Category talk:Flags

I Need a Denmark Flag for a Tournement results table Nocturnal Dragon (talk) 15:22, 18 July 2012 (EDT)

Missing flags?

I noticed there are a bunch of European sovereign states that don't have their own flags (namely Belgium, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Andorra, Monaco, San Marino, and most of Eastern Europe) that don't have their own flags. Is it because people don't play Smash there? Awesome Cardinal 2000 18:23, 9 March 2014 (EDT)

Well currently we only upload flags if we have a need for them, so if we don't have any smashers with pages or tournament results from a country, we don't need their flag. Toomai Glittershine The Frivolous 19:30, 9 March 2014 (EDT)

I need a Belgium flag for the results on this page. Scr7(talk · contribs) 13:21, 1 May 2014 (EDT)

Due to that, I uploaded Belgium's. Red (talk) 13:25, 1 May 2014 (EDT)

Latin America

Just as we have flag representing Europe, I believe we need one to represent Latin America, which is needed for articles that include release dates and such. For some reason (not only on this wiki), it's always said "This thing was released on this date in North America/the United States and Canada", ignoring the rest of the continent, even though most game releases in Latin America are on the same date as in those two countries.

Now, there is a problem. There is no actual flag for Latin America or a recognizable organization that includes all of its countries, like there is for Europe. Bulbapedia, for example, uses what seems to be a flag for CELAC, however, there is no actual CELAC flag and that's just its logo over a colored background, which is also representing just one of the several organizations that try to embrace the Latin American countries. There have been proposals for a common flag like this one, though.

The thing is, it'd be too hard to combine all of the Latin American flags in one rectangle (it already looks messy here, in my opinion), or to use all flags separately, so I'm not sure about what we could do. I'd appreciate any ideas or opinions, since I still believe we need something to represent Latin America. --Gabo 2oo (talk) 20:09, 11 November 2014 (EST)

Quebec flag

We noticed that the Quebec Flag is missing in the database. Although this is a minor problem (since flags are supposed to reflect nationality, not the province you are born). there are players that identify themselves more with a place than another. We would like to request if it was possible to add them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wtvdd (talk • contribs) 10:48, 26 March 2015 (EDT)

Well I guess it would depend what you'd be using it for. If you want it for a template or something, then sure. But for smasher infoboxes, I feel it would set a precedent for any province or state being entitied to their own flags, and I don't really see the usefulness of that. Besides, we have categories like Category:Quebec smashers. Toomai Glittershine The Cloronic 11:45, 26 March 2015 (EDT)

Quebec flag... again ?

Oh hi, it's been a while that I checked my account.

I wanted to reply to the initial conversation but I'm not sure how the system works, sorry if this bothers the admins lol

I'm requesting once again to add the Quebec flag to the DB. A lot of said "Canadian Smashers" don't necessarily identify themselves with the whole country. Quebec in a really different place from the entire North American continent, culturally and socially and a lot of local players would rather see their names beside a QC flag rather than being in the giant pack of Canadian flags, specially for Canadian Major tournaments.

Adding the QC flag doesn't add a precedent for other states/provinces to have their own flag, as Quebec is recognized by the Government of Canada as a nation (source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Québécois_nation_motion).

It's an issue for a lot of Smashers, since they are always overwhelmed by anglophone content and can't express their difference due people putting them in the same bag as other regions of Canada. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wtvdd (talk • contribs) 19:45, January 4, 2016

Luxembourg

I could add it but... I'm not sure. The consensus is left to Toomai. -- BeepYou, a user with no grammar at all :v (talk) 16:18, 7 April 2016 (EDT)

Definitely need to add the Luxembourg flag, Luxembourg is surprisingly pretty good, and their players travel a lot, to many different countries in Europe. TraX got 25th at BEAST 6 for instance, and LuiS usually gets good results in Germany and the Netherlands. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tetra (talk • contribs) 16:28, June 29, 2016

Trinidad and Tobago

The Rio de Janeiro eGames Showcase 2016 tournament took place recently, and there was a player from Trinidad and Tobago, Wabz, who participated. We might not see such a flag being put to use again for a long time, but given the ambitious and Olympics-esque nature of this invitational tournament, it'd be great to have all players rocking their proper country flags in the article, in my opinion. Zakken (talk) 23:05, 17 August 2016 (EDT)

