Hello Andy R.,
You wrote:
I have read the discussion here on the con's, and have not seen any of
the pro's.
I like it. We should get past the supposed political incorrectness and
see it as /easy/, /visual/, and /obvious/.
I am not as worried about the degree of "political correctness" as the actual practicalities involved. My problem with it is that while it certainly would be "visual", it would not be "easy" -- let alone "obvious"...! Please feel free to convince me through showing what flags would be easy and obvious for Anglo-Saxon, Arabic, Ladino, Sanskrit and Yiddish -- to name a few...
Only some of the languages have ONE flag "attached" to them and not all that many flags have only one language "attached" to them. Examples in addition to the ones mentioned above, include: Alemannish, English (UK, Eire, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, etc.), Dutch (mainly Netherlands and Belgium), Esperanto, French (France, Quebec, Belgium, etc.), German (Germany, Austria, Switzerland, etc.), Latin, Portuguese, Sanskrit... Even flags of ethnicities rather than political entities, such as the Roma and Sámi flags, often represent groups of languages rather than a single language each.
I do support the notion of having some kind of graphic representation for spiffing up the www.wikipedia.org portal -- I'm just concerned that flags will run us into unnecessary difficulties.
-Olve
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Olve Utne http://utne.nvg.org