0 to 5 is simple enough and I like that aspect of it (0 to 10 or 100 would be better), but Famicompo's scoring would be fairer, IMO, if it was more like this:
- All entrants encouraged to vote (by e-mail, to get as many scores as possible)
- Voters have to score all songs except any they entered
- Scores calculated by averages rather than cumulation
The problem right now is there's no guidance on what to score your own songs. I know many people vote 5 to cover their asses. Those who don't score their own songs get punished badly because not scoring is equivalent to leaving a zero (which would not happen with averages.) Also the people who only vote 5 on a few songs they like have megapowerful votes.
I've coordinated Sample Pack Contest six times on the vgmusic boards (seventh underway right now!) and I can say positively that recalculating the scores based on cumulation will change the results unfairly and positively affect a) people who submit songs but don't vote (because their song has more votes than other people), and negatively affect b) two or more people collaborating on a song who both/all vote (because their song has less votes.)
Basically it's a fucked up system when three people can vote a song 5 and 16 people can vote a song 1 and the latter song places higher. Extreme example, but that's the kind of thing that happens to a lesser degree.
Well, all voting systems are flawed. Probably the most exploitable part of this is that voting is open to anybody, and anonymous, but I mean, it'd be hard to stop somebody from submitting puppet entries to get extra votes anyway. If every vote was a legitimate entrant, it'd be perfectly neutral for everyone to vote themselves 5.
I like this a whole lot better than system that are like "rank your top 5", though. There's Condorcet voting systems where you order everything, and then do some analysis to figure out what should be ordered highest overall, but it's complicated enough that the process might seem unfairly opaque to most observers. There are also adaptations you can make to range voting, like scoring by median vote, etc. but again a lot of people don't like voting in complicated systems.
Overall I think this is okay. It's simple, and fair enough. It has been exploited in the past, but genuinely good stuff does rise to the top. Maybe not all the results are valid, but overall they're not bad.
The thing I mentioned is still simple, since people only have to submit scores out of 100, not much more complex. Could be out of 5 just as easily, though the averages in the results might look a bit bonkers and there might be a lot of tiebreaks.
You're right about the unregulated nature of it, too; leaving it all for a website to deal with isn't a great idea. And I also agree that no voting system is perfect - you just gotta use the one that comes the closest.
I also don't like the ranking system. There's really no advantage to that which I can see, it's just more complex for everyone.
A 1-10 range and a weighted average (similar to rateyourmusic.com chart system) is what I'd personally prefer. Also, duplicate votes from the same IP should be ignored.
I don't see a problem with voting for yourself though, aside from the fact there's no real consensus about whether it's encouraged or discouraged.
I don't see a problem with voting for yourself though
well self evaluation is trickier than evaluation of others. some people will give themselves max points, some people will try to score their songs in accordance with what they think they deserve (which is a tricky issue by itself - rose tinted glasses and such), some people will not score themselves generously enough either in fear of being seen as biased or because they just have a low opinion of themselves and their work. one possible way around would just be to have everyone who votes give their song max points - that also gives them more incentive to participate at the voting stage, though again that unfairly benefits collaborative works if all the collaborators vote.
tldr it complicates matters unnecessarily so is best avoided. there isn't any benefit to it anyway.
I guess people were putting off voting, and were disappointed that the deadline turned out to be the beginning of February 23rd instead of the end of it. There's an extra day to vote now... too bad I let the cats out already.
