Talk:Coptic flag

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[edit] Real vs Spam Coptic Flag

The main reason that this Coptic flag should not be in the article and is original research is because, first of all it's not widely used by most Copts. Then their are 3 other Coptic flags that have more supporters and came before the current version.

  1. cpr-government.org/ (an active website atleast for 4years now, that had the coptic flag atleast 3years before you even introduced your version of the coptic flag), investigatre the website logs and records.
  2. thetruth4u2.com/copticflag.htm (another active website for 3years now, it had another version of the coptic flag that was wornm on many T-shirts in Europe)
  3. coptflag.com a website reintroducing the 1959 version of the coptic flag.
  4. copticfreedom.com a coptic website that begun using the 1959 coptic flag as its symbol and begun giving away Free Coptic flag Tshirts and car signs that had the cross on the eagle.
  5. thecopticflag.com started by a coptic activist who wanted to organize the flags and give all of them their due respect, because a coptic activist is a coptic activist no matter whats their political belief or location.

If you are a true Copt who cares about our cause, you will appreciate such efforts. If not then we are not surprised and we will take the necessary steps to protect our cause and ppl at any price.


  • I believe your main focus is to refute the efforts made by so many Coptic activists over the past few years to assert the Copts' Egyptian non-Arab identity, as a step in their struggle towards fully implemented rights for the Copts in their historical land, that is Egypt.

Unlike you, I do not base my claims on unfounded allegations. Here are the reasons why I and many other Coptic activists believe you are not a Copt, and that you are spamming around the web:

  • 1. The real website of the Free Copts organization is http://freecopts.net (their Arabic site is http://www.freecopts.net/arabic/arabic). The website has been around for a few years and has received international acclaim and has become widely referenced as a source for Coptic news. To mention a few examples, Magdi Khalil, the political analyst and the executive editor of the only Coptic newspaper in Egypt, Watani (http://www.wataninet.com) has written at least 3 times in Watani to encourage the Coptic youth to register at the FreeCopts' forum (http://www.freecopts.net/forum), thus raising awarness about the site.
  • 2. On your website where you have that imaginary vote on the Coptic flag, you stole the name of the Free Copts (http://www.thecopticflag.com), you stole a Coptic Cross design that was made by the Free Copts, and you stole the design of the Coptic Flag that was designed by some Coptic activists. Furthermore, your forum (http://www.thecopticflag.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=3), which was made mainly to force your design of a weird Coptic flag on the Coptic community, promotes ideas such as kicking Arabs out of Egypt (http://www.thecopticflag.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=16&sid=e6e2ca34da2a465360df0479ad00f2ce), calling them animals (http://www.thecopticflag.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=14&sid=e6e2ca34da2a465360df0479ad00f2ce), and asking for Israeli occupation of Egypt (same link as previous). Way to go with your claims of helping the Coptic cause! Furthermore, you are attacking Wikipedia members such as Zerida and myself, calling us dogs and other names (http://www.thecopticflag.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=32&sid=e6e2ca34da2a465360df0479ad00f2ce). I will have your entire site shut down for racism, personal attack and identity theft. I got your phone number and address in NYC and will make sure you get what you deserve for your many infringements.
  • 3. When one of the Free Copts, Yaweeka, posted on your forum that you are a bunch of thieves for stealing their organization's name, not only didn't you address his/her objections, you also stole their name and made some edits on Wikipedia using their name (User:Yaweeka) which was nothing but a sock puppet of your other names (Kemet59, Coptictillthebone, CopticFreedom, Voiceofraison, Grouphave19, User:TheBigPharaoh, and more). Give me one reason why I should believe a thief and a sock-puppet user like yourself. And not only this, one of your sock puppets (Grouphave19) only edited two articles on Wikipedia: the Coptic Flag and Sharmuta!!! (for non-Arabic speakers, Sharmuta is a very low word literally meaning whore, and is considered one of the most offensive and insulting expressions in Arabic). How can you convince anyone after this that you work towards the bien-etre of the Copts and their cause? I guess it's obvious where your interests lie and I suggesst you stick to them and leave the Copts alone.
  • 4. The current Coptic flag (the one you are fighting) has been adopted following a census of Coptic activists both inside and outside Egypt. Furthermore, many worldwide Coptic organizations have adopted it as the official Coptic flag (to name a few: the Free Copts http://freecopts.net, the New Zealand Coptic Association www.egypt.co.nz, and the American Coptic Association http://www.amcoptic.com/index2.php). Your flag has been adopted by ZERO known organizations.
  • 5. The current flag you are fighting has an explanation that comes with it, and which stresses the Egyptian identity of the Copts. Your flag is not different from the pan-Arabist flag of pan-Arabist Egypt.
  • 6. Your alleged voting on a Coptic flag is organized by YOU, a biased person or persons who is/are clearly favoring that weird design of yours. As a Coptic activist myself, I never heard about this voting from any other activists. So who exactly is organizing this? You and...? You?
  • To conclude, only when you start respecting honesty and transparency are you allowed to talk about democracy. And until then, I wish you a fun time trying to implement that flag of yours. --Lanternix 00:05, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Why are we denying older Coptic flags?

