Template talk:Flagicon

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Template:Flagicon is permanently protected from editing, as it is a heavily used or visible template. Substantial changes should be proposed here, and made by administrators if the proposal is uncontroversial, or has been discussed and is supported by consensus. Use {{editprotected}} to attract the attention of an administrator in such cases. Any contributor may edit the template's documentation to add usage notes, categories or interwiki links.

Main article: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Flag_Template

---

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Template:Flagicon page.
Please sign and date your posts by typing four tildes (~~~~). Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic. New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Ask questions, get answers.	Be polite Assume good faith No personal attacks Be welcoming

Contents 1 Border? 2 USSR and PRC 3 European Union? 4 New Zealand not working 5 Turks & Caicos 6 World 7 Trying to figure out what breaks South Korea 8 What is the point? 9 Problem icon? 10 Incorrect design statement 11 Unsupported use restriction 12 Links 13 Proposal to replace {{flagicon|USA...}} calls 14 Centralised discussion at MoS on flag icons 15 Switched to use new template code from template:flagicon2 16 Vatican City 17 Usage 18 Hong Kong not working 19 USA not working 20 Flag of Brazil and Australia STILL not working 21 Oliver Hardy 22 Palestine/Eretz Israel controversy 23 Flag of Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia 24 interwiki de 25 Flag link to country 26 What about North America? 27 NO:WP 28 Usage: General purpose? 29 Micronesia not working 30 attempt to hide. 31 Doesn't appear to work anymore 32 Clicking on the flag 33 Any Ideas 34 Battle of Blenheim 35 Interwiki sv 36 Add switch-option

---

[edit] Border?

Is there an easy way to add a border around the image that gets displayed? Flags that have large areas of white along their edges (such as Poland or Japan ) don't look quite as good without a border; the individual flag pages recommend wrapping the image tag in {{border}}. However, using {{border}} around the {{flagicon}} call doesn't quite work the way I would expect it to (as in the following examples):

Using {{flagicon|Japan}}

in a regular text paragraph.

• in a bulleted list paragraph.

1. in a numbered list paragraph.

Using {{border|{{flagicon|Japan}}}}

uses both templates in a regular text paragraph.

• uses both templates in a bulleted list paragraph.

1. uses both templates in a numbered list paragraph.

As you can see, using {{border}} adds an extra line break before the text. Thoughts or ideas? AdThanksVance. Slambo (Speak) 18:37, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Some flags with white areas include a border in the image. This may be an issue for Wikipedia:WikiProject Flag Template or Wikipedia:WikiProject Countries, although I check their Talk pages as I've seen this discussed someplace. (SEWilco 19:20, 20 January 2006 (UTC))

Another problem with {{border}}, found during editing one game-related article. See the example stripped template on the right:

FlatOut 2
Release date	June 29, 2006 June 30, 2006 August 1, 2006

"Released part" contains just {{border|{{flagicon|RUS}}}}[[June 29]] [[2006]]<br />[[Image:European flag.svg|22px|Europe]] [[June 30]], [[2006]]<br />{{flagicon|USA}} [[August 1]] [[2006]], but it renders some vertical-prolonged border! Honeyman 16:20, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] USSR and PRC

,

the symbols on the flags (which are there only distinguishing feature) especially the USSR one are reduced to tiny splodges I wonder if we should exageragerate them a bit so they are actually recogniseable. Plugwash 17:46, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

No, that's not a good ideia. The flags should be presented as they are. Afonso Silva 16:26, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

I think if a separate icon flag was created this might be acceptable. Rich Farmbrough 14:31 19 June 2006 (GMT).

Oh yes i wouldn't suggest changing full sized display of flags just the icons, this would be easy enough to implement in the template using #if Plugwash 20:00, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] European Union?

{{flagicon|EUR}} seem to generate only , while {{EUR}}</nowiki> generally works ( European Union). Any fix?

There is [[Image:European flag.svg|22px|Europe]] () though for it, but it goes out of the template. Honeyman 16:11, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New Zealand not working

For some reason using both NZL and New Zealand as arguments isn't working and is just displaying the text "New Zealand". Anyone more familiar with how this template is built have any clue why and how to fix it? -Drdisque 06:24, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

This problem is now occuring with , , and . -Drdisque 21:06, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm seeing icons. Maybe the image servers were slow at that time? Try reloading the page. (SEWilco 05:33, 19 August 2006 (UTC))

[edit] Turks & Caicos

- seems busted from where I'm sitting

[edit] World

Seeing as how there are more and more worldwide realeses, via online download and such, I created a World alias for the flagicon template, using the flag to the right, per Template:Infobox VG standards. Just type in "World" and there ya go. JQF 22:08, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Kind of hard to recognize that tiny blue ovoid with dust in the corners. Too many pale colors. (SEWilco 02:59, 20 September 2006 (UTC))

Well it's the one used for the CVG Infobox, so that's why I used it. If you know of another one that would be better suited, I'd be happy to hear it. JQF 22:42, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

It might be better to use a clearly recognizable globe. And in most situations no flagicon is needed for an international release. Shinobu 05:29, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

How about the globe image currently used as default in Template:Country data (e.g. )? I've also seen the UN flag () used as a default for international releases, but that is clearly a bad idea. I think we should standardize on something. Use of any icon seems a bit superfluous, but it is advantageous to have something as a place filler when lining up lists where every other entry has a flag icon. Andrwsc 18:13, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Trying to figure out what breaks South Korea

[[Image:{{{flag alias}}}|22x20px|border |Flag of {{{alias}}}]]

Okay, this obviously is a problem with {{country_flag}}, not with this template. Shinobu 14:11, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What is the point?

