With the launch of the New Voting System on Red Karaoke, I thought I would take this opportunity to breathe a little air into the Voting Guidelines we already have on the site. After all, voting and rankings can be some of the most fun and interesting aspects built into Red Karaoke, as long as everyone plays nice and fair.

 

In the playground that is Red Karaoke, there is really only one rule that tops the rest. That is, ¨Do unto others as you would have done unto you.¨ Let´s face it, if everyone could follow this rule, the playground would be a peaceful, fun place with no bullies and everyone singing happily together. And while Red Karaoke usually is this utopia of a playground for karaoke lovers, it never hurts to refresh people´s memories of the finer details when it comes to voting.

 

If you decide to vote on a song, you are given a choice of whether to vote between 1 and 10 stars. That´s a lot of choices! And there is a reason for that. There are all kinds of singers. There are shy singers. There are singers who do it for fun. There are singers who love the sound of their voice, no matter what anyone else thinks. There are professional singers like Elvis Presley and Celine Dion. That´s why we give you so many choices! Because here at Red Karaoke we welcome every kind of singer.  And since every singer is different, you should really take the time to think about each song you listen to, so that you can make a fair vote using any of the number of stars.

 

So let´s go over the votes and what each one means.

 

When you are listening to a recording and trying to decide what to vote, a little description of what each vote means appears. They are as follows:

 

1 Star: Very poor. Very serious problems with this recording.

2 Stars: Poor. Serious problems with this recording.

3 Stars: Inadequate. It can be listened to, but it has problems.

4 Stars: Fair. You´re almost there.

5 Stars: Over the threshold. Not bad!

6 Stars: All right. I like this quite a bit.

7 Stars: Good. Highly recommended.

8 Stars: Very good! Excellent version!

9 Stars: Excellent! It´s a hit!

10 Stars: Stairway to the stars. The ultimate version, perfect.

 

Now, it may be tempting to give your really good buddy a great vote because they´re your friend. Or maybe you are a really nice person and you want to go around giving 10s to everyone, so they all feel great about their songs. While that´s very sweet, in the long run it´s not very helpful. Everyone wants to make great karaokes, but everyone need help from time to time. With the voting you can help your friends and other users improve by giving them honest judgments of a performance!

 

Let´s use as an example, our good friend Ferreira, CEO of Red Karaoke. He´s great! We love him for bringing us all together here and giving us the chance to share our karaokes. So when scrolling through his karaoke recordings, we find his version of I Believe in A Thing Called Love by The Darkness:

 

I believe in a thing called love - ¡Vota por mi grabación!

Wow! He definitely was having fun… but now it´s time to give him a vote. Would it be fair to think, ¨Ferreira is so great, and I don´t want to give him a low score because of that.¨ and give him a 10? Not really, since it doesn´t really fit the description of ¨The ultimate version, perfect.¨ Ferreira is a cool guy, and he wants to improve his singing and recordings. He, like all users of Red Karaoke, should be able to take a really honest vote, no matter how low it is. So unless the recording you´re listening to sounds something like this:

 

Remember that rarely anyone is perfect and to be honest about all of your votes, no matter whom you are voting for!

 

When it comes to low votes, there are some things to remember as well. Some people are really bad singers, but they still really love karaoke and want to have fun making recordings too. But if a person keeps making recordings and keeps receiving really low votes like 1 or 2, they may be discouraged to make more. That is why you´ll notice that the descriptions of the votes between 1 and 4 are more about the technical quality of the recording than the singing. Karaoke singers aren´t always meant to be great, but if they have good quality recording, they deserve at least a 4 or 5 for the effort!

 

As an example, here is the Administrator´s version of Happy Birthday:

Happy birthday - Vote for my rendition!

 

While there isn´t that much wrong with the recording, it does seem the mike volume is too low and it’s a bit difficult to hear the words in comparison with the music. So maybe this recording deserves something like a 3 or 4.

 

The important thing to remember is, always be honest and vote fairly! If you don´t want to give someone a low vote because they are your friend, but the recording doesn´t deserve a high vote, just comment! If a recording has a bad quality, give it a low vote and leave a helpful comment so the next time that user makes a recording they can improve! If you hear a recording that sounds like Mariah Carey joined Red Karaoke on the down low, by all means, give it a 10!

 

Red Karaoke is here for everyone to have fun doing what they love, singing karaoke! So don´t take it so seriously, share some karaokes, and play nice!

 

Also, check out all the details on the new anonymous voting system on Red Karaoke in the forum.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009 at 19:18 and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.