Right. So if you have only a few good ratings, you have a good average. But if you have a bunch of ratings that are all bad, you will still get a bad rating, even though you have a bunch. So either way it's a pretty fair judge.

But guys, no system is perfect. And a better system has yet to be thought up of.

hum, I think you're right, but there's another thing.  A song gets more probabilitys to have a "fair" rank if it has many votes.  What happens if a few people doesn't like my song and rate it low and my, let say five votes, give me a poor average... that wouldn't happen to a song that have been reciving votes for six months cause it would have some good and some bad ratings that represent better the quality of the song.  So, if we want to make it fair then there would be no battle entering limit... and that's obviously not possible.
I think I agree with dcspoonman about re-starting the count at the moment you enter a battle.

Only an idea...

all votes take part on the ranking but...

the three best and three worst votings will be cut.

example:

100  |
100  | = fake voters
100  |
100  |
90    |
80    |
80    |
70    |
70    |===>  820/11 = average 74.5%
70    |
70    |
70    |
60    |
60    |
20    |
10    |= voters they dont like you
10    |
------

Is it also possible to allow a song which was not ranked in one battle to be put up in another battle?

Previously, I do not think so.
However, mud has said that he is going to change it so that if you don't get more than 20 votes in a battle, you may compete again and again until you do.

afaik it IS possible to enter a song in a battle if it didn't have more than 20 votes in a previous one.

anyway, as for the initial problem, I think I'll write a "How to Vote" lesson in the lessons forum because I've found that a lot of members (amongst those who come here often) don't seem to have any clue whatsoever on how to keep their voting behaviour consistent. In other words, they don't vote much at all and apparently only base the rating they're giving on what mood they are in, not to composition/production quality or whatever.

Dude, what?
That defies the whole point of Bandamp. I'm not one of them am I, I don't do it on purpose I know that...
Anyway, in answer to that earlier problem of voting.
You should take entries in a couple of months ahead of the battle itself. Oopen in it and leave it for a couple of months before you count.  That way every one gets the same amount of time to get votes.
You just have to decide whether you want to enter your song into a battle or not before uploading. If you decide not and post it then later decide you do want to enter it to a battle you could mearly delete it off the site and upload again but enter it staight away.
You guys getting any of this...?

Well, this is an interesting discussion indeed, though I personally don't like the idea of having votes reset or whatever when a song is entered in a battle (which, I think, used to be the case). Entering a song in a battle late technically just isn't abuse, and yes I have put songs in a battle late because the rating was high and the number of votes seemed promising enough to make it to 20+ during the time of the battle.

Anyway, I've moved this thread from Abuse to The Pit, it seems more fitting here.

why not keep the battle separite from the listing if you enter into battle you start fresh,
no votes no ratings but only for the battle. You could still  maintain your status in the listing.  It might be to much work for the web site not sure. Oh well, just a thought
I only joined  yesterday so I'm still trying to figure some things out.

I think it is fine the way it is.....   As long as everyone is honest and forthright in the voting process......

   If people tryto cheat and abuse the sytsem.. this will only hurt the site, and make it be a bad place to be.. so lets try to be as honest and fair in our voting as we can...

          Jim K

so always vote 100% on mine!!     

yer, you post a song and wait to see if any one likes it. If they do you shove it in a battle and try and get into the hall of fame and hopefully on to The Amp.
Seems fair enough.