JPF Home Page Forums General Messages General Message Forum So Where Does Your Song Rank On Ourstage?

Tammy. When Ourstage first introduced the Comedy genre, I entered right away and maxxed out on voting for the 13 songs that were competing in the first week. However, I didn't get to judge any battles with my song. So obviuosly something was amiss. That song ended up near the bottom by the month's end. However, a couple months later I entered that same song again and made the quarterfinals. The month I made the quarters, I was able to vote in battles with my song. There have been problems such as you've experienced. Mark's explanation may be applicable in your case because you haven't maxxed out on voting. The fact though that I and possibly others have experienced problems with getting the opportunity to vote in battles with our own songs also suggests that there could still be a technical issue. That being said, I haven't experienced the problem since then.

Mark - I think your number 87,990 is correct because 175,980 would be counting the same combination in each direction.

So assuming that 87,990 is the correct number and that each entrant is a voter and a negligible number of others votes in that category, the average voter would have to judge 210 battles for all the combinations to be in a single battle.

I would like to know how many battles actually get fought in a category. I seriously doubt each entrant judges 210 times in a month.

Thanks Colin. I did some mental arithmetic a while back and came to the same conclusion. I have been saying that the system is flawed from almost day one. I have come in for a bit of stick from people who have not really thought this aspect through. The figures speak for themselves. It is hardly surprising that songs end up in wrong positions when even the basic principles and figures do not pan out never mind cheating or bad algorithms.
Put simply it is like a jigsaw puzzle with most of the pieces missing you only get to see some of the picture.
I rest my case.

That said Ourstage is a great site but results and judging IMO mean very little.

Mark I never take it personally. I just revel in the satisfaction that I am ALWAYS right and everybody else including my wife are always wrong. LOL

Tammy

You mentioned the number of times your song has been played.
According to Brian the number of song plays has nothing to do with the number of times a song has come up for judging. It indicates ONLY the number of times someone has sought out your song and played it.

Ourstage does not have transparency in the judging. Brian says folks would get upset if they found out one genre was getting judged a lot and another wasn't. Well I can understand that There are some genre I would never judge. Because I just don't care for the music or do not understand it.

It may be fair it may not, but until there is a way to know if all the songs get the same chance I'm not holding my breath.

It very well may be that every person gets a totally different set of songs to judge. That you may not see a song at all but someone else may see a song a dozen times. And you may see a song a dozen times that someone else may never see.

I don't know how to do the math that tells you how many possible combination's there are. but it seems that each song in 100 songs would have 99 battles so 990 battles, or 900 battles? seems right to me.
Either way who has time to do that? And most Genres have way more than that.

O.K - I figured it out. assume 10 songs. The first song has 9 partners. Now the second song has 8 more partners because one is already there. The next song has seven more partners because two are already there and so on.

So I made a spreadsheet for 420 songs and proved that the 87,990 is correct......that's a lot of battles.

Okay then, another thing to consider. No, not everyone votes on everything. Also, random fans also vote. If you assume a random order of songs for every different voter, things begin to even out more. It will NEVER be perfect...but when we call it FLAWED, I have to ask, what is a better solution? And how would you game-proof it?

I think what they've done is pretty darned smart.

Okay then you used the word random. That is my whole point and why I maintain there are serious flaws. The final order of songs has more in common with random than proper opinions. Random by its very nature means unpredictable, inconsistent and unreliable. When so many people do not vote on the vast majority of battles there is no way these combined stats can be reliable or consistent.
Nothing is gameproof but we need a fair system that is reliable, consistent and transparent so we can get proper results and spot cheating.
I would like to know how many people voted and what they voted for. To save influence or further cheating this could be done after voting ceases at the end of the month. I fail to see why these stats are kept secret when they produce stats on positions all the time. I do not like these positions revealed before a competition ends this is also an open invitation to encourage gaming and tactical voting. I think what they have done is pretty darned smart except for the flawed voting system.

My interest in this is not to criticize the people behind OurStage but to clarify in my own mind whether or not my entries sink to the bottom because they are lousy or because there is a systemic problem!

I actually have an instrumental at #15 of over 400 right now - I bet it doesn't end up in the top 100 though.

Colin I base my judgment on the fairness of the system on two things.

1. In theory it is not fair and workable. You stats prove that.

2. I check the positions of a lot of songs not just my own and there are many songs even allowing for fickle public opinion every month that are so far out of position something has to be very far wrong. I have seen songs remain fairly stable for days and then in the space of a few hours move a hundred places or more.

