Talk:Eurovision Song Contest/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Let's make this a Featured Article

I have been informed that articles going over 30k are fine, and it is not a barrier to achieving Featured status. Please participate in the Peer Review (as linked at the top of this talk page) and let me know your suggestions. Ten heads are better than one.. so you might notice some obvious mistake or omission which passed me by! EuroSong ^talk 03:25, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Left on a contributor's talk page - copied here for others' reference

Featured Articles have a certain number of guidelines. One such guideline is that mentioning relative time differences should be minimised. So for example, to talk about "next year's Contest" when referring to Eurovision 2007, makes it clear that the text was written in 2006. That means, this text will become out-of-date next year. The best articles should not do this: they should be static information, which will be true for as long as possible. It is even borderline, to mention such things as "As of 2006, the country who has entered the longest with no wins to their name is Portugal." - because who knows? Portugal might win next year*; rendering the article out-of-date. It is also not a good thing to mention the 2007 participants, Czech Republic and Georgia, as if they have actually made their debut. The 2007 Contest has not happened yet. This information is speculative and subject to change. In fact I seem to remember some news about the Czech Republic intending to enter one year recently - but then they changed their mind and decided not to. Such information should not be included in the article until the end of the three minutes of those debut countries' songs - because up until then, anything can happen which might mean their participation is cancelled! EuroSong ^talk 21:37, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

* Yeah, right

---

Okay, we got it Featured :)

Remaining points to consider, as of now, are:

• Can we find a better image than the plain generic logo?
• Can we set some criteria for successful artists' inclusion in the list in the "Winning artists" section?

Hopefully we can get this on the main page on the date of the 2007 Contest. EuroSong ^talk 23:29, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Changed info on origin of name

I've changed this statement:

The name "Eurovision" was first used by British journalist George Campey in the London Evening Standard in 1951, where he dubbed the Contest "Eurovision Grand Prix".

for two reasons:

• It says he gave the contest that name in 1951, however the contest was not even conceived until 1955.
• The reference link that was provided said that he gave the name 'Eurovision' to the Eurovision Network only, not the contest.

If anyone can prove me wrong, feel free to add that back to the article and leave a note here. Thanks! --Lewis R « т · c » 21:16, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

You're quite right. I can't believe I let that one pass me by! Of course, what I meant to say is just that the name "Eurovision" was first used in relation to the network in 1951 - and then the name for the network was adopted by the Contest when it came to pass in 1956. Of course, the wording before says that he actually dubbed the ESC with the name Eurovision. That is indeed incorrect, as can be seen from the reference. Thank you very much for pointing this out: I appreciate it. I have now re-added the information, but in the correct context. Now it is mentioned alongside the first mention of the Eurovision Network, and not as a reference to the Contest actually being named as such by the journalist. Thanks! EuroSong ^talk 21:57, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

The Contest in popular culture

This was an interesting and growing section. Is there merit in restoring this as a separate page?

I'm not sure, really. It might be considered non-encyclopædic, to have a whole separate article just on "The Eurovision Song Contest in popular culture". On the other hand, I can tell you one thing: interesting and amusing though the section was, it does not belong in this article. Such lists are rarely encyclopædic; and on the occasions that they are, they need to be exhaustive and definitive. The ESC has been mentioned so often, and in so many contexts, that making a definitive list would be impossible (and far too long even if it were possible). Besides, the list which existed before had a heavy Anglophone slant to it — there were only two references to the Contest which did not originate from the English-speaking entertainment media. Although this article is written in English, on the English-language Wikipedia, Eurovision is an international topic and equal weight should be given to its influence in all countries. If you do think you can come up with an exhaustive, encyclopædic, and non-Anglophone-biased list of references to the Contest in popular culture - and then write a separate article about it - then I wish you the best of luck! :) EuroSong ^talk 07:46, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

It would be impossible to come up with an exhaustive list, any more than it would be possible to come up with an exhaustive list for Leprechauns in popular culture, Nuclear weapons in popular culture or any other other of "in popular culture" articles on Wikipedia . A "Eurovision Song Contest in popular culture" article would be in the same spirit. Dbromage

Voting patterns

This is one of the most noticeable and might I say, notorious aspects of eurovision. Why isnt there a mention of the effects of neighbor voting, ethnically related countries voting for each other (greece/cyprus, Romania/moldova), minority voting (albanians in macedonia/turks in germany/russians in the baltic states) and so on?

There is a mention. It's under the "Criticisms" section. There is even a reference made to a document which discusses the neighbourly voting patterns - and another reference made to a document which explains the reasons why neighbourly voting occurs. Did you not read it? :) EuroSong ^talk 18:00, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

See - that's what I said. People won't be reading the entire article on once sitting. People go to WP for a quick reference check or to get some "infotainment", you can't force them to read that end-to-end. This is why I think the voting patterns sections should go with the general voting section :D Regards, Bravada, talk - 19:02, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Hehe.. I do see your point. But if I moved the "political voting" paragraph to the "voting" section, then what of the criticism of the music? It would be sitting alone in its own section, which would not really be suitable. Also there is no other section with which to merge it. I have already stated my reasons for not including a whole separate section discussing musical styles. Would you then suggest I removed it altogether? That could possibly be done: but then I might be accused of being POV, in the sense that the entire article includes no mention of the criticisms levelled at the Contest's music whatsoever: something which is associated with the Contest in many people's eyes. What do you think? Is the article better as it is now, or would it not matter if the musical criticisms were removed and the voting criticism merged with the voting section? Like you, I am also "too involved" in the article to judge this objectively. Perhaps.. EuroSong ^talk 20:17, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

To answer in short - no, I think you might reconsider your stance on the section regarding musical/performance style and perhaps team up with some other editors interesting in music/performing arts to help develop it further. Moreover, as a stopgap measure it wouldn't be wrong to have a section entitled simply "Criticism of musical styles and presentation", which would later be developed into a section highlighting not only criticism.

Some projects I think it would be good to pester: Music, Music genres, Songs, Dance. Perhaps this is not within the scope of the projects themselves, but there might be some brave souls willing to take up the challenge - writing about music can be fun, even if you don't like it. Unfortunately, WikiProject Writing about music is inactive, perhaps because there was only one username ever on the participants' list, and that's only for a day (!) Also I would try to mobilize the fellow members of our own WikiProject Eurovision - what we need is all kinds of write-ups on Eurovision music, more or less NPOV (you can always elicit some information from a POV text) to compose something from. I will also try to dig out something whenever I find time... Bravada, talk - 20:33, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Successful artists

What about Gina G? Not a one hit wonder..her entry 'Ooh Ah Just A Little Bit' is possibly the biggest selling hit to come out of the contest ever [that needs to be checked of course, if it's not Gina it might be Abba but i think she is well up there as it was one of the very few true international hits, most eurovision winners are not, most dont sell outside their country of origin, it would be good to include here a chart regarding that]. As a direct result of the show the record went straight to number 1 in the UK where it was a platinum record selling millions around the world and culminating in a top 12 place on the US Billboard Hot 100 which is pretty well unheard of for acts from this contest, again, outside of Abba. Gina subsequently had at least 5 more chart hits and a even over a year later her debut album 'Fresh' shipped over 600000 copies worldwide. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.69.34.107 (talk) 18:40, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

I completely forgot about that, I should've brought that out earlier, but this is actually fairly important - some good criteria need to be set for the inclusion in the list. I am not into the "golden record" or chart things, but I believe some sensible criteria can be established - and then all potential winners should be checked against that. That said, I would rather the criteria would automatically exclude winners from, say, 5 last years, because I believe only enduring success is worth recognition - many artists rode on a short wave of popularity of their ESC entry, but it quickly faded away. Bravada, talk - 00:27, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments: I totally agree. I can't believe that I myself didn't think about that list more carefully when I reviewed the article. The list was originally written from what my personal feelings were about the success of the artists, but it excluded Ruslana (from whom I have never heard in any other non-Eurovision context). Then someone else added Ruslana, and I thought "okay then - she must be more successful than I knew". But yes, I sort-of agree with you about excluding recent winners. The thing is, it's hard to define such criteria for inclusion into the list. The criterion for the list I originally made was: "Have I personally heard of this artist's success" independently of the Contest?" With such singers as Nicole and Johnny Logan, I have heard of them commercially (and I am not a person who pays a lot of attention to the non-Eurovision commercial music scene!) separate from my own interests in Eurovision. With artists such as Eimear Quinn and Charlotte Nilsson (whose success has, I believe, only been in Scandinavia and only riding on her Eurovision win), I have not. But my own personal "having heard of" criterion is, in retrospect, not a very scientific way of judging these things :) The problem is: what criteria should we use? I have a mild temptation to remove that list altogether, but don't really want to because I believe it is important to mention at least some artists whose careers have been successful following their Eurovision win. EuroSong ^talk 07:44, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Since it seems we both don't we have a good idea for the criterium, I guess you could ask at the music-related WikiProjects - I believe they might have had to deal with similar issues before. Bravada, talk - 11:42, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry but Ruslana isn't famous! Why Helena is deleted?--Chronisgr 22:26, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Can you tell me how her Helena's has taken off after her Eurovision win? Does she have a lot more success now than she already did with Antique? EuroSong ^talk 22:35, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes she has more success than she had with Antique(that was the reason they split up). Helena is the only winner of the last years that made a hit in Europe after her victory in Eurovision. Actually Mambo seems to be more successful in Airplay Charts around Europe than My Number One.Also My Number One entered at 45 in Billboard Hot Dance Charts and the single will be released this Tuesday in the US. --Chronisgr 11:32, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

We need to establish some rules here FAST! People keep adding whoever to the list, it is now quite contradictory to what the article says, as it seems that almost EVERYBODY achieved great international success after their win! Bravada, talk - 08:26, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, we do. Thing is, what rules? I could decide some arbritarily, but that would just be me. I had a look at Wikipedia:WikiProject Musicians, but I don't really see how I can just ask the members there for opinions on how to make criteria for this list. For now, I have done the following:

• Removed the recent additions
• Excluded artists from the past 5 years, as per your suggestion
• Put each artist on a separate line in the source (doesn't affect the display, but makes it easier to see and edit)
• Added a comment asking people to discuss additions on the talk page before editing.

It's not perfect, but hopefully it can stem the tide until we think of something else. EuroSong ^talk 09:53, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Maps

The maps need to be changed, especially the first one. There should be more countries in yellow (active members, e.g. Egypt), but they can't even be seen on the map, let alone coloured. Also the map contradicts with the article: Tunisia in the Eurovision Song Contest. While on the subject of images, instead of having a picture from Congratulations (as that wasn't actually a Eurovision Song Contest), why not have a picture of the logo being unveiled, such as the top right image on this page: [1]. RedvBlue 11:41, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

• Do you have a map which includes Egypt?
• The information on Tunisia is unreferenced: the 50^th anniversaty book doesn't mention it, and a Google search only returns Wikipedia-based sources, and ONE from ESCtoday - and I'm not happy about including such information based upon only one reference. Can you find another one maybe? - Actually I did just find a good reference here. Thanks: I shall include this information when we can get a better map.
• The unveiling of the logo image looks quite nice: but what about licensing, I wonder. We might have to ask www.eurovision.tv if we could use it.

Thank you for your suggestions. EuroSong ^talk 13:55, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

What on earth is "Eurovision Week" doing in this article?

This section has no relevance or interest to anyone outside the small coterie of fans attending the event, why is it taking up precious space in the article?

The information is interesting, encyclopædic and properly referenced. If you think it has "no interest to anyone not attending", then perhaps you should check out the article's Peer Review, where it was mentioned that this section was of great interest – by someone who had never been to the Contest. This article is about the Eurovision Song Contest. That means that if it's to be a good quality encyclopædic article, it needs to cover all aspects of the Contest: not just to mention how it it shown as a television programme. EuroSong ^talk 07:32, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Coded phrases

I think that you should use coded phrases in your competition. I mean that you can decide what every phrase must content something special. You can decide modulation, tact and other things - just to make sure that it was the right composer that composed and no one else. I also think that you should make other rules about "WINNING". I mean action on scen is something else than the song that is performed. Performing can also be divided into different tasks 1) singing 2) dancing 3) how the actors are dressed 4) What happens on stage? can you winn just by performing a show? 5) how the music is played instrumentally.

Eva Kristina Jonsson Tegelgatan 7 716 30 Fjugesta

Sweden —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 62.20.61.66 (talk) 12:29, 12 December 2006 (UTC).

Countries that have never entered Eurovision

The countries that have never entered Eurovision, although they could if they wanted to, are the Czech Republic and Georgia in Europe, Algeria and Tunisia in Africa, and Lebanon in the Middle East. Lebanon was already planning on entering in 2005 but withdrew. This list should be mentioned in the article somewhere. JIP | Talk 11:39, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

The Lebanon issue is mentioned in the article already. EuroSong ^talk 19:37, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but are the other four countries mentioned anywhere? JIP | Talk 06:26, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Czech Rep and Georgia are entering in 2007... Celticfan383

Isn't this list (which now includes nine countries supposedly elegible for entry in the contest) somewhat ambiguous? It's already explained in the same section that geographic location or EU membership has nothing to do with a country's qualification to enter. Technically (assuming that this is true) we could list every known country in the world in this paragraph, but it might be easier just to remove it altogether or just list the actual European countries that have never participated. ~~ Peteb16 14:08, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Not every country in the world would be mentioned. It's about the country having a broadcaster which is an Active Member of the EBU, and is in the European Broadcasting Area (not the same thing as geographical Europe). Read the article - eligibility is explained in detail :) EuroSong ^talk 17:25, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for clearing that up. :) ~~ Peteb16 17:39, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

The European Broadcast area includes Palestine ( unless I'm missing something ) but the accompanying map doesn't. Shouldn't it?Skopelos-Slim 09:11, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

The map is not one of the European Broadcasting Area: it is one of the eligible countries. Not all countries in the EBA are eligible: they must have a broadcaster which is a member of the EBU. See the page here. Palestine does not have an EBU member. Actually, there are countries in North Africa which should be on the map, but which are not... because I can't find a good enough suitable map EuroSong ^talk 13:15, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Actually, what about the Vatican? It's a sovereign country, innit? But is it a member of the EBU? JIP | Talk 07:01, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Infobox

First, i saw this article and thaught that "Well, There must be some standard infobox for this (type of) music event. When i searched around and found out that there weren't any "music event" infoboxes at all, i made a dedicated ESC infobox. I later changed the name of the infobox to Infobox song competition, and removed the EBU logo.

People should remember that the purpose of infoboxes is primarily to give a quick overview of the company/organisation/annual event ect. - And not necessarily "infobox exclusive" GDPs and numbers.

A single, frames low-res jpeg logo in the right of the main article of this vast project was a little odd introduction, I think.

Please accept and IMPROVE this the infobox because the annual music event of Eurosong is such a typical infobox-article. Ssolbergj 19:58, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

I like this addition. The infobox could be used in many different song competition articles. Nice. --Bob 20:23, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

The infobox is ugly, unnecessary and adds nothing to the article. I also dislike Ssolbergj's edit warring. EuroSong ^talk 21:14, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

There is obviously a disagreement here that needs to be resolved. No more edits should now occur involving the infobox until a concensus has been set up to gauge general opinion. A decision should then be made based on the concensus rather than two peoples conflicting opinions. May I respectfully point out that neither Ssolbergj or Eurosong should revert any further today as they would both be guilty of WP:3RR.

If I may give my own opinion, the idea that an infobox template needed to be created specifically for this contest is rediculous. {{infobox television}} would've been appropriate. It is, after all, a television programme. ~~ Peteb16 21:43, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Eurovision Song Contest
Current: Eurovision Song Contest 2008
File:Non-free image removed.jpg The modern logo was introduced for the 2004 Contest (in Istanbul) to create a consistent visual identity. The host country's flag appears in the heart.
Website	http://www.eurovision.tv

Hello, I think an infobox is needed and the {{infobox television}} fields are not so useful. The most relevant comparisons are Academy Awards or FIFA World Cup. What I would really want is a convenient way to go to this years contest! Additionally, a song contest infobox should contain some fields like:

• style of music
• region
• last years winner(s)

In any case, I think something like the hacky use of the {{infobox award}} here is already very nice, but perhaps someone would find the time to do this properly? Thanks, Vesal (talk) 12:18, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Europope?

Having just checked the EBU website at [2] it would seem that the Vatican City may be entitled to enter the contest as well. There is a Vatican Radio station, although I'm not sure if they would need to have a TV station as well in order to enter. The current pontiff does have a better singing voice than his predecessor, although having a conclave of cardinals to decide their votes might not be allowable under the current rules.Moldovanmickey 00:50, 19 March 2007 (UTC)MoldovanMickey Preceding comment repaired Peteb16 01:30, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

A TV station is needed to enter. While not specifically mentioned in the Contest rules, references are made everywhere to the televised broadcast of the show by the participating EBU members. Obviously, Vatican Radio would be unable to do this: therefore they would not be able to follow the rules of the Contest. EuroSong ^talk 23:36, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

After 2002

After 2002, Turkey's winning in the contest, festival's face has been changed.. New logo, new system, televote compulsory.. And the festival became popular as like as in the first years.

Anyway.. There arent any writing about Turkey..

Even when someone tries to add eurovision-turkey.com which announces turkish and english eurovision news.. it is deleted..

It will be good to add eurovision-turkey.com and Sertab Erener

~~ Maverick16

I feel it important to point out that the look of the contest (consistant logos, branding, semi-finals etc.) was changed in 2004 not 2002. Latvia won in 2002 and Turkey won in 2003 during the former single part contest style. Also the addition of external links should hopefully fall under WP:EL guidlines, I'm not sure some of the existing links really fall within these guidelines, so it's best not to add insult to injury by adding more. ~~ Peteb16 22:17, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Maverick, Thank you for following my advice and starting a discussion here on the talk page :) Now, I get the feeling you're Turkish. From what you write here, it looks like you're taking exception to the fact that there is nothing written about Turkey in the article. However, I can assure you that the reason I reverted your changes is not because there is any kind of anti-Turkish feeling here. No - none at all. There are many countries which are not specifically mentioned in the article, aside from in the debut year list. Let me clarify a couple of points here:

Firstly, the reason I removed your eurovision-turkey link is because it is a nationality-specific website. The current list of links includes no specific national sites (they are all general ones). And if the Turkish site were to be added, then it would only be fair to add at least one nationality-specific site from every country which participates. This clearly would not be right, as the list would get far too long. Wikipedia articles are not collections of links. Besides, this is the English language WIkipedia: all links and references should be to English language websites - unless in the rare situation where the ONLY source of reference available is in another language. I do believe there is a Wikipedia rule about this somewhere.

Secondly, please read the discussion some way up this page regarding which artists should be included in the list of artists who have achieved success. I originally based this list upon which artists I personally had heard of, independently of my Eurovision interest. However, it was pointed out that this was not the best criterion for measurement, and it has been agreed that artists who have won within the past five years shall be excluded from the list anyway. This is not a decision made to discriminate against Sertab (whose winning song I LOVED by the way!) - but simply a method of keeping the list in check, where we see whether the artist has become successful internationally after a reasonable period of time. If you disagree with this measurement, then you are very welcome to add your own contributions to the discussion under the proper section above.

