So the battles must be up and running and so must the voting, there have been numerous suggestions to get people to vote, heres another;

The old bandAmp site had an orange logo stuck to the bottom right hand corner of the page which I believe would stay there when you scrolled up or down.
Why cant there be a box/image with 'You have not yet voted for this song' on it that sticks to the edge/corner of a page if that member / ip address hasn't voted for that song, it might only work for members but it might at least work.
It should be slightly irritating but not too much because people do after all have a choice. But it should be allowed to 'nag' them to vote! lol

a bit agressive... but i think it would work.

Aggressive ! Naaa! Aggressive would be to go around to members houses and beat them up with baseball bats , that would be aggressive ,
Anyway, I think the conversation has turned to making voting compulsory, like if you dont vote your not allowed to leave the page !

Why not make a screen wide "STOP!" warning sign pop up when you visit a song to which you havent voted yet, with a flashing white/red bar and green letters saying: "You are the (n) visitor to this page and you haven't voted yet!! Click here to vote now!!" and if you fail, you get banned from the amp automatically??

Okk that might not work... But I seriously doubt any other warning sign will either... All I can guess WILL work is a mandatory vote to go with a review and *perhaps* a pop-up voting interface while opening a song page... Maybe, while listening to the bandamp player (is there a "current battle" playlist in there?) after each played song you will be prompted to vote (but if you don't, the next prompt will replace the one you've ignored)... We need to keep this site user friendly, yet at the same time, the voting part should be obvius and very accessible... Hmm difficult...

I posted this on TLSs thread ( http://forum.bandamp.com/Feedback/8701.html )

"Ahem! What about, 3 comments and 3 votes = 1 song upload ?
No fuss, just do it, like it's always been that way ! [:roll:]

The actual connection between votes and a working battle can come later.....when theres a working battle.
It could be a duplicate system to the comments , and could show up with the amount of threads/posts/songs we have , like "this member has voted xxx times" , so just like comments, members who take part in the site build up 'upload points'.

Tis about participation, is it not ?"

It seams to be applicable here too.

On a site that is based on up/down loading music and Battles, voting must be compulsory , it's what makes the site, it's like buying things on eBay without actually paying for them!
I think the problem with bandAmp is that it's too easy, cruse in , download really cool tracks and bugger off again! Thats too easy! Even for members.

Thanks PX... had the same thing in mind.

I am going to make a small note just on the right side of the flash player.

"This song is currently in a battle. Please rate..." or sth like that

When you used the voting stars this message disappears

@Kings,
you can actually deny any downloads of your songs and -sorry- it works.
So every member can take this chance to protect the work.
And when the battle was over (and when the script was working properly) then the MP3 cant be deleted. Before the battle is finished, you can "Declare Peace"
I know that there is a problem with the converting script to finish/close a battle and save the rank.
I'm doing my studies.

Yes, I got that as it happened TK, very nice work. You have been studying !
I actually meant that just downloading/listening to peoples original and often very good songs is too easy.
'The site' should 'demand' that members and visitors vote , because it is what the whole site is about....the battles and the bettering of the art of music.

Hmm thats actually not entirely what this site is all about.. It's a feature of the site.. One that has caused a great deal of discussion, and yes, if it would work very smoothly, it COULD greatly increase traffic to this site if there was something to actually win.

I REMEMBER when I first signed up, after logging in and looking at my profile page, there would be a list of all the songs that were in the current battle and I hadn't voted on. The list was annoying, so one would want to see it out of sight, and the only way to remove it was by voting to every song in it.

How about having that list show up on every page one visits? One will constantly be confronted with the songs in the battle.. And be urged to vote for those songs... Or else the list just sits there blocking half the screen or so... ? Hmmm there's something of an idea in there...

Wow... I cant believe we are still on about this... such a shame as the battle is one of the main reasons i came here to begin with...  Why cant we just make it so that the rating feature... whatever we decide on... is the review submit button and base the battles on the overall ratings of all songs....  basically all songs posted are in the battle in a sense and are voted on automatically as they are reviewed?  Top rated song wins...  simple and effective!

Message: "Either you vote+post or you won't be able to continue reviewing more songs".
Aggressive but useful.

         > Iszil

I think simple is the key, MAP.  You're right on target there.  It also needs to be an *obvious* method of voting.  Those blue stars honestly blend right into the site's color scheme, and I don't see them unless I preemptively think to use them, same as with the smilies.

I would like a "review" to BE the rating.  The two should not be separate, in my opinion.  What you *say* to accompany the rating is up to you.

And along Iszil's approach, I think users should receive the privilege of uploading songs only if they're attempting to contribute to the community.  Give them 1, 2, maybe 3 grace songs to start with, but after that, they better have some reviews of other peoples' music (which aren't all simple reviews like "this sucks").  I think we've had a ratio discussion before, so we need not go through that again, but the idea is important.