How do songs and upvotes work?
Each round, every player can submit a song or songs (you choose how many) and then, as long as they submit the required number of songs, they can vote on everyone else's submissions using upvotes and downvotes when applicable.
- Max songs per player — How many songs each player can submit per round. Anywhere from 0 to 10.
- Songs each player must submit — The number every player is required to submit each round, from 0 up to 10. Set it below the "Max songs per player" to allow partial submissions. Setting it to 0 makes submitting optional entirely — players who skip a round still get the playlist and can comment, but can't vote. Zero is only available in Steady leagues: Accelerated and Speedy leagues advance as soon as everyone has submitted, so they need every player to take part to keep moving. A player can also Save their progress instead of submitting every required song at once (see How do I submit a song?), but an entry that's still short of this number when the submission deadline passes (a saved entry the deadline converts as-is, or one where a song was removed after submitting) can't vote either, the same as skipping the round outright.
- Total upvotes each player may distribute — Each voter has a pool of upvote points to distribute across song submissions. Anywhere from 0 to 100 points per round. Set it to 0 for a non-competitive league — see below. Zero is only available in Steady leagues: Accelerated and Speedy leagues advance as soon as the last vote is cast, so they need votes to keep moving.
- Total upvotes each player must distribute — How much of that pool a voter is expected to spend. Anywhere from 0 to 100, and never more than the "may distribute" number above. Speedy leagues need at least 1, for the same reason. Set it to 0 in a Steady or Accelerated league for a lighter-touch league where voting is optional.
- Max upvotes per song — How many of their points a voter can put on a single submission. This encourages spreading votes. If a round has fewer songs than expected, this number auto-adjusts upward so every voter can spend all their points — but it never drops below the number you set.
Players can never vote on their own submissions.
One thing to watch: players × songs-per-player can't exceed 100. That's the maximum playlist size for a single round, so very large leagues need to keep submissions per player low. That said, anything over 25 songs per playlist is probably too many unless the voting window is really long.
Can I run a league with no voting?
Yes, in a Steady league. Set Total upvotes each player may distribute to 0 and the league becomes a discovery-and-conversation league — no voting, no scores, no winner. It's for groups who just want to share music and talk about it.
This is a Steady-only option. Accelerated and Speedy leagues advance the moment the last vote is cast, so a league with no votes would have nothing to advance on.
When you set upvotes to 0, the Settings page hides the options that only matter when there are votes: Max Upvotes Per Song and Advanced Settings. Song Submission Comments stays available — comments are the whole point of a no-voting league. Set upvotes back above 0 and the rest come straight back.
What still happens in a no-voting league:
- Songs are tracked in each player's history and in the league's history, the same as any other league.
- Comments on song submissions are visible when the playlist is released.
- Rounds still open and close on the schedule you set.
What does the score percentage next to a song mean?
Everywhere a score is shown — round results, league standings, and the private "you've submitted this before" reminder — the percentage in parentheses means the same thing: how close a song came to the most upvotes it could possibly have earned.
- The number of points (the top figure) is the song's net upvote score: upvotes received minus downvotes received, floored at zero. Downvotes only ever pull a score toward zero, never below it. So a song with 4 upvotes and 1 downvote shows 3; a song with 4 upvotes and 4 (or more) downvotes shows 0.
- The percentage is that net score divided by the per-song maximum — the number of upvotes every player combined could give to one song. That's every other player spending their full per-song upvote cap on the same song. A song that earns every upvote it possibly could reads 100%. When the net score is 0 or below, the percentage reads 0%. On standings, it's your net score across all your rounds divided by each of those rounds' per-song maximums added together.
Because the percentage measures each song against the best it could have done, a top pick reads near 100% whether the league hands out a lot of points per round or only a few. This allows Music League players to more accurately measure their acumen versus players they don't always play with.
Will I be told if I've already submitted a song before?
Yes. If you search for or select a song you've personally submitted in an earlier round — in this league or any other league you've played in — Music League shows you a private reminder naming the league, the round, when you submitted it, and how it scored (its net upvote score and that score as a percentage of the per-song maximum — the same percentage you see on results and standings).
This is just a heads-up. It is visible only to you and it never stops you from submitting the song again if you still want to.
Note: It only shows results from rounds that have finished voting.
What are downvotes?
Downvotes are optional and turned off by default. When enabled by the League Admin, in addition to upvotes, each voter gets a pool of downvotes they can use to subtract points from submissions they don't like for whatever reason.
Downvotes add a competitive edge and can lead to bigger swings in the standings. They work best in tight-knit groups where everyone is comfortable with the extra competition and okay with disrespecting a song they might not dislike (if they are required).
You can set how many downvotes each player may distribute per round (1 to 100), how many they must distribute (from 0 up to the may number; at least 1 in Speedy leagues), and a per-song cap. Set must to 0 to make downvotes optional. Players cannot downvote their own submissions.
When can players see submission comments?
Players can leave an optional comment when they submit a song. Comments add context and personality to each submission, though they can influence votes and may reveal who submitted a song. So, the League Admin controls when those comments become visible to other players.
There are three options:
- During (and after) Voting — Comments are visible to voters once voting opens. This is the default.
- When Votes are Revealed — Comments are hidden until voting closes and results are revealed. This keeps comments from swaying anyone's votes.
- Player's Choice — Each player decides per-song whether their comment is visible during voting or only after.
You can change this setting between rounds, but not while a round is actively in voting.
What's Competitive Mode?
Competitive Mode is an optional setting in the Advanced Settings section of the Settings step.
When it's on, a player who doesn't use all their required votes in a round forfeits all the upvotes their submission earned that round. They do get any downvotes their song received. With Competitive Mode off (casual), missing a vote carries no such penalty. This encourages everyone to actually participate instead of just submitting and disappearing.
Competitive Mode is locked the moment a league is launched. Unlike other scoring settings, it can't be changed during an active league.
What is the Vote Breakdown?
Vote Breakdown is also in the Advanced Settings section.
When results are revealed after voting is complete and Vote Breakdown is on (the default setting and by far the most common), players will see how each player voted. Turn this off to keep individual voting patterns private; results will only show total points per song.
This setting only applies to the final vote results. Results shown to a player after they vote but before voting is complete will be anonymous.
Can I change the rules after the league has started?
Most settings can still be changed once the league is running, from Edit league in the league's ⋮ menu. Songs per round waits for the next round, so a round that's already accepting songs keeps its limit. The others — pace, comment visibility, duplicate artists and the vote breakdown — apply right away, including to the round in progress, and each one says so beside it. Be sure to use the league chat to tell everyone if you change something mid-league, so no one is caught off guard.
A few settings are locked:
- The number of votes is locked the moment the league starts. Total upvotes per player, max upvotes per song, and every downvote setting (downvotes on/off, the downvotes each player may and must distribute, max downvotes per song) can no longer be changed once the league is active. Changing the number of votes available or required after voting has begun would unfairly impact ballots players have already submitted. Making the pool of votes larger in later rounds would devalue earlier rounds.
- The one exception is an automatic change made by Music League to ensure leagues don't get stuck: if a round has too few songs for everyone to spend all their votes, Music League raises Max Upvotes per Song — it never lowers it below the number you chose. See How Voting Rules Work.
- Competitive Mode is locked at launch and can't be changed afterward.
- Max players can be updated at any time, as long as the league hasn't already hit its cap.
- League visibility (Private/Public) can only change from Public to Private, since there is a 20-round cap on Public leagues and no cap on Private leagues.