J'ai some ideas! Recently some people have been having hissy fits about the contest already and its only the 4th one lol, so someting must be wrong. Here are my ideas to make the contest more regular, make it more interesting, and some things worth pointing out.

> Contest’s are held on the 1st and 15th of each month. And those are the days when the submission period opens, NOT when the songs are revealed. Also if we set certain dates people will know whether they will or not be here, meaning they know whether or not they can participate so we don’t have the Patte-votes debacle again (don’t worry Patte it wasn’t your fault!)

> Another problem is that all the songs that are winning are the famous ones. If we look at all the winners we’ll see they’ve all been massive hits which in a way is a shame because it means the songs that are just as good but not as famous don’t stand a chance. I know we can’t really do anything about this but it’s probably worth pointing out. Also all the songs that have won have had very professional videos, and it may just be a coincidence but it seems that not having a music video puts you at a serious disadvantage. To be honest we can’t do anything about that but we can ask people to pay attention to the songs and pay less attention to the videos

> We could also have themed contests. Like for instance, in one contest you have to send a song not in English, or we have to send a song from a certain region of the world etc. Would that make it more interesting? And that theme could be up to the person organising it to decide. BUT if we do do this idea we can’t end up being too specific. Aka you can’t say something like “everybody must send songs from Moldova”, we have to be quite general in the requests basically, so something more like “everybody must send songs from the North-America” (the continent not the north of America lol). I am very proud of this idea rofl.

> Also as we get more and more songs, I think it may be an idea to make the recap go back to front. So the last song is shown first and the first song is shown last. I dunno how much of a difference it would actually make but it would at least help the earlier songs a tad!

> Which brings me on to the running order. At the moment the songs are presented in the order that they're submitted to the organiser, which is all good but it means the quick people who are good children and send their entries in first, lose out and get a bad running order, whereas the slow unorganised people get a good one lol. So maybe we could do something about that aswell.

Anyway tell me which ones are shite, (they probably all are lol) and which ones you could tolerate

i agree with most of them and especially the dates it makes it so much easier for the host as well as the rest of us (if after kots edition we have a few weeks break to make the schedule fit!)

on the popularity of the songs i dont think that has much to do with it apart that while we are listening to the songs we just skip hearing it - saving time
but u must realise if i come up with the N american theme, someone WILL pick a massive singer eg katy perry britney beyonce etc. i think its just something we are gonna have to deal. i dont think you can blame the artists or the video for the placing.
i know for a fact rock isnt everyones cup of tea but myself kots and you jonny have been doing consistantly well with it, Linkin Park, No Doubt and Evanescence are popular all over the world, doenst mean you have to like it...

it should be up to the hosts to decide on the music/video situation imo, the rest i agree with

Great ideas. I agree with everything!

I agree with the last point, but only one once a month !! It will make each contest a bit more special than just oh another contest. It will be like a mini-build up, and people can get organised better and I really dislike the theme ideas - it happens now and again in other online contests, and is just crap and a waste of time and the recap I think should be from 1 - last. It's not really like ESC whereas you only hear a song once, you can hear the songs over and over again...

... however, I may return only if the contest is once a month, and if we have a better organisation, like have the website, because I certainly feel like Slovakia entering a into a different contest, and it's only been a blooming week !

tbh i don't know why we havnt had a running order before *looks at jonny*

tbh im not all for the absolute set dates (ie 1st-15th EVERY month), i think we should still have them decided by whoever wins, just make sure we don't have them running too close to each other , and make sure they are known in advance

i also don't mind the themed contests, but i'm not their biggest fan, i don't think we should do one for the next few editions at least, as we havn't had that many editions
i also think that they are more fun if they are like "groups only" rather than "all ballads" or something

one important thing i would liek to make is: whoever wins and hosts the next contest should make the rules for their contest (i mean they have to stick to the general contest rules, but they must be able to make decisions, such as a special edition or whatever)

btw - i think we should have a website that can be used for resources, the contest and stuff, as atm it seems a bit messy

I like the 1st-15th idea and I also like the themed contests.
The running order doesn't matter to me at all, if I like a song, I like it, no matter if I hear it 1st or 20th.
Kevin's idea I also agree with: that the host of each contest should be responsible for some rules, for example no famous singers or songs or no national finals or anything the host feels comfortable with (I just had an idea that the host could choose a theme if they want...e.g love songs or ballads or dance songs or rock or whatever...I think that would be very cool).

