Talk:Cultural flags

 

2012

Can I add my proposed Ulster Scots and Brythonic flags? Hachiman (talk) 01:37, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

If they're purely personal and speculatively hypothetical, then probably preferably not... AnonMoos (talk) 15:53, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Okay no problem Hachiman (talk) 07:12, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

2015

I propose that Basque Peoples be moved from Indo-European to other as they are not Indo-European. Sabatoj (talk) 20:08, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

2018

Why is the Torres Straight Islander flag the only flag in the 'Indigenous Australian peoples' section, but not the- You know- Australian Indigenous Flag?141.168.16.134 11:34, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

The yellow disk on black and red horizontal bicolor flag is not allowed on Commons because it's copyrighted under Australian law. (It would be ineligible for copyright under U.S. law, as being too simple.) AnonMoos (talk) 09:36, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

Could please the unregistered user, that uses several different IP addresses from Poland, explain the reason for repeatedly editing the list using: a)inappropriate and unscientific classification and names, b)wrong or controversial links to Wikipedia articles and images, and c)numerous mistakes without any credited sources? I believe that this is a public Wikipedia Commons database and if this continuous misuse by a single user continues, I will nominate this article for deletion. Argean (talk) 23:13, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

The use of the term "race" is problematic and highly controversial. It doesn't correspond to the theme "Cultural flags" and some of the terms used can be offensive or pejorative. I believe that the classification should be done according to geographic distribution and the use of linguistic and other cultural features, e.g. religion, to avoid misunderstandings. Argean (talk) 14:56, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

Editing war and deletion request

I see that the unregistered users continue their editing war on this gallery and ignoring the discussion page. According to Wikimedia Commons rules all files and pages should serve educational purposes and respect neutrality as much as possible. The lack of citations indicate that this gallery is a product of personal beliefs and do not serve the purposes of Wikimedia Commons. I already notified the users that their edits are misleading, unscientific and could be considered offensive to some of the users of the Wikipedia community. This has not been respected, therefore I nominated this page for deletion in order to open the discussion about the purposes served by the specific page. It seems that this action has not been respected either and my request has been edited without justification. According to Wikimedia Commons rules this can be considered an act of vandalism. Could please the users enter the discussion to support their edits? Argean (talk) 20:47, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

A new start?

Dear fellow wikimedians, as many visitors might have noticed, this gallery has witnessed a major edit warring over the last period of time. This seems to have been the result of a few editors' relentless efforts to impose their own POV on how this gallery should be categorized and what entries it should contain. By browsing the history of the page one might be impressed by the number of edits that have been done over the last year by a limited number of users. These users have tried either to slowly alter the page by making hundreds of edits over several days or months (Special:Contributions/Ac_12romero22, Special:Contributions/119.94.6.113, Special:Contributions/112.204.128.72), or to completely change it by repeatedly posting updated versions of the same massive revision (Special:Diff/312169592, Special:Diff/314817450, Special:Diff/315062801, Special:Diff/315269667, Special:Diff/315485609), without giving any serious justification.

Personally, I find both practices extremely disruptive, since they completely changed the appearance of the gallery compared to the one before (Special:Permalink/230893051). I don't believe also that these changes serve the purposes this gallery was created for and I'll try to explain this.

In my opinion, one major issue that led to edit warring seems to have been the use of racial terms to organize the gallery and as a result to classify the ethnic groups and cultures. This practice inadvertently introduces socio-political views, that can easily lead to a major clash of opinions, due to the controversial content of such classification, or its anachronistic and biased nature related to the historic context of many racial terms (see also Race and society, especially Race in politics and ethics, as well as Historical race concepts, and their related talk pages [1], [2], to get a glimpse on the amount of associated controversy and backlash). For the sake of avoiding future misunderstandings and possible confrontations, I strongly oppose the use of such terms, regardless if this is being done intentionally or accidentally. My suggestion would be to try to stick to the use of terms that are as neutral and purely descriptive as possible. After all this is a gallery of flags and not an encyclopedic or scientific review on classification of ethnic groups.

Another issue for me is the actuality of the included flags. To give an example, I find it completely misleading and inappropriate in some cases, to use the flag of a state or a nation as a representation of an ethnic group residing in a country. This is commonly the case for countries that were created in Africa or Southeast Asia during the era of decolonization - most of their flags are far from the representation of a single ethnic group or culture. Another example is, in some instances, the use of a flag of a historical country or region to represent a modern ethnic group, except if the group has adopted the flag as a symbol of self-identification. Keeping a sense of factuality seems to be a sensible approach. This doesn't mean that we should exclude all flags that are not official and only proposed. Many of these proposed flags are actually widely used by several self-identified ethnic groups or serve as a useful vexillographic approach to depict cultures and could deservedly get a place in the page. On the other hand adding numerous self-created flags that have no real use seems to me completely meaningless, so there has to be a limit in adding any presumably proposed or imaginary flags.

During the last week I tried to restore the page to its previous format and simultaneously be as inclusive as possible. At the same time the page got semi-protected to prevent any further disruptive editing or vandalism. Still, there are many issues to be resolved and I would like to call for some feedback and constructive contributions from the visitors and fellow editors of the page.

(My apologies for the long post.)