Thanks, EuroSong ^talk 22:31, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

ESCKaz and Oikotimes are also national fan pages.. --Maverick16 22:46, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Why do you still insist.. You can see that turkish eurovision site also has english part.. 22:48, 17 April 2007 (UTC)~

ESCKaz and oikotimes have grown up from being nationality-specific sites, into being recognised primarily for their internationalism. Also, they have established themselves as large, well-recognised sites within the community. The fact that the Turkish site "also has an English section" is neither here nor there: it is primarily a Turkish website, whereas the others are primarily international ones. International visitors don't go to eurovisionturkey as a primary source of information. Well - that's my opinion on the issue. Maybe other people want to contribute too. You see, Maverick, this is about "building consensus". If many other people come here and disagree with me, giving reasons, then maybe the consensus will change. See? Other comments are welcome. EuroSong ^talk 08:19, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

This is your personal idea(about -International visitors don't go.....)-.. You should see the rank of eurovision-turkey.com on alexa.com.. The rank of the site is more than most of the links listed there..

Please be realistic what you are talking about.. If you tell me that you dont want to allow Eurovision Turkey just for it is the site of Turkey i will stop this discussion here and i wont continue to argue.. But be sure that oikotimes and esckazakhistan are also national fan sites..--Maverick16 19:20, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Oh dear. Looks like we have another person who likes to act like a poor little victim. "It's because you hate Turkey!" - he cries. Pity that some people can't accept that the reason they don't get their own way is simply because they're not following the rules properly (like building consensus): not because everyone else is out to get them. EuroSong ^talk 17:16, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

As a totally objective non-European Wikipedian who had never heard of Eurovision previous to stumbling upon this article today, I have to support (for what it's worth) Eurosong in his stance. He/she has explained his/her reasoning and rationale quite well concerning the topics raised by Maverick16. There is clearly no 'anti' anything in the responses, no hidden agenda and a perfect example of NPOV. In fact, I think the whole article is quite a good example of a multi-national / multi-cultural article being presented fairly to all and partial to none. Well done! CanadianMist 16:24, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Problem with Eurovision winners link

It seems that somebody is having the time of his life by spreading farcical information on several Eurovision winners. As I am French and try to get information for the French Wikipedia Eurovision winners section, I am a bit annoyed. At first, I noticed the joke on the Linda Martin link where she is described as "heavily botoxed", at first I was hugely amused (although I have no idea how she looks) but thought administrators were seeing to that because in the discussion page, there was a reminder of how they wanted the article. Then it started to occur to me that while creating some links for the French pages, I had discarded information that sounded strange or out of place and yesterday I realized that there is somebody having fun. I think all winners links should be looked at by administrators especially Linda Martin, Bobbysocks and the clairvoyant story, Udo Jürgens described as a womanizer (perhaps it's true but on a Wikipedia page, it does not sound serious) and his "family links", Massiel's birthdate and place and strange "political" biography, I don't think the Spanish link mentions it and perhaps Teddy Scholten or I can't remember who is supposed to have a hit by "recording instrumental versions of The Shadows' hit. Consequently, I'm not sure I can rely on the English version to create links for the French version. Something like "heavily botoxed" has no consequence because you know immediately it's a joke but more troublesome are other information that do not sound farcical and might be repeated and translated on other links out of good faith.

Kindest regards,

P.R —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 130.79.228.47 (talk) 06:37, 18 April 2007 (UTC).

Capitalization

All Kinds Of Everything, Brotherhood Of Man and Save Your Kisses For Me should be changed to All Kinds of Everything, Brotherhood of Man and Save Your Kisses for Me respectively as per Wikipedia:Naming conventions, Wikipedia:WikiProject Music/MUSTARD#Capitalization, Wikipedia:Manual of Style (trademarks) and Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums#Capitalization. Jogers (talk) 17:49, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. WikiProject Music and Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums are mere WikiProjects, and their guidelines are not set-in-stone policies which should override all and every mention of any song title or band name. While I do accept that your capitalisation policy has a wide degree of support from many writers, you also need to accept that it is not the only single correct policy for capitalisation in the English language. Different publishers have different house styles, and no one style is more correct than any others. You can even read Wikipedia's own article at Capitalization#Headings and publication titles, where it lists many capitalisation policies.

Also, yes I know Google isn't definitive, but if you take a look here, you will see that "Save Your Kisses For Me" is by far the most common capitalisation of this song title, excluding those pieces of text written only in upper-case, only in lower-case, or in sentence case. Are you going to write to all the authors of those web pages too, to beg them to change their capitalisation policies? Or do you only concentrate your activity on Wikipedia because AWB is convenient and capitalisation is a particular bee you have in your bonnet? EuroSong ^talk 21:09, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Note that Wikipedia:Naming conventions is an official policy. The convention it refers to is widely accepted on English Wikipedia. Is there any particular reason why you would prefer to keep it inconsistent? Jogers (talk) 22:51, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

It would be complete and utter chaos if we capitalized every article based on how it was printed by the publisher. Google has little bearing here; most people online capitalize every word because it's convenient. –Unint 15:15, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

The naming conventions should stand here. That, as well as the Manual of Style, should control questions of capitalization. Both are written to avoid silly edit wars like this one. (ESkog)^(Talk) 17:54, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Uniformed Sub-sections?

Is it just me who thinks that the country sub-sections should use the same style as each other? By this I mean compare Greece to Romania. The tables are different for a start and the Romanian page uses colour to show the highest result the country has ever recieved (surely colours should only be use on table for a first place entry, as on Greece's page?). Also, look underneath the external links on the Romania page, a small table linking to all pages for Romanian entries year by year. This would be a great feature on the sub-sections but I haven't seen it on any other pages. The main table on Belgium's page has a lot more information that other pages: who the composer was for each of the songs, the conductor etc. Why not on every page? I'll help with changing them as much as I can, but being a newbie to Wikipedia, I don't know how use all the tables, "safely" edit them, etc. I'd appeciate thoughts on this matter and any help! --Gottago 14:18, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Your message is about articles other than this one: they are not "subsections", but they are separate articles. Please discuss these issues on the relevant talk pages of those articles - or leave a message at WikiProject Eurovision, if you want a general message for all country-specific articles. Thanks! EuroSong ^talk 15:40, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Number of performers

"From 1957 to 1970 (in 1956 there was no restriction at all), only soloists and duos were allowed on stage. From 1963, a chorus of up to three people was permitted. Since 1971, a maximum of six performers have been permitted on the stage."

Should this start "From 1957 to 1962..."? Also the cited source (the 2005 rules) doesn't mention anything about numbers in previous years. Thryduulf 12:10, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

genre examples

the article makes references to the many genres that have been seen in the past. maybe beside the genre's there could be a significant example or two. just for clarification. because i read nordic music, and i had a hard time finding a specific band/song. ...Patrick (talk, cntrb.) 04:25, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Problems with images

Several images in this article don't have a proper fair use rationale. The license of one other image is disputed. – Ilse@ 09:31, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

I also removed the last fair use image without rationale from the portal link. – Ilse@ 16:37, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Categories

The categories Eurovision Song Contest by year and Countries in the Eurovision Song Contest shouldn't be included by the use of the protected navigational templates used at the bottom of the article. – Ilse@ 11:12, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Archived FAR

Archived FAR at Wikipedia:Featured_article_review/Eurovision_Song_Contest/archive1; pls see instructions at WP:FAR. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:36, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Images

I removed three images which had been tagged for deletion. This was mainly motivated by the increased visibility of the article because it's on the main page, not because I necessarily think they should be deleted. If you would like to comment on those deletions, just get the link from the diff. It's seems like there are plenty of images for this article in the meantime. If you think that one of those images will obviously be kept and can provide better licencing info, feel free to re-add it. Savidan 16:16, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Theme

Whats the theme music called? Peace keeper II 18:39, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Te Deum, by Marc-Antoine Charpentier --Calítoe.:. 19:49, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Question

Just curious, but was this article selected as the AOTD for today in order to coincide with the contest in current events? · AndonicO ^Talk 23:49, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes :) EuroSong ^talk 22:17, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Another spin-off

I am new here, but I saw that there is a spin off festival missing onth main page, which is the European contest for minority languages. More on: http://www.liet.nl/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liet-Lavlut Hope it is useful. So the question is whether you would like to add it on the main page.

Serbia

Interestingly, Serbia is only the second country in the entire history of the contest to win with its debut entry. The first was Switzerland, in the 1956 contest. But then, that's a given - it was the first contest, so any country would have won with its debut entry. JIP | Talk 06:58, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Actually Serbia is considered to be the only country to have won ESC with its debut entry. The reason for that is because on the first contest in 1956 all 7 countries participated with 2 entries each. The winning song in the evening, "Refrain" by Lyz Assia, was the second of the two Swiss entries, the first being "Das alte Karussell" performed by the same singer. So, paradoxically enough, even on the first year of Eurovision no debut country won, as Switzerland had debuted some minutes before! :)

Some go even further and claim that Serbia should not be considered as a debut winner either because, though it was the first time the country participated as an independent state, it had already participated as Serbia-Montenegro in recent years and as Yugoslavia in earlier years. Blue cave (talk) 16:15, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Heh... interesting point there! However, for the purposes of Eurovision participation, we count countries as individual entities according to which flag they entered with. So, for example, when "Yugoslavia" entered, it was actually represented by more than one TV station from different Ex-Yugoslav states - but nevertheless in the eyes of the EBU - and in the eyes of the Contest - they performed under one flag, no matter what the year. When Serbia won, it was the first time they had participated as such a political entity in their own right - and therefore it counts as a debut win. If Scotland broke away from the UK and became independent - and subsequently entered the Contest and won with their first entry, then this would also count as a debut win. Irrespective of the fact that they've won previously as part of the UK, it would nevertheless be a new political entity - with a new Eurovision identity. EuroSong ^talk 00:52, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Interestingly, if Scotland votes for independence in 2010 and decides to enter Eurovision, then the remainder of the UK (which in theory should have a new political name) would also be entering Eurovision for the first time as a new state. (CKnight16 (talk) 12:59, 6 June 2008 (UTC))

About that Yugoslav victory; I think it's actually a Croatian victory, because the band was from Croatia. -- MR.CRO95 26 March 2008, 22:44 (CET) —Preceding comment was added at 21:44, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

That's my opinion on the subject too Eurosong. I've only added it to mention the objections raised by some, but not the majority, of euro-fans. My true objections focused in Switzerland as a debut winner, as it is widespread regarded as having won with its second entry, making Serbia the first debut winner of ESC history. Still, imao if Azerbaijan wins ESC2008 it deserves the true incontestable debut winner title as a participant with no previous ESC experience. Anyway...good job on the article. Hope u've heard the first entry of 08 to be made public, a snippet of the Andorran entry "Casanova".:-) Blue cave (talk) 11:48, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Terry Wogan Commentary

Why is there no mention of the Wogan commentary? He has done the commentary for as long as I can remember, and, for Brits at least, is a HUGE part of the Eurovision contest.

Considering that Britain as a nation have stopped taking the Eurovision seriously in recent years, Wogan's sarcastic, often drink-induced commentary is a real treat for those who watch it with irony. Indeed, it is hard not to, nowadays, seeing how seriously other countries take this silly little talent contest. If it wasn't for Terry Wogan, many people, including myself, would not watch it.

Then why, in the Eurovision page, is there no mention of him? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 172.202.112.137 (talk) 09:19, 13 May 2007 (UTC).

Because he only commentates for the BBC broadcasts. If they add Tel, they have to add everyone else. Incidentally, I think 'drink induced' is a bit unfair and I bet the UK aren't the only ones not to take this thing too seriously. ~~ Peteb16 10:14, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

But Terry himself often comments that drink is the only way he can get through it. And what is the problem with adding other people? If we add Tezzah, other countries can add others if they see fit. Also, on not taking it seriously, have you not seen the presenters they have each year? They act as if it's the biggest thing in the world.

To some countries it possibly is "the biggest thing in the world". If you're a Serb, for example, and have spent the last 20 years being vilified by the rest of Europe and the world, then all of a sudden you win a trivial song contest, which you get to host the following year, it's a major coup. For Serbia, hosting Eurovision has been a chance to show that Serbia is more than just negative headlines on the news, bombing, genocide and sanctions. It's a massive opportunity for them to show the rest of Europe that Serbia is more than that. It's massive free publicity and that's why they take it so seriously. (CKnight16 (talk) 13:09, 6 June 2008 (UTC))

I'm sure the drink thing is a joke and if we add all the commentators, the subject will outway other more relevant topics. Also, I don't know about most countries but apparently the Finnish commentator was making tongue-in-cheek comments too. After the UK performance he commented that he'd like to be a fly on the wall of Terry Wogan's booth and when Serbia disappeared on the way from the green room to the stage he joked that the escalators must've broken down. ~~ Peteb16 18:18, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

If that's all other countries commentator's can come up with then its really rather tame. Wogan is biting and in many ways actually nasty about the other entries, not simply trying to be a little bit funny. As said, its the only reason most British people watch.

-

Finally someone who agrees with me. Tell me, anti-Wogans, do any other countries have a commentator who has been doing it since 1980 and that people see as an important part of Eurovision. To Brits, Terry Wogan=Eurovision and Eurovision=Terry Wogan

It matters not one tiny little bit how "important" Wogan is to Eurovision in the UK. This is an international encyclopædia article, and no bias should be shown in favour of one country. If the article were entitled "Public perception of Eurovision in the UK", then yes - Wogan would deservedly feature prominently in such an article. But it's not: it's an international, unbiased article. If we were to start discussing the public perception of the Contest in the UK, then we would have to give examples of how it was perceived in most, if not all other countries who show the broadcast. This would not only be a very messy section, but it would be almost impossible to list references. Can you find a reference for how Eurovision is perceived by the public in Monaco? No? Thought not. Remember the rules for Wikipedia, please. EuroSong ^talk 17:51, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Why do you have to? This IS the English Wikipedia page for it. You wouldn't have a section about a French translation for Monty Python and the Holy Grail on the Monty Python page. Also, as pointed out, the other countries don't have, as far as I know, a commentator as symbollic of Eurovision as Terry Wogan.

The English Wikipedia means that it's an international encyclopædia - in the English language. It does not mean that bias should be given towards the UK, USA or any other such country just because our native language is that of the encyclopædia. In a perfect world, ALL articles on all language versions of Wikipedia should be basically the same article - but just translated into the relevant languages. The point still stands: this is a general Eurovision Song Contest article, and "public perception of the Contest in the UK" does not get any higher priority in the article than, for example, "public perception of the Contest in Albania", just because this article happens to have been written in the English language. EuroSong ^talk 15:30, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Why can't we just add Wogan in, and if it means so much to anyone to add their own commentator in, then let them? If no-one cares enough to change it, then I don't see the problem. And my question still stands, which you have never answered: have any of the other countries had a commentator who did it as much as Wogan?

Because this is a Featured Article, and there are strict rules as to what should be in articles and what should not. Really good articles don't have "people adding in little bits if they feel like it". As for your other question, it's irrelevant. Wogan is irrelevant. EuroSong ^talk 01:40, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Hahhahaha and why don't we list all the other 41 commentators from other countries?? Why is this Terry Wogan so important, because he's ignorant and has no respect for something that to others mean more?

How on earth is Wogan ignorant? He knows more about Eurovision than anyone else in the country. Would you rather some boring commentator who took the silly little contest seriously? And yes, my question is relevant. If he's the commentator who's been doing it for the longest time, then this has to count for something.

This discussion no longer belongs here, as it goes beyond the description of an article talk page. That's all I will say further about this matter. EuroSong ^talk 01:13, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes it does belong here. You have continued to ignore my points simply so you can get your way. Something tells me you would thrive under a fascist government. So I shall repeat: "If he's the commentator who's been doing it for the longest time, then this has to count for something." And yes, that is internationally. If you can prove me wrong, then do so.

Please be civil to other talk page users, and please sign your comments. Information regarding Wogan's length of service in the contest is already in the Terry Wogan article where it is best placed. If it were in this article it would be classed as an unbalanced perspective of the contest as a whole. Even if it were mentioned he was the longest serving commentator, to balance it out (and prove the point) a list would need to be created showing all the people ever to commentate for the contest by their length of service. Then, by some sheer miracle, find one or more citations that verified that information. By then, this new part of the article would've lowered itself into being an 'indiscriminate collection of information'. No one is trying to get their own way here, just maintain the Featured Article status. ~~ Peteb16 21:36, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Hey hey kids! I'm back! I just noticed this on the Terry Wogan Wiki page: "Many European countries broadcast the BBC's coverage of the event rather than going to the expense of covering it themselves." So... whadayasaynow? - person who has been asked to sign his comments

The previously mentioned points still stand. EuroSong ^talk 10:08, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

If "many European countries broadcast the BBC's coverage of the event rather than going to the expense of covering it themselves", then wouldn't that make Wogan an international commentator... or something... - Mr. Sign

Yes, but again, as EuroSong said, the previously mentioned points still stand. The only way adding Wogan would work is if he did the commentry for the entire EBU. ~~ Peteb16 12:29, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

He's not "an international commentator". As Pete said, he holds NO special status with the EBU at all. The fact that some (not "many") other countries broadcast the BBC feed is not because they choose Wogan's commentary per se, but because they're English speaking and the UK broadcast is therefore the natural choice: for example in Australia it makes much more sense to take the British commentary than it does to take the French one! And even if any country did take Wogan's feed specifically because they wanted his commentary because they preferred it to any other, then such information would still need a reference in a FA-class encyclopædia article. Sorry, but I don't know quite what your agenga is here: do you work for Wogan's press office? It seems that you simply want to promote the man more than he's due. Please accept the fact that The Eurovision Song Contest is a lot, LOT bigger and more important than just one television company employee who happens to provide the commentary track for one of the participating broadcasters. EuroSong ^talk 17:43, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

My agenda? What a bizarre question... I am simply one of the millions of people who watch Eurovision solely for Wogan's commentary, and feel that he is not being given enough credit. I could equally ask what your agenda is. Have you been scarred by a traumatic childhood experience with Terry Wogan which causes you to hunt him down ruthlessly, putting him down every step? It sounds bizarre, I'm sure, but as did your question.

Again, this is going off-topic. We have repeatedly made clear the criteria required for a good encyclopædia article, and if you are unable to understand that then we shall not dignify you with further responses. Goodnight. EuroSong ^talk 22:49, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, Eurosong, but I take issue with your logic. Here in Germany, for example, Wogan's commentary is often mentioned in media reports, even though it isn't broadcast here. He's been doing it for a very long time and has influenced the tone of other commentators, such as Germany's Peter Urban, who also makes snide-ish remarks (sometimes). Wogan, and any other veteran commentators in other EBU countries, certainly deserves a brief mention. ProhibitOnions ^(T) 00:10, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your input, ProhibitOnions. Would you please provide references for the above statements? Thanks, EuroSong ^talk 09:16, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Godsake! Why can't you just content yourself with writting sbout that Wogan on the article about the UK in the eurovision song contest? You do know there is a page like that, don't you? Plus, the UK isn't the only english-speaking country in the world, and most non-britons (with very, very few exceptions) don´t know who wogan is. I myself only heard about him when I moved to the uk!! I love my country's commentator, but it isn't because of that that I'm gonna write about him. Write about wogan on the page about the Uk on the eurovision song contest!!

