Hi everybody.  So I have this idea for a new contest and was wondering if anyone would be willing to participate.  It could work with just two or three people, but obviously more would be better.

First, in a perfect world, it wouldn’t even be necessary.  The Top Ten Lists that used to be on the site were great, except for a few people ruined them for everyone else by cheating.  This was the main reason I started the Song of the Month contest, and while it worked really well, it was maybe too exclusive. 

This new contest is an attempt to combine the two -- the inclusiveness and relatively easy voting of the Top Ten Lists, with the public, accountable voting of the message board contests.

Here’s how I hope it would work, but I assume tweaking will be necessary.  It’s also possible it will simply crash and burn (or die quietly because not enough people are into it), but I’m very curious to see if it would work.

*****Entering and voting can begin as soon as the first song parody update of the month appears on AmiRight.

*****You enter and vote the same way -- by putting the urls of your favorite parodies from that month in your contest post, and ranking each entry on a scale from 1 to 10.

*****You may choose your own parodies.  That’s actually the idea.  The catch is, for every parody of your own that you choose, you must pick two that belong to two other different authors.  There’s a limit of 12 total for the month, which means there’s a limit of 4 of your own -- or anyone else’s -- entries.

*****Only parody authors who’ve had at least 10 parodies appear on AmiRight may participate.  I hate to exclude newbies, but if anyone is going to game the system by creating multiple accounts, they’re going to have to work really hard for it. 

*****You don’t have to pick all your songs at once, but you should edit your contest post to add your choices as the month goes on. 

*****Only parodies from the contest month are eligible.  Entering/ voting will be allowed until the seventh day of the following month, after which the 1-10 rankings will be tallied and the winners announced.

*****You are not required to read or comment on all entries.  You are not even required to comment on the parodies you choose (though obviously it would be nice).  This is in the spirit of the old Top Ten lists, where people could just ignore songs they didn’t know or weren’t interested in.  It’s up to the parody author to make their parody appealing to others if they want it to do well. 

I think that’s pretty much it; hopefully everyone gets the idea.  Your contest post would be where you put your favorites of the month, both yours and anyone else’s.  It would also be a good place to put any DKTOS-type links, explanations, or otherwise campaign for them.  The 1-10 ranking is to help prevent ties, though I’m not sure how comfortable people would be publicly ranking their own parodies.  Also, I really like 1-10 ranking; it’s pretty universal and I think people are a lot more willing to give a 7, 8, or 9 to parodies they may like a lot, but save the 10s for the really wow stuff. 

How long the list of winning songs is depends on how many people participate.  The hope is to eventually expand to a Monthly Top 40, but I’m guessing that whoever participates will tend to dominate the list, at least at first, so I’d probably want to start with a Top Ten, which would be posted in the AmiRight Events section.  The main goal of this for me, is to make the highest quality parodies on the site easily accessible to new visitors, encouraging and challenging them to stick around and participate.  That’s the theory, anyway.

All right, that’s it for now, I guess.  If you’re interested, please PLEASE respond and let me know; I will not move forward on this unless I know at least two other people will definitely participate.  Thanks.

As in any great empire Amiright as of this moment has fallen and except for Conqueror of Parodies and Robert D. Arndt Jr. there are very few people who pay homage to it several times a month. It had two Renissance periods. 1. The birth of the site with people like Stuart McArthur, Kristof Robertson, The Comedian, Merry & Pippin, John A Barry and Alvin Rhodes showing up constantly. 2. The rebirth of Amiright with the coming of Below Average Dave and in his wake a rise of song recordings. Some such as Agrimorfee, Red Ant and Jeff Reuben were witness to both but others such as Conqueror of Parodies, Matthias, Weird Abbott and Blaydeman only grew in size and power because of recordings and have Below Average Dave to thank. With his disappearance Amiright lost the energy it once had. Songs go up and seldomly people comment on them. Hard work and sacrifice goes unnoticed which drains even more energy from the Amirighters which I believe leaves us where we are today. Nobody wants to put up a song that they worked hard on to have it go unnoticed and when a comment is applied its often times done to troll somebody which never was the case in the old days. It's depressing but if we want to have a contest such as this we must get to the root of the problem and I think I figured out what it is.

