If you’ve checked out our network over the past couple days, you probably noticed that we did away with thumbs down voting. This is a fairly significant change, so I figured I’d write a quick blog post to explain the reason for it.
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For starters, let’s look at the philosophical raison d’etre for the RV network. The aim of our network is to serve as a resource where DJs and producers can gain visibility and where fans can access a wealth of quality free music. Basically, we know there are tons of talented DJs and producers out there who deserve recognition for their skills, and we want to help them get it. With this in mind, we don’t think we’re helping any artists by allowing their mixes to be voted down. The world is full of critics and naysayers. We want the RV network to be a place where artists get support, not discouragement.
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Don’t get me wrong; honest feedback can certainly be helpful for up-and-coming artists. For this reason, we’ve left in place the comment feature so that the RV community (you) can still share your candid thoughts about any track or mix on our site.
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Another more practical reason for our removal of thumbs down voting is that some people were voting disingenuously during our contests cycles. For example, we’d be running a contest cycle, and people would start voting some of the top-rated mixes down so that their favorite mixes would stand a better chance of winning.
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This actually bothered me quite a bit in a few cases. On multiple occasions, I watched as solid mixes were voted down by people who wanted to game the system. Two examples of this that immediately come to mind are the mixes submitted by Ingo Vogelmann (for mix cycle 004) and Naveen G (for mix cycle 005). Ingo’s “Welcome 2K10” mix was a fine progressive mix, and Naveen’s “Sub Zero to Plain Zero” mix was rock solid. Both of these mixes started receiving thumbs up votes and a string of favorable comments, then people seemed to start trying to keep them from winning. There were other victims of this sort of behavior, so we’ve taken action to prevent this from happening in the future.
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So that’s pretty much it in a nutshell. Going forward, people will win contests by receiving thumbs up votes, not by virtue of other music being voted down.
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Speaking of contests…I should tell you to be on the lookout for new ones to start soon. We’re cooking up some more cool prizes with MixMeister, so stay tuned!
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Eddie B
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