Talk:Flag of Lithuania

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Flag of Lithuania is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do.

This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on February 16, 2007.

	Article milestones

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Result

December 21, 2006

Peer review

Reviewed

December 25, 2006

Featured article candidate

Promoted

Current Status: Featured article

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Flag of Lithuania is within the scope of the Heraldry and vexillology WikiProject, a collaborative effort to improve Wikipedia's coverage of heraldry and vexillology. If you would like to participate, you can visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks.

This article has been rated as FA-Class on the quality scale. (FAQ).

[edit] older entries

Looks great! And is no longer a stub. By the way, are there rules regarding whether the flag should be lit up at nighttime, and regarding its proper disposal (burning, not throwing in the trash)? These are important in the US. Novickas 12:42, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Also, how about a short listing of persons for whom the flag has been shown at half-mast in the recent past? Novickas 13:14, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

I have not seen anything to where the flag needs to be lit; and I will check on the disposal methods of the flag. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 18:35, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Some questions:

During the Great Seimas..."The Vytis was not chosen for two reasons: the first with the flag being associated with the Lithuanian state." Could you explain this differently?

"The birth of the yellow, green, and red tricolor occurred during a drive by other European republics to change their flags...adopted after the French Revolution...the idea either came from Lithuanian exiles living in Europe or in the United States during the end of the 19th century." That's a puzzlingly long time.

What did people have against gold as a flag color?

"Day of Convening of the Constituent Seimas" - brief explanation and date? "Day of the Battle of Grünwald" - brief explanation and date?

"Octocber 25 - next to the Seimas Building, the Presidential Palace, and Government of Lithuania" - what is that government building?

More pictures! Can you show the 2 different flags flown at the Battle of Grunwald? How about a gallery of county flags so the reader can see the fringe pattern?

Novickas 14:33, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Also how about some background on why there is both a state and national flag? Novickas 15:02, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

I did everything but the County flags; I added a link to the Commons category of county flags, so they can see the pattern. The website I cited as my source also has a gallery of images of the county flags. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 20:20, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

I just got another idea: maybe we could start a list of Lithuanian related flags, then put the link in the "see also" section of the article. Would that work? User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 20:08, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

As for government building, it's Gedimino 11, next to the old Vilnius city municipality building on Gediminas Avenue. Renata 23:14, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] As of December 17th 4:00 CST

Well, I just like seeing galleries within a page. But if you don't want to put one in, and a reader wants to see the county flags, it is certainly not a problem to find them as things stand now.

The article is very interesting and informative and the graphics are great. But as an ordinary person, it seems unusual to me for a country to have two official flags. Did a little research but not enough to find out how often this occurs around the world. If it is indeed unusual, it would be worth mentioning in the lead paragraphs.

I have a vague feeling there is some history here regarding previous bad relationships with the Poles, but this isn't mentioned in the Seimas sites. I suggest you send a note to User:Dr. Dan asking for some historical perspective. Sincerely, Novickas 22:06, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

From what I saw on the websites I used as sources, it did not really mention much about the conflict between the Poles and the Lithuanians. Because of that, I did not want to try and introduce un-needed politics. Honestly, it is not unusual; Latin American countries and some European nations perform this, so it is not uncommon. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 22:26, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Added the note about the state flag, a link to the article. I wanted to keep focus of this article about the flag and try not to involve politics that are not needed. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 22:29, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

The Inkscape reference doesn't point to anything? Otherwise very nice. Good luck, Novickas 13:07, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

That is the program I used for the RGB/CMYK conversion, so I felt it was needed to state how I got the CMYK numbers. I done that before on other articles I wrote about flags. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 19:10, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Similar flags

The flag of Lithuania is next to identical to the flags of the Colombian city of Ibagué and the (unofficial) flag of the Danish island of Ærø (proportions differ). In the case of Ærø, this flag dates from somewhere between 1622 and 1633.[1] and [2] There is another image on the Danish Wikipedia: da:Ærø. Valentinian ^{(talk) / (contribs)} 12:26, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm....I am not sure if this was worth adding to the article, IMHO. Unless this has gotten siginificant press coverage, such as the Chad v. Romania dispute, then I think that could be mentioned elsewhere. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 20:17, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I'll leave that entirely up to you. The similarity was noted in Danish media at the time Lithuania became independent, but it is certainly not a matter of international dispute :) In the Danish case, the three stripes represent the island's two former owners: the dukes of Schleswig (yellow) and Denmark (red). Green represents the island itself. I just stumbled over the Colombian article, so I began wondering how many places use these three colours in the same order. Merry Christmas. Valentinian ^{(talk) / (contribs)} 00:55, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