There is a lack of energy and many of our Amiright ancestors have moved on which leaves us with very little.

I'm hoping for a 3rd wave to come through but with only Matthias and Conqueror of parodies competing against each other many times singlehandedly in the Artistry competition which once was one of the strongest competitions held its very hard to see a future for this site.

Allow me to clarify by saying that Artistry is only one example. We used to have a comrodity here that we no longer have. 

We were friends and played with each other through our work. I actually had the oppertunity to meet Red Ant, Jeff Reuben and Below Average Dave before and chat on the phone with them and Abbott Skelding too. Now its like all of your friends have moved out of state and you're still here.

As in any great empire Amiright as of this moment has fallen and except for Conqueror of Parodies and Robert D. Arndt Jr. there are very few people who pay homage to it several times a month. It had two Renissance periods. 1. The birth of the site with people like Stuart McArthur, Kristof Robertson, The Comedian, Merry & Pippin, John A Barry and Alvin Rhodes showing up constantly. 2. The rebirth of Amiright with the coming of Below Average Dave and in his wake a rise of song recordings. Some such as Agrimorfee, Red Ant and Jeff Reuben were witness to both but others such as Conqueror of Parodies, Matthias, Weird Abbott and Blaydeman only grew in size and power because of recordings and have Below Average Dave to thank. With his disappearance Amiright lost the energy it once had. Songs go up and seldomly people comment on them. Hard work and sacrifice goes unnoticed which drains even more energy from the Amirighters which I believe leaves us where we are today. Nobody wants to put up a song that they worked hard on to have it go unnoticed and when a comment is applied its often times done to troll somebody which never was the case in the old days. It's depressing but if we want to have a contest such as this we must get to the root of the problem and I think I figured out what it is.

There is a lack of energy and many of our Amiright ancestors have moved on which leaves us with very little.

I'm hoping for a 3rd wave to come through but with only Matthias and Conqueror of parodies competing against each other many times singlehandedly in the Artistry competition which once was one of the strongest competitions held its very hard to see a future for this site.

Allow me to clarify by saying that Artistry is only one example. We used to have a comrodity here that we no longer have. 

We were friends and played with each other through our work. I actually had the oppertunity to meet Red Ant, Jeff Reuben and Below Average Dave before and chat on the phone with them and Abbott Skelding too. Now its like all of your friends have moved out of state and you're still here.

All good points Matthias, and believe me, I am right with you on the current state of the site.  Actually, I prefer the term "the community", because the site itself is -- and always has been -- awesome.  Chucky has done a fantastic job building and maintaining this place.  It's the community that's fallen apart.

I think we may have differing views on the history of the community, though.  This is what the new entries looked like when I arrived at the site in March 2003.  Youth of this Website is a parody by STG that appeared the same day my first submissions appeared.  Bob Gomez and Merry and Pippin also had their first parodies appear that same day.

This place was filled with younger people in the early days, then William Tong and a bunch of other "old people"  (me, Bob, M&P, Spaff, M*lhi, Rick Duncan, Johnny D, and many others) -- discovered the place and sort of took over, something that younger people like STG and Ethan were always complaining about.  It made it more difficult to get attention, so most of them left.  For most people (like myself), there's a natural lifespan for their involvement here.  People like Phil Alexander, Jeff Reuben, and anyone else (like yourself) still here after all these years are the hardcore exceptions.  My point is the community has always had plenty of turnover, has always depended on new blood to replace the inevitable departures.

Which brings me to what I believe is the real root of the problem -- lots of people have been leaving for years, and very few have shown up to replace them.  And former site regulars -- like, *ahem*, myself, who think they might want to come back, feel that there's nothing here to come back to.  And they're right.  And it's a shame.  I can't tell you how many times I popped in over the past fews years, took one look around at the crazy person sockpuppet show in the comment section, and the sh*tting contest on top of the Parody Authors list, and backed out slowly like Bart and Lisa that time they met Adam West.

