Song Contest 131 (Results posted!)

[Song Contest]

Welcome to the One Hundred and Thirty First Song Contest! In lieu of a joke, please read the rules this time, they're different.

Submit your song via this FANCY FORM!

What is the MafiaScum Song Contest?

The MafiaScum Song Contest is a competition modeled after the annual Eurovision Song Contest. It's a means to gain exposure to new music through the tastes of your peers, like it or not. Those that enter must also vote for the people they are running against based on how much they like the songs. Everyone picks an alias in the form of a country (any one of your choosing) and sends in a song that they like in order to expose it to the other contestants. After voting, they are tallied in the thread and a winner is named. No matter who wins, everyone wins by gaining new knowledge of songs, artists, albums and genres of music in the process!

List of Previously Entered Songs

How to Participate in the Song Contest:

1. Find a song that you like on any internet medium that isn't restricted or private.

2. Submit it via the form linked above!

3. Wait until I reveal the entries. You may or may not be cut (as stated at the end of this post).

4. Once entries are revealed, you will rank your top 10 countries! You will do this via a Google Form link to be provided later. The point values are as follows:

12 points - 1st
10 - 2nd
8 - 3rd
7 - 4th
6 - 5st
5 - 6th
4 - 7th
3 - 8th
2 - 9th
1 - 10th

Please rate fairly by giving all countries a listen. You may not vote for yourself. Everyone, regardless of entry or cut status, may vote, so you can still participate even if you chose not to enter or if you got cut! However, if those that entered and are accepted do not vote, they will get a 20 point penalty and be banned from entering in the next contest, so please consider that before entering.

5. Wait for results. It's that simple!

What entries are/aren't allowed?

In order to eliminate bias, certain entries based on previous performance are banned. After dozens of contests and a following of a vague "Code of Ethics" by the Song Contest population, there have been so many entries that a rule system is now in place as to what can and cannot be entered. Please refer to the list of entered songs linked above and CTRL+F your artist AND song name to make sure it isn't included in the following list.

What isn't allowed?

-You cannot enter an artist that has won ANY contest in the past, no matter how far away that contest is.
-You cannot enter an artist that has been entered in the last 15 contests.
-You cannot enter a song that has been entered before, regardless of placement. (You can enter a cover or different version of that song.) For example: You cannot enter in "Seven Nation Army" by The White Stripes, but you can enter in "The Hardest Button to Button" by The White Stripes.
-You cannot enter an artist that has gotten Top 3 in a Battle of the Best. For example: You may not enter anything by the Doves, as they got 2nd in a BotB.
-You cannot enter something that is not a "song". We generally interpret this term very loosely, but here are some examples:

Things considered a song: Anything created with an actual artist and song title that is INTENDED for the listener, even if it's painful to listen or even if there's nothing included (Examples: Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit, Eminem - Lose Yourself, Barney - I Love You, John Cage - 4'33, Sunn 0))) - 0))) Bow 1, etc.)

Things not considered a song: Anything without an artist or title, a video clip of something random, a comedy routine (unless it's an actual song a la Stephen Lynch), a large square wave, an animal barking, total silence not being attributed to an artist, etc. (Examples: A clip of Louis CK's Shameless, an ibex screeching, a clip of a game show, a clip of someone screaming, etc.)

I will let you know if your entry does not meet the criteria of a "song," but it should be fairly obvious.

What IS allowed, then?

-You can enter an artist that has gotten 2nd or lower at least 15 contests ago, as long as you do not repeat a song.
-You can enter an artist that got top 3 in a song contest, unless it won that contest or also got top 3 in a Battle of the Best.
-You can enter a different version of a song entered before, such as a cover (or the original if the cover was entered first). For example, Johnny Cash's "Hurt" has already been entered, but you can still enter Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt".

Other than that, you're good! If your entry violates one of these rules, you'll have until the deadline to fix it or we reserve the right to deny your entry (as if you haven't entered one at all) due to time constraints.

Reserved Countries

Bhutan
Central African Republic
Djibouti
Egypt
Greece
Greenland
Hungary
Iceland
India
Ireland
Liechtenstein
Mali
Poland
Portugal
Slovenia
South Korea
Sweden
United Kingdom
USA

Deadline for entries is Wednesday, June 12 at 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time.

