site. The vote threshold doesn't matter, the NAT will judge the contents and decide what is the appropriate path for the mapper.

This way, the burden of quality falls to the NAT as a whole. Quality is quantified by the NAT, the team meant to assess nomination. The issue of hate is also spread much more evenly, instead of one person, we have 5 BNs and the NAT.

It seems like a lot of work to implement this when you have the alternative of posting it anonymously on the bn guild and waiting for the vote count to be reached (although I do agree with Cris's response—expecting BNs to use it in complete good faith is naive and should be mediated by a neutral entity). You could even create the same phenomenon of not having anyone tangible to argue against, but instead of the NAT, it would be the BNG as a whole.

Dada wrote: 6n4h3w

This "waste of resources" is the only thing that stops us from having to retake the reins and uphold QC ourselves, because someone has to do it. If you don't wish to do it yourself...

That's probably why we disagre so much, you believe firmly that "someone" has to do it, while I don't believe in how you perceive that notion, since I believe the QC is done the moment some maps are picked to be ranked while others are not and that's enough.

Dada wrote: 6n4h3w

But no, you should definitely get death threats from people for vetoing a map. That's part of the fun, isn't it?

You should know that I don't agree with that behavior. Which is why I don't like vetoes. Not sure what you're implying here, but I do believe that it is impossible to block someone else map from being ranked without making the mapper and the people who want to see that map ranked mad. You add to that the fact that they also perceive other types of maps not being worthy of rank and still getting ranked, and you have the perfect recipe for online hate train. However, hiding whoever vetoed the map is just making a fair exchange of arguments unfair by definition. Because everyone knows the mapper, his ideas, his opinions, etc. But the veto becomes this mod post devoided of human element, just existing there to block you out of nowhere and not much can be pin pointed as to why it was done. I could also bring up the political element of placing a veto, but I digress.

Dada wrote: 6n4h3w

Not only that, but as explained before, vetoes don't only exist in this edge case.

When they are not edge cases, vetoes essentially are a mod that, simply put, makes the map change from six to half a dozen. While I do understand how sometimes we as modders have certain standards regarding mapping choices, you gotta understand that moving one jump pattern, not matter how much you rearrange objects, it still is a jump pattern at the end of the day and you're just forcing some sort of personal preference in someone elses creation. This can be said about any mod that goes into specifics of maps and not the whole map in general.

Dada wrote: 6n4h3w

>Veto system completely stops working because mediation is now nigh impossible
>Vetoes become about painting a target on your own back for 0 upside and having 0 leverage to push changes

Dada wrote: 6n4h3w

Maps like Spelunker or Searchlights are recent examples of this ("concept vetoing"), and it's noteworthy to say that Spelunker only got ranked with a re-mediation on the previous lenient veto threshold of 70-30 and Searchlights got barred even in that threshold.

Wouldn't you say then that the split of 70/30 worked as intended? Again, does this mean this entire fuzz is because Spelunker got ranked? I still don't get what is the split problem when most things pointed out are unrelated to the split, and more so, related to the actual idea of the veto system and all of its repercussions, because having a target on your back is not the split fault, is the system inherint fault as I mentioned above.

Dada wrote: 6n4h3w

If you don't wish to interface with the veto system discussions beyond the surface-level "vetoes are bad mmkay" no matter what someone types then it's really tough to consider your points.

I mean, any start of a conversations needs to be surface level before going deeper into details. Why the ad hominem was used here is beyond me. I have tried to establish deeper discussions and reflections upon this theme, but big text=ignored. community/forums/posts/9556476

I do agree with the future proofing bad argument, I still think that if a map is breaking the game, is not a mapping issue, more so a game issue, so DEVs should be the ones involved in such scenarios. For example, we all know the 32bit limit of score and that we shouldn't rank maps that break such limit. That doesn't mean maps that break that limit have map issues, is just a dev problem that we agreed to not break, and even if we didn't agree, I believe the team would block such maps from being ranked anyway. So it trully is beyond the scope of a veto imo.

Beyond that I believe because we fundamentally disagree on the QA part of the job, not much can be discussed further and honestly, I'd much prefer talking about this stuff elsewhere @dada.

Some personal thoughts about some of the suggestions I've seen around.

> Just delete vetoes
Would if we could, but something needs to remain in its place for QA reasons. Maybe it doesn't work as well as we'd all like sure, but for now it's something that's better than nothing, and I kinda hoped this blog would explain that somewhat.

> Vetoer should be anonymous
Sounds like a good idea at first, and has decent potential to actually work. To actually get there though would require a lot more problem solving than you'd first expect. Not least of all ensuring how we actually keep the vetoer anonymous, stopping people witchunting or even leaking etc., and then ensuring that we don't tip the balance too far in the other direction by making things too easy to veto.

I think we could definitely work with this idea, but with the amount of effort I think we'd need to put in to get this to work we'd have to be pretty sure that this would be the best way to progress, instead of just focusing on a different strategy.

> 2 (or more) nominators required to place a veto
Makes sense on paper, but in the current environment killing enthusiasm from most people who would've been interested in actually doing proactive QA work, I can't see this working right now.

> Get votes from the wider community
Another one that makes sense on paper and one that I think would also work well. But again we'd have to progress carefully if we wanted to get the balance right, as the risk of bandwagoning or what have you voting without proper consideration is much greater. Still would probably be easier to implement than anonymous vetoing.

-

The changes we did this week was mostly adjustments to numbers in a detail we already had implemented, so were pretty quick to get out. I can't say for sure if it'll make any significant difference or not (I understand if you think it won't), but with the way things looked something needed to be done.

Just wanted to mention that there was a past example about anonymized DQ with a QAT bot . It was meant to prevent harassment but got even more hated by the community and was eventually dropped.

Also, I vaguely that in the original design of the veto system, there was an idea that a veto could be nullified if an extra BNs renominated the map but I don’t recall what happened to that plan. Maybe it was never really used because BNs didn't wanted to get envolved in the drama.

Some related threads

Changes to the Quality Assurance Team (2016)
Proposed veto changes from #modding (2018)

Current Vetoes prohibit s to renominate a map if it's undergoing one. So unless that was missed in translation or changed midway through, that's not the case nowadays.

Also wouldnt that be kinda cheesy? Defeats the purpose if another tuple of BNs can just come in and renominate the set, voiding the veto and its impact to begin with lol.

yea it's abusable for sure, just mentioned cuz I such discussion existed