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Semi-finals and the automatic qualifiers

Now that we've seen how the role of automatic qualifiers is executed following 2024, I think it's time to revisit the format of the semi-final tables. They clearly have an impact on how the show is structured, take up as much space as a competing act, are presented as competing acts, and one of the reasonings behind opening voting at the start of the final is that the audience already saw all competing acts previously. Personally, I looked at how Festivali i Këngës tables used to be formatted, where despite automatic qualifiers for the final apearing during the show to perform their entries, they are still competing acts. Here is my proposal:

Key

 ‡  Automatic qualifiers

Participants of the first semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2025

R/O	Country	Artist	Song
1	Iceland	Væb	"Róa"
2	Poland	Justyna Steczkowska	"Gaja"
3	Slovenia	Klemen	"How Much Time Do We Have Left"
4	Estonia	Tommy Cash	"Espresso Macchiato"
–	Spain ‡	Melody	"Esa diva"
5	Ukraine	Ziferblat	"Bird of Pray"

— IмSтevan ^talk 17:24, 2 April 2025 (UTC)

Hasn't this issue already been discussed already? My take on this is that they are not competing, they're a bit like an interval act of some sort during the semis. Including them in the table is misleading as the table is mostly here for the results, which AQ don't have in the semis... Yoyo360^{message me} 11:53, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

It looks like the previous discussion ended with us revisiting this at the next contest (now). Personally my thoughts have not changed. These tables are not really a run of show, but instead a way to present the results. Grk1011 (talk) 13:12, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

As Grk pointed out, we were to wait to see how the shows work with them included, which we now have. Even if they don't compete in the semis, they are competing entries and are performed and presented as such, and I think they should have a spot in the table — IмSтevan ^talk 14:29, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

I do agree that a further discussion is warranted, given we decided as a collective to wait and see how things panned out in Malmö and what the situation would eventually develop into for 2025. I concur with Grk1011 that my thoughts have also not changed on this. The tables are principally about the results of those shows, and since those six countries are not competing I believe it would be misleading to put them in this way. We don't have rows for any other opening or interval act, and although they are competing entries in the contest as a whole these are still guest performances for the semis and I don't believe they should be treated differently from those other guest performances. Sims2aholic8 (talk) 16:04, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

I am very much in favour of this idea. It feels a bit misleading that they are not included in the table that shows the running order of the songs. And without them being there it doesn't quite give the full picture. I do understand the arguments that these tables are mainly for the results, but since they are the only tables that also include the running order, it would make sense to include them. Alternatively, the running order should be included in the other more detailed table, maybe? Zouki08 (talk) 13:00, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

 Comment: I also want to raise a point regarding the fact that many people will come to this article shortly prior to or during the show to see who is performing, and at first glance it's not that reliable considering the absence of AQs — IмSтevan ^talk 21:01, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

I agree with Grk1011 and Sims2aholic8 here, and my views haven't changed either, the entries presented by the Big Five + host country during the semi-finals are not competing in the semi-final, and they are presented without a proper running order number. So including them in the table is misleading, in my opinion. Why not include the information about the "finalist guest performances" in prose? Like that, the nature of these performances would be more explicit and less prone to misinterpretation. This actually has been done in the 2024 article. EurovisionLibrarian (talk) 09:34, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

So... what if we just added a second table right after all the semi-finalists? This would separate the AQ countries from the semi-finalists and also show that those countries appeared in the semi-final, but had a different status. Something like this:

Automatic qualifiers of the first semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2025

Country	Artist	Song	Performs between
Spain	Melody	"Esa diva"	Estonia and Ukraine
Italy	Lucio Corsi	"Volevo essere un duro"	Belgium and Azerbaijan
Switzerland	Zoë Më	"Voyage"	Croatia and Cyprus

Balandėliai (talk) 12:41, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

I'd be down for that as well — IмSтevan ^talk 14:56, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

I think a table might be overkill. It can just be mentioned as prose. Grk1011 (talk) 15:44, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

I agree with Grk1011. Also I believe that adding this extra table would be a violation of MOS:PROSE. Sims2aholic8 (talk) 15:45, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

I agree that just a mention will be sufficient. Ktkvtsh (talk) 17:04, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

Couldn't we use simpler wording in prose so that there's no doubt about who sings after whom and it's easier to read than it is now? Ferclopedio (talk) 08:26, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

The thing is many people will just look at the table. They won't bother with the prose since the table is where they expect to see the running order/competing songs — IмSтevan ^talk 16:39, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Could we somehow include it in the already existing running order tables? Ktkvtsh (talk) 23:36, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

That's the whole point of this discussion, and Yoyo360, Grk1011, EurovisionLibrarian and myself have all said we oppose adding these entries to the existing tables. These tables are principally for the results of the shows, not the entire contest. If you look at it from that lens, I don't see how adding the automatic finalists to these tables makes sense. We don't add in any opening or interval acts to these tables, or provide a point-by-point script of the show, so why should this be considered any differently just because they are competing in the final? Sims2aholic8 (talk) 09:41, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Ah okay I understand. Ktkvtsh (talk) 21:02, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Basel meetup

Hi everyone! My humble myself and @Sims2aholic8 had the idea of organising a meetup among Wikipedians who contribute to this WikiProject. Since (probably) some of us will go to Basel for a mysterious event called the Eurovision Song Contest this May, we thought it would be a good idea to meet over a cup of coffee/tea, milkshake or espresso macchiatto. Who of you will be there and would like to come?