I actually agree that Wogan is a part of Eurovision worthy of note- his acerbic commentary has been noted by many other participating countries and the ruling body as being overtly rude/unkind, to the extent that there was talk of him being asked not to do it any more (indeed, in his commentary this year he was especially bitter and made it clear he had no desire to continue to be involved with the contest)- He has an international relevance if only because the rest of the countries who take part are bitter that he doesn't take it seriously. 80.7.76.152 (talk) 22:56, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Removal of paragraph by User:Slydevil

User:Slydevil has removed a paragraph in the article's lead - see diff. I disagree with this removal. The reason given was "it makes some very strong claims without any sort of references, it's informal, doesn't do the rest of the article justice". My response is:

This paragraph was present when the article passed Featured Article status, and no-one said there was anything wrong with it. Regarding references, not every single sentence needs a citation - and the rest of the article speaks for the truth of the paragraph. I would say that the fact that it's one of the most watched non-sporting events in the world (a referenced statement), and the list of participants, quite nicely back up the fact that it's currently a contest of "mammoth proportions" - and the section on national selections shows just what a household name it is.

Does anyone have anything to add to this, before I re-include it? I will wait to leave time for comments. Thanks. EuroSong ^talk 00:47, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, of course the fact that it was there when it went FA, means very little, articles can always been improved. You say yourself that, "the rest of the article speaks for the truth of the paragraph". So if the facts are already there, why is the paragraph needed? It is informal, doesn't add anything, it's really only there to glorify the event. Slydevil 01:19, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

It is in the lead area, and the leads should serve as a "summary" of the article. When it's properly attributed in the article body itself, it should serve adequately. --293.xx.xxx.xx 07:28, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

If the deleted paragraph served as an adequate summary of the article, it should be restored. It doesn't need references as long as the points mentioned in the lead are referenced later in the article. =Axlq 15:10, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

What facts is this: "the word "Eurovision" is one of the few household names to be recognised across an entire continent." exactly summarising? It's an assumption, not encyclopedic matierial. The paragraph merely sensationalises whats already been stated in the previous paragraphs. It doesn't contribute anything useful, at all. Slydevil 23:03, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

agreed, it's just propaganda-y —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.7.76.152 (talk) 22:57, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Deletion of "voting alliances" map

The (most recent) map was deleted, because it was unreferenced (and looked like someone just made it up). Whichever referenced (not original research) map eventually is put up, hopefully it also makes a distinction between the "two-way" (and multi-way) alliances (incl., e.g., Cyprus<->Greece, Belarus<->Russia, Romania<->Moldova, to name the most "obvious" ones), and the "one-way" alliances, (e.g., Germany->Turkey, Estonia->Russia, i.e., cases where a large immigrant community regularly vote for their country of historical origin, from where there is no significant regular "voting in return"). --Klamber 14:56, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Armenian live broadcast

The entire ESC has to be broadcast live in national TVs and viewers vote in the same 15 minutes, I know. But in Armenia the broadcast begins at 00:00am and ends at 03:00am (or 01:00 to 04:00?). So, is there the Eurovision Song Contest so popular? If yes, how can it be so popular? I think this issue is very interesting. User:Skafa/Sign 14:55, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

This page is for discussing the Wikipedia article on the Eurovision Song Contest. It is not for general questions about the Contest. I suggest you ask your question here. Thanks, EuroSong ^talk 15:33, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

eurovision-wiki.com launched

Eurovision related wiki site has launched. you can connect on this site at www.eurovision-wiki.com

Can we add it on external links section?--88.226.57.215 22:29, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

"Voting Alliances" image

Countries coloured by "Voting Alliances"

I have restored the map on "Voting Alliances". The image was removed by User:Klamber, with a edit summary "deleting unreferenced and geographically inaccurate map (e.g., why are Estonian islands different than mainland?". The user has now been blocked, suspected of being a sockpuppet, -- Petri Krohn 22:17, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

I am removing the image again. I do not know who or what User:Klamber is, but the removal of the image was justified for the reasons stated. The image is not referenced: Wikipedia is not for original research, and such an image is clearly original research. In order for it to have a legitimate place in this article, the "voting alliances" as shown would have to have been published as fact (not just speculation!) in an independently verifiable publication. I'm sorry, but that image can't stay. EuroSong ^talk 22:24, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

If you feel so, it is OK with me. The edit summary about the missing lines on Saaremaa just did not sound very convincing. -- Petri Krohn 22:39, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

True.. that reason alone would not have been a good enough reason to remove the image from the article (in that case, the image should just be improved!). But no.. the real reason is WIkipedia's No Original Research policy. Thanks for understanding :) EuroSong ^talk 22:48, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

As for the sources for the image. This seems to be based on some simple mathematical analysis of the votes. I am sure this is published someplase. Too bad the original uploader does not seem to be around to defend his image, and reveal his sources. -- Petri Krohn 23:40, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Eyyy!!! in eed, this map is based according the votes since "the semi·final method"(SF) , so far: since 2004 with the tables of points... but is so obviously this year... :( :(, That is so longr that songs ... eg, Bulgarian song passed the SF and do not `ll passed.... 88.19.26.251 16:31, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Jordan, Libya, Egypt

They're members of the EBU, aren't they eligible? Shouldn't they be shown as so on the map?

Yes, they should. Unfortunately though I can't find a good map which includes them! Can you make one? EuroSong ^talk 08:15, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

I made one, a half year ago: you can see Egypt, Jordan, Libya... but not Azebaijan. But I can make a new one.--82.212.57.246 13:10, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Musical style and presentation

Due to the fact that the songs are playing to such a diverse international audience with diverse musical tastes, and that countries want to be able to appeal to as many people as possible to gain votes, the majority of the songs historically have been middle-of-the-road pop.

Are English lyrics (from non English speaking countries) common for songs that do well? If so that should be included in this sentence. --Philip Baird Shearer 11:04, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

ex-yugo languages

I have to disagree with the idea of some über-smart who divided languages of former Yugoslav entries into current divisions, by what I must presume is a geographic criterion. There were no "Croatian", "Bosnian" and "Serbian" languages before 1990. I really believe that we must stick to the official language of the songs here, and of course during ex-Yu there was only the common language (Serbo-Croatian, with a couple of songs in Slovene language, which was a separate story all the time). Otherwise we are engaging in original research. Just because somebody was from republic X does not mean they sang in X-ian language. Going into analyzing the words of the songs to figure our whether they were "really X-ian", "actually Y-ian", or whatever (which - mind you - some people actually do), is a road straight into WP:OR. Once again I believe we must revert all of these to their original official language, Serbo-Croatian, and stick to this. Could somebody else perhaps comment before I make large-scale corrections (this must be done for basically every year 1961-1992). --Dzordzm (talk) 05:01, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm confused. To which article(s) are you referring? In this article there is nothing about the Yugoslavian languages. EuroSong ^talk 20:02, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I was referring to separate articles for each yearly edition of the contest. This seemed like the most appropriate place to ask (rather than on like 35 different talk pages...) --Dzordzm (talk) 04:18, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Ahh, I see. Well the best place would therefore be WikiProject Eurovision. This talk page here is for discussing the main Eurovision Song Contest article. Thanks. EuroSong ^talk 16:17, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

San Marino and Azerbaijan

It has been confirmed by the EBU and at esctoday.com that Azerbaijan and San Marino are to participate in the 2008 contest. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jonbonjela (talk • contribs) 11:28, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I draw your attention to the note contained within the page source. For convenience I shall copy it here:

Note: Do NOT add Azerbaijan or San Marino until they have actually participated in the Contest.
Even though they may be officially-confirmed participants, we can NOT say that they have actually "made their debut" until they have performed on the stage on the night of the Contest. This is a list of actual debut entries: not just "intentions to participate". It has happened before that a country has confirmed its intention to participate - and gone so far as to select a song(!) - but then withdrawn at the last moment. Wikipedia is not a crystal ball (read the rules), and we can not predict the future. These countries should only be added to the list after they have performed live on stage on the night of the Contest.

Please take note. EuroSong ^talk 18:03, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

O.K. - Citius Altius Fortius (talk) 21:10, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Phew! I'm glad that's finally over - and we can stop reverting the additions :) EuroSong ^talk 20:31, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

composers?

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that the prize for best song was awarded to the composer and not the artist performing. Am I right? I think this issue needs to be addressed in the article.--24.85.68.231 (talk) 08:14, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Big Four

I've reverted an addition to the article which suggested that 97% of the Contest's funding comes from the Big Four, and 60% from the BBC alone. This is clearly untrue; certainly searching has brought no evidence whatsoever. Chwech 15:31, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Indeed. That was total bollocks. Thank you for your keen eye, Chwech! EuroSong ^talk 17:39, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

It didn't seem that clear to a non professional at the job (me!) but I was highly sceptical, hence my citation requests. Glad someone was able to verify it was untrue. Thanks! ~~ Peteb16 (talk) 18:24, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Scotland

The EBU has confirmed that Scotland could submit an entry separate from the rest of the UK. Whether this means that the UK could in future be represented by the 4 home nations remains to be seen, but I have added the issue of Scotland's possible participation to the article. Cheers Fishiehelper2 (talk) 19:47, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your helpful contribution, which you made in good faith. Unfortunately however, this is an encyclopædia article and not a Eurovision news page. There are many newsworthy points about the Contest and its future participants - which have good reliable references. However, the inclusion of news of the possible participation of one country is not in keeping with the static nature of a good encyclopædia article. We may as well include all the other little news snippets, which could - or could not - some day affect the Contest. Where do we draw the line? At the moment, the participants' list does not include Azerbaijan or San Marino (despite many people's attempts to add them!) because they have not actually participated. Their confirmed participation in the 2008 Contest is surely more article-worthy than the speculation about Scotland.. yet it is not mentioned. I hope that you will understand, and not take offence that I am now removing your edit. Please do not take it the wrong way: as I said, I understand that you made a good and genuine contribution. Thank you anyway. EuroSong ^talk 20:43, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

No problem - it appeared to me that the decision to allow Scotland to participate in its own right (even if the permission is not acted on) is a highly significant development. Azerbaijan is an internationally recognised sovereign state, but Scotland is not. In addition, with the UK being one of the Big Four, I thought it would be quite significant if it were to divide. But so be it. Cheers Fishiehelper2 (talk) 21:50, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Original Reseach/Uninformed

No offense intended, but this map is quite bad and violated WP:OR as far as I can see. To begin with, Azerbaijan is entering this year and is still coloured yellow, so that would mean that the map is in fact from last year. By that time Kosovo wasn't a country and certainly not able to join, nor would it be this year so the yellow is just wrong. As San Marino is entering this year, it should at least be coloured yellow. All in all, the map is a mess and detracts from the quality of the article instead of adding to it. That's the reason I'm removing it. JdeJ (talk) 01:29, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

The map date is 2008. Azerbaijan and (the now yellow) San Marino are yellow is quite correct. The countries are not in the table and not green on the map as they have not participated in any of the semi-finals or Final in the Eurovision. Kosovo is now shaded rather than an actual country as this is on Wikimedia Commons and is used on other language Wikipedias, which may not have recognised Kosovo's independence, this reflects the map on the ESC 2008 article. --AxG ^{@ ►talk} 09:10, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, that's a great improvement. One final point on Kosovo is that it probably should be shaded in green and grey, not yellow. At present, there is no EBU member from Kosovo [3] so it is not even eligible to participate this year and, as no they won't be broadcasting this year, Kosovo won't be able to enter in 2009 either. I suggest shading Kosovo in green and grey and then I'm happy with the map :) JdeJ (talk) 09:38, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Kosovo is now in grey and green as you said. So every one is now happy :) --AxG ^{@ ►talk} 10:28, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Political Voting

In this section i have provided a Youtube clip, which is officially provided by the BBC on the BBC's official Youtube channel whereby 2007 UK entrants Scooch blame political voting for poor performanc at Eurovision.

Someone removed this so i edited it and retyped it.

Would appreciate someone tidying it up a bit (i am not paid to do this). However I feel documented evidence from a reliable source (the BBC's official Youtube channel) is relevant to this.

This is because while often those not affected may blame politics here is eveidence of a PARTICIPANT blaming it.

As this is on the BBC's official Youtube channel it is not a copyright violation and is online verifiable from a reliable source (the BBC's official Youtube channel) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Chulcoop (talk • contribs) 23:44, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

also on this

in my inbox it says: The external links I reverted were matching the following regex rule(s): rule: 'youtube\.com' (link(s): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpFZB9hecuU) . If the external link you inserted or changed was to a media file (e.g. an image or a sound or video file) on an external server, then note that linking to such files may be subject to Wikipedia's copyright policy and therefore probably should not be linked to.

The link I provided on Youtube is for the BBC's official channel. It is NOT an irrelevant link. The BBC is the UK state television broadcaster. The clip was on the BBC's official Youtube channel. The BBC made the clip available on Youtube. I feel therefore there is a problem with wikipedia itself.

I feel my contributions (chulcoop) were releveant and would like a WikiExpert to look into this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.110.211.196 (talk) 13:29, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

This refers to The version:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Eurovision_Song_Contest&oldid=204120654

I did not believe that the "references" need to Online Verifiable.

As far as i understood the references could be for any medium. The evidence is available on Youtube but i am not allowed to do that for wiki.

Surely, for example, the actual broadcasts and any recordings of this are reference themselves.

Printed articles can be refereneced on wiki even if not online verifiable.

Anyway as further backup here is the 2008 entries from the official eurovision site as backup:

http://www.eurovision.tv/page/participants-2008

The videos are contained on there

Video clips for most of 2007 as backup can be found at:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/eurovision/2007/contestants/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.110.211.196 (talk) 13:57, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Chulcoop, I have replied on your talk page. EuroSong ^talk 14:06, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Who are the winners ?

The most important result of a contest is the winner. Who are they ? Nobody knows them, at least nobody from the team who wrote this article. In such an article a complete list of all winners and the votes they received would be mandatory.

Instead, I can see absolutely irrelevant results from an obscure TV show from Germany (probably the authors are Germans) showing votes from a small fraction of Europe's population, and nothing about the true winners.

My suggestion is just to delete this garbage. Can anybody write a serious article about the Eurovision Song Contest ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Srelu (talk • contribs) 10:24, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Why delete what I see is not garbage, the article is featured which means that it's a high level of information, sources and readability. The Winners are in the article, but is short and there is a link to the sub page, as this would make the article longer. --axg ⁞⁞ ^talk 10:38, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm glad to see that following my intervention, at least a link to the winners was added to the article. As about the article, I don't think it contains "high level of information". I would say it contains "lots of data" if you can see the difference. Like is that TV show from Germany, supposed by the authors to reflect the opinions of the whole Europe. Really ?

Another worthless information is the divagation about political voting. When voting, people consider many criterias some related to music, some not. It's everybody's right to vote as they wish. Its pointless WHY they vote in a certain way, what is important WHO they vote. Because recently the number of the countries expanded seriously, an alliance between several countries is too little in the global math. It simply doesn't matter. Such alliances cannot have a serious impact, they cannot push a worthless contestant to win if the other countries vote for somebody else.

By the way, the map of the political voting present here in the discussion page is a nonsense. The person who made it shows a total lack of knowledge of the history.

Hungary was once a big empire, now it's shrinked to a small country. All of their neghbours took away territories from them. Because of that reason they don't like any of them excepting Austria.

The republics of the former Yugoslavia, a few years ago killed each others going as far as ethnic cleansing. In the opinion of the author of the map, now they are in love with each other.

Romania and Bulgaria do not love each other, last "warm" relation between the two countries was the Romanian military invasion of the Cadrilater at the begining of the 20-th century. (Bulgaria attacked Yugoslavia. Romania answered by attacking Bugaria because of a military aliance between Romania and Yugoslavia. The unexpected attack from Romania forced Bulgaria to ask for peace. More realistic would be an alliance between Romania and Serbia, but no such thing is displayed on the map.)

I suppose the grey colored parts of the map (the west side of the map) are the "honest" countries, among them, obviously is Germany. How about the votes casted for Turkey due to the large Turkish origin population in Germany ? (Admit it, the authors are Germans.) And how about the French speaking countries ?

Just to mention a few issues... there are much more. But as I said earlier, political voting is irrelevant and without any serious impact. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Srelu (talk • contribs) 06:08, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

And another issue. Who is the best of all times? That's a nonsense, you cannot compare an artist from the sixties to one from 2007. There were different genres. The taste of the voters changed in time, the music evolved. You ask peolple having the musical tastes of the 2007 to vote for somebody from 1960. Obviously they will not appreciate it. Another point is that people tend to like the music they know. Nowadays you can listen on the radio/TV the winners from the latest years. They are the only known by most of the public so they will receive the most votes.

But if you want to talk about the best I would say you cannot skip Gigliola Cinquetti the winner from 1964. She got 49 points, the second placed got 17. That's about one third of the winner's points. Nobody ever won the contest with such a crushing difference. What's her problem? She's not German ? But you mention the German Nicole several times. I don't deny she deserved to win but there's nothing outstanding about her among the other winners.

BTW, the winners' page it's just a plain list, nothing about the other contestants, nothing about who voted for who and how many points they received from each country. I can recall, I saw one or two years ago on Wikipedia a fully documented article about that, but the authors of this article simply removed it. First, they destroyed valuable information. Second, they showed a blatant disrespect for the work of other people. What if next year your article will be removed as well ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Srelu (talk • contribs) 06:42, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, but I am confused. What is your point exactly? I don't understand what you're trying to say. Please sum it up in a couple of clear, concise sentences. What is your criticism of this article? How can it be improved? What do you suggest we do? EuroSong ^talk 10:57, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Briefly, my point is that you should focus the article on the song contest. You talk about everything but the contest itself. Well, there's a little exageration, there is valuable info in the article, but you miss the essential: the contest itself. The complete list of the contestants, what voting system was, how many points received every contestant, who gave those points to who, what was the song's title, who composed it.

Let's say that I consider your info about political voting interresting and I want to see who voted for who. Can I ?

Let's say I'm from a country from where no contestant ever won. In this case I'm primarily interrested to see not the winners but the results of the other contestants. Can I ?

But even if I'm not from such a country I still want to see all the results. I know the work of many musicians and I want to see how they were appreciated, regardless if they won or not.

Indeed the article is very long, but that's because of too much irrelevant info. Remove it and talk about the contest itself not TV shows broadcasted in only one European country.

Sorry, maybe I'm a little too harsh, but I'm frustrated knowing there was an article containing all kinds of info I was interrested in it and now it's gone. I came to find some info I knew it was here but I was forced to leave without. Should I be pleased ?

I think at this time the world's most important source for encyclopedic information is this site. I do not intend to beg you to do a good job. You MUST do it. It's an OBLIGATION, not a privilege. Millions, maybe billions of people watch you. Respect them and respect yourself. I never tried to edit the page, because I'm aware I cannot do a world class level work. If you can, then do it. If you can't, follow my example and let others.

"talk about the contest itself not TV shows broadcasted in only one European country."

What do you mean? What country? I am from England.. the Contest is broadcast in other counries than mine!

