Talk:Eurovision Song Contest 1998/GA1

GA Review

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

Reviewer: OliveYouBean (talk · contribs) 09:41, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

G'day, seeing as this article's been waiting for a few months I figure it's about time someone reviewed it. I've already given it a quick read-through, gonna start adding comments in the next hour or so. OliveYouBean (talk) 09:41, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Rate	Attribute	Review Comment
1. Well-written:
	1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct.	In the "Voting procedure" section: "This followed a trail held in the 1997 contest" - is trail meant to be trial? In the "Participating countries" section: "having previously applied to enter the 1996 contest but failed to progress from that edition's qualification round" - I think this should be "but failing to progress" so that you're keeping the same tense the whole way through the sentence. In the "Conductors" section: "and their conductor Mojmir Sepe instead signally to start the track" - pretty sure that's meant to be "signalling" not "signally". In the "Participants and results" section: "this subsequently had an impact of the remaining countries which were awarded points by Spain" - should this be "impact on" instead of "impact of"? When talking about Dana International's gender identity, personally I think it's more encyclopedic to refer to her as "transgender" rather than "trans" (trans feels like a more colloquial abbreviation). Also re: "Dana International, the contest's first trans participant, also became the first openly LGBTQ+ and first openly trans artist to win the event." It feels a little bit odd that she's described as the first transgender participant, then the first openly transgender winner. I think this should be more consistent and refer to her as the "first openly transgender participant" in the first instance too. "Malta equalled its previous best contest performance, and the Netherlands obtained its best placing since its most recent victory in 1975" - I think that mentioning these in prose means you should also include their placements, e.g. "Malta equalled its previous best context performance (3rd)". It's a bit confusing otherwise. In the "Spokespersons" section: "Ulrika Jonsson made an unplanned comical moment" - I feel like "had" is a better choice of words than "made" here?
	1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.	MOS:LEAD: I find it a bit weird that the winner is basically a footnote in the lead section. She's not mentioned at all until the third paragraph, and even then it's not mentioned that a) her win was significant for being the first queer Eurovision winner, and b) her entry was controversial (also because she was queer). I feel like she should be mentioned earlier (like ideally in the very first paragraph), and the fact that she's transgender should definitely be at least somewhere in the lead. On a similar note, the first sentence mentions the two presenters but not the EBU or the host broadcaster, who are arguably far more significant to understanding Eurovision than whoever the presenters happened to be in a given year. I'm not saying the EBU and BBC need to be mentioned in the first sentence, but the first sentence is for putting the topic in context and describing the most fundamental information needed to understand it, so the date and location should be there but I'm not so sure about the presenters being there. It might be better to put that information in a separate sentence so that the first sentence isn't quite so long. The last paragraph of the lead probably list too many statistics. They're already mentioned in the relevant part of the body. You can probably just leave it at the top 5, no need to mention Belgium's best result or the United Kingdom having their 15th second-place finish in the lead. MOS:LAYOUT: Looking at the article layout, I'm kind of confused why the "Incidents" section exists. There are a number of other things in the article that could be considered "incidents" that are in more relevant sections, and each of these three "incidents" seems like it should be in one of those other sections (the controversy around Dana International in the "Participants and Results" section; the other two in the "Conductors" section). Also, why is there an "Other Awards" heading when the only other award mentioned is the Barbara Dex Award? It feels like that could just be a level 1 heading since there aren't any others. Small point: In "External links", the "Official website" is the official website of Eurovision as a whole, not the 1998 contest, so I think it should be called the "Official website of the Eurovision Song Contest" or something similar. With the images in the "Location" section, having one on the left and one on the right squeezes the text between them, it's probably better to have both of them on the left. MOS:WTW: With regard to Dana International, "Her selection was also opposed by some politicians, with