Done. In the future, if there's one we need that we don't have yet, you can simply upload a clean version of the flag (like I got from Wikipedia) to a filename like "File:Flag of ____.png" and it should work just fine. Miles (talk) 23:45, 17 August 2016 (EDT)

Singapore

A Singapore flag has been requested by Riko for the YouCMe smasher article. Pokebub (talk) 20:59, 23 January 2018 (EST)

Andorra

Didn't even know this country existed until I discovered it when I was creating a page for a European tournament. Wikipedia file here. Pokebub (talk) 02:39, 24 July 2018 (EDT)

I'd also like to request one for Malta. Pokebub (talk) 03:29, 24 July 2018 (EDT)

India

We appear to be missing India's flag. I'd like to request it for use on DreamHack Mumbai 2018. Pokebub (talk) 23:15, 13 November 2018 (EST)

UK constituent countries flags

This is a closed discussion about a failed proposed change on SmashWiki. It remains for archival purposes. The closing administrator adds: "Use the individual country flags for their events and for smasher pages, use the UK flag for events that encompass the entire region. Serpent  King 12:50, March 24, 2021 (EDT)"

As we have discussed on Discord prior to updating the policy about UK regional flags, the constituent countries (England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland), despite being referred to as "countries" in both common and legal usage, are not actually independent or autonomous entities.

• The UK is a bit of a political oddity in the modern international landscape, the only country with a somewhat comparable system I could find is the UAE. There are some kingdoms that have "constituent countries" within, such as the Netherlands and Denmark, that award much greater autonomy to their constituent countries (i.e. Aruba in the Netherlands, or Greenland in Denmark); this is perhaps more comparable to the political status of Gibraltar in practice. On the other hand, there are many federal countries (the United States, Canada, Switzerland, Belgium, Germany, Mexico, Russia, Australia and so on), that devolve to their subdivisions comparable (roughly, I don't want to get in the gritty details) to the power devolved to UK constituent countries, which calls into question how special, from a purely legislative standpoint, the political status of the UK is. In sport events and other international competitions, the constituent countries compete sometimes separately (soccer, rugby) and sometimes together (the Olympics, Eurovision); in actuality, Smash players don't really represent their country in competitions, and are often free agents, so any physical sports comparisons feel iffy. This first point is important to get across, but I don't want it to be the focus of the debate, since this isn't Wikipedia or a political sciences encyclopedia.
• It has been suggested on Discord that having regional flags for the UK allows for easier identification of players. While this is undeniably true, I don't see how this can't be applied to literally every country. Most relevantly, the United States is a large and populous country, with the largest competitive Smash scene in the world; a lot of players there rarely or never travel outside of the country, and many tournament feature almost exclusively American players. It would be arguably even more useful for the United States than for the United Kingdom to add state flags for easier identification. Of course I am not suggesting that we should start using US (or any other country) state flags, I am just using the US as an example of why allowing regional flags for UK and no one else for easier/more accurate identification is basically exceptionalism, since there are a lot of countries that would benefit from more specific regional identification, but of course I do not wish to open this slippery slope. And no, the UK is not the only country where people feel extremely strongly about their regional identities, if that needs to be stated.
• The new policy defines where it is appropriate to use a regional flag for the UK and where to use the national flag. However, there are hundreds (thousands?) of pages where these flags are used, in all likelihood they are used wrong in almost all of them. It would take a monumental effort to update them all, since it needs to be done manually on a per case basis, while if we switched to just the national flag, we could easily automate the process using a bot or creating redirects.

Based on the points I outlined above, I support using only the UK national flag going forward. I hope to hear as many opinions as possible on this, and I hope it doesn't get too heated! --Rdrfc (talk) 07:56, May 9, 2020 (EDT)

In previous discussions I was more opposed but after looking up some stuff myself I'm more neutral, leaning towards opposed. The UK is a country composed of 4 countries; no other country in the world has something like that. The United States have states and the UAE have emirates but they aren't separate countries. Therefore, we don't represent US smashers by their state flag nor UAE smashers with their emirate flags. On the other hand, the UK countries aren't 100% independent since they are still overall governed by the UK. It's really iffy defining whether they deserve to have their own flag or not on the wiki, but since the UK's the only country with a situation like this I don't see much of a problem using the regional flags for regional tournaments while using the UK flag for international tournaments.

