Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of flags by color combination (2nd nomination)

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep‎. Owen× ☎ 11:25, 26 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

List of flags by color combination[edit]

AfDs for this article:

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WP:OR, WP:TRIVIA, better suited via categories and galleries at c:, since we are not a list of galleries. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 19:42, 11 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Popular culture-related deletion discussions. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 19:42, 11 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep I've always been a big fan of the nom's work on the encyclopedia but I've got to disagree with Koavf on this one. This is one of the more useful list articles out there and I don't think the deletion rationale sufficiently articulated how this fails WP:NOT; this is just a list article. The terms "gallery" or "galleries" never appear at WP:NOT nor do any of the ctrl+f search results for "list" point to anything that would make this list article problematic. What makes this one different from other list articles? All due respect, I think the original research claim will need some substantiation, too. Is it original research to state that the flags of Jordan, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Palestine, Western Sahara, etc all consist of the colors green, black, red, and white? I believe we do the same thing on the article Pan-Arab colors, so I don't exactly know what makes it different when it's in a list article format. Is it original research to state that the Flag of Germany consists of the colors black, red, and gold? Is the original research part saying the same thing about the Flag of Belgium and categorizing them both under the black, red, and gold section?

This isn't to say the article being discussed doesn't have room for improvement. It has quite a lot. But the biggest problem it faces is that it lacks a defined inclusion criteria, and that's something that can be fixed through a simple RfC, not an AfD. Maybe after this AfD is over, assuming the page isn't deleted, I'll suggest some possible criteria and start a request for comment. Some no-brainer criteria could be that you need to cite reliable sources to add a flag if it doesn't already have a standalone Wikipedia page.

Vanilla Wizard 💙 20:35, 11 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your kind words. See WP:NOTGALLERY. This is not an article that discusses things, but a more-or-less arbitrary set of images. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:48, 11 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Does "This is not an article that discusses things," not describe all list articles? As for "but a more-or-less arbitrary set of images.", the "images" part can only be said here because the subject matter is a list of flags, so including flagicons is only natural. As for the arbitrary nature, that's the fault of the lack of a defined criteria, which is fixable through discussion and not an inherent flaw with the article necessitating deletion. Per WP:NOTGALLERY, "Wikipedia articles are not merely collections of: #2) Internal links, except for disambiguation pages when an article title is ambiguous, and for lists for browsing or to assist with article organization and navigation; for these, please follow relevant guidance at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lists, Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists." As this is a list article for readers to browse and assists with navigating to other pages on the encyclopedia, whether they're articles about flags or about the locations said flags represent, I'm afraid I don't quite understand what makes this list article different from any other. Vanilla Wizard 💙 21:49, 11 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. The guidelines you're citing certainly don't apply here, for the following reasons:

because "any straightforward reading of such media is not original research provided that there is consensus among editors that the techniques used are correctly applied and a meaningful reflection of the sources" (WP:OR, under Acceptable Media, Section 3.3),
because the list is "organized", "selective", and flag colors play a non-trivial part in vexillology (WP:TRIVIA, Section 3),
and as User:Vanilla Wizard above puts it, the list "assists with article organization and navigation" (Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not, Section 2.4.2) in ways that Wikimedia Commons couldn't do better.

Also, notice that this is the 2^nd nomination. There's a reason the 1^st one didn't pass. – Ahmadiskandarshah (talk) 06:02, 12 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. WCQuidditch ☎ ✎ 20:53, 11 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. While some color combinations (such as red, black, and green) are significant, the vast majority of these have no clear significance, so grouping them together inappropriately implies meanings where there is none. For instance, the flags of Brazil and Connecticut are in the same section, but they use colors in different ways (i.e., green is a reference to the House of Braganza for Brazil while it is used for grapevines for Connecticut, at least according to their Wikipedia articles). The lack of references in this article gives some indication of how meaningless these groupings are; where references exist, they tend to focus on very surface-level observations (example) and do not comprise significant secondary coverage needed to show notability. To address some of the counterarguments mentioned here:
- I believe the comment about lists that assist with article organization and navigation refer to lists of lists and the like, where the lists are solely intended to direct readers to other articles, not to be a destination of their own. (Note that it mentions those lists are solely made of internal links – they are meant for people to go somewhere else, not to be read.)
- While it is not OR to determine which colors a flag uses, it is inappropriate synthesis to group them together and imply connections between them: Do not combine material ... to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any source.
- WP:NOTGALLERY is absolutely applicable: Articles are not photographs or media files with no accompanying text. If you are interested in presenting a picture, please provide an encyclopedic context (which, again, is not possible for most of these color combinations).
- I agree that most of this is WP:TRIVIA. There may be meaning to some color combinations, and those would be non-trivial vexillological facts, but in that case those combinations can simply be mentioned in their own articles or as a small section in another article. The rest are irrelevant.

— RunningTiger123 (talk) 00:57, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 22:06, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. I agree with Vanilla that "this is one of the more useful list articles out there", and one I would certainly have visited myself if I had realized that it existed. That's not to say it can't be improved. One minor point is that "gold" is a silly word to mean "yellow". More important, it would be much easier to navigate if it were divided into sections: national flags; state or province flags; county flags; city flags; other flags. Athel cb (talk) 09:48, 22 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep A useful reference article that does no harm to the project. Color combinations are well-attested in RS and are usually obvious enough to be stated without sources. Air on White (talk) 10:04, 25 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
- Articles as useful as this should be kept even if they fail deletion policies under their strictest interpretation. Policies can be vague anyway: there is disagreement on how much coverage there must be in a source to be significant according to GNG. Air on White (talk) 10:08, 25 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep I am not sure of specific policies when there are no citations, but the flags themselves are the citations, just like when you don't need a citation for a Book or Movie plot, as the book or movie is the citation. Someone seem to have spent lot's of time creating this and it is useful and encyclopedic to have. I do believe that we need some better policies for deciding the notability of pages like this.Hkkingg (talk) 23:55, 25 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The policies are WP:OR, WP:TRIVIA, WP:NOT, etc. all cited previously. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 00:07, 26 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
These polices you refer to do not exactly apply. They are specifically for sections within articles and not complete articles. We are here as a community deciding if the page should be kept. So whatever the majority decides, I am fine with it. Hkkingg (talk) 08:07, 26 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.