If we get more than 26 entries, the 26 participants in the competition will be decided based on the following criteria:

1. First-time entrants

2. Last winner (ceejayvinoya and vizIIsto)

3. Current Song Contest Team (toolenduso and JurgenVW)

4. Any entrant who was cut in the period of the last 3 contests (except those cut for not voting) and has not used their guaranteed bid.
3 Contests remaining: Nobody!
2 Contests remaining: Nobody!
1 Contest remaining: Nobody!

5. Everyone else

Anyone who does not make the cut is guaranteed a spot in one of the next 3 contests.

The following people will be ineligible to enter for not voting in SC130 and BOTB7: In the interests of testing out this new format, I'm going to go ahead and skip the bans this time. I may or may not use the bans in the next contest instead. Idk.

[Song Contest]

NEW VOTING RULES

In the interest of speeding up contests, we are going to try a different system for the voting deadline. It was proposed by vizIIsto in BOTB7. Here's how it will work:

* The first voting deadline will be

seven days

after entries are posted. Anybody who votes during this period will receive all the points they get for their own entry.
* If, at the end of five days, the number of entrants who have voted is at least 75%, the votes will be tallied and a winner will be declared. Anybody who has not voted will have five points taken off the total value of the votes for their entry.
* If, at the end of five days, the number of entrants who have voted is less than 75%, the voting deadline will be extended another

three days

.
* Any entrant who failed to vote will have five points taken off the total value of the votes for their entry for each extension that happens before they've voted.
* The process will repeat until

16 days

have passed (three extensions after the initial five-day deadline). At the end of this period, anybody who has not voted will have a total 20 point penalty. The votes will be tallied regardless of how many people have voted.
* There will be no bans for failure to vote.

[Song Contest]

Entries!

Votes are due on Thursday, June 20 at 11:59 p.m. (23:59) Pacific Time!

Use this form to submit your votes!

Bolivia

Blue Sky Black Death - Absentee

Greenland

Boston Manor - Laika

Poland

half alive - still feel

Hungary

Arabeske - Kad procvatu behari

USA

Between You & Me - Dakota

Sweden

Carach Angren - Lingering in an Imprint Haunting

Norway

DJ Mikesh - Partycrasher (DJ Gollum ft. DJ Cap Remix Edit)

Israel

Jeroen van Koningsbrugge - Wit Licht

Japan

AB6IX - Breathe

Djibouti

Dua Lipa - New Rules

Portugal

Tacocat - Grains of Salt

Chad

FKA Twigs - Figure 8

Liechtenstein

The Beatles - Blackbird

Bhutan

Aaron Carter - Sooner or Later

[Song Contest]

Two questions I'd like to get feedback on for the new voting rules:

1. If no extensions are needed, should people who failed to vote receive any kind of penalty?
2. Should there be any bans under this new system?

[Song Contest]

I'd prefer that the first period be seven days so that it includes every day of the week—some people will be more available on certain days of the week.

Good point. This issue could also be solved by manipulating the entry period to ensure that the five-day voting period will include weekends. Just an alternative suggestion. Idk if it's worth going that direction just to make it so the total possible number of days in the voting period is 14, but yeah.

I'm in favor of maintaining penalties regardless of extensions; in theory, without a penalty greater than the maximum number of points you can get from one other person, there could be scenarios where someone ranks higher because they didn't vote, and maintaining the impossibility of that is important.

Not quite sure I follow...why would a person rank higher because they didn't vote?

[Song Contest]

Wait wait I think I see what you're saying.

You're saying that somebody could adopt not voting as a strategy, so that they know they aren't contributing points to their "competitors," right?

[Song Contest]

right—let's say you are in first place before considering your own ratings. you have 70 points, second place has 60, and third place has 55, and you would've given your 12 and 10 to the second and third place people respectively had you voted, but you didn't bother voting. in this case, if you aren't penalized for not voting, you would maintain first place as a result of nonparticipation.

it's unlikely anyone would intentionally exploit this, but it's good that the points system makes it impossible.

Spoiler: Long reply

I spent a while yesterday thinking about this and possible alternatives. First and foremost, I came to the conclusion that if we institute some kind of penalty for not voting

even if there are no extensions,

then it will mitigate, if not entirely solve, the issue. The logic being that if somebody was going to deliberately fail to vote in order to withhold points from competitors (because they could get away with it if there were no extensions), then adding a penalty for failing to vote under any circumstances adds a disincentive for that behavior.

