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Songwriters for annual articles

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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I believe songwriters are important to be shown on annual articles, and I also want to address the detailed commentators examples as this on the 2016 ESC article, with referring to a possibility of incorporating all personas introduced in one table, which reduces article length and flag-icons repetitions. First, 2 examples of commentators detailing:

• Finland – Finnish: Mikko Silvennoinen (Yle TV2 and TV Finland, all shows); Sanna Pirkkalainen and Jorma Hietamäki (Yle Radio Suomi, all shows); Swedish: Eva Frantz and Johan Lindroos (Yle TV2, TV Finland, Yle Radio Vega, all shows).
• Switzerland - German: Sven Epiney (SRF zwei, semi-finals; SRF 1, final); Peter Schneider and Gabriel Vetter (SRF 1 and Radio SRF 3, final) French: Jean-Marc Richard and Nicolas Tanner (RTS Deux, second semi-final and final); Italian: Clarissa Tami (RSI La 2, second semi-final); Clarissa Tami and Michele "Cerno" Carobbio (RSI La 1, final).

I believe that if a reader is interested enough to see this on annual articles he is interested to know who created the country's representation. As songwriters, this info appears on other more specific articles which were greatly written and detailed however not anyone interested in Eurovision in general will look at the specific articles, which I actually agree they are more appropriate and tailor-made for this commentators and national public mediums and coverage purpose.

There are also world renowned writers and composers: A reader looking at the 1956 ESC for example and sees the commentators for Netherlands, would be more interested to know who created the country's song/s and that it was among the rest Annie M. G. Schmidt, one of the most popular writers in the Netherlands in the 20th century and also famous in other countries; that a member of Black Sabbath - a pioneer band in Rock genres, wrote Armenia's entry in 2013 if I recall. This can be also added of course to a renowned writers section under participants as @Zouki08: suggested, and I also wrote such info once on another language Wikipedia. That is still regardless of showing all writers for all competing entries.

I believe that as much as the extraneous commentators may be important as the event coverage and we assume the reader is interested to see them, the same definitely applies to the writers - who are also talked about within this commentators coverage. Furthermore, a more-details table can actually incorporate broadcasters, writers, commentators, and voting spokespersons with perhaps method selection, even by just pointing if its internal or giving its name with also links to their individual articles of course. Something on this lines which actually eliminates the existing of flag-icons repetition and stretching of the article with separate presented lists of this different personas. אומנות (talk) 09:35, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

@אומנות: I agree with all of this. A detailed table like that would be very convenient to cover everything that we cannot cover in the main table. And I definitely think we should include method of selection, because that means that it can be linked directly to i.e. the page for Melodifestivalen_2016 and other selections that have their own articles. The problem could be in cases where a country selected the artist through a public selection but the entry (song) was chosen internally, like Israel 2015. But in those cases we could write something like: "HaKokhav_HaBa / Internal song choice".

I think that writing a piece about renowned writers and composers could be slightly problematic though, since there'll be a question of where to draw the line of who's considered renowned enough to be mentioned in such a context. What I suggested earlier was mainly to include "Returning songwriters" in the "Returning artists" text, or possibly to have a "Returning songwriters" text above the new table instead. But I do see your point about it being a good idea to be able to mention when very renowned songwriters participate as well, even when they aren't returning. Perhaps in such cases it could simply be mentioned in the introductory text at the start of the article? I.e. "This contest also gained attention due to Andrew Lloyd Webber having composed the United Kingdom entry and also appeared on stage playing the piano". Zouki08 (talk) 17:20, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

Here's some ideas for how this could be done. First off, a "Detailed information" table. Adding all of these things into one and the same place would save a lot of space in the annual pages, where we now present most of these separately. (I might have missed something that should be included? @אומנות:)

Detailed entry information

Country	Broadcaster	Song	Selection method	Writers	Conductor	Commentator(s)	Jury spokesperson
Norway	NRK	"Mitt Liv"	Melodi Grand Prix 1987	Rolf Løvland, Hanne Krogh	Terje Fjærn	John Andreassen & Tor Paulsen	Sverre Christophersen

If that won't do, then I suggest we keep it simple and just add a section like this, at the bottom of each annual page where we already have a section for conductors, spokespersons and commentators (including broadcasters) in a similar fashion. This would be in regards to the discussion above where it was also mentioned (by @Whats new?: etc) that it would be ok to place the songwriters somewhere else in the article instead of in the tables.

Composers and lyricists

• Norway - Rolf Løvland, Hanne Krogh
• Israel - Zohar Laskov
• Austria - Kenneth Westmore, Stefanie Werger
• Iceland - Valgeir Guðjónsson
• Belgium - Gyuri Spies, Marc de Coen, Liliane Keuninckx
• Sweden - Mikael Wendt, Christer Lundh
• Italy – Umberto Tozzi, Raf, Giancarlo Bigazzi
• Portugal - Alfredo Azinheira, Jorge Mendes
• Spain - Rafael Martínez, Rafael Trabucchelli, Patricia Kraus
• Turkey - Olcayto Ahmet Tuğsuz
• Greece - Thanos Kalliris, Vasilis Dertilis
• Netherlands - Peter Koelewijn
• Luxembourg -
• United Kingdom -
• France -
• Germany -
• Cyprus -
• Finland -
• Denmark -
• Ireland -
• Yugoslavia -
• Switzerland -

This would make the annual pages slightly longer, but not by much. If necessary a similar section for selection methods could be used as well? Zouki08 (talk) 15:29, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

Who is the composer and who is the lyricist? The presentation of this information in example above does not specify who is what role. And let's not forget that we are also to avoid what Wikipedia is not, and that is an excessive list of information. The annual contest pages should concentrate on the annual contest itself. Such as, the location, the venue, the presenters, the participating countries, songs, points. Anything too excessive needs to be forked into more relevant pages. Wes Mouse  ^T@lk 16:26, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

@Wesley Mouse: True, it doesn't specifiy that. Though in over half of the cases the composer and lyricist will be the same person/people. But indeed, we could either credit them separately, or title it simply "Songwriters" instead of "Composers and lyricists". If songwriters are considered excessive information, then what are conductors, commentators and spokespeople? We include those now, and we even include things like the Barbara Dex Award. Some annual pages even lists individual jury members for some countries. I'd understand the reasoning if we also didn't include any of those things on the annual pages, but in my opinion there's no logic in considering a spokesperson or a commentator to be less excessive information than a participating songwriter. Zouki08 (talk) 17:11, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

