This page has archives. Sections older than 60 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III when more than 4 sections are present.
ArbCom 2024 Elections voter message
Hello! Voting in the 2024 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 2 December 2024. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.
The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.
May I ask if English is your first language? There is absolutely no justification for using "of" in this case. If you were to use "of", e.g. "participants of the future", that is a completely different construction with a different meaning. Moreover, although the "title" parameter of the references reads "Participants of", when you actually look at the source, that is not the wording at all. Deb (talk) 14:39, 13 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Deb: I don't appreciate the implication that my English is poor. You very well could have checked my userpage to see that, yes, English is my first language (Hiberno-English but that's still English). Maybe next time, approach the situation differently and don't have what could be perceived to be an insult as your first message. Anyway, in this context I do believe "participants of" does work, because it's talking about more than just the individual "participants", i.e. the countries, the artists, the songwriters, the songs, but them collectively as a group. Additionally, the "of" usage here can signify that the participants belong to the contest in a sense, that these entries and artists have become part of the fabric of ESC. Since we can talk about "Eurovision artists" and "Eurovision songs", I believe using "in" here takes away that subtext. For the sake of keeping the peace, I've now changed the wording to "[ESC contest] participants". Sims2aholic8 (talk) 14:57, 13 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
(talk page stalker). Also a native English speaker... and while I guess I'm not upset about "in" vs "of", a quick search shows both are fine. Deb, do you have specific evidence that shows one is wrong or is it just your application of one of the many conventions? This feels more like a preference, and if so, would need to be discussed. I haven't seen evidence of "of" being wrong, as that is the grammatical construction used in many of the references. Grk1011 (talk) 15:00, 13 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's not a preference; it's what's correct, and yes, I have checked. If any of the references actually say "participants of", which I doubt, it's an indication that they were not written by fluent English speakers. Deb (talk) 15:05, 13 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
All I'm saying is that this usage is poor English. Maybe next time, approach the situation differently and don't revert other people's edits without good cause. The reasoning behind your statement that "participants of" does work is flawed. It doesn't matter in what role they are participating, they are still participants "in" the contest, not "of" the contest. Would you ever say "I am participating of a contest", or even "I am a participant of a contest"? Of course not. "Participants" is fine with me. After all, that's what the source actually says. Deb (talk) 15:03, 13 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Deb: As I said in the comment on my edit, obviously when used as a verb, "in" is the only acceptable option. But here it's used a noun, and "in" or "of" I believe are still perfectly valid, even if "in" is the more common usage. See here for one explanation of why "of" would work here. As I said, from a Eurovision Song Contest perspective, there is a lot of love for past participants and songs, and that's why I believe the "of" usage would work here to create that subtext of belonging that a lot of Eurovision fans have. We can agree to disagree on the best word to use, but for you to say that it's incorrect is wrong; uncommon yes, but just as valid when used as a noun in certain contexts. Sims2aholic8 (talk) 15:13, 13 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see any explanation at that link and I'm certainly not giving them my e-mail address to find out. Please just tell me in what situation you think it should be used. Deb (talk) 15:17, 13 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe you needed to scroll down? This is what they had on their website:
Both 'participant in' and 'participant of' are commonly used phrases in English, but they are used in slightly different contexts. 'Participant in' is more commonly used when referring to someone taking part in an activity, event, or program. On the other hand, 'participant of' is less common and is typically used when emphasizing the belonging or possession of the participant to a group or organization.
As I said, I think 'participant of' is equally valid because of that subtext of belonging to the contest. But clearly you don't agree so I don't really see much point in rehashing this. Like I said, I changed the wording on Eurovision Song Contest 1983 to steer clear of this whole debate, and I'll work on changing the wording to this on all other articles. Sims2aholic8 (talk) 15:22, 13 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Deb: I'd suggest you immediately stop making these edits until you've explained why you believe you're correct (more than just telling us, show us, as is required). Sims has provided you with some evidence, which you've dismissed as inconvenient/annoying to access, but you've provided zero evidence of your own. I'm inclined to blanket revert you and report you for being unconstructive and uncooperative with this matter. Continuing to make these now controversial edits pushes this way past good faith on your side. It's best to come to a compromise to save everyone time. If we agree with you, then we'd be partners in fixing your concerns. I'm not sure what this is now, but each of your edits now requires cleanup by someone else even if we go with "in". Grk1011 (talk) 15:45, 13 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Deb: I provided a compromise at Eurovision Song Contest 1983, which you seem to have either not noticed or completely dismissed. You are now also changing the ref titles, when this is literally the page title of the URLs being cited, without any explanation other than "grammar". Even though I have provided quite a lot of evidence that "participant of" is just as valid gramatically in this context. I have to concur now with Grk1011 that your edits are becoming unconstructive, and you seem to be completely uncooperative with working with us in rectifying any concerns you have. Please work with us and explain your reasoning for your preferred "in" wording here. Sims2aholic8 (talk) 15:50, 13 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It is not the page title. It's the page address, which is a completely different thing. The probable reason for the bad grammar that was in the header was that someone cited the source wrongly and used that address as a page title - which it isn't. The evidence you supplied above actually clearly shows that "participant of" belongs in quite a different context - such as the one I mentioned in my first response. "Participant of" is not just "less common", it's extremely uncommon and doesn't work in this context - that's possibly why all the articles on the ESC almost exclusively use "participant in". If consistency is your concern, you should recognise that. Yes, there are a small number of situations where "participant of" may be appropriate - but that is not the case in these articles. Deb (talk) 18:49, 13 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not going to stop correcting errors. The tab for that page says "Participants"; only the web address (created by programmers, not language experts), has the word "of" in it. Deb (talk) 09:59, 14 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Deb: Ok we can agree to disagree on this. As I said, I believe there are additional layers of subtext that could be presented when using the "participant of" wording. However, the real issue here is that you have refused to meet us halfway, you refused to explain your edits other than just saying "grammar", and when evidence was presented to you that we could look at things in a different way, it took you way too long to actually review it and instead you just decided to continue editing and making the changes because of your preconceived notions of what it should be. Instead of working with us to find a compromise, you took a "my way or the highway" approach, which flies in the face of WP:CONDUCT. Just consider this next time, it's a lot easier to approach a situation by actually explaining yourself and working with people rather than taking the "moral high ground" and imposing your edits on people without explanation. Sims2aholic8 (talk) 10:14, 14 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That's quite untrue. I have met you halfway by agreeing to change the table title to "Participants" and I've helped with this editing. How can you say that looking at your source took me "way too long"? I'm not subject to a timetable imposed by you. I did it as soon as I could, and while doing my own research. I'm sorry that I overlooked the scroll down, but all I saw was a link to click, which I did. As an admin, I have other duties here, which take priority over arguing with you, and I also have a life outside Wikipedia. You were the one who reverted my initial change without discussion, and that's bad practice in anyone's book. I appreciate the work you've done to try to fix the problem, but continuing to accuse me of being uncooperative is completely unfair. Deb (talk) 10:24, 14 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.
A request for comment regarding the future of WikiProject Eurovision is currently ongoing. A proposal by Sims2aholic8 has been opened for comment, and a discussion is now taking place to determine consensus on whether WikiProject Eurovision should be rescoped and renamed WikiProject Song Contests. You are invited to read the proposed changes to the WikiProject at the discussion page and to participate by voting on the proposed changes and adding any comments or further proposals. This discussion will remain open until 31 January 2025, at which point, if consensus has been reached, further discussions will take place on the exact changes agreed.
@MediaWiki message delivery why do you have to be so petty regarding the = sign for countries who finish with same number of points and therefore all finish in same place ?