And as to your other request for information: this can be found in all the subsidiary pages. See, for example, Eurovision Song Contest 2007. This has a complete list of all the song titles and information. It is similar for all other years. There is also a lot of information on specific countries. See for example Turkey in the Eurovision Song Contest. I can only guess that you missed the links to these other articles, and thought that this main article was the only one concerning Eurovision on Wikipedia! Hehe. As you can see, there is far too much information about the Contest to fit into just one article: that's why we have separate pages for all the individual years and countries. This main article, however, deals with the Contest in general, without giving too much specific detail. I hope you are satisfied now. EuroSong ^talk 09:02, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Kosovo

Does anybody know if or when Kosovo is entering the eurovision song contest? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Adamml13 (talk • contribs) 14:33, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

There are two problems. Firstly, Kosovo has NOT been recognised as an independant state by the international community. Secondly, there is no established television broadcasting company which is based in such a sovereign state - so there is no-one there to become an EBU member. EuroSong ^talk 15:02, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Wrong. Kosovo has a public broadcaster established with the help of EBU back in 1999. RTK is Kosovo's public broadcaster and shows Eurosong every year, they even send a special team to the city where the contest is held. Right now Kosovo is a monitoring member of EBU, can use all the programmes but is not a full member because until 17 February, Kosovo had an undefined political status. --Noah30 (talk) 07:21, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

On the EBU's website, you can see that there is no Kosovan broadcaster listed under Active Members or Associate Members. EuroSong ^talk 09:20, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

What about a Serbian television company? They must have an EU membership Adamml13 (talk • contribs) 07:30, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Well - for a start it's EBU [European Broadcasting Union] not EU [European Union] - but apart from that as Serbia has not recognised the independence of Kosovo its very doubtful any broadcaster from Serbia would take on Eurovision for the statelet, because relations are not very favourable right now.

I would imagine the earliest Kosovo could enter would be 2010, that is assuming a Kosovan company joined the EBU sometime over the next year and broadcast the contest in 2009. This may not even be contingent upon recognition of independence, as it has been said previously (I'll add this myself - ) that Scotland could possibly enter the contest despite being a part of the UK. --Neo (talk) 08:13, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Ireland

There is an anonymous editor who is making a good-faith edit, trying to change "Ireland" into "Republic of Ireland" - stating that this has to be the case to distinguish it from Northern Ireland. I am replying to him/her here, since s/he is an anonymous editor and therefore has no reliable user talk page. Please take note that it is not necessary to use the full name of the country unless there is actually clear confusion. No-one is going to read about Ireland having won the Contest 7 times, and assume that it is Northern Ireland! It would not make sense anyhow: Northern Ireland is a part of the UK, and we would not talk about it having won the Contest on its own - even if all the British winners had been from NI! Also, no-one refers to NI as just "Ireland". If people want to talk about NI, they always include the "Northern" prefix.

We also talk about The United Kingdom in the article: but did you know that there also used to be a United Kingdom of the Netherlands? However, we don't have to use the full name United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (for that is its official name), because there is a convention on Wikipedia which states that common names should be used unless there is a good reason not to. "Ireland" is the country's common name. Besides, in the Eurovision Song Contest itself, the country is known as "Ireland". The EBU call it as such. And to the best of my knowledge, not one single member of any Irish delegation has ever complained, petitioning the EBU to put the words "Republic Of" onto the scoreboard beside their country's name. So - thank you for your good-faith edits, but I hope that you can see that it is not necessary to change the name of the country. EuroSong ^talk 09:39, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm not the anonymous editor, however I can see what this editor is trying to do (at least in their most recent edit). They're keeping the word Ireland, but changing the wikilink to Republic of Ireland so the link would then take people to the actual country being referred to. To continue to link Ireland to the article of Ireland will cause confusion as that article doesn't talk about the country, but the island of Ireland as a whole. I'd change it back, it makes more sense. ~~ Peteb16 (talk) 09:50, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Oops - now do I feel sheepish! You're absolutely right, of course: I guess I wasn't quite awake when I saw the edit, and didn't notice that it was only the Wiki-link which was being changed. I guess it was probably also to do with the fact that the out-of-place comment about the Big Four was reverted at the same time. Thank you for pointing this out: I have changed it now. EuroSong ^talk 12:18, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Tunisia on participation map

In the key it states that purple is used for countries that intended to enter but later withdrew. Currently Lebanon is the only country in this colour but surely Tunisia should be in purple as well since it says on their page that they were supposed to take part in the 1977 contest and were even drawn to take part in slot number 4 but later withdrew due to unknown reasons. I would change the map if I could but I wouldn't know where to begin! --gottago (talk) 20:28, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

OK, Tunisia is now purple, if someone disagrees then I can always change it back. -- [[ axg ⁞⁞ talk ]] 20:40, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Is there a reliable reference for this information? I never actually knew about this. If this is true, it could be included as information in the article: but for that, we need a reliable reference. EuroSong ^talk 08:36, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Aha - found one! It doesn't explain why they withdrew though. EuroSong ^talk 08:57, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Obscene language

I wonder if there are any regulations about using profanity and obscene language in ESC ? Obviously not, because 2008 Estonian entry "Leto svet" used Finnish obscene word pano (sexual intercourse) on stage. Was that the first time a four letter word was used on Eurovision ? Warbola (talk) 12:08, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I have it on good authority (I asked a Finnish person!) that "pano" is not offensive. Rude yes, but not offensive. ~~ Peteb16 (talk) 21:29, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

As a Finn, I'd question the intentionalness of said expletive. This isn't the first time I've heard of it, but given the phonetic differences between the two languages, the singers might have mispronounced it. I can't stand listening to the song, so I won't try to figure out what they are saying, tho :-P --Agamemnon2 (talk) 12:44, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

The song actually makes no sense whatsoever regardless of the language (I think there's some German in it somewhere) and "pano" isn't part of the lyrics. One would assume they used the word spontaneously or when they weren't actually performing the song. I think I'd need further clarification from Warbola as I'm not particularly inclined to watch it again either. ~~ Peteb16 (talk) 12:57, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

There is no doubt whatsover they sang clearly kesäpanot nyt (There are summer f-cks now) on stage and that it was intentional. Singer Leinatamm has confirmed in interview [[4]] that he used that word intentionally. Many Estonians know what Finnish word pano means as it is used in the same meaning in Estonian slang (as are many Finnish words). Warbola (talk) 03:02, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Kosovo is still a part of Serbia

Why is not Kosovo a part of Serbia in one of the maps? By this standard you should not have Baskia as a part of Spain. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.63.212.10 (talk) 12:38, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

The problem with geopolitical disputes is that you can't avoid taking a stand. In this case, Kosovo is separated from Serbia because unlike the Basques, they have issued a declaration of independence which has been accepted by several nations. Marking them on the map as a part of Serbia would be taking a stand against that declaration just as much as marking them as independent is a pro-declaration stand. Neither option is objectively superior to the other, and wherever it is feasible, the position that Kosovo's independence is an open question should be stated openly, as it's unlikely that the controversy will be resolved within the foreseeable future, if ever. --Agamemnon2 (talk) 12:56, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Winners table

Would people please stop adding the winners table to this article. There is an entirely separate article which lists all the winners. It is not necessary to give ALL the winners in this main article. As per the Wikipedia rules, Wikipedia is not just a random collection of information. This article is structured properly, and flows well. We may as well have a complete list of all entries, and all the voting in the history of the Contest! No... there are separate articles for all the little details. The main article is not the right place for this table. If anyone disagrees then they are welcome to reply here with their reasons - but please stop edit-warring over the matter. EuroSong ^talk 16:09, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Radio

I have re-added the radio comment in the ORIGIN section with a link from the official Eurovision site to back up the sentence. ChanelleHayes (talk) 17:06, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the reference. It was not done in the correct format. I will fix this tomorrow when I am more awake :) EuroSong ^talk 23:05, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

I think it's an interesting piece of information, and am glad you think so too. I have just noticed the article is now semi-protected, so could someone please re-add this segment to the ORIGIN section please? With the right format, seems I did it wrong before, sorry. Here is the text...

"The 1956 Eurovision Song Contest was primarily a radio show, although some cameras were taping the contest for the few Europeans who had a television set at that time."

And this is the link... http://www.eurovision.tv/index/main?page=66&event=273

Many thanks.ChanelleHayes (talk) 14:19, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Criticisms

Terry Wogan made some interesting comments at the end of tonight's contest - he said that the UK and Western Europe should think about whether or not they want to bother competing anymore, because the perceived political voting had got so bad. I added it and tagged it "citation needed" - I'll try to add one when it makes it's way into something I can cite (technically it might count as original resource until then...?).Señor Service (talk) 22:29, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Additional - I think someone is taking it out again. It's relevant stuff, and for people in the UK, Terry Wogan is *the* voice of Eurovision - so it's noteworthy too. Think it should go back in.

"Most recently, during UK coverage of the 2008 competition, Terry Wogan commented on the tendency of former Soviet Republics to vote for one another, and even suggested that the UK and Western Europe should consider whether it was worth competing anymore."Señor Service (talk) 22:32, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, but you do need a source and it'd probably be best to wait until the vandalism dies down before adding it. Sifting out the good faith from the bad faith edits is very difficult. ~~ Peteb16 (talk) 22:34, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Didn't realise there'd been vandalism. I'll restore it when I've got a reference if no one objects. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Señor Service (talk • contribs) 22:38, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

It is not UK's Terry Wogan alone who critizises these voting pattern. Long year German TV announcer Peter Urban does the same, referring to "Balcan Connection" and "Eastern Block Connection". So it is not a UK aspect to the contest, but a generell aspect that should be in the article. The turkish song will get 10 or 12 points from Germany even if their singer leaves the stage in a hurry to take a piss. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Special:Contributions/ ([[User talk:|talk]]) 22:55, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

It should certainly be added as soon as possible. Wogan sounded extremely disillusioned at the end of tonight's contest, and given how his views tend to pretty much hit the nail on the head for the rest of the UK with regards to Eurovision, it certainly raises some interesting points over Britain's future with the contest, certainly. The Times recently had an interesting article about the politicised voting as well, if I can find it again. I'd say that most British people are certainly getting rather cynical about the contest, and on a rather unencyclopaedic note I'd be very surprised if the UK is still competing (or at least bankrolling the thing) in about two or three years' time. 82.19.11.242 (talk) 23:00, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

This is an international article and no special weight should be given to the words of a commentator from one country. If Wogan's thoughts or actions actually go on to have an effect upon the Contest - whether by rule changes, or mass withdrawals of Western countries which are verified as the direct result of Wogan's opinions - then that would be fair enough. But until then.. there are MANY people who complain about the political aspect of the Contest, and to single out just one man would be to give undue weight to his opinions, when they are not necessarily correct. There are many people who disagree with him. EuroSong ^talk 23:08, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Luxemburg, Italy and in 2008 also Austria do not participate to this because of political voting. The Swiss newspapers also want their country not to take part in this scam anymore. Won't be long before either Germany - their "Terry Wogan" does lots of criticism during the voting broadcast too - or UK will quit. If Balcans and Russians want their song contest, they should fund it themselves. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.5.116.129 (talk) 07:18, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

I have just made a large re-organisation of this section, integrating some of the comments above, and hoping that the result is consensual. There remains intense activity on the page... with reverts to early versions of the section or the whole article, given last night's event. cckkab (talk) 08:08, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

The thing is the article now talks about the opinions of two countries commentators. Even if commentators opinions in general were notable in this context (commentators by design need to suffer from some sort of verbal diarrhoea so they can literally talk about anything just to fill time) there are 43 countries who participated in the 2008 contest, what do the remaining 41+ commentators have to say? If notable, they all should be included to give a neutural point of view to the reader of this article. ~~ Peteb16 (talk) 12:00, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't think neutrality requires us to exhaustively list what every single commentator thinks - just to outline the main schools of thought and cite examples. I would argue that Terry Wogan is a good, notable example of the block-voting-ruins-it school of thought because he has been a Eurovision commentator for 35 straight years. I agree that another, non-English-speaking example might be good for balance, but don't think we need to go crazy. If we decide to only give one example of a proponent than Terry Wogan is probably a good one to go for.Señor Service (talk) 14:53, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

It would be nice to see some rationality here, though. I think too much space is given already to the silly conspiracy theory about "political voting". The voting patterns are not in themselves proof of this theory, but it is given a free run. Only token acknowledgement is made of the influence of shared culture, language and media, and no mention of the very significant effect of allowing established artists to enter the competition. Politics has nothing to do with it, so why is so much space devoted to this in the article as if it was a fact? 59.167.63.237 (talk) 12:48, 28 May 2008 (UTC)KD

Add a IW link please

Resolved

wuu:欧罗维竞唱歌比赛 it is the 4th Asian language page. Thx !!

Lulu

Lulu was famous before being in this competition (if her first entry was in 1969 when she joint-won.) I would have deleted her from the list of people who came to attention in Eurovision but it's looked for anons. --81.178.96.15 (talk) 19:44, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Funding

Can we expand on the funding situation (especially "the big four") on actual costs involved —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.140.101.190 (talk) 19:59, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Controversy

Can we mention that there was some controversy about Cliff Richard losing out on winning because of the alleged bribing of the judges by Spain's Franco in 1968? As mentioned here: http://www.nme.com/news/cliff-richard/36423 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.43.93.184 (talk) 23:03, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Contradictory statements

From 1957 to 1970, only soloists and duos were allowed on stage. From 1963, a chorus of up to three people was permitted.

These two statements directly contradict each other. What are the correct dates? OrangeDog (talk) 22:55, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for highlighting this. I shall take a look. In addition, I notice that this article has become a mess since this year's Contest. I will clean it up shortly. EuroSong ^talk 20:47, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Serbia/Yugoslavia

To the people trying to dispute this: In 1992, the country which participated in the Eurovision Song Contest was called Yugoslavia, and it entered under this flag: Yugoslavia. The song "Ljubim Te Pesmama" was included in the list of performances of Yugoslavia. In the year 2000, no-one talking about the ESC ever stated that S&M debuted in 1992! It is only now in recent times, since Serbia & Montenegro have taken part (since 2004), that nitpickers have tried to say this.

Read the Wikipedia entries on Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and Serbia and Montenegro. The former states that the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (consisting of the republics of Serbia and Montenegro, existed from 1992 to 2003. The latter states that Serbia and Montenegro was a union of Serbia and Montenegro, which existed between 2003 and 2006.

Therefore, it can be clearly seen that as political entities, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia existed from 1992-2003 and Serbia and Montenegro existed from 2003-2006. There is no justification for claiming that the Eurovision entry in 1992 was entered under the flag of S&M. It wasn't. S&M didn't exist as a political entity under that name in 1992.

If someone really, really wants to be pedantic then they could remove the 1992 Yugoslavian entry from the list of other entries from Yugoslavia, since it was technically a new political entity between 1991 and 1992. However, this is already addressed in the article, which does state in footnote b: "The entries presented as being from "Yugoslavia" represented the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, except for the 1992 entry, which represented the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia." EuroSong ^talk 10:57, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

The Yugoslav entry of 1992 consisted of the same geographical area as Serbia and Montenegro. The 1992 entry of FR Yugoslavia is in the Serbia and Montenegro in ESC article and, although it was not the same political entity, is still the same country, bar a name change. I feel that Serbia and Montenergo debuted in 1992. It wasn't the same Yugoslavia as before and was an entirely different government and geographical area. Sims2aholic8 (talk) 11:48, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Also, in 1992, Yugoslavia entered under the flag of Serbia and Montenegro (ie ) Sims2aholic8 (talk) 11:51, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

"The Yugoslav entry of 1992 consisted of the same geographical area as Serbia and Montenegro" - so what? That doesn't mean it's the same political entity. The "Serbia and Montenegro in ESC" article is wrong, and you can not use this as a reference. Just because "you feel" that S&M debuted in 1992, that doesn't make it correct. Prior to 2004, no-one tried to say that the country which entered the ESC in 1992 was called S&M. If your logic were correct, then "Federal Republic of Yugoslavia" in Wikipedia would merely be a redirect to Serbia & Montenegro: the same thing under a different name. But it's not... because they are different political entities. As for the flag, I don't have a copy of ESC 1992 handy so I can't check whether the star appears on the flag or not. EuroSong ^talk 17:10, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

The main article says that Serbia and Montenegro debuted in 2004, but the countries page says that they debuted in 1992. Which is it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.146.175.67 (talk) 22:24, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Winners

I've gone ahead and removed two of the names from the winners section - Lulu and Carola, since they'd both achieved success long before their wins (it seems in fact that they both had more success BEFORE their wins). While I was at it I added a photo (Bucks Fizz performing at Eurovision) as I felt the article needed a picture of an actual artist performing at the contest, and since it's generally considered that this particular act won more on appearance than performance it seemed the most appropriate (although perhaps Lordi might qualify for that as well). --Tuzapicabit (talk) 22:30, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

I think you should try to find an uncopyrighted picture, but having one is a good idea. Grk1011/Stephen (talk) 22:33, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Disputed edit

I have now twice reverted the addition of irrelevant information near the top of the article. One editor is adding the fact that the 2004 Contest was held in Istanbul. While this fact is undoubtedly true, it is not necessary to mention it in the place in question. It is a caption to the image of the Eurovision logo, which currently states that the logo has been in use since 2004. There mere fact that this was the first year has no particular relevance to the fact that that Contest was held in Turkey: it's not as if the logo was designed by a Turkish person, with a particular Turkish motif. Therefore it is superfluous to add the location of that Contest in the image caption. Indeed, the IP in question who reverted originates in Turkey - and one must question his or her motive. Does s/he really seek to improve the quality of this Wikipedia article, or does s/he merely have an agenda to promote Turkey? I leave this comment here on the talk page in case the editor wishes to enter into discussion (as opposed to edit-warring). EuroSong ^talk 22:47, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

I agree, the fact that it was first used in Turkey has nothing to do with its development or use in later contests. Every time they introduce something, does the host at the time need to be mentioned, no. Grk1011/Stephen (talk) 23:50, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

A Question.

I know that from 1978 to 1999 the songs had to be sung in one of the country`s official languages. However, in 1983 Finland presented a song called La Dolce Vita, in which parts (every part where the singer sung La Dolce Vita) were song in spanish/Italian. Would`t this have broken the rules? ABC101090 (talk) 11:16, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

There are many more examples of foreign phrases being used in songs while the language rule was in force than Finland 1983. The rule actually permitted the limited use of non-national language phrases in songs - I believe that up to three lines of text were allowed. Another good example is in Croatia 1993: the text contained the lines: "Don't every cry" (the title!); "Never say goodbye" and "My Croatian sky". All the rest was in Croatian. EuroSong ^talk 21:28, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

OK, thank you. That info I believe is not in the page.ABC101090 (talk) 13:27, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Iraq?

If Iraq is part of the European Broadcasting Area, shouldn't it then be eligible to participate in the contest? The current map does not include Iraq, so I think there may be some caveat I am missing. Chedorlaomer (talk) 02:10, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

The map shows countries that have participated, not ones that can if they want to. Grk1011/Stephen (talk) 04:23, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

The map under the Participation section indicates eligible countries that have not participated with the color orange... shouldn't Iraq be colored orange then? Chedorlaomer (talk) 16:40, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

It may be in the zone, but it is not part of the European Broadcasting Union, so it is ineligible unless it joins. The countries in orange are all members, but don't participate. Grk1011/Stephen (talk) 16:58, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the clarification. Chedorlaomer (talk) 03:00, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Rule changes for breaking ties

Sorry. I put this in the discussion about the rules page, when I meant that the 2009 rules contradict information in THIS article.

The 2009 rules (http://eurovision.tv/upload/esc2009rules.pdf) say:

"1) Should there be a tie for the last position in a Semi-Final (because two songs have received the same number of points on the basis of the televoting results) or for the first place in the Grand Final, as well as any other situation where a tie occurs, the winner shall be the song which has obtained points from the highest number of countries. If the tying songs have received points from the same number of countries, the highest number of 12-point scores shall be decisive. If the winner still cannot be determined by this procedure, the number of times ten points have been awarded shall be the deciding factor. If necessary, this method shall continue until account has been taken of the number of times one point has been awarded.