Kind regards Argean (talk) 11:14, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

Go to the fundamentals. Find out who invents, sorry makes many flags, under different names. I mean under different user names. Look for who has an obsession with the Turkish flag, makes wrong (especially redundant) categorization, sends goats to your TP and his regards to your mother when you try to stop them. Finding the person and showing him the door could ease life around here. Regards. --E4024 (talk) 14:32, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

Berber people

Berber people are African, not Middle-Eastern. This should be obvious and uncontroversial. Xophe84 (talk) 14:47, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

Edo people

Flag of the Kingdom of Benin for Edo people? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 185.241.198.68 (talk • contribs) 11 November 2020‎ (UTC)

There doesn't seem to be any reliable connection between Edo people and this flag design, its symbolism and usage still seems to remain rather unknown. --Argean (talk) 11:25, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

2020

explanation:

flag of Polabian Slavs is questionable and unconfirmed

Flag of New England in the current version is very similar to Flag of England because i think that File:Ensign of New England (pine only).svg is more appropriate

Guadeloupeans, Martinicans, Réunionese and Kashmiris - now are flag of Independent Movement their place is here. The last flag of Jammu and Kashmir is better because it has its origins even before the division of British India and it is associated with the feast of martyrs. Snake flag of Martinique it is neither pro-French nor pro-independence, but related to the island, similarly with Guadeloupe and Réunion.

Guna people - swastika does not bother me, but this flag has been obsolete since 2010 (de Guna Yala)

Tuvaluans - This flag is obsolete and was not liked by the inhabitants, who use national flag.

Meitei people - questionable and unconfirmed, last flag of Kingdom of Manipur (Pakhangba) at least is sure and in svg quality. if you don't agree here is svg. version 7-colored flag

Burakumin are not a ethnic group, more caste, and flag belongs to a political organization

Krymchaks are turkic peoples only profess Judaism

Berbers rather should be placed in Africa

Maltese peoples - why is there Ensign instead normal flag? What is the difference between Gozitans and Maltese people?

Corfiot Italians - the flags assigned to them is the flag of the former Septinsular Republic 1800–1807 and has nothing to do with Italians

Romance peoples and Germanic peoples - this sections turned into nothing contributing galleries of historic region flags. this way you can unfold every country.

get rid of {new flag row}} everything works without them

213.192.68.53 13:00 9.11.2020

You're right on some of your points which I agree with, but I don't agree on everything. There are many unconfirmed/unofficial and user-made flags. I initially disagreed with their inclusion, but I have to admit it's very hard to check for the authenticity of each and every flag. I'm happy as far as they are decent from a vexillological point of view and they can be considered as a useful addition to the gallery. On the rest:

Flag of New England in the current version is very similar to Flag of England because i think that File:Ensign of New England (pine only).svg is more appropriate I agree. I've changed this flag many times before, but other users keep changing it back. I will change it back again to your suggestion.

Guadeloupeans, Martinicans, Réunionese and Kashmiris - now are flag of Independent Movement their place is here. The last flag of Jammu and Kashmir is better because it has its origins even before the division of British India and it is associated with the feast of martyrs. Snake flag of Martinique it is neither pro-French nor pro-independence, but related to the island, similarly with Guadeloupe and Réunion.. I'm fine with changing the Kashmiri flag (that wasn't my addition either), but I disagree with the rest. The flag of Guadeloupe with the French fleur-de-lis is deeply colonialist, the snake flag of Martinique is hated by locals (read w:Flag of Martinique#Snake flag) and Reunion doesn't really have a flag. Many independist movements have historically adopted flags and symbols that mean much more for the local people, so I find them much more appropriate than symbols that might be considered offensive.

Guna people - swastika does not bother me, but this flag has been obsolete since 2010 ([https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandera_de_Guna_Yala That's a tricky one. The swastika flag is historically very important for the Guna Yala, while the current one is rather random and meaningless. I don't mind changing it though.

Tuvaluans - This flag is obsolete and was not liked by the inhabitants, who use national flag. Do you have a source? I don't mind changing it back, I just don't like the colonialist connotations.

Meitei people - questionable and unconfirmed, last flag of Kingdom of Manipur (Pakhangba) at least is sure and in svg quality. if you don't agree here is svg. version 7-colored flag I made this change because I thought that its symbolism is appropriate ([3]. I don't think that a flag of an obsolete royal entity has any cultural references, and I can't find any sources that it's still used anyway.

Burakumin are not a ethnic group, more caste, and flag belongs to a political organization Again it's about symbolism and use (the Shirazi flag also belongs to a political organisation). And this gallery is not only about ethnic groups. There was another discussion years ago and the gallery became more inclusive depicting flags that belong not only to ethnic groups or nations but also to groups with a distinctive cultural identity. I think Burakumin deserve an entry in the gallery.

Krymchaks are turkic peoples only profess Judaism So what? Distinctive enough as a cultural group to be included.

Berbers rather should be placed in Africa I don't disagree but then we have to get rid of the Middle East grouping and it becomes very tricky where to place Arabs.

Maltese peoples - why is there Ensign instead normal flag? Why not? Maltese cross is more Maltese than the British George Cross, which is a remnant of Commonwealth era.

What is the difference between Gozitans and Maltese people? Gozitans are proud for their local cultural identity, so that's a good enough qualifier for me.

Corfiot Italians - the flags assigned to them is the flag of the former Septinsular Republic 1800–1807 and has nothing to do with Italians The flag depicts the Lion of St. Mark, which is a Venetian symbol, just like the origin of Corfiot Italians and that's a very important symbol for their cultural identity and even for the island of Corfu till today. I was a little skeptical about moving them to historical people but there's still a very small community living on the island, like there are still Italian communities living in Istria and Dalmatia, so I kept all three of them.

Romance peoples and Germanic peoples - this sections turned into nothing contributing galleries of historic region flags. this way you can unfold every country. Again it's all about cultural identity. These are not just flags of historical regions, are flags of people with distinctive cultural, local or ethnolinguistic identity, all of them being good qualifiers for inclusion, and they are symbols still used today to depict the local cultural identity of the people. So, I disagree completely on this one.

get rid of new flag row everything works without them Well, I know and I don't really care about this one, tbh...