deputy minister Shlomo Benizri demanding her removal," isn't quite MOS:WEASEL because you do attribute it to a particular politician, but saying "some politicians" and only listing one is a little bit odd. Are there more examples you could include? With regard to Turkey's timing issues, "Speculation arose that the country could be disqualified" - speculation arose from whom? When talking about the opening video, "present-day Birmingham" should probably specify when "present-day" is. It's a bit misleading since for us, "present-day" is 2022, and they definitely didn't have footage of 2022 Birmingham in 1998. There's another use of "present-day" in the postcards section which should also be changed. In the lead, "achieving the lowest average points totals over the past five contests" should be changed to "over the previous five contests". Talking of the watermark, "an innovation which now features every year" shouldn't have the word "now" because now can change. It should be more specific about when "now" is, like "which as of 2022 features in every contest" or something. MOS:WAF: Not relevant. MOS:EMBED: In the detailed results section, is it really necessary to have the 12 points table? I don't think it should be there because a) the information is already presented in the previous table, b) the information isn't presented separately in the sources used for the results as far as I can see, and c) there's already tons of tables in this article, so adding an extra one with no new information feels like a bit of overkill. See comment below, I would like there to at least be a citation in the table. Speaking of lots of lists, why is the list of broadcasters split between participants and non-participants? I think the information could be included in one list with a note next to Australia, Austria, etc. saying "This country did not participate in the 1998 contest" or something along those lines.
2. Verifiable with no original research:
	2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline.	All good :) Actually I've just noticed there's a fair bit of inconsistency in the formatting of the reference list. For example, sometimes the BBC is referred to as "British Broadcasting Corporation", sometimes simply as "BBC". Sometimes the website name Eurovision.tv is used, sometimes the publisher name "European Broadcasting Union" is used instead. These inconsistencies need to be fixed up. Also, the links to andtheconductoris.eu aren't working for me (in fact the whole website isn't working for me). Is this an issue on my end or is the website just not set up very well? I've been able to get these links to work on other devices, it might just be a problem with my internet connection or something lol The link to eurovisionartists.nl is also a deadlink for me.
	2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose).	The reference to Nigerian Women of Distinction... is published by Trafford Publishing, who basically just assist people in self-publishing. This means the source is barely a step up from a self-published source and imo shouldn't be considered a WP:RS. Is there any info that comes exclusively from this source? There is info from a lot of Eurovision-specific sites and "blogs" like Wiwibloggs, which I think pass the bar for having enough editorial oversight to be considered reliable sources. The one website I'm not 100% on is Diggiloo Thrush. I'm familiar with the site because I've used it a lot for Eurovision song translations in the past, but I can't find any information about who actually publishes the site, so I'm not sure if it can be considered a reliable source. Do you have any more info on this?
	2c. it contains no original research.	Technically there's no original research, but I think a statement like "Incidentally, it was the third year in a row that the entry of the host country had finished in second place, following Norway in 1996 and Ireland in 1997." comes close to it. Each individual result is supported by a reference, but the connection between the three isn't mentioned in any specific source. It's a bit of WP:SYNTH so I wouldn't include it.
	2d. it contains no copyright violations or plagiarism.	"added that "it's long ago". Due to the noise in the arena" this is word-for-word taken from the source. The quote is obviously going to stay the same, but having "added that" before and "Due to the noise in the arena" afterwards is much much too close to the original wording, it needs to be changed. Other than that, no issues that I can see. :)
3. Broad in its coverage:
	3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic.	All good :)
	3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).	All good :)
	4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.	All good :)
	5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.	All good :)
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
	6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content.	All good :)
	6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.	All good :)
	7. Overall assessment.

