Once upon a time, there were charts tracking the voting results of parodies posted to amiright. Most people behaved responsibly, but occasionally people cheated by voting up their own parodies or voting down someone else's. Frustration with such cheating eventually resulted in hiding the charts which were completely lost after some technical problem that the site had. I think they should come back.

Sure, people may try to cheat, but that happens in every competition that people care about. Many, many people tried to sabotage American Idol this year, but Sanjaya eventually lost and even those eliminated before him are probably much better off than they would have been if the competition was cancelled because not everyone voted honestly.

People don't vote honestly all the time now anyway. The 111 vote out of spite still exists, and these days it seems that many are reluctant to hurt the feelings of anyone who made an effort, especially if the vote is for a competition entry, so there is a huge discrepancy in quality among parodies getting (close to) straight fives. I think if there were charts intended to give casual readers feedback regarding which parodies are worth reading, there would be a lot more honest voting than we have now.

Another reason why the charts should come back is incentive for the writers. For a parody writer, there is nothing that can replace the ego boost (outside of a successful live performance or recording) of legitimately doing well on the amiright charts because lots of people read and liked his or her work. Doing well in a contest because other writers liked a parody is nice, but the kind of community the aspires to publish books consisting of its creative output should be writing for the general public. I'm sure that quite a few people who used to contribute to this site stopped doing so because they lost the opportunity to create "hits".

That's my argument so far - what do you think?

2 against it? How come?

I say bring em back, I think there is a new set to voting now that keeps the abuse from happening.(I'll vote on something real quick to check and make sure)

Yep, you can only vote once on a parody.

I'm against it for a few reasons:

1. I came here after the charts were gone, so it'd be too dramatic a change for me.
2. It's a glorified popularity contest. Inevitably, the parodies done to popular modern OSes would be voted to the top, even if they were very poorly written.
3. I love SOTM—don't abolish it!!

I'm against it for a few reasons:

1. I came here after the charts were gone, so it'd be too dramatic a change for me.
2. It's a glorified popularity contest. Inevitably, the parodies done to popular modern OSes would be voted to the top, even if they were very poorly written.
3. I love SOTM—don't abolish it!!


It would abolish SOTM?

I don't know where people are getting the idea that contests would be abolished if the charts came back

Why would they do that when the two are seperate things?

I'm against it for a few reasons:

1. I came here after the charts were gone, so it'd be too dramatic a change for me.
2. It's a glorified popularity contest. Inevitably, the parodies done to popular modern OSes would be voted to the top, even if they were very poorly written.
3. I love SOTM—don't abolish it!!


#2: That wasn't the case when the charts were around. Besides, SOTM existed before the charts went down. It was the ABC contests that were created (by me) in an attempt to fill the void left by the hiding of the charts. It in the current system, parodies to new songs are at an extreme disadvantage even if they are well written, and how is that fair?

#1: If you don' like the charts, don't look at them. Parodies are all about changing things, aren't they?

To everything. . .

Charts are always fun, I myself am indifferent on it. . . .I kinda like the general idea. . .

Badave.com will have charts for the recorded parodies, but there will be no "vote down" option.  In other words, if a song recieves points--it can only help, every vote is a positive one which will discourage 'down voting'  Charts will never be inherintely 100% fair, we know that, but we also all know that they are fun wether or not we'd like to admit it.  I too came after charts, and I'm fine without them, but I have to admit, if they were around I'd check them from time to time.  I don't think they'd make a dramatic difference in voting though.  I mean, those who vote below a 4 won't leave comments, so then people will go bashing other songs when their's gets voted, and eventually everyone starts rating 555 again.  Honestly, I don't look at the 1,2,3,4 and 5 votes, I look at the comments, I find they are a much better indicator of how I'm doing.

Anyhow. . .good luck whichever way it goes.

Even though the charts were hidden by the time I arrived on the site (Feb '05), they continued to function until sometime late last year. I did look at them, and even liked them, but the ABCs and SOTM provide more feedback to me than the charts ever did.

I don't quite get your point though here, Ethan:


People don't vote honestly all the time now anyway. The 111 vote out of spite still exists, and these days it seems that many are reluctant to hurt the feelings of anyone who made an effort, especially if the vote is for a competition entry, so there is a huge discrepancy in quality among parodies getting (close to) straight fives. I think if there were charts intended to give casual readers feedback regarding which parodies are worth reading, there would be a lot more honest voting than we have now.



The charts are not going to change any of that. 1 votes are going to be there no matter what. The charts merely show how many votes a parody recieved and the average of said votes. A "worthy" parody may get 3 votes or 20 the day it's posted, but I think that has more to do with the day of week it's posted and number of parodies posted with it than any worthiness.


It in the current system, parodies to new songs are at an extreme disadvantage even if they are well written, and how is that fair?


Well, it's not fair, and again I don't see how charts will help that - if you write the funniest parody ever to a new song few know, and it gets 1 or 2 votes, it would be way way down on the top 100 for the week. I just don't see people flocking to read the #94th ranked parody of the week.

