User talk:Andrwsc/Archive 4

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Ireland (again) part 2

Thanks for the change, its great - you're a legend. But, I don't understand why {{fb|Ireland}} ( Ireland) etc. is still coming up with the "Flag of the Republic of Ireland" alt. Strange. --sony-youthpléigh 09:11, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I didn't change the underlying formatter (Template:country flaglink) last night before I went to bed, but will fix it now! Andrwsc 15:46, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
Ah! - I guess that's OK. You do need sleep in between harassment over Irish flags. :) --sony-youthpléigh 15:48, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

flagicon

I restored some of the Country data templates you deleted today. The deleted templates were useful in enabling to use in lists the flag template for entities that do not have an own flag. These kind of templates exited allready for other entities, see e.g.  Wake Island. So please do not delete these templates. Electionworld Talk? 18:37, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. They are not necessary for items where an existing flag template exists. Our convention in Wikipedia:WikiProject Flag Template is to add new templates only for flags not already present under this system. On my "to do list" is cleanup all those US island templates, so those will be going soon too. As a side note, I had certainly noticed that I had created redlinks on your sandbox article, and I had already done some work to fix that, but you were in the middle of some edits yourself. Please see User:Andrwsc/list, where I saved a copy of the changes I made to fix those redlinks. Andrwsc 18:43, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I see we disagree, but I really see advantages. Is there a consensus on the convention you refer too, If yes, I will accept that, if not, we have to see further. BTW, could you react to my talk page. I missed your reaction for 10 minutes, in which I restored the other templates too. Electionworld Talk? 19:00, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

okay. It is your project, I respect that. Electionworld Talk? 21:52, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! I wouldn't say that it's "my" project, but I've certainly invested a lot of time into it! And there are still another thousand or so flag templates that I want to merge/replace with standard equivalents... Andrwsc 21:55, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Smile

{{Bk}}

I wonder if you can make these automatic:

As per your advice, I decided to leave out Iran, Saudi Arabia, etc.

    • by the way it becomes more and more common to say "Slovakia" and "Czechia" and not Slovak- and Czech Republic in Europe Citius Altius Fortius 07:08, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

The FIBA qualifiers start today and this will save editors a lot of time. Thanks!!!

I think  United States should be USA. See here. —MC 01:33, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
 Done (mostly) The USSR/Soviet Union thing is a bit tricky, so please use {{bk|Soviet Union}} in the meantime. (Should not be an issue for current FIBA tournament!) I will sort that out later (basically, the two underlying templates need to merge). Andrwsc 03:26, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I've gone around using {{bk|Soviet Union}} on some historical thingies. (As you can see, I'm extremely lazy, LOL) Thanks a lot. --Howard the Duck 05:44, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
Another one;  North Korea should say "DPR Korea" or "DPR of Korea". --Howard the Duck 02:30, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Naval flags, again

I found a good reference for naval flags: Wikipedia:WikiProject Ships/Ensigns. It has two columns: one for ensigns and one for jacks. As I mentioned before, I have the opinion that the naval alias should only contain naval ensigns - no jacks - for consistency and to avoid incorrect use. --Himasaram 10:31, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I saw that page too. I put it in the "See also" section of the template documentation of {{navy}} (which is what all of these flag alias-naval and link alias-naval lines are used to support). Thanks for your help in bringing all those other templates up to date! Andrwsc 14:36, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
The pleasure was all mine. :) Now, I noticed that someone has added the civil ensign to Template:Country data Switzerland. The question is, do we want all the different ensigns accessible from the country flag template, or would it just constitute bloat? Apart from civil: merchant, governmental, and war. There's still the question about the naval jack as well... This gallery on commons is also a good reference: commons:Maritime flags. --Himasaram 06:23, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
Well, that's a great question. I guess my position is that I only add new variants to existing country_data templates, or add new templates, when I see existing wikicode that can be improved. I don't think these templates should be used as a big flag repository with all possible variants. If a particular flag isn't used anywhere in Wikipedia in icon form, why "bloat" these templates by including it? I don't think that "it may be used someday, so I'll add it now" is a good justification. I'd rather only add them if they are actually used (in icon form). Also, I don't think these templates should be considered as an alternate version of articles in the "Flag of xxx" series. So, with this philosphy in mind, I would not add the naval jacks, merchant ensigns, etc. to these templates. They aren't needed in icon form (e.g. as the naval ensigns are via Template:Navy), so why add to the "bloat"? I hope you agree! I'm planning on a big re-write of the main documentation on Wikipedia:WikiProject Flag Template, so that may be a good place to capture some of these thoughts. Andrwsc 07:02, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. Let's add more flags only when they are needed in articles. Feel free to write some "anti-bloat" clauses in the docs, though such issues are IMHO self-regulating. I'm against rule- or guideline-bloat as well as too many of them tend to fuel the bureaucracy, making everyone's stay here at the 'pedia less enjoyable. --Himasaram 07:25, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Not working templates