P.S I don't know if you noticed but you just replied to a comment from 2018! There was a major edit warring back then, including another user from Poland using multiple different accounts. I don't think that all of your suggestions or comments are counter-productive, but I find it very unconstructive when people remove content without any prior discussion. --Argean (talk) 19:04, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

I do not agree, but I am facing a fait accompli

Tuvalu, ,,This flag, however, was not liked by the inhabitants, who felt that it was a move towards replacing the popular Tuvaluan monarchy with a republic."

Krymchaks should go to turkic peoples sectio

Burakumin was accepted, but Ryukyuans was not... even though i used ,,Flag of Okinawa Prefecture"

I considered adding Tafea Province`s flag and Loyalty Islands Province`s flag because those languages ​​are distinct from others in these countries, but I was not convinced. decide for yourself

213.192.68.53 23:40 9.11.2020

I'm not the only editor involved in the development of the page and everything is open to discussion. I'm happy to make changes to the page now that it's semi-protected, if there's a good reason to do so. This specific page was initially at Wikipedia as "Flags of ethnic groups" and after a long discussion on a deletion request back in 2007 (see here [4]) it was eventually renamed and moved to commons. We need to have another discussion if we want to change the scope of the page apparently.

Tuvalu, ,,This flag, however, was not liked by the inhabitants, who felt that it was a move towards replacing the popular Tuvaluan monarchy with a republic." Well, that refers to the British monarchy ruling the islands and I'm not sure how representative it can be considered for the Polynesian people inhabiting Tuvalu. The whole flag issue was rather a political debate between monarchists and republicans [5]. Personally, I don't find either of the flags great from a vexillological point of view, but since there's no other good alternative, I'm happy to change it back to your suggestion.

Krymchaks should go to turkic peoples sectio All Jewish people are de facto ethnoreligious groups, rather than anything else and thus grouped together regardless their origin or language they speak. Should Ashkenazi Jews be moved to Germanic people for example because Yiddish is a Germanic language?

Burakumin was accepted, but Ryukyuans was not... even though i used ,,Flag of Okinawa Prefecture" Well the flag of Okinawa Prefecture seems to me like a random choice, since it's just a state symbol of a Japanese region. I wouldn't mind adding some other flag, but w:File:Flag of Ryukyu.svg is disputed and w:File:Ryukyu independence flag.svg has been nominated for deletion for copyvio.

I considered adding Tafea Province`s flag and Loyalty Islands Province`s flag because those languages ​​are distinct from others in these countries, but I was not convinced. decide for yourself Thanks for the suggestions. I will add the flag of Tafea (need to search which one is actually used first), but I'm not convinced about Loyalty Islands Province. What language does it represent? There are three different languages spoken in the province.

Feel free to make suggestions as long as you have some good arguments for them. --Argean (talk) 00:35, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

It's me again 213.192.68.53 20:00 13.11.20

you inserted the old incorrect version of Tafea flag. correct

here is more probable Flag of the Pamiris and here is proposed flag of Matabele people

@213.192.68.53: Thanks for the suggestions. I was looking to vectorize the Pamiri flag, but I'm glad someone else did it before me. For the Matabele people there's another flag that I think is more appropriate, it's the flag of the Mthwakazi People's Convention - this is a link from Breton wikipedia [6]. What do you think?

P.S. Better to use my talk page or the reply template, so I can follow easier any posts you make. --Argean (talk) 11:45, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

Flag of Azerbaijan proposed color change

There is a proposal to change colors of Flag of Azerbaijan, please see c:File talk:Flag of Azerbaijan.svg. --Jarekt (talk) 14:59, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

Some cultures under Italian should be moved to Gallo Romance.

Insubrians, Emilians, Brigasc, and Romagnol should be added to the Gallo Romance category or a new category titled Gallo Cisalpine or Gallo Italic. In fact, Insubrians, Emilians, Brigasc and Romagnol refer to cultures and native speakers of these languages, which are different from Italian, while Lombards, Ligurians, and so on represent all the residents of these regions and subjects of an administrative government. Consequently, the former listed elements should be removed from Italians while the later elements could remain under Italian. Rhaetianlombard (talk) 15:42, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

I personally agree, although I always struggled with the classification of Italian peoples and cultures. Obviously Insubrians, Emilians, Romagnols, Brigasc, and Monegasque could easily classify under Gallo-Italic culture, but then shouldn't also traditional speakers of Lombard, Ligurian and Piedmontese? They all have traditional flags that could represent them I believe. And how about Venetians? Where do they classify under? And what to do with Sardinians if only Italo-Romance and Dalmatian Romance cultures remain under Italians? Argean (talk) 13:30, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

Former South African flag as "European South Africans"

I believe the (1928–1994) could fit perfectly on this label, because in the flag plenty of European cultural groups are depicted:

• Prince's flag: Represents the Dutch people and culture in South Africa
  
• British flag: Represents the britons and the British culture in South Africa
  
• Orange Free State: Represents the Afrikaner heritage in South Africa
  
• South African Republic: Represents the Boers that settled in South Africa
  

This flag reflects the European cultural heritage in South Africa and fits perfectly for the European people living in South Africa. Even it has been used by conmemorations of South Africa participation in the World War 2. Alejandro Basombrio (talk) 20:59, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

If you want to assign a flag directly related to Apartheid, to European cultural groups you are in the wrong place I'm afraid. I guess you are not aware of the court ruling that has decided that the use of this flag is a symbol of hate speech. [7] -- Argean (talk) 08:50, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

About Russian diaspora (and "political" flags)

Flags of the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics, which represent Russians from those zones.

