JPF Home Page Forums 2006 First Round Lyric Voting Guidelines and Discussion

Hi Folks,

Here's the simple guidelines for judging the 2006 Just Plain Folks Lyric Award category. It's VERY important you read this entire email. We can't afford to have people doing their own thing. Follow the instructions and lets make this a productive, fun and successful process for everyone.

1. First, find out what page and Lyric # is assigned for your own lyric. (a link is provided below, but read all of this info first).

2. Use that info to determine which page you are judging. There are 50 Lyrics per page (except page 1 which has 49 and page 11 which has 6).

3. Once you know which page you are judging, read through the Lyrics and take notes on the ones you like best. Once you have your top choices, you can narrow them down and eventually place them in order, from #1 (your favorite) to #5 (your fifth favorite).

4. When you have your top 5 chosen, please email your votes to votes@jpfolks.com.

Below is a fictional example of how your votes should look. Please include ALL this information for your votes to be valid and for you to get 6 points credit towards your own lyric. Make sure you substitute YOUR info for the fictional info below. (As obvious as that sounds, trust me.. people sometimes can be oblivious to the obvious).
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Lyric Votes

Inside the email:

Member Real Name: Brian Austin Whitney
Message Board User Name: Brian Austin Whitney
Own Lyric Title: Send a Message
Own Lyric # and Page Location: Lyric #73 Page 2
Email Address: jpfolkspro@aol.com

Votes:

Order: Lyric #: Song Title

1: #112 What For?
2: #123 Don't Wait For Me
3: #144 Cable TV
4: #101 Better Not Wait Too Long
5: #147 Sad Country Songs
-------------------------------------------------------------------
In this example, Lyric #112 would receive 5 points down to Lyric #147 which would receive 1 point. In addition, because you voted, your own lyric #73 would receive 6 points.

IMPORTANT: You can't list ties. You must list your choices from First through Fifth Place, with no ties, and no additional lyrics beyond 5. Every year people still submit ties. If you do, your votes and your bonus points will not be counted! Please NO TIES!

What criteria do you use to vote?
-----------------------------------------------
So now you know what process to use to turn in votes. But what criteria should you use to make the decisions? It's simple. We use only 1 criteria for all the music awards categories:

Does it move you?

This means something different to each judge. Some people require perfect and even rigid "rules" for them to approve of or and enjoy a lyric. Others like just the opposite. Some like Story songs. Some like songs that evoke an emotion. Others like humor, irony or sadness. In our awards judging process, all of those criteria are right. It's whatever it takes to MOVE YOU. Whatever pushes YOUR buttons creatively. That's the criteria you should use. It's the same criteria we all use every day when we listen to music and make decisions on whether we like it or not. Use your gut, your brain, your heart and soul. Choose whatever floats your boat. We'd prefer you be as fair as possible and not use bias, good or bad, against or for a person rather than the end result. The lyrics that all of us, as a group, put forward into the next round should be the very best representatives of our entire community. So vote for what moves you and if we all do that, those lyrics that rise to the top will have meaning and substance to all of us.

If you are not sure what page your lyric is on, we have posted a database list with all of them at this page: http://www.justplainfolks.org/ubb/Forum59/HTML/000022.html

Note: If you made a last minute change, it could reflect an older lyric title. Don't worry. At the time we did the database, that is what we found. Your lyric number will be the same as is listed on this database under your user name. (Our two late entries excluded.. you guys are #504 and #505). To quickly find your lyric, do a Control F on your Windows Keyboard (sorry, don't know the Mac shortcut) and enter your name and you'll quickly find your lyric listed. Based on the Page and Post number you find, here is your judging assignment:

All Page 1 Entries will be voting on Page 3
All Page 2 Entries will be voting on Page 4
All Page 3 Entries will be voting on Page 5
All Page 4 Entries will be voting on Page 6
All Page 5 Entries will be voting on Page 7
All Page 6 Entries will be voting on Page 8
All Page 7 Entries will be voting on Page 9
All Page 8 Entries will be voting on Page 10 and 11 (an additional 6 lyrics)
All Page 9 Entries will be voting on Page 1
All Page 10 Entries will be voting on Page 2
All Page 11 Entries will be voting as follows:
#500 will vote on page 1
#501 will vote on page 2
#502 will vote on page 3
#503 will vote on page 4
#504 will vote on page 5
#505 will vote on page 6

We will move the top 3-4 lyrics from each page forward (except 11). After that, we will use various tie breakers to fill the remaining 10-15 slots. It's common for there to be multiple ties on each page and among competing pages. Rather than simply forwarding 5 lyrics per page, we think it's important to use some judgement and criteria to select the final 10-15 slots. They could each come from different pages or all from the same page. This allows us the flexibility we need to be fair and also to make sure the best lyrics possible get into the final 50 (and leave room for page 11 lyrics to have a shot to move forward). Tie breakers can include (but aren't solely limited to) # of 1st place votes, # of overall votes and if the lyric in question received the 6 bonus points for voting (with the benefit going to those who took the time to vote). We have some other methods we don't reveal to prevent from someone "fixing" a vote.

