Am I right in thinking that veto points are given if an unknown band is sent but maybe one or two of the band members are kind of known of, if that makes sense? I think that may be a bit harsh (obviously it would depend on the band) but that might be something to look at although I don't see it in the current framework so maybe it's not a thing at all :lol:

 

I'm also going to be that person and bring up the recent change in terms of not being able to share potentials via pm and on plug, i still don't agree with it even after 'trialling' it this month. I think the amount of people who actively use plug is being highly overestimated, you're lucky if there's even ten of us there when it's not purposefully for a listen through and in a contest where we have 70 nations, that's a tiny fraction. I understand the rule if more than half the contest regularly went on plug and played potentials but that's not the case and it doesn't have much of an impact on keeping entries secret or whatever as nobody ever announced what they were sending, just played a few potentials to judge the reaction. It's so much better getting that kind of instant, live reaction to a song and you can get a better idea of what potentials grab people instantly etc which is the main reason I prefer it to posting potentials in my national thread. I don't like how 'vulnerable' posting your potentials in your thread makes you, I'm so paranoid someone tries to steal a song I've posted or beats me to it when confirming. People could even try and sabotage your chances by telling you to send the worst of your potentials, I hope nobody would but putting your potentials out there for everyone to comment on is a bit risky which is why being able to pm your potentials list to trusted people was so much better. I get that sharing your potentials in your thread is entirely optional but there are some months where you just need some feedback and I really did prefer the old method of getting that, I think only being able to post in your thread is too restrictive and doesn't actually cut down on people sharing the song they're most likely to go with which I'm sure is what the new rules were intended to do. I definitely think that should be reconsidered too.

Edited August 7, 20168 yr by ℒ𝓲𝓷𝓭𝓼𝒆𝔂

I have to kind of agree with Lindsey, I think with sharing in National Threads the exposure some songs get is only gonna be bigger than with plug (Especially with the "bigger" nations in bjsc)

I agree with the above. I never saw any problem with Plug - I never knew what people were sending anyway, but we could react and give an idea to people what could work and what might not. I qould never post my serious potentials in my thread because of the reasons above.

Yes I think charts carry a little too much weight. I think for UK and US it should be "charting" as in top 100, but for like France or Australia the fact you can get 7 points for it like scraping top 100 is a bit much :lol: Like I'm sure not many people would know the song if it just got to say #74 in France, unless there were other factors, which if it was that bad would be picked up by the veto. I also think blogs could be nerfed a tad as they're not the tour de force they once were. I'm not saying abolish these from the framework entirely, just making them worth a bit less would be better imo.

 

I also agree with Lindsey's point, I don't see the problem with sharing on Plug really. Everyone is actually free to do it, it's not some underground secret that only the mythical "plug clique" do. It's just a different way to sharing in your thread but it's not much different :lol: Those who don't have the time to plug or don't want to can still use the thread thing I'm just a bit apprehensive about doing it! Banishing Plug just shifts the so called "advantage" to those who do want to post in their threads, not that there even is one :lol: I used to proper spam my entries on plug and a good few of themstill flopped. You can't force people to like your song or vote for it just because you play it on a social platform for them.

You're actually proving my point on the level playing field here. By playing to a small select group you increase the likelihood of your song doing well with those people at the expense of other songs. It's not block voting, but it's where the block voting accusations are coming from. The contest used to run perfectly fine on this. The whole secret swapping of potentials thing is a new development and it's got out of hand lately. This isn't a slight against the plug crew (not everything is) as it actually targets PM Whores like Ramrynia, Altyr, Aeroche & Mulgracia as it's primary line of attack. I can think of more instances of song 'theft' from the PM swapping days than the open&honest days of past. Statistically there's no reason to fear artist theft, if it's going to be stolen Mikey will have lifted it from your Personal Chart months ago.

 

There's no way it'd be reconsidered after a single month, the activity in the forum is significantly up on any standard intracontest/confirmations period of the past few years so from that point of view it's already been a success. Any major change in BJSC is heavily opposed for the first few months because we are all at heart creatures of habit, so it's pointless to even consider it during this time. Oh and on the 'bigger nations' thing. You'll note that two of the traditionally 'big' nations FSR Ashvia chose not to release any potentials at all.