Some days ago, I added the Luhansk and the Donetsk People's Republic flags to represent the Russian diaspora there, since in the Donbass region of Ukraine there are plenty of Russian speakers and ethnic Russians, being the most popular minority in said region. One or two days later, this guy called "Argean" decided to remove those flags because he considered them "political". Maybe he has a point, because those flags appeared on a war context (Russian-Ukrainian conflict), but what he fails to understand is that the event is not only a political conflict, but is also an ethnic and cultural conflict between the Ukrainian people and the Russians in Ukraine, involving separatist movements in said country. As he said in my Talk Page, "There's no cultural reference (...) for both of these flags".

Not only he removed the flags for Russians in said regions, but also deleted the whole Belarus flag, without giving any actual reason. While he complains about "political flags", he keeps the Belarussian opposition flag (white-red-white flag) claiming that represents the whole Belarus people. His sole argument is that it happens that it was used by the Belarusian People's Republic flag +100 years ago, but forgets that the flag was used only by a German puppet government in the Russian Civil War and then by Nazi collaborationists in WW2. By that logic then for the people of Georgia we must use flag of the Democratic Republic of Georgia too? Those flags appeared in similar contexts like the DPR and the LPR flags.

With those actions committed by him, he not only violates the neutrality rule opposing the Russian identity in those regions, but also violates the rule that states that "the purpose [of Wikimedia Commons] is educational and nothing more than that", considering that he uses flags that not represent those cultures.

In conclusion, what I want is not to use those flags for the whole people of Luhansk and Donetsk, since I recognize that most Ukrainians there don't identify with those republics, but I just want them to be used for Russians from there, since the origins of those republics come directly from Russian separatism in said regions. Alejandro Basombrio (talk) 01:42, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

My dear User:Alejandro Basombrio, I need to make a correction: the white-red-white flag was the first and only national flag of independent Belarus in 1918 [8], before Belarus became part of the Soviet Union, and also the flag of independent Belarus between 1991-1995 before it was replaced with the current flag after a very controversial referendum that was imposed by Lukashenko. Please read the relevant wikipedia article about w:White-red-white flag. It also explains that the flag has historical and cultural ties for Belarusian people, stemming back to the time when Belarus was part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania while the current flag of the Government of Belarus has no historical or cultural context whatsoever. So you either have no idea about history or you are trying to lie and mislead the community.

This gallery has been created to include flags that represent people and cultures, and not goverments or military occupations. We (I personally at least) do research and analyse a number of external sources before including flags in this gallery. I will be happy to agree to include any flags in this gallery provided that someone provides sources and evidence that the flags have historic and cultural origin and symbolism for the respective people. We don't just assign political or military flags to any people because this would be very wrong and against the principle of wikipedia being educational and neutral. Any source that confirms that these flags represent the "Russian identity in those regions" is very welcome. Until that point assigning the flag to "Donetsk Russians" and "Luhansk Russians" is pretty much original research since you decided to do that assignment with no sources to support that. I have suggested that the Russians in Ukraine can be very well represented by various cultural flags that have been created to symbolise "Malorussia" for example and I included one already in the gallery. Flags that have only political symbolism and no proven historic and cultural context will never be included in this gallery unless consensus changes (which will also change the name of the gallery). I think yor approach is much more suitable for the Political flags gallery, so you can very well add those flags there if you haven't done that already.

PS. If you want to achieve consensus please try first to talk to me directly as I did on your Talk page. First step of dispute resolution is discussion, which you should already know since you are a member of the community for a year now. Wikipedia is a collaborative effort and requires consensus in every single edit we make. Sometimes consensus is implied and can be silent, but in other cases requires direct discussion (please see the consensus diagram). Especially if you want to introduce changes that violate a previously established consensus (I've been editing this gallery for 5 years now), you need to reach out to other side and try to understand why your edits are not being accepted. I'm more than happy to engage to direct discussion as I've done multiple times in the past so feel free to do so please. -- Argean (talk) 08:07, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

About the Donetsk flag, it has some historical context far before the 2014 Russian-Ukrainian conflict. The black-blue-red tricolor appeared during the early 1900s in Soviet Ukraine and was used by Donbass separatist movements in said region. Black represents coal and the blue and red were directly extracted from Soviet Ukraine flag. It also was a symbol of the International Movement of Donbass, a Donbass regionalist and separatist movement founded in the late years of the Ukraine SSR. Years later, in 2006, the black-blue-red tricolor was used by the Donetsk Republic movement. The colors were alternate to fit the Russian flag style. The Luhansk flag appeared in 2014 and derived directly from the Donetsk flag, because Luhansk Russians also need a flag to represent their identity differently from Donetsk Russians during the events of 2014 [9].

About the Belarus flag, during the 1995 Belarusian referendum, the change of flag alongside coat of arms was approved with a 78.6% of approval of the votes. A majority preferred the red and green flag over the white-red-white flag. You can go check the Wikipedia article.

In conclusion, the DPR and LPR flags exist for the purpose of representing Russians from there, and have a whole cultural context behind them. Yes, maybe they're political, but so the white-red-white flag is. And just because the DPR, the LPR and the BPR flags are political doesn't exclude them from being here because some cultural flags are political by nature. By that logic also the Iranian and the Syrian flags from here must be excluded because they are used in political opposition movements (the first one used in directly monarchist movements). Alejandro Basombrio (talk) 03:18, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

The theory that the black-blue-red tricolour appeared in the early 1900s is highly disputed. There are no sources to confirm that and it seems to be just a widely distributed myth to give context to a newly constructed political flag. The short lived w:Donetsk Krivoy-Rog People’s Soviet Republic that is often used as a reference, used a plain red flag apparently and not a tricolour of any kind. The most likely scenario , which is examined and supported by the very few historic research done on that matter (by Vladimir Kornilov for example [10]) is that the flag originated from the Interdvizheniye Donbasa (or w:International Movement of Donbass), which was a political movement since the very recent 1989. Even that had a slightly different design as you can see in the respective article, which basically leads to the very safe conclusion that both the DPR and LPR flags are very recent political constructs with no cultural or historic references whatsoever. If you provide sources that prove the opposite I'm happy to discuss the issue again.

