[Shodan]

Writing a whole verse as a question

// I'm not sure I quite understand what you are proposing here. Can you explain it in more detail for me, please?

Topical: Write a whole story for an opponent and why their a failure at life.

// This one gets the Hastur Seal of Approval. Hell, I'd be willing to do one right now - kind of like a roast, that doesn't even have to rhyme. +1.

90's slang battles using only references and slangs from the 90's, other decades could work too.

// Eh... as far as I can tell, this is basically just a jacked-up theme battle - or maybe not. Either way, this isn't something I'd really be super-interested in, but some other members might be. It's worth considering, I guess.

Like Epic Rap Battles Of History we would pretend we're historians or famous people and battle each other using personal references.

// This is a very interesting idea. It's also how I originally discovered text battling, so it's extra-interesting for me.

Topical: Situational cyphers. You're stuck in a prison how do you get out? You're both transported back to the civil war how do you survive? You're trapped in a wild and left for dead, what do you do? Obviously these would be at least 32 lines, more towards 64 and beyond.

// I dig this. What is interesting, is that on some other sites I've viewed/been a member of, this is actually the default way topicals are done; just throwing that out there.

Anonymous text battles. We set up two new profiles called Emcee 1 & Emcee 2 (3 & 4 if needed, etc.) but basically all the contestants would send me 8 lines of their work, me and a panel of judges would go over the verses and decide which ones are more closely matched so we don't give the advantage to someone and then I post them on the Emcee 1 & Emcee 2 profiles. People vote on the battle(s) but they don't know who wrote on verses so their is no bias or favoritism towards anybody. We would probably have the contestants who wrote the verse to drop votes against themselves so it doesn't look like they wrote them (Like oh why isn't Lockhart voting on this, he signed up for this Anonymous tournament hmm.) Also, obviously there would be no personals because they wouldn't know who their battling. We could also do Anonymous tag team battles.

// This is not really a good idea, at least in the form you are proposing it to be implemented in, for multiple reasons, IMO.

I think it would be better for the battles to be judged entirely by a neutral panel of trusted members (FVC/staff people). The reasons for this are manifold, but boil down to the fact that simply giving people assigned numbers, even when these numbers are switched up, is not sufficient to ensure total anonymity.

If there is not total anonymity, prospective voters could be swayed (by choice, without realizing it, or even because they were asked to vote a certain way), because it is usually extremely simple for a person to be identified simply by how they write - the fine art of stylometry. Of course, the problem of asking your friends to vote for you exists anyway, but it could be very much magnified here, since it might not immediately be suspected.

I can easily tell you if DaDDiO, reEFer, Babylon or Rant wrote a verse, even if they try to write differently to hide who they are, because they have very unique styles of writing; their word choice, their proficiency in various aspects of battling, the pronouns they use, the grammatical mistakes they make, etc. This is true to a lesser extent with just about everyone; it is very difficult to hide your writing habits, but very easy for you to be identified due to this effect.

EDIT: Oh, and one more thing; your system of voting against yourself is very flawed. If I know that is being done - or, at least, *possibly* being done - then I can come to a conclusion such as, "Hey, Emcee 4's verse reads a lot like something Lockhart would write... oh, and Lockhart even dropped a vote explaining, in as little detail as possible, why he lost this battle! Well, I guess that means that Emcee 4 must be Lockhart."

[Shodan]

Writing a whole verse as a question

// I'm not sure I quite understand what you are proposing here. Can you explain it in more detail for me, please?

Topical: Write a whole story for an opponent and why their a failure at life.

// This one gets the Hastur Seal of Approval. Hell, I'd be willing to do one right now - kind of like a roast, that doesn't even have to rhyme. +1.

90's slang battles using only references and slangs from the 90's, other decades could work too.

// Eh... as far as I can tell, this is basically just a jacked-up theme battle - or maybe not. Either way, this isn't something I'd really be super-interested in, but some other members might be. It's worth considering, I guess.

Like Epic Rap Battles Of History we would pretend we're historians or famous people and battle each other using personal references.

// This is a very interesting idea. It's also how I originally discovered text battling, so it's extra-interesting for me.

Topical: Situational cyphers. You're stuck in a prison how do you get out? You're both transported back to the civil war how do you survive? You're trapped in a wild and left for dead, what do you do? Obviously these would be at least 32 lines, more towards 64 and beyond.

// I dig this. What is interesting, is that on some other sites I've viewed/been a member of, this is actually the default way topicals are done; just throwing that out there.

Anonymous text battles. We set up two new profiles called Emcee 1 & Emcee 2 (3 & 4 if needed, etc.) but basically all the contestants would send me 8 lines of their work, me and a panel of judges would go over the verses and decide which ones are more closely matched so we don't give the advantage to someone and then I post them on the Emcee 1 & Emcee 2 profiles. People vote on the battle(s) but they don't know who wrote on verses so their is no bias or favoritism towards anybody. We would probably have the contestants who wrote the verse to drop votes against themselves so it doesn't look like they wrote them (Like oh why isn't Lockhart voting on this, he signed up for this Anonymous tournament hmm.) Also, obviously there would be no personals because they wouldn't know who their battling. We could also do Anonymous tag team battles.

// This is not really a good idea, at least in the form you are proposing it to be implemented in, for multiple reasons, IMO.

I think it would be better for the battles to be judged entirely by a neutral panel of trusted members (FVC/staff people). The reasons for this are manifold, but boil down to the fact that simply giving people assigned numbers, even when these numbers are switched up, is not sufficient to ensure total anonymity.

If there is not total anonymity, prospective voters could be swayed (by choice, without realizing it, or even because they were asked to vote a certain way), because it is usually extremely simple for a person to be identified simply by how they write - the fine art of stylometry. Of course, the problem of asking your friends to vote for you exists anyway, but it could be very much magnified here, since it might not immediately be suspected.

I can easily tell you if DaDDiO, reEFer, Babylon or Rant wrote a verse, even if they try to write differently to hide who they are, because they have very unique styles of writing; their word choice, their proficiency in various aspects of battling, the pronouns they use, the grammatical mistakes they make, etc. This is true to a lesser extent with just about everyone; it is very difficult to hide your writing habits, but very easy for you to be identified due to this effect.

EDIT: Oh, and one more thing; your system of voting against yourself is very flawed. If I know that is being done - or, at least, *possibly* being done - then I can come to a conclusion such as, "Hey, Emcee 4's verse reads a lot like something Lockhart would write... oh, and Lockhart even dropped a vote explaining, in as little detail as possible, why he lost this battle! Well, I guess that means that Emcee 4 must be Lockhart."