@Zouki08: to be fair, the inclusion of the commentators and spokesperson has more due weight on an article that is covering the contest which is broadcast. The spokespersons are see by millions of viewers during the votes presentation. As the article is about a TV show, then the commentators are also vital. Composers and lyricists are part of WikiProject Song's scope, and not really part of WikiProject Eurovision; so their details hold more due weight on a song article rather than a contest article. It all boils down to procedure, and making sure we stick to what Wikipedia is all about and the plethora of policies that go with it. Cramming too much information into an article makes it too big, not just in data size, but in readability too. We must make sure that an article can load up quickly and with little bytes as possible. Just think if we crammed everything into one article and it were a 3GB in size, and someone accessing the article via a mobile device who only has 1GB data allowance per month. Excuse my language but they would be f**ked straight away because our content basically chewed up their data and only loaded up a third of the article. That is what accessibility is all about. That is why we need to stick to basics on any article. So songwriters etc are better off on a song article, not a contest article. Wes Mouse  ^T@lk 17:22, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

@Wesley Mouse: Sorry, but I'm still not entirely convinced. Obviously we shouldn't create articles that take up 3 GB, but I don't think that's the issue here. An addition like this wouldn't really make much of a difference at all to the size of the annual pages. And the point of this discussion was to find a way to do it in a way that takes up as little unnecessary space as possible. I guess we'll just simply disagree about the definitions of what's important. Wikipedia is a lot of things, and there's a lot of things it isn't. But it's first of all a source of information, and it will of course always be difficult to determine which information is relevant and which isn't. You said it yourself that the annual pages are articles about a contest. And in my opinion, listing the contestants of a contest would be considered vital information.

I was going to refer to the List_of_Eurovision_Song_Contest_winners where the winning songwriters are included. But I see that you very recently removed those, which I disagree with. At least in the article claiming to list the winners throughout the history of the contest, the winning songwriters ought to be listed. Because the rules of the contest do state them as winners.(NB how in older years of the contest, the songwriters were the ones first called on stage to receive the winner's trophy at the end of the show, not the singers). When you removed them you left a comment that you would re-add the songwriters in a new section of it's own right, which it doesn't seem like you did. But that seems like a good compromise though, just like what I suggested above for the annual pages. Or indeed, possibly linking to separate articles called i.e. "List of Eurovision Song Contest Winning Songwriters" / "Songwriters in Eurovision 2017". That would at least be in accordance to the Article Size rules you referenced below. I don't see why it really would be against any other policies. Or would you be opposed to that as well? Zouki08 (talk) 17:59, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

@Zouki08: you have covered quite a lot in your comment above, so much that it took me several times to even read that and understand the points you were trying to make. I'm not saying we would create an article the size of 3GB, it was pretty clear by the words "just think if we..." that I was using that as an example. And yes, Wikipedia is a lot of things and also not a lot of things, but the primary aim is to follow article size policy in parallel to everything else. I'm assuming you never got around to reading the guidance on article size? As from that it gives a lot of information on what we should be aiming towards when writing an article. And the Wikimedia Foundation (which is Wikipedia, Commons, etc) signed up to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines which the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees are obligated to follow, and must not be circumvented, eroded, or ignored by local polices. Something we from the suggestions above we are not adhering to.

In regards to the List of Eurovision Song Contest winners, yes I removed the songwriters information from the table because, you may not have noticed, but I've been around Wikipedia for quite some time and do recall that the information was agreed not to be included in the table. Sure I said I would re-add them at a later stage. But then how long is a piece of string? Depends on how long you cut it into size. There is no deadline on Wikipedia, and we are all volunteers at the end of the day who also have lives in the real world. Since January 2015 I've lost 4 family members all to cancer, so priorities lead me away from editing Wikipedia for a while. And more recently with the second house-move in 12 months meant I could not edit for a few days.

We did have a template on winning songwriters but I think that got nominated for deletion due to the WP:NOTHERE rationale. Would that same rationale also be implied for the same content to be included elsewhere as a standalone article, I could not say. But what I can say is that this project has a habit of being overzealous with content and trying to place a pumpkin into a small jar (to coin a phrase). Sometimes things are too big to fit, and should be placed elsewhere. That's why we have hatnotes to direct readers to other articles for more in-depth information on a subject matter. That is what article size tells us we should be doing. What you are basically suggesting is going way against WP:CHOKING and at some point in the future a more experienced editor is going to come along and remove the content based on one policy or another. We need to be preemptive on that and avoid such occurrences from happening. And the only way to do so is stick to the facts and if the article gets too big, split information into more relevant areas or even their own standalone articles. I shall leave it there for now as I have covered way too much as it is. Wes Mouse  ^T@lk 18:32, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

@Wesley Mouse: Sorry if it came across like I was accusing you or something. I disagreed with your removal of the songwriters from the winners article, since it had been in place for several years and I think it was an unnecessary deletion. But I know you're a much more experienced editor than I am and I respect your opinions, and I have full understanding that one's private life often can get in the way of things. I apologize!

I did read the guidance on article size, but I just think we have to agree to disagree here. I don't really interpret the guidance on article size as saying that we can't under any circumstances include any new sections or material to the articles. Sure, making them too big should be avoided, and splitting them is necessary when reaching a certain size. In my opinion, the additions we've been discussing would not make any big impact on the article size, and are of higher relevance than much of the information that is already there. But you're opinion is clearly the opposite, so let's leave it at that. Standalone articles seem to be something we have a better chance on agreeing on, so let's put the energy into discussing that instead. Zouki08 (talk) 21:24, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

@Zouki08: I accept your apology with open-arms. Thank you! But to the latter part of your point, it would have a big impact. My internet speed is pretty fast; but when it comes to Eurovision Song Contest 2015, it takes more than 5 seconds to load the article, in fact it takes 55 seconds, more than 10-times the recommendation set out at WP:SIZE. So imagine the time it would take if we added every songwriter to that article too? It even takes long to save changes due to the enormous size of the article which currently stands at 159,126 bytes. Keep the size low, and the loading speed quicker. Another good proverb is "less is more". Wes Mouse  ^T@lk 23:16, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

@Wesley Mouse: OK. In that case, if the pages are already so big that it takes that long for them to load, perhaps in the future it would be a good idea to look at ways of scaling them down, by removing a lot of the stuff on them and moving it to separate articles. 55 seconds is clearly way too long. And if that's with a pretty good connection, I imagine it's taking forever for people with a slow connection. Maybe things like scoreboards and split results and the listing of commentators really should go on their own pages? Zouki08 (talk) 23:31, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

@Zouki08: to be honest I don't think listing the commentators is of much importance to these articles either. To be fair, is someone from France going to be interested in knowing who commentated for BBC or RTÉ? I doubt it very much. And besides, some of the earlier articles have TBA next to the country. Perhaps we could better present this information into the voting order section too. So for example, it would should the country, the host broadcaster in parenthesis, and the voting spokesperson alongside. That surely covers the basic information whilst reducing size?

United Kingdom (BBC) - Scott Mills.