Regarding the Belarusian flag referendum, according to the wikipedia article you are mentioning, which I hope you have also read, the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly stated that the referendum violated international standards and noted concerns over governmental control over the media, interference with the voting process, and obstacles to the opposition's activities. I don't think there's much more to add to that since it speaks very clearly about manipulation of the result of the referendum.

Finally, I will agree with only one thing: some cultural flags are political by nature - the opposite is not though true. The Syrian, Vitnamese, Iranian and Belarusian flags are all excellent examples of historical flags that were forcefully replaced by different political regimes and they are currently used by the opposition of that regimes, as the genuine representation of the people and not their governments. DPR and LPR flags are not such a case. They were constructed and enforced by a very recent political and military process, that has no historic or cultural reference. As such they have no place in this gallery and will not be included unless any sources support to do otherwise.

PS. There's a very interesting contradiction in your reply which I noticed after reading your reply twice. You say that The black-blue-red tricolor appeared during the early 1900s and that Black represents coal and the blue and red were directly extracted from Soviet Ukraine flag. Now, wait a minute, the blue-red w:Flag of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic was created in 1950!! Seriously that doesn't make any sense at all, unless they discovered time travel in Donbass in the early 1900s!! -- Argean (talk) 14:43, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

I didn't want to write "early 1900s". I wanted to write "early 1990s", when Donbass separatist movements appeared (late years of the USSR), but know that you brought the Donetsk Krivoy-Rog People’s Soviet Republic, then the DPR has more historic symbolism. Even if its existence hasn't been confirmed, it should not matter because the colors by itself and the apparition of the flag have some cultural/traditional context, even if its based on myths. Let me tell you an example. The Quechua/Cusco flag, 7-color rainbow flag, supposedly was the flag used by the Tawantinsuyu. Today we know that the Tawantinsuyu never used a flag and therefore the rainbow flag never existed until the 70s. Yet the Quechuas still identify with that flag. Just because its kinda new doesn't make a flag invalid. The Wiphala and Wenufoye were made in the 70s and 90s respectively, and both have been used mostly in political events, even at some point they have been used by terrorist organizations and insurgencies like the etnocacerista movement in Peru or the CAM in Chile. Yet they still represent their respective people in this page.

And yes, I know that the DPR flag has been used by some political movements such as the "Donetsk Republic" party, but the same case happens with the people of Inner Mongolia, since to represent people from there the flag used is the Inner Mongolian People's Party's flag.

Now, about the Belarus flag, I think I'll be investigating more, but considering that the flag was approved in a referendum that favored the Russian minority in said region, and being directly extracted from an era when both countries were in a same country (cultural reference), it may have a good use for Belarusian Russians.

In conclusion, while the Belarus flag can be disputed if it represents Belarusian people or even just Russians in Belarus, the Donetsk and the Luhansk flags are still valid to be used by Russians from said regions, and therefore this page must use them if its purpose is to document and "[to] serve educational purposes and respect neutrality as much as possible", as you said years ago in "Editing war and deletion request" Alejandro Basombrio (talk) 01:38, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

Please stay in subject and avoid examples. Wikipedia is based on facts that need to be extracted by reliable sources. It's an encyclopedia and not a novel, so please remain factual. We are talking about the DPR flag, so any reference to other flags is simply irrelevant. If there are no sources to suggest previous use of the flag then it remains a recently constructed political flag, simple as that. The flag of the Donetsk Krivoy-Rog People’s Soviet Republic was a plain red flag, not a tricolour, so it actually disproves your theory, it doesn't confirm it! You fail to miss the point all the time, so I think it's pointless to repeat that a flag with previous historic use can be used from a political organisation, without stripping their historic/cultural context - I'm afraid it doesn't work the other way round, and a political flag with no background will always remain a political one!

When it comes to the Inner Mongolian flag, I personally disagree with the inclusion of the flag of the Mongolian People's Party instead, since it's a political flag in my eyes, and Inner Mongolia doesn't have a flag. Since I haven't studied Asian history though (while I have studied the European one), and I'm not very good in extracting and analysing sources in Asian languages, I will leave that to other users to decide if it should be included or not.

I said many times that the flags of DPR and LPR can be used in the Political flags gallery, but not in this one. You keep repeating the same thing over and over without adding any more arguments or sources to support your opinion, therefore I don't think there's much more to discuss I'm afraid.

Feel free to make other additions to the gallery, provided they are well supported and justified. -- Argean (talk) 07:21, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

There is a noticeable amount of fake flags shown here

How about we have a better effort in cleaning out the flags that were invented by their uploaders? For example, File:Fictitious flag of Lazistan.svg clearly says "fictitious". Not much point in keeping it here if it is fictitious. Flagvisioner (talk) 19:28, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

Totally agree, although it's not an easy task to identify which flags actually have no external sources. I have previously cleaned up the gallery many times, although there are many users who upload random flags and it's not easy to monitor everything, since this gallery has hundrends of flags now. I skimmed through the European ones again (bar the Slavic ones - I will need some more time for that) and added sources to many of the files that had no external sources although I was pretty much aware that the flags are factual. Will try to do the same for others as well, but will definitely need help there, especially for the Asian section.

