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Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of countries in the Eurovision Song Contest

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured list nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured list candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The list was promoted 05:44, 25 February 2008.

List of countries in the Eurovision Song Contest

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Self-nomination. Well-organised, sourced, clearly written and decorated with free images. I believe this list meets the criteria. I will address any problems as promptly as possible. Thanks. Chwech 21:36, 10 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved comments from Matthew
Comments Hi.
  • The colours in the map are too similar. While it's easier to distinguish between the dark orange and red of Spain and France, perhaps because they're bigger countries, the Scandinavian countries of Norway, Sweden and Finland are smaller, and it's really hard (for my eyes at least) to identify the difference. I think the pinker colour of the 70s could also be too similar to the red.
  • True. I'll get working on that now. Done.
  • In the list itself, I don't see the importance of shading those countries that did not participate in 2007. If you're doing that, why isn't each year of non-participation shown – because it would be too much shading probably. Perhaps another column between entries and wins for, and you'd have to word it better than this, non-entries since debut, though each cell may call for {{ref label}}s and {{note label}}s or something to clarify which years they didn't enter.
  • Before I started working on the table there was a column which said each country's most recent entry; but seeing as 80% of them said "2007" it seemed to make sense to change it to prose. I could bring that column back though.
What I meant was just putting the number of contests a country has missed since their debut appearance, so the UK would be "1", Lituania would be "3". Then again, with Morroco, it'd be "27", and a {{ref label}} for those years would be pretty big. So maybe not such a good idea. I still don't see the importance of pointing out which countries didn't take part in 2007, though. Why was that such an important year to miss compared to the others?
Because it was the most recent Contest. Countries generally don't pull out for one year only, so in most cases it's a good indicator of who's still interested, and who's not likely to take part in the future. I'll make that clearer in the article. Chwech 19:19, 11 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • You might want to put in the channels of the broadcaster, so instead of BBC, use BBC One and BBC Radio 2. It's not necessary though, and later I might think it's not a good idea at all!
  • The problem with this is that some countries' channels have gone through numerous name changes etc. and that some (the UK, Ireland and France for example) show the semi-final on a different channel to the final. This could make the table very messy.
Okay, you convinced me. -- Matthew | talk | Contribs 17:21, 11 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Being in North America, I don't know why Canada would be in there (and it's not), but I seem to remember Celine Dion performed once and she's Canadian. Is this a country you missed? Perhaps it's allowed to enter due to its French and English ties?
  • I don't like graphs as it is, and I have a couple of problems with the one for "contestants per year".
  • When you're getting over to the right, it's kinda difficult to follow which point in the line is for 2004, which is 2005, and which is 2006. (Specifically the big spike up from 25+ to 35+, the jump to about 38 or 39, the dip to 36ish, and then the little spike up again.
  • And that's another problem I have with it, it's not easy to make out whether it is 36, 37, 38, or 39.
  • The line looks like it's gone to the very end of the table at the marker for 2008, but 2008's event hasn't happened yet.
  • Following future contests, will an editor be able to update the chart, or does a new one have to be made? If it's the latter, it may not happen as more than likely, people will consider it a ball-ache.
  • It looks like it was just plotzed in there as a last-minute idea. There's no prose to go with it, explaining for instance, does it mean (a) the number of countries that entered, or (b) the number of singers. If it's (b) does it include all band members, dancers, etc? Example, Ruslana is a solo artist, but she had a band there and a group of wild dancers, so what is being included in the count?
  • I've changed "contestants" to "countries". I'll come up with some prose to make the whole thing clearer and make the gridlines a little more defined. I have a copy of the graph myself, but I see what you mean; it would be a pain for someone else to update it. Not sure what to do about it though :)
  • I'm putting together a few paragraphs to explain the graph, but I think I've made it redundant now. I'm going to remove it and let the text explain it. Chwech 19:38, 11 February 2008 (UTC) - Done.[reply]
  • The redlink of ERTT concerns me, primarily because I'm not sure of the rule myself. For me, if it doesn't already exist, then it's not notable, so it shouldn't be linked to. I've heard arguments to keep them too, incase the article is created in the future sooo....
  • The article for ERTT was created before, and deleted: although looking at the deletion log, not much of an effort was made to establish notability. I should be able to write a stub.