For a date, the proposal is Wednesday (14 May) during the afternoon. As for the location, if anyone knows a nice location in Basel, feel free to share it. Eurocafé could also be an option (it opens daily at 4pm). EurovisionLibrarian (talk) 09:44, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

Obviously I'm up for this, but just wanted to make sure it got put into writing here too! Sims2aholic8 (talk) 09:50, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

Linking to languages

Raising a topic which could potentially be a can of worms but feeling it's worth the discussion. Ferclopedio has recently removed all links to French language from project articles, which is consistent with WP:OVERLINK, specifically: major examples of the following categories should generally not be linked: [...] Languages (e.g., English, Arabic, Korean, Spanish). It does raise a question however around which languages we should be linking to, since "major examples" within the context of Eurovision could be slightly different to outside the bubble. I think there are some clear-cut languages (German, Spanish, Italian) which I don't believe should be linked, but whether this extends to all "majority" languages within each country (e.g. Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, Greek etc.) is another question. Any thoughts on this? Sims2aholic8 (talk) 13:56, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

I think that inside our bubble, we shouldn't link any of those nationwide majority languages. That way, we treat them all equally. I would just leave their links in the "list of languages" article. In the rest of the articles, I would only leave not-nationwide less-known languages linked, as there may be people who are unfamiliar with them and need to look at the link. Ferclopedio (talk) 16:41, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for raising the topic! I think what can be linked are "unexpected" languages for a specific entry, i.e. dialects, non-national languages (e.g. Udmurt for Russia 2012) but also cases like Italian for Latvia 2007, or languages with very rare appearances at the contest (like Irish for Ireland in 1972).

In contrast, Danish for entries from Denmark, English in general, Greek for Greece, cannot be considered to be unexpected in their individual cases and therefore don't have to be linked. That's surely not the end of the debate but I propose to have a sort of criterium like this to decide what languages should and should not be linked. EurovisionLibrarian (talk) 16:51, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

It seems a bit weird to me that we would treat English from any country and a French/Italian entry from a country outside of the Francosphere or Italosphere differently though. Languages like French and Italian are very well known globally, so even if there is a rare case of an Austrian or Estonian entry in those languages, the principle of not linking to major examples of languages should still be the same in my opinion. Sims2aholic8 (talk) 08:10, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

Same opinion here Ferclopedio (talk) 08:21, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

Just throwing a few more thoughts out there on this. When you talk about "unexpected", that could have lots of different meanings depending on the context. As an example, is it unexpected for Belgium to send a song in French? Not really, given it's a French-majority speaking country. However, it might be unexpected if the Flemish broadcaster VRT sent a song in French (as they might well have done this year). Even English language songs at Eurovision can be unexpected depending on the country; if Sweden or Norway sent something in English no one pays attention, but if France or Italy sent something in English that would raise eyebrows, but at the same time probably only within the bubble. Sims2aholic8 (talk) 08:38, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

Exactly! The criterion I proposed is context-sensitive, in the same way as linking to the Wikipedia article of the USA isn't helpful or interesting in most cases but in some cases, depending on the context, can be considered helpful.

If the WikiProject decided to go for a criterion which does not depend upon the context, I guess we would have to define which languages are always linked and which ones are never linked and find a criterion or mark which unambigously sends languages either to side A or to side B (number of native speakers higher than X? official status of the language being a national language in one of the participating countries? number of Eurovision entries sent in that language higher than X?). EurovisionLibrarian (talk) 12:20, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

I get what you mean. I suppose for me I was thinking where are we linking to languages the majority of the time, and that's in participant tables, where there may well be multiple of the same language in the same column. In that context it seems a bit weird if we didn't link to Italian next to Italy, but did link it next to Latvia, which comes after it alphabetically and therefore goes against the "link the first instance" guidance. Sims2aholic8 (talk) 12:29, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

I think the most clear criteria is not linking those with "official status of the language being a national-wide language". Not only in the participating countries, since we have Japanese, which is a very well-known language, and it makes no sense to link it. This includes Albanian, Armenian, Azerbaijani, etc. etc.

Looking at the list of languages ​​we have, those that are not in that criteria, and that I think we should link, since people may not be familiar with them, are:

Abkhaz, Gheg Albanian, Amharic, Aramaic, Breton, Corsican, Crimean Tatar, Võro, Karelian, French Creole, Antillean Creole, Mühlviertlerisch, Styrian, Viennese German, Vorarlbergish, Ancient Greek, Pontic Greek, Broccolino, Latin, Samogitian, Neapolitan, Proto-Slavic, Romansch, Romani, Northern Sámi, Sanskrit, Serbo-Croatian, Chakavian, Torlakian, Sranan Tongo, Swahili, Finland Swedish, Vörå Swedish, Tahitian, Udmurt, Surzhyk, and Yankunytjatjara Ferclopedio (talk) 15:09, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

I am happy with this approach. On the list you provided, I would remove Serbo-Croatian, Swahili and Finland Swedish: Swedish is a co-official language of Finland (and is listed as just Swedish on the main ESC articles anyway), Serbo-Croatian was the main language of Yugoslavia, and Swahili should be considered in the same way as Japanese given it is an official language in four African countries and has over 90 million speakers. I would also potentially add links to Irish, as although it is the national language of Ireland, its usage since the 1800s has declined significantly to the point where it is effectively a minority language. Also to note that some of these languages won't actually be listed in the main ESC articles, as the amount of the language included is too small to be listed as a main language. Sims2aholic8 (talk) 10:49, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

I added Serbo-Croatian to the list because, although it was the official language of Yugoslavia, I thought that a present-day reader might need clarification to know what language is that, as they might not be familiar with the fact that Serbo-Croatian was the official language of the country and that is the parent language of Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin. (I had to use the link myself to find out).

