Quoting:
How about you do what they did in Amiright Idol (Idle) and allow people to enter whatever song they want, then make them write new songs for each advancing round?

The vote restriction seems...well...restricting.
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Personally I don't like that idea. I'm not the kind of person that can come up with a new song that quickly.

Quoting:
How about you do what they did in Amiright Idol (Idle) and allow people to enter whatever song they want, then make them write new songs for each advancing round?

The vote restriction seems...well...restricting.
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Rice, if you want to organize a tournament like that some time in the future, I'm in because it sounds fun. But that approach would drastically change the type of tournament that this is shaping up to be. The majority of people who write parodies are writing based on inspiration. Setting a deadline makes it necessary for casual authors to force their ideas. And I think this tournament specifically is all about picking and choosing a good one, rather than requiring something that is new.

Quoting:


Rice, if you want to organize a tournament like that some time in the future, I'm in because it sounds fun. But that approach would drastically change the type of tournament that this is shaping up to be. The majority of people who write parodies are writing based on inspiration. Setting a deadline makes it necessary for casual authors to force their ideas. And I think this tournament specifically is all about picking and choosing a good one, rather than requiring something that is new.
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Okay, so if I'm understanding it right, the way you suggest this works is that one song is picked and then advances through the rounds like the NCAA bracket, right?  Which sounds great, except there was something (forgot if it was plan B or plan C) that suggested another song be used in later rounds with varying vote cutoffs, which severely limits the existing songs that artists such as Mike Armstrong or Robert J. Pagliaro can enter in the beginning rounds since their works are so popular.  That's why I voiced my concern, but maybe if Claude were to clarify it for me (because I'm dense ;D ) that'd be great.

I understand what you mean about inspiration and not forcing it though :)

Quoting:
Some excellent suggestions and I've come up with several options:

Plan A:  The original plan with no restrictions.  A single song all the way through; can be a monster hit, an overlooked gem or a completely new song.  The reason I like this plan is simply that it will bring the highest quality songs to the competition.  The downside is that it will be much more difficult for the underdog to pull off an upset.

Plan B:  Restricting songs to a certain vote total.  Evens the playing field by keeping the biggest hits away.  I see the value in that but I also love the idea that all it takes is one great song for Cinderella to go all the way (so to speak) and just like in the NCAA tournament, any team can pull off a miracle.

Plan C:  Different song each round.  Round one would have to be a song that has 10 votes or fewer; Round two can be a 20 vote song and so on until the final round which would have no restriction.  This is actually pretty appealling; the early rounds would be more competitive and you'd have to advance to pull out your big guns.  It would also increase the number of songs you can expose people to and keep them from getting sick of reading the same songs every round.  Also, I think one of the voting guidelines will be to click the vote button on each parody you read to ensure every parody picks up regular votes as well.

Plan A is the default plan for now.  If we get, say, five people to speak up against it in the next couple days we can discuss it further and put it to a vote or something.

As far as the seeding goes, I'm really not in favor of the random process.  The NCAA seeds by ranking so that the best matchups theoretically occur at the end of the tournament instead of the early rounds.  Again, it only takes one kickass song to do well and I don't think there's anyone here who would be here if they didn't think they had at least one of those in them.  Unless anyone else has a strong objection to the voting average seeding idea I'm inclined to go with it.  Thanks everyone for the good response; it looks like this may actually happen.
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Quoting:
 Since we now have five who prefer a plan other than A everyone should now voice their support for a particular plan; the one with the most support by, say, Sunday morning is the one we'll go with.
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Plan A.  

Quoting:
This may be the worst idea ever but it kinda sounds like fun to me.   
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Yo, C4P (et al.)

Agreed. Alas, March truly is Madness for me; I will be MIA for most of it and thus unable to vote in some of the rounds. I suppose I could throw a parody into the playoffs and just let it ride, but clearly that's not what this tourney is all about. So I guess I'd better just forfeit. Sigh.

Oh, and I'll try to catch up on my parody comments soon.
xoxox
Spaff

Quoting:
Yeah, I'm A. It's the simplest and the fairest to everyone. However, if I have to stare an already-made-#1-on-the-charts parody in the face the first round, I will be making this face:  >:(
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Uh...unless you kick its butt, I presume.  