Fortunately, there are pieces of the existing process that make it fairly illogical for somebody to consciously act out such a gambit, namely the fact that you don't know very much before votes are posted. You don't know how many people have voted, who's voted, how they voted or what the running tally is. So if somebody was choosing not to vote in order to withhold points from competitors, they would be risking a penalty (or, if we added a penalty even if there was no extensions, they would be choosing a penalty) without having any idea whether it would actually help them or not. There are several people who post their reviews, and more or less say who they're voting for, before the votes are posted, but having been on both sides of the process I can tell you that those

do not

give you a very good idea of who's actually getting the most points.

As for the concern about somebody being able to place above others because they didn't vote (which I'm thinking of as kind of a "miscarriage of justice" concept, to overdramatize things), I don't see a good way around it. We could fiddle with the number of points given as a penalty, but then we would be ramping up the penalties to a point where they could become ridiculously large and after a certain point I think it would cease mattering to people whether they got a 20 point penalty or a 30 point penalty. We could change the number of extensions or the number of days in each extension, but then we would be threatening the speed of the contest, which is the point of trying out this new system in the first place.

A 5-point minimum penalty for non-voting, though, does make it less likely that a person who didn't vote ranks above others because of their non-vote. Doesn't make it impossible, but it roughly cuts the likelihood in half.

And lastly, on a more philosophical level, it occurred to me that the whole penalty system is basically a way of balancing out different anti-corruption-of-the-results policies. That is, the penalty exists in the first place so that people will vote, and therefore the winners will come as close as possible to reflecting the actual opinions of the contest's participants. If very few people voted, the results wouldn't mean much. But the penalties themselves are another form of corrupting the results, because they drag down entries that people liked enough to vote for. The original voting system was built like the goal was to get as many people to vote as possible; the new system is built like it's fine for a quarter of people not to vote. So if it's fine for a quarter of the entrants not to vote, why corrupt the results by applying big penalties? A 5-point penalty discourages non-voting, but probably won't have a

huge

impact on the overall results.

[Song Contest]

Personally my guess is that going beyond one extension will be a very rare occurrence. The "ramping up" effect of the system will be a good way to get people moving, I think.

[Song Contest]

Under this system, penalties are chopped up into chunks -- do you mean 12 points total, or 12 points each time there's an extension and somebody fails to vote?

[Song Contest]

Two questions I'd like to get feedback on for the new voting rules:

1. If no extensions are needed, should people who failed to vote receive any kind of penalty?
2. Should there be any bans under this new system?

1. Yes. It should still be the -20 point penalty of the old system. People need to be triggered to vote, and if the penalty would be smaller if there were less extensions, there's not enough stimula to vote.

2. That's up to you, Song Contest. I think bans should only be handed out if either all extensions are needed, and those who didn't vote get a ban. Or maybe also if someone fails to vote in two consecutive contests with shorter voting deadlines.

1. So then the penalty would be larger if there are no extensions than if there is at least one extension (in other words, if you fail to vote and there is an extension, you get a five point penalty, but if you fail to vote and there's no extension, you get a 20 point penalty). I mean, I guess it works, it just seems kinda backwards to me. The "cost" to the contest is greater if there is an extension.

2. I'm leaning toward no bans, based on input and my own feelings. Bans mean fewer people able to enter each contest, and we've got low participation as it is.

[Song Contest]

Reminder: Entries are due tomorrow!

[Song Contest]

Reminder: Entries are due at the end of today!

[Song Contest]

Three changes made to the voting rules:

1. The initial voting deadline will be seven days instead of five.
2. A five-point penalty was added for failure to vote when no extension is needed.
3. I wrote in that nobody will get banned for failure to vote.

We can keep talking about what a good number is for point penalties in various situations, but this is what I want to try for now.

[Song Contest]

Entries will go up today no matter what, but I'm giving one person who submitted an ineligible entry a little bit to read their PMs and send me a new one.

[Song Contest]

If I'm reading that right, what you said is wrong. Wish I knew how to build tables better, I might just force my way through it, but for now here's my best attempt at explaining:

-If you vote during the initial period: You get all your points; no penalty
-If you fail to vote and no extension is needed: You lose five points
-If you vote after the first extension: You lose five points
-If you vote after the second extension: You lose ten points
-If you vote after the third extension: You lose fifteen points
-If you fail to vote, even after three extensions: You lose twenty points

Or from a more "administrative" point of view:

-If no extensions are needed: Give five point penalty to everyone who didn't vote
-If one extension is needed: Give five point penalty to everyone who didn't vote by the time votes are tallied
-If two extensions are needed: Give ten point penalty to everyone who didn't vote by the time votes are tallied
-If three extensions are needed: Give a fifteen point penalty to everyone who didn't vote until after the third extension and a twenty point penalty to everyone who didn't vote at all

Update: I tweaked the first version of the description; I realized after the fact that it was confusingly written.