Why are little flags appropriate for Wikipedia? What are they for? —Centrx→talk • 02:32, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

For stubs as far as I can tell. -WarthogDemon 02:33, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Infoboxes. There's not always enough room for full country names. Shinobu 05:26, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Okay, then it should be specifically discouraged in other places, because it is simply goofy where not necessary. —Centrx→talk • 08:56, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I think they should only be used in world or country-related affairs. -- Ladida 05:39, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

The top of this page links to a Wikiproject; discussion in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Flag Template is better than tucked in a single template's Talk page. The reason this template was created is as a standardized replacement for assorted flag templates, as pointed out in Village pump (news). "What links here" shows several kinds of usage. (SEWilco 01:54, 11 December 2006 (UTC))

What is the point of all these convoluted templates? They are used inappropriately throughout the wiki. —Centrx→talk • 02:21, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Changing Template:Country to eliminate the flag icon seems a bit premature, don't you think? --*Spark* 02:46, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

It has been a month, and this issue has been brought up in numerous forums. No one seems to have provided any reason why a flag should appear beside every mention of a country in an infobox or table or, more importantly, why it should be propagated uniformly by template. If there is a reason, please explain it. —Centrx→talk • 03:06, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

The passage of time is irrelevant when there is no discussion. What other numerous forums, and which are relevant ones which would have been noticed by users of these templates? There is a link at the top of this page to the relevant WikiProject, why have you not discussed it there? (SEWilco 17:57, 11 December 2006 (UTC))

I seem to have arrived a bit late.

Anyway, my argument: if people wanted to only use the country name they would have linked it directly, not used a convoluted template. The point of the templates in the first place is to provide "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", as WP:FLAGCRUFT, says. Consider, for example, List of countries by length of coastline or European_Short_Course_Swimming_Championships_2006#Medal_Table. I agree that they are overused, but replace the template with a country name individually.

And the point of uniform propagation is the same as why we have class="wikitable" and a common CSS: It looks more professional if things like flags are roughly similar throughout wiki. Sam Vimes | Address me 11:39, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

It might stand out to the eye, but for most people most flags are meaningless. They will recognize a few of the flags and no others; they are going to read the names anyway, and the names are nevertheless listed. Also, I do not see why "eye-catching" is relevant to an encyclopedia. Why don't we put graphic bars of relative lengths on the coastline page? Why don't we put a little filled clock next to all the times on the Olympic page? The flags are useful to save space instead of writing out the full country name (though, because most flags are not clear which country they belong to, the country names should usually be written out anyway). —Centrx→talk • 12:08, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Problem icon?

I think this thing is problematic. Kurdistan is not a country. And don't get this the wrong way. Kurdistan (Iraq) does not claim to be a country. I do not see why we should treat it like a country. --Cat out 21:46, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't think that the availability of {{flagicon}} implies that something is a country, just that it has a flag. Shinobu 06:05, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Texas isn't a country either, but {{flagicon|Texas}} works. As I see it, this template isn't meant to imply that something is a country; all it means is that there is a claimed political entity, and those who claim its existence also claim that it has a flag, and that this flag looks like this. The template makes no statement about the validity of the claim. Therefore, flagicons for Transnistria, Abkhazia, and all those other unrecognized countries aren't problems, and neither is the Kurdistan one. Þicaroon 20:32, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Incorrect design statement

User:Centrx altered the protected page to add a statement that this template was designed for specific types of uses. This is factually incorrect. It was designed for technical reasons to provide standardized icons for replacement of the assortment of defacto icons with various characteristics and naming conflicts. The type of usage was not part of the design. (SEWilco 18:13, 11 December 2006 (UTC))

I removed the "designed" part. See also the above discussion. —Centrx→talk • 05:34, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Unsupported use restriction

User:Centrx added a protected statement which states how the template is to be used, without such a decision of use restriction having been made. Centrx claims discussion in numerous forums but does not support such claim. (SEWilco 06:39, 13 December 2006 (UTC))

See above at #What is the point? for the discussion that is on this very talk page and the discussion which is directly referenced in the edit, [1], which was made three weeks after the discussion was initiated, for starters. What are the reasons why this template should be used for other purposes? —Centrx→talk • 07:03, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

