Future Rock Legends

The Song Project has a mission to enshrine worthy songs across all genres (rock & roll, rockabilly, rhythm & blues, soul, metal, punk, pop, jazz, blues, folk, country, rap, electronica, disco, indie, emo, etc.) of the 20th and 21st centuries, recognizing the contributions of those who have had a significant impact or influence on the evolution, development and perpetuation of music in the modern day. The voters must decide what criteria to use when nominating and voting, in a process described as follows:

A. The Song Project

Every month, voters have the ability to vote for 10 songs, as nominated prior to the voting. 10 songs will be inducted during the Song Project voting with tiebreaker votes being conducted if necessary.

The first three days of each month will be nomination days (the 1st-3rd). Each voter is allowed to nominate any two songs they deem worthy that aren't already inducted, along with the option to nominate a third song that was initially released as a single or as part of an album in the prior year. Songs from the current calendar year are not eligible until January of the following year.

The third day of the month is reserved for the evaluation of Voter's Choice nominations. There will be 5 days of voting, starting at 11:55 PM Central on the 3rd and ending at 11:55 PM Central on the 8th. Each voter can vote for any 10 nominated songs. You are not required to nominate songs to vote. Incomplete votes (ballots of less than 10 songs) will not be counted, though allowances will be made for cases of obvious human error.

In the event of immediately-recognized voter error (for example, if you forgot to vote for a particluar song and realize this immediately), voters can make changes to their ballot if the changes are made within a reasonable amount of time.

Each voter can change one of the votes on their ballot at any time during voting for any reason, except as part of a vote-swap arrangment as detailed later in the rules.

B. Voter's Choice

Every month, voters will have the ability to nominate one song for the Voter's Choice category. The intention of Voter's Choice is to call attention to and honor songs that are obscure or exist beyond general, mainstream music. The intention of Voter's Choice is not to call attention to or honor songs that are or were mainstream, popular, successful or known by general consensus, but not considered by the voters to be "worthy" of being voted into the Song Project.

Voter's Choice nominations will end at 11:55 PM Central on the 2nd.

Artists that have previously had a song inducted into the Song Project or the Voter's Choice category are ineligible to have songs nominated for the Voter's Choice category.

Songs that have been added to the Voter's Choice category are eligible to be nominated for the Song Project.

Songs by artists represented in the Voter's Choice category are eligible to be nominated for the Song Project.

Songs nominated for the Voter's Choice category will be subject to peer review. Any voter who has participated in a Future Rock Legends project in the past can lodge a protest against any Voter's Choice nominee if they feel that the song doesn't belong in the Voter's Choice category. Any song that receives three protests is ineligible for the Voter's Choice category. Protests can be lodged at any time after the nomination of the song. If a song receives three protests prior to 11:55 PM Central on the 2nd or if the nominator decides to withdraw their nomination by that deadline, they can choose to nominate another Voter's Choice song prior to the deadline. The review period ends at 11:55 PM Central on the 3rd.

Any song that is nominated for Voter's Choice and not succesfully protested or withdrawn will be eligible for voting in the Song Project. If the Voter's Choice song is not voted into the Song Project, it will be added to the Voter's Choice category.

C. Genre Voting

Each month, one genre will be selected for a special vote where only songs fitting that particular genre will be eligible for consideration. Each voter will be allowed to nominate one new genre for consideration in the genre vote (even if they have previously nominated a genre that is still eligible). This nomination period will take place from the 1st to the 3rd each month, during the Song Project nominations.

From the list of nominated genres, each voter (regardless of whether or not they nominated a genre) can vote for as many as five genres. Voting will take place from the 4th through the 6th each month. The genre that gets the most votes will be selected for this month.

In the event of a tie, a two day tiebreaker vote will be conducted to determine which genre will be selected for that particular month. Any genre that loses a tiebreaker will be automatically selected as the genre the following month. In the event of a tiebreaker involving more than two genres, the losing genres will be selected in the order that they finished in the tiebreaker.

Any genre that receives three or more votes, but isn't selected as this month's genre or involved in losing a tiebreaker and being assigned to a future month will be automatically nominated for the next genre selection vote. Any genre that receives fewer than three votes is eligible to be re-nominated during any future genre selection vote.

After a genre is selected, it is ineligible to be nominated or selected for the next six months, regardless of how many genre selection votes take place over the next six months. Whether or not a sub-genre is eligible for nomination will be determined by voters on a case-by-case basis.

Depending on the selected genre, there will be either one or two votes for the selected genre. In most cases, these genres will be broken down along chronological lines, the terms of which will be determined by the voters.

Genre song nominations will begin after the conclusion of all tiebreakers in the Song Project and the Album Project vote. Each voter can nominate two songs that they feel belong in the selected genre. Each nominated song will be subject to peer review and protesting using the same rules as the Voter's Choice category, except the criteria will be whether or not the nominated song fits the selected genre rather than whether or not the song belongs in Voter's Choice. There will be two days of nominations followed by one day of review and protest, followed by five days of voting, following the same rules as the Song Project.

Ten songs will be inducted from each genre vote, with tiebreaker votes as necessary.

If an additional vote is determined to take place, it will begin after the conclusion of the first genre's voting process.

D. Tiebreakers

In the event that Song Project or Song Project genre voting results end in a tie, the final inducted songs will be determined using a two-day tiebreaker vote. Only voters who participated in the original vote will be eligible to participate in the tiebreaker.

If two songs are involved in the tiebreaker, each eligible voter can select one of the two songs.

If more than two songs are involved in the tiebreaker, each eligible vote will rank all of the songs in the tiebreaker in order of preference. The lowest-ranked song will receive 1 point, with the number of points received increasing by one as preference increases. For example, in a three-song tiebreaker, the highest-ranked song would receive 3 points, the next song 2 points and the lowest-ranked song 1 point.

If the tiebreaker ends in a tie that does not result in a total of ten songs being inducted overall, the new tie will be resolved with the song that received the most first-place tiebreaker votes being inducted. If that doesn't resolve the tie, a second tiebreaker vote will take place involving only the songs still involved in a tie.

Any song that loses a tiebreaker vote will be automatically nominated for the next Song Project or Song Project genre vote that the song is eligible for.

E. Additional Rules:

No explicitly designed trades or partial ballots are allowed. During the nomination days you are allowed to coordinate with other voters on what songs you want to vote for, give suggestions and such, but you are not allowed to say "I will vote for x, if you vote for y." Once you have submitted a ballot you are allowed a maximum of 1 vote change at anytime during the voting period.

By popular vote, voters aren't allowed to vote for their own Voter's Choice nomination.

Any voter can propose a rule change at any time. Once a rule-change has been proposed, it will be discussed by voters and a vote will take place if participants decide such a vote should take place.

This constitution was not written by a lawyer and as such, it should not be considered air-tight or free from logical or typographical errors. If you have questions regarding the rules, please ask the voters on this board for clarification. Please do not attempt to exploit perceived loopholes in the rules.

Due to the flexible nature of these rules, the rules of the project may change in-between updates to the Constitution as a result of the rule-change process.