And that's me, who's obviously got an emotional attachment to the site.  Imagine what a brand new visitor thinks.  Which is why, when I think about how to even attempt to change things around here, my focus goes back to when I first visited the site, and what excited me about it.  Obviously, the community was thriving then, but I didn't really notice that.  I was just thrilled that you could vote on parodies, and other people could vote on your parodies, and there were these Top Ten Lists, and I immediately imagined myself shooting to the top of the charts, even though I'd never written a parody in my life.  I literally pooped one out in fifteen minutes, only to realize I'd have to wait a day or two before it appeared so my "domination" could begin.  I recommend you (and anyone else reading this) think a little bit about your very first days here, and what it was about this place that made you want to start participating.  I may be wrong, but I think for most people it ignites their competitive spirit.  But if the only way to "win" is to write as many parodies as fast as you can, that doesn't inspire many quality-minded people to stay -- the type of people who would appreciate a quality effort by other authors, instead of seeing them all as a threat to their insane plan to take over the site.

That's why my recent efforts are focused on putting attention squarely onto the quality the site offers -- to inspire and challenge new visitors to stay and participate.  I guess I'm confused about your idea of a solution.  You're hoping for a new wave of people with more energy to come through, but you don't think the current members expending a little energy to attract them is a good idea?  Correct me if I misunderstood.  Again, I know my coming in here after all this time and trying to jump back into a leadership role is presumptuous, but frankly, I don't care.  This place needs all the help it can get.  If you think there's no way this contest will help attract new members to the community, that's fair, but please tell me why; I really can't do this alone, and there's a limit to how long I'm gonna embarrass myself by trying.

I came here late or to late. 

Okay Claude,

I think that your competition has merit BUT I don't think that we're getting the traffic that we need to give such a challenge any kind of life that it needs.

We want to make a change but as you said above there aren't enough new artists replacing the old.

We've come to a standstill and I think it won't budge as long as the Amiright parodies that go up only seek attention from the trolls scaring all the newbies away.

I want this very much but is it possible? I'm not sure...

I'm not sure either, but with a quick look at last month's submissions, I counted 183 parodies by 40+ different authors.  To be clear, we don't need a lot of people to participate in the voting to come up with a list that will (hopefully) represent the highest quality stuff being submitted.  More is better, of course, but for me the main point is to isolate the good stuff that's there from the giant piles of crap that tend to overwhelm it.  To be honest, I'd think you and other quality-minded authors would like an opportunity to have your stuff stand out.  As long as people are voting honestly-- which tends to happen when it's public-- the cream should rise to the top.

When I first came to intheoo's is was to start parodying myself, not to see or join all these compositions.  Now if you don't know I want to try to get some videos done with some of my parodies.  I want to try and connect my writings with whatever I may end up videoing on youtube.  I myself wish to give people things to laugh at no become or only interest people who only want to become professionals.

I'm not sure either, but with a quick look at last month's submissions, I counted 183 parodies by 40+ different authors.  To be clear, we don't need a lot of people to participate in the voting to come up with a list that will (hopefully) represent the highest quality stuff being submitted.  More is better, of course, but for me the main point is to isolate the good stuff that's there from the giant piles of crap that tend to overwhelm it.  To be honest, I'd think you and other quality-minded authors would like an opportunity to have your stuff stand out.  As long as people are voting honestly-- which tends to happen when it's public-- the cream should rise to the top.


I'm in

Awesome!  Together we shall rule the galaxy my son.....wait, no wrong thread sorry

Seriously, I really think it could work.  I for one can't wait to ignore the negativity instead of feeding the trolls; gotta get better about that.

I think you want    It COULD WORK

I love, love all of the commentary here and commiserate with my fellow writers on what kind of place this used to be.

I do have to chime in that it is not only the atrocious lack of quality and decorum that the place has come to, but other factors include the rise of other modes of broadcasting (to use a broad term, yar) our collective creativity. YouTube has exploded the amateur performance of parodies. dementiaradio seems to be a forefront for airing performances (I seem to have missed the boat on a lot of it). Lots of people can make their own website or use facebook/etc. What millenial noob would seek out a simple text driven site that doesn't even have a dedicated audio feature when they can do it all themselves?

