Redditvision Song Contest 23

Redditvision Song Contest 23 was the twenty-third ordinary and twenty-fifth overall edition of the Redditvision Song Contest. It was hosted by u/jimbaux in Ålesund, Norway after their win in the previous edition, with the song "Tyynysotaa" by Vilma Alina, Nelli Matula, Sini Yasemin & Ida Paul.

The winner was Scotland with the song "Beautiful Ones" by Hurts.

Format
For the first time since edition 13, a major change to the contest format was being tested. While in every previous edition, people were only allowed to vote in the semi-final they were allocated to vote in, the new trial opened up for the possibility to vote in other semi-finals.

Crossvoting system
The mods posted an interest survey on Reddit on October 28th 2018 regarding the possibility of a cross-voting system, which later led to the announcement of that there will be a trial crossvoting system implemented on Edition 23. Crossvoting will be voluntary.

The system is as noted a trial system and it does not mean it will be permanent. Depending on how many that do crossvote in Edition 23 it might be implemented on future editions as well.

This is the part of the announcement on how the system will work:

"The way this is going to work is that all the allocated voters in a semi are going to cast their votes as normal. The host will then first tally up their votes without the crossvotes added. The six leading entries at that point will be locked in as qualifiers, and cannot be pushed out of the final by the crossvotes.

''After that the total crossvote scores are going to be converted into a percentage, and those percentages will then be applied to half of the amount of points the regular semi voters give out to calculate how many points the crossvoters give to each song. This means that for the trial, the crossvote will stand for 33% of the points in the semi. The only way this will be less is if we get a very small amount of people actually crossvoting, so again, if you wanna support it, vote!''

''The final crossvoting scores will then be added back onto the original scores, and the top two entries that did not qualify as part of the first six will be the last two qualifiers to the grand final. I realize that this sounds a bit complicated, so hopefully this example makes it a little bit easier to understand: Example sheet of cross voting.''

''For this first edition, regular votes are going to be sent to the host, as always, while the crossvotes will be sent to RedditvisionMod. We will also ask that you for this edition submit a full ranking of your semi votes (not just a top 15) so that we easily can apply the votes to any other crossvoting system to see what impact they would have on the final results."''

Participants
58 participants signed up for the edition, but the user who was representing Seychelles did not submit a song in time, bringing the number of participants down to 57.

u/leRandomThing, u/Traffia and u/Zxnth made their Redditvision debuts this edition, while u/I_WANT_PATATA, u/j_tennant, u/estoniass, u/Tiko_Yates, u/oneleek, u/jq8678 and u/ChocolateDonut1 made a return to the contest.

The edition also saw some notable withdrawals. u/IdahoSciGuy withdrew from this contest, having participated 19 times since their debut in Edition 6 and having won twice, in editions 11 and 12 respectively. u/Azzbestos withdrew from this edition, having participated 17 times since their debut in Edition 7 and having won once, in Edition 10. Six users were disqualified in edition 22, this includes former winner u/Wierdmeansawesome, who won edition 2. u/HungryPill and u/mysadsacklife withdrew. Other disqualifications included u/gavjen, u/tabita_surge, u/ApostolisKKK, u/unfittingquotes and u/Notorious_Park.

National finals

 * See also: National Finals in Redditvision Song Contest 23

Semi-finals
Seychelles was going to participate in the edition but failed to submit an entry in time.

Semi-final 1
Monaco and Norway voted in this semi-final.

Semi-final 2
Panama and Saint Kitts and Nevis voted in this semi-final.

Semi-final 3
Barbados and Georgia voted in this semi-final.

Grand final
Burundi, Canada, Haiti and Slovenia were disqualified for not voting in time.