The above "discussion" had three replies before Centrx added that policy statement under the shield of protection. There is no usage policy and the statement should be removed from the protected article. (SEWilco 19:17, 13 December 2006 (UTC))

(edit conflict) The only person I see in agreement with Centrx is Centrx. This change needs to be reverted because there clearly is not a consensus for the change. Note to Centrx: Please stop removing these icons from Wikipedia based on the beliefs of an essay: WP:FLAGCRUFT. It is neither a policy nor guideline and should not be used in such a way. AuburnPilot^talk 19:20, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Agree completely. See Wikipedia:Protection_policy#Editing_protected_pages. If he wants to make a change he should get consensus here first. There is none. --*Spark* 19:28, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps you should actually look at the section, where three other users did agree, and no one else disagreed before it was added. If it should be removed, there should be reasons given why it should be removed, not just to remove it and then find that it was right to add it in the first place. —Centrx→talk • 19:47, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Two people partially answered a question, and only one user agreed with Centrx. Centrx also observed that there was a lack of commentary for a month. Perhaps because nobody is looking here or nobody had an answer to Centrx's question. (SEWilco 04:16, 14 December 2006 (UTC))

You are here now, so you can explain the reasons. —Centrx→talk • 04:20, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

No, I can't explain the reasons the template is used. Read what I said in the "point" discussion above, particularly the link to the original "Village pump" excerpt. The template was created for standardization reasons, not usage reasons. I don't know the reasons flag icons were being used before the template existed, nor now. I know that now the icons have a more similar appearance. I know that I know only a few ways they are being used (such as sports and military), but I also know they are being used in other ways which I do not know. (SEWilco 04:34, 14 December 2006 (UTC))

In response to a request on my talk page, I have created a documentation subpage at Template:Flagicon/doc. This appears to be common practice for fully protected templates, allowing discussion on usage to continue while preventing the template itself from being vandalized. - BanyanTree 19:44, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Regarding the addition of the restriction text in the doc page - It isn't up to us to decide where the template can be used. It is here, it performs a certain task, and that's it. Putting in an arbitrary restriction will do nothing but start edit wars with someone using that text as justification for removal of the template on a page. It's used where it's used, and such usage can be judged on an individual basis, and will be judged on an individual basis with or without a falsely imposed declaration on where usage is proper. --*Spark* 21:46, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Nothing is imposed, but the fact remains that the template has a specific encyclopedic use, which no one appears to have contested. It is misleading to have this is an official-looking template. Also, please fix the multiple layers of transclusion. —Centrx→talk • 03:41, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

It is misleading to state that this template is used in certain ways or only in certain ways. In what way should the flags look not official? (SEWilco 05:28, 30 December 2006 (UTC))

The template makes it appear that it is standard and encouraged to use the flags in appropriate ways. —Centrx→talk • 06:09, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Unless a policy exists stating these icons can only be used where there is inadequate space to type the country's name, such a restriction would be wrongly placed on this template's page. Policy change requires policy discussion. AuburnPilot^talk 05:36, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

That's what this talk page is for, and it is no more of a policy change than having the flags at all. —Centrx→talk • 06:09, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Flag icons existed before this tool existed. Having a standard usage and intent was the reason this tool was created. The existence of flags is a fact, not a policy. There are places where policies are discussed; as there are Wikiprojects involving regions there may also be discussions about place policies. (SEWilco 03:27, 5 January 2007 (UTC))

And there are places to discuss the use of a template, such as the template talk page. —Centrx→talk • 04:57, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Links

Would it be possible to edit this template such that clicking on the image of the flag takes you to the page for that country? LukeSurl 13:02, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

No. Images in Wikipedia are automatically linked to the page for the image. (SEWilco 16:52, 20 December 2006 (UTC))

If somebody were to use the {{click}} template, the flag would automatically lead to the country's article. It can be done, but as the template's description says "Do not use this template unless absolutely necessary". I wouldn't suggest using it here. AuburnPilot^talk 19:09, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

{{click}} uses CSS. I did not propose using CSS because that would make the images behave differently based upon behavior of various browsers. If Wikipedia wants to make images behave differently then the developers will have to make changes. (SEWilco 19:38, 20 December 2006 (UTC))

[edit] Proposal to replace {{flagicon|USA...}} calls

Notice: There is currently a proposal to change calls {{flagicon|USA..}} to {{USA|..}} at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Flag_Template#Changing_USA_flag_calls. Please consider posting there to keep the discussion in one place. --Ligulem 11:14, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Centralised discussion at MoS on flag icons

Please contribute to the centralised discussion on flag icons at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Flag icons - manual of style entry?. Please add comments over there, not here. Thanks. Carcharoth 13:54, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Switched to use new template code from template:flagicon2