Could you find out why  Macau and  Democratic Republic of the Congo don't work? Electionworld Talk? 18:55, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

 Done Every now and then, some images from Commons fail to render properly at icon size. The problem does not lie with the flag templates, but is something with the image caches or the SVG file. (e.g. [[Image:Flag of Macau.svg|22x20px|border]] also failed.) I purged the cache on Commons (by this URL, for example) and they work again! Hope this helps, Andrwsc 19:06, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

License tagging for Image:West Indies Cricket Board Flag.svg

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This is an automated notice by OrphanBot. If you need help on selecting a tag to use, or in adding the tag to the image description, feel free to post a message at Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. 20:13, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

About this flag image; why did you upload it locally and not to Commons? Feel free to overwrite commons:Image:West Indies Cricket Board Flag.svg if you believe your version is superior! --Himasaram 07:28, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
I couldn't remember my commons password!! If you can fix this, feel free to do so. Thanks, Andrwsc 16:41, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
Done! --Himasaram 00:27, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Altlink for Flagicon's

Hi,

You removed | altlink = {{{altlink|}}} from {{Country data Karelia}} and {{Country data Transcaucasia}}. It's OK by me, because i have no idea what altlink means, but please notice this: To create these two templates i copied most of the code from {{Country data Russia}}. That template still includes that same code and possibly some others.

If you've got time, then i'll appreciate it if you could explain what this altlink thing means. --Amir E. Aharoni 06:06, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

The altlink parameter is used by templates such as {{fb}}, which produces wikilinks to "... national football team" articles. For example, {{fb|Russia}} produces  Russia. The altlink parameter is needed to append the "national football team" suffix after the country name. Since there are no articles such as Karelia national football team, those country_data templates do not need the extra parameters. I am planning to improve the documentation for the internal workings of these templates, so sorry for any confusion in the meantime! Hope this helps, Andrwsc 06:22, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the detailed explanation! --Amir E. Aharoni 06:43, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

NI consensus has finally been achieved!

