Talk:Flags of the U.S. states and territories/Archive 1

"De facto" Mississippi flag
Beyond a single tweet, do we have any further verification of the use of the bicentennial flag in place of the recently retired former official flag? If the use of the bicentennial flag is not widespread, there are a variety of other designs that people and institutions have used to represent the state. I would say that if this flag appears in place of the former flag atop the Capitol building and in other "official" capacities, we should go with it. Otherwise, how do we establish which of the several de facto banners should appear? I can think of at least two right now, and I am sure there are others. Anwegmann (talk) 23:57, 30 June 2020 (UTC)


 * I accept that I might have jumped the gun a little here and have reverted my edit using the FIAV no flag symbol in the gallery in place of a flag image.Cordyceps-Zombie (talk) 00:17, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Mississippi flag missing?
Took a look at the article and noticed the flag of Mississippi to be missing from the state/flag picture on the sidebar. Is this an error?

You forgot the U.S. Virgin Islands.

We didn't forget them, but if you would look at the title of this article, it is Flags of the US states. Are the Virgin Islands a state? I think not!

House Bill 1796 has repealed the parts of the Mississippi state code that makes provisions for a state flag with immediate effect leaving the state with no official state flag. The symbol used in the gallery is the FIAV symbol for no official flag and is being used as a placeholder. Cordyceps-Zombie (talk) 09:00, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

There is an inconsistency between this page and the gallery of national flags. There, "flag of" is a link to the flag's page, and the country name links to the entry for that country. Maybe this should be applied here, ie: Flag of Washington

I have changed the header for the the flags of the insular areas and DC. It said: "Territories and non-states". I have changed it to "Flags of the Insular areas and the Federal District" Since the word "territory" is so ambigious. -- Hoshie 02:40, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

i anyone else bothered by the title? i mean, come on, the "flags of the united states states"???
 * This is a pretty common convention on Wikipedia, because unqualified "state" would imply a generic state (a national state or sub-state of a nation other than the U.S.). I don't care that much for it, I suppose it would be a little better to say "State flags of the United States" or "Flags of the states of the United States" but we actually use the phrase "U.S. state" a lot. Demi T/C 21:08, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
 * I moved it back to "Flags of the U.S. states". We have a rule against using abbreviations in category names, but that rule doesn't apply in the same way to article titles.  (The rule for article titles is to use the most common name.)  If someone really objects to the abbreviation, I suppose "State flags of the United States" would be okay too.  dbenbenn | talk 18:29, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
 * I think that "State flags of the United States" is clearer, the current title seems awkward to me.--Yukata Ninja 19:42, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Introduction
At the moment this is just a gallery. It needs an intro. Some suggestions, though I am far from being an an expert; I only suggest these as common themes from reading some of the individual articles; they may be way off-base.
 * Daughters of the American Revolution competitions inspired some.
 * Lots are one colour with a state seal, which designers think is a baaad idea.
 * Why is this? Some flags background colour is based on the uniform of its regiment in the American Revolution. Were most of them blue?  Did later-joining states just stick to the standard pattern?
 * Some states have added their names to their flags. Perhaps an attempt to aid differentiation?  Does it work?
 * Confederate Flag controversies.
 * 2001 survey ranking state flags from the North American Vexillological Association.
 * Maybe some trivia: most changes of design; oldest, newest; most/fewest colors. Some of this I could probably work out from the articles.  WP:NOR?  jnestorius(talk) 20:42, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Where do CSA state flags belong?
The topic of this article is "flags of states within the United States of America". During the civil war, a number of states left the USA and formed their own confederation, the CSA. Some (all?) flags of these rebel states are listed under "Historical flags", but I don't think they actually belong there. For example, the flag of Alabama of 1861–1865 shown there wasn't actually a flag of a USA state: it was the flag of a CSA state. (The USA government at the time certainly didn't recognize it as a legitimate flag of Alabama.) I propose moving all of these civil war era flags to the article Flags of the Confederate States of America, where I think they would be more on-topic. --ScottMainwaring 05:08, 11 April 2007 (UTC)


 * That article seems to be about national flags of the Confederacy while this article is about individual states. The constituent states of the CSA were US states before the war and were again afterwards. As far as the Union was concerned, they always were US states because they didn't recognize the secession as legitimate. Another point is that the federal government doesn't have any jurisdiction regarding state flags; i.e. the US Congress can't recognize any particular state flag as official. On a more prosaic note, it is easier for people to see the changes in the state flags if they are all in one place. I think the *Former flags* section is okay the way it is for these reasons. &mdash;Elipongo (Talk|contribs) 05:26, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Link style
The links would be less confusing if only the word "flag" linked to the state flag page. The black, unlinked "of" would help to separate the links for people. The counter-arguments to this that I can think of are not sufficient reasons.

I soon intend to execute this exercise in elegance, except if people take exception.

-Misha

216.254.12.114 (talk) 03:48, 29 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I disagree -- in general, people expect "flag" to link to Flag. I see no need to put links to the state pages (Michigan, etc.) on this page at all; it's a list of flags, not a list of states.  The most reader-friendly solution, in terms of not having to think carefully which word to click on, is to get rid of the repetitious "Flag of" text and link the name of the state below each flag to the flag page for that state; i.e., Michigan. --ScottMainwaring (talk) 16:32, 30 May 2008 (UTC)


 * That is a more substantial change. It's not really an argument against my more moderate alteration. If it is desired, we could always go that way. My improvement is merely a clearing-up of the current style. Unless you think that my way would be worse than the current style, I'll feel free to make the alteration.


 * -Misha


 * 216.254.12.114 (talk) 05:41, 4 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Misha, I agree -- my suggestion represents a more bold change than yours. But, no disrespect intended, I think your proposed style would indeed be (slightly) worse than the current style.  I think readers who see that the single word flag is linked to something would be rather more surprised to find that the link takes them not to the Flag article but to a specific "flag of ..." article, than they would be to find that the linked phrase flag of takes them to a specific "flag of" article.  Does this reasoning make sense? --ScottMainwaring (talk) 06:57, 4 June 2008 (UTC)


 * (Apologies for the long delay)


 * No, that reasoning does not make sense. One cannot, at present, tell that the blue link is actually two links. All that a person sees when viewing this page are links that say "Flag of _____". They most likely would think that it is one link, a link to the article for that state's flag.


 * Additionally, I think most people would NOT think that the article for "flag" had been linked to 79 times on one page. Rather, they would see that there are indeed two links, and either intuitively understand immediately, or investigate appropriately.


 * The only argument I can see in your favor would be that my alteration is an improvement of a bad style and would take the article further away from the simplicity of your solution; like an evolutionary path unconsciously propelled down a dead end, never able to turn around and take the other path, one that is slightly rougher at first, but then becomes a smooth road to someplace nice.


 * -Misha


 * 216.254.12.114 (talk) 14:13, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Historical Flag for Rhode Island
http://www.anyflag.com/history/rhodereg.htm

This flag was used by troops to represent RI during the War of Independence. It should be included under historical flags. 141.166.224.131 (talk) 04:52, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

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