Talk:Eurovision Song Contest 1996

the countries that failed to qualify should not be listed as withdrawing

they failed to qualify through the semi-final. for consistency throughout all eurovision articles, only countries that actually withdrew should be listed under withdrawing countries. the number of participating countries should also changed to reflect the total number participating.(including those that failed to qualify through the semi-final.)84.213.46.153 (talk) 18:40, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Not a chance of that ever happening. It was not an official semifinal, it was a "pre-qualification round" as too many countries wanted to take part. This is all detailed in the article, and even the official Eurovision and EBU websites do not classify the round as a semifinal. They do however, show the same countries as we have, as being withdrawn. We cannot deviate away from reliable sources, as this violates verifying rules and may result in blocking sanctions from future editing. Wes Mouse | ^T@lk 18:45, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Calculation of qualification for 1997

Looking at the qualification table, I suspect the EBU treated not qualifying in 1996 as 0 points - I've never heard that Israel withdrew voluntarily from 1997, and can't find any source whatsoever to back that up. If you treat their NQ in 1996 as 0 points, their average score drops below that of Bosnia, which would then fit perfectly. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TF100 (talk • contribs) 09:50, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

I did find this now deleted page on eurovision.tv that states "Israel withdrew voluntarily". It doesn't elaborate beyond that but it is from a very reliable source. dummelaksen (talk) 11:16, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Eurosong

Is there any reason it was "Eurosong" for just this year? The official website merely notes it in passing, and researching it with Google is difficult. It stands out because the Father Ted episode "A Song for Europe" - broadcast a month earlier - goes out of its way to never use the word "Eurovision", calling the contest "Eurosong" throughout, perhaps accidentally that's actually what the contest was called that year. -Ashley Pomeroy (talk) 14:24, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

GA Review

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 review is transcluded from Talk:Eurovision Song Contest 1996/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Onegreatjoke (talk · contribs) 18:25, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Hello. I have decided that I will review this article. Comments should come tomorrow or the day after. Onegreatjoke (talk) 18:25, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a. (prose, spelling, and grammar):

   b. (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a. (reference section):

   b. (citations to reliable sources):

   c. (OR):

   d. (copyvio and plagiarism):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a. (major aspects):

   b. (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.

   a. (images are tagged and non-free content have non-free use rationales):

   b. (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/fail:

(Criteria marked are unassessed)

Prose

Intro

• "The entries from Denmark, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Macedonia, Romania and Russia were" Comma after Romania.
• "Norway, Sweden, Croatia and Estonia took the" Comma after Croatia.
• "with Croatia, Estonia and Portugal, which placed sixth" Comma after Estonia.

Location

• "which has hosted music concerts, ice hockey matches and the annual Nobel Peace Prize Concert." comma after matches

Participating countries

• "however planned entries from Bulgaria, Moldova and Ukraine" comma after however and Moldova.

@Onegreatjoke: Reminder that this review is still ongoing and it's now been three weeks since your last comment. Sims2aholic8 (talk) 11:28, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

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I'll review this article. — Golden ^talk

Lead

• Change [[Oslo]], [[Norway]] to [[Oslo, Norway]] per MOS:OVERLINK.
  • Since the correct link to the city is [[Oslo]] and not [[Oslo, Norway]], I have instead removed the link to [[Norway]], which should achieve the same aim. Sims2aholic8 (talk) 19:57, 28 August 2023 (UTC)
    • Ideally, it would be [[Oslo|Oslo, Norway]], but that's not a requirement. — Golden ^talk
• This should be applied to the entire article: There are several instances of false titles in the article, such as "Norwegian singer" instead of "the Norwegian singer". I suggest correcting them.
  • I'm not sure I understand how in this case these are false titles. Doesn't a title have to be a noun? Nationalities are not titles, they're adjectives. If it was something like "famed Norwegian singer" then sure, I would get your point, but I feel that calling someone Norwegian just by itself shouldn't be controversial. Sims2aholic8 (talk) 19:57, 28 August 2023 (UTC)
    • Yes, that was a mistake on my part. — Golden ^talk
• the best results to date - Do you mean "their best results to date"?
  • Thanks for spotting that. Now corrected. Sims2aholic8 (talk) 19:57, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

Location

• Please apply my first suggestion to this section as well.
• The arena's maximum capacity of 11,500 was reduced to around 6,000 for the contest. - How can the maximum capacity of an arena be reduced? Were parts of the arena physically removed to make it smaller?
  • Typically venues like the Oslo Spektrum have all-around seating to facilitate different types of event. In this case one side of the seating was most likely removed to make space for the stage and the orchestra. As this wasn't included in the ref I haven't included this information here (WP:OR). To resolve any confusion I've reworded this sentence.
    • Much better. — Golden ^talk

Participating countries

• No changes required.

