melina wrote:

minka h wrote:Juries are oldfashioned and traditional and yes, predictable.

I'm sorry to disagree with you, Minka (must be the first time ), but I really, really don't think voting could get any more predictable than it's now...

And I do agree with wildpt that the current system makes some contries to be in disadvantage.

Gee, I wonder why. Maybe because nowadays, there are many acts whose finishing positions are easy to predict due to their quality!

I mean, who didn't bet Ukraine, Russia and Greece would do well this year? Just because we don't have surprise winners doesn't mean it's bad. Unpredictability is not by nature good. Marie N's "I Wanna" in 2001, anyone? And yet, we still have surprises. Only the surprises are less about Top Finishers nowadays but more about people we expect to finish in the top who don't.

I don't want a system where random s*** happens and BS entries might win while less BS:y ones might not due to weird jury voting just to make things less predictable. If you want less predictability, petition each country to send in a good entry so that no one can tell who the heck's gonna end up Top 10.

caramela001 wrote:But Finland has a few neighbours (the same it always had) and, as far as I know, no diaspora and yet, they won. Norway finished 5th this year. Sweden on the other hand (with same neighbours as Norway and Finland) was a huge failure, even if it was a big favourite. Croatia has about the same amount of neighbours as Norway and Finland and Sweden and this year, they finished 21st.
So, doesn't that prove that the song/artist/performance is what matters most of all?

What about Finland 2006? They were very smart that year, they sent a innovate and bold song that took Europe by suprise. Its the only way now a Western country can win, sending something very special, a masterpiece but songs like that appear once in a decade or even more.

This year Norway did an amazing performance but it was the last song to perform and still was 90points from 1st place, it wasnt a masterpiece, like i said its the only way to win nowadays for a Western country. Ill bet if Russia and Norway swapped songs the final scoreboard probably would have been the same.

Sweden has the same neigbours from Norway you are right but the position of Sweden was normal for a Western country, they got in second half of the table like Denmark, Iceland, Finland.

Norway was the exception this year as Croatia was the exception this year for a Eastearn country to not achieve first half of the table. So, this proves that eastern music was much better than western this year? Well i could be biased but i dont think so, i honestly think we had some amazing entries this year and most of the songs in the final scoreboard were underrated.

My top 5 this year would have been this... 1- Ukraine, 2- Iceland, 3-Portugal, 4-Israel, 5-Sweden

wildpt wrote:This year Norway did an amazing performance but it was the last song to perform and still was 90points from 1st place, it wasnt a masterpiece, like i said its the only way to win nowadays for a Western country. Ill bet if Russia and Norway swapped songs the final scoreboard probably would have been the same.

Sweden has the same neigbours from Norway you are right but the position of Sweden was normal for a Western country, they got in second half of the table like Denmark, Iceland, Finland.

Norway was the exception this year as Croatia was the exception this year for a Eastearn country to not achieve first half of the table. So, this proves that eastern music was much better than western this year? Well i could be biased but i dont think so, i honestly think we had some amazing entries this year and most of the songs in the final scoreboard were underrated.

My top 5 this year would have been this... 1- Ukraine, 2- Iceland, 3-Portugal, 4-Israel, 5-Sweden

You raise the example of Norway. Ok, I'll agree with you, great song, should end up higher.
But go take a look at the scoreboard and see what points Norway got from the west.
2 from Belgium, 2 from Portugal, 2 from Greece, 4 from Hungary, 1 from Andorra, 3 from Malta, 4 from the Netherlands, 0 from France, 0 from Switzerland, 0 from Germany, 0 from the Czech Republic! It almost got more points by ex soviet countries (56 points!)
So, whose fault is it that Norway didn't end up higher??? Is it the eastern block's conspiracy OR is it the fact that the west just didn't like it enough to vote more for it?
It's easy to blame everything on easten voting but shouldn't we examine how the west voted too?

