Hello!

It's almost time send your song for the third annual Eurovision Edition of the escChat.com Song Contest.

Like last year, it will be anonymous, so the participant who the song is representing won't be revealed. To facilitate this, no promotions are permitted this time and song submission must be made via Private Conversation instead of on the contest website.

Remember the song must not be from this year's Eurovision, must never have won Eurovision and must not have been sent to E1 or E2. As the songs won't be revealed until the actual night, and there's a high risk that multiple people will try sending the same song, please submit a ranked shortlist of potential songs. I recommend 5 or so, but the actual amount is up to you. That way if your first choice is taken, you'll get your second choice (etc etc) on a first come first served basis and it doesn't spoil the surprise by having to tell you that your song has already been taken.

Also keep in mind this is a live edition so you MUST be in the chat room on Saturday 19th May 2012 at 20:00 UK time to participate in this contest which will have a 15 minute voting window only. Failure to do so will result in your disqualification and banishment from future editions of the contest. So please make sure you can make it before committing to enter.

Send the usual information (song names, artists, YouTube links and recap times) via Private Conversation to me (jw) when submission opens on Tuesday night.

The YouTube video (yes, it must be on YouTube) must be the actual live performance at Eurovision. It can be from either the final or semifinal.

Submission will open after the results of Edition 39, but I'm posting the thread now so people who were previously unaware of the requirement to assemble a shortlist of songs can do so now and not be disadvantaged.

The following participants have been active in the chat room throughout the non-Eurovision season and expressed an interest in participating:

adamacs, Curtis, dan, digifreak, Estêvão, EuroCusto, James, Julio, Liam, Lilly.., Ljupco, Luis DLC, MagicGianluk, matthewbell32, Merjan, Mina, mrvirgo, Nessie, NickEmpel, pepepaez, Scheeples, Stockholm calling and swissBoy

Therefore only submissions from the above people will be accepted. Sorry to anyone else who may wish to enter but the contest is a privilege for friends who keep in touch all year round. Come to chat more often and you will be eligible next time!

SUBMISSION IS NOW OPEN

Please submit via Private Conversation only. Requests sent in chat, msn, e-mail or via the instant private chat feature won't be counted. Just follow this link.

Submissions will be accepted until Friday 27th April, by the way.

Additionally, since it will take place on the Saturday before Eurovision, we'll probably have a lot of guests or members who aren't participating with us. And as contest events take place in chat now, it might be a bit intimidating and excluding for them to see a show in which they can play no part. So how about letting them also vote as one guest jury where their points are combined into one set of 12-1, so they feel included too?

I see the good side that it will capture their interest more so they don't feel excluded, but I'm also aware of a bad side that for example if there are many Turkish or Swedish guests (just as an example) they would likely vote for any Turkish or Swedish songs that might be in the contest (our own diaspora ).

So, to balance that, we could have a 50:50 split for the guest jury where the non-participating viewers vote and their points are then combined with my own votes in a 50/50 split to determine the overall points of the guest jury.

Thoughts?

and as i said to Josh: no it doesn't sound good to me

well I said I wouldn't post here my reasons so I wouldn't influence anyone but as you ask, no I don't agree with this, 1st because even if jw has 50% of the voting power if there are 6 Turks and 5 Swedes for example the voting would still be Turkey/Sweden influenced, and, for me at least, the contest should be for the people who take part and or work for the site/contest, plus the idea of guests that probably won't ever show up in the chat room anymore being able to change the contest results doesn't seem suitable for me.
I said for jw that if it has to be then for me it should be jw 50% and the members that we trust but don't take part, such as Jonas, Sokrates, Darren, Gunec, Stormyangel, etc, would have the other 50%. But no I don't agree on guests voting.

We do have guests that come and go and that stay for countries nights and leave after it, just like probably would happen if they were part of the contest, coming voting and leaving after, some of those guests end up to be rude such as one yesterday night that after being here for already a couple of days ended up being banned by me for being homophobic, also those that come and spam for their countries just like we had 5 or 6 Turkish guys that ended up all being banned/kicked on a space of 5 minutes, so I don't trust on guests and for me they shouldn't be able to take part on something that is supposed to be between friends.

But as I also explained, it's not possible to segregate "trusted non-participating members" from guests, from a technical point of view. Since they don't have a contest country of their own, they all get lumped in as "non-participating guests" in the eyes of the contest.

ofc that's ofc why I'm against it

I'm obviously for it It's the only way I'll get to have a say (I don't want 100% voting rights since it's anonymous etc and it wouldn't be fair) and the number of guests actually interested would be low anyway, but it makes them feel part of it too. And it's only for a one-off special edition in the weekend before Eurovision, it's not like it'd be for every edition.

Indeed, and since it'll be the weekend before Eurovision, we don't want that to happen again, especially considering the likelihood that we will get busier as the contest approaches, do we?

I want it to be a fun event to get us in the mood for Eurovision that includes everybody.