[Song Contest]

Three changes made to the voting rules:

1. The initial voting deadline will be seven days instead of five.
2. A five-point penalty was added for failure to vote when no extension is needed.
3. I wrote in that nobody will get banned for failure to vote.

We can keep talking about what a good number is for point penalties in various situations, but this is what I want to try for now.

So it's still profitable to not vote?

You lose five points if you fail to vote no matter what. The longer you wait to vote, the more points you lose. So no, it's not "profitable."

[Song Contest]

Yeah and I addressed it.

You lose five points no matter what. This means that there is an inherent risk in not voting. Meanwhile you have no idea whether the songs you would have voted for are anywhere near you in the contest.

A person who's considering not voting knows for sure that they will lose points. They have no certainty that the points they would give with a vote would change the ranking of their song.

And the heart of the issue is math. Let's say you get a 12 point penalty instead of a five point penalty when you either:

A) Fail to vote, and there are no extensions, OR
B) Vote after the first extension

What would the penalties be for further extensions? It would make the most sense to layer another 12 on each time. That would move the schedule to this:

-If you fail to vote and no extension is needed: You lose 12 points
-If you vote after the first extension: You lose 12 points
-If you vote after the second extension: You lose 24 points
-If you vote after the third extension: You lose 36 points
-If you fail to vote, even after three extensions: You lose 48 points

After the second extension, the penalty becomes so ridiculously large that it kind of becomes a moot point whether somebody who's already failed to vote continues not to vote. In other words, who cares whether you lose 24 points or 48 points? You're very, very boned either way.

[Song Contest]

Also what plot said.

If you have another suggestion, I'm open.

[Song Contest]

Also if you fail to vote there's a decent chance (5/12 = a 42% chance, maybe? idk, that's very clumsy math on my part) that your failure to vote will cause your song to slip below another person's in the rankings. As in:

-Entry A has 50 points, but the person who entered it fails to vote so they get 45.
-Entry B has 46 points, and they do vote so they don't get any penalty.
-The person who submitted Entry A wouldn't have voted for Entry B anyway (or if they would have given them fewer than 5 points) so by not voting they caused Entry B to beat their song.

[Song Contest]

Ohhhhhhh. That's a whole new mechanism.

Here's how it would look:

-If you fail to vote and fewer than three extensions are needed: You lose 12 points
-If you vote after the first extension: You lose 5 points
-If you vote after the second extension: You lose 10 points
-If you vote after the third extension: You lose 15 points
-If you fail to vote, even after three extensions: You lose 20 points

That could maybe work. It's a little weird that you lose fewer points if there's an extension (or two) and you vote than if there isn't an extension and you don't vote, but...w/e.

I still don't really want to switch things up right now just because we're about to go into the first voting deadline and I don't want to confuse people further with a last minute change of this magnitude.

I am thinking that for you and Vashta I will run sims on your ballots and let you know whether it would have helped you not to vote.

[Song Contest]

Entries are up!

[Song Contest]

Aw cripes how did I miss the double djibouti.

Hang on.

[Song Contest]

fixed

[Song Contest]

Reminder: Votes are due at the end of tomorrow!

[Song Contest]

Reminder: Votes are due at the end of today!

[Song Contest]

I will begin posting results in about 8 minutes

[Song Contest]

Bolivia

schadd_

12 - Chad
10 - Djibouti
8 - Liechtenstein
7 - Hungary
6 - Portugal
5 - Sweden
4 - Japan
3 - Israel
2 - Norway
1 - Bhutan

Portugal

InflatablePie

12 - USA
10 - Poland
8 - Bolivia
7 - Japan
6 - Djibouti
5 - Liechtenstein
4 - Greenland
3 - Bhutan
2 - Hungary
1 - Norway

Israel

vizIIsto

12 - Poland
10 - Japan
8 - Bhutan
7 - Greenland
6 - Bolivia
5 - Djibouti
4 - Liechtenstein
3 - Norway
2 - USA
1 - Hungary

Hungary

Plotinus

12 - Israel
10 - Djibouti
8 - Bolivia
7 - Liechtenstein
6 - Portugal
5 - Poland
4 - Japan
3 - Greenland
2 - Bhutan
1 - Chad