In the very unlikely case that after applying the above procedure in a Semi-Final there is still a tie concerning the qualifying ranks and non-qualifying ranks, the tie shall be resolved by giving precedence to the country which was earlier in the running order for the Semi-Final in question. The same procedure shall be used to resolve any other ties."

This clearly breaks ALL ties (there was always a debate about ranking countries as "=n" when tied for a place other than first or tenth or whenever it mattered).

This says (contrary to the article) that after exhausting the tiebreakers (very unlikely, of course) among two (or more) songs tied for first place, the song performed earlier will be declared the winner. This actually does come into play for ties near the bottom of the rankings where two countries can have an identical set of votes.

121.90.247.186 (talk) 11:50, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Pietru's Edits

I think we're rapidly running up against the three revert limit here (if not having passed it), so lets discuss it. Looking at one version of the change introduced:

nor has a conclusive solution to the problem of 'Eastern bloc' voting, with the introduction of so many ex-Soviet nations into the EU, been achieved.

[e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Eurovision_Song_Contest&diff=278111910&oldid=278108517]

My objections to this are multiple:
i) While jury voting has been introduced to remove the influence of blocks, to say that it is not a 'conclusive solution' is to pre-suppose what will happen at the next contest. It is possible that it *will* be a 'conclusive solution', and it is not our place to judge yet what will happen ahead of time.
ii) Blocks other than the former Soviet countries have been noted - notable a 'Nordic' block of Sweeden, Denmark, Finland, etc. and a former Yugoslav block. To highlight the former Soviet block are especially notable is prejudicial towards the people of those nations.
iii) You keep saying the 'EU' - the EU is the European Union, while the contest is organised by the EBU (European Broadcasting Union), an independent institution. Membership of the EU and EBU are entirely separate. The expansion of the EU in 2004/2007 didn't have a notable affect on the contest... in fact since 2007 no EU nation has won the contest [Serbia and Russia].
iv) We already mention the existence of block and that juries are an attempt to counter them. You are restating information which is elsewhere in the article.
v) Adding 'and controversy' to the section title doesn't actually add any information, or clarify anything.

Please discuss any comment here before adding this information into the article again.

--Neil (talk) 08:41, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

nor has a conclusive solution to the problem of 'Eastern bloc' voting been achieved.

Above is the included information, the selection you quoted is incorrect. The way this info is being targeted for removal is very suspect. Reasons for the Eastern Bloc's (perceived) effect on the Eurovision Song Contest (and the reactions it provoked in the rest of Europe) are clearly sourced. It's the principal reason behind the re-introduction of an 'expert jury'! Anything else is obfuscation and I think editors desperate to remove this information need to give real reasons why they think that is acceptable.

i) Nothing is being presupposed. Read the sources.
ii) No 'Nordic' block has been the source of such sheer contention. However if you'd like to include sourced information about it, go ahead.
iii) I said it once and removed it entirely. View the edits.
iv) The 'mention' is nowhere so specific or accurate throughout the article; in fact it prefers to gloss facts rather than state them.
v) The words are not synonymous.

I hope these issues can be resolved, I can appreciate this may be a 'pet' article for some of you, but the inclusion of more accurate and unbiased information should be a priority. ja fiswa imċappas bil-hara! (talk) 08:58, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

ia) The sources are all media articles which are stating a single opinion. If the EBU does not state 'Juries have been reintroduced to remove block voting in Eastern Europe', this then it cannot be reported as fact. It is fine to say 'Media sources (references) have speculated that the reintroduction of juries is a response to block voting in the East.'

ib) Similarly I do not read anywhere people saying that the juries *will not* be a solution to block voting. This just seems to be your opinion. We cannot know how the result of the 2009 song contest will play out!

ii) Fine, but unless the EBU says that the Eastern block was the cause it cannot be regarded as fact.

iii) I see it twice in the history, but this has been corrected now.

iv) The whole paragraph on the reintroduction of juries is in a section which talks about political voting, and states 'certain countries do tend to form "clusters" or "cliques" by frequently voting in the same way.', which seems a pretty explicit mention in my opinion, while still remaining NPOV.

v) They aren't, but the section lists general criticisms, and not specific disputes, so 'criticism' on its own is fine.

I have no problem if you want to say 'As a result of public outcry regarding alleged politically motivated voting in the 2008 contest Juries are to be reintroduced in 2009, with both juries and tele-votes having equal weighting. The media has speculated that this is a result of widespread Western dissatisfaction with Eastern nations voting as a block.' [with references at the appropriate places of course].

I don't really understand why you insist that this is not a 'conclusive solution' (also 'conclusive' is a slightly obscure work, maybe the near-synonyms of 'decisive' or 'definitive' would read better). --Neil (talk) 10:22, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

I also think some parts of this section are problematic, it makes some assertions very general. One example: The Contest has long been perceived as politically influenced. Who perceives this? 'Perceived' on its owns is a weasel word. The sources given actually give the sources of such criticism i.e organisations, individuals. This is also unbalanced as it lacks representation of sources which disagree, such as some comments by the EBU. nor has a conclusive solution to the problem of 'Eastern bloc' voting been achieved Do all reliable sources agree it exists? I doubt it. Camaron | Chris (talk) 19:15, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Use the source:

http://www.eurovision.tv/page/news?id=1363

"In Belgrade, we saw a difference in judgment of the public and the back-up juries, and we believe a combination will make the show more interesting," said Svante Stockselius, Executive Supervisor of the Eurovision Song Contest on behalf of the EBU.

Very clearly, the win by Russia last year was egregious enough (in terms of discrepancy between the public vote and the jury vote) to lead to the reintroduction of juries. In the past, Mr. Stockselius has frequently emphasized the agreement with regards to the winner between the televoters and the jury.

121.90.247.186 (talk) 13:07, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

This article suggests there may have been 3 'blocs', not just the 'Eastern Bloc' also suggests that this may not actually be down to politics but similarities between countries. I have no idea if it's useful or not to this article, what do you think?

BananaNoodle (talk) 10:04, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

SPG check

'The most points ever done by a competitior is bya norwegian. Alexander Rybak i 2009, Moscwa. '

I'm not even too sure what this was supposed to say. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.234.4.76 (talk) 23:45, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Musical style

The fact that historically majority of the successes were MOR pop is true, but I don't think that it is true that Lordi were the first success of the deviating formula. Actually, the musical direction of the festival began to change soon after the withdrawal of the orchestra (oh, how I regret them doing that ...). Actually, the right after that a period of new countries winning the ESC with predominantly dance- and ethno-pop has begun (and still not ended). So, to be specific, I think that the winners like Padar&Benton, Sertab, Ruslana or Helena Paparizou were actually pretty far from the "middle of the road". 195.250.209.136 (talk) 12:20, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

--- I was not referring specifically to the music style, but let me say the the most used style is pop, and as everyone knows, pop has roots in America and not in Europe, and the contest is strictly European (I suppose). Despite this simple fact the omnipresence of the English language in the festival is perverting the national languages, as I said 19 of the 25 participants sung in English, which obviously doesn't represent the country culture, and language is a prominent cultural factor. And let me tell you that I have nothing against English language; in Moscow the best song in my opinion was sung by Jade from UK. But each country should be obliged to use their one language. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.93.234.32 (talk) 13:14, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Actually most European pop music styles comes from the UK pop industry, and not the US. Remember English is spoken in the UK and UK pop music exports are very influential all over Europe. Canterbury Tail talk 13:28, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

I have to disagree with you, the mainly exporter of pop music does not reside in the UK but in America, though UK also exports some pop music to other European countries. Despite that, let me ask you: In which way Lordie represented Finish culture? They sang in English using a hard rock style. The only think in Lordie representing Finland was the hat of the vocalist. The English omnipresence in this contest (and it's not my opinion so it cannot be considered as violation of NPOV, it is a fact) is perverting the national cultures. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.93.234.32 (talk) 13:42, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Please stop adding your own personal unsourced speculative opinion to the article. It constitutes original research and is not accepted on Wikipedia. This is an encyclopaedia, not a soapbox. Canterbury Tail talk 14:09, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

It is not my opinion, and it is not speculative nor unsourced. The English omnipresence in this festival is a clear fact. And any researcher could conclude this simple fact. Why Italy withdrew its participation? Why Spain and France sang in English?— Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.93.234.32 (talk)

I would agree that the US is the main exporter of music in almost all types. It has one of the biggest music industries and any song released there almost certainly charts in a majority of European countries. I don't see it on the same scale for the UK. Though I feel it may be true, there is no source for it to be added to the article. Grk1011/Stephen (talk) 14:20, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

In which way Sakis Rouvas with his "This is our night" represented the Greek culture in Moscow? It is a typical pop music which could be associated as being American and not Greek. ESC is European and not American. I'll try to add an impartial note referring the omnipresence of the English language in the ESC. It's been controversial in some southern European countries.

Which territory outside Europe does Greece control?

"In addition, France, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom control territories under their sovereignty outside of Europe. The Kingdom of Denmark, of which Denmark is the hegemonial part, includes Greenland in North America."

The only one I think you could mean would be Cyprus but this wouldn't be right.

Thanks, Sophia —Preceding unsigned comment added by SophiaSpl (talk • contribs) 19:15, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Certainly not Cyprus. There are a lot of Greek islands off the Turkish coast though, and a reasonable geographic argument could be made (and has sometimes been made) that they are in Asia. This has been discussed several times at Talk:List of countries spanning more than one continent (see sections 15, 21, 77 and 88), but currently Greece is not mentioned in that list, reflecting that these islands are generally not considered Asian (although they are closer to mainland Asia than to mainland Europe), just like Malta is not generally considered an African island (although it is closer to mainland Africa than to mainland Europe). So it all depends on how we define the continents (I once raised this at Talk:Continent but no discussion ensued), and we should follow common usage. So, in short, for the conventional definition of "Europe", Greece does not control any territory outside Europe. (I'm even more baffled by Italy being in this list. Huh?) —JAO • T • C 12:31, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Liechtenstein

Liechtenstein is part of the Council of Europe.^[1]
It is not part of the Europan Broadcasting Union (See: Talk: Eurovision Song Contest#Iraq?):
"Active members are those whose states fall within the European Broadcasting Area, or otherwise those who are members of the Council of Europe."
So there (is a/are) (country/countries) within the Council or Europe and Broadcasting Area, but not within the European Broadcasting Union.
The rest of what I have to say concerns the article of the European Broadcasting Union, so I'll talk there.
Also, Tobsonhelsinki stated on Talk: European Broadcasting Union#Liechtenstein in Eurovision:
"It is true that Liechtenstein tried to enter the Eurovision Song Contest once,... it was in 1976..."^[2]
Should Liechtenstein be included in this article? Liechtenstein is eligable to participate as of 15 August 2008^[3], but has not participated in the Eurovision contest yet. (See: European Broadcasting Union#Potential active EBU members)
Should this be included in the map if it is included in the article?

References

[5] The Council of Europe
[6] Eurovision History
[7] 1FLTV

× Prince Naveeen 1000: Unless you beg for more ;) × 03:57, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Semi-protection

Already commented on WP:Eurovision, but I've requested this article is given semi-protection, in light of recent vandalism. YeshuaDavid (talk) 13:36, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Citation needed

[8] = Citation is needed here, otherwise this is a violation of WP:NOR. Cirt (talk) 09:31, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree. This is a true fact, but in accordance with the WP guidelines, you're right - a citation is indeed needed. For the moment this fact should remain commented out, until a reference can be found. EuroSong ^talk 15:51, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Italy part of the Big 5

To whoever keeps removing the information about Italy being part of a big 5, if the decide to return to the Eurovision, please STOP! It was previously agreed that it should be included in the section - considering the information also came with 100% reliable sourcing. Mr Stockselius exclusively told reported that Italy IS part of a BIG 5 if they should return. I very much doubt the Executive Supervisor of the contest would make up such a thing - even to reporters at an OGAE meeting. (Pr3st0n (talk) 19:12, 9 June 2009 (UTC))

While there is no doubt as to whether Svante actually said this, the question is whether or not it is relevant to include this information in the article. Just because it's a true fact, that doesn't mean that it should necessarily be included. There are many other snippets of information relating to the Contest - which have reliable references. However, the fact remains that Wikipedia is not a random collection of information. I understand that you may think it relevant to include the information about Italy being part of a big-5 in the same section as the Big 4 - however, this will only be true IF Italy does return. At the moment, there are no plans for the return of Italy - therefore the information is not relevant.

If Italy had confirmed that they would indeed start entering again, then it would be a relevant point of interest to note that they are going to be part of a Big 5. But they haven't, so it isn't.

It's the same as including information stating that, now Liechtenstein has its own TV station, then if they joined the EBU they would be eligible to participate. You may well find some reference for this - but until there is some actual news that confirms they DO intend to join the EBU for the purposes of entering the Contest, then it remains just another piece of information which does not belong in the main encyclopædia article.

Your information about Italy being part of a possible Big 5 would be much better placed in Italy in the Eurovision Song Contest. Hope you understand. EuroSong ^talk 15:59, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I see where you're coming from, but you even said yourself above, the information is FACT - and that only FACTS should be included in the article. Erm correct me if I'm wrong, but haven't you contradicted yourself in that statement? OK Italy aren't in the contest; but the related link does show Svante quoted as saying "SHOULD ITALY RETURN THEY ARE PART OF BIG-5". This information should be included in the Eurovision main article, for those who use this page for research can then see that apart from the main BIG 4, there is also a 5th if they were to return. How would any researcher know of this fact if we are to omit it. It was also mentioned here about Italy being included once sourcing had been found. (Pr3st0n (talk) 01:06, 27 June 2009 (UTC))

Pr3st0n has asked me to provide a third opinion here, I will do so tomorrow morning (UTC). Camaron · Christopher · talk 20:49, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

I have reviewed the issue and my third opinion is as follows: I think a brief mention of Italy being part of a potential Big Five is relevant to that section, as it is directly linked to the Big Four. The sourcing seems fine, though try and use {{cite web}} and other such templates as it will help this page remain featured. Wikipedia does allow speculative content, though per WP:CRYSTALBALL it has to be sourced. More detail on Italy should however be placed in its main article i.e. Italy in the Eurovision Song Contest. I would recommend that the current section title remain as it is, as 'Big Four/Five' is rather awkward, and the section is still primarily about the Big Four. Camaron · Christopher · talk 11:17, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Thank you Cameron for your third opinion. Much appreciated. Regards, (Gareth aka Pr3st0n (talk) 11:21, 2 July 2009 (UTC))

EBU website copying us :)

It is amusing to note that the EBU website contains text which has been directly lifted out of this article :) EuroSong ^talk 15:49, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

It is funny seeing that - my cousin told me he did it - how bizarre huh? (Pr3st0n (talk) 01:01, 27 June 2009 (UTC))

Yes there are some bits that appear to be from this article, nothing wrong with that, though any direct copying should be licensed under CC BY-SA. Camaron · Christopher · talk 09:28, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, he is aware of CC BY-SA and also Copyright laws. Although I'm slightly confused with it. Majority of the sourced information we use in the article is from EBU approved sites anyway - doesn't that mean they are only copying information from us which they already hold anyway, as we borrowed it from them? (Pr3st0n (talk) 14:17, 27 June 2009 (UTC))

Taking information from other sources on to Wikipedia is fine, and is what the encyclopedia is built on, as long as it is re-written from scratch in the own words of the editor. The best way to ensure this happening is to use multiple sources and put the information together. Taking sentences or paragraphs, such as copying out source text or use of the copy and paste button, is what would violate copyright. An exception to this if the source material is in the public domain or under a Wikipedia compatible licence (unfortunately ESCToday, Oikotimes, and the EBU do not fall under this), though it should be sourced otherwise it is still plagiarism. Similarly, text copied from Wikipedia is still partially copyrighted under CC BY-SA, which releases the right for anyone to use the material but reserves the rights of requiring attribution of the copyright holders and being shared alike (re-licensed under CC BY-SA or similar). It is up to editors who author the content to decide on what to do if they think their copyright has been violated, in this instance I don't think the material copied is enough to complain, and some editors such as myself multi-licence their contributions into the public domain (as displayed on user pages). Camaron · Christopher · talk 19:21, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

China in the 1963 contest ?

I can't find a reference to this, and it has been added into the 1963 Eurovision Song Contest article as well. This seems somewhat at odds with the EBU rules. Am I missing something?AlexandrDmitri (talk) 11:56, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Thank you User:JdeJ for reverting this vandalism on both pages.AlexandrDmitri (talk) 12:12, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

This article is not for "fansite news" (even when referenced)

One editor has recently been trying to add a sentence to this article which speaks of the Czech Republic withdrawing from the Contest. It is accompanied by a reference from the BBC news website.

While this news may be of interest to Eurovision fans, it does not belong in this encyclopædia article - especially not as a disjointed statement in the article's lead section! I am leaving this comment here on the talk page for two reasons: firstly, because the editor in question (an anonymous IP) has now attempted to add the sentence twice, and I do not want to get into an edit war: I am therefore writing an explanation here on the talk page, as is proper. Secondly, as a general guideline for future new editors - please bear in mind that this is an encyclopædia article, not a news page for all the latest Eurovision snippets. Think of this article in a permanent state, in a paper encyclopædia. Think of it being read by someone who has never even heard of the Eurovision Song Contest before, and for whom reading this article is their first introduction to what the Contest even is.