I don't think they can answer those questions without a) revealing the secrets of their system to competitors, or b) giving enough statistical info to make it possible to game their system.

If they show how many people vote, that also opens the door to how many people you might need to ensure a skewed vote.

We keep saying THEY should come up with a new way to do it. But they already came up with their own brand new innovation, and it is more gameproof than any other you're likely to find. It's not only free, you might in fact get money FROM them. Many of us have won or been in finals.

So why are we--the most likely beneficiaries of their site--also their harshest critics?

I've told you ALREADY we are musicians LOL

Speakin' of...it's about time we did another...

Thinking the same thing myself.....

Post deleted by TAMERA64

Post deleted by TAMERA64

Tammy I know this riles you up. That is probably why people post such stuff. They want to shock and offend. Do not let it get to you. Just vote and skip to the next battle. Do not even bother leaving a comment. If it is as bad as you say then nobody will like it and it will dive to the bottom of the pile. Feeble minded adolescents produce such stuff to get kicks from straight and sensitive people like you. It is a form of teenage rebellion. DO NOT FEED THEM. They want to make a name as "the baddest M fS on the planet" BY IGNORING THEM YOU WILL MAKE THEM THE SILLIEST.

Hey Tammy,

There's always the "off" switch.

cheers, niteshift

Tammy, I agree with you, it is sick, produced by sick minds, but it seem you have no control, if you report it and the people of that board lets them stay, then they are just as sick as the ones doing it. I don't know how many have to report it before they even look. I have not entered a song in that category yet and maybe I shouldn't, I have little tolerance for depraved and evil minds, so it's better to stay clear. I see enough of this junk in the other categories that I have entered.

As much as you may not like it that type of song will probably stay.
It is called Artistic Expression and has been upheld in courts all around the world. The rights are not exclusive to one form of art over another. Paintings and sculptures have been deemed vulgar by the masses yet remain on display all around the world. As have Books, poems, and other works of art.

It may not be to your liking but that is just the way it is. You cannot censor one form of art and leave another form to do as it wants.
Someone may object to your songs. Would you want them removed?

I am not defending it. I don't like public displays of vulgar material either. But other folks might be just fine with it and that is their right.

I don't understand why there is such a discussion on censorship concerning the song to which Tammy objects. This is a very simple out of genre issue. OurStage could be considered fraudulent in allowing a song - that is obviously not in any reasonable person's mind a Christian song - to compete in the Christian genre. Christian music fans listen in to hear Christian music. So they rightfully expect Christian music when they participate in voting in a Christian music genre. OurStage has been quick to move songs that had a lot less obvious case of genre conflict - as testified in numerous posts on this thread in the past. If battles against this song yield unfavorable results for bonafide Christian songs competing, I see a basis for a class action suit, if this out of genre song would win. I don't think such an action would be of benefit - but someone may do it on the basis of principle. OurStage is very foolish if they take a chance on letting things take their course here.

Wow my song is fourth out of 427 in instrumental - a new world record!

You guys and gals need to take a deep breath and do something productive. Just because someone used their freedom of expression to say something you don't like, you can't get all worked up about it. Just vote against it and move on.

There's no grounds to "sue" anyone no matter what Ourstage does. It's a free site and participation is voluntary. If you don't like it, don't participate. But no one has ANY grounds to sue ANYONE for ANYTHING. The entire idea of it is frankly stupid.

Leave it to the Indie artist community to get riled up and try to ruin one of the few sites out there that's trying to give a positive boost to the community for FREE!

And Tammy, why spend all day judging that when you could be judging your peers in the JPF music awards? Seriously.. why not work to bring positive attention to deserving stuff instead of wasting all this energy on something you don't like and are offended by? You're giving them the best publicity they could hope for. That's why they did it and now you're simply encouraging them to do more. Ignore them and you've done the ultimate damage you can do to them.

Brian

Post deleted by TAMERA64

Tammy,

When you're dealing with a large number of songs that get entered into the system throughout the month, some songs will always come up more often as the system play's catch up. And not just catch up for the new songs, but also for the other songs that need to be matched to all the new songs. If there was a predictable pattern then the system would be much easier to fix. Also take into account that the vast majority of the voting takes place in the last few days. So you'll see all sorts of extreme things happen in those days when probably 80+ of all the voting happens.

