Score every round yourself, then see how the rest of the room had it.
Picking a winner is one thing. Watching a close round and deciding who actually took it is harder, and it is where most arguments after a decision start. The journal gives you a scorecard for every round of every decision fight, saved to your account so you can compare it with the official result and with what other KOVotes players saw.
Every round is scored out of 10, and the fighter who wins the round must get 10 — that is the "must" part. The loser gets 9 in a close round, 8 in a clearly dominant one, and 7 in an overwhelming one. 10-9 is by far the most common score. 10-8 is for a round somebody genuinely took over: sustained damage, a long stretch of control, a knockdown that changes the round. 10-7 is rare. A 10-10 round is allowed but almost never used, because judges are asked to find a winner wherever they can.
Under the Unified Rules of MMA, the criteria are ranked rather than equal. Effective striking and grappling comes first and decides most rounds — clean strikes that land and do damage, takedowns that lead somewhere, submission attempts that genuinely threaten. Effective aggressiveness only matters when the striking and grappling are even, and control of the fighting area is the last tiebreaker. Moving forward all round does not win it if the other fighter is landing the better shots going backwards.
Usually because of what each of you weighted. Volume against damage is the classic split: fifty light shots can look busier than three that hurt. Cage control reads as dominance on camera but counts for little on paper. A late flurry sticks in the memory more than the four quiet minutes before it. None of that makes your card wrong — it means scoring a fight involves judgement, which is exactly why it is worth writing down before you hear the result.
Rounds open as the fight happens and stay open afterwards, so you can score a card live or years later on a rewatch. Fights that end by knockout or submission have no scorecard — there is nothing to score in a stopped round, so KOVotes discards any scores for them. Once you have scored a round you can see how everyone else had it, and you can keep a private note on any fight on the card. Your scores and notes belong to your account; the only thing shared is the anonymous split of how the room scored each round.
Your scorecards earn no points and never affect the leaderboard. Picking winners is the game; the journal is a record for you. Keeping them separate means you can score a round honestly against your own pick without it costing you anything.