In general there three main different categories of flags in the gallery: the official ones adopted either by states/regions/cities and towns, or by cultural and ethnic/minority organisations, the proposed/unofficial ones that are used by people or organisations/movements as a symbol of their identity and external references can be found, and the "fictional" ones that have been created by wikipedia users and have no presence at all outside wikipedia. Ideally the gallery should contain flags that belong to the first 2 categories only. I would make rather one exemption to that rule, and that's regarding flags that might have been created by wikipedia users, but are being used throughout interwiki - these are mostly flags representing languages, such as the Alemannic , the Dutch Low Saxon , or the Sephardi flags. The rest can be removed from the gallery and every help identifying them is welcome. -- Argean (talk) 03:20, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

Personally, I think flags created by Wikipedia users should not be kept. They might be good in identifying something, but viewers of the gallery may end up thinking that the flag is real and used by its people. Flagvisioner (talk) (contribs) 04:23, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

I just mentioned above these proposed flags of languages as example of the only exception I would grant to the rule - to be fair Alemannic-speaking Germans and Low Saxon-speaking Dutch clearly refers to the languages so I don't think there's much room for misunderstanding. Otherwise I do agree that user-made flags should be removed. The hard task is to identify them since many users unfortunately upload files without mentioning the sources. -- Argean (talk) 07:39, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

Why are language flags the only exception? This is an informative page. Made-up flags must not be tolerated here. Alejandro Basombrio (talk) 00:08, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

Exactly because it is informative, so it should also reflect interwiki. That's just my opinion though, and I don't really have a strong mind about it. People, feel free to start removing "made-up" flags! I don't think there's any objection to that.-- Argean (talk) 05:33, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

Koreans

Why is the flag of the old flag of Korea from 1882 - 1910 here? I doubt that any Korean from either the North or South uses the flag of that old nation to represent them. WikiMakersOfOurTime (talk) 03:13, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

There are also a lot of flags that most likely aren’t actually used by citizens. The one for Northern Italians was simply a design by a Reddit user on r/vexillology. Ukrainian Russians is also a proposal.

Baltic Russians is just the naval ensign of the Russian Navy, I do not see how this represents Baltic Russians and I do not think it is likely it is used by them.

I do not have much time to write further at the moment, so these are just a few more instances. WikiMakersOfOurTime (talk) 03:22, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

About the Baltic Russians, the Russian saltire is associated with the Baltic fleet, which is often associated with the Baltic Sea. Also the flag has some cultural usage since it has been displayed in Victory Day parades. Alejandro Basombrio (talk) 02:17, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

Fair enough, I do think if sources were attached to these flags, it would be helpful. WikiMakersOfOurTime (talk) 21:44, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

"Historic Peoples"

The entire "Historic Peoples" section is puzzling to me. A lot of them make sense, such as the flags for Rhodesians or Moldavians, but what about all the flags that were for groups that existed before the modern concept of flags? The Roman and Norsemen flags are debatable, but I fully understand their inclusion. The Incan Empire was an empire established by the Quechua, who already have a flag on here, so putting a reconstruction of their royal emblem on a banner down there is sort of like putting a black banner down there and saying it represents the ancient Rashidi people. Others just appear to be entirely modern flags with symbols loosely associated with the culture slapped on. The flag of the Goths was apparently created by the "Gothic Council", whatever that is. There's also a larger issue with putting things like royal standards for realms that roughly corresponded to the area a culture resided in. Can those really be said to be "cultural flags"?

I think the main issue here is who decides what a flag for an extinct pre-modern culture is? Should it only consist of purely historical symbols that are reminiscent of the modern concept of a flag, or should it be a flag that we most associate with them, even if not entirely accurate to what they would have recognized? The nature of cultural identity is a complex one, and it becomes infinitely worse when everyone in that culture is dead. Harry Hinderson (talk) 23:07, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

Pieds-noirs

That flag is not representative of pieds-noirs or their descendents. It is the flag of just one small political and cultural entity. Most pieds-noirs have nothing to do with this and would not recognise it as a symbol of their heritage. Xophe84 (talk) 20:05, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

Thanks @Xophe84: Please feel free to replace it with another, more appropriate one. I'm aware that there is a number of flags for the Pieds-Noirs. -- Argean (talk) 06:57, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

I have changed it to the tricolor with footprints, as that is the symbol that is most widely recognized and not tied to a particular political position or fringe group. I'm not particulary comfortable with assigning a flag to entire ethnic group, even one I belong to (2nd generation). I think there is something inherently offensive about outsiders doing this with obscure, politically-sensitive or even made-up symbols. Unfortunately there are many example fo this in this gallery. At best, it is original research. Xophe84 (talk) 14:41, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

Anglo-Irish

Anglo-Irish are hardly Gaelic. What about Ulster Protestants are they Ulster Scots (who has their own flag)? 213.141.66.104 15:09, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

On various flags on this article

Recently an editor had replaced several of the flags on this article with alternative designs, most of which from what I've seen are not only unsourced, but not used anywhere else.

Although this specific instance doesn't exactly fit into this trend, There seems to be a trend of random designs found off of places like r/vexillology or Twitter ending up on this page, due to various reasons. I want to see if we could come up with a criteria for what flags do get added or not. Thanks! WeaponizingArchitecture (talk) 01:57, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

Hey and thanks for your edits in the gallery. As you may have noticed from previous discussions, this has been a contentious issue for some years now, with many editors adding their own personal designs or random flags mostly from reddit, that are again personal designs and have no other sources. My opinion has always been that anything unsourced or used only in personal webpages has no no place in this gallery. I have made only one exemption before, and this is flags that are used throughout interwiki mostly to represent specific languages (the Alemannic and Romansh flags are good such examples), since the purpose of this gallery imho is to be informative. Personal designs, either generated in wikimedia or elsewhere and with no other use, should be removed in my opinion. Any other opinions are welcome and I agree that it would be good to finally agree to some set of criteria! -- Argean (talk) 16:57, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

@Taw Tu'lki: please check this talk page thank you!