The fact that you made the overall finals last month and this month you're complaining that the system isn't fair in some way is ridiculous. If it's not fair then you benefited from that unfairness. Are you going to return the category win in protest?

If 100 people vote in the first 3 weeks and then 5000 vote in the last day, which is going to have the most impact and what's going to happen? Chaos is what happens in the rankings. Stuff at the top goes down, stuff at the bottom goes up.

I am watching how people are screening on the JPF awards and the vast differences of opinions is apparent there. Some people mark something as special or flag a half dozen songs off of 1 album and just as many flag nothing from that one at all. When we do the overall song of the year voting, we have to remind ourselves that those final top songs didn't even get a single vote in the final round from most (i.e. more than 50%) of the voters. Yet one of them has to win based on the final voting results. So over 50% of the people will rightfully say "I didn't even think that song was in the top songs of it's own category, let alone the best overall song of the awards" and in their opinion they are 100% correct. But large numbers of votes in these types of things produce results that sometimes even a majority of voters strongly disagree with.

I've spent a lot of time with the Ourstage folks and I know they do everything they can to make the system as fair and honest as is possible. Scumbag artists who try to rig/fix the system suck a lot of options out of the process. Give people ANY chance to be dishonest and sadly many of them will be. So when you have to work so hard to protect from cheaters, so transparent and straight forward systems can't be used. It's reality.

If you guys don't like it, don't use the site. If you do, why not spend a little time talking about how great it is that a company out there is providing a free site to boost up the indie music community when there's so little chances to get any feedback, good or bad, at all from other places? Nothing will ever be perfect, but hell, 4 of the last 6 $5000 dollar winners have been JPF members. (Several of which are regulars here). Tammy nearly won it all last month. You guys aren't cheating right? Any yet your music did very well. What in the heck is the downside here?

Bitch and complain constantly as some have done here for a year and one day it will be gone and we won't be better off for it.

Brian

Post deleted by TAMERA64

Tammy,

I was referring to the comment made by someone else that there should be a class action lawsuit. Here we have a free site that has benefited lots of our members and cost them ZERO... and who also is one of our organization sponsors and someone is rattling the lawsuit sabres? It's ridiculous and offensive.

If the system was dishonest, no one that we know would ever win a dime. But we know LOTS of people who have won LOTS of money. It's not a perfect system, but the only way a system COULD be perfect is if everyone voted honestly. We know for a fact that there are artists who try every method they can think of to cheat. Because of that, the system has to be secretive and it can't be easy to figure out or it will be ripped off. The fact that you can't just easily figure it out is a good thing. If you could, that would mean that scam artists ALSO could figure it out and then continue to cheat.

Some songs will come up more often. You noticed one song that came up 4 times and yours only came up 1 time. But that HAD to happen.. because the odds would be astronomical for NO song out of ALL of them to come up more often than others. When something is random, then random things happen, like a song coming up 4 times. I'd have expected more than 1 to come up multiple times.

When I voted last month in the finals and got through about 1/3rd of the possible combinations, I actually tracked every single song and how many times it came up.. the numbers, after that many voting sessions were pretty balanced with a couple of songs a couple plays ahead of the others. That is exactly what you'd expect. I also remember it took a really large number of votes before the last song finally came up. But then it came up 3 times in about 8 head to head matches and was actually ahead of many other songs. The system is always trying to keep the number of votes the same. When random numbers of people are voting random numbers of times, any sort of combination can come up. Patterns appear that mean nothing in reality. That is the nature of how it works.

Brian

Brian. It's one thing to make an observation about something that COULD happen and another thing to make a statement that something SHOULD happen. No where in my previous post here did I ENDORSE a lawsuit. I simply stated that I see a basis(potentially) for a lawsuit. The fact is that money is involved as a monetary award is made to the winner in each genre. The competition is ADVERTISED as a competition between songs of a specific genre. If a song is no where close to being reasonably considered a song of the genre in which it competes and wins, my observation is that there is a potential for those in the quarterfinals to get together and accuse Ourstage of fraud on the basis of fraudulent advertising. Whether the competition is free or not doesn't matter. Money is awarded and should be awarded to a song that meets the criteria that Ourstage sets when it defines a genre. Seeing this possibility, I made that previous post with the hope that it would motivate someone to action. Evidently it has.
Rather than "trying to ruin" OurStage, I was doing quite the opposite. Warning someone or an entity that they may need to CYA in a situation is more supportive than it is destructive.
I made no accusations, just observations.
I know the Holiday season is a stressful time for many - and our economic situation makes it worse. Brian, you are usually more controlled in your responses. But I think this time, it is you who needs to take a deep breath.(You're already doing something productive)Don't be so quick to judge. Peace.