If you have any questions, please post them on this page!

I will not be in town on Saturday, June 10th, but most questions can be answered by fellow members until I return. If not, I will get to them late Saturday night.

Deadline for Votes:

We extended the deadlines and made some accommodations during the entry period. We need to be much more firm on the voting deadlines. You can submit votes anytime between June 10th until Midnight, Eastern Standard Time US on June 30th. (That means if you live outside of the US or in the Western part of the US, you have to meet the earlier time deadline. To be safe, just get your votes in early!)

Note: It is not required to vote. If you don't you are still eligible to move forward. However, you will be at a 6 point disadvantage to those who did. Even so, several lyrics last year moved forward without vote credits and some even received a final nomination. We prefer all of you to vote. It's a great learning process and this is a community and to make a community great, we need people to get involved. So it's up to you, but we'd love to have 100% of you follow through and vote. Just as all of you are hoping someone else takes the time with your lyric, you should do the same for others.

Also, though we take every reasonable precaution to prevent cheating, vote trading and so on, some people will inevitably try anyway. In 2002 we had to remove 2 participants for blatant cheating. Don't do it. Beyond losing your space in this awards, it will reflect on you permanently going forward. If you cheated and got a nomination, it would be a hollow victory with no real meaning anyway. So play fair and may the best lyrics rise to the top!

I am really looking forward to seeing who makes it to round 2. I think the lyric entries this year are the strongest ever! Good luck everyone!

Brian

Brian Austin Whitney
Founder
Just Plain Folks
www.jpfolks.com

Helpful Link: Here is the link to the post where the lyrics are posted. Be sure to vote on the correct page (as assigned above) and not your own page that contains your lyric entry. For most people, the page you vote on will be 2 pages after your own page.
http://www.justplainfolks.org/ubb/Forum59/HTML/000021.html

[This message has been edited by Brian Austin Whitney (edited 06-25-2006).]

Any command that uses CONTROL on a PC wil use COMMAND (the apple key) on a Mac.
So FIND is "Cmnd F" on a Mac

Hello, It's not clear to me how to access the lyrics I'm supposed to read. Any advice?

Larry,

The lyric post is the page where you originally entered your own lyrics. For those new to using message boards, I strongly suggest you click around on the message boards to learn how to find all sorts of other topics and discussions. To see a list of ALL the topics and discussions, click the icon on the top left of this page just above the link that says "want to register" and it will take you to the main menu of the message boards.

To get directly to the lyric entry page where you already entered your lyric, here's a link:

http://www.justplainfolks.org/ubb/Forum59/HTML/000021.html

But take the time to click around and see all the other stuff on the boards to. Once you learn to navigate the message board, you'll be amazed at all the cool things there are to see and read and contribute to.

Brian

In the top center of this page, there are the following links:

Just Plain Networking Forum
2006 Best Lyrics Award Forum
2006 First Round Lyric Voting Guidelines and Discussion

If you click the one that says "Just Plain Networking Forum" you'll go to a main page that has ALL the message boards. You can scroll down the list to see all the topics. If you want to go to the main page for the Lyric Awards, click the second link titled "2006 Best Lyrics Award Forum" that will show you a list of posts that include this one, the page where you previously entered your lyric, the page where we listed all the rules and guidelines for entry and all the pages from previous year's we've done the awards. Anytime a post looks interesting, you can click the link to the topic and read other posts as well. There are nearly a half million OTHER posts on this board to help you learn, answer questions, network etc. I strongly suggest you take a few minutes to click around and learn more about these message boards. If you only enter a lyric and vote and nothing more, you're missing out on tons of cool stuff and you're also missing out on great networking and educational information.

Learn to navigate it all and you'll be glad you did.

Brian

Brian,

This is a small thing, but irritating. All of the commas on the lyrics page look like question marks! Is this true for everyone else or is only my browser (Firefox) seeing that?

Thanks,

Steve

<this is the page I'm referring to: http://www.justplainfolks.org/ubb/Forum59/HTML/000021.html >

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[This message has been edited by teleguy2 (edited 06-10-2006).]

Steve,

I've never heard that from anyone else in 8 years. So I am guessing it's a problem on your end. I am not familiar with Firefox (heard of it, that's about it) but I am guessing there's a setting that's out of whack for you. That would definitely be irritating, but to be clear, we don't see what you're seeing.

Brian

It looks like my lyric was edited and there are now capital letters in the middle of the first two lines! Any way I can correct this? I'd like readers to see the proper lyric....Many thanks.

I opened the forum using Internet Explorer and it looked fine...so I guess it's just a problem with Firefox.

Weird.

Thanks. Ignore the email I sent along with my votes...sorry.

Steve

Margaret,

If you can give me your post number and the exact thing you need changed, I will be happy to do it.