I've changed the template to use the new code from template:Flagicon2. See Wikipedia:WikiProject Flag Template/January 2007 rework. See also template:country2 for some info about the usage of this template here (is the same as for flagicon2, which is a shorthand for {{country2|flagicon|...}}). I've created all needed data templates before doing the switch ([2], [3]). --Ligulem 12:53, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Job queue length is at 33,810 now and decreasing. --Ligulem 13:01, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Job queue length is now at ~700. So this change should be live on articles now (/me ducks and covers :-). --Ligulem 13:59, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Vatican City

just to note their flagicon is bigger than the others --Jor70 00:30, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Someone must have forgotten to specify both the horizontal and vertical px in their template edits. (SEWilco 04:05, 13 February 2007 (UTC))

Hmm. {{flagicon|Vatican City}} = expands as: [[Image:Flag of the Vatican City.svg|22x20px|Flag of Vatican City]] = . --Ligulem 09:59, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Looking at last version by SEWilco of the previously used {{country flagicon}} I see

[[Image:{{country flag alias {{{1}}}}}|{{#if:{{{size|}}}|{{{size}}}|22x20px}}|{{country alias {{{1}}}}}]]

as template code, which under the old system ([4]) would have been expanded as

[[Image:{{country flag alias Vatican City}}|22x20px|{{country alias Vatican City}}]]

which further expanded to

[[Image:Flag of the Vatican City.svg|22x20px|Vatican City]]

and which finally is the same with regards to image size as what we have at the moment. The only difference is that I added "Flag of" to the alt attribute of the image. --Ligulem 10:19, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Side note: Switzerland also has a quadratic flag and that has the same height now. Compare:

--Ligulem 10:39, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Some experimenting with sizes:

• [[Image:Flag of Switzerland.svg|22x20px|Flag of Switzerland]] {{flagicon|Italy}} =
• [[Image:Flag of Switzerland.svg|15x20px|Flag of Switzerland]] {{flagicon|Italy}} =
• [[Image:Flag of Switzerland.svg|14x20px|Flag of Switzerland]] {{flagicon|Italy}} =
• [[Image:Flag of the Vatican City.svg|22x20px|Flag of Vatican City]] {{flagicon|Italy}} =
• [[Image:Flag of the Vatican City.svg.svg|15x20px|Flag of Vatican City]] {{flagicon|Italy}} =
• [[Image:Flag of the Vatican City.svg.svg|14x20px|Flag of Vatican City]] {{flagicon|Italy}} =
• [[Image:Flag of Italy.svg|15x20px|Flag of Italy]] {{flagicon|Italy}} =

Looks like changing "22x20px" to "15x20px" would produce a smaller image with the same height as the flags for Italy or France. --Ligulem 10:53, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Just for curiosity:

• [[Image:Flag of Switzerland.svg|15px|Flag of Switzerland]] {{flagicon|Italy}} =
• [[Image:Flag of Italy.svg|15px|Flag of Italy]] {{flagicon|Italy}} =

--Ligulem 11:02, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Some links: m:Help:Images and other uploaded files, Wikipedia:Extended image syntax. --Ligulem 14:00, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Quote from Wikipedia:Extended image syntax: "100x200px": Scales the image to be no wider than 100 pixels and no higher than 200 pixels. Image will keep its original aspect ratio. ([5]). --Ligulem 14:08, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Looking at these examples:

• [[Image:Flag of Switzerland.svg|15x20px]] {{flagicon|Italy}} =
• [[Image:Flag of Switzerland.svg|20x15px]] {{flagicon|Italy}} =
• [[Image:Flag of Italy.svg|15x20px]] {{flagicon|Italy}} =
• [[Image:Flag of Italy.svg|20x15px]] {{flagicon|Italy}} =
• [[Image:Flag of Italy.svg|22x15px]] {{flagicon|Italy}} =
• [[Image:Flag of Switzerland.svg|22x15px]] {{flagicon|Italy}} =

and at the quote from Wikipedia:Extended image syntax above I would say "22x15px" would be the correct value, if people want to have the quadratic flags the same height as the flags like France or Italy. The only problem I see with this is, that quadratic flags would look visually smaller than they do now. However, I don't care myself. What do you want to have? --Ligulem 14:30, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Using 22x15px, {{flagicon|Vatican City}} would then look like this:

{{flagicon|Italy}} [[Image:Flag of the Vatican City.svg|22x15px|Flag of Vatican City]] {{flagicon|France}} =

--Ligulem 14:44, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

forgive me please, but I still do not understand: {{flagicon|France}} {{flagicon|Italy}} {{flagicon|Vatican City}} result in . Are you saying I must use [[Image:Flag of the Vatican City.svg|22x15px|Flag of Vatican City]] instead of the template for Vatican City ? Jor70 15:05, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Certainly not :-). I was asking what people want to have on the template. To show what the changes would look like, I used plain wiki syntax. Shall I change the template to make the quadratic flags use the same height as the flags for France or Italy? In other words, shall I change the template such that when calling {{flagicon|Italy}} {{flagicon|Vatican City}} {{flagicon|France}} you would get  ? --Ligulem 15:26, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

aahh, hehe sorry, yes, IMHO vatican city should be the same height of the others, no matter if is longer or shorter. Jor70 17:00, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Done. {{flagicon|France}} {{flagicon|Italy}} {{flagicon|Vatican City}} {{flagicon|Switzerland}} = --Ligulem 17:45, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