As for Irish, yes, it may be a minority language today, but it remains an official national language (and is even one of the official languages ​​of the EU), and I don't think any reader who reads "Irish" would have any doubt that that is the national language of Ireland. The same thing happens with Maltese and Luxembourgish, although rarely used, no one will doubt which languages ​​they are. Ferclopedio (talk) 11:48, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

OK I'm happy enough with your explanation of those two languages, that we should leave Serbo-Croatian linked and remove the links to Irish, Maltese and Luxembourgish.

If there are no further comments or suggestions, I suggest we proceed with de-linking all major languages from our articles in 48 hours' time. :) Sims2aholic8 (talk) 10:44, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

In accordance with the above, I have just removed in the ESC and JESC contest, country, and country in year articles the links for the following 46 languages:

Albanian Arabic Armenian Azerbaijani Belarusian Bosnian Bulgarian Catalan Croatian Czech Danish Dutch English Estonian Finnish French Georgian German Greek Hebrew Hungarian Icelandic Irish Italian Japanese Kazakh Latvian Lithuanian Luxembourgish Macedonian Maltese Montenegrin Norwegian Polish Portuguese Romanian Russian Serbian Slovak Slovene Spanish Swahili Swedish Turkish Ukrainian Welsh

Some residual links for these languages may remain because usual link formatting was not used in them; these links should also be removed if found. Ferclopedio (talk) 08:18, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

San Marino 2024 article split discussion

Just an FYI that there is an ongoing discussion on the talk page of the San Marino 2024 article about splitting out the selection process. Only the editor who wants the split and myself have commented and it's been 2 months with no other comments. Hoping to get a consensus formed soon so we can close out the proposal. Please add your comments if you have any! Grk1011 (talk) 13:28, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for flagging! I've now added to the discussion. Sims2aholic8 (talk) 17:21, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

Song column before the artist one

Has this change been agreed upon anywhere? It looks bad and useless and even goes against what EBU themselves do in their own website where they list the artists first. AdamantiosK (talk) 12:40, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

[L]ooks bad and useless is a personal opinion; other editors and readers may have a different opinion. There are many reasons why the EBU place the artist first in their website, that doesn't mean we should follow this blindly. One theory I can think of, which can be seen on the history by contest page is that they link to their internal pages first, and then on the song they link to a YouTube video, so obviously they're going to highlight their own pages first to retain user traffic. This is not an issue here, since all links within the tables are to internal Wikipedia pages. They also don't list songwriters or language outside of the individual pages for each participant; should we then do the same thing then if you want to follow what the EBU does? It's the Eurovision Song Contest, and in this context I think it's right that the song should come first within the tables. If you don't like how it looks just because it's different then that's on you, but not all changes need to be agreed upon beforehand, that defeat the whole purpose of being WP:BOLD! Of course if the majority of editors disagree with this then fine, we can revert it, but it shouldn't prevent us from trying things out. Sims2aholic8 (talk) 12:53, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

I'm aware the changes are being reverted but I would still like to add to the discussion. If we were to agree that songs are more important than the artists that perform them then why aren't songwriters listed in the '[Country] at Eurovision Song Contest' pages, as they are arguably more important to the existance of that song than the performing artists? The change to prioritise song titles over artist names in these tables would create a pretence to include songwriter names in the table as well, and I do not believe that the change in column order can be done without this first.

In my opinion, column order is a banal thing to discuss over and I think that any order they are in would suffice, which is why we should go off of how they are presented on the Eurovision website rather than Wikipedia editor opinion, which by nature differs between person. Spleennn (talk) 16:16, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

Yes, songwriters are missing in those pages. Things are not just as they are presented on the Eurovision website, nor are they the opinion of a Wikipedia editor. Things are what they really are, and these must be backed up by independent and reliable sources to give a true picture of them. They are not based on personal beliefs or a page managed by an advertising agency. Ferclopedio (talk) 16:59, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

As song contests, I agree 100% that the song should come first in the tables, and also in the prose as it is the entry competing. Ferclopedio (talk) 13:01, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

And I actually disagree. The songs aren't competing they aren't concious beings, artists are competing with the songs. But obiviously the name of the contest, branding if you will is much older than the current audio-visual and even audio-visual/medial format of the contest. It shouldn't have to matter in this. It's never about just the song anymore. It never really was considering vocals matter in the scoring too and always have. "Eurovision Song, Performance and Vocal + Personality" doesn't have such a nice ring to now, does it? And if you want to get caught up on semantics we might just as well disregard Australia altogether since you know it's EUROvision. 79.163.232.222 (talk) 14:27, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

Yes, artists are competing with the songs. The thing that defines the Eurovision Song Contest, and distinguishes it from other events, is that entries have to be original songs. This isn't like any talent show where it is all about the artist, if you don't have an original song you can't take part. That's why I believe putting the song first is more apt in this scenario. Sims2aholic8 (talk) 14:39, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

Did you discuss this beforehand? doktorb _words^deeds 14:41, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

@Doktorbuk: As I said on Talk:Eurovision Song Contest 2025, yes Ferclopedio and I had a discussion about this, we both agreed it was a good idea, and we decided to test it out. If you don't like it, that's fine, but I would appreciate a proper discussion before you revert every single page, and potentially revert other edits inadvertedly where there was consensus (as you have already done on several of the pages). Sims2aholic8 (talk) 14:54, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