http://www.cpr-government.org/HTML/graphics.htm <<<<< So this guy is not a Copt in your eyes?! His website had his own copticflag before any other website (BTW its not me and I am not all the screennames you mentioned above! While it doesnt take a scoobydoo to figure out that Zerida = Lanternix. However, thats not the issue now.

It doesnt matter who are you or who I am, the problem is that you are denying the fact their are other Coptic activists trying to do the same thing, and you use Wikipedia to omit and hide facts. instead of allowing it show how the coptic flag came through. with such hate and accusations of being (ProZionist, AntiArabist & PanArabist in the same time you give us an insight about your idea of being a Copt activist!)

We are trying to present ourselves as a fresh breath of air in he Mideast, yet we can't accept each other opinions! the article didnt say that these flags were official. Its just mentions them and If you dont agree you should add to the article instead of omitting everyone else and creating ill feelings betwen us.

Was this activist website, the main reason for you to call him a non Copt? although he proudly poses his face and risks his life for us, unlike most of us who hide behind the screens.

http://www.cpr-government.org/HTML/graphics.htm

or the Forum (that I also post in)

thecopticflag

And you were quoting a poster! claiming that he is the website owner, when it only takes one look at the website to notice that it is a very diverse Pro Coptic website. and you said it has a coptic cross on it(?) so whats the problem with that. half of the members including the founder of the website are Free Copts from Copts.com, thats why the news section links directly to Copts.com!

Even the topic, you claim that it is Real vs Fake Coptic flag! (so the oter 3flags, designed by 3 diff activist groups on a span of atleast 50 years are the same person in your opinion!)

Take a look at ch website by itself and decide.


    • Most of what you wrote does not even deserve adressing it, so I won't. The only valid point is that of the CPR exile governemnt. The guy was NOT elected democratically (since you seem to be talking about democracy!) and no Coptic organization in the entire world has recognized or adopted his flag. I am willing however to add a section within the article about his flag, since it is clearly not a bogus flag. The other two flags (and particularly that stupid pan-Arabist flag with the Eagle of the Saladin, which actually emanates from the Eagle of the arabian trible of Quraish) have no origin and no one knows where they come from (and I don't want you to repeat the nonsense you wrote before about them because it's non-believable, especially considering the many other objections people have against you and your group. So in other words, if you're a thief and a liar, why should people believe what you say?) Enough said? --Lanternix 02:38, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The latest on the unrecognized Coptic flags

The website claiming to be a fair vote among all Coptic flags (previously four of them) removed the pan-Arabist flag because it was created by a woman in NYC with a Jewish BF, who was promoting pro-Zionist ideas. Although this flag was removed from their internal voting, it can be still viewed on this website. The even more shocking news is that all the votes that the pan-Arabist flag previously got were automatically transferred to the flag of the CPR! A very democratc system indeed. For more information on this joke, please see this forum. --Lanternix 13:50, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Copyright trouble

Regarding this page and this one on Freecopts, it looks unfortunately like alot of the text on this page was swiped from freecopts, which has a VERY clear copyright notice on the bottom. 68.39.174.238 (talk) 19:14, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Deleting

I think that this article should be deleted based on WP:NOTE (see Talk:Copt), WP:VERIFY and WP:NPOV. If you don't think it should be deleted, please add your comments. Thanks --George (talk) 23:26, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

  • I am copying some of the comments here in response to your call for deletion of the article, because I feel many of them are relevent to this discussion page. --Lanternix (talk) 23:46, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

