Chart Rules

Recurrency

As of the chart dated December 3, 2016, the recurrency rules have been:

• 20 Weeks - Top 50
• 52 Weeks - Top 25

Weighting

As of the chart dated December 3, 2016, the chart has been weighted. New songs shall be weighted at 1/3 of their raw points, subsequently regaining 1/3 of their point weight until week 4 of their tracking, whence they shall experience normal weighting. Normal weighting consists of decrements to the point value based on the prior week's rank as follows:

• Top 40 - 1%
• Top 20 - 2%
• Top 10 - 3%
• Top 5 - 4%
• #1 - 5%

These weight demerits shall apply until the song reaches 1% of its raw point value.

As of the chart dated December 2, 2017, the new song weight applies to additional uploads of a song added to the entry or remixes (though not music videos). This was to compensate for the increased prevalence of multi-artist networks like Ponies at Dawn and Cider Party inflating some songs past their original frames exaggeratedly.

Votes

Votes were derived from the toptenpony monthly polls. As of the chart dated December 3, 2016, votes were applied over the course of 4 weeks in equal segments, then were pulled out in the following 8 weeks, also in equal segments.

As of the chart dated December 1, 2018, votes are no longer a direct metric on the Trot 100.

Videos

As of the chart dated December 3, 2016, songs that have both an audio and music video clip counting towards views will have the music video's points be a .1 increment less than the reported numbers per week.

Songs that only have a music video will decrement an additional 2% per week until it reaches the 1% cap.

If a music video acting as the sole source of points for a song produces over 10,000 points past the debut 3 weeks, the song's raw points shall be permanently cut in half.

Eligibility

Songs that are based on popular non-pony songs are ineligible. Key word being "popular": if a song is based off an indie/regional track (e.g. The Paladin) or a song from the public domain (e.g. a work by Jay Man or Kevin McLeod), it may be eligible to enter.

Dating

Charts are dated in accordance with Billboard dating standard and are tracking the same equivalent period. This is to allow for direct comparison between dated weeks of the Trot 100, Hot 100, genre charts, and charts of Japan, UK, Canada, Germany, France, and China. As such, here's the date structure, with a template of a tracking week ending on January 1.

Friday, December 25 - Friday, January 1: Tracking period for data of a particular week
Friday, January 1: Data is collected and formulated.
Friday, January 1 - Tuesday, January 5: The highlights are revealed. (This part depends on my workload any given week)
Saturday, January 9: The date listed for a chart. In Billboard's case, this is because it's a print publication, and this is the approximate date when public storefronts begin selling the magazine with the corresponding charts. Though Trot 100 isn't (and most likely won't ever be) a print publication, it follows the same structure for comparison purposes.