Another factor is lifestyle and life events. Speaking for myself, my relatively calm life (and thereupon my parody writing and posting) was heavily curtailed by my getting laid off in 2009, taking almost a year to finding new employment and a new place to live while we raise our special needs child. My time to write and effectively post and comment (particularly on most of the parodies of top pop hits that TCOP and Matthias manage to crank out--mostly songs and artists I never heard of) is still severely limited nowadays. It is my understanding Below Average Dave had a huge change to his life that also affected his participation. I am not sure why Ethan Mawyer prefers to post exclusively to his blog and not here--maybe he feels many of the same emotions Claude and Matthias have pointed out.

Anyway, Claude,what I am leading up to is that I applaud your efforts. This plan for a Top 10 contest is fine for those who can really grind away into the website on a daily basis--but that is not me. Althouh your guidelines clearly state reading and commenting are not mandatory, I would not feel honest and forthright in participating without the right amount of work. I hope anyone reading this thread can fully join in.

What this site needs is some positive "viral" chatter...to let artists out there know that this is a repository for creativity and community responsiveness, not a forum for political grandstanding and a racetrack to write more parodies than everyone else.

Thanks for the reply, Agri.  And I'm totally in agreement about the reasons why this place is so different -- the idea that it could ever go back to the way it was is ridiculous because it really is a different world now.  But man, it could be so much better.  I think of it like a beloved relative with Alzheimer's -- the body (site) is still there, but the mind (community) is almost completely gone.

I also agree with your assessment that what the site needs is more positivity to counter the negativity.  There's basically a one-man wrecking crew who's taken over and set the tone, and the anonymity of unlimited usernames allows him to create the illusion that there actually is a community there that revolves around him.  Creepy.  And it's encouraged actual users to do the same crap, and it's gotten way out of hand. 

I really think the only way to turn it around is by:

1.  Highlighting the quality work of members -- past and present -- who play well with others and set a good example.  New visitors need to see as much quality and positive rapport as possible. 

2.  Ignoring the negativity.  I've been very bad about this, but I'm going to get better.  Sometimes I'm torn between calling out bad behavior and just ignoring it.  It will be easier to ignore if there's only one person doing it, which is why I've been making such a big deal about people using multiple names lately.

I understand your unwillingness to commit to participating in a new contest; it's starting to look like it won't happen anyway.  I would like to stress to anyone reading, though, that as I envision it, it wouldn't be nearly as much work as, say, the SOTM was.  It's really just an attempt to move the site's compromised voting system to the messageboard.  Anyone who regularly scans the new submissions for anything good would just have a place to put the stuff they like so other people can notice it too.  I really am curious as to how well it would work as much as anything else.

As I posted elsewhere, report personal attacks, but don't engage against the negative (or totally obsessive) commentary.

When I introduced the One Week Notice concept/idea I deliberately used the phrase "comparative spirit" instead of competitive ditto. There are things to be said for competitions, they worked wonders here back in the day, SOTM had more than twenty participants some months during its peak and I enjoyed being part of the journey where it grew in popularity. Though I did arrive here on Amiright before it started and was already a bit hooked for other reasons than the comps, mainly positive feedback in the comments.

Still I almost left after a year when I was in reschool/retraining (can't find the right english term right now) for a new line of work, but decided that I wanted to sign off with my best parody to date so I spent a lot of time writing this one:

http://www.amiright.com/parody/2000s/robertlundschristmasalbum0.shtml

The comments section is practically a who's-who of Amiright of that year, all positive. I couldn't help keep writing. :-)

But IMHO it was in the end partially its own success that became SOTMs biggest problem. Just listening through all the OSs and reading the parodies in a comp took several hours, too much time for most noobs who would have been better off honing their own skills by writing another parody (reading one or two or even three masterpieces a day can be inspirational - but twenty at once above your current noob level I'm no so sure about).

I might be wrong, but I think over time it became too much of a good thing.