I replaced it with { { Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Coptic flag } }, this way it will be up-to-date. --George (talk) 01:44, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was Keep. - Philippe 03:28, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Coptic flag

Coptic flag (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) (delete) – (View AfD)

The article violates WP:Verify and WP:Notability for the reasons explained here --George (talk) 21:54, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

  • Keep. [1] This article in an Egyptian newspaper attacking the idea of the flag counts as coverage in a reliable source. There may have been cover in other Egyptian newspapers as well. --Eastmain (talk) 22:24, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Note: This debate has been included in the list of Egypt-related deletion discussions. —Eastmain (talk) 22:31, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Note: This debate has been included in the list of Christianity-related deletion discussions. —Eastmain (talk) 22:31, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep, per above. FusionMix 23:14, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
    • One article in an Egyptian newspaper isn't significant coverage, especially if it calls the flag's creators separatists. I think if we're going to keep this article we should say that the creators are separatists since this is what the only reliable source says, but I don't think the article is notable enough to keep it. Also, the Background section is full of unverified claims. --George (talk) 02:00, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep - seems to have enough sources as far as I can see. Stifle (talk) 23:33, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep. The flag has widespread acceptance among many Copts and Coptic organizations. In addition, it has drawn much public attention within Egypt (see Masrawy portal [2] Akhbar Al Hawadeth official newspaper [3], Secular Studies and Research Center in the Arab World [4], the site of Copts in the Holy Land [5], a Cambridge-based survey on Copts [6], Coptic Canadian Organization alluding to an article in the Egyptian magazine Rosa Al Youssef mentioning the Coptic Flag [7], this is in addition to the other links already mentioned within the article itself). For all these reasons, I believe the article is very relevent. Finally, I do not see any unverified claims in the article. Please point out what you're alluding to. --Lanternix (talk) 23:41, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
    • there is no proof that it "has widespread acceptance among many Copts and Coptic organizations", the links 2,3 and 7 are against the idea of the flag and call the creators separatists, the 4th link does not represent an official organization (only the view of the site's owners), the fifth page is a copy of this link (The Coptic Flag, Meanings and Colors) which is already in the artilce, and the sixth page is a survey asking wether you have heard of the flag. The links 2 and 3 prove that the flag has drawn some attention in Egypt, but it isn't enough to have its own article in wikipedia and the fifth link belongs to the "Coptic Church in Nazareth-Isreal" which does not represent copts at all (according to our article on Copts the number of copts in Israel isn't significant enough to be mentioned, the same argument applies to the link to "the New Zealand Coptic Association"). The article in the "Free Copts" site (The site that introduced the idea of the flag) is written by the creator of the article on wikipedia. (NB. the "Free Copts" isn't an official organization, and they "do not claim to represent the Coptic people as a whole politically or otherwise in any official capacity"[8]).The unverified claims I was pointing to were the first and last paragraph of the Background section as a whole.--George (talk) 01:17, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
    • Comment from the source George pointed out it looks like Lanternix (talk · contribs) is directly involved with one of the sources cited to claim notability. Not necessarily a WP:COI but for me at least draws some of the claims above into question as potentially non-neutral. - Owlmonkey (talk) 19:16, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Let's keep the article since it appears to enjoy some notability, and instead focus on improving the article if you feel that it needs balancing. I realize it's a sensitive topic that seems to generate strong reactions from its opponents, but this is not exclusive to the flag. George and Lanternix, you appear to have reached consensus to remove it from the infobox at Copt, so please just continue to work out the details of the article itself on its talk page. Some of the issues raised in the links supplied by Lanternix can be pointed out in the article, for example, but this is an issue for the talk page not AFD. — Zerida ☥ 00:16, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
    • I don't like the idea of the flag, but this isn't why I nominated the article for deletion, I really think it isn't notable, most copts have never heard of it (I am a copt and I first saw it on wikipedia) and it isn't recognized by the coptic orthodox church (the only organization that represents copts in general).--George (talk) 01:38, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep. The mere fact that the Coptic Flag is a subject for controversy is a good enough reason for me to consider it as both notable and verifiable , if it is not notable so why the controversy!? and if it is not verifiable so how come people are arguing over it, agree with it or not , I don't think that there is enough reasons for deletion--Ghaly (talk) 10:40, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
    • Again, I think the article is very notable. The fact that you have not heard about it does not mean much. I am sure there are many people who don't know about things that relate to them in one way or another. For instance, I am sure you have not heard about the flag of the Coptic Orthodox Church itself. There is a large Coptic community in Israel/Palestinian territory, this is why they have their own Coptic Metropolitan (who is hierarchly second to the Coptic Pope). Furthermore, the Coptic Orthodox Church does NOT represnt the Copts. There are hundreds of thousands of non-Orthodox Copts. The Coptic Church only has dominion over spiritual issues, NOT over political and secular stances. I agreed to remove the Coptic Flag from the infobox of the article Copt since most people deemed this appropriate. I will however compose a section in this article about the Coptic Flag, at some point. I will try to address further issues when I get some more time. --Lanternix (talk) 22:09, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
    • I forgot to mention that I've seen hunderds of Coptic youths posting the Coptic Flag on their facebook profiles. I think this says something about how widely accepted the idea is among Copts. --Lanternix (talk) 22:10, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
    • Just for the record, I am a copt, I asked my friends, my relatives (from Egypt, USA, Canada and Italy), and a priest and they all said they have never heard of it (But you're right, it doesen't matter, see WP:IKNOWIT). I haven't heard of the flag of the Coptic Orthodox Church either and their is no flag in its article on wikipedia. What I meant was that there is no church in Egypt (or other countries with a significant coptic population) that does recognize the flag (not necessarily Orthodox). According to our article on Copts, a copt is a native Egyptian Christian, I think this means that the coptic church is the organization that represents copts officialy. (maybe I'm wrong)--George (talk) 03:26, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
  • KEEP. Other statless peoples, or national liberation movements have such pages Palestinian flag and this one has gotten at least some attention from the press. Thomas Babbington (talk) 11:51, 31 March 2008 (UTC)Thomas Babbington
  • Delete.
  1. The article is almost a carbon copy of page, and is written by the same person.
  2. The current sources are the above link, the article from Akhbar El Yom, the "New Zealand Coptic Association" and an internet forum. The internet forum can't be cited as a source (see this), the "New Zealand Coptic Association" does not represent copts in New Zealand (whose population is unknown / less than 1000), and the link to the site of the "Free Copts" who, according to the article in Akhbar el Hawadeth are the ones who designed the flag (not independent of the subject), they are also called "separatists" in the same article (see this). The only source left is the article itself (the newspaper article) which isn't significant coverage.
  3. The Background section does not cite any sources (except for "Egyptians are not really Arabs"), and isn't in any way verifiable. The section claims to represent the views of copts in general. (see WP:Verify, WP:SOAP/Opinion pieces and WP:NPOV)
  4. The article was changed/reverted many times to equally non-notable versions and a POV tag was removed from the background section. (see the article's history page, and WP:CIVIL)