 

 

I agree with above posts I think its a lot more worse having the potentials in the national thread as it doesn't level the playing field at all in fact it makes it worse as anyone can go there listen to your potentials then by the time the contest has appeared and you sent a song that was in your potentials in the thread it wont be new to people. Playing songs on Plug should be about playing songs you love and you of course want to see people's views on them but even if you spam your entries there still is a high chance said song can flop and not even Q. I don't think its right to criticise Plug when everyone can use Plug its not as if its only for a few select members so its a bit harsh to plug or 'plug memes' because of where it derives from.

 

The problem with Plug and with PMs is that we've got no way to control how much is going on or indeed find out how many people know it, which puts the mods in a huge blind spot as far as the framework goes, a song could have been played once or it could have been a 'meme' and therefore probably should be getting framework points but we don't know. It's the same across all methods of getting feedback for your entry, a few people listening to your opinions on a song to get feedback is ideal, but more and you're getting people past that awkward first listen before the contest has started ahead of everyone else's songs, which is exactly why the veto is here in the first place, to give everyone a level playing field no matter who their personality is. I'm pretty sure over nearly all contests we'd find significant correlations between people who've listened to songs for 'feedback' and then subsequently given it points and like, you want to stop accusations of bloc voting (don't kill me please), that's probably the reason for that after the legitimate one of friends sharing taste.

 

I think it's worked, you've got no way to tell what song people will send in their threads so the exposure is limited and the mods can monitor it all nicely, I haven't particularly noticed any one thread getting more attention than the others, most people have gotten around about 2 or 3 replies, people won't focus on getting to know one song if they don't know it's being sent and it's given a lot of life to the national threads and thereby forum itself.

 

Oh, basically all of what Silas said. :lol:

The main thing for me that hasn't already been brought up is how featured artists are treated. For example, I don't think Elen Levon being Elen Levon gave Spada and 'Cool Enough' any advantage yet she attracted all of the veto points it got I believe and this is very common particular with dance tracks that are showcasing new DJs/producers and have "well-known" vocalists. Not quite sure what to suggest however, perhaps when allocating points for the featured artist their points get halved? I believe 'Cool Enough' got 19 points but by halving the points the featured artist gave to it it would end up with a total of 9.5 and keeping it safe. There were a couple of confirmations a couple of months ago that featured "well-known" vocalists (Lynn Gunn for example) and followed a very similar pattern points-wise yet weren't deserving to be in the veto zone necessarily.

 

Then for the other things people have mentioned, I'd like to see the "trifecta" updated as I believe only Popjustice is actually still relevant of the 3. Ideally I'd like to see a key "indie" blog/website and a key "dance" blog/website make up the other two here but I'm not clued up enough on what those could be. Furthermore the "charted in such and such a country" rule needs clarity as I think this has gone as far as top 200 in a singles or album chart at times - I'd go for top 75 in the singles chart and top 10 in an albums chart.

 

Then finally Spotify does need introducing, but I'm not sure in exactly what way. Do we treat it the same as the various iTunes charts with the various 7/12 point offences? If Spotify is now a bigger indicator than iTunes as some people have said then surely it has to be treated like that - but that will inflate veto scores across the board: top 10 on German iTunes and Spotify would give a song 24 points straight away (Julian Perretta's Miracle was very close to this I imagine a few months ago and adding in the recycle it would become an auto-veto when it certainly isn't deserving of one) so does the veto upper limit need increasing in such a case? Do we just simply leave it as UK Spotify top 50 = 12 points, UK Spotify top 100 = 7 points, Global top 50 = another 12 points? But does that give a disadvantage to the UK? It's a tough one how to exactly implement it but it does need doing.