Revert your undiscussed wholesale edits, then, and wait for consensus. You're not new here, you should know better. doktorb _words^deeds 15:05, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

But it's still an event where artists compete and are the main talking point. If it was strictly a "Song" contest they'd just play audio recordings or make it a small radio show which clearly isn't the case. The focus is on the artists themselves throughout the entire season. It's not a song contest primarily, it's the whole package that matters, and a song without the artist bringing it to life on stage is nothing, the song itself can't compete alone. AdamantiosK (talk) 15:00, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

I don't agree with that assessment. Yes the artists are visible, obviously since they're the ones on stage, but there's just as much, if not more, focus on the songs in the contest. It's not a competition to find the best singer, and any conversation about how good the singers are when talking about them competing in Eurovision is almost always in relation to what song they are bringing to Eurovision, albeit yes this is alongside a host of other aspects like the staging, choreography etc. At the heart of this decision though was the idea that without the songs, Eurovision is just another talent competition; it doesn't have the same draw or appeal if it's not original songs in my opinion, hence why placing the songs first makes logical sense to me. Sims2aholic8 (talk) 15:15, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

"I believe putting the song first is more apt in this scenario" is a personal opinion. other editors and readers may have a different opinion. I am not sure how that differentiates Eurovision from any other song contest, in these things the songs are always meant to be original pieces so I am not exactly sure why you're singling it out. It's kind of a given due to the nature of competition that the pieces couldn't have been preestablished. It has nothing to do with the songs being more important. I am not sure how you reached that conclusion. 79.163.232.222 (talk) 15:02, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

If you want to mock me that's your perogative. What I was trying to get at is that Eurovision, and all song contests, are built on original songs; not covers, not intrumental pieces, but new music. Without that, what makes it different from American Idol or The X Factor where the artist is, and always will be, the main focus? Sims2aholic8 (talk) 15:17, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

My intention was not to mock but simply to show you your points are weakly defined by your own standards preestablished in this very conversation. I am sorry if you felt offended but those are pretty much your own words. Even bringing these two shows as counter-example I can bring 4 as a counter-counter example. In this shows you brought up it's mainly about the vocals and aguably less so about the performance true, but even in formats like that for example "The Voice" has a final round with original songs. It's not really that uncommon, especially if we stick closer to formats more in line with Eurovision than various singing talent shows. 79.163.232.222 (talk) 15:50, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

According to eurovision.tv in their official page "The Eurovision Song Contest is an internationally televised songwriting competition, organised by the European Broadcasting Union." The fact that ESC is a contest between songs is not a personal opinion, it is reality. The ESC has been a television program since its first edition, and it has never stopped being a competition between original songs, even though today the show is filled with fireworks and camera tricks. A song without the artist who brings it to life on stage is nothing, of course not, nor without the composers who composed the music and lyrics, nor without the broadcaster who selected it and who presented it to the contest, nor without an orchestra and conductor back in the day. Ferclopedio (talk) 15:23, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

That is wrong. A songwriting competion would be a competition for songwriters. Eurovision is clearly not that or not that anymore. The artists performed often aren't even involved in the process of songwriting, yet it's them that is labeled the representative not the authors, it's them who receive the trophy upon claiming the victory and it's them being t he face of all of this. Eurovision might have started as a songwriting competition but has long since moved on from that. 79.163.232.222 (talk) 15:54, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

If you really believe what you're saying is true, you can call the EBU and ask them to rewrite the current how-it-works page in their official site to remove the "songwriting competition" part. And also tell them to rewrite the current rules when it says: "The performer, song writer(s) and Participating Broadcaster of the winning song(s) in the Final shall receive the ESC Trophy", and the parts saying "Each song which competes in the ESC...". And tell them that they are wrong, that the ESC is not what they say. Ferclopedio (talk) 16:09, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

I would think that if the songs are going to be moved to the left of the artists in these tables, this would also change the order of NF tables (currently alphabetised by artist, in this case should be alphabetised by song) and also the ESC yearly templates (where songs should go ahead of artists). To be honest I think it's fine as is, I think the normal order of mental presentation puts the artist before the song (in that it is chronologically preceding, not that it is more important) but I'm not going to lose sleep over it either way as long as it's discussed openly and agreed before we start making changes Toffeenix (talk) 15:20, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

I'm changing them back now. I may consider opening a discussion on this again, but the reaction has been so vitriolic that right now it's put me off even considering it. Sims2aholic8 (talk) 15:30, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

Honestly, I don't understand all this discussion above. Seriously, are there people who dare to give an unwavering opinion about the ESC without even having read the contest rules? And even more so, without having even read the Wikipedia articles we all write? Those articles where we say in prose everywhere that the ESC is a song contest (backed with reliable sources). Those country in year articles that begin with "Country X was represented at the contest Y with song Z", every one of them. Those zillion infoboxes that show song-artist-songwriter in this order. That prose everywhere that says "song X performed by Y". All of this are issues that have been discussed publicly and no one has objected to them and very few gave their opinion, and I don't see any complaints arising from them, being everywhere. And we have many articles that are poorly written, even with errors, that I see that only a few of us try to correct. But we simply move a column in the tables, which is the only place left that is not aligned with the rest of the project, and a riot of incomprehensible virulence ensues. Seriously, people don't look at all the prose around them and only complains that a column is here or there, even if it contradicts everything else?