The above is just an example of how the voting order/spokesperson/broadcaster section would look. Wes Mouse  ^T@lk 23:45, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

@Wesley Mouse: Yes, that seems like a nice way of including the name of the broadcaster, by including it in the spokesperson/voting order list. Did you mean that we could include the commentator in that list too? Personally I tend to occasionally find it interesting to sometimes look at who were the commentators each year. It tends to have some relevance today in the youtube era where a lot of the videos that are accessible to people have commentary from countries other than their own. But it's probably not something that the majority of the readers will be looking for, no. If we'd remove it from the annual pages and not simply move it to some other article that would list all the commentators in one list, then we should make sure they all are properly mentioned in an informative way on the Country in Year pages. Removing them from Wikipedia all together would be a shame. Zouki08 (talk) 00:08, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

@Zouki08: you implied in this comment about removing commentators. Now you want to keep them? Make your mind up. We cannot split information into new articles for lists of commentators, articles showing only the results, as it is against so many policies, and this matter has been discussed before and is definitely never going to happen. Purely coz policies prohibits it from happening. Also we are to try and avoid cluttering articles with too many tables, as that is an abuse of table usage. I am now starting to get the impression that you are not understanding or perhaps grasping the core policies and what w're suppose to be doing. Wes Mouse  ^T@lk 01:26, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

@Wesley Mouse: I wasn't saying I wanted to remove the listing of commentators from Wikipedia all together, I was merely saying that if they needed to go onto a separate article of some sort, I would consider that acceptable. But I'm not really in favour of removing them completely. And as separate articles don't seem to be possible, then that means I'm in favour of them staying on the annual pages. Although I don't feel very strongly about it. But mostly I was confused by what you referred to when you suggested listing "this information" in the voting section order. The way you wrote it, it sounded as if you were talking about the commentators, but then you didn't include a commentator in your example. So I was most of all just asking for clarification on the matter.

And yes, I am not as well-aware of all the policies as you seem to be, I completely admit that. I try to read up on them, but sometimes just reading isn't the same as having the experience of how they can (and can't) be applied. This is why I often ask questions regarding i.e. splitting articles and similar things. I believe that I have a lot of (often good, sometimes not) ideas, but not always the experience and knowledge to know if they can be realised or not. Zouki08 (talk) 18:09, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

@Zouki08:, I highly support the concentrated table you show above, showing commentators for the responsible-participating broadcaster, while still allows listing N/A for unknown commentary within a country’s row, instead of the current scattered lists. I agree with your statement that “it’s about what we need to show” also per neutral view – per a song contest, which is being broadcasted, and the above table takes all of the broadcaster representatives under consideration.

With that, I can separately support having winning-songwriters article as suggested separately below, but as that doesn’t address all songwriters and their appearance on annual articles alongside other personas, I’m commenting on this section focusing on all-songwriters. However, Zouki – I would just change your proposal to order “selection method” before “song” to attach it next to “songwriters” column, and I would place “spokespersons” before “commentators”; I like that after country/selection/song you present songwriters, then conductors – as both having to do with the arrangement of the song, then vote-spokespersons and last the extraneous commentators (in relation to the personas involved in the event itself). אומנות (talk) 01:56, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

@אומנות: I do agree with everything you say. The concentrated table with all the "extra" information would both save a lot of space and makes things presented in a neater way, I think. However, it doesn't seem like we've been able to gather much support for it here. And as much as I'm happy that the winning songwriters seems to be able to get a return (even if it's to their own article and not where they were before) I also don't think it really solved the problem, as what we discussed originally was having all songwriters of each year being presented in one way or another. But the problem is again that it doesn't seem to have gathered enough support. Doing this in the suggest table format would have been one option. Presenting them, possibly along with commentators and the other detailed information, on a separate article would have been another one. But as I understood it from @Wesley Mouse:, such an article would most likely get deleted. So that doesn't seem like an option either unfortunately. Zouki08 (talk) 15:45, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Yes I always meant I don't support for separate articles, but that I agree on incorporating for the annual articles material. Yes there is currently not enough support while there are ways to draw more inputs, as I also asked in regards for RFC or another procedure at this stage, and regardless of this, we can always discuss it again in the future. אומנות (talk) 16:20, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

@Zouki08 and אומנות: In regards to the new table format, reasonable time was given in the summary section and proposal above for the new table style, and it followed the advice given from the Guild of Editors, as well as incorporating suggestions from everyone else (as long as those suggestions did not breach policies and guidelines). A test was done on a live article once reasonable time had elapsed and had gained support. The new format has already been rolled out across all the articles, with a small team of editors carrying out the operation.

As for the songwriters, it has been established that creating individual articles for each contest would put such work under fire from the deletion-squad via articles for deletion, and we would be on a losing battle trying to convince people to keep them. We have already had 2 templates and 3 EBU Executive articles deleted due to lack of support from members in here. The overall compromise is to have an article on the winning songwriters, which has already been written and awaiting input and a review.

As for not being able to gather much support; that is the case these day around here. As I noticed neither of you 2 actually commented on the AfD's and TfD's in order to "keep" or "delete" them. And as a result of that lack of support we've already lost 3 templates, 2 articles, and there's load more articles and templates still being discussed which are gaining delete support. So all that hard work from members in here seems to mean nothing to people these days. Pity that a project like is catching its death, and even to this day I still felt that it needed a severe reform to keep it alive. Alas, myself and Rob Sinden have discussed the matter and are already working on resurrecting the project, and bringing it to the high standards in-line with the elite projects on Wikipedia. So RfD's could be very frequent in the weeks and months ahead. Wes Mouse  ^T@lk 17:21, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

@Wesley Mouse:, the new table (i.e. without translations) is good the way it is, and we aren't questioning that. @אומנות:'s suggestion wasn't to change the main table, but to add another table at another section in the annual articles where we can compile information such as commentators and jury spokespeople in the same place rather than having them scattered in different sections of the annual articles as we do now. This would save space and make the information more easy to find for the readers. And such a table would leave room for including e.g. songwriters and selection format as well. It's something I would support as well, and I think my example above showed that it would have worked quite well. But as I understood it, you were against making any changes to how that information is presented, and even more opposed to having songwriters mentioned in any way on the annual pages, so I didn't think there was any point discussing it further.

