How Push works, and why the scoring rewards passion over consensus
One song per person, blind listening, and a points curve that weighs the top of the ballot far more
Push exists to get you out of your own bubble. Each participant nominates one song, everyone listens to the nominations without knowing who submitted what, and at the end everyone ranks what they heard.
A round moves through four phases in this order: nominations open, listening, voting, result. Identities only appear at the result.
Why the anonymity matters
If you knew who nominated each track, you would vote differently. Not out of bad faith, it is automatic: we listen more patiently to a nomination from someone we admire and less patiently to one from a stranger.
Keeping nominations anonymous until the end forces the listening to stand on its own. It is the only part of ChartFM where that happens, because everywhere else on the site the name of whoever published comes attached.
The points curve, which is the interesting part
Here is the detail almost nobody notices. The scoring is not linear.
The song you place first on your ballot receives 20 points. The last one receives 1. And what sits between them is not a straight line, it is a curve that drops fast at the start and slowly at the end.
The practical consequence is direct: **being somebody's number one is worth far more than being several people's number three.** A track that two participants loved and everyone else ignored can beat a track everyone found reasonable.
That is a design choice, not an accident. A discovery contest that rewarded consensus would always elect the least offensive track of the round. The exponential curve does the opposite: it rewards the song that provoked a strong reaction in somebody.
If you are voting with an eye on making your own nomination win, the calculation shifts too. Spreading your ballot diplomatically does not help. The top of it holds nearly all the weight.
The ballot size is yours
You do not have to rank every song in the round. The curve is calculated against the size of your own ballot.
So if you ranked five songs, your first is worth 20 and your fifth is worth 1. If you ranked twenty, your first is worth 20 and your twentieth is worth 1. The weight of your vote at the top is identical in both cases.
Not voting costs you nothing directly, but leaves you behind
There is a rule for anyone who nominates and then disappears at voting time, and it is elegant.
Whoever fails to submit a ballot takes no deduction on their own song. Instead, **every other song in the round receives 20 points**.
The end effect matches a penalty, your nomination falls behind, but the implementation is cleaner: nothing is subtracted from anyone and there are no negative scores to explain. You simply did not take part in a round that depended on everyone taking part.
The reason it exists is obvious once you consider the opposite incentive. Without this rule, the optimal strategy would be to nominate and never vote, because voting only helps your competitors.
Frequently asked questions
- Can I nominate more than one song?
- No. One per participant, per round. That keeps the ballot at a manageable size and forces the choice to carry weight.
- When do I find out who nominated what?
- At the result phase. Before that, neither the other nominations nor their authorship are visible.
- Is it worth voting for my own song?
- You do not vote for your own. The ballot excludes your own nomination.
- Can the scoring tie?
- It can, and a tie is settled by the order of counting. With ballots of different sizes and an exponential curve, an exact tie is rare.