With that in mind, I hope it is clear that - while a broad overview and history of the Contest is suitable for this article, the latest year-by-year news is not appropriate. EuroSong ^talk 00:09, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Seconded, especially given that there are articles for each year's Eurovision Song Contest and even Country X in the Y year ESC articles. -- Александр Дмитрий (Alexandr Dmitri) (talk) 14:22, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Omnipresence of the English language

I recently added some information regarding the omnipresence of the English language in the ESC, I don't want to enter into a edit war, so I wont add it again. But I must say I added on the topic which concerns Criticism and Controversy. I supplied reliable sources stating that many scholars mainly in southern Europe argue that the omnipresence of the English language is depreciating European musical culture. I suppose the paragraph regarding this topic was written on an impartial way, I supplied sources and I added on a topic regarding controversy, I would like to know where is the partiality of this paragraph and why it is not acceptable in one encyclopaedia: "The Eurovision Song Contest shows also a evident submission of European culture to American musical influences due to various songs sung in English and the obvious and patent style of pop music which is commonly broadcasted in America and throughout the world; on the final in Moscow in 2009, 19 of the 25 songs were sung in English. Many scholars in southern European countries, mainly France, Portugal, Spain and Italy argue that this fact represents a clear subversiveness of traditional and popular European music. The French deputy François-Michel Gonnot have already criticized the French television and launched an official complaint on the French Parliament[60][61]. On the other side, participants argue that pop style, and singing in English is more appealing and brings more votes from other participants. Nordic countries used this argument with success, as Sweden, Norway and Finland have already won at least one time the ESC singing in English." 95.93.234.32 (talk) 13:15, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

I wonder if it is the phrasing of "American musical influence" and "commonly broadcasted in America" which is causing a problem. A song being sung in English does not automatically equate to being influenced by the United States of America's culture. There are two issues here: 1. the language used by performers; and 2. cultural influences. As I read it, the text lumps the two together. -- Александр Дмитрий (Alexandr Dmitri) (talk) 14:20, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

I believe it's undeniable that pop music has strong roots in America and it's part of American musical culture. I remember ESC being a contest representative of all languages and all musical European cultures. Each country sang in its own language with an orchestra using national musical cultures. Nowadays performers, changed their music style to pop, and the majority started to sing in English. This, undoubtedly represents a subliminal subversiveness to American musical culture, where, obviously the top charts have pop songs sung in English. Lumping language and culture together I suppose is inevitable, as we all know that language is a intrinsic part of a country culture. And I suppose, as everyone else, that the omnipresence of the English language throughout the world, which I do not criticize generally, has seeds in America. 95.93.234.32 (talk) 18:16, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

The history of pop music does not have its origins exclusively in the United States of America. The spread of international English is also more complicated than your opinion suggests. -- Александр Дмитрий (Alexandr Dmitri) (talk) 18:43, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Look Dmitri, I read that enlightening article you suggested about international English, and it's so naive; Portugal had a great empire in the XVI century and I suppose you don't speak Portuguese, do you? If you, as a Slav from an Eastern country where British have never been, speak English, that undoubtedly concerns to American international influences, as a great empire US is.95.93.234.32 (talk) 14:57, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Your reply suggests that you are jumping to conclusions about my origins, nationality and the way that I learned to speak English based upon my username (whereas a quick check on my user page would have given you clear indications though not WP:V and WP:RS). Please also note that I am not the one reverting you, and indeed do not intend to. I am simply trying to indicate elements in your text which others may find WP:NPOV and WP:OR. No, I don't speak Portuguese and my name is Alexandr Dmitri, not Dmitri, or if you must, Alexandr. -- Александр Дмитрий (Alexandr Dmitri) (talk) 16:01, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Ok Alexandr, as I realized by your user page you speak many languages, except one of the most spoken in the world which is Portuguese. But I was not suppose to mention it cause I don't speak French nor Russian. But you must agree with me that if many people on these Eastern countries speak English, this has nothing to do with the British empire as the international English article suggests, but only with the American international influences. Answer me a direct question: "Why 19 of the 25 participants in Russia 2009 sung in English?" Is this freedom? Was this the purpose of the language freedom rule?95.93.234.32 (talk) 13:09, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Sorry 95.93.234.32, I don't wish to dodge or dismiss your questions out of hand, but any answers would be pure speculation on my behalf, and I prefer not to indulge in that, with perhaps the exception of the Reference Desk, where I allow myself the latitude of anecdotal replies occasionally. -- Александр Дмитрий (Alexandr Dmitri) (talk) 14:52, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

It seems a very polite and cordial way to avoid the central issue I referred, alleging that it is speculative. 95.93.234.32 (talk) 15:31, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

I can confirm that it would be speculative, not merely allege it. Per "[t]his is not a forum for general discussion about the article's subject", I do not intend to carry on debates about why English is spoken in Eastern countries, why so many participants decided to sing in English, whether this is freedom or whether this was the purpose of the language freedom rule on the talkpage of the ESC article. -- Александр Дмитрий (Alexandr Dmitri) (talk) 15:48, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

As you wish, so be it 95.93.234.32 (talk) 19:48, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

I changed on the topic "Language in the ESC" the term freedom by the term allowance. It seemed a subliminal violation of WP:NPOV 95.93.234.32 (talk) 20:14, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Dealing with criticism and controversy

Please go to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Eurovision#Dealing with criticism and controversy for some discussion about this issue. Camaron · Christopher · talk 09:22, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Number of the entrie

Hey, i'm making a list of ESC songs by order of presentation in the whole ESC history, but i don't know who to count from 2004 :S It's first the semi-final in order and after the countries automatly qualified for the final, for the appearence order? can someone help me with this, thanks João P. M. Lima (talk) 18:11, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

anyone? João P. M. Lima (talk) 20:41, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Let me give an example:

Until 2003

• 2002 - 5 participating countries, order of act B, A, E, D, C
• 2003 - 8 participating countries, order of act Z, H, J, L, M, K, W, O

From 2004

• 2004 - 15 participating countries (10 in the semi, then pass 5 to the final, with 10 countries), order of act of semi S, X, Y, R, N, V, G, F, P, I,

order in the final: S, Q, Y, A1, N, G1, G, J1, P, F1

So, when we make a list with to know wicth entrie correspond to a number of acting in geral ESC story, do we make like this:

• 2002

1º B 2º A 3º E 4º D 5º C

• 2003

6º Z 7º H 8º J 9º L 10º M 11º K 12º W 13º O

• 2004

14º S 15º X 16º Y 17º R 18º N 19º V 20º G 21º F 22º P 23º I 24º Q 25º A1 26º G1 27º J1 28º F1

Can someone helpe me on this? is realy important thank you João P. M. Lima (talk) 20:55, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

To be completely honest, I don't think this is a list worth having. Sure some people may care that a song was the 454th or whatever, but overall it just seems like a waste of time to compile random lists like this. Grk1011/Stephen (talk) 21:40, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

i've made this for JESC, but there is not a semi-final, for the ESC, i only know how to do it until 2003, and this is very simple and easy to do. The tables that are in the articles are what is needed to do, the only work is change the acting order, to the number of the entry, and nothing more João P. M. Lima (talk) 11:51, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

FYR Macedonia

OK, I think we need to establish the correct name for this country here. I want to say - for the firm record - that I am English, and I have no links or particular affiliation or personal bias for or against either Greece or the nation of Macedonia. Personally, I really could not care less who "wins" the naming dispute: however, it is necessary that I make this clear statement in order that anyone who reads this knows where I stand.

My personal loyalty is, however, firmly with the Eurovision Song Contest itself. And since the ESC is run by the European Broadcasting Union, I propose that we follow the ESC/EBU conventions regarding the naming of Eurovision articles related to Macedonia - and indeed, when referring to that country in the text of the main article and of sub-articles. (You will note that I am referring to the country simply as "Macedonia" here. However, any Greek people reading this should not take that as an insult - I merely use the term in my own casual speech because it is the shortest way to say it.)

The EBU's method of referring to the country in question is as FYR Macedonia.

You can see it here on this official Eurovision website's list of 2010 participants here - and a sub-page specifically about that country here. The sub-page includes full-stops after the letters F, Y and R respectively. Also take a look at the EBU's website, where it lists active members of the union here. The country is listed in alphabetical place alongside "M" - and the broadcaster (MKRTV) is labelled as being of the "FYR of Macedonia".

While I am fully cognisant of the Macedonia naming dispute, it appears to me that the best way we should handle it is to compromise: we should not use the full "Former Yogoslav Republic of" name; and we also should not simply call it "Macedonia". It works out very well that this is exactly the same compromise that the EBU use on the official Eurovison website.

Therefore I propose three things. Firstly, that the country should be referred to as FYR Macedonia in all the Eurovision-related articles on Wikipedia. Secondly, that we keep an eye on the EBU's naming policy. And if the EBU ever decide to start calling the country by another name, then we can follow suit. Thirdly, if any Greek or Macedonian people complain about the name that we use here, we shall simply refer them to the EBU's usage, and tell them that if they wish to call the country something else then they should write to the EBU - and we will go with whatever they use.

Any thoughts? EuroSong ^talk 16:46, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Your proposal is what we did in the past and it did work well internally for WikiProject Eurovision. However, the use of the name Macedonia on Wikipedia is now regulated by Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Macedonia). Its creation was partially the result of an Arbitration Committee decision at WP:ARBMAC2. When there was discussion on the use of Macedonia and international organisations the overwhelming majority of editors preferred to use the same name for Macedonia in articles about international organisations as the rest of Wikipedia (Option A), and that was what was implemented. Contact and notification with WikiProject Eurovision and Eurovision editors in general about this discussion left some things to be desired. However, there is nothing I'm aware of stopping amendment if there is consensus for it, and Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Macedonia) is the best place to make proposals, though it is unlikely that any changes will happen any time soon. Camaron · Christopher · talk 17:27, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Category of EV contest up for deletion

This may interest some of you. Best.--Epeefleche (talk) 03:32, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Artists Section

Udo Jürgens, may have been been overlooked because of a slight german bias. Nicole had exactly ONE hit, then retired and is in the section, whereas Jürgens has sold 100 million records and isn't. --Snottily (talk) 13:09, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Bloc voting

Countries with large populations of non-nationals may have their televote influenced considerably. This has been cited as the reason for apparent bloc voting in the Balkan countries of the former Yugoslavia.[91]

This is full-blown crazy. What does "non-nationals" mean? These countries have similar cultures and speak the same languages. The stars in Croatia are popular in Serbia and vice versa. People are nationals of their countries in the largest proportion in each of those countries (there are some refugees in each of those countries, but that doesn't really explain why Croatia would always give the highest no. .of pts to Serbia, or Macedonia to Serbia, where there was no conflict to speak of). For example, I'm a Bosnian Serb and me voting for a Croatian or a Serbian song is not unusual. But I'm not a Bosnian non-national. I have the passport of BiH, and my family has never lived in Serbia in history. It's really about mutual intelligibility -- which is why Scandinavian bloc votes for each other all the time. It's the language and sensibility.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.193.121.160 (talk)

As a "Scandinavian (technically, very little of Finland is part of Scandinavia, we use the term "the North", or Nordic), I know things are a little more complicated than just one big bloc voting. To some extent, the bloc voting comes from shared style and association with other countries' writers and musicians (like Denmark's entry in 2010 being written for Sweden originally), shared language (many Swedish speaking Finns, similarity between Finnish and Estonian, similarity between Swedish, Norwegian and Danish, (can't speak for Icelandic and the L's)). On the other hand, bloc voting is only a problem when other blocs do it. ;) I know I didn't have a member of my bloc in my personal top 3 this year tho, and I'm hardly the only one. Would be interesting to know the exact results of the televote vs the juries' votes. 91.153.238.155 (talk) 12:07, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Musical style and presentation

"Also the use of low cut tops and short skirts to attract a higher male vote an example would be Armenia's entry for 2010, Eva Rivas.[86]" This needs editing to remove the reference to Armenia. Although the reference [86] may comment on these issues, the Armenian singer wore trousers, and her top could not be described as "low cut". Perhaps another, appropriate, example could be provided. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Excelis4 (talk • contribs) 10:20, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. There were lots of far more fitting examples in this year's competition, and Rivas' outfit was a far cry from the tops and skirts seen in other contestants' outfits (or lack thereof). Seems like someone doesn't like Armenia. 91.153.238.155 (talk) 12:10, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Map showing number of wins: Germany

There is no need to say Germany hasn't yet won, just because Nicole's victory was for West Germany and not re-unified Germany. It's the same state, still called Federal Republic of Germany. In 1990, the GDR ceased to exist, and the territory then joined the Federal Republic. No new state was founded at all. So this should be changed. Rudefuss (talk) 22:41, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree with you. Germany is Germany. Even before reunification, it was rare to hear about "West Germany" in the Contest - people simply said "Germany". Can someone please go ahead and change the map? EuroSong ^talk 11:07, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Germany was the Federal Republic then and still is since 1949. There is no difference why making this difference because of the territory? Yugoslavia moght be different because there rose new independent states and the old entity broke up.--Tresckow (talk) 01:23, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

There is discussion on this issue at File talk:Eurovision winners map.svg too. John Anderson (talk) 12:20, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Scoreboard tables

I've started a discussion regarding scoreboard tables at Talk:Eurovision Song Contest 2010#Scoreboard tables. --78.34.238.130 (talk) 15:38, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Composers?

I have asked this question before, and did not get a response. The German wikipedia says that the prize does NOT go to the performer, but rather to the COMPOSER of the winning song. This is an important detail, which needs to be mentioned in this article, if it is correct. --345Kai (talk) 02:05, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Good question! But the answer is already in the article (Eurovision Song Contest#Format): "At the end of the programme, the winner is declared as the song with the most points. The winner receives, simply, the prestige of having won—although it is usual for a trophy to be awarded to the winning songwriters, and the winning country is invited to host the event the following year." In short: the trophy goes to the songwriters (not just the composers, but also the lyricists). --Catgut (talk) 00:19, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

"Eurovision" redirecting here

Why does Eurovision redirect here, rather than the disambiguation page? Eurovision (the Eurovision Network) is a valuable, enriching and productive collaboration between national broadcasting unions, whereas the Eurovision Song Contest is a load of.... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Charlie pearce (talk • contribs) 22:13, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

I was also irritated when I typed in Eurovision looking for the 'activity, or "organisation-within-an-organisation", in the Geneva-based European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which operates the Eurovision Network, an international television distribution network'. After navigating to the disambiguation page and choosing Eurovision Network, I then discovered that the article keeps referring to the subject (Eurovision Network) as 'Eurovision', whereas, although this article states that 'in the minds of the public, the name "Eurovision" is most closely associated with the Song Contest', the rest of the article uses the short name "the Contest", although the Eurovision Song Contest quite rightly does not appear in the contest article. In fact, the association of the word "Eurovision" with the song contest does not mean that people call the contest "Eurovision" for short. If people type in "Eurovision" looking for this article rather than the Eurovision Network article, then it should nevertheless remain as it is. Otherwise, the disambiguation page should be renamed "Eurovision". Coyets (talk) 15:33, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

This article refers to "The Contest" because it would be tiresome to keep writing (and reading) the full title "The Eurovision Song Contest". Within the scope of this article, which is all about the Eurovision Song Contest, the full title of the event does not have to been repeated all the time. Therefore the name "The Contest" is an abbreviation. In terms of the wider public perception, however, if you go up to the average man on the street and ask him about "Eurovision" - with no other context given, he is extremely unlikely to think that you're talking about the network which is managed by the EBU, which was first used to transmit the broadcast of the Queen's coronation! No - there is a 99% chance that if you simply mention the word "Eurovision" to a member of the public, they will immediately associate it with the Song Contest. The EBU also state this explicitly themselves: that the Song Contest accounts for the significant majority of the work done by them under the name of "Eurovision".

Wikipedia conventions state that the common names for articles should be taken into account when labelling articles and redirects. Therefore this article is titled Eurovision Song Contest - as is proper - but if anyone simply types "Eurovision" into the search box, they will also be directed here because it is 99% sure that they will be looking for information about the Song Contest. If you came here unexpectedly then fair enough - but that's just because you're in the 1% :) EuroSong ^talk 20:19, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

there is no need for the automated redirect if the 99% of the typings know it. Dear user Eurosong 1% please allow the users to judge if they want to know about your contest, because I'm not.188.25.107.55 (talk) 16:18, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Who are the winners? The performers, the songwriters, the countries - or all of them?

As the song is called the winning song, and the trophy is given to the songwriters, I wonder who actually can be called winner of the annual Eurovision Song Contest? Regularly, the performers are said to have "won" it. So what about the songwriters? And what about the countries? Are all of them the winners, or is there some popular belief involved? Where are the exact rules and definitions? Where is the official declaration of the Eurovision Song Contest stating for example that Lena Meyer-Landrut (and nobody else) has won the recent edition? It's really amazing that the official webpage (http://www.eurovision.tv/page/home) isn't helpful at all, and doesn't bother to answer this key question. And it's equally amazing that the fans of this event don't bother to ask. And if the fans don't ask, aren't there any experts on this field? --Catgut (talk) 23:15, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

I have now answered this question here. Sorry for not having had time to do so before! EuroSong ^talk 17:35, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

q

If someone is kind please allow me a question. Why is the flag of Andorra different in this article and another flag is in the article on Andorra country ? Andorra has a red flag, yet in this article its flag may confuse as it falsly resembles to the flags of the Democratic Republic of Moldavia and to the Republic of Romania.188.25.107.55 (talk) 16:18, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Looks right to me. —Half Price 17:58, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Credit to Croatia for 1989 victory

In Countries (Under Winners), in the picture on the right, Croatia has failed to have been credited, despite winning the Eurovision while under Yugoslavia. In 1989, Riva won the competition with "Rock Me". Riva is a band from Zadar (which is Croatian), where all the members are born in the territory of Croatia. The 1990 competition was hosted in Croatian territory (Zagreb, Lisinski Hall) so it makes sense that Croatia be credited with the 1989 victory — Preceding unsigned comment added by MIOC1 (talk • contribs) 11:17, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

While it may be true that Riva were Croatian, the fact is that in 1989 Croatia was still part of "Yugoslavia" - not only as a political entity, but in terms of Eurovision participation - as their broadcasting company represented the whole of Yugoslavia. Imagine if the UK were to split up into England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Would we then say that in 1997, nobody won - because Katrina is American (and not from England, Wales, Northern Ireland or Scotland)? What about Céline Dion - she is Canadian, not Swiss. So should we say Canada won once, and Switzerland only won once (in 1956)? Belgium are represented by two TV companies from the Flemmish- and Walloon-speaking areas of Belgium, who tend to participate in alternate years. But they still represent the whole of Belgium. Do we say that the Flemmish-speaking part of Belgium never won because the 1986 entry was sung in French? No - the whole country of Belgium has won once. It's not about where the winning singers come from, and it's not about the host place of the following year either. It's about the country which was being represented at the time. I understand that you're Croatian and your own feelings of patriotism make you want to see Croatia listed as having won the Contest :) - but all I can say to that is that I wish you luck in the future, and hope Croatia win very soon! EuroSong ^talk 09:57, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Germany Won Again!

In the section "Winners" next to the sub-section "Countries" there is a map that states that Germany has won once, as of 2010. Could somebody change it please? --Ajitirj (talk) 15:22, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

The other is in the top right corner. A reunified Germany only won once. Grk1011/Stephen (talk) 16:56, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

The "Federal Republic of Germany" won twice. The "German Democratic Republic" joined the Federal Republic in 1990, just like the Saarland joined in 1957. --93.130.149.140 (talk) 12:26, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

No. It only won once in 1982 and a reunified Germany won in 2010. Do you have any sources to back up your claim? The pages on wikipedia including Germany in the Eurovision Song Contest and List of Eurovision Song Contest winners are pretty clear. Grk1011/Stephen (talk) 12:28, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Being American, would you say that the USA were founded anew every time a new state entered the union? Obviously not. That's exactly what happened in 1990: New states (formed out of the former GDR) entered the Federal Republic of Germany. There were two Germanys before, one ceased to exist and the other one swallowed its territory. There can be no doubt about the fact that Germany has two wins, as much as they have three World Cup wins and three EURO wins. Or did you ever hear someone say: Germany won the EURO once and West Germany won it twice? Compare the ranking on this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UEFA_European_Football_Championship

It will come as a surprise to Germans to hear their country hasn't won the contest twice (and to everyone else who will be referring to Germany's two wins in the run-up to the Dusseldorf contest). As the previous person has correctly pointed out the same international legal entity won the 1982 and 2010 contests. The official name of the country that won in 1982 was the Federal Republic of Germany (Bundesrepublik Deutschland). The name of the country that won the 2010 contest was exactly the same...as was the flag it won under. The EBU scoreboard at the 1982 contest said 'Germany', not 'West Germany' (I'm looking at it now on DVD) as the 2010 scoreboard also said. How can it be argued that these are two different countries? There is no such country as 'the reunified Germany' and in 1982 the country's proper name wasn't 'West Germany'. All that changed between 1982 and 2010 was that this country expanded its territory. If Greenland or the Faroe Islands one day declares independence from Denmark will that mean a Danish win thereafter won't count as a victory by 'Denmark' because its borders changed? Vauxhall1964 (talk) 16:59, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Good point! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.177.228.59 (talk) 22:17, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Exactly! The Federal Republic of Germany has been one and the same country since 1949. Only its territory increased (not only 1990 actually, but already when Saarland entered and by other minor territory changes). Whoever says that reunification meant the foundation of a new country, has no knowledge of the legal background. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.136.139.221 (talk) 20:12, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Alright, I'm convinced. Just drop a note on the talk page of the editor who routinely edits the image. Grk1011 (talk) 04:24, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Last minute cancellations

I wonder if there has ever been a short-term cancellation or replacement e.g. due to acute illness of an artist. According to the article, the song details have to be finalised a few weeks before the finale, but does this definitely exclude a "B option" if a singer (or the manager) has to cancel his or her participation e.g. a few days before the finale due to unexpected facts through no fault of his/her own (e.g. acute sickness, accident, maybe even death or becoming victim of a crime etc.)? Are there any exception rules for this case? Has anything like this ever happened to a participant of the ESC?--SiriusB (talk) 16:31, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

According to the rules, there has not been a short-term cancellation or replacement for the finale of Eurovision in the contest's 56-year history. If an artist's participation has been canceled due to illness or death of the artist during the finale, the artist who has the highest amount of points to be eliminated shall replace the canceled artist. J4lambert (talk) 18:59, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Add more on how the competition is considered in different countries?

