Welcome to a special two month recap edition of the Eurovision Newsletter. From here on out, each monthly edition will be released at the end of the month, and will highlight the month's events.
The backlog of assessments in the project is still ongoing, with a large number of articles not being rated. If you see articles without the {{EurovisionNotice}} template on the article's talk page, please add it, or read Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment if you would like to help assess the articles as well.
Remember to source all information you add to pages or else it may be removed and always use an edit summary so other users know why you are adding or removing information.
Welcome to the sixth edition of the WikiProject Eurvision newsletter!
It's been a busy few months for me at school so I am going to need a lot more participation from the WikiProject in organizing this newsletter each month. It's not an easy task. The best way to help would be to submit anything you feel should be on the next newsletter here so that when I want to make it, I have all of the information ready to go. Also, by doing it this way, there is more information that you want to know as opposed to what I felt was important.
National final season is now in full swing and participants and songs are being chosen every week. For the most part, we are doing a great job in keeping all of the pages up to date, but I urge veteran editors to help out the new people as they tend to not know how everything should be done. As always, I am here to help so if anyone needs an opinion or has a question feel free to leave me a message on my talk; I am on Wikipedia everyday and can respond swiftly.
The backlog of assessments in the project is still ongoing, with a large number of articles not being rated. If you see articles without the {{EurovisionNotice}} template on the article's talk page, please add it, or read Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment if you would like to help assess the articles as well. With the help of Camaron, Sims2aholic8, and Grk1011 in the past month, the assessment level has passed 50%!
Remember to source all information you add to pages properly or else it may be removed, and always use an edit summary so other users know why you are adding or removing information.
If you are going to make a page for a song in the contest, please make it more than a stub so it does not get deleted.
Eurovision News
Over twenty countries chose their songs or entrants in February for the upcoming 2009 contest. Check out the table of entries to see what's new.
Do you have news for the next issue? Submit it here!
Welcome to the seventh edition of the WikiProject Eurovision newsletter! It has been a busy month full of national finals and homework for school, so I apologize for publishing the newsletter so late.
The deadline for choosing the entries is right around the corner and following its passing, we will have a great opportunity to improve the quality of the articles in our project. There are many song stubs that have been created for the entries this year and I would like to see them expanded into coherent articles. Also, I think we need to take a look back at the "Country in ESC 2009" articles because I have noticed that most of them are out of date and need to be updated.
We need to focus more on quality these days instead of just adding new info wherever it fits. Our goals is not to jam as much info onto a page as we can, but to create an encyclopedia that people can read and learn from. Think about that next time you add something. Maybe take a minute to read the article over and fix any evident spelling, grammar, or flow problems. Everyone needs to do their share to make this a successful project.
The backlog of assessments in the project is still ongoing, with a large number of articles not being rated. If you see articles without the {{EurovisionNotice}} template on the article's talk page, please add it, or read Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment if you would like to help assess the articles as well.
Remember to source all information you add to pages properly or else it may be removed, and always use an edit summary so other users know why you are adding or removing information.
If you are going to make a page for a song in the contest, please make it more than a stub so it does not get deleted.
Eurovision News
All of the 2009 entries have been chosen. Check out the table of entries to see which song will represent each country.
Georgia withdrew from this year's contest once again, after concern that the lyrics of "We Don't Wanna Put In" violated Contest rules.
Music videos have been released on the official Eurovision YouTube channel. The United Kingdom and other countries that missed the deadline still released music videos for their songs.
Countries have begun to finalize their songs, with Albania's "Më merr në ëndërr" being translated into English, and other songs being tweaked.
Do you have news for the next issue? Submit it here!
Welcome to the eighth edition of the WikiProject Eurovision Newsletter! It's been one incredible month with all 42 entrants finalising their songs.
In one weekend we found out the winner of Melodifestivalen 2009, the song the Czech Repbulic had selected and also that the Georgian entry, "We Don't Wanna Put In", had been disqualified!
The running order draw took place on March 16th and Montenegro will open the 2009 contest, just like they did last year, having been drawn 1st in Semi Final 1. Spain got to pick their position for the 2009 final, and they will perform 25th. The UK got a much better draw than last year and will perform 23rd. Other notable draws see that Bosnia and Herzegovina will close the first semi final, Croatia will open semi final two and the Netherlands will close it.
