JPF Home Page Forums Voting Guidelines for 2002 Best Lyric Award

Just Plain Folks 2002 Best Lyric Award Voting Guidelines:

Please read ALL of these guidelines carefully. If, after reading them, you still have a question, please post it on the Questions and Comments post set up for them on this forum.

Wow... well over 500 Lyrics entered in the 3 weeks entry period! It's a good thing we didn't accept them all year long, it would have been 50,000!

Now that the lyrics have been entered, the real fun (and experience) begins. Because we are able to display all the lyrics here for everyone to check out, we decided that we would let the members (i.e., your peers) participate in choosing the final nominees. Once nominees are chosen, we will have our regular music awards judges choose the winner, just as they choose the winners in the song and album categories in the annual music awards.

We expect to announce the nominees at the same time we announce the rest of the music awards nominees. My goal is to have them announced in October, hopefully before the end of the month (after I get back from the Roadtrip that starts Monday). We are working as diligently as we can to do this right, and we would rather take longer and do it right than rush it and do it wrong. The winners in each category (we have over 80 awards this year) will be given out in January at our 2002 Just Plain Folks Music Awards. We are working on setting up the venue and date for that as I type this.

Okay.. so enough about all that. What you all want to know is how do we vote?

1. After the deadline of August 31st has ended, I will shut off the ability to enter new lyrics. I will edit in Titles where people didn't give one. If I need to, I will make a title up for voting purposes if none are listed. I have to do this because several entrants didn't give a title for their own song (yes, it's puzzling to me as well...). Don't complain if we designate a title you don't like. In the case of voting, a bad title that makes it possible for someone to vote for you is better than no votes at all. I will also delete website links to song files when I see them as well. (Though I am not looking for them and may likely miss some, if it is right in my face I will delete them as this is NOT a song Award.. it is a lyric award.)

2. I will then assign a voting ID number to each Lyric at the top. This is really just a number. Most likely starting at 001 and going to 600 (or wherever we finish up at the deadline.) Ideally we will post the numbers consecutively, but if something needs to be deleted for some reason, it could skip a number. So just be sure to look at the specific number assigned. We won't reset all the numbers once they are set. (So, once a lyric is #632 it will always be #632 even if #631 gets deleted for some reason.)

3. Because lyrics are literally being added up to the last minute, we want to give folks a chance to read ALL the entries. So we ask all of you to take some time to carefully peruse all the lyrics that are entered. This serves more than the obvious desire of everyone getting a fair shot. It also will be a self paces lesson in lyric writing and style. With over 500 lyrics compared side by side (or in this case above and below) each other, you will really learn what to do and what not to do. In fact, you often learn more from the mistakes of others than from the brilliant strokes of genius (which I think you'll find as well). Because some weaknesses will stick out to you in various lyrics, you'll realize that you've also made those same mistakes yourself in some of your lyrics, but they aren't so obvious when you read your own work as when you read someone else's. I found this to be the case when I listen to music with flaws. I suddenly realized I had made those same errors in some of my own songs.. those very songs I had thought were perfect. So, in addition to giving all the entrants a fair shake, you are really doing your own writing a big favor by taking the time to read all the entries and learning, perhaps taking some notes for future reference, and perhaps even writing down the authors names for future co-writing and networking. (Yes, networking efforts never end!) To give everyone plenty of time to get through the lyrics and vote, we are extending the original voting deadline to the end of September. So, votes must be in by midnight (your time) September 30.

4. What is your voting criteria? Good question. Just as in our regular music awards judging, we have only 1 single criteria to judge on.

Does it move you? Choose the top 5, in order, that move you most.

Can something be flawed and still move you more than a technically perfect lyric? Yes. Should you vote for the one that moves you most? Yes.

The only time you should use factors like technical writing and structure are to break ties. (Same criteria we use for the songs. For albums, we do add in production quality, performance quality and writing quality as part of the criteria).

You aren't judging on "industry standards." You are judging solely on your own preferences, likes and dislikes. You don't have to justify your choice to anyone and your selections are kept confidential. (I always chuckle when a seasoned industry pro tells me how hard it is to judge something based on what they personally think about the music rather than what the "industry" would think. That's why I like our process so much better than any other!)

5. Okay.. so you've read through all the lyrics, checked your notes, made some grueling decisions and you are ready to vote. What now? It's time to vote.

Just as our judges do in the final round of the awards, we want each of you to vote in the same format. That means choosing your top 5 choices. Your vote for #1 is worth 5 points, #2 is worth 4 points and so on down to 1 point for your #5 choice.

