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Talk archives for Wikipedia:Use of flags in articles (current talk page)
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Contents 1 April–August 2007 1.1 Use of flags for non-sovereign nations 1.2 Use of historical flags in sports articles 1.3 Flags in infoboxes 1.4 Use of sub national flags 1.5 Automatic update 1.6 Straw poll 1.6.1 Agree 1.6.2 Disagree 1.6.3 Comment 1.7 Flag icons without any text 1.8 "Use historical flags only in contexts where the difference matters" 1.9 Overuse of flags in election templates 1.10 Good use of flags? 1.11 Turn this into a guideline 1.12 Continuity of reading 1.13 Proposal to move 1.14 Use of flags of states or constituent countries on templates. 1.15 Gianluca Zambrotta 1.16 List of town tramway systems in Europe 1.17 Colonial India 1.18 Use current flags for general purposes 1.18.1 Compromise proposition 1.19 Flag removals 1.20 Talk page template 1.21 I'm confused 1.22 Interesting discussion relevant to this 1.23 Here's another that relates to this page 1.24 A case study for "Biographical use" 1.25 A new "poster child' for this essay? 1.26 Hiding flags in css 1.27 The crux of this essay 1.28 Nationality: A bit of a red herring? 1.29 Requested move

April–August 2007

Use of flags for non-sovereign nations

Hey, finally some controversy! >;-) I have to quibble with this section on a couple of levels. I think it may be too oversimplifying. What about the Russian Federation and/or Commonwealth of Independent States? What about the colonial British Empire? To get to the extant text's problems, I have to object to Britain advice. The situation is actually quite complicated. Northern Ireland is not recognized as a country at all except for sporting purposes; it doesn't even have its own governmental/civic flag (any longer). Wales is a weird case. There may be UK proclamations that label it a "country" for one purpose or another (^{[citation needed]}), but the union between England and Wales is positively ancient at this point, and cultural barriers aside, pretty thorough - the Tudor royalty of Britain of were predominantly Welsh. Scotland is different. The Act of Union is a treaty, more or less, between two sovereign nations to merge. Scotland retained its right (and not too long ago excercised it) to have its own parliament, and all along has retained its own wholly separate government in many other areas (from its unusual 3-verdict legal system all the way down to heraldry). The EU, UN and other international bodies sometimes recognize Wales, Scotland and even old Cornwall as "countries" or "nations" for particular purposes, yet even Scotland is generally not regarded as sovereign by just about anyone. Another consideration is that nationality is, for many people (both editors and article subjects) at least as much a matter of cultural identity as it is about present political boundaries and facts of international treaty, law and recognition. Wikipedia is not in a position to tell all these people that they are simply "wrong".

Thus, many prefer to use England, Scotland, etc., as "nationality". I think that the debate over this is too unsettled for this draft guideline to directly advise one solution or the other, and as with some other things in here it should explicitly state that this is matter for consensus discussion elsewhere. Guidelines are supposed to reflect what consensus is not command what it must become.

That said, a possibility perhaps worth discussing is whether it can be discerned that there is in fact a general consensus, and just a lack of consistent application, something along the lines of the following (with regard to the UK):

• Generally, use the separate England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Isle of Man flags and country name as the nationality, because the UK has recognized them at least culturally and to an extent to be separate countries; do not do this for areas of the UK that do not have such recognition (the Channel Islands), even if they have nationalist movements (Cornwall) or some anti-UK sentiment (the Orkney islands, many residents of which are not happy about being simply handed over to Scotland by Norway).
• For sports figures, always use the separate flags and country names enumerated above (but never the Ulster Banner for Northern Ireland in an infobox; use the Union Jack and "Northern Ireland"; the U.B. is only appropriate in sports-related lists/tables - that is a player can be represented with this flag as a player but not as a person in their overall life)
• For all-Britain political figures such as Prime Ministers and the Royal Family, use the UK flag (the Union Jack) and "United Kingdom" or "Great Britain"; let their article text explain that the person is question is more narrowly English or Welsh or whathaveyou). For regional political figures, use the flag and name of the region. If the person's status changes (an English Minister of Parliament becomes the new Prime Minister, change the infobox, as their "Englishness" has, for encyclopedic purposes, just become subsumed by their "Britishness".

If that were not controversial (and it may well be), generalizing it beyond this particular case could be thorny. Sometimes there are clear analogues - Brittany in present-day France should not have it flag used despite having a nationalist movement; this is too political PoV, and unlike the Ulster Banner this flag isn't used as a non-political sporting symbol (actually, it is possible that it is used this way, within France, in which narrower case it would be appropriate to use it; but I digress.) In other cases the analogies are not clear at all. Americans are simply infoboxed as American by nationality, not Texans or New Yorkers, despite the fact that many US states were independent nations at one time. The US simply does not regard these as countries in any sense any longer (but not the case with protectorates like Puerto Rico and American Samoa, which are very roughly analogous to the UK's relationship with the Isle of Man and several territories in the Caribbean). France, by contrast, has an overseas territory that is officially a departement (U.S. state analogue) of France, much as Hawaii is a U.S. state. And again, what about the RF and the CIS? Also, we haven't even touched on various other concepts such as micronation, non-geographical nations (such as many Native North American groups), disputed territories, territories not populated except provisionally/temporarily like Antartica), nascent nations that claim and are defending their sovereignty but do not have UN recognition yet, long-established dictatorships that are not broadly recognized as legitimate (Mynamar vs democratic Burma), territories that are recognized broadly as legitimately sovereign but are unlikely to ever be again and are not presently now in actual reality (Tibet), and so forth.

So to come full circle, despite the fact that some specific cases can be made with regard to Britain or to this other situation or that, I think that the draft guideline can do little but observe that the matter can be complicated and, even if it very generally advises using the top-level sovereign entity, that there is no consensus that this must always be the case, such that it is often a matter of consensus building and debate with regard to a particular article, or a particular subject area.

— SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 17:45, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

I broadly agree with the sense of what you say. I would also point out that any attempt to replace Scottish flags (or Welsh ones) in certain articles with British ones will result in the mother of all controversies. This is one reason I am in favour of restricting the indiscriminate use of flags here; it provides another whole area of conflict, with very little added utility in return. Take a look at Talk:Northern Ireland some time if you doubt me. --Guinnog 17:59, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Flags do not have to belong to nations. The United States is composed of states with powers which in some countries only exist at the national level. Whether to use state or national flags is a style issue, and one which might depend upon the context (such as whether a competition is at the national or international level). (SEWilco 19:43, 25 April 2007 (UTC))

I agree that it's complex and individual cases are different. But I still suggest that it's worth suggesting that if there is no evidence that the person self-identifies one way or the other, the top-level country should be used. If you read this tiresome discussion about Christian Bale we have an actor who sometimes calls himself Welsh and sometimes English. If the debate were about a flag (which it isn't but anyway...) I'd opt for British, in order to end the debate. I think that's worth saying. But I should also stress that the major point is that these arguments are further evidence that flags should be avoided unless they're absolutely necessary, as per Guinnog. Cop 633 18:21, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

A problem here is that we are actually wandering pretty far outside of flag territory and into determination-of-nationality territory! (Esp. in the Bale case.) I think we may have to largely drop this. If we do not, this draft guideline's scope would have to be expanded drastically to include nationality issues in general, and because that is not a style issue (this draft being almost certain to be integrated into WP:MOS if becomes a guideline) this would be strongly resisted when this reached the guideline proposal stage. I urge that we do not "go there".

I think all of the above is telling us (if I may focus on what we can actually do, here) that the draft guideline should:

• Observe that these issues may be contentious (and perhaps use Scotland or something as an example; somewhere radically different, and not Taiwan/Taipei again would probably be better)
• Recommend that the flag used match that of the entity already given for "Nationality", and if this is changed, the flag changes along with it
• Recommend that if a subnational non-sovereign entity is chosen by consensus (or by original article author for that matter) and it has no official flag, that the sovereign flag be used. (this will more explictly handle the N.Irl. situation).
• Recommend that no flag be used at all if there is an ongoing dispute about what flag to use, until that dispute is resolved
• Clarify that subnational flags are appropriate when presenting tables/lists of intranational information (I believe it already says this but perhaps not plainly enough)

Because this is only a (draft) flag not nationality guideline we are not in a position to do any of the following:

• Recommend that the larger sovereign entity be used as a general default, yet defer to editor consensus-building on a case-by-case or general-class basis, including recommendations by relevant topical WikiProjects
• Recommend that the larger sovereign entity be used in cases of doubt, conflict or confusion as to what non-sovereign entity applies
• Recommend that if nationality itself is disputed, that no nationality should be given in the infobox, and the article should explain the differing views neutrally.

(sensible as these things may be, they are simply out-of-scope.) Much of the new section needs to be removed for this reason, as it isn't limiting itself to flag usage at all, at all.

PS: We can't "avoid flags unless they're absolutely necessary". There is no "absolutely necessary" flag icon in all of Wikipedia. Rather, we have some consensus-built appropriate uses, and many ab-/misuses that consensus says are crappy. I think the draft guideline quite adequately distinguishes them. If it gets any stronger-worded it will probably start to sound prescriptive/proscriptive and POV-pushing, instead of descriptive and gathering of existing relevant best practices; this would auto-invalidate it as a guideline candidate (i.e. we'd simply be completely wasting our time with all of this.) Some might say that it already goes too far in that direction as it is.

— SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 21:10, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

OK, these are all excellent points, and I fully agree with you. You're right that the whole thing starts ballooning into wider issues if you push it too far. (Man, you're good at this!) :P Cop 633 23:20, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

If I can chip in on the question of flags for sporting infoboxes, in motorsport (my area of expertise) the sports governing body specifically only recognises passport identity (i.e. British not English etc) at the international level and the nationality of the body issuing the racing license (again, British, not English etc) at lower levels. On that basis the UK flag is used in all English, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish Formula One infoboxes. Using the approach suggested by SMcCandlish above would leave Wikipedia contradicting all other motorsport sources, not to mention potentially getting us into the vexed question of the 'self identification' of drivers: The best case of that is Eddie Irvine, he was born in Northern Ireland, but lives in the Republic. He would qualify for citizenship of either or both of the UK and the RoI, as I understand it. Some claim he self identifies as Irish, but the only thing we know for definite is that he raced under the UK flag - that's easily verifiable and consistent with official results. For that sort of reason WP:F1 has a long-standing consensus to use the passport nationality as confirmed by the nationality used in official results. I can't see any other solution working, in this specific case, to be honest. 4u1e 08:13, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

That makes perfect sense actually; the text just needs clarification. I never meant to imply that England, Scotland, etc., should always be used for sport purposes, only when they are officially used that way per the sport-in-question's governing body/bodies, as they are in football (soccer) and snooker but evidently not in Formula One racing. As mentioned elsewhere here, this entire matter is actually quite outside the scope of this document, which isn't nationality but flags; the nationality is necessarily determined elsewhere by other processes and logic on a case-by-case or topic-by-topic basis. So, as I say, simply retooling the text here a bit would probably entirely resolve the issue you've raised. The intent here is certainly not to step on toes. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:44, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Great if you could do that. Many thanks. About stepping on toes - nationality seems to be one of those topics where it's impossible to avoid it. When it gets down to the level of editors arguing over whether Bernie Ecclestone's wife speaks Serbian, Croatian or Serbo-Croatian, I stop bothering.... :D 4u1e 10:34, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes. It was a series of such disputes that convinced me that flags cause more harm than they do good in Wikipedia, hence the need for a document like this one to restrict their use somewhat. Incidentally, after yesterday's conversation, I took down the Flag of Alberta from Tommy Chong's article yesterday and nobody has objected. --Guinnog 15:55, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Use of historical flags in sports articles

The subsection Use historical flags correctly in contexts where the difference matters states that a current flag should be used if the country has not changed. That is, we should use the USSR flag instead of the present-day Russian flag, but we should not use the Canadian red ensign instead of the current maple leaf flag, even for pre-1965 sporting events.

However, in the Wikipedia:WikiProject Olympics, our consensus has been to use the correct flag at the time of each Games in results for those Games. Our rationale is that flags are quite an important element of symbolism at the Olympic Games, as they are obviously used for medal ceremonies, for the athlete's march at the opening ceremonies, etc. Therefore, using the specific flags that were used at the time helps our articles match what you see in photographs found in official reports, for example. I want to see this essay reflect the consensus we already have, but I don't want to change this essay yet before some discussion and understanding on this talk page first. Thanks, Andrwsc 23:52, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Good point; wasn't aware of that Oly. discussion. Don't fear changing it. I changed WP:BOLD-style virtually everything about this piece, because it was all way off-kilter. I have no illusions that the result is magically perfect! However, I don't think these points are really the same. Using the then-current flag for lists of sports stats isn't the same (as the document points out in many other ways) as using flags in infoboxes on biographies, esp. given that we are vehemently deprecating the use of flag icons as birth/death "chiclets", and instead recommending use (if at all) solely in the nationality line. I don't think it'll be a huge debate. I have other stuff to do tonight, so I'm unlikely to address any of this in detail until tomorrow. A note to the "defenders" - don't worry about deletions and reverts and stuff; this thing is practically brand new and will need a lot of brains on it before it is ready for prime time. :-) — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 03:39, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

You are absolutely right; current flags should absolutely not be used for historical occasions under a different flag. This is one of the recurring problems with flag usage. This essay was recently entirely re-written and I don't think everyone has read through it all, so don't take it as gospel. I have removed that paragraph. —Centrx→talk • 01:14, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

I replaced the paragraph because these ideas are under discussion and we can't discuss them if they magically disappear. The point about the Olympics and symbolism may be a good one, but the general principle of favouring recognizability over obsessive vexillology (sp?) may still be worth keeping (with caveats).Cop 633 01:29, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

It is false and misleading. Whatever event did not in fact take place under the listed flag in such case. A given flag would not have even existed at the older date. Accuracy always trumps whatever aesthetic concerns you are emphasizing, and using incorrect flags is a misuse of flags. —Centrx→talk • 02:01, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Very good points, Centrx, though I think you may've removed stuff that doesn't actually fall under your objection (or conceivably could under one interpretation but wasn't meant to be interpreted that way and simply needs a re-phrasing. No dig beal. I'll see what I can do with it, by way of a re-rewrite tomorrow, rather than engaging in any reversions. In particular, I don't want to see the point lost that for general usage, the current flag should be used. For example picture a list of countries and their economic data of some sort, and each country's entry in the table was a flag icon followed by the country name which linked to, I dunno, a "Gross national product of (Countryname) by year" article. In this table (assuming there was consensus at that article that flag icons should be used at all) the flag icon that should be used is the current one of Canada, even if the GNP article linked to went from the present year back to years before the flag was in use. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 03:39, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Need another day to get back to you on this stuff; got sidetracked by other things. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:44, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Also, you should be aware that there is a page history associated with each page on Wikipedia, so the section in question can be referenced easily by [1]. —Centrx→talk • 02:22, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

For Olympic articles, "obsessive vexillology" is a non-issue. Several months ago I re-wrote and extended the functionality of Template:FlagIOC and added some additional related templates (Template:FlagIOCmedalist, Template:FlagIOCathlete, Template:FlagIOCteam, etc.) The result is that editors need only supply parameters to specify the nation's IOC country code (e.g. "ITA") and a string to identify a specific Games (e.g. "1912 Summer") and the templates will automatically choose the correct flag for that year and create a wikilink to a per-Games article for the nation. For example, {{flagIOC|ITA|1912 Summer}} renders Italy. Take a look at an article like Athletics at the 1912 Summer Olympics - Men's decathlon to see how these templates are used to easily create results pages with correct historical flags, with minimum effort by the editor. Andrwsc 16:07, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Interesting... — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:44, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

So nazi flag is used for 1938 Olympics, so it logicaly follows that we can use it on all germans born from 1933 to 1945, yes? (Gnevin 09:53, 1 May 2007 (UTC))

I'm not sure what the current draft says right this minute, but it at least did say that flagicons should not be used in association with birth place and date at all. I think it raises an interesting question with regard to the |Nationality= line in many infoboxes. Would it be appropriate to use it for Heinrich Himmler? It's questions like this that are leaning me a little more toward the "don't use them for infobox nationality at all" position. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 10:35, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Flags in infoboxes

I have a slight problem with: "Flag icons may be appropriate in infoboxes to indicate nationality (but not for birth and death), or in tables/lists of country- or region-related information, such as comparison of global economic data or reporting of international sporting event results.", in the current draft. In my experience unless we give more specific guidance people will interpret that as meaning every nationality and we will have the mish-mash seen in the Friedman example.