--George (talk) 03:26, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

  • Delete Per nom. Seems like a wonderful flag and concept generally, but not worth including in an encyclopedia until it has more notability established by secondary sources. But if it really does become a well discussed and commented upon symbol in the future then re-add the article. Having the New Zealand subgroup and the free copts blog adopt it does not in my mind make it an established symbol either, and if it really does become popular with youth then at a certain point that will attract comments and notability that way. Or if it became officially adopted as a predominate symbol, that would cross into notability for me or perhaps have it merge with the copt article. - Owlmonkey (talk) 19:04, 2 April 2008 (UTC)


The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

[edit] Changes

I changed a lot of things in the article (I wanted to do it for a long time but didn't have enough time), and I decided to write the edit summary here instead.

  1. changed "but many Copts" to "and few Copts" in the first paragraph.
  2. added a comment explaining that the Free Copts are the ones who created the flag (that's what was written in Akhbar el Yom).
  3. removed uverifiable claims from the background section.
  4. removed a forum from the references of the "blue bone" folktale. (and added the word 'folktale')
  5. changed "Eastern and Western Deserts" to "Eastern and Western Deserts".
  6. changed "since Egyptians adopted Christianity and until today" to "during the times of presecution" .(persecution)

I also wanted to change other things but decided to wait until these changes are reverted and discussed first :-). George (talk) 02:33, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

