How Popcorn Jury works

Kernels are your one score across all of Popcorn Jury — the 🍿 number in your header. Everything you do adds to it. There's no second currency to track; just kernels.

By doing things. Playing — rating a movie, voting on a VS, making a Call, finishing your Daily Slate — builds your standing every day, with a daily limit so nobody can rush the top. The better plays pay more: a correct guess or a Call that resolves right is worth far more than a quick vote. The boards are the fast lane — someone else upvoting or accepting your answer pays big and has no daily limit, because it can't be self-granted.

Standing unlocks titles and powers: 🎟️ New Juror → 🍿 Juror → 🎬 Trusted Juror → 🏆 Foreman. Higher up you can vote, edit, help resolve threads, and eventually keep the boards fair. Show up and play well and you climb; great board answers get you there fastest.

Only on the boards: if a post of yours gets downvoted you drop a few. Everything you earned by playing is safe, and there's a floor — you'll never bottom out at zero.

By earning real standing over months — there's no shortcut. Consistent, good play (the daily limit means time in the chair, not a weekend grind) and answers other people upvote and accept. The people keeping the room fair are the ones who've shown up and earned it.

Your 1–10 goes into the Jury — a few seconds each. Every rating helps score the film and builds your own taste profile (your Movie DNA), which powers your recommendations.

Until 25 real jurors have rated a film it shows a silver Panel score — our read from published critics, audience, and early raters. Once 25 seat, it graduates to the gold Jury score: the room's own verdict. We never fake the count — a film with 3 raters just shows the Panel, never a made-up jury.

Plenty. They shape Tonight's Picks and they're the raw material for your Movie DNA — the fingerprint of your taste you can share and compare.

A head-to-head. Two films appear — tap the better pick, and the crowd's split is revealed. It's endless, and pairings are always fair (same genre, same league) — never a blockbuster against an obscure indie.

Tap “Haven't seen it” under that film. You keep the one you've seen and a fresh challenger is dealt in beside it — no need to throw away the whole pair. Seen neither? Skip both with the middle button.

No — on purpose. VS is a fun head-to-head about which film wins the night. Your 1–10 ratings are what score movies. The two are kept separate.

A Call is a prediction — you're calling how something turns out. When it resolves you were right or wrong, and it goes on your record. Being right is the reward in itself; it doesn't buy power on the boards.

No — and we're strict about it. A Verdict is the jury agreeing on the better film; it's not a prediction and never “right” or “wrong.” Only a Call resolves and builds a record. We keep them separate so the app never claims a win it didn't earn.

Ask good questions and write good answers. You earn trust kernels when other people upvote or accept your answers — never just for posting. (Same idea as Stack Overflow: the crowd decides what's worth something.)

If you asked the question, you can mark the one answer that solved it. It gets a gold check, rewards whoever wrote it, and marks your thread answered so the next person sees the solution first.

It won't rot. If the asker never picks one, the community steps in — a handful of trusted Jurors can resolve the thread, and the top answer earns a Community pick check. Good answers get their due either way.

Downvoting is a Juror power — you unlock it once you've earned a little trust, so it's never a brand-new account swinging it around. Casting one also costs you a touch (with a daily limit), which keeps downvotes meaningful.