Talk:Rainbow flag

GA Reassessment

This discussion is transcluded from Talk:Rainbow flag/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the reassessment.

This article has been expanded with a lot of unsourced content since passing GA in 2007. Therefore, it fails GA criteria 2. sst✈ 12:27, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

• Since there has been no progress after more than 7 days of the start of the reassessment, and I have already notified relevant WikiProjects, I am delisting this article. sst✈ 08:12, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

Rainbow flag is symbol of peace

Rainbow flag is symbol of peace. 87.0.8.192 (talk) 18:14, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

National Varieties of English

• Current state of the article conspicuously contains inconsistent use of both English English (eg "colour") and offshore dialects (eg "color"). MOS:RETAIN guides us to consider the very first revision of this article which was written exclusively using the "colour" standard spelling. Applied consistent dialect. Added template. by me was reverted with:
• Undid good-faith revision 1201749010 by 49.180.106.148 (talk) Your change of 41 uses of 'color' to 'colour' while leaving dozens of other American spellings unchanged leaves this article in a highly inconsistent state. Both MOS:TIES (San Francisco) and even MOS:RETAIN ("there is no valid reason for changing from one acceptable option to another") argue against this. Please take it to Talk if you disagree. by Mathglot

I do disagree. The article was in an inconsistent state before I edited it which is why I edited it to make it consistent. This is not "no valid reason", nor was the previous inconsistent state acceptable: MOS:CONSISTENT. I preserved wikilinks containing "color" and the titles of references which contained "color" because I believe that's the proper way to do it. Had the earliest non-stub version of the page to select a regional dialect selected American, I would have changed all the current instances of "colour" to "color". However, the earliest revision was written with "colour", so that's what we stick with. If some contributors haven't abided by that, that's what has led to "a highly inconsistent state" and their edits could have been reverted.

MOS:TIES on an article about flags from Peru, Bolivia, Italy, Germany, Armenia, Switzerland, the NHS, et al shouldn't trump MOS:RETAIN. The usage of the rainbow representing queer lifestyle is a global phenomenon no one country has exceptional claim over.

Please would you list here the "dozens of other American spellings" which I missed? My spellcheck dictionary missed them too which is concerning. 49.180.106.148 (talk) 11:11, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Your edit changed more than it retained. It looks to me like this article has used American spelling since its creation. Newly-added sections have used "colour" in some cases, but the spelling of the lead hasn't been changed. (Not sure if it's dozens, but you did leave Oxford spelling such as "organization", "popularized", "symbolize", "recognized") Wracking ^talk! 16:39, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

The article was created saying "six coloured stripes", "he removed that colour. Later, the rainbow colours were", "Each colour has", "one of each colour," "coloured rainbow," "with rainbow-coloured elements"; I am puzzled how this represents "American spelling since its creation". MOS:RETAIN says "use the variety found in the first post-stub revision that introduced an identifiable variety." and in this case, the first such revision is the first revision (not that we had stubs in 2002). It used English English. Since then, contributors have added content in different dialects leaving the article inconsistent.

So I would like to return the article to a state of consistency and template the talk page to help it stay consistent in the future. If {{Use Oxford spelling}} is more familiar / palatable to American readers, that sounds ideal. I hope Mathglot doesn't consider -ize words to have been regionalized exclusively to America, but I appreciate your suggestion as that would explain their claim, if so. Thank you.

If there is a policy concerning changing more than is retained, I'm unaware of it. 49.180.106.148 (talk) 23:18, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Okay, just to go through some points:

That link is not post-stub.

Yes, -ize (in conjunction with -or for color, -er for center, etc.) is generally considered to pertain to American English. This isn't about palatability to American readers, I was just pointing out the inconsistencies in your changes.

Again, your edit changed more than it retained. An article should not be edited or renamed simply to switch from one variety of English to another. (MOS:RETAIN)

That being said, this isn't really all that constructive, I don't care that much, and I don't intend to continue discussing it. Wracking ^talk! 23:28, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

You were saying "this article has used American spelling since its creation" so I linked the edit which created this article. I don't believe your statement is accurate.

I believe we started using stub template in 2004 and this article was created in 2002.

Again, if there is a policy concerning changing more than is retained, I'm unaware of it.

I am clearly and consistently promoting collapsing the inconsistency into consistency. Mathglot cites "changing from one acceptable option to another" and you cite "should not be edited or renamed simply to switch from one variety" but neither are related to this discussion. An inconsistent state is not "one acceptable option", and "switch from one variety" would apply only if the article presented only one variety.

