The Song Fight Bulletin Board

So I think it'd be pretty cool to do a sidefight, but I think it'd be even more awesome if everybody just said what they think the best sidefight would be ... I think it'd be cool to have like have a multi-level contest survivor songfight thing where you do a song every few days for the different names, and whoever gets the least votes gets eliminated ... I wouldn't know how to run it, but if someone likes this idea and wants to carry the torch and start one up that'd be cool ... as for this thread, what kind of sidefight would you like to see in the near future?

jolly roger wrote:and whoever gets the least votes gets eliminated ...

The idea has potential, but basing it on votes alone won't work. It's too easy to game the system (or "Frontalot" the system, if you prefer.)

deshead wrote:The idea has potential, but basing it on votes alone won't work. It's too easy to game the system (or "Frontalot" the system, if you prefer.)

i could think of three ways around that:

1) anonymous submissions. the main problem with this is that since songfight is a rather small community, the artists could be pretty easily identified, and it doesn't stop friend-flooding.

2) closed voting. make it true survivor style: only those who enter can vote. after a while, the "exiles" start getting to vote. and finally, with say the final three, the public at large gets to vote. the difficulty with this is authenticating the votes. and someone (not an entrant) would have to run and keep track of the voting.

3) jury selection. create a panel of anonymous volunteer reviewers. "american idol"-style, they would critique and eliminate entrants each round. the problem here is finding some charitable souls willing to take on such a task (though, frankly, i could think of a number of people from songfight i would like to get a lot of focused input from.)

- njm

i think anyone who would take part could be trusted not to cheat on votes.

Blue roganised something like this about a year ago i think - he might be able to give you some tips. I think Sober won.

j$

This sounds awesome, exactally the sort of thing I can fail at.

nyjm wrote:i could think of three ways around that:
1) anonymous submissions. the main problem with this is that since songfight is a rather small community, the artists could be pretty easily identified, and it doesn't stop friend-flooding.
2) closed voting. make it true survivor style: only those who enter can vote. after a while, the "exiles" start getting to vote. and finally, with say the final three, the public at large gets to vote. the difficulty with this is authenticating the votes. and someone (not an entrant) would have to run and keep track of the voting.
3) jury selection. create a panel of anonymous volunteer reviewers. "american idol"-style, they would critique and eliminate entrants each round. the problem here is finding some charitable souls willing to take on such a task (though, frankly, i could think of a number of people from songfight i would like to get a lot of focused input from.)
- njm

I like idea 2 the most. Idea 3 is pretty cool ... would there be any way to get this set up? I would love to participate.

Because I so dearly love the copmmunity but rarely have the time to actually participate, I nominate myself as an unbiased candidate for the panel. I'll be Simon.

The other issue I see is that there would have to be some sort of rule against attrition - that if you start as a contestant, you PROMISE to see it through. Otherwise, some people would probably drop out without getting voted off.

Damn. Their went OUR chances.

i think i prefer the jury system, actually. part of why i, personally, like songfight is the feedback i get. jim, you're one of those people i was thinking of, actually.

you could deal with attrition by re-instating "exiles", starting with the most recent entrant eliminated and working your way back. hey, life happens.

so, how would this work, schedule-wise? a fight a week on top of songfight seems redundant and overwhelming. once a month might take too long. that two-week extension we had a few weeks back yielded some great stuff. why not have a round every two weeks (or so)? the first fight deadline would determine who participates and how long the whole thing would last.

a bonus to the jury-system is a built-in deepthroat: a new title, titles, themes or optional challenges would be announced by the judges with their reviews and decisions.

- njm

Yes - it is a good idea.

I see a special thread that all contestants must watch - that will have posts appearing like:

"Big Brother wants to hear a reggae song, about fish - by Friday...",
or
"Big Brother wants to dance the Cartoon Danish"
or
"Sing a song from a non-oral bodily orifice"

Denyer wrote:i think anyone who would take part could be trusted not to cheat on votes.

Ya, if it was true Survivor-style, the votes wouldn't be closed. Everyone voting would have to PM their vote to a central authority. So there'd really be no way to cheat. Other than form "alliances" (<gag>.)