We will also have the continuing conflict about whether or when the Ulster Banner can be used for Northern Irish people, and a less intense but still potentially formidable amount of edit-warring from all the other three UK nations, for every single artist, band, singer, actor or writer, about the Union Jack versus the Saltire, Welsh dragon, or St George's Cross.

My own belief has long been that where the subject of the article has self-identified with the flag, the use of the flag can be justified, and not otherwise. In general I believe flags in infoboxes are a bad thing, divisive out of all proportion with their utility. Self-identified could include sports teams (as they are generally affiliated with a national organisation of some kind), sportsmen and women (similar thinking and they will, if they are truly notable, have played for or have been considered to represent a national team), and most military subjects. Flag icons to represent countries are usually fine, but when they are used to represent people, bands and so on, subjects whose national identity may not be easily summed up in a single flag but will instead become a source of sterile edit-warring and endless debate - I think it becomes much more complex and possibly counter-productive.

I suggest something like "Flag icons are only appropriate in infoboxes where they show a flag the subject of the article has verifiably self-identified with. In general, flag icons are deprecated unless they add readability that text alone would lack, for example in tables/lists of country- or region-related information, such as comparison of global economic data or reporting of international sporting event results."

--Guinnog 06:36, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

For my part I have to sleep on that. I see some of it and don't see some of it. Want to let Morpheus help me sort it out. No big hurry, right? — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:18, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

I've thought on it some. The main problem I have with the above is that this "self-idenfication" thing will produce a nightmarish lack of consistency, will be very hard to reliably prove, can be PoV "proven" with seemingly but not actually reliable sources, will inevitably lead to subtle WP:OR (especially of the "novel synthesis" variety, as someone with an axe to grind goes about trying to justify a particular flag), and can change or simply be inconsistent on the part of the subject him/herself from the start (cf. discussion of I think it was Christian Bale elsewhere on this page; sometimes he says "I'm Welsh", other times "I'm English", and probably other times "I'm British", though that wasn't specifically mentioned.) I.e., "self-declaration/identification" is inherently non-reliable.

One of the key things about any kind of stylistic convention is that it is necessarily arbitrary, so effectively decrying the draft guideline because it is arbitrary doesn't seem to get us anywhere.

As an aside, the sports angle you bring up has, to me, really highlighted a major existing problem. Some editors appear to think it is a good idea to identify a player in the nationality infobox field, flag and all, with the name of the country whom they are presently playing for, rather than their actual country of citizenship. I see this pretty often. Similar thinking leads to application of the Ulster Banner to Northern Irish infoboxes of sportspeople in particlar (because of the semi-official status of that otherwise dead flag in the sporting field), though I also see it elsewhere sometimes. People have been occassionally making the faulty logic leap that "if a) this player plays for Northern Ireland officially in sport XYZ, and b) that sport's governing body says that the Ulster Banner is what they are officially using to represent that country, then c) this means that this flag should be applied to this person's infobox to identify them, as a person, public and private, in every aspect of their lives, not just in their role as a N.I. sportsperson in that particular sport." That just doesn't fly.

By contrast, what I'm saying (and again, this is really probably outside the scope of this draft guideline, which should be about flags not nationality determinations, but we are talking about it here anyway, so why not continue a bit) is that the only arbitrary things we can rely on for a nationality determination at all are a) citizenship, and secondarily b) declaration by the sovereign entity that certain parts of its whole also have nation/country status, as is the case in the UK with some but not all of its culturally distinct constituent regions (as a "not" example, Cornwall does not have this status, and this is irritating to enough Cornish people that they're reviving their native language and have a small nationalist movement; I mention this in part to re-highlight that this stuff, if not handled in an arbitrary manner is necessarily PoV, against policy, no matter what our intentions. Without an arbitrary line in the sand drawn, no matter what flag (or no flag) is put on an article about a Cornish person, either pro- or anti-Corwall readers are going to be upset, while if there is an arbitrary rule they can see that and accept it better. Cornish should not be given as a nationality, because it is both not sovereign and is unrecognized by the sovereign as a quasi-independent country unlike neighboring Wales.) The UK is a just plain oddball case, but as individual European countries give more and more authority to the EU as a collective "supersovereign" entity, the UK isn't going to be so near-alone in this sort of situation indefinitely (PRC and Hong Kong are another example). Another way of putting it, to get back to the "self-declaration" theme: I don't think we can seriously propose that a bio article subject be given a nationality of "European" with an EU flag, instead of Spanish or German or whatever, just because we have some reliable sources that she/he is an EU booster. If that is conceded, I can't see any easily definable difference between that and the UK situation. And it's actually even more complicated than it has been made out to be so far. There are camps that exclude the Northern Irish from the definition of "British", because N.I. is not in Britain (the island) but Ireland (the other island). Meanwhile yet another camp, I guess you could call them "Celtic reclamationists", exclude the English from the definition of "British"! I'm not kidding. To them, the British are the Welsh, Scottish and Cornish, while the Anglo-Norman English are simply lingering invaders. If we leave this to PoV determination, it's a mess. Draw a bright arbitrary line, and one can argue about whether that line should move, but at least thats one argument for one place, not chaotic, redundant argument in 1000 articles, many of which will not be watchlisted enough to prevent PoV WP:OWNership.

To be less disputatious, I agree with you completely in your first paragraph above: That passage does require clarification, or people may end up with 5 flags in their infobox in some cases due to simply having moved around a lot. I think that would be dreadful. Or, rather is dreadful, because it already happens.

A case worth looking at would be Alex Pagulayan. Still currently a Canadian citizen, seeking Philippines citizenship, and has moved to the latter (and was actually born there, but left it with his parents when he was little). Has officially played (he's a pool player) as both a Canadian and lately a Filipino rep. at the international level during different periods. I say his infobox nationality (i.e. as a human being) should be given as Canadian (despite his birthplace), and his residence as Philippines. The day he gets Philippine citizenship, change the nationality line to have Philippines and not Canadian (definite not both, unless there is a reliable source that he is actively maintaining dual citizenship.) In sports results tables, he should get the flag and playing-for "nationality" that he was using at the time of the event in question, and for very general purposes (e.g. a List of pool players) he should get the Philippines flag, because that is who he presently plays for. Seems dead simple to me. The only confusion seems to result from people mistakenly believing that the nationality line in infoboxes is for "professional or otherwise notable role", which is isn't, any more than the birth date and place infobox lines are (no one is born a pool player, after all). It's just some cognitive dissonance that needs to be addressed in this draft guideline at least in passing, and may need to be addressed more fully elsewhere. If it is addressed adequately, it will largely just go away, the same way other issues do around here (like "why can't I write that Britney Spears is the best singer in the world", and "why doesn't my garage band rate and article?"; some people will still transgress, but the fix will be well known.)

Another major factor against using birthplace as nationality, to touch on that one further, is that half of the founding historical figures of Canada, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, etc. would end up with confusing "nationalities" in their infoboxes. I don't even want to think about bios of people from anywhere in what used to be Yugoslavia on that account. We simply can't rely on birthplace for nationality. Leaving only citizenship (or as close as we can get, e.g. for ancient historical figures) as an arbitrary factual line to draw that isn't at the whim of "oh, well this week I'll be Welsh" nonsense from the Christian Bales out there.

— SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:44, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

For the most part I agree with Guinnog. I think the current wording still encourages flag use too much (especially in infoboxes). The only reason this essay was created in the first place was to discourage using flags in infoboxes where there was no need for them. I feel like that original purpose is largely lost in the current wording. Why do we need flag icons to indicate nationality? What infoboxes even use "nationality"? Why can't we just say "Don't use flags in biographical infoboxes"? There are just far too many problems with their use in that context (as we have documented ad nauseum). I think it's fine for thing that are less contentious (movie release dates, etc), but I really don't see any upside to letting them continue to proliferate in bio infoboxes. Kaldari 19:02, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

"Don't use flags in biographical infoboxes", that would work for me. Garion96 (talk) 21:17, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Problem with that is, a guideline or would-be guideline isn't in a position to say what practice should be but rather exists to describe what accepted practice is, and flags in infoboxes are pretty common, suggesting they are at least a nascent accepted practice. Without a broader mandate, I don't think this document can prohibit them. Thus the straw poll below... I don't personally have anything against the community deciding that this use of flags is simply too fraught with problems, and lean that way myself. PS: Lots of infoboxes use a "Nationality" line, especially sports ones, because often players do not play for their own country's team. Also, be aware that non-nationality uses also appear in infoboxes, including both movie release dates and sports stats (see football (soccer) infoboxes - for high-profile players there is usually a "National team" line, and its been strongly argued that flag icons are appropriate for sports stats, so methinks their use for that kind of purpose in infoboxes that have relevant sections is appropriate, else what we are really talking about is simply banning all use of flagicons. Oh, and perhaps simply making the section that this topic raises as problematic be less problematic would be a good compromise. I.e., not ban infobox nationality flags, but not encourage them either (even discourage them?) — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 22:50, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

To some extent, a guideline is what the practice 'should be', and in this case many flags are used exactly because people see the flags and think that it's normal and appropriate, when in fact some one person added to some templates to propagate it, and some others use semi-bots to add them, etc. Having that does not really constitute practice; the people who actually write the articles and recognize the superficial and misleading qualities of the flags more constitute current practice. As I have said in the archives, if you actually look at, for example, featured articles, you find that there is almost zero usage of flags in the infoboxes. —Centrx→talk • 23:07, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

E.g. from clicking on 10 Featured articles on biographies of persons, all of which had infoboxes with locations in them, only 3 had flags. —Centrx→talk • 23:11, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

And, a guess, they were likely added after the article reached featured status. Garion96 (talk) 23:22, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Have to stick with what I said then; a near 1/3 ratio of flags to non-flags even in Featured Articles (!) is hardly insignificant, nor is it indicative of a consensus against using flags in infoboxes. I actually lean toward the view that they aren't a good idea, but I'm skeptical that simply declaring them verboten in here is going to fly. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 02:58, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

(outdent) With respect to nationality, we often have "gray areas" when we try to say that a specific person is from a specific country. I think we ought to avoid using flag icons in those instances, usually on biographical articles. What is almost always unambiguous are statements that a person competed for a country (i.e. as part of a national team or individually in many international sporting events). In those cases, the flag can be used without controversy. For example, take a look at the Olympic medal infobox for Jasna Šekarić. We were able to state clearly which nation she competed for at each Games (including the "non-nation" designattion of Independent Olympic Participant in 1992), and the flag icons are not problematic. With this in mind, I would like us to converge upon a guideline that states that flag icons may only be applicable to refer to specific national representation. This idea could be extended beyond sports to include things like government figures, for example. It would be more appropriate to associate a flag icon with the office/position than with the location of birth and/or death, in my opinion.

This kind of policy might handle the apparent controversy about the flag of Northern Ireland. The flag is clearly used officially for things like the Commonwealth Games team (see here for more information), so we could use a flag icon of the Ulster Banner for results articles and even athlete articles that utilize that same sort of "medal infobox" described above. The key is that we aren't using the flags to say that "Joe Bloggs is Northern Irish"; we would use it to say "Joe Bloggs competed for Northern Ireland". Andrwsc 00:54, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I like this idea. After all, flags symbolise particular countries, and so adding flags to people makes it look like they 'represent' those countries, but most people in the world don't 'represent' their countries - they might not even like their countries very much, or think of themselves as belonging to that country. Bruce Willis is American, but he doesn't officially 'represent' America in any capacity, unlike, say, Flo-Jo Joyner at the Olympics, who did. Moving away from individual people, an interesting comparison here is between the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, in which the films are regarded as officially representing one country, and the winning films of the Palme d'Or, which are not. This would suggest provide a good reason for giving flags in the list of Academy Award films, but not in the list of Palme d'Or films. Interesting... Cop 633 01:34, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

And that fits in with my "self-identified" caveat. Flo-Jo chose to represent the U.S. at the Olympics, "under" that flag. Willis hasn't done anything similar, as far as I know. --Guinnog 03:42, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Have to disagree with that rationale. Whether or not Joyner has rep'd the US in sporting events has nothing to do with what to put in her infobox. In her particular case there is no conflict, but in many cases there is. Football (soccer) players regularly bounce around from national team to national team, without any effect on their actual nationality as human being citizens of a sovereign jurisdiction. See also the Alex Pagulayan example further up. He officially represents the Philippines in international pool tournaments, but remains (for the time being) a Canadian citizen (and formerly rep'd Canada until I believe about a year ago, maybe a year and half). — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 10:44, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

(deindent)Not so. I can't think of a single football player who has represented more than one international football team.--Guinnog 14:38, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

What about players who pre 1950 played both for the IFA Ireland later Northern Ireland and the FAI Ireland later Republic of Ireland (Gnevin 15:09, 1 May 2007 (UTC))

Yes, or USSR players who later played for Ukraine or Russia. Other than cases like that, where it was the country that changed, I can't think of any examples.--Guinnog 15:14, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

And what about Rugby Union where your not nation tied and can play for more than one country (Gnevin 15:16, 1 May 2007 (UTC))

Clearly that is not a sport where this approach would have value, unlike football. It's not a particularly popular sport compared to football, so it is unlikely to cause problems I would think. --Guinnog 15:19, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Use of sub national flags

This is where run away flags has lead [2] . Surely this is an incorrect usage of flags (Gnevin 15:09, 1 May 2007 (UTC))

As far as I can tell, those flags are indicating which state a basball player is from. If that is considered important enough to mention in the article as opposed to letting the reader click the link to look at the article on the player (probably not, IMO), then have a column headed "state of origin" and link to the state name, rather than using flags. If uniformity of presentation is a problem, then use state abbreviations, but link to the state articles. eg. Using United States postal abbreviations you get CA for California. Carcharoth 15:28, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I've also inserted a better link above. Hope that is OK. Carcharoth 15:30, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

OK. Could those reading this page comment on the difference between the old (flags) and new (piped state abbreviations) versions of that list? Which do you prefer? Is the former a classic case of overuse of flags and the latter a good fix? I think it is, so I'm adding it to the essay. Carcharoth 15:57, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree, both with the edit and with the point that you make. --Guinnog 16:04, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Me too. They are rather extraneous to that particular page. I think that state flags might only be appropriate for articles like the Little League World Series, where US teams are also identified by their home state. Using flags to identify individual players is overkill. Another similar example would be the use of Canadian province flags for tournaments like the Tim Hortons Brier. Each team represents their home province, so the use of flags in that context is appropriate. Andrwsc 16:09, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Looking at that page some more, I think the state origin is only (possibly) needed there because it is some potted "best of" team for the whole USA, so the state of origin might be of interest to the reader. If the state name were given in full, then the link would not be used. Currently, the link is to explain the state abbreviations. Possibly a standard template for US state abbreviations exists on Wikipedia, similar to the ones for country abbreviations, but I haven't found anything yet. Carcharoth 16:25, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I think in this particular instance, the players' home states are irrelevant; what would seem more appropriate here would be images of their respective team logos. Askari Mark (Talk) 17:09, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Since those are always fair use images, that would go against Wikipedia:Non-free content criteria. Garion96 (talk) 20:24, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, it would certainly be an appropriate non-free fair use, but it’s unclear whether or not such would actually be contrary to WP:NONFREE, a very contentious guideline that seems to change daily. Since they would be identifying players at a glance, according to their team, it would seem to me to be permissible ... but who can tell? If things keep on going the way they are, it seems likely that the No-Fair-Use Police will eventually get us to the point where the only image we can use anymore is the Wikipedia logo ... and no doubt they’ll be eyeing that one too!  :( Askari Mark (Talk) 03:56, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Automatic update

I've adding a bot to archiveythis page discussions older than 7 days, if you dont agree say so here (Gnevin 22:15, 1 May 2007 (UTC))

Straw poll

I am aware of WP:VOTE but i would like to do a straw poll to see who agrees that due to the very unclear nature of flags (see all above).