However, I quite fail to see how the fact that we're (hopefully) getting an article for winning Eurovision songwriters is really a compromise. That was a different issue, which had to do with that you had deleted them from the Eurovision Winners article. That they get their own article is an acceptable compromise when the other options would be to re-include them vs. not have them listed anywhere at all. But I don't think it's got anything to do with mentioning the participating songwriters in Eurovision in general. The current situation regarding that seems to be that we won't change anything at all. As long as that's the general consensus, I have no reason not to accept that. It only seems to be me and @אומנות: who would like a change regarding that anyway. Zouki08 (talk) 15:07, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

@Zouki08: I'm not really liking the idea of incorporating yet another table into an article that has quite a lot of tables as it is. MOS:TABLE advises against using too many tables in an article, which is the main reason the returning artists was taken out of a table and into WP:PROSE format. The fewer tables in an article, the better. As for songwriters being on their own article, that is much better than how they were presented in the winners article. Again, it came down to MOS:TABLE, article size, and Wikipedia:Content forking, the latter is preferred if an article is going to be crammed full of information within a table. Having the winning songwriters within their own article allows us to present information much easier and simplified, whilst also allowing us to use that article to pipelink to a winning songwriter who does not have their own article, to the new article, which would contain their name. Also do not forget what was advised by the Guild of Copy Editors. Not all of the entries songwriters can be sourced. Yet the winning entry is always sourced and includes the songwriter in that source. So having a new standalone article on winning songwriters allows us to A) provide a list, B) explain in detail about the benefits a winning songwriter can achieve, C) stay within Wikipedia policies, and D) all of the content be easily sourced from secondary material, and not rely on eurovision.tv which is a WP:PRIMARY source. Wes Mouse  ^T@lk 23:27, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

@Wesley Mouse: Yes, I do see all of your points, and I mostly agree with them as well. Especially your points about the benefit of having an article like that. Being able to pipelink to a winning songwriter is something I hadn't thought of. And I can also see why a new table could be problematic too, even if it in theory saves space. As I've said before, there's not been any truly perfect solution suggested so far. My opinion is just that many of the ideas presented here were better than adding nothing at all, but I know my opinion isn't the only one that matters, and I think it's an acceptable solution anyway. We mention them on the individual country/year pages, and as long as they are properly presented there, then at least the information is accessible to readers, even if a little harder to locate. The only thing I still don't agree with is how you still maintain that not all songwriters can be sourced? It's highly public information after all, and I'm sure we'd be able to find more than enough proper sources to back up the songwriter information on the country/year pages. Zouki08 (talk) 00:37, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

Split into a standalone list article

I am strongly opposing the incorporation of songwriters information into the main annual contest pages, purely on the basis of the article size policy. Reading into that policy in more detail it does recommend that if information is going to cause size issues that splitting into a new article is preferred. And standalone lists for such data is acceptable (apparently). So we would be able to get away with having an article on List of Eurovision Song Contest winning songwriters. That way we are able to show within the list the songwriter for each contest winning entry under the subheading "By contest" and also a list for songwriters who have won more than once under the subheading "By wins". This covers all bases, avoids choking an article to death with bytes upon bytes, it keeps us in line with policies, and it allows us to even mention in prose on each annual page that "the [[List of Eurovision Song Contest winning songwriters|winning songwriter]] was Andy Other". We could also link to the standalone list in the "see also" sections and the main ESC navigation template. Something along thes lines would gain my full support. Wes Mouse  ^T@lk 18:49, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

I would also support something like this. Pickette (talk) 20:08, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

That's at least 2 !votes in favour of this proposal. And the creation of such article would look good under someone's editing belt, as long as manual of style was adhered to of course. And best of all, we wouldn't even need a map to highlight the number of wins, but could use images of songwriters who have won the most or are notable. Wes Mouse  ^T@lk 20:55, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

I am fine with this proposal as well. There's a lot of details to figure out regarding the format, but a standalone article is a nice solution. And having a "by wins" and similar subheadings is an excellent idea as well. Would a similar page (obviously not including a "by wins" etc) for each year be acceptable as well? Additionally, either the winning songwriting article or another article could also have a mention of i.e. the top 10 songwriters who have had the most entries in the contest in total, winning or not. Zouki08 (talk) 21:24, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

Doing similar for songwriters by year is pure excessive unfortunately due to WP:NOTWHOSWHO, and would come under deletion too quickly via WP:CSD#A7, if not thrashing about at articles for deletion, where you would struggle to keep the article alive. The important information we need to show is the list of winning songwriters. Information on songwriters for ever song since 1956 can be found on the respective song article, where the data is safe from the hands of the deletionists. Wes Mouse  ^T@lk 23:10, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

I have made a start on the new standalone list article located in my sandbox. Once the songwriters have been added I can then move the page to the new article title and request a WP:HISTMERGE, so that an editing history previously made in my sandbox does not show in the new article's edit history. Wes Mouse  ^T@lk 16:10, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

Looks good! Thanks for taking the time to do that. Some thoughts (not requests, just ideas): Since the article is meant to focus on the songwriters, should maybe the songwriter column be placed before the artists? Or even before the song title? And would it possibly be relevant information to include some statistics in a similar style like the "Songwriters with multiple wins" table, e.g. "Songwriters with multiple participations" or so? I see how that could be considered excessive, but it would also be in accordance to what plenty of other wikipedia articles are listing. See e.g. List_of_athletes_with_the_most_appearances_at_Olympic_Games, especially the "Athletes with at least five Olympic appearances" section. Zouki08 (talk) 18:34, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

@Zouki08: The column order is only minor and can be reviewed at any time. As for the multiple wins, that is a different matter. 5 songwriters have won twice. 114 of them have won once. A table showing 114 individual songwriters winning once was so ugly and confusing that I discarded that idea of placing them in the same table. One has to remember that you would use the rowspan="114" code and it would not be until you reached the 57th songwriter that you would know all in that section were part of the 114. And remember WP:NOTSTATSBOOK we cannot go overboard with "statistics. Wes Mouse  ^T@lk 00:57, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

@Wesley Mouse:, what's the current status of this? Are we ready to roll this out? You've done a very good job creating this article, and bar for possibly switching some columns around, I think it seems ready to go online. By now there's been sufficient time for people to give their feedback and critique to this as well. Zouki08 (talk) 13:11, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

I'm more than happy to move the content from my sandbox to a live article. However, I will require an admin to do the history merge from everything dated 30 September to present day, as older edits from that sandbox also contain data from the OGAE re-writing. Wes Mouse ^Talk 14:20, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Article size

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This information will shed a lot of light into the discussion at #Possible removal of English translations for future editions and #Songwriters for annual articles. People seem to be forgetting the main issue of article size, which we must be sticking to at all times. Such as:

• Readable-prose size: the amount of viewable text in the main sections of the article, not including tables, lists, or footer sections
• Wiki markup size: the amount of text in the full page edit window, as shown in the character count of the edit history page
• Browser-page size: the total size of the page as loaded by a web browser
• Reader issues, such as attention span, readability, organization, information saturation, etc.
• Editor issues, such as talkpage tension, arguments over trivial contributions, debates on how to split up a large article, etc.
• Contribution issues, such as articles ceasing to grow significantly once they reach a certain size, even though there is still information on the topic that could be contributed
• Other technical issues, such as browser limitations, slow upload speeds, etc.

As the guidelines state, when an article is too large, a decision may be taken to divide it into smaller articles, to break part of it out into a new article, or to move part of it into another existing article. For example, the issue on jurors was pointed out. We do have articles such as List of Eurovision Song Contest 2014 jurors. So a brief readable prose on the 2014 article stating about the use of jurors at the contest, with the {{More info}} hatnote to the jurors article for those who wish to know more information on the matter. We could possibly do the same for songwriters, but that may go against other policies. Which is why such information is better placed "into another existing article", as the guidelines on article size advises us to do. We should also be taking into account the policy on WP:SPLITLIST and avoid "too much statistical data is against policy".