Of course, when 36 countries vote for Russia (25 if we don't count ex soviet ones) and only 13 for Portugal (for example), it proves that eastern music was better this year, doesn't it? Norway was voted by 34 countries, including ALL ex soviet countries who voted for it, and it was only given 0 points by western countries plus Cyprus and FYROM.

Any country you tell me that had a good song and should be higher (like Portugal, which I also admit had a good song), I can PROVE to you that the west just didn't vote for!

How can the West give more points to western countries when our votting have the diaspora's problem. Its sad that EBU dont reveal the juries votes, what they're afraid? bah

wildpt wrote:How can the West give more points to western countries when our votting have the diaspora's problem. Its sad that EBU dont reveal the juries votes, what they're afraid? bah

How did the west give so many points to Finland in 2006? Where was the diaspora then?
How did Ireland manage to give 8 points to the UK and none to Portugal for example? And what kind of diaspora does Switzerland have that they managed to give 0 points to Norway?
Are you sure you're not looking for excuses?

wildpt wrote:How can the West give more points to western countries when our votting have the diaspora's problem. Its sad that EBU dont reveal the juries votes, what they're afraid? bah

What disapora? How the hell can diasapora voters vote more than "native" voters, really? Besides, not a single Western country gave Russia 12 points, IIRC. Russia, Greece and Ukraine enjoyed low points from the West. 8-1. Sometimes 0.

The majority of Western 12:ers, weren't given out to Eastern countries, either, so the diaspora didn't rob Norway of some kind of well-deserving victory. Norway just didn't get that many points, even from the West. It just got enough to make 5th.

Neither the West nor the East liked it enough to crown it 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th. Europe just didn't share your tastes, live with it!

No one was upset when "Molitva" won. It was a great entry. People seem to be upset because Russia won this year with an entry many felt wasn't good enough to win. Sure, it had gimmicks. Sure, his English isn't that great (but since when has that ever stood in the way of Eurovision victory?). Sure, the song could've been better. Sure, not everyone loves it.

But this can be said about many past (and future) ESC-winners! Not everyone is going to be happy about the victor. 43 countries voted, yet Dima achieved around the same scores as when only 25 or so countries voted a few years back (as in "winning score"), so Europe's tastes were just divided this year (pretty evenly among the Top 3).

What Dima had was a catchy and strong enough song and performance to stand out and be remembered. He also had gimmicks on stage, which obviously worked. The majority of viewers does not know about his supposed "divaness" during ESC-week, so they only judged him on what they saw at the final and they obviously liked it enough to crown it victor.

Best song ever? Hardly. One of the best of the night? Yes. Deserving winner? Yes. Europe crowned it winner, both the West and the East. You don't like it? Live with it.

I don't always like the winning song. But I can understand why they win. I don't have to like it but just because a song I didn't like/didn't like the most won doesn't mean I'll start whining about non-existent problems or exaggerate problems like some of you are doing.

Russia deserved to win this year. So did Greece and Ukraine, but they just weren't good enough. Do you see the Greeks or Ukrainian whine about losing out due to diaspora and neighbour voting among the Ex-USSR's? No, because Greece and Ukraine are among some of the ESC's current top dogs, almost always finishing high (Top10).

Why? Because they've found the winning recipe. They know what works and what doesn't. They always send good entries that almost always do well, instead of sending mediocre ones and then becoming outraged and surprised when they don't finish Top 10!

Just to give you guys some perspective:
I'm Swedish. Hence, I'm a Westerner.

My favourites this year (live) were Russia, Ukraine and Greece. Sirusho's live performance (vocals and show) were poorish but it was still up there in my Top 10. I personally didn't like Norway's very much because I just didn't like the song that much, but I could recognize it was a well-tailored song.