Ok ok, but sorry if it was already mentioned somewhere, does the current framework not allow potentials to be shared to people outside of BJSC? For example playing them in a plug room that contains no BJSC participants or playing it in real life with a group of people :lol:

 

 

Ok ok, but sorry if it was already mentioned somewhere, does the current framework not allow potentials to be shared to people outside of BJSC? For example playing them in a plug room that contains no BJSC participants or playing it in real life with a group of people :lol:

 

??????????????

Ooh featured artists is a good point to bring up Ryan! Early last year I was interested in sending Alyxx Dione's Chingalinga, but it featured Jason Derulo so I didn't send it almost entirely because of the veto points he brought the song. The coverage for the song is not veto worthy, no high blog exposure and I don't believe it had charted on its own back then, but Derulo obviously had charted in the timespan. I'm not intending to send this anymore of course but in similar cases, whilst features do need to be considered, I think their points should be less than the lead artist? A similar scenario I guess is when I sent Maty Noyes last month, when I tallied up the veto points myself I'm sure all of them were down to her feature on Kygo's Stay, and it still ended up in the discussion section I think (although correct me if I'm wrong mods haha, this is based on my own research for it before I sent it).

Yeah exactly, I didn't think of it the other way round as well but it's just as valid. I think I remember TWiiNS feat. Flo Rida getting through once but that was possibly before the framework. While it wasn't veto-worthy, these days Flo would get lots of points just like Jason Derulo would.

 

I think this framework update would be a good point to start focusing on "how well known is the song" rather than "how well known is the artist". We've been doing the latter sometimes against our desire in terms of being consistent but this may be a good time to wipe the slate clean and think more about the former instead. I don't think a Jason Derulo feature verse of a Flo Rida feature verse is the end of the world if the song isn't well known.

 

But then on the other hand, say if I entered Delta Goodrem's 'Feline'. This song will only be known by myself, Rich, Joseph, Phil, Liam and perhaps one or two more who have listened to her album - that's 5/6 people out of 70 which is less than 10% but the artist is obviously very well known. Would people think that deserves to be vetoed or not? Gabriella Cilmi also fits into this category so I'd be intrigued to see what people's thoughts are.

Ok ok, but sorry if it was already mentioned somewhere, does the current framework not allow potentials to be shared to people outside of BJSC? For example playing them in a plug room that contains no BJSC participants or playing it in real life with a group of people :lol:

 

Yes, we wish to control how you share music with your real-life friends and acquaintances. :hitler:

 

It's stop people using plug for the purpose of "potential" listening for the upcoming contest, not to stop you playing songs.

 

Back on the veto framework thing, featured artists is an excellent one that I think this update will address, I've always struggled with the idea of giving them as much weight as main artists although it's of course dependent on the type of track.

But then on the other hand, say if I entered Delta Goodrem's 'Feline'. This song will only be known by myself, Rich, Joseph, Phil, Liam and perhaps one or two more who have listened to her album - that's 5/6 people out of 70 which is less than 10% but the artist is obviously very well known. Would people think that deserves to be vetoed or not? Gabriella Cilmi also fits into this category so I'd be intrigued to see what people's thoughts are.

 

I'd be very edgy on that. Songs of that kind may not be known generally but they probably are already known among their likely fanbase and that level of artist is a bit beyond what I'd say is fair.

I am actually going to propose a half points thing for features but in the case of Elen it was right that she attracted full points as she's the primary vocal on the track. The distinguishing point needs to be the impact they make on the track rather than that they're their at all.

 

So a good example would be Mutya Buena's B Boy Baby which has a feature from Wino but it's not a material impact on the song as its only a small bit of backing vocals in the chorus. Mutya featuring as a vocalist on Groove Armada or one of the other dozen rando dance tracks she did would pick up full points as her vocals have a material impact.