I used to do a ton of parodies to songs that were very obscure, and part of doing those is knowing that those parodies aren't going to be (as Peter Andersson once put it to me) "vote magnets". Providing a MP3 or video, if possible, for obscure or new songs does a lot more IMO to help those parodies than a chart would.

The main reason I voted against bringing them back though is that, last time I checked, for a parody to crack the all-time top 100 it needed close to 100 very good votes (4.8 or better in each category) or more like 150 votes 4.2 or better. Very few parodies these days ever reach such numbers - there might have been 6 parodies in the past 2 years that cracked 100 votes, good or bad. AFAIK, there one SOTM medalist on the charts (2nz "I Wok Alone" - 3rd Jan '05 SOTM), but no SOTY entries made it, even though they were quite a bit better than much more voted on songs.

Even with 1 votes, political pieces (Tong's) often cracked first place in the weekly simply because there were so many votes and the way the system was weighted. A parody with 45 votes and 4.0 average is not necessarily better than a parody with 18 votes and a 5.0 average.

Although at times I have been concerned by vote count, the comments really tell the true story of how a parody fared. In a few SOTM rounds, I've gone with as low as my 5th most voted on parody that month because the comments told me it was my best piece.

Numbers here often don't really mean much - look at the author's page. Claude Prez is a HELL of a lot better writer that his average suggests. Same with Spaff. Tong has more votes than the other top 9 authors combined. Sort by pacing and you'll find it isn't Stu, Kristof, Rick C, etc that has the best pacing - it's Heathcliff the Cat (who? exactly...).

Anyway, while I love numbers and stats, I don't think bringing back the charts, at least the exact way they were before, is going to really do what you want them to do, Ethan.

The charts will never be perfect - charts never are - but I still think they'd do much more good than harm.

I'm not really concerned with the all time top 100 - much more so the top 100 weekly and monthly. It's nearly impossible to make the top 100 of all time for anything. But weeekly and monthly are certainly impossible.

I believe that the opinion of the general public is more important than that of the parody writing community, which is actually a small segment of the general public.

The charts wouldn't guarantee exposure that wouldn't be achieved otherwise, but if they exist then so do opportunities that otherwise wouldn't. Especially if the charts were accompanied by billboardesque articles written by parody enthusiasts who may be parody writers but wouldn't have to be.

Bump bump bump....


Chucky wanted to know how to boost interest in the site - I'm pretty sure that the busiest time in Amiright history was when the charts were expanded and visible - I don't think that it was a coincidence.

The one votes will always be there, but with writers doing most of the rating then you get a lot of triple fives spanning a huge range of quality and votes become basically meaningless. Comments are more important, but I remember a lot more comments from non-authors back in the days of the charts. Why not give it a 6 month trial period and see what happens?

Bump bump bump....


Chucky wanted to know how to boost interest in the site - I'm pretty sure that the busiest time in Amiright history was when the charts were expanded and visible - I don't think that it was a coincidence.

The one votes will always be there, but with writers doing most of the rating then you get a lot of triple fives spanning a huge range of quality and votes become basically meaningless. Comments are more important, but I remember a lot more comments from non-authors back in the days of the charts. Why not give it a 6 month trial period and see what happens?


worth a shot I guess...

not sure if the voting tally scripts are still around, or if I should code new ones (I'm wiser now than when I coded the old ones)  It used to run slowly, and considering that the database was way smaller five years ago, it might require a rewrite.

I'll also need to put in some dupe vote checks to try and cut down on the jerks again as well.

oddly enough, despite some big changes to the site in the past few years, it still works

http://www.amiright.com/parody/votes.shtml

I tried the lifetime version as well, and it didn't appear to give any results different than the last time I ran it.  Not really useful or interesting.  Takes forever too, so I'm not going to bother with it again.

I think I'm going to take back the whole "works right" thing, because it's showing the same for the monthly count as it does for the weekly score.  Probably should be re-written.

I took a look at the weekly charts...interesting how the entire list is made up of songs by amiright "regulars".  Not necessarily a good thing or a bad thing, but interesting.

I took a look at the weekly charts...interesting how the entire list is made up of songs by amiright "regulars".  Not necessarily a good thing or a bad thing, but interesting.


I think that's the way it has always been. It's just there used to be more regulars

You do have a point about new songs being disadvantaged a bit... here. I was looking through my stats at Soundclick last night, and my most played song isn't near my best work (but it is my newest): it's my "Hey There Maria" parody with 1100 or so listens, most of which came in the first two months it was over there. That song is also under my "new" name, so name recognition is not a factor for its stats, and I'm hardly a regular over there.

Of course, Soundclick is nothing but stats (I have a total of two comments on all my parodies over there), and ever since they revamped their page design earlier this year that made finding MP3s harder, download numbers are in the toilet.

Their charts are weighted: downloads that are purchased count more than downloads count more than listens. A song with 60 listens and 2 downloads might chart worse than one with 20 listens and 15 downloads. It would be cool if the charts here could be weighted to take into consideration more than votes, like total hits or unique IP comments  (i.e. 4 comments by the same person only count as 1).

Ant