I thought Charlotte (Sweden) would do better, but I understand why she didn't. I did not particularly care for Portugal (not my cup of tea), United Kingdom (not my cup of tea and the guy's got absolutely no stage presence), Denmark (too oily), Germany (why the hell did they receive 12 points from Malta or whoever?!), Latvia (none of them could sing well) or Spain (France was much funnier), among other things. Guess what, Europe agreed with me on some of these, disagreed with me on some others. Heck, Latvia's highest points came from a Western country IIRC and since when is there a huge Latvian diaspora?

I've just got enough wits to not whine about Europe not sharing my personal tastes.

caramela001 wrote:How did the west give so many points to Finland in 2006? Where was the diaspora then?
How did Ireland manage to give 8 points to the UK and none to Portugal for example? And what kind of diaspora does Switzerland have that they managed to give 0 points to Norway?Are you sure you're not looking for excuses?

Excuses for what? Its a fact for everyone that Diaspora exists for some years now and if exists its also logic that many times some countries didnt deserved to get 12,10,8 pts and probably those points should have gone to western countries because like in bloc regions, its natural ppl having same musical taste here on the west too. So western scores are always underrated on the final scoreboard.

Lets pick a random country this year, Latvia 12th place with 83 pts.
Looking to the scoresheet i can see that Ireland gave 12pts, UK 10pts and Portugal 8 Pts. So three western countries gave a total of 30pts, 83-30= 53pts (17th place). Yes, perhaps those three countries could have given some points to this song by own merit but never 30points and its not only giving 30pts to the east is also stealing a great part of the points from the west.

Now multiply Latvia for many more countries that benefit from Diaspora and its easy to understand why most of the western countries will end up on the second half of the table with one or two exceptions per year.

Its not East fault, its the voting system fault thats why i think something has to change asap. I want to see a fair contest for all the countries, we should be talking about the music and not about politics.

FallenAngelII wrote:Heck, Latvia's highest points came from a Western country IIRC and since when is there a huge Latvian diaspora?

I dont know in Uk or Ireland but in Portugal there are a lot of latvians and its not only that, Ukranians (nº1 diaspora here) not only vote for them also vote for other neighbours. Its normal i think, an emigrant voting for the home country and give some votes to their neighbours to support them or because they have similar music taste.

I really liked Sweden entry & Charlotte and they deserved a lot better, altough in this particular case i think Sweden had to much hype before the contest.

wildpt wrote:

FallenAngelII wrote:Heck, Latvia's highest points came from a Western country IIRC and since when is there a huge Latvian diaspora?

I dont know in Uk or Ireland but in Portugal there are a lot of latvians and its not only that, Ukranians (nº1 diaspora here) not only vote for them also vote for other neighbours. Its normal i think, an emigrant voting for the home country and give some votes to their neighbours to support them or because they have similar music taste.

I really liked Sweden entry & Charlotte and they deserved a lot better, altough in this particular case i think Sweden had to much hype before the contest.

A huge diaspora alone does not guarantee you 8, 10 or 12 points. Especially not 12 points.

In order to get 12 points, you have to have X country receive the most votes in a given country. According to Wikipedia, only 5% of Portugal's population consists of (legal) immigrants. I doubt there's one jillion illegal immigrants to eskew that statistics by ten times its size making the total tally 50% or so of the Portuguese people.

Among those immigrants, Latvians aren't even among the Top 8 most represented countries! Which means that Latvians make up, um, what, 0,5%, 2% tops possibly of the Portuguese people? Which means that come Eurovision night, the Latvians of Portugal must not only all be watching the ESC but also voting about 1000 times each in order to somehow overshadow the jillion other Portuguese people watching and voting in order to somehow give Latvians undeserved high marks!

Diaspora voting influences the points. Diaspora might sometimes give countries 1-4 more points than they "should" get. But diaspora voting is in no way such a huge problem as some people seem to think it is. Even the so called fanatic Armenians are still few in numbers when compared to the rest of Europe.