In terms of articles: some "Country in the ESC 2009" pages are still short compared to more detailed articles like the Sweden and Lithuania pages. The "At Eurovision" and "Promo" sections in these articles need to be updated as many have released promo videos, updated their songs and changed elements of their stage productions. The Greece and UK articles are the best representatives of these features.
Arguments have erupted over the language of the Bosnian entry. No official source has been found yet and the 4LYRICS source is questionable due to an on-going argument in the comments section on the "Bistra voda" lyrics page. The overall concensus on the language used in the song is Bosnian so please, no more changes to the language!
IMPORTANT: There is currently a proposal to change the design of some of our projects navigational templates. Please weigh in here. This project wide change needs as many opinions as possible to determine consensus.
Always use an edit summary even when the edit is minor so that other users know why you are adding or removing information; we can't read minds.
With Afkatk's recent tagging spree, there are now over 2,500 articles associated with the project. If you see Eurovision related articles without the {{EurovisionNotice}} template on the article's talk page, please add it. You can also read Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment if you would like to help assess articles as well.
Eurovision News
Do you have news for the next issue? Submit it here!
Welcome to the ninth edition of the WikiProject Eurovision Newsletter!
We're less than a month away from the Eurovision Song Contest 2009 and now is the time to make sure that all articles are the best that they can be. This is our busiest time and thousands of people will come to Wikipedia and will see our work. We need to show them that Wikipedia is a place to come for facts and a site that they can rely on.
I can't emphasize enough how important it is for members to take part in discussions on talk pages. We have 65 members and usually less than five people step up and comment. Editing Wikipedia means is being part of a community. Take pride in what you do here and make your positions known!
I hope to see you all editing like a storm next month, and don't forget to submit news for the next newsletter here.
"Article Alerts" are available on our Eurovision project page and show which project related articles are tagged for things such as deletion, GA review, peer review, etc. Take a look and do what you can to help out.
Thanks to Afkatk's recent tagging and assessing spree, there are now over 2,700 articles associated with the project and all are assessed. If you happen to see a Eurovision related article without the {{EurovisionNotice}} template on the article's talk page, please add it. You can also read Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment if you would like to help reassess articles in our project if you see that they have outgrown their current assessment.
F. Y. R. Macedonia is threatening to withdraw from the 2010 Contest with the reasoning that it has come tenth twice in successive years in the semi final stage, but has failed to proceed to the final in both instances.
More than a dozen countries have already confirmed their participation for the 2010 Contest. The countries confirmed so far can be seen here.
Welcome to the tenth edition of the WikiProject Eurovision Newsletter!
This month was a very busy month in terms of editing and adding to Eurovision 2009 articles. The 2009 contest is now over but there is still much work to be done.
Some Country in ESC 2009 pages are yet to have their "At Eurovision" sections updated. Some countries need more information than others, e.g. Slovenia's article needs to mention that the song was actually sung in Slovenian and English, and not just English like in the official mp3, etc.
Work has begun on the 2010 contest article already. Please do not add sections to the article about confirmed participants or withdrawn participants unless you have a source!
There are now over 2,800 articles associated with the project (100 more than last month) and all are assessed. If you happen to see a Eurovision related article without the {{EurovisionNotice}} template on the article's talk page, please add it. You can also read Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment if you would like to help reassess articles in our project if you see that they have outgrown their current assessment.
Following recent disputes relating to sourcing in Eurovision articles, an RfC has been opened on the issue at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Eurovision#RfC on reliable sources for Eurovision articles. The dispute particularly focuses on use of ESCToday and Oikotimes as sources in articles. The RfC is suffering from lack of participation; all project members are encouraged to state their opinion.
Project members are reminded that text and images in articles must follow Wikipedia's copyright policies. Text must not be copied out or copied and pasted into articles from websites whose material is not under a Wikipedia compatible free license. Fully copyrighted text includes that from the EBU (Eurovision.tv), ESCToday, and Okiotimes. Images must also not be uploaded onto Wikimedia Commons for use in Eurovision articles unless they are under a free license, this does not include most images on the internet or TV screen shots even if they were taken by the uploader. Copyrighted images may be uploaded onto the English Wikipedia (not Commons) for use in Eurovision articles if a valid claim of fair use can be made, note that the criteria are strict.
