Getting started
Key Terms
The words that appear everywhere in Syncopoint, in plain language.
| Term | What it means |
|---|---|
| Event | The whole dance night, for example Harborview Balboa Social 2026. One event contains one or more competitions. |
| Competition | A single judged category inside an event, such as Mixed Prelims or Individual Finals. It has its own participants, judges, scores, and results. |
| Prelim / Final | The prelim is the big first round everyone dances in. The final is the smaller top group that dances for the top spots. |
| Participant | A registered dancer (or couple). They get a stable number in each competition, the competitor number judges see. |
| Yes / Maybe | The two ways a judge can support a participant in a prelim. A yes is the strongest support; a maybe is weaker ("they were good, but not in my top group"). |
| Ranked maybes (M1, M2, M3) | Some events ask judges to rank their maybe votes: M1 is the best maybe, M2 the next, M3 the last. |
| Head judge | The judge whose view carries extra weight in tie-breaks, typically the rules expert. They can vote normally, or they can be used only to break ties. |
| Finalist / Alternate | The dancers who advance to the final (finalists), and the back-ups who jump in if a finalist cannot dance (alternates). |
| Scoresheet | The printable judging grid: the table of participants and judges with each judge's votes. The PDF version is what you hand to judges or print at the venue. |
| Publication | Making results visible on the public website. Until you publish, the public see only "results have not been published yet". |
| Token | The unique code each judge uses to open their scoring page. Delivered as a QR code in the scoresheet PDF. |
| Heats | Groups of participants who dance together, used to plan the order of scoring. You can let the app pick the number from the field size. |
Two things you will not find
- Knockout or elimination. Syncopoint does not eliminate dancers. The final is scored by placing the finalists, and the ranking is published.
- Hand-editing results. The ranking is always worked out from the judges' votes. You do not type a winner's name in.