#joehasspoken But He Is Wrong

This entire blog is a response to a comment posted on my last Song Fu critique. You can read that blog & Joe's comment about it HERE.

it's missing a point- It's only an opinion- Because for some people, it IS about the votes. Or rather, it’s about the vote being 'fairer'.

Well if it IS about the votes for someone...they are simply in the wrong competition. I'm totally for the votes being 'fairer', but you have to come to grips with the fact that it won't be completely fair as long as the public is allowed to vote. I do understand that the votes are still important though.

It seems to be getting lost that SF is still a 'contest'- with a rather hefty, expensive prize at the end of it. After all, if people are entering, & they don’t *care* about the vote, why not just enter songs as *shadows* & clear space for those who want to actually compete?

Well I would suggest that Ken not have any prize first off, but just because someone doesn't care about the standing & overall vote count, it doesn't mean they don't want their song to be voted on. The votes, even if a little unfair, is still a means of feedback someone may find helpful to becoming a better songwriter.

Y'see, I’ve spoken with a LOT of people engaged in The Fu since SF3, & we all like to say the vote doesn’t matter- but, at the heart of it, I've seen those same people ECSTATIC when their vote's increasing.

Sure, who wouldn't be happy if people showed support of their song? That's only natural, and I'm not saying people can't be happy about getting votes, just that it should be a secondary reason for competing.

The contention that 'forcing a vote' won’t mean more people'll listen to the music is a little disingenuous, because people are ALREADY not listening to the music by coming in, voting once & shutting down. I would even wager without listening to the song of the individual they are voting for

I agree that people are already doing that...you're right. However your solution is to have more votes by people who aren't listening...doesn't make sense. To listen to every song each round is a time consuming task. Just downloading that much on a slow connection takes a little time, but listening to 20 songs is a lot to ask of someone who doesn't really care & is just there to support a friend or someone they're a fan of. If someone doesn't even listen to the song of the person they are coming to support, it doesn't make any sense that forcing them to vote for 4 more people would actually make them listen to 19 strangers.

No more 30+ 1st round entries. Maybe even return the knock out round.

I agree with part of that. Basically I think adding a knockout round is the most fair thing to do as far as deciding who gets into SongFu. Just taking the first 20 to sign up is fair, but doesn't always mean you'll get talent participating, it just means you get the first 20 people to see the link for sign ups get posted. I'm for there being 30-40 people in the 'entry' round (basically everyone who wants in)...wouldn't bother me a bit. But once the competition starts I think it should be the top 20 who actually get in.

You can't say all that above & then use the argument, 'Think about how many viewers Hank & Molly brought to the competition'

Sure you can, there's pros & cons to having people like that in the competition & the pros far out weighs the cons in my opinion. If Hank brings 1,000 new viewers to the competition & only 10% of them listen to all the music....that's still 100 people that were exposed to everyone's music. That's great! The majority who just showed up to support Hank is a reason you need a second voting format to work in tandem with the popular vote. I address the assumption about Hank & Molly's fans only voting for them a little later.

The battle that Sara Parsons & I went through during SF5 was IMMENSE, and thrilling - because the vote was shifting all the time & it looked, to me anyway, that this WAS down to people actually listening to the songs. Because neither Sara nor I have the 1000’s & 1000’s of 'followers' others have.

Ok...first Sara may not be as popular as Hank Green, but she technically does have thousands of fans (2,798 YouTube subs at least). With the voting system it's impossible to say how many of her votes came from her subs, and how many songs they listened to. I'm not knocking Sara, but everyone is always going to have a larger or smaller number of fans then someone else. Where do you draw the line?

Mollys & Hanks -in essence people who make a living by creating music- being included in the Challenger Section makes the point of votes moot.

Hank doesn't make a living with his 'music', he makes a living by vlogging & other things. Sure he has released a CD & sells his music, but it's not how he supports himself, and if you think Molly makes a living with her music you haven't really thought that last sentence through. :p

No matter what anyone says about the vote 'not mattering', NO-ONE likes having their arse handed to them, but especially not when that outcome is a forgone conclusion.

Actually Joe...some people ARE programmed that way. I'm extremely competitive, but I don't care if I lose a basketball game by 20-40 points. I will dive into the stands to save a ball, foul the shit out of someone to save an easy basket, etc...etc...but at the end of the game....I'm just happy to play. I'm very sure I'm not the only person like that. It's more fun to have a close game, but the game itself is what I love.

Everything you say about the taking part, the experience, the honing of talents etc is TRUE. But the VOTE can be just as important.
And that’s why it needs to be addressed.

In the end Joe I know the vote can be important, but it shouldn't be "just as important" as other things since the creator & administrator of the competition doesn't even want it to be. Making it more fair is good, but allowing the public to vote will always mean some ignorance & popularity will play a part. Unless you limit to competition to people who only have 100 or less followers on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, etc... That wouldn't be smart though because then you're not getting exposed to the number of potential new fans you were otherwise. It's also hard to judge were to draw that line at "who's too popular" as well. I mean Taryn jumped up a lot in this current Fu just by posting a link on Facebook. She's not exactly popular, and her song wasn't exactly...good.

I hated watching songs which 'to my mind' were AWFUL (Peep fight anyone?) flying ahead of the pack due to single votes.
It makes a mockery of the entire thing.

Even though I loved 3 of the 4 songs Molly entered, I can't argue that "Peep Fight" was any good. :p I can point out some interesting stats from Song Fu 3 (the one Molly & Hank entered) & Song Fu 5 (the one you think was more fair).

I looked up what the average number of votes cast by an individual voter for each of those contests in rounds 1-3 (not including Master votes). In Song Fu 3 the average person cast 2.13 votes. In Song Fu 5 the average person cast 2.02 votes. So the assumption that the people Hank & Molly bring to the competition are less likely to listen to ALL the songs or cast more single votes....doesn't seem to be the case. It's obviously more likely that one of their fans will for them, but that's a different point.

Last Words: #joehasspoken but he is wrong. :p Kidding of course. I love Joe, and I love getting comments with so much thought put into them. Joe cares for Song Fu as much as anyone, and even though I disagree with him on many points, we both clearly think improvements should be made to the voting system. I just don't think allowing a public vote by itself will EVER be fair, no matter what you do. I think you have to live with it being unfair (while doing the best you can to make it fair), and use a 2nd system in conjunction as I mentioned in my previous blog post. #spinhasspoken