Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gallery of sovereign-state flags


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

The result was   keep. JForget 02:08, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Gallery of sovereign-state flags

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This has no encyclopedic value. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 07:43, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment Cf. List of cultural flags, Flags of formerly independent states, and Flags of active autonomist and secessionist movements. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 01:05, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

I disagree, see my entry in the discussion on dependent regions' flags. Haavard Ostermann (talk) 09:20, 7 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Transwiki to commons they have gallery pages there, and this can be an interwiki link at the sovereign state article(s). 70.29.210.242 (talk) 09:21, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment: Wikipedia pages function better than commons compilations (commons crashes computers!), and this is the kind of heavy-traffic page that needs to stay up top on wikipedia, IMHO. Flipping back-and-forth between commons and wikipedia shouldn't happen for a page of this importance.  (Just my 2 cents.) Skalskal (talk) 18:01, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I concur. Outback the koala (talk) 18:33, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
 * At the very least, a copy should reside on Commons, even if this is kept on Wikipedia. 70.29.210.242 (talk) 06:05, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
 * "commons crashes computers!" ???? if this page on Commons does that to your computer, then the same would happen here on WP if we were allow a gazillion Pretty Picture Galleries. Commons is designed for optimal transfer of multiple large files, WP is not. Exit2DOS • Ctrl • Alt • Del 18:56, 10 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Strong keep, or at worst move to Commons. Sometimes folks DO need to see an overview of the subject, i.e., ALL the flags of the world; that in fact is how I came across this nomination.  Calling this "no encyclopedic value" is totally absurd.  --RBBrittain (talk) 12:30, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Edit: One key purpose that can ONLY be served by a gallery of flags is to show them in relative proportion.  Many people don't realize that though nearly all flags are rectangular (among sovereign nations only Nepal's isn't), the proportion widely varies by country, from square (Switzerland) to extremely elongated (Qatar); that is hard to prove to some people without a gallery. --RBBrittain (talk) 13:01, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep a lot of the dead tree encyclopedias have a gallery page of just national flags (and some historical flags). I believe this would be very usefull here (and perhaps add a Commons cat template on the bottom). User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 15:33, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Why create duplication? As User:Justin's Comment pointed out, a Soft redir to Commons is just as, if not more, useful and search-able. Why must the same file reside on both? Exit2DOS • Ctrl • Alt • Del 18:56, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
 * We used to have a lot of pages like "Flags with X" (if the flag has stars, animals, crosses, etc.) and I generally supported moving those to the Commons. However, as I demonstrated, this kind of gallery of only national flags has been traditionally included in encyclopedias and we are following that. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 18:59, 10 March 2010 (UTC)


 * A very old copy of Britannica proves my point. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 02:21, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep in keeping with traditional encyclopedic content. Edward Vielmetti (talk) 00:41, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Speedy Keep Poor rational, this discussion should be closed as a speedy keep. An example of drive-by tagging at its worst. Outback the koala (talk) 01:19, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Please assume good faith... also it would be nice if you could explain the reasoning of your !vote. As all I can gather from your current opinion is that you like it. Exit2DOS • Ctrl • Alt • Del 18:56, 10 March 2010 (UTC)


 * KeepEncyclopedias and almanacs long before Wikipedia had illustrations of the flags of all countries of the world. The list should exclude made up micronations and only include generally accepted sovereign states. Edison (talk) 02:20, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep, as indeed plenty of encyclopedias and dictionaries have such lists. I think the current list of states there is fine, since they are all de facto sovereign and are securely in control of [at least some] national territory, even if some (Abkhazia, Kosovo, North Cyprus, Republic of China) are not fully internationally recognized. Basically, all these flags are actually flown as national flags over some regions of the earth. Vmenkov (talk) 05:07, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep, just like any paper encyclopedia, should be able to find them all in one place. Skalskal (talk) 17:57, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Warn nominator that he should observe our deletion policy with more care. Colonel Warden (talk) 00:20, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Transwiki to commons No encyclopedic content. WP:NOTREPOSITORY states: "Mere collections of photographs or media files with no text to go with the articles. If you are interested in presenting a picture, please provide an encyclopedic context, or consider adding it to Wikimedia Commons." Exit2DOS • Ctrl • Alt • Del 01:55, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
 * The article has text which goes with the pictures &mdash; the captions. These provide an encyclopedic context by telling us the relevant country and linking to more detailed articles such as Flag of the United Kingdom.  This is ample text for our purposes, which is to provide information in summary style, but if we wanted more we would provide it by ordinary editing not by deletion, per our editing policy.  WP:NOTREPOSITORY is thus completely refuted. Colonel Warden (talk) 08:08, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Your saying that the title of the flag and a link to The Actual Article is enough text to satisfy it being an Encyclopedic??? Not in my opinion. In my opinion nothing has been refuted by this claim that Flag of XXXXXX is encyclopedic content, it is simply a title (and a ruse). We do not need to edit it is true, because there is a relevant Article for each and every flag already that, by themselves, are a much more viable search term than this one thing has. (yes thing on purpose, I did not call it a Article in that last sentence, because there is no encyclopedic content.) This is a Pretty Picture Gallery and should go to Commons like all the rest before it. Exit2DOS • Ctrl • Alt • Del 00:27, 10 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep The WorldBook/Brittanica examples settle the issue. We're a superset of other general encyclopedias.  This is almanac-like content, and this is explicitly included as a part of Wikipedia. NOT REPOSITORY apparently needs to be rewritten for flexibility, but fortunately, all policies have exceptions.    DGG ( talk ) 04:56, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep Every general encyclopedia I have ever seen has such a gallery. Commons is not an encyclopedia. Nikola (talk) 18:48, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
 * You are correct, Commons is not an Encyclopedia, it is a "Shared media repository". By the same token I would mention WP is not a Pretty Picture Gallery for the storage of media files that are used across multiple projects. Exit2DOS • Ctrl • Alt • Del 19:02, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
 * You seem to be implying that the Gallery of sovereign-state flags is a "Pretty Picture Gallery". You are wrong. Nikola (talk) 19:53, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Well point out to me what is the Encyclopedic content of the page and I would not describe it as such. Exit2DOS • Ctrl • Alt • Del 23:31, 12 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep per WP:IAR. It is true that "Articles consisting entirely or primarily of galleries are discouraged, as the Commons is intended for such collections of images", but the argument about the way that other encyclopedias do it is sufficiently strong — I assume that professional encyclopedias wouldn't do something that's unencyclopedic.  Nyttend (talk) 15:20, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
 * The Wiki is not other Encyclopedias. We have a general set of rules that determine how to make a useful Article. The use of galleries should be in keeping with Wikipedia's image use policy. Policy is clear on this topic; the "if, due to its content, a gallery would only lend itself to a title along the lines of "Gallery" or "Images of [insert article title]", as opposed to a more descriptive title, the gallery should either be revamped or moved to the Commons. We cannot ignore Policy ? I agree that we are WP:NOTPAPER, but even that mentions that "there is an important distinction between what can be done, and what should be done". Galleries of nothing but images do not belong on THIS server. That was the entire reason for the creation of Commons, and why it was made so easy to link to it from all its sister projects. Exit2DOS • Ctrl • Alt • Del 00:06, 13 March 2010 (UTC)


 * KeepIf it's good enough for a print encyclopedia, it's good enough for Wikipedia. Edward321 (talk) 15:00, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.