Regarding the rules for lyrics awards voting...

Call me paranoid - there are over 400 entries to date, so I'm guessing we'll have 500-600 by the end. I'm sure that most of us are honest, fair-minded folks, but it's possible that a few entrants might be sending out an email to their fan base that goes something like this:

"Hey guys - I entered my song "One Size Fits All" in the J.P. Folks contest, and if you all register and vote for it, then I can win the big prize in Los Angeles! And you can vote more than once - just register under all your e-mail addresses. Here's how..."

We've seen this kind of thing happen elsewhere - I'm thinking especially of the charts on mp3.com, particularly when they had the free pay-for-play program.

You might want to consider

- Limiting voting to only the members who submitted lyrics, or
- Limiting voting to only members who joined JPFolks prior to 9/1, or
- Maybe just an informal check of votes for the top nominees to see if something funny is going on...though I'm not sure how anyone could tell for sure

Any other ideas? I hate the idea of limiting voting, plus I don't know how techically feasible it is.

Or maybe the whole concept of this Just Plain Folks stuff includes learning to trust each other. We're all in this together, right?

Love,
Mike

Mike Borok
New Middle Class
newmiddleclass.com