....but note that for example Australia: {{flagicon|Australia}} {{flagicon|Italy}} = is lower. --Ligulem 18:04, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Just in case: No change compared to previous default size:

{{flagicon|Australia}} {{flagicon|Australia|size=22x20px}} {{flagicon|Italy}} =

--Ligulem 18:12, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I fear we will get some more problems:

{{flagicon|Australia}} {{flagicon|Australia|size=30x15px}} {{flagicon|Italy}} =

Seems like one default size for all flags is not sufficient if all flags shall have the same default height??? Oh dear... --Ligulem 18:18, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Ahem: {{flagicon|Australia|size=30x15px}} {{flagicon|Switzerland|size=30x15px}} {{flagicon|Italy|size=30x15px}} {{flagicon|Vatican City|size=30x15px}} = --Ligulem 18:24, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Uhh. Question is, what would people say to layouts like this one (example article):

Italy

Australia

Switzerland

? --Ligulem 18:48, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Awesome for vatican city!, but I just notice England, New Zealand, Japan, looks smaller too, hope not problem with that but perhaps you could just use a conditional for Vatican City ? Jor70 18:23, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

You know, there are so many flag variations that a "one size fits all" approach is impossible, IMO. Obviously, the size= override can be used to make adjustments as need be, but I think that the previous default of 22x20px is the best choice. There are a great number of instances where flagicons are used with a list, and the rendering looks significantly better when the flags all have the same width, so that the text lines up neatly. Since the majority of flags are wider than tall, I propose reverting back to the previous setting and if specific pages with Vatican City, Switzerland, etc. flags require some "tweaking", then size= can be used on those pages. The default needs to cater to the most common denominator. Andrwsc 22:07, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I think 22x15px isn't that bad. Could you be more specific why you find the old 22x20px better than 22x15px? Can you point at some articles as examples which have suffered from the change to 22x15px? I don't mean to go to 30x15px but 22x15px could be a compromise. As I demonstrated above here, Australia, as a very long-flag example (two Switzerland flags would fit in that :-) hasn't changed at all by going to 22x15px. --Ligulem 22:20, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Ok. I think I got what Andrwsc means: compare these two short lists:

size=22x20px  Italy  Australia  Switzerland

size=22x15px  Italy  Australia  Switzerland

The text lines up significantly worser with 22x15px than with 22x20px. Jor70, could you tell us a specific article where you are using the Vatican City flag and which looks bad in your opinion with the 22x20px size? --Ligulem 23:25, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I first notice it on my user page! :-) But I wasnt aware of the size parameter and I just wanted to let you know of this issue. Of course is not a problem for me to use the template parameter. Jor70 00:10, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I think the 22x20px works better. There are many tables with text which is easier to read if the text is aligned. There may be some line spacing issues, depending upon the size font which a user's browser is using, but that should be less significant than the horizontal alignment issue. (SEWilco 03:40, 14 February 2007 (UTC))

I agree and I believe we have consensus for the good old default of 22x20px. I've reverted the templates: [6], [7]. --Ligulem 07:47, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Usage

I've been seeing the icons pop up in more and more places where it looks a bit...odd. Take a look at Steve Grogan; is that what this icon template was intended for? Tarc 23:38, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

A controversial question. I can't really comment on usage, but see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Flag icons - manual of style entry? for some recent voices. This has to be decided by editors on articles: either they use the template or not. Editors on sports related articles use these flags a lot. For my personal taste: I wouldn't be disappointed if the US flag on Steve Grogan would be removed. But the sports editors might not be happy with the removal of their flags. My role on this template here: I have just spent some time on the implementation side of the flag templates recently (I worked on a technical redesign of the original system by SEWilco). See also Wikipedia:WikiProject_Flag_Template for the technicalities. --Ligulem 00:13, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hong Kong not working

All pages using the "flagicon-Hong Kong" template are displaying the text "Flag of Hong Kong" instead of an image. Tony Myers 17:37, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Can you point out an example? {{flagicon|Hong Kong}} is working fine (rendering ), and there have been no changes to Template:Country data Hong Kong. Andrwsc 18:53, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

There was a problem today where a bot added interwiki links outside the "noinclude" section of some of the flag templates, so maybe you saw a problem with that (e.g. {{HKG}}. Are you sure it was a problem with {{flagicon}} and not with that? Andrwsc 19:21, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] USA not working

All pages using the {{flagicon|USA}} and {{flagicon|United States}} are displaying "Flag of United States" instead of the image. I'm not sure how to fix it!! AWN2 23:31, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't see it now. There have been no changes today to any of {{flagicon}}, {{Country flagicon2}} or {{Country data United States}}, and those are the only three templates that are needed to render {{flagicon|United States}}. I have no explanation! Andrwsc 00:49, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Flag of Brazil and Australia STILL not working