Brian

Brian -
I use Firefox and I'm not seeing question marks in place of commas anywhere.

Margaret -
Is the lyric correct now?

Marty


[This message has been edited by Marty Helly (edited 06-11-2006).]

Brian. Was scrolling down page seven, where my lyric is posted, and noticed that it has been edited by Kaley Willow. What does that mean? AND I followed the instructions, found my number (316), went to page 9, and made my decisions. Was I correct?

Douglas

Update:

We have 15% of the votes already in. On one page, 2 lyrics are way out in front, but on all the others, it's a dead heat with a dozen or more lyrics. Also, we've only had 1 set of votes turned in for anyone on Page 10 and 11.. so hopefully those folks realize they need to vote to get their bonus points. All other pages have 6 or more votes already in.

Brian

There are so many good lyrics this year, again, I had chosen seventeen entries that I liked. I had to throw out the ones that I don't feel are music ready, even though I liked the read. That brought me down to ten.
I plan to read those ten lyrics again and using the star system for the ones that grab me the most as the easiest to sing. Good luck to all of the entrants. Idamarie

dougdude -

The edited by Kaley (or by me) at the end of the lyrics is just from the process of numbering and removing any extraneous links/comments so that all the lyrics have only the lyric, the writer and the copyright date.

We did not edit the lyrics themselves.

Marty

teleguy -

have you seen this type translation issue before when using your browser? in firefox, you can try tools/options/content and look at your default fonts. Under the font selection you can go to the advanced tab and look at the language protocols being used.

Hope that helps.

Marty

the following post and response from the page number and location topic caused a confusion on my part and I'm not certain how many more so I though perhaps I should share this so that there can be some clarity for those of us who have voted incorrectly. My lyric is on page one and according to this posting I was supposed to vote on lyrics from page one. It wasn't until I was directed to the correct procedure that I finally understood where I was wrong. Thanks for pointing it out Brian. Linda A

dougdude
Serious Contributor

Posts: 59
From: Canada
Registered: May 2006
posted 06-10-2006 18:23               
Brian:

Found my page number but cannot seem to find the pages and the 50 songs I will be voting on?

Douglas

IP: Logged

Brian Austin Whitney
Bard of the Boards

Posts: 7242
From: Indianapolis, IN USA
Registered: Apr 2001
posted 06-10-2006 18:57               
It's the same page you entered your own lyric on.

http://www.justplainfolks.org/ubb/Forum59/HTML/000021.html

Just to repeat the information:

All Page 1 Entries will be voting on Page 3
All Page 2 Entries will be voting on Page 4
All Page 3 Entries will be voting on Page 5
All Page 4 Entries will be voting on Page 6
All Page 5 Entries will be voting on Page 7
All Page 6 Entries will be voting on Page 8
All Page 7 Entries will be voting on Page 9
All Page 8 Entries will be voting on Page 10 and 11 (an additional 6 lyrics)
All Page 9 Entries will be voting on Page 1
All Page 10 Entries will be voting on Page 2
All Page 11 Entries will be voting as follows:
#500 will vote on page 1
#501 will vote on page 2
#502 will vote on page 3
#503 will vote on page 4
#504 will vote on page 5
#505 will vote on page 6

All 11 pages of the lyric thread are here:
http://www.justplainfolks.org/ubb/Forum59/HTML/000021.html

thanks Marty........

Kaley....

Linda,

The problem is you took an out of context answer to someone else's question instead of just reading the actual guidelines yourself.

If anyone has a misunderstanding about how to vote, go back and read the guidelines on this page from start to finish. If you do, you'll know what page # to vote on.

Brian

Brian my website is back up, corespondence can be addressed to admin@teddiecochran-music.com thanks for your patients.

Teddie Cochran
www.teddiecochran-music.com

Brian, Will we be informed as to whether our selections have been received? Frank V.

Frank -

Last time, brian posted a list of those whose votes had not been received a few days before the deadline. I know he hasn't had a chance to do that this week but will probably get around to it early next week.




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Marty my home

Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you
recognize a mistake when you make it again!

Brian, I sent you a private email yesterday. Did you receive it?

Thanks,
Kathy

Thanks again Brian for pointing that out! But as I was reading the guidelines "from start to finish" , there is a link to follow just before the obvious page listings to vote from. My concern was that others are probably following that link before finding the actual information on the guidelines page. I think it's important to note that is all. Thanks and Hope all is well with the voting. Lots of awesome lyrics and I'm happy to be part of this! Linda A.

Hi Brian,
I'm new to JPL entries and finally had the courage to read my lyric entry amidst so many terrific lyrics. I know the voting is almost over, but could you correct a typo error I made? My lyric is #495 (Out On My Own). I typed "finds my" instead of "finds me" in lines 12 and 31. Thanks for your amazing work on behalf of all of us!!
Madeleine

Madeleine,

Done. = )

Brian