 

Elen has more BJSC pulling power than Spada and she makes a material impact on the song so it's right that she pulls in the points and then becomes a judgement call. It's where mod discretion comes into play and maybe we look at the AV threshold not automatically applying where a feature is present so we can judge if, like in the case of Cool Enough it was different enough from Elens standard material to be fine or if it's a Missy Elliot track that has a Timbaland (given he has produced pretty much every hit of hers, there's going to be no change in the sound)

Ah, so what we have here is a “consultation process” with both index fingers firmly inserted into each ear, with Naughty Boy blasting out in the background #LALALA~ :lol:

 

Anniversary entries completely undermine any semblance of a ‘level playing field’, their very existence means you might as well just hit Ctrl+A then Delete on the whole content of the framework. Why competitors on their 8th, 29th, or 87th contests should be put at disadvantage because someone else has reached an arbitrary level of participation isn’t apparently clear?! If, it hasn’t happened already, we’ll soon see members signing up for Buzzjack who were born AFTER the competition started. Why should young or new members be treated as second class citizens?! Cronyism for what Mr Beaver would call the ‘old boys’~

 

my main thing (posting here cos i'll forget) is i don't know why 12 points isn't awarded to any artist who has been in uk top 40 singles chart and that it's just pre-2000s

 

I agree with this, it’s a completely arbitrary and unnecessary cut-off point. There are numerous ways to boot Dolly Parton’s ‘Jolene’ far more cleanly, total career sales would be one obvious tack without bizarrely adding 12 points to scores of obscure artists and songs. Knee-jerk reactions are always the worst!

Ah, so what we have here is a “consultation process” with both index fingers firmly inserted into each ear, with Naughty Boy blasting out in the background #LALALA~ :lol:

 

Anniversary entries completely undermine any semblance of a ‘level playing field’, their very existence means you might as well just hit Ctrl+A then Delete on the whole content of the framework. Why competitors on their 8th, 29th, or 87th contests should be put at disadvantage because someone else has reached an arbitrary level of participation isn’t apparently clear?! If, it hasn’t happened already, we’ll soon see members signing up for Buzzjack who were born AFTER the competition started. Why should young or new members be treated as second class citizens?! Cronyism for what Mr Beaver would call the ‘old boys’~

 

Anniversary entries don't completely undermine the level playing field much, if at all. It was my 50th contest a few months back and I didn't just randomly enter Hung Up despite it being my favourite song ever, or hundreds of other prolific songs/artists. There is still an acceptable cut off point whereby a song/artist becomes too ''big'' to even be an anniversary submission. That's before we even consider that the majority of anniversary entries actually haven't done terribly well (I DNQ'd with mine as did Hendinia I believe). Therefore absolutely nobody is put at a disadvantage because of it, it's a nice little curio and a reward to a member for taking part for a long time. Nothing wrong with that at all.

 

As for the consultation process comments, well, people don't tend to take suggestions from the crazy naked man wearing the sandwich board claiming the world is going to end...

Maybe if people wanted the ban on Plug and private PMs to be lifted they could try and be more subtle in hyping up entries as soon as they open. Nearly every contest about two minutes into the semifinals opening, someone will post something like "OMG FAKECOUNTRYNAME'S ENTRY IS AMAZING! THIS TO WIN PLEASE!!!, which is always going to be perceived as an unfair advantage, when the ones who don't share usually don't get comments for a while.

One thing about anniversary entries actually - the rule about no singles? I totally get it if Rich wanted to enter Delta or Phil wanted to enter Sugababes for example, but with lesser known artists, would it make much of a difference if it were a single or album track? Say I wanted to enter Benjamin as my anniversary artist and picked Underdogs for the song, it was his first single a while back and I doubt it'd be much more known on here than one of his album tracks. I know you mentioned working on a separate framework for these so hopefully this is something to consider!

I've just been reminded of something I said while thinking out loud in a conversation a while ago about anniversary entries. I don't necessarily think I agree with my own suggestion but I'll put it out there.

 

I think I said something along the lines of making anniversary entries have to pass the normal framework so as not to give an unfair advantage in that way, but as a special gift/treat/bonus for an anniversary - that country gets to AQ to the final instead. It may also encourage a country to send something they truly love and something that's against the norms of BJSC without fear of DNQing. I'm not sure any of the anniversary entries so far would've fallen that foul of the framework anyway.

 

Not sure I particularly agree with this idea but it's an alternative suggestion nevertheless that might as well be posted here.