Letting people decide is not losing control.
The usual worry about a shared playlist is not the technology, it is the one guest who takes it over. There is a blocklist and three limits for that — and you set them before the first request arrives.
Two tools, two jobs.
The blocklist answers what may play. Whatever is on it — an artist, a title or a keyword — never appears in your guests' search at all. It cannot be requested by accident, and the Auto DJ will not play it either.
The fair-use rules answer how much any one person may do. They do not limit taste, they limit volume.
Because one worry keeps people away.
Anyone handing over the music for the first time thinks of the brother-in-law with ten schlager tracks, or the one song that must not play at this particular event. With no answer to that, they never try it at all.
So these rules are not an afterthought, they are the precondition. They turn “anyone may” into “anyone may, inside a frame you know”.
Four limits, each optional.
- Blocklist — as many terms as you like. It persists between events, so you build it once rather than before every party.
- Cooldown — the minimum gap between two requests from the same guest.
- Limit per guest — how many open requests one person may have at a time.
- Vote limit — how many votes a guest can cast per hour.
- Every rule can be switched off on its own. If you want no limits, you have none.
What people ask about the rules.
Do guests see that something is blocked?
No. Blocked terms never appear in their search in the first place. There is no error message and no argument about it.
Do I have to rebuild the blocklist before every event?
No, it persists between events. You can reset it at any time in the settings.
Does the blocklist apply to the Auto DJ too?
Yes. Anything blocked can neither be requested nor added by the Auto DJ.
What if I want no limits at all?
Then you switch them off. Each of the three rules is enabled separately and none is mandatory.