Production

• "blue room" - Can you give a brief description of what this is?
  • I've had a go at rewriting this section to be a bit clearer about how the voting segment worked. Sims2aholic8 (talk) 19:57, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

Format

• I'm not sure if it's necessary to wikilink "backpack". It's a pretty common word.
• President of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina - Considering that the relevant article is titled "Chairman of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina", I would change "President" here to "Chairman".
  • The title of this post was changed in October 1996, which was after the contest, therefore "President" is the era-appropriate term here, and is the term used on screen during the contest and in the sources. Sims2aholic8 (talk) 19:57, 28 August 2023 (UTC)
    • TIL. Thanks for that. — Golden ^talk

Contest overview

• Romania and Russia - Since the Oxford comma has been used previously in the article, it should be added here as well.
• I suggest merging the first two paragraphs of the "Final" section to avoid having a one-sentence paragraph.
• stev, jazz and Norwegian folk music - Missing an Oxford comma.
• The winner was Ireland represented by the song "The Voice" - Missing a comma after "Ireland".
• Estonia and Portugal - Missing an Oxford comma.
• I'm concerned about the duplicate links in this section. Country articles, which generally don't require wikilinking, are linked two or even three times in this section, such as Croatia. I suggest removing the wikilinks from the tables to address this issue.
  • Per MOS:REPEATLINK, Generally, a link should appear only once in an article, but it may be repeated if helpful for readers, such as in infoboxes, tables, image captions, footnotes, hatnotes, and at the first occurrence in a section, therefore I believe that links within the tables should remain. In many cases I believe readers will go directly to specific tables to find the information they are looking for, and I believe that removing the links here would be remove important functionality to aid users in finding links to other relevant articles. Additionally not every link that has the same output (e.g. country names) will have the same link; some articles, such as in the tables, go to the individual "country in contest by year" articles (e.g. Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest 1996) while others will link to the overall "country in contest" (e.g. Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest). I believe this distinction in linkage is required depending on the contest of the paragraph or table. There are very few instances where there are links to the actual country articles themselves (zero now I believe with the removal of the [[Norway]] links), and within prose I believe that any instance of repeat linkage to a given article has been addressed. Sims2aholic8 (talk) 19:57, 28 August 2023 (UTC)
    • You're right. Struck my original comment. — Golden ^talk

Detailed voting results

• Iceland and Slovakia - Missing an Oxford comma.
• Same concern here with duplicate links, where one table has two of the same link.
  • As above, I believe the exception per MOS:REPEATLINK is applicable here, especially given the repeat links are in different columns. Sims2aholic8 (talk) 19:57, 28 August 2023 (UTC)
    • Yep. — Golden ^talk
• Portugal and the United Kingdom - Missing an Oxford comma.

Broadcasts

• No changes required.

References

• In some instances, there are more than three references in the same location, exceeding the recommended number of references. I suggest reviewing these instances and reducing the number of references wherever possible.
  • I believe there is a difference between having a large number of references and an excessively large number of references. I don't believe I have put in more than the required references needed to cover all the points within any given sentence or paragraph. I've only spotted one instance of more than three citations in a group within prose (within the "Final" section covering notable finishes for Croatia et al.), and I believe all of these references are required to cover the information sufficiently and achieve necessary verifiability. The alternative I believe would be to split the sentence in two, which would then lead to two very short sentences. Any other cases of more than three cites are within table headers, so I don't personally see an issue with readability here compared to if it were within a prose segment. Sims2aholic8 (talk) 19:57, 28 August 2023 (UTC)
• Spot-checked references #7, 19, 26, 34, 52, and 53.

• No issues found with the spot-checked references.

General comments

• Images used are relevant and free.
• Earwig's detector does not show any copyright violations.
• The article is in a pretty good shape. I look forward to seeing your revisions in response to my suggestions. — Golden ^talk 17:25, 24 August 2023 (UTC)
  • @Golden: Thanks very much for jumping in on this, and thanks for such a thorough review. I appreciate your patience with my brief period of absence just as you started this review. I have addressed all of the minor points above, and for some of the more complex points in some cases I have made some amendments to the article and in others I have left some comments. I look forward to hearing back from you and addressing any further questions or concerns that you have ahead of promoting the article. Sims2aholic8 (talk) 19:57, 28 August 2023 (UTC)
    • @Sims2aholic8: Sorry for some of the uninformed comments. I've struck them out. I have no issues remaining with the article, so I will be passing it. Congratulations! — Golden ^talk 09:27, 29 August 2023 (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.

Visual effects

As to the sequence: "NRK introduced visual effects to the contest for the first time. Computer-generated imagery (CGI) was featured as overlays during the broadcast of the competing entries [...]"

As far as I can see, none of the sources quoted support these claims. "Visual effects" is a very broad term, in my opinion. Already a simple animation, such as Eurocat in 1990, is a visual effect, right? So it's not entirely clear what "first time" is being referred to here. I can neither understand in which aspect the "overlays" (giving the title, artists and country of each entry, shown briefly at the bottom as an animated overlay during the performances) are new. There are similar overlays in the 1994 contest, for example. EurovisionLibrarian (talk) 15:13, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

Potentially this section could do with some rewriting to make it clearer. The overlays, CGI and visual effects mentioned here specifically refer mainly to the artistic elements that featured in the performances that made it more "music video"-like and less like a standard television production. This is something that is quite common in modern contests but it was very new in 1996. It's definitely not meant to refer to the overlays which list the song and artist etc. which have existed in some shape or form since the 1960s and became more advanced using CGI in the 1980s. Sims2aholic8 (talk) 15:25, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

Alright, thank you for clarification! EurovisionLibrarian (talk) 08:24, 6 March 2024 (UTC)