So I've finished going through the criteria and making notes. Not everything that I've mentioned needs to be changed, I'm open to hearing why you think stuff should stay the same. The most urgent changes needed are:

• The word-for-word quote I mention in my note on 2d.
• The "self-published" book I mention in my note on 2b.
• The inconsistency in the formatting of the references that I mention in my note on 2a.
• The deadlinks in refs that I mention in my note on 2a.

The other notes also need attention, but like I said I'm open to hearing your point of view if you disagree on something I've said.

Thanks for all your work on the article! Hopefully it doesn't take long before it can be promoted. :) OliveYouBean (talk) 05:52, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

@OliveYouBean: Thanks for picking this up! I believe I've covered most of the points you raised above, and in particular your urgent changes which required attention. A few explanatory points below which should hopefully alleviate the remaining points above. Happy to collaborate further to get this over the line if you have any further questions.

• I believe I've fixed any ref inconsistencies you mention. For the BBC/British Broadcasting Corporation references, some references refer to the BBC as a whole as it's either referencing a production or contest background information, whereas other references that refer to the BBC link to BBC News or the BBC Genome Project, which are separate divisions under those titles, and so it wouldn't make sense to expand the BBC to its full title in these instances in my opinion.
• I don't appear to be having the same issue with accessing the deadlinks you are referring to in 2a. I tried different browsers on my PC as well as on my mobile device, and through the Wikipedia app, and in each case the links are working with no problems for me.
• I made a few tweaks to the lead as you asked, including some restructuring and additional information as you resquested. However I think the current paragraph structure works well because it gives a more chronological view of the contest, and also keeps in line with the structure of the article, covering production, participating countries, the winner and results in that order, as it appears in the article itself.
• On a few of the other changes you requested, e.g. the 12 points table, the "other awards" section, the broadcasts tables, these are aspects that are included in every Eurovision by year article, and so they have been included here in this format to ensure consistency across all of these articles. Typically there are more awards presented that are now shown in the "other awards" section, however in 1998 there was only the Barbara Dex award, and other awards which are now presented each year weren't yet conceived. The 12 points table is a long-standing feature of these articles and while it does duplicate information in the voting table, it's also a good graphical summary of each country's favourite act that year, which I believe many readers find beneficical. Likewise for the broadcast tables I believe the split is still quite useful to reinforce which countries were participating in a given contest and then which countries broadcast it as an elective. Happy to continue to discuss these points if you have further questions.
• For Diggiloo Thrush, as a WikiProject we consider this site as generally reliable for the purpose of outlining languages. The website has also been used in other published works which would be considered reliable (e.g. here) which I believe adds credence to its general reliability.

If there are any other points that I haven't covered, please let me know, otherwise hopefully this is enough to get this article passed. Thanks again for your effort in a great review! Sims2aholic8 (talk) 11:00, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for getting back to this so quickly! I'm happy with all the refs stuff and keeping the lead in chronological order like that does make sense. Also happy with Diggiloo Thrush being a reliable source with that info.

With the Barbara Dex Award section I would personally prefer that to be a level 1 heading, but I do understand wanting to keep the same headings across all the contest articles and I can't find anything in the MOS that specifically forbids sections with just one sub-section like that, so I'm happy with that too.

Happy with the broadcast tables staying separate, but I'm not so convinced on the 12 points table. The fact that it's been used in the other Eurovision articles doesn't really sway me, and neither does the argument that it helps people see which songs were each country's favourite because the 12 points are already bold in the points table for emphasis. I don't 100% want the table gone, but like I said it's not something I've seen done in the sources used for the article here. I'm not going to fail the article on this being included, but I think it should at least have a reference in that table to verify that the 12 points are all correct (even if it's just the same as a reference used in the detailed points table). OliveYouBean (talk) 01:48, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

@OliveYouBean: Thanks for your flexibility with these points! I've now added references to that table as suggested. I certainly understand your perspective on this, however I am somewhat hesitant to change the format this significantly across all articles. I've tried this before with other aspects of these articles and have subsequently had to revert the changes back to the original way to assuage public opinion. However removing the 12 points tables going forward is definitely something I will raise at a WikiProject level to determine if there is consensus in removing, because as you say it is somewhat duplication of effort when the 12 points are already bold in the table above. Hopefully for the time being this compromise is suitable to get this article now passed as GA. Sims2aholic8 (talk) 08:43, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

I'm happy to promote this now. Thank again for all your work on the article! :) OliveYouBean (talk) 01:27, 9 November 2022 (UTC)