Welcome to the eleventh edition of the WikiProject Eurovision Newsletter!
Things are beginning to quiet down now that the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest is behind us, which is the project's busiest time of year. A few of us however still had to slow down during this period, including myself, as May and June also happens to be exam season in multiple parts of the world. There is much still to be done in any case with preparations for the 2010 Song Contest now well under way, and the host city, Oslo, now confirmed.
There are several items that this project needs to debate including choices of sourcing and what contests come under the banner of this project. The first of these items is already being addressed at a new RfC (see left). Further ideas that could be developed include creation of some article guidelines for Eurovision articles. This could start as an advisory essay and then later, if consensus permits, become an official Wikipedia guideline. Examples of these already in existence include Wikipedia:WikiProject Schools/Article guidelines and Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Article guidelines.
The RfC on article sourcing was closed by Moonriddengirl (talk·contribs) as an uninvolved editor. The decisions were for each source:
ESCToday: Reliable
ESCKaz: Semi-reliable
ESCTime: Not reliable
Oikotimes: No consensus
More details on the decision as well as the full RfC can be found on the project talk page. The decisions made in the RfC will likely impact on future drafts of the article guidelines. Please note that further use of Oikotimes and ESCTime is discouraged and existing uses should be replaced with reliable sources. If no other source exists for the information, leave the current source for the time being.
Due to a new naming convention relating to the use of the term "FYR Macedonia", the Republic of Macedonia should be referred to as "Macedonia" in Eurovision articles. Mention of the country's participation in the Contest under the name "FYR Macedonia" should be written in the lead of articles such as Macedonia in the Eurovision Song Contest, though it is not necessary to express this fact in the general Contest articles.
Two months after the 2009 Contest ended, the EBU revealed the full jury and televoting results for each country on its website. The results showed that Norway was the winner of both the jury and the televoting, while many placings would have changed had no jury voting taken place.
Georgia announced its return to the Contest, while the Czech Republic will withdraw from the 2010 Contest.
Welcome to the twelfth edition of the WikiProject Eurovision Newsletter!
It has been a very slow couple of months in terms of Eurovision news since the passing of the 2009 Contest, however, it has been a very busy time for guidelines and policies affecting our project. Landmark decisions have been made regarding our use of sources and even how we are to refer to Macedonia. In addition, several of our Good Articles have been delisted as part of a task force charged with maintaining the quality of Wikipedia's Good Articles.
With there being less information to add and therefore less to do for some, we need to focus on the upkeep and quality of our project's articles and getting those inactive members active once again. We can do this by making sure all new guidelines and naming policies are adhered to and by working to move articles up the quality scale. We are a WikiProject and we all work towards a similar goal. Introduce yourself to your fellow members and get active!
There has been some discussion on if a monthly newsletter is viable. The current result is not clear, though it appears for the time being months will simply be skipped as necessary when project activity is low.
There has been a heated debate on how to deal with criticism and controversy in Eurovision Song Contest article, with a proposal made to re-organise articles to avoid dedicated "controversy" and "criticism" sections in order to have maximum neutral point of view policy compliance.
The RTL Group has declared that they are seriously considering a return of Luxembourg to the Eurovision Song Contest for 2010.
Azerbaijan's participation in the 2010 Eurovision Song Contest has been put in doubt following controversial actions which are believed to have occurred after the 2009 Contest. Azerbaijan has denied that any questioning of individuals over voting in the contest has occurred.
Welcome to the thirteenth edition of the WikiProject Eurovision Newsletter!
August 2009 will not be remembered as a good month for WikiProject Eurovision. The number of this newsletter might have something to do with it, other possible explanations include circumstances, time of year, and even just coincidence. In any case we have had no new members and no further GA or FA article promotions.
The demotion of Eurovision Song Contest, probably the most important article on the project, was a historic blow. Reasons for this and other demotions in recent months include an inflation of article standards, article deterioration through inappropriate edits, and possibly inappropriate promotions in some cases.