Norway

Xtoxm

12 - Sweden
10 - USA
8 - Japan
7 - Bhutan
6 - Israel
5 - Liechtenstein
4 - Greenland
3 - Bolivia
2 - Djibouti
1 - Hungary

Current Scores:

33 Japan
33 Djibouti
29 Liechtenstein
27 Poland
25 Bolivia
24 USA
21 Israel
21 Bhutan
18 Greenland
17 Sweden
13 Chad
12 Portugal
11 Hungary
6 Norway

[Song Contest]

Poland

VashtaNeurotic

12 - Israel
10 - Bolivia
8 - Djibouti
7 - Liechtenstein
6 - Bhutan
5 - Greenland
4 - USA
3 - Japan
2 - Portugal
1 - Hungary

USA

pickemgenius

12 - Greenland
10 - Poland
8 - Bhutan
7 - Japan
6 - Bolivia
5 - Djibouti
4 - Chad
3 - Norway
2 - Israel
1 - Hungary

Djibouti

Aristophanes

12 - Poland
10 - Norway
8 - Japan
7 - Bolivia
6 - Israel
5 - USA
4 - Portugal
3 - Bhutan
2 - Liechtenstein
1 - Greenland

Liechtenstein

xyzzy

12 - Poland
10 - Djibouti
8 - Japan
7 - Israel
6 - Portugal
5 - Chad
4 - Greenland
3 - USA
2 - Norway
1 - Bhutan

Chad

toolenduso

12 - Poland
10 - Portugal
8 - Sweden
7 - Israel
6 - Greenland
5 - Bolivia
4 - USA
3 - Bhutan
2 - Hungary
1 - Liechtenstein

Current Scores:

73 Poland
59 Japan
56 Djibouti
55 Israel
53 Bolivia
46 Greenland
42 Bhutan
40 USA
39 Liechtenstein
34 Portugal
25 Sweden
22 Chad
21 Norway
15 Hungary

[Song Contest]

*drumroll*

[Song Contest]

Japan

notachipmunk

12 - Israel
10 - Djibouti
8 - Hungary
7 - Norway
6 - Bolivia
5 - Poland
4 - USA
3 - Greenland
2 - Bhutan
1 - Liechtenstein

Sweden

MiniDeathStar

12 - Hungary
10 - Poland
8 - Liechtenstein
7 - Greenland
6 - Israel
5 - Portugal
4 - Norway
3 - Bhutan
2 - Bolivia
1 - Djibouti

Greenland

ceejayvinoya

12 - Poland
10 - Bolivia
8 - Djibouti
7 - Liechtenstein
6 - Israel
5 - Japan
4 - USA
3 - Norway
2 - Bhutan
1 - Portugal

Bhutan

Panzerjager

12 - USA
10 - Djibouti
8 - Portugal
7 - Chad
6 - Japan
5 - Greenland
4 - Poland
3 - Bolivia
2 - Sweden
1 - Norway

Final Scores:

104 Poland

85 Djibouti

79 Israel

74 Bolivia
70 Japan

61 Greenland
60 USA
55 Liechtenstein
49 Bhutan
48 Portugal

36 Norway
35 Hungary
29 Chad
27 Sweden

Congratulations to VashtaNeurotic!

Nobody failed to vote! In your honor, tonight we shall feast on roast boar and grapes.

[Song Contest]

OK so out of curiosity I ran the final scores under scenarios where Xtoxm and Vastha didn't vote, respectively, to see whether not voting under the current rules would've helped them. Results:

Final Scores w/o Vashta
Poland 99
Djibouti 77
Israel 67
Bolivia 64
Japan 67
Greenland 56
USA 56
Liechtenstein 48
Bhutan 43
Portugal 46
Norway 36
Hungary 34
Chad 29
Sweden 27

Final Scores w/o Xtoxm
Poland 104
Djibouti 83
Israel 73
Bolivia 71
Japan 62
Greenland 57
USA 50
Liechtenstein 50
Bhutan 42
Portugal 48
Norway 31
Hungary 34
Chad 29
Sweden 15

Not gonna bother with the formatting, so it probably looks weird, but basically, it wouldn't have changed anything for Vashta and it would've caused Xtoxm to fall down one spot in the rankings.

That said, I still intend to tweak the rules next contest so that you get a minimum penalty of 12 points for not voting.

[Song Contest]

SC132 is open!