How about a newcomers semi-final like when all the new Eastern European countries wanted to join the real contest? It's just a thought, people are still integrated into the contest/site but at the same time we're not overloaded with entries...

And I agree with CTP, we need to make the Eurovision forum more lively - I shall get on that right away

That's a great idea! When ESC season starts again there will be a lot of new people coming to the site (and hence the contest) so this will definitely work!

I dont know if this idea has been mentioned before, if it has, im sorry for being repetitive! but hows about, for someone to participate in the contest, they need to have a country profile, because after all, does that not show some sort of interest in the goings on, because after all not everyone is able to get into the chat when others are on.

and i understand that if they create a country profile it still means that it may be that the person who has just joined is only using us for the contest.

how about they must introduce themselves on the forum AND make a country profile? i know for a fact i have done neither of those things!!

Okay, sorry to be behind everyone else but I've just finished voting and I have to say I'm not pleased. Trying to rank 32 songs was not pleasant and I've had to make so many compromises which I'm not happy about. People say this every edition but I really mean it, I'm sorry to those of you who I really wanted to vote for but couldn't.

Semis ftw ofc.

First of all, just like sheep, I found it extremely difficult to rank 32 songs.
I graded them from 1 to 10 and in the end I had to include 4 8's and leave out 3 8's..meaning songs that I really liked, too but I had to choose.
33 songs are just too many, no question about it!

As for alienating new members..the site has 300 members..can we have a contest with 300 songs? I don't think so. The contest should remain for people who at least take the time to come here and say hello and a few things about themselves.

The semi final is inevitable and should be implemented whenever the number of participants exceeds 30.

The top 10 of the previous contest should be the pre-qualified countries and a further 14 ought to qualify from the semi-final. This gives us 24 finalists.

As for voting, all entrants should vote in both the semi-final and the final.

That is my definitive opinion.

It seems that we will keep on using semi-finals, and i agree with this and am not particularly fussed about weather we have one or two semi finals.

The one problem i see with the automatic qualifier thing, though, is that it means people who win/do well are more likely to continue doing well and the people who do badly are more likely to do badly again which is a bit unfair/unbalanced and i am not 100% with but thought it was worth mentioning [Not to do with the fact that i never do well enough to qualify ]

Once more , I agree with you , and i believe that only the host and maybe the top 3 should qualify automatically. Don't you think it's unfair for the rest of us?...

Yes,Scheep is right!

I am more for a 1996 Oslo system. Only the host qualifies and everyone else is in a pre-qualifying round! That's how we'd have even chances

Because he said that if we have more than 37 participants we will make semi finals.
But not always, so this is a right middle way.

ok, I will shut up.