I see up in a bit that it's happened before (and maybe just hasn't gotten fixed), does anyone know what the problem could be? It just shows the text "flag of (whatever country)" instead of the picture. But, it only does it for certain ones. Bsroiaadn 02:30, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, the problem is not with these templates. My guess is that the 22 pixel versions of all the SVG images not no longer in the cache, and are not being rendered. Andrwsc 03:14, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Oliver Hardy

What do we do for someone who was born under 44 stars and died under 48? Shouldn't we be putting the flags from the proper eras next to these people's names and does this template allow for a way to do that? gren グレン 10:48, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't think this is the place for that kind of discussion. In fact, there is some resistance to using flag icons altogether for that kind of situation (see Wikipedia:Don't overuse flags). This talk page usually deals with technical issues around the templates that render the flag icons, not the policy of when and where they are appropriate. But to partially answer your question, you can get a 44 star US flag with {{flagicon|United States|1891}} and a 48 star flag with {{flagicon|United States|1912}}. Andrwsc 14:51, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Palestine/Eretz Israel controversy

Before the declaration of independence of the State of Israel (pre-1948), the territory of Palestine would be refered to as The British Mandate of Palestine (1917 [officially 1922]-1948) or part of The Ottoman Empire (1516-1917). All of those eras have their own flags, The British Mandate of Palestine had its own flag and the Ottoman Empire had a different flag pre-1973. Are these flags included? and if not, can someone add them? - --AvihooI 02:38, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Flag of Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia

I am missing a flagicon template for the flag of Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (). Could someone add it? mikeshk 07:10, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] interwiki de

please add the interwikilink de:Vorlage:Flagicon, thanks.--Henning Ihmels 17:45, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Done. Andrwsc 18:02, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Flag link to country

I think it would be a good idea to make the flag refer, instead of to the picture of the flag, to the article about the country this flag represents via an imagemap. What do you think? --85.181.26.204 04:35, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

That requires a change to the WikiMedia software and possibly a change to Wikipedia:Extended image syntax, and is certainly outside of the scope of this template. Andrwsc 15:56, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I think this has already been done in Extension:ImageMap.

 <imagemap>
 Image:Flag of Armenia.svg|22x20px
 # Flag size unknown, so null-sized rectangle and letting default do the work
 rect 0 0 0 0 [[Armenia]]
 default [[Armenia]]
 desc none
 </imagemap>

It should be possible to dynamise this static code example? As Andrew and me have an history of considering the other's replies offensive, perhaps another admin could moderate? --85.181.42.117 21:13, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Template:Country flagicon2 is

[[Image:{{
  #if: {{{variant|}}} | {{{flag alias-{{{variant}}}}}} | {{{flag alias}}}
}}|{{
  #if: {{{size|}}} | {{{size}}} | 22x20px
}}|Flag of {{{alias}}}]]<noinclude>{{/doc}}
</noinclude>

Can somebody make a sandbox to see if this works:

 <imagemap>
 Image:{{
  #if: {{{variant|}}} | {{{flag alias-{{{variant}}}}}} | {{{flag alias}}}
}} | {{
  #if: {{{size|}}} | {{{size}}} | 22x20px
}}
 # Flag size unknown, so null-sized rectangle and letting default do the work
 rect 0 0 0 0 [[{{{alias}}}]]
 default [[{{{alias}}}]]
 desc none
 </imagemap>

--85.181.42.117 21:30, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I hadn't seen the imagemap extension before, but that looks awfully promising! I'll see what I can do. And please refrain from continuing to assume anything but good faith about my comments. Andrwsc 22:01, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

It looks like the imagemap syntax does not work with the parser function syntax and/or template argument syntax. I will continue to experiment. Andrwsc 22:17, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I see, I admit combining the HTML-syntax with the parser really is a kind of hacking that MediaWiki probably does not support (yet), but perhaps it would make a reasonable extension for the next version... if you succeed in making it work, could you keep me posted on Dingo? --85.181.42.117 07:23, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What about North America?

I believe the some 514.6 million of us deserve a flag icon. not necessarily a unique flag, but perhaps grouped together somehow in a template reading {{flagicon|NAM}}, {{flagicon|North America}}, or {{flagicon|NorthAmerica}}. This will help greatly in places such as:

Region	Units sold	First available
North America	3,121,280+ as of June 2, 2007[1][2][3]	November 19, 2006
Japan	2,800,585 as of June 24, 2007[4]	December 2, 2006
Europe	2,000,000+ as of April 13, 2007[5]	December 8, 2006
Australia / New Zealand	100,000 / 6,000 as of June 21, 2007[6][7]	December 7, 2006
Total	8.02 million+

Can anyone help?— Supuhstar * §

Not really. These templates only render a single image at a time. If you want , then use {{flagicon|USA}}{{flagicon|CAN}}{{flagicon|MEX}}. Andrwsc 16:08, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Um. If a region doesn't have an official flag, don't use one. If you want the table to look uniform, take all the flags out. Flags really are overused. In the example you point out, the flags are pure visual decoration. Any 'flag' you use for North America will be less recognisable than the text "North America". You could put a footnote where you say that in this case "North America" refers to Mexico, Canada and the USA, and put the individual country flags there, but really, for a list of computer games, or wherever that table came from, flags are not needed. Carcharoth 16:50, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Yeah! gurulegend 18:23, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Well first of all North America isnt three counties... there are many more. Second the "Flag of Europe" is not the flag for Europe, its for the European Union. Chandlertalk 14:48, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] NO:WP

Please add to the template: no:Mal:Flagicon

--Lipothymia 07:44, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Y Done Andrwsc 08:03, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Usage: General purpose?