I am originally from the UK and there everyone knows the contest, but it is typically seen as quite camp/kitsch, harmless entertainment but not something to be taken very seriously. People generally assume it will feature a lot of bad singing and amusing costumes and some dodgy voting tactics etc. It was (not sure now) traditionally presented by Terry Wogan, in a pretty jokey, lightweight kind of way [OK, I just checked, it's being presented by Graham Norton this year, that says it all]. The nearest the article comes to this is to say it is sometimes accused of featuring too much middle of the road "bubblegum pop". I think some indication of how it is viewed by participating countries would be interesting - I mean perhaps in some it is seen as an important cultural event and it is a serious matter of national pride to send the best possible act and to do well, whereas in, say the UK, it is generally seen as a bit of a laugh. Orlando098 (talk) 00:26, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

I have friends in Russia. Assuming that most of the newer participants view the contest in a similar vein, they take it very seriously indeed. Here in the UK, it is largely regarded as a joke (partly for the nature of the songs, but mainly because of the perceived voting cliques). Even Terry Wogan himself admitted on one occasion in interview that the contest wasn't taken seriously in the UK, though he did concede that there were some followers who did take it seriously. He also went on to point out that the BBC itself didn't really take the contest that seriously and gave him carte blanche to comment on the broacast in any way that he saw fit. 86.162.118.137 (talk) 17:36, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

What IS Eurovision?

Is it a company? A non-profit? How is it funded? How is it organised? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.175.221.155 (talk) 19:26, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Eurovision refers to the television network, known as the Eurovision Network, run by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). The most well known TV show from the Eurovision network is the Eurovision Song Contest. Please read the linked articles to learn more, and in future please ask content related questions at the Wikipedia:Reference desk. CT Cooper · talk 12:03, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Artists

I think the Irish dance show Riverdance and dancer and choreographer Michael Flatley should be included in this section. They did not participate in the Contest (1994). They were 'only' the intermission act. But they're definitely among the biggest ESC winnres of all times ... --93.193.211.164 (talk) 01:04, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Despite the fact it didn't win, nor was it entered in the contest nor was it a song. -- [[ axg ◉ talk ]] 11:00, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

The picture of the map

I believe that greenland should be green,as it's a part of Denmark —Preceding unsigned comment added by RazorakosRazor (talk • contribs) 14:05, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Greenland is a colony/dependency of Denmark - not an actual part of the country (like Fyn, for example). Just like Gibraltar and the Falkand Islands are dependent territories of the United Kingdom; but the Isle of Wight is actually part of the UK. That's why Fyn and the Isle of Wight are included in the map of winners - but the Falkland Islands and Greenland are not! EuroSong ^talk 17:05, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Discussion of the Stage Layout And Design

It seems as if from the Eurovision Articles I've read through not much information is provided about the design, concept, technology and layouts of the Eurovision stages as they change over the years, is there potential for this to be included in either the Main ESC Article or the individual years' articles? Seems like it's a chunk of information that is missing... 220.253.234.1 (talk) 16:02, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Removal of links to meridian and parallel

Even http://www.itu.int/ITU-R/terrestrial/broadcast/plans/st61/index.html bothered about including meridian 40° East and parallel 30° North. So link them. HTML2011 (talk) 22:27, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Even if another website has them linked, doesn't mean that Wikipedia should too. Wikipedia needs to remain encyclopaedic, and keep to polices as set in WP:STYLE and WP:LINKS. The site you linked above isn't affiliated with Wikipedia, and may operate things differently. Wesley☀Mouse 22:49, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

That is not just some other website, it is THE website defining the European Broadcasting Area. HTML2011 (talk) 18:30, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Removal of updated definitions, re-insertion of broken links, accusations of vandalism

A user removed updated definitions http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Eurovision_Song_Contest&diff=474866515&oldid=474864540 and claimed the edits were vandalism.

I think removing the updates is closer to vandalism.

Also some on of the older links did not provide the information it claimed to, since the external website didn't had that info under that URL anymore.

What is the Wikipedia policy here? Keeping wrong links or having updated links? HTML2011 (talk) 18:28, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

I have protected the article for one week to prevent any further edit warring while allowing the dispute to be resolved on this talk page. The page will be unprotected once agreement is reached, with the expiry set for one week, though this can be extended if necessary. As I have explained at User talk:Wesley Mouse, this is a content dispute, not vandalism - accusations of vandalism from either side is not helpful here. If agreement cannot be reached and no further input comes, then I would suggest requesting a third opinion. CT Cooper · talk 18:46, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

I have also reverted the page to this revision as permitted per WP:PREFER - "Since protecting the most current version sometimes rewards edit warring by establishing a contentious revision, administrators may also revert to an old version of the page predating the edit war if such a clear point exists." CT Cooper · talk 18:52, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

You have enshrined broken links. The section containing disputed linking had been removed by me, so the disputed links didn't exist anymore. What is the value of the page protection and the one broken and the one outdated link that you re-inserted? It is you who rewards edit warring. HTML2011 (talk) 18:55, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

The value of it is to force the involved parties, including you, to come to the talk page and discuss the issue until agreement is reached. I declined to leave it in a contentious version which does not have consensus, as policy permits. CT Cooper · talk 19:01, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

The version you reverted it from was not disputed. But you re-inserted one broken and one outdated link. HTML2011 (talk) 19:12, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

I have replaced the opening paragraph with the newer version, which does not have the broken link. The rest is probably left best as it is until agreement is reached. CT Cooper · talk 19:23, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

I have notified Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Eurovision of this discussion. CT Cooper · talk 19:23, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

The debate

Thank you CT Cooper for the invitation to engage in this content dispute debate. I shall try to point out, as clear as possible, why I feel linking map coordinates on this article, as was done by HTML2011, is unnecessary. As we know, Wikipedia is an encyclopaedic and full of encyclopaedic information for people doing research for one thing or another. Linking the exact location of longitude and latitude into an article of this nature would be a strange thing to do, as the European Broadcasting Area (EBA) isn't exactly accurate anyway, and linking those coordinate would be misleading information to researchers. HTML2011, stated that this website have the map coordinates hyperlinked. However, upon inspecting the site, I couldn't see any hyperlinks on the coordinates, and therefore found the statement to be false and invalid. Also it may be worth noting that the coordinates and map image shown on that website appear to be outdated itself. The map doesn't include countries such as Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan, which are in the EBA. This again enhances the fact that the cite quoted is out-of-date and falsifying an article that needs to be as near-accurate as possible.
To incorporate hyperlinks to direct users to exact pages for the respective coordinates, don't serve any purpose that wouldn't be served by a piped link, whereas linking specific details inking words such as Meridian and latitude would serve more of a purpose to a person doing research, as those links would direct them to the respective articles on Meridian (longitude) and latitude. If this article was on a geographic scale, such as an article on a place (country, city, or town) then I wholeheartedly would agree to hyperlinking map coordinates - but as it isn't a geographic article, then I see no point in directing a researcher to irrelevant pages for map coordinates. I sincerely hope this explains my reasoning clear enough. And I'd like to take this opportunity also, to apologise to HTML2011 for incorrectly flagging a revert as vandalism. As I had stated to CT Cooper, I was under the impression that if a user re-added details without seeking reason as to why they had been removed, constituted as vandalism. I now know that this is incorrect, and offer my sincere apologies. Wesley☀Mouse 18:51, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

I believe HTML2011's version of the definition of the European Broadcasting Area is better, as Wesley's statement that the map is outdated [9] is wrong. Au contraire in fact, the PDF file provided as reference right now features the original 1959 definition of the European Broadcasting Area (mentioning the now-defunct Soviet Union) [10] (Article 5, paragraph 133). The reference HTML2011 provided features the 2006 revision of the agreement, which is way after Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan declared their indepencence. Besides, all three countries lay outside of the European Broadcasting area ([11] the 40E meridian passes a mininum of about 560 meters to the west of the Russia-Georgia border), but they are members of the EBU because they are members of the Council of Europe, so it's natural they wouldn't appear at the map. – Kosm1fent 05:52, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Kosmo, I think you may have taken what I've said out of context. I didn't say the "map is outdated"; my exact words were it may be worth noting that the coordinates and map image shown on that website appear to be outdated". I did also point out that HTML2011, stated that the website has the coordinates hyperlinked, which on the contrary, they do not have the hyperlinked - so his statement say they are, is false. But the main factor is what should and shouldn't be hyperlinked, as defined by WP:PIPELINK. Having coordinates hyperlinked on an article that isn't geographically related in the manner of place or town, then those coordinates don't serve a purpose of piped link. However having the main terms on Meridian and Latitude, would serve a better purpose, as those hyperlinks would direct a viewer to the related articles about those subjects. Wesley☀Mouse 18:01, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree with you about the links; however, I think the definition itself should be updated. – Kosm1fent 18:12, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

That's exactly what I've been trying to say Kosmo. The paragraph could do with a bit of a WOW-factor rewording. But not to the extent of linking coordinates to direct viewers to coordinate pages that have no research value to them. If someone wanted to know a little more about the pin-point location of coordinates, then I'm 99.9% sure that they'd look those up on Google Map (or something similar). Wesley☀Mouse 20:07, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm maintaining neutrality in this discussion, however I must point out that HTML2011 (talk · contribs) had expressed the view just before the article was protected that the relevant content should be removed entirely for the reasons stated in this diff. He appears to be referring to the European Broadcasting Area article. What are other people's view on this? CT Cooper · talk 21:09, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

I can't comprehend why the paragraph from the EBA article has been duplicated into the ESC article. Would it not be simpler to have a "further information" redirect for people who want to know more on the EBA? Plus, the EBA article has the coordinates linked, which as I pointed out above, is pointless to have linked. Who would want to read an article on pin-point locations such as, Meridian 40° East and Parallel 30° North for the EBA? A researcher would more than likely want to know more about what meridian and latitude means. Its all about research scalability rather than directing to map coordinate. If someone wanted to know where the coordinates are, then I'm sure they'd look them up using an online atlas. Wesley☀Mouse 21:37, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Actually thinking about it, that paragraph in question has been on the ESC article for a while. HTML2011, kept removing the hyperlinks for meridian and latitude; and replacing them with Meridian 40° East and Parallel 30° North on the ground that the citation he used also had those coordinates hyperlinked. The website doesn't even have any coordinates hyperlinked - so false reasons where being used as an excuse. Wesley☀Mouse 21:42, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

I just have been invited: "Your input is needed to the ongoing discussion at Talk:Eurovision Song Contest#The debate. If you don't wish to participate in the discussion any longer, that is fine, though this does make it more likely that the article will not go in the direction you want.". The thing is that I said everything already. My opinion is the EBA details are better kept in the EBA article. The ESC should better not be overloaded with meridians, latitudes etc., esp. since this information then is duplicated and as has been seen here more likely to be outdated. I linked the exact meridians and parallels when I wanted to find out where they run. If a user doesn't want to know, he does not need to follow the links. I don't understand the logic at all that Wesley Mouse wants to link to articles like meridian and latitude, but not the ones that actually delimit the region in question, i.e. the EBA. The meridian 40° East makes the difference why Belarus is in the EBA and Kazakhstan is out, despite both having territory in Europe under any definition. It also explains why Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia are outside the EBA. Thanks to Kosm1fent for mentioning the Russian-Georgian border. But I think all the details are better kept outside the ESC article, since the EBA article does it better job for this. HTML2011 (talk) 01:32, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

• A person like Wesley, that wants a link for a meridian, likely does not know where meridian 40° East runs, right?
• If one clicks meridian 40° East one can also learn what a meridian means, by one further click.
• Ever seen this: New York City, ([[New]] [[York]] [[City]])?
• Wesley supports linking like "New York City". I know what "city" means in general. But I want to know about New York City.
• If one does not know what a city is, one can click to New York City and then click on to City (New York).

HTML2011 (talk) 01:47, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

I think you are being a little obscured here, not to mention over callous in alleging what I "want" as you put it. To say in your own words that "A person like Wesley, that wants a link for a meridian, likely does not know where meridian 40° East runs, right?" is bang out of order. I know full well where pin-point locations are - I do know how to navigate myself around an atlas - which would tell me exactly where meridian 40 is. It is all about what is classified as more useful research quality, rather than directing researchers to articles on the exact point of latitude and longitude. Like I said in my first analysis, linking such details as Meridian 40° East and Parallel 30° North doesn't serve any purpose that would be served by a piped link (as stated in the piped link guidelines). You also go on to insinuate that I support linking like "New York City" - please provide evidence where I have said I support such action? You'll find that I have never said any such thing, and that you are fabricating lies in order to make a dispute swing into your favour. I strongly advise that you stop assuming things about myself, as to assume makes an "ass" out of "u" and "me". Wesley☀Mouse 11:46, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

I wasn't going to say this, but I feel that something needs to be addressed in regards to the manner and uncivil remarks being cast upon me by a user, to whom I reserved judgement on. I personally find any assumptive comments very offensive, as nobody has the right to prejudge a person out of haste. I hereby request that a retraction of those comments made by HTML2011 be made in due course, otherwise I feel that this discussion in connection with content dispute is being carried out in an unfair and uncivil manner; rather than a discussion that is meant to be diplomatic and resourceful for all who are participating in it. Wesley☀Mouse 16:13, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

The "New York City" analogy came to my mind when seeing that you support linking parts of a term. Also, your "linking such details as Meridian 40° East and Parallel 30° North doesn't serve any purpose that would be served by a piped link" - is not what I talked about. I compared Meridian 40° East with Meridian 40° East. I am one reader. For me clicking to Meridian 40° East, serves a purpose. So your claim is insulting, as you are saying to satisfy my desire to get to know where Meridian 40° East runs by simply clicking on a link is no purpose. This is, you are denying my desires, my existence. Everyone has needs and everyone has wishes. To do something that helps fulfilling the wishes always is something that serves a purpose. Even "New York City" serves a purpose. But, there are policies to follow. It's not about discussing purposes and one owns wishes.

If you are offended by my enforcement of WP:OVERLINK when unlinking meridian then maybe you complain over there? HTML2011 (talk) 22:41, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

I have not denied any desire of a person(s); why are you putting words into my mouth yet again? You have been informed by another editor, not to put words into someone's mouth that they haven't said or written. Anyhow back to the main discussion; we have to look at things on a general perspective, and not just on an individuality basis - in which you may be implying here. No person owns an article, so when it comes to linking something, we as editors, need to consider what the majority would consider to be of valid research quality, not research quantity purely because we as an individual would prefer it to be this way. Like you said, you are one reader, and therefore would like to know more about specific details on Meridian 40° East and Parallel 30° North. However, we need to assess if "people" on a wider scale would also benefit this kind of directional information, or if generalising a link to something else would serve a better purpose. I hope this provides a simplified explanation to what I have been trying so hard to address for the last few days. Wesley☀Mouse 22:57, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

My 2p worth

Hi guys. Sorry I haven't been around much recently - I only just checked here to see this dispute in full swing! I don't really want to get too involved, but here's a thought: how about someone create a single map showing exactly the boundaries of the European Broadcasting Area? The description of the boundaries is pretty clear, and is well sourced (as I remember researching it when I wrote it in the main article six years ago!) I always thought that a map showing the precise area would be a good idea - but sadly my graphical skills are lacking. Is anyone up for the task? EuroSong ^talk 11:39, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm not to sure really, the EBA is mostly unused now, with Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan lying outside this area, I could create one, but I am having a few computer issues. -- [[ axg ◉ talk ]] 14:00, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

The map idea does sound reasonable and a good compromise I guess. It is an idea that covers all aspects, including showing researchers the boundaries, but also allowing to direct people to meridian and latitude pages if they so choose to know more on those subjects. Wesley☀Mouse 14:50, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Georgia, Armenia & Azerbaijan are members of the Council of Europe - which qualifies them for active EBU membership as explained in the article :) The membership criteria are to be included in the EBA - or a Council of Europe member (or both, of course). Therefore the EBA is still relevant - and it would certainly help the article if such a map could be included. Actually, come to think of it, there could be two maps: one showing the limits of the EBA (which could be included in the EBA article, instead of the multiple maps currently there); and a second map for the ESC article, which is a copy of the first one but also highlights countries outside the EBA but which are still Council of Europe members. Are you up for the challenge? EuroSong ^talk 14:54, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm always up for a challenge. Where do I sign on the dotted line? LOL Wesley☀Mouse 14:57, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Ah ok, one other thing I was thinking of was a Venn diagram, which I have seen on numerous other articles (eg: {{Supranational European Bodies}}) -- [[ axg ◉ talk ]] 15:25, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

excellent idea - nicely researched, job well done! Wesley☀Mouse 15:49, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

The full protection is due to expire today, and I think it is appropriate to let it expire. CT Cooper · talk 18:03, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Now that the protection has expired, what is the overall consensus on this main content dispute? I'm very sceptical that protection has been allowed to expire if a consensus hasn't been reached; thus leaving it open to interpretation for HTML, or anyone else in a manner of speaking, to just willy-nilly re-add the content that caused this discussion to begin. Wesley☀Mouse 20:44, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

I hope that there is a good pool of editors is involved, that things will go more smoothly. If there is any evidence of edit warring, I will re-protect the page. That also goes for the European Broadcasting Area page. CT Cooper · talk 23:36, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks Cooper; I feel relieved knowing that. I am refraining from editing the article until a consensus/common ground has been reached anyway. It would be very much appreciative if this was also the same for the other editor involved in this current content dispute. Wesley☀Mouse 23:42, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Agreeing for having a better map at the EBA article. I tried to have lat+lon in one map, but the template failed. So it would be generally nice if the template could draw lat+lon at the same time. and, it additionally the template would accept an alternative map. That could be a CoA map and one could build a ESC map almost just from these things. HTML2011 (talk) 22:46, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

This needs to be edited once the restriction is lifted

The following is an excerpt from the "Other" sub-section under the "Rules" section:

"From 1957 to 1970 (in 1956 there was no restriction at all), only soloists and duos were allowed on stage. From 1963, a chorus of up to three people was permitted."

This statement contradicts itself, as it says the rules limiting performances to solos or duets lasted until 1970, but then says that starting in 1963, up to three performers were allowed. This should be edited, changing "1970" to "1962".

Also, the number of countries is given for the start of the contest, the 80's, and 1993, but not the current number of countries, which I think is probably the most relevant number, and should be added. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.249.74.84 (talk) 19:36, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Origins

Why is the original purpose of Eurovision listed here different to the History of the Eurovision Song Contest page and Eurovision official website - here it says it was to unify Europe but both the History of the Eurovision Song Contest page and the official website say it was to test new broadcasting technologies:

"In 1955, the EBU came up with the idea of an international song contest whereby countries, represeted by their respective public broadcasters, would participate in one television show, to be transmitted simultaneously in all represented nations.