Cramming all the information that everyone would like to be seen in the annual contest pages is seen as WP:CHOKING, and will slow down the load up speed considerably; which is why we split content into more relevant articles. So can we all at least read up on our knowledge and understanding of WP:SIZE before piling on more "junk" into articles. Wes Mouse  ^T@lk 17:50, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

@Jonesey95: as the lead coordinator for the guild of copyeditors, I hope you don't mind me bringing your attention to this project talk page. I've pinged in this particular thread as it mentions the 2 other threads that are becoming a need of more experienced input. To briefly summarise, the annual pages for Eurovision (such as Eurovision Song Contest 2016) provide an English translation for songs performed in a foreign language. Suggestions to improve these have been put forward at #Possible removal of English translations for future editions. However, are any of the suggestions within Wikipedia policy? Also it has been suggested to include separate listed/tabled information on songwriters etc see #Songwriters for annual articles, again are some of the suggestions within policy. I look forward to reading your views. Regards, Wes Mouse  ^T@lk 18:57, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

I'll put in my two cents. I don't see a copy-editing issue here, but competent copy editors spend a lot of time poking around the bowels of the Manual of Style, so I've seen a few guidelines and policies in my day.

First, I am impressed with the civility of the conversation above. Your project participants appear to work well together. I've seen similar discussions go off the rails many times. Good work, everyone.

Second, if I am allowed an opinion, I think the proposed format looks better than the existing format. Compared to this 2014 contest table, the information is presented in a way that makes much more sense to me, someone who has never seen or heard of the Eurovision Song Contest before.

Third, I can't think of any policies or guidelines that are directly relevant here, except for the basic one of using reliable sources to support claims in articles. Providing an unobtrusive English translation is helpful, as long as the translation does not comprise original research by Wikipedia editors. Are these English translations provided on the broadcasts themselves, or in any reliable sources that write about the shows? If so, I see no problem with including them. If not, I would question whether including them contravenes Wikipedia's prohibition on original research, even if it seems helpful to the reader. Remember that readers have access to automated translation tools that can always give them a sense of the meaning of the title in their native language; it is not Wikipedia's job to provide those tools for the reader.

And fourth, as for the songwriters, I would also point you to the need for reliable sources supporting the statements in any article. If the songwriters are listed in the broadcast or in coverage by reliable sources, listing them should not be a problem if the project's consensus is that they should be included.

I hope that helps. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:25, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

@Jonesey95: thank you for your valued opinion on these matters. You advise is most helpful and has certainly aided myself with more clarification into the ins and outs on manual of style etc.

@אומנות, Zouki08, and Pickette: as main contributors to the two debates above, please take a moment of your time to read the advice given by the lead coordinator from the guild of copyeditors. I hope their view provides better understanding and help towards what we should be achieving in terms of presentation of content, especially table format and the proposed outlines at #Summary. As the songwriters are rarely mentioned in sources that present the song information, then it would make no sense to only include some and not all, as not all of the songs have the songwriters mentioned within their respective published sources. Which therefore goes in the direction of such data being used on individual song articles only, with exception to the winning songwriter who would be attributed within sources; thus a standalone list article would work. Wes Mouse  ^T@lk 01:38, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

I agree with what Wesley has stated above. I'm just slightly confused as to whether this means we will need a list article for each year or if it's just for the winning songwriters. I think it would be nice to have an article for the winning songwriters, but I don't see the point of having one for each individual year. As Wesley stated, people will be intuitive enough to either click on the song article or the Country in the ESC Year page to obtain that information. It shouldn't be difficult for people to understand that the songwriters would be listed on a song article page at the very least. I think the other interesting point is whether we need English translations at all. It seems like it's not a requirement for us to translate song titles and actually none of the translations are attributed to a reputable source. In any case, that is also something to consider. Pickette (talk) 02:11, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

@Pickette: I would be inclined to say that creating a list article for each year would go against WP:NOTWHOSWHO, and an excessive overkill of the meaning of lists. Besides they would be high subjects to articles for deletion. However, a standalone list article for just the winning songwriters would be more summarising and we would be able to also show how many times a songwriter may have won over the years. But to list every songwriter in an annual article, whether it be on the contest page or individual yearly pages is just too much. As for the English translations, and based on what Jonesey95 has pointed out, it would sem we would be OK to remove them entirely. And to be fair that would prevent all the arguing over the last years over what's the right translation... if you may recall the headache we all endured over the French entry this year? Full removal of the column would have prevent that ever happening. Wes Mouse  ^T@lk 03:04, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

Absolutely, it would avoid a lot of editing conflicts regarding the English translations. The proposed table looks really nice and I would fully support and assist in rolling out that style across all articles. I'm also in support of the list of winning songwriters. I don't support adding further songwriter information to the main article other than mentioning the winning songwriters. That's how things stand for me. Pickette (talk) 04:44, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

@Pickette: I think for the first time in a long while we both agree on the same thing. In the example table (located at #Summary) I played with the option of using {{H:title}} within the pipelink for Montenegrin entry, so that it shows the Latin-script of the song title, but when hovering the cursor also shows the Cyrillic script too. By the looks of it, such option doesn't affect the sorting side of things, and I assume would allow online translators to detect the script so that people can "online translate" as advised by Jonesey above. Although I am happy either way on whether to use that method or just stick to Latin script throughout. Wes Mouse  ^T@lk 05:09, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

I've been away for a week and am only now catching up. Found the information provided by @Jonesey95: very interesting. Thank you so much for that. I am happy to see that there's a conclusion regarding the translation columns. Regarding whether there are reliable sources for songwriters and whether they are mentioned in sources presenting the song information, I do still disagree. They are mentioned in the on-screen credits for each entry in the televised Eurovision broadcast, as well as the official media handbook, on the official Eurovision website, and in the promotional material of each entry. So I don't think there'd be any problem finding reliable sources for this information, as it's mentioned in basically in any published material providing detailed information about each entry. It may be an issue early on, directly after an entry has been selected. But not once the EBU have released the official entry information on the website. So the issue is hardly lack of reliable sources, but rather just that it could be considered excessive information. Zouki08 (talk) 18:26, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

Songwriters being mentioned in on-screen credits is not a means of source. It would mean taking screenshots for every entry. Each image would in turn get deleted. And it is against policy on WP:CITE. Sorry but what Jonesey95 has said, who is the most experienced Wikipedian on the planet, especially as they are the "chief" editor of the Guild of Copy Editors, is in my opinion the final word. This project and its members has a habit of being overzealous in its attitude on trying to crowd articles with excessive details. Thus causing issues with article size etc. It is about time we stopped this stupid train of thought and took Wikipedia seriously. Follow rules strictly, get away from the WP:IDONTLIKEIT stance, and did things properly. Eurovision is nicknamed the "Olympics of Music". So let's look towards Project Olympics for inspiration. Otherwise we are going to become merged into WP:MUSIC again and have no say in how to do things. Think with our heads and follow rules. Don't be selfish and think of the fandom. @Zouki08: you are basically disagreeing with someone who knows how to write an article to FEATURE class status? Are you crazy? We've just received advice from the gods of article writing and you still say they are wrong? Step back and grace their advice my friend. These are people who live and breathe policies, manual of style... and make us look like amateurs. Wes Mouse  ^T@lk 01:06, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

While I appreciate a nice compliment every now and then, I am none of the things described in the post immediately preceding this one. I am the lead coordinator of Wikipedia's Guild of Copy Editors, which means I carry around a broom and a dustpan, and occasionally a can of machine oil, which has many applications.