David,

Actually no. There is NO BASIS for a lawsuit and to suggest that there IS a basis is to damage someone because you want to speculate on something you're wrong about, and for what exactly? To punish them because you don't like something they are doing? For the record, you can FILE a lawsuit with or without a good reason. So in that respect, EVERYONE can be sued at any time if someone wants to spend the money to file a lawsuit. But they don't all have merit. Neither would this one.

If there was an ENTRY fee, then everything would be different. But there isn't. If there was evidence of intentional fraud being committed by the people running it, it would be reason to get upset, but there isn't. If a song, in YOUR opinion, is out of genre, you can flag it as such. There's a system for that. And if the people watching those flags decides enough people agree and that they ALSO agree based on their own internal definition and guidelines, then they move it. If they disagree, or if not enough people have complained, or if they just haven't gotten to it yet, or if they decide that moving it somewhere else simply moves the problem and doesn't solve it (i.e. it still wouldn't fit in many other categories either) then it's not up to you to threaten that because they don't do exactly what you expect or want, they've opened themselves up to a class action lawsuit.

By suggesting that is to cast aspersions on them. That doesn't help anyone. It suggests that "Gosh.. these guys, in David's opinion, might have done something to justify a class action lawsuit against them." That makes a casual reader think "gosh.. people might be suing these people.. we shouldn't get involved then."

You're wrong. If someone came here and said "I think David's actions might have set him up for being charged with a crime or sued" when you'd done nothing wrong, I'd defend you just as vehemently. You're able to say what you want just as I am able to strongly refute what you said. I am choosing to do it because it's rubbish.

If 1 person hears that song and thinks "yeah, I'd put it in that category" then all your arguments are pointless. It's a matter of opinion, and someone could certainly make an argument that any song that mentions a religious figure might best fit in a category that had other religious music. All sorts of things offends all sorts of people. I learned that the hard way when I learned the saga and ill will between Messianic Jews and Jews. Some Jews made it clear to me that they don't care for the other. Messianic Jews are sometimes known as Jews for Jesus. And when dealing with music made by Messianic Jews, even though the subject matter lyrically seems in all ways to support the Jewish religion, non Messianic Jews are sometimes deeply offended by it. But, in our opinion, there wasn't a better place to put those songs. It caused all sorts of angry responses and ill will but in the end, we had to leave that music in that category. In hindsight, I understand even better the nuances of things like that. And it's impossible to please all sides. But to suggest that just because YOU or someone else thinks a song is better suited for a different genre that the people at Ourstage (or JPF in our awards for that matter) would be risking a class action lawsuit unless they did what you (or someone else who disageed) agreed with is rattling a sabre and making a threat against someone's honesty and reputation, on the theory that they are doing something so wrong that they may face legal actions. They aren't doing anything wrong. Give it a rest.

That song could stay. It could eventually be moved. It may already be in discussions on whether or not to move it. They may not even have checked it out yet because not enough people have flagged it to come up on their radar. They may agree with you 100% or they may disagree with you 100%. But in none of those scenarios are they doing anything deserving of or worthy of a lawsuit. And even though anyone can be sued by anyone wanting to file a lawsuit, it doesn't mean that it's appropriate to raise a warning flag that if someone doesn't do a certain thing, they'll be open to a meaningless lawsuit. So stop it.

Brian

Imagine a song being entered in Gangsta Rap and Ourstage being sued for it not being offensive enough. LOL

Jim,

Exactly. You summed up my point much more succinctly. = )

Brian

Post deleted by TAMERA64

Tammy,

Those might have only come up a few times for you, but for someone else, it could be an entirely different mix where YOUR song comes up the most and others don't come up at all. That's called Random. If you were the ONLY voter, then there might be a pattern, but even in a slow category with few voters, any two will have different results.

