How ranking works

Rules version rules-v1. Every frozen chart records which version it used.

What decides rank

Only CreatorMusic fan votes. Plays, views, likes and followers on other platforms never affect rank. Where we show a YouTube view count, it's the raw number from YouTube, labeled, shown for context only.

• One vote per person, per track, per day (Mountain Time). Come back tomorrow to vote again.
• Anonymous votes (after a quick bot check) count 1. Google sign-ins count 1. X accounts at least 30 days old count 3; newer X accounts count 1.
• Score = the sum of counted vote weights for the week (Monday 12:00 AM to Sunday 11:59 PM MT).
• Ties go to more distinct voters, then more distinct voting days, then whichever track entered first.
• Voting never requires or rewards listening, and nobody can pay to rank. Ever.

Charts

• Overall plus 12 genres: Pop, Hip-Hop / Rap, R&B / Soul, Rock / Alternative, Country / Americana, Electronic / Dance, Lo-fi / Chill / Ambient, Gospel / Christian, Latin, Cinematic / Soundtrack, Comedy / Meme, World.
• A genre chart publishes in a week only if it has at least 10 tracks. Until then, its tracks compete in Overall.
• Filters by how a track was made (Human, Hybrid, AI-assisted, Fully AI) show the same ranking narrowed to that tag. The artist picks the genre and tag; moderators can correct them.
• Up to 3 tracks per artist per week. A track can chart for up to 4 weeks.

Fraud checks

Artists can't vote for their own tracks (those votes are voided). These patterns put votes on hold: held votes don't count unless a moderator releases them.

• Looks like an automated client
• Sudden burst of first-time voters
• Too many votes from one network
• Repeated anonymous votes from one network today
• Many identical browsers in a short window
• Spike of votes from one outside link

Specific thresholds: more than 50 first-time voters on one track in an hour; more than 40% of a track's votes from one network once it has 20+ votes; more than 5 anonymous votes per track per day from one network; more than 25 identical browsers in an hour; more than 30 votes in 10 minutes from one outside link. Networks are also rate-limited.

We store salted hashes, never raw IP addresses. Manipulated votes can be voided and repeat offenders removed. Buying or selling fake votes is against our rules and, for commercial purposes, against US law (16 CFR 465.8).

The weekly freeze

Sunday 11:59 PM MT each chart freezes, and its standings CSV gets a SHA-256 fingerprint recorded on the XRP Ledger test network. How to verify.