We want you to format your votes this way: (I am using numbers larger than the real ones so no one thinks we are using a subliminal message to get you to vote for someone... = ) )

1. 644 (Song Title Here)
2. 776 (Song Title Here)
3. 943 (Song Title Here)
4. 901 (Song Title Here)
5. 653 (Song Title Here)

We will have you list the song title just as a safety/double check to be sure you put the number down for the right title. In this case, song #644 would get 5 points.

Also, please include your name (first and last) and the City and State & Country (if not the US) you are from. This is only for our records and will remain confidential. If you do not wish to share your name, or city and state, don't vote. This is one of our needed protections for any voting fraud that might otherwise occur.

We will keep track of all votes on a spreadsheet. The songs with the most total points at the end of the process will receive a nomination. So where do you send your votes?

Email your vote to: votes@jpfolks.com

Place: "Lyric Award Votes" in the subject field.

This will send your vote to a special account we have set up for this purpose. Please be sure to send it to the correct place. votes@jpfolks.com. Do NOT send it anywhere else or your vote will not count.

There is only 1 allowed vote per member (and per email address). If you share an account with another person, we are sorry but we can't accept 2 sets of votes from 1 email address. No exceptions.

A note for those worried about cheating:

For anyone considering cheating, creating fake members to vote and so on, we have a safeguard against that. Any proof of cheating will result in all your votes being discarded and your own lyric or those involved being disqualified. Play fair. This is all OUR music awards program. Treat it that way! Finding odd voting patterns caused by cheating is far easier than you would think. So just vote for what you love and what you love will get a fair shake. Because voting will take place over the next 30 days, we do want to allow new members to vote. But we will monitor the patterns of new member voting to look for anything out of the ordinary. Random voting versus fixed voting is very easy to detect.

In the end, we reserve the right to exclude questionable or suspicious voting from any member at our discretion. We don't care and have no vested interest in who wins (we pay the same for the trophy either way). We only care that voting is fair and I am sure you feel the same. And even if a lyric that wasn't worthy made it through the nomination round, it would get slaughtered in the final round by the industry judges anyway.

Hi Everyone,

There's been a lot of discussion on the Q&A message and also on Lyric 1 and 2 about various parts of this process. In the end, it all comes down to the same thing. Just vote honestly for the 5 lyrics that MOVE YOU THE MOST. Not justification has to be made on your choices. You can vote for anyone, including yourself if you feel your lyric is the most moving. (Just be sure to think it through if the real reason is that you want more points and a better chance to win. Even a first place vote won't really help a weak lyric become a nominee because we expect 500 or more people to vote before it is over.) So take the high road and just vote what's in your heart, and the rest will take care of itself. If you get nominated then, it will mean 100 times more right?

Thanks to Blake Hill, all the lyrics have numbers for voting. We are accepting votes from everyone now. To be eligible to vote, you must be a Just Plain Folks member (that means you must have signed up via our home page and have received at least a welcome letter via email from jpnotes@aol.com. If you haven't, you need to sign up again on the home page.)

Remember, only 1 vote per email address. And if you vote for less than 5 lyrics (as one person already has) those votes count less. For example, voting for only 3 songs means your first pick gets only 3 points instead of 5. If you only vote for 1 song, it only gets 1 point. (And no.. if you vote for 10 songs.. we won't give it 10 points... = ) nice try though...).

If you have questions on voting, I have opened this topic for that purpose. I am on the road and will only be able to check the boards briefly late at night after shows and some days perhaps not at all. Most questions have been answered on one of the message board threads already so if you know the answer, please help out by answering folks questions here as well if I haven't gotten to them yet.

Good luck to all the entrants and may the best lyric win!

Brian

An important point was brought up by folks on the lyric 1 board.

If someone added links to a file of a song on their lyric entry page.. ignore it. It should NOT be used in any way in the voting process. This is a lyric ONLY award. Everyone had a full 14 months to enter songs into the music part of the awards process this year. (January 1, 2001 through Feb 28,2002.)

So, just judge the lyric by the LYRIC. Period.

Brian

UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE:

Because of a mistake on our end, we will accept votes sent to us before midnight October 1st (your local time, since we have members literally around the world).

After the deadline, I will evaluate if we have a large number of tied songs (which we currently have) for the final nomination spots. If so, I will re-open voting and make an announcement in the newsletter. If not, I will let them stand as they are. We did surpass our minimum number of votes (100). That is a pretty good cross section and there are clearly a number of songs that separated from the rest of the pack.

Thanks again to all those who posted a lyric and who took the time to vote.

Brian

Just Bumping this up to remind folks...

Reminder: This was for the 2002 Lyric Award.. NOT the one we'll be starting in December 2003!

Brian