If you have a dispute, Wikipedia has ways to resolve that dispute. As I said above, I was impressed with the civility of your conversation. The above comment was not entirely civil. Strive to maintain a civil tone with one another, and you will probably find a way through to a consensus. – Jonesey95 (talk) 23:12, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

@Wesley Mouse: Woah, don't you think you might be deliberately misinterpreting what I'm writing now? I did not disagree with @Jonesey95: in any way, actually. They didn't claim that there are not enough reliable sources to back up information regarding songwriters. It was you who did. While what Jonesey95 said was "If the songwriters are listed in the broadcast or in coverage by reliable sources, listing them should not be a problem". So my disagreement was with your claim, as it was quite incorrect. And as I assume that you're not only experienced in creating and editing Eurovision articles on wikipedia, but also have good knowledge about Eurovision, I would assume you'd also know that the songwriter information is something included in plenty of highly reliable sources, including most official online publications by the EBU or the broadcasters. Whereas as Jonesey95 admitted to never having heard of the Eurovision Song Contest before, and therefore can't possibly know how well-documented the history of participating songwriters is. That's why I think your claim that the sources would be unreliable, is unfounded. And I don't see why it would be a big deal that I questioned a statement someone else made. (Especially as in the case of sources listing songwriters, I seem to be the one with more experience and knowledge). That's one of the many reasons why we have these discussions. So let's try to keep this thread civil. Zouki08 (talk) 14:59, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

@Jonesey95: I sincerely apologise if my comment came across as derogatory, as that was not the intention at all. My impression of the GOCE is that the editors there are the most experienced editors as you know more about the manual of style guidelines than what I do, and I respect that insight and knowledge with utmost gratitude. My comments were merely in a complimentary manner. I know I used the word "chief" as I could not for the life of me think of the term "lead coordinator", I had a memory blank moment. As for the other comments about the project itself, this is something that has frustrated me for quite a while, and I had spoken about it recently with another admin who also agreed that this project does seem to be irrational with following polices etc. Something which I have stated many a time that the project as a whole needs some sort of reform in order to be following other great projects out there. Yes we (as in the project) seem to go overzealous with things and try to cram so much into one entity. The fact that the project now has so many contests under its scope makes it clear that reform and maybe even task forces is required. The project is 11 years old, and has evolved so much over the years that something needs to be done to address the situation. Which is why I said what I did.

@Zouki08: I have not been "deliberately misinterpreting" anything. I say things as I see it and how I feel it. Wikipedia has a lot of guidelines etc that are suppose to be followed. Nobody is perfect and we will never fully understand the ins and outs of every single policy etc. But we as a project do need to be seen as professional and following everything as near perfect as possible. Like I said, Project Olympics do an outstanding job as a group of editors. Something which we should be aspiring towards achieving, if we wish to be seen as a serious project and not a laughing stock. Most of the community look at this project as a bunch of amateurs who are taking the piss and making our own rules. And as much as I am passionate about Eurovision, I am equally passionate about this project and it is about time we show the rest of the Wiki community that we are a serious team, and we can be as good as the "elite" projects. That was all I was trying to put across in my statement above. Wes Mouse  ^T@lk 16:18, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

I have read Jonesey95 comments and as I wrote at the above thread's opening, the suggested details table concentrates different personas thus eliminating the scattered lists and flag-icons repetitions, compared to the current situation, which is also out of trying to think of reading convenience, article size reduction and make more policy scrutiny. The suggested table also show which broadcaster is actually responsible whereas the current list with also independent channels fails clarifying who is actually responsible, while other “Active EBU Members” clarify who would have been their broadcaster.

Furthermore, following Jonesey95 sourcing policy and as said earlier by others – a multitude of commentators are the ones actually not-listed, for lack of info, and further inflate the annual articles – showing some N/A, TBC, and therefore can actually be considered to be omitted from annual articles per sourcing policy pointed by jonesey95.

I always agreed myself with the need to reduce article size and access on this articles, for which I also stated among others in the past, about omitting data as 12-points table’s highlights-repetition, if not also other scoring tables, as other things recommended to be removed for clashing with statistics, which stands different from principles of concentrate material into a table.

@Jonesey95:, we need more views and based on the current differing views, I went through the RFC procedure page however it’s not clear to me if it’s okay to tag the above for RFC or should an RFC be tagged right with an opening comment. Thank you if you can provide knowledge on this or any other procedure to gain more view. אומנות (talk) 01:56, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

One of your project's articles has been selected for improvement!

Hello, Please note that Helena Bergström, which is within this project's scope, has been selected as one of Today's articles for improvement. The article was scheduled to appear on Wikipedia's Community portal in the "Today's articles for improvement" section for one week, beginning today. Everyone is encouraged to collaborate to improve the article. Thanks, and happy editing! Delivered by — MusikBot talk 00:07, 19 December 2016 (UTC) on behalf of the TAFI team

Hakol Over Habibi

I wonder if anyone with some subject familiarity might be willing to work a little on the above article? We currently have a picture of the band nominated at FPC, and it'd be great if we could see some article improvement. Thanks, Josh Milburn (talk) 23:56, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Voting history sections

This topic crops up every now and then, and after all of the recent voting changes lately I feel it needs to be discussed once more and with more seriousness. At present the voting history shows the top-5 overall points given and received - from when the voting was only announced once by a spokesperson. Since 2016, the voting has changed both at ESC and JESC, and now a country receives and awards 2 sets of points. This will make the voting history even more complex, and if we were to start showing the split history will put is in breach of excessive listing of stats. So I'm proposing that they should now be removed and abolished. Any views or suggestions? Wes Mouse ^Talk 17:44, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

I have found this to be a concerning issue. For the most part, I am reluctant to see it go, as it does help identify partiality amongst neighbouring countries, which is relatively interesting. But it cannot be kept as it is, that is for certain. I see it come down to two possibilities. First, we can go ahead and delete the statistics, as you've suggested. Secondly, we could take the average score, rather than a sum. An example would be Australia in the Eurovision Song Contest 2016. They've awarded 3 sets of points over two years, so their average points awarded to Russia, for instance, would be (10 (ESC 2015) + 5 (ESC 2016 Televote) + 0 (ESC 2016 Jury)) / 3 = 5 points on average. While this does give weight to entries from 2016 onwards, it may be a possible solution. If you don't understand, I can explain per your request.