We should remember however that despite these demotions we still have 2 FAs, 9 GAs, and 41 B-class articles, as well as 2 Featured Lists. This is a big achievement for a project with only 75 members, a small amount compared to other projects. To compare WikiProject Schools has 292 members with no newsletter, and WikiProject Video games has a massive 1,298 members with only a quarterly newsletter.
This project will likely be disadvantaged for a long time to come with limited membership and fluctuating activity during the year, but it will grow out of this blip.
This is the first edition of the WikiProject Eurovision newsletter in a bimonthly format. Following a discussion on the project talk page this may now become the regular format for the newsletter during the months that the project is less active.
A proposal was made to change Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) to discourage the use of numeric dates, primarily YYYY-MM-DD (e.g. 2009-08-12 for 12 August 2009), in footnotes as at present it is only discouraged in the main article body. The proposal now seems unlikely to pass due to large levels of opposition, though it could have had a large impact on this project as the date format YYYY-MM-DD is frequently used in Eurovision for reference publication and access dates. Further discussion can be found on the project talk page.
Eurovision News
31 countries have confirmed their participation in the 2010 Contest. ESCToday has suggested that the Eurovision Song Contest may be entering a crisis due to the possibility of a large drop in the number of participants next year with the ongoing international recession hitting the budgets of many broadcasters in Europe.
Luxembourg and Monaco have both ruled out a return to the Eurovision Song Contest for 2010. A decision by San Marino on if to return or not has not yet been made.
Hungary declared it is pulling out of the Eurovision Song Contest due to the financial difficulties of the national broadcaster Magyar Televízió (MTV).
National selection details for the 2010 Contest are now available for sixteen countries. Despite the contest being over six months away, Bulgaria has already announced that the artist that will represent the country in 2010 will be Miroslav Kostadinov (who is frequently referred to as Miro).
It has been announced that the voting system used for the Eurovision Song Contest semi-finals will change in 2010. The previous system was introduced in 2008 along with the first use of two semi-finals; it involved nine out of ten final places per semi-final being determined exclusively by televote, with the tenth place being determined by juries. This will be replaced by a more balanced 50% jury voting, 50% televoting system.
Javine Hylton was also nominated for GA status but was quickly failed due to a large number of concerns. The nominator, Judo112 (talk·contribs), was later found to be a sock puppet of a previously blocked user.
Welcome to the fourteenth edition of the WikiProject Eurovision Newsletter!
There have been quite a few updates to the 2010 Contest article since 1 September. Nine countries (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Cyprus, Ireland, Macedonia, Malta, Poland, Serbia, and Slovenia) have confirmed their participation, and the article in general has seen many changes. Sadly, whilst some editors have been working hard to provide reliable sources, others have been less thorough and the article has had to be semi-protected again to prevent further disruption. This is a shame, as ideally anyone should be able to edit; however, the talk page is always available to bring new information to light.
The participating countries' section has also been updated to allow the inclusion of information about the language, artist and song (with an English translation as appropriate), although to date this is very much a work in progress. As news comes in, we look forward to enriching this section in the coming months—backed-up of course with sources!
No new country-specific articles have been written these past two months. If you want to add more detailed information about a country's participation in the 2010 Contest, this is the ideal way to do it, and they are very much appreciated by our readers.
Happy Christmas and new year from WikiProject Eurovision.
This is the second edition of the newsletter to be in a bimonthly format. This will probably continue at least up until the next Eurovision Song Contest when the project is more active.
Editors are reminded that some articles covered WikiProject Eurovision are subject to the biographies of living persons policy. This does not just include biography articles such as Alexander Rybak, but any article with material related to living persons. Such information is highly sensitive, and unsourced or poorly sourced material about living persons must be removed immediately. Material which may seen trivial to editors, such as a false claim of participation in a contest, can potentially be highly sensitive to the living persons involved.
Eurovision articles on this project have been repeatedly subject to a form of sneaky vandalism. This involves unregistered users adding false information to articles such as Eurovision Song Contest 2010 (while unprotected). These false claims are then made to look legitimate through the use of "fake references" with false titles and links, example. Cuchufleta (talk·contribs) was blocked indefinitely for creating multiple hoax articles with the same editing technique. Editors are advised to look out for further disruption of this kind, as it seems to be originating from a determined individial or an organised group. More information can be found at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Eurovision#User:Cuchufleta.