I'll await Mathglot's reasons. 49.180.106.148 (talk) 01:06, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

I've already given my reasons, you quoted them at the top (thank you for that) and I don't wish to repeat myself. There's little more to add; not mentioned previously, perhaps, is that TIES beats RETAIN (see the first paragraph there) but both apply and militate against your change. If you believe neither TIES nor RETAIN applies, or that RETAIN somehow applies in the reverse direction, you are misinterpreting the guideline, imho. But most important is that you do not have consensus for this change, and consensus is policy. Mathglot (talk) 21:57, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

MOS:STYLEVAR > "The Arbitration Committee has expressed the principle that "When either of two styles is acceptable it is inappropriate for a Wikipedia editor to change from one style to another unless there is some substantial reason for the change." ... enforcing optional style in a bot-like fashion without prior consensus, is never acceptable."
MOS:RETAIN > "An article should not be edited or renamed simply to switch from one variety of English to another."
This article was created on August 13, 2002. In the 22 years that it has existed, having both British and American styles of spelling has not made the text difficult to understand, nor has its purpose suffered because of it. Pyxis Solitary (yak yak). Ol' homo. 11:07, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

I agree with all three of your points there.

1. MOS:STYLEVAR: inappropriate for a Wikipedia editor to change from one style to another. Agreed. I am not suggesting changing the article "from one style to another". Mathglot is not suggesting changing the article "from one style to another". Wracking is not suggesting changing the article "from one style to another". Pyxis Solitary is not suggesting changing the article "from one style to another". I agree with MOS but it is unrelated to this discussion. Therefore repeatedly invoking it accomplishes nothing. Rather than fixate upon a point we all agree on, can we please discuss the reasons for Mathglot's reverting my contribution and cooperate on improving the article?
2. MOS:RETAIN: should not be edited or renamed simply to switch from one variety of English to another. Agreed. I am not suggesting changing the article "from one variety of English to another". Mathglot is not suggesting changing the article "from one variety of English to another". Wracking is not suggesting changing the article "from one variety of English to another". Pyxis Solitary is not suggesting changing the article "from one variety of English to another". I agree with MOS but it is unrelated to this discussion. Therefore repeatedly invoking it accomplishes nothing. Rather than fixate upon a point we all agree on, can we please discuss the reasons for Mathglot's reverting my contribution and cooperate on improving the article?
3. spelling has not made the text difficult to understand, nor has its purpose suffered. Agreed. Be that as it may, it is inconsistent. I believe it should be MOS:CONSISTENT and so I contributed an edit to improve consistency. My edit also has not made the text difficult to understand; it simply brought the article in line with established policy. That's all. Despite that it was reverted and discussion directed here, yet discussion has so far avoided engaging with my rationale at all. Hopefully now everybody can agree nobody is or should propose changing from one NVoE to another NVoE, we can put that tangent to bed and cooperate on improving the article.

Objections voiced so far are:

User	Objection	Validity
Mathglot	leaving dozens of other American spellings unchanged	invalid: Oxford spelling: "the belief that ‑ize is an exclusively North American variant is incorrect."
	leaves this article in a highly inconsistent state.	invalid: it was internally inconsistent prior to my edit and consistent (with Oxford) after my edit
	TIES beats RETAIN (see the first paragraph there) but both apply and militate against your change.	this is the crux of the issue which is why I addressed it in my first Talk message here
	you do not have consensus for this change	valid: consensus can only be reached when collaborators acknowledge and engage with the problem my edit resolved; that hasn't happened yet
Wracking	Your edit changed more than it retained.	potentially invalid: possible personal preference, not policy
	this article has used American spelling since its creation	invalid: it was created with the spelling "colour" used consistently
	That link is not post-stub.	subjectively invalid: WP:STUBDEF suggests "more than ten sentences is too big to be a stub" and "1,500 characters in the main text" both of which are satisfied by the first version of this article

My process is:

1. notice that the article does not comply with MOS:CONSISTENT
2. check whether the article lede or the Talk page is templated with a dialect
3. figure out whether MOS:TIES applies
4. find out the earliest dialect differentiated as per MOS:RETAIN
5. adjust the article to be internally MOS:CONSISTENT
6. apply the appropriate template in the Talk page

That all looks constructive and in line with policy to me, so the opposition to unrelated tangents fielded here has me genuinely bewildered.

1. is patently true, as emphasized in my initial change summary: Current state of the article conspicuously contains inconsistent use of both English English (eg "colour") and offshore dialects (eg "color").
2. it isn't
3. if the article were "the Rainbow flag designed in San Francisco", TIES would apply. Likewise "the rainbow Gay Pride flag" that's designed in San Francisco; it has TIES. But given that this is an article about more than ten different flags from more than ten different countries, TIES doesn't apply
4. fortunately, the first revision of the article is both dialectically differentiated and is longer than stub threshold, so this step is easy
5. given the confusion and misunderstanding of -ize words, I propose a new revision of the article which:
   • represents one and only one style of English with internal consistency
   • uses colour as per MOS:RETAIN
   • avoids -ize endings
6. pending resolution of the previous step

Please let's focus on constructive collaboration improving the current problem with the article. 49.180.106.148 (talk) 14:12, 4 February 2024 (UTC)