I accept that for all of the major languages, there is rarely (probably never) a single flag capable of representing that language, completely and without complications. That alone is probably as good an argument as any for not allowing flags. On the other hand, when we start looking at minority languages, these can often be associated with the whole of a region within a country, which may happen to have a flag, or coat of arms, or whatever, that represents that region. So you can end up with a very close alignment (although rarely perfect) between regional symbol and regional language. I think that is the case with Sicily and her language and regional flag.
The next argument might be: but isn't that a political statement? (showing the regional flag). To which I would respond, there are many who would view simply having a wikipedia in a regional language as making a political statement! In the case of the Sicilian wikipedia, neither is a political statement, both have a cultural intention (although that too may be considered as being political by some). If flags were banned outright, I would simply put up the Sicilian Triskelion, a symbol as old as her language itself, i.e. over 2,500 years. Why? For the reason already given that it looks drab otherwise - I'm trying to entice people into registering and becoming active contributors. I know the main languages have fancy main pages with bells and whistles, but that isn't realistic for the minority languages. Beyond banning the flag, what next? the coat-of-arms? a picture of an influential literary figure? etc. The Manx would be able to do the same, and I say good on 'em! The flag is not necessarily something I feel overly strong about, but I would want some sort of symbol, picture, or whatever, on our front page - something that can become immiediately identifiable with scn:wiki, that tells you straight away where your are, that might encourage you to linger, maybe even get you thinking about the first language you spoke as a child, before it was drummed out of you through various means, or the language you heard your grandparents speak when you were little, etc. Isn't that part of what we are on about? Salutamu pippu d'angelo, canberra
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While most definitely speakers of Sicilian will identify with the Sicilian flag, not all people who identify with the Sicilian flag will speak Sicilian - undoubtedly there are proud Sicilians who speak only Italian, or who speak some other language.
This being the one-way thing that it is (ie, that all speakers of the language can identify wit the flag but not nessecarily vice versa), of course it is OK to have a Sicilian flag on your own Wikipedia, in fact I support it because it adds color to the mainpage and evokes feelings in people that might make them more likely to continue into the site.
However, I'm not so sure it would be a good idea to have it on an international portal to represent the Sicilian language. If flags MUST be used, then without a question that is the flag that should be used to represent the Sicilian language, but otherwise I think flags should be absent altogether.
Mark
On Mon, 10 Jan 2005 03:56:45 +0100 (CET), Giuseppe DAngelo pippudoz@yahoo.it wrote:
I accept that for all of the major languages, there is rarely (probably never) a single flag capable of representing that language, completely and without complications. That alone is probably as good an argument as any for not allowing flags. On the other hand, when we start looking at minority languages, these can often be associated with the whole of a region within a country, which may happen to have a flag, or coat of arms, or whatever, that represents that region. So you can end up with a very close alignment (although rarely perfect) between regional symbol and regional language. I think that is the case with Sicily and her language and regional flag.
The next argument might be: but isn't that a political statement? (showing the regional flag). To which I would respond, there are many who would view simply having a wikipedia in a regional language as making a political statement! In the case of the Sicilian wikipedia, neither is a political statement, both have a cultural intention (although that too may be considered as being political by some). If flags were banned outright, I would simply put up the Sicilian Triskelion, a symbol as old as her language itself, i.e. over 2,500 years. Why? For the reason already given that it looks drab otherwise - I'm trying to entice people into registering and becoming active contributors. I know the main languages have fancy main pages with bells and whistles, but that isn't realistic for the minority languages. Beyond banning the flag, what next? the coat-of-arms? a picture of an influential literary figure? etc. The Manx would be able to do the same, and I say good on 'em ! The flag is not necessarily something I feel overly strong about, but I would want some sort of symbol, picture, or whatever, on our front page - something that can become immiediately identifiable with scn:wiki, that tells you straight away where your are, that might encourage you to linger, maybe even get you thinking about the first language you spoke as a child, before it was drummed out of you through various means, or the language you heard your grandparents speak when you were little, etc. Isn't that part of what we are on about? Salutamu pippu d'angelo, canberra
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On Jan 10, 2005, at 12:41 AM, Mark Williamson wrote:
However, I'm not so sure it would be a good idea to have it on an international portal to represent the Sicilian language. If flags MUST be used, then without a question that is the flag that should be used to represent the Sicilian language, but otherwise I think flags should be absent altogether.