The only way for diaspora voting to radically alter the results would be if every single member of a certain community banded together and wasted money to vote 100+ times each for their country of origin's entry while the rest of the entire nation largely neglected to vote.

Because even if every single Latvian in Portugal voted for Latvia, there were still the millions of non-Latvian Portuguese who voted.

FallenAngelII wrote:

wildpt wrote:

FallenAngelII wrote:Heck, Latvia's highest points came from a Western country IIRC and since when is there a huge Latvian diaspora?

I dont know in Uk or Ireland but in Portugal there are a lot of latvians and its not only that, Ukranians (nº1 diaspora here) not only vote for them also vote for other neighbours. Its normal i think, an emigrant voting for the home country and give some votes to their neighbours to support them or because they have similar music taste.

I really liked Sweden entry & Charlotte and they deserved a lot better, altough in this particular case i think Sweden had to much hype before the contest.

A huge diaspora alone does not guarantee you 8, 10 or 12 points. Especially not 12 points.

In order to get 12 points, you have to have X country receive the most votes in a given country. According to Wikipedia, only 5% of Portugal's population consists of (legal) immigrants. I doubt there's one jillion illegal immigrants to eskew that statistics by ten times its size making the total tally 50% or so of the Portuguese people.

Among those immigrants, Latvians aren't even among the Top 8 most represented countries! Which means that Latvians make up, um, what, 0,5%, 2% tops possibly of the Portuguese people? Which means that come Eurovision night, the Latvians of Portugal must not only all be watching the ESC but also voting about 1000 times each in order to somehow overshadow the jillion other Portuguese people watching and voting in order to somehow give Latvians undeserved high marks!

Diaspora voting influences the points. Diaspora might sometimes give countries 1-4 more points than they "should" get. But diaspora voting is in no way such a huge problem as some people seem to think it is. Even the so called fanatic Armenians are still few in numbers when compared to the rest of Europe.

The only way for diaspora voting to radically alter the results would be if every single member of a certain community banded together and wasted money to vote 100+ times each for their country of origin's entry while the rest of the entire nation largely neglected to vote.

Because even if every single Latvian in Portugal voted for Latvia, there were still the millions of non-Latvian Portuguese who voted.

Thats why i think a rule that only allow 1 vote per phone could answer those questions and once for all we would know what really is the weight of Diaspora nowadays and im not only talking about Portugal, there are other countries like Spain, France, Germany, Belgium, Holland and so on.

wildpt wrote:Thats why i think a rule that only allow 1 vote per phone could answer those questions and once for all we would know what really is the weight of Diaspora nowadays and im not only talking about Portugal, there are other countries like Spain, France, Germany, Belgium, Holland and so on.

1 vote per household, even in countries where households have up to 10 or more people? No.

A cap at 10? Yeah, I can live with that. 1? No.

Pull up statistics that show that Spain, Germany, Belgium, Holland and so on have such huge groups of immigrants from certain ESC-countries that they'd be able to radically alter the awarded points and then whine. Stop whining without holding any kind of information. You're basically guessing and whining as if your guesses were fact!

"There's a huge problem with diaspora voting in the ESC where Eastern Europe immigrants vote from Western European countries, awarding their home countries and neighbours points! But wait, I have absolutely no statistics to prove this, I'm just guessing! But it's true because us Westerners often do pretty badly and often give out high marks to Eastern European countries!"

Come off it and start looking at the facts. It's quite easy to pull out diaspora statistics. Show me 5 Western European countries with huge numbers of immigrants. The only Eastern European country with huge numbers of emigrants is Armenia at 8 million. Because of this, they're also the only Eastern European country that could conceivably tip the balance of voting greatly and somehow give themselves high marks every single year, even with total BS entries, but then again, we're not seeing tons of 8:s, 10:s and 12:s coming Armenia's way from Western Europe every single year, now are we?