Jim wrote:if you start as a contestant, you PROMISE to see it through.

nyjm wrote:why not have a round every two weeks (or so)?

These points are probably at odds with eachother a little. Depending on how many people participate, bi-weekly fights could take half a year. I dunno about you guys, but I'm not sure what I'll be up to 6 weeks from now, forget about 6 months.

nyjm wrote:i think i prefer the jury system

Ya, I like it in principle too. Losers will probably cry foul, or "favoritism", but that's going to happen in any setup. And it moots the whole alliance thing.

Caravanray wrote:"Big Brother wants to dance the Cartoon Danish"

It might be a good idea to agree beforehand if the titles/themes will be those we'd call "good" titles ... or the opposite. A sidefight with titles like "Vishnu...," "Dingin Da Donga," and "Zero 2 phantom" is going to attract different artists

If it's done by votes, PM is a good idea, and I'll volunteer to collate them since I'd be unlikely to have the time to submit that many songs.
-bill

deshead wrote:It might be a good idea to agree beforehand if the titles/themes will be those we'd call "good" titles ... or the opposite

There are no good or bad titles, just titles you find more or less inspiring.

deshead and nyjm wrote:jury

I volunteer my services, if only to prevent JoS from bossing the game with his own version of what constitutes 'good music'

j$ wrote: I volunteer my services, if only to prevent JoS from bossing the game with his own version of what constitutes 'good music'

me too.

HeuristicsInc wrote:If it's done by votes, PM is a good idea, and I'll volunteer to collate them since I'd be unlikely to have the time to submit that many songs.
-bill

Or I can set up a little voting mechanism on my website, like I did for the Eagles sidefight ...

A jury means everyone on it gets a say. I certainly wouldn't want to be a one-man jury. We would discuss and come to an agreement. Should be fun.

Why not just have the sidefight use regular Songfight titles as they appear? That way all the contestants would have two or three titles to choose from, would make a lot less confusion and overhead for the organizers and participatns and everyone, and that way the participants would get reviews and votes via the regular system on top of it all, so they wouldn't be stepping out of the regular fights to do this. If we get 8 participants, it would take roughly 8 weeks to get to a winner.

Jim of Seattle wrote:The other issue I see is that there would have to be some sort of rule against attrition - that if you start as a contestant, you PROMISE to see it through. Otherwise, some people would probably drop out without getting voted off.

Why is dropping out a problem?

I guess it's not. Plus it was suggested that if someone drops out that the last voted off person comes back, which probably would work. I just think it could end up like this:

Week 1: 8 entrants
Week 2: 7 left, 2 drop out, so really 5 left
Week 3: 4 left, one drops out, so 3 left
Week 4: 2 left, one drops out, we have a winner (ho hum)

okay, let's have our cake and eat it, too.

jury: jim, jack, j$ (how's that for alliteration!) vote off x number of entrants each round (say, two or three). the jury has to be an odd number so the it can reach a majority consesus.

popular vote by PM (administered by heuristics, or j$'s spiffy mechanism) saves one possible exile.

use the regular titles from songfight. (i rather prefer different titles, though, since this is a sidefight.)

we can avoid a REALLY long fight by being draconian: the jury eliminates half the contestants each round. the popular vote saves only one. (so 16 -> 9 -> 5 -> 3 -> 2 -> 1; it would be over in six rounds.) that's a month and a half, or three months if we get crazy and make the rounds every other week.

i think the exact number of people to eliminate each round should be delegated to the jury, but that should be posted soon after the first round and adhered as best possible. but the grand-prize winner should be pure popular vote.

to counteract drop-outs, bring back the last, most popular entrant(s). in any cases of a tie, the jury selects.

j$ wrote:

HeuristicsInc wrote:If it's done by votes, PM is a good idea, and I'll volunteer to collate them since I'd be unlikely to have the time to submit that many songs.
-bill

Or I can set up a little voting mechanism on my website, like I did for the Eagles sidefight ...

The reason I was suggesting this was to limit the votes to entrants or to bb members or whatever... I like it open to the group, as opposed to just the entrants.
-bill

nyjm wrote:awesome ideas

Yeah!