I have seen suggestions that {{flagicon}} is intended only to be used in sports articles, rather than as a more general purpose template. As there is no documentation stating this, I assume this is not the case, but can someone clarify this for me? Also, is it safe to assume that {{flagicon|My Country}} will give a suitably general-purpose flag (or no flag at all if that is more appropriate), and that if I'm only likely to need to delve into the different variants if I'm after a specific usage, such as (to quote the documentation) "historical flags, ... naval flags or sport-use flags"? It would be nice to update the documentation to spell this out, one way or the other, as there seems to be some confusion.

If this is not intended by default to be a general purpose template, I'm worried by that. I make occasional edits to a list of islands by highest point. As is common in Wikipedia, this list contains flags next to the names of the country/countries that cover the island. That means well over a hundred different flags. Now I'm sure some of these flags have local connotations that may be POV (for example, some Argentinians may dislike the Union Flag-based Falklands flag being displayed by the Falklands). My hope is that I shouldn't need to worry about these issues. I should be able to use the flagicon template, without worrying about country-specific variants, and trust that to do the right thing. That way, any flag-related controversy can stay in the Country data templates where it can be dealt with by appropriately knowledgeable people rather than propagating throughout Wikipedia.

— ras52 22:28, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

You might want to look into Wikipedia:Don't overuse flags, and its talk page discussion too. It is just an essay only at this point, but with the intent to becoming policy.

I'm in the middle of a big drive to improve the documentation of these templates, but only to describe how to use them, not where or why to use them. After making flag-related edits to thousands of articles, my own opinion is that their use on sport-related articles or military history articles is a good usage, but putting them in biographic infoboxes to mark the birth and/or death location for individual people is not helpful.

One other note — you specifically mention flagicon only in your message, but you might want to look at Template:flag too. If you find yourself writing {{flagicon|Countryname}} [[Countryname]] a lot, you can simplify this greatly with just {{flag|Countryname}}.

Hope this helps, Andrwsc 00:46, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Micronesia not working

Displaying "Flag of the Federated States of Micronesia." This problem has happened with other flags before. Æetlr Creejl 17:33, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] attempt to hide.

I am looking at the possibility of hiding the display of the flag see: User:Agathoclea/monobook.css, User:Agathoclea/Flagicon and User:Agathoclea/Twinnings. Sadly in my attempt to copy this template I introduced a linebreak, which I can't get rid off - any ideas? Agathoclea 20:49, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand - what problem are you trying to solve? Andrwsc 21:11, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

I am trying to give users the option to hide the flag in their own CSS. I am working on a copy in my userspace. But so far my attempt has broken the display for everyone else by introducing a linebreak. See User:Agathoclea/Twinnings Agathoclea 21:15, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Ah, ok. I don't see where the line break is being introduced, alas. Andrwsc 21:22, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Y Done. I think the problem in your test page was using <div> instead of <span>. I have installed the class on the main flag templates, so the following code should be put in your monobook.css to disable any flag icons that are rendered through these templates.

.flagicon {
  display: none;
}

Note that there are still thousands of instances where the flag templates are not used (i.e. the MediaWiki image syntax is used directly), so they will still be visible. Hope this helps, Andrwsc 20:30, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Doesn't appear to work anymore

See 2007 Rugby World Cup, some of the flags don't appear, but the name of the country does. bruce89 13:44, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

This is very strange, because it seems that over the past 24 hours more and more flags have stopped working. Is a bot editing the images and breaking the template? That's the only thing I can think of. —Ed Cormany 14:46, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Same problem for me, some flags work, some dont, the 22px .png render of all the Flag of country.svg are the problem, the 21px and 23px renders work for me. Some countries have started working for me, for example i noticed that Spain and England's flags work now (didnt work for me some hours ago.). Would be great if someone who knew something could comment somewhere ;) Chandlertalk 14:51, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

I wonder if this is a technical issue on the part of the wiki servers? If the 22px renders are cached (they are the default size as used by this template) but something happened to the cache, that might explain why it didn't affect 21px or 23px renders. --Stratadrake 16:04, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

I was noticing this for a minority of flags too. Some sample broken flags:

• Papua New Guinea
• Wales
• Europe
• USSR

I note that the original SVG file appears to be missing for the last two flags, though not the first two.

