Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of flags by number of colors (2nd nomination)

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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 no consensus, default to keep. Contrary to some suggestion otherwise below, I think that both sides have made coherent, policy-based arguments here. It does appear to me that the difference of opinion over this list is likely grounded in difference of opinion on more fundamental questions as to what Wikipedia should or should not include. In this particular debate, the deleters have the numbers by a bit, but it cannot truly be said that there is any consensus one way or another. Steve Smith (talk) 06:26, 16 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

List of flags by number of colors[edit]

AfDs for this article:
List of flags by number of colors (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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Seems to be an indiscriminate list. OR and synthesis. No rules for inclusion, either - not every country's flag is listed, and yet there are some naval ensigns and flags from lighthouses and the rainbow flag. Unclear how this list would be helpful. Also one of the entries is just 'green flag'. Yes, green flags ARE green. ‡ Єl Cid of ᐺalencia ᐐT₳LKᐬ 16:02, 7 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Umm, if you click on "Green flag" it goes to Green flag, which informs you that a simple green flag has been the flag of the "Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya", and the flag of Saudi Arabia, and the Flag of Mauritania, and more. It is a reasonable editorial decision to show just one, rather than three or more copies of the same. If you disagree with that editorial decision, bring it up at the Talk page. Offhand, I do agree that some short explanatory text "The all-green flag has been used by X, Y, and Z" could be helpful. This is not anything like a reason for deletion. --Doncram (talk) 15:07, 14 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, wp:INDISCRIMINATE does not apply to this case, AFAICT. Please see "Comment about INDISCRIMINATE USE OF WP:INDISCRIMINATE" below. --Doncram (talk) 15:48, 10 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - and christ above we'd never get anywhere near representing the the actual pool Nosebagbear (talk), not to mention unsourced, mix of individually notable and not 13:35, 8 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Last one failed - didn't want to edit the above in case it re-pinged everyone else @Bojo1498: Nosebagbear (talk) 13:43, 8 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I have commented elsewhere here that INDISCRIMINATE does not apply. Nor does LISTCRUFT (an essay) apply. LISTCRUFT includes a list of 12 "reasons", none of which apply. For example, that "The list cannot be expanded beyond a handful of terms" (not true), that "The list is unlimited and/or unmaintainable" (not true), that "The list is unencyclopaedic, i.e. it would not be expected to be included in an encyclopedia" (not true), that "Determining membership of the list requires adoption of a non-neutral point of view, and reliable sources for avoiding it are not available" (not true), that "The content is unverifiable or the underlying concept is non-notable" (not true), and "The list attracts the addition of little that is of clear importance or even relevance in the context of the topic" (not true).
The Delete arguments here seem, to me, to be mere assertions of "I don't like it" with invocations of essays, guidelines that do not apply. --Doncram (talk) 14:48, 14 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete no evidence that the numbers of colors in a flag is a notable way to conceptualize the material - or that those with the same numbers inherently have something in common to distill meaning (WP:INDISCRIMINATE). Carlossuarez46 (talk) 20:51, 8 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep This list of flags by color is a valuable asset to Wikipedia, and has no reason to be removed. The article may need some work, but this is a valuable article that has a place in Wikipedia. For example, if someone was making a presentation on flags, and they needed to put flags but wanted them to fit the style that they wanted to use, this tool would help them find minimalistic flags that would give the presentation an international mindset. SuperChris (talk) 11:36, 9 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Fails WP:CLT. Might be useful at Commons. wumbolo ^^^ 13:42, 10 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Umm, how does this fail wp:CLT? CLT is about useful correspondence between categories, lists, and navigation templates. This list certainly usefully complements Category:Flags by presenting images of many flags, which a category cannot do. Do you want to complain that this list-article does not cover every member of Category:Flags? If so, that could be remedied by expanding this list. I understand no reason for deletion here; the point about CLT would be to argue for Keeping and/or expanding this list. --Doncram (talk) 21:08, 14 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Pictures? Then WP:NOTGALLERY. wumbolo ^^^ 22:00, 14 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