Okay, I'm certainly a big fan of the two a month contest. I really don't want to have only one, because then I'll only have about 3 left which I can do and I have much more music I wish to share with you all

There's not really a lot you can do about famous songs winning. Some people will push the boat out, choose different songs which the majority of us have never heard before (like Dave, Mina, myself...) whereas others will be less creative and stick to the straight and narrow. There's nothing wrong with it, but there's nothing you can do about it.

Certainly NOT happy with the theme idea - as Mark said, other contests have done it and it is rather PUMP PUMPy and Ollie raises the good point that people will be more likely to just pick a big name in case of having a "North-American" themed contest.

If anybody is paying more attention to the videos than the songs, they shouldn't be in this contest - that's not what it's about. Finally, I was always expecting there to be a running order; we could even do a BlogTV show using Stew's sexy hat!

True but depends on how we define the theme...in my case I took it to mean genre of music or theme of the song, not of different countries

Ah, very true that would be better and certainly would not be as limiting as Jonny's idea. I also have a very *radical* proposal: maybe songs which have entered the top 40 of the UK charts should not be allowed in the contest?

I agree but I think it's something the British of this site should decide. If you're all ok with it, then why not?

great ideas jonny!! for the last one (running order): in the previous edition the running order was decided by a random number generator and the same thing will happen in this edition (only this time there will be a video showing the draw)...

i love the idea of the themed contests!!!!!!!!!!

OK so we've basically reached a few conclusions ...

A) The dates of the contests should be more regulated and quite a few people are in favour of the 1st-15th idea! (apart from Mark but hes having a hissy fit anyway rofl)

B) The themed idea can work providing its more general. Aka like Mina said, we have to chose ballads, or love songs. So more that we have to chose a genre of music rather than a particular area of the world for example.

C) And finally more power should be given to the host. They shouldn't use the same rules every contest and they can provide variation and make up rules if they please.

And Btw thanks for listening to my ideas guys!

And i'm DEFINITELY Ok with that mainly because most of the stuff in our top 40 is PUMP PUMP anyway BOOM BOOM POW!!

Okay, I know you're not being purposefully mean, but patronizing Mark is one way to guarantee that he doesn't rejoin the contest!

LMFAO!!! Well, I suggested it because the UK music industry and chart system are the best indicator of what is "popular" (and yeah, not necessarily what is "good" ) - so if we had had this rule from the beginning, none of the winners would have even been allowed into the contest in the first place!

I like the idea about organizing two editions during each month Once a month won't work, it will be too boring and the contest will die out because of the boringness .. and it doesn't take much of your time to organize & find a song LOL ..

However, I don't like the theme-idea. I think everybody should have the freedom to pick songs they feel most comfortable with to share

LOL well if he doesn't want to be in the contest we shouldn't beg him to come back anyway, we've got plenty enough countries as it is and if one dissapears for a bit its not exactly a tragic loss lol I know that sounds harsh but i'm not gonna say it any other way, if somebody wants to withdraw for whatever reason it really doesn't bother me at all.

TBH i can see the idea in this, but i'm not happy with this, as sometimes there is a pretty good song that you might want to send that entered it
i think it would be better just to persuade people not to send it, than have a rule on it
although we could use the host's discretion on this

Well ofc. I am not returning ... the contest is currently a complete mess. Run by people who think they are the bee's knees - yes that's Jonny and Mina, who do anything in their power to get their pathetic minions to do anything and everything they want.

The contest has and is going down a very fast route, to become like the other crappy contests. I see no point in entering it.

Well somebody forgot their tampon!! All i'm doing is coming up with ideas because so many people seem unhappy with the contest at the moment, if thats not welcome them I am dreadfully sorry for trying to help lol