this is not so much a feature request such as an attempt to capture what i think really works for Advent Calendar as a major, and attempt to apply it to other majors.

first off - something Advent Calendar does really well is engagement. each format lasts only one day, and notably can be voted on the following day. the short feedback loop is doing a large part of this, because it's easy to come on and see "oh look, [botbr] has submitted a thing for today's format!" that's really fun!

but being able to vote shortly thereafter is also a substantial part, i think. as of writing this, 4 people are fully voted on advent day1 (several have 6 votes as well), while 2 have gone through folk. it's only been a day and a half but i still think the engagement, the hype generated by advent, is showing.

i thiiiink most folks would agree that voting for the big yearly majors is cumbersome, although there have been some awesome QoL improvements even in my short time here. it's a thing that requires actual personal budgeting of time though, due to the volume of entries! it rocks that the big battles rake in so many submissions BUT being handed 20 cardboard boxes full of floppy disks all at once and asked to pass judgment is intimidating!

so... i guess my point here is: would we consider reconfiguring the system for all majors to function in a way where BotBrs can vote on an entry after it's been submitted? alternatively, X amount of time after submission?

something like this:
* BotBrs may vote on an entry to a major after it has been submitted and rendered [slight incentive to render entries for majors perhaps]
* votes on an entry are CLEARED if the submitter resubmits [scrub ppl if they abuse that to be annoying, i guess, though i doubt it]
* voters are notified of the entry resubmission + vote clearing in Alerts; the Alert link takes you to the entry page

this gets people checking out the entries more earlier on, and makes the idea of voting more accessible because you aren't tasked with hundreds of entries right off the bat. there may be other cases i haven't considered, but i think the vote-clear-if-resubmit function would fairly handle that scenario.

one thing i can see as potentially problematic with this system is that there may end up being significantly more votes on entries that are really popular (highly played/faved), simply due to increased foot traffic. there are always some crazy bangers up there at the top of the BotB charts, and they're probably by Jakerson. i guess i don't know how many of those are repeat plays from people who already voted, but it's something to consider. i suppose there could be a small incentive for voting on entries below some threshold of votes?

(oh, also voting categories would for-sure have to be decided at major launch every time i suppose)

curious what y'all think!

if votes are cleared, dont forget to also remove the criticist points for them again, otherwise we have a loophole to farm them.

a solution to limit the traffic on popular stuff is simple: ban jakerson.


i like the idea, i know it got disucssed before a lot and i also remember there was the idea of doing basically what you just described, but limited to mighty users (or a different level threshold)

maybe the criticist points should only be awarded once the battle is tallied and closed? or is there something more to it that makes this impractical (the boon award from getting voted on is one such thing, I think, but then that could be deferred to battle-end as well)

human brain wants reward NOW not LATER >:(((

The idea of pacing out the voting is cool. If I'm understanding the concept correctly though, couldn't this also cause earlier submissions to have a higher concentration of votes, simply due to having a longer voting window?

ooh, that is true - i still think having around the same amount of time to vote after the submission period closes would be good, but yeah i think by nature we might end up with more votes on earlier submissions... really i'm not sure how much more it would be. would the same people be slowly chipping away at every (or nearly every) song, and aim for completionism, or would we get a hundred random voters on random songs because they saw it when they checked out the track and decided to vote?

:thonk:

I've had a really major issue of not voting much in majors because that's just so damn much to go through.
Especially in the seasonal multi-format compos, where you have actual days worth of music and you can't and won't just go through them in an evening.

Being able to start voting before the compo ends would be great.

Devil's advocate here: We have weeks to go through the entries and vote on most majors. It's not like we have to do it all in a single day. I certainly took my time voting on Folk.

I think just having some sort of visual indication of which entries you've voted on and which you haven't in the entry list as soon as you enter the battle screen would surely help encourage people to vote. I don't know about anyone else, but part of the daunting nature of voting in majors is not having a clear indication of which one is first in the list, and then having to click through pages and pages of entries to see which ones I've voted on.

"some sort of visual indication of which entries you've voted on and which you haven't in the entry list as soon as you enter the battle screen" exists.

What is it?

Okay, well if that exists, another thing that would make voting easier would be a straightforward chronological list of entries, and letting the "Next" button wrap around once you get to the last entry.

Regarding the concerns about uneven votin, I wonder if there would be a bigger rush to get entries in sooner if people were worrying about possibly not having their entries voted on if they submit later. Is that desirable or undesirable?

I remember back on the day, people would write down their future votes in a notepad file and then save it for when voting opened...

all entries u didnt vote on hav the green star next to their name on the right
https://battleofthebits.com/arena/Battle/6735/Entries/BotB+Advent+Calendar+2021

I just tried to make the vort period overlap the entry period of Commodore Quadrilogy (which I also just extended a week :D ) but it didn't do anything so I'll need to dig into the code. It shouldn't be that hard to delete all vorts on an entry during a resubmit event. I think this is worth trying out especially on next Winter Chip.