Wikipedia:Don't overuse flags
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This is an essay. It is not a policy or guideline, it simply reflects some opinions of its authors. Please update the page as needed, or discuss it on the talk page. |
Begun by Kaldari 
People like flags. People really, really like cute little flag icons. Occasionally, an editor will be overcome by this seemingly innocuous affinity, and like Hernando de Soto 
, will start planting flags on everything in sight. This habit usually starts out innocently enough—perhaps on an article about Olympic gymnastics. "Wow" they think, "those flag icons really add some visual chutzpah 
." Soon, they're moving on to Nobel Prize winners, game consoles, and lists of supermarkets. Before you know it, Wikipedia looks more like a brochure for a travel agency than an encyclopedia. Some of you may ask, "what's the harm in adding flag icons?" Others may ask, "don't you love America 
?" Here are some reasons not to add unnecessary flag icons:
- They add no information to the article that you can't get from reading it
- They are more difficult to read for visually impaired people (e.g. colour blind or those who rely on text-to-speech software)
- They make articles look like Pokémon trading cards
- The Confederate States of America
is not a country any more, and North America isn't one
- They certainly don't make the pages load faster on a slow connection
- Flags are not necessarily easier to recognize than country names. Take, for example, Australia
and New Zealand 
. - Flags open the door to remarkably heated disputes unrelated to article content. Is it London
or London 
? Do we need different flags for England , Scotland 
, and Wales 
? - Flags place unequal emphasis on location, especially in infoboxes. With a flag, Paul McCartney is English . Without a flag, he is an English rock singer and songwriter who was in The Beatles.
- Flags lead to information clutter. Often, they are added in lists to represent a person's nationality even when nationality is irrelevant to the topic.
- Flag icons can be distracting when used to excess (example Bill Hicks).
- It may be unclear as to which flag should be used. Does a person born in Canada prior to 1965 get a
or 
? The Flag of Canada was not in use until 15 February 1965.
So the next time you feel the urge to stick some flags into your favorite infobox, ask yourself if they really add anything to the article, or if instead they are merely an expression of that curious human instinct to assign ownership of everything in the universe to a particular territory.
[edit] When flag icons may be helpful
Without denying the points made above, there are situations when flags can be useful:
- They can be aids to navigation in very long lists of countries: the flag of the individual country one is looking for may 'stand out' to the eye more immediately than the name itself. (Example). (However, see "Flags are not necessarily easier to recognize than country names." above)
- They may be useful space-savers in small infoboxes, where the country's flag may take up less space than the name of the country itself. (Example).
[edit] Have free time you want to use to improve Wikipedia?
There are plenty of tasks that improve Wikipedia more than adding flags to infoboxes. See resources for collaboration.