Flags should not be used for people infoboxs at all (Gnevin 22:15, 1 May 2007 (UTC))

Agree

• Gnevin
• Kaldari
• Padraig3uk
• Boffob
• Hoary (who'd recommend reconsidering the need for even a flagless infobox)

Disagree

• I disagree in principle with the wording of the poll as a major overgeneralization. More substantive comments under "Comment" section. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 00:35, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
• Proposal is overly sweeping. Too much like throwing the baby out with the bath water. Askari Mark (Talk) 16:55, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
  • What is the baby in this instance? — pd_THOR ^{| =/\=} | 14:44, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
• I disagree. ♥♪♫♥♪♫ 02:27, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment

• Neutral — I don't think the poll question is the right one to ask. I think there are several instances for certain kinds of infoboxes where flag icons make sense. I think a better policy would be something like Do not use flag icons to represent the country of birth and/or death in biographical articles. Andrwsc 23:49, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
• Complicated: In addition to what Andrwsc says above, the language is simply too overgeneralizing. There are various sports infoboxes that appropriately use flags, e.g. |national-team={{flagicon|Scotland}} [[Scotland]]. That aside, I remain unconvinced that flagicon use in |nationality= is so problematic that it just can't be dealt with (I guess I simply don't give up that easily), and do feel that infoboxes actually look better with a flag than with nothing but lines of text. But, as said elsewhere, I am increasingly but only somewhat leaning toward saying they shouldn't be used for nationality at all; I remain on the fence about that. They absolutely should not be used for birth/death place for reasons already well explained in the current(?) draft. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 00:37, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

• comment I realize this is straying off topic a bit, but I would prefer to see your code fragment as |national-team={{flag|Scotland}}. Same result, much simpler! Andrwsc 01:16, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

• Side-topic reply comment: Good point; I'd forgotten that templatesemantics fact entirely; we do indeed have the more expansive {{flag}}, vs. {{flagicon}}+verbiage, for a reason. Good call. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 08:13, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

• Comment If some one can tell set out a series consistent guidelines across wiki ,I'd support it but their are far too many ifs buts and maybes(Gnevin 07:44, 2 May 2007 (UTC))

• reply comment — I think that was precisely my point. Instead of trying to establish a really broad policy with one stroke, why not start with some simple, concrete instances that we may be able to get consensus on, and build upon that list? That's why I suggest starting with something like "no flags for birth/death locations". Very unambiguous, and way more likely to get consensus than something bigger. Andrwsc 15:48, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Reply But why not take the final step and say no flags for birth/death locations or nationalities  ? (Gnevin 15:52, 2 May 2007 (UTC))

reply comment — I think the or nationalities part is not completely unambiguous now. I think we need a statement that says |nationality= should be avoided in most instances, or re-phrased as "competed for:" etc. in the instances where it does make sense. We need to get consensus on the "allowable exceptions" first before deprecating all usage. Andrwsc 16:08, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Reply The trouble is i can see any list which wouldn't be full of contradictions but if you fancy taking a stab at it i'll help (Gnevin 16:17, 2 May 2007 (UTC))

• Comment – There are places where the use of flags are an aid to the reader and there are usages which merely sow confusion. The latter is what we need to identify and deprecate. Askari Mark (Talk) 16:59, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Reply comment You know, I was agreeing with a limited use of flags in infoboxes until I saw infoboxes of statisticians like C.R. Rao (though in these infoboxes I also don't see the point of listing nationality and residences). I'd rather have a uniform "no flags at all" rule than guidelines such as "mostly no flag + not-so-clearly-defined long list of exceptions".--Boffob 16:54, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

• Neutral — While personally I see very little added value in using flags 'across the board' (which seems to be the craze these days, in certain articles I wouldn't oppose it, as in military (or other historical) articles, probably some international sports artciles like the Olympics or soccer (sorry, that's 'football' in most of the rest of the world), etc. wbfergus ^Talk 23:11, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Flag icons without any text

I'm interested in some opinions on the table at List of Arsenal F.C. players. At a minimum, I'd prefer to see the FIFA country code (wikilinked to the article for the nation), but I'm interested in other feedback. Andrwsc 23:37, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Er, you'll have to look at this edit to see what I mean. I've since edited the article to add country codes. Andrwsc 00:40, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Looks like a good example of why words are better than flags. It must be inconvenient to those who can't recognise country flags. I like flags and was doing fine until I got to , which was too obscure even for me! Of course, if one clicks on the flag, one can quickly learn what it means, but it seems an unecessary inconvenience. Surely there is enough space in the table for the country names? Cop 633 15:47, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Just as side note , one of the problems i find when i click of a flag is say for someone didnt know what the UK was , to find a link to UK is nearly impossible it's down the end of a page with 100's of links. Flags images should have under the image The flag of United Kingdom (Gnevin 17:22, 3 May 2007 (UTC))

Well, using the standard {{flag}} and {{flagicon}} templates will result in the "alternate text" showing "Flag of United Kingdom" etc. Most browsers show this when you mouse-over the icon image. Andrwsc 17:56, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, that's why I proposed the next edit, using FIFA country codes next to the flags, but that got reverted a few hours later anyway. Andrwsc 16:03, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Use of the FIFA codes isn't very popular, and which is more informative to the average reader in the obscure cases – or "CMR"? I'd think that here either the flag-with-name or just country name approach works best. Askari Mark (Talk) 17:04, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, "CMR" was wikilinked to Cameroon, and I assert that is more useful than just a flag by itself. I agree that a full name is preferable, so I would prefer to see {{flag|Cameroon}} (rendering as  Cameroon) in the table cells. My edit to use country codes was because I thought the reason the full name was excluded in the first place was because the original editor felt the table was space-constrained. Using a country code is better than nothing in those instances. For example, look at the tables near the end of 2007 World Rally Championship season. These tables are constrained horizontally, so using a flag icon with a country code (properly wikilinked) seems like a good solution to me. Andrwsc 17:56, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Unless someone has removed it, the draft guideline already strongly deprecates using these icons without a country name or abbreviation. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 01:08, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

"Use historical flags only in contexts where the difference matters"

This paragraph is not very clear, but it appears to mean that the default is to use current flags unless there is some positive reason to use the historical flag. What is the justification for this? In what situation should a current flag be used instead of the correct historical flag? —Centrx→talk • 20:34, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

The example it gives is in situations where the form of government and leadership does not change, just the flag. Also from the example is the Canadian change from the Red Ensign to the Maple Leaf. Nothing really changed in relation to Canada except a desire to have a flag that is indicative of the Canadian national identity instead of its historical ties as a colony of the UK. Basically, the same debate that has been going through Australia recently. Another reason (at least for the Canadian flag) may be that the Canadian Red Ensign is not that well known outside of Canada and the small size that the flag will be displayed in articles in Wikipedia will make it easily confusable with the existing Flag of Manitoba and Flag of Ontario. Not to mention the historically concurrent Newfoundland Red Ensign. Granted, the confusion factor doesn't prevent the usage of New Zealand's and Australia's flags in articles. The most potent reason for using the current flag is that the flag is supposed to be a visual representation of the country it represents and unless there is a historically significant reason to use that flag. Should the US 48 star flag be used for anything that happened between 1912 and 1959 or the US 50 star flag. The addition of Alaska and Hawaii as states isn't really that historically important in relations to sports or the birth of most historically important Americans born in that time period, so there really isn't a compelling reason to use the 48 star flag over the 50 star flag. --Bobblehead ^(rants) 21:25, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

The argument about confusion would apply to us editorially changing any flag to whatever we wanted; change the French flag to a picture of the Eiffel Tower so more people will recognize it. The country the flag represents is the country at the time of the date the flag is used on. Yes, the 48-star flag should be used between 1912 and 1959, and I don't see any reason to use a flag that did not exist at the time of the date. If a country's flag changes are we just going to change every single use of it Wikipedia despite there being no actual change in the facts of the article? —Centrx→talk • 18:44, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

As a more literal example of what I'm talking about, there has been periodic edit wars and discussions[3] over whether Stephen Harper should have the Red Ensign or the Maple leaf next to his place of birth. Harper was born in 1959, six years before the Maple Leaf was made Canada's national flag. What is the historical significance of him being born under the Red Ensign? Especially when you consider everything Harper's done that's historically significant has been done under the Maple Leaf.--Bobblehead ^(rants) 21:38, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

If the flag is used at all, then it must be in some way significant. If the flag is so unimportant that choosing a historically inaccurate one doesn't matter, then there shouldn't be a flag at all. I don't see a flag in that article now, but if it was on his birth place then there should be no flag there at all, which solves the problem. —Centrx→talk • 18:44, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I believe that is the entire point of this essay, the flag icon is not important. The only useful purpose of the flag icon is to make recognition of a country easier in a list of countries and the use of historical flags doesn't do that in most cases. If someone is going through a list of pre-1965 Olympians and looking for Canadians, chances are they are going to be looking for the Maple Leaf and not the Red Ensign. However, if they're going through the list looking for Russians in that time period, then they'll probably be looking for the Hammer and Sickle and not the Russian tri-color.--Bobblehead ^(rants) 19:23, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

No, flags do not help to recognize most countries. In most cases, flags are not recognizable, and in all cases the name of the country is superior. Flags are only useful in situations where there is not enough space to list the full name of the country, in which case, as with sports events, there is still a key or an effective key that has the country name alongside the flag. And if the U.S. team didn't carry a 50-star flag at the 1934 Olympics, then a 50-star flag is not warranted on the page about the 1934 Olympics. —Centrx→talk • 19:33, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

It is true that the name of the country is superior to just the flag, but when presented with a lengthy list of just country names, a flag icon used in combination with the name can be preferable to just the name. Or, at least, that's what I've seen batted around on this page and others on which the subject of flags has come up. Except in cases where the topic is about the flag itself, I've yet to see an instance where a flag icon was useful. However, other editors have said it's easier for them to scan through the list for the flag and then validate with the country's name that they've found the correct entry. If the only purpose of the flag icon is navigational, then the best one to use is the most recognizable, which in most cases is the current one, not the historical.--Bobblehead ^(rants) 20:44, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

The thing about old American flags is that you can't tell how many stars are on them when reduced to icon size. So it doesn't make a difference whether it's the 1934 one or the current one. (That and there were no 1934 Olympics).--Boffob 21:27, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Heh. I think you're taking it far too literal, that was just an example. Let's say the 1948 summer Olympics and the country is Canada, so it's the Red Ensign vs the Maple Leaf. ;) Clear difference there.--Bobblehead ^(rants) 21:45, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Overuse of flags in election templates

I assume this is the right place to bring this up, myself and other editors have tried to remove the overuse of flags from this Template:Irish elections and other similar templates see Category:Election years templates, the problem is a small number of editors that were involved in the creation of these templates are reverting all edits and claiming that it is a WP standard that the templates are setout in this manner. I don't see any need for multiple uses of the same flag in these templates when they are only dealing with one political area.--padraig3uk 15:01, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Several points on this:

1. There was a discussion involving six editors (including one who only came after you WP:CANVASsed) and the result was no consensus to remove the other flags.
2. Not all the editors who backed the use of multiple flags were involved in the creation of the templates.
3. Despite there being no consensus you repeatedly removed the flags, and then came back a couple of weeks later after the issue had died down and did it again.

The flags are on the templates for aesthetic reasons - that is they just look better with a flag on each header line. Number 57 09:08, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Since this template is only used in articles covering Irish elections, I don't see the point in placing the irish flag there. There's no benefit of the image at all. --32X 15:57, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

For aesthetic reasons, I would remove them. They just look better without these icons repeated several times. If you felt it was absolutely necessary to have a flag in there, I'd suggest recoding it with {{Navbox generic}} with a single larger image (as shown in some examples on the template page). Andrwsc 16:23, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

I see you altered the Template:Irish elections, I tried that a while ago on Template:Northern_Ireland_elections and the edit was reverted, you can see the discussion here with my version of the template.--padraig3uk 17:17, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

From my talk page: Well, if someone reverts it, I won't take offense. I was just trying to find a more aesthetically pleasing compromise. The use of multiple identical flag icons on each heading line was ugly, IMO. Better to have a single larger flag image than that. Andrwsc 18:24, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Good use of flags?

Recently I've been trying to think of a good use of flags within articles (I mean, as opposed to illustrations of flags, as shown in articles such as this). I can't come up with anything at all. What am I missing? -- Hoary 15:20, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

You're not missing common sense and the ability to read instead of looking at pretty pictures. :) Garion96 (talk) 18:24, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Turn this into a guideline

Flag icons are being used everywhere in Wikipedia articles. It should be clear that Wikipedia is not a place for nationalistic or patriotic pride, so I suggest this essay be turned into a guideline after some discussion and a straw poll. CG 21:39, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it's ready yet. There are disputations remaining (including from me; I've been quiet for the last month, working on other stuff, but I for one am not entirely satisfied with the present draft, and I don't believe that it reflects Wikipedian consensus, but rather a sub-consensus of "flag-hater" opinion (and I say that as one who leans toward that view myself; no ill will). This should be run through broader commentary and editing input, e.g. via WP:RFC or WP:PUMP. That is, yes there should be "some discussion" and lots of it (though I don't think a straw poll would be particularly useful) before the Guideline viability of this document would be anywhere near secure. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 00:29, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

It seems unfair that this kind of thing doesn't cut both ways. If those in favor of pimping articles with flags had had to wait for "Wikipedian consensus" before starting to do so, they might never have got it, so people not wanting others to "overuse" flags wouldn't have been forced to go through this convoluted process of extreme humility (during which more flaggarbage is added to more articles).