Other than that, it seems all right. And I like the intro alot. -- Matthew | talk | Contribs 00:21, 11 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ooh! Then I'll strike out that part. -- Matthew | talk | Contribs 01:13, 11 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Support. Everything looks in order to me, and my comments have been resolved. -- Matthew | talk | Contribs 06:41, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved stuff from The Rambling Man (talk) 16:32, 15 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments
    Well, I'm no expert in these Eurovision matters, so I'll review it from an outsider's perspective, sometimes that can be useful...!
    • Not sure why countries is bold - okay so it's in the title of the article but it looks weird to me. I'm sure I recall WP:LEAD has some suggestions here and I may be wrong, worth a look?
      • Unbolded.
    • "As of the 2007 Contest," and then "since it started in 1956" probably only need one of these, and I'd suggest ditching the former - it's an odd way to start an article.
      • True, and I added it in minutes before nominating as well. Removed.
    • I'd rework the opening paragraph to discuss a little bit of the history of the contest, then discuss qualification, countries who automatically qualify etc before going in with the stat-attack you currently have.
    • "an eligible television service" what is this? It needs explanation, especially with it being in the first para of the lead.
      • I'll bring the EBU info above that, which would explain eligibility before it's mentioned in that context.
    • " has steadily grown" - "has grown steadily" would be marginally better.
      • Done.
    • "Kvalifikacija za Millstreet" probably deserves a translation in English here.
      • Done.
    • "Big Four" should be explained as well.
      • Done.
    • Colours on the map really make it difficult to see subtle differences, particularly the yellow/green combo...
      • Already doing per above. Done.
    • I would be sorely tempted to move the para after the table to beforehand as an introduction to what the reader is about to see.
      • Done.
    • Write at least a stub for ERTT.
      • Doing per above. Done.
    • I'd expand the contestants per year section with some prose instead of a huge graph with a lengthy caption.
    Hope these comments are of use. The Rambling Man (talk) 08:22, 11 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Further comments
    • Consider centrally aligned the year, number of entries and number of wins in the table, the current left justification with wide columns looks odd.
    • There ought to be some prose in the "Unsuccessful attempts.." section to introduce the data. Also, I would left align the notes, centrally align the references and make the first column wide enough to contain the flag and country name on a single line.
    • "forty", "forty-two" - usually number over 10 are written as numerals.
    • "Liechtenstein does not have a EBU-member broadcaster and is therefore ineligible to enter the Eurovision Song Contest." - no need for the Eurovision Song - you've used Contest consistently throughout so do so here.
    • The Times source for "Country duo quit..." is no longer available.
  • Almost there I think! The Rambling Man (talk) 09:14, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: In the "unsuccessful attempts" section, I have some qualms
    • Lebanon withdrew from the 2005 Contest as its legislation prevented it from broadcasting the Israeli entry. This would have violated the Contest's rules. - these two uses of the word "it" are vague (generally, a pronoun should refer to the closest noun it agrees with in gender and number, but "2005 Contest" and "legislation" aren't the referrents here). And "legislation" seems like a weird word to use here.
      • I've fixed the occurances of "it", but "legislation" is the word used in the reference. I've changed it to "law", anyway.
    • Tunisia was to perform fourth in the 1977 Contest's running order. Its reason for withdrawing was never officially established; rumours suggest it did not want to compete with Israel. Same issue with the pronouns here. I also don't like referring to countries "wanting things", though I wouldn't suggest that's an ironclad rule. Tunisia, being an abstract entity, can't really want (or not want) anything. Who actually made these decisions?
      • I would assume it was the broadcaster. I've made that clearer.
  • Tuf-Kat (talk) 02:05, 12 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thanks. Chwech 13:27, 12 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • I slightly tweaked the Lebanese thing, which still isn't perfect because it repeats Lebanon/Lebanese, but I think the only way to fix it is to be more specific, either naming the law or at least describing what exactly it does. "Lebanese law made it nearly impossible" is kind of bad style, but it may be too difficult to explain the legal situation in such a brief note. Anyway, I'm satisfied with the current wording, and I'll support, but if you can find out what specifically made it almost but not quite impossible, please do include that in the footnote if not in the actual column. Tuf-Kat (talk) 00:31, 13 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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