Rules

## Countries and confirmation

A list of all eligible nations may be found here.

Due to the unstability of the contest, the 4th edition (and nothing is yet known about future ones), may only have exactly 12 competing countries. All countries are first come-first serve, except the victorious one. Users who claimed their countries in the 3rd edition do not still have claims to it, except if they won.

If anyone confirms but there are no vacancies, they're added to a standby list, and will be let in in case someone doesn't send an entry.

## Contest Etiquette

On this contest, we want to host a steady and enjoyable contest. The organizers put effort to the organization, so we request that all participants are punctual to deadlines, know how to send original songs and know how to follow the rules. We also request that you stay polite.

## Artists

1. Artist should be strongly connected to the country they want to represent (e.g. Currently live there and work there for some years, citizenship, place of birth, have 50% or more ancestry from that country etc.) Anyway, the **council** will determine if the roots are legitimate.
2. All singers must be alive.
3. Singer was 18 or older at the time the song was published.
4. When it comes to groups, the group must have a strong connection to the country (e.g. works there, was formed there) or at least 50% of the members can qualify individually.
5. Have common sense, only humans will be accepted.
6. World chart artists are not allowed to compete.
7. A singer who previously competed in the (Junior) Eurovision Song Contest is not allowed to compete. Artists who have been confirmed for Eurovision aren't allowed either even if Eurovision hasn't happened yet.
8. Very overused artists are not allowed to compete.
9. An artist is not allowed to compete more than twice in a row.
10. An artist can only represent one country in one edition.

## Entries

1. Songs that have taken part in (J)E(A)SC in the past are not allowed to take part. Same for songs from preselections.
2. Song was released on 2010 or later.
3. Songs that cover or sample another song aren't allowed to participate.
4. Remixes or revamps are allowed, provided that their original hasn't taken part yet and their original singer is featured.
5. All countries may sing in whichever language they wish to.
6. Songs cannot have more than 50 million views on YouTube. This changes to only 10% for the borrowing nations.
7. Overused songs are not allowed. We consider a song overused if it has competed in 5 or more other contests in the past.
8. Entry cannot have taken part in the North Vision Song Contest.
9. Entries that won other contests will be avoided as well.

## Selection process

Since the fourth edition, all entries must be selected internally. Why? Because the contest is back from a huge hiatus and we don't want too much to work with right away. No song shall be posted, just submitted to the form, and all entries are revealed in the recaps.

## Voting

**NEW:** You have to send **ONE** set of votes (12-10-8-6-4-2-1) to the **comments of the video**. If you don't submit votes, you *may* be disqualified from the results and receive one strike. You mustn't make your votes published to anyone. Doing so may have consequences too.

### Tie-breaks

In the event of a tie, here are the tie-breaks that will be considered;

1. The amount of countries that awarded points to each song. For this tie-breaker, we will look into the results of each country, and we will consider a country to have been voted once no matter whether a  country gave it 1 point or 12 points.
2. If the first tie-breaker can still not solve a tie, then again, we are looking into each country's votes. The country collecting the most 12s is the winner. If that can't solve it, we're looking for 10s, then 8s, then 7s, then 6s, and so on until we can find a winner.
3. In the extreme case scenario that this can still not solve a tie, then the country performing earlier is the winner.

## Borrowing

Borrowing is prohibited starting the 4th edition.

## Strikes

You can receive 1 strike for:

1. Failing to submit votes within the given deadline.

You can receive 1 or more strikes for:

1. Cheating or attempting to cheat during voting (and not only).
2. Insulting or harassing other HoDs.
3. Breaking any other rules.
4. Any other actions the council considers inappropriate or which may put the contest in danger.
5. Skipping songs in the voting, making up random votes or voting through random.org (linked to the 4th rule and is common).

One strike and you'll be banned for one edition.

Two strikes and you'll be banned for two editions.

Three strikes and you'll be banned from the community forever.

## Loopholing

If a member attempts loopholing, meaning trying to break a rule above by using something not fully clarified, then the rulesbook will be edited to make things more clear and it would still be considered against the rules.