I'd rather like a policy demanding "Wikipedian consensus" before the implementation of any newly devised species of visual crapola (infoboxes, "chart trajectories", etc.) to articles. But perhaps this is just me. -- Hoary 01:16, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

A valid point. I think the problem is one of permissiveness. The WP default is to permit that which does no harm, and burden of proof is on those who claim that harm is being done. I got bit by this myself recently. Someone or other is not just proposing but actively implementing "placeholder" images in bio and other articles; images in infoboxes that are pretty much exactly like the "shadowy figure" placeholder images on MySpace and various personals sites for people who have not uploaded an image yet. It bears an exhortation to upload a (legal) image of the article subject if you have one. I think this is an abomination, and I WP:MFD'd the whole mess. I not only got shouted down as trying to stomp on WP innovation, I actually got a "fuck you" anti-barnstar for having dared to MfD it in the first place (see my most recent archive page, or my non-talk user page). Go figure. The point being, what I considered simply sensible cleaning up of utter nonsense, clutter, and unecyclopedic WP:SELF-violative crap, others saw as personal PoV-pushing antagonism toward a viable wikexperiment that should be left to run its course. I think much of the same world-view clash is happening here, even if I happen to be mostly on the other side this time. Patience seems to be in order. I agree with you that flags are being overused. I wrote most of the current document in question. Even so, I think it needs more "buy-in" time, and further refinement, and some balancing (as virtually no one has contributed to this so far other than those who detest flag icons.) The view is not balanced yet. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 07:16, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

It's odd that consensus about this issue hasn't been reached yet. I've noticed many discussions in the Village Pump and WT:MOS about it but it has always been stopped before anything near a consensus is reached. What I propose to settle this issue is to simply revive the discussions. But first, create or move this page to Wikipedia:Flag icons or Wikipedia:Flags to make it more appealing and guideline-like. Next, put an announcement on the Community Portal and the Village Pump. I think it will generate a lot of discussion since Wikipedians in general tends to discuss this kinf of issues (remeber Userboxes). CG 13:21, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Continuity of reading

The thing that I find most annoying is the way flags distract me when I am trying to read something. That is my most basic problem with flag icons. This is in the guideline as "the use of flag icons in prose breaks up the continuity of the text, distracting the reader", but I think it should be emphasised more. Even in infoboxes they can be distracting. Take a random example, such as Abraham Lincoln. The version at the time of writing has flags for Hardin County and Washington DC. When I'm scanning the infobox, the assimilation of information process goes something like:

• Name (know that already)
• Picture (ooh, looks nice)
• Title, dates, etc (yeah, yeah, not looking for that)
• Born (ah, here we are, let's look for birth date and place)
• (check, got his birth date)
• (flag)
• Hang on, double-check what I'm seeing here.
• (flag)
• No, look again.
• (flag)
• Aaagh. This stupid flag is distracting me.
• Place of birth (finally)

What started off as a relative harmless visual scan of text, was brought to a shuddering halt by an image that drew my attention away from the surrounding text. I don't mind this when the image is illustrative, like the pic of Abraham Lincoln, but when it is a small, sometimes unclear, icon, it is horribly distracting. Carcharoth 13:36, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh, state/district flags... How many of those are recognized readily by the general population, at icon size? I have to agree, they definitely are distracting.--Boffob 15:19, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I think we can get consensus to "prohibit" the use of flag icons for birth/death/nationality in people's infoboxes. (I consider the "competed for X national team" usage different from "nationality" in this instance.) I think it will be quite difficult to get consensus for all the guidelines proposed in this essay, so I think we should tackle them one at a time. The birth/death infobox usage seems to be the best place to start. Andrwsc 16:58, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Carcaroth, are you saying you actually read infoboxes? I try to tune them out (just as I tune out "Ads from Goooooogle" and so on), and I usually succeed. The problem with flags is that their colorfulness makes it a bit harder to tune out the stupid infoboxes, they decrease the signal/noise ratio, and they add a little bit to the bytage. -- Hoary 13:17, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Proposal to move

Since some discussions about turning this page into a guideline have sparked, I propose to move or create a new page at Wikipedia:Flags or Wikipedia:Flag icons. It's a better title for a policy than the current essay-like title. CG 13:09, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Okay, good idea. —Centrx→talk • 23:21, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Flag usage maybe. The other two titles better fit a howto article. (SEWilco 04:03, 25 June 2007 (UTC))

Agree. --John 18:24, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Agree with SEWilco on all counts, and with CG and John on the general idea that present title needs to change. I will prophesy, however, that the ultimate name for this will be Wikipedia:Manual of style (flags) (WP:MOSFLAG). That was certainly my goal in writing most of it. There isn't a lot of point to having a manual of style and non-MOS style manuals; they get integrated into the MOS for a reason. :-) — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 23:06, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Use of flags of states or constituent countries on templates.

What is the position with regard to using flags (often with no official status, but seen as de facto flags) of a county, state, or constituent country? If a template is one of a series of identical templates for different states/counties/const.countries/, all the others of which have flags, surely that template too should have a flag? The article says that this is acceptable, but only for sporting templates. Surely it should be extended to any non-political or biographical article or template? The position is quite unclear. Biofoundationsoflanguage 16:43, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Could you give an example of what you mean? Cop 663 17:27, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

For example, Template:Northern Ireland cities has no flag, whereas the corresponding templates for the other nations of the United Kingdom have their respective flags. Biofoundationsoflanguage 18:00, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

The situation on the N. Ireland cities template is exactly why flags are not necessary. On that template the use of any flag (Ulster, Union Jack, or otherwise) is a source of conflict that is easily avoided by not included a flag at all. Having the flag on the template does not make a positive contribution to the content of the template, so why even have it? Even if you expand the issue beyond Northern Ireland to the use of other flags on biographical articles, there is conflicts over which flag should be used in infoboxes. Should Stephen Harper have the flag he was born under, the flag his country has had for all but 6 years of his life, or the flag his province has had for most of his life. All in all, including a flag in an article or template generally does not add anything to the encyclopedic value of the article it is in and is frequently the source of conflict, so it's best to avoid it completely. --Bobblehead ^(rants) 18:14, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Disagree. N.Ir. bio articles should not have a flag until such time as the UK finally gets around to assigning it a new official one (or reinstating the Ulster Banner). In the case of Stephen Harper, he should have the flag of his current (or, should he die, that of his final) citizenship. The draft guideline already says this pretty explicitly, unless someone removed that (I've been busy and not monitoring this essay on a daily basis). Bio infoboxes have a "nationality" line, not a "statiality" or "proviciality" line, so state and province flags (or UK county flags, Albanian district flags, etc., etc.) are a moot question. Lastly, many do in fact feel that flag icons add encyclopedic value. That is why this essay/draft guideline exists, instead of a prohibition on use of flags and flag icons, and mass TfD of the flag icon templates. I.e. the "does this have any encyclopedic value" question appears to already be a long-decided consensus issue. The questions that are actually before us here are "when does a flag (especially a flag icon) have encyclopedic value, when is it just noise, and when is it outright disruptive?" These are what this document addresses. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 23:15, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Ah, the essay has changed since I last read it.;) The Biographical use section seems to have been added since I last read it in depth. Unfortunately, the use described in that section is generally not the use that flags are being used for in infoboxes. In the case of the Stephen Harper article and all other biographical article that I've seen flags used in the infobox, the use has not been to identify nationality, but to flag the article's birth place. --Bobblehead ^(rants) 23:59, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree that this is a common problem. A possible solution might be updating the (many) bio infobox templates' documentation to better explain the "|nationality=" fields that most of them support. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 08:06, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

To answer the original question, if the flag is not official, it should not be used. To do so would effectively be a form of original research and certainly POV-pushing. As an example, Israel is recognized by the United Nations as a nation; despite the fact that the bulk of the Muslim nations consider Israel an illegitimately occupied terrority, it would be POV to exclude the Israel flag from Israeli articles. By contrast, both Quebec and Brittany have strong nationalist movements, with long-established de facto flags. I would be POV pushing to use these flags on biographies of people from these regions of Canada and France (respectively). It would also be POV pushing to use them on the articles about those regions, as representing the region, though of course discussion and display of the flag in an article section about nationalism in those areas, identifying the flag as that of the nationalists, would be entirely appropriate. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 23:17, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

So what about one of a series of templates about regions of a country? Presumably there has to be consistency? If all but one of the templates used the de facto flag of that region, they all should? Perhaps none of them should have a flag, or they should all have the flag of the country the regions are part of? I don't feel this is addressed by the draft guidelines. Biofoundationsoflanguage 08:19, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

If there was an uncntroversial defacto flag, then probably no-one would notice or care. But Northern Ireland doesn't have an uncontroversial de facto flag. So it doesn't have a flag. Its 'flag' is an empty flagpole. So it's perfectly consistent for the infoboxes in qauestion to have no flag, even though the Englsnd, Scotland and Wales ones do. It's a silly situation, but it's not Wikipedia's job to solve it, we just have to reflect the situation. Cop 663 14:02, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps more to the point, WP:NPOV is a policy. There is no policy that similar template must be 100% consistent with each other. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 18:15, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Gianluca Zambrotta

Could someone please tell me what's wrong with the Gianluca Zambrotta userbox? It's helpful, noncontroversial and stylish. It should be used as an example of when flags should be used. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mqduck (talk • contribs)

I disagree. I think the only place in that infobox that should have a flag, and ironically enough is one of the few lines that doesn't have one, is before the national team wikilink. Andrwsc 03:08, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I mostly have to agree to disagree, as it were, with Mqduck. I.e, Andrwsc is completely correct that the national team line should have a flag, while most of the others should not. I am not, however, in the camp (yet?) that nationality lines should not have a flag, with a few odd exceptions like Northern Ireland. Two months or so after this nascent guideline got rolling, I'm less in the camp that nationality lines should have flags (and that bio infoboxes should have nationality lines to begin with, which is a larger but perhaps more important issue), but still remain in that camp. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 06:04, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

The flags, though, don't describe the nationality of the subject of the article. They descibe the teams played for. There should be no (political, etc.) controversy over the usage of flags to represent that. Unless there is an actual problem with the implication of the flags, it's my opinion that they should be allowed for their stylistic, etc. benifits. MQDuck 11:37, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I can't really speak for Andrwsc, but I think his point (or at least the one that I would raise if I'd written what he did) is that the non-national teams don't need flags, because they are not national teams. It isn't terribly informative to the reader to flag them, since what country the teams are in is of non-"defining" significance, unlike the national Italy team. I wrote most of this potential WP guideline because I agree with you that the flags can add stylistic and other benefits, and I agree with others that their overuse, misuse and abuse (which are all different) not only self-defeat that purpose but can be directly misleading. I remain neutral for now on the question of whether infoboxes with "Place of birth" lines should use flags there, when the flags are not in dispute (Northern Ireland, etc.), and the larger question of whether infoboxes should have "place of birth" lines, "nationality" lines, both, or neither (that is probably a question for both WikiProject Biography and WikiProject Infoboxes to mutually come to a consensus on, and that consensus would help shape this projectpage, rather than the other way around.) All that said, I don't strongly object to anything at the infobox in question, other than a flag being missing from the most appropriate place for one. :-) PS: I don't think anyone is implying any political or other controversy over the use of flags int he Zambrotta infobox; it's more a question of relevance and decoratativeness for decorativeness's sake. Wikipedia, in contrast to much of the web, is intentionally image-lean. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 14:31, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I've long found the Zambrotta example flawed. I find the use of flags, as shown in that version link, to be helpful. They tell me, at a glance, that he is an Italian player, currently playing in Spain, whose first three clubs were in Italy. Furthermore, the years next to the flags tell me that he spent 12 years in Italy, and has been playing in Spain for a year. This is all because, for sports, the situation is generally clear-cut. And where things are unclear, just quietly drop the flags. What I hate seeing is non-sportspeople being labelled with flags. Carcharoth 23:48, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

List of town tramway systems in Europe

Citing this essay, I tried to clean up this massive list by removing the inappropriate flag icons. The most frequent editor of the article took great umbrage at my actions by reverting and railing against me on the talk page of this and a handful of similar articles. Anybody care to take a look at those pages and tell me that I was out of line (or not) with my edits? Does that list pass or fail the intent of this essay? My explanation of why I removed the flags can be found on User talk:Ldemery. Thanks, Andrwsc 04:25, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Since this is a essay it doesn't matter if your edits pass of fail ,its only an essay and can be ignored (Gnevin 12:29, 31 July 2007 (UTC))

True, but that does not mean that what the essay advises isn't sensible, nor that it fails to reflect growing consensus. :-) — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 17:54, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Right, but I'm looking for an opinion if my edits were "in the spirit" of this essay, or "out of bounds". Andrwsc 15:32, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Your edits where fine , the use of flags on that article is not helpful and the use of subnational flags it just pointless(Gnevin 15:46, 31 July 2007 (UTC))

I tend to agree with Gnevin, but also note that the flags there are not harmful or even particularly distracting; the worst that can be said for them is they are bandwidth-consumptive on a page of that length and with so many flags. I've seen much worse use of flags, basically. I think the majority opinion here, though, would be to delete them. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 17:58, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Colonial India

a discussion on flag use in infoboxes is going on at Wikipedia talk:Notice board for India-related topics. In short, it debates the reasonablity of tagging people born in pre-independence india with the colonial British ensign. I think there should be some sort of mention on this page on how to relate to flags of colonial dominions, as they are not really analogous to national flags (concretly, in the sense that people in India didn't really identity this particular version of the Union Jack as their flag). --Soman 10:51, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

My take would be that especially for infobox use, no flag should appear. Using the modern flag of India would be inaccurate, and using the British flag, while accurate, would not be informative, and even be directly misleading, to the reader. I concur that the draft guideline should directly address this, perhaps using citing this case as the canonical example. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 23:09, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Here are a couple of other examples that speak against flag icons in place of birth/death in infoboxes. Anne Frank died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany. Someone arguing for truth and accuracy could put a Nazi flag in her infobox, place of death. A victim of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre (remember the massacre in the movie Gandhi?) would, if flag icons were allowed in infoboxes, have the British India flag placed next to both their place of birth and death. These are extreme examples, but the British India flag icon in Mahatama Gandhi's infobox (which I removed) is only a matter of degree removed from those two more extreme examples. Let's kill this turkey (flag icons next to place of birth/death) once and for all, please. ॐ Priyanath talk 23:34, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Huh? That turkey's long since been shot. I think that one of the first things this essay advised was that flagicons should never appear next to birth/date places, because it can be terribly misleading as to nationality (many people are born and die abroad). — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 19:20, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I understood that as long as this is just an essay, it's only 'advised'. I'd like to see this as an official policy. That's why I keep shooting - also because I've been removing flagicons left and right from places of birth and death in infoboxes. ॐ Priyanath talk 19:29, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Patience. It will never, ever be "official policy", because WP simply doesn't make policies on thing like this. What we are aiming for is a guideline designation. See WP:POLICY for the difference. :-) And anyway, all that guidelines do is "advise" anyway, they just do so with more consensus buy-in. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 20:28, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying - I'm not very familiar with this world. Guideline sounds like it would work just fine, along with some more patience..... ॐ Priyanath talk 20:58, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Use current flags for general purposes

This section of the text makes no sense to me. Why should a flag that didn't exist at the time of someone's birth be use it's factually incorrect, How far would we extend this back ? To people born before the US was formed from the above example.

So can i use  IRL on Hugh O'Neill, 2nd Earl of Tyrone or Charles Stewart Parnell

Also i have a major issue with the Welsh and other flags of a de facto nature being past off as fact here . Wales didn't have an official flag till 1959 anything else is WP:NOR No in article anymore(Gnevin 14:02, 24 April 2007 (UTC))

You raise some important points here. I think I can answer some of them.

• "Why should a flag that didn't exist at the time of someone's birth be used if it's factually incorrect?" Because the historical accuracy of the flag may not matter to the subject at hand. Ask yourself 'is the 'correct' flag important in the context of the article?' For example, if flags are being used in a 'list of famous cat-owners', then using historically accurate flags is simply pedantic and pointless, because it's not relevant to the subject of owning cats. But if it was a 'list of world leaders, 1930-1950', then using historically accurate flags would be more important.
• How far do we extend it back? Until the formation of the nation state in question. As you said, we should not talk about Pocahontas, obviously, because she was born and died long before the USA was formed. I'm not familiar enough with Irish history to answer the specific points above, but if Hugh O'Neill's Ireland can be regarded as basically the same entity as the Republic of Ireland, then presumably a modern Irish flag would be OK in a 'list of bearded chieftans', but obviously not in an article on Irish history (see above).
• The Welsh flag de facto issue is no longer mentioned in the essay, but once again, it depends on context, and whether strict historical accuracy is necessary in the article in question.

Does anyone else have any comments on this?

Cop 633 14:39, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand why we are fudging the history issue here

• Its not Ok too use the Welsh flag before it was official
• But its Ok to use the 48 stars on the WW1 articles
• But its not OK to use the correct flag(s) of the US for its president ?