I find it incomprehensible that at this point we still have to be discussing that in a song contest, the entries are songs. The rules clearly specify that the ESC is a competition between songs and that the winner is the song that receives the most points. All of us can have different opinions on things, but in order to state something it must be backed up by reliable sources with in-depth knowledge of the subject to give a true picture of it. We cannot base our contribution on general beliefs, experiences, feelings, or personal opinions. Ferclopedio (talk) 01:23, 26 April 2025 (UTC)

You sound like you're on a "righting great wrongs" mission, which also has a policy/guideline you need to consider. As per @ImStevan, below 20 years of "artist-song" is settled convention. doktorb _words^deeds 09:56, 26 April 2025 (UTC)

 Comment: While this is a song contest, whenever discussing music anywhere, its pretty much universal that the format is "artist - song". Having the song first would be offputting, and honestly, after 20 years of a certain format in the tables, making such an unironically huge change out of the blue would feel... wrong. I'm fully on the side of keeping the tables in the RO/Country/Artist/Song order. — IмSтevan ^talk 08:40, 26 April 2025 (UTC)

I don't think there is a right or wrong way and it honestly does not matter much: the readers, public, I doubt many notice or care about column ordering. It's not that deep. "Sources" are not typically used for table formatting, and I agree with the WP:SYNTH argument above. I think many may be annoyed that they weren't included in the decision to change these and I get it, but I also think we can be a bit introspective here. Look at the edit history for this page. See who asks questions. See who responds to questions. See who is trying to collaborate with others to build a cohesive set of topics about song contests. Would you have actually noticed a discussion here and participated in it? I do appreciate the efforts of Ferclopedio and Sims2aholic8 to find and address some of these mundane problems that typically aren't priorities. We do need to be consistent and sure, we may need to challenge 'norms' and that can be hard. But let's acknowledge that many editors just do their thing in one corner and don't participate in the project as a whole. Talking a step back, I know folks get excited about wanting to change or update things, but what I've found annoying is the impatience. I'm in a different time zone than most of you, so I've found that many times there'd be 4,723 posts on a talk page between two people and a decision on a massive change before I've even woken up! Wikipedia isn't anyone one of ours' job and I think we need to understand that many folks don't edit daily but still need an opportunity to be included. That may mean waiting a week or two for a conversation to go stale before acting. Grk1011 (talk) 13:08, 26 April 2025 (UTC)

Personally I missed any changes on the article and found out about this while visiting this talk page — IмSтevan ^talk 20:40, 28 April 2025 (UTC)

OGAE poll on ESC by year articles

I know this has been brought up before, but I'd like us to revisit the OGAE poll results which have been added to ESC by year articles since 2007. I still fail to see how this satisfies Wikipedia's notability guidance; it doesn't receive any kind of significant coverage outside of the Eurovision bubble, and at its core it's just a fan vote, like many other fan votes out there. Just because OGAE has a quasi-official relationship with the EBU doesn't change that fact. While listing it within the OGAE article is appropriate, I don't believe we should be highlighting these votes on the contest by year articles. Sims2aholic8 (talk) 21:06, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

As in the previous discussion, I still agree that except for the Marcel Bezençon Award that is an actual award, all the other awards in that section are simply internet fan polls not notable enough. Furthermore, the way those award tables are colored make them illegible and they don't meet the accessibility guidelines. Ferclopedio (talk) 10:09, 4 May 2025 (UTC)

My proposal would be to retain just the Marcel Bezençon Awards, given their official status, that there is actual criteria attached and it's determined by a select group, and place these within the "Contest overview" section, in a section right below the "Spokespersons". All other awards should be scrapped, including the OGAE poll, the Barbara Dex Award/You're A Vision Award, and the Eurovision Awards, which are all essentially fan polls, and in the case of the latter nothing more than a social media exercise. Sims2aholic8 (talk) 08:55, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

I'm in support of that approach. If the receipt of any of the fan awards gains attention (and notability) for any specific entry, it could be included on the country in year article in the "At Eurovision" section as it has no bearing on the contest as a whole. Grk1011 (talk) 13:13, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

Sounds fine to me. ser! ^{(chat to me - see my edits)} 13:21, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

100% agree here. Toffeenix (talk) 07:14, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

See Eurovision Song Contest 2002#Marcel Bezençon Awards for how I believe this section should fit into articles in future. Sims2aholic8 (talk) 13:28, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

I'm not sure if that is the best place to put it, because if you take a step back and look, it's placed between the results table + the spokepersons and the detailed results table. It can be misleading, because although it has to do with the event, it has nothing to do with the results, and it's sandwiched between them. I would put it rather after the broadcasts section, because it is not part of the transmission either. Furthermore, although the awards are "held concurrently to the main contest" and they are official, they are not part of the contest itself, and in there they are located in the "contest overview" section.

And with prose as detailed as in there, is the table necessary? Ferclopedio (talk) 15:35, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

I support the keeping of OGAE, Barbara Dex and pointing other few huge and global surveys winners in a paragraph without tables, alongside the existing consensual 2nd paragraph-and table for Marcel Bezencon; as suggested and discussed on several occasions with others agreeing that's a beneficial proportionate coverage, and per extensive independent coverage which I previously worked hard on to gather and link, followed by a joint shortening-rephrasing work implementation; and after mine and others suggestions and rationals in 2013 & 2016 for such layout - which I link to learn those rationales [1] [2] . It wasn't implemented back in 2013&2016 as we were only 4 participants on both occasions though there was overall agreement [3] [4].