Yeah, I agree here. Im going to try and see if we can confirm this for the page, considering this has been an issue for years. WeaponizingArchitecture (talk) 14:22, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

Thanks @WeaponizingArchitecture: I tried many times to clean up the gallery, but it's an endless and thankless task. I've been mostly maintaining the European section for the last couple of years - I don't have the time or the capacity to go through the other sections anymore, trying to identify which flags are factual and which are not. One of the main issues, that I have previously mentioned a few times, is that many of the files do not have external sources listed, but some of them are actually in use - the uploaders have just been too lazy to list any external sources. I added sources wherever I could, but if anyone is willing to do research for the many remaining ones would be appreciated. Otherwise, I think we will have to remove those files from the gallery, if there are no objections.

@Taw Tu'lki: Please join the talk page before you make any more edits. You are at the verge of edit warring. Also, please stop marking your edits as minor, because they are not! Thanks. -- Argean (talk) 17:14, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

OK. But let me only change jpg to svg, OK? Taw Tu'lki (talk) 17:21, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

No, it's a different flag! Can you read my comments? This one also has a reference to a Russian source which is your first language! http://www.vexillographia.ru/russia/minority.htm I will repeat for a final time: please no more edits before discussion and don't mark them as minor! -- Argean (talk) 17:27, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

About karaites

Why you classify karaites as a jewish people however they are turkic people and talk in turkish language? They language is turkic and it's close to crimean tatar language, so it's kypchak language. Taw Tu'lki (talk) 05:19, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

First of all, you forget to mention that the Karaites are the followers of Karaite Judaism, which is quite important, since all Jewish peoples are by definition ethnoreligious groups and although they speak different languages, they are better classified together exactly for that reason. To give you another example, would you put Ashkenazi Jews under Germanic people because Yiddish is a Germanic language? Obviously not. Also, according to the wikipedia article about the Crimean Karaites (whose flag is actually included in the gallery), there are different theories about their origin, which is disputed if it's Jewish or Turkic, and actually "Most modern scientists regard them as descendants of Karaite Jews who settled in Crimea and adopted a Kypchak language". In summary, you can't really claim that they are Turkic people and as already explained the language is not a criterion here. I hope this answers your question. -- Argean (talk) 01:29, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

Inclusion of the flag of Tui + replace the flag of Galicia + add the flag of the Mercheros

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Jeff G.

"Tudense" is just the denonym for a person who lives in the municipality of Tui (Galicia, Spain). It's not considered its own ethnic group so it makes no sense to include it here, because by that logic you'd have to add the flags of every municipality in Galicia. The Spanish-language wikipedia article linked for Tudense also says it's just a denonym and not an ethnic group or cultural identity.

And secondly, since this gallery is about cultural flags, perhaps it'd make more sense to replace the flag of Galicia with the Galician civil flag: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flag_of_Galicia_(civil).svg

And thirdly, maybe you'd want to add the flag of the Mercheros as part of the group of Itinerant peoples: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchero#/media/Archivo:Patrimonio_de_su_bandera.jpg https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchero — Preceding unsigned comment was added by 95.18.76.21 (talk) 15:34, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

95.18.76.21 15:24, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

Hi there and thanks for your suggestions. I agree with all your observations. I am not sure when and why the flag of Tui was added there, but I left it because I wasn't sure if I'm missing something. I had previously included civil flags not only for Galicians, but also for Andalusians and Canarians, which I agree make more sense, but other users seem to think otherwise. I will await for more input before changing those. Finally, thanks for suggesting the flag of Mercheros and I'm happy to add it to the gallery. -- Argean (talk) 21:51, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

This page is a mess

There are so many issues with this page that it's hard to know where to begin.

• There is pseudo-scientific language all over -- a mushy blend of linguistic, historic and geographical terms. What are "Chukotko-Kamchatkan peoples"? What reliable sources are all these classifications from, and what benefit do they bring to a page about flags?
• The insistence on this "ethnic group" language leads to some very odd labelling. Why "Bruneians" instead of "Flag of Brunei"? Wouldn't the latter be more accurate and informative? As it stands there's no distinction being drawn between official state flags, flags of political movements, and proposals from individuals.
• There are random historical flags on this page that are very misleadingly labelled. The Canadian Red Ensign is not "the flag of English Canadians". The five-striped flag(!) is not "the flag of Chinese people". There are literally apartheid-era bantustan flags being displayed on this page as if they're still in use as modern ethnic flags. In some cases it feels like straight-up revisionism.
• The page takes non-neutral stances on large, thorny political issues. Choosing a single flag for "Northern Irish people"? Identifying the Confederate flag as the flag of all Southerners? Picking the old flag of Laos as the Laotian flag? There are huge debates here that are being brushed over in the name of assigning exactly one flag to each "group".
• There are some image choices here that just seem like original research. Is there any reliable source at all that identifies the Spanish flag without the coat of arms as the flag of "Spaniards"? Or was that just an aesthetic choice by an editor?
• "Cincinnatians"? "Stockholmers"? These are not cultural or ethnic groups, they're collective nouns for residents of cities. The lack of a clear inclusion criteria leads to dozens of silly examples like this.
• As has been pointed out many times before, there are tons of invented flags on here. That "Northern Italian" flag from reddit is still here two years after it was called out on the talk page. How much misinformation is being spread here?
• Finally, what is this list doing that isn't being done more effectively and comprehensively by something like Category:Cultural_flags?

This page either needs a massive, dedicated clean-up or it needs to be deleted. AquaVacation (talk) 21:07, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

This is pretty much the same position this page was a few years ago (in 2018 more specifically), when I proposed it for deletion. Long-story short it was kept and I dedicated lots of time and effort to clean it up and reorganise it. I tried to be inclusive and kept all flags that could be justified in one way or the other, but over the years the situation has gone completely out of control again and I don't have the time or the patience to maintain the page anymore. I was monitoring the European section (since this is my field of expertise) the last few years but I've now given up on it too. I agree with all the points you mention: there are fake flags, there are political flags, there are random flags, and there are crazy revisionisms and meaningless classifications and labelling that makes no sense at all. I agree that there are 3 options: massive clean up (I have no idea who has the time and resources to do this), deletion (which I think is extreme measure), or breaking down the page in various categories that can be better maintained.