Wouldn't be easier to say flags/historical flags can only be used when their is no overlap with a other flags? (Gnevin 14:56, 24 April 2007 (UTC))

The essay as it currently stands says it is OK to use the Welsh flag to refer to Wales generally, in some articles. We have to remember that for 99% of users, recognisability is the important thing, and the exact number of stars on a US flag is a matter of supreme indifference. There is a 50-star flag on the film My Man Godfrey (1936) and I really don't care, because all that matters is that this is an American film: the fact that Alaska and Hawaii were not yet part of the Union has no bearing at all on this film. And it is OK to use the modern American flag on George Washington if the article in question is unrelated to Washington's presidency; e..g. if List of deists had flags, you would simply use the modern ones because it really doesn't matter to the subject of deism. But that's just my view and maybe I'm alone in it.Cop 633 16:04, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

The point is wiki is meant to be a serious encycpedia ,so we have polices like WP:Cite and WP:NPOV. Yet people are using incorrect flags without giving it a second thought. The 50 star flag for that film is no more correct than me editing George Bush to say he's a nazi (Gnevin 15:13, 25 April 2007 (UTC))

Well, there we differ. Frankly, I find the attitude you just expressed rather disturbing. Cop 633 15:22, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Concur, per Godwin's Law; it is not conducive to consensus-building to throw Nazis or Hitler into a discussion to cast an unfavorable light on an debate opponent's views or position. It is both ad hominem and the fallacy of guilt by association. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 14:43, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Why is something that slightly incorrect better than an out right lie and least the outright lie has more chance of being spotted and removed .All this can be simple sorted by limiting the pointless and often wrong use of flags (Gnevin 15:26, 25 April 2007 (UTC))

I think this question needs further examination and consensus-building (which is why I pulled it back out of the archives. I find auto-archival or manual but bot-like archival by simple date calculations, to be rather hazardous, and I'm not sure that the level of commentary here warrants it, as opposed to that at, say, WP:VPP or WP:N. But that's another matter...)

When I wrote the first draft of this (well, the first draft of anything like what the present document is; there was some skeletal content here before I overhauled it), it basically said what Cop 633 says. This was reverted without discussion (and I don't mean that to sound like an attack; WP:BRD is a perfectly valid editing strategy; I just mean that the issue hasn't been fully hashed out yet), I think by Centrx, and has stood pretty much as-is since then, with most of us thinking about other things here, like the Ulster Banner debate and infoboxes and so on.

What I see here is that there are two sharply divided views:

1. Getting every detail perfectly accurate regardless of context is of paramount importance, even at the expense of usability
2. Usability is of paramount importance, even at the expense of being technically correct on every minor detail in contexts where those details are of no relevance

(Speak up if anyone thinks either of those summaries are inaccurate.) In another edit, I'll post some thoughts on this. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 15:00, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Compromise proposition

I'd like to suggest that there is probably a middle ground between these two extremes, and propose that the way to get there is through examining similar sitations.

• Translated/transliterated names: It is a standard, but not universal, Wikipedia practice to use the simplest transliteration of a foreign name (Japanese bios, Ferdinand Magellan, etc.) that is still vaguely close to the real thing, rather than the most diacritically-complicated one or the unfamiliar but original one (though mentioning that more accurate one in the article lead is almost universally done). This is a clear cut case of preferring usability over detail accuracy. There is a countervailing trend to use the more complicated or less familiar correct one, but this generally only done when the original name is in a script that uses the Western character set with diacritics and other minor modifications that will not terribly confuse English speakers; cf. many Vietnamese and Turkish bios. This suggests strongly to me that Wikipedia by general consensus favors usability over accuracy when the accuracy is not important in the context (in a bio, as long as the complicated but correct name is given once, there is no harm in using the simpler transliteration for reader convenience). But when there will be no particular harm to usability, and especially of course when in the context the accuracy does matter, the consensus is to use the more correct version (e.g., the obsolete transliteration "Peking" is mentioned at Beijing, but not used in articles even about time periods when "Peking" was the commonly used transliteration; "Peking" is considered simply deficient and abandoned, and Wikipedia does not want to imply that it was the correct name of the capital of China two generations ago). It's a balacing act, like much else in Wikipedia.
• Manual of Style (dates and numbers) recommends approximating numerical values to two decimal places (23.12 cm, not 23.12345 cm) when more precision is not warranted by the context, as it certainly is at pi. Again, usability is favored over perfect accuracy of details.
• There is a broad general consensus on style, covered in various ways at WP:MOSNUM and its sub-guidelines, that redundant overspecificity is to be avoided. For example, in prose we generally refer to the United Kingdom, not the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, except when necessary, e.g. to distinguish between the modern UK and that before the absorption of N.Ir. Likewise we don't use Commonwealth of Virginia in many contexts, despite it being the correct name of the US state. This preference for reader convenience and recognizability is telling, and widespread. Yet it is also abandoned when disambiguation is needed (e.g. between the state and British colony that preceded it.)

I could go on, but I think the point is amply demonstrated. It suggests to me that a compromise is possible here. It is much along the lines of the original wording of the document, and Cop 633's comments, but more respectful of accuracy. Any time that a) accuracy is required in the context to present the facts, or b) usability would not be harmed, even if accuracy is not important in the context, the more correct flag should apply. If neither condition applies, the most reader-helpful flag should apply. In an article on a naval battle of the 1700s, the correct flags should appear, as the document already explains (or did, last I looked) in detail. The correct flag of the period of George Washington's presidency should appear in his infobox if a flag is used there (for nationality; for birth it would be the flag of the British colony in which he was born, or the flag of the UK at that time, as determined by consensus at the article's talk page, and I think almost all of us here would say to not use a flag at all for that). In a "List of heads of state with false teeth" that used flagicons, Washington would get the current US flag, because the purpose of flags there is to make the list look nice and to help the reader identify the country, and has no bearing whatsoever on history; meanwhile the circular ring of stars on the flag of Washington's time is sufficiently different from the modern US flag that many non-US readers would not recognize it at all. In a "List of eighteenth century generals", Washington should get the flag of his era, because the era is part of the point of the document (however, because such flags would be unlikely to be helpful to the reader, they should probably be avoided in such an article). In the 1930s movie example raised above by Cop 633 (and here's where I'm diverging from him and my own old document version, and leaning toward the "correctist" position), the 48-star US flag of the era should be used, because it is recognizable enough that no reader will be confused, and there is thus no compelling reason not to be accurate.

Thoughts?

— SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 15:40, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

• Transliterated names are used because they are the accepted names in the English language that have been used by historians who have in a manner translated the foreign name of one foreign person into one English name of one foreign person. They can be misleading, but they will not lead to confusion of two things for one. Transliteration is not more problematic than translation. A more relevant analogy would be if we used the same exact name, without explanation, for a father and his son--the later country with its different flag is a descendant of the earlier country. We might properly say the "Jones family" (i.e. "Germany") to refer to all of them but once we say "Johnny Jones" we are specifically referring to the son, not the father, and we would not call the father "Bob Jones" by the name "Johnny Jones", or if they happened to both be "John Jones", we would refer to one as "Jr." or "the Second" or otherwise explicitly mention the distinction.
• Again, the issue here is not simply precision, it is actual inaccuracy. The analogy would be saying "23.44" when the actual value is "23.12". We might omit precision by rounding, but we must not specify a value of high precision that is actually inaccurate. If we are to "approximate when more precision is not warranted by the context", we should simply omit the flag altogether; the approximation is "England".
• If redundant overspecificity should be avoided, then do without the flags altogether. If the flag is the only data, then there is nothing redundant about using the one, correct flag.

—Centrx→talk • 04:44, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Its a simple question is Wiki a real encyclopaedia out to present the facts as best known or are going to comprise that so the page looks nice , You speak of whats recognizable a good few times but as this article says words are always clearer , the US flag maybe recognizable but their are hundreds of flags being used that no one would reconginze and would anyone really notice the difference at 20px between 48 and 50 stars? Gnevin 11:34, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

No one would notice at that size, but every such flag icon is clickable to get a bigger version, where it is noticeable, and thus the correct flag should be used. I don't have much to say about the rest of that; there simply is not and probably never will be any consensus that these flag serve nothing but a decorative purpose, but I do have to note that your assertion that "no one" would identify many flags is pure hyperbole: Many would in fact recognize them because they know a lot about geography, live in or near the country in question, are students of that region's history, are flag buffs (vexilogists), etc., etc. But that's not even the issue. An encyclopedia's purpose is to be educational, and flag icons provide tiny and rather unobtrusive means for someone to learn something (e.g. what the flag of Botswana looks like, which may add value and addeded interest to an article on someone from Botswana; I click on bio flag icons all the time for precisely this reason!) — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 20:49, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Somewhere within this section, somebody writes: The point is wiki is meant to be a serious encycpedia.

No serious encyclopedia that I know of has a little flag to represent or illustrate somebody's nationality, place of birth, etc.

SMcCandlish writes close above: An encyclopedia's purpose is to be educational, and flag icons provide tiny and rather unobtrusive means for someone to learn something (e.g. what the flag of Botswana looks like, which may add value and addeded interest to an article on someone from Botswana.... Yes it may. Well, flags seem to be your thing. But you could get to the Botswana flag by clicking Botswana. To say that a little flag serves to show what a flag looks like seems close to admitting that the exercise is vacuous. -- Hoary 00:20, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Flag removals

I have noticed that some editors have begun removing flags from various articles, and even sparking-off the odd revert war. It should be noted that this is not an official Wikipedia policy or guideline yet, and given its apparent controversial nature it may never become either. Until there is a change in official policy, I would suggest, at the very least, a "non-combative" approach to flag removal. Build consensus on article talk pages before removing flags. -- Scjessey 20:34, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

On the contrary, there needs to be consensus to keep material in articles. In the absence of a compelling encyclopedic reason for these, I'd say they can be removed on sight. Of course nobody should be revert-warring over something like this. I have removed many, often mentioning it in talk first, and I have never seen anyone present a coherent rationale for their retention, which is quite telling in itself. --John 20:38, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree with John, in many cases there is a overuse of flagicons that add nothing to articles or templates.--padraig 21:29, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

As one of the people that remove flag icons and cite this essay, I can say that the reason I cite this essay is not because it is official guideline, but rather because it explains why I'm doing it better than I could in an edit summary. I generally just remove them, but if they are added back I'll pop onto the talk page, explain why I took the flag away, and ask for their explanation for keeping it. On the few cases where my removal has been contested, almost all resulted in the removal of the flag. --Bobblehead ^(rants) 21:46, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Ditto. Cop 663 22:05, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

It is my understanding that flag icons were conceived for tables, charts, and infoboxes in order to indicate origin or nationality. I was moved to comment here because I noticed that flag icons were being removed from infoxboxes, which I thought was rather peculiar. I agree that these things must be used sparingly, but I am concerned that acts of removal without initial talk page discussion and consensus is causing anything from confusion to edit warring. Perhaps the "removalistas" should make it standard practice to explain a removal on a talk page (using a templated include, for example) to try to avoid any editing conflict - a proactive approach is better than a reactive approach, eh? -- Scjessey 23:12, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Flag icons were conceived as a navigation aid for large tables, lists, etc. where every item has an associated nationality. Many sport result pages benefit from them, for example. Single flag icons by themselves do not offer any navigation aid, but are simply used for decorative purposes. As for your suggestion of requesting permission to make these types of edits, I think there is no reason why these articles are not subject to be as "edited mercilessly" as any other Wikipedia article. Andrwsc 23:34, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

I have two problems with this: 1) Just because WP:WPFT initially created the flag icons as nav aids does not logically demonstrate that they have no other possible uses. 2) The position that a single flag icon by itself has no purpose but decoration is certainly questionable; I've explained why in more detail in a thread above, but the short version is that they provide an educational background point of interest to plenty of readers (I've noted paper encyclopedias and other offline works use small flag pictures in bios of people for the same sorts of reasons). I do not think that the three or so "flag haters" :-) in this debate are ever going to get much traction on the "they just serve no purpose" argument. Others think they do, and so there's simply no consensus for banning. I think the purpose of this essay-to-be-guideline is to advise how/when/where to use them and not use them, and why, including in infoboxes, a usage that is already well-entrenched and highly, highly likely to remain so. I think our job here is to steer editors away from excessive, confusing or misleading use of them (overuse, misuse and abuse, respectively, the terms I used in an earlier topic) in infoboxes. Agree that no one needs "permission" to edit articles, but whoever it was that raised talk pages probably meant it is better to discuss a flagicon removal from an infobox either before or immediately after making that edit, simply to reduce strife and editwarring. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 00:36, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Scjessey is correct that proper explanations for flag removals would be useful. I have created a series of links to sections of this page that explain common flag offenses. When removing a flag, you can cut-and-paste one of these links into your edit summary to help explain your reasoning. I have been doing this quite a bit recently and no-one has ever complained. Cop 663 23:44, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Great idea. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 00:36, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

I have been doing the same, with a similar edit summary to yours, specifically with flag icons next to places of birth and death in the infobox (see discussion above under 'Colonial India'). I've only had one person even ask 'why?' After explaining, they are now removing them from that very specific (mis)use, which is the worst, IMHO. So yes, a good edit summary explaining the reason is helpful and sufficient. ॐ Priyanath talk 00:02, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

The problem is that some editors are removing national flags because they don't like them, or for other sinister reasons. Also some editors are quoting this essay as if it was already a policy. Astrotrain 19:18, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

The flag your refering to is not a national flag, the Ulster Banner was never a national flag see: Northern Ireland flags issue.--padraig 21:05, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Ooh! Please work that link into the essay text! I think it presently only links to Flag of Northern Ireland which gives the facts but does not discuss the dispute about the flags. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 00:36, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Then all you need to do is tell them it it isn't a policy yet, and explain why the flag is so important to the article. Cop 663 20:03, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

(Outdent, since this responds to several sub-topics at once:) If someone says "no, no, no, that's not a Guideline!", the proper reply is probably something along the lines of "the logic in WP:FLAGCRUFT is quite sound however, and you have not made a reasonable case for including (or removing as the case may be) this flag; we treat a great number of essays on Wikipedia as de facto guidelines." Add "and don't be a wikilawyer about this please", if they are being total jerks about the issue. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 00:36, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Talk page template

Any one else find it a bit of a contradiction to have a made up flag such as in {{WikiProject Flag Template}} on the top of this page , isnt this what this article is all about stopping ? Gnevin 22:03, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

So go fix it. The UN flag would be a good choice. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 19:17, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Fixed it myself, with several international organization flags. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 15:37, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Hmm. I find it more amusing that the banner states that it represents Wikipedia:WikiProject Flag Template, yet appears on none of the hundreds of pages nominally under the scope of that WikiProject! Andrwsc 22:36, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Which pages do you mean? If you mean the templates, most of them don't even have talk pages (last I looked) and there doesn't seem much point in creating a template talk page just to put a banner on it, but by all means feel free to run an AWB session or bot to fix that if it matters to you. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 19:17, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm confused

I am trying to understand the use of flags guidelines as of 19 Aug 2007. I have breezed over the talk subjects, but they don't appear to be generally very current. Here is my issue:

Appropriate use

Flag icons may be helpful in certain situations:

They may be useful space-savers when used without the country name in tables and infoboxes, if and only if they have been used previously in the article with both the flag and the country name.

-Vs.-

Flag icons are intended for use in lists, tables, and infoboxes. They should not be used in the article body <snip>; the use of flag icons in prose breaks up the continuity of the text, distracting the reader (example).

Have I missed something or do these two lines nul each other, whereby flag icons should not be used in toto on Wikipedia. Macr237 12:17, 19 August 2007 (UTC) (very confused)

Possibly you've missed something. I don't quite understand your point - where is the inconsistency? Maybe I'm being stupid though. Cop 663 16:39, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

They counter each other. First part says you can only use flags in the infobox if they have been used in the article. The second one says they should not be used in the article body, so technically you cannot use them anywhere.