When I have tracked it in the past, I've found it to be very balanced with a couple ahead and a couple short. When I've gotten through an entire category, I've found that every single combination has come up the same number of times. Unless you can vote on EVERY combination, you'll never have matching results for all the entries. You know this, yet you still get frustrated when the numbers aren't even. You already know the system is honest and fair otherwise you could not have won last month right? You didn't cheat right? So therefore it had to be a fair system where you won because others voted you that way. And you did well in the finals too. A system isn't honest one month and dishonest the next just because you liked last months results better or worse. It's the same system.

Brian

Well what I am saying is that it would be nice if there were plenty of voters consistantly voting from the beginning of the month on. No one knows who is voting or how many. But lets say I was the only voter. Then I would have total control over how the placements went. So I am just saying it is important that there are plenty of voters so the mixes are more even. Lets say I was the only voter just for instance. And let's say I was the only one judging one catagory alone. And this very thing was happening. Let's say I could only get through half of the combinations. Then it would be unfair to those whose songs only came up 1 time and others came up 10 times. Lets say I loved the song that came up 1 time and I wanted it to win. I could hit the "BY FAR" button to vote for it against it's competition. However that would not be enough I doubt to pull it to first place if others came up 10 times and say I voted them "more" against their competitors. The others would get more votes to move them into positions. Do you get my point?

So what I am trying to get across is that you have to hope there are other voters who are on voting that will get the other songs that you are missing in the amount of time you can get all your votes in to make up for that. Other wise some will have an unfair advantage. I know this is IMPOSSIBLE! I am not argueing about that. In a perfect world of voting you would pick 10 judges and give them all songs and all combinations and they would have to finish every last one and then see where it ends up. That would be fair to most people. HOWEVER....it is not that way. So each person does their part and you hope for the best.

Am I making this clear Brian? Somehow I feel incrediably misunderstood on this. Thanks!

Tammy

www.myspace.com/tammyedwards2

I finished #6 in comedy last month, so far I am # 89, same song. If it does not move up a lot in the next few days, it will leave me wondering why, but not fretting about it. Some of the comments left for most of the songs now in the top ten, makes me wonder what tickles their funny bone.LOL

Full Bladder Blues is at #28 in Comedy. I'd type more - but I gotta go.

At Ourstage Coventry Carol is ranked 49, O'Carolan's Air 52 and Wayfaring Stranger 387.

Welcome to JPF Two Harps!

Brian

The song that finished #5 last month finished #96 this month. Go figure.

My band made it to the quarter finals this month in bluegrass with our song, Ocean Mine. Hooray.

Eric

I finished 157th this month. A couple of months back the same song made Q/f finishing in 14th place. Other songs competing THEN were not in the running but finished much much higher THIS MONTH some actually made Q/f. Go figure cause I cannot. Fickle or flawed it does not really matter I have seen enough evidence to make my mind up. The system does not work.

My instrumental was in the top twenty all month long but predictably dropped to 67 in the last two days. Still not bad out of 450 songs but disappointing nevertheless.

Seeing people were too busy this month to get on and vote, maybe that had something to do with the odd results. If only the participants and their fans were voting, it would lead to one sided voting results. Only the general public's vote can give you a truer picture of the real value of your song.

I'm in the quarterfinals in Cover Bands with The Kinks' "Picture Book". Woohoo.

Congrats Mark! Way to go!

I voted in the CCM all month long. A couple of artists came up only 1 time in my voting. Others were seriously a dozen times. I just can't figure it out. My song came up 2 times. Not many voters out. I didn't my best for everyone. All my songs came in well past 100 each. That's the way it goes. lol

Good luck to all in the semi finals!

Tammy

www.myspace.com/tammyedwards2

Thanks Tammy, I ended up at #18. Next month, three new entries:

Covers - "The Last Time"
Singer-Songwriter - "Doubting Thomas"
Comedy - "Andy's Hair"

Congrats Mark. Some very suspect top tenners in covers this month compared to a lot of the lower placed entries. I think a few of us were robbed.

I do it mostly for all the plays I get--hundreds each month, independent of the match-up plays. It's a ton of free exposure and I've made a few nice contacts through OurStage.

So Jim, who don't you like in the top 10?

Hi Mark and a Happy new year to you and everyone at JPF.

I like most of the top ten....but some of them I think are punching way above their weight compared to MANY songs much lower in the rankings. There are one or two in particular that stand out as not quite up to standard...I am sure we can all spot them.

Hi Mark....Just checked this months current positions...I am at No1 and you are at No3. Interesting to see where they EVENTUALLY finish. LOL