As much as I hate to say it, in my personal opinion, I prefer the first option, as suggested by Welsey Mouse, but I can conceive alternatives. However, I think this does need to be addressed sooner rather than later. I'd propose deleting it altogether. --Tuxipedia (talk) 09:54, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

Consistency

I've noticed that on some articles for "countries" participating in their certain "year", in the voting tables, countries sometimes link to their participation for that year, such as Australia in the Eurovision Song Contest 2016, whereas in different articles, countries link to the country's participation in the contest generally, such as Georgia in the Eurovision Song Contest 2012, and some are inconsistent. For the sake of consistency, which is preferred? I'm keen to do a cleanup. --Tuxipedia (talk) 10:06, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

They should link to the respective country by year - as noted in your first example. Wes Mouse ^Talk 13:00, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

ESCKaz

It seems that ESCKaz has continued to violate copyright law by copying text from Wikipedia verbatim and not crediting Wikipedia. For those who aren't aware, there was a discussion two years ago that concluded we should lay low and wait to see if ESCKaz would stop. They did not. Information copied from Dami Im can be found here. I can't be sure where else they have copied from, but this must have been copied well after the ordeal with the emails, as Im represented Australia over a year later.

I believe it would probably be premature to confront them again, as this is only one article, and it would be best to wait for further evidence to arise. However, this serves as a reminder that us editors must keep our eyes peeled for any further copyright violations. But that's just my opinion. I open the floor to discussion regarding where to go from here. --Tuxipedia (talk) 05:31, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

Already, I've discovered another article with copyright infringement from 2016. Information copied from Sergey Lazarev can be found here. ESCKaz is pretty shameless. --Tuxipedia (talk) 05:40, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

Another addition, this time from 2017 rather than 2016. Information copied from SunStroke Project can be found here. There can be no mistake then that ESCKaz is presently infringing copyright law. --Tuxipedia (talk) 07:50, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

I'm friends with CT Cooper in real-life, who dealt with this last time around. So I shall contact him privately and find out what action we need to be taking. Wes Mouse ^Talk 12:03, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

Awards and Achievements

I've noticed that pages for both songs and artists contain the awards and achievements template and the succession box, which explicitly state they are to be used by people. It therefore seems strange that many song articles use this template, when it should only really be used by the performers themselves. I'm proposing that artist articles like Conchita Wurst begin to use both the templates, whereas song articles like "Not My Soul" have the templates removed. This way, material is not simply repeated over Wikipedia, and the Eurovision articles will be more consistent with each other. Thoughts? --Tuxipedia (talk) 01:44, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

There is a reason why both are used, @Tuxipedia:. {{S-ach}} are used on articles for winning country/artist/song - the fact the template says "on people" is only an example, but not an explicit mandatory rule. That template can be used on any article in which "an award or achievement" has been ascertained. Whereas {{Succession box}} are used on non-winners. Wes Mouse ^Talk 01:54, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

2016 Split Voting

At the moment, there are a multitude of split voting tables scattered around JESC 2016 articles which are empty. In 2014 and 2015, the split voting was released within a month of the contest. However, over three months since the contest, it seems that split voting is no longer going to be released. Unless anybody can find evidence that the split voting will be released in future, I propose the deletion of these tables. Examples include Malta in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2016. Thoughts? --Tuxipedia (talk) 22:24, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

• If the tables are going to remain contentless, then they should be removed. It is a bit of a pointless exercise to have empty tables that are serving no purpose. Wes Mouse ^Talk 02:02, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Linking to Artist and song Information

If there's one thing Junior Eurovision is known for on Wikipedia, it's producing a large portion of stub class articles on artists and songs which are quickly merged with the "Country in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest Year" page under Artist and song Information. In order to prevent new Wikipedians (and Rebecca) from creating these articles which are doomed to be stubs, could we establish links from as many of the artists and songs as possible to their respective sections in their overall "Country in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest Year"? It also makes JESC an easier contest to navigate through. --Tuxipedia (talk) 03:34, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

I suppose an example would help illustrate my point. I propose the Georgia in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest look like the following:

Year	Artist	Song	Language	Place	Points
2007	Mariam Romelashvili	"Odelia Ranuni" (ოდელია რანუნი)	Georgian	4	116
2008	Bzikebi	"Bzz.."	Imaginary	1	154
2009	Princesses	"Lurji prinveli" (ლურჯი ფრინველი)	Georgian	7	68
2010	Mariam Kakhelishvili	"Mari-Dari" (მარი-დარი)	Imaginary	4	109
2011	Candy	"Candy Music"	Georgian, English	1	108
2012	Funkids	"Funky Lemonade"	Georgian, English	2	103
2013	The Smile Shop	"Give Me Your Smile"	Georgian, English	5	91
2014	Lizi Pop	"Happy Day"	Georgian, English	11	54
2015	The Virus	"Gabede" (გაბედე)	Georgian	10	51
2016	Mariam Mamadashvili	"Mzeo" (მზეო)	Georgian	1	239
2017

This would be one of the many pages that would undergo changes. Thoughts? --Tuxipedia (talk) 03:47, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

@Tuxipedia:, this should be the general practice, to be honest. As so many of the artist/song details are now contained within the country by year articles, then to pipelink to the respective section that contains the information is the correct manual of style. And I wholeheartedly agree on your point about RebeccaTheAwesomeXD, who is indefinitely banned and becoming a natural at sockpuppetry and block evading. Wes Mouse ^Talk 18:06, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Eurovision Choir of the Year

Hi everyone, as you may or may not have heard the EBU have revealed the Eurovision Choir of the Year (eurovisionchoir.tv). Help is needed on building up articles to the standard of the ESC, JESC and others, I've made a start at User:AxG/sandbox/1, so if anyone can help, please do so. -- AxG / ✉  14:50, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Already working on it! Fort esc (talk) 15:44, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

@AxG and Fort esc: I have created the country articles for the debut event:

• Austria; Belgium; Denmark; Estonia; Germany; Hungary; Latvia; Slovenia; and Wales.

Just in case you wish to add them to your wishlists, or even expand the articles further. Wes Wolf ^Talk 12:00, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

Changes to Template:Esc

With the addition Eurovision Choir of the Year to the EBU family, {{Esc}} needed to be updated, the last time in 2015 with the implementation of the Young Dancers and Musicians. So with edits today the main string looks like this:

in the {{{j|}}} Eurovision {{#if: {{{c|}}} | Choir of the Year {{{y|}}} | {{#if: {{{x|}}} | Young {{{x|}}} | {{{d|Song}}} Contest}} {{{y|}}} }}

A bit of a mess I will say.

So {{Esc|UK|j=Junior|y=2003}} produces United Kingdom

Below is an updated string using #switch

in the {{#switch: {{{2|}}} 
| Junior = Junior Eurovision Song Contest
| Dance = Eurovision Dance Contest
| Musicians = Eurovision Young Musicians
| Dancers = Eurovision Young Dancers
| Choir = Eurovision Choir of the Year
| Eurovision Song Contest}} {{{y|}}}

A much easier to understand and add to it in the years to come, the code would change to {{Esc|UK|Junior|y=2003}} removing the 'j=', 'd=' and 'x='. Unfortunately current links would be broke until 'j=', 'd=' and 'x=' are removed due to the raw '=' sign, but AutoWikiBrowser can easily fix those.

If needed using this string, will also allow the acronyms to be used:

in the {{#switch: {{{2|}}} 
| Junior
| JESC = Junior Eurovision Song Contest
| Dance
| EDC = Eurovision Dance Contest
| Musicians
| EYM = Eurovision Young Musicians
| Dancers
| EYD = Eurovision Young Dancers
| Choir = Eurovision Choir of the Year
| Eurovision Song Contest}} {{{y|}}}

So {{Esc|UK|JESC|y=2003}} would work just the same as {{Esc|UK|Junior|y=2003}}

I would have done this automatically if the new code didn't break the existing template, however best to get the opinions of you all here. Thanks. -- AxG / ✉  21:11, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

• Strong support. The new proposed format looks much easier, and should remove any complexities and confusion. I'd even be happy to log into AWB myself, and make sure the roll out was successful. Wes Mouse ^Talk 02:25, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

• Support. The old format has long been a source of confusion for me, and undoubtedly for other editors. The change to the template is a definite improvement. --Tuxipedia (talk) 03:31, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

Well it's been 7 days, so today I've been through the 2781 transclusions and edited the 166 pages that needed updating. I'm 99% sure it went well, but since {{Escyr}} and {{Esccnty}} also use j=, d=, x=, I may have accidentally changed these, but these will be the next two templates to be updated with the above #switch. -- AxG / ✉  16:03, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

:@AxG: I noticed that {{Esccnty}} doesn't seem to add any further functionality that {{Esc}} has. Could we delete the template in favour of the newly updated template? Of course, all instances of the template would need to be replaced, but is that doable? --Tuxipedia (talk) 09:04, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

@Tuxipedia: there are functionality purposes behind both {{Esc}} and {{Esccnty}}. One adds a flag icon next to the country name, while the other does not use a flag icon. For example:

• {{Esc|Spain}} → Spain
• {{Esccnty|Spain}} → Spain

If we delete {{Esccnty}} template, then we would end up creating links like [[Spain in the Eurovision Song Contest|Spain]], in order to produce Spain. So I strongly oppose the proposal to delete what is a useful and widely used shortcut template. Wes Mouse ^Talk 14:11, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

@Tuxipedia:@Wesley Mouse: Whilst I don't support deleting it, it has been on my mind of merging it with {{Esc}}, it's just the time and coding I've not had. -- AxG / ✉  14:32, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

@AxG: Hmm, would a parameter such as |flag=y work on {{Esc}}? If that field had y then it would produce a flag when used, if n was input, no flag would appear. Just throwing in some ideas. Wes Mouse ^Talk 14:36, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

@Wesley Mouse: I'm sure it would yes, I've already had that kind of parameter working on {{infobox song contest}} with the map colours. I've also got User:AxG/sandbox/9 which has the updated for {{Esccnty}}, but I was still testing it. -- AxG / ✉  14:44, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

@Wesley Mouse: Ah. I hadn't noticed the flag difference. Thanks for pointing that out. In which case deleting it is indeed out of the question. @AxG: As for a merge, I think it could be a waste of time if the flag parameter has to be inserted into each instance of the template, even if there is a default value for one with/without flags. While we'd have one less template, it could potentially become unnecessarily cluttered. But then again, you certainly have far more experience than I do, so I'm uncertain. --Tuxipedia (talk) 18:37, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

@Tuxipedia: A merge is not the most important thing at the moment, but I should update {{Esccnty}} and {{Escyr}} with the updated switch code, as I know you've been fixing some of the mistakes I made when updating {{Esc}}. -- AxG / ✉  19:09, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

@Tuxipedia: @Wesley Wolf: {{Escyr}} has been updated, again some errors may have occurred that need to be fixed. -- AxG / ✉  11:36, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

@AxG: I had noticed when I opened my watchlist a short while ago and saw dozens and dozens of green dots. Well done! If I see any errors, I'll clean them up. One of these days, I should take it upon myself to learn to use AWB. It looks endlessly useful. —Tuxipεdia^(talk) 11:46, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Nice work @AxG:. Just done a quick test and it works superbly. Not sure if I am losing the plot, but {{Esccnty}} doesn't seem to recognise the Choir parameter. Wes Wolf ^Talk 11:48, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

@Wesley Wolf: {{Esccnty}} has had a quick fix for now, "c=Choir" -- AxG / ✉  12:10, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

@AxG: Will the switch option work on {{Abuyr}} and {{Tscyr}}? Wes Wolf ^Talk 11:48, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Inaccuracy in Infobox Musical Artist

One of the biggest shames with the infobox on JESC artists, and potentially several ESC artists, is that after the contest, there are no longer any reliable sources to state the activity of the artist. As a result, infoboxes are often left with the years_active field stating a group is presently active, even when there is no guarantee that this is the case. For instance, in the case of the Ksenia Sitnik, despite no sources to prove activity since 2010, the infobox states she has been present from 2005 — present. According to WP:BLP, this is strictly forbidden. What are your thoughts? — Tuxipεdia^(talk) 08:52, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

@Tuxipedia: It would probably be better to post this on the talk page of the template itself, as it is not one that is exclusive to this project. Artists come under the scope of the projects too, and not just this one. However, that said, this is the problem we will sadly come across when stubs are created and then go stale and forgotten about. Take all of the [Country] in any contest articles, for example. All of them were not quite deserted, but were left to rot in their stub status. Thankfully, I have taken it upon myself (see list) to bring them all up to a C-class state. Maybe it is time to readdress this whole article creating matter. If an article is only ever going to be a stub, and will unlikely be expanded beyond such classification, then maybe it is time to consider merging the content into the relevant [Country] in a [Contest] by [Year]. And should the case arise where bio content can expand in the future, that we can then implement WP:SPLIT and give such bios their own standalone article, which would undoubtedly sustain WP:GNG and WP:MUSICBIO, and reduce the chance of WP:XfD's. Afterall, creating a stub is still our personal time being used, only for it to be wasted when our work is deleted for failing to fulfil even the simplest of policies. We should act now, and not sit back and let our work disappear. Wes Wolf ^Talk 11:46, 17 April 2017 (UTC)