The first part is wrong. It should say "if and only if they have been used previously in the table or infobox". Flag icons should never be used in the body of the article text. Carcharoth 21:29, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

This is stated more clearly later in the proposal: "When a flag icon is used for the first time in an article or, in long articles, a section, it needs to appear adjacent to its respective country (or province, etc.) name. This means when a flag icon is used only once as in the majority of infoboxes, it must include the country name. Most readers know more countries by name than by flag.". Carcharoth 21:37, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Also, don't confuse "article" (the whole page, including infoboxes and tables) with "article prose" (the written bit of an article). Infoboxes and tables are still part of the article. Carcharoth 21:37, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Correct me if I am wrong, but by this edit it seems that flags in infoboxes are acceptable (according to this essay) and even a double flag is ok. For instance in Gregory Peck it "may be helpful" to have, one flag and country name in the born section and just a flag in the died section. Personally I don't see any use at all for flags in infoboxes like that, it also seems contrary to the point of this essay. Garion96 (talk) 22:16, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, yes. I'd rewrite more of the proposal, but I think it was meant to be a compromise anyway. I agree. Flags in general are really not needed, unless you are talking sports and some military articles. Carcharoth 23:34, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Carcharoth for clearing that up. Macr237 00:53, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Interesting discussion relevant to this

Talk:Fanta#Nazi flag --John 21:31, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Here's another that relates to this page

I referred to this essay here. I may copy any discussion that occurs over here when it is done. --John 05:16, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

A case study for "Biographical use"

About your section "Biographical use", here's an annotated summary of ideas I was mulling over about a special case:

Different ways to try filling the nationality= field of the infobox for P. G. Wodehouse (born a British citizen in England, lived the second half of his life mostly in the United States, naturalized a U.S. citizen twenty years before his death)

		Flag-and-text			Text only
a)	Nationality:	British		Nationality:	British
	Only the sovereign nation of birth, no mention of the sub-country, no mention of the naturalization: will be endlessly edited back and forth between "English" and "British", will have bickerings about his also being a U.S. citizen, etc., hence the search for something both encyclopedically accurate and less prone to endless changes.
b)	Nationality:	British ( English)		Nationality:	British (English)
	Sticks to the nation of birth only (chosing not to detail naturalizations in the infobox), but mentions the sub-country: should at least deter British/English switches, satisfy more people, and is accurate. But will regularly attract additions of "U.S." either from jingoists wanting to claim him, or from good faith people wanting to contribute additional information.
b2)	Nationality:	British (English)		Nationality:	British (English)
	Same as version "b" but without the subcountry flag, enforcing a rule of "One citizenship, one flag". Should only attract moderate attempts at inserting an English flag.
c)	Nationality:	British  U.S. (1955, aged 74)		Nationality:	British U.S. (1955, aged 74)
	Sticks to sovereign nations only (not mentionning "English"), but accurately displays the dual citizenship: encyclopedically correct, but will generate the same endless British/English switches as version "a".
d)	Nationality:	British ( English)  U.S. (1955, aged 74)		Nationality:	British (English) U.S. (1955, aged 74)
	Combining versions b and c, being completely accurate and should deter 99% of British/English switches (the 1% being those sad few wanting only "English" to be displayed). The flag-and-text version may seem a bit heavy, but this is a special case chosen precisely for being extreme.
d2)	Nationality:	British (English)  U.S. (1955, aged 74)		Nationality:	British (English) U.S. (1955, aged 74)
	Same as version "d" but without the subcountry flag, enforcing a rule of "One citizenship, one flag". Should only attract moderate attempts at inserting an English flag. Make it less cluttered in flag version, too.

I guess it's clear that I'm currently partial to solution "d", but tweaks or argumented proposals for alternatives are welcome -- I have no other agenda with this than accuracy AND stability (i.e. avoiding to attract edit wars and recurrent switches when it's possible). Live implementations within the article's infobox can be seen with a snapshot of Wodehouse with text version and a snapshot of Wodehouse with flag-and-text version.

A tangential topic where I mentionned your essay: in order to be able to implement this without always using the name= parameter of Flag, I have created aliases on the model of {{Flag|British}} for aliases "English", "Welsh", "Scottish", "Northern Irish" + "Irish (Northern)", and "Irish" (that is, to have shortcuts such as {{Flag|Scottish}} instead of {{Flag|Scotland|name=Scottish}}, etc.) -- this started a discussion about the difficulty with the two Irelands and the whole scheme of using flags, that you can see at Template_talk:Country_data_Northern_Ireland#Northern_Irish_alias

— Komusou ^talk @ 20:08, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Is the year of his naturalization and his age at the time really something that should be conveyed via his infobox? I'd also question the use of ( English) as it is not an official citizenship designation and can be a source of controversy. Particularly when it comes to ( Northern Irish).--Bobblehead ^(rants) 20:30, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

My first thought is that I don't see much value in the use of individual flag icons to mark the place of birth and/or death, nationality, etc. in biographic infoboxes, and I thought that was the biggest issue this essay was intended to address. My second thought is that if they really must be used, they should be limited to the top-level nation only (in this case, the UK) and not second-level countries/states/provinces/etc. (in this case, England). Along these lines, take a look at Lucille Ball. Do the flags of New York and California really add anything, other than "visual bling"? And if removed, do the flags of the US add anything either? And to answer any rebuttal that England as a home nation does not equate to a US state, my response is that the principle is the same. Do we really need more than one flag in these instances? Do we even need one? I say no to both. Andrwsc 21:24, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Wow. I sorted it out somewhat, there were a number of other problems. I agree 100% with your points above; I have taken the (great) liberty of changing your link above to link to the offending version in the history, I hope you don't mind. --John 21:46, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

The intent of the essay is not to eliminate all uses of flags, but rather to limit their use to specific instances and in a manner that the reader is not spammed with non-value added flags. The use of flags in conjunction with a person's place of birth/residence/death isn't particularly encyclopedic and can result in instances where the flags are overused or don't mean anything to anyone but the person that added them. One of the places that the use of flag icons that is "okay" is the nationality field of infoboxes, but the intent is to show citizenship of the article's topic. So if this essay is applied to the Lucille Ball article, then the flags for California and New York would be removed and the only place the US flag would be displayed is in the nationality field in conjunction with American/US/United States (or in visual terms  American). --Bobblehead ^(rants) 21:44, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Another point. Even though this is in a heading of "nationallity", people might be misled into thinking that he moved to the USA in 1955 at the age of 74. Surely the infobox should tell the reader the more important date, which is when he permanently moved to the USA, though as that is often difficult to define, it all gets thrown back to the article. My rule of thumb is if it gets too difficult to explain in the infobox, remove it and explain in the article only. SO in this case, text only, and give a footnote to explain the issues involved. A well-written paragraph will communicate far more than a set of flags ever will. Carcharoth 22:49, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Note: Before this moment, the original table didn't have variants "b2" and "d2", so the comments above relate only to the core a-b-c-d.

• I have now inserted "b2" and "d2" and propose to have an explicit rule being "One citizenship, one flag" that should limit both the flagcruft and the endless switches between British and English, while being objective and informational. The idea is, when only the citizenship flag is allowed, parenthesed information will be added only when really useful (such as "English/Irish/etc." or "Québec" or "Walloon/Flemish" for Belgium), etc.), and not just as a pretense for inserting a flag for California or a banner for New York.
• I'd also quickly mention that it could be useful to rename the infoboxes output to "Citizenship:", or maybe even better to "Citizen of:" or "National of:" (so as to use the name of the *country* rather than the *demonym*, which can often be much less known than the country name -- this would also avoid in infoboxes the usual pitfall of "American" vs. "U.S." and its endless switches).
• Also, the flags are only a secondary and separate point from my main point: even if the flags are banned, the "text only" column still shows different problems and solutions, and I'd still prefer something similar to "d2" (text version) to "a" (text version). The flags just come on top of that.
• I need to catch some zees so I can't answer now on the other comments, be back later. — Komusou ^talk @ 22:57, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Bobblehead:

• Re: "the year of his naturalization and his age at the time" - The intent is to give the reader objective data that he can decide upon, and avoid editors controversies about whether to include a naturalization or not in the infobox and when and why. When someone is naturalized at the grand old age of 74 years (I'm sticking to the Wodehouse example for simplicity), some will argue that it's meaningless because it didn't affect the bulk of his life and so shouldn't be included in the infobox; whereas others will argue that a citizenship is a citizenship and should be listed even if someone was naturalized at age 107 and one week before his death. All rather subjective and possibly endless arguments. A more objective and NPOV way (IMO) is to list the second citizenship and the date/age of naturalization, and let each reader decide if it's meaningful for him or not, in the context of his own research. Many people (as readers) like the infoboxes because they are reading article "A" and just want some quick facts about person "B" that's involved in article "A", so article B's lead and infobox nicely fulfill this common type of reading; in that case, some readers won't care about his nationality, and some others will find it important to know at a glance that he got dual citizenship.
• Re: "the use of (English) as it is not an official citizenship" - I think the "d2" version is better in this respect, because only the actual citizenship gets a flag (which shows its official status) whereas the subcountry is both flagless and parenthetical. I'd say there are at least three good reasons to allow "British (English)" and such:
  • Legal: the UK is quite the special case since it does ackowledge four constituent countries, each of them having an additional government/parliament; the article even states "All four are still generally regarded as possessing distinct nationalities (an attribute of civil society), although they have no distinct citizenships (an attribute of the state). To varying degrees, their inhabitants may view themselves, for example, as English, Irish, Northern Irish, Scottish, Welsh or as British by nationality, or frequently by some combination thereof." Legally speaking, that's quite enough to generate endless debates and reverts around "England is ackownledged as a country so English is the nationality" or arguing about the fact that the field is "Nationality" and not "Citizenship".
  • Informational: For many readers, the subcountry is as valuable an information as the state country, and not without reason. Strongly differentiated cultures/folklores/contexts make listing the subcountry a relevant information in an infobox. And it's not just the UK, there is a large informational difference between an infobox telling you "Nationality: Canadian" and "Nationality: Canadian (Quebec)". Same with "Nationality: Belgian (Flemish)".
  • Practical: I'm being pragmatic: look at most articles about people from the UK, or Quebec, or Belgium, to name three. You'll practically never find "British" or "Canadian" or "Belgian" in the infobox or the lead -- it's almost always "English/Irish/etc." or "Quebec" or "Flemish/Walloon". IMO, this is a long-standing problem that we'll never sort by trying to delete the subcountry and replace it with the sovereign country alone -- even if an official policy stated to do so on Wikipedia. This is because in this instance, thousands upon thousands of editors would simply refuse to have English/Quebec/Flemish/etc. deleted and absent from the infoboxes, and they would constantly change it back, it would become a war on a thousand fronts -- but contrary to the war against vandals, Wikipedia would NOT have the support of the micro-communities built around each article, but their fierce opposition, Afghanistan-vs-USSR-style. So the rather simple idea is a compromise that would still be informational and encyclopedic, that is to allow a parenthetical subnationality to be added after the sovereign country, when editors strongly feel the need to add it: "British (English)", or "Canadian (Quebec)" or "Belgian (Flemish)", etc. And similarly in lead sections, to replace all instances of "...is an English writer..." with "...is a British writer from England...". This should provide peace and stability by having the support of the thousands of micro-communities that edit such articles, rather than trying to work against them by replacing "English" with just "British" alone, etc.

To conclude with a note of comedy, didja know that Charlie Chaplin (static version) "was an English comedy actor"? I wonder how many times this article has been back and forth between "British" and "English", but I'd rather not look it up ;-) — Komusou ^talk @ 09:24, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

P.S. : actually, just a quick CTRL+F on the history page is enough to find out that any mention of "UK" in the location of birth or "British" in the lead is just mercilessly reverted with everybody turning a blind eye to the fact... — Komusou ^talk @ 09:39, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Carcharoth:
As a jury question, "Do you think that a reasonable man would be misled into thinking that Wodehouse moved to the U.S. in 1955?", I'll sincerely answer "No, your Honor". Just like there's no reason to assume that he stayed in the U.K. until 1955 because of the UK flag. It's indeed the "Nationality" field, and I don't think it should tell anything about where someone lived, or when he moved. — Komusou ^talk @ 09:24, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

I sympathize with your desire to compromise, and I agree that "British (English)" would work well. But it's never as simple as that. What do you do with the person who was born and educated in Scotland, and then ended up living and working in England, for the rest of their career. You get a lot of politicians and scientists like that. I still feel that laying down rules as to what to put in infoboxes is doomed to failure. Have a range of options available (with clearly illustrated examples), but leave the editors of particular articles to decide on the solution needed for that article. For Wodehouse, the infobox currently fails to mention that he lived in France. I realise the citizenship bit is only meant to shoe where he held citizenship, but without cavaeats and further explanation (something best done in prose in the main article), the infobox starts to potentially be misleading and simplistic. FOr example, for Wodehouse: "He was also profoundly uninterested in politics and world affairs. When World War II broke out in 1939 he remained at his seaside home in Le Touquet, France, instead of returning to England, apparently failing to recognise the seriousness of the conflict." I think Wodehouse would find it funny that people were debating over what flags and citizenship history to put in an infobox for him. Carcharoth 23:49, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Interpolated comment: It has to be left to some individual-article editorial discretion what to do in complex cases, of course. I don't think anyone's seriously advocating otherwise; just for general guidelines (which is a matter for WP:INFOBOX not this essay!) that shouldn't be ignored without good reason. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 20:12, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

• About "the person who was born and educated in Scotland, and then ended up living and working in England": I say we stick to "British (Scottish)" or "United Kingdom (Scotland)" because the field is "Nationality", the reader doesn't expect to find there an history of where he lived.
• But then you could say, or meant to say, "what if the son of a Japanese man is born in Japan but then his father became ambassador/CEO/whatever in the U.S., so that the kid lived and was educated K-12/college in the U.S. from age 1 to 25?" Then I would still say "Nationality: Japanese" for several reasons: it's still the objective nationality, the passport, and the country he's linked to in case of war and such; the kid was still reared by Japanese parents and with the frame of mind that he is a Japanese; if his having moved to the U.S. is really significant infobox-wise then he'll have got dual U.S. citizenship, which will show up in "Nationality", and if he didn't seek or got dual citizenship then it means the point isn't important enough for the infobox; last but not least, the infobox sticks to short and objective facts such as citizenship, we can't start to process biographies and decide by ourselves that such person is to be labelled U.S. rather than Japanese, that would be POV or OR.
• About "laying down rules as to what to put in infoboxes", I think there are still some basics that should be laid down and enforced, such as "Nationality" being an actual citizenship. Our current articles are very unencyclopedic or misleading, "Nationality: English" or "Nationality: Quebec" shouldn't be allowed, not anymore than an article saying "Nationality: Texan". But precisely because such a rule would be "doomed to failure" if too drastic, that's why I propose the guideline to allow for "Nationality: British (English)" or "Nationality: Canadian (Quebec)" or even "Nationality: U.S. (Texas)" if the editors want it. I believe that in these matters, only a minority is really against having the words "British" or "Canadian" appear in infobox or in the lead section, but that a strong majority of those people are against having the words "English" or "Quebec" NOT be there. Hence the dual thing. But I don't think it should be left as an option to just say English/Quebec/Flemish/etc. in the infobox or the lead, as seems to be endemically the case in most articles.
• About "the infobox currently fails to mention that he lived in France", that's simply not what "Nationality" is for. Another line of reasonning is that nationality is a short and objective topic, you'll get 1 or 2, scarcely more (and if someone did acquire 4 nationalities then I think that's rare enough in itself to be notable and visible in the infobox). OTOH, people moving and living in a variety of countries are commonplace (just ambassadors, military personel and their family, travelers, and more), and the list of their notable residences quite often too long for an infobox, so that's not infobox material IMO, besides there's no field for this.
• As for the infobox being simplistic in some special cases, that's to be expected, and I believe the readers know it. The same could be said of most others fields of an infobox, depending on special cases. For someone who fell into a coma, spending in persistent vegetative state the last 20 years of his life, the "date of death" could be considered simplistic, and if that was an irreversible coma with brain death then the date of death could be considered misleading. Yet there is no reason for freak cases to prevent infoboxes from having a rational guideline.
• As for Wodehouse's opinion about our discussing this, it's ironic, but we simply can't make an encyclopedia that way. What you say would be true of most biography subjects. For instance, most businessmen would simply scoff at the idea of having unpaid volunteers write for free a biography of anyone. Etc.

