I wanted to put forth my own answers to some of the community cartographer stuff, cuz something that we follow is not speaking for the group as a whole and only speaking from our own point of view. Which is a disclaimer I typically add to of my posts regarding CC topics.
I really hope community cartographers gets overhauled before Halo 4 - I appreciate the effort you put in but I don't think the current set up brings the cream of the crop to the top. - I would hate if hardcore settings where run in the same way.
Edit: seems like your already planning to change things up - awesome - I still think a hardcore mode would need its own 'staff' who are specialised in competitive play.
As you stated a lot of us are changing up our approach to Halo 4. I know I'm taking a different approach and overall the system isn't set in stone, it is made to evolve and for everyone to learn from past experience. The system isn't perfect, but at its current state I say that it hasn't gotten worse either. The amount community content is represented gets much better over time, it is a matter of refining the process.
Who are the community cartographers? How many are there? What are their handles/gametags/usernames? How were they chosen? What are their responsibilties? How much power do they have in terms of what maps ultimately hit matchmaking in any playlist? Do they create their own maps? How do they decide what can go into matchmaking and what can't?
I feel like it's some mysterious secret society tasked with finding a bag of garbage in a huge dumpster.
Fyrewulff answered most of these for you. As he said most of the CCs are picked for any variety of reasons, I was put forth to cover for Obi as he was going through a lot with his life during the 343 transition. Sometimes it is leadership in a community, sometimes its experience, etc. Lots of factors, from what I've seen the most important qualities seem to be knowing how to deal with the public, keeping a level head in high pressure/stress situations (not getting emotional), controlling how information is given to avoid false "official" information from spreading, controlling personal bias, advocating for the community, knowledgeable in what could be an enjoyable map in a matchmaking setting (for everyone, not just a particular style), working as a team and not holding their opinion as more valued over others, etc. Lots of very leader-ish traits basically.
Basically we pull together a pool of maps that we have stumbled upon and we whittle away the pile until we have a nice solid pool of maps to push forward. So no, not every map is pushed forward, only a small selection of what we nominate is ultimately pushed forward. And of course we don't have the final say, maps can be added or removed to the pool after we create it as we just nominate the stuff. Our opinions are valued, but are not the sole factor. Some of us create maps, and some don't. As for how we decide what is worth putting in matchmaking, that comes down to each individual CC and discussions are held to question/confirm each CCs nominations as sort of a checks and balances while the pool is being created.
If you find, test and then submit content...don't you have a say what goes in matchmaking? Do you submit 100% of the content you find and test? Aside from the clearly broken maps of course.
I answered this above, we typically start out with a large pool of nominations and we work as a group to whittle it down to a more manageable pool. Our job is basically to be a filter, we do a lot to ensure that we cover as much ground as possible. Speaking for myself, my goal is to cover even more ground by getting on the friends list of various peoplein certain communities and participating in their playtests (not just my own) in order to increase my exposure to more maps in H4 from different corners of the community.
Speaking of that, who are the frequent hosts of HaloGAF customs other than Slightly Live? It would be great to be a part of those playtests as well.
Thank you for answering my questions.
Now, being a community cartographer is something that interests me. How do I go about joining the group? I feel like I can add a lot to the team.
Fyrewulff has got you covered. In the past there has been a lot of caution when adding CCs as they have to meet a lot of those traits above and it is tough to find calm, collective individuals under duress (especially since we take a LOT of flack from everywhere as you can't please everyone) who are not just hungry for power. lol... I definitely feel like the team needs to be expanded, but I also think that quickly adding people just to add people can have really bad consequences. Like really bad.
My forge-loin itches. Someone scratch it, please.
If you haven't seen it yet, maybe this will help:
