Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Song Contests

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Comment: Are we forgetting about Czechoslovakia on maps?, or are we taking a myth for granted? Because if it is true that ČST was a member of the EBU between 1991 and 1992, it was eligible at least in 1992 and we are not taking that into account in maps.

But that whole thing sounds strange to me. The OIRT was merged into the EBU on 1 January 1993; did ČST really become a member before that, being the only OIRT member to do so, when the full integration of OIRT was already on schedule? Integration wasn't immediate; it surely took time. It's odd that ČST became a member before 1993. And Czechoslovakia was dissolved also on 1 January 1993, and ČST assets were transferred to ČT and STV before that, so the ones becoming EBU members that date were ČT and STV; therefore, ČST may never have been a member of the EBU. I did a quick investigation on the subject and found nothing, and the only reference to it in the EBU article does not mention ČST membership at all (or at least I couldn't find it). Could it be a myth that we're taking for something real? Or am I missing something? Does anyone have any real knowledge about this?

If this is false, the information about it will have to be removed from the corresponding articles; if it is true, Czechoslovakia is missing from the maps. Ferclopedio (talk) 21:00, 30 June 2026 (UTC)

ČST participated on Jeux sans frontières season 23 on Summer 1992. This may be a clue. Ferclopedio (talk) 21:21, 30 June 2026 (UTC)

How would Czechoslovakia be missing tho? We don't include non-existent countries on modern day maps (unless ofc we're talking about the entire history of a contest). Czechoslovakia is irrelevant to ESC, JESC, EYD etc. — IмSтevan ^talk 21:25, 30 June 2026 (UTC)

I'm talking about the full participation green map, if ČST was a member in 1992 it has to be there in yellow. Ferclopedio (talk) 21:30, 30 June 2026 (UTC)

Ooooh, noted. That is true and it will be added — IмSтevan ^talk 21:32, 30 June 2026 (UTC)

Comment: @ImStevan, I don't want to be too picky, but I don't know if you've noticed on the boxes, but on the Yugoslavia, Serbia and Montenegro, and Czechoslovakia boxes, the only country in color is the country we are referring to. But in the Canada box, you've colored Russia, Iceland, and Greenland, that are two different criteria for the same thing. And in the developed UK box, Ireland is missing. Wouldn't it be better, for the sake of consistency, if in the Canada box everything that isn't Canada were in light grey and in the developed UK box, the part of Ireland visible is added also in light grey?. Ferclopedio (talk) 22:22, 30 June 2026 (UTC)

No. YUG, SCG and CSK are historic countries and colouring in their surroundings would cause confusion as to what time period the map is supposed to represent, the time of debut, or last participation, or final days of existence or smthn else entirely. The UK has no surroundings because it represents their internal division. The only alternative I can think of is deleting those historic countries' surroundings as well — IмSтevan ^talk 13:05, 1 July 2026 (UTC)

Deleting those historic countries' surroundings would make things worse, as countries would be more difficult to identify (surroundings are a big help on that), and would give the false impression that they are islands. Ferclopedio (talk) 19:42, 1 July 2026 (UTC)

Deleting the surroundings but labelling the boxes with their ISO-3 names? (YUG, SCG, CSK), since that works regardless of which language project it is — IмSтevan ^talk 19:55, 1 July 2026 (UTC)

Nononono, better not to add codes :) Ferclopedio (talk) 20:03, 1 July 2026 (UTC)

So just keeping everything as is? — IмSтevan ^talk 20:09, 1 July 2026 (UTC)

I agree from the beginning that YUG, SCG and CSK should have their surroundings in light gray. And I still believe that for consistency with them, Canada should also have its surroundings in light gray, and that Ireland is missing in the developed UK box (this does not detract from the fact that the box represents the parts of the United Kingdom). Thus, each box only colors the country it represents, but I see that I am not able to convince you of this. Ferclopedio (talk) 20:32, 1 July 2026 (UTC)

I mean, that means that we only disagree on the UK, which I am firm about. It's only an internal division map, and showing anything outside of the UK would detract from it and make it more confusing — IмSтevan ^talk 20:44, 1 July 2026 (UTC)

Comment: Now I'm glad we made these changes so early — IмSтevan ^talk 13:05, 1 July 2026 (UTC)

How fitting, Canada announcement on Canada Day.  AxG / ✉  18:31, 1 July 2026 (UTC)

I just found out and I can only say WAAAAAAAAAT! :) Ferclopedio (talk) 19:42, 1 July 2026 (UTC)

Comment: @ImStevan, for the decades of debut we are using this map since this discussion per accessibility. Ferclopedio (talk) 20:46, 2 July 2026 (UTC)

Noted, I'll update that one — IмSтevan ^talk 21:45, 2 July 2026 (UTC)

We have another issue, in the host cities map, Shouldn't Zagreb be in Yugoslavia instead of Croatia? Ferclopedio (talk) 22:11, 2 July 2026 (UTC)

Well yes and no. Zagreb is still a city that exists and it exists in modern day Croatia — IмSтevan ^talk 22:14, 2 July 2026 (UTC)

Yes but Zagreb hosted when Yugoslavia, and Yugoslavia is the country that should be painted green (in its box) instead Croatia, as the contest has never been hosted in Croatia as an independent country. Ferclopedio (talk) 22:19, 2 July 2026 (UTC)

but Zagreb is still in the same spot on the map, idk. Even as a part of Yugoslavia it was Croatia that hosted so I never saw this as much of an issue — IмSтevan ^talk 22:29, 2 July 2026 (UTC)

Yes, but all the legends and captions of the colours of the map says "counties that has hosted.." and Croatia has never hosted, Yugoslavia did, and if we paint green Croatia, the maps is totally anachronistic, Croatia didn't exist as a country when the contest was hosted in Zagreb. And in the map we are painting the Countries hosting.

Isn't this exactly why we're adding the boxes? We paint Yugoslavia when participated, when debuted, but not when hosted? That has no sense. Ferclopedio (talk) 22:40, 2 July 2026 (UTC)

And if with "it was Croatia that hosted" you mean RTV Zagreb, it was on behalf of JRT representing the whole Yugoslavia, as JRT was the EBU member broadcaster then. Ferclopedio (talk) 22:45, 2 July 2026 (UTC)

I suppose you're right — IмSтevan ^talk 22:59, 2 July 2026 (UTC)

Fixed — IмSтevan ^talk 23:17, 2 July 2026 (UTC)

Another user has reverted the change. But why is Yugoslavia so tiny, at least make it larger or the same size box as Canada and Australia.  AxG / ✉  14:56, 3 July 2026 (UTC)

On the participation map, Yugoslavia and Serbia & Montenegro used to be stacked for a short period of time before Czechoslovakia was added, both together having the same box height as the Australia box. When we added Czechoslovakia, I moved the two to be next to eachother, retaining the size. That is also the size used in the host city map — IмSтevan ^talk 15:12, 3 July 2026 (UTC)

I understand why it was included, but I really oppose the line linking the markers for Zagreb in both the Yugoslavia box and present-day Croatia. Initially I thought it was an error when creating the file, a mistake that wasn't removed before publishing, before I realised what it actually meant. I get that Zagreb continues to exist as a city post-Yugoslav collapse, but I don't see why it's important to show it both in the Yugoslavia box and in Croatia, especially when Croatia as a modern-day nation hasn't hosted it. I think just having it included in the Yugoslavia box is perfectly fine, we don't need to be overcomplicating things here, and I personally believe the current format raises more questions on the reader than it answers. mdeire (formerly Sims2aholic8) (talk) 15:02, 4 July 2026 (UTC)

I also think we can make the Yugoslavia box bigger in this map; there's no reason it can't be to the same scale as the now-independent individual republics within the main map. mdeire (formerly Sims2aholic8) (talk) 15:03, 4 July 2026 (UTC)

I also think that the line is too much. One Zagreb in Yugoslavia and the comment we have in the map description and the note in the map caption in the host cities article is enough.

The other issue in the hosts map current version is the dark purple. I understand the move for better accessibility, but it was achieved right the opposite, with a shade so dark the markers are difficult to see, making the map less accessible. The point is to have a shade darker than the shade of the green, but no too dark to hide the markers.

Regarding the size of the boxes, please don't consider only one specific map. We are trying to make all maps across all Eurovision events as coherent and aligned as possible, placing the boxes in the same place/order and with the same size on all maps. The worst case scenario we have is the full ESC participation map, the boxes must look good there and there must be room for future additions, the other maps are variations of this with less boxes. It wouldn't make sense, either for consistency, maintenance, or clarity, for the boxes to be different sizes on each map. Ferclopedio (talk) 19:23, 4 July 2026 (UTC)

And it wouldn't make any sense to put Yugoslavia the same size as Australia and Canada as in here either. Ferclopedio (talk) 19:25, 4 July 2026 (UTC)

Sanremo standardization

Right now the Sanremo pages use multiple names to refer to the shows- the most recent years have "First night", some of the years before have "First evening" and then some of the articles for older years have "Semi-final 1" which lines up with the infoboxes.

With Sanremo's branding as a festival rather than a contest and the fact that nobody refers to the shows as semi-finals in Italian or English anyway, it makes sense to refer to them as either nights or evenings. Some kind of standardization just needs to be established, between "First night", "First evening" or "Night 1" and then for the articles and infoboxes to be changed accordingly. I'm also not sure whether the final should be referred to as the "Third/Fourth/Fifth night" or the "Final night". CasaCrimson (talk) 08:39, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

I also support the standardization. Although "serata" is literally evening, they are more commonly referred to in English as "night". And "night" is a good term in this case, because evening shows are commonly associated with nightlife (such as in "Opening Night"). So, I say, "First night", "Second night", etc. And regarding the last night, I would opt for "Final night". Just a google search brings up thousands of references about the "serata finale" or "gran finale", and for consistency, to differentiate from the previous nights, and to remark that is the final, I think "Final night" is better (keeping the night as a Sanremo feature). Ferclopedio (talk) 18:14, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

There are some weird cases with shows after the "Final night" though, such as the independent composers competition from 1957, the "Votofestival" from 1961/1962, the UNICEF Gala from 1975 etc, where I don't know what they'd be referred to as, or if they should be included at all in the infoboxes/show overviews. It might make more sense to always refer to shows by their number and add some kind of subtitle like "Final", "Newcomers final", " Cover night", "Independent composers" in the show overview section, which is what Italian Wikipedia does. CasaCrimson (talk) 22:33, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

Right now, the infobox supports up to five semis (nights) and a final for the main competition, but it does not support any post-final shows. We also don't have in the infobox pre-shows like Sanremo Giovani. For sure those pre- and post- shows should be covered in the prose, but we don't have them in the infobox.

I think that for simplicity, consistence, and maintenance, in the infobox and in the section headers is better to have only "First night", "Second night", etc... and to explain in the prose what was that night about. The "Final night" goes in its "final" parameter in the infobox, so it is not treated as another night, and if we name it by the ordinal, it can generate confusion, and it may seem that the final is missing. If you think that "Final night" can be interpreted as meaning the last night rather than the night of the final, and this clashes with having post-final shows, we can leave the final as simply "Final". Ferclopedio (talk) 23:33, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

Since the infobox has values for qualifying rounds, heats, semi-finals, final and superfinal, you can easily accomodate 20 different nights. You simply rename the labels. To make things easier, if there is one post-final night, you can use the superfinal value, and just rename it — IмSтevan ^talk 00:28, 27 June 2026 (UTC)

Yes, and we can adapt the infobox by adding new parameters if it's worthwhile in some format. The point is that adding pre- and post-shows dates to the infobox that aren't from the main competition just adds noise and isn't consistent with its use elsewhere.

In Sanremo, we already use the semis parameters, which are the ones that make sense and are specified in the infobox documentation, we just need to standardize the name of this semis (nights), and update them accordingly.

And by the way, we don't have a parameter in the infobox for a superfinal (yet). Ferclopedio (talk) 08:59, 27 June 2026 (UTC)

Here's my two cents: standardization is good if we talk about things with the same meaning/function. However, not all Sanremo editions have had the same concept in their competition. In early years, we have real semi-finals, i.e. two heats with a certain amount of songs qualifying for a grand final. In today's Sanremo editions, none of the participating entries gets eliminated between night 1 and 5. For some editions, e.g. 1981 or 1985, the exact format or the number of shows and their function (qualifying or not qualifying heat) is not specified in the article. I would advocate for calling the final "final", shows with a qualifying element either "heat" or "semi-final" (if it's two heats) and all other shows (or shows where we don't know for sure whether they had a qualifying element) either "1st/2nd/3rd night" or with their name of theme, like "cover night", see e.g. the example of Festivali i Kenges 63 with two semi-finals, a "nostalgia night" and a final. EurovisionLibrarian (talk) 18:06, 27 June 2026 (UTC)

The function of heats and semi-finals are the same, but Melodifestivalen specifically uses the term heat so that's what's on Wikipedia. It's just the name of the shows, there's no reason a "first night" couldn't have eliminations as well. And for Sanremo, sources from the 50s and 60s still say "serate" despite the format being different, so I don't see why the names should be inconsistent. CasaCrimson (talk) 02:43, 28 June 2026 (UTC)

Slight correction: the usage the term 'heat' within Melodifestivalen articles has a bit of a more complicated history. Originally we did use the term 'semi-final', but when the 'second chance' round was rebranded for the 2022 contest as 'semi-final' in Swedish a new term was needed. The Swedish word that has been consistently used by SVT since 2002, 'deltävling', literally means 'part (of a) competition', and thus doesn't have a direct English translation that we could readily use. 'Heat' was the best option as discussed by WikiProject members, and was retroactively applied to all Melfests going back to 2002, since apart from the second chance/final kval round, the structure has essentially been the same since then. mdeire (formerly Sims2aholic8) (talk) 12:41, 1 July 2026 (UTC)

'Heat' is also used in sources that we use, though I don't recall if sources came up with it first as the English term or if it was orignally circular. Grk1011 (talk) 13:22, 2 July 2026 (UTC)

I was unaware, thanks for the correction. If the standard on Wikipedia is to use the term semi-final for anything with that format then that's fine.

Following EurovisionLibrarian's proposal, from what I can gather about the formats from Italian Wikipedia: 1951-1976, 1979-1983 would have semi-finals and 1977-1978, 1984-2026 would have nights. What about 2013-2014, are the first two nights where half the songs in the big artists section are eliminated, semi-finals? Or does the inclusion of a newcomers section rule this out? CasaCrimson (talk) 19:37, 1 July 2026 (UTC)

Standardising host city bidding table formats

A while ago, before the list of bidding cities for the Eurovision Song Contest 2027 was established, I noticed that the table listing cities that had expressed interest in hosting was removed based on the reasoning that "it is customary to only have actual bids in table". That seemed reasonable to me. However, upon examining previous contest articles, this has not been an established practice – articles for all editions this decade have included cities that expressed interest but never submitted a bid. The current guidance in the Format and Guides section here is defined quite broadly.

I would therefore propose limiting tables to cities that actually submitted bids, with expressions of interest mentioned only in prose. As far as I am aware, cities that never progressed beyond an expression of interest are generally not notable for that fact alone, hence this change would also align with Wikipedia's principles of due weight and avoidance of indiscriminate inclusion of information.

Also, while having previously hosted the contest or adjacent events (such as national finals or the junior variant) is likely useful context for the "Notes" column in such tables, I am not sure this applies to examples such as the Geneva International Motor Show, the 2014 Davis Cup semi-finals or the 2019 Laver Cup (all noted for Geneva in 2025, but there are more such cases). Should notes be limited to endorsements from local or municipal governments and related events? Agwjkl (talk) 01:58, 13 July 2026 (UTC)

I'd support removing cities that merely expressed interest but never bid, however, there is an issue where sometimes it's not known exactly which cities bid to host. Motor shows are not exactly relevant to this, but something like a sports tournament, based on the scale of production needed, is likely relevant — IмSтevan ^talk 13:49, 13 July 2026 (UTC)

Thanks Agwjkl, I'm in alignment with you (and am the editor who removed the info before). Unless an entity actually bids, it does feel a bit of a stretch to include 'interest', which is loosely defined in general. I've seen city councilors, mayors, tourism execs, etc. say they're interested in bidding, but it's hard to parse out if those individuals are even in positions to make those calls; we don't know the specific politics of each city. I like the approach of table for actual bids and mentions of interest in prose. Grk1011 (talk) 21:09, 13 July 2026 (UTC)

I concur with Grk1011 and Agwjkl on this, I believe bid tables are relevant only for cities which are known to have actually bid. Everything else should be included in summary in prose; if this means that, as in the case of 2026, where only two cities actually bid, then I think a table listing only two cities is rather redundant, and therefore everything should be placed in prose. mdeire (formerly Sims2aholic8) (talk) 15:32, 19 July 2026 (UTC)

Oh I very much disagree with that. Even two cities merit a table, for consistency and easy overview's sake — IмSтevan ^talk 19:06, 19 July 2026 (UTC)

Honestly, I do not have a particularly strong opinion on this. I would personally support removing the tables altogether, as in all cases I have come across, the relevant information could be sufficiently covered in prose. That said, I recognise that such a change would probably be too drastic and, in any case, I get both your and @ImStevan's points. Agwjkl (talk) 00:36, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

I have not come across any such cases myself, but if they do exist, I think it would be better to omit the table and simply summarise the available information in prose. If we do not know which cities submitted bids, that could indicate that the process (or at least how it was communicated publicly) was different from what we have seen in past years, in which case presenting a table of presumed bidders would create a false equivalence with contests where the bidding process is actually documented.

As for the "Notes" column, I now strongly lean towards limiting it to previous contest-related events, such as the Eurovision Song Contest, Junior Eurovision, national finals, etc. We have to draw the line somewhere, as venues host countless events every year and there is currently no clear or objective basis for deciding which unrelated ones should be mentioned. Without some form of criterion, the selection inevitably becomes arbitrary; in the vast majority of cases, information about other events is already covered in the venue's own article. Agwjkl (talk) 00:29, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

ESC Gabe

Can we consider Gabe a reliable source? It seems to me that his posts/claims have a perfect track record of coming true, ie. he only posts about things that end up being announced soon afterwards. I think we should be allowed to cite his posts in articles — IмSтevan ^talk 11:39, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

No, we can't per:

1) WP:SELFPUBLISH and WP:RSSELF = "Self-published material, such as books, newsletters, [...], and social media posts, are largely not acceptable as sources."

2) "things that end up being announced soon afterwards." = WP:CRYSTAL. Until the official announcement is made, everything is mere speculation, so it is not acceptable. Ferclopedio (talk) 20:20, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

I agree with Ferclopedio on this, it would be a massive violation of SELFPUBLISH and RSSELF, just as it would be if we were to use any self-published social media creator/influencer accounts as secondary sources. As far as I can tell, although ESCGabe does have a reputation as being a reliable creator within the ESC fandom, and may have been referenced/interviewed by media outlets in the past, that still doesn't affect the issues around using self-published content such as this. We should always be using independent publications for our secondary sources, and definitely not relying on social media creators. mdeire (formerly Sims2aholic8) (talk) 09:19, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

Druk Dra

I've started a discussion on merging Druk Dra into Bhutan in the Eurovision Song Contest Asia — IмSтevan ^talk 13:10, 28 July 2026 (UTC)