— Komusou ^talk @ 11:13, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

To respond to this point by point:

• If were going with Option D in the chart, then no, we'd use "Birthplace: UK (Scotland)" (without a flag? I think the jury's still out on that usage), and "Nationality: British (English)" (with or without flags). Do not confuse birthplace with nationality.
• Adult child of Japanese ambassador to the US: Yes, nationality Japanese, even if residing in the US. If the kid took American citizenship at some point, b.p. would remain .jp, nat. would become .us (or .jp and .us if maintaining dual citizenship). I think we are agreeing on that.
• Rules on what to put in infoboxes is totally out-of-scope here; that belongs at WP:INFOBOX. It is very, very important not to confuse "Nationality: English" and "Nationality: Quebecois" or "Nationality: Texan", for a reason that we have been over and over, both here and at WP:INFOBOX talk and many other places: The UK government has explicitly defined England, Wales and Scotland (but not N.Irl.?) as actual countries; this is stark contrast to US states, Canadian provices, etc. English is a nationality, and British is a supranationality for most British citizens. That said, the "Nationality: British (English)" (or "Nationality: UK (England)" if we prefer, though WP:INFOBOX should standardize on that), would probably resolve this issue. It could be problematic individual cases (I would be something like "Nationality: US (Texas, New Mexico, California, Washington DC, Maryland)"; we'd probably have to settle upon a "rule" that current (for living people) and either last or most-lived-in or most-active-in for deceased subjects should be used, or something, to prevent excessive detailia in infoboxes; but again, that's a matter for WP:INFOBOX, not WP:FLAGCRUFT). However, your assertion that most editors are against having "English" rather than "British" in the nationality field (vs. having "Texas" vs "American") is completely false. The vast majority of British bios with infoboxes with a nationality field have "English", "Scottish", etc. There is a very clear WP-wide consensus on that issue, and it is not controversial at all anywhere I can find other than this particular talk page. But I do agree that having only "English" or "Flemish" or whatever, which as you say is endemic, is a bad idea. But, that discussion is quite out-of-scope here.
• Agree with you strongly that the nationality field is not for "she lived there once"; if it is not a matter of citizenship (legal or claimed; there are underdeveloped parts of the world in which legal citizenship doesn't even exist), it is not a "nationality" at all, e.g. examples you point out like ambassadors, military personnel, etc.
• Agree strongly that the existence of strange cases does not militate against infobox general standards, but again that's off-topic here.
• And agree on your Wodehouse point. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 20:12, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

— SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 20:12, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

"English" hasn't been a nationality for the last couple of centuries. If I understand correctly, "British" -- though no longer a meaningful nationality, as Britain doles out "British passports" to groups of nonwhites that it doesn't want to offend too obviously but then adds small print that negates any real meaning -- did mean something during the period of Wodehouse's British nationality. But whether your man was British, English or both, none of the flags adds anything whatever. They're just visual junk. The examples here are overuse. -- Hoary 11:53, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

The assertion that "English" is not a nationality is simply legally false. As noted many times here and elsewhere, the UK itself defines England, Scotland and Wales as countries, not regions, counties, or other territorial possessions the way it does with Cornwall and the British Virgin Islands; I'm not sure about Northern Ireland, but it has no official flag anyway. It's simply a fact. It's a weird case, but it can't simply be ignored, and the nationalistic identity of many of the Welsh and the Scots in particular, if ignored, will lead to massive and vicious editwarring and strife. I've seen it already. We just do not want to go there. Also, there is no majority in favor of your position that flag icons add nothing useful, or this page would have been written in a day, entirely against flag icons, agreed with by overwhelming consensus, and labeled a Guideline within a week. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 20:12, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

The UK may define England and the reset as countries, but I wasn't aware that these putative nations had diplomatic relations with each other or with other nations, that they issued passports, that they were eligible for seats in the UN, etc. Yes they have certain nationlike characteristics; as does, say, Aaland. What do you do about some people's non-nationalistic identity? (If I had an article here -- I don't -- and I had to be illustrated with a flag, I'd want it to be that of the UN or EU.) I concede that tiny flags can be useful in certain very special ways; for example, if you're tabulating sports results (in which nationality seems to be a big issue), and if the gold, silver and bronze medals for some sport were for decades monopolized by the USSR and the DDR but occasionally won by Czechoslovakia, use of their respective flags could show this very effectively. -- Hoary 00:42, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Well...whatever. If you think that UN or EU are ever going to be "Nationality:" for Wikipedia infobox purposes, I think you're in for a surprise. Per WP:CONSENSUS a few holdouts with extreme views cannot prevent an eventual finding of consensus for WP purposes. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 01:16, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

"EU" is indeed rather odd as a nationality, but so is "Welsh", unless perhaps there's a Welsh option (English/Welsh bilingual text?) for the passport. I've no objection to people regarding themselves as Welsh, and indeed it would seem perverse to label R. S. Thomas (for example) not Welsh but British (perhaps on the grounds that any passport he would have had would have been UK and not Welsh). Still, the very first short paragraph of his (deeply flawed) article makes it very clear that he was Welsh; I don't see how the addition of a little red dragon would make it any clearer. Meanwhile, I know next to nothing about this fellow other than what his article says about him and the fact that he was a backer of "Britain in Europe"; and, if forced to choose one or more flags for him, really wouldn't know which to choose. It seems innocuous to mention that he's British (as his article already does), provocative to hammer this (and/or an alternative) home with any flag, unless of course one goes through the bother of searching for and citing some quotation by or about him ("I regard myself as primarily [blah blah]" or similar) in order to support this. On top of all that, you have large groups of people who acknowledge or are even proud to say that they are of this or that nationality but who reject its flag. But in pointing out these issues, perhaps I'm merely a holdout with an extreme view, and the "moderate" view is to splatter little flags anywhere they're not prohibited. -- Hoary 02:46, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

All of the cases you just raised are odd exceptions that would be handled by forging consensus on those individual article's talk pages. There is no guideline anywhere on Wikipedia that does not give rise to exceptions. This is why we have WP:CONSENSUS, and for that matter WP:IAR. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 07:06, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

A new "poster child' for this essay?

I came across Volleyball World League Results today. Hoo boy, anybody have any comments on that?  ;) Andrwsc 06:50, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

The flags are fine there, because those are national teams. The problem there is that only flags have been used. What is needed are links to the article for the national teams that won the events. Lacking that, at least a bit of text giving the name of the country along with the flag is needed. I'll try and clean it up. Carcharoth 09:08, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

I had exactly the same idea, to at least show wikilinked country codes. That's an improvement. Andrwsc 09:15, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Glad you like it. :-) National volleyball team articles would be better to link. Do they exist? Carcharoth 09:17, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Looking at the 2007 page, which uses those article links, very few of them currently exist, so it would be full of redlinks. Andrwsc 09:18, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes. The only ones with articles should be in Category:National volleyball teams. Might be worth doing something with at least the winner each year. I've done that, and added links to the other volleyball competitions. Carcharoth 09:41, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

(ec)The country codes were already being used, so I just replaced flagicon with flag. Please compare the old version and the new version. Is that better? Now it is clearer what the countries are, if you don't recognise the flags. Carcharoth 09:17, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

I am not too keen on the way the display breaks, when there is more than 2 flags in a box. Agathoclea 20:55, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Looks fine here. Can you describe the problem in more detail? How exectly does the box break? Can you post a screenshot? It may only be a problem for low-resolution screens. Carcharoth 23:37, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Agathoclea 18:01, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

The issue seems to be mostly the result of a lack of a non-break space between the flag and the country name.--Bobblehead ^(rants) 18:11, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

There is a nbsp placed by the underlying flag formatting template used here, namely Template:Country flaglink, so the browser must be ignoring or over-riding it. Andrwsc 19:01, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Seems to be a window width issue. If you do not have some monstrously-wide monitor, the table with flags+names is too wide to fit into the window, so something has to give. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 19:06, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

...which is why a previous edit changed back to flagicons only, which brings us back to square one.... Andrwsc 19:16, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Not what I'm seeing now; it has flags and names again. I'd suggest checking the source to make sure that nbsp's are not also between each country, and make sure that there is a space after the comma in ones with more than one flag. The problem could also be fixed with forced line breaks: {{flag|USA}}<br />{{flag|CHN}} — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 20:32, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Hiding flags in css

I thought of hiding flags via css, but am running into a little snag. see Template_talk:Flagicon#attempt_to_hide. for further links. Agathoclea 20:55, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

The crux of this essay

I think all the discussion about nationality etc. might be a bit of a red herring. I think the central point of this essay should really be stated as something like:

Don't use isolated flag icons in an article (including infoboxes) as decorative embellishments to country names. Use them in lists and tables of many country names if they improve reader comprehension and/or navigation by providing recognizable visual indicators.

In my opinion, that's what's wrong with all those biographical infoboxes. One or two icons don't significantly improve reader comprehension. They are merely "bling-bling" for the infobox. Andrwsc 04:39, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that says it well. -- Hoary 05:05, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

The problem with this is that an enormous number of people disagree with you, and I suspect that even a majority of the partipants on this talk page do, though I could be wrong about that. This is a very, very self-selecting little group of editors here, and the essay is phrased very negatively, so it is automatically attracting anti-flag editors to begin with. It's incredibly biased right from the start. You cannot possibly pretend that the 5 or so "no flags in infoboxes!" people here actually represent any kind of consensus. This essay should be called Wikipedia:Flags. Then we'd get a more balanced view. I came here and coughed up most of this essay in an afternoon because I too believe that flag icons are being overused, misused and abused in many places and many ways. But I cannot go along with this more extremist view that they should be stripped from infoboxes for any purpose other than identifying sports team participation. Very few guidelines on WP have negative-slanted names (though many essays do, and consequently a great number of them generate counter-essays, and no consensus is ever achieved on what they conflictingly advise. I don't think we want that to happen here. PS: As for "don't use isolated flat icons in an article...as decorative embellishments to country names" more generally than in infoboxes and tables/lists, the guideline-to-be already says this very clearly. Many editors believe that they add more than simple decor to infoboxes, and the negativity of the name (as opposed to actual content) of this essay is preventing most of them from bothering to give their input here, though as I said I still think that those in favor of sensible use in i'boxes outnumber those against in here, especially if we count the neutrals who've been silent on the matter. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 07:19, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't mind if the title were changed.

Consider Gabriel García Márquez. There is a biographical infobox (which I don't like). This has a flag. Is the flag more than a decorative embellishment; and if so, how? -- Hoary 07:40, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

It helps identify the nationality line quickly, in a longwinded infobox. It provides an educational link to the flag image of his country (and how is that any less useful and educational than providing a link to anything else linkable to on WP?) For people who know South America really well, it instantly identifies his nationality, visually (many people are very visual, and are slow readers). And yes, it also does serve an ancillary decorative function, but so what? So do all the images that every W'project banner has in them. Should we ban those too? There are lots of decorative uses of images in Wikipedia (just fewer of them than on the average web site). And it's certainly more useful than a scan of GGM's signature!  :-) — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 07:52, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, well, I'm no fan of the signature (or indeed of that photograph). And yes, the flag is innocuous. Now consider this chap. He was born in 1944 in, yes, Germany. While I'm no expert on flags, I think that the Nazi flag would be appropriate historically (if in no other way). Should he be given one? Should there be an exemption for the Nazi flag? What does Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn think about his Soviet flag? Another exemption for the Soviet flag, or only an exemption for known anti-Soviets? When's James Joyce going to get the historically/legally appropriate Union Flag, and will his readers be happy about that? I fear that there will be many, tedious rows, if flag-adorned bio-infoboxes become the norm. Will this be a Good Thing? -- Hoary 08:42, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't think there's a complete consensus on that yet. In general, my take would be that yes, you'd use the Russia, Soviet, etc., flag, except in the case of someone who renounced their nation (and this can be sourced), in which case no flag. In the case of someone like Joyce born in an Ireland that was then a territory of Great Britain, the flag would be misleading to the reader ("Oh, I didn't know he was a Brit; I thought he was Irish!"), so no flag. In highly politically-charged cases (and this is one of several reasons for avoiding the Ulster Banner...), like applying the historically correct Nazi flag to a non-Nazi, again no flag. Doesn't seem very disputatious to me. The essay should be very explicit, and probably use these very examples and any others that come to mind, such as someone born when the Ulster B. was the official flag of N.Ir., but who was a known Republican: No flag. I think the essay now say never use the U.B., but I think that should be moderated to say use it for people born under it and not known to be anti-Unionists, perhaps? I think that would be logical. An HTML comment could be put in the nationality field warning not to add the flag and why, in cases like the ones above, to head off confrontations. If we could come to consensus on something like that, I could probably write that in in a matter of minutes when I had the time; I'm good at cranking out reasonably sound policy language very rapidly (did it professionally for over a decade, with real national-level political issues, so it's a no-brainer for me. I think I wrote this whole original draft essay in about 3 hours...) — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:10, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

It's a no-brainer to set rules, even rules that you or I sincerely believe are reasonable. It's an awful lot harder to set guidelines that will seem OK to anybody other than unambiguous trolls and vandals, especially when issues of nationalism are involved. Let's reconsider Solzhenitsyn. He was certainly a Soviet citizen for a long time: Should WP pretend otherwise? But he was close to being the epitome of anti-Sovietism even while he was in the SU: Should we deny that? Or Joyce: What are you going to say to editors who say that his nationality was British, like it or not, and that the flag was (and is) the Union Flag, like it or not, and (get ready for a very major yawn) not to acknowledge these obvious truths about Joyce and Ireland is retrospective Political Correctness? Really, people will say this kind of thing and worse, very tiresomely. And then there's Japan. What most people understood to be the Japanese flag formally became so only in 1999. You might guess that there's a story behind this, and sure enough there is. Briefly, a substantial percentage of the Japanese population had and has at least some reservations about the flag, associating it with imperialistic designs, uniformed far-right loonies, etc. (True, the majority seem happy with it, waving it in sports matches and so forth.) Will the editors of articles on Japanese pacifists, left-wingers, etc., be expected to come up with specific citations for a dislike of the flag in order for the flag to be zapped? Or will a citation for a dislike of nationalism in general suffice? What about the argument that, whether they like it or not, it's their flag? How about the counter-argument that, whether they like it or not, till 1999 it wasn't formally their flag and nothing else was either? Ugh. All of this is one reason why I'm wary of even innocuous flags such as the Colombian flag for García Márquez: they set an unfortunate precedent. Unless absolutely necessary or very obviously appropriate, don't wave possibly inflammatory symbols at WP readers or editors. -- Hoary 09:48, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Solzhenitsyn: I'd say we should recommend that his nationality be listed as Soviet, but that (because a flag is a somewhat nationalistic symbol, and he was anti-Soviet, that he not have a flag. So, no we certainly shouldn't use flags to deny his political position! Joyce: I'm unaware of any vocal minority beyond an editor or two who think he should be classified as British; the entire world, including the British, think of him as an Irish author. The complicated political situation of his time, in which the British controlled Ireland (but notably did not include it in the concept of Britain - i.e. Co. Kerry in Irl. was not considered a British county like Yorkshire; it was considered a conquered/occupied territory like India, Hong Kong, etc.), strongly militates against putting any flag there. The historically correct flag would have been the Union Jack, but this would mislead/confuse readers on of the "don't" conditions I'm proposing. Japan: If the article subject is known to have been an opponent of the red-dot flag, no flag for his/her article. And for articles on WWII-period subjects, use the Rising Sun flag, obviously. I would say that for Japanese pacifists of the modern era, go ahead and use the flag unless it can be shown they opposed it, or belonged to an organization that opposed it (to make assumptions that they probably wouldn't have liked the flag would be original research. For a known American flag-burner, no flag. For an American known to have belonged to an organization that once had a flag-burning rally, use the flag, since it would be WP:OR to assume that org. membership equates to agreement with the flag-burning. And so on. For someone known to have been a US domestic terrorist, no flag (Timothy McVeigh, for example.) Use a flag even for members of weirdo militias (most of whom think of themselves as super-patriots, after all). This all seems pretty intuitive to me. So, I don't think a citation to a generalized dislike of nationalism is sufficient. A South Korean communist agitating for reunification under the North Korean govt. would get no flag. A S.K'an agitating for reunification under democracy would get the SK flag. A NK dissident agitating for democracy, no flag. The Russian mentioned, no flag. Because they are opposed to their entire govt. and what it stands for. Someone opposed to nationalism or imperialist tendencies or some other facet of their govt. (who isn't?!) isn't (by that evidence alone) so much of a revolutionary that a flag for nationality would categorically be inappropriate. NB: All of this speaks strongly against using flags for birthplace. Stalin would get the flag of Czarist Russia for his birth, and imagine how silly and inappropriate that would be!