PS. I'll take responsibility for some of the points you mention: before introducing a geographic/linguistic break down, there was a hugely controversial racial classification in the page, including categories such as "Caucasoid" or "Turanid" peoples. I couldn't think of a better way to replace that, but using geographic and linguistic criteria, trying to keep it as neutral as possible. This has clearly become too stretched over the years unfortunately. In a similar way adding the "North Italy flag" for example was a compromise with a user that kept uploading the Lega Nord "Padania" flag years ago. I'd happily delete that. There are probably a few more compromises here and there resulting from edit wars over the years. Also, choosing "civil" over "state" flags (such as the Spanish one for example) made more sense in a gallery of "cultural" vs "national" flags, but I don't have a strong opinion on that though anyway. Feel free to make suggestions and changes that you think are constructive. --Argean (talk) 13:31, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

The linguistic criteria is definitely an improvement over the racial one (yikes!), but the conflation of culture and dialect is causing some weirdness on this page. "Philadephians" aren't really a cultural group, despite the existence of Philadelphia English. Could we just use a very broad and relatively uncontroversial geographic system, like the UN Geoscheme? AquaVacation (talk) 15:19, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

I don't necessarily disagree with simplifying the classification, but I'm concerned that adopting a simple geographical system such as the UN Geoscheme will turn the page into a gallery of flags of countries and regions, which is not necessarily what this particular gallery tries to represent. After all a cultural area is pretty much defined on ethnolinguistic criteria, and related ethnic groups, such as the Slavs, the Celts, the Arabs, the Latin Americans, or the Melanesians and the Polynesians to name a few, share many common cultural features that go beyond the linguistic classification. This is often reflected to the relevant flags representing those cultural groups that often share many similarities exactly for that reason. I think this is well shown in the current format of the gallery. What we need to do imho is to set certain inclusion criteria instead. For example I don't remember how this trend of adding flags that represent 'dialects' started but it's gone way too far. I would suggest to start removing many of those flags, especially those representing cities that happen to have their own dialect, because I agree that this is not really a cultural identity. We can also replace the hyperlinks of some languages and dialects to the relevant cultural area (for example link "Romagna" instead of "Romagnol"). I'm open to hear alternative suggestions. -- Argean (talk) 12:35, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

"There are some image choices here that just seem like original research. Is there any reliable source at all that identifies the Spanish flag without the coat of arms as the flag of "Spaniards"? Or was that just an aesthetic choice by an editor?"

While I do agree a good share of these flags shouldn't even be on here as they are fictitious or obscure, the one for Spaniards not having the coat of arms seems reasonable. As the one with the coat of arms is the state flag, while the one without it is the civil flag. (as shown in the infobox of the Wikipedia page for the Flag of Spain) GeometryCrown (talk) 17:26, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

I must state though that this rule seems to be applied inconsistently, multiple of the flags here like the Flag for Galicians show the state flag, rather than the civil flag. GeometryCrown (talk) 17:33, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

I propose that every flag without a "(details)" page linked requires a citation that shows it is actually used by the culture it is claimed to represent. GeometryCrown (talk) 17:35, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

I think that's a very good idea, yes.

Personally I'd say there are four big changes that would make the page a lot more viable:

1. Remove blatantly mislabelled flags. (Bantustans, etc.)
2. Remove most city flags.
3. Use precise language in the image captions. (So rather than "Spaniards", write "Flag of Spain")
4. Replace the linguistic categorization with a broad geographic one. (So no linguistic section labelling, no links to dialect pages).

I'm going to do a bit of clean-up on point 1, since I think that's the least controversial. AquaVacation (talk) 15:14, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

I agree with removing most -if not all- city flags since they don't really fit in the label of "cultural identity". I would also suggest to remove all flags that are mislabelled or fake/fictional. A rule of thumb should be that any included flag should at least have been adopted by some entity associated with the indicated group - it doesn't have to be official, but at least some cultural or other association representing those people (for example the flags of Rusyns or Csangos), or there is some external sources confirming that the flags are used by certain ethnic groups even unofficially (such as the flags of Crimean Tatars or the Pontic Greeks). A tricky aspect when including unofficial flags is that there might be multiple versions of them and some of them might be associated with nationalistic movements or insurgent groups. I think we need to examine those one by one unfortunately.

Regarding your 3rd point I can't really understand it - can you explain it a bit further? Finally, as I explained in my comment further above, I think there's a purpose in keeping the current classification although of course this can be definitely improved and refined. -- Argean (talk) 12:54, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

Also there are some omissions such as for example the Kabyle peoples in the Berber section, and also I think that we should add the Prussians and the Sudeten in the German section, these are still communities that still exist, they are in the same situation as the German Silesians, they only no longer have their own region, they disappeared after the Second World War. 2A02:842B:491:C701:A548:5155:E456:97A1 13:24, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

Just delete it as unreferenced and a magnet for many fringes. At least request protection stronger than semi-protection.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 12:52, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

It might be reasonable to request auto-patroller protection, but we need at least a few users that can have the relevant rights and are willing to redevelop and maintain the page. I'm willing to contribute (again) if other users are happy to move to that direction. After all this gallery has suffered such excessive vandalism over the years that I think such a move is justified. PS. I totally agree that the page is attracting many fringe editors, since it is a quite popular page and can be easily become a source of misinformation, which we need to avoid. -- Argean (talk) 15:06, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

@Argean: You may request COM:AP at COM:RFR when you think you are ready.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me🇺🇦 15:55, 7 May 2024 (UTC)