This was conceived during a meeting in Monaco in 1955 by Marcel Bezençon, a Frenchman working for the EBU. The competition was based upon the Italian Festival di Sanremo, held for the first time in 1951, and was also seen as a technological experiment in live television: in those days, it was a very ambitious project to join many countries together in a wide-area international network.

Satellite television did not exist yet at that time, and the Eurovision Network comprised a terrestrial microwave network. Le Grand-Prix Eurovision de la Chanson Européenne was born!"

source: http://www.eurovision.tv/page/history/the-story

GoddersUK (talk) 13:12, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Probably because, we cannot copy word-for-word detail from the official website. If we did, then we'd be in breach of copyright violations. Wesley☀Mouse 14:10, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Spanish flag

Why are you using the preconstitutional (dictatorship) Spanish flag? It does not make sense at all. Spanish flag is this one: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9a/Flag_of_Spain.svg/20px-Flag_of_Spain.svg.png This is the one used in the Spanish version of the Wikipedia Eurovision page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.19.73.207 (talk) 15:08, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

Section: Country making its début entry — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.19.73.207 (talk) 15:05, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

My guess would be that it's because Spain at that point was preconstitutional. --178.16.4.41 (talk) 16:50, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

In the Spanish version of the page http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Festival_de_la_Canci%C3%B3n_de_Eurovisi%C3%B3n#Participaci.C3.B3n the constitutional flag is the one being shown in that section of the page. 95.19.73.207 (talk) 17:27, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

Did they need to seek San Remo Festival's approval for this contest?

Since some of Eurovision Song Contest's format was inspired by the San Remo Festival did they have to ask the producers in Italy for their permission? Bleubeatle (talk) 02:57, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Probably not. And there's no sources out there to state either way, so we shouldn't speculate. Wesley☀Mouse 10:40, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Look at this

Take a look at this AfD for a Eurovision related article on Suntribe. Users with Eurovision knowledge needed here.--BabbaQ (talk) 20:21, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Scrutineer

In the list of scrutineers there is a link to a man called Christian Clausen, but I think it's another person with the same name. If you look af the Danish or the Swedish articles about him, it sais nothing about Eurovision, and nor does the biography from Nordea. There is a picture of him there, and he doesn't at all look like the person who supervised ESC between 1993 and 1995.

There was a Danish tv producer called Christian Clausen who produced som of the national finals in Denmark prior to 1993. I'm not sure it's him, but it seems more likely.

If no one object, I will remove the brackets around "Christian Clausen" in the Voting section. Aejsing (talk) 01:06, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

i corrected an error

some person had written that the relegation system only lasted until 2001 so i changed it to 2003 to make it correct. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.208.59.120 (talk) 12:37, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

576i?

Something that has just occurred to me is that the infobox states that the contest was broadcast in 576i since 1956, now I can't speak for the whole of Europe, but in the UK, 576i didn't start until 1964 when BBC Two launched. BBC1 and ITV were still 405-line until they launched 576i services in 1969. I think this may need to be looked in for accuracy. -- [[ axg // ✉ ]] 21:23, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

That's an interesting point, especially if there is inaccuracies. I'm supporting your motion to investigate this matter in order to fulfil absolute accuracy. Wesley Mᴥuse 23:19, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

Kosovo?

Shouldent Kosovo be shaded in light green on the map as it used to be part of Yogoslavia? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.107.72.195 (talk) 11:04, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Not really, no. The current map shows Europe as it currently stands. Kosovo are highlighted grey, as they have yet to participate as an independent nation. There are other maps further down in the article (see Eurovision Song Contest#Expansion of the contest) that shows Yugoslavia and provides information surrounding their participation. Wesley Mᴥuse 12:46, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Inconsistency in "Cities that have hosted the Eurovision Song Contest." picture

I don't understand the picture "Cities that have hosted the Eurovision Song Contest". Why is Vienna referred to as Wien, Rome referred to as Roma and Brussels referred to as Bruxelles while Munich is Munich, rather than München, and Naples is Naples, rather than Napoli? In my opinion, they should all be the English form, since this is English Wikipedia, but they should be either one way or the other rather than a mixture. Kapitan110295 (talk) 04:35, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Also, as someone pointed out in the picture's talk page, Northern Ireland should probably be the colour of the rest of the UK, especially since Wales is. Kapitan110295 (talk) 04:37, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for spotting the errors, and have now been sorted, hopefully the map will be changed to an SVG, for easy updating. -- [[ axg // ✉ ]] 16:03, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Number of exceptions?

"In all but five of the years since this rule has been in place, the winning country has hosted the show the following year. The exceptions are:"

The article says there are 5 exceptions and then goes on to name 6 exceptions. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.7.234.137 (talk) 11:37, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

Eurovision Franchise

I think it would be good if we created a new page called "Eurovision" or "Eurovision Contests". This page would talk about the whole Eurovision franchise, not just about the annual song contest. This page would be similar to the Olympic Games page. The Olympic Games page explains about all the different Olympic contests; summer, winter and junior. I think there should be a Eurovision page about all the different Eurovision contests. That page would also include the table of host cities bellow. What do you think? :) Karlwhen (talk) 3:08pm, 18 November 2013 (BST)

Eurovision host cities

Year	Eurovision Song Contest		Eurovision Young Musicians		Eurovision Young Dancers		Junior Eurovision Song Contest		Eurovision Dance Contest
	No.	Host City	No.	Host City	No.	Host City	No.	Host City	No.	Host City
1956	1st	Lugano, Switzerland
1957	2nd	Frankfurt, Germany
1958	3rd	Hilversum, Netherlands
1959	4th	Cannes, France
1960	5th	London, Untied Kingdom
1961	6th	Cannes, France
1962	7th	Luxembourg, Luxembourg
1963	8th	London, Untied Kingdom
1964	9th	Copenhagen, Denmark
1965	10th	Naples, Italy
1966	11th	Luxembourg, Luxembourg
1967	12th	Vienna, Austria
1968	13th	London, Untied Kingdom
1969	14th	Madrid, Spain
1970	15th	Amsterdam, Netherlands
1971	16th	Dublin, Ireland
1972	17th	Edinburgh, United Kingdom
1973	18th	Luxembourg, Luxembourg
1974	19th	Briton, United Kingdom
1975	20th	Stockholm, Sweden
1976	21st	The Hague, Netherlands
1977	22nd	London, Untied Kingdom
1978	23rd	Paris, France
1979	24th	Jerusalem, Israel
1980	25th	The Hague, Netherlands
1981	26th	Dublin, Ireland
1982	27th	Harrogate, Untied Kingdom	1st	Manchester, Untied Kingdom
1983	28th	Munich, Germany
1984	29th	Luxembourg, Luxembourg	2nd	Geneva, Switzerland
1985	30th	Gothenburg, Sweden			1st	Reggio Emilia, Italy
1986	31st	Bergen, Norway	3rd	Copenhagen, Denmark
1987	32nd	Brussels, Belgium			2nd	Schwetzingen, Germany
1988	33rd	Dublin, Ireland	4th	Amsterdam, Netherlands
1989	34th	Lausanne, Switzerland			3rd	Paris, France
1990	35th	Zagreb, Yugoslavia ( Croatia)	5th	Vienna, Austria
1991	36th	Rome, Italy			4th	Helsinki, Finland
1992	37th	Malmö, Sweden	6th	Brussels, Belgium
1993	38th	Millstreet, Ireland			5th	Stockholm, Sweden
1994	39th	Dublin, Ireland	7th	Warsaw, Poland
1995	40th	Dublin, Ireland			6th	Lausanne, Switzerland
1996	41st	Oslo, Norway	8th	Lisbon, Portugal
1997	42nd	Dublin, Ireland			7th	Gdynia, Poland
1998	43rd	Birmingham, Untied Kingdom	9th	Vienna, Austria
1999	44th	Jerusalem, Israel			8th	Lyon, France
2000	45th	Stockholm, Sweden	10th	Bergen, Norway
2001	46th	Copenhagen, Denmark			9th	London, United Kingdom
2002	47th	Tallinn, Estonia	11th	Berlin, Germany
2003	48th	Riga, Latvia			10th	Amsterdam, Netherlands	1st	Copenhagen, Denmark
2004	49th	Istanbul, Turkey	12th	Lucerne, Switzerland			2nd	Lillehammer, Norway
2005	50th	Kiev, Ukraine			11th	Warsaw, Poland	3rd	Hasselt, Belgium
2006	51st	Athens, Greece	13th	Vienna, Austria			4th	Bucharest, Romania
2007	52nd	Helsinki, Finland					5th	Rotterdam, Netherlands	1st	London, United Kingdom
2008	53rd	Belgrade, Serbia	14th	Vienna, Austria			6th	Limassol, Cyprus	2nd	Glasgow, United Kingdom
2009	54th	Moscow, Russia					7th	Kiev, Ukraine	3rd	Baku, Azerbaijan → Cancelled
2010	55th	Oslo, Norway	15th	Vienna, Austria			8th	Minsk, Belarus
2011	56th	Düsseldorf, Germany			12th	Oslo, Norway	9th	Yerevan, Armenia
2012	57th	Baku, Azerbaijan	16th	Vienna, Austria			10th	Amsterdam, Netherlands
2013	58th	Malmö, Sweden			13th	Gdansk, Poland	11th	Kiev, Ukraine
2014	59th	Copenhagen, Denmark	17th	Cologne, Germany

• Very bad idea - The article would be extremely large, would violate WP:UNDUE, WP:LISTN and WP:NOTSTATSBOOK, and eventually the article would end up being split into individual articles - and we already have individual articles serving this purpose. this is why we provide the "see also" section for the general reader who may wish to know more about other contests. Why has this been mentioned here anyway? New article creations for Project Eurovision should really be raised at WT:ESC. Wesley Mᴥuse 15:30, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

• And before you even think about putting forward the idea of listing winners by nationality (which is clear you are thinking of such by this evidence), DON'T. As that too would violate the policies I mentioned above. May I advise you to have a read at what Wikipedia is not, I found it very helpful when I had ideas of creating articles. Sometimes there are things we can and cannot include. Wesley Mᴥuse 15:47, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

I agree. Bad idea, for all the reasons already given. –anemoneprojectors– 14:04, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

• That table shouldn't go to waste, though. Maybe at the very end of the existing article on the EBU or Eurovision it could be put? Creating an all-out, all encompassing article would be fairly unnecessary, though doktorb _words^deeds 15:18, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Why Germany shown as winner only once?

The map is wrong, showing Germany not having won twice. And please let's not hear the 'that was West Germany' argument that was soundly defeated on wikipedia at the time of Lena's victory 4 years ago. Germany is Germany... the country in 82 is the same state as it was in 2010 Vauxhall1964 (talk) 13:59, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

I totally agree. Yeah, so Germany reunited after the fall of the Berlin Wall... but that doesn't invalidate their previous win. The same German TV companies retained their EBU membership, and competed under the same national banner. Germany have been entering the Contest since 1956: not since 1990! That map needs to be changed. Sure, keep the footnote with the caveat. But I don't know a single person who would claim that "Germany has only won once". Rubbish. EuroSong ^talk 16:45, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Capital C for Contest

When the word "Contest" is used within this article, in most occurrences it is being used as a short form of "Eurovision Song Contest". For example, if you say "Switzerland won the first Contest", that could really be written "Switzerland won the first Eurovision Song Contest". The only reason why the whole ESC title is not repeated throughout the article is that it would be superfluous and repetitious. Therefore "the Contest" is simply used in order to replace "the ESC". However because it is a short form of "the ESC", it remains a proper noun. Therefore it must be capitalised.

The word should only be written in lower case when talking about "a contest". For example: "The EBU decided to create a contest in which their member countries would participate".

The simple rule is: if you can replace "Contest" in the sentence with "Eurovision Song Contest", then it is a proper name and needs to be capitalised. If you can't replace it as such, then it's just an ordinary word and does not require a capital. EuroSong ^talk 17:09, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Loving the explanation, well done. I'll like to add that detail as a FAQ which will be added to the talk page header. Wes Mouse 19:31, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

I'm afraid I partially disagree. While the arguments being made are logical , English grammar rules on the subject are actually quite complicated and there isn't universal agreement on the subject – as the article on proper nouns alludes to. In practice, I found it common practice that only actual proper nouns are capitalized, with the common nouns always being uncapitalized even when they are being used as a substitute for a proper noun with a definite article. In other words, while "the 2015 Contest" and "the 2015 Eurovision Song Contest" should be capitalized, "the contest" shouldn't be. I haven't found anything in the WP:MOS that specifically addresses this for all topics, but the spirit of MOS:GEOUNITS is that generic words (i.e. common nouns) like the "the city", "the university", and "the contest", shouldn't take capitals, while the actual names (i.e. proper nouns) like "the University of Southampton", the "City of London", and "the Eurovision Song Contest" should, and I think we should stick to this unless there is something else more relevant in the MOS which says differently. For the moment, I have partially reverted the change as per WP:BRD. CT Cooper · talk 19:45, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Hmm, looking at both sides now I'm 50/50; as both make perfect sense. I'll hide the FAQ tag for now then. Wes Mouse 19:48, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Looking at other what other articles do might help this. I've quickly looked at today's featured article, Hurricane Esther, and it uses "the hurricane", though there are other articles that follow different rules, such as Eton College, which consistently uses "the College" – though B-class articles haven't had their grammar scrutinized to the same degree that featured ones have.

It should also be noted that we need to be realistic about the standards we set here. People are always going to make grammar errors, but going with common practices that are acceptable in English grammar rules will save us a lot of time and effort against going with less common practices, even if they are arguably "more correct" or logical. Other good examples of this dilemma would be spokespersons and debut against spokespeople and début respectively. CT Cooper · talk 20:25, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Debut/début is a good one. Spellcheckers do not recognise the word without the e-acute, especially Google Chrome, Comodo Dragon, and Internet Explorer (as I've tested those). However, online dictionaries show both variants as being correct. As I have a habit of spellchecking whenever I see that red wiggly line, I tend to go with what the spellchecker advises. Plus I've got use to how to type acute letters using a standard Qwerty keyboard, by keeping hold of Alt Gr and the vowel letter of choice. Wes Mouse 20:47, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

"Debut" is indeed fine - however as both début and debut are acceptable, then we should stick with the original... which was actually written by ME when I revamped the article way back in 2006, in its current format. Of course I recognise that no-one "owns" the article - however since I was the original author, and début is acceptable, then there was no good reason for someone to have changed it. When I put the é in recently, this was not a change but actually a revert to the original - which is acceptable. CT Cooper, you're quite correct about the distinction between proper and generic nouns - and indeed, as per MOS:GEOUNITS, generic nouns do not take capitals. However it appears that you comprehend the usage differently to me when it pops up through the article. When one talks about "The 1956 Contest" (as a short form of "the 1956 Eurovision Song Contest") then it is indeed the same as when one talks about "the rules of the Contest" (as a short form of "the rules of the Eurovision Song Contest"). You have not justified how you think that talking about a specific year's edition of the Song Contest differs from talking about the institution of the (Eurovision) Song Contest. Both are used as proper nouns. They DO differ from the generic "this is not the only song contest in the world". Perhaps you will better understand it from the sentence: "The EBU proposed the idea of a song contest - and therefore the Song Contest was born". Oh, and by the way... I was also the original author of all these uses of "Contest", which someone else then changed without proper justification. EuroSong ^talk 12:02, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for explaining the situation with the term debut, though a brief explanation on this in the edit summary would have been appreciated. I don't actually have a strong opinion on this, though I would prefer if we could use consistent spellings in all Eurovision articles and only defer to MOS:ENGVAR as a last resort. I note that {{Infobox Eurovision}} has used "debut" since its creation which is probably one reason that "debut" seems to have been favoured in articles that use that infobox. If consensus cannot be reached on this issue, it won't matter too much as it is a trivial matter, but we should at least be being consistent within articles and under MOS:RETAIN I actually believe "debut" is the established spelling for this article as this style has been used since 2005. An editor revamping the article does not override the establishment of a particular spelling.

On the noun issue, I'm confused on where the term generic noun has come from here as neither MOS:GEOUNITS or my earlier comments reference this term and it has a specific meaning which isn't very relevant to this discussion. When it comes to capitalization of words in English the appropriate distinction is between common nouns and proper nouns.

Overall I believe you are misreading both what I have said and what MOS:GEOUNITS states. My position and that of MOS:GEOUNITS is that generic words should not take capitals, whether they are referring to a unique entity or not. "The city has a population of 55,000." is clearly referring to a unique entity, yet MOS:GEOUNITS state that this should not be capitalized, though if one replaced "city" with the actual proper noun, then it would be capitalized as in the example given of "The City of Smithville has a population of 55,000". Logically, when extending this to Eurovision the correct formats are "The Eurovision Song Contest [proper noun] is the most popular event on Earth", "The 2011 Contest [proper noun] was the most popular event on Earth", "The contest [common noun substituting for a proper noun] is the most popular event on Earth", and "A song contest [common noun] could be the most popular event on Earth." CT Cooper · talk 14:21, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Participation

This needs attention - as the show develops each year, so do participation rules.NewKingsRoad (talk) 07:49, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

Lede again

How can the ESC be "the longest running annual TV song competition" if it is based on the Sanremo Music Festival, an annual TV song competition? Yes I've read the source, but it's contradicted in the very same paragraph. What's going on here?-79.223.27.221 (talk) 20:35, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

Probably for the fact they Eurovision Song Contest has been recognised by the Guinness Book of Records as being the longest running annual TV song competition. Did you not pay attention to Jon Ola Sand when he announced that news on Saturday? Although it did strike me as odd seeing as ESC is supposed to be based off San Remo. Ah well, one of those unexplained oddities. Just in case anyone missed what we are on about, here's the source from the EBU: Just hours ahead of the Grand Final of the 60th Eurovision Song Contest the European Broadcasting Union is proud to have been awarded a GUINNESS WORLD RECORD for Longest Running Annual TV Music Competition!. Wes Mouse | ^T@lk 12:25, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

I'm aware of the source. That does not change the fact that the lede contradicts itself: The ESC cannot both be based on an older, still existing song contest and be the oldest song contest.-91.10.30.120 (talk) 13:51, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Collapse in accordance with TPG. See WP:NOT.

(Redacted) Read my comment again. I agreed with the other IP. And I provided a link to what the IP and myself were talking about in case anyone came along and wondered what we were on about. That, my friend, is called being helpful to others. Wes Mouse | T@lk 14:14, 25 May 2015 (UTC) I attacked you? With what?-91.10.30.120 (talk) 14:46, 25 May 2015 (UTC) Well I can drop the stick; can you? All I did was provide a link to the sourced document that myself and the IP was discussing, so that any new comers to this debate were able to access it and gain some understanding what it is that's being discussed here. Only providing help for people. I always thought being helpful and providing evidence was a good thing. I hold my hand up and won't bother helping in future. People can search for sources themselves. Wes Mouse | T@lk 16:12, 25 May 2015 (UTC) I'm not talking about the source, I'm talking about your personal attacks ("you've just demonstrated shear ignorance and purposely intending to attack an experienced editor"). I merely asked you why you think I attacked you. Since you speak of hounding elsewhere, it would be a blockable offense, so I don't think you allegations should be ignored.-91.10.30.120 (talk) 16:22, 25 May 2015 (UTC)