Commons talk:CommonsProject Insignia

Scope

The scope of this project will be to coordinate national, regional, civic, corporate and organizational insignia such as Flags and Coats of Arms in order that Commons meet the requirements of all involved projects, providing multiple formats of insignia for viewing as well as other varying media, ensuring that all adequate licensing considerations are met, in order to remain effective as a common repository for media relating to all of the WikiProjects.

Discussion

It is my hope that we use this project in order to categorize and meet all of the needs of our projects relating to insignia. Commons should be a repository for these items and it is our obligation to ensure that we provide accurate, up to date information as well as multiple formats. Please join in this discussion in order that we get this project underway. Cary "Bastique" Bass ^parler _voir 14:18, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't think that multiple formats is good idea, especially when updating multiple files. I don't see reason to keeping SVG, PNG, GIF, TIFF and so on.

I think best format possible policy will be better. If SVG was available initially, there is no point to create PNGs/GIFs in several resolutions.

EugeneZelenko 15:43, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

This discussion is being used to explain all this. Ideally, SVG would replace all display images; however, with the problems lately among the projects, we should maintain PNG copies if the images as well until such time that SVG could be fully implemented. That time is not yet here, and we are not running out of disk space. I agree that GIF or JPG or TIFF format is far from ideal for these images. Cary "Bastique" Bass ^parler _voir 16:39, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I only suggest to keep raster images if they were uploaded before SVG and they are not duplicated another raster image. If SVG was created first there is no reason to create bitmaps. --EugeneZelenko 17:18, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Coats of Arms of Polish cities are mostly in JPEG format and 200x200 px (the large ones) so I think, that keeping them is very bad idea, because they are awful. I'm for deleting such graphics (especially because they are simply copied from websites of cities )--WarX 17:37, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Good idea this project ist really needed. I have also linked it at Commons:Transition to SVG in order to make it more visible and in order to alert people that they do not blindely replace flags but first get in contact with other interested people as well. Arnomane 02:15, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Have also placed it on the new redesigned and updated Commons:Community Portal. So let us hope that we get that flag-thing sorted out. Now nobody can tell he didn't know... ;-) Arnomane 22:12, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Name

Minor question: do we need to use Commons word twice in name? May be Commons:Project Insignia will better? --EugeneZelenko 15:42, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I intended CommonsProject...after WikiProject over in Wikipedia... Cary "Bastique" Bass ^parler _voir 17:37, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Proposed statement regarding insignia color.

Kindly take a gander at this and advise:

Commons is meant to be a repository for all forms of media, however, our initial and overriding purpose is to provide media for the Wikimedia foundation projects online. Images that are hosted at commons are far more often used for display purposes than for print purposes.

Colors for insignia for display online should use screen colors; for example, the color red in the Canadian Flag must be RGB(255,0,0) (     ) rather than Pantone 193, or RGB(191,10,48) (     ), which is meant for printing the color red.

Cary "Bastique" Bass ^parler _voir 19:04, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Most governements specify exact shades for their flag colors. It is not up to us to "know better" than them. On top of that, with the fully saturated colors as you propose, most flags would simply look horrible. --Latebird 19:33, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Latebird, for our purposes, if a government propose colors at all, they must propose two, one fit for screen and one for print. The government is more than likely going to propose a print color. If the color seems desaturated, it is probably a print color. This does not include fabric colors, which are required in the manufacture of their flag; or painting colors. Do you know exactly what and how the color that the government is proposing? Best to look at their website.

If the color the government is proposing is for print purposes, i.e. pantone shades, then it is not useful as a screen color. Fully saturated colors are, in fact, suitable for screen viewing.

Furthermore, the RGB(255,0,0) above is the exact color that Canada requires for screen viewing of its flag.

Finally, "horrible" is an entirely subjective term, is your opinion, and is not suitable in a discussion requiring consensus that involves the numerous participants. If you cannot be useful to this discussion, then don't join in. Cary "Bastique" Bass ^parler _voir 21:26, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

I think will be good idea to keep 2 sets of flags: for print and screen.

If government is not providing colors for screen, it's necessary to develop standard transformation from print to screen color. Like what will be color of the flag on day time.

EugeneZelenko 16:39, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

What is possible in HTML might also work in SVG: Specify both sets of colors in one file. Just provide two sets of CSS color definitions, one for media="print" and one for media="screen". (This is just an idea off the top of my head, I have not checked, let alone tested, whether it actually works). --Latebird 19:33, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I tried it yesterday and it worked perfectly--for the browsers on my system (IE6 and Firefox 1.5). Unfortunately, I had another Commoner look at the same image French Ensign (version) and all he saw were two stripes of black on either side of the white. So using differentating media stylesheets only is good so long as the SVG renderer of the browser supports it. Cary "Bastique" Bass ^parler _voir 20:54, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Bastique, you seem to suggest a general rule based on a special case, where screen colors are actually defined by the respective governement (should have given that information from the beginning, btw.). For this special case, we fully agree: We should use the specified screen colors. Incidentally, the canadian flag is also a special case insofar as the high saturation colors are not a problem, because there's a high contrast anyway. But if we have two highly saturated colors of approximately equal luminance next to each other, then this will cause a "horrible" flickering effect in the eye. Not subjective at all, but a well known physiological effect. This is one of the reasons why the actual colors of flags are usually chosen differently. As an example, you can compare the correct SVG flag of Mongolia with a fully saturated PNG version. On my screen (and surely on many others), the latter is very displeasing to look at. Therefore, any unconditional rule of the type "if it is specified as 'red', use #ff0000" may not be quite such a good idea. But then, maybe that's not really what you mean. --Latebird 19:25, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

This might be something worth investigating. Odly enough, SVG flag of Mongolia is producing a harsh contrast/flickering effect on my screen. The "red" seems Cary "Bastique" Bass ^parler _voir 20:54, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Interesting. And a nice demonstration to show that we can't judge whether the colors of a flag are correct just by looking at them on our screens. Doing this right would require a calibrated monitor and a certified color sample under controlled lighting conditions. As long as we don't have that, our only choice is to work with the numbers that the official specifications give us. --Latebird 23:44, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Category:Heraldic figures

Category:Heraldic figures needs to be restructured as it's currently a mess. Any opinions are welcome on Category talk:Heraldic figures or Commons:Categories for discussion#Category:Heraldic figures./Lokal_Profil 20:57, 30 June 2007 (UTC)