A bit more about voting :)

An MB discussion last night did a very good job of summing up what the voting in this contest is [meant to be] about, so for convenience's sake I'll post it here in its entirety!

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I don't think it's really about similairty to the actualentry from that country that year though... - Jonas @o@ - 13 Jan, 23:25:28

It's more like... if someone submits and entry as "Romania 1988" and it

a) sounds like it could have been released in 1988
b) sounds like it could have been an ESC entry
c) sounds like it is romanian (and preferrably in romanian, as there was no free langauge)
e) sounds like it's performed by performers eligible (i.e. not a choir of 500 people), then it would be quite authentic.

If someone enters "Montenegro 1997" but you quite quickly hear that the song
a) is American
b) is in English
c) is in a style you couldn't imagine at ESC in the 90s
d) is actually recorded in 1938, and sounds like it too! plus
e) Montenegro didn't exist as an independt country in 1997

Then the entry is probably a bit less authentic :)

But it's of course up to each one what they go by when deciding if something is authentic to them or not, and how much they'll take authentic-ness into account verses how good the actual song is ;))

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And of course, then there's the added factor of... - Martin F. - 13 Jan, 23:27:56

...whether the quality of the song affects your judgement on its suitability. Like, if something were submitted as an alternative Montenegrin entry of the late 2000s but was in fact bloody brilliant, that really wouldn't be in keeping with the standard of their *actual* entries... :)

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For my part I would add:

1. It's definitely not about whether the entry submitted is similar to that year's actual entry from that country (if there was one). That doesn't and shouldn't come into it at all.

2. I agree with every point Jonas makes bar e) in Montenegro, since this is The Eurovision That Never Was: whether or not a country was independent/interested/eligible to enter at a particular time shouldn't affect how you view the entry per se. Montenegro is, I suppose, a slightly odd case, but I would encourage people not to mark down an entry labelled, say, Croatia 1958 just because it's not labelled Yugoslavia 1958.

3. Martin makes a good point as well: too high-brow (or simply good!) an entry for a country not renowned for entering such songs should and probably will affect how authentic it is viewed to be - and even if it is good, or even very good, or brilliant, the fact that it doesn't feel right for that country and that year should see people not marking it as highly.

Once again, The Eurovision That Never Was is not about the quality of the songs as such, nor about which ones you like most. The thought that should be uppermost in your mind (at first) when you get around to voting is "does this song, in this language and in this style for this country in this year, feel like it could have been a Eurovision entry". Those are the entries you should reward ahead of ones you might like, but which simply don't seem as authentic.

Make sense? :)