It's a silly little contest for fun, programming.dev folks reached out asking if they could send a song from video game soundtracks, which I deemed a fair alternative to them not representing a specific country, if any other instance wanted to participate and had reached out, I would also have considered it if they could provide songs from a specific field ! 🤗
I viewed the decision a like the Eurovision song contest invites other non-euro countries to submit contestants. Like Australia. Something i'm pleased about, but i cant/don't expect to be involved every year because, believe it or not, we're a long way from Europe.
From what I understand it is not about allowing a specific community to run and not other, it is to allow a genre that often get overlooked and don't get allowed to participate in this kind of contest very often.
You can see it like Israel or Australia being invited to the Eurovision. They are no European nation, but are invited ones. Same for programming.dev, they are an invited community.
Still not a nation. I think it's against more than one rule. It being allowed to bypass the language requirement also makes it easier to win since most of the Lemmy users appear to be English speakers, so voting for a song you can understand without the need to translate is a given.
Gaming soundtracks should have their own contest, with all the relevant communities informed so that they can propose and vote.
There is other English language songs in the contest, so if I follow that logic, we should ban them too.
This is a contest for fun, and the first one to boot. If there is an overwhelming victory for the gaming song, maybe the organizer will consider putting more strict rules next time, but for now, let people have their fun.
There is other English language songs in the contest, so if I follow that logic, we should ban them too.
If that were my only argument, then sure. And there are even more factors at play than I mentioned, like the fact that Lemmy's biggest community is Technology, meaning that there is the added advantage of that for a gaming-related topic.
If this is merely for fun, why associate with Eurovision at all? Why have any voting? Just have a sub for highlighting music.
Edit: And there are communities that do just that.
Exactly, though I'd also contest the notion of gaming OSTs being "often overlooked". Best Score and Music and its previous iterations have been a category at The Game Awards since 2014.
The real question should be whether those votes added to another song could have changed its position. If so, its presence was detrimental to every other participant.
I agree. Although I am not the organiser, i believed this to be a song contest among national communities not a song competition among communities. It may be a fun idea to work on but IMO this is the wrong place or time to do this