Even Armenia can't amass enough diaspora votes to consistently win or even place Top 5 (2008's 4th place is the highest they've ever placed, 8th being their finishing position both in 2007 and 2006). We know Russia doesn't have jillions of diaspora voters (that vote for themselves) because Russia has only been awarded 12 points once by Western European countries in the past, what, 5 or so years? And this year, almost no Western European country (if any, I'm not entirely sure) awarded Russia 10 points either.

So Russia didn't win due to huge amounts of diaspora voting. Tons of low marks (0-5) came their way from the West this year.

wildpt wrote:What about Finland 2006? They were very smart that year, they sent a innovate and bold song that took Europe by suprise. Its the only way now a Western country can win, sending something very special, a masterpiece but songs like that appear once in a decade or even more.

Exactly. Everyone seems to use Finland 2006 as an example to explain "how there's no bias", but it's not a very good example of that - it was clearly a one-off.

Also, I didn't so much mean a predictable winner, but predictable voting overall. Anyone who denies that the voting now is predictable must be blind... I mean, in the final voting, as soon as you see a country 's name coming up (when it's their turn to give the votes), you will know where their highest points will go to - there are usually about 3-4 alternatives, but between those it's going to be... (There are of course some exceptions, like Finland, whose voting is not quite that predictable, but it's true for most others.)


And FallenAngelII's nasty comments don't really deserve an answer (and I seem to remember saying I'm not going to waste my time in pointless arguing against such a hostile person), but I will only say this - if quality really mattered most in ESC, the order of entries this year would have been very different.

Then explain Greece's Helena Paparizou winning in 2005. I guess that was a freak occurence as well due to it being a Western country instead of simply a good entry both the West and the East loved enough to crown winner!

It is getting hot in here! I wish someone else would say something.

I'm still with FallenAngelII. I think this is NOT as big of a problem as some people think.

I looked back some statistics (names of the winners) and you know what, East hasn't won the contest that many times. Really! And that is what these complaints are about. That's sad. You should be ashamed of yourselves.

Quite honestly, there's nothing to explain - the Greek victory has nothing to do with Finland's... As you may have noticed, Greece is (nearly) always in top 10, partly due to diaspora (but the reasons are more complicated than that).

(And Minka, I'd have thought I'd had your backing as FallenAngel was hinting about the bad placement of certain countries having been deserved, which you probably didn't notice... )

And I'm not complaining about East winning, but about the predictability of voting, and the fact of some countries having an unfair headstart in points. Those 2 facts no one can deny, no matter how they feel about the winner (which I'm not contesting at all!). All right?



(And I know a certain person is now probably going to tell me to "stop whining", which he has been telling to everyone here ca. 1000 times already - never mind that the things I've mentioned are facts, just disagreeing with him seems to be "whining", and heaven forbid, disagreeing with him/her is not allowed )

melina wrote:if quality really mattered most in ESC, the order of entries this year would have been very different.

That is true.

The top was rather fair, i'm not personally satisfied with some of the results, but i could see that there was some kind of quality and/or artistic ambition behind them all.

What angers me is that joke entries such as Latvia and Spain finished higher than several well crafted songs.
It was far worse last year though, when a joke entry finished second

At the end of the day i would like to believe that ESC is a contest about quality songs and performances.
People who voted for those cannot be interested in music or have a passion for it.
Unfortunately there is no solution to that problem, Anyone is allowed to vote and contest isn't taken seriously by everyone.

Yeah, so some things are predictable. Despite this, all countries can fail to place Top 10, no matter how many neighbours they have. Eastern European countries still frequently award Western European countries 12:ers, 10:ers and 8:ers. Which means that the problems with diaspora and neighbour voting isn't at all as big as some people make them out to be.

No system is 100% fair, not even the jury system. And the current system isn't so soundly broken we need to re-introduce the juries, really, if you look at the voting results of recent years objectively.

