Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Icons/Archive 16

TfD: Template:Geographic_location
Please see Templates for discussion/Log/2017 July 20, which is likely of interest to the regular editors of MOS:ICONS. It cites this guideline, as the template uses decorative icons, but the main issue is whether the template is itself decoration for its own sake, or actually serves an encyclopedic navigation function. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  02:19, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

Flags in Infobox country in articles about the country
Does the guidance against using flag icons in infoboxes apply even to Infobox country in articles about the country? I understand that when an article is about, say, a sportsperson, the country the person is from is only one fact among many about that person, and marking the country with a flag gives it unnecessary prominence. It's also WP:COATRACKy, insofar as while we want to know that Andy Roddick is from the United States, it's as much a digression to then show us that "here is what the U.S. flag looks like" as it would be to list the population of the United States at that point.

But in an article about a country, the country's flag is as pertinent and deserving of prominence as its population, no?

The reason I'm asking is because of this edit by an editor who made several similar edits to other articles at about the same time. If I'm correct and it is acceptable for the flag to be displayed in the infobox in the article about the entity that the flag represents, then this guideline should say so. If it isn't acceptable, then I recommend the guideline clarify this, stating explicitly that flags shouldn't be used in infoboxes even in articles about the places the flags belong to. Largoplazo (talk) 10:35, 29 August 2017 (UTC)


 * The guideline referenced is about flag icons. I do not think it is relevant to the primary display of a flag. Ian Dalziel (talk) 10:41, 29 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks, I see you communicated with him and got this worked out. I would have but wanted to double-check here that I was on firm ground. Largoplazo (talk) 20:02, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

Flags in location columns of terrorism list articles
As far as I can tell, every list article linked to from this template uses country flags in the 'location' column on each row in the tables. Does this comply, or not, with this guideline? My view is that it does not, as the locations of the various attacks were not representing their country in any respect. I tried to remove the flags from a couple of articles, but was swiftly reverted. Views please. -- DeFacto (talk). 18:51, 1 October 2017 (UTC)
 * It does not. We permit this in sport and military tables because reliable sources on them tend to do this themselves with tabular data.  This is not true of reportage and other sources on terrorism; no one is publishing "score charts", our readers do not expect the information to be presented this way, it's a PoV imposition of nationalistic visual messaging, and it doesn't help the reader understand the encyclopedic material.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ &gt;ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ&lt;  23:17, 1 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I think their use in these articles are WP:ICONDECORATION and do nothing to help the readers understand the article. LLCoolpp, who reverted the flagicons removal first, tried to keep the articles consistent, but gave no other reason they should be used. The places where attacks occur does not represent the country as StrikeDog claimed. Aspects (talk) 23:53, 1 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Agree with all above - they are inappropriate uses for these articles, particularly as it could possibly be taken with the visual cue that the country is the one that supported the terrorist incident (which, no.). --M ASEM (t) 00:43, 2 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I also agree that the usage is not MOS compliant and your edits to implement the guideline should not have been reverted. Mojoworker (talk) 16:55, 2 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your opinions on this. It seems we should definitely remove the flag icons from those articles. -- DeFacto (talk). 06:17, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Well that was short-lived! -- DeFacto (talk). 15:07, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
 * And they're gone again. It's nice to have new editors so long as they follow our guidelines and policies, but too many don't know about them or read them when they are pointed out. Doug Weller  talk 18:18, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
 * And now an IP who is clearly someone with an account logged out (they were CU blocked for 3 months in June) has reverted arguing that they will continue to revert until the flags are removed from all similar articles. Doug Weller  talk 18:42, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Last I looked, an outright pledge to continue editwarring is grounds for an insta-block, without any CU stuff having to be invoked.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ &gt;ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ&lt;  10:16, 4 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I've applied the guideline again in the September article too. -- DeFacto (talk). 18:57, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Removed again. Pinging to this discussion.  Eve rgr een Fir  (talk) 20:02, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

They keep being re-added. I'm very concerned about the contents of these lists. There seems to be a rush to add as much acts of violence (regardless whether they are confirmed to be terrorism) in order to make the list as lengthy as possible.Tvx1 18:18, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I do agree that some of the content (beyond the flag icons) is certainly not what would fall under a more objective definition of "Terrorism", but that's likely an issue at WP:OR/N. The flags need to go, period. There's no allowance for them at all and implies something worse with their inclusion. --M ASEM (t) 20:18, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Also suggest it's time to have administrative action deal with the editwarring by these parties.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ &gt;ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ&lt;  21:42, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

Nobel icons next to name in infobox
A new editor has been adding Nobel Prize icons next to the awardees name in the infoboxes. The editor pointed out that this is common on other language wikipedias. (for example, see User talk:GustafSeb) I haven't seen icons used in this way before, and I can't find anything in the MoS to support this. Is there any guideline for or against the usage of icons in this way? Natureium (talk) 15:06, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Examples:
 * * https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein
 * * https://an.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unión_Europea
 * * https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europeiska_unionen
 * * https://af.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dag_Hammarskjöld
 * It can also be noted that on the Swedish Wikipedia, the Icon is also put in front of the name of the Nobel Prize in the Infobox (se the Albert Einstein article linked above) GustafSeb (talk) 15:13, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Now that I think about it, this might be better for the infobox MoS, so I posted this on WT:Manual of Style. Let's move the discussion there. Natureium (talk) 15:24, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

Flags in Infobox rockunit
Does the guidance against using flag icons in infoboxes apply to Infobox rockunit in articles about geological formations? I recently had an edit war with a user citing MOS:INFOBOXFLAG as a reason for removing the flag icon but it is quite common for them to be used in such articles. And I gotta admit it looks quite bare without them.  Volcano guy  05:03, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

Inline flag-like icon for Wikidata, at TfD
Please see Templates for discussion/Log/2018 January 16.

The fact that the nominator was blatantly accused of bad faith in even daring to open this template for discussion says a lot about the bloc vote going on over there right now. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ &gt;ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ&lt;  00:35, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

Better example needed?
''Repeated use of an icon in a table or infobox. This should only be done if the icon has been used previously with an explanation of its purpose.'' To me this means we should have the country name in words at least once. In which case List of WPA World Nine-ball Champions fails? Would you agree? Gnevin (talk) 11:29, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Yeah, this needs work. It's unclear what the original intent was.  One case is obviously that if the nationality parameter already gives the flag icon, then it should not be used again for death place, etc.   In sports tables, the consistency of the layout is important and the flags get used repeatedly.  Not sure how to encapsulate such a distinction, and there are others (e.g. use in tables about military conflicts).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ &gt;ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ&lt;  12:16, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Perhaps replace the example with European_Rugby_Champions_Cup ? Gnevin (talk) 10:10, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Transit system icons in nav templates
In responding to an edit template-protected request (temporarily declined), the question has come up whether to remove transit system icons entirely from station (and perhaps similar) navigational templates, or to preserve them along with plain wording; clearly the icons alone are not sufficient even with  text because the words in many of them (when they even contain words) are not alway legible in icon size.

I.e., the question is whether to remove the icons like the one shown in front of "London Underground" in this example:

I declined the request at least initially because an argument can be made that the icons are helpful to a subset of editors (each is recognizable instantly to anyone familiar with the transit system in question) and thus are not purely decorative; these icons do not raise the socio-political and WP:UNDUE issues that overuse and misuse of flag icons do; and we're more tolerant of such images in nav templates than elsewhere. On the other hand, the icons are surely not, and it's not clear how helpful they are nor to what percentage of readers. I remain neutral on the question; this is a procedural nomination so template editors know what to do. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ &gt;ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ&lt;  18:32, 18 November 2017 (UTC); revised: 20:12, 25 November 2017 (UTC); clarified: 08:03, 29 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep, for recognition. Useddenim (talk) 22:22, 18 November 2017 (UTC) particularly when there are multiple lines/operators/modes at a major station. Useddenim (talk) 22:41, 25 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Whether an icon is decorative is not a question of it being recognized, it's of question of what function it has. In this example I do no see how this gives our readers any additional information. It doesn't tell anything the text doesn't already tell them. So yes, they are purely decorative and therefore at odds with these guideline and should not be retained.Tvx1 14:22, 19 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Maybe open an RfC. I guess it would be best to not show them at all for consistency, unless only the icon is shown and not the text (which wouldn't apply to the templates used above). Jc86035 (talk) 12:13, 25 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I'll put put an RfC tag on this, since it already asks a clear question.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ &gt;ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ&lt;  20:12, 25 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Support removal. I don't see any evidence that these icons provide additional information that text doesn't already provide and thus that they are not decorative. The guidelines is clear in that case they should not be used.Tvx1 21:54, 25 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Remove them all. Not only are some of these icons being used as text, which is absolutely unacceptable at any time due to accessibility implications; the icons as a whole are blatant cruft. We are an encyclopedia, not a train guide. The systems are clearly identifiable by their names; like Tvxl says above, this is a clear violation of the MOS's directives on decorative images. James (talk/contribs) 11:00, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep. I'm generally opposed to "icon cruft" for the sake of it, but, in considering SMcCandlish's example above, I do find that the icon aids recognition and adds to the text. No, we are not a "train guide", but equally we should not exclude graphical aids to recognition where they can be helpful, and, the more I consider it, the more I feel they can actually be helpful, alongside the text, in this scenario. With regards to "it's not clear how helpful they are nor to what percentage of readers.", I agree - but if we accept that they are helpful at all, to any readers, then what 'improvement' do we achieve by their removal? -- Begoon 11:32, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep — they make for faster recognition than text alone. Obviously the text must also be present, as per the WP:ACCESS argument already mentioned, but at a glance, they make it quicker to see what is what. —Joeyconnick (talk) 23:26, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Comment in regard to the recognition argument − these logos are only recognizable to a) people who already use the system in question (i.e., locals) and b) railfans. Keeping them strikes me as special pleading and a failure of our obligation to write for a general audience. James (talk/contribs) 00:44, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Well, I live 12,000 miles from London, it's hard to be less 'local', and I am no 'railfan', yet the icon in the above example aids recognition for me. The names of the stations might "only be recognisable to locals" too - should we also omit them in our quest to "write for a general audience"? From the guideline, as far as I am concerned, the icons "serve as visual cues that aid the reader's comprehension, [and] improve navigation", so should be retained. -- Begoon 01:45, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
 * My family and I easily and readily recognize the logo as it is so firmly associated with the London Underground, and by extension, London. Considering the millions of annual visitors (including me) to London and its cosmopolitan nature, it has wide recognition beyond the locale.  Even though I am from Nor Cal, I find the words London Underground incomplete without the icon--at least in this context.  Thus, I too believe the inclusion of the icon aides comprehension and writes for the general audience.  Thanks for everyone's work.Horst59 (talk) 22:20, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
 * I could have been able to agree with you if it were the only such logo in use. That is not the case however. Transport for London has twelve such roundels in use for different systems differentiated only by a specific color. For instance, in Queens Park (London) station the navboxes contains two such roundels with only a tiny difference in color yet signaling a different railway service. A difference the many users which do not have full color vision can't see. Moreover, one of the railway services listed there even has two icons for the same bit of text, which only increases the confusion. In the infobox, there are two roundels as well which are not differentiable. So no, I really can't agree that this is appropriate, helpful use of icons.Tvx1 22:48, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
 * You make a compelling point, User:Tvx1, and I believe you are right. Accessibility is critical, and as information, information fails when it lacks clarity, causes confusion.  Thanks for letting us know about the similar design and colors.Horst59 (talk) 23:42, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

Transit system icons in non-transit infoboxes
Should transit system icons be used in non-transit infoboxes? The two types of infoboxes that use these icons the most are Template:Infobox venue and Template:Infobox museum in their publictransit field even though both give the same advice of "Example: " like Soldier Field does.

Some articles use generic bus and rail icons (Cardiff Story Museum), some use the transit logos (Spectrum Stadium) and others use templates like rail color box (Golden 1 Center). The article that brought me to start this discussion was the icon overload that is Madison Square Garden.

These icons have their place in transit infoboxes, but I oppose the use of these icons in non-transit infoboxes. The infobox parameters do not use them as examples, they do not provide additional information that the text does not provide thus being decorative against WP:ICONDECORATION, some of the icons are being used as text against WP:ACCESS and the icons could also be seen as going against WP:TRAVELGUIDE.Aspects (talk) 17:12, 1 April 2018 (UTC)


 * I don't see any problem with generic icons (e.g.,  , etc.) plus route name or number to indicate mode and service(s), but anything beyond this is unnecessary window-dressing. Useddenim (talk) 23:38, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
 * The trouble with those icons is that with out you using tlx to show the name that would of been meaningless to me Gnevin (talk) 12:36, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

MoS and another "decoration" matter
Please see: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:09, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

Questionable use of flags: for national-cuisine entries in articles on foodstuffs
See, e.g. Chicharrón. I don't think the flags here are appropriate, and their use is making the material into kind of a pseudo-table, plus it's also inspired a lot of WP:PROSELINE by trying to make entries look tabularly consistent instead of being well-written as an article. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  14:20, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Agreed. There's no formal representation here to justify the use of flags. --M asem (t) 14:42, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm with Masem on this. Tony (talk)
 * Me too. --John (talk) 14:58, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I would agree - no reason for those flags. Fyunck(click) (talk) 05:56, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I concur – not an appropriate use. Mojoworker (talk) 14:31, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
 * This is about the response I predicted (given that I wrote the gist of this guideline. >;-) I've replaced  that mess with a tidy MOS:DLIST, though it still needs copyediting for WP:PROSELINE.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:37, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

Alt text, and text-based "icons"
I've been rewriting Rail color box in Lua.
 * Does this guideline apply to templates like Color box? Currently the hatnote at the top reads as though the guideline would apply to " ■ " (because it uses a Unicode character), but not to "" or "", even though they perform the same function.
 * Do linked text-based icons need to have alt text/title text, or does that section only apply to images?