As for my own personal situation I've just changed jobs, that's partially why I've been so productive this summer, for the first half I didn't bother taking the old job with me back home, even in my mind, and for the second half I've had a long vacation, time off inbetween the old and the new. My current Amiright "goal" is to write at least two new songs a month, one that can be used to start a One Week Notice event of my own, the other inspired by someone other's OWN if the idea flies that way when my initial three stockpiled have been used - or for something else that comes up during this collective phase of brainstorming (which I'm of course are all for). I will probably not be able to be on the site every weekday (although I'll try my hardest to swing by and listen/read/comment on at least one from every front page update).

Well I tried-- thanks everybody!  All yours Robert

I'm sorry I missed this 3 weeks ago. 

Claude Prez?

Sorry I'm late to the party, especially since it seems like it didn't go anywhere.  I feel like I should have posted a song in the last year (or however long it's been) before commenting or committing, but if you did want to try this for a month, I'd be game.

Hey, it's Jeff Reuben!  Yes, Claude Prez here.  Unfortunately, I've lost most of my enthusiasm for this -- as you can see, the few people left here aren't really into it.  And while I'm a slow learner, I've finally arrived at the conclusion that any site without anyone willing to enforce standards of behavior isn't much fun.  Nothing against Chucky, I just think of him like an overwhelmed parent who's doing everything he can just to keep everything going.

Anyway, if more people seem interested, I'll probably jump back in -- I still think it's a good idea -- but for now I'm having a hard time getting excited about writing any new parodies for a site dominated by a petulant man-child.

The two of you are of course welcome to join us in the One Week Notice. We're up to the sixth round by now (with hosts signed up for the next three) and there has been four oldtimers in each of the last two. The current pick is probably the easiest this far, should be an easy few-hours write (if even that) for experienced vets like yourselves. Also we've started doing collective brainstorming for title sub ideas in the weekly presentation thread, you're welcome to join that bit without any obligation to go forth and actually write a whole song - that part's fun in itself. :)

http://www.inthe00s.com/index.php?topic=56197.0

Furthermore, as I've pointed out in Matthias' new discussion thread about One Week Notice, the easiest way of all to join a round is to give yourself a head start and host one. That's worth noticing too. Just sign up to do that when you have a suitable parody of your own OS chosing ready that you can sit on for a while. 8)

http://www.inthe00s.com/index.php?topic=56105.0

Hey Claude and co, long time no see. Tho my last submission was 2013, I've been basically inactive/retired here for the better part of 9 years. I know that many of the authors that were here when I joined back in early 2005 have been retired/mia for some years now too. A quick glance at the author list tho showed at least a dozen authors who were here then (and involved in the competitions) who've posted at least one parody in 2017.

I'm sure lots of newer, good authors are posting parodies that would get into the contests with some encouragement. Back in 2004-2007, 30 entrants to SOTM wasn't terribly uncommon... and that has been cancelled from lack of participation for how long now?  :-\\

Personally, there are numerous reasons I don't write/post anymore, and stopped the competitions years ago. One, my life circumstances have changed since back then. I've done all I wanted to accomplish and more with writing, having finished runner up PAotY and having numerous medals in SOTM, ABC, and more. I've done the truly difficult songs. I've made recordings.

This year has been truly fkn horrific personal life wise, and it's not the only one since I basically quit back in 2010. The end of that year was horrible, as was 2011, 2012, 2015, and 2017. I haven't been in a writing mood...

The thing tho that really put me off to the contests was the source material. Back at first, I knew a good half of the OSs and they were good songs, classics. Istm somewhere along the line that changed to all 2000s+ stuff, much of it imo, well, crap. It made it hard to do a contest when all the source material was DKTOS, and listening to them just made me want to close out YouTube and go do something else.

Also, while many of those parodies were technically impressive, I found myself not laughing much as the topics were frequently too obscure. It seemed to me that unless you did something along the lines of a 'New Big 7', there wasn't much chance for a short but funny song to win. I've done parodies like the ones I am criticizing, however I tried to get to more accessible material. A parody of a B-rate movie set to some obscure or flash in the pan new rap, or a pop song about a watermelon that murders rabbits with a three-hole punch arent the most inviting things.