As well in 2021, sims2aholic8, for more link-learning with your valid centrality and notability rationales in favor of inclusion, and when you argued it's most proportionate to even maintain separate paragraphs and top-5 tables status for OGAE and Barbara [5] [6] [7] . I therefore reminded my previous proposals to support your keep rationales along with shortening-rephrasing samples [8] which you liked [9] . 10 months afterwards you started questioning those awards for what passes the criterias to be pointed (with a newly created award surfacing) [10] ; to which I then reminded and summarized ours and others previous views [11] and afterwards I further added extensive coverage links for OGAE and Barbara here: - newspapers, books, researches about the cultural and music patterns via specifically analyzing OGAE votes  [12] [13]  to yours and others satisfaction and even surprise from the amount of independent and scholar coverage  [14] [15] , and I worked on further shortening.

Then this discussion 4 months ago [16] as well as this current one, in which you note that you don't see notability rationals with another new award surfacing; therefore, an identical circumstance to what we discussed before for independent OGAE and Barbara coverage and notability regardless of other new polls and awards. I understand sims2aholic8 when someone keeps rethinking stuff and according to new circumstances, but it's appreciated that you bring links to at least 1 of those previous discussions, or briefly point some of the previous rationale like your own and previous joint work including your efforts; for acknowledging others and yourself, and practically for showing others the previous different angles as leverage to make this repeating discussion more thorough thought now.

I'm also unsure if this adheres to Wikipedia's rules for repeated and currency-gaps of bringing up the same issue, especially the gap from the previous discussion. I also ask that you show ideas here or in a sandbox instead of on a live article as the 2002 Eurovision. With this, It's also best to ping several others. As at yet another discussion (as part of a complete RfC layout in 2022) [17] - no one commented about issues on the other awards.

While, at other instances, editor Hhl95 thought that simple merged sentences is a compromise [18] (along with my sampling which you liked sims2aholic8 as I linked above), and 4 months ago the 2 more editors, Ktkvtsh  [19] and ImStevan [20] also supporting simple sentences in a prose; Jochem van Hees who worked with us on further rephrasing and Pdhadam who suggested minor phrasing for Marcel Bezencon while didn't comment issues with the rest of the awards that the 3 of us worked on in parallel [21] . Here I remind how we kept tweaking and discussing over half of January 2022. I implemented our joint-work across the over 20 annual Eurovision articles. You tweaked something again on the sample and so I went to implement that across again. And Jjj123, BabbaQ and Alucard 16 who maintained keeping, with top-5 tables [22] [23] . So I pinged themm as well if they want to participate again and have differewnt views for here or there.

I also believe those proposals and compromise-work further feat the now existing "Reception" for public and media involvement and acceptance - as my previous linked samples also suggested that OGAE-Barbara-huge global polls-media awards, can feat under creating a "Reception" section. Besides the global and EBU-associated and contest influencing OGAE and Barbara, there are few existing social medias which cross a threshold of ten-thousand global voters (1-2 of those hundred-thousands); surely an indication for big and culturally varied taste. This also shows readers the fandom and interest before and towards the contest; as again we previously pointed for enriching. Also, OGAE and Barbara Dex have their own articles, so pointing their vote for a specific year proportionally feats to their independent articles and enables their linkage from the high-traffic yearly ESC articles. אומנות (talk) 20:19, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

I don't believe that the number of people voting in a given poll should be considered an accurate reflection of its notability or importance. There are hundreds, thousands, of social media and web polls every day, Eurovision and non-Eurovision related alike. I am bringing arguments to say that these polls are in my opinion not sufficiently notable enough to be listed within the main contest by year articles, given they form a niche view of the contest by only a subsection of the fandom, and there seems to be at least some agreement with me that this is the case.

If we remove ourselves from the Eurovision bubble, I ask the question: is there "extensive independent coverage" of these polls outside of Eurovision fan media? I don't believe that is true. There may be one or two mentions, but these polls are not something that regularly gets talked about in relation to the main contest. I believe that OGAE is a notable organisation, however I believe that whatever polls or contests they conduct should be listed solely within that article. The same goes for the Barbara Dex Award and You're a Vision Award.

The difference with the Marcel Bezençon Awards from the others is that this is a award recognised by the EBU, there is specific criteria attached to it, only a select number of influencial individuals connected to that year's contest get to decide who wins the awards based on the said criteria, and there is a physical award actually handed to the winners. While the "Eurovision Awards" may be run by the Eurovision's social media team, therefore having tangible EBU support, it is still just a fan poll like any of the others listed, nor is there a physical award presented or a specific criteria provided on which to rate the acts.

As for your paper trail, some of these discussions were 3 or 4 years ago, or even longer. That's a long time ago, and people's minds can change based on new evidence coming to light, or just because the world has changed. Why shouldn't I bring a discussion again on this topic when there has been a significant gap since the last one? Nothing is truly settled in this world, I believe everything should be open for repeated discussion and scrutiny as and when it is appropriate, and as far as I'm aware, unless a discussion has been explicitly embargoed because it has been repeatedly brought up over a short space of time (I'm talking days or weeks here, not months), then we are all free to raise a topic again for discussion. Sims2aholic8 (talk) 08:54, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

I clearly said though I understand things can be re-thinked, precisely from sympathy to your deliberations, as you know I'v always been, when you propose stuff and/or ask for thoughts, which I wholeheartedly joined and we edit-collaborated several times, as in this. And for which I invested again now via the explanations and links which you called a "paper trail" and so I ask that you appreciate my efforts, as when you sometimes express you feel mocked and unappreciated. I'm aware things change, why I also pinged others with varied views and considering they may change their minds also versus my view, as I wrote above. Similarly, as another participant myself, while understanding that for now most point removal, I support merged paragraph to enrich "Reception" for fandom-media acceptance.