Thanks for checking in, Spaff--and if this goes well it looks like there may be more in the future.

We have exactly sixteen now to fill one bracket but if more show interest we can do another.  So far I count two votes for plan A, two for B and two for C...if we don't get a consensus soon I may have to pull out plan D, just to heighten the confusion.

Quoting:
There's no reason to restrict it to 16 entrants; I'm thinking that's just the minimum number we'd need for it to be worth it.  Once we had sixteen, the plan would be to seed them according to overall voting average of the parody author (unless someone has a better idea--I'm definitely open to suggestions).  In case anyone doesn't know what that means, I'd list them in order of voting average with the highest at the top and assign numbers.  The #1 seed would be matched up against #16, #2 against #15, and so on--the matching would be completely objective, with the bracket being filled by the first sixteen who say they're interested.  If more people want to, we could fill another bracket but only if we got another sixteen, and the winners of each bracket could face off against each other.  I'd be pretty happy with sixteen though; more would be fine but more participants means a bigger voting committment.

I'm not in a huge hurry but I don't wanna drag this out too long; I go on vacation spring break and I'd like to be done by then.  If we got sixteen by the end of the week I could post an official entry thread and everyone could reply to it with their songs next week.  I could fill out the bracket over the weekend and the voting could begin right when March does.  As far as I'm concerned you don't have to commit to a song until the day I announce we have sixteen and I'm filling out the bracket.  For now I guess just think about which song you might want to enter and wait and see if anyone else is actually interested.  Again, the voting committment would most likely involve eight pairs of songs the first round, four pairs the second round, and so on.  
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So Claude, how do you envision the voting occurring, from a technical interface point of view?  Where and how do paricipants record their votes?  And will all participants be asked to be on the "honor system" and refrain from voting on their own songs, of course?

Just looking for your thoughts on how this mechanical aspect of the tournament shall proceed .... thanks!

JD

Quoting:


So Claude, how do you envision the voting occurring, from a technical interface point of view?  Where and how do paricipants record their votes?  And will all participants be asked to be on the "honor system" and refrain from voting on their own songs, of course?

Just looking for your thoughts on how this mechanical aspect of the tournament shall proceed .... thanks!

JD
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Good question Johnny.  The plan is for everyone to reply on the messageboard to the official bracket thread with a list of the numbers of their choices--for example, 1, 9, 5, 4, 6, 3, 10, 2 (if they happened to prefer the first choice in each pair).  I have no problem with people voting on their own matchup because everyone else can do it too.  If people don't want to vote openly they should let me know before voting starts and we can do it via instant messaging to me.  I like the open voting for a couple reasons:  less work for me--the tournament really sorta runs itself that way--also, if anyone decides to "go Survivor" on us (gang up on the best songs to get rid of them early) they'll at least look bad doing it.  As always, I'm open to suggestions.

Quoting:

I like the open voting for a couple reasons:  less work for me--the tournament really sorta runs itself that way--also, if anyone decides to "go Survivor" on us (gang up on the best songs to get rid of them early) they'll at least look bad doing it.  As always, I'm open to suggestions.
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Open voting to shame people who "go Survivor" - YES!!  That's what I am in favor of.  Thanks Claude!

JD

Quoting:
i'm the least average voted on going agaisnt the highest average voted on, there would be NO way the underdog can win.
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Your voting average is based on all of your songs.  Some bring your average up, some bring it down.   On your page, I counted at least two with an overall average of 5.00.  I'm not saying you should go with one of those; I'm just saying it only takes one.  This is not an ultimate judgment of you as a person or even as a parody writer.  It's just for fun; please don't take it too seriously.  

This seems like a good time to remind everyone that it would be a good idea, if choosing a song not everyone is familiar with, to include a url to a free download or copy of the original lyrics when you submit your entry.  I know if I were voting, it would be VERY DIFFICULT to get my vote with a song I didn't know.  It's up to you to make it easy for people to familiarize themselves with the original so they'll have a better chance of enjoying the experience of reading your parody.  

Quoting:
If there's still room, I'm in.
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As of right now, we have the first bracket filled.  If we get enough interest we can fill another but they're not coming in very quickly; maybe once we get this one started more people will want to join.  neminem is officially the first reserve if anyone backs out or doesn't meet the deadlines when we begin; Agrimorfee expressed some interest but didn't specifically say he was in so we can consider you the second reserve if you like.