I'll also admit that being Lead Mod here and editing several sections on amiright burned me out from both sites. From what little I've gathered here and in the past, perhaps amiright needs another comment/parody editor. I dunno.

I'd be willing to give a hand trying to get new and still-posting veterans into a monthly top-ten, tho it's doubtful I'd be contributing parodies. and the last half a dozen contests Ive entered I wound up DQing myself by missing the deadline, including forfeiting what was a point leading SOTM entry back in 2013 (my last submission).

Claude, if you want to try to give this thing a go, I'd be willing to help in any way I can.

Ant

Hi Red Ant!  Sorry to hear things aren't going well for you.  I'm with you on the parody drought, I think.  It's just difficult to get motivated to write when the external rewards aren't anywhere close to what they used to be.  And when I do force myself to do one, my standards are just way lower than they used to be.  That was one reason I wanted to try this Top Ten thing.  Anyway, since you and Reuben seem interested (and Matthias sort of was I think), it occurs to me that there's no reason not to just post a trial voting thread for October.  If it's as easy to participate as I'm hoping it is, maybe we'll get a few people giving it a go, and just see what happens.

Again, the premise is very simple:  the goal is to spot any quality Amiright parodies and, instead of voting and commenting to draw attention to it (because voting is totally meaningless and commenting is suspect, thanks to rampant anonymity) -- you put them in the voting thread and assign them a value from 1-10.  If it works, a consensus should emerge as to which parodies stand out as the ones people actually enjoy reading.  So there's no requirement that you even write any parodies yourself, nor site voting or commenting.  Simply grab the ones you like, rate them, and ignore the rest.  That's it.  Well, sort of.  Since there's a limit on how many you can pick each month, (including how many of your own), but voting is designed to be an ongoing process, I think each person's voting post should be a work in progress, with selected parodies "penciled in" but nothing guaranteed until the voting closes after the month ends.  So you could hypothetically wind up with like 50 parodies you liked and rated all month, but then have to pare it down to 12 by the end of the voting period. I'm making it sound more complicated than it is, so I'll just go start the thread and show everyone how it would work.

Oh, but first I want to say hi to Peter also and thank him for starting the One Week Notice thing.  I wish I had the motivation to participate but I'm just not feeling it right now.  Glad it seems to be going well though. 

I know it's been a while since I've been around. My acting and writing career sort of took over my life for a while and I wasn't able to give the Amiright community the attention you all deserve and for that, I am sorry. I'm currently gearing up for a move from Chicago to LA and I know that anything and everything I do creatively is a step forward. Amiright has played a big part in my growth, and I owe it my allegiance. So I a mounting a comeback. I am in for anything and everything we want to try! What can I do?!

I know it's been a while since I've been around. My acting and writing career sort of took over my life for a while and I wasn't able to give the Amiright community the attention you all deserve and for that, I am sorry. I'm currently gearing up for a move from Chicago to LA and I know that anything and everything I do creatively is a step forward. Amiright has played a big part in my growth, and I owe it my allegiance. So I a mounting a comeback. I am in for anything and everything we want to try! What can I do?!


Join us in the One Week Notice challenging. No competition there just friendship.

I know it's been a while since I've been around...I'm currently gearing up for a move from Chicago to LA ...


Chicago?! You've been in my city this whole time, dude?  :o . We could have hung out!

Good luck on your big move.

I think I may have been frustrated with the relative lack of community when I'd stopped posting in 2012, and even then I'd been writing a lot more sporadically than when I discovered AmIRight in 2002. Hard to believe it's been 15 years.

I remember this same source of complaints being a prolific poster of subpar "parodies" 5 years ago or so. I guess that hasn't changed, but I saw some new rules for parody submissions this evening and I wonder if the new rules are meant to remedy this issue. It won't fix everything, but a deeper commitment to standards of quality would cause way too much work for Chucky and/or other moderators and, since level of quality can be a subjective opinion at times, requiring a submission to be "good" would likely cause more trouble than it would solve.

I might have also taken a leave of absence due to being distracted with other writing and actual paid work, and I got used to not being here so I kept on not being here. But I'm back, at least for now, and I have a bunch of songs in my backlog which I think are pretty good.