In regards to flags, might I suggest, in the spirit of "A Modest Proposal": For each language spoken, rather than use one flag for "color", might I suggest that each language have representational flags representing all countries where 1% or more of the resident population speaks that language. Thus, for the english language, we would have a mere 38 flags or so, making sure we had quite a colorful and attractive layout. Same with French, Spanish, and possibly a few other languages. At the top and bottom of each page, rather than having something dull and legible like text, we could have hundreds of bright and colorful flags, representing all of the recognized and provisional nationalities, so one may switch to flags, rather than languages!
Of course, in order to provide the needed detail on flags, we might need to limit flag sizes to a minimum of 128 pixels in order to not insult a given nation. Sure, for 6-10,000 flags (nations/state-province-region/locale), this may require several screens of flags before one can read articles text, but nationalism and regionalism is a good thing! In order to access a given language, we could break it up into multiple screens, so one could simply click on a nationality flag, and then a subset flag representing a state or region, and if needed, a locality flag, and thus be presented with a small array of word flags to represent the some 6,000+ languages spoken in the world today. Thus, by using a complex series of flags to determine language, we can avoid the utter simplification of using actual languages to select languages, and provoke needed nationalism, patriotic sentiment, and jingoism around the world!
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Modest_Proposal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_total_speakers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries
-Bop
Ronald Chmara wrote:
In regards to flags, might I suggest, in the spirit of "A Modest Proposal": For each language spoken, rather than use one flag for "color", might I suggest that each language have representational flags representing all countries where 1% or more of the resident population speaks that language. Thus, for the english language, we would have a mere 38 flags or so, making sure we had quite a colorful and attractive layout. Same with French, Spanish, and possibly a few other languages. At the top and bottom of each page, rather than having something dull and legible like text, we could have hundreds of bright and colorful flags, representing all of the recognized and provisional nationalities, so one may switch to flags, rather than languages!
<snip>
How odd - I just had a similar idea. I don't think mine goes as far as Ronald's though; mine is just purely for aesthetic purposes. I would suggest that in place of flags on Jens' layout, we have mosaics of flags - miniature flags all combined together to form one giant flag. So the "flag" for France, for example, might include the Canadian (or Quebecian, or whatever they're called, flag) as well as the French. There are two criteria for inclusion of a flag in the mosaic that I can think of; either the language must be an official language of the country, or it must be spoken by more than x percent of people in the country.
There are of course cons to this approach. Chinese would still have the original problem, though perhaps with selective IP guessing, we could filter it... Another is that eventually the number of flags may be so many that the "flag" mosaic will not contain any visible flags but instead smudges of varying colours.
But still, it's a unique approach. I just can't stand the portal being so...ugly as it is.
John Lee ([[en:User:Johnleemk]])
John Lee wrote:
How odd - I just had a similar idea. I don't think mine goes as far as Ronald's though; mine is just purely for aesthetic purposes. I would suggest that in place of flags on Jens' layout, we have mosaics of flags - miniature flags all combined together to form one giant flag. So the "flag" for France, for example, might include the Canadian (or Quebecian, or whatever they're called, flag) as well as the French. There are two criteria for inclusion of a flag in the mosaic that I can think of; either the language must be an official language of the country, or it must be spoken by more than x percent of people in the country.
I think you're underestimating just how many countries there are for many languages. To take your example of French, it wouldn't only be France and Canada: According to [[en:French language#Geographic distribution]], French is the official language of 24 countries (France, D.R. Congo, Canada, Madagascar, Cote d'Ivore, Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Mali, Senegal, Belgium, Rwanda, Haita, Switzerland, Burundi, Togo, Central African Republic, Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Comoros, Djibouti, Luxembourg, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Mauritius, Vanuatu, and the Seychelles), and a major language in another 3 of them (Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco). That's quite a mosaic of flags!
There'd also be political implications for some languages. What flags would we use for Kurdish, for example?
I do agree that the portal is a bit drab as it is...
-Mark
On Monday 10 January 2005 16:50, Delirium wrote:
I think you're underestimating just how many countries there are for
I see Wikipedians arguing and discussing all the time about flags and languages, while they do nothing to improve the present ugly portal. Why don't do the obvious? Create a non-ugly design inspired from http://www.europa.eu.int , and then discuss the flags etc.
Wikipedia suffers from many voices, often contradictory. I think you need an influential leader to take final decisions (after community input of course).
I'm aware of the issues regarding the flags, but if you put up a British flag, or the flag of France, or the flag of Germany, I'm going to understand you mean English, French, and German. It's already done on many other websites to choose languages. Why not just use the "country of origin" to determine the flag? That'll solve the problem of all the French, Spanish, and English speaking countries.
Just a thought.
