Vibathon rules

Free entry and eligibility

No purchase, payment, subscription or sponsorship is necessary to enter or win. Payment never improves anyone’s chances. Use one account per person. Entrants must be at least 18, or the age of majority where they live if higher, and able to lawfully enter and receive a prize in their own name. Void where prohibited.

Sponsors buy visibility, not victory: a sponsorship can never win a prize. Sponsors of a round, their owners, directors, employees and contractors cannot enter or win that round. The site operator, moderators and their personnel, and immediate family or household members of these people and the round’s sponsors are also ineligible. Sponsors cannot approve entries, alter scores or influence results. Disclose conflicts before entering; moderators may request evidence of eligibility.

Monthly window and project requirements

Each round uses a UTC calendar month: 00:00 UTC on the first day through, but excluding, 00:00 UTC on the first day of the next month. Entry, submission and voting must reach our server before the closing deadline. Archived rounds do not accept entries or votes.

Submit projects you own and first shipped during the round. You may submit multiple distinct projects. Each project counts once across all months; updates, reposts, alternate URLs and forks without substantial original work do not count as new projects. Provide a public HTTPS demo or repository, a project name and a clear description. AI tools are allowed; you remain responsible for the work, third-party licences, safety and accuracy.

Moderators review ownership, first shipment, working links, originality and eligibility. Commit history or other supporting evidence may be requested. Pending or disqualified submissions are excluded from both awards. Late approval can count toward shipping but cannot reopen voting. Unlawful, infringing, deceptive or malicious entries are disqualified.

Two awards, published criteria

Most projects shipped goes to the eligible maker with the greatest number of distinct approved projects. At least one approved project is required. People’s Choice goes to the individual eligible project with the highest net votes: upvotes add one and downvotes subtract one. The highest score wins even if every score is zero or negative. These are the selection criteria; there is no random draw or sponsor-selected winner.

Equal scores share the rank and split that award’s allocation equally. Display ordering does not break ties. One maker can win both awards; multiple projects by a maker can tie for People’s Choice. Each signed-in person has one changeable vote per project. No self-voting, multiple-account voting, purchased votes, bots or coordinated manipulation. Moderators may remove abusive votes or disqualify entries, with reasons recorded.

Leaderboards are provisional until eligibility and moderation are complete. Account deletion removes that person’s submissions and votes and may change results. A dispute about ownership, eligibility or manipulation can be reported to hello@howtovibecodeit.dev. Moderation applies these published criteria; sponsors have no decision-making role.

Prize fund and monthly split

We commit 40% of the site’s sponsorship revenue to Vibathon prizes, calculated after third-party payment processing fees (such as Stripe). The remaining 60% stays with the site.

Each month’s percentage allocation between the two awards is published on the Vibathon page before submissions open and is locked once a project has been submitted. The cash amount depends on sponsorship payments actually cleared for that UTC month, excluding refunded or reversed payments. Quarterly and weekly payments are assigned once, to the month in which they clear, rather than being counted again across placement months. A round with no cleared sponsorship has no cash fund.

The monthly prize fund is 40% × (cleared site sponsorship receipts − third-party processing fees). We publish those receipts, fees, the 40% prize fund, award allocations and final winners before payout. No further operating costs are deducted from the allocated prize fund. If an award has no eligible winner, its allocation goes to the other award’s eligible winners; if neither award has an eligible winner, the allocated prize fund is returned to sponsors proportionally.

Verification, payment and cancellation

Provisional winners are contacted using their account email. Within 14 days of notification they must confirm eligibility, provide any identity, payment and tax information legally required for payout, and be able to receive a lawful payment. A forfeited or declined share passes to the next eligible score, with ties sharing equally. Winners are responsible for their own taxes; any legally required withholding is disclosed. We aim to pay verified winners within 30 days after the round closes and publish the reason and revised date for any compliance or payment-provider delay.

If a round is cancelled or cannot lawfully pay prizes, its remaining allocated prize fund is returned to sponsors proportionally. A cancellation, extension or material rule change and its reason must be announced on the round page. Published scoring and prize allocation cannot be changed to favour a sponsor or entrant. Third-party processing fees may not be recoverable. The site’s separate 60% share is not part of the prize fund.

Ownership, publicity and data

You retain ownership of your project. You grant us a non-exclusive, royalty-free permission to display your submitted project name, description, link and excerpts for administering, showcasing and archiving Vibathon. Sponsorship gives no ownership or rights in an entrant’s work. Approved project details and your maker handle or account name are public. Final results may also publish award and prize amounts; private eligibility documents and payment details are never published. Additional publicity requires your consent.

We use account and submission data to run the competition, review entries, prevent abuse, contact winners and arrange prizes as described in our Privacy page. Sponsors receive advertising visibility and public results, not private entrant data. The site and third-party services may have outages; do not rely on a last-minute submission. Nothing in these rules removes rights or liabilities that cannot lawfully be excluded.