The Wales image tries to use http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/59/Flag_of_Wales_2.svg/22px-Flag_of_Wales_2.svg.png , which doesn't work, however if you remove the ".png" from the end it works just fine.[8] Is the ".png" supposed to be on the end? -- HiEv 17:58, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm... Looks like those flags are working now, but many other Wikipedia images are currently broken. Perhaps some weird maintainance glitch? -- HiEv 00:44, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

It's the same on the ladino language wikipedia and I haven't checked on the spanish language wiki, but it does work with the 23px render.. that's odd! Any ideas? --JewBask 03:17, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

For me as of right now Wales and Europe are working but not the other two. Jooler 16:58, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Same problem with the Greece flagicon. It temporarily worked at 23px in the Andreas Papandreou article, however it doesn't render anymore even at that size. Dr.K. 17:00, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Same problem for Qatar, Bahrain, Thailand and UAE in the BMI article. As HiEv has described previously, in this case the template seems to try to use a file path with a superfluous ".png" at the end. (e.g. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a9/Flag_of_Thailand.svg/22px-Flag_of_Thailand.svg.png) Weirdly, Image:Flag_of_Thailand.svg works just fine.--afromme 18:51, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Could this have something to do with all the affected country templates having their shortname field changed from "alias1" to "redir1" and the way the flagicon handles the redir1 field. Most affected countries seem to be those that have shortcode not in the standard list of ISO codes (but either IOC or FIFA short codes, like ENG for England). --Deon Steyn 08:26, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Not at all. alias1 and redir1 are only used by Template:country showdata, which "self-documents" the country data templates. They have nothing to do whatsoever with image rendering. They aren't even visible to the main templates, being surrounded by <noinclude>...</noinclude> as they are. Andrwsc 15:50, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

I think they came back.Dr.K. 18:28, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Y Yes, they are working again, turns out it was server problems and nothing to do with the good work Andrwsc has been doing. My apologies again! --Deon Steyn 06:11, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Clicking on the flag

Hi — Can this template be modified so that clicking on the flag opens the article about the country or region and not the page about the image? I think the former is what most people would expect. Sardanaphalus 12:22, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Not without changes to the imagemap syntax, as per the previous discussion on this page ("Flag link to country"). Andrwsc 15:40, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Oh yes, sorry I missed that. Do you know if this is on a developer's to-do list? (Only for flagicon as I guess it'd be redundant with flagcountry.) Sardanaphalus 00:07, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, the last time I looked at the Bugzilla list, it was a requested feature to make imagemaps work with variable template parameters, so I presume somebody will address the request someday. It's certainly something that must come from a MediaWiki developer, as it is not something we can do with template syntax. Andrwsc 03:56, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Here's an idea: I've done some testing with {{Click-Inline}} to produce a stripped down version of {{country flagicon2}} here. Could this be implemented? --Eruhildo (talk) 18:37, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Since about three months ago, imagemaps can now work with variables, by using the #tag parser function. Therefore, it can be done cleaner with MediaWiki syntax, I think. See my sandbox testing here. I'm nervous about making this change just yet, as the flag templates are used on about a quarter million pages, so we need to make sure it works properly from the start!! I'd also like to get some Village Pump feedback from the community too before making this kind of change. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 19:07, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Cool, that sounds even better. I look forward to the results. --Eruhildo (talk) 23:31, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Any Ideas

Does anyone have any ideas why only half of the flags on my List of Washington Redskins players article arent showing up (starting middle of "W")? I cant seem to figure it out. Jwalte04 19:16, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

It's not a problem with this template per se. You'll also notice that the {{cite web}} instances at the end of the article also fail to transclude properly. I suspect you have a Wikipedia:Template limits problem with that extra-long list. Andrwsc 19:45, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Battle of Blenheim

For battles like Battle of Blenheim it would be great, if there would be not only the flag of the Holy Roman Empire but also of the Kingdom of France. Like this:

See also the spanish WP to compare. es:Batalla de Höchstädt (1704)-- --Saippuakauppias ⇄ 11:03, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

As i've seen now, there isn't the right flag used. Description of the flags of this time: http://ancre.chez-alice.fr/symboles/symboles.htm
Would be great, if sb could make this coa as .svg http://ancre.chez-alice.fr/symboles/drap2.jpeg ! Thanks! --Saippuakauppias ⇄ 11:28, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Use {{flagicon|France|restauration}} for . Hope this helps, Andrwsc 14:52, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Also, this discussion should probably continue at Template talk:Country data France, where a similar discussion is ongoing. Andrwsc 15:07, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Interwiki sv

Could you please add sv:Mall:Flaggikon to the interwiki list? Thanks! NisseSthlm 23:53, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Y Done Andrwsc 00:11, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Add switch-option

Please have a look at the German template de:Vorlage:Flagicon. think the switch-option would be very useful concerning certain flags as the Croatian one. 2:3 ratio is better for small icons than the usual 1:2 ratio. --88.117.28.53 (talk) 16:34, 29 December 2007 (UTC)