It's not just a gallery of random flag pictures, it is a reference source about numbers of colors. As other list-articles about flags are references about other matters. --Doncram (talk) 22:21, 14 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Proposal. For all future AFDs on each of these, could we all please agree to ping everyone. Hopefully the number of participants will grow and grow and we will have hundreds or thousands of Wikipedia editors involved in defending simple basic content for Wikipedia. And the AFD nominators will become famous and appreciated for involving everyone again and again in reassertion of obvious stuff, so that everyone is mutually reminded that basic stuff belongs in Wikipedia and yet that should be discussed again and again. We should celebrate AFD all the time, please. --Doncram (talk) 15:41, 10 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment about INDISCRIMINATE USE OF WP:INDISCRIMINATE. Maybe an essay is needed, wp:INDISCRIMINATEINDISCRIMATE. The above invocations are nonsensical. WTF is intended. Please go read. The core relevant is probably that Wikipedia doesn't want "Summary-only descriptions of works", which this list is not. The list is not a "Lyrics databases", nor is it an "Exhaustive logs of software updates", nor other bad things covered in the policy/guideline. --Doncram (talk) 15:48, 10 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    • WP:NOTSTATS applies since it is a collection of data with no encyclopedic background. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 21:18, 13 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
      • There is nothing more encyclopedic than flags! Go to any nation's article, and you are presented with its flag, because that is so basic. Go visit the United Nations; it is all about the flags. Go to a first or second grade class in a school, it is all about the flags. The encyclopedia covers basic stuff, about letters, numbers, flags, maps, etc. I don't read "wp:NOTSTATS" as conveying anything relevant here.
      • Also, I removed three negative tags at the article, leaving only the "notability" tag (to be removed after this AFD). The "original research" negative tag was unjustified because there was/is nothing questioned or even questionable in the article. You don't have to have a citation to support something obvious and undisputed; here the information is conveyed by the flag images which no one disputes. The "no lede" was addressed by my adding a one-sentence summary about the article. The "multiple issues" was just the usual pile-on negative, no longer applies. --Doncram (talk) 22:28, 13 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Doncram: - how was the issue of OR/synthesis addressed? Please point me to a reliable source which lists flags by the number of colors, or discusses the significance of the number of colors. You can't simply remove a template because you think it looks bad. I re-added it because none of the concerns were addressed. Please discuss on the ARTICLE's talk page if you wish to re-add it‡ Єl Cid of ᐺalencia ᐐT₳LKᐬ 23:45, 13 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I determined that there is no dispute, no question at all, about how many colors are in the flag of France. Do you think there is an issue? Do you think a citation is needed? It would probably be possible to provide citations, eventually, for how many colors are in any and all of the flags, if there were any disagreement possible. But we don't need citations for non-disputed assertions. What in the article do you think is personal opinion? --Doncram (talk) 00:16, 14 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
How many colors are in the flag of Virginia? How about Mexico? And Apure? Hela Province? The flag of Minnesota? Mangoe (talk) 01:07, 14 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 08:25, 14 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Great questions, which prove the value of this Wikipedia list-article. Are they meant to be "trick questions"? I see that they are informed by the list-article: the questioner went to the bottom, the section of "10 or more colors", and picked out four of those. Yep, it is encyclopedic and interesting to know that there are some flags with a lot of colors, unlike most in the world, including a few with color blending/shading that are hard to quantify, so the excellent past editors of this article chose, sensibly, to put them into a "10 or more" section. Very diplomatic, factual, encyclopedic. And about the other flag, is that one chosen because its numbers have changed (and the change is covered in its article)? I do suppose that could be used to bring up a question whether the list-article should include past versions of flags for entities whose current version is different. That could be discussed at the Talk page, though I would think it is reasonable to include just one version for each entity. Oh, you could argue about which are entities to be covered, and whether a governing entity in the past is the same as a current governing entity, sure those are fine topics for discussion at the Talk page.