I don't believe diaspora can give 12 points either. And it has to be a pretty big percentage to be able to give high points in general.
It's easy to say 'oh, so and so country wasn't voted because it doesn't have many neighbours'. If we say that actually the song wasn't liked enough to be voted, you come back with 'it couldn't be voted because of diaspora!'. If we give you an example of a country voted DESPITE lack of neighbours/diaspora, you say 'oh, that was a different case'.
To me, all that look like excuses.

Take Portugal for example. It was voted just by 13 countries. Do you REALLY believe that the rest 30 countries voted for it, but their diaspora was SO huge, that not even 1 point could go to Portugal???
But some points could go to Norway...maybe it was a miracle!

melina wrote:(And Minka, I'd have thought I'd had your backing as FallenAngel was hinting about the bad placement of certain countries having been deserved, which you probably didn't notice... )

And I'm not complaining about East winning, but about the predictability of voting, and the fact of some countries having an unfair headstart in points. Those 2 facts no one can deny, no matter how they feel about the winner (which I'm not contesting at all!). All right?

Most people are predictable. It may be boring but there is nothing we can do about it.
Unpredictability is not a value itself.
How an "unpredictable"(?) jury would be any better than letting people vote freely & democratically?

Mandy. wrote:

melina wrote:if quality really mattered most in ESC, the order of entries this year would have been very different.

That is true.

The top was rather fair, i'm not personally satisfied with some of the results, but i could see that there was some kind of quality and/or artistic ambition behind them all.

What angers me is that joke entries such as Latvia and Spain finished higher than several well crafted songs.
It was far worse last year though, when a joke entry finished second

At the end of the day i would like to believe that ESC is a contest about quality songs and performances.
People who voted for those cannot be interested in music or have a passion for it.
Unfortunately there is no solution to that problem, Anyone is allowed to vote and contest isn't taken seriously by everyone.

To me ESC is about entertainment and good shows, not quality music. To me all ESC music is low quality. That's why I don't want any besserwissers (juries) telling me what is good music and what is not, how people are wrong and they are right. Entertainment and high art are (usually) two different things.

Which is more important?
I'd like to see people entertained. ESC is not a place of high culture. You can find it elsewhere. Why pretend it can be found in the ESC?

Since the West isn't in any way looking forward to differenciate itself from the eastern collegues of the ESC, also your votes are welcome at the petition (Lukaz must have forgotten you somehow):

http://www.petitiononline.com/12points/petition.html

Jakub wrote:Since the West isn't in any way looking forward to differenciate itself from the eastern collegues of the ESC, also your votes are welcome at the petition (Lukaz must have forgotten you somehow):

http://www.petitiononline.com/12points/petition.html

Do I have to say that I'm not going to sign this? (Is he going to post this into EVERY topic? )

FallenAngelII wrote: Stop whining without holding any kind of information. You're basically guessing and whining as if your guesses were fact!

Yes i dont have any diaspora information because EBU doesnt show to us, its strange such a democratic voting system and so many mistery with the oficial telephone results. Perhaps they want to hide the real true about diaspora...ohh..there i go again whinning whithout any information, imagine the amount of whiners if someday that information is reveal, you will have your hands full.

If i cant prove that diaspora is strong because i dont have information, you definitely cant prove the opposite too.

Your are defending the bad idea to use a jury in this thread but how can you really possible know if the jury wil or will not give a fair judgment of the country's majority? Just one thing is sure, jury vote wont be dictated by diaspora, can be biased towards neighbours or similar music tastes but so is televote.

wildpt wrote:Your are defending the bad idea to use a jury in this thread but how can you really possible know if the jury wil or will not give a fair judgment of the country's majority? Just one thing is sure, jury vote wont be dictated by diaspora, can be biased towards neighbours or similar music tastes but so is televote.

Juries can be bribed and HAVE been bribed. If you don't trust the judgement of millions of people (apparently), how will you be able to trust just 12 of them? That's what I find puzzling.