There seems to be no with your proposal and if you could implement it that would you marvellous. I'm afraid I'm a bit thick with images. Biofoundationsoflanguage 19:22, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, I'm somewhat skeptical of the claim of consensus!! Nonetheless, I shall try to do something to the infobox shortly and we'll see what happens..... Andrwsc 19:23, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
Andrwsc, there is no concensus on the Northern Ireland talkpage for any change there, the proposal to include only the Union Flag and the Ulster Banner in the infobox is in breach of WP:OR and WP:POV I have ask numerous times for those proposing to include the Ulster Banner to provide sources to support their claim of de facto status, this they have failed to do, so any inclusion of this banner can be revert as WP:OR. also User:Biofoundationsoflanguage and User:Astrotrain are edit warring on a number of articles such as United Kingdom, Template:Northern Ireland cities claiming that they have consensus from the Northern Ireland talk page to do so, dispite the fact their are discussions in both of these talk page which they are ignoring.
I proposed a neutral alternative for the infobox on the Northern Ireland article, User:Padraig3uk/Sandbox5 this is being rejected because it displays the flags used by both communities and the text clearly says that, along with the only official flag the Union Flag on top. But it seems that some editors aren't concerned with a neutral version and just want to include the Ulster banner which is POV and OR.--padraig 23:07, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
I disagree with your current argument of original research and POV. The recent discussion of what "de facto" means makes it quite clear that there are multiple reliable sources that demonstrate "common practice". There is no original research in that.
I realize that some editors are edit-warring over other articles, navigation boxes, etc. and I don't want to get involved in any of that crap. Rest assured, I am not "aligning" myself with that camp. I have no political agenda here.
Nonetheless, I feel that the suggestion to add the two flags (not three) to the infobox is a sound one. The current textual description of the situation is well-worded, and adding the two images mentioned in that paragraph can only help the usefulness of the infobox.
I really think you need to try to take an objective look at this issue. Your continued comments about "both communities" clearly demonstrate that you look at this issue as a purely political one. I think that's a rather narrow view. Yes, the UB is used by one "side" and is offensive to the "other side" (not that I can ever remember which labels apply to each one!) but it should be indisputably clear that in a broader context, the UB is regularly used as an unofficial flag.
It is worth mentioning that I got dragged into this issue through my work with flag templates (at heart, I'm more of a "template jockey" than anything!) and I really didn't know much about the flag issue. I found it rather odd that the flag with which I was familiar was not in the standard infobox. Digging deeper, I found the flags issue article and others, and educated myself (somewhat) about the situation. I think my personal experience here is a perfect illustration of the power of Wikipedia. By placing the Union Jack and a well-written caption alongside the Ulster Banner, we are encouraging casual readers to learn more about the issue. That's what I'm fighting for — I think that would be far more useful in an encyclopedia article than showing nothing at all. That only encourages the casual reader/editor to add it back in (after all, it's probably a flag they are familiar with too), which only perpetuates the edit-war cycle.
Please try to think of it in those terms. What would be of most encyclopedic value for that infobox? I believe it should be something that best illustrates current practice (both de jure and de facto), and also draws the reader deeper into the subject matter so that they learn about all the problems that this current practice carries with it.
Andrwsc 23:30, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
Andrwsc, I personally would have no problem having the Union Flag on its own as that is the only current official flag, but to include the Ulster Banner as well is POV, it would be better having the Symbol of the Northern Ireland Assembly along with the Union Flag, that is the symbol of the Current Northern Ireland Executive government and is a neutral symbol that neither side can be offended by, plus it would be better then a flag that has not existed for 34yrs. Ask you say wikipedia is an encyclopedia so it should show what is relevent today and the current political setup rather then one that is 34yrs out of date. Remember the Ulster Banner and former Coat of Arms are already in the main article therefore there is no need to have them in the infobox.--padraig 23:52, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
Well, that assembly symbol is a symbol, not a flag, so it doesn't really belong there. More importantly, it is very obscure compared to the well-known options. Offensiveness is irrelevant - Wikipedia is not censored. And please stop with the "has not existed for 34 years" rhetoric. It hasn't been official in 34 years, but to say it "doesn't exist" is not helping your argument. We see it all the time. It exists. I agree that we should show "what is relevant today", but that is the current legal flag and the current de facto flag. Lastly, I don't buy the argument about "no need to have them in the infobox" because they are in the main article. You know very well that the infobox layout is standard across Wikipedia pages, and thereby carries certain reader expectations. If you object so strongly to the flag in general, you would be fighting to have it removed from the article body too. You are focusing on the infobox to make a political point, using the current legal status as your main defence (as if the UK legislative bodies control what we do on Wikipedia), and now falling back to a "OR/POV" claim. Andrwsc 00:20, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
I don't object to the Ulster Banner it dosent belong in the infobox, and it was me that put it and the Coat of Arms into the main Article, I also use it on articles and templates dealing with the period 1922-1972. I have done a infobox based on my earlier idea here have a look and see what you think.--padraig 00:28, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry I brought this here, Andrew. :( Biofoundationsoflanguage 07:51, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, no, I brought this upon myself when I decided to enter this discussion debate after it was brought over to the flag template WikiProject for a period... Andrwsc 18:57, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Andrwsc, here is a link you might find interesting, Report it is a debate amongst all the political parties on the flag issue, during the preparation of The Flags (Northern Ireland) Order 2000, none of the parties involved even mention the Ulster Banner, they are concerned mainly with the Union flag and its use and also the Irish Tricolour is mentioned.--padraig 11:36, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I think that's perfect source material for the discussion about the Union Flag (and the tricolour) on the NI pages, but I don't think the lack of mention of the UB is reason to dismiss the "de factoness" of that flag in many contexts. I think you are placing too much weight on the importance of the legal status of each flag. I think there is freedom in Wikipedia to hold to a broader standard of what is notable and reliably sourced. Andrwsc 18:57, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
Andrwsc, I think people are putting to much weight on its use in some sport competitions to claim it is or has de facto status, if you read the talk page some of them now want to only have the Ulster Banner in the infobox, without any other flags either the Union Flag, the Assembly symbol or the Tricolour, in this case I think the infobox should remain without any flags as all they are interested in is a one sided POV being included.--padraig 19:05, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
Well, even I know that's clearly a bad idea to only have the UB! But on the "spectrum of encyclopedic value", I think that Union Flag + Ulster Banner > Union Flag + Assembly symbol > Union Flag by itself > Ulster Banner by itself > no flags at all. I'm still not sure where the Union Flag + Ulster Banner + Irish Tricolour combination fits on that scale. And yeah, I believe that having no flags has the least value than any of those options. Least value does not equate to most neutral POV either. Andrwsc 19:16, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
The Union Flag + Ulster Banner + Irish Tricolour combination would show the Official flag on top, then the Ulster Banner and Tricolour below that to show the flags that the two communities in a divided society identify with. I proposed it because neither the Ulster Banner or Tricolour have any status and are used as symbols of identity in Northern Ireland, this would be a neutral as it gives equal weight to both sides in the community. But unfortunately some editors would like to deny that the nationalist community exist, and that we have a powersharing adminstration in Northern Ireland, comprising of representatives of both communities.--padraig 19:27, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
(de-indented this sub-thread for clarity)
I understand what you are saying, but from my (non-Irish) perspective, I'm struggling with that idea because I think it reduces the usage of those flags to only usage as symbols of a "divided society". I see significant usage of the UB beyond that singular view. I think that's what I'm asking you to do - look at this from a wider vision that just the nationalist/unionist conflict. When I see the UB used frequently on TV broadcasts and webpages covering the sports I follow, and when I see pages like that Carling advertisement, it seems incongruent with the statement that it "only" represents unionists. Andrwsc 19:42, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
Andrwsc, I don't know if your aware but sport in Northern Ireland is as much divided between the two communities as any thing else, if you take football the Northern Ireland team is supported mainly by members of the Unionist community, whereas the Nationalist community mainly give there support to the Republic of Ireland team. The same would apply with the olymipics. Regarding the Carling ads Carlin are the main sponsors as far as I know of the N Ireland team, so they will show the flag used by the supporters of that team and the football association in Northern Ireland.--padraig 22:56, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
This is a report on sport in Northern Ireland this Link is to the section on politics and sport use of flags etc, for different sports, it may be of use as well to you in your work on the flagicons .--padraig 10:48, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
That's a really useful link! Thanks for that, Padraig. I don't know if you've seen some of my other work with flag templates, but I've recently been working on various sport national team templates, and they can automatically use per-sport flags, which is often used with various all-Ireland teams. Check out the following, and pay close attention to both the flags and the wikilinks:
  • {{fb|Ireland}} Ireland (football, 1882-1923)
  • {{ru|Ireland}} Ireland (rugby union)
  • {{cr|Ireland}} Ireland (cricket)
  • {{fh|Ireland}} Ireland (field hockey)
Your web link will be a good reference for this sort of work. Thanks, Andrwsc 17:37, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
I have put forward this proposal that has the Union Flag and Assembly Symbol on top, with the Ulster banner and Tricolour below, so that covers everyones preferences, and is equality neutral to everyone, what do your think.--padraig 16:45, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
Glad you found that useful, it also helps to show why I don't agree that the use of the Ulster Banner in some sports gives it de facto status as some try to claim.--padraig 17:52, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Straw poll