I do note that the five flags are mentioned as questions, and I suppose that means that the questioner is not actually asserting that there is any factual issue in the article. Those are simply questions which can be posed, trivia competition style, using the article, and likewise can be answered using the article. Like this Quora trivia question and answer which cites the definitive Wikipedia article No one has yet put themself on the line to assert that there is any real question about anything. --Doncram (talk) 13:31, 14 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I already did assert factual problems. When you start talking about these seals and insignia, and you see the landscape heraldry that a lot of them use, talking about how many becomes meaningless— and as I already said, the true answer for most US states could just as well be "one" as "many" for all the "azure, the state seal proper" cases. There als0o doesn't seem to be any limit to the inclusion of flags here, so that once we get the entire collection of county and city flags, we could be talking tens of thousands of entries. Mangoe (talk) 20:10, 15 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
And the deletion nominator gripes about inclusion criteria not being clear, too. Inclusion criteria can/should be discussed at the Talk page; certainly it should include flags of all State (polity)s but I don't see why it can't cover flags of every province/state and city/municipality and all other governmental entities. It could naturally cover every flag covered in List of flags. For discussion there. --Doncram (talk) 15:07, 14 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: Ready to be closed. Every DYK !vote here which amounts to "I don't like it" plus a random link to an essay or guideline which does not apply, should be entirely disregarded in the closing here. Basically I think there are a few valid Keep !votes and no valid Delete !votes, so this is ready to be closed "Keep" or even "Snow Keep", IMHO. --Doncram (talk) 22:21, 14 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Well that's your opinion. Thank you for sharing it. -Ad Orientem (talk) 22:57, 14 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Textbook example of WP:BLUDGEON here.--Rusf10 (talk) 23:20, 14 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Doncram:- the amount of comments are you are making in this AfD is patently disruptive and you are certainly not going to help the 'keep' argument when an admin closes this AfD. I guess we know how you got 200k edits, though. ‡ Єl Cid of ᐺalencia ᐐT₳LKᐬ 16:45, 15 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Rusf10, I sort of agree with you that there should not be so many comments from just one editor, but it happens that there are a lot of what-I-think-are-lame !votes here, with citations to essays and policies which I think do not at all apply, and no one else has replied to those. I don't often comment so much in any one AFD, but it just seems to be needed here. --Doncram (talk) 16:51, 15 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete since WP isn't a case study and the information otherwise falls per WP:INDISCRIMINATE. Doncram above might think that they are upholding policy by saying everybody is "not liking it", but WP works by consensus, not by moot calls to "but the other side's arguments aren't right"... 198.84.253.202 (talk) 02:42, 15 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Oh great, another essay or guideline cited. wp:NOTCASE does not at all apply. It states "Wikipedia is an encyclopedic reference, not an instruction manual, guidebook, or textbook" and goes on to list types of manuals, guidebooks, textbooks, which this is not. People should read the essays/guidelines first before citing. And since the applicability of wp:NONDISCRIMINATE has already been questioned, why not explain how on earth you think that applies? It doesn't say what you think it says, I bet. --Doncram (talk) 16:51, 15 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
That edges on being tendentious. Read further than the top sentence of the guideline: "9. Case studies. Many topics are based on the relationship of factor X [Flags] to factor Y [Number of colours]". And no, it is not a culturally significant phenomenon or some otherwise notable interest (otherwise, one could reasonably expect to find more on google than WP mirrors...) 198.84.253.202 (talk) 03:35, 16 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep seems to be a valid list of an encyclopedic topic, disagreements about inclusion can be resolved on the talk page, page views average 173 a day so it is a useful learning tool for youngsters without browbeating them with technical prose, thanks Atlantic306 (talk) 18:41, 15 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
See WP:POPULARPAGE & WP:ITSUSEFUL--Rusf10 (talk) 20:39, 15 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Right. The latter states "If reasons are given, 'usefulness' can be the basis of a valid argument for inclusion." I'm sorry, but the invocations of essays/guidelines in this AFD seem mostly nonsensical. --Doncram (talk) 21:49, 15 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
How is that any more nonsensical then non-policy based arguments such as "page views average 173 a day"?--Rusf10 (talk) 23:00, 15 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep as a reasonable tool for users to be able to locate the government of a flag while only knowing basic information about it; in this case, the color. This is an aid to navigation, particularly for younger readers. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 23:30, 15 May 2018 (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.
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