OGAE+Barbara which I keep for centrality, includes OGAE own polls also being held and announced in parties, as another ESC preceding event's promotion factor within their overall EBU promotional events and accreditation ties; and as I linked again, there is coverage which also analyzes these polls; as well in proportion to link to the Organizations Wikipedia articles with their over-the-years concentrated polls result – meaning they are thought of as encyclopedic and adhere to each annual poll result to be pointed on each 'annual ESC article'. I'm aware of just 2 additional polls with 100,000+ global votes which eventually have the 1 central poll for their favorite song, as a threshold-example for inclusion.

This I believe strongly counters arguments that it's knish fandom and that the OGAE+Barbara polls themselves need extensive independent coverage in order to be pointed in a simple 1-line each. The 2023 ESC "Reception" even has "Broadcasting Award", which further show this section's feat in my eyes for inserting Marcel Bezencon and "Other Awards" material. And while I strongly support to keep Marcel Bezencon as is, since we shortened it back then as it was fuller with details. For example, I still kept that the awards are named after the contest's creator and you further shortened that. So I maintain strong disagreement with reading this and further details on him and on the other founders of the award. And the bullet-points style for the 3 categories winners, further to repeat their table appearance.

As for Wikipedia procedures, I said that I referred to the recent 4 months gap, and that I'm not sure, as I saw on other subjects that people argue about bringing a discussion less than 6 months or more. For theoretically bringing a same issue several times every 3-4 months, I believe that regardless of any rules, you as well as everyone would eventually feel tired, deterred and upset in such a case. But again I'v never said people can't freely talk about stuff. You know the times you and others raise stuff and myself, and how I'm happy to talk and suggest ideas. And again for experimenting on live articles, as there's the sandbox and anyway you made the edit at the 2002 ESC article, you can easily now re-edit/revert back to the steady version we previously worked on for Marcel Bezencon, and re-link your suggested Marcel Bezencon format via "previous version" link, so general readers can keep seeing the consensual layout. אומנות (talk) 15:43, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

Are you able to point me to where you have found coverage of the OGAE poll outside of the Eurovision bubble? I haven't found anything like that before; the only coverage I have found was in fan media, which are obviously going to cover it. Additionally, I'm not disputing that the OGAE poll is not notable in-and-of itself, I just don't believe it needs to be listed within the country by year articles. It has a place within the OGAE article, as it is an event run by OGAE which is an organisation that has received significant coverage outside of the Eurovision bubble, but for me there is not enough significant coverage of the poll itself to justify including it within these articles. It's a poll of ~6000 members of an international organisation, and given that fact I don't understand how you can dispute that this isn't a fringe opinion. I don't know how many votes the Barbara Dex Award/You're a Vision award got, but I don't believe it's more than a couple of thousand either. With that in mind, I believe that it is undue weight to list these polls within these articles, as if there's a majority opinion.

I don't believe there is any "one-size-fits-all" definition to a niche viewpoint. 100,000+ votes might sound like a lot, but given that the overall viewing public of the most recent contests was in the millions, even that figure seems niche to me. I don't know how many people vote during the actual contest, but it's definitely more than 100,000.

Also, I don't agree with placing the OGAE poll in any Reception section either, because it's a poll that's run before the contest is even held. The Reception section is about public and media perception and response to the contest as and after it is held. That's why I don't believe the Marcel Bezencon Awards belong here either, again because these awards are held before the grand final.

On the previous discussions, if no consensus was drawn from those previous discussions then why shouldn't it be raised again after a suitable period? The discussion four months ago didn't receive a whole lot of attention, so how could we justify making a change when there wasn't suitable engagement from the project membership? I appreciate that maybe people don't want to contribute to certain discussions, either because they don't have a strong opinion on the subject or because they just don't care about contributing to the WikiProject discussions, but as you can see in the discussion above, just deciding to make a change can cause a backlash. Sims2aholic8 (talk) 16:17, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

Going back to this comment, I get what you're saying Ferclopedio. I don't agree with placing it after the Broadcasts section, because that makes it feel like something held after the contest was done and dusted. But I do understand how where it is currently placed could be confusing. I just don't know where else would be the best place to put it; thinking about more recent contests, it happens before the final but after the semi-finals, so placing it before the "Contest overview" section brings up the same issues, since only finalists are considered for the awards.

It's a good point about the table too; I've removed it from the 2002 article now. This is probably a better idea anyway, since the awards are given for different reasons (the song, the overall performance, and the songwriting). Sims2aholic8 (talk) 16:29, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

I don't think that placing it after the Broadcasts section gives the impression that it happened after the contest. Its first sentence clearly states "awards held concurrently to the main contest". On the contrary, everything between the Participants section and the Broadcasts section refers only to the contest itself, meaning the main competition and shows, and placing it anywhere in between can certainly give a misleading impression. Although it happens before the final but after the semi-finals, and can be considered part of the overall event in some way (that's why it's in the article), it is not part of the main contest (competition/shows), and the awards ceremony is a side event that is not broadcast. That's why I see that after the Broadcasts section is its natural place. Furthermore, placing it before there is giving it an importance that it does not have. Ferclopedio (talk) 17:21, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

I talk about OGAE and Barbara/Vision Awards for centrality and notability. The 100,000+ voters-amount factor I specified for other cases (e.g Eurovisionworld 300,000+ voters last year and BBMag). For OGAE+Barbara it's the meeting-events including hosting several year's participants with EBU association and as promotion of each edition; also OGAE members acting as juries at national finals and Eurovision contests' 50% within 5-10 jury members - making OGAE-poll members votes significant; that OGAE poll was part of EBU, for which I rephrased: "first held as the Marcel Bezencon Fan Award" when we discussed it's another notability to point for each yearly ESC article onwards, so regardless of nischqmajority opinions; and external coverage precise of polls pointing and studying, not just OGAE and not songfestival.be website itself.

