Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Icons/Archive 15

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Luhansk

Another user is insisting that we need not one but two little flag salads to show the twin towns of this Ukrainian town. The two lists differ, and one contains an unreferenced item. I prefer a version with just one version of the list, and per WP:PROSE such a short list does not need flags at all. What do others think? --John (talk) 06:18, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

• Look, flag icons work best when they are used least. "Sister cities" are trivia, and including flag icons for twin cities in the infobox for a city, among major datapoints like population, government, national and regional affiliation, etc., is distracting. Frankly, I questions whether "sister cities" should even be included in a city infobox, but that's a question for the article talk page or WikiProject Cities, not MOS. As for the sister city flag icons in the infobox, put me down as unnecessary over-use of flag icons. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 13:43, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
• I agree that their use in the infobox is unnecessary, but their use in the list in the article body is quite helpful and neater than prose. Number 57 14:40, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

• Well, at least we agree on the fact they don't belong in the infobox because they do not represent core data about the subject city. Can you explain the direct relevance of British, Polish, Hungarian and Chinese to the City of Luhansk, and how these flags represent Luhansk in a meaningful way? Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 16:04, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

They aren't meant to be representing Luhansk; the point of a list of sister cities is to list the other cities and where they are. Number 57 16:12, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Can you explain why it is necessary to use national flag icons to represent the cities of Cardiff, Lublin, Székesfehérvár, and Daqing? Do you believe they somehow represent Wales/United Kingdom, Poland, Hungary and the People's Republic of China in their honorary "sister cities" relationship with Luhansk? Personally, I think honorary sister cities are trivia, rarely meaningful, and the national flags of the parent countries of the sister cities of no direct relevance to city of Luhansk. We can argue about whether the city of Luhansk should have a Ukrainian flag in its infobox, but sister city flag icons are an obvious overuse of flag icons with no direct relevance to Luhansk, in my considered opinion. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 16:24, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

It's a shorthand way of showing which nations the sister cities are in, and personally I find it helps readability (the flags are all the same width, so easier to scan than text). The fact that the flags have no relevance to Luhansk is irrelevant, as they aren't representing the city. Number 57 17:19, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Of course the use of flag icons in an article about Luhansk should be relevant to the city of Luhansk, why else should they be included? We don't include the flag icons in country articles for those nations with which the subject country has official diplomatic relations, and diplomatic relations are several orders of magnitude more important than honorary "sister cities" relationships, which are, as I stated above, relatively meaningless. Why would we want to draw attention to low-importance trivia with the colorful eye candy of flag icons? Shoot, we could remove the discussion of sister cities from these articles entirely, and the text would never be missed -- why draw attention to these meaningless relationships? FYI, I have invited members of WikiProject Cities to participate in this discussion. The initial reaction on the WikiProject talk page is that there is no consensus to insert sister cities into infoboxes, let alone use flag icons. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 17:40, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Sigh. This has been discussed before and city articles are free to use them if they wish. (But I have never seen them used in an infobox, I would not want them there either but I would discuss it with someone else if they did - that is what DR is for.) Sister City relationships vary with some being very active in economic development and cultural exchange. Of course, it tells you something about that city by what relationships it fosters and forms. And yes, it generally involves an international agreement entered into by the cities - with their respective national governments being involved. I certainly wish there was a way for those who do not want to see the tiny icons (or pictures of muhammad, etc) to suppress them, so they would not have to worry over them. Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:26, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Sigh, indeed. Alan, very few "sister city" relationships involve anything substantial, and usually are little more than an excuse for the mayor and/or city council members to engage in junket travel. That said, the cities certainly do not represent their country in any meaningful way as implied by the use of national flags; if anything, in the more meaningful relationships they represent their own parochial economic interests in trying to attract investment and trade opportunities. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 18:44, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

(e/c)" . . .economic interests in trying to attract investment and trade opportunities . . ." So, now you argue it does inform about the city its article is in. That some people always seem to be interested in arguing for the tying up every minor decision of article editors is just bad for the project. Leave it to the article editors. Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:57, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Alan, an editor sought an opinion regarding flag icons for sister cities in city infoboxes, and I offered one. According to one WP Cities participant, there is no WikiProject consensus to insert sister cities into info, with or without flag icons. If you read my answer again, together with the thread above, you will see that there is a common idea: sister cities do not represent their parent countries. My comment and your response above do not contradict that. Flag icons are eye candy decorations in the context of sister city relationships, drawing attention to relatively meaningless content that in this example the editors adding them could not be bothered to add a complete sentence about them. The irony of this discussion is that I have been and will continue to be a consistent advocate for the use of meaningful, but limited use of flag icons. I am not an anti-flagger. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 19:24, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

I've seen these sister city flag discussions - and it always has resulted in local editor choice - that's consensus - real consensus. If you stand against that with your blanket arguments about your aesthetics and your blanket arguments about how you know the activities of every sister city relationship than you are just wanting to dictate your aesthetics with your over broad claims - you are not only against consensus you are actively harming Wikipedia with your centralized dictatorial stance. Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:38, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

And I have often participated in those flag discussions: on the other side. And you're missing the point: an editor inserted these flags without article-level consensus or that of WikiProject Cities. A WP Cities editor came here to ask if MOS:ICON somehow sanctions that use; MOS:ICON does not. To repeat: there is no article-level or WikiProject-level consensus for this use of flag icons, and there is nothing in MOS:ICON that sanctions or over-rides consensus at the article or WikiProject levels. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 19:46, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

An editor inserted against consensus? Well, than that is easily overturned by the consensus at the article. Wikiproject Cities is where some discussions have occurred that say leave it up to the articles and also nation projects. You have had three editors now dispute your aesthetic or overbroad claims - so doesn't that say, 'leave it to the article'. Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:59, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Firstly. Whether or not a list of sister cities merits inclusion in the article of any city is not, by any means, in the scope of this project. If you want to discuss that open a new thread at WT:CITIES. MOS:Icons deals with ,well , .... icons. Secondly whether or not those sister cities' nationalities need to be mentioned in such lists, be that with the country written out or a country code or a flag, is not even remotely in this project's scope either. MOS:Icons only deals with icons. Again that is to be discussed at WT:CITIES. That being said, I agree with Number 57 that the flags have their merit in such list as they directly add information for our readers. Without those flags I would have no idea whatsoever where in the world the cities of Lublin, Székesfehérvár or Daqing are. Having those flags there is clearly useful. Tvx1 19:10, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Actually, Tvx1, there is no WikiProject-level or article-level consensus to use flag icons for sister cities and they have already been removed by other WP Cities editors. BTW, could you describe in a single sentence what information national flags add about a city-to-city relationship? These sister city relationships are so important that the editors could not be bothered to insert a complete sentence of text about them, and yet we draw attention to them with flag icons. Frankly, it's kind of weird that the flags of the United Kingdom, Poland, Hungary and China are featured yet the national flag of Ukraine does not appear in the article. BTW, I think you know already that I have been a strong and consistent advocate for proper use of flag icons. This ain't it.

You said, "Without those flags I would have no idea whatsoever where in the world the cities of Lublin, Székesfehérvár or Daqing are." Actually, the name of the countries listed tells you that. The flags add nothing else in this context. BTW, I think you know already that I have been a strong and consistent advocate for proper use of flag icons. This ain't it, my friend. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 19:27, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

They don't add information of the relationships per se, they add information about these sister cities. Where they are situated, that is. That they "draw attention" is just an opinion. The names of those countries aren't in the article, so what do you even refer to. Ukraine is in the infobox however. It could be replaced by a flag if that is preferred. Tvx1 20:18, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Tvx1, the first instance of a flag icon within an article is always supposed to be accompanied by the written name of the country represented by the flag. See MOS:ICON, "The name of a flag's political entity should appear adjacent to the first use of the flag, as no reader is familiar with every flag, and many flags differ only in minor details. Nearby uses of the flag need not repeat the name, especially in a list or table." Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 20:24, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

You're right of course. I do however have my questions about that guideline. I mean, it does render the flags redundant, doesn't it. Because if you put both the flags and the name of the country, you're presenting the exact same information twice. Furthermore in many cases this is purely impractical to do. Please tell we how can put that guideline in sensible practice in an article like this? Thirdly the guideline is an example of being over concerned, since the flagicon templates have been made in such a way that what the guideline claims can't been found out, can be found out quite easily. Just put your mouse (or your finger if you're using a touch screen device) on the flag if you don't know what it stands for. Those flagicon templates will even tell the blind what they stand for thanks to screenreaders. Number 57 has already provided arguments why these icons are better than prose and I feel the guideline negates that somewhat. I think is is case where we have to invoke WP:IAR, since it's for the betterment of the article. Tvx1 20:41, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

I think practically, you can't put it into practice at the Roger Federer article. Some of those guidelines were written without taking into account mouseovers, which give far more info than a simple 3 letter code. Screen readers of the past had trouble I think, but no longer seem to have issues with the icons. A mouseover gives the full country name where if all you do is write in a country code those are almost as hard to decipher as just flags. And writing the entire country name each time is pretty much unworkable from a space standpoint. Fyunck(click) (talk) 21:24, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Tvx1, you rhetorically asked whether the presence of the country name "does render the flags redundant, doesn't it." No, the presence of the country name does not necessarily render flag icons redundant. The most common example is where the article subject actually represents the country in international sports; the flag is symbolic of that representation. In the context of the Luhansk article, the United Kingdom's Union flag adjacent to the listing of Luhansk's sister city of Cardiff, Wales is relatively meaningless; Cardiff does not represent the United Kingdom, or even Wales, in Cardiff's city-to-city relationship with Luhansk. The irony of this thread is that I have a strong advocate for the proper use of flag icons on this very talk page; I am not one of the usual delete-all-flags-on-sight people with an agenda to delete them all, whenever and wherever possible. Bottom line: Cardiff represents Cardiff in its sister city relationship with Luhansk, and the Union flag really adds nothing to the words Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom that should also be present when identifying Cardiff. If we insert a national flag icon every time a country's name appears in a list, table or infobox, we are over-using flags to the detriment of more meaningful uses. It's the difference between writing that Dan Marino is "an American football player" in the lead of his article (with no flag in his infobox), and stating that Mark Spitz was a member of the United States national team and a U.S. flag in his article's infobox. If there is no "representational" element, and the flag is used for simple geographic location or citizenship/nationality, then the flag icon usually is redundant. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 21:53, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Fyunck, if you want to do it properly, you have a separate column for the nationality of the opponent, and another column the flag icon and country name, rather than putting the opponent's name and the flag icon in the same field. Also the Roger Federer stats article has a layout and design problem because the stats table is sandwiched next to a lengthy infobox. But that's a problem best discussed elsewhere. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 21:53, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

When I asked whether it renders them redundant, I meant in this particular city example. The only reasoning for having flags there is to tell our readers which country they are in. But if you add the country name, you are essentially telling the same information twice and of them becomes redundant. My problem with opting for prose then is that Number 57 has provided some convincing arguments why flags are preferable. That's what made me question the guideline to state flags and names together. What the guideline doesn't convince me of is why this combination of flag and the country name is vital and why the mouseovers are insufficient. Don't forget guidelines are not set in stone laws and can be mended if something turns out to be wrong with them. Furthermore some guidelines can become outdated through the years through the development of new technologies, hence why some need revision every few years.

Regarding the example tennis player I referred to. Don't you think having two columns to denote the players nationality is a bit overkill? Furthermore, the guideline tells us only to put the country name with the first occurrence of a particular flag in an article. So, in your solution we would have an entire column containing some flags and some flag-country names combos. Tvx1 22:32, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Regarding the possibility of suppressing flag icons, users can add

.flagicon {display:none;}

to their personal CSS to hide those with the "flagicon" class (which is used by most flag templates). SiBr₄ (talk) 18:51, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

WP:INFOBOXFLAG

Can someone explain to me why we have this guideline?

Ok, I'm aware of the various prior discussions, and the recent closure/archiving on some discussions. But, there are so many exceptions to this guideline that are not noted anywhere, ambivalently applied, knee-jerk reverted, and general vagueness the guideline isn't a guideline. It's empty fluff that has no meaning. And I haven't even gotten to the various problems with wording within the guideline and related guidance all over the place.

I dare say no one can come up with an argument why we allow flag icons for tennis players, but don't allow them for plenty of other athletes who compete internationally and represent their country. Usain Bolt anyone? Michael Jordan anyone? Oh wait, maybe they're not important enough. How about Pelé? No?

Barring some strong argument that we should retain this guideline (other than that it'll generate an argument), I think it needs to be abolished. Please don't tell me it will result in too many flags in infoboxes. We already have tons of examples where infoboxes are overflowing with flag icons. A guideline that isn't enforceable isn't a guideline at all. --Hammersoft (talk) 19:39, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Actually both Usain Bolt and Michael Jordan have the flags... they are just down lower. Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:00, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

• Fyunck; yes, but only in their competitor boxes. In plenty of other articles (ex: Missy Franklin) the flags exist in both places. Dare to remove it from the higher location, and you will be instantly reverted...even though there's no exception written into the guideline for swimmers (yet another of those unwritten rules). --Hammersoft (talk) 23:00, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

I agree that there are currently too many flags in infoboxes, but removing provisions against that will certainly not improve the situation. If there are "unwritten" exceptions, they should either be discarded or codified. This guideline should be amended, but not abolished. Nikkimaria (talk) 20:36, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

• Amended to what? More confusion? There's so many exceptions to this guideline it is useless. Nobody can follow it all. I've followed this guideline for years, thought I knew it, and once again ran into even more exceptions. It's absurd on the face of it. Nobody can properly enforce the guideline because nobody knows all the exceptions to it. If it's unenforceable, it's no guideline at all. I'm curious about the genesis of this guideline, and if no centralized discussion occurred prior to its inclusion I may just WP:IAR and gut it, forcing an RfC to include it...which would never pass. --Hammersoft (talk) 23:00, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

@Hammersoft, I quite agree that there are so many exceptions that the quideline is useless. Even in the same projects, such as WP:MILHIST, flags are explicitly excluded from Template:Infobox weapon, but are regularly used in several military unit and organizational infoboxes. IIRC, one of the main original objections to flag icons was that text reading software had difficulty with the icons, and there may have been some other technical objections too. But now there are so many infoboxes with flags, that if there were still major technical issues with the flag icons, we ought to be seeing fallout from it, but we apparently don't. For that reason, I don't think the original technical issues are still a problem, if they ever really were one. - BilCat (talk) 23:21, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

FYI, citing this guideline clearly appears to work, even if some disgruntled or confused people are prone to revert at first. Missy Franklin presently only has one flag in her infobox, for her sporting competition nationality, which is permissible under MOS:ICONS (whether some of us like that or not. >;-)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  09:44, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

This is curious. The section was initially added in December of 2010 [1]. It appears it was controversial from the get go [2]. The base discussion involved just _six_ editors. See Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Icons/Archive 8#Are we totally eliminating the flags entirely now.3F. No centralized discussion. Now, there was a later RfC that ran six months afterwards. See Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Icons/Archive 8#RFC on the use of flagicons in infoboxes. Rather hysterically, it essentially codified the vagueness of the guideline, requiring it to state that the use of flags in infoboxes is sometimes appropriate and sometimes not (see #3). Well, I'm glad we cleared that up <rolls eyes>. This just further reinforces my point; this is no guideline at all. And worse, there was no centralized discussion to put it in place in the first place. It should be removed. The only reason it isn't being removed right now is because it's been in there for years, and despite many controversies over it it has remained in there. --Hammersoft (talk) 23:44, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

• P.S. One of the comments at that RfC noted the use of flags in the infobox at Napoleonic Wars was quite helpful. See, there's well over 100 flag icons used in that infobox. World War II killed more than ten times the number that the Napoleonic Wars did...and it gets a lowly 7 flags. Boy am I glad I'm not confused about who lead who in the Napoleonic Wars <faceplam>. --Hammersoft (talk) 23:54, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

• Support – As there seems to be no interest in making a coherent guideline (see: here), INFOBOXFLAG should instead be abolished. Note, however, this will have a cascading effect on other guidelines such as WP:ICONDECORATION. But if there's no interest in making a coherent policy here, that outcome is unavoidable. --IJBall (talk) 03:02, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

• I thought we were just discussing removing that one section. I oppose changes to the rest of the guideline, which has longstanding consensus and a rationale: icons should serve a purpose other than prettiness. DrKiernan (talk) 08:10, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

• If I understand Hammersoft's proposal correctly, he is saying that the current WP:INFOBOXFLAG guideline has so many exceptions that it is rendered nigh on meaningless, and that it should just instead be abolished. My definite preference would be to just basically "nuke" its last paragraph (paragraph #5), as it's that paragraph that renders the guideline pretty much useless; but there was no consensus for that proposal. In light of that, I agree with Hammersoft – if the community isn't interested in fixing the guideline, then it needs to be abolished. --IJBall (talk) 17:11, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

The guideline starts off poorly and gets worse. Paragraph by paragraph...

1. Generally, flag icons should not be used in infoboxes, even when there is a "country", "nationality" or equivalent field; there are a considerable number of exceptions to this.
2. Several problems in this paragraph;
   1. Flag icons should only be inserted in infoboxes in those cases where they convey information in addition to the text; This is so meaningless as to be void. Don't they always convey information?
   2. Examples of acceptable exceptions include military conflict infobox... which results in visual atrocities like Napoleonic Wars and World War I. Oh, but you can't allow flags at {{Infobox weapon}}, which identify the weapons used in the conflicts <facepalm>.
   3. There's {{Infobox weapon}} which is cited as a case where flags are not allowed, yet have a look at WP:MILMOS#FLAGS: "the use of flag icons is not recommended; neither, however, is it prohibited" Any ever see the definition of "vague"? This predictably results in things like M15/42 tank and Matilda II.
   4. Then there's the exemption for sport infoboxes that include international competitions, resulting in 2014 FIFA World Cup, 2007 FIBA Americas Championship and many others.
   5. Then we get a statement that says that Template:Infobox company [has] long explicitly deprecated the use of flag icons, yet the very similar {{Infobox organization}} contains no such prohibition (and it's transcluded over 16k times), resulting in things like Warsaw Pact and United Nations Trusteeship Council. Why should organizations be allowed but companies not? This is confusing.
3. The use of ship registry flags ... in infoboxes of ship articles is appropriate; There's an initial comparison that can be made against {{Infobox aircraft occurrence}}, where flags are not explicitly permitted or banned, yet planes carry national registration just like ships. That's confusing. But, the single sentence is more problematic from an abstract perspective; why are we explicitly listing a place where they are ok? Should the guideline list all places where they are ok and where they are not? Or, should we just be left to guess or dig extensively to find prior debates before taking any enforcement action?
4. flags are discouraged in sportspeople's individual infoboxes even when there is a "country", "nationality", "sport nationality" or equivalent field: they may give undue prominence to one field over others. However, the infobox may contain the national flag icon of an athlete who competes in competitions where national flags are commonly used as representations of sporting nationality in the particular sport. OK, huh??? That's like saying flags are discouraged but they're not discouraged. What? This confusion has resulted in specific sporting areas of the project adamantly defending their use of flags (witness swimming; Stephanie Rice, Katie Ledecky; witness golf Sergio García, Pádraig Harrington) and others explicitly banning their use (witness verbiage to that effect on {{Infobox football biography}}, transcluded 120k times); witness verbiage "Do not use a flag template" several times on {{Infobox sportsperson}}, transcluded 28k times).

And the fifth paragraph has previously been mentioned as problematic. This entire guideline is poorly written, confusing, vague, and unenforceable. If there ever was a reason to not allow flags for visual aesthetics, that reason is laughably denied by the visual atrocities noted above. Yet, the underpinnings of this guideline are just that; flag icons they are unnecessarily distracting and give undue prominence to one field among many. How can we look ourselves in the mirror and say the use of one flag at Bruno Conti can't be permitted, but do allow over 100 at Napoleonic Wars? We can't. The middle road this guideline is attempting to take has utterly failed. It either needs to be dramatically rewritten and enforced or removed entirely. --Hammersoft (talk) 17:48, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

The biggest argument against flag icons is that the bulk of the readership will not recognize them at all outside of those probably a dozen-some countries. All of our accessibility guidance is against using colors and shapes for key identification, and this is a case where I think simply removing flag icons from infoboxes is the best solution. --MASEM (t) 18:02, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

• ...which will require a major rewrite of the guideline, and heavy arguments with a number of projects which are extensively using flags in infoboxes. --Hammersoft (talk) 18:18, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

• Which is an utterly unfounded argument. These flagicons are not present through pasting their images on the articles in question. They are created through TEMPLATES. Templates which allow even the blind to find out their meaning. Thus the lack of accessibility is simply nonexistent. By the way, while littering articles with color is not a good practice, limited use to bring in some structure is. Do some study on the functioning of the human brain. Why do you even think students bring some structure in their textbooks using markers instead of just memorizing the bare slabs of text. Tvx1 18:39, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

• That analogy is fine when you are talking about a book that you alone use and read. But we're talking about a page that everyone else in the world sees, and so we should be considering how it impacts all readers, not just a portion. --MASEM (t) 18:43, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

• I do. Did you even read my statement that even the BLIND are catered to? Tvx1 21:24, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

• Masem's argument is also undermined by the fact that our accessibility guidance is against using colors for key identification absent something that a sight-impaired reader could parse. There is a reason why the overwhelming majority of infobox flag use the flag and country link in combination (e.g.: Australia). Likewise, the usage also defeats the argument about how nobody understands what country most flags represents. (And that argument is itself ironic given we are a bloody encyclopedia - click on a link and learn!). What these so-called guidelines really boil down to is the fact that a small group of people have a serious dislike for flag icons and colour. And much as they rail against their use, a much larger portion of the project simply ignores them. This guideline is utterly worthless as it does not reflect the wider consensus that exists. Resolute 21:57, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

• Sadly enough, I think you are completely right. I wholeheartedly believe that a serious RFC advertised to the WHOLE wikipedia project should be initiated to find out if this whole guideline is indeed supported by the community as claimed. And I think you're dead on with your learning comment. I myself happily learned the meaning of dozens and dozens of flags thanks to their use in international sports coverage, and in that context for a large part thanks to wikipedia. Of course you can overuse them, but that shouldn't mean we should prohibit them all together. They are not symbols we have invented for our articles. They exist in real life. Tvx1 22:43, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

• Just wondering. Advertised to the whole Wikipedia Project? Has any of MOS "ever" been advertised to the whole project? Most of what's in MOS has been determined by maybe 10-20 people at a time. Some of the stuff on banning icons had no discussion at all... it was just slipped in when no one was looking based on one or two editor's whims. Fyunck(click) (talk) 23:10, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

• Well, just because it wasn't done right in the past doesn't mean we can't set it straight. That's why suggested instigated a RFC or a centralized discussion thus correctly advertised to the whole community. And if the community rejects it, demote to essay, rewrite and repromote only when it's supported by community. Tvx1 00:04, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

• I understand that. How do you advertise to the whole community? Do you ask wikipedia to put it up on everyone's page during sign-in, right at the top? Fyunck(click) (talk) 00:12, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

• Personally, I don't think it is even necessary. Nationality is a major component of sports - even in domestic play - that is not necessarily relevant to other aspects of life. Unnecessary project-wide standardization just because is counterproductive and generally a waste of time in my view. The status quo is fine. Resolute 00:18, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
• There are a couple of mechanisms. See WP:Publicising discussions. Tvx1 01:27, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

I suggest reverting the guidelines back to my original version :P Kaldari (talk) 05:08, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

<smile> I think that ship has sailed so far, the most powerful telescope couldn't see it. Fyunck(click) (talk) 06:10, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

If we did, then you could illustrate in mid-sentence what pennant the ship was flying when it sailed.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  12:22, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Kaldari, that's flippin' brilliant :) --Hammersoft (talk) 14:49, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Ok so I was thinking today (those of you with a poor opinion of me can just stop reading now :)) about how to proceed with this. Perhaps an RfC should be conducted asking to have the guideline modified to state that flag icons are not permitted in main infoboxes. That will undoubtedly create an insane (or inane if you prefer) amount of acrimony. Following that failure, we conduct another RfC. This time, we ask to have the guideline removed entirely. The latter RfC will have a greater chance of success since we can point to the failure of the former RfC to be strict and we can point to the failure of the status quo middle ground. If that fails, then I recommend we hire an agency to tell us how great we are and tell the whole world someone said we're great. Oh wait, the Foundation already did that. --Hammersoft (talk) 14:49, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

• Comment - Why do we need a working MOS:ICON, you ask? Well, let me give you two examples I've found in the last two years: [3] and [4]. Unless you believe that flag icons are necessary or appropriate to designate the (1) geographic locations of the annual NCAA swimming championships and (2) dinosaur-bearing rock formations around the world, then we clearly need some form of MOS:ICON. Look, I'm a supporter of the appropriate and limited use of flag icons, including a single flag icon to designate national athletic team members who compete internationally, but I also recognize that flag icons, like any graphic device, work best when they are not over-used. I do believe that MOS:ICON should represent a "middle ground" that acknowledges the widespread and legitimate infobox uses of flag icons for national sports team members, military units and personnel, naval vessels, countries, government units, etc., but also recognizes limits and curtails their over-use. That middle ground requires compromise, however, and a recognition that flag icons are part of the world as it is, but also that over-used flag icon graphics are tacky and represent bad layout and design. There is room for rational compromise if both sides in this controversy will reach out and embrace it, but that will require that MOS:ICON be substantially re-written. Bottom line: swimming pools and dinosaur bones don't need flag icons, but Olympic athletes do. Why can't we have a guideline that says as much? Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 18:07, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

  Realistically, though, that "middle ground" is likely not achievable, and once you start carving out exceptions for sports, military topics, and (IMO most laughably) cities, then everyone is going to want their own "carve-out exception for cute lil' flag icons!!1!" too. That's why I've come around to the idea that it's probably just better to junk MOS:INFOBOXFLAG. Then every "flag icon" battle will simple revert to being a consensus discussion at every article where it comes up. Frankly, I'd rather have that than what we have now when these discussions will inevitably devolve to Editor A invoking "No flags according to MOS:INFOBOXFLAG!!" and Editor B retorting "But MOS:INFOBOXFLAG has exceptions for 'A', and 'B', and 'C'... and 'Z'!!" which gets nobody anywhere. As currently written, this guideline is made out of Swiss cheese, and not the useful kind... --IJBall (talk) 06:20, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Exactly what I think as well. The belief that there can be a one rule fits all on wikipedia is just a mistake because there's no conistent relevance of them across all subject areas in real life. Tvx1 06:33, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

FTR, this is not what I think. I agree with Hammersoft, et al. that MOS:INFOBOXFLAG should be rewritten to ban all uses of flag icons in Infoboxes – if flag icons belong anywhere, it's elsewhere in an article, not in the Infobox itself. But if this guideline is not going to be simplified to a total ban, then it should just be eliminated, because the current version is completely unworkable, and is actually less than helpful in these discussions. But guidelines generally are "one size fits all" solutions, and if this project is going to have a "Margin of Style" that's neither unavoidable nor undesirable. --IJBall (talk) 14:58, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

And I vehemently disagree with that. Give me one good reason why they all should be unilaterally banned from all infoboxes. What's so holy about an infobox that makes it such a drama to even include one of them? As long as it is done in an appropriate manner it's not unacceptable. Of course there are examples, like Napoleonic Wars of absurd overuse. But there other examples were their current application isn't problematic at all. For instance in an article like Andy Murray the flag is used in a perfect appropriate manner and the claim that in such a case it is unnecessarily distracting and gives undue prominence to one field among many is ridiculous. Tvx1 21:22, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Then, logically, you should want to see MOS:INFOBOXFLAG abolished as well. --IJBall (talk) 01:47, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Well if there is no willingness by the community to fix it, yes. And for case like Napoleonic Wars there is an easy solution: raise the issue of overuse on the relevant project. In that case what's currently in the infobox really belongs in the body of the article. I actually think is much more efficient to deal with such matter at WikiProject level than imposing site-wide enforcement. Tvx1 03:26, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

• A slippery slope fallacy does not a convincing argument make. Resolute 15:23, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Usage of free image in templates

I ask if that conversation regards this page. They referred me here. --IM-yb (talk) 00:37, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Icon-like templates at TfD

FYI

 – Link to relevant discussion elsewhere.

While more the purview of MOS:TM, this multi-template TfD is liable to be of interest to those who care, pro or con, about inline use of graphical and typographical effects: Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2015 June 25#Templates: TeX, LaTeX, LaTeX2e.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  14:22, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

More decoration worth considering: Military insignia in infoboxes

So, does it really help the reader to have things like shoulder insignia in infoboxes of military biographical subjects? See, e.g., Vasili Arkhipov. We have much smaller icons for US ranks, e.g. at Douglas MacArthur and Colin Powell, though I'm skeptical these are useful either. I'm sure WP:MILHIST loves them, but I'm skeptical there's any reader-level utility. These are articles on individual human beings, not ranks; we have Vice admiral#Gallery, etc., for a reason. No comment on the military flags used in these infoboxes; that's a worm can that's been opened repeatedly already.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  20:17, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

RfC on a flag-icon-using talkpage banner

FYI

 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere

Please comment pro or con at WT:Manual of Style#Proposal to deprecate Template:English variant notice.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  12:09, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

And what does this have to do with icons?Tvx1 12:24, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

I know the heading was very unclear on this, but between "RfC on a" and "-using talkpage banner" I secretly hid the words "flag-icon"  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  06:14, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

Proposal to deprecate giant quotation marks in mainspace

FYI

 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Proposal: Disable giant quotation marks in mainspace; deprecate pull quotes in articles. This is directly relevant to MOS:ICONS, because 'For purposes of this guideline, the term "icons" encompasses ... typographic dingbats.'  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  00:30, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Nationality columns with flagicons used in tables in award articles

I recently removed nationality columns with flagicons used in tables in award articles as being unnecessary and going against WP:MOSICON. I was reverted on eight of these edits on Grammy Awards articles, Grammy Award for Producer of the Year, Classical, Grammy Award for Best Americana Album, Grammy Award for Best Gospel Vocal Performance, Female, Grammy Award for Best Latin Rock, Urban or Alternative Album, Grammy Award for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album, Grammy Award for Best Tropical Latin Album, Grammy Award for Best World Music Album and MusiCares Person of the Year, since @Another Believer: feels they should be discussed first. Since it is the same edit across numerous similar articles, one discussion here would be better than eight separate discussions on the articles' talk pages. I feel this situation is similar to a previous one last year, Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Icons/Archive 12#Member of SWAPO - Southwest Africa?. From the appropriate use section of this MoS, "In lists or tables, flag icons may be relevant when such representation of different subjects is pertinent to the purpose of the list or table itself." The nationality is not pertinent to the purpose of the award lists. The winners do not representing their countries, the articles just show the nationality. The big Grammy Awards did not use the nationality column, so these smaller awards should also comply of the Manual of Style. Aspects (talk) 05:19, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

For international sporting events, nationality is quite important. But Grammy Awards? That must go against MosIcon. The column itself is up to consensus of editors and I don't think it's against any guidelines to keep it in place. That would simply be a content dispute. But the flag icons have to go. Fyunck(click) (talk) 07:18, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

I have now corrected/removed the icons in those columns, but the columns themselves would need to be discussed and a consensus reached. It might be best to bring that up collectively at WikiProject Awards and prizes or WikiProject Awards and prizes/Grammy Awards task force. I hope that helps. Fyunck(click) (talk) 07:56, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for starting a discussion here. For the record, I don't feel strongly about including nationalities or flagicons, but I did think this should be discussed before major changes were made to multiple lists, some of which were featured status. Also, if the nationality columns are being removed, then the articles' leads should also be changed so that they don't include info about nationalities (some lists mention the number of American recipients, British recipients, etc. ---Another Believer _(Talk) 09:41, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

I wouldn't look at the icon removal as a major change, but featured list or not, they should not be there. The Nationality column should be discussed. I don't really care whether it's there or not as that's for the music or awards projects to decide. Fyunck(click) (talk) 09:58, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

Sure, I agree that flagicon removal is not a major change, but removing the nationality column in its entirety is a major change to a FL. ---Another Believer _(Talk) 11:38, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

Avoid flag icons in infoboxes

How many people vote for this ? and how many people against it ? Who implement this rule ? (why to avoid flags in infoboxes)--Alexiulian25 (talk) 19:44, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

• This is the general rule. The guideline makes specific exceptions for several classes of persons or things that represent their country in some significant manner, such as military officers, military units, commissioned naval vessels, athletes in international competitions in which flags are used, national sports teams, etc. I support the general rule, and I support the exceptions for appropriate and limited use for specifically identified classes of persons. I also oppose the over-use of flags for such persons and things as novelists, historians, poets, composers, ballet dancers, actors, things as aircraft, trains, automobiles, boats, ships, military vehicles and equipment, dinosaur bones, manufacturers, corporations and other companies, geographic locations, athletes and teams who do not participate in international competition, etc. I also think we should avoid over-using the same flag on the same page multiple times whenever possible, and that international sports brackets and results tables should be designed in such a way that flags are not used multiple times for the same athlete or team in the same set of results. We need to find the balance between appropriate use of flag icons and avoiding inappropriate use and over-use, and some editors just don't get that. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 22:00, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

• So is not a clear rule if you say "we should avoid over-using the same flag" or "We need to find the balance between appropriate use of flag icons and avoiding inappropriate use and over-use" BECAUSE everyone is different, and they understand different this over-using and this will create conflicts on different pages.For example : Finnish Cup - there is no flags on this page ! I can use a little flag in the infobox. Finland.And another editor said that I can not use flags there ! even is no flags on the page and in my opinion the page look simple (just text)--Alexiulian25 (talk) 23:05, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

  I would tend to say no in that case. Just like the American Super Bowl. It is not an international event. It is also not used at the Argentinian Championships or the Italian Championships. Fyunck(click) (talk) 23:52, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

• We talk about a flag and Coppa Italia has so many redlinks ! There are many many seasons missing and no one improves it ! You can talk about this small details : flag or anything else minor edits, after you make the article to look complete with no redlinks or with so many missing information ! (my opinion)--Alexiulian25 (talk) 10:58, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

Boring

A little infographic decoration would be nice, especially sports pages. Thejoebloggsblog (talk) 12:30, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

True, is boring just text ! Propose this ! and I will vote for it !--Alexiulian25 (talk) 11:10, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

Time Person of the Year dispute

FYI

 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see: Talk:Time Person of the Year#Rfc: Elizabeth II – It's a bit of a train wreck, because the option most consistent with MOS:ICONS was not added until long after the RfC had been running.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  05:37, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

Sport season articles and flag use for club nationality

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Do not use the flag icons for friendly matches. Wider use or non-use of flag icons will need a separate discussion Graeme Bartlett (talk) 01:36, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

---

In football club season articles such as the Machester City 2015-16 season, flags are being used to denote a country in which a club usually plays there football. This is being done in both friendlies and in European competition sections. In friendly matches clubs are not representing a country so the flags are not indicating nationality or being representative. They are only being used to indicate where a team usually play, in most cases in friendlies these matches aren't even being played in that country. It is my believe this is against the spirit of the mos flag policy. The flag is being used instead of text where text would be sufficient. It is different for the European competitions because the club would be representing that nationality as part of a limited number of places. Flags are widely being misused in sports articles not just football and it's about time sports complied more fully. Blethering Scot 17:03, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

I don't see any flags for matchups in that article, so I don't really understand why you are complaining. Tvx1 17:17, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

The dramah seems to be at 2015–16 Manchester City F.C. season, not the United article to which the OP has, for some reason, provided a link. Bretonbanquet (talk) 17:21, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Ooops. Its not just that article. Its every club season article. Friendlies are non competitive and the club is not representing England in a non competitive friendly, nor is England a club's nationality they just play there. There is nothing that the flag does that text cannot. Competitive international matches are different in that, in those cases the club is representing the country. Sports articles seem to skirt the lines of mos flag on a lot of occasions. This is definitely something that needs proper clairification.Blethering Scot 17:40, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

@Bretonbanquet: Actually no oooops, it wasnt actually me that provided the link [5]. I never provided one.Blethering Scot 17:45, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

So it seems! @Tvx1:, I find you guilty... etc ;) Bretonbanquet (talk) 17:48, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Incidentally, I agree that no flags are required for friendlies. There are generally too many flags used in football as it is, as far as I can see. Bretonbanquet (talk) 17:56, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Hence why I scratched my comment. I made a mistake. Tvx1 18:03, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

• I agree that the use of flags in that instance is not useful and a needless distraction. I would only include flags when there is a link to the club competing and the nation (e.g. having qualified on a national basis, or being a direct representative of that nation. Friendlies don't take that form in any instance. SFB 01:04, 6 July 2015 (UTC)
• One question would be... what does the press and official Association football websites do as far as flags? Do they tend to use the national flags or not for friendlies? That's very important per wikipedia guidelines. Fyunck(click) (talk) 06:05, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

This varies across the board, some don't use any identifier, some use the club badge as an identifier and some use a flag, it tends to be consistent by source though, they don't seem to discriminate between friendlies and other matches. See [here] for an example of flags being used by the organising tournament for friendlies in the above manchester city article. Paul  Bradbury 08:28, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

Varied use by outside sources makes it a bit more difficult to sort out. One thing for certain though is I searched the articles...those icons have longstanding use in EVERY Manchester City season... and had been in the 2015-2016 season since early on. If in all the others it's logical and correct to have them in the 15/16 season as well. Once @Blethering Scot: removed them and they were put back, Blethering Scot had no business removing them again. That's not the way wikipedia works. Once added back it should have been brought to Talk:2015–16 Manchester City F.C. season or Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football (which it was) or here to discuss, but Blethering Scot's edit should be self-reverted immediately (or I'll do it) and all the projects it's a member of should be formally notified. I see (WikiProject Football) already is, but in the middle. I don't really have a horse in this race so I'll let the other projects know about it. Fyunck(click) (talk) 09:00, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

Consensus at the relevant wiki project had always been they shouldn't be used, Pbradbury was under the impression it had changed however it appears it hadn't. So frankly there use was against consensus. On that basis I will not revert back as it's clear in my view flag uses when the subject is neither that nationality or representing that nation is against policy. I don't particularly care for troublemaking. This is the most relevant place to discuss there use and it was me that took it here and to the relevant wiki project. In addition other stuff exists and the argument that all previous seasons use it is nonsense. If it's against policy, which in my view it is and will be clarified shortly here they will all be removed. Reverting back is just making situation worse not better. Blethering Scot 13:46, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

Well that is against standard wiki protocol. It is certainly not against policy, nor is it against guidelines if it can be sourced as such. That is yet to be seen. So they may be removed, but also may not. Fyunck(click) (talk) 18:59, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

You've provided the answer to your own question in your post. "In my view flag uses when the subject is neither that nationality or representing that nation is against policy." Well, from what has been presented here so far, I can only make up that those flags are used to denote which nationalities those subjects have. They can be sourced to the relevant football confederations. So there doesn't seem to be a problem here. Tvx1 20:31, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

Just been looking about, and I can't find many that use flags for club matches, whether friendly or competitive. Examples:

• FIFA's website uses club badges for their only club competition, the FIFA Club World Cup, e.g. here, here;
• UEFA use flags for national team matches but badges for club matches, e.g. current Europa League fixtures, last season's Champions League;
• BBC use either nothing, as in current club & international fixtures, or badges, as at last season's Champions League groups;
• Sky Sports use either nothing (fixtures, last season's Champions League groups, or badges, if they know them (Champions League fixture, and Thailand All-Stars v Liverpool friendly, where they don't switch to a flag for what appears to be a representative side);
• ESPN use badges;
• Statto.com uses either nothing or badges; whereas
• Soccerway use flags for all club matches apart from domestic league, including domestic friendlies... cheers, Struway2 (talk) 10:22, 6 July 2015 (UTC)
• To keep this list in one place, more additions below:
• ESPN uses international flags for friendly matches;
• FoxSports also uses international flags for friendly matches Fyunck(click) (talk) 19:21, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

For clarification, the above two links (ESPN and FoxSports) are for international i.e. national team friendlies, not club friendlies. National team friendlies are not the subject of this RfC. Struway2 (talk) 19:45, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

@Struway2: Is that true? I thought is was for ALL friendlies. Even if it was for all friendlies I would lean towards not having them, but your limiting it to "club friendlies only" is a different beast. The original line "Flags are widely being misused in sports articles" and "This is being done in both friendlies and in European competition sections" seemed to throw it into encompassing more than just club friendlies. Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:42, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

@Fyunck(click): Yes. The initial statement sets context as "In football club season articles such as the Manchester City 2015-16 season": such articles deal only with matches played by clubs. The reference to "European competition" is to contrast the likely acceptability of flags in a section dealing with competitive matches – "It is different for the European competitions because the club would be representing that nationality as part of a limited number of places" – with the likely unacceptability of using flags in lists of friendlies just "to indicate where a team usually play". See e.g. Manchester City's last season's friendlies at 2014–15 Manchester City F.C. season#Non-competitive and their European competitive matches, in the same article, at 2014–15 Manchester City F.C. season#Non-competitive#UEFA Champions League. Hope this clarifies. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 21:07, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

in addition just for comment the Manchester City website uses club badges not flags. Whilst the above is heartening what we also need to look at is does out current flag policy allow there use for friendlies where the club is not representing that country. I can't see how it does. Blethering Scot 13:59, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

Firstly, there is no flag policy, only a flag guideline. It doesn't allow or disallow anything. It merely suggests what the best approach is. Secondly, as an example for the other way, UEFA does use flags on their clubs' individual pages. Thirdly, the content of the guideline isn't crystal clear as to such cases. I'm not really sure as to what's the best course of action. Tvx1 15:16, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

This is correct. Nothing against using them in this instance, but as usual it would have to be sourced that it is the preferred way of flag usage. It can be by wikipedia consenses, it can be be outside sourcing. But, since it has been used by many editors for quite awhile, it should remain until it's decided by sources or consensus whether it should be changed. We do not unilaterally change every article. Fyunck(click) (talk) 19:09, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

• I believe that the flags in articles are used to indicate the football association that the team belongs to rather than the country it is representing. In the case of Manchester City for example that is the English FA. This is relevant because they are governed by its rules even in friendlies (see the last page of [Disciplinary Procedures - The Football Association]). I have not seen any consensus at WP:FOOTY about not using them in friendlies (I have been a member for 7 years or so), I don't edit every day so I am quite willing to accept it may exist but no one has pointed me to any such consensus yet. The only reference I have found is Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football/Flag policy which appears to have been created by @Danish Expert: to document and create a consensus (although this does not appear to be official project documentation). However my opinion is

• The use of text instead of a flag completely makes sense in prose, but not in a tabular or semi tabular information, where it would add to clutter. Icons have a valuable use in these situations.
• Since the inclusion of flags is via a template, the spirit of MOS:FLAGS is in tact for use with people who are colour blind or even totally blind. These are WCAG accessable and we work in an interactive medium, which allows us to work in ways that would not work in the printed form.
• There are many (hundreds I estimate) of articles that use this convention. It seems to me that this may constitute a defacto consensus and also to change them all would be a lot of work, very disruptive to the project and likely result in a few edit wars. While the gains would be minimal, given the information is neither incorrect or contentious and more a preference of style it seems to me to be unwise.

Anyway I'll step back and let others weigh in. Paul  Bradbury 15:31, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

• For mine the flags do show highly relevant information - in these pre-season friendlies clubs often travel around the world and it is definitely informative to the reader to know where these teams come from. Whether that can be reconciled with the guidelines I'm not sure, but I would say that it doesn't place undue importance on nationality - the nationality of clubs is definitely something of significant interest in this context and having the flag there does inform readers in a way which wouldn't be otherwise possible. Macosal (talk) 12:29, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

ok lets look at mos flag. It states under appropriate use Flag icons may be relevant in some subject areas, where the subject actually represents that country, government, or nationality – such as military units, government officials, or national sports teams. These aren't national teams or representing the country in friendlies. It also states Words as the primary means of communication should be given greater precedence over flags, and flags should not change the expected style or layout of infoboxes or lists to the detriment of words.The Manchester City article has no text at all in this section so greater precedence is given to flags. It also says The name of a flag's political entity should appear adjacent to the first use of the flag, as no reader is familiar with every flag, and many flags differ only in minor details. This doesn't happen in football season articles. Sorry guideline or not I cannot see how there use in this context is permitted. In addition lets look at flags in sources as Struway2 has done and its clear they aren't used. Its pretty clear users are just intent on doing what they wish and ignoring wikipedias manual of styles.Blethering Scot 18:26, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

OK lets look at mos flag, we can all be selective, you missed this bit - In lists or tables, flag icons may be relevant when such representation of different subjects is pertinent to the purpose of the list or table itself. As stated above it is often considered an oversight in mos flags that you should list the country name after the flag and that with the flagicon templates you are adhering to the spirit of the guidline, as this accounts for those issues, such as disability or confusion (mouseover will give country name in pop over similar to references, its an interactive medium we work in). Also there is a strong consensus by editing at the moment and I have not heard any compelling argument to remove, this all seems very WP:BURO and not in keeping with either the spirit of the guidlines or the clarity of the information. Paul  Bradbury 10:12, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

I highlighted the key issues. There is no strong consensus saying they should be used at all and MOS Flag was created by consensus. If editors wish it to be changed then this is the forum. Changing by stealth does not apply. The key is, main independent sources don't use them, neither does the club. They aren't representing the country and there is no substitute for prose which there isn't any so a flag should not be assigned to it. The only part of what I'm stating your acknowledging is accessibility none of the key issues. Im not the only one telling you this but you seem to be determined to ignore it.Blethering Scot 15:10, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

Calm down. Discussing the contributors will not produce any result. Like I stated, you're not in fact disputing the use of flags in this case. You're actually disputing that the nationality of teams should be mentioned at all by whatever means. This is not the place to discuss that. This guideline suggests when nationality should be mentioned through flags and when it's better to mention it through other means. Not whether it should be mentioned at all. The arguments above presented by User:Pbradbury are enough to consider it satisfies this guideline. Tvx1 15:38, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

Unfortunately no they are clearly not sufficient. Paul has frequently ignored the points I've raised and his reply was another of those occasions. The flags are serving no purpose that cannot be done by prose or is there sufficient evidence in sources, or reason to use them. He has shown no signs of improving the article to that level. The key points of MOS Flag are not met for inclusion of these flags. As for consensus of the project the truth is there isn't a consensus. Unless he can develop that then all the points raised here are valid. Struway should sources don't use them, I've explained and laid out the issues with using them and other editors have also raised issue. So actually no the argument laid out does not support use.Blethering Scot 15:46, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

@Tvx1: you are also wrong I am disputing use of flags. I am not disputing mentioning the country where they play.Blethering Scot 15:51, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

I believe I have outlined how this meets the guideline, both in spirit and to some extent letter. There appear to be editors on both sides of the discussion indicating no consensus. I'll try and summarise.

• Flag icons may be relevant in some subject areas, where the subject actually represents that country, government, or nationality – such as military units, government officials, or national sports teams. - I explained above why it is pertinent (namely the rules that each team is subject too varies depending on their governing FA which the flag is representing). The guidlines don't say only use in the case of national teams, it simply provides that as an appropriate use, further down it lists inappropriate uses and this is not one that is listed.
• Words as the primary means of communication should be given greater precedence over flags, and flags should not change the expected style or layout of infoboxes or lists to the detriment of words. - It is appropriate to use icons instead of text in a tabular format, per this guideline, In lists or tables, flag icons may be relevant when such representation of different subjects is pertinent to the purpose of the list or table itself. Again pertinence is addressed in my point above. This is tabular data. The article is a relatively new article stub and does not have much prose yet, however as the season develops so will the article as previous seasons have, but this will still be tabular data.
• The name of a flag's political entity should appear adjacent to the first use of the flag, as no reader is familiar with every flag, and many flags differ only in minor details - Again, I believe I have covered this point above. However it may be worth adding a key to the article if that makes more sense.
• You originally stated that there was consensus at WP:FOOTY however have been unable to point to it and no one else has pointed to it either. The only documentation of an effort to reach consensus at the project that I have found is [here] and it runs counter to what you believe is correct.
• You have yet to explain why removing the flags improves the article (which is the purpose). You simply keep saying it violates MOS:FLAGS and then listing ways you think it does, you are not engaging in discussion about why this is a bad thing, simply that it is a thing and that is WP:BURO which clearly states it should then be ignored.
• BTW I simply followed the convention that already existed in any edits I made, I did not originate this form of edit (even on this article). I followed the editing consensus (which exists across many articles by multiple editors). Paul  Bradbury 16:53, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

Im seriously close to losing it with you. You have a serious case of WP:I didn't hear that.

• Flag icons may be relevant in some subject areas, where the subject actually represents that country, government, or nationality – such as military units, government officials, or national sports teams. - The rules very by the governing FA does not mean they are representing the country. In Manchester City's case do you have evidence of who's rules they are playing under. Specifically do you have a source thats states this game will be played under that countries rules. Not that it's even relevant the bottom line is it's a friendly and they aren't representing any country not is that club nationalistic of that country.
• The name of a flag's political entity should appear adjacent to the first use of the flag, as no reader is familiar with every flag, and many flags differ only in minor details - The article doesn't meet the criteria for using flags, although if it did the flags are ambiguous and names should be used.
• You have yet to explain why removing the flags improves the article (which is the purpose). You simply want the flags because looks good. No other reason. They add clutter, are not clear and simply do not replace prose. They are being used to avoid actually using prose. Do you think people come here to see flags no they don't. They come here for content and prose not for flags.

• You originally stated that there was consensus at WP:FOOTY however have been unable to point to it and no one else has pointed to it either. The documentation you have found is an editors essay not consensus or even an attempt at consensus. i have nominated for deletion here as it was acknowledged here that is an essay not the football projects flag policy. Im counting six editors here saying they shouldn't be used to two saying they are allowed.
• As for I simply followed convention. Other Crap exists but it doesn't mean it is correct.
• Sources clearly show flags are not used for these competitions. Not even the football club the article is about do. This is Wikipedia not a fans site. If you don't like what MOS Flag says then that is your problem.Blethering Scot 17:17, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

• Not agreeing with you and engaging in discussion with counterpoints is not WP:I didn't hear that.
• I provided it earlier in the discussion when I made the point originally, here it is again - This is relevant because they are governed by its rules even in friendlies (see the last page of [Disciplinary Procedures - The Football Association]). MOS:FLAGS doesn't say they have to represent a country, it says thats an appropriate use. In this case it is representing (which is why they can receive charges of bringing it into disrepute) a national body (the relevant FA) and as such governed by its rules, which i contend is also an appropriate use.
• The article doesn't meet the criteria for using flags. You have not made that case, it is your assertion, that is why this discussion is happening, you are not looking at the spirit of the rule just the letter and as I said maybe a key would fix it to the letter of the rule.
• You still haven't pointed to any consensus. If you look at the bottom of the page for the link provided you can see a comment by another editor in the section dedicated to consensus. Attempting to delete things you don't like or disagree with is not really a constructive way of gaining consensus.
• It is entirely appropriate to follow a long standing and widely used editing consensus, it is usually disruptive not to.
• Sources also show them with flags its not consistent, although I would agree it seems most sources use the club badge and not just in the case of friendlies. So if we agree that we should follow that format I would be in favour of applying it across all match report tables. I am fine with what MOS:FLAGS says just not your interpretation of it. Paul  Bradbury 17:49, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

@Pbradbury: six editors are saying they shouldn't be used and only you and one other are saying they should. What part of that do you not understand. You seem to be intent on ignoring all other users and having a go at me because I was the one that removed them initially. For the record the policy is pretty clear and there are enough editors here of a similar view to me. I will continue to remove flags and yes we should be consistent that is why i didn't just remove them from 1 article, you seem to think I was picking on your article. As for i didn't hear you are showing every attribute of it. Blethering Scot 18:08, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

WP:Consensus is not about numbers, it's not a vote. Eventually an uninvolved person will come and assess the consensus based on the arguments. Tvx1 01:57, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

@Blethering Scot: I am not and will not ignore other users, if a consensus is reached from this discussion I will abide by it. I know you edited a bunch of articles but I thought if I reverted them all, that would simply escalate things and I thought it better to await the outcome of this discussion, so I made no further reverts. It honestly isn't personal, I just disagree, I am sorry if I have given the impression this is in anyway related to you or that I have taken offence at you editing the manchester city article, I don't think its special its just the one I noticed first and made the original revert on. I do believe you think you are doing what is best for the project even though I don't agree. Anyway as I said I'll leave this for others now and will only respond to direct questions. Paul  Bradbury 18:26, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

I am going to step out of this now completely, I believe I have made my position and points clear, I'll leave it for others to decide, as I am not sure continuing debating will bring us closer to any resolution. Paul  Bradbury 18:01, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

For the record though, if someone can explain how removing the flags is improving the article (other than blindly following a mos guide) I am quite willing to accept that and will help in changing other articles to that consensus. I don't however see a difference between friendlies and other matches in that regard and would recommend if we think its beneficial to not use flags that they not be used in match reports at all. However so far I haven't seen anything explaining how it improves an article by their removal. Paul  Bradbury 10:38, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

At the and of the day though, you're not disputing the use of flags, but the mentioning of nationality of those teams whether that is with flags, with the names of the countries spelled out, with country codes or with a combination of them. That's not within the scope of this guideline. That should be discussed at the project that takes care of those articles. Tvx1 17:18, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

• If the team is not representing the country, the use of a country flag is inappropriate. It is, however, fine to mention where teams are from in the prose (which seems to largely be lacking in this article). Kaldari (talk) 01:51, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

  Actually it's not IF you can show that outside sources usually use the flag in the same situation. This is why it's fine to use it in infoboxes or charts in Auto Racing, FIFA, Tennis... Those sports are international by nature. Fyunck(click) (talk) 04:38, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

  I think the selection of links above, to websites of various governing bodies and media organisations, shows pretty clearly that outside sources usually don't use flags in the same situation, namely a list of club matches. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 16:12, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

  And that's fine using that criteria. I was just pointing out that it was incorrect to say "if the team is not representing the country, the use of a country flag is inappropriate" since wikipedia does not say that. If official outside sources almost always use no such flag, that's what should be done here. Fyunck(click) (talk) 18:41, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

  The sources don't use it. However I'm fairly certain that they aren't representing country, government, nationality or national sport teams in this case. Also prose has not been considered before a flag, therefore the flag takes precedence over physical text. The flags aren't entirely clear in all cases and in most cases they are decorative more than adding anything. The flag is misleading rather than representative. I can see very little reason to allow flag use in these cases.Blethering Scot 21:17, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

  My understanding is most sources don't use it... some do. In prose we don't usually use the flags, in charts we often do. In infoboxes we often do for sports bios. I agree that flags aren't entirely clear in all cases, so we have to be careful. The decorative illogic has been shown to be against consensus for sports articles. The flag being misleading is also against MoS and consensus and sources. If in international auto racing, where drivers are not actually representing their nation, if sources tend to use flags in players bios, then they absolutely belong in wikipedia articles, per MoS, per consensus, and per sources. Saying otherwise is wrong. If sources tend not to use them for friendlies, that's a good argument. Saying consensus has been to limit them in prose, that's a good argument. If long-standing consensus has been to use them in signifying friendlies, that's a good argument. The rest of that stuff is useless as the train has left the station as far as wikipedia is concerned. Fyunck(click) (talk) 21:51, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

  Well given the key part of my argument is taken directly from mos flag i fail to se how it is useless. Also flags should not be used instead of prose, thats exactly what they are doing in these type of articles where there is no prose at all. MOS Flag may be highly subjective but its key points are not met in these cases. In addition long standing practice is hardly to use for them for friendlies or not it varies widely across articles and I would say more don't than do. This is partly because the football project is really poor with mos. There are tons of different styles of season articles. It may not be worth arguing over however in my mind its pretty clear they shouldn't be used in this way. I would still choose to removed them but I certainly can't be bothered to debate the hell out of it with people again. By the way nice rhyming in the early part of the reply.Blethering Scot 22:33, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

  Because you only take the part of MoS that you like. Overall, and especially for sports, it doesn't say that. As far as prose... if you have 2 paragraphs of prose and there's a person right in the middle of it with a flag, that's not so good. because the flag is in the middle of prose. If you have an article that is a set of charts and tables, and there are flags in those charts, there is no problem at all. Just because an article has little prose doesn't mean you can't have flags. As far as whether it's long-standing practice to include the flags, that's for the appropriate project to determine. I was using it simply as an an example. And MoS is built on what is consensus at wikipedia. If 90% of articles capitalize the word "Galaxy" and our MoS suggests we don't, it's MoS that needs to be rewritten to conform to wiki-consensus. We don't remove every instance of "Galaxy." I'm not expressing an opinion here on whether friendlies should have flags or not. That's a project decision, though it looks like consensus here is to remove them. I'm cool with that. What I'm not cool with are arguments that are factually incorrect or don't jive with consensus. So I weeded out the good arguments from the bad. Fyunck(click) (talk) 23:19, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

Fyunck, two points: first, we never use flags in prose. And I mean never; there are multiple MOS provisions on point. We simply don't mix icons and prose in the main body text of our articles, and it is a very good rule.

Second, I also participated in the RfC on this page that was intended to permit the limited use of flag icons for sportspersons in international competition, and I strongly and repeatedly supported the properly limited use of flag icons for the sporting nationality of individual sportspersons, including Formula One drivers, golfers, tennis players and Olympic athletes in international competition. In that RfC, the use of flags for domestic sports teams was never contemplated. The discussion of following sources was limited to individuals in international sporting competition. We are taking that logical rationale, which was intended to apply to the use of flag icons for Formula One drivers, golfers, gymnasts, tennis players and Olympic athletes, and we are now stretching it to the breaking point by saying it was intended to apply to Premier League football teams playing international friendlies, when that was never even remotely contemplated by the RfC participants. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 00:27, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

I 100% agree that we don't use flags for domestic sports teams. If that wasn't clear, sorry. But playing a team from another country is not domestic. It may not be international in nature like the Olympics, but it is not Manchester vs Berkshire, nor Los Angeles vs New York. For two teams that play "internationally" against each other where they use flags, it is no stretch at all for the "friendly" matches between two different nations to also use flags. Nothing against using them at wikipedia EXCEPT you better have sources to back it up. Now, editors here have said that far more sources don't use the flags than use the flags. If that's true that's a big point for the "don't use them for friendlies" side of things. But they are certainly used in some capacity. The first two places I usually check for scores, ESPN and FOXSports used them. So it's no stretch to think they could be used here also. Fyunck(click) (talk) 00:59, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

Sport season articles and flag use for club nationality, convenience break no. 1

Oppose use of flags in club season articles in lists of the club's friendly fixtures, which is what we're meant to be discussing. I've waited a bit to see if anyone could come up with a compelling rationale for such use being MoS-compliant, and they haven't.

1. I don't think there's any longstanding consensus at WP:WikiProject Football to include nationality of opponents in club season article friendly fixture lists, whether using flags or words; some do, plenty don't;
2. if it matters what external sources do, it's already been shown above that most independent sources don't use flags in context of club friendlies, nor in this specific instance does the website of the club concerned;
3. the MoS says "flag icons may be relevant in some subject areas, where the subject actually represents that country, government, or nationality – such as military units, government officials, or national sports teams." A club's opponents in a friendly match aren't representing their country. The flagicons in these lists are just showing what country the club plays its domestic matches in;
4. These lists typically contain only a few matches: in this specific instance, there are six. A sentence of the form "Manchester City are visiting Australia during pre-season, where they will play local clubs Adelaide United and Melbourne City before facing AS Roma and Real Madrid, runners-up in the Italian and Spanish leagues, in the 2015 International Champions Cup friendly tournament. On their way home they will play matches against the Vietnam national team and German Bundesliga team VfB Stuttgart." That covers the nationality of the opponents concerned, concisely but rather more informatively than do little coloured shapes in footballbox templates. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 14:08, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Oppose - I've been trying to find the time to write a summary of how I think this issue should be addressed. Thanks to Struway's rationale and comments above, I see no reason for me to be repetitive. I endorse his analysis immediately above. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 14:21, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

This is not a vote. Tvx1 14:40, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

It is now: please feel free to register yours, too. Everyone has voiced their opinions, and this thread has become remarkably repetitive. It's time to see if we can draw a conclusion, and if a head count can help do so, that's a good thing. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 15:04, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

No it isn't and per the project's guidelines this is now how we can do this. Consensus is not a vote. Tvx1 15:08, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Tvx1, !voting is a common practice throughout Wikipedia, including AfD, TfD, RfA, RfB, RfC and ANI discussions -- all of which use !voting to help determine consensus. Consensus is not necessarily determined by majority vote, but nothing prohibits !voting. Care to try again? The present MOS:FLAG provision regarding flag icon use in sports articles only exists because of an RfC that was largely determined by an !vote in favor of such usage, an RfC in which you and I both !voted to "support" such change (see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Icons/Archive 14#RfC). You might want to review that RfC. This ain't my first rodeo, buckaroo. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 15:18, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

In that case you clearly need to catch up on some of our guidelines and policies. For instance the instructions on contributing to an AFD literally states "The debate is not a vote; please make recommendations on the course of action to be taken, sustained by arguments.". The instructions on closing an AFD state that Consensus is not based on a tally of votes, but on reasonable, logical, policy-based arguments. And Here again it is stated that consensus is not determined by a headcount. And I could go on and on about that. Discussions like these are not decided by voting. Tvx1 15:32, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Ignoring, of course, your own "support" !vote in the linked RfC? LOL@you You do realize that your entire argument against !voting is a massive mischaracterization of policy and guidelines, right? Yes, consensus is not determined by majority vote, but if you don't believe that the majority opinion influences the determination of consensus, you've missed something in your nearly three years on-wiki. There is absolutely no policy or guideline that prohibits !voting. None. Nada. Zip. And, as I have already noted, you have availed yourself of that !voting privilege on at least one occasion relevant to this discussion. Feel free to link to the policy or guideline that prohibits !voting -- or stop by the currently pending RfA and see how we select administrators, for instance. Plenty of !voting going on there. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 15:44, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Don't drag things into this that don't have anything to do with this. RfAs, RfBs and RfARs are pure votes by nature. They are fundamentally different from these consensus discussions. Of course the majority opinion does matter in such discussions. I never claimed otherwise. However, contrary to what you insist, the majority opinion is not assessed through purely counting the votes but through weighing up the different arguments. Your comment is a pure vote it's a simple oppose without any own arguments (contrary to e.g. --JOJ ^Hutton's well-reasoned opinion below). Those contributions are likely to be ignored by the uninvolved person who comes to close this discussion. I have already provided the links that explain that. I can't seem to find my "support vote" (please point me to it) mostly because I'm entirely neutral on the matter. I only tried the answer the question whether MOS:FLAGS outright prohibits such flag use. Which I doesn't obviously, it's a mere guideline. Tvx1 16:35, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Tvx1, here is the diff for your !vote in the RfC that led to the new and present consensus language of MOS:ICON: [6]. And I will repeat again for your benefit that while it is axiomatic that consensus is not determined by majority voting, !voting is a common and accepted practice in consensus discussions on-wiki. As for my rationale, I have already commented once above in answer to Fyunck ([7]), and then I expressly adopted the specific rationale and logic of Struway immediately above my !vote ([8]). Struway's rationale is articulate and well reasoned, and I see no reason -- nor do I have any further obligation -- to be even more repetitive in a discussion where the participants have been saying the same things repeatedly for days. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 22:08, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Jojhutton, consensus in AfDs, TfDs, RfAs, RfBs and RfCs isn't determined by majority vote, either, but !voting is certainly one element that may be used to gauge consensus, and in that regard they are no different than MOS or article talk page discussions. In determining that consensus, the closer is expected to weigh weaker and stronger arguments, especially those based on existing policies and guidelines. And, no, I never said that consensus is assessed purely through counting the votes; that is, however, how Tvx1 has mis-characterized what I have said, even as I have attempted to gently correct him and lead him to a better understanding of the accepted and proper use of !voting in discussions to be determined by consensus. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 22:08, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Your "oppose" comment is a pure vote, that is no mis-characterization. You didn't support it with arguments. My "support" comment in the previous RFC is followed by a clear reasoning. That's the fundamental difference which makes my comment a reasoned opinion and not a simple vote. If you have no arguments to add at all it is better no to comment at all. An "oppose" because of what the other bloke wrote comment, is useless to the closer because you don't provide any extra arguments they can weigh in. Tvx1 22:55, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Tvx1, you're not listening, you're either unfamiliar with or in denial about accepted Wikipedia-wide discussion practices, and that is not a credit to your style of argumentation. You also clearly need to get out into the wider project more: there is nothing wrong with explicitly adopting the well-articulated rationale of another editor, and after three years on-wiki, you should already know this. There has already been too much contentious repetition in this discussion, and your answering of every comment with which you disagree with a demand for further elaboration is beginning to take on the character of badgering. You would do well to remember that I -- and most of the other participants in this discussion -- are just as likely to support your position as not in the next flag icon discussion, and stop making scorched-earth arguments that only serve to irritate the other discussion participants. Free and friendly advice: it may be time to let some of the other pro-flag-for-club-level-friendlies participants do more of the talking. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 23:14, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Not my goal at all to irritate anyone. For the record, I'm not a pro-flag-for-club-level-friendlies participant. I'm neutral. Tvx1 01:26, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Oppose Use of icons in any info box. It matters very little if its a sports article, a military article, or a national article. The flag icons are not encyclopedic. The icons were designed to help navigate information. I feel that the only acceptable location for these colorful flag icons are in lists and charts. That is because they help the reader navigate the information quickly. That is not the case with info boxes. I do not think that the flag icon supporters have ever come up with a viable and encyclopedic reason to keep them. They are only there for decoration and they do not convey additional information. And yes, they are distracting. Very distracting.--JOJ ^Hutton 16:28, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

--JOJ ^Hutton, this discussion deals with specific flags used in particular lists of football matches. Infoboxes are not involved here. Tvx1 16:37, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Well I'm still opposed to that, and I am opposed to the way in which the flag icons are being used and displayed in the linked article above, although I am less opposed to it than if it was in an info box.--JOJ ^Hutton 16:46, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

And what's your reasoning for opposing to their use in those lists. We are really interested in your reasoned opinion here. Tvx1 16:51, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Are the players representing their country while playing with these teams? Nope. End of story.--JOJ ^Hutton 17:00, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

This is not about players, this about clubs. Tvx1 17:11, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

I'm opposed to that as well. JOJ ^Hutton 17:28, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Again, why? The why is the most important aspect of taking a certain position here. Tvx1 18:07, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

The reason had been stated. Other than that, there is nothing more to elaborate on.--JOJ ^Hutton 21:05, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

I don't have to hear anything, though. The person who will close this needs the arguments they can weigh. I'm trying to steer you in the direction of give a reasoned opinion to the RFC's actual question whether flags can be used for club soccer teams in a list/table of friendly matches between clubs from different countries. If you refuse to supply your own arguments and wish to stick with a simple "oppose" that's really your problem. I couldn't care less. Tvx1 22:53, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

I think Jojhutton's made it pretty clear that he feels the flags don't bring any useful information to the context. National flags are no more relevant to the interaction of two independent private organisations in a non-national context than the currency of those nations would be. SFB 00:30, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Oppose - since this Rfc was clarified above by editor Struway2 as only being about club friendlies, not national team friendlies, I would oppose the use of national flags in the club friendlies. I'll be watching tonight's LA Galaxy vs Barcelona and espn shows the usual club flags only, as does fox sports. National friendlies are a different conversation. Fyunck(click) (talk) 00:14, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

• Fyunck, I think the obvious distinction between club-level international friendlies vs. national team friendlies is that the national teams still represent their country, even if the match is not part of a championship tournament. And the same can be said of individual Formula One drivers, golfers and tennis players who, though they are not members of a national team, are still licensed by their national governing bodies and represent their countries in international sports competitions. This is where the "sources" and elements of representation clearly overlap, and, IMO, the case for flag icons is strongest. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 00:37, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

• The problem with that stance, is that it simply isn't the case that the relevance of a club's nationality is determined black and white by the fact that they play either a championship match or a friendly match. For instance, the contested Manchester City article lists some friendly matches which are part of the International Champions Cup. It's not that simple to claim the clubs' nationalities are completely irrelevant there, even though it's a friendly tournament. Tvx1 01:26, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

• Not an appropriate use. I don't buy this: I believe that the flags in articles are used to indicate the football association that the team belongs to rather than the country it is representing. In the case of Manchester City for example that is the English FA.. That might be the reasoning someone had, of course, but the flag guideline's being violated even if this were the kind of competition where flags were permissible, since it's just flags alone, and they fail in the intended purpose since they don't link to the club articles, but to the nation-state, and their alt text is the country name not the club, and there's no reason not to replace them with the club name or (if that seems too wide) an abbreviation of it, and ...

  Re: One question would be... what does the press and official Association football websites do as far as flags? Another question could be "is my cat black?" and have as much relevance. We have inclusion standards for flag icons (in addition to standards for how to use them when included). The style guidelines of a newspaper or an association don't change ours.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  06:19, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

  Well that's nice and friendly... and not true in many instances. We can use the "national flag icon of an athlete who competes in competitions where national flags are commonly used as representations of sporting nationality in the particular sport." The way we determine that is by sourcing, and that includes the press and official Association football websites. In this case the sources don't use them, so it's an easy call. But to say "is my cat black" is silly and unhelpful. Fyunck(click) (talk) 07:02, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, I wasn't being incivil, was being silly on purpose. But I can see how it wouldn't come across that way (gotta remember that this medium has no facial expression, voice tone ...). Humor backfire. Anyway, the underlying point isn't silly. MOS guidelines don't shift to match those of external publishers, organizations, etc. It's an icons mirror of the same debate about "can we delete diacritics from the names of these tennis players because this particular tennis organization doesn't use them." (Answer: No.) The part you quote (which is grounded in WP:RS usage, not "does the club [or whatever] prefer it?") doesn't relate to sub-national or national season articles, nor international informal competitions like friendlies; it's an apples and oranges comparison. The quoted rule is in place because it's an expected real-world practice in general use by everyone in that context, and is unambiguous, etc., etc. The proposed usage in this case has ambiguity problems, since it doesn't represent official sporting nationality in the event; it's just using a flag to represent what national club the team is usually playing in, and this is not what flags are usually used for in sports article, on or off WP. See the OP's earlier poster's points 2, 3, and 4 (1 can be ignored; wikiprojects don't get to make up their own rules against site-wide guidelines, per WP:CONLEVEL). WP doesn't care what one particular club or league or whatever prefers to do in other kinds of competitions nationally and lower, or even internationally if it's not what the RS do consistently. And even if those criteria were met, it would only be done if it's generally helpful to the reader.

It's a huge can of worms, inside Pandora's box, to try to come up with some new "rule", like "use flag icons if the league or the competition organizers do", because then we'll have flag icons used in some totally random percentage of non-international competition articles, and all the flag fans will start a never-ending stream of demands for flag icons on this article, and that one, and then that one, and then all of them, just to have them. There's always been an element of competitiveness in this: "That wikiproject [or whatever] has these nifty tables, so ours have to be just as nifty-looking." Meanwhile, the profusion of new flag icons on sports articles all over the place would lead to them being added to non-sport articles, and we'll be right back to the "decorate every inch of space you can with tiny pictures" mess that inspired the creation of the guideline in the first place. The quoted exception took a lot of consensus-building to allow at all, and many editors would like to see it deleted. Even that exception alone generates a constant river of dispute, because people see flags on a sportsperson's bio, or in a table of FIFA World Championship results, and they say "ooh, we can use cute flags!" and go add them to composers and to tables of economic data and get reverted, and then get angry that their decorator sensibilities are being "censored" [sigh].  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  07:35, 24 July 2015 (UTC) Corrected.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  00:40, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

I really think you're being over concerned. Those people taking care of those articles through dedicated WikiProjects are sensible people just like you. For instance in the article used as an example here, there is a list of domestic matches as well which quite rightly does not include flags and no one would ever consider it sensible to use them there. By the way, the person who posted those point 1.–4. is not the OP. Tvx1 09:31, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Didn't say they were not "sensible" (the only appearance of that word in this thread until now is your use of it here). The fact is – see all the archives of this talk page – that some participants in the sport wikiprojects want very, very much more than the rest of Wikipedia to use a lot of flag icons. That doesn't make them "insensible", just arguing for something that consensus doesn't think is encyclopedically useful, and often misleading. I'm not demonizing sport editors. I am a sport editor (co-founder of WP:CUESPORTS). The interest in adding more flag icons isn't even some "local consensus" among sport editors, just a personal preference of some editors.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  00:40, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Just like the liquidation of flags is a personal preference of other editors. That sports editors seem be more keen to use flags is perfectly logical to me. After all, sports is one of the fields which makes the most considerable use of flags in real life. Flags and nationalities are a vital aspect of coverage of sports on TV, in the newspapers, on websites, etc... Of course nationalities are more important in some sports and/or particular leagues of these sports than in others. At the end of the day, all these editors want to do is to make the wikipedia coverage of certain sports events balanced with the real word coverage of these sports. Yet they have to constantly put up with flag haters who wish to eradicate flags from Wikipedia. Tvx1 11:34, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Post-RfC discussion

@Tvx1: Re: "Flags and nationalities are a vital aspect of coverage of sports on TV, in the newspapers, on websites, etc. ... all these editors want to do is to make the wikipedia coverage of certain sports events balanced with the real word coverage of these sports. Yet they have to constantly put up with flag haters who wish to eradicate flags from Wikipedia." A) WP:NOT#NEWS (long version: WP's encyclop[a]edic coverage does not have to, and should not, look like sports journalism. The needs of our writing and the expectations of our readers from that writing are different than they are for sport[s] news coverage). 2) Mischaracterizing editors who understand this, and do not want to see a firehose of flag icons on our pages, as "flag haters" contradicts your own admonition: "I really think you're being over concerned. Those people ... are sensible people just like you."  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  05:51, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

The closer seems to suggest some additional RfC. I'm at a loss for what that might be. I don't see an extant issue to resolve that was raised in the above discussion but which remains unresolved. If anything, it's the non-sport uses of flag icons and the like which are raising more issues these days (see, e.g., the pointer to the dispute at the Time magazine "Person of the Year" article, below; this is atleast the third RfC I've seen in the last month about how to represent Elizabeth II in various lists and tables, always boiling down the fact that she's technically the queen of a lot of places, not just the UK itself, and some editors thus want to list all of them in great detail, while others think this is overkill).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  05:51, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

Flags

"For the purposes of this section of the guideline, "icons" refers to flags and similar images unless otherwise stated.

Shortcuts: WP:MOSFLAG MOS:FLAG Note: Terms such as "country" and "nation" as used below should be understood to also apply to other uses of flags, such as national subdivisions, international organisations, etc. Furthermore, the bulk of these recommendations are also applicable to official seals, coats of arms, and other representations which serve similar purposes to flag images."

What do you mean of this ?

Something like this ???

Year	1st	Club	Points	2nd	Club	Points	3rd	Club	Points
1956	Stanley Matthews (ENG)	Blackpool	47	Alfredo Di Stéfano (ESP)	Real Madrid	44	Raymond Kopa (FRA)	Real Madrid	33
1991	Jean-Pierre Papin (FRA)	Marseille	141	Dejan Savićević (YUG) Darko Pančev (YUG) Lothar Matthäus (GER)	Red Star Belgrade Red Star Belgrade Internazionale	42	—	—	—

It just look silly, to long and wide, and repeating, once you have the flag, and once the name of it between (). Why to repeeeat ??

Well, yes, that does look silly and redundant, but it doesn't have to do with the passage you quoted, which is about city flags and local coats of arms and such. A more sensible table would look something like the following (perhaps with some min. column width enforcement; this looked perfect in Chrome on my Mac, but less so in the same browser on Windows 7; the point, however, is the data structure):

Year	1st	Club	Country	Points	2nd	Club	Country	Points	3rd	Club	Country	Points
1956	Stanley Matthews	Blackpool	ENG	47	Alfredo Di Stéfano	Real Madrid	ESP	44	Raymond Kopa	Real Madrid	ESP	33
1991	Jean-Pierre Papin	Marseille	FRA	141	Dejan Savićević Darko Pančev Lothar Matthäus	Red Star Belgrade Red Star Belgrade Internazionale	YUG YUG ITA	42	—	—	—	—

The birthplace or citizenship of individual athletes is not useful in such tables and just serves to make them confusing; only the "sporting nationality" (what country the athletes are playing for) is what should be included (and definitely the only bits that should use flag icons; you might be able to do {{sortname|Raymond|Kopa}} {{small|({{abbr|FRA|French national}})}} and {{sortname|Lothar|Matthäus}} {{small|({{abbr|GER|German national}})}}, with results looking like "Raymond Kopa (FRA)" and "Lothar Matthäus (GER)", respectively, if there were some compelling reason to include citizenship. PS: HTML table accessibility specialists might have ideas for improving this table; whether it's better to give Savićević, etc., in their own cells and use a rowspan on the 42-point tie (draw) and other one-item columns, or avoid spans with the consequence that some of the data is "stacked" (i.e. will be read out as "Dejan Savićević, Darko Pančev, Lothar Matthäus" then "Red Star Belgrade, Red Star Belgrade, Internazionale", etc.), is a matter of some debate.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  06:22, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

Use of flag icons on genocide-related articles

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Should flag icons be used at lists of genocides and other genocide-related articles, e.g. List of genocides by death toll? (Examples of appearance with and without; code diff.) I ask because that article has seen multiple editors remove the icons there, but resistance to the removal because some other, similar articles use them, so a centralized discussion makes sense. Is this use of the flags, which seems questionable under this guideline, a case of WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS / WP:OTHERCONTENT, or an acceptable convention that MOS:ICONS needs to document?

Notices of this discussion have been given to WT:MOS, WT:MOSIMAGES, as well as WT:MILHIST, WT:HISTORY, WT:DISCR, WT:DISASTERMGT, WT:DEATH (based on project banners at such articles indicating scope inclusion); pinging previously involved editors: @Monochrome Monitor, @Tony1.

 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  21:30, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose Use of Flags in this context. Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Icons#Consistency is not paramount seems the most pertinent section. The concept is sufficiently creepy for me to comment. Flags here are completely unneeded and their usage may even encourage some fringe nutters to see it as some form of nationalistic endorsement. I would think there is enough controversy with regard to some aspects of that list (e.g Armenian Genocide) without adding flags! Adding petrol to a blaze. All flag usage with regards to genocide should be prohibited and MOS re-written accordingly. Irondome (talk) 21:52, 5 April 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose use of flags, even if only on a case-by-case consensus basis for the genocide related articles specifically (as a starting point). The use of flags as signifiers to represent 'ethnic groups' or the 'perpetrators' is simplistic and unedifying for the reader. Looking at the two versions, I don't see that any reader who knows little about the subject is suddenly going to feel that everything has fallen into place by the introduction of cruft. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 22:07, 5 April 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose Iryna above has wording that I was looking for - genocides are not representative of a nation but of the controlling regime of that nation at the time of the genocides, and it would be inappropriate to use implicit visual imagery to try to connect it to the nation in this manner. --MASEM (t) 22:15, 5 April 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose, but only because location, in this sense, is really poorly used. Nazi controlled Europe is not the location; Europe is the location. If the issue was a geopolitical one (like perpetrator) and not a geographic one (like location) I would totally support. In the example give, need to rename location as geopolitical, or rename the categories as geographic. Timothyjosephwood (talk) 22:23, 5 April 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose Per Iryna Harpy, well said. Mlpearc (open channel) 22:33, 5 April 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose per Iryna Harpy. Ealdgyth - Talk 23:15, 5 April 2016 (UTC)
• Support Personally I don't see a problem with it as long as it's consistently applied and not anachronistic. Like, it's good that instead of the flag of the republic of germany we use the flag of nazi germany. However we shouldn't use the flag of communist china for the dzungar genocide, that's silly. --Monochrome_Monitor 04:15, 6 April 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose per Iryna Harpy; I also agree "there is enough controversy... without adding flags!" BushelCandle (talk) 05:02, 6 April 2016
• Oppose—I was particularly concerned that symbolising one nation-state has the potential to be inflammatory, to offend many readers. Safer just to say no to these decorative items here. Tony (talk) 05:08, 6 April 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose, as nominator per almost all of the above reasoning, and in particular because the WP:MILHIST rationale in the guideline does not apply here. Genocides are not battles between armies, but generally the use of national "police" forces against domestic subjects (whether proper citizens, or residents of occupied territory). We're lenient with national flags and sometimes military ensigns of armies and navies because, it is felt, by just barely enough editors, that this somehow aids recognition of which forces were involved when we have tables of battles and the like. This rationale simply does not pertain here. The Jews, Roma, and others slaughtered by the Nazis, for example, had no flag and were not a combatant military force. Giving the Nazis free advertising with a cutesy little picture drawing special attention to them but not their victims is undue non-neutrality and effective pandering, even if not intended that way. It's not WP's job to honor genocidal regimes by festooning every mention of them with decorative icons. There is no encyclopedic purpose in doing so.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  06:09, 6 April 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose – Such icons are akin to waiving a bloody flag to the readers and are hardly encyclopedic. – S. Rich (talk) 07:50, 6 April 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose per many of the posts above. We don't want to imply that genocides are endorsed by entire nations. Kaldari (talk) 08:00, 6 April 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose I agree with SMcCandlish's comment, and also regard the use of flags for essentially decorative purposes such as this as not being a good idea. Nick-D (talk) 11:44, 6 April 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose And I would go even further to say that we should ban ALL flag icons on all articles and in every context. They say nothing and are unnecessary to convey the information that is required. But that won't happen because some people think that they are pretty and want to keep them.--JOJ ^Hutton 11:51, 6 April 2016 (UTC)
• Snowpose Per questions of clarity & confusion as raised by Iryna Harpy. In the examples provided, the use of the Republic of China flag in the Nanking Massacre entry highlights these issues - this flag is now used by Taiwan - which has only tangential links at best to the location, victims or perpetrators of this event. The consensus here appears enough to WP:SNOW. - Ryk72 ^'c.s.n.s.' 05:40, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Added to WP:Manual_of_Style/Icons#Inappropriate_use_2:

Do not use flags in genocide-related lists and articles
Flags are typically poor or simplistic representations of the sides in such conflicts, and do little to aid in understanding. Any value they might have is outweighed by the excessively inflammatory nature of flags in such contexts.

Improvements are invited. Alsee (talk) 17:23, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Uses of Flags in Military Infobox for Commanders and Leaders

I've seen people remove icons/flags from the "Commanders and Leaders" section of Infobox military as per Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Icons because they are supposedly excessive or serve only a cosmetic purpose. There certainly are some cases where flags for the commanders would be redundant, like if the conflict were between only two belligerents and it could be drawn that the leaders from each side are serving their one nation listed before them (like in this article: Battle of Drøbak Sound). But there are situations when you have large coalitions or alliances fighting and the commanders can come from different states and/or organizations. In these cases, couldn't a flag or icon serve an encyclopedic purpose by informing the reader which body the commander/leader is serving? In this article, for example (East African Campaign (World War II)) there are seven listed commanders under the commander1 parameter and six different listed separate combatants under the combatant1 parameter (with ten supporting colonies). Wouldn't it be helpful to know which country they served by looking at them, or is that too much of a distraction? Other articles like World War II, World War I and the War of the Sixth Coalition use icons for commanders. I'd like some consensus once and for all on the issue, as the usage is getting confusing now. So, is the use of icons for commanders appropriate or not? Indy beetle (talk) 04:06, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

See also WP:MILMOS. Nikkimaria (talk) 11:38, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

Could this possibly be a good use of icons?

I have a strong feeling that {{Geographic location}} needs to be WP:TFDed with prejudice, but I think it's probably best to get a MOS:ICONS rede on it before I do that. My personal take on it is that even its empty display is misusing icons, both for decoration on the sides, and to generate arrow-things that most users will mistake for active, usable widgets of some kind. It's a Web usability nightmare that looks like it was designed in 1997 for the Netscape browser. Wait until you see what it does when people actually use it [9] in a real article:

I was almost shocked that it didn't have a fake flag icon of waves and fish in it to represent the Irish Sea. Someone reverted this particular instance, with the further observation: "removed confusing and erroneous waste of space: this may be useful for locating American prairie hamlets that are aligned to a north-south, east-west grid but is generally not at all useful in other parts of the world". I don't have the heart to go look where and how else this monstrosity is being thrust in people's faces. Shockingly, this has been around since 2008, though I have never encountered it before during that entire time span. I guess it's a horror reserved for pages with which an editor really has a bone to pick. >;-)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  06:00, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

It seems that one user has been adding this to a number of articles. The flags seem to be redundant but I think that's the least important issue with this.Tvx1 20:19, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

It's heart-warming to see that, after several weeks, nobody actually supports the wider use of this old-fashioned template beyond the restricted field of hamlets that online maps do not know about... [I've also taken the opportunity to correct my typo (paririe->prairie) in (my) quoted edit summary above.]

Mind you, I have to award top marks for diplomacy to the original editor for resisting the temptation to add one example of the Ulster banner or the Union flag to wave over the two incidences of Northern Ireland to the north-west and to the west. BushelCandle (talk) 05:26, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

I actually like {{Geographic location}}. This template is used extensively, including for all municipalities in Ontario, Quebec, entire Philippines, all of the Benelux, in addition to many more that I'm not aware of. It's quite useful in particular for jurisdictions like municipalities and provinces, because it gives links to adjoining locations. I agree that for islands, like the example above, it is not as useful (it doesn't add anything that can't be written in prose). Another problem is that many editors want to add too much info to the template, cluttering it or trying to make it like a map. If sticking to the suggested guidelines on the template documentation page, it serves a useful purpose and it is not such a horror. -- P 1 9 9  ✉ 13:08, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

The information being useful is no excuse for this space-sucking eyesore, though. That same data could be compressed into something about 1/10 the space, and it has no need whatsoever of flag icons. If this is best defense that can be mustered in months, I think this template should be TfDed.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  19:57, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

Flags in infoboxes

I would like to know if we can add or not the Flag Icons in Infobox settlement. The first para at Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Icons#Avoid_flag_icons_in_infoboxes says it should not and again in the later para it says Human Geographic articles can have. Confused. P nolease clarify if these Indian villages can have such flags, like for example a village A. Konduru?--Vin09 (talk) 12:34, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

It the village has its own flag you can put it in. Villages are human created geographic locations after all. Tvx1 13:54, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

I need info on adding national flag in infobox.--Vin09 (talk) 06:50, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

I don't think you read the answer correctly. Villages are not nations. If the village has its own village flag, it could be in the infobox, but national (or regional/county/state/departement/canton/prefecture/etc.) flag icon should not be in the infobox of a village, or a city.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  20:00, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

Use of mirror-image placement to reverse position of flags and country names in side-by-side comparisons of national stats

FYI

 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please comment at Template talk:FlagIOCathlete#Option to move flag. The discussion is about adding template parameters to enable displays like the following, which in the second column reverse the position of the flag and country, simply for the sake of a mirrored visual effect:

Jane Smith		United States	vs.	France		Jeanne Deaux
Xian Chen		China	vs.	Honduras		Juana Perez

There may (or may not) be information architecture, usability, and accessibility concerns with this.

 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  20:20, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

RfC on expanded use of quote templates with "giant quotation marks" icons in them

FYI

 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

The RfC at Template talk:Pull quote#Request for comments on use and documentation is relevant to the central concerns of MOS:ICONS.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  07:08, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

Use of icons instead of text in table headers

Some editors are using icons instead of text for table headers in gymnastics articles. Compare:

• Gymnastics at the 2016 Summer Olympics – Women's artistic individual all-around#Qualification
• Gymnastics at the 2000 Summer Olympics – Women's artistic individual all-around#Final

Personally, I find this confusing and unnecessary. It also makes the content inaccessible for people using screen readers as the alt tags for those images are the names of the files (and they aren't even in English). Does this seem like a violation of the WP:ICON guidelines? Kaldari (talk) 06:57, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

@Kaldari: Yes, it's clearly against this guideline, and it also raises MOS:ACCESS, MOS:TABLE, and WP:ENC concerns. Kill it with fire.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  07:29, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

Flags of non-state actors in military conflict infoboxes

The title says it all, do we or do we not use flags for non-state actors in the infoboxes of military conflicts? I have long seen inconsistency between articles on this subject. Take for example Hezbollah's role in the Syrian Civil War, they are listed with flag in the (rather crowded) infobox on the main article, but I often see their flag being removed from smaller articles such as the most recent case I witnessed here: [10]. I'd like to hear from the people in this project what their thoughts on this are. Perhaps this issue has been raised before, I tried to look through the archives real quick but didn't find it then. Your comments would be appreciated!

Jurryaany (talk) 07:49, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

Flags in international school infoboxes

When I wrote the international school infoboxes (such as Template:International schools in the United Arab Emirates, Template:International schools in Germany, or Template:International schools in Thailand) I used flags to indicate the country of origin/country of allegiance/country of educational system of the international schools.

Some editors think they are unnecessary, so they were removed from Template:International schools in Pakistan and Template:International schools in the United Kingdom. I think the flags are a good idea since it can help readers quickly locate the designated (country of origin) schools of a certain host country's template (such as the French/German/Italian/Japanese/Korean/American/British/etc school(s) in a given country). However in some cases country of allegiance/affiliation may be disputed (in some cases schools switched to the International Baccalaureate system and/or renamed themselves from "American" to "International")

In some city templates I added school flags on purpose (such as Template:Kigali and Template:Bujumbura) because the "International schools in ---" template redirects to the city template and the city template itself has the country's flag (since all of the international schools are in that city, the city template itself becomes the "international school template")

"Template:International schools in Rwanda" redirects to Template:Kigali, and "Template:International schools in Burundi" redirects to Template:Bujumbura)

WhisperToMe (talk) 10:00, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

• Per WP:MOSFLAG these should not be included as the schools do not represent the country in the terms of the guideline. However, even if this were the case, we should treat navboxes the same as infoboxes with regards to this - per WP:INFOBOXFLAG, they should not be used because they are unnecessarily distracting and give undue prominence to one field among many. This is evident in your examples above. Flags should be removed from all navboxes. Also, they look awful! --Rob Sinden (talk) 10:34, 22 September 2016 (UTC)
  • Indeed. Flagicons are slower, not faster, for readers to identify, unless they're familiar with a flag. One of the problems with flags-as-symbols is that (1) most of them are not familiar to most people, and (2) many of them are very similar to each other (ever tried squinting to see the difference betweent the New Zealand and Australian flags?). There are further issues. Some people will object to the emphasis on nationality/nation states embodies by flags. Most readers will not be aware that you can hover your mouse over the icon ... but even if they are, it will take them longer than simply reading a country-name. And although I concede that they can on occasion look pretty, they can also look gaudy, and in some places are hard to arrange well. I encourage editors to minimise their use. Tony (talk) 10:54, 22 September 2016 (UTC)
    • On one hand in most templates one would only see flags of well-known countries (United States, United Kingdom, UK, France, Germany, Russia, and Japan are the most common international school affiliations) but on on the other hand lesser known ones do appear (particularly in the Middle East, South Asia, East Asia, and Southeast Asia). As for Australia and New Zealand Indonesia does have schools from both countries (see Template:International schools in Indonesia) but I don't know any other country with a New Zealand school.
    • I do think concerns about clutter need to be addressed. I do believe, in regards to prominence, that country affiliation and/or educational system style is an important attribute in international schools. Many are established to provide a particular education style (whether French, Japanese, German, North American, British, etc.) in a region.
    • WhisperToMe (talk) 13:53, 22 September 2016 (UTC)
• Per Robsinden, the main templates seem way too cluttered with the flags. It was a nice good faith addition though, and took some work to set up, so thanks for that good energy and thought-process. Randy Kryn 13:47, 22 September 2016 (UTC)
  • You're welcome :) - I have often used the flags to "group" schools by affiliation (for instance American schools are together under the same flag, British schools are together, etc.) and this is seen in Template:International schools in Spain and Template:International schools in Japan - Do you support replacing them with text indicators such as "Brazil:" ? WhisperToMe (talk) 13:53, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

Flagicons in television station articles to show the origin of television shows aired

I have been dealing with three Bosnian television station articles, removing flagicons that show the origin of the television shows aired, since they do not represent the countries and if Template:Infobox television says not to use flagicons in their own articles, they should not be used in other articles listing the television shows. Of all the television station articles I have edited, these are the only ones I have seen that used flagicons in this manner. I started talk page discussion on the three articles, but the Bosnian IP address, User:109.237.35.20, keeps reverting without edit summaries or talk page discussion. I could probably take them to the edit war noticeboard, but I figured a better case could be made if a consensus was found here. Here are examples of what the templates looked like before I changed them to simple lists, [11], [12] and [13]. Aspects (talk) 05:34, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

Actually, I remove such flags as non-compliant with MOSFLAG. Please don't add them to infoboxes for TV shows (or indeed TV personalities). Tony (talk) 12:28, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

Flag links in infoboxes (racing driver)

I'd like to raise a point about how flags are linked to nations in infoboxes, namely in regard to racing drivers. Essentially it's a case of tidying up the look of the infobox but also creates a more obvious link to the drivers' nations. The first example is what is currently accepted, the second is what I propose we change it to:

Guanyu Zhou
Nationality	Chinese
Born	(1999-05-30) 30 May 1999 Shanghai, China

Guanyu Zhou
Nationality	Chinese
Born	(1999-05-30) 30 May 1999 Shanghai, China

Any objections? Holdenman05 (talk) 02:30, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

I can't see anything wrong with that. You used an excellent example here. As this one were linking helps avoiding confusion given there's another China. Similarly, there's Korea and Korea and Congo and Congo. Tvx1 17:23, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

Note the way the link is utilised, {{flag|CHN|name=Chinese}}. The entry in the name section can be changed to minimise confusion between nations such as North and South Korea, or Congo and DR Congo or whatever without changing the flag. Holdenman05 (talk) 22:06, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

Per the linking guideline WP:OVERLINK, nationalities should not be linked, which is why they're not linked already. Bretonbanquet (talk) 22:55, 11 November 2016 (UTC) According to your talk page, this was mentioned to you before. Suggest you hold fire on this as I suspect this constitutes overlinking per the guideline, which is pretty clear. Bretonbanquet (talk) 22:59, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

I also object to such change. As Bretonbanquet said – MOS:OVERLINK specifically tells not to link nationalities. Therefore, I suggest that you stop changing every article to your proposed version until there's a consensus. – Sabbatino (talk) 23:14, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

However, the current style also breaks MOS:OVERLINK (it also recommends that the names of countries should not be linked either) and may even link to the wrong country, so could be misleading. Given that the newly suggested method provides a way to link to the correct nationality I support it and think the changeover should be encouraged. -- de Facto (talk). 10:56, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

I always de-link current countries and I've done so in many articles. And in this example's first version (the long-standing standard for racing drivers) it doesn't break MOS:OVERLINK as neither country or nationality are linked. – Sabbatino (talk) 14:30, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

@Sabbatino: but the country is linked in the first example above, counter-intuitively to the flag, rather than the more usual way to the text as in the second example. -- de Facto (talk). 15:36, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

Good point. I was referring to the text. – Sabbatino (talk) 15:37, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

If a link is unavoidable (to the flag or the text) - and I'm not sure whether the flag link can be suppressed - then it's probably better to have the one to the text that can be controlled, at least. -- de Facto (talk). 15:47, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

There are Template:Flagu and Template:Flagdeco templates, which don't link to country. – Sabbatino (talk) 05:29, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

I don't see the problem with the flag's link. All those flags link to the entity they stand for, so how is there a scope of "linking to the wrong country"?? Also, the proposed alternative templates can only display the country name. They can't display the demonym for nationality which we use in our articles.Tvx1 12:43, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

{{flagu|DEU|name=German}} gives German. So Template:Flagu can perfectly replace the Template:Flagicon. I don't have a problem with linking to the country through the flag, but I'm opposed to the usage of Template:Flag as suggested by the author of this discussion. – Sabbatino (talk) 16:36, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

Ah, then that should be added to the template's documentation. There's currently no way to know about that function.Tvx1 17:18, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

MOSFLAG discourages nationalism where unnecessary. Why is nationalism necessary here? I can't imagine why an infobox needs a glaring red flag (sorry, no offence, but many flags are a bit distracting, and they add no further information where the country-name is spelled out). We seem to put up with these flags in tables—but infoboxes? Tony (talk) 12:27, 12 November 2016 (UTC) And I agree with the editor above: commonly known nationalities shouldn't be linked (unless there's some really special reason to do so). Tony (talk) 12:29, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

I agree, but the F1 articles all have flags for drivers and for teams because it is an 'international competition', so are exempted from the advice to avoid flags. -- de Facto (talk). 15:42, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

That is not limited to F1 articles only as there are many other racing series' articles that have a flag next to nationality. – Sabbatino (talk) 15:46, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

Racing driver represent their countries. They all need a license from a national governing body to compete. Those who drive in a FIA world championship drive under a nationality they legally possess. When they finish on the podium their national flag is heisted and when they win their national anthem is played. This makes the contested usage in compliance with MOS:INFOBOXFLAG. Moreover, that flags are distracting is just an opinion and not a fact. I for one do not consider one flag in an infobox of an article which otherwise entirely consists of prose and tables not distracting at all. Tvx1 17:34, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

Indeed. This issue has been chewed over many times before, and I have yet to see an argument to remove them that actually benefits the article. Pyrope 19:58, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

Flags being used to show nationality of reality TV contestants.

Input would be appreciated at Talk:Top Model#Flags. --Rob Sinden (talk) 12:25, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

Infoboxflag at Peninsular War

Are these flags appropriate? Thanks. 15:12, 27 February 2017 (UTC)Doug Weller talk

Define "appropriate" please. Its a bit difficult to guess what your query is. - X201 (talk) 15:16, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, I thought it was obvious. I meant do they comply with the guideline. Which is WP:INFOBOXFLAG. Doug Weller talk 09:09, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

I'd gone through the talk archives of the article, where there are discussions about whether the correct flags are being shown, so I was wondering if you were asking that question. - X201 (talk) 09:12, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

WP:INFOBOXFLAG states "Examples of acceptable exceptions include infobox templates for military conflicts..." so they're fine according to that. WP:MILMOS#FLAGS says "In general, the use of flag icons is not recommended; neither, however, is it prohibited." and then goes on to suggest assessing the context carefully before using them. So in short they're not breaking any guidelines. The best place to pursue this further and get a thorough answer is the nice people at WikiProject Military history - X201 (talk) 09:25, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

@X201: Thanks for the clarification. I obviously didn't read far enough and didn't even think of MilHist. My bad. 13:02, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Flag icons for religious dioceses and religious buildings

To whom it may concern:

I have a question regarding the usage of flag icons:

Would inserting flag icons into the wiki articles of dioceses (e.g. Catholic, Anglican, etc.) be acceptable? Dioceses are "human geographical articles" https://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Icons#Avoid_flag_icons_in_infoboxes and not "physical geographical articles" https://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Icons#Avoid_flag_icons_in_infoboxes, so wouldn't usage of flag icons be appropriate in these articles?

Thank you

--Ka24872482Akeakamai (talk) 18:57, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

The above user is busy adding flag icons to numerous articles about religious dioceses and religious buildings: [14], [15], [16], [17] and many more. I question whether it is appropriate. It seems nationalistic and amounts to a distraction. Edison (talk) 20:34, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

Hello Edison

I didn't mean to post in the wrong place. Here is a copy of the text:

"Very well. I shall desist. I did not know I would have needed a consensus in order to continue, but rather just rightful proof of the course of action (See https://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Talk:Human_geography#Question_regarding_human_geography), which I thought I had already provided. I had put the question to https://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Icons#Flag_icons_for_religious_dioceses_and_religious_buildings, though I had thought by my proof that I would not need a consensus/answer so long as the proof was correct. I hadn't seen their answer as permission, but as a scholarly and practical opinion. I did not mean to cause harm, but rather only consistency with the rules on adding flag icons in infoboxes. (I had originally started out editing some of the dioceses' wiki articles because many had scant info and were sometimes not presented well/in an organized manner.)

There is no penchant for nationalism https://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Icons#Flag_icons_for_religious_dioceses_and_religious_buildings, but rather consistency on conformity to the rules on human geography as set in https://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Icons#Avoid_flag_icons_in_infoboxes and expounded on in https://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Talk:Human_geography#Question_regarding_human_geography.

With regards to a diocese's structure and identification, there is a realistic functional distinction between one diocese to another and on nation's diocese's to another. In practice, diocesan structure and practice in functional matters is ultimately seen as very local and independent of adjacent dioceses and, in the case of national conferences, countries. Also, many dioceses' borders are structured around geopolitical lines of subdivisions within states (e.g. the Roman Catholic Diocese of Charleston https://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Roman_Catholic_Diocese_of_Charleston encompasses all of South Carolina; the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Freiburg https://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Roman_Catholic_Archdiocese_of_Freiburg and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Rottenburg-Stuttgart https://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Roman_Catholic_Diocese_of_Rottenburg-Stuttgart encompasses all of Baden-Württemburg; the Apostolic Vicariate of Saint Pierre and Miquelon https://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Apostolic_Vicariate_of_Iles_Saint_Pierre_and_Miquelon encompasses all of Saint Pierre and Miquelon; the Apostolic Vicariate of Northern Arabia https://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Apostolic_Vicariate_of_Northern_Arabia encompasses all of Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar; and the Apostolic Vicariate of Southern Arabia https://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Apostolic_Vicariate_of_Southern_Arabia encompasses all of Oman, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Yemen), which is why there can be similarities between state borders and diocesan borders. Bishops of a nation often meet together in order to be consistent with practice on matters that pertain to a national level, so the presence of a flag is not seen as individualistic nationalism, but rather a form of general individual identification of a nation's bishops' collectivity on jurisdiction on matters that pertain to that nation.

While there is no doubt that in belief and faith all members of a body of leaders are united, running individual affairs that come up in one's own dioceses is seen as the responsibility and right of that particular diocese or bishops' conference (depending on the nature of the subject), which is often based on state and national lines.

--Ka24872482Akeakamai (talk) 22:26, 7 March 2017 (UTC)"

--Ka24872482Akeakamai (talk) 00:29, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Class icons in articles

I had never see article class icons used in a table before like those in List of minor planet discoverers. Is this common? I thought article-class information was reserved for project/talk space. Frietjes (talk) 18:34, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Definitely; those should be behind-the-scenes info. It's fine if a project page wants to track those, but it needs to stay off mainspace. --MASEM (t) 19:06, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

User:Masem, that's what I thought. I have similarly reverted edits link this by User:Tisquesusa. Frietjes (talk) 19:13, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Flag icons in an article about bands

For those who are interested, there is an RfC at Talk:List of all-female bands#RfC:Flags. Sundayclose (talk) 03:10, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Flag icons for eSport players representative nationality WP:SPORTFLAG

Following Up: User_talk:Aspects#Why_do_nationality_flags_on_eSports_teams.27_pages_violate_WP:FLAGBIO.3F

Hi, editor of Team EnVyUs. Issue is what does "in a sporting sense" classify under for eSport players were there's no official national events. Basically, arguing the case to allow flag icons to be used under nationality for eSport team rosters.

From my understanding flag icons can currently be used to represent the nationality of a sportsperson, as long as it's in a sporting sense. So representative nationality, as opposed to legal nationality. My issue stems from the fact current guidelines are very traditional Sports oriented and the same criteria can't currently be applied to eSport players. As currently there's no sport governing body equivalent and in turn no "official" way to represent ones country.

However, I feel there's plenty of "unofficial" ways where players represent their national team at the highest level for their given eSport and in turn should pass the "in a sporting sense" guideline. Plus, in some cases like Call of Duty/Halo their participation in X Games already borders official representation.

Using Team EnVyUs as an example:

• Call of Duty: Players have participated in the X Games and were acknowledged under their respective country. Flag icons already used: X_Games_Austin_2014#MLG_X_Games_Invitational_COD:_Ghosts
• Counter-Strike: Players participate in World Electronic Sports Games and similar tournaments, which are strictly national team based tournaments à la world cup. Flag icons already used to represent team nationality: ELEAGUE
• Halo: Players have participated in the X Games and were acknowledged under their respective country. Flag icons should be used: Winter_X_Games_XX#Halo
• League of Legends: Players need to declare their (playing) nationality in order for import rules and regulations to be adhered to. These players are then continuously represented by said nationality whenever they play.
• Overwatch: Players participate in Overwatch World Cup 2016/2017, again players representing their national team at the highest level.
• StarCraft: Players participate in WESG, see Counter-Strike. Examples of current usage: example1/example2

So I would argue in Team EnVyUs case, 6 rosters have represented their countries in a sporting sense as far as eSports go. With League of Legends only lacking based on the fact no national team tournaments have currently occurred, however in the eventual scenario players nationalities are already determined. So as long as you view it from an eSports perspective, as it hasn't grown as far as traditional sports with officially recognised national teams, I feel the use of flag icons for eSport players representative nationality is justifiable. Wiki nV (talk) 03:13, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

Flags against Football Clubs

Can I request clarification regarding Flags being associated with a football club name when playing football matches. My understanding is that if a flag is simply used to indicate the county they are based in would violate MOS Flag. Can I have clarification if this is correct and if the scenario would be different if they are representing their country. Blethering Scot 17:53, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

Flags are not generally combined with club to denote their base location. They actually show the country they represent. For instance, in 2016–17 UEFA Champions League AS Monaco is paired with a French flag, despite being based in Monaco, because they represent the French football federation.Tvx1 11:49, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

What happened to highway signs?

We used to cover those in here. Where'd that go? We've historically had a serious problem with people using them in running sentences. Do not want to see a return to that.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  05:54, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

Falls under WP:NOICONS, I'd think? --MASEM (t) 13:50, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

Futureproofing

Is there a guideline that recommends to use era-specific flags (e.g., {{flagicon|US|1960}} or {{flagicon|UK|1960}}) in contemporary situations so as to prevent them from becoming outdated? Obviously I can see the reason for their varied use at historical and war-related articles, but how about a professional boxing record for a contemporary athlete who is only 26 years old, and who's era has seen no changes of flag? Seems like overkill to me, but then I hate those damn itty-bitty icons being there in the first place—professional boxing isn't the Olympics. Mac Dreamstate (talk) 12:44, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

The section Use historical flags in contexts where the difference matters has the ridiculously vague guidance of, “Use a historical flag and associated country name when they have at least a semi-officially applicable rationale to use them." People can do wheatever they like with historical flags. Abel (talk) 14:26, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Representative nationality

If representative nationality means "the nation that a person represents at sport," then cases like the Olympics are easy. Other times are not so simple. Take Olaf Kölzig. He was born in South Africa. During the 1998 Winter Olympics he played for Germany. With fighters, "fighting out of" (meaning wherever they live now) is always first, then "by way of" (where they were born or raised or whatever makes them the hometown favorite, here there is no solid standard). So for fighters the tradition is that their current location is primary, and a secondary location only sometimes gets a side note. This creates a Naomi Watts situation. Depending upon context and point of view she could be said to be any or all of: British, English, Welsh, or Australian. She was born a British citizen in England, lived in Wales for a long time, then moved to Australia and became an Australian citizen. There is no single flag for that, and using all four flags will not be helpful. Flags get slapped into many tables having to do with fighter statistics, however something far less vague than "representative nationality" is needed for fighters who have ties to more than one country, which is more than a few fighters and probably other athletes that I did not immediately think of. Abel (talk) 20:25, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

Yes, it's complex. But somebody can only represent one nation at once. GiantSnowman 06:58, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

That is the problem, who picks the true nation? Is it their nation of citizenship or wherever some fan says is their "hometown?" Abel (talk) 12:22, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

It's complex but simple at the same time. We denote the nationality one official represents. In case of Kölzig that's German. Yes, he was born in South Africa but only because his parents lived there at the time. His parents are German and he himself is as well. He has been for all his life and he has always competed for the German national team in his sport. He has no legal ties with South Africa whatsoever. Nothing complex about it. In the Naomi Watts case it's even more simple. She shouldn't be tied with any flag anywhere. She does not compete for any national team and does not collect any trophy is for any countries in her professional occupation. She's notable for her acting not for her nationality. I even think that here nationality doesn't even need to be mentioned in the lead. It's nothing more than personal information in a case like hers. It's interesting British nationalities were mentioned here. We have clear rules for that as well. We use the flag of the whichever nation they represent (and only that nation). This means that sportspeople who represent the UK like for instance racing drivers (e.g. Jackie Stewart, John Watson) or tennis players (e.g. Andy Murray, Virginia Wade) are combined with the Union Jack in results tables whereas sportspeople who represent one of the home nations are combined with the flag of that home nation (e.g. Theo Walcott, James McFadden or Kyle Lafferty). Of course there are exceptions like Ryan Giggs who have represent both the UK and a home nation (Wales in this case) but these are rare. In cases where the subject has two or more legal nationalities we apply the exact same rule. Whichever of the nationalities they have opted to represent. That's why for instance we list Kevin-Prince Boateng with a Ghanian flag and his brother Jerome Boateng with a German one despite both of them having dual German-Ghanian nationality.Tvx1 11:48, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

"Whichever of the nationalities they have opted to represent" assumes that all athletes have at some point publicly declared that they represent a nation and have never changed their minds or made another contradictory public declaration, which is an obviously flawed assumption. Abel (talk) 12:17, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

In case an athlete changes the nation they have represented during their career, we reflect that. We explain in the article of the athlete which nations they represented and when. In the articles on the specific competitions we use the flags of the nation they represented in that competition. For instance Bart Veldkamp explains that he represented the Netherlands and Belgium in various parts of his career. Speed skating at the 1994 Winter Olympics – Men's 10,000 metres pairs him with a Dutch flag because that's the country he represented in that competition. Speed skating at the 1998 Winter Olympics – Men's 5000 metres pairs him with a Belgian flag because that's the nation he represented in that completion. Pure and simple. Every eventuality is taken into account. Nationality is not a question of making up your mind, it's a legal concept.Tvx1 13:37, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

This is not about long explanations within articles, this is about flags in tables were there is no room for any explanation of any kind. Abel (talk) 17:35, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

Which is the whole point of symbols - they represent something that isn't explained there and then so as to save space. GiantSnowman 17:45, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

When have I ever claimed it wasn't about flags in tables. The two articles on speed skating events I linked directly how flags in tables are dealt with. And it uses one flag per athlete. The flag of the country they represented in the event in question.Tvx1 17:54, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

"Nationality is not a question of making up your mind, it's a legal concept" directly conflicts with "Where flags are used in a table, it should clearly indicate that they correspond to representative nationality, not legal nationality, if any confusion might arise." Abel (talk) 18:02, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

It appears I haven't explained myself properly. What I meant to say is that representing a nation isn't simply a case of making up your mind. All sports' governing bodies have strict conditions for representing a nation. Sometimes is tied to the laws, sometimes it isn't. Changing a nationality during one's career is also strictly governed. Generally, one can also only represent one nation at a time. For instance, every article on every olympic event we have on wikipedia combines athletes with the flag of the nation they represented in that event. There is no scope for confusion there. The reason this guideline contains the contested wording is that in some cases sportspeople can compete under a different nationality than their legal nationality/citizenship. For instance, Mark Williams (snooker player) competes for Wales and not for Great Britain. Hence in results tables we combine him with the Welsh flag on not with the British one. We thus display his representative nationality in the sport (Welsh) and not his legal nationality as shown on his passport (British).Tvx1 17:26, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

The Olympics, FIFA, and a few others have strict conditions for representing a nation, other organizations have little or no conditions whatsoever. Abel (talk) 18:09, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

No they all have these conditions. World Rugby, IBA, ICC, UCI, FIA, FIM, FIS, FINA, ITF. You name them, they all have strict conditions.Tvx1 18:51, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

Legacy Fighting Championship, Tachi Palace Fights, Resurrection Fighting Alliance, Jungle Fight, ... Abel (talk) 20:11, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

This discussion has made it abundantly clear that the phrase representative nationality means nothing. Abel (talk) 00:03, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

No it hasn't. In fact nobody has thus far agreed with your claims or objections. Your making a problem out of something that is not a problem at all.Tvx1 17:26, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

No one has been able to define representative nationality. Without a definition representative nationality means nothing. Abel (talk) 17:42, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

I have explained the definition above. In some sports players represent another nationality than the one of their passport and in that case the former is their representative nationality. In the case of someone like Gareth Bale his legal nationality is British, whereas his representative nationality in competitions like the FIFA World Cup and the UEFA European Championships is Welsh. I had already explained that very clearly.Tvx1 18:51, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

No one disagreed with any of that. However, that still fails to address the numerous problems with the still undefined concept of “representative nationality” listed above. Abel (talk) 20:06, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

@Id4abel: You appear to have a problem with WP:NOTGETTINGIT when it has been explained to you with great patience, and no other editors consider the current version as being problematic. I will offer you a good faith suggestion: please drop it. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 21:10, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

I absolutely understand the arguments. Abel (talk) 22:32, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

Then maybe we're not understanding what you're trying to communicate to us – perhaps you could give us an example of an article where the use of representative nationality is confusing to you. Mojoworker (talk) 23:08, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

... and please explain why you are continuing to edit war the content despite the fact that more and more editors don't understand what you think the issue is and are reverting you. Please stop edit warring. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 23:13, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

Representative nationality confuses no one, the phrase has no definition so each person’s different definition is just as valid as anyone else’s definition. Abel (talk) 23:45, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

How do you come to the conclusion that "the phrase has no definition"? Representative nationality isn't a term of art, it is simply the nation represented by an athlete in an international sporting event. You've been given a number of examples. As a counterexample, when Olaf Kölzig played an NHL game, neither he, his teammates, nor his opponents were representing any nation in an international sporting event (even when playing against a Canadian team), so use of a flag icon is prohibited in that circumstance. Neither do the Capitals have a US flag icon, nor the Winnipeg Jets have a Canadian flag icon, since they are not representing nations in international competition. For your examples of "Legacy Fighting Championship, Tachi Palace Fights, Resurrection Fighting Alliance, Jungle Fight, ...", it's likely the participants are simply individuals competing and are not representing any nation (nor sanctioned by any nation) in an international sporting event, so no flag icon would be appropriate in that circumstance. Mojoworker (talk) 06:26, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

Someone is born in Curitiba. They train in Montréal. They live in Las Vegas. They could be announced as fighting out of Montréal by way of Curitiba. Does the Canadian flag go first and the Brazilian flag second? Throw in the US flag for citizenship third, just for good measure. The olympics has a rule for this, but there are lots of athletic organizations that have no rule whatsoever. MOS:SPORTFLAGS could adopt an existing definition of representative nationality from the olympics, FIFA, or whoever when an athletic organization has no clear rule about representative nationality, but today that is not the case. The phrase representative nationality means whatever anyone says that it means and no person’s definition is any less valid than anyone else’s definition. Person one could claim that someone should have a Brazilian flag because of birth. Person two could claim that someone should have a Canadian flag because of team affiliation. Person three could claim that someone should have a American flag because of citizenship. All three are right. Abel (talk) 10:48, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

No, there wouldn't be any flag at all – it's just some random dude from Las Vegas fighting as an individual. If he happens to be on the national team, but it's not an international competition (an official competition between two or more nations) then he isn't representing any nation, he's still just an individual representing only himself, so no flag icon. The only time that a flag icon is appropriate is when the athlete is officially representing the country in a competition between nations (an international competition) and has official sanctioning (from something like USA Boxing or Sport Canada) to represent that one specific nation. And he likely trains with that national team, etc. Mojoworker (talk) 19:57, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

No, that would be wrong in interpreting what's appropriate for flag icons and what is an international competition. Events like Wimbledon are also an international competition and the tennis tournaments themselves show flags and remind us what nation the player represents. They do this on a regular basis. The player doesn't have to be a citizen from the country they represent, but they also just can't say they are from Tanganyika... the country must accept them. Then the player must register with the International Tennis Federation as playing under that country's banner. No registration or no country, then no playing in pro tennis. It is why we use a player's representative nationality and the appropriate flag icon on all tennis articles. We do not use the icon to show citizenship or birthplace. Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:58, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

True, there was consensus for explicitly allowing the use of flag icons in Tennis and Auto Racing, since, as you said, they do have explicitly registered representative nationality. The ("Appropriate Use" section says "Flag icons may be relevant in some subject areas, where the subject actually represents that country or nationality – such as military units or national sports teams. In lists or tables, flag icons may be relevant when such representation of different subjects is pertinent to the purpose of the list or table itself." So, Abel, does the subject actually represents that country or nationality in Legacy Fighting Championship, Tachi Palace Fights, Resurrection Fighting Alliance, Jungle Fight? If not, then no flag icon. And the Sportspersons section says "flags should only indicate the sportsperson's national squad/team or representative nationality." If there is no representative nationality, there should be no flag icon (as in the NHL example). Also, just for fun, the definition of International: adjective – existing, occurring, or carried on between two or more nations. noun – a game or contest between teams representing different countries in a sport. Mojoworker (talk) 22:40, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

I've been reading the discussion for a few days, but now I'm getting very interested. I'm hoping something may come out of this that would later change the WP:NOCONSENSUS which arose at WikiProject Boxing in 2015, regarding flagicons in professional boxing record tables. Bearing in mind, professional boxers do not truly represent nations in an official sense (often born in one country; represent another; licenced in another, etc.), unlike amateur boxers competing in international sporting events where nations are explicitly represented, Olympics, Worlds, European, Commonwealth Games, etc. Mac Dreamstate (talk) 20:59, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

We didn't talk about Boxing when icon consensus was reached for Auto Racing and Tennis awhile ago. Boxing is probably a lot different. Good luck on that front. Fyunck(click) (talk) 21:09, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

I'm not optimistic about it, but will still try as it's been almost two years and continues to be a sticking point across boxing articles. Again, where professional (not amateur) boxing differs from motorsports and tennis is that athletes in the latter two compete explicitly for a nation, and (outside of WP) a flag will be prominently displayed under their statistics. With professional boxers, there are constantly situations where one is born in a country; moves to another, gains dual citizenship, considers it their second home; hops over to yet another country and gets licenced; starts "feeling in their heart" the countries of their parents; yada yada yada. All this then encourages WP editors to take liberties when it comes to flagicons—edit wars aplenty.

This is why I still hold out hope that some wider-ranging MOS(es) could see an end to flagicons in professional boxing fight record tables, although the aforementioned WP:NOCONSENSUS has thankfully forced some exceptions. Mac Dreamstate (talk) 21:24, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

Then practically every boxing, kickboxing, mixed martial artists, and plenty of other athletics articles are inappropriately using flags as all those athletes represent only themselves and have no official connection to any country whatsoever. Abel (talk) 05:53, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

No, with boxing we use the exact same approach as with other sports. We look at whatever nationality the relevant governing bodies associate the competitors with and use the corresponding flag here. For instance here the IBO lists their current champions and their nationalities.Tvx1 09:18, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

Mixed martial arts record tables have actually done away with flagicons since 2011, after a very messy discussion for which I wasn't around, but have since read extensively. Consensus looked near-impossible at one point, but they got there in the end. Mainly it was the "But they look nice! The itty bitty icons are essential information!" crowd that dug their heels in. Mac Dreamstate (talk) 11:23, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

If only "done away with flagicons since 2011" were true. Plenty of articles ignore that directive wholesale. [18] and [19] are just two that I can instantly think of, out of an ocean of examples. Abel (talk) 07:55, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

In case of the former example, the governing body does not seem to give much importance to nationality, so there is a case for removing the flags. However in the second cass the governing body does list a nation for all the champions, so I don't see a problem with the flags there as long as they match the source.Tvx1 13:43, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

So whatever some organization decides is more marketable is that persons nationality, cute. Abel (talk) 14:03, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

You act like all sportspeople have five or more nationalities one of which needs to be cherry-picked by their sport's governing body. That's just not true. The vast majority of them have exactly one nationality during their entire life and thus nearly all the time there is just no need to even consider what's "more marketable.Tvx1 14:37, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

All people who do not hold dual citizenship have one nationality. Your version of representative nationality gives people whatever nationality you think is most appropriate for them based on your mystery criteria. Abel (talk) 14:56, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

In the sport of tennis, that is 100% false! Fyunck(click) (talk) 01:09, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

It isn't true of dual citizenship for people in any field (sports, academic, etc.). I think Abel is conflating the concept of ethnicity with nationality big time. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 01:54, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

na·tion·al·i·ty noun the status of belonging to a particular nation. Abel (talk) 04:12, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

A nation, not nations. Abel (talk) 04:14, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

Please stop bludgeoning the process. Surely it has become abundantly clear that no other editors actually understand the point you're trying to make. Going on and on about it is obviously not clarifying your perceived problem, so it's best that you drop it unless you can formulate a comprehensible argument. This has just become a time and energy sinkhole for numerous editors who'd use their editing abilities for constructive work on the project. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 22:36, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

Mojoworker is the only person to bother to attempt to define representative nationality as, "The only time that a flag icon is appropriate for an athlete is when the athlete is officially representing the country in a competition between nations that has official sanctioning like USA Boxing or Sport Canada to represent that one specific nation, unless the sport is Tennis or Auto Racing." Tvx1 claims that Mojoworker's definition lacks consensus. Nothing has changed, representative nationality means whatever anyone says that it means and no definition is any less valid than any other. Abel (talk) 15:43, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

I'm not really concerned with who's bludgeoning whom, or what, but is there a way we could now go forward on this—even just a small step? It'd be good to have some setup here for the purposes of another RfC (a rematch, if you will) at WikiProject Boxing regarding flagicon use, and hopefully zapping them this time. Mac Dreamstate (talk) 16:46, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

I would like to see a definition of representative nationality. I do not care what that definition is. The definition can be completely ridiculous. Any definition is better than no definition. Abel (talk) 17:35, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

I have given you the definition about five times and given some examples as well. You just refuse to acknowledge that for some reason. Which flags appear in the wikipedia article are not decided by person one or person two or person three. It's dictated to us by the sources. And while other users have pointed out that Mojoworker's definition was to restrictive, I wasn't one of them and I would prefer I you'd strike that claim. Also the aforementioned discussion didn't deal with some sport called "Auto Racing" but with motorsports in general, whether that's on two or four wheels. I will also contest that tennis and motorsports have some special status within this guideline. Mac Dreamstate, if you are seeking for the MOS to dictate whether or not nationality is relevant enough in a particular sport (i.e. boxing) for the articles on it to use flagicons, we can't help you. MOS can only set out conditions and is moreover merely a guideline and not a low. It is then up to the WikiProject dealing with that particular sport whether or not nationality is important in that sport, preferably through assessing reliable sources covering the sport.Tvx1 22:05, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

As I have said before, whatever arbitrary definition for representative nationality that the organization decides to use works fine when the organization has an easy to find policy. Many organizations do not publish the policy, have one that is unclear, or do not have a policy at all. Abel (talk) 23:08, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

As long as the publish a nation/nationality with their competitors there is no problem for all. What definition they use is not pur worry. The only thing that we care about is that wikipedia articles use the flags of the same nationalities as published by the governing bodies/organizations. If they don't list a nation or nationality at all that is a strong indication that we shouldn't either.Tvx1 19:34, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

While, "As long as the publish a nation/nationality with their competitors there is no problem for all. What definition they use is not pur worry. The only thing that we care about is that wikipedia articles use the flags of the same nationalities as published by the governing bodies/organizations. If they don't list a nation or nationality at all that is a strong indication that we shouldn't either." is perfectly clear, the phrase "representative nationality" alone is not. How about you replace the phrase representative nationality with that statement and call this fixed? Abel (talk) 19:50, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

I don't see why I should do that. Apart from you, no one is complaining that the current wording is insufficient.Tvx1 20:10, 14 July 2017 (UTC)