  • Please note that most of the stuff you removed/changed was adopted as middle ground between many differnt Wiki users over the past few years. Please go back to the article's history to learn more about why the article is written the way it is. Also, please discuss things here first and change them once an agreement is reached (your changes are likely to be perosonally-motivated, especially in light of your continuous disagreement with the whole idea and article. So it's safer to see what others think about your edits first). Thanks for your understanding. --Lanternix (talk) 23:19, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I won't change the page again without discussing the changes here first (unless there is a good reason). I also want to know what you thought of the changes I made. (details please) George (talk) 01:02, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

  • Great, thanks. I'll comment on the quick ones now and I'll address the rest later:
  • 1. The article used to say "Copts ..." and some people disagreed with that because they felt that this implies all Copts adopted the flag, so we reached an agreement to say "many Copts...etc". I totally disagree with "few Copts". They aren't few.
  • 2. The Free Copts did not create the flag. Akhbar el hawadeth just copied the article from their website. But the Free Copts never claimed that the Coptic flag is their creation.
  • 3. Will address later. Meanwhile, please clarify what you mean by "unverifiable claims".
  • 4. Will address later.
  • 5. I don't understand why you want to change a link to the Western Desert to one talking about Egyptian geography in general.
  • 6. I disagree with the last change. Maybe because I don;t understand the reason behind it. Could you please explain your rational for that?

Thanks. --Lanternix (talk) 01:57, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

OK, I saw your comments. What I meant by "unverifiable claims" is that you can't prove any of the claims I removed (like "as if to distinguish between an Arab Egypt and one that is not"), this is why I removed them. If you don't have any objections to number 5, please change it back. I removed "which has been shed all over Egypt since Egyptians adopted Christianity and until today" because it gives the impression of continued persecution, not individual (and illegal) accidents. I just wanted to say I saw your comments and explain my edits, I'll answer them when you finish writing them. George (talk) 01:03, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Happy Easter! ekhrestos anesti --George (talk) 13:54, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm still waiting for you to finish your comments. George (talk) 22:31, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

    • Sorry for the delay:
  • 3. I still don't get what you mean by unverifiable claims. what you wrote (Quote)""as if to distinguish between an Arab Egypt and one that is not"(End Quote) is not a claim. Nobody claims there are 2 Egypts. It's an objection to a status quo situation.
  • 4. I think we both agree that the Copts are referred to, pejoratively, as "Blue Bones". A quick google search came up with the following: [9], [10] and apparently people differ as to what the reason for this is. To be honest, I do not know of any quthentic source that explains the etiology of this term. However, this does not change the fact that it is widely accepted among the Copts that they are called "Blue Bones" for the heavt crosses the Muslim rules made them wear. So I think it's fair to consider it a folktale, as long as you mention that it is widely accepted among the Copts.
  • 5. I do NOT agree with #5. Maybe the way I worded my sentence before was misunderstood. I reworded it.
  • In addition, I found another site with the Coptic Flag [11], so I would like to add its link to the article. I won;t do so until we agree on the changes. Thanks. --Lanternix (talk) 21:12, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

OK, I'll start with #3, what I meant was that statements like "... Egyptian flag, which many Copts feel does not represent their community. " cannot be proved or disproved (you can say that some or a few copts do, but you can't know how much). The example I gave before was not a good one (but it should be changed to something that makes it clear whose opinion this is). I opened the link and didn't find the flag anywhere on the site, if you have a more specific link write it next time. George (talk) 02:26, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

The link works, and the flag is right there on the top right hand side. The link is http://coptsrights.com/home I agree with you that this claim can neither be proven nor disproven. But there are groups on the internet that call for changing the current pan-Arabist flag with one that carries true Egyptian symbols. If you look at these groups, you'll notice that the number of Copts in them is disproportionate with (larger than) their real percentage. I can send you the link to one such group on Facebook, but you'll need a Facebook account to access it. --Lanternix (talk) 06:08, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

I know that there are people who like the idea of the flag and think that the flag of egypt should be changed, but they are a minority and their views should not be the main views in the article, and sources should not be internet groups. I checked the link again and found the flag (I don't know why I didn't see it before), but I don't think a link to this site should be added to the article because it represents the views of a very small minority and because the site does not represent any organization or person. George (talk) 03:19, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

and it doesn't have a page about the flag, it only displays it on its front page (which only proves that there is another group of people who are aware of the flag and like its idea, it doesn't give the reader any more information about the flag). George (talk) 18:03, 19 May 2008 (UTC)