Eurovision News
The EBU released their participants list for the 2010 Eurovision Song Contest on 31 December 2009. 39 countries will take part. Five of these qualify directly to the final, with the 34 remaining countries each competing in one of two semi-finals (seventeen per semi-final).
Five countries have declared they will be withdrawing from the contest in 2010. The Czech Republic are withdrawing due to three semi-final failures and a lack of interest from Czech viewers. Andorra, Hungary, Lithuania, and Montenegro have all declared they are withdrawing for financial reasons.
Georgia is the only country that has declared it will be returning to the contest.
No debuts are planned either with Liechtenstein's only broadcaster 1FLTV having ruled out joining the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) for December 2009. This made a debut by the country for the 2010 Contest no longer possible.
Despite the 2010 Contest being many months away countries are now actively declaring which artists and songs will be representing them at the contest. A table for this can be found at Eurovision Song Contest 2010#Participants. Nearly all of the declared participants now have dedicated entry articles.
Welcome to the fifteenth edition of the WikiProject Eurovision Newsletter!
Another decade has past for the Eurovision Song Contest. The naughties will probably be remembered as a decade of both success and controversy for the contest.
Televoting reached its peak in the early 2000s. This gave the contest a more democratic edge, but by 2008 it was widely believed to have made Eurovision resemble a political and geographic football match rather than a song contest. The EBU took action in 2009 by reducing televoting to having only a 50% weighting in the results of each contest.
Many new countries have joined the contest in the last decade, bringing the number of participants to a new high. Among this some countries withdrew while others returned, though one of the major missing countries, Italy, did not make a return as was hoped by many.
There was not a shortage of controversy either. Two participants went to war, and the buzz over the planned participation of Kosovo put Eurovision in the middle of a political storm. One also cannot forget that this decade saw the introduction of two spin-off contests - the Junior Eurovision Song Contest and the Eurovision Dance Contest. It is still not fully clear on how these fit into this project, perhaps we will work that out during the tens.
The articles by quality table has been changed for all WikiProjects as a result of changes to the WP 1.0 bot. Due to these changes editors are encouraged to add the {{EurovisionNotice}} banner to the talk pages of categories, files, templates, portals, disambiguation pages, as well as articles and project pages. This has the benefit of making the table more complete and covering such pages under article alerts.
An FAQ has been created for the Eurovision Song Contest 2010 page in an attempt to mitigate repetitive discussions on the talk page about content in the article. This has not been previously done for a Eurovision article, though they are also used in other high profile areas such as Barack Obama and global warming.
There has been persistent problems on Anna Vissi related articles with a disruptive IP hopping editor making repeated sweeping and unwanted changes to the articles despite being asked to stop. An account that displayed similar behaviour, JORJKIE.AV (talk·contribs), has now been blocked indefinitely and some pages have had to be semi-protected for long periods.
On 7 February 2010 a draw was held to decide which semi-final of the 2010 Eurovision Song Contest each country will participate in. The draw also decided, for countries qualified straight to the final, which semi-final they will vote in.
Notable confirmed changes to the format of the Eurovision Song Contest this year include that the semi-finals will now be divided into two halves, and that voting will be open throughout each show rather than only after all entries have preformed.
It was announced in January 2010 that the Third Eurovision Dance Contest has been postponed a second time. It was originally due to be held in 2009, but was then postponed till 2010, and may now not happen at all, at least within the next two years. The EBU have justified the decision by saying there has been a decline in the popularity of TV dance shows.
Do you have news for the next issue? Submit it here!
Innocent Heart was nominated for deletion at AfD and was deleted. Due to disruption the page was also protected to prevent re-creation. Users may consult an administrator or make a nomination at deletion review if they wish to make a good faith attempt at re-writing the article.
Je ne sais quoi (song) was nominated for deletion at AfD and kept. The participation of WikiProject Eurovision members was commented on during the discussion.
Welcome to the sixteenth edition of the WikiProject Eurovision Newsletter!