Anyway, there will always be judgement calls, and at this article or that people will debate about it, but they already debate about sundry things anyway, so we shouldn't expect that to be any different. To not be hypocritical, since I've made the unofficialness argument with regard to the Ulster Banner, I would have to say that no flag should appear for Japanese between the end of the Rising Sun flag and the 1999 flag, but I'd really want to leave that up to consensus at WikiProject Japan (whatever the case with the 1999 law, the red-dot flag has been used by Japan for my entire life, and I image there must have been at least some official decree from a ministry or from the Emperor making it the official flag in some way, or it would not have been used so consistently). For that matter, if WikiProject Northern Ireland, WikiProject Ireland, and WikiProject United Kingdom come to a tripartite consensus that using the Ulster Banner all over the place is okay, I'd live with that (I'd join the debate and oppose it, but I lose to consensus all the time and accept it and move on.)

In closing, I think it's a bit Chicken Little to imagine all hell breaking loose because of a few flag icons. Yes there will be localized disputes, but we always have localized disputes about every guideline, practice, style guide recommendation, etc., etc. There are always some sorts of exceptions, and they get resolved over time with discussion. Imagining terrible fallout from flagicons is what some call "terriblizing", or what my friend John Perry Barlow termed "optimizing for the possible rather than the probable" - the probable has limits, but there is no limit to the imagination of bad things. I don't think "flag wars" all over the place are likely, because they would already be happening. In truth there are very few of them, and the only one I know of that has actually factionalized to a degree that neither side will rationally speak to the other is the Ulster Banner. Having a clear-cut guideline saying "don't use flag icons under the following conditions of disputability" can simply put an end to it.

— SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 14:42, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

[bouncing back some way to the left]

Yes, yes, I too think it would be chickenlittlish to imagine hell swiftly following the appearance of a few flag icons. The icons already exist (e.g. in the García Márquez page); we're not in hell. But I find your optimism extraordinary. You only seem to be worried about northern Ireland, but there are other pitfalls aplenty. How about people from Transnistria -- a flag for the de facto state or the de jure state? Whichever you choose, people from the other side will oppose. Kosovo: a Serbian flag, an Albanian one, or something else? Cambodia: the historically appropriate flag among these flags will be offensive or worse to a Cambodian born in the late seventies or perhaps at another time too. I'm no expert on flag history, but I think early nineteen century Venice should get this flag; but some fool person is sure to pipe up "Venice is Italy, innit? The flag's supposed to help people understand at a glance, not be some boring history lesson. And it's misleading coz I thought it was Ukraine."

You seem to be proposing a guideline in which people can have infoboxes (themselves very often mere gimmickry and superfluity in my view, but we'll let that pass for a moment) that will have a field for nationality that in turn will be marked with the flag of that nationality unless (a) the flag might give the wrong impression (to what kind of person, with what degree of knowledge or misconceptions?) or (b) we have clear evidence (NOR!) of a rejection of nationality, or (c) he's an embarrassment. McVeigh doesn't get a US flag because, oh, I don't know, perhaps because he attacked the US government (if I'm reading his WP article in an informed, unvandalized state) -- yet he served in the US military (even getting an honorable discharge). Do all people who attack a government lose the flag, or only those who do so lethally?

All in all you seem to be saying that historical correctness in flag choice should be mitigated by common expectations (itself a mightily dangerous notion/precedent, I think), but that people should get a flag unless there's a compelling reason not to give them one. And all of this primarily either (a) in the hope of helping people who understand visually (which seems daft, as a flag is an alternative or supplement to a single word or short phrase) or (b) because of some unexamined presumption that a great majority of editors are gung-ho about flag icons (dictatorship of the majority and all that).

The project page says some things that are sensible, in a murky way. One is the section "Don't emphasize nationality without good reason". I quote: Because they are visually striking, placing a flag icon next to something makes its nationality or location seem like the most important thing about it. I agree with the general sentiment, though it seems a bit exaggerated ("helps to make"?). With an English flag next to him, Paul McCartney is emphatically English (and also emphatically not British). Really? I thought that England was emphatically part of Britain: Englishness implies Britishness but not vice versa. What this doesn't mention is the hugely fluctuating significance of the English flag: My memory ("OR") tells me that decades ago it was little more than a historical curio, celebrated by boy scouts and some other minorities but seldom seen; recently it seems to be primarily the symbol of the English soccer team or of white xenophobes. And I've no reason to think that strong connotations (or even radical changes in connotations) are unique to this one flag.

The project page also says some things that are strange indeed: Flag icons are often overused. OK so far, but: When added excessively, they clutter the page and become redundant, as in this infobox. Here, a single flag icon might be appropriate. Which flag would that be for? I'd say that an Italian flag for his membership of the Italian national team would be entirely appropriate (and also unnecessary), but the vague prescription here suggests that decorative considerations come first: it seems that you first decide to stick one or two flags on a person, and then ask yourself which attributes or activities they should label. (Incidentally, I note that the current version of the page (unedited by me) sensibly has no flag whatever.

So the guideline should say that it's appropriate (though not always necessary) to flag somebody when that person officially represented the nation, state or other entity in some sports or other contest. So this handsome fellow would get no flag, and neither would [Lordi|his band]. But the band could get an icon within this article. -- Hoary 11:27, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

A lot to cover. The short version is, yes, I am generally optimistic, about this and about everything else Wikipedia; these things just settle themselves out. I mean really, this is a very minor debate, on a largely trivial issue. Contrast with WP:N (and if you don't think that was contentious, see its archives ca. Nov. 2006 through Jan. 2007!)

For Transnistria, Cambodia, medieval Venice, etc., I'd probably go for "no flag, to avoid confusion and dispute", but as said before, I think that should be up to consensus-building at the article among the active editors of it, just like anything else would be.

Same with McVeigh; my personal take would be no flag, because he was obviously violently opposed to his country (however patriotic he may have been when in its military). I would hardly push this viewpoint about him, though, if the bulk of long-term editors at his article thought he should have the flag; McVeigh was just my personal-example, and the proposal doesn't say anything like what I did.

I'm not overly concerned with N.Irl. (in fact, I think all the concern over N.Irl. and its flag are overblown); it just serves as a good example of how quickly what seems like a "no-brainer" flag decision can turn into a vicious dispute – it's a good wikicautionary tale, as it were, from which a more general position is easily derived with regard to places like Transnistria.

"historical correctness in flag choice should be mitigated by common expectations" - basically, though I think you may be interpreting that in its most extreme form; basically I'm being guided by actual practice and by WP:SENSE here. And, "people should get a flag unless there's a compelling reason not to give them one" - rather, people can have one, for nationality not birth/death, barring those dispute/confusion circumstance, if the consensus at the article is to have one. Neither the proposal nor I say that there should be one. It's not an "unexamined presumption", but simple observation. The flags exist, there is a highly active (much more so than most) WikiProject maintaining them, and thousands of editors are using them regularly and more and more consistently. If this weren't the case, there would be no reason at all for this proposal to exist in the first place.

England/Britain/McCartney text: Agreed it needs work; I think both of the bits you objected to are later interpolations, because they seem sloppy to me, and I generally don't find my own material sloppy. >;-)

Italy/Giancarlo: Agree; needs work. I don't think the passage as it stands now is motivated the way you make it out to be, but it would certainly be easy to misinterpret it that way.

Limiting use to only "official representation" in sports and other competitive activities: That will be just as fraught with pitfalls as any other narrow prescription. For example, it is very, very clear-cut in football (soccer), but entirely unclear most of the time in pool/billiards/snooker, where there rarely is actually any "officialness" whatsoever, yet virtually all of the articles in question with infoboxes have flags, and all or almost all of the snooker tournament articles use flags. Such a prescription will lead to very confusing usages, e.g. ambassadors and UN representatives would get flags (since they are "officially representing" their countries), but no other politicians would, and no one but you would understand why. Things like this are why I've strongly leaned toward the "let individual articles' editorships control flags in those articles" instead of extreme prescriptivism, while offering a lot of (mostly "don't"!) guidance. Its not like this will ever be Wikipedia Policy, after all; no style guideline ever has been or ever will be.

All that said, I do have a few ideas for shifting toward a compromise; will try them out shortly.

— SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 07:07, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

To go back to the Gabriel García Márquez example, it comes down again to visual and verbal readers. A visual reader will find the flag helpful, even if they don't know which country the flag is for. They will see the flag icon, seize upon it as a visual oasis in a desert of text, then read the word "Colombia" next to it, and move on feeling happy and informed. My experience, as a verbal reader, is somewhat different. I scan the infobox looking for text, not for images, and while scanning the text, my attention is forcibly dragged away from the text to this pretty looking flag icon that I don't recognise. My process of scanning the text in the infobox has been rudely interrupted. I don't mind a picture at the top of the infobox, as that is something that is part of the design. But flag icons pop up in unexpected places, and there is no consistency. Whenever I see it for a person other than a sportsperson, or possibly a military person, I start to get distracted and suspicious. Is that really the right flag? What is the message that flag is sending? Has there been big debate about it? Was it just chosen in five seconds by some random editor? Unlike a written message, the message sent by an image can be ambiguous, even if accompanied by a word next to it. It seems so much simpler just to have the country Colombia linked. I can then click on the word Colombia and hey presto! there is the flag in the country article, which in my opinion is where it should stay. A text-based example of whether information should be behind a link or dragged through the link to the article, is people's nationality and dates. Depending on the article, it can be informative, too brief, misleading, or excessively detailed to have a person described in the follwing ways: "Gabriel García Márquez" (very brief); "the Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez" (more informative); "the Nobel Prize for Literature laureate Gabriel García Márquez" (informative in a different way); "the Colombian novelist, journalist, editor, publisher, political activist and Nobel Prize for Literature laureate Gabriel García Márquez" (excessively informative); "the 20th and 21st century Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez" (gives general historical context); "the Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez (born 1927)" (gives more precise historical context). I see the decision whether or not to use a flag in the same way. You can include the information that a person was born in a particular country. Whether to embellish that basic fact with a tidbit from the country article (in this case a visual tidbit - a flag), is an editorial decision. In most cases, it is extraneous and does not provide and extra information. There is a radaical solution to this, which is to require that all nationality entries in infoboxes have a footnote going into more detail about the nationality than there is room for in the infobox. A little tag to tell the reader "we need to tell you more, all is not as it seems". How does that sound? Carcharoth 15:06, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Interesting idea, but the implementation would require a great deal of work, in hundreds of thousands of articles. Regarding your first point, as you state, the flagicons are useful for visual thinkers. I'm a bit mystified by the notion that a verbal thinker will be unduly disrupted by such an icon, however; the entire Web would be a living hell for such people. It's getting hard to find a website, designed any time after ca. 1996, that is not festooned with iconic images, including ones used just this way, i.e. as a graphical "bullet" introducing a line-item. Wikipedia is very, very image-sparse compared to the majority of the web (and is oft criticized for this), so even the decorative factor strikes me as a plus rather than a minus. As a professional web developer I can tell you that if I designed a site for a client that was as image-bare as WP is, I would be fired. It's hard for me to imagine that an icon that helps visual thinkers instantly ID the nationality line (and without there being more images of all sorts, like a little baby for birthplace, and a little gravestone icon for death date, etc.) is so onerous to verbal thinkers that it should be forbidden. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 14:52, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Where is this criticism of WP for being short on icons or eyecandy? I've heard lots of criticism of WP, mostly that it's unreliable (true) or demonstrably wrong, sometimes that it's uninformative, occasionally that it doesn't have enough, or good enough, photographs. But a shortage of icons for visual thinkers? That's a new one to me. -- Hoary 11:27, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Not what I said. I said it's been oft criticized for being image-sparse compared to the majority of the web. Just the other day when I mentioned an article here to someone (offline) she said, "oh, yeah... Wikipedia's pretty cool. I use it to find out stuff sometimes, but damn, it looks like it was designed in, like, 1995. Texttexttexttext! Too much f***ing reading, not enough pictures" (minor paraphrasal, but that's pretty close to the actual utterance). — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 08:36, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

The point is that many flagicons don't help visual thinkers (or anyone) "instantly ID the nationality line". Flagicons presume a knowledge of flags. If you designed a website with poorly understood icons, I bet your clients wouldn't like that. I agree with Hoary - I haven't heard criticism of Wikipedia for lacking icons. I think the criticism is directed at the very restrictive image policy - ie. lack of images in general. Carcharoth 13:22, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

As pointed out earlier, if you don't recognize the flag, then the flagicon actually serves an educational purpose. I had no idea (or, more probably, totally forgot) what the flag of Spain looked like until the other day when I looked at a Spanish bio article that had nationality flagicon in the infobox. WP images, at all sizes, are clickable for a larger version for a very good reason. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 07:07, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Nationality: A bit of a red herring?

Further to Andrwsc's comments above, here's some of what the project page says about biographical uses:

Flags make simple, blunt statements about nationality, while words can express the facts with more complexity.

Indeed flags do. They may also imply nationalism or other allegiance, and the implication may be quite wrong. (An admittedly extreme example: should Jews, socialists, gypsies, and miscellaneous anti- or non-Nazis who survived in Germany for at least part of the Nazi era be besmirched with the swastika?)

There follows some sensible stuff about one Naomi Watts, and a pile of advice about which advice to use for simpler cases than Watts, all of which would be rendered irrelevant if we took Andrwsc's sensible advice above. (In short, there's no worry about which flag to use where there's no flag at all.) But this section of the project page perks up at the end:

Use the flag and name of the country that the person was officially representing, regardless of true nationality, when the flag templates are used for sports statistics

which again seems very reasonable. It's also clearcut: We may not be entirely sure of somebody's nationality or nationalities or (quasi-) national allegiance(s), but we do know which team he or she was in at any one time. -- Hoary 06:31, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Apples and oranges. You can't conflate two completely different uses of flagicons and say one is right, one is wrong. It's like saying that a claw hammer is only for driving nails, and that pulling nails is verboten. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 07:22, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it's me who's doing the conflating here. Instead, it's the project page. You and I seem to agree that there are two very different uses. You like them both. I disagree with the one and understand that there can be benefit from the other. If you like that metaphor: I'm saying that the claw hammer is for doing things with nails, but not for emphasizing conversational points when sitting around a table. -- Hoary 07:33, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Actually, they have more than two uses. I don't think we can practicably have a Wikipedia:Flags in general, Wikipedia:Flagicons in infoboxes, Wikipedia:Flagicons in lists and tables, etc. I don't see that using flagicons in infoboxes in ways that a broad consensus agrees is okay is akin to using a hammer for intimidation. <fzzt spark pop> DOES NOT COMPUTE! <BANG! Clatter...> — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 07:46, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Requested move

There were no objections in general to moving this page, and few strong opinions about which of the several alternatives should be chosen. If only to avoid any possible ambiguity with "flag" as a verb, I have plumped for "Use of flags..." — I hope this is acceptable to all concerned. This article has been renamed from Wikipedia:Don't overuse flags to Wikipedia:Use of flags in articles as the result of a move request. --Stemonitis 18:01, 2 September 2007 (UTC)