There seems to be a bit of vote stacking going on using new user accounts that have no prior contribs to WP, on the strawpoll, can we declare these invalid ?.--padraig 19:19, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, it's just a straw poll and certainly not binding. It is just a "measure of consensus", or lack thereof. Even without those questionable "votes", I'd say the only one of those four questions that had any consensus was that the Irish Tricolour should not be in the infobox. No amount of vote stacking is going to make any difference to the other three questions, I think. As for how to handle them, I'd suggest putting something like this underneath them: This comment was made by a new user with no previous Wikipedia edits. (or similar wording). Andrwsc 03:28, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Request

I think  Yugoslavia should not point to Yugoslavia national football team, which talks about the pre-1992 football team only. Instead it should point to Serbia national football team, which talks about everything post-1992 (Yugoslavia FR, Serbia and Montenegro, Serbia). I don't know how I can change Template:Country data Yugoslavia to do it, so I think you may be able to do that. Chanheigeorge 19:37, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't think that's very easy to do, since the country_data templates can each select a single target wikilink per sport, not per flag variant. The best option, in my opinion, is to use {{fb|FR Yugoslavia}}, and I have just made that work as you've described:  Yugoslavia. Hope this is ok! Andrwsc 02:41, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Another thing: why does  Netherlands display "The Netherlands" instead of "Netherlands"? I've tried changing Template:Country data Netherlands but to no avail. Chanheigeorge 00:43, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Somebody changed the template. I'm in the middle of changing it back... Andrwsc 00:45, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Thankyou