We're in full swing now! Although the Eurovision Song Contest is around 2 months away, this is probably one of the busiest times of the year for the WikiProject, with a whole load of semi-finals, quarter finals, heats as well as national finals to see who the country chooses to represent them at this years Eurovision Song Contest.
We now know which of the 35 countries will vote and perform in which semi-final. With the 'Big Four' and host country, Germany and Spain voting in the first semi-final and France, Norway and the United Kingdom in the second semi-final.
With 22 out of the 39 countries decided, we are just about half way through, with a whole lot more to come!
So when creating new articles about a performer or song, please remember to add sources either from Eurovision.tv, ESCToday or other reliable sources.
Please get involved, and contribute anything to articles whether it's a little spelling mistake or a whole new paragraph, and remember to look at the talk pages and have your say on any discussions that may be present.
The project currently has 80 members, with two joining and two leaving in January and February. One user left due to retirement, another due to being blocked indefinitely.
Want to invite new members? Place our invitation template on the talk page of anyone you would like to invite to our project.
New Members
We would like to welcome the new members who joined in January and February (by date joined):
Due to the article alert bot being out of service indefinitely, it is now much more difficult for newsletter staff to keep up-to-date with all project activity. If editors wish to be sure that an article achievement or Eurovision news story is included in the newsletter, it is important that they let the newsletter writers know about it.
Project News
There is currently a proposal to restructure this WikiProject and further define its scope. All members are strongly encouraged to comment.
The Newsletter Department is looking for editors who are willing to help publish the newsletter. Once published every month, a lack of help forced it to be published less and less often. Interested editors are welcome to suggest news, gather information, and suggest improvements.
Looking for something to do? We have a large quantity of articles tagged for clean-up. Even addressing one tag would be a great help. You can see the full list here.
According to our quality statistics, most articles are assessed. It is important to point out that articles are edited everyday! Take some initiative and confirm that the WikiProject Eurovision assessment for the article you are working on matches its condition and update it if necessary. We use the general assessment scale created by the Editorial Team.
Members have been joining very slowly. A good project has as many members as possible and this helps in discussions and editing so that members are not overwhelmed. If every member could invite a friend or acquaintance using our invitation template, it would make our project much more efficient. One little edit on a friend's talk page? Why not, it takes two seconds!
The membership list was recently re-organised with five usernames removed from the list due to these accounts being controlled by blocked or banned users, and to deal with cases where editors had added themselves to the list twice. Some usernames were also moved from the active to inactive list, and vice versa.
Spain's 2010 performance was stage crashed by Jimmy Jump and they were given a second chance to perform their song following the last song of the final.
Germany also became the first country to select its performer for the 2011 Contest, with Lena Meyer-Landrut set to defend her title.
Austria announced it's return to the Contest for 2011, with its last appearance being in 2007 when it placed second to last in the semi-final and did not progress to the final.
In late July, Liechtenstein submitted its application to join the EBU. With EBU membership, Liechtenstein would be able to take part in the Eurovision Song Contest. Managing director Peter Kölbel stated that there were "good chances" for a participation in 2011 if admittance is granted to the organization.
Do you have news for the next issue? Submit it here!
Welcome to the seventeenth edition of the WikiProject Eurovision Newsletter!
I apologize for the lack of a newsletter these past few months as I had gotten quite busy in life. Adding to that, the lack of group participation by editors made me feel like my efforts were a waste of time that no one appreciates.
I think it is important that we behave like a "club" of sorts and have fun editing Eurovision articles. Eurovision is a fun event and we should be able to discuss the results, talk about Contest related possibilities and work to expand knowledge of the Contest to those who may not be familiar with it. When I edit articles, I hope that someone will come along later and say "wow, all of this happened and I didn't even know it!" Come on guys, get each other's instant messenger name and team up to make an article great!
The project currently has 82 members, with seven joining and one leaving during the last five months. Note that the membership list was recently re-organised (see left), and that in the future only members listed as active Eurovision editors will receive this newsletter.
Want to invite new members? Place our invitation template on the talk page of anyone you would like to invite to our project.
New Members
We would like to welcome the new members who joined between March and July (by date joined):