There is an article being created, pointed out to me last night, called Gallery of confusable flags. The Lithuania flag is listed there with some other tricolors that use the yellow, green, red combination. I won't oppose the addition of the Danish newspaper mention, but I just do not see how it would be relevant, since many other national flags match each other (like Monacco and Inodnesia). Merry Christmas to you too. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 01:25, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I'd been looking for an article like that. Thanks for the hint. Valentinian ^{(talk) / (contribs)} 16:06, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tricolor/Tricolour

Saw somebody changed that, today -- have zero interest in getting an edit war on today's FA, but figure it couldn't hurt for some discussion on this, at some point. I'm fine either way, but discussion is rarely a bad idea. – Luna Santin (talk) 06:11, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

I personally would like to keep it at EN-US, since most of the text in the article is written in that way. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 06:22, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

I thought it was supposed to be British/Irish because Lithuania's in the EU. I could be wrong though. ShadowHalo 12:13, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Never mind. The recommendation at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (national varieties of English) is to use whatever dialect was originally used for the article. ShadowHalo 12:16, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

In cases where one particular dialect is obviously preferred (Australia should, as a matter of course, be written in EN-AUS, for example), that can be an easy decision rule. So far as I understand, though, we don't have such a clear preference for Lithuania? If so, then falling back to the "first major contributor" guideline seems appropriate. – Luna Santin (talk) 18:40, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] No banana republic?

At least a couple of years ago, it was a common joke among Lithuanians. Miraceti 09:48, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Overlinking

What's the point of wikilinking the colour names in the first paragraph? Anyone capable of understanding the article knows what these words mean; the significance of the colours and the precise shades to be used are defined later in the article anyway. Colonies Chris 10:08, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Constitution

WTF Why is there a picture of the US Constitution on this article? Wait a second, this whole article is about the constitution.

[edit] Aspect ratio

It says:

The ratio of both the national and state flag must be 3:5, with the standard flag size to be 1 meter by 1.7 meters

But 1:1.7 isn't a ratio of of 3:5! (It's 10:17). Ben Finn 13:26, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, but it's pretty close to 3:5, and Lithuania probably doesn't have a meterstick that measures to infinite decimal places because one doesn't exist.GeeZee 15:38, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

It makes no sense either, but that is what Lithuanian law states. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 20:23, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks

Just want to say a heartfelt thanks to all of you who have been protecting this article from vandalism over the past hours. Novickas 14:33, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Single Line Of Vandalism...

Single Line of Vandalism on the page for this article... From some twerp named or calling himself Tyler... I'm editing for quality, as in deleting the vandalism... Michael 14:57, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Protection

Admins can you lock article semi-protected from stupid vandals. --Pontiakas 17:23, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Request already declined. M.K. 18:14, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Sorry. I know it's really, really annoying, but there are some good edits going in there too, and protecting the main page FA always needs a bit more discussion. Keep up the good work, riana_dzasta 18:16, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] African colors?

It's interesting to note that the flag colors red, green and yellow are described elsewhere as "the colors of African unity." I suppose their similarity to the Lithuanian flag is mere happenstance. See Flag of Ethiopia at right.

Several other African countries use these colors, too. Sca 21:42, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

So what?--Lokyz 21:50, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

I just think it is more of a happenstance and the African colors were never cited as a reason why the colors are they way they are. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 23:30, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

How it is relevant to this article?--Lokyz 23:45, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

It ain't. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 00:07, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

It's just a strange cowinkydink! Sca 15:29, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] State flag

Part of this article, called "State flag", is a misinformation. State flag of Lithuania is the same as National flag, is tricolour. In reality, that part talks about "Historical flag". user:lt:nevidonas 2007 02 22

[edit] A couple of questions

Lead paragraph: "The flag was adopted on March 20, 1989 on the reestablishment of independence from the Soviet Union." Lithuania gained independence March 11, 1991, so wouldn't it be more accurate to write, "The flag was adopted on March 20, 1989, almost two years before the reestablishment of independence from the Soviet Union"?
There's a bit of confusion regarding 1988 vs. 1989. At present, the information can be read two ways: the tricolor was adopted in 1988, the SSR flag was no longer valid at that point, and a legal definition of the tricolor came in 1989. Or the tricolor was adopted in 1988 but remained undefined, so that formal replacement of the tricolor came only in 1989.

"from 1945 until 1989, the Soviet Lithuanian flag consisted..."

"During 1988, when the Lithuanian movement towards independence was gaining strength, the Lithuanian Supreme Soviet again recognized the tricolor as the national flag, formally defining the colors a year later, at which point the tricolor replaced the Soviet Lithuanian flag."

If the first, to make things clearer, I would add the underlined portion to the second sentence. (Though that still leaves the question: what legal status did each flag have between the 1988 tricolor recognition and the 1989 tricolor definition?

Perhaps a footnote in the List of flags of Lithuania, where the same '88-'89 confusion is present, would also be useful. Biruitorul (talk) 15:16, 26 March 2008 (UTC)