Just popping by to say thankyou for cleaning up some of the countrydata templates I have created. I am mostly involved with reconstructing flags, and really didn't do as good a job of these as I could have. I still have a few to go, and will try and set them out the way you have. aliasd·U·T 09:55, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

PASO flag code

Hey Andrwsc, when you changed the flagPASO templates (such as here), you seem to have accidentally broken some of the code associations. For instance, take a look at 2007 Pan American Games medal count, noticing that Netherlands Antilles appears twice, because ANT is coded to that nation rather than Antigua and Barbuda.

Is there a particular reason you made these changes? The IOC country codes are used by PASO, so aren't "Olympic-specific" to the exclusion of the Pan American Games. -- Jonel (Speak to me) 14:11, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Ah, I was afraid of that, sorry! I was concerned that using those templates for all international multi-sport Games would cause "template bloat" from editors adding more years, labels, etc. to them, such as this malformed edit. Let me figure out a better solution than just reverting. In the meantime, I've fixed that one page to work. Andrwsc 16:32, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, I figured there was something going on there which is why I asked instead of switching 'em back. Luckily, that's the only one that uses the ANT flagPASO templates at the moment. Good luck finding a solution for that. -- Jonel (Speak to me) 16:35, 8 August 2007 (UTC)


United Team of Germany

Hi, I just answered your post in the discussion of the page for the EUA! Citius Altius Fortius 07:03, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Official reports of teh Olympic Games

Hi, you sent a link for a pdf for the 1968 Olympics - I'm very interested in the reports, would you mind to give me a link where I can find all? - thanks very much Citius Altius Fortius 07:05, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

The website is now located here. Andrwsc 17:00, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
Ohh - wow, thanks very much! That is really interesting!! Citius Altius Fortius 10:26, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Template:Country data

I'm wondering if these mechanisms can be used on other things such as countries? For example, on UAAP Season 70, it'll be less tiring if there's a template, and not a raw code, and the templates should work perfectly, except for the size of the flag (actually, it's an icon). --Howard the Duck 09:55, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, they could, but I'd rather that they didn't. For maintenance purposes, I think it would be much simpler to keep the flag template system reserved for flags only, not as a more generic image rendering tool. I think your best bet would be to create a set of team-specific templates. For example, perhaps Template:UAAPcol could be created with the following wikicode:
[[Image:{{{1}}} colors.PNG|12px|border]]
This would take advantage of the fact that all of those icons have "xxx colors.PNG" as the file name. Then you would use {{UAAPcol|Adamson}}, {{UAAPcol|UST}}, {{UAAPcol|La Salle}}, etc. to create the icons (only). If you wanted to created something that included the team name too, then I'd suggest a series of unparameterized templates like Template:UAAP-UP to render UP Fighting Maroons, and so on.
This approach would also save you from having to put size=12px in all your wikicode as well, since these UAAP-specific templates would have the size hard-coded in them.
Hope this helps, 23:53, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
I've taught of that too, but I'm also wanting to have names automatically, like what the flags has, along with redirects. I'd look for other options too... --Howard the Duck 01:55, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
Well, there's lots of options available! What would you like the wikicode to look like, and I'll see what I can do. Andrwsc 05:44, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
There are only 16 teams so I'd still want to use the flag templates since they can be extremely flexible. But the UAAPcol shouldn't be too fat behind. --Howard the Duck 06:27, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
With only 16 teams, I think the best choice is a single template (or two, if you want an icon-only version as well) with a 16-way #switch statement. The flag template system was really designed the way that it is because a thousand-way switch is impossible. I've seen templates like Template:Brazil fc 2 that do something similar that you suggest, so with that in mind, I have created Template:UAAPteam for you. Let me know if that satisfies your requirements! Andrwsc 18:40, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
I'll see how will this work with the other editors (and I'll be adding NCAA teams too; and perhaps other people would start creating for their own collegiate league (but most of these are too minor to be included). --Howard the Duck 02:20, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I think something screwed up, while I was adding NCAA teams, it seems the template can't handle (yet) teams with the same colors image icon (San Beda=UE, JRU=NU). Can you remedy this? --Howard the Duck 02:36, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I think the solution to that problem would require different labels to be used for the parameters for the template. I will work on that. Andrwsc 03:15, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
 Done. I restored Image:UE colors.PNG and Image:JRU colors.PNG (which had been deleted as duplicate images), as they are needed under different image names to work with this template as written. All looks good now. Let me know if you need anything else, Andrwsc 17:19, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
Can you fixup Template:UAAPteam-rt? --Howard the Duck 02:43, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
 Done Hope this helps! Andrwsc 03:49, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
Thanks ! --Howard the Duck 03:54, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Sorry if I snapped at you but I just had to take time of for stress and as for your suggestion we could put links to related flag pages or split it into several pages but I dont have the time to do it Highfields 17:39, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Ok, thanks for that! I'm not suggesting that you do all the work either - I'm just looking for some guidelines for that page, and it can evolve towards that goal over time, with assistance from any editor who wants to help with the task, one section at a time. Thanks, Andrwsc 17:45, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Image Query