One thing for sure, however, is that we shouldn't redirect the regional flags to the UK flag. As Toomai had said, several people had an issue with that in the past. CookiesCreme 09:35, May 9, 2020 (EDT)

I have some thoughts that don't fit well into the support/oppose/neutral setup:

• I would think that 95%+ of people would agree that "Scotland is a country".
• There is nothing wrong with "exceptionalism" if it is applied consistently and with a clear reason. I wouldn't have trouble with treating the countries of Netherlands or Denmark in the same way as we do the UK - Aruba and Greenland are widely known as "countries" as well, and people are probably even less aware that they're part of a country-of-countries.
• We really shouldn't get into states/provinces/etc. Mostly because we don't need another thousand flags, but also because no one can tell the difference between Ontario and Manitoba at 20px, or between any of the 30+ American state flags that are all blue with a coat of arms.
• There is merit in the consideration of changing our definition from "we only take country flags" to "we only take sovereign state flags". I would not approve of this choice, and it would make a lot of UKers upset, but we'd be able to just refer to Wikipedia's "List of sovereign states" without thought.

Toomai Glittershine The Irrepressible 10:31, May 9, 2020 (EDT)

I agree that "exceptionalism" is not an inherently bad thing, as long as it is coherent. However I think that if you have to choose between "exceptionalism" or not, and both choices have just as valid pros and cons, it is better to go with the choices that does not leave any room for exceptions and potential loopholes. Whether or not this is one of these cases I guess it is to be determined. As for the last point, this leaves unaddressed autonomous dependent territories such as (among flags that are already uploaded here) Hong Kong, Puerto Rico, Gibraltar and Guam. I think the most objective and comprehensive way to determine what is a "real country", even if not necessarily sovereign, is to base it on who has their own ISO country code. This would include pretty much every dependent territory that is not fully sovereign but is also not considering an integral part of their larger country. --Rdrfc (talk) 13:51, May 12, 2020 (EDT)

Bump. CookiesCreme 16:32, June 7, 2020 (EDT)

Welsh person here, I strongly, strong oppose this. I'm going to go through the main proposal bit by bit as a UK resident because I feel there are many misunderstandings of how the UK works in this entire proposal, which seems to be blatant ignorance.

Before I get into Rdrfc's proposal points, I noticed Cookies and Creme claimed that the UK is "a country made up of 4 countries". This is false. The UK is a Sovereign State, which is a political entity represented by a centralized government. The UK also includes Northern Ireland, so it is actually 5 countries; the UK is called "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" in full. This is an important distinction, as it illustrates the problems I have with the proposal. So to summarize, the UK is a Sovereign State with 5 countries participating in it.

In my opinion, all Sovereign States with constituent countries deserve to have the country's flag used (So countries in Denmark, the UK and the Netherlands should have their respective flags used). CnC also mentions that people had an issue with redirecting to the UK flag, and I can absolutely see why that would be an issue, because there are many people in almost all of the UK countries that reject that flag. In Wales for example, there are people who despise how they've been treated by the UK Government and actively want to leave the UK. There have literally been wars over this.

So I align with Toomai's point that the UK, Denmark and the Netherlands should be treated the same way: use the constituent country's flags. By taking the road of ISO Country Codes and/or Sovereign State Flags only, you'll be opening a very large can of worms. It isn't worth the resulting trouble. There isn't anything wrong with this in my opinion, and makes for very simple policy.

So, Rdrfc's points:

• Point 1: "There are some kingdoms that have "constituent countries" within, such as the Netherlands and Denmark, that award much greater autonomy to their constituent countries (i.e. Aruba in the Netherlands, or Greenland in Denmark); this is perhaps more comparable to the political status of Gibraltar in practice. On the other hand, there are many federal countries (the United States, Canada, Switzerland, Belgium, Germany, Mexico, Russia, Australia and so on), that devolve to their subdivisions comparable (roughly, I don't want to get in the gritty details) to the power devolved to UK constituent countries, which calls into question how special, from a purely legislative standpoint, the political status of the UK is."
  • I feel like this is more semantics than anything, and legally all these "kingdoms" are in fact countries. The UK has gone on record stating this. I feel it isn't SmashWiki's place to set a "legal precedent" so to speak, on what a country is. It'd be much simpler just to follow what the country (and international law...) says, rather than place your own definitions and gatekeep how "special" a country needs to be to be a country in your eyes.
• I also really want to address this individually; "In sport events and other international competitions, the constituent countries compete sometimes separately (soccer, rugby) and sometimes together (the Olympics, Eurovision); in actuality, Smash players don't really represent their country in competitions, and are often free agents, so any physical sports comparisons feel iffy."
  • In regards to why the UK sometimes competes together, this is far rarer than separate. This is usually for very very large events, though even then, it's common to see England competing solo in tournaments like the FIFA World Cup. I feel this entire point is largely irrelevant: you can represent your country, or the political entity, this is why you see people out there waving EU flags. Smash has an eSports scene, which is, by definition, a sport. We just don't compete in teams like in football, but at the same time, you see sports such as Tennis with single people competing...like in eSports. "Smash players don't really represent their country in competitions" is plain ignorance, I've seen many eSports competitors (including Smashers) in general go out with flags on their backs, waving their pride. There's a few English Smashers I've seen doing just this. While players don't always represent their country, and it's certainly not something commonly bought up, I feel that saying that "Smash players don't really represent their country in competitions" is a gross misunderstanding. Just because you haven't seen it doesn't mean it isn't a thing.
• Point 2: "It has been suggested on Discord that having regional flags for the UK allows for easier identification of players. While this is undeniably true, I don't see how this can't be applied to literally every country. Most relevantly, the United States is a large and populous country, with the largest competitive Smash scene in the world; a lot of players there rarely or never travel outside of the country, and many tournament feature almost exclusively American players. It would be arguably even more useful for the United States than for the United Kingdom to add state flags for easier identification. Of course I am not suggesting that we should start using US (or any other country) state flags, I am just using the US as an example of why allowing regional flags for UK and no one else for easier/more accurate identification is basically exceptionalism, since there are a lot of countries that would benefit from more specific regional identification, but of course I do not wish to open this slippery slope. And no, the UK is not the only country where people feel extremely strongly about their regional identities, if that needs to be stated."
  • The US-UK comparison is a bit of a false equivalence. The US is a country comprised of states, and is not a Sovereign State like the UK is. I don't see why this comparison is being made. I do not believe that keeping this exclusive to the UK should be a thing; simply use the country's flag. I don't see how "exceptionalism" needs to be called here, that just feels like a jab to the British more than anything.
• Point 3: The new policy defines where it is appropriate to use a regional flag for the UK and where to use the national flag. However, there are hundreds (thousands?) of pages where these flags are used, in all likelihood they are used wrong in almost all of them. It would take a monumental effort to update them all, since it needs to be done manually on a per case basis, while if we switched to just the national flag, we could easily automate the process using a bot or creating redirects.
  • I mean, I don't see why this is a reason to not fix it...it's a large issue.

Please reject this proposal and make a proper policy document about regional considerations. --Plague von Karma 17:36, June 7, 2020 (EDT)

Oppose as per Plague's extensive reasoning shown above. I was reluctant to comment on this issue before because I felt that I didn't have enough knowledge on the UK and its constituents to make a strong point here - and now that someone who very evidently does have such knowledge has commented, I'm glad I waited. Pretty sure there isn't anything else to be said on this matter. Acgamer28 22:14, June 7, 2020 (EDT)

You convinced me about keeping the flags for UKIE tournaments and Smasher pages. We would still have to revise the policy about using Union Jack in international contexts, if there is anything else anyone would like to say on the matter. I have no strong leanings one way or another. -Rdrfc (talk)

Vietnam?

Looks like the power ranking article is missing a file call to a Vietnamese flag. Can we get that uploaded? Acgamer28 21:08, June 1, 2020 (EDT)

Pakistan

I was about to update Spark's location and noticed there's no Pakistan flag yet.

Updating some flags

The flag of Honduras was changed in 2022 to use a lighter shade of blue. Since the file is cascade-protected, I'm requesting it to be updated here.--Rdrfc (talk) 10:13, March 4, 2022 (EST)