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>

I think you're underestimating just how many countries there are for

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(a)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(a)Wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Flags On Jan 10, 2005, at 12:41 AM, Mark Williamson wrote: MUST used should 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 _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l(a)Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l(a)Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l