I noticed an editor has changed a tag posted by OrphanBot on an image: [1]. Is this acceptable or no. Considering that it's very likely a picture the editor took, I'm not sure to revert it or not. -WarthogDemon 01:33, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I removed the post you made for a banned user, since this is forbidden under the Wikipedia:Banning policy (see "Editing on behalf of banned users"). I hope you don't mind. Fram 07:22, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Sure, ok. The reasons for SndrAndrss' ban were unfortunate - he/she was for the most part, a useful editor, making lots of good additions to the encyclopedia, and certainly no malicious edits. However, SndrAndrss was rather clueless, and sometimes caused aggravation for other editors who had to clean up afterwards. Anyway, this request was not unreasonable, and I would rather see someone else help than for SndrAndrss to start anonymous/sockpuppet editing, but I understand the policy. Andrwsc 14:14, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Vietnam Olympic

If you look at the map, North Vietnam didn't play ever unless united before the break and after the vietnam war as one country. Having the South Vietnam team labled as "vietnam" is not only inaccurate but also misleading. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Sgt Simpson (talkcontribs) 04:13, August 23, 2007 (UTC).

Please add your comments to the bottom of a talk page, not to the top. As for the "Vietnam at the xxxx Olympics" pages, the name of the nation as used by the IOC was just "Vietnam", so that's what we use. We've had this discussion at Wikipedia:WikiProject Olympics. Thanks, Andrwsc 06:19, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Note that I have gone back and changed the intro of those article to read: The Republic of Vietnam competed as Vietnam at the xxxx Summer Olympics.... Therefore, the wikilink is to South Vietnam, and the names are accurate. Andrwsc 16:43, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

"big" template for field hockey

Can you create a big template for field hockey team? Similar to fb-big or bk-big, thanks. --Aleenf1 07:33, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

 Done. {{fh-big}} and {{fhw-big}} are ready for use. Andrwsc 07:52, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Can you please make Great Britain team can be forward to (not redirect) [Great Britain and Northern Ireland national field hockey team]? Thanks! --Aleenf1 03:24, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
 Done. {{fh|GBR}} Great Britain. Andrwsc 03:29, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
So, after some discussion with other, New Zealand, i move New Zealand team to "Black Sticks Men" and "Black Sticks Women", so again make the template can forward to and thanks once more. --Aleenf1 11:15, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
 Done and you're welcome! Andrwsc 11:30, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Hi, sorry for the long response time, but I've been making preparations for my sister's wedding. You mentioned on my talk page that I mistakenly tagged an article with {{db-bio}}. I took a look at the article's history and it does appear that way. Since I spend a lot of time tagging hundreds of articles, I could easily make a mistake, and while I'm not trying to cover anything up or anything, it does seem uncharacteristic of me to do something like that. I must of have been pretty tired that night or something. What really seems weird is that I only put those kind of speedy delete tags on an article if I find it in the New Pages list (which I monitor all the time). I believe I saw this article there and, hence, it wouldn't've had much of a history yet. Just seems weird for that to be in the New Pages section. Either way, excellent catch on that one, and thanks for the heads up. Useight 16:35, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

No worries whatsoever!! It looked like an honest mistake, and that's why my message to you was just a "friendly reminder". I wasn't too fussed about repairing the article myself, but it seemed to me that sending you that reminder was the right thing to do. Happy editing! Andrwsc 16:40, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, it's nