Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Flag Template/Archive 4

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Centralized documentation for flags

Please see my proposal to use centralized documentation for all uses of the flag template. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:38, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Replied there, but for archive sake for this WikiProject page, this is already implemented, by using {{flag template documentation}} for templates in Category:Flag templates. Still work-in-progress—as of December 9, all templates through "L" in the alphabet have been updated. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 20:41, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Case

I notice that Smackbot is changing instances of {{flagicon}} to {{Flagicon}} (i.e. replacing the lower case 'f' with a capital 'F'), e.g. [1]. Is that the preferred usage? If so, should the documentation at Template:Flagicon/doc be updated accordingly? (And likewise for {{flag}} and {{flagcountry}}? DH85868993 (talk) 09:51, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

No, certainly not. Smackbot frequently makes superfluous edits based on the whims of its operator, such as the addition of the unnecessary {{DEFAULTSORT}} (with the article name, unchanged) in that same diff. I think it is a common coding style to use leading upper case for infobox and navbox template names, but I have never seen a stated consensus for inline templates such as {{flagicon}} (or for {{cite book}}, {{convert}}, {{coord}}, etc.) — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 20:34, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. DH85868993 (talk) 22:14, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I have to concur. Smackbot needs some smackin'. If anyone is interested in trying to get Smackbot's behavior changed, let me know and I'll be happy to support. This is not the first time I've encountered complaints about this capitalization of templates. It is a tempest in a tea cup, but surprisingly some editors actually do feel strongly about it, and there demonstrably is not a consensus on the matter. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 02:01, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Template:CIS deleted twice

I was working on some Athletic articles and I tried to put in CIS because there were Russian athletes who were officially competing for the Commonwealth of Independent States but there is no template for that and I would prefer not to put Russia because they weren't competing for Russia , or they were but as part of the CIS. Where is the history on deleting the CIS? Thanks. Qwerty786 (talk) 19:37, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Just use {{flag|CIS}}. This has always worked, and there is no need to have a "shortcut" template for every entity that can be rendered with the standard {{flag}} and {{flagicon}} templates. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 17:03, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Flag of none

Isn't File:Flag_of_None.svg in breach of WP:OI? Gnevin (talk) 21:38, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

• Possibly, though I think the fact that placeholder images for people have already been rejected could indicate that this one should not be used either. See Wikipedia:Centralized_discussion/Image_placeholders#Summary and Template:Infobox_person#Parameters. — MrDolomite • Talk 05:11, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

What is the best way forward here? Can this be discussed here?Gnevin (talk) 12:21, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps I'm a bit thick today, but I don't see what you are getting at. What part of WP:OI do you think that image may breach? LeadSongDog come howl 15:33, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

as long as they do not illustrate or introduce unpublished ideas or arguments this flag illustrates an unpublished idea that of a flag of none Gnevin (talk) 15:56, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Yeah but the image doesn't literally represent the flag of a thing called "None", it's just an oddly named placeholder. Orange Tuesday (talk) 17:33, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

But the use of a ? on a 3 striped background is a wiki created idea it is WP:OI and as MrDolomite says do we need place holders? Gnevin (talk) 17:40, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

With respect to flag templates (the topic of this WikiProject), File:Flag of None.svg is used to identify an error condition, for an image that is temporarily unavailable, or for a flag template transclusion that is malformed or invalid. It should never appear intentionally. Therefore, it is a much more appropriate placeholder than something like a plain white background (which actually is a valid flag for some entities), for example. Which flag template do you have an issue with? I am aware of the following usage instances of Flag of None:

1. Template:Country data Sint Eustatius, for which File:Flag of Sint Eustatius.svg was deleted on Commons on December 26
2. rugby union and cricket flag variants of Template:Country data Ireland and Template:Country data Republic of Ireland, to prevent the tricolour from being used (via {{ru}} and {{cr}} et. al.) to identify the all-Ireland rugby and cricket teams.
3. Template:Country data Putrajaya, no free image available yet
4. Template:Country data Apulia, for which File:Flag of Puglia.png was deleted on Commons on November 18
5. Template:Country data Catamarca, never had an available flag
6. Template:Country data Pohnpei, for which File:Flag of Pohnpei.png deleted on Commons on November 25
7. Template:Country data Pskov Oblast, created wth no available image
8. Template:Country data Punjab, no free image available yet
9. Template:Country data Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, created wth no available image

I should also note that the flag template system does not handle missing images very well (and it would complicate the existing streamlined templates to make it so), which means the some placeholder needs to be used for those error conditions. We can't just remove Flag of None from those templates without replacing it by something else. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 17:50, 11 January 2010 (UTC) — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 17:50, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

This flag appears on nearly 2,000 pages. If this is intended to indicate an error that is fine , however this flag should be changed to a image with ERROR and should it's usage should be monitored by a bot where by it's tagged and/or automatically removed. Let us make it clear this is not a place holder for a flag we don't know but a place holder for a technical limitation with in the flag template system . Gnevin (talk) 18:21, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

The image appears on 1254 mainspace articles, but it is not a technical limitation of the flag template system that is the problem. The image is frequently rendered directly by Mediawiki image syntax, or is the result of other templates calling {{flagicon}} erroneously (i.e. with no parameters). If you want to write a bot to fix those instances, please do so. In the meantime, I have replaced the image in Template:Country data with a new transparent image I created in commons:Category:Flag placeholders to help catch all the instances of flagicon with no parameters), which I think is the most common error case. So now: {{flagicon}} with no parameters renders →← (content between the arrows). — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 19:16, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

The invisible flag is good work , sort of like {{noflag}}. Will this be done for all the above templates? Gnevin (talk) 19:25, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I think it is important to keep a distinction between an unavailable image (highlights the problem that we need something uploaded) and an unknown flag (i.e. what country is Joe Bloggs from?) I think an argument could be made for the Ireland rugby and cricket variants, since it is very convenient to use {{ru}} and {{cr}} to render the article team wikilink, but I think I'd prefer the visible placeholder for the rest. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 19:39, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

The argument that place holders highlighted where we needed something uploaded was rejected for the people place holders,I think the same should be true hereGnevin (talk) 19:44, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

It's a different situation, I think. Placeholders on bio articles indicate "hey, it would be nice if somebody uploaded a free image for this article". For flag templates, we need something that says "hey, there is something wrong here, we have a missing flag". It's an error condition, not something akin to a stub message etc. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 19:58, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Can you update the Rugby and Cricket since they aren't errors and we can see how many instances of this flag we have in use after that ? Gnevin (talk) 20:21, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Already did that about an hour ago, but it will take a very long time for the cache to be updated correctly. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 20:43, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Before, by adding "flagicon|" the flag of none appeared. And now nothing appears which makes the space look empty. Why is this so? or if it has changed, what is it needed for the flag of none to appear? Qampunen (talk) 21:33, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that's the point of this discussion. We don't want to see "Flag of None" since that is not a true flag of anything. The blank space is intentional and preferred. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 21:43, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

How should pages such as Federation of Arab Emirates of the South be dealt with ? Replace with {{noflag}} or replace File:Flag of None.svg with File:Flag_placeholder.svg Gnevin (talk) 12:11, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I used noflag. There don't appear to be images on the FOTW website for some of those sultanates and emirates, so it might be the case that there is no flag that could be made, rather than just not having a free image on Commons for a flag that ought to be there. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 18:33, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I know there are a good few example of this sort of thing. Is there any hard and fast rule we can have a bot use or is it a case by case sort of thing? Gnevin (talk) 00:27, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

I've been looking at this, and the very large majority of instances of File:Flag of None.svg (or at its old name File:Sin bandera.svg) are as real placeholders in geographic infoboxes (e.g. Adamuz). If there is consensus to not use those, they can easily be removed in a single AWB run (and also the coat-of-arms placeholder). I think the second largest usage instance is for flags of preceeding/succeeding entities in {{Infobox former country}} (e.g. Aden Protectorate). Again, if there is consensus to replace them, it is easy. After that, I think the list would be manageable enough to not require a bot. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 01:07, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Well I've no objection and I think the CON about place holders in general would apply here Gnevin (talk) 10:24, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Can I ask a bot owner to run this change or do we need more input? Gnevin (talk) 11:37, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Commonwealth Games flag templates

I came accross Template:FlagCGF and Template:FlagCGFathlete today. It would be great to get them into more wide usage within the Commonwealth Games series of articles, similar to the usage of Template:FlagIOC (and related templates) in the Olympic Games articles. However I request someone from this project could look at them to find solutions to the following queries:

• Before the 1978 edition of the Games, they had a number of different names - British Empire Games (1930-1950), British Empire and Commonwealth Games (1954-1966), British Commonwealth Games (1970, 1974). At the moment {{flagCGFathlete|John Besford|ENG|1934}} produces (note article link is "Commonwealth Games" but should be "British Empire Games")  John Besford (ENG)
• Do the current templates deal properly with flag variants, and if not can they be implemented easily?
• Would like to see Template:FlagCGFteam and Template:FlagCGFmedalist created also with usage per the IOC equivalents. I've made an attempt at these, but the issues mentioned above also apply to them.

That's all for now. Perhaps whoever takes on this task will find other issues and duly solve them. Many thanks, Yboy83 (talk) 16:27, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I have been pondering for quite some time now a more generic set of flag templates to replace these and others. I'll try to sandbox something soon. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 17:52, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

IFRC

Can some flag template options be set up for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, and the International Committee of the Red Cross be added?

• ICRC: Committee
• IFRC: Federation
• RC: Red Cross
• RC: Red Crescent
• RC: Red Crystal

76.66.197.17 (talk) 12:14, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Not all of these images are used in icon form, and therefore do not need to be part of the flag template system, but we now have:

• {{flag|ICRC}} → ICRC
• {{flag|ICRC|cross}} → ICRC
• {{flag|ICRC|crescent}} → ICRC

— Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 17:35, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

The Red Crystal is not used in icon form? I thought it was, or would be (all those non-Christian non-Muslim concerns people have about religious symbols, etc, leading to its creation) 76.66.197.17 (talk) 13:58, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

I keep seeing the IFRC keep getting in articles, but we don't have a flag icon for it. The ICRC isn't the correct flag, so can someone add the IFRC flag to the system? 70.29.210.242 (talk) 03:56, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

LON

Can the League of Nations be added to the system? (the predecessor to the )

• Image:Symbol of the League of Nations.svg

76.66.197.17 (talk) 12:22, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

No, that is a non-free image and therefore cannot be transcluded by a template per WP:Non-free content criteria. (It can't even be displayed on this page.) — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 15:48, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Hmm... I don't understand the file rationale on that page then... there's a PD-claim on it, and a FUR. 76.66.197.17 (talk) 13:57, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

On Flags of the World it says: "There was no agreed upon a League of Nations flag. One possible variant is shown here...", then follow a number of different flags considered but never adopted by the LN. That means there is no official League of Nations flag at all, so this image shouldn't be templated either. De728631 (talk) 21:52, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

NOTICE: Discussion on use of flags and copyright at the village pump

Arising from the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Rugby union, I have opened a discussion at the village pump about the use (and non-use) of copyrighted images in flag cruft. Participants on this page will probably want to comment. --rannṗáirtí anaiṫnid (coṁrá) 20:55, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Hypothetical Flags

Somebody has put in an imaginary flag for Alberta to be used for dates before Alberta had a flag. Alberta The flag looks cool, and makes perfect sense since it follows the pattern of all the flags of the empire. But there don't seem to be any sources that the flag was ever used. Is there an explanation or justification for this somewhere? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.35.113.108 (talk) 23:38, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Interwiki?

Is there any guidance on how to migrate {{flag}} and it's varaints to another wiki - specifically the Polish language one? It looks like a big complicated task which I don't really fancy starting on without some guidance... Railwayfan2005 (talk) 22:51, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Template:Country data Ecuador

Ecuador has a number of historic flag variations that are not available in the template. Can someone add them, please? Thanks in advance. Digirami (talk) 00:19, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

I guess this request has fallen on deaf ears (or blind eyes in this case). Digirami (talk) 05:04, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Seen now, updated per template talk page. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 05:53, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Template:Country data Great Britain

I was wondering why is it that the is a template for Template:Country data Great Britain, then there also Template:Country data United Kingdom. both use the same flag, so why isn't the Great Britain template redirected to United Kingdom template for country data? Gman124 ^talk 17:23, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

It's explained in the documentation for {{Country data Great Britain}}. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 01:13, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Country data Brazil

Naval Jack of Brazil

Hi, since the template Country data Brazil is protected: could someone add the current Bazilian Naval Jack, so that it will be displayed properly in the multiple infoboxes (e.g. USS Davidson (FF-1045)? Thanks. -- Wo st 01 (talk | rate) 14:32, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

The consensus at WP:SHIPS is to use the naval ensign not the naval jack for ship infoboxes. Brazil's naval ensign is the same as the national flag, per WP:WikiProject Ships/Ensigns. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 20:09, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Discussion at TfD, and alternative proposal

Recently I nominated Template:Quikflag for deletion here. That discussion got me thinking. When flag templates were introduced in 2005, they started off only with current countries and flags, and consensus emerged to use three-letter country codes (ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 etc.) such as {{USA}}, {{NOR}}, etc. Shortly afterwards, {{flagcountry}}, {{flag}}, and {{flagicon}} were introduced to cover more cases. The latter were re-written in 2007 and have greatly expanded since then to handle historical flags, subnational entities, and historical nations (for which there would never be a country code). So currently today editors have a choice to use one of the WP:Inline templates linking country articles if possible, or to use flag, flagicon etc. for thousands more options. For readability purposes, the "shortcut" templates now call {{flag}} (see this old edit to see when this was introduced, for example) but here's my idea: what if we "unrolled" all the shortcut flag templates to use MediaWiki image syntax directly? Then the flag template system would be completely bypassed, and would be quicker than the #switch in quikflag. It would also be pretty simple to extend these shortcut templates to also handle icon-only output (e.g. {{NOR|icon}} to produce the same result as {{flagicon|NOR}} or {{flagicon|Norway}}) so these templates would be dual-purpose. The end result would be "quik" templates for the few hundred entities that are most commonly used (current nations of the world), and the flag template system is still available for thousands of additional historical and subnational flags. I think those few hundred flags and country article names are stable enough that they could live without the layer of abstraction provided by using Template:Flag. Comments? — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 21:13, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

• I am not a member of WPFT, but I recommend a similar approach, to optimize the most-used flag templates, per the 80/20 Rule, where roughly "20%" of the flag-templates are used "80%" of the time (or 90/10%...), in article pages. Improve just those 20%, and 80% of flag usage improves. We can predict the 115 most-used codes, by frequency: {USA}, {UK}, {FRA}, {CAN}, {POL}, {CHN}, {DEU}, {ITA}, {AUS}, {SPN}, {JPN}, {NED}, {BRA}, {SWE}, {AUT}, {CZE}, {IND}, {ARG}, {NZL}, {SVK}, {ENG}, {PHL}, {BEL}, {RUS}, {NEP}, {DEN}, {FIN}, {HUN}, {UAE}, {GRE}, {ALB}, {BUL}, {ARM}, {AFG}, {AZE}, {AND}, {SCO}, {ANG}, {KOR}, {MEX}, ...skipping 70... {GRN}, {ERI}, {UKR}, {IRQ}, {GUY}, etc. See counts in:

• WP:Database reports/Templates with the most transclusions

The quick-format I used (in re-writing Template:CountryAbbr2) is to directly invoke {{Country_flag2}} and bypass {flag} or {Country_data...}, in each of the top 60 or 120 most-used flag codes (such as {USA} or {CAN}). For instance, Norway as {NOR} would contain a 3-parameter line similar to:

{{country flag2|alias=Norway | name=Norway<!--

--> | flag alias=Flag of Norway.svg}}

The Canada template as {CAN} would contain:

{{country flag2|alias=Canada | name=Canada<!--

--> | flag alias=Flag of Canada.svg}}

Use spaces in image names. DO NOT USE underbars as "Flag_of_Canada" or that flag will not match for lookup in {CountryAbbr2}. Also, if coding an image directly as "[Image:...]" it probably will not match a flag in {CountryAbbr2} even though it might seem the same, as identical contents of the transcluded template, but for some reason, it will NOT match like {flag|Canada}.

The direct use of {Country data2} might only be in the top 60 or 120 flag-code templates (such as {LUX} or {KEN}, etc.), but it would make each of those templates 3 or 4 times faster, with only half the flag-templates formerly listed in edit-preview of articles. As a result, about "80%" of all flag-related articles would improve, without a redo for 500-1500 flag-templates.

Also, the improvement would come, automatically, as each template were rewritten to invoke {Country_flag2}. There would be no hurry to quickly redo "99" flag templates, by tomorrow, and no need for a massive bot-edit to be approved and scheduled. Instead, as each template is redone, then 12,000 to 110,000 articles would be improved, long-term. Again, WARNING: a template containing a spanned "[Image:...]" (of identical text) probably will not match the contents of {flag|xxx}, but {Country_flag2|alias=xxx...} will match when compared, such as in {CountryAbbr2}. -Wikid77 (talk) 05:30, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

• What exactly is the problem that needs improving? Render performance, PP limits, or transclusion list cruft? Amalthea 12:14, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

  I'm also unclear on this. Wikid77's response seems to indicate this is a mostly problem with {{CountryAbbr}} et. al., but that template will be deleted after Xeno's bot makes it irrelevant. So if that template will no longer exist, is there any reason for action here? — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 06:18, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

• The main complaint has been the transclusion-list "cruft" where 20 nation flags list perhaps 43 templates, or 80 flags list 163, on an edit-preview page. Because those flag templates are often >60% of all templates listed, then they are considered excessive (except perhaps, if an article were only about flags). By using {{quikflag}}, those would be reduced to that 1 template. However, the flag-code templates are also used to display flag+name entries, such as for Template:Geobox, and others might expect to lookup flags+names in that manner. In general, I would also recommend to avoid the frequent transclusion of extra templates, and make high-use templates 3-4x faster, if used 12,000 to 110,000 times. This isn't just the minimal 8% performance improvement, but rather, omitting 2 or 3 templates for each high-use flag, as 300%-400% faster. In a similar manner, {Convert} was changed to drop {Rnd/a}, which had been "dragged" into 307,000 pages, when there was no reason to always use that extra template for rounding numbers. Because template-nesting was ignored when developing {Convert}, it finally exceeded the Wikipedia nesting limit when invoked in triple-nested infoboxes, causing people to propose eliminating {Convert} from their articles! However, even more "cosmic irony" was the fact {Convert} could not be used within subpage {Convert/doc} to demonstrate its own usage, which didn't work because the subpage added a fatal level of template nesting. Imagine the thousands of hours of frustration, all because people ignored these obvious performance issues, year after year. It's hard to know when people are thinking badly about the flag templates. Ideally, run a randomized user survey of 35 people, or more likely, run any (non-random) survey of 1,001 users to see what the actual users think (for 97% accurate, margin of error=3%). -Wikid77 (talk) 15:14, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Civil Ensign for Jersey

A Civil Ensign for Jersey has been proposed, and approved by the Queen. It needs to pass through the States before it can be brought into use. Just needs someone to create it now. Design shown here. Mjroots (talk) 07:49, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Not sure this was the most logical place to make this request, but whatever. I made a quick svg image based on the BBC's drawing: File:Civil Ensign of Jersey.svg Orange Tuesday (talk) 17:31, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

African Union Flag

There is already an African Union flag, can someone create the thumbnail please as I need it for an article? There is one for the Union of South American Nations and the European Union. Why not the SAU?

Cheers, Jonas —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.180.33.55 (talk) 23:29, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

I presume you mean File:Flag of the African Union 2010.svg and/or File:Flag of the African Union.svg. They are non-free images and cannot be used in flag templates per WP:Non-free content criteria policy. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 23:35, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Washington (U.S. state)

As a result of a WP:RM discussion at Talk:Washington (U.S. state)#Requested_move, the article Washington was renamed to Washington (U.S. state).

The flag icon still works fine for displaying the flag for the state; the problem is the state name points to Washington, which now redirects to Washington (disambiguation).

Is it possible to set a variable so that the link is different than the displayed name? For example, something like:

| alias=Washington (U.S. state)
| show_alias=Washington

Suggestions on how to resolve this would be appreciated. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 21:23, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

 Done (not like that, which wouldn't work, but fixed anyway) — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 21:43, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Help

Hello, I am an administrator of the Basque Wikipedia (eu) and we have implemented the flag template system from the English Wikipedia into our wiki. In the country data XXX templates we have added an extra parameter (as you can see for example in eu:txantiloi:Herrialde info Gibraltar). We want that in a template put that extra parameter (called "nongo"). In English would be "Geography of Gibraltar", but in Basque "Gibraltarko geografia" (that -ko means of). I think I haven't explained myself correctly, here an invented example:

By typing {{geography stub|GIB}}

Gibraltarko geografia

--->

[[{{{nongo}}}|{{{alias}}}]] geografia

Can anyone help us? Is it possible to do it?--An13sa (talk) 08:58, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm not 100% sure of what you are trying to do. Do you want {{geography stub|GIB}} to output [[Gibraltar|Gibraltarko]] [[geografia]]? So there is no flag icon but you want to use the flag template system to find "Gibraltar" and "Gibraltarko" when given the "GIB" input parameter? Is that correct? — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 19:15, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

At the end of this page you can see the geo-stub template. It uses that -ko suffix that in Basque means "geography of...". What we need is to introduce the nongo parameter from the country data XXX pages in that geo-stub template.--An13sa (talk) 19:33, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

You mean the {{geografia zirriborroa|EH-GI}} markup? What is the problem with that? It seems to already use the "-ko" suffix (i.e. Artikulu hau Gipuzkoako geografiari buruzko zirriborroa da). Are you trying to replace the existing, working template with something else...? — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 19:43, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Until now we used EH-GI type flag template system that had EH-GI nongo in that geo-stub template. But now we have changed to the new flag template system (the same as the enwiki) and that nongo is incorporated in the new Country data EH-GI. What we need is to incorporate that nongo parameter from Country data EH-GI here (geo-stub template)}}? Have I explained better?--An13sa (talk) 12:38, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

A little better, but it still puzzles me why you'd want to burden your flag template system with non-flag features, and especially since you have another system that already does what you want. But in any case... What you'd need is two templates, one used in article markup, and another internal template that does the rendering. This is similar to the relationship between Template:Flag and Template:Country flag2, for example. So in your case, the geography-stub template would simply look like:

{{herrialde info {{{1|}}} | geostub-internal}}

And then "Txantiloi:geostub-internal" (or whatever you want to call it) would simply look like:

[[{{{ezizena}}}|{{{nongo}}}]] [[geografia]]

I think it's as simple as that, but I haven't tested it. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 19:27, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

I have tested and I got it!!! Thank you very much!!!--An13sa (talk) 09:36, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Continents

Continents are at present represented by the flag of some organization of that continent, but since many countries are not members of those organizations, I think this is wrong. I would prefer if {{flagicon|Europe}} would look something like {{flagicon|Europe map}} rather than . That way, the icon could be used also when the organization has nothing to do with the thing described, like the European Grand Prix which has nothing to do with the European Union (except often being held in a member country). What do you think? John Anderson (talk) 06:08, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

I think that maps of the continents serve poorly as an identifier for a continent.
Note though that the Flag of Europe was originally designed for the Council of Europe, where all but IIRC three European countries are members today, and it was intended to be a flag for all Europeans. It was adopted by the EU, but {{flagicon|Europe}} and {{flagicon|European Union}} have different semantics (even though they display the exact same image).
Personally though, I wouldn't show any flag in the European Grand Prix infobox, simply because that flag is so commonly associated with the EU. Amalthea 14:32, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

The use of non-flags as tiny illegible icons is discouraged by WP:MOSICON. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 19:55, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Broken flag links

I'm not sure how to fix the broken flag links on Freedom in the World 2006 (report). Thanks! Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 07:35, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

I think you can either create those shortcut templates (like {{AFG}}), or just use the flag code directly ({{SKO}} → {{flag|South Korea}}). Amalthea 09:04, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Sure, but some flag templates have been deleted (e.g., {{MOL}}) due to some consensus regarding standard country abbreviations, so I wasn't sure what should be done here. I think many arise from copy-and-paste moves from other (e.g., French, Russian, ...) Wikipedias. It seems like a bit of a mess to me to try to keep track of all the possible redirects. Thanks! Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 20:00, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Ah, I see. Well, Andrew will know. I note though that both of those redlinked templates here mention replacements. Amalthea 21:01, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Blank Flag

Whatever happened to the blank flag template? I have not needed to use one for over a year and when I used to type just flagicon, it would come up with a blank flag which looked like a grayed-out German flag. What happed to it? Has the code been changed, is it no longer used or is there an alternative? Now when I type it, all i get is [[|]]. TurboGUY (talk) 22:47, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Former British colonies

Could it be possible for those territories which were in the British Empire to have the Union Flag, for when they didn't have their own distinctive flag.
So, for example, pre-1861 (the year Canada got its own flag) Canada could look like:
{{flag|Canada|1801}} → Canada
And before that:
{{flag|Canada|1707}} → Canada

History is not my thing so I based the dates on what year the flags came into use rather than when Britain colonised Canada. VEO15 (talk) 19:52, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Flag use in wiki

Hi, How could you know which pages use a redirect to a flag? (for example: Brazil / flagicon / flagcountry etc.. )

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.72.64.162 (talk) 19:58, 4 July 2010‎ (UTC)

Notification of discussion

A discussion thread has been opened at Talk:Federated States of Micronesia, concerning the deletion of {{Country data Micronesia}} template. Night w (talk) 12:23, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Adding other data to country data templates

There are some other templates containing data about countries, e.g. Template:CanadaPop: {{CanadaPop}}. It may be good to either merge or transclude these into the country data templates, they conveniently already have a general name, not specifically referring to flags. Thus to Template:Country data Canada could be added "population = {{CanadaPop}}", to have all automatically retrievable data about a country in a central place.--Patrick (talk) 09:19, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

I disagree. It looks like you need a set of per-country templates anyway, since the documentation and comments are unique for each country, so the only thing that a flag template offers is the country name string. It would be simpler to create a top-level population template that accepts a country name as a parameter and then "calls" the per-country template based on that name. Country data templates (despite the name; it really should have been called "flag data" when we made these years ago) are not dumping grounds for per-country information. They are highly transcluded, and we strive to keep them minimal in size so we don't run into template size limits on pages where they are used a lot. I do not think we should open the door to stuffing lots of extra information in them. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 11:01, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Okay. I can see that the increase of the preprocessor node count, even on pages that do not use the extra data, could be a disadvantage.--Patrick (talk) 10:39, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Noinclude tags in the first line

Is there a reason for the <noinclude> tags in the first line of every country data template? There is no harm in having them, but Template:Country showdata as the default seems just fine.--Patrick (talk) 14:44, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, obviously it protects against template documentation appearing within article text if a flag template is invoked abnormally, but then again, there's a slim likelihood of that ever happening due to the way that country data templates are transcluded. Like you say, there is no harm in having them, so it don't think it's worth removing them as we'd add a few million items to the job queue if we did... — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 03:37, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

And also, it does decrease the size of each country data template by 17 bytes. I know that's not much, but hey. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 03:39, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

By that, I meant by the number of bytes that are transcluded. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 03:40, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

When the template is called with defined first parameter the post-expand include size and the other counts for which there are limits are the same without the <noinclude> tags.--Patrick (talk) 07:23, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Ah, yes, that's true. But I'd still caution against non-essential edits to about 1200 templates, many of which are transcluded on tens of thousands of pages each. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 07:25, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I know, I have no intention to modify them. I was just curious.--Patrick (talk) 08:54, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Holy See - flag vs coat of arms

The two distinct subjects of international law "Vatican City State" and Holy See" respectively need to be distinguished. However, when it comes to display a flag, both the Holy See and the Vatican City State use the yellow-white flag (which, by the way, is not rectangular). I now have realised that in the flag template, for the "Holy See", a link is realised with the coat of arms (in red) instead of the yellow-white flag. On many pages such as the "foreign relations of (state)", these small flags are used to illustrate the countries that state has relation with. Only for the Holy See, the coat of arms is displayed instead of the flags - that does not fit to the other flags.

Could this somehow be changed, please? I.e. could the red coat of arms be changed to the flag as far as display of flags is required?

As correct example, see http://unfccc.int/parties_and_observers/parties/items/2352.php

For further details on the flag please see at http://www.vaticanstate.va/EN/State_and_Government/General_informations/Flag.htm

Thanks! 195.200.70.39 (talk) 15:45, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

I presume you are referring to the use of {{flag|Holy See}} or {{VA-HS}} in certain articles, instead of either {{flag|Vatican City}} or {{VAT}} to produce the yellow and white flag. But according to the source in the Flag of Vatican City article, the flag of the Holy See is distinct from the flag of the Vatican City State, although extremely similar with only the key colors reversed. Therefore, it seems as though we should ask some help from somebody at Commons to upload a new image. In the meantime, I will put the Vatican flag in the Holy See template because the distinction will be difficult to discern at icon size. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 17:24, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

After reading Vatican Flag Myths, it would seem that we do NOT need a different image. The flag of the Holy See is one and the same. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 17:50, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Thank you very much. Yes, I agree that there is no need for a new icon, the Holy-See-flag is the same as the Vatican City flag - the difference just comes up as regards coat of arms which is not relevant here. Again thank you very much and kind regards MW 195.200.70.44 (talk) 07:33, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Flagdeco

Template:Flagdeco has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you. Pædia 15:22, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads-up. The nominator failed to notify anybody (nor even to understand how the template is useful, apparently). — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 15:57, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Request for Iran flag

Could someone with access please add a flag variant to the Template:Country data Iran: the 1924 File:State Flag of Iran (1924).svg. Thankyou! Nightw 12:16, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

I remain confused by the filenames and image captions at the Flag of Iran article. Any help would be appreciated! From the {{Iranian Flags}} gallery/navbox on the right side of the page, it would appear that we need:

• 1849 variant = File:Amir Kabir Flag.svg (1849–1907 claimed usage)
• 1907 variant = File:State Flag of Iran (1924).svg (1907–1925 claimed usage)
• 1925 variant = File:State flag of Iran 1964-1980.svg (1925–1979 claimed usage)

So should we have a 1964 variant? Is the 1925 flag different from 1964 usage? — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 17:25, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure about the credibility of the page of Flag of Iran, but from what I read and heard, the current flag variant is the best for 1925-1979.

• 1925 variant = File:State Flag of Iran (1925).svg (1925–1964)
• 1964 variant = File:State flag of Iran 1964-1980.svg (1964–1979)

I have no idea about pre-Pahlavi flag (before 1925) and I never saw these flags with yellow lion in pictures, movies and etc about Pahlavi dynasty. I think they belonged to the pre-Pahlavi era and Qajar dynasty. I think he/she is asking to add a 1924 version for just a year (1924-1925). --Mohsen1248 (talk) 17:57, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

According to http://flagspot.net/flags/ir_imp25.html and http://flagspot.net/flags/ir_imp64.html, the 1925–1979 flag was essentially the same, with only an aspect ratio change (from 1:3 to 4:7) in 1964. Se perhaps the current template variants are correct. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 18:18, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

As far as I know, the "(1924)" flag should not be used on articles. It's an illustration from an old flag book with many incorrect descriptions. File:Flag_of_Guatemala_(1924).svg comes from the same source.

The flag history of Iran (especially pre-constitution) is pretty jumbled, but I think the chronology goes something like this:

• 1906: 1:3 Horizontal Tricolor (with pale colours) adopted as part of the Persian Constitution of 1906 [2]
  • State flag: File:Flag of Persia (1910).svg
  • Natonal flag: File:Flag_of_Persia_(1907).svg
• 1933: 1:3 ratio standardized and darker colours adopted. [3]
  • State flag: File:State Flag of Iran (1925).svg
  • National flag: File:Flag of Iran (1925).svg
• 1964: Ratio shortened from 1:3 to 4:7. [4]
  • State flag: File:State Flag of Iran (1964).svg
  • National flag: File:Flag of Iran (1964).svg

The 1925 date I'm pretty sure comes from a misreading of FOTW (they split the historical flag pages into 1907-1925 for the Qajar dynasty and 1925-1964 for the Pahlavi Dynasty but never say that the Pahlavi adopted a new flag in 1925.)

As for the pre-1906 flags. The conventional story as I understand it goes like this:

• between 1794 and 1797: Mohammad Khan Qajar introduces a red flag with a lion and sun (File:Flag_of_Agha_Mohammad_Khan.svg)
• between 1797 and 1834: Fat′h-Ali Shah Qajar adopts a red flag with lion and sun as a war flag, a green flag with lion and sun as a peace flag, and a white flag for diplomatic purposes. (File:Fath_Ali_Shah_Flag.svg)
• between 1848 and 1852: Amir Kabir adds thin green and red stripes to the top and bottom of the diplomatic flag, creating the first tricolour. (File:Amir Kabir Flag.svg)
• before 1889: A white flag with a green border on three sides is used. (File:Early 20th Century Qajar Flag.svg.) The 1889 date comes from a photograph of a Persian flag [5]. There's no information on when it came into use.

That last flag, or flags like it, were probably used up until 1906. There are also depictions that look a lot like this flag but have a different number of bordered sides or incorporate pale red in some way. See: [6] [7] [8] [9]. The last two are sometimes dated to 1907, but the hypothesis on FOTW seems to be that they predate the constitutional changes.

I'd say you need the following aliases for sure:

• 1906 variant = File:Flag of Persia (1910).svg
• 1933 variant = File:State Flag of Iran (1925).svg
• 1964 variant = File:State Flag of Iran (1964).svg

And possibly this one for the interim period:

• 1979 variant = File:Flag of Iran (1964).svg

I suggest using those files specifically because I just uploaded new versions to closer match the FOTW images. (The lion with the thick black borders was vectored from a very low res png originally and the hollow lion with the gold outline was probably too modern for most of those flags. The lion in the new images is from File:Naval flag of Iran 1933-1980.svg, and is a much closer match.)

Aliases for the pre-1906 era might also be useful but I'd have no idea what you'd call them since there are no firm dates.

Hope this info helps. Orange Tuesday (talk) 19:03, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Allow Other Links

It would be good to modify the template to allow a parameter for changing the destination link, so that an editor could use something more specific to the topic at hand. For example, there is a set of "league tables" at Programme_for_International_Student_Assessment where the flag templates are used often. Finland is at the top of these three tables and links to an article about the country. It would be much more appropriate to link to Education_in_Finland, particularly because the country's main article does not link to it, but there's currently no way to add this specificity. Can we change that? WBTtheFROG (talk) 02:45, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

You could use {{flagicon|Finland}} [[Education in Finland|Finland]], which would look like this: Finland Orange Tuesday (talk) 03:23, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Orange Tuesday. Tutorial copied to project page. WBTtheFROG (talk) 01:45, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Anachronisms

Many articles with {{Infobox military conflict}} contain anachronistic flags, e.g. articles about the Wars of Scottish Independence (began 13th century) contain the prochronistic flags (16th century) of England and Scotland. Should royal banners be added to {{Country data Kingdom of England}} and {{Country data Kingdom of Scotland}} (cf. {{Country data Kingdom of France}}, {{Country data Mughal Empire}}, {{Country data New France}}), or should the coat of arms be used (e.g. Hundred Years' War)?
Cheers, Pædia 19:58, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

The flag template system doesn't handle coat-of-arms etc. very well, since they are vertically oriented instead of horizontally oriented as most flags are. There has never been consensus to add coats-of-arms to these templates. Instead, I would think that removal of those images from those infoboxes is more appropriate, per WP:Manual of Style (icons) guidelines. There is a strong argument to be made that they are decorative only: historic coats-of-arms are not easily recognisable by most readers, and the detail usually present in coats-of-arms is missing at icon-size resolution. I think the discussion should be continued at WT:MILHIST, as I note that WP:MILMOS#FLAGS says that are "not recommended". — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 14:00, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Actually, my question was whether to insert the coat of arms directly in each article's {{Infobox military conflict}} (see Editing Hundred Years' War (section)), or add royal banners to flag templates as listed above (which I imagine that you are against). Cheers, Pædia 15:55, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I don't think banners/coats-of-arms should be added to these templates, but if there remains consensus to have them in certain articles, then perhaps we should have a new template (like {{flagicon image}}, perhaps {{coa icon image}}??) to ensure consistency, accessability, etc. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 02:17, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

While I would not oppose banners in flag templates, I agree that coats of arms deserve their own templates. There is/was some support for this: WP:MHL#GRAPHICS, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Archive 64#Flag use in infoboxes. Cheers, Pædia 05:03, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Special cases

Related to this about these (1/2):

• Abkhazia - links to Abkhazia; Republic of Abkhazia redirects there
• Kosovo - links to Kosovo; Republic of Kosovo redirects there; Kosovo article has topic problem unrelated to the templates
• Nagorno-Karabakh - links to Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, OK
• Northern Cyprus - links to Northern Cyprus; Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus redirects there
• Palestine - links to Palestinian territories; should be changed to State of Palestine (or to Palestinian National Authority or Palestine Liberation Organization or Palestine (disambiguation) - but in any case Palestinian territories and Palestine (region) don't have flags)
• Sahrawi Republic - links to Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, OK
• Somaliland - links to Somaliland; Republic of Somaliland redirects there
• South Ossetia - links to South Ossetia; Republic of South Ossetia redirects there
• Taiwan - links to Republic of China, OK
• Transnistria - links to Transnistria; Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic redirects there

and their flag/country/flagicon etc. templates. Currently some of these link to the wrong articles (e.g. to a general article about the 'region/territory' instead to the article about the 'state') - also in cases where abbreviations are used (where in the wikicode is written PST instead of Palestine, etc.) there are some missing, etc. I think these issues (where the templates should link to; what flags should be used; what abbreviations should be used) should be consistently addressed.

The common names above seem OK, but I propose that links are made to the full names (current redirects), because redirects can change because of the controversial nature/high POV attraction of these entities (and the edit-wars associated with that).

There are also issues inside some of the articles (lead sections, infoboxes, etc.) - but these are better to deal inside projects like this or that.

Also, I think that some of these have templates under additional names (plus there are the abbreviation templates, country/flagicon templates, etc.) - if somebody can point to the list of template names we can check all of these. Alinor (talk) 12:40, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

That would mean a large number of hits going through redirects, would it not? Nightw 13:57, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't know, but why should we care about such things? Double redirects are annoying, but single redirects automatically go to the designated article.

Do you know where to see a list of flag/country/flagicon and their abbreviations templates? Alinor (talk) 15:06, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

You want (for example): Template:Country data Republic of China; indexed at Category:Country data templates. Nightw 15:12, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Alinor (talk) 08:08, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't think anything is wrong with the Abkhazia, Kosovo, Northern Cyprus, Somaliland, South Ossetia, or Transnistria country data templates, since the wikilink points directly to the article we have for each location. If you want to display the official name, use something like {{flag|Republic of Abkhazia}}, which essentially creates a piped link like [[Abkhazia|Republic of Abkhazia]], as seen in Republic of Abkhazia. If you want to move the articles from Abkhazia to Republic of Abkhazia etc., make the proposals on the respective talk pages. If there is consensus, then we can change the alias value in the respective country data templates and all flag template transclusions will be updated. I have done this several times previously, and it's not difficult. But in the meantime, I think no action is required here.

As for Palestine, you probably want {{flag|Palestinian Authority}}.

— Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 19:39, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

No, I don't want to move the articles (or at least - this is not the proper place to discuss the move issue) - I proposed that the templates link to the full names, because of potential future moves - the full name will aways redirect to the correct page - unlike the short name that may got moved.

{{flag|Palestine}} linking to Palestinian territories seems as reference to the UN utilized name for the territory - such as {{flag|Western Sahara}}.

I don't think that "Western Sahara" and "Palestinian territories" have flags - if these are references to UN utilized names, then they refer to the physical areas (for statistics or other reasons) and not to the governing authorities of these areas - thus the 'noflag' flag (there is such template) should be used in these two cases.

{{flag|Palestinian Authority}} - "PSE" abbreviation seems strange - why not PNA?

'Palestinian territories' - "PLE" abbreviation seems strange - why not PSE? This is the ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 code for these - just as ESH is for Western Sahara (and it's of course different from Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic - SADR - just like "Palestinian territories" and "Palestinian National Authority" have different templates). And also it should be {{flag|Palestinian territories}} instead of {{flag|Palestine}}

{{flag|Palestine}} should link to State of Palestine - maybe with "SOP" as abbreviation

maybe a {{flag|Palestine Liberation Organization}} should be made - it participates in multiple international organizations and such template may be used in their articles

and while we are at ISO codes - {{flag|Sovereign Military Order of Malta}} in addition to the SMOM abbreviation should have the XOM. Alinor (talk) 08:08, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

I can hardly understand all the rest, but agree that {{flag|Palestine}} should link to State of Palestine. And {{flag|Western Sahara}} should be deleted for NPOV. Nightw 15:09, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't suggest to delete the Western Sahara template, but that it should show "empty flag" (e.g. to take the space in order to be aligned with the rest). {{flag|Palestinian territories}} should be arranged in the same way.

What don't you understand? The abbreviations PSE and PLE should be replaced with PNA and PSE. And for {{flag|Palestine}} and I propose SOP as abbreviation. Here is the end result:

• this: {{flag|Palestine}} - linking to State of Palestine, flag, abbreviation SOP
• this: {{flag|Palestinian Authority}} - linking to Palestinian National Authority, flag, abbreviation PNA
• this: {{flag|Palestinian territories}} - linking to Palestinian territories, empty flag, abbreviation PSE
• this: {{flag|Western Sahara}} - linking to Western Sahara, empty flag, abbreviation ESH
• this: {{flag|Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic}} - linking to Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, flag, abbreviation SADR
• this: {{flag|Sovereign Military Order of Malta}} - linking to Sovereign Military Order of Malta, flag, abbreviations SMOM and XOM

The abbreviations XOM, ESH, PSE are from the ISO codes. Empty flag to be like in the Template:noflag. Alinor (talk) 11:04, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

The same applies to these abbreviations: Wikipedia:Inline templates linking country articles. Alinor (talk) 14:38, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Proposal seems good, but I think we should keep the PLE just for familiarity. Also you may have to get a bot to change current versions in articles or something like that. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 15:10, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

OK, we can keep PLE as second abbreviation - but for what of the three Palestine-templates? Alinor (talk) 19:05, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Also, I don't know how to edit these - I posted an "edit request" at the first one talk page. Alinor (talk) 19:07, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Andrwsc handles most of the editing of the flag templates. You can give him a buzz on his talk page. Nightw 13:01, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Please don't create new invented abbreviations that are not ISO standard, or not very commonly used, such as "SOP". I don't think "XOM" is needed either; we have been using "SMOM" for years, and "XOM" isn't part of the main ISO 3166-2 alpha-3 standard (being a user-assigned code element instead). The less obscure country codes and other abbreviations are used, the better, and it's always better to use the full name in wiki markup, in my opinion.

Also, PLE is widely used as the sporting code (FIFA, IOC, etc.) for links to articles such as Palestine national football team. Template:Country data PLE needs to continue to redirect to Template:Country data Palestine.

I am currently in a country with crappy Internet access, but I will be home on Monday and can do a more thorough job in looking at existing transclusions (with an AWB run) before changing anything that might break, or change context unexpectedly. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 13:45, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

The problem is that currently PLE links to template Palestine and to Palestinian territories. Also, template Palestinian territories redirects to template Palestine. The ISO code for Palestinian territories is PSE (and this is a reference to the physical territory, not a government/authority/entity - it has no flag).

So, this should be corrected by separating these as two templates:

1. the undisputed one is "PSE-Palestinian territories-no flag" (like "ESH-Western Sahara-no flag" - here again, Western Sahara is reference to the physical territory - not to the SADR that has a flag and separate template);
2. the second template ("Palestine") is more problematic - you can see Palestine (disambiguation) (Palestine itself is about the Palestine (region) - this is not appropriate link for the template). Template Palestine IMHO should link to State of Palestine. The other option is for this template to link to Palestine Liberation Organization because their official designation at the UN and other international organizations is "Palestine". In both cases it should have a flag, but it seems we need to discuss the abbreviation additionally - see below (also, maybe you can make these changes without any abbreviation?).
3. a third related template is Palestinian Authority - it links currently to Palestinian National Authority and has flag (so far so good), but the current abbreviation - PSE - and this is the ISO code for the Palestinian territories. I think that PNA is extensively used abbreviation and should be used instead (PSE as explained above should point to the Template Palestinian territories).

About the abbreviation PLE - It's not clear whether FIFA and IOC deal with the SoP, the PLO, the PNA or just with "Palestine football association"/"Palestine Olympic Committee" (e.g. as sportsmen from the Palestinian territories). My assumption is that FIFA and IOC deal with the Football association/Olympic committee that are somehow 'approved by' the PNA (and/or PLO as "Palestine, the UN observer entity"). But most certainly they don't deal with SoP.

So, I think that PLE can link to a template linking to Palestinian National Authority, Palestinian territories, Palestine Liberation Organization (such template can get as second abbreviation PLO), "Palestine" (such template can get as second abbreviation PLO) - but not to a template linking to State of Palestine.

Also, if Template Palestine doesn't link to State of Palestine then we need an additional template linking there. Alinor (talk) 12:29, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

State of Palestine is also wrongly linking to Palestinian territories. I haven't noticed that, because it wasn't in the 'S' at Category:Country data templates. Alinor (talk) 20:01, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Palestinian flags

Currently we have:

Markup	Output	Notes
{{flag|Palestinian National Authority}}	Palestinian National Authority	also available as {{flag|Palestinian Authority}} ISO 3166 PSE country code links here for {{flagicon|PSE}}, etc. and {{PSE}} also available
{{flag|State of Palestine}}	State of Palestine
{{flag|Palestine}}	Palestine	also available as {{flag|Palestinian territories}} FIFA/IOC PLE country code links here for {{flagicon|PLE}}, {{fb|PLE}} (for football team) etc. and {{PLE}} also available
{{flag|West Bank}}	West Bank
{{flag|Gaza Strip}}	Gaza Strip	also available as {{flag|Gaza}}
{{flag|West Bank and Gaza}}	West Bank and Gaza

Do any flag templates need changing at this point? Or do we just need to make sure the most appropriate one is chosen for transclusion in individual articles? — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 18:46, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, these certainly need changing. PSE is the ISO code for Palestinian territories, not for PNA (should be changed accordingly). Abbreviations PNA, SMOM, SOP (and XOM) should be added. Western Sahara and Palestinian territories should use 'noflag' instead of flags of SADR and PLO/SoP/PNA - territories don't have flags.

In addition IMHO: there should be a "Palestinian territories" template. There should be "Palestine Liberation Organization" template (PLO abbreviation). Gaza and West Bank should use 'noflag'. The safest way for "Palestine" template is to link to PLO (as this is its UN designation) - and redirecting "Palestine Liberation Organization" template to "Palestine" - otherwise many articles would be incorrect. Alinor (talk) 07:10, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, you'll have to be clearer. You are saying "there should be X", where X already exists. So what work needs to be done? Please be precise. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 19:00, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Another consideration is that Template:Country data Palestine and Template:Country data PLE (for the country code) are widely used for sporting instances (e.g. {{fb|Palestine}} renders Palestine), and this is acceptable usage of the flag. However, it depends on the flag being in Template:Country data Palestine. We can discuss what the link should be for that template (currently it is Palestinian territories or [[Palestinian territories|Palestine]] when used as {{flag|Palestine}}), but there is no doubt that the flag and template name need to be unchanged. This means that individual transclusions of {{flag|Palestine}} will each have to be examined for appropriateness. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 19:22, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

1. {{flag|Palestinian territories}} should be created - with 'noflag'.
2. PSE code should be changed to link/redirect to {{flag|Palestinian territories}}
3. PNA abbreviation should be created with link/redirect to existing PNA template.
4. Western Sahara templates should use 'noflag'. Also, Gaza and West Bank templates should use 'noflag'.
5. SOP abbreviation should be created with link/redirect to existing SoP template.
6. SMOM abbreviation should be created with link/redirect to existing SMOM template. Also, XOM abbreviation should be created (reserved at ISO, used by ICAO/for passports code of SMOM).
7. Palestine Liberation Organization template should be created - with flag and PLO as abbreviation. Or, if Palestine template has to remain with flag - it should link to Palestine Liberation Organization. Alinor (talk) 09:24, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

1. {{flag|Palestinian territories}} already exists. If you want the flag removed, that will break hundreds of appropriate instances, as this template is also used in sporting contexts in which the flag is used.
2. This makes sense, especially since PSE is the ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 code for "Palestinian Territory, Occupied". But there are many existing transclusions of Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:PSE and Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Country data PSE that will need to be updated first. I have started to do some of that today. I've also seen a lot of {{PLE}} (links to Palestinian territories) used in situations where the link should be to Palestinian National Authority, so I've also updated several of those pages today.
3. I suppose, but apparently nobody has needed this before.
4. For Western Sahara, the {{ESH}} template used to be "flagless", but has been stable for over a year with the flag added again. I would like to see some consensus—maybe best on Talk:Western Sahara, since there are many more eyes there than on this obscure project talk page or on the template talk page. As for West Bank and Gaza, they are not widely used, so I would recommend using {{noflag}} directly in the small set of affected articles, then nominate those three country data templates for TFD. I can also do some of these substitutions soon.
5. Disagree. "SOP" is not a standard country code. There is nothing wrong with using {{flag|State of Palestine}} or {{flagcountry|State of Palestine}}. We try to limit the use of abbreviations to standard country codes, or a small set of widely known other abbreviations (such as "UK", for example), and "SOP" is neither of these.
6. Template:Country data SMOM already exists. There is no need to create an "XOM" template, as this code is obscure, and at least the SMOM abbreviation is reasonably well known. Remember, the point of these templates is to help editors, and obscure country codes aren't helpful.
7. The latter suggestion leads to problems. The use of "Palestine" and the flag pre-dated the PLO's founding in 1964. (For example, what should be in the 1961 Pan Arab Games article?) Perhaps Template:Country data Palestine should link to Palestinian people...? But in any case, I also suggest finding consensus from a broader group of editors before any changes are made here.

— Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 23:14, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

For Western Sahara, there's currently a discussion at Talk:Flag of Western Sahara. Nightw 06:24, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

1. {{flag|Palestinian territories}} currently is a redirect to {{flag|Palestine}}. I suggest that these two are separated.
2. OK
3. OK, but is there a problem in having it, just in case?
4. OK and see Night w 06:24, 18 March 2011 comment.
5. OK
6. Template:SMOM doesn't exist. Recently I came by an article using this type of templates and there SMOM had to be linked with one of the other flag templates.
7. OK, then a {{flag|Palestine Liberation Organization}} should be created separately.
8. Obviously there is a problem with the wikilink from {{flag|Palestine}} and with the PLE code used for sports events. I would suggest linking to Palestine (disambiguation) or Palestine. The issue I see with linking to Palestinian territories is that in many instances such links should actually be to PNA, PLO or SoP. But, as you said, maybe the solution is to change the instances where the template is used with the appropriate one. Alinor (talk) 08:14, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

{{Country data Palestinian territories}} is implemented as a redirect because it has the same flag and the same link as {{Country data Palestine}}. If separated, it sounds like you advocate the removal of the flag from "Palestinian territories", and changing the link of "Palestine" to either Palestine (disambiguation) or Palestine. Would that really be acceptable? I can foresee objections from editors who don't want the flag pointing to an article that starts with This article is about the historical geographical area (defined as 450BC–1948AD in the lede), and the link to the disambiguation page isn't better. Since the Palestine article also claims that Today, the term Palestine is also used to refer to either the Palestinian territories or the State of Palestine, I would suggest that either of those two is the most appropriate target, so either of those flag templates is better. I'm starting to think that {{Country data Palestine}} ought to be a redirect to {{Country data State of Palestine}}, but again, I'd like to see more discussion about this than just me and you. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 14:45, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Palestinian territories don't have a flag - the PLO, PNA, SoP have flags/coat of arms/emblems, not the physical territory.

The link of "Palestine" template is a different issue. It can not be to State of Palestine, because most of the uses for the template will be for activities of the PLO and PNA - including the sports uses (FIFA/IOC Palestinian associations are most probably PNA-affiliated or PLO-affiliated like the Palestinian Red Crescent. These are not SoP-affiliated). "Palestine" should link to Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO is designed "Palestine" [10]) - because in most instances where this template (with flag and all) is used - for international relations, treaties, etc. Alinor (talk) 08:32, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Policy for flag usage

Is there a policy for when it is suitable to include flags and when not? For example: in lists, not running text? Article types: sports, not politics?? etc? --BIL (talk) 14:03, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:MOSFLAGS#Flags would be the best stop. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 14:18, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Northamptonshire

The "Northamptonshire flag" is based on a fringe, non-reliable source (a small nationalist, BNP-supporting website). I can't find reliable sources that support it. Unless a RS is found I am likely to nom the image for deletion on Commons to prevent further confusion. Does this mean Template:Country data Northamptonshire will need to be deleted, as its only purpose currently is to make the flagicon work? TheGrappler (talk) 23:18, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Certainly. Thanks! — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 00:07, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

If/when the picture gets deleted from Commons, I'll bring a TfD nom then. Thanks! TheGrappler (talk) 00:37, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Template:Country data Micronesia

...Has been nominated for deletion: Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2011 February 15. Nightw 05:16, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Multiple names for variants

It would be useful to have multiple names for flag variants. For example, some flag variants use a year as the parameter, others use a description such as "empire". If the country of Foo had a different flag under the Fooian Empire which reigned from 1865 to 1869, using any of "empire", "Fooian Empire" or "1865" would produce the same variant. In addition, instead of just using the year the flag was adopted as the variant name, would it be possible to allow the variant to be produced by a range of years, e.g. entering any year between and including 1865 to 1869 would produce the same flag variant. That would remove the need to look up the name of the variant. If a flag is needed for Foo in 1867, {{Flag|Foo|1867}} would produce whatever flag was used in that year without the editor needing to know what it was. McLerristarr | Mclay1 05:40, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Adding support for a range of years would required the use of parser functions that are significantly more inefficient than the current implementation. (See Template:USN flag, which is not part of this flag template system, for an example of this.) But even so, the dates for flag changes are rarely ever January 1, so {{flag|Foo|1867}} would never be guaranteed to produce the correct image anyway. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 06:09, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

I realise that the year could be faulty if the change-over year was entered but that is the current situation anyway. To make it more complex, the templates could recognise any date within a range. I'm not sure what you mean by "inefficient". McLerristarr | Mclay1 06:57, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Template limits. It is desirable to keep these templates small, as many pages transclude many flag templates each. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 07:16, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

I really don't think this would be too complicated. It's just any number between A and B = flag 1, C and D = flag 2 etc. I'm not entirely sure how to do it but I'm sure it's not too difficult. And if number ranges are too difficult, having two names for each flag surely isn't too difficult. McLerristarr | Mclay1 14:04, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Sure, it's not difficult. But it is inefficient. These additions would significantly increase the size of each country data template, and that's a problem. These aren't like infoboxes, where there is a single transclusion per page. Flag templates are often transcluded hundreds of times on a single page. Therefore, size matters. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 18:30, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Well, I don't think it would make much of a difference but I can't do anything about it because I'm not an administrator. Oh, well. McLerristarr | Mclay1 03:36, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Actually, would it perhaps be possible to create new templates so that if the extra functions are not needed or the templates are transcluded too many times on a page, the normal templates could be used but the expanded templates are still available? McLerristarr | Mclay1 03:39, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

I can't see how a template would be able to tell if the page it was transcluded on had limit-related problems (i.e. is an article in Category:Pages where template include size is exceeded). — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 06:35, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

I don't mean anything tricky; I just mean an alternative template which an editor can decide to use or not. But I suppose that would just create an unnecessary amount of extra templates. Never mind then. McLerristarr | Mclay1 14:46, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Flag for West Indies cricket that is in the Public domain

The SVG for the pre 1999 West Indies flag, which is in the public domain, has been created. The use of this would result in a flag icon that looks like this: . I think that, as per the points made here, this would be acceptable to use. There appears to be no objection to the use of the flag (only objections to use of the current flag); this is public domain, there appear to be no legal or copyright issues. Therefore, I propose that we should go ahead and use this. Could this please be implemented by someone who has the ability to do so?Kwib (talk) 16:24, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Flagicon for Malta no work

The template {{Flagicon|MAL}} produces:

{{Flagicon|MAL}}

That is to say, it displays a lump of text, and no actual flag. If you want to see it in an article then visit F1 2010 (video game)#Teams and Drivers. Please fix. (I tried to work out in which template this error occurs, but got totally lost. Presumably somebody here knows.) HairyWombat 00:22, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Later. Problem solved. Switched to {{Flagicon|MLT}} and got . The problem was that there is no country with the three letter code "MAL". Would it not be possible to produce an error message in this situation? Displaying a great lump of unrelated text is unhelpful. HairyWombat 01:10, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

 Fixed A new user (Special:Contributions/SongFestivals) had created Template:Country data MAL under the mistaken assumption that "MAL" was a standard country code for Malta, and that the edit would work in the edits he/she was making to Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2011. But as to your suggestion, if you find that a three-letter country code doesn't work for you, don't use them. Just use {{flagicon|Malta}}. I don't think we want to create error message templates for every redlinked three letter acronym. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 21:11, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

The problem was the display of a great lump of text. Now that that is gone, we instead see the concise error message {{Flagicon|MAL}}, which is fit for purpose. Just to add to the fun, it turned out that the user who added {{Flagicon|MAL}} to the article F1 2010 (video game)#Teams and Drivers was attempting to add the flag of Malaysia (three-letter country code "MYS"). HairyWombat 02:15, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

FYI

Template_talk:Air_force. I don't really think these need icons. Gnevin (talk) 21:17, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Archive 100#Remove icons from .7B.7BAir_force.7D.7D .2C.7B.7BNavy.7D.7D and .7B.7BArmy.7D.7D, sorry here Gnevin (talk) 21:25, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Flags

There are currently RFCs on the use of flags within lists, including lists within articles; and the use of flags in infoboxes, at WT:MOSICON. This project is potentially affected by the RFC, and constructive comments from members of this WP is welcome.Curb Chain (talk) 07:04, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Flags

See Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2011_June_11. {{flag}} and {{flagicon}} were nominated for deletion. 65.94.47.63 (talk) 05:30, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Globe/worldwide

I created {{Country data globe}}, but I thought there must be already a template for that purpose. Is there? If not, is it right to create the template under "Template:Country data"?--OsamaK (talk) 11:53, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

This idea has already been rejected; see WP:Templates for discussion/Log/2010 March 28#Template:Country data World — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 20:43, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Non-free media as icons; adding section

I'd like to add a section on how to use flag icon templates to discourage people from using non-free media for such usage. The use of non-free media as icons fails WP:NFCC in a number of ways. Case example; Look at the infobox in this Iran–Iraq War article version. The non-free image File:People's Mujahedeen of Iran logo.png is used three times in the infobox, all with the use of Template:flagicon. Such usage violates WP:NFCC #1, as the image can be replaced with a link to MKO, and has been in the first case. It's a failure of WP:NFCC #3a, due to multiple uses of the same item when it can be replaced. It's a failure of WP:NFCC #8 because the icon size of the image is so low as to lose meaning; this isn't text. Such uses are routinely removed and have been for quite some time now. I believe we need to add a section to the instructions on this page to say "Non-free images should not be used in conjunction with icon templates, as such usage fails WP:NFCC. Consider using a link to a specific group's article instead". Comments? --Hammersoft (talk) 15:28, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

I frequently patrol Category:Country data templates, looking for non-free images that need to be removed—and also for improper removals by other editors (for example, when they simply delete the value of the flag alias parameter instead of replacing it with something like File:Flag of None.svg or File:Flag placeholder.svg, to prevent page breakage). But I'm not sure what you are asking here. Those non-free images are rendered with {{flagicon image}}, not with {{flagicon}}, so no country data templates are involved. {{flagicon image}} simply renders any arbitrary image with the same size, border, CSS style, etc. as {{flagicon}}, but has no relationship to these flag templates. Also, I doubt any notice on this project page would be widely seen; you are better off looking at WP:Manual of Style (icons), I think. I've also added a warning to the documentation for {{flagicon image}}. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 17:57, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

• I was referring only to {{Flagicon image}}, and some people's uses of that template to render non-free images. Thanks for adding the instruction. --Hammersoft (talk) 18:59, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Template:Country data Tunisia

Can anyone who is allowed to make changes to the template check my suggestion on the talk page? Thank you. — Abjiklam (talk • stalk) 05:39, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Template:Country data Philippines

Requesting a change in

• 1981 variant = File:Flag of the Philippines (light blue).svg

to

• 1985 variant = File:Flag of the Philippines (light blue).svg

This flag was used from 1985–1986, not 1981–1986 as stated in the template. The 1981 date comes from a misleading title on the FOTW website at http://www.fotw.net/flags/ph-blue.html#1985. The title for this flag variant says "Pale sky blue (1981–1986)" but the same page later goes on to state that the flag was introduced on 25 February 1985. The relevant government document for this change in the flag is EXECUTIVE ORDER NO. 1010 - February 25, 1985 - Amending Executive Order No. 23, dated March 25, 1936, entitled "Description and Specifications of the Filipino Flag"

I also provided the references for this on Philippine WikiProject talk page with a longer explanation. Mk32 (talk) 06:10, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Why are we not using the appropriate image for Northern Ireland in football-related articles?

As has been clarified elsewhere, Northern Ireland does not have a 'political' flag: where one is needed, the Union flag () should be used. The Ulster Banner () is completely obsolete, though some individuals continue to use it in a value laden way.

The [Northern] Irish Football Association uses a specific logo – file:Northern ireland national football team logo.png – and that is what we should be using in all football related articles, in particular the fb template. Why are we not using the correct image, why are we using an obsolete flag? --Red King (talk) 20:28, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

• No, we shouldn't be using it in that way. The image is a non-free image. --Hammersoft (talk) 17:23, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Edit requests

1. Template talk:Country data Morocco#Edit request on 22 January 2012--Pædia 05:13, 26 January 2012 (UTC)  Done by WOSlinker 08:36, 11 February 2012 (UTC).

Help

Help create the template in the template (Template:Bandy) for the national women's teams to bandy this kind of {{BandyW|RUS}} and {{BandyW-rt|RUS}}. This template is needed for example for this article, which used a template for the men's teams ({{Bandy|RUS}}). --Kolchak1923 (talk) 21:36, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Why not just use the flagicon template? Creating very basic sport-specific templates which duplicate flag templates is likely to cause unnecessary complexity, if not actual compliance problems further down the line... bobrayner (talk) 02:55, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

In football, as used and no complications ({{fbw}} and {{fbw-rt}}). --Kolchak1923 (talk) 08:05, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

I actually wrote a paragraph yesterday pointing out how football's templates are problematic, doubly so because they entrench noncompliance with WP:MOSFLAG in such a large number of articles where flags are misused, but then I never actually posted it because I felt that tangential criticism of other projects would be unhelpful. :-( If you really need articles with lots of flags, surely the existing flag templates will do the same job..? bobrayner (talk) 11:56, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

In addition to the flag, still have to enter an inscription on the national women's teams to bandy. With the template quickly and easily in the future. --Kolchak1923 (talk) 14:12, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

New Zealand Māori

On trying to fix links to the disambiguation page New Zealand Māori, I found difficulty in pages like List of Parramatta Eels representatives. Is there a way to do something like

or do I have to create variants of {{ru}} and {{rl}}? TimBentley (talk) 02:57, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Edit request

Can someone link all the Chile field hockey team as "Chile men's national field hockey team" without need to create redirect? TQ --Aleenf1 12:42, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Sorry i mean link in country data template. --Aleenf1 12:42, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

African Union

Is it possible to create a template for the AU flag as for the UN and EU? It makes lists like these difficult to format when the AU is the only org/nation without one. If you'll let me know what's involved, I'll be glad to pitch in, but I didn't think I should muck around without checking in first. Cheers, Khazar2 (talk) 17:11, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

Template help

Could someone with technical knowledge deal with the code changes needed at Template:Country data Republic of China following the main article's move from Republic of China to Taiwan? It should probably be fixed in a timely manner, but I don't want to break it. Danger ^{High voltage!} 22:53, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Nomination for merging of Template:UVK

Template:UVK has been nominated for merging with Template:Country data Kosovo. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you. mabdul 13:11, 11 May 2012 (UTC)