User:SQGibbon/MOSFLAG

First up, this is going to be long, and I apologize for that. Hopefully it will be organized well enough to follow easily and will present the issue in a useful manner.

Second, I would very much like to see a consistent usage of flag icons throughout Wikipedia. It would be nice if a flag means roughly the same kind of thing wherever it is used.

I think there are two issues at work here, one is flags used to indicate national representation in a sporting sense and relevance/pertinence. I will deal with them separately.


 * Flags used to indicate national representation

Currently in non-sports biographies, Wikipedia appears to limit the use of flag icons to people who have a very strong tie to a country like with government and/or military service. A citizen who does not fit either of those two criteria does not then usually have a flag icon attached to their name (again, ignoring sportspeople for the moment). I think creating an analogous usage for flag icons with respect to sportspeople would be useful. Further I think there are two ways to look at the issue that I will refer to as the strong and weak versions (these are not intended to be pejorative names and are without qualitative judgement. They are just shorthand ways to refer to the different positions. You can also think of them as conservative and liberal respectively.)


 * Strong use. I propose that if we go with the strong use for flag icons that three criteria have to be met.


 * 1) The sporting event is promoted as country vs. country.
 * 2) Participation in the event is based on the athletes' nationality with significant restrictions applied based on nationality as opposed to world ranking or other criteria (not that it has to be exclusively based on nationality but that it's significantly determined by nationality).
 * 3) Points are awarded to countries based on the outcomes of events with one country eventually declared the champion.

I think the first two should be required for the strong case with the third one being optional (as with the Olympics).


 * Weak use.
 * 1) The organizer or some other body officially connected to the event indicates graphically or with text where each athlete is from.
 * 2) National anthems are played (at the start of events or for the winner).

The question I'm asking is which of these uses best reflects the non-sporting use of flags mentioned above? Which use is a closer analogy to a person being in the military or working as a government official? Personally I think the strong use is closer by analogy. The athlete's connection to a nation is made explicit and their performance representing/in service to that country is given high (or highest) priority.

One argument for the weak usage is that the strong version looks like original research in that we are defining flags differently than how these sports bodies are doing it. I do not think that is the case. On Wikipedia we often define things differently than is commonly done outside these pages. Anyone who works RCP or has "list of notable X" articles on their watchlist knows firsthand that many new editors define "notability" differently than we do on Wikipedia. We actually have a fairly precise and technical definition that is far more restrictive than what many people outside of Wikipedia use. This leads to all sorts of conflicts. Similarly we use the word "guideline" in a specific manner. It is not a mere suggestion that editors can choose to follow as they will but is a "rule" that all editors are expected to follow at all times with rare exception occurring as condoned by the community at large (individual projects within Wikipedia are not allowed to contradict guidelines). In fact editors can be blocked for continually violating guidelines regardless of how harmless the offense appears to be. Similarly we can define flag icon usage however we want. We do not have to define them according to how various sports bodies define them.

If we adopt the weak version I believe this will water down the meaning of flags. It's a very short slippery slope from the weak version to all biographical listings/tables using flag icons at which point the use restricted to military/government official becomes mostly meaningless. If the community consensus is that serving in the military/official government capacity is no more significant than being a citizen of a country then so be it. I'm totally fine with that. But if we think the distinction is useful then using the weak definition will compromise that usefulness.

For example, in the results tables for the Academy Awards we do not currently use flag icons but if the Academy were to start putting little icons next to the names of nominees when they are announced then by the weak definition we could start using flags in those tables. And then what if a company starts mentioning the nationality of its key employees in their "About" pages (with or without flag icons)? Again, using flag icons for list of employees could be justified using the weak definition. This isn't so slippery that we'd end up using flags in every instance where we list people but it would certainly expand the scope so much that we'd lose the military/government distinction.

Now let's look at how the strong and weak definitions might be applied to specific sports:


 * 1) Tennis. Most tennis tournaments (Wimbledon, US Open, etc.) would fail the three criteria for the strong use. These tournaments are not promoted as country vs. country. Participation is not restricted by nationality but instead by world ranking (and who is willing to show up).  And countries are not awarded points toward a championship at the end of the tournament.
 * These tournaments do pass at least one of the criteria for the weak definition. Flags are used by the names of players.  I don't know about national anthems.
 * All that said, tennis does have two events that do pass the strong criteria. the Olympics and the Davis Cup. These are promoted as nation v. nation. Participation is determined by athletes' nationality. And at least with the Davis Cup points are awarded and a nation is crowned champion.  Flag use for these events would thus be justified.
 * If we use the weak definition which will result in flags being used all the time then there will be no obvious distinction between when a tennis player represents their country at the Olympics or in the Davis Cup vs. when they do not or the players who never participate in those events but only plays regular professional tournaments. Is this loss significant? I think so.

2) Golf. This is similar to tennis. Participation in tournaments is determined by ranking (a qualification process) and not by a player's nationality. Tournaments are not promoted as country v. country. Points and championships are not awarded to countries but only to individual participants.  The strong criteria are not met.
 * The weak criteria are met. Players are typically listed with their nationality. I do not believe national anthems are ever played.
 * Like tennis golf does have an event that fulfills the strong requirements, the Ryder Cup. It is the US vs. Europe (not strictly country vs. country but I think most would agree that it qualifies in spirit). Participation is restricted by the nationalities of the players. The championship is awarded to the winning country/group of countries.
 * And just like with tennis if we adopt the weak meaning then participation in the Ryder Cup will not be as clearly distinct as participating in regular tournaments.

3) Formula 1 racing. The three criteria for the strong usage are not met. F1 events are not promoted as country vs. country. Driver participation is not determined by nationality. Teams are allowed to hire whomever they want from any nation they want. Individual nations license drivers for these events but that's different than the drivers being chosen because of their nationality. Theoretically one season could have all drivers from England and then the next season all the drivers could come from Brazil and Canada. Finally, points are not awarded to individual countries and no country is crowned the champion at the end of the season. In F1 the drivers compete in each race and a champion is determined at the end of the season. Additionally, the constructors (teams based on what company built the cars) are also award points toward an end-of-the-season championship.
 * More so than the other sports listed so far, F1 passes the weak test. Flags are associated with drivers and national anthems are played (for the winner of each event).
 * Unlike tennis and golf there is no event in F1 that passes the strong set of criteria. This means that under the strong definition flag icons would never be used within the F1 project. There is nothing inherently bad about this as the whole point of the strong position is to limit the use flags to a pretty specific definition.

4) I was going to discuss MMA (since it's the one that started all this) but it's basically the same as golf and tennis. There has been one UFC event that was promoted as Canada v. US in which the use of flag icons can be justified in the results table but otherwise events are fighter v. fighter failing the strong criteria but passing the weak ones.


 * Relevance of flags in tables

This was an issue that came up during the MMA RFC. When in a table comprising the results of fights is a flag indicating the nationality of the fighters relevant? I argued then that the answer is no. Strictly speaking what is relevant is the name of the fighters (or the opponent in articles for specific fighters) and the outcome. We also add where and when the fight happened (if needed), how long it lasted, how it ended (KO, TKO, etc.), the record of the fighter (articles for specific fighters), and notes (championship fight, tested positive for drugs, etc.). These all have a pretty clear relevance to the outcome of these fights. Where a fighter is born does not. Do some people like to see that information? Sure. But I bet people would also like to see things like the weight of the fighters, righties or southpaws, reach, and fighting style. In fact I would say that those are even more relevant than where the fighter happened to be born or where they currently claim to be a citizen of. Nationality is just not relevant in a table containing the results of a fight. Nor is it relevant in a listing of the fights for an event (for the same reason).

I believe the results tables for the other sports listed here fall under this same analysis.

Football (soccer) has its own issues. Currently the articles for clubs list the players on the team along with a flag icon. Interestingly the flag is determined by FIFA eligibility (not where the player was born but for which national team the athlete may play for or does play for). Unfortunately the flag is used even if the player has never played for that nation (another way that weakens the use of flags). But the question is, is indicating FIFA eligibility actually relevant in these lists? I don't see how it is. The name of the player and the position they play is relevant, national representation is not. Again, information like goals scored, number of games played, footedness are also interesting bits of information that are more relevant than FIFA nationality but still do not belong. These tables are a list of the players not biographical lists of players (you can click on their names to find out whom they are married to, their weight, where they were born, what country they play for (if they do), other clubs they've played for, and so on). With some football teams/leagues there are restrictions on how many foreign nationals can play on a club. I believe this information could be added to these tables but instead of having a flag icon an asterisk would suffice with a note indicating something like "1 of 3 foreign nationals allowed by league rules to play with this club".

And then there are the tables for the managers. These also list the names with flag icons. In this case there are no FIFA eligibility rules for managers. Instead these flags indicate only where the manager was born (or maybe where they are a citizen). FIFA does not have any say about where a manager can work, i.e., they can be born anywhere and manage anywhere. Flag icons have a use in the football project when dealing with national squads but even then managers do not have to be from the countries they are managing. Flag icons used with managers is strictly non-sports related biographical information that fails all the criteria listed here.

In the end I believe the strong definition provides an interesting and useful distinction and be logically applied across all sports in a fairly obvious and easy to understand manner. The weak version is fine, if that's what the community wants to go with, but then the meaning of flag icons becomes a little more vague and less useful.

I did not address aesthetic issues (like flags all over an article are ugly and look like Christmas trees -- just imagine if they blinked to indicate dual-nationality!). Nor did I address issues concerning situations where with the weak definition there is the potential for conflict regarding where an athlete is really from and what nation they represent (we all know that with the rampant nationalism that plagues Wikipedia that problem can lead to years of nasty arguments, blocks, and even bans). Nor did I deal with bandwidth issues (less of a problem from most Western nations but potentially an issue in various places all over the world).

Personally I support the strong definition and that's my !vote. If the community goes with the weak definition then I'd support and would be very happy and relieved that we would have a consistent definition that can be applied throughout Wikipedia. SQGibbon (talk) 09:59, 24 December 2012 (UTC)