Wikipedia:WikiProject Eurovision/Article guidelines

This page aims to establish guidelines based on consensus of Wikipedians and members of WikiProject Eurovision. These guidelines aim to standardise Eurovision articles and compliment the writing better articles guideline. At present these guidelines are advisory and editors are not obliged to follow them.

Naming
All names and titles that appear on pages where Eurovision is the sole topic should be written as they are by the European Broadcasting Union, the organizer of the event. Regardless of the guidelines for transliteration and spelling on Wikipedia, the most accurate naming for a Eurovision article is the name that the contest used.


 * Song names should be written as they are on the official website of the Eurovision contest, however, normal capitalization conventions should be maintained. The song's individual page should be inline with that of the main Eurovision page, unless the song was released under a different name or spelling, unrelated to the Contest, which in that case would warrant the other spelling to take precedent.


 * The Republic of Macedonia should always be referred to as "Macedonia" regardless of its official name at the Contest, per the Wikipedia-wide naming policy for international organizations as seen here. The lead of articles pertaining to Macedonia's participation shall be worded to reflect that Macedonia takes part in the Contest as "FYR Macedonia".


 * Though the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia took part in the 1992 Contest and not the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia which had taken part in the years preceding, the Eurovision Song Contest refers to these two countries as the same entity: the collective term "Yugoslavia". No where in Eurovision only articles should anything other than the term "Yugoslavia" be used to describe either country and articles should read as if it were the same country that debuted in 1961 and appeared 27 times until its last in 1992. This stance is supported by the Contest and any other convention would not detail what happened at the Contest.

Selection processes
Every "Country in the Eurovision Song Contest Year" article should detail the way through which the country selected its entrant. For the countries that hold national finals, every aspect should be included. Things that should be avoided however are detailed descriptions of the outfits and routines, unless they are particularly notable, as alleged in a reliable source.

For most countries, a year specific national final is held. The final may not continue in the same manner the following year and is just what the network decided to do one year. Details of these selection processes should be written on the "Country in the Eurovision Song Contest Year" pages and should not be broken off into their own articles at a later date. They are solely dependent on the country's entry that year and may not be notable enough for their own pages.

Some countries' national finals are referred to by a specific name and are repeated each year, such as Sweden's Melodifestivalen. If the event's sole purpose is to chose the Eurovision entrant, the article should be completely developed on the "Country in the Eurovision Song Contest Year" only. Do not create a separate page for the event. By the end of the contest, if enough material is present to create a substantial article, then and only then, will the event be split of onto its own page. The rationale behind this is so that there are not two pages ("Country in the Eurovision Song Contest Year" and the event's) where the same information needs to be added to both. Once a selection event is given its own page, the corresponding section on the "Country in the Eurovision Song Contest Year" page will be trimmed down to an overview of the selection, however, there must be enough information present so that a reader will not need to visit the other page in order to have a complete understanding of the selection process and its relevance to the country's entry that year.

In some circumstances, a long standing musical competition, such as Albania's Festivali I Kenges, are used to select the Eurovision entry. In this case, the event is not solely dependent on Eurovision and it should therefore have its own article from the start. Inclusion on the "Country in the Eurovision Song Contest Year" would diminish its cultural value and reduce it to simply a selection process for Eurovision, which is not the case and would be misleading. When a long standing competition in involved, once again an overview is necessary on the "Country in the Eurovision Song Contest Year" page and this should detail everything relevant to the selection of the entrant for Eurovision in the same way as described above.

In the case that the country used an internal selection, an internal selection section on the "Country in the Eurovision Song Contest Year" detailing the milestones of the process will suffice (candidates, dates, etc).

Formatting

 * How to deal with terms that need to be linked, but are bold??

Sourcing

 * Should be added with the conclusions of Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Eurovision.