Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2015 April 30

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April 30

Template:Country data Mughal Empire

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

The result of the discussion was delete. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 21:21, 9 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Country data Mughal Empire (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)

As discussed on Flag of the Mughal Empire talk page this image is a fictitious flag of the empire dreamt up by some wiki(p/m)edia editors, and that has been transcluded onto a 100-odd pages on wikipedia. The flag is inconsistent with,

written descriptions of the flag,
(close to) contemporary pictorial depictions of banners etc carried by Mughal armies, and
as User:RegentsPark pointed out, it is highly doubtful that there is a singular 'flag of the Mughal Empire' given the long time span of the empire and its organization.

Abecedare (talk) 18:51, 30 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Delete No source for this flag and no reliable source for any flag for the Mughal Empire. --regentspark (comment) 02:15, 2 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, as per the nom, RegentsPark and Talk:Flag of the Mughal Empire. - Sitush (talk) 02:45, 2 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Comment What do you propose to do with the ~100 usages of this template if it is deleted? If just the flag is dubious, we could replace it with a blank placeholder, like was done in several other data templates. That way {{flag|Mughal Empire}} just shows the link with an invisible image in front of it. SiBr₄ (talk) 11:54, 2 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@SiBr4: Ideally I'd like to see {{flag|Mughal Empire}} removed rather than just displaying an invisible image (since the latter may prompt editors not aware of this discussion to replace the "placeholder" image with one of the many images on Commons marked as purported Mughal flags). Do you know if it is possible to assign a bot to do such one-off mechanical edits? Abecedare (talk) 17:09, 6 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I could use WP:AWB for that. I suppose instances of {{flag|Mughal Empire}} should be replaced with a normal wikilink to the article, as opposed to removing them entirely (note that {{flag}} includes a wikilink, while {{flagicon}} does not)? SiBr₄ (talk) 17:30, 6 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
This is a good question. I looked at this article Flag of the Mughal Empire, and this flag was linked [1]. We could possibly replace it with the following: [2] Xtremedood (talk) 20:24, 7 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nominator's rationale. This "flag" apparently falls somewhere between "imaginary," "anachronistic" and "nonexistent." In any event it's a misrepresentation of historical reality. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 04:41, 4 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Useless template, not only anachronistic. All useful information about the Empire is already included in Template:Mughal Empire. Dimadick (talk) 16:47, 6 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Replace or Weak Keep A major empire, like the Mughals should have a flag. According to the article Flag of the Mughal Empire, this flag was linked [3] (although I do not see how this could be used by Imam Hussain (Alaysalam)). We could possibly replace it with the following: [4]. This flag also appears on Amazon [5]. The lion and the sun flag also appear on this article: Alam. According to these sources this flag or similar flags appear on this art [6]. Xtremedood (talk) 20:44, 7 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

See this discussion, linked in the nomination, on why the flag is not only not supported by the cited sources, but also incorrect. For example, as has been discussed before, even the last image you linked to shows a different flag with a couchant lion than the one presented. And the other on-/off-wiki links (esp. the Amazon link) show why we should stop making up such misinformation and then spreading it around till it comes back to us as WP:CIRCULAR sources. Abecedare (talk) 21:00, 7 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I did some digging and I found this article[7] on JSTOR which makes brief mention of the Alam on page 688. According to the author the Alam was the standard of the Mughals when Akbar was emperor of the empire. Here seems to be a 17th century picture that depicts the flag [8], as mentioned previously with the figure of the lion on it. This [9] seems like the closest picture to the one in the painting (minus the red border), however it is not exact. Xtremedood (talk) 05:07, 8 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Xtremedood, the JSTOR reference merely states that a standard (or Alam) is one of numerous 'ensigns' of royalty. That doesn't specify which one or even if the same one was actually used and is not a source for this- or any other - flag. Your third source is likely drawn from Wikipedia (the circularity mentioned by Abecedare). For upenn, see Abecedare's comment above. You're right that the Mughal Empire was an important one but we shouldn't include incorrect (or unverifiable) information for the sake of completeness. --regentspark (comment) 10:22, 8 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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