Quoting:
understood but you know how hard it is to put up a FREE mp3 of the original? lyrics won't help some songs, you'd have to hear it.
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Actually, no I don't; I never do that stuff but I've seen others do it.  In fact, Johnny D is one of them; perhaps he'd be kind enough to give you some advice in that area.

Quoting:
i also wanna know how are you going to decide the winner? by PM? because if you do it by votes, i could easily clear my history every 5 minutes and vote for myself over and over.
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The plan is for everyone to reply on the messageboard to the official bracket thread with a list of the numbers of their choices--for example, 1, 9, 5, 4, 6, 3, 10, 2 (if they happened to prefer the first choice in each pair).  I have no problem with people voting on their own matchup because everyone else can do it too.  If people don't want to vote openly they should let me know before voting starts and we can do it via instant messaging to me.  I like the open voting for a couple reasons:  less work for me--the tournament really sorta runs itself that way--also, if anyone decides to "go Survivor" on us (gang up on the best songs to get rid of them early) they'll at least look bad doing it.  As always, I'm open to suggestions.

Quoting:
Since all the songs will stay the same, DKTOS will only be an issue right when we start. So, why not make the deadline for turning songs in Saturday at some set time, and then spend that Sunday afterward finding samples of all the songs. I think all of the authors participating should go out and try to find a sample of their song, and be ready with it at the time that we submit our final song choices. Either have a sample by then, or state: "I've tried looking but I can't find a sample. Won't someone please help me find one?" Since it is format A, the best bet is to pick a well-known song anyway, so maybe this won't be as big an issue. But just in case, use Johnny's helpful hints and try to find a sample of your song choice after you've decided.
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I don't want to be a pain in the butt, but that wouldn't work for me since tormorrow (sunday) I won't be home for like the whole day. I mean i could try and get some stuff later that night, but as for meeting a deadline sometime during the day and using the rest of the day to find a sample, well it's just not there.

Quoting:
Hey, can I play too?  
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Possibly.  We currently have one bracket completely filled and another 2 or 3 interested in starting another one, but that's beginning to seem unlikely.  If anyone else backs out, I can put you second on the list to fill in if you like.

Quoting:
Claude...from the comments section, I've been trying to direct them here.  We should direct thm to the other thread that you mentioned?
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Either way; they'll figure it out.  If they reply to this, I'll see it but that one will probably see more action.  Thanks.

Quoting:

As of right now, we have the first bracket filled.  If we get enough interest we can fill another but they're not coming in very quickly; maybe once we get this one started more people will want to join.  neminem is officially the first reserve if anyone backs out or doesn't meet the deadlines when we begin; Agrimorfee expressed some interest but didn't specifically say he was in so we can consider you the second reserve if you like.
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Before I miss my chance on this one, I would like the second reserve.  Lacking that, I would like to enter the second contest, if there is one.  (Just making sure.. ;)  )

Quoting:


Before I miss my chance on this one, I would like the second reserve.  Lacking that, I would like to enter the second contest, if there is one.  (Just making sure.. ;)  )
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Actually, now that neminem is in, you're the first reserve (then Guy, then Rick, assuming they want in).  People have all week to get their songs in though so hopefully no one's forgotten about it or anything.

Quoting:
OK............ I'll play too! How soon do I need to submit a parody , Claude?
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Yay!  No big rush, actually; we have one bracket filled and they're all submitting their songs this week.  I think we have five or six now for the second bracket; with some luck I think we'll fill it in a few days and start putting our songs up by the end of the week.  If not, I have a possible alternative available which I'll elaborate on if we have trouble filling our bracket.  Thanks Diva

Quoting:
OK............ I'll play too!
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Thanks, Diva!   ;D

Quoting:

Yay!  No big rush, actually; we have one bracket filled and they're all submitting their songs this week.  I think we have five or six now for the second bracket; with some luck I think we'll fill it in a few days and start putting our songs up by the end of the week.  If not, I have a possible alternative available which I'll elaborate on if we have trouble filling our bracket.  Thanks Diva
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Quoting:
Claude - Just got my new PC today and also Internet access so I'd to get into the upcoming round.  

Thanks,

Paul Robinson

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Sounds good Paul; I think we're up to 8 or 9 now.