I detail again for OGAE and Barbara coverage, taking from the previous discussions which I linked and generally pointed at my later comment, and I will add more examples I found the past 4 days (why took me few more days to reply): Earlier examples – analyzation of Australia's club voting for it's favorite Eurovision edition's song (though the page I linked before doesn't operate; however here's again the same book's page about OGAE events) within a frame described as collection of scholars analyzing Australians patterns and tastes at Eurovision [24]; general Greek newspaper pointing Helena Paparizu OGAE's win in 2005 [25], and the worldwide watched American CNN discussing the Barbara award itself and outfits opinions [26]. Stuff I found the past days mostly for Barabara/Vision – Spanis' general RTVE broadcaster's and Germany's RTL broadcaster websites [27] [28], the Croatian branch of the worldwide distributed Magazine Elle [29].

Also for direct Eurovision literature and fanblogs – The first frame such as the "Complete and independent guide to Eurovision" is a deep study book as I previously linked, example of comparing OGAE full ranks to Eurovision results [30][31]. And this book is used as reference along with its author's personal views in many-many Eurovision Wikipedia articles; we even use fanblogs such as Wiwibloggs in Eurovision Wikipedia articles. And the ESC official site publishes of Barbara Dex, in some years even the top 10. So, I maintain some fansites and Eurovision ad-hock literature keeps OGAE and Barbara/Vision winners significant, further alongside the general newsites, newspapers and music study books.

OGAE includes coverage precise to the poll, while Barbara/Vision has precise coverage for the awards (and not the websites organizing it) similarly to Barbara/Vision having Wikipedia articles (and not the websites). The 100,000-300,000+ global votes polls, similarly to betting odds, give big indication to the results of the millions on Eurovision nights so I find those very significant and disagree they must compare to the same amount of voters for the contest's results.

• Especially as I believe it satisfies proportion for those being sided views compared to the real results by giving those a line-winner under "Reception" compared to the actual results full breakdowns-tables under "Contest Overview". And as OGAE is studied and discussed in relation to show similarities at the top spots to the actual results in "The independent guide", and with that more so such hundred-thousand global-tastes polls. I find all this to add up with past rationales about fandom, centrality, and enriching peripheral and promoting events. I wondered myself a long time ago about those polls at yearly ESC articles, til I saw those rationales through you.

As for "Recetopn" - it doesn't include only for and after the contest. Just as a song article for example includes critiques opinions by those who heard a song on CD or radio even if they didn't saw a live performance while there can be several onging concerts. Same here - people recieve and view the Eurovision songs after hearing them, and in most cases even after seeing them performed live in national finals and as Eurovision-preview concerts and videoclips.

Simple paragraph like this (no need to point winning song name, and "after all votes were cast for X year" as it's already clear context): The international Eurovision fan club organization OGAE, which conducts an annual voting poll first held in 2002 as the Marcel Bezencon Fan Award, top ranked Switzerland's entry. The You're a Vision Award, established in 2022 by the fansite Songfestival.be to choose the most notable outfit, top ranked Croatia's Baby Lasagna. Eurovisionworld website poll which included 300,0XX votes, top ranked Spain, while BBMag which included 100,0XX votes top-ranked Portugal..

As for the backlash for the discussion above, that was per another circumstance, where I could see why others have felt overwhelmed; and for the 4-months ago discussion, there were 2 opposing editors vs. 3, so the previous consencus isn't override to no-consencus but remains. I believe this is also due to align with recomended gaps between discussions so to not exhaust the community, which again I'm unsure for this gap, but simply poiinted it might be against these policy. Also, for this Marcel Bezencon discussion, currently doesn't have consencus, why I ask for a sandbox/previous-version link so that 2002 ESC article maintains consencual version. I contribute again - I disagree with such detail on Marcel's creators / organizers / trophy, as I felt when we shortened this too, and support for "Reception" as an EBU-personas still sided-additional view. אומנות (talk) 12:32, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

I still believe we should could include one sentence about it. Though I won't argue further in favor of keeping it. I won't be upset if it is removed. Ktkvtsh (talk) 22:27, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

Weighing in due to being pinged (I'm currently in Basel so I don't have much time to respond). I would like to point out that the notability guidelines are not relevant here, because those are about whether or not a separate article should be created about it. There is a lot of information on Wikipedia that is not notable on its own, but still relevant to the article topic. On the WP:RELEVANCE scale I think the OGAE poll is "once removed" from the contest itself, so it should receive a higher level of scrutiny (which it already has), but this does not mean we have to delete it. However, I do think showing a top 5 is quite arbitrary, so I would settle with just mentioning the winner.

I don't see a reason to change where in the article the awards are mentioned; the "Other awards" section is just fine. (It's already buried below the broadcasts table, I don't know if the average reader even has the muscle to scroll that far down...)

I do agree with אומנות that opening a new discussion about this once every few months is not productive (although yes, consensus can change), and that changing one of the articles in question while the discussion is ongoing is bad form – this is what we have sandboxes for. ―Jochem van Hees (talk) 10:46, 15 May 2025 (UTC)