Jc86035 (talk) 10:34, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
 * "For the purposes of this guideline, icons encompasses any small images – including logos, crests, coats of arms, seals, flags, etc. – whether produced by small image files, typographic dingbats, or emojis." I.e., Unicode glyphs and such are included; it doesn't just mean "image files". Use of just color by itself should probably be considered in light of MOS:ICONS "in spirit", and also per MOS:ACCESS. E.g., if color is used, make sure it's not the only way to distinguish, but is just used as an adjunct for those with full-color vision. And don't use template and CSS trickery to include a colored box as a pseudo-icon to evade restrictions about an actual icon. Transit-related templates, like sports ones, do make use of a fair amount of color, and we also use color coding in various charts and graphs.  So, apply WP:Common sense.  PS: When alt text can be applied at all, it would probably be to just suppress any output; the icons don't mean anything to the blind, so they need not be explained in situ, unless they're actually the topic of the sentence, I suppose (e.g., about a change in design).  One might need to do some kind of vision-impairment compensation when it comes to using colors as keys/legends for tabular data; I would ask at WT:MOSACCESS, since this has probably come up before.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:29, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

PS: If people are doing things like, we should probably upgrade the guideline to address this sort of thing, at least in a footnote. I.e., it's not okay do so stuff like that in mid-sentence, for the same reason it's not okay to do in mid-sentence, either. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:29, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
 * In the case of TransLink (BC) box above (to generate " ■ "), that's being used at TransLink Services to indicate where transfers are, so appropriate alt text might be "Transfer available to [name] Line", right? Seems like the ability to add alt text should be included in these types of templates for when they are used as shorthand rather than merely decorative additions. —Joeyconnick (talk) 18:50, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I haven't seen any uses like that within body text; it seems to be most common in lists and tables (probably because of WP:COLOR restrictions). I'm not sure whether it would actually be technically correct to add alt text, or whether it would do anything. Module:MTR did add title text, but I didn't replace the title attribute (which might have been correct). I could add the alt attribute to the module, since the module currently extracts the page name part of a wikitext link and puts it in one of the coloured boxes, and the display text part of those links could be harvested for the alt text. Jc86035 (talk) 19:07, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Yeah, alt text isn't "a Wikipedia thing", it's part of the underlying HTML spec (see alt attribute), and it's only available for specific objects, like images. About the only way to fake one here would be to actually use a transparent image over a colored background, or use a colored image with that same color, and apply the alt text to the image.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:20, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks; I think I probably misunderstood a (different) Stack Overflow post about this which suggested it was valid to put the alt attribute on a link. Jc86035 (talk) 19:25, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Anyway, unless my memory is badly failing me, we once already had some wording in the guideline about not using CSS and HTML tricks to try to get around the guideline and simulate icons then use them inline in regular prose. Regardless, we  have it.  The wikilawyering-minded are always going to try to game the system, to exploit loopholes that are not really loopholes (because WP:P&G, WP:CONSENSUS, WP:GAMING, etc., tell us to interpret the rules as intended, not as to the exact letter of their wording). It's just an order of magnitude more efficient to insert a footnote about this than to deal with repeat wikilawyering attempts as they arise. I remember writing this page (in anything like its present form) originally about flags only. Then it had to cover all icons (due to, e.g., misuse of highway-sign icons in mid-sentence), then it expanded to cover Unicode/ASCII decorative dingbats, and then emoji.  This is just the next "nope, don't decorate that way either" matter.   of this stuff needs to be constrained to a) tabular data presentation, and b) only when actually useful to the reader even in that context, and c) only when not problematic for other reasons.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:25, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:List of female racing drivers
You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:List of female racing drivers. -- Marchjuly (talk) 04:59, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Nobel prizes and flags, again
See Talk:List of Christian Nobel laureates. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:12, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

Decorative use of CSS font stuff
Please see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters, which also involves CSS font-manipulation techniques (whether for recognizability or decorative intent) like that illustrated in the infobox in this diff. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:54, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

Edit to Manual of Style/Icons
Re: this edit: Icons should not be used in prose in the article body.

This was quickly reverted by with the summary: "Undid revision 873439965 by Cinderella157 (talk) you literally changed the wording of this page right after I quoted it in a discussion - that's low".

The edit I made was to have the guidance be consistent with both the heading of the section and with the example. It appears that the text, in its original form can (and has been) misconstrued or misrepresented by quoting out of the context. The intent is clearly wrt use in prose and not from the main body of the article more generally (such as in tables or lists).

The reverting reinstates the ambiguity that occurs when quoting the passage "out of context". It would therefore appears to be contrary to P&G. Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 06:53, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
 * If the intent of this edit is to make it more permissible to insert more icons, then I oppose. All that would do is encourage "decorators" to convert good prose into lists and tables (against MOS:USEPROSE) just so they could get away with adding more little pictures.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:54, 21 December 2018 (UTC)
 * , the intent of the edit was to clarify the statement per the heading of the section and the example, where the context was being misrepresent by quoting the previous words out of context. I do not see it as actually changing the advice at all. Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 23:50, 21 December 2018 (UTC)
 * So, what problem is it seeking to solve? If people are trying to say that icons cannot be used in a table of Olympics results, because the table is in the body, they're obviously wrong since the rest of the guideline makes it clear that such use is permissible.  If there genuinely is an interpretation problem, then we have a WP:Writing policy is hard matter; changing the extant wording has to be done in a way that cannot be system-gamed.  Cross-referencing other WP:P&G material is usually be best proof against such problems.  E.g.: "Icons should not be used in prose in the article body. [Keep the existing example here.] However, prose should not be converted to a list or table as an excuse to include icons; only material that is best presented as a list or table should be in such a format."   But I'm not sure if this addresses the original issue between you and PlanespotterA320, since I don't know where that conversation is.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:27, 22 December 2018 (UTC)
 * , it was much a case of the "obviously wrong", from quoting the text literally and out of the context of the section within which it was written (and the example) to mean a broader prohibition. My post was part of BRD. The matter is resolved here and elsewhere. If you feel it necessary to know more, message me. Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 11:00, 22 December 2018 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:2019 Monte Carlo Rally
There is currently a discussion underway at Talk:2019 Monte Carlo Rally regarding the use of flagicons in articles for sporting events where there is no organised competition between nations. 1.144.108.211 (talk) 21:12, 25 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Like said "Representing a nation has a much wider meaning than just competing against each other.", using flagicons should not be limited to representing countries. Removing flags is a ridiculous and unachievable idea because almost all sports-related WikiProjects used flagicons for years. If the flagicons have to be removed for the so-called "flagicons should only be used to indicate the nationality of someone representing their nation in competition", then there will be and certainly will be an earth-shaking impact to almost all sports-related WikiProjects like WP:F1, WP:Tennis, WP:Snooker, etc. -- Unnamelessness (talk) 01:46, 26 December 2018 (UTC)
 * First paragraph: Icons may be helpful in certain situations: They are useful in articles about international sporting events, to show the representative nationality of players (which may differ from their legal nationality). Example: List of WPA World Nine-ball Champions. Pelmeen10 (talk) 04:01, 26 December 2018 (UTC)


 * It is completely inappropriate to be posting these comments here. The purpose of starting this discussion is to inform editors of a discussion elsewhere. To continue a discussion here when there is another discussion elsewhere may be considered consensus-shopping&mdash;you don't get the result you want in one discussion, but you do get it in another, so you ignore the first and rely on the second. Case in point, you cite the MOS as a guideline here and suggest that editors are free to follow as they see fit, but here you voice opposition to the proposed change, citing the scale of the changes that would need to accomodate it. If, as your comment in the original discussion suggested, editors are free to observe or ignore the MOS as they see fit, then we are free to stop using the flagicons without worrying how it affects other articles. You cannot argue it both ways. At the very least it is very poor etiquette because it looks like you are trying to influence the course of the discussion separate to it. 1.144.108.211 (talk) 07:30, 26 December 2018 (UTC)


 * First, my original point is that MOS is just a recommendation. However, I said per WP:SILENCE, adding flagicons is a consensus. That is to say, the action of adding flagicons or not is not decided by the recommendation, i.e. WP:ICON, which means flagicons should not be removed.
 * Second, I agree with 's point. That is to say, even with the recommendation, flagicons still should be there because all drivers and co-drivers are naturally represent their country. That's the reason why the fans are proud of them after winning a event.
 * Are they contradictory? No. They are progressive relations. -- Unnamelessness (talk) 08:40, 26 December 2018 (UTC)
 * I agree, they are here to stay, and I don't really have any problem with them. Some people get bent out of shape if they see even one icon. My only observation is that if I were creating a auto racing or tennis page, I would do my best to link the icon the first time only with a person. So something like 2018 Miami Open – Men's Singles would have the opening round listed with flags but subsequent rounds would be sans flag. I don't see any real need to have them more than once, but that's just me... the vast majority of tennis editors disagree with me. Fyunck(click) (talk) 09:21, 26 December 2018 (UTC)
 * @ &mdash; I have suggested that as a compromise. In this article alone there are close to four hundred flagicons, most of which are repeated at least once after their first use. I don't see what that adds to the article other than padding it out. I estimate that we could save anywhere between 12,000 and 15,000kB of data from an article simply by cutting redundant flagicons out of it. 1.144.108.211 (talk) 10:14, 26 December 2018 (UTC)

Flags and military commanders
Please see Talk:Sino-Vietnamese conflicts, 1979–1991 – a MOS:FLAGS matter, about military commanders. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:25, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

Notice of conversation of interest
Hi. Notice of conversation at Talk:2019 World Snooker Championship regarding usage of flags within sporting articles. Best Wishes,  Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 11:27, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

Flagicons in predecessor/successor
Some templates like are providing parameters for flag icons that do not comply with MOS:FLAGS. I'll just quote Ealdgyth on this, from a different page, talking about this example (the two flag icons for predecessor and successor countries):

My own take on this: Yeah, those two flag icons were not just distracting visual noise, they were downright visually confusing, because the template is mis-coded and they do not align properly. The template should not have parameters for this, because doing it is non-guideline-compliant, even if someone actually knew how to use CSS properly.

It looks like we need to review this series of templates for "screw MOS:ICONS, I'm going to implement my cute decorations anyway" coding, and remove it. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:45, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

Also relevant: BilCat observes:

Some other potential-problem pages noted by :
 * List of diplomatic missions of the United States.
 * Responses to the 2019 Venezuelan presidential crisis
 * International reactions to the Arab Spring
 * Reactions to the death of Bhumibol Adulyadej
 * Reactions to the 2016 Brussels bombings
 * Much else in Category:Reactions and its many subcategories (most of the content of which appears to be non-encyclopedic claptrap, failing either WP:NOT or WP:NOT or WP:NOT or some combination of these).

So, the issue is beyond just those infoboxes with "country" in their names. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:16, 14 April 2019 (UTC); updated: 03:40, 22 April 2019 (UTC); fixing ping to  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:43, 22 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Absolutely. We need to be judicious in using these often-distracting, low-info icons. See my comment here. Tony (talk)  02:09, 14 April 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm tempted to say that we should nix the use of any flag icon. They are basically so abused otherwise. --M asem (t) 04:17, 22 April 2019 (UTC)
 * This doesn't even touch the use of the little road icons, which get used not only in road articles, but also in city articles - see Oklahoma City or the infobox at Danbury, Connecticut or Charleston, South Carolina. The problem of the flagicons is going to be made more difficult by the sports and military projects, which seem to be particularly fond of little colored blobs. It's not just common flags either - I'm constantly removing either coats of arms from Battle of Hastings (which weren't in use then), or having to deal with fanciful flags for things like here, where we have icons in use such as File:Mameluke Flag.svg which specifically states "This image is somewhat speculative. It is drawn after the Catalan Atlas, a primary source of the late 14th century. This means that the flag is indeed attested in a (Western) source dated to the Mamluk period, but it does not follow that this flag was indeed in use, let alone that it is "the" Mamluk flag." but yet its in use in a good number of pages. Or we have File:Flag of Ayyubid Dynasty.svg which says "The Ayyubid dynasty is often represented by the colour yellow." and "The Ayyubids and Mamluks, who succeeded the Fatimids in Egypt and Syria, retained the association of yellow with the ruler. Salah al-Din (Saladin), the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty, carried a yellow flag emblazoned with an eagle, supposedly inherited from the Zangid dynasty, whose protégé he had been." but yet is in use all over the place as the symbol of the Ayyubid's without noting that there isn't secure attestation of the actual depiction used. And I've yet to be persuaded that any of the icons in the infobox like at Fall of Constantinople tell anyone anything. And then there's Eurovision Song Contest 1956.... And then there's 1953 British Mount Everest expedition... Ealdgyth - Talk 14:17, 22 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Some quick 'sponses: The highway signage cruft was clearly against the guideline. I've reverted it at all three articles. It was especially bad in the infobox in the second one, since no text was provided at all. In general, the sports and military stuff has been "cooling down", with the more experienced and deliberative editors in those topics backing off from excessive icon use. I've even seen sports-focused editors defend the removal of inappropriate flag icons, especially from bio infoboxes of sports figures who do not consistently compete as a national representative (or a particular nation's rep), but also from tables of results in competitions that aren't nationalized.  It still bears a lot of watching and cleanup, of course, but it's not as bad as it once was.  Using the putative but dubious Mamluk flag is clearly WP:OR and thus not permissible. PS, re "nix the use of any flag icon": That won't fly; getting this guideline a narrow as it's gotten and actually accepted as a guideline took a hell of a lot of wrangling.  We obviously have several entrenched camps of "icon fans" – part of a larger group of "decoration fans", like those who keep ignoring MOS:BQ and using decorative pull quote templates like  and  (not intended for mainspace) to put cutesy giant quotation marks or "visually poppin'" boxes around block quotations, and so on.  I don't think it would be a productive fight to pick.  This is a frog we've been boiling very slowly.  Or: move an elephant with gentle, constant pressure, not by running at it full tilt and trying a body-check, which'll just put you on your own ass. >;-)   — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:00, 23 April 2019 (UTC); forgot pings: . 18:04, 23 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Perhaps there's something along these lines... when I look at Reactions to the 2016 Brussels bombings (ugh on several points but focusing on flags), I don't see their need because the list is presented alphabetically (a very logical, implicitly-known ordering), so if I want to know what, say, Sudan has to say, I can quickly breeze the letters leading each: the flag gives me nothing and thus do not help. Whereas in something like 2016 Summer Olympics medal table where the ordering is not so implicitly obvious, the flags can help me visually find the country of interest. Or similarly in the infobox of World War II, which countries were on which side which is not implitict knowledge. So maybe there's something appropriate for using flags when nationality is important and the information is presented in a way that is not logically easy to determine order/arrangement (eg not alphabetical). --M asem (t) 18:44, 23 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Yep, that's a good distinction to draw.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:09, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Decorative template for redacted content
Please see Talk:Mueller Report – Discussion about using decorative template,, to simulate the appearance of blacked-out material in censored documents, e.g. . While this is not an icon, exactly, MOS:ICONS is where we address the use of CSS, Unicode, and other font tricks to  graphical effects inline in article text; so, this is the proper MoS sub-page to notify about the discussion. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:07, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Similar ongoing thread, about another subject area: Wikipedia talk:Manual_of Style. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  08:21, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Request for input
Input from regulars here would be helpful at this discussion. Nikkimaria (talk) 15:45, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Example is out of date (by 12 years)
In the "Accompany flags with country names" section it says Following this, the flag alone is used to identify the nationality of military commanders.) To achieve this, the flag-and-name template (or ) would be used first, and in subsequent uses. However, some editors feel that some tables such as those containing sports statistics (example) are easier to read if flag is used throughout. The tables on the example page were edited in 2007 to only show the flagicons, so this is not a very good example to use. The text above predates this change, so it was once correct. Spike &#39;em (talk) 23:14, 28 May 2019 (UTC)
 * You're right. And this is not really the only aspect on which this part of MOS is outdated. Many more templates have been created since, thus providing for more alternatives than just flag. And other templates like flagicon have evolved massively to deal with the accessibility issues which once made their use problematic in many areas.Tvx1 13:43, 29 May 2019 (UTC)
 * How do these get updated then, as it is difficult trying to reach consensus on article content using out of date MOS criteria (there is a discussion on possible overuse of unattributed flags at WT:FOOTY). Spike &#39;em (talk) 13:52, 29 May 2019 (UTC)
 * This certainly needs cleaning up. Potentially an WP:RFC, if someone created a few different versions, or options, or at least noted if flagicon met WP:ACCESS requirements, so able to simply update this. I'll notify the main MOS page. Best Wishes,  Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 10:34, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

Request for input on a flag-in-infobox discussion
There is a discussion at Template_talk:Infobox_election about how to apply MOS:FLAG. Further input would be welcomed. Bondegezou (talk) 14:45, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

Flagicon user warning proposal
See Wikipedia_talk:Template_messages/User_talk_namespace regarding the proposal to add uw-flag1 to uw-flag4 warning flags AngusWOOF  ( bark  •  sniff ) 00:18, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

RfC: New user warning
Should there be a new multi-level user warning series, which would be called uw-flag1, for violating this specific guideline, separate from the existing uw-mos1 series? –LaundryPizza03 ( d c̄ ) 00:17, 14 July 2019 (UTC)
 * do you see a lot of need for this? In the discussion linked below, you mention only cases from a period of 6 years. And if someone is approaching WP:ANI levels of disruption, perhaps it's best to simply explain to them in your words what they're doing wrong. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 13:04, 31 July 2019 (UTC)


 * I'm not a regular user of the uw- templates, so I'm unlikely to use one if created, but there's definitely scope for that: I come across new editors inappropriately adding flags all the time. I don't know if there is a need for several levels though: do we often get users ignoring the first warning? – Uanfala (talk) 11:28, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

Trying again
Sorry, the last RfC template was removed prematurely by a bot. To repeat, should there be a new multi-level user warning series, which would be called uw-flag1, for violating this specific guideline, separate from the existing uw-mos1 series? (The draft was G13'd in the interim and is currently waiting WP:REFUND.) –LaundryPizza03 ( d  c̄ ) 09:46, 25 March 2020 (UTC)
 * It wasn't "removed prematurely", it was removed after the standard thirty-day period, see WP:RFC. Also, that happened seven months ago, so why are you complaining now? -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 23:07, 25 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Lack of consensus. –<b style="color:#77b">Laundry</b><b style="color:#fb0">Pizza</b><b style="color:#b00">03</b> ( d c̄ ) 10:20, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Do we really need an RfC for this? Did this need to be a draft? We do have WP:BOLD.  The couple comments that are here seem to be skeptical that there's much need for this specific of a case, but then again, there are warning templates that I've never used and doubt I ever will.  So just make the templates, and then maybe ask them to be included in Twinkle (and Huggle too?).  I might suggest that this is more of the single-issue notice/warning type rather than the standard 1-4 series.  If people are really that strongly opposed to their existence, they can always nominate for deletion. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon &bull; videos) 16:58, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Agreed with, so I'm removing the RfC tag. Just go ahead and create it; it's not doing any harm. &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 02:12, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
 * ✅ It can be found at uw-flag. –<b style="color:#77b">Laundry</b><b style="color:#fb0">Pizza</b><b style="color:#b00">03</b> ( d c̄ ) 00:14, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Is this a MOS:FLAG violation?
List of Marxian economists. I think it is, but am not sure. If anyone replies could they please ping me? Thanks. Doug Weller talk 17:49, 2 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Well strictly speaking it's not a violation. MOS:FLAGS is not a policy or rule. But I do believe it's not appropriate usage of flags. The listed people don't represent their nation in a sports competition or in a military conflict. As such the nationalities aren't really relevant there. In fact I'm not even convinced that the list is actually a subject with encyclopedic value and thus that it should even exist here.Tvx1 18:00, 2 August 2020 (UTC)
 * It's definitely a MOS:FLAG violation, there's no real tie of "economics" (regardless of their larger theory) to their nationality, so the flags are just decorative. --M asem (t) 18:09, 2 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks all. Doug Weller  talk 13:14, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Sporting nationality
If you want to flag wave, fine, but is this a correct use of a flag? First, "United States" is not a nationality, "American" is. Second, he, like most golfers, has never represented the nation, he is only from it. Not sure why this is permitted. Not watching this page so if you want me to respond to something please ping me. Walter Görlitz (talk) 20:04, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Having checked a few articles in Category:American male golfers, it would appear to be standard practice. Number   5  7  20:46, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Hmm, it should either be that flags are suitable to display nationalities in the infobox or not at all. Perhaps the golf project should have this looked at. (I personally don't mind it, but we should be consistent). Best Wishes,  Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 21:26, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Seems unnecessary. I'd be in favour of generally removing these icons from all the infoboxes. Bondegezou (talk) 21:09, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
 * There's many exceptions at MOS:SPORTFLAGS (which I wouldnt mind removing).—Bagumba (talk) 00:36, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks for that. The text there says, "Flags should never indicate the player's nationality in a non-sporting sense; flags should only indicate the sportsperson's national squad/team or representative nationality." If this golfer has never represented the nation, then policy appears clear: no flag should be used. Bondegezou (talk) 10:54, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Even more convoluted, it also says If a sportsperson has not competed at the international level, then the eligibility rules of the international sport governing body (such as IRB, FIFA, IAAF, etc.) should be used.—Bagumba (talk) 13:46, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
 * What exceptions were you talking about with regards to MOS:SPORTFLAGS? These are not exceptions. That is simply the guideline for flags with regards to sports. There have been many extensive discussions (recentmost) about this subject and they resulted in the current wording of the guideline. If thus reflects the current community consensus. If you want to change the consensus you need to initiate a properly advertised discussion. Moreover MOS:FLAGS is most certainly NOT a policy. It is a guideline. This can be seen because it is identified as such on top of the page an by the normative ("should") rather than prescriptive ("must") language it uses. Now, I will point out that this particular thread started out with the same flawed logic of using a far too restrictive view on what constitutes "representing a nation" (for which ironically the OP was already criticized in the aforementioned discussion). In any case though it is not in the scope of MOS:ICONS to try to dictate whether nationality is relevant in a certain sport. If there is a genuine concern about including nationalities in golfers' biographies, that should be raised at WP:GOLF. The affected parties should be involved.Tvx1 20:04, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

There was a fair bit of controversy on that recentmost discussion you linked to. I remember User:SMcCandlish contested the close, and for example see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Icons/Archive 14 The discussion was opened about F1 nationalities and the close generalized it to all "athletes in an international competition". So, following that close there was "confusion as to the breadth of the result of the original consensus and the ambiguity left in the closing statement by the non-admin closer", as I said at the time that I requested review of the close. The non-admin closer, Technical 13, promised to provide the rationale behind his close and the scope, but he kept delaying and no Admin weighed in on the discussion, and it was eventually archived without any action. Shortly after, Technical 13 was the subject of an Arbcom case, and was indefinitely banned by the Arbitration Committee, near as I can tell for "evidence of sockpuppetry that was discovered after the case was accepted." Confirmed here. Technical 13 never did provide the promised decision and scope rationale. After the case closed, I posed a question to the arbs about how to proceed, but I didn't have the energy then to start another discussion here or at AN, especially since I was uninvolved in the original disscussion. But the close and closer seemed problematic. Anyway that's some of the convoluted backstory. Mojoworker (talk) 23:00, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
 * To be fair, it was only you and SMcCandlish who contested the close there. One person actually did state at the closure review that they didn’t see an issue with the close. It was a proper community discussion and the community’s consensus was pretty clear.Tvx1 23:59, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
 * To be fair, there were a number of others at the "odd interpretation" discussion and the one person that "didn't see an issue with the close" was the only person who supported it. I think most were waiting for Technical 13's promised rationale for broadening the scope, which never arrived. I guess we'll never know since he's banned. Mojoworker (talk) 00:33, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I generally concur with Mojoworker. But I'm not sure this matters, per WP:CCC.  It's clear that SPORTFLAGS is not being consistently interpreted by editors, nor consistently implemented in articles, so it probably needs revision.  I don't have my finger on the pulse of the issue, though, so I'm not sure what would make a good RfC question, or a proposed revision.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:02, 4 July 2020 (UTC)
 * I strongly doubt you will ever achieve this site-wide consistency. That's just not how an editing community like this works. Certainly not with what is merely a guideline which by nature involves common sense when interpreting and implementing it. It would actually serve the community if some users would finally stop trying to abuse this guideline by trying to make a black and white rule out of that strictly outlaws the usage of flags nearly everywhere.Tvx1 14:53, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Wording of MOS:INFOBOXFLAG
I'd like to raise something that has bugging me for years in the hope that I can finally be addressed. For years this part of the guideline has contained the following wording:

"they are unnecessarily distracting and give undue prominence to one field among many."

I feel that that exact wording is inappropriate for a guideline. Mainly because it presents what's really a personal opinion as un undisputed fact. I feel it would be better if a more informative style of wording would be used here. Something like:

"they may be unnecessarily distracting and could give undue prominence to one field among many."

Such wording is much more in the spirit of a guideline.Tvx1 18:52, 15 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Anyone have any objections here? If not, I'll implement the more informative style of wording.Tvx1 14:49, 6 August 2020 (UTC)
 * It was the pov of one editor. And considering that sentence was added years ago with no discussion whatsoever, and no one commented to you in 3 weeks, I see no problem with the change. Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:33, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Should WP:DECOR be implemented?
While I remove these decorations rather often, referring to WP:DECOR of course, and usually not seeing any objections (of course), sometimes I stumble upon things like this one. Worse yet, the latter seems to be backed up by the well-known invalid argument commonly known as WP:OTHERSTUFF. Can you please review it? — Mike Novikoff 19:50, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

Discussion at List of highest-grossing non-English films
I would appreciate any input at a new discussion at Talk:List of highest-grossing non-English films for use of flagicons in a list of films. Aspects (talk) 13:57, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

Should inline icons be used for sister project links in citations?
Please join the discussion at Template talk:Cite wikisource. Thanks! Kaldari (talk) 19:38, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

Discussion at Now United
There is a new discussion at Talk:Now United whether or not flagicons should be used in a pop group's member section. Any opinions would be appreciated. Aspects (talk) 04:32, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

Ribbon bars in awards and decorations section
Is it good to add the ribbon bars of the awards and decorations received by a person in their page? --Oritsu.me (talk) 18:03, 23 October 2020 (UTC) 18:02, 23 September 2020 (UTC)
 * If you're asking whether an editor should put something on someone else's user page, the answer is no. A better place to discuss issues like this might be WP:Teahouse. Johnuniq (talk) 22:55, 23 October 2020 (UTC)
 * This query relates to article pages. DrKay (talk) 06:53, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

Nazi flag used with the name of one of its victims
Carl von Ossietzky, a German pacifist and critic of the Nazis, was awarded Nobel Peace Prize for 1935 in 1936. He had been imprisoned by the Nazis since 1933, the month after Hitler came to power, and died in 1938 after years of mistreatment.

Our article List of Nobel Peace Prize laureates lists the names and nationalities of those who were awarded the Nobel Peace prize. There is also a field for the national flag, which was the swastika. I have removed it twice.

I believe that there is nothing in this section of the MOS that mandates inclusion of the flag, and I see several discussion in the archives on the use of the swastika. I don't see any reason why flags are necessary or indicated at all-- the prize is awarded to individuals and organizations, not nations. And here, the association of the swastika with an opponent of the Nazi regime is inappropriate, to say the least.

I have started a section on the talk page for the Nobel Peace Prize list at Talk:List_of_Nobel_Peace_Prize_laureates

Kablammo (talk) 22:39, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

Symbol in WP:INFOBOXFLAG
I've been asked by a friend, a reader of WP, what the Symbol number is in an INFOBOXFLAG. Specifically, Symbols of Tirana, has 110000 under the flag. I've looked for advice on the INFOBOXFLAG Symbol, and can't find anything that makes sense. Advice, or a pointer to decode it, please. - Peter Ellis - Talk 11:05, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Explained at Template:FIAV. DrKay (talk) 13:11, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Exception for motorsports? Flag icons used frequently
Please see the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Motorsport.

Hundreds of articles in the motorsports area of interest use national flag icons, for instance the infobox of BriSCA Formula 1 Stock Cars, a list of races at Formula Ford, a list of winning drivers at New Zealand Formula Ford Championship, and both the infobox and a list of winners at Barber Pro Series. There are many, many more examples like these. Binksternet (talk) 17:56, 2 November 2020 (UTC)
 * What do you want to prove here. This has already been discussed thoroughly and consensus was in favor of using flags in that context. This is long dead horse that needs not to be struck again.Tvx1 11:29, 3 November 2020 (UTC)
 * The linked discussion was about drivers, but the motorsports community has been pasting flags on tyres, cars, and circuits, too. It's gone beyond the discussion from 2014 and needs to be reined in. And in any case, revisiting a discussion after six years isn't so much of beating a dead horse. Binksternet (talk) 12:34, 3 November 2020 (UTC)
 * , fancy seeing you here. just pointed me to the very sentence that basically allows every single athlete's infobox to have a flag: "However, the infobox may contain the national flag icon of an athlete who competes in competitions where national flags are commonly used as representations of sporting nationality in a given sport." In this case it was golf. It's done in soccer also, and racing. I don't know how the flag fans got that in, but it means that all you need is a couple of editors who like little colored icons to undermine the entire idea. It's a miracle I don't see one for Draymond Green, and I hope I'm not giving them any ideas. For athletes, I think there's a sub-box for Olympic and world medals, which has a flag for the country they represented for those events, which strikes me as the decent thing to do. Drmies (talk) 18:27, 6 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Although it's worth noting that the exemption only applies to "sporting nationality". In the golf project, attempts to add flags to the country where event/tour took place, country of birth, etc are removed. So in eg BriSCA Formula 1 Stock Cars the flags next to country/region should clearly be deleted. Nigej (talk) 19:11, 6 March 2021 (UTC)
 * and even something as big as 2020–21 FA Cup is at fault too, since the flags there are clearly not "the national flag icon of an athlete" Nigej (talk) 19:18, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

Adding clarity with emoji symbols
Currently the article requests use of alt text with emojis. However when inserted via keyboards (as encoded characters) this is not required as it is, strictly-speaking, not an image. Can we add clarity on this, so people do not add alt-text to emojis, such as: ✔️😦🤓

Cheers, AussieWikiDan (talk) 07:50, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
 * I can only see guidance to use alt text with functional icons. DrKay (talk) 08:32, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
 * True however is this clear that encoded emojis are excluded from this? AussieWikiDan (talk) 15:48, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

INFOBOXFLAG
A discussion regarding the "military conflicts" exception of the above is under way at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history. Input of further editors would be welcome. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 17:25, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Template:Infobox racing driver has an RFC
Template:Infobox racing driver has an RFC for possible consensus. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. Dennis Bratland (talk) 18:30, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

Close the coats-of-arms loophole
We have a minor loophole in MOS:FLAGS, which someone (to considerable controversy) has been trying to use to permit a bunch of essentially unrecognizable coats of arms of Crusades-era military commanders as stand-ins for military flags in infoboxes. For details, see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history (talk:WikiProject Military history&oldid=1015747474#Coats of arms in infoboxes permalink), especially the post hoc analysis I did after it was closed without resolution (by a participant not an uninvolved party).

The short version:
 * We have a hatnote that says "the bulk of these recommendations are also applicable to official seals, coats of arms, and other representations which serve similar purposes to flag images." And that has served us well.
 * The obvious intent of it is that any restrictions that pertain to flags also pertain to other icons, when used in a manner similar to flags.
 * In this case it is being misunderstood, or faux-misunderstood, to take it as meaning "any exception especially for military flags also applies to any stand-ins for military flags, like coats of arms", and this obviously wrongheaded. The longer discussion gets into many reasons why, but the summary is that they're recognizable to nearly no one, and thus do not serve an informative or navigational purpose but only a decorative one; at icon size, their details are mostly obscured, so they are easily confused (even among experts) with other blazonry, ergo they are ambiguous; and in most cases they are heritable individual property, and do not represent units, regions, countries, etc., thus they fail the "Do not re-purpose icons beyond their legitimate scope" rule; among other problems.  One that I didn't enumerate but that someone else did is "The main problem is that conventions on the use of national symbols in infoboxes that were created for modern conflicts and other modern subjects are being projected backwards in time to periods where national flags and symbols did not exist. ... Put [some stand-in] in an infobox and you will just confuse readers."

Proposal: Add the following to the section &sect; Do not rewrite history:

Do not use the coat of arms of a person as a stand-in for a national, military, or other flag.

That should resolve the issue, and any others like this I can imagine (e.g. in a House of Lords vote table; I won't give further examples for WP:BEANS reasons).

pinging all partcipants in the original discussion.

— SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:39, 3 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Support - unfortunate that this bit of rule creep is necessary, but apparently it is. Parsecboy (talk) 09:53, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Support. This change seems beneficial. It's clearly what the guideline already intends to convey. If it's being challenged on the grounds of ambiguously-written MOS, we should add this short clarification. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 10:20, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Support. Decorative and serves no useful identification purpose. But I think it should be added to either the 'In some military history contexts' section or the 'Avoid flag icons in infoboxes' section. Also, I would support a broader guideline that prevents the use of icons that are too small or unknown to be useful in all circumstances: Do not use the coat of arms of a person as an icon. DrKay (talk) 10:28, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Support - looking through, for example, Category:Civil wars involving the states and peoples of Europe it seems that use of coats of arms, standards and the like in infoboxes is commoner that you might think, and that many of them will be unrecognisable to the vast majority of readers even if not rendered at impossibly small size. There may be a few exceptions where the non-flag symbols may be more well known (such as the Wars of the Roses - the Yorkist and Lancastrian roses are relatively well known - although even there it is arguably an anachronism and the less said about the mess of commander's flags and symbols lower down in the infobox the better), but these situations will be few and if necessary they can be discussed separately.Nigel Ish (talk) 11:39, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Support for all the reasons at the previous discussion on WT:MILHIST. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 13:30, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Support If, without it, multiple editors are arguing for the improper inclusion of COAs this way, then the language should be fixed to explicitly disallow this. --M asem (t) 13:34, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Support per all of the above. Ealdgyth (talk) 13:49, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Support not recognizable to the average editor, serves zero identifying purpose. (t · c)  buidhe  15:32, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Support as reflective of an already existing consensus. Srnec (talk) 16:03, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Support they serve no useful purpose in supplying additional information, also some articles with many combatants look like Christmas trees, they are so highly decorated with colourful clutter. Urselius (talk) 17:49, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Disagreement - despite any of your decision / recommendation, many users still adding or returning flags, insignias, coats of arms and others as icons to infoboxes, because it's the common majority style of the whole Wiki and flag icons are not just decorative, their opinion about it is probably different. Likewise, I spent several years adding or replacing them to make their use accurate as possible, which took a lot of time and work to be reversed with one click and than to learn from you that it was just decorative and a waste of time, which I disagree with. Some states have existed for a thousand years and without these it is impossible to recognize it, which historical period or dynasty it is, that's you didn't consider at all. I don't think that's true that coat of arms of a person stand-in for a national etc should not be used, because in the Middle Ages the most country was identified by its ruler and his dynasty, so its coat of arms and royal banner didn't belong only to the person, but it also applied to the country in which he ruled and it's significant as national flags. Understanding of medieval symbolism according to modern times is wrong. Coats of arms, royal banners, emblems, standards etc shows which ruler and dynasty ruled and at what historical period the state was. It is not clear in which articles and in which historical periods it is appropriate to use them and in which ones not. No recommendation or comment can solve the absence of clear rules. I presume that you only dealt with the resolution of icons in terms of their recognition and came to the conclusion that they have only a decorative purpose, but unfortunately you no longer dealt with a feature that you can open and display in full resolution by clicking on the icons, which is the way I normally use like all articles's images. You have rejected this feature, that without icons there is nothing to open and view, so the articles become less usable for me. You also didn't look in more detail at other my arguments in WikiProject Military history without trying to solve them and took the identical stance as my opponents, so I can't be satisfied with this. Unfortunately, your conclusion is written in favor of people who do nothing more than revert the edits of other users. This includes a number of articles for which it was difficult to find coats of arms and flags on Wikimedia Commons, which took a long time, than was reversed by someone by one click. I consider it a disrespect for someone's work and the time they spent. It's not only about adding flag icons, but also making templates and edits on Wikimedia Commons which took many hours. If I knew it was all useless, I would spend my time in a better way. Dragovit (talk) 00:27, 4 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Don’t personalize this dispute. It’s not helpful, and the editors in the above discussion do a lot more than “revert the edits of others”. Arguing with the sunk cost fallacy is not going to help either. -Indy beetle (talk) 12:57, 4 April 2021 (UTC)
 * So ignore these aspects and focus on the essentials that are being overlooked. The discussions too often focuses on irrelevant things and does not pay attention to the essentials. Dragovit (talk) 17:11, 4 April 2021 (UTC)
 * You should accept that the consensus is against you; and avoid making comments as long as the first one here, which (especially in stark contrast to the other very brief ones) looks quite like WP:BLUDGEON. We've heard you, we disagree, that is not a reason to say that we have ignored or haven't understood you. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 18:05, 4 April 2021 (UTC)
 * This consensus is not just against me, but as I said it's also against many other people who do the same edits as me, so it's anti-systematic when deciding on something that working for a long time and has proven itself even if you say the opposite. In fact all arguments against the use of flag icons are only opinions based on feelings and are debatable, because they are not based on anything demonstrable, like the interest of someone's eyesight, which is completely absurd (if somebody doesn't see the flag icons, then apparently can't even read the text), or the question of whether they are useful, which they are for me because I orient myself in them (not everyone confuses the medieval flag of France with the flag of Quebec as you might think). My thesis that you bypassed my arguments to avoid solving them is also a fact. Your consensus does not bother me as you propably think because it has minimal effect. As far as I know, you changed just four articles to your liking, that's all you've accomplished. Almost nothing has changed. You have no diligence to change the rest (99 % other whole articles), that's the difference between us. Dragovit (talk) 23:36, 4 April 2021 (UTC)
 * We are saying that inclusion of coat-of-arms icons to represent leaders in a military campaign do not enhance the encyclopedia, and are actually a hindrance to a clear presentation of events. - Donald Albury 00:32, 5 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't think so, it's just a different opinion. For me the absence of coats of arms or flags makes it difficult to orientate in infoboxes and information there. These symbols convey additional information about states and persons, their nationality, dynasty or military service. It's clearly a positive feature that motivates many users to use the flag icons or coats of arms. This is also the reason why Templates country datas were created, if it were forbidden, it would not be possible to use them, also editing in them would be useless. The Manual of Style/Icons#Flags doesn't completely prohibit them, but says how to use them properly. If someone intentionally removes flag icons, he/she doesn't do it on the basis of some rules, but on the basis of his own ideas or interpretation of the rules. Dragovit (talk) 10:06, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
 * The legitimacy and empowerment to change articles comes from consensus. Fundamentally, Wikipedia works on consensus between editors, there is no effective way of it being operated by any other process. If you gave this any thought you would realise this fact. However much you think that you are in the right, whatever the number of arguments you muster to vindicate your viewpoint, you have no ability to go against a consensus of the editors who have expressed an opinion on the subject being debated. Urselius (talk) 12:24, 5 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Well, I don't deny the purpose of consensus, but the way it was achieved. It is often seen how the discussion is diverted to trivialities without arguments concerning essentials being resolved. Not only were the arguments not properly discussed, but many of the users who voted did not even take part in the discussion. No need to explain to me what consensus means, but I'm not sure of its impartiality and its credibility. We are talking here about common practices that I have been doing from the beginning, which is about more than ten years, not just mine, so it deserves more thorough attention and something more official than one consensus made by several users who noticed it. For now, I consider it binding what is written in the Manual of Style/Icons#Flags. Nowhere is it written that it is recommended or ordered to remove the flag icons, but it says how to use them properly. If someone intentionally removes flag icons, he/she doesn't do it on the basis of some rules, but on the basis of his own ideas or interpretation of the rules. Dragovit (talk) 10:23, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
 * , please observe the guidelines in WP:TALK regarding modifying or adding to your comments on a talk page. I will also note that inserting the same statement multiple times into previous comments is over-doing it. - Donald Albury 20:19, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the notice, but there is a serious reason for this, because the same topic is being addressed to several users and it would be inappropriate to write something different for everyone, or leave it unanswered, which would mean not continuing. I take note, of course, but please do not complicate the issue by these details, which do not affect the resolution of this matter, it only increases the content, which ceases to be clear. Dragovit (talk) 11:47, 8 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Support Per the various arguments given already. I see no use in including coat-of-arms icons as stand-ins for flags. - Donald Albury 00:32, 5 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Support I was initially apathetic to this issue, but the arguments in favor of formalizing the same restrictions on coats of arms are good and the behavior of the coat of arms proponent has only demonstrated to me the necessity that these restrictions are put in place. -Indy beetle (talk) 07:09, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
 * As I understand it, you are partly influenced by personal attitudes and sympathies, which isn't appropriate. Surely you are aware of the seriousness of this issue. We are talking about practice here that is being commonly practiced for decades in hundreds (or more) of different articles, not just by me, but by many other users, so please don't trivialize it, it's not just about me. For now, I consider it binding what is written in the Manual of Style/Icons#Flags. Nowhere is it written that it is recommended or ordered to remove the flag icons, but it says how to use them properly. If someone intentionally removes flag icons, he/she doesn't do it on the basis of some rules, but on the basis of his own ideas or interpretation of the rules. You may also notice that my English language skills are not perfect, so I would ask for consideration. Dragovit (talk) 10:30, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
 * No, you should understand it as I find the arguments in favor of restrictions convincing in their reasoning and, secondly, I think the establishment of those restrictions is now necessary by your attempts to insert coats of arms all over the place and post walls of text to explain why. I find your English comprehensible, your language skills are not a part of the problem. -Indy beetle (talk) 21:55, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
 * No, you have inaccurate information. The coats of arms were used regularly long before me for many years, so these "attempts to insert" are not mine, but attempts to keep them, because it was a long development of many users to create images and templates with them. Even the best argument should not deny this development and declare it as "my attempts", because they are not. The restrictions therefore can't be accepted, but also because of ethical principles not to suppress one's freedom just because of your ideas about Wikipedia are different, this is unacceptable. Wikipedia shouldn't look like an antique paper book, which would make it obsolete and old-fashioned. If I want to read an ordinary book, than I won't go to Wikipedia. I go to Wikipedia to organize my knowledge and I need these flag icons and coats of arms for faster and easier orientation in articles. Dragovit (talk) 18:15, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
 * No-one is supressing anyone's freedoms; I'm not sure quite what you are on about. As has been explained, WP works on consensus, so any one person's views on how an article looks needs to be agreed with others. Many people find these tiny icons distracting / difficult to make out and think that they add no value to the infobox. Spike &#39;em (talk) 17:20, 9 April 2021 (UTC)
 * And yet many people return them there repeatedly, because without them, infoboxes are confusing and difficult to navigate. It turned out that apart from the arguments about their size and distracting effect are debatable and impossible to prove, than there are no other arguments against, so these are just few opinions. I have put forward several arguments to show that using icons is useful. On the example of the Kingdom of France, I showed that without the icon it is not clear whether it was Capetian, Valois, Bourbon, Bourbon restoration etc. the title can mean many possibilities, and there are many such examples. Without icons, it's just plain text that becomes too confused when it's too much. It was blown away by the argument that the flag of Valois resembled the flag of Québec, which is ridiculous that one can expect the flag of Québec in an article about the Middle Ages, moreover, the flags are not even similar. The arguments against icons proved trivial and eloquent. It's obvious that anything can be argued although it is completely absurd. Creating images on Commons, flag icons, and flag icon templates has been too laborious, and it is noteworthy that so little was enough to completely remove them from several articles. I understand that, for example, it is not advisable to use them until the 12th century, because the symbols have not yet been codified, but after this period, their rejection is meaningless. For example Infobox former country about Ottoman Empire, where predecessor and successor states without flag icons are confusing. Flag icons could say much more about those states about their statehood, sovereignty etc, their return was repeated here as well and then reverted back by one click based on idea that they are disruptive. Nonsense. At a time when the internet is full of distracting ads, it's ridiculous to write about small icons that are distracting. Other images, which are usually larger, in an articles could also be distracting, so again it's debatable and impossible to prove. Maybe the pile of text without icons is distracting, in which one cannot orient oneself and has to read it in its entirety to find out what needs. Dragovit (talk) 8:22, 13 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Support as above. GiantSnowman 10:09, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Support The edits go against the spirit and principles of the original discussion. Shouldn't be needed but obviously is. - X201 (talk) 10:51, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Support per others above - particularly . Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 03:31, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Support: Firstly, medieval coas are generally not representing states or other entities, but are usually connected to a familiy or a single person. Secondly, such coas are mostly not recognisable in this miniature size, and even those that are, will generally not be well enough known to have any sort of informative value. Thirdly, it is a pity that we have to waste time on this, but if the current text of MOS:FLAGS really can be (mis)used as a pretext for filling infoboxes with useless distractions, we had better close that possibility before even more time is wasted. --T*U (talk) 11:39, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment I'm neutral with regards to the coats-of-arms, but I feel that there is more wide-spread problem that finally needs to be clamped down. I really don't understand how some of the Wikipedians get terribly offended by as little as one flag icon in the infobox of a biography of sportsperson to show the nationality the person represented in official international competitions and go to no end to try to demonstrate how dramatically distracting these are in such an article, yet on the basis of the "military exception" have no problem at at all with the articles on some military conflicts being filled with up to a hundred flagicons. This attitude is even more impossible to understand given that the latter icons are generated in a purely decorative manner. They are not interactive in any way to confer their meaning. I really feel this utter contradiction in approach should final be done away with and the military exception be clamped down. At the end of the day though, we should not forget that we are dealing with a guideline and that cannot be abused to forbid things. The focus should be on discouraging.Tvx1 17:02, 15 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Oppose I understand where people are coming from, but even the smallest of images is a representation of information. Yes we have issues with WP:ACCESS etc, but I find it strange to remove legitimate information when you can provide it. This consensus is yet to be closed and it seems people are already working to establish it out, which is wrong to do so. The floor has maybe been opened up to others who may also have an opinion because this has been somewhat WP:FORUMSHOPed. So hopefully we can leave this open for others to come and express their opinion. Govvy (talk) 12:40, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

Notice

 * While the above is ongoing, courteously informing the participants that I have brought a specific issue of this to AN, again... (Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Archive332%23Bludgeoning_and_refusal_to_listen_on_a_WP:DSTOPICS_subject) RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 13:47, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

Question
Do we have policies contradicting each other now? So the coat of arts are removed under consensus above, however per military conflicts for MOS:INFOBOXFLAG as pointed out to me by Examples of acceptable exceptions include infobox templates for military conflicts, because I failed to read correctly, don't all the coat of arms in the info boxes for these military conflicts also come under the same area? Does MOS:INFOBOXFLAG need updated text? There are also multiple history conflicts which are said family house against another family house, how do we handle coat of arms there? Are they going in the info box or not? This is more common in the Middle Ages, so... Govvy (talk) 10:25, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
 * For clarity, I had no idea about these recent proposals/discussions – it may be worth linking the discussion your question spawned from as I may very well be interpreting current consensus completely wrong: Talk:2021_Israel–Palestine_crisis &#8209;&#8209;Volteer1 (talk) 10:58, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
 * My reading would be that flags can be used in infoboxes of military conflicts, if they are historically appropriate, but coats of arms should not be used as substitutes for flags. With the personal caveat that I would recommend against using coat of arms which are unrecognisable at the infobox resolution. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:33, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

Change to appropriate flag use
this edit: Special:Diff/1023452609, which you just reverted (Special:Diff/1023606004) was me reverting the undiscussed change Special:Diff/986810816 by. The onus is on Kaldari to find support for the guideline change, which constricts where flags are appropriate. I do not need to seek a consensus for what is, as far as I can tell, the last revision of the guideline which was reached by consensus. SSSB (talk) 11:10, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

Galecki
I added "American" to "For example, actor Johnny Galecki was born in Belgium, so putting a Belgian flag in his infobox, for any reason, might lead the casual reader to assume he is or was Belgian." . The sentence makes more sense if we mention his actual nationality. It was reverted by User:Herostratus, not sure whether they actually oppose the edit or if any edit to this page has to be discussed first?  Mr.choppers &#124;  ✎  12:39, 17 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't think it is necessary to add his actual / assumed nationality. Spike &#39;em (talk) 17:08, 17 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I do. Sorry User:Mr.choppers, this looks like a mistake on my part. Looks like I made a mistaken edit. So, no, I don't object to the edit on it's merits or on principle (in this case). Sorry again. Since it was just a mistake, I'll undo it. Herostratus (talk) 17:31, 17 May 2021 (UTC)


 * User:Spike &, I understand about being careful about changes to rules, and thank you for your vigilance. However, I think the wording is unquestionably an improvement, because Galecki is unquestionably American, and the point of the passage is to point out that putting a Belgian flag on Galecki would be a bad thing to do (in his clear-cut case others like it). The "American" just clarifies that he's not Belgian in any way. We don't want the reader to have to go to Galecki's article to see if he's part Belgian or what so as to understand the rule.


 * Soooo... technically, you can remove the "American" on WP:BRD grounds. Please don't. You would then make us argue for this obious change, and that would be extremely annoying. If necessary I'll make an RfC and it's doubtful you'd win win your point. This would be big waste of time, but your cal. Herostratus (talk) 17:31, 17 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Please don't tell me what I should or shouldn't do, or whether it is a waste of my time: I am quite capable of making those decisions myself. I still disagree that it is necessary to mention his nationality. Spike &#39;em (talk) 17:40, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

Back on topic - yes, nationality is prudent to include. GiantSnowman 18:07, 17 May 2021 (UTC)


 * FWIW, I had to click the link to figure it out and I was deeply upset to find myself looking at an actor from my mother-in-law's favorite show. :)  Mr.choppers &#124;   ✎  21:08, 17 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Well that would upsetting to anyone. Herostratus (talk) 16:58, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

Draft of more comprehensive RfC on sports flag icons
I have a draft proposal to comprehensively revise the guidelines on flag icons for sports at User:Dennis Bratland/Draft MOS:SPORTFLAG RfC. I think an RfC on this change could settle whether to continue the usual practice of most sports articles, using flag icons on all international sports because that's what sources do, or to require following the same rules as non-sports articles, limiting flag icons to a small number of international sports.<P>There's no rush and the current RfC can play out, but it might be worth thinking about more substantial changes, or you might want to take some of these ideas for your own proposal. Discuss as you wish, here or User talk:Dennis Bratland/Draft MOS:SPORTFLAG RfC. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 18:17, 27 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Both of your proposed wordings seem too stringent to me. If the issue is just that some sports have their own local consensuses, why don't we just acknowledge that in the existing guidelines? Kaldari (talk) 22:40, 27 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I tried proposing "sports are exempt from MOS:FLAG" and they lost their freaking minds. How much less stringent can it get? I think the global community needs to fix this by choosing one of two standards that define a bright line.<P>What is too stringent about saying "if the sources use flags, we follow suit"? It is consistent with how we decide nearly everything on Wikipedia -- it's rooted in WP:WEIGHT, policy everyone works with on every article. The only cases that would exclude flag icons are when no source says they're an official representative, and when sources don't display flags as a common practice. Are there any sports articles now using flag icons that can't even meet that standard? And why would we want to keep those flags? --Dennis Bratland (talk) 23:11, 27 May 2021 (UTC)
 * It just seems to be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Aren't there international sports that do follow MOS:SPORTFLAG? Like gymnastics or track and field maybe? If there aren't, I'm a bit mystified how we ended up with MOS:SPORTFLAG at all. Kaldari (talk) 23:37, 27 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Because it was never the scope of that part MOS to dictate to which sports nationality is relevant and to which not, but to explain the best practices in actually applying these flags in these articles if the relevant wikiproject decides the relevancy exists. You know, to ensure that they appear in the most accessible way where they appear. MOS is a STYLE guide. Also, it would be nice to show some respect by not brandishing consensuses achieved at Wikiprojects, which deal with hundreds of articles, through discussions with dozens of editors as "local consensuses". They are much less local consensus than the consensus which created this guideline through a non-advertised discussion with a handful of participantsTvx1 23:46, 27 May 2021 (UTC)


 * Kaldari, to answer your question about gymnastics or track and field: we can't generalize about the entire sport, but when it comes to a specific governing body like the International Gymnastics Federation, we can verify they conform to Rule 41 of the Olympic Charter, which explicitly says competitors competitors "represent" countries, and explicitly says National Olympic Committee enter competitors; you get entered by your country's officials, the NOC. What that means is that these sports don't need a special carve out: they meet the same bar as government officials or military members: they officially represent a country.<P>If you survey gymnastics or track and field reliable sources broadly, beyond IOC-conforming events, you'll still see flags galore, with no regard to official representation or selection by officials. If we adopted the 'not strictly official' standard, we'd use flag icons on that basis alone, much as in WP:COMMONNAME we are guided by "prevalence in a significant majority of independent, reliable English-language sources".<P>Either option solves the years-long debates that MOS:SPORTFLAG fails to resolve: how do we determine "representative"? Because sources say they are a representative? Or because sources commonly put flags by their names?<P>Nikita Mazepin is interesting because he has been called the worst driver in Formula One, and has endless baggage (sexual harassment and assault, unsportsmanlike antics on the track). One could imagine a country (other than Russia) might not choose such a man to represent them. How would that work? If the Russian government pressured the RAF not to license Mazepin, he could get a license from any other country -- maybe one that wants to make Russia look bad by "selecting" [sic] him to "represent" [sic] Russia. FIA doesn't care, because that's not how driver licensing works: the national club issues licenses but does not enter you in races or designate "representatives". Mazepin remains Russian regardless of his license. All he'd need is a ride, which in his case is his billionaire father finding a bankrupt American team and bailing them out in exchange for letting his son drive. It's all hypothetical, but representation is a two way street: if the one represented doesn't consent, it's neither official nor actual representation.<P>Finally, the anti-doping sanctions against Russia allow Mazepin to call himself Russian. They only restrict the display of flags, colors, anthems. Flaunting his nationality, in other words. If nationality alone equals representation, then he remains a Russian national, can say so, and so is still "representing" [sic] Russia, by the standards Wikipedia currently uses for FIA events. Which is why Wikipedia needs better standards. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 20:00, 28 May 2021 (UTC)
 * You think he shouldn't be allowed to represent Russia because of his personality? Well too bad for you, it's not you who makes that decision. And if is not as if he is the only person who ever competed in an international competition under a flag who has not behaved like an angel. Moreover, this ruling doesn't even solely deal with this one driver. There are examples in other world championships too. Your claim that is not the national governing bodies entering them in any way is also wrong. You cannot enter any of these races or a championship without the necessary paperwork from your national governing body. With regards to your proposed RFC, I think you are being too drastic with your proposed removal. You just think that everything that has "sport" in it in any way should be removed. That shows you didn't even bother to read a number of these sections, as a number of them do not deal with relevancy but with how flags should technically be used. Since your proposal would not call for the removal of flags from sports articles, MOS still has to keep giving editors advice on the best way to generate them and make them as accessible as possible to the readers. As pointed out, your current suggestion is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Moreover, in addition to the options for changes, you should also leave the community the option of not wanting a change at all. You should not predecide for the community that a change must be made at all costs. It's your right to think that better standards than the current ones are required, but is equally other people's right not to think so.Tvx1 18:58, 29 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I said other countries probably wouldn't want this guy, while, as I clearly acknowledged, Russia seems cool with it. But it's not really up to Russia, is it? You cannot enter any of these races or a championship without the necessary paperwork from a national governing body. Doesn't have to be yours. I've given verifiable sources for that. You have failed to cite anything to the contrary. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 19:21, 29 May 2021 (UTC)
 * That's wrong. Whereas a different national governing body can step in, this always needs to happen with the explicit permission from your parent national governing body (the one from a country you have the passport nationality of). And for world championships you are always associated with a parent national governing body.Tvx1 12:56, 30 May 2021 (UTC)
 * ASN Canada FIA resigned from FIA. Ceased to exist. But Stroll (and Nicholas Latifi) got permission to get a US license from this non-existent authority. Do you not see the fragile, tenuous thread your entire line of reasoning hangs from? What is the point? A rule that says flag icons can be used as long as the practice is prevalent among sources is easy, obvious, a slam dunk, uncontroversial. It doesn't require orphan children to get permission notes signed by their dead parents. It lets Canada keep a well-deserved shred of dignity. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 00:04, 31 May 2021 (UTC)
 * And ASN Canada FIA was replaced by Groupe de Développement Sportif as Canada's ASN. That's now these drivers' parent ASN (in case of Stroll one of his two parent ASN's since he is a dual national).Tvx1 14:26, 31 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Great. What about in between? When no Canadian organization existed? That's when Americans decided he would "represent" Canada, right? That's what FIA meant when they said in 2019 they'd begin a new format, with "nation against nation in a patriotic twist on the traditional racing format". It's why FIA said it would be "drivers competing not for individual recognition, but for their country". Individual recognition', referring to Grand Prix racing before they began their new and different world cup. It's a big change.<P>And tellingly, where are the reliable sources saying "bah, what's the point of this new Nations Cup business? Drivers already represent their countries don't they? Don't F1 drivers already compete for their country, not for individual recognition?" Don't they? Well, no. They are individual competitors. FIA is right that this new format is a big change and you don't have reliable sources that dispute it. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 16:21, 31 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Can you please drop this lecturing attitude of yours. That isn’t necessary at all. There are many possible reasons why the FIA decide to start national teams events. Not only the ones you assumed. Most importantly, the existance of these competitions does not preclude individual representation in any way in individual events. There are many events who have individual and team events.Tvx1 18:46, 31 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Make unverifiable claims on Wikipedia, get a lecture. You could really teach me a lesson if you cited reliable sources that disputed that in the FIA Nations Cup or Motorsport Games "drivers—in contrast to the historically transnational norm of motorsport—competed under their national flag." I've been wrong more times than I can count, and the way I was proven wrong was by someone citing verifiable evidence. Do that.<P>Here's a list of some of these bitter sports flag disputes over more than a decade: User:Dennis Bratland/Draft MOS:SPORTFLAG RfC. That's what's broken. Fixing it means choosing a different standard, either a narrow one or a broad one, but in either case one editors can agree on. That would be a good thing. --Dennis Bratland (talk)


 * Can you point out for me why flags are an issue with boy bands? I searched and didn't come up with much of anything. MOS:FLAGCRUFT says even The Beatles wouldn't have a flag icon, and if they don't, who would think any band could? --Dennis Bratland (talk) 18:17, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

you wanted comments on your draft RfC so here goes:
 * In footnote e, you incorrect identify Formula One as a FIM event, it should be FIA (FIM translates roughly as International federation of motorcycle (racing), FIA as International Federation of car (racing)
 * In the third paragrapgh you state that "the Premier League (UK) include one or two teams outside their home countries", this is incorrect. The premier league is open to all Welsh and English teams, which are both in the UK.
 * The biggest issue arises with your interpretation of officially, as outlined in footnote a. Whilst your definition of "officially represents" ("Whether governmental or not, officials select from among their nation's competitors which of them will represent that country, whether by sanctioning national tournaments or some other selection process.") matches the first definition of "officially", from OED ("In an official manner or capacity; by virtue, or in consequence, of one's office; by or in presence of an official; with official authority, sanction, or formality.") Your definition of officially does not match the definition of "officially" set out by Dictionary.com or Google/Oxford Languages ("in a formal or authoritative manner" and "in a formal and public way", respectively). It is possible to formally represent someone without being explicitly chossen. Incidently, this is the source of your and Tvx1's disagreement. You are applying seperate defitions of officially. To combat this I suggest we have three options (listed most to least strict) as well as the "no change" option (these are very rough outlines, a smoother text is necessary for the RfC)
 * Scrictly official - this would be what you currently call "official". I.e. have flags only where there is a national team or national selection process (or there would be a national selection process if there were enough possible competitors to warrant one)
 * Official, but less strict - a new option. This would be to use flags where the criterea of "in a formal or authoritative or public manner" is met
 * Follow the source - what you currently call "not strictly official", self explanatory.
 * I know that you don't necessarily agree that the OED defintion is different from Dictionary.com or Google/oxford languages, but it is.

This last change means that the poor soul who has to close this RfC doesn't have to deal with the enourmous tangent of how we define officially, an issue that we are having with the current RfC above. SSSB (talk) 13:40, 1 June 2021 (UTC)
 * "Formal or authoritative" is just another way of saying "official". Formal: "1. done in accordance with rules of convention or etiquette; suitable for or constituting an official or important situation or occasion. 2. officially sanctioned or recognized." Authoritative implies the existence of an authority, aka an official.<P>Words like "sanctioned" or "authorized" or "formalized" all point towards someone being in charge, a person or group who must give their approval. This is where it looks really sketchy when Country A is the one authorizing representatives for Country B. Take away the key element of sovereignty and what have you got?<P>Official is often used to imply a contrast with "actual" or de facto. That's possible, and if it was the case, we would definitely have seen a lot of motorsports media in 2018 or 2019 saying FIA's new Motorsport Games format is kind of a sham since the de facto role of traditional drivers is as representatives. Or before that, they would have similarly said the A1 Grand Prix was not new or unique because Grand Prix drivers were already "really" driving for their country. If we had experts calling BS on the "new and different" claims FIA was making about A1 or about the FIA Motorsport Games, there would be a really strong case there. If I saw evidence of that it would change my mind.<P>Thanks for helping with those other mistakes, I think I've got them. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 20:13, 1 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Disagree. Authoritative does point to the existance of an authority, but nowhere does the definition say what this authority should be in. In the case of sports third parties (such as the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS)) have the authority to say "comptitor x represents nation y" regardless of the presence (or lack thereof) of an official selection process. (this is the foundation of the arguement that Formula One drivers represent their nations; CAS ruled that Russia could not represent their countries in Woeld Championships and later said that this ruling applies to Formula One. Therefore CAS (an authoritive body) considers Formula One drivers to represent their countries.)
 * Unless you want the RfC to become a huge mess, you need to take into consideration that not everyone shares your opinion that national representation only happens through national teams or selection. SSSB (talk) 12:24, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Essentiallysports.com. Seriously? The WADA ruling is right here. The Guardian doesn't resolve any of the questions here; it doesn't even mention motorsports except to vaguely allude to other WADA signatories. This idea that motorsports participating in the world anti-doping campaign somehow changes the fundamental nature of events like F1 or MotoGP is a novel theory invented by Wikipedia editors with an axe to grind about flag icons. WADA never uses the word representative precisely because they regulate all kinds of sports, including individual competitors, not official national representatives, like F1 drivers or Wimbledon players. FIA themselves, as I've given high quality citations to verify, says the opposite. Dhruv George seems like a nice guy, but seriously?<P>Having to scrape the bottom of the barrel to cite anything only underscores that this is original research, not facts you found directly stated in reliable sources. You can't find any experts, no respected publications, who equate Olympic/world cup official national representation with these other sports. None. You've been trying for days, for weeks, and you can't do it. Can you? Please correct me if I'm wrong. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 20:07, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
 * All of your arguments that I have seen also engage in WP:OR, or have I missed something? (your references to the world motorsport games, olympic charter for example)
 * I don't know why you are pointing me in the direction of the WADA rulling, I am talking about the CAS ruling. The CAS ruling states that Russia is not allowed to be represented, then CAS come forward and say that F1 is bound by this ruling (I could give other sources beside "essentially sports". (, it says "upholds a ban on Russia competitng at World Championship events", as it extends to Formula One, this directly means that CAS considers F1 drivers to compete for their nations)
 * Anyway, that is not relevant here. The point is that your definition of official representation in sport is not consistent with the dictionary definition of official, becuase nowhere is it specified which authority declares something official. Therefore, official representation is not, as you keep insisting, limited to national selection. You accuse me of having an axe to grind with flags, but you are the one who is refusing to acknowledge (whether consciously or sub-consciously) that the definition of official (that you provided) does not match what you consider to be national representation and that secondary sources do not support your view point either. SSSB (talk) 10:07, 4 June 2021 (UTC)
 * My advice would be to include the more open definition of official representation I recommend, then at a later date you have another RfC to constrict if necessary. This will avoid the situation of having a issue distract from this RfC. If they really are the same (as you keep claiming) then including it shouldn't make any difference. SSSB (talk) 10:26, 4 June 2021 (UTC)


 * Even that definition is extremely broad with all the ors in it. It can read as "done in accordance with rules etiquette." And " suitable for an important situation or occasion." There's a lot of ors that make it a very flexible term. And I agree that national representation can happen outside of national teams and selection. Look at tennis. You can't play professional tennis without country backing. You can't walk into Wimbledon and say I want no nation's flag representing me. Every pro and junior MUST register with the ITF and gain a unique ITN number. To get that number you must tell them how you want your name spelled and you must have a country backing you. It doesn't have to be the country you are a citizen of as long as you have authorization from another national tennis association. Every tennis draw has flags. Every tennis score shows flags. The ATP lists Roger Federer with his representative flag... it doesn't even say Switzerland, just a Flag and SUI. The minor league does the same. All the way down to the lowliest junior 13 year olds. You pretty much can't find a tennis source without a flag icon. I was under the impression that auto racing (especially F1) does the same thing, but I don't know other sports like I know tennis. Fyunck(click) (talk) 18:38, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, FIA-governed motorsports (including F1) roughly works in the same way. And there there needs to be involvement from a driver’s parent national association (association from a country they are a citizen of).Tvx1 18:44, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

Flag icons in civil conflict infoboxes
MOS:INFOBOXFLAG says that flag icons generally shouldn't be used in infoboxes. Exceptions to this guideline include "infobox templates for military conflicts." I'm wondering whether this exception does or should also apply to Template:Infobox civil conflict. The explanation that "flag icons should only be inserted in infoboxes in those cases where they convey information in addition to the text" seems somewhat vague. Military and civil conflicts are often so similar that I would think that it wouldn't make sense to include flag icons in one and not the other. --Dennis C. Abrams (talk) 13:44, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

RFC: Clarification of wording regarding appropriate use of flag icons
In 2020, I changed the sentence...
 * Flag icons may be relevant in some subject areas, where the subject actually represents that country or nationality.

... to ...
 * Flag icons may be relevant in some subject areas, where the subject officially represents that country or nationality.

This was to address misinterpretation of the sentence as meaning that flag icons were acceptable to indicate that a person was merely from a particular country, and thus "represented" it. This change was recently reverted. I am now asking for opinions on whether this change should be reinstated. Kaldari (talk) 19:53, 20 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Support as proposer. Kaldari (talk) 19:53, 20 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Support personally I think most flags in infoboxes are useless, but even if I loved them, using them when it's not offically representative makes no sense. Ealdgyth (talk) 20:09, 20 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Support. This change is needed to address the misinterpretation of the guidance. Nikkimaria (talk) 21:09, 20 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Support as above.  DGG ( talk ) 21:47, 20 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Support Officially means something, that competitors are selected by officials, not merely any competitor who happens to be from that country. Meaning flags appear only on a well-defined subset of all international competitors. Actually only means verifiable, which means do whatever reliable sources do, whether it makes sense or not. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 22:30, 20 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Strong oppose This unnessarily clamps down the use of flags using a far to restrictive definition. Nationalities have a far bigger relevance than a strict official usage and our guidelines should allow us to write our articles in balance with the real world coverage of events not in contradiction of it. The current wording has always worked just fine. This proposed change is utterly unnecessary.Tvx1 00:16, 21 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Strong oppose - When and how we use flags should be dictated by following sources, not by the arbitrary mandate of an often contentious part of the manual of style. Even as someone who is generally not a fan of the nationalistic elements of sport culture I find it hard not to read much of the push to remove flags from said articles where sources frequently use or reference them as anything other than ideologically motivated WP:POINTiness. HumanBodyPiloter5 (talk) 00:50, 21 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose There are several exceptions in this guideline that allow use of flags in infoboxes where they wouldn't otherwise be allowed. This small bit of flexibility is a good thing. The wording in this guideline is already too restrictive in my opinion and I see this as a move in the wrong direction. Let consensus at the individual WikiProjects decide if they want flags or not. --DB1729 (talk) 00:58, 21 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose "Officially" according to whom? By what definition? This would be merely replacing one woolly piece of phrasing with another. There is no "official" definition of representing one's country, nor will there ever be. Bretonbanquet (talk) 01:16, 21 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose This seems to be overly strong with the objective of removing flags agreed to in past RfC's. What the heck does "official" mean? Certain sports are sourced over and over again with flags, and that's how we use them. Fyunck(click) (talk) 04:27, 21 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Strongly oppose the suggested interpretation. Wikipedia content is meant to reflect the content available in secondary sources. The use of flags in articles should reflect how they are used in reality, not restricted arbitrarily for the sake of someone's style preference. If nationality is important in a field or sources on that field, then we should be reflecting that in our articles regardless of if it's "official" or not. 5225C (talk &bull; contributions) 04:57, 21 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Strong oppose I thought Wikipedia's content was based primarly on secondary sources. A condition of "officially" means rejecting reliable, secondary sources interpretation of where flags are appropriate in favour of official documents. SSSB (talk) 07:31, 21 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Strong oppose This would make "official" become a gray area. Where and who is official? The reliance on secondary sources is what's needed. Admanny (talk) 13:56, 21 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose Some of the discussion below suggests that some of the proponents of this change would only be happy with an act of government to designate an "official" status, and are happy to ignore both ratified regulations of the sports in question, the demonstrated practices and culture of those sports, and the presentation of the sports in reliable sources. That being the case, and pretty much every sporting body outside dictatorships being private bodies and not government departments (many democratic countries actually have antitrust legislation to enforce this), what they are in effect arguing for is a removal of flagicons. As yet, they have proposed no reason for this action, and they certainly haven't demonstrated that a problem exists with the current interpretation and application of the MoS guidelines. Before you try to 'fix' something, you really should demonstrate that it is broken. Pyrop  e  15:11, 26 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose. As this discussion has shown, "official" is not as neatly defined as the proponents want it to be. This change would cause more confusion than it solves. The example of F1, outlined by below – although I disagree with his conclusion – came to my mind immediately. In this sport, the drivers  represent the country of their passport. It's irrespective of what country has  issued them licenses, what national sporting bodies they are affiliated with (no national sporting body sends them to this competition, so there is no  representation like in say, the Olympics). Also to Dennis' recommendation that our articles should cover the issue of selection/nationality, we really ought to have the article sporting nationality, which is a highly notable (and interesting) topic. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 06:18, 27 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Support "officially" doesn't necessary mean it has to be a govt endorsement in the case of a sport, but an agency that represents the sport for the country at the highest level. There's enough flex in the term to appropriate limit the use of flags to where best appropriate (eg avoid simple associate with nationality) but allowance when there's a national org-structure involvement for international events to be considered. --M asem (t) 18:21, 28 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Support. There is far too much use of flags as decoration, that add nothing of value to the articles where they are used. Dogs and lamp-posts come to mind. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 19:06, 28 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose - using flags to demonstrate nationality when it reflects when sources do is fine. As stated above this proposed change is far too limited. GiantSnowman 18:19, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose As others have stated official isn't neatly enough defined for this change to be worthwhile. If someone is sourced by a reliable secondary source to be actually from a nation then using a flagicon to reflect that should be fine, even without official classification whatever that means. Rugbyfan22 (talk) 19:38, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose: As per above, it would make things super limited and cause a lot of problems in multiple areas.Muur (talk) 22:25, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose, I'm not sure that this change in wording would be an improvement.--Ortizesp (talk) 01:05, 3 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose It seems to me that "actually" reads as if we're allowed to use secondary sources to make the determination, while "officially" creates a "higher standard." I prefer actually as it seems more flexible. SportingFlyer  T · C  10:54, 14 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose: The article in question is a good example of why the use of flags should not be restricted to official representation. Now United's entire thing is that they come from different nations and come together into one group. They do not officially represent those nations, but they purposefully highlight their different nations as a key component of the group's makeup. I believe the use of flags here is as worthy as it is next to an Olympian. El Dubs (talk) 06:03, 29 July 2021 (UTC)

Discussion

 * Can anyone help me understand what the difference between what "actually" and "officially" means in this context? Like what would a citation need to say to demonstrate someone "actually" represents a country? In contrast to one who "officially" represents it. Or can you explain by example? Athlete A "officially" represents a country because <source A> while Athlete B "actually" represents a country, because <source B>. Put another way, is there any instance when a competitor in an international competition wouldn't get a flag? The point of changing the wording is that other editors will come along and read it and know what you're asking them to do. I'm not sure how this helps them to avoid getting it wrong. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 21:22, 20 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I can't tell you what "actually" means in this context, which is why I think the change should be made - "officially" is clearer. Nikkimaria (talk) 21:26, 20 May 2021 (UTC)
 * It isn’t clearer at all, because different people have different views on what official means.Tvx1 01:27, 21 May 2021 (UTC)
 * What does "actual" mean? Nikkimaria (talk) 02:39, 21 May 2021 (UTC)
 * What does "official" mean? Tvx1 19:26, 26 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Sanctioned as representing a particular nation. Now, can anyone define "actual" in this context? Nikkimaria (talk) 03:49, 27 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I would say that's what "actual" is. It's the definition of official that many people have different views on.Tvx1 12:28, 27 May 2021 (UTC)
 * What other definitions of "official" have you seen, and who else has supported that definition of "actual"? Nikkimaria (talk) 12:36, 27 May 2021 (UTC)
 * that definition of "official" has a gapping hole in it. That definition would mean that Queen Elizabeth II does not official represent the UK, despite being the head of state. (Yes, this example is moot as there isn't a flag on her article, but that doesn't excuse the oversight) SSSB (talk) 10:02, 31 May 2021 (UTC)
 * ...I don't think you could reasonably argue that to be the case. Still waiting on answers to my questions. Nikkimaria (talk) 11:53, 31 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Indeed. The entire point of even having an MOS is that ordinary people -- anyone, especially those whose lives are not entirely consumed by Wikipedia -- can read the guidelines, and using the common meanings of ordinary English words like "official" and "represent", know what the standards are, and put the guidelines into practice without having to consult with a Wikilawyer, Esq. If the words in the MOS hinge on esoteric word definitions, why even have an MOS?<P>Nobody ever answered my question at the top of this thread, by the way: show me a citation that verifies someone "actually" represents a country, though they do not "officially" represent it. Not a gloss of a press release on a news blog. A real, solid, high quality reliable source. Any topic, any article. One citation.  --Dennis Bratland (talk) 00:02, 1 June 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't support the use of "actually", I just oppose the use of the word "officially". Someone who is considered to actually represent their nation, but does not do so officially, is someone for whom reliable sources consider them to represent a nation, but they do not do so officially. Which is intuitive if you compare the definition of actually and officially. My preferred wording would be more specific, but let us address one issue at a time. SSSB (talk) 09:14, 1 June 2021 (UTC)


 * "actuallly" is generally the excuse given for submission when the person comes from the area, but is not appointed a representative of it by some recognized organization.  DGG ( talk ) 21:47, 20 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Nikkimaria, I agree. But based on what most editors across AFAICT virtually all sports-related WikiProjects say, and do in actual practice, the standard they follow is "if it's customary for reliable sources to associate flags with a competitor, Wikipedia follows suit". Whether it says actually or officially, they're going to say the standard is met, meaning all international athletes get flags. I should probably just !vote support and see what happens next, but I'm nearly certain it only delays the inevitable decision between the de facto standard the sports projects follow and the "official" standard I think most non-sports editors prefer, approximately what I defined at User:Dennis Bratland/Draft MOS:SPORTFLAG RfC. DGG's definition is similar to what we see in motorsports: whatever your passport says, that's the country you "represent". The country being represented has no say in it.<P>If the broader community is willing to let the sports editors have their way, great. We do as sources do, no questions asked. But if the larger community is going to insist on the "official" standard, we need to define it, probably as either the governing body says directly "competitors are official representatives", or we can verify that a country's government or national sports organization is in charge of picking a limited number of competitors to represent them, typically by a tournament, or by fiat. This would mean removing flags from thousands of sports articles. Which I think would make Wikipedia better but sports-related WikiProject editors seem adamant that their articles should look like sports media, i.e., flags as far as the eye can see.<P>It seems like a problem. Maybe I should stop worrying but I worry. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 22:00, 20 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't think this change should have any effect on sports articles. We already have an entire section, MOS:SPORTFLAGS, that repeatly explains that "flags should never indicate the player's nationality in a non-sporting sense; flags should only indicate the sportsperson's national squad/team or representative nationality." Any sportsperson that is on a national team or is part of a national delegation to an internation sporting event is officially representing that country. The purpose of this change is to enforce a similar standard in non-sports articles, for example, in TV shows, bands, organizations, etc. If some sports editors have been using a looser standard, I doubt this change will make them suddenly pay attention to the guideline. Kaldari (talk) 22:28, 20 May 2021 (UTC)
 * We actually have seven distinct sections that mention sports. They don't all agree. If we want to leave it to local consensus we should say so, and delete all seven. Though I look at Floor (gymnastics) and World Ballroom Dance Champions and Cannes Film Festival and Eurovision and it starts to seem extremely arbitrary. If Wikipedia is worse if we put flags on articles about dancers and actors and musicians, what makes "athletes" (but not artists!) different? --Dennis Bratland (talk) 22:51, 20 May 2021 (UTC)
 * This entire guideline was concieved through a local consensus. It would be pretty hypocritical if it would not allow any whatsoever. Moreover, I would not call an entire Wikiproject arriving to a consensus that their usage of flags is in line with MOS a local consensus.Tvx1 00:35, 21 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Exhibit A. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 01:08, 21 May 2021 (UTC)
 * What’s that supposed to mean??Tvx1 01:24, 21 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Quite. This isn't the place for snarky ripostes with no obvious content. Bretonbanquet (talk) 01:26, 21 May 2021 (UTC)
 * If everyone can see that you don't recognize any limits on the use of flag icons, people might chuckle when you tie yourself in knots trying to insist that really, really, really you do so. Or when you repeatedly double down on the passionate belief that the criterion "official representative" does not exclude using flags, then one day do a 180 and insist just as passionately that these words will in fact strip flags from articles, well, there could be snark. It happens. When someone says their project isn't strictly bound by the MOS, yet panics that a one word change could have massive ramifications, it's not not funny.<P>It's a healthy part of the reasoning process we use to identify, and back away from, fallacious reasoning in order to focus on sound arguments. There are sound arguments here, but this ain't that. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 01:56, 21 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Yet you yourself have actually activily engaged in removing flags from articles based on your overly strict application of the proposed wording. This despite MOS being a guideline, not a policy, meaning it can’t forbid anything. And if that isn’t bad enough, you ran to ANI to try and get everyone disagreeing with you topic banned from this subject. That’s among the lowest I have ever been confronted with on Wikipedia. So pardon if we are concerned about this proposal and the motives behind it. At the end of the day, the current wording has always worked fine and the proposed change is not an improvement in any way. See WP:BROKEN.Tvx1 02:36, 21 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Dennis Bratland, if you take a careful look at some of my edits, you will see that I do recongise limits of the use of flag icons. Your point is also misleading. Let me correct it for you: ... when you repeatedly double down on the passionate belief that the criterion "official representative" does not exclude using flags [from Formula One articles], then one day do a 180 and insist just as passionately that these words will in fact strip flags from [other] articles SSSB (talk) 07:37, 21 May 2021 (UTC)
 * You're not saying Tvx1 is your sockpuppet account? --Dennis Bratland (talk) 17:27, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

I took "everyone can see that you don't recognize any limits on the use of flag icons" as a general comment targeted at those who support flags, not targeted at anyone individually. SSSB (talk) 17:35, 21 May 2021 (UTC) Now you're going to accuse us of sockpuppeting? You are sinking lower and lower by the minute.Tvx1 17:47, 21 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Just checking. You refer to one guy and a different guy answers for him and you know...<P>Look, Wikipedia doesn't write a lot of rules just to make it look like we know what we're doing. It's not a bureaucracy, it's not a law factory. MOS:FLAG covers sports in seven different places and it all amounts to nothing. If it's zombie legal code we should delete it, and certainly not waste time debating it. The truth is there is no sports infobox, list or table that we can't put a flag on. Right? Don't ask everyone to discuss the definition of "official" or "actual" when the truth is it makes no difference. No matter what it says, there are no sports WikiProjects that would say we can't put a flag icon in an article because of the MOS. As long as these editors keep pretending these rules mean anything, we can't have a real discussion of that.<P>We're pretty sure we don't want flag icons on every article about authors or engineering or science. But on sports, anything goes. Let's figure out why we want it that way and state it plainly so ordinary people can read the MOS and have some idea what the hell it means. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 17:58, 21 May 2021 (UTC)
 * It is anything goes at the moment - but I don't think it should be so. I completely agree that the use of flags is not appropriate on some pages. It's just that I have better things to do than remove them. The problem is that it is complicated. You can apply a blanket rule on flags with actors (none of them represent a country, as far as I'm aware), not with sports people, different sports have different standards, and within sports, you have different standards. The problem is that we never has a discussion about flags for Formula 2 drivers (as an example, not commenting on it here). We had a consensus for F1, and editors simply assumed that the consensus carries over, but it doesn't. Then the situation got out of hand. SSSB (talk) 18:13, 21 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I just want to know why if Mercedes builds a car, no flag. If Mercedes builds a race car, flag. If Steve McQueen wins a car race, flag. If he wins a Golden Globe, no flag. It's weird, right? --Dennis Bratland (talk) 18:25, 21 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Only using flags where there are national teams (as you keep arguing for) yields the same problem. Hypothetical arguement: "If Steve McQueen becomes Formula One World Champion, no flag. If he becomes 100m World Champion (a championship event with national teams), flag. It's weird, right?" SSSB (talk) 18:45, 21 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Formula One competitors are self-selected -- well mostly whoever pays the bills selects them but for our purposes that's self-selection. The country they "represent" has no say. If anybody can compete in World Athletics regardless of nationality, it's the same as F1. If a body within a country selects from among that country's citizens a limited number of representatives, then it's like the Olympics, and they are official representatives. Like the Athletics World Cup, which has a quota of 2 athletes per country.<P>What's notable is how rarely Wikipedia's sports articles even mention how competitors are selected. They default to treating everyone as a national representative without citing anything to support it. Which is my point. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 19:12, 21 May 2021 (UTC)
 * They have every say in it. If the country in question does not give them a licence to compete that’s the end of it.Tvx1 19:37, 21 May 2021 (UTC)


 * The license issuing country is administrative purposes only. The flag they wave on the podium, decorate cars with, and put on TV to wind up the fans is the one on the driver's passport, not their license-issuer. See FIA's International Sporting Code:
 * Also countries not represented (9.3.5). So the set of all countries represented and all countries not represented, is... all countries.
 * If a country didn't want a driver to represent them, F1 says too bad. F1 doesn't assign any quota to countries. You can't drive just because you're the only guy on a tiny island nation with a car. It's not official representation. Or actual representation. It's not representation. It's decoration. Branding would be the most accurate way to describe it, as when Italian companies retain Italian flags after becoming subsidiaries of German or American companies. Branding is a pose, not representation. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 20:00, 21 May 2021 (UTC)
 * See, this the root cause of this entire issue. You keep doubling down on your mistaken belief that representation can only exist if some kind of quota exist or if there is some kind of national delegation. Representation simply far exceeds that in it is clear that you fundamentaly do not understand this concept. And despite all that you keep trying to enforce your beliefs.Tvx1 21:53, 21 May 2021 (UTC)
 * What even is the standard you're suggesting? To me you're saying everybody gets a flag. I can't figure out what a case that doesn't qualify as a representative looks like. FIA acknowledges the fact that drivers are citizens of some country. Apparently that equals representation? If it doesn't, the tell us what does, and what doesn't. You were asked to define your terms more than once and never answered. If you consider these questions unanswerable, then don't you agree with me that sports editors prefer not adhering to any limits set by MOS:FLAG? If you won't tell us where you stand, we're left guessing. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 22:43, 21 May 2021 (UTC)
 * As I said representation is a much more complicated and broad concept than you believe. It's much more than "being selected for a national team". People can do that on an individual basis too. It's not up to me nor up to me what representation is. We just write our articles in balance with coverage in reliable sources. If sportsperson takes part in an international competition and their nationality is recognized by the sports governing body and explicitly noted in official documents and by waving the national flags and playing the national anthems of the competitors winning their events, that should be more than enough to report on said sport in a similar manner in an online encyclopedia. It's not up to MOS to dictate whether or not nationalities carry importance in a certain topic area. MOS should be guide on how to appropriate use flags in a topic area for which the WikiProject arrived to the consensus that nationalities have enough importance to justify the use of those flags.Tvx1 16:13, 22 May 2021 (UTC)
 * You really need to read the Local consensus policy. Or maybe realize that everyone else has read it and we all know the MOS does have authority over your WikiProject, like it or not.<P>You are unable to cite sources that say "drivers represent their countries". But you can cite sources that consistently use national symbols, especially flags, for drivers, as well as tennis players, golfers, boxers. That's what I've been saying. You want Wikipedia to simply conform with the norms of sources. That's a legitimate opinion that lots of editors would agree with. It's a clear standard that we can understand and put into practice.<P>The honest thing to do would be to admit you don't want sports to follow the same rules as everything else in MOS:FLAG, and instead simply do as reliable sources do, without asking why they do it or what it means. Admitting that openly would make it possible for us to write MOS rules that people can read and understand, without having to confront esoteric word definitions and an unreadable labyrinth of exceptions and exceptions to exceptions. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 17:48, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I could be wrong, but I seem to remember that the consensus for flags in F1 articles was through a RfC, and therefore not a local consensus at all. There isn't anything inherently wrong with a little ambiguity, and it is almost certainly the case that any wording that gains consensus will contain ambiguity. As far as I know most guidlines/policies contain ambiguity. When does an WP:UNDUE opinion become due? It is then the job of other discussions to determine on which side of ambiguous guidelines specific issues lie. "Can opinion x be inserted in article y, or is it WP:UNDUE?". I do think, before we enter specific cases (such as Formula One) that we need to address all current concerns with this page. SSSB (talk) 18:34, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
 * The editors in the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Icons/Archive 14 are pretty explicit in agreeing that they think flag icons should be used because that's what reliable sources do. There's no ambiguity, just like it doesn't require sorcery and divination to know what "local" and "global" mean. The reason people are confused is not because words have no meaning and all facts are subjective and, dude, like, is reality even, like, reality, man??? No, it's because we have seven competing guidelines on sports flags plus undocumented RfC outcomes, and a lot of editors like you who keep telling us words don't have meaning.<P>It doesn't have to be like this. Propose a clear, simple, comprehensible guideline -- "in sports do as sources do" and seek global consensus. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 20:49, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I have every intention of proposing a clear guideline, but I have to wait for this to finish first, as they cover the same area. But I understand and accept that we may be unable to find consensus for a less ambiguous guideline. SSSB (talk) 07:35, 26 May 2021 (UTC)
 * A good place to start would be to find a single case when you'd disallow a flag icon in sports. If none exist, the guideline you want is going to be very simple. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 17:29, 26 May 2021 (UTC)
 * The guideline I want is very simple: "If reliable sources consistently refer to nationality when discussing a certain series or the results for a series consistently indicates nationality, then flag use is appropriate. The WP:BURDEN of proof lies with the person who wants to add flags. The default position is no flags." I, personally, don't agree with nationalism in sport, but I accept it exists. And if reliable sources reference nationality, I see no reason why we shouldn't. There are plenty of places where this would remove flags (I'd have to double check to make sure, as I don't usually look at results tables anywhere other than Wikipedia) but my proposed guideline will likely result in no flags at 2020-21 Premier League, NFL, NASCAR, to name three. SSSB (talk) 17:58, 26 May 2021 (UTC)
 * That seems like a sensible approach to me.Tvx1 19:23, 26 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I said that a week ago and you guys proceeded to argue with me nonstop. But whatever. Glad to hear you've come around. If the global community forms a clear consensus either for or against that idea, it will put an end to years of debate over flag icons. That would be a good thing. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 21:06, 26 May 2021 (UTC)
 * No, MOS does not have any authority, because it is a guideline and not a law. It contains advice for the editors. Moreover, it is not in the scope of MOS at all to dicate whether or not nationality is relevant in a certain subject area. As long as you don’t realize that we cannot write MOS rules because it just isn’t a rulebook there is no point in discussing with you. And you don’t have authority either, so you need to stop dictating what we should do.Tvx1 12:03, 26 May 2021 (UTC)
 * You are quite happy to enforce rules telling other editors what they can and can't do, as long as it matches your whims. But if it's a rule you don't like, then it has no authority. This kind of solipsism might seem great living inside your head but to the rest of us building system of collaboration, your attitude is useless. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 17:23, 26 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but this is just a load of nonsense. I don't enforce rules on any editors at all. And I don't claim a rule I don't like has no authority. I simply won't accept that someone like you wants to some enforce something as if it were a rule despite not being a rule at all. MOS is not a rulebook but a guideline. Learn the goddamn difference. And someone who recently ran to the administrators to try to have everyone disagreeing with them topic-banned should not be lecturing others about their attitude in any way. You are the one here creating all this fuss here, not us. We have been using these flags for years without any reader complaining. You are making the whole drama about something that is not an issue at all.Tvx1 19:21, 26 May 2021 (UTC)
 * You have "run to the administrators" dozens of times. You revert other editors all the time. You justify your actions by citing Wikipedia policies and guidelines all the time. You are the one who "made a fuss" by recruiting motorsports editors to oppose an RfC that was gaining consensus. But go on.<P>Also read WP:RULES. It's another word for "policy" or "guideline". Or maybe check a dictionary. Please stop wasting everyone's time with these bizarre claims. Your history is right here for all to see. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 20:51, 26 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Excuse me? I do not run to the administrators all the time. I most certainly do not revert editors all the time. Just quit these baseless accusations. The image you try to paint of me here is quite frankly ridiculous. Right from the lead of WP:RULES: "Although Wikipedia generally does not employ hard-and-fast rules, Wikipedia's policy and guideline pages describe its principles and agreed-upon best practices. Policies are standards all users should normally follow, and guidelines are generally meant to be best practices for following those standards in specific contexts. Policies and guidelines should always be applied using reason and common sense.". You see, save from some strict behavioral policies there are no hard-and-fast rules. It literally states that guidelines are best practices to follow the standards. And that common sense and reason should always be used. MOS is thuis quite patently NOT a rulebook. You are the one who has been wasting everyone's time here for weeks with these discussions. No one had an issue with the flags until you decided to start removing them somewhere and started your RFC's when you were reverted.Tvx1 23:18, 26 May 2021 (UTC)
 * You have initiated complaints against other editors on administrator noticeboards at least 19 times. There's a permanent record of all this. It's easily searched. I don't know who you think you can fool with all this. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 18:28, 27 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Whilst I agree that MoS is a guideline and therefore doesn't need to be followed absolutly by all articles, I do think that it should be followed until there is a clear, non-local consensus to do so. It is perfectly accepetable (by the definition of a guideline) for a discussion to conclude that article x does not need to follow a part of MoS (for whatever reason) SSSB (talk) 08:24, 27 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Of course MOS should be respected in general. But as said it is vital to use common sense with regards. And it's that common sense that is forgotten all too often. I just find it perverse that some people try to abuse this as a law to ban flags from certain topic areas. That's something MOS simply cannot do. And the point is, that WP:MOTOR has really been respecting this part of MOS all along. I genuinely don't see why they are attacked in this manner and why WP:F1 is accused of being a group of dissidents when in reality there articles do not behave differently than any article on similarly organized FIA racing competitions. I also cannot see why a new guideline for sports should be created just because one user dictates us to do so, even though more and more users disagree with them in this RFC. Don't fix something that ain't broken.Tvx1 12:26, 27 May 2021 (UTC)
 * You have initiated complaints against other editors on administrator noticeboards at least 19 times. There's a permanent record of all this. It's easily searched. I don't know who you think you can fool with all this. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 18:28, 27 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Whilst I agree that MoS is a guideline and therefore doesn't need to be followed absolutly by all articles, I do think that it should be followed until there is a clear, non-local consensus to do so. It is perfectly accepetable (by the definition of a guideline) for a discussion to conclude that article x does not need to follow a part of MoS (for whatever reason) SSSB (talk) 08:24, 27 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Of course MOS should be respected in general. But as said it is vital to use common sense with regards. And it's that common sense that is forgotten all too often. I just find it perverse that some people try to abuse this as a law to ban flags from certain topic areas. That's something MOS simply cannot do. And the point is, that WP:MOTOR has really been respecting this part of MOS all along. I genuinely don't see why they are attacked in this manner and why WP:F1 is accused of being a group of dissidents when in reality there articles do not behave differently than any article on similarly organized FIA racing competitions. I also cannot see why a new guideline for sports should be created just because one user dictates us to do so, even though more and more users disagree with them in this RFC. Don't fix something that ain't broken.Tvx1 12:26, 27 May 2021 (UTC)


 * Can someone explain all the opposes relating to sports? Sports feels like one area where there are pretty clear official teams/representatives/bodies and so on. CMD (talk) 14:46, 21 May 2021 (UTC)
 * because the change under discussion was reverted after I did some digging in relation to a recent RfC about flagicons in motorsport (Template talk:Infobox racing driver). SSSB (talk) 15:55, 21 May 2021 (UTC)
 * You claim that sports wouldn't be affected, yet there is an RFC dealing with a sports area that tried to heavily restrict the usage of flags in that area based on the proposed wording. So there is clear evidence that sports would be affected.Tvx1 17:47, 21 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I claimed what where now? There is no other RfC mentioned in either the support or oppose votes, so if it's relevant mentioning it might help make various cases. Is the RfC you refer to a different RfC to the one SSSB had already mentioned? CMD (talk) 16:34, 22 May 2021 (UTC)
 * No, that’s the one.Tvx1 18:57, 22 May 2021 (UTC)
 * This may not be the general opinion, if there actually is a general opinion, but I find that Flag icons when used for multiple entries in a table (usually sports, but sometimes awards) are confusing, and when used next to a list of countries in the usual alphabetic order do not add anything. I'm not sure there is a reasonable use, for WP is not a picture encyclopedia for those who do not understand English..  DGG ( talk ) 17:10, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

This RFC is being seriously misinterpreted
Since at least 2008, this guideline has consistently required that flagicons only be used in articles for sportspeople when that person is officially representing a nation (rather than simply being from a nation). This RFC is to clarify that that same standard (which has been delineated for 13 years in MOS:SPORTFLAGS) also applies to other articles. (It was specifically proposed in order to deal with boy band articles.) In other words, this RFC should have no effect whatsoever on sports articles. If some sports editors are already ignoring MOS:SPORTFLAGS, they certainly aren't going to change their habits because of a minor clarification in the most general part of the guideline. If motorsports editors (or whoever) want to follow their own rules, that's totally fine (guidelines are only suggestions after all), but you don't need to muddy the waters for all the other articles by derailing this RFC. Maybe "officially" isn't the right word to use. My intention is simply to match the longstanding standard of MOS:SPORTFLAGS. In other words, don't use flagicons to indicate that a person is simply from a country. If anyone has suggestions for a better way to word that, I'm open to suggestions. Kaldari (talk) 22:02, 27 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm also fine with revising or deleting MOS:SPORTFLAGS entirely (as I don't care about sports articles). But we do need clear guidelines for non-sports articles, which we currently lack (and I was hoping to fix). Kaldari (talk) 22:12, 27 May 2021 (UTC)
 * That's not true. A strict official nature was never required and has not been used by the sports wikiprojects. They have been consistently applying the standard that there needs to be at least some clear recognition of the nationalities in the competition in question. That's what the "actually representing" refers to. And it is that wording that already makes it clear that flags should not be used to denote that someone simply is from a nation. So the change you suggested isn't necessary at all since it doesn't solve anything. The wording you think should be there is already there. And while you claim the change you suggest wouldn't affect sports articles, there is clear evidence of the contrary. An editor started removing flags from some sports articles following your change and their definition of official and started an RFC further up this page following that. The root problem with your proposal is that "official" does not mean the same thing to everyone at all.Tvx1 22:39, 27 May 2021 (UTC)
 * The standard you are describing sounds like exactly what MOS:SPORTFLAGS says not to do: "Flags should never indicate the player's nationality in a non-sporting sense; flags should only indicate the sportsperson's national squad/team or representative nationality." What, in your mind, is the difference between "nationality" and "representative nationality"? In my mind it means they have been designated by some sporting authority to represent that nation. What does it mean to you? And can we use whatever that standard is to exclude flagicons from boy band articles, as that is the problem I'm trying to solve. Kaldari (talk) 22:53, 27 May 2021 (UTC)
 * And before you say "The existing wording already works", the boy band editors are well aware of this guideline and interpreted "actually represent" to mean "actually from the country". Kaldari (talk) 22:57, 27 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Tvx1 knows it's broken; scroll up and see they were complaining about it not two months ago right on this page. The guidelines are confusing and contradictory, and sports editors have for years had to defend the de facto exception to the rules that they enjoy. Every time anyone tries to fix it, they circle the wagons because they're afraid a change in the status quo won't be to their liking. It's probably going to have to be done without their support, even if they end up getting exactly what they want in spite of themselves. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 23:07, 27 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Can you please stop with these nonsense bad-faith accusations? In my mind just like in Kaldari's it means that they are designated by a national governing body to represent them. I just don't agree with the interpretation of some that this is strictly limited to being selected for a formal national team or having acquired said status through a national trial. One can also represent individually and this designation can also be acquired through receiving a license from a national governing body to compete in a formal international championship. As for the boy bands, if they apply "actually from the country", that is just wrong and that should be dealt with. The guideline clearly states "represent". In fact you could add "do not use for just from the country" wording. The clampdown to strictly official is just misguided. As pointed out by many of the RFC participants, that word is not unambiguous at all and it is clear that your intended meaning for it is not what everyone thinks it means.Tvx1 23:40, 27 May 2021 (UTC)
 * We're still waiting for a citation of a source that says getting a license makes a driver a representative. Other editors have looked at the FIA rules and told you the same thing I did: the flags are determined by your passport, not the club that gave you your license. And nothing in FIA rules, nor source anybody has cited, tells us what the flags mean. You were right when you said they are only decoration. Nobody can find anything that tells us why these sports display flags. We have never discovered what they mean. Your opinion of what they mean lacks any verification. It's just opinion.<P>You have got a decent argument if you want to fall back to conforming to what sources do, without asking why. I don't want to use flags without knowing why, but a lot of others would. That's your best argument. Wikilawyhering the meaning of words like "official" or "representative" is not going to work. We can all simply look them up a dictionary. They're not obscure, technical terms. They're everyday English. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 01:12, 28 May 2021 (UTC)
 * And who is we? The only one making any demands from us is you? Why do we even have to justify ourselves to you personally? And no evidence presented? We have provided loads, but you just refuse to accept that it exists. I have referred time and time again to the issue with the Russian drivers who are currently no allowed to represent Russia in the world championships. This literally is identical to te OAR and ANA situations in the olympics and athletics respectively. They do not use the exact ridiculously stringent wording you want to see? Big deal, you don't decide what goes and what doesn't. Mostly because this part of MOS never required that very strict official status at all.Tvx1 16:34, 28 May 2021 (UTC)
 * When readers see a flag icon at the top of one biography and not another, they need to know why. We should be able to tell them what the flag icon means. You have failed to produce any sources that tell us what it means. WP:BURDEN says "verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material" and requires a source "that directly supports the contribution".<P>Stop making this personal. Your own words prove I'm not "the only one making any demands". I didn't make up WP:BURDEN. The entire Wikipedia community is who is asking you to cite sources here, not me. You've been complaining about persecution over these flag icons long before I came along. You complained of editors who "go to no end to try to demonstrate how dramatically distracting these are in such an article". You admitted "the icons are generated in a purely decorative manner. They are not interactive in any way to confer their meaning." You said that because you know very well we have no sources that tell us what the flags mean. They're just there. Why? You said it yourself: nobody knows, because nobody talks about it. They're decorative. Meaningless. Wikipedia articles don't include divisive nationalistic symbols for a purpose as trivial as meaningless decoration.<P>(And that Planet F1 blog post is garbage. Just read it. That steaming pile is the best you can do and that speaks volumes.)--Dennis Bratland (talk) 18:12, 28 May 2021 (UTC)
 * No, the entire wikipedia community is not demanding sources. It's you and you who have posted such requests here. It would really be nice it you wouldn't speak in the name of other people. So what if I commented in another RFC. That isn't relevant here at all. My comment there was to point out that there is style guidance at all, as a Manual of Style is expected to do, with regards to military infoboxes. Just a do as you wish. And I also wanted to point out the clear double standards. And when I said "the icons are generated in a purely decorative manner. They are not interactive in any way to confer their meaning.", that again relates to military articles. And that dealt with their technical presence. In sports articles, they are not decorative at all. We pay great attention that they are generated through interactive templates that even tell blind people what they stand for. You really should read other people's comments more carefully. Moreover, you claim they are meaningless, but that is nothing but your ridiculous personal opinion. Many, many people disagree with you on that subject. You claim that we don't tell our readers what these flags mean. Well, that's wrong. In sports biographies, we generally make sure that we tell our readers that they show representative nationalities. For motorsports in particulars, the word nationality is Wikilinked to its relevant meaning and in cases of drivers who have multiple nationalities from a legal perspective, we carefully explain which of these nationalities they have chosen to represent and thus why that particular flag is there (e.g. Romain Grosjean, Pascal Wehrlein, Lance Stroll, Max Verstappen, etc...). Likewise we explain why there is a RAF flag the articles of Russians currently competing in any world championship. When a driver (e.g. Bertrand Gachot) has represented more than one nation during different parts of their careers we explain that carefully as well. You see, we do care for our readers. And they just do not complain at all. Your assesment of the source just demonstrate the root problem. You just brandish it as a "garbage blog", despite it not being a blog at all. But it doesn't matter since it isn't the only source reporting on that case, .Tvx1 18:12, 29 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Tvx1 from two months ago is going to be so offended when he hears what Tvx1 of this month said about him. Do you remember, one of your friends way back in 2013 came to your talk page tried to warn you to stop attacking editors who didn't share your opinions about flag icons. Eight years ago. That's how long you've been throwing rage fits like this. It's not helping. You should focus on content.<P>Anyway. FIA disagrees with you. Lots of reliable sources disagree with you. FIA themselves clearly understands the difference between displaying flags for decoration, and representing a nation. They had to create an entirely new series because they understood very well that F1 is not that:
 * --Dennis Bratland (talk) 19:43, 29 May 2021 (UTC)
 * So just because the FIA has also organized some competitions with formal national teams, you think that drivers cannot represent individually in other competitions in any way? Not even in officially recognized world championships?? That's a really strange way of reasoning.Tvx1 13:01, 30 May 2021 (UTC)
 * What’s strange is thinking the selection of Lance Stroll to represent Canada was made for Canada by the US. Canada wants the world to know they are is not America’s little hat. Or cute sidekick. Read the words I quoted: they directly state what racing lacked before, and what is new: real national representation, not merely decorative flag waving. Other editors have what they need to make up their minds so we don’t need to repeat the same arguments. What we can see is three classes: sports that don’t commonly display flags like the NFL, those that display them without official representation like F1, and those that have official representation, like the Motorsport Games. A consensus for limits on using flag icons defined by these classes is possible and can resolve years of debate. —Dennis Bratland (talk) 16:51, 30 May 2021 (UTC)
 * the above discussion clearly indicates that those that display them without official representation like F1 is your opinion, please refrain from stating it as fact. No, I will not justify my reasoning for my belief here (which is different from Tvx1's) because specific cases are not remotly relevant to this discussion.
 * This brings me to my main point, please stop polluting this discussion with a repitive, back and forth argument, which has no real relevance to this RfC, or the specific issue that this section raises. SSSB (talk) 10:07, 31 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Don't worry I have no intention of taking further part in this continuous abuse against me. I have given more than enough information for whomever closes this in my posts here. I really don't understand why Dennis Bratland raised such a stink on this here. We already achieved a consensus here on this talk page years ago that our flag usage in motorsports articles is in line with MOS:FLAGS. There has not been "years of discussion" on this subject since at all.Tvx1 14:31, 31 May 2021 (UTC)
 * the above discussion clearly indicates that those that display them without official representation like F1 is your opinion, please refrain from stating it as fact. No, I will not justify my reasoning for my belief here (which is different from Tvx1's) because specific cases are not remotly relevant to this discussion.
 * This brings me to my main point, please stop polluting this discussion with a repitive, back and forth argument, which has no real relevance to this RfC, or the specific issue that this section raises. SSSB (talk) 10:07, 31 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Don't worry I have no intention of taking further part in this continuous abuse against me. I have given more than enough information for whomever closes this in my posts here. I really don't understand why Dennis Bratland raised such a stink on this here. We already achieved a consensus here on this talk page years ago that our flag usage in motorsports articles is in line with MOS:FLAGS. There has not been "years of discussion" on this subject since at all.Tvx1 14:31, 31 May 2021 (UTC)


 * SSSB, I have cited source after source, and given quotes that directly support what I've said. The only pollution to this discussion is all the rants filled with claims supported by nothing whatsoever. I've given other editors the citations they need to decide for themselves what the "facts" are. You merely scold and insult and cast aspersions.<P>If you think you know what the facts really are, cite better sources. Otherwise you can expect editors to be convinced by what they can verify. It's how all this works. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 16:36, 31 May 2021 (UTC)
 * The pollution is your and Tvx1's irrelevant squabble about flags in Formula One. I will cite my sources, and explain my argument if and when a discussion arises where it is relevant. I will not collude with you in polluting this RfC with irrelevant ramblings. SSSB (talk) 16:55, 31 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Don't accuse me of stating opinions as fact until you're prepared to cite evidence to support your accusation. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 17:00, 31 May 2021 (UTC)
 * In squad lists of some teams, let's say an English team has a French player, but he's never been good enough to play for France so is uncapped. This change would make it so that the French flag can't be listed next to his name. It would be really weird to have half the squad with a flag next them as they played for their country, then half the squad without a flag because theyve never been good enough to play for their country internationally. then youll have some instances where a team has a player who chose to represent some nation whose ranked 169th in the world and is the only international in the team because the team is terrible so the squad list shows 1 flag. it would be hella dumb.Muur (talk) 22:29, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't even know what sport you're talking about. Olympics? FIFA? Show me the sources that verify whatever you're talking about and then I'll be able to see what's so weird and dumb about it. And what important information are Wikipedia readers getting from all these French and English flags on whatever article your'e taking about? I've been wrong plenty of times and I look forward to having my current misconceptions corrected. All I ask is you show me a good source. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 22:51, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
 * well I'm a Bolton fan, so I'll just show their squad. By going "you only get a flag if you represented your country" bolton's squad list would look like this which... looks silly. If playing matches for your country is what gets you the flag, then only 4 flags could be displayed here (though a few more if you count the international youth teams). plus teams can only haev a certain amount of non EU players, so that'd be tough to figure out without flags without checking every player one by one. adds more time for no reason.Muur (talk) 00:29, 3 June 2021 (UTC)
 * It says right there flags are defined by FIFA eligibility rules, right? Can't we just read them and see that they tell us in plain English that players represent countries? Yep. The FIFA World Cup is explicitly organized on nationalistic lines. Nobody disputes that. We already have numerous sources that say teams represent nations, right? The actual FIFA eligibility rules tell us directly "A player, who, under the terms of art. 5, is eligible to represent more than one association on account of his nationality, may play in an international match for one of these associations only if, in addition to holding the relevant nationality". We don't even need a sports carve out for this; it meets exactly the same standard as military or political office: official representation.<P>What we don't have is any good sources saying Wimbledon players or Formula One drivers represent anything. Instead I find source after source saying they only represent themselves, or a car constructor:
 * Blurring the distinction means essentially "do as sources do", which is workable, but we can't all it "official representation". If we want the flag icons to convey information rather than be mere decoration, then official representation is a good standard to follow. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 01:16, 3 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Nope, as you have quoted clearly FIFA-players represent associations. That's no different to a racing driver being tied to a ASN or a tennis player being backed to a national tennis federation.Tvx1 12:19, 3 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Blurring the distinction means essentially "do as sources do", which is workable, but we can't all it "official representation". If we want the flag icons to convey information rather than be mere decoration, then official representation is a good standard to follow. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 01:16, 3 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Nope, as you have quoted clearly FIFA-players represent associations. That's no different to a racing driver being tied to a ASN or a tennis player being backed to a national tennis federation.Tvx1 12:19, 3 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Nope, as you have quoted clearly FIFA-players represent associations. That's no different to a racing driver being tied to a ASN or a tennis player being backed to a national tennis federation.Tvx1 12:19, 3 June 2021 (UTC)