James
-----Original Message----- From: wikipedia-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org [mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Ronald Chmara Sent: Monday, January 10, 2005 10:45 AM To: Mark Williamson; wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Flags
On Jan 10, 2005, at 12:41 AM, Mark Williamson wrote:
However, I'm not so sure it would be a good idea to have it on an international portal to represent the Sicilian language. If flags MUST be used, then without a question that is the flag that should be used to represent the Sicilian language, but otherwise I think flags should be absent altogether.
In regards to flags, might I suggest, in the spirit of "A Modest Proposal": For each language spoken, rather than use one flag for "color", might I suggest that each language have representational flags representing all countries where 1% or more of the resident population speaks that language. Thus, for the english language, we would have a mere 38 flags or so, making sure we had quite a colorful and attractive layout. Same with French, Spanish, and possibly a few other languages. At the top and bottom of each page, rather than having something dull and legible like text, we could have hundreds of bright and colorful flags, representing all of the recognized and provisional nationalities, so one may switch to flags, rather than languages!
Of course, in order to provide the needed detail on flags, we might need to limit flag sizes to a minimum of 128 pixels in order to not insult a given nation. Sure, for 6-10,000 flags (nations/state-province-region/locale), this may require several screens of flags before one can read articles text, but nationalism and regionalism is a good thing! In order to access a given language, we could break it up into multiple screens, so one could simply click on a nationality flag, and then a subset flag representing a state or region, and if needed, a locality flag, and thus be presented with a small array of word flags to represent the some 6,000+ languages spoken in the world today. Thus, by using a complex series of flags to determine language, we can avoid the utter simplification of using actual languages to select languages, and provoke needed nationalism, patriotic sentiment, and jingoism around the world!
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Modest_Proposal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_total_speakers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries
-Bop
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And with the Chinese flag, you mean Mandarin, Cantonese, or Shanghainese? (not the Taiwan one mind you)
And with the Indian Flag, you mean English?
I mean, the list goes on...
--- "James R. Johnson" modean52@comcast.net wrote:
I'm aware of the issues regarding the flags, but if you put up a British flag, or the flag of France, or the flag of Germany, I'm going to understand you mean English, French, and German. It's already done on many other websites to choose languages. Why not just use the "country of origin" to determine the flag? That'll solve the problem of all the French, Spanish, and English speaking countries.
Just a thought.
James
-----Original Message----- From: wikipedia-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org [mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Ronald Chmara Sent: Monday, January 10, 2005 10:45 AM To: Mark Williamson; wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Flags
On Jan 10, 2005, at 12:41 AM, Mark Williamson wrote:
However, I'm not so sure it would be a good idea to have it on an international portal to represent the Sicilian language. If flags
MUST
be used, then without a question that is the flag that should be
used
to represent the Sicilian language, but otherwise I think flags
should
be absent altogether.
In regards to flags, might I suggest, in the spirit of "A Modest Proposal": For each language spoken, rather than use one flag for "color", might I suggest that each language have representational flags representing all countries where 1% or more of the resident population speaks that language. Thus, for the english language, we would have a mere 38 flags or so, making sure we had quite a colorful and attractive layout. Same with French, Spanish, and possibly a few other languages. At the top and bottom of each page, rather than having something dull and legible like text, we could have hundreds of bright and colorful flags, representing all of the recognized and provisional nationalities, so one may switch to flags, rather than languages!
Of course, in order to provide the needed detail on flags, we might
need to limit flag sizes to a minimum of 128 pixels in order to not
insult a given nation. Sure, for 6-10,000 flags (nations/state-province-region/locale), this may require several screens of flags before one can read articles text, but nationalism and regionalism is a good thing! In order to access a given language, we could break it up into multiple screens, so one could simply click on a nationality flag, and then a subset flag representing a state or region, and if needed, a locality flag, and thus be presented with a small array of word flags to represent the some 6,000+ languages spoken in the world today. Thus, by using a complex series of flags to determine language, we can avoid the utter simplification of using actual languages to select languages, and provoke needed nationalism, patriotic sentiment, and jingoism around the world!
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Modest_Proposal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_total_speakers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries
-Bop
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On Jan 10, 2005, at 3:16 PM, Christopher Mahan wrote:
And with the Chinese flag, you mean Mandarin, Cantonese, or Shanghainese? (not the Taiwan one mind you)
And with the Indian Flag, you mean English?
I mean, the list goes on...
I am going to voice my support for the minimalist approach of giving the user a big obvious link to the wikipedia of their browser setting, and then a list of other languages, each language written in its own script. It is less pretty than the flags, but it follows the most important rule of interface design: the easiest choice should be the highest probability choice. In this case that is a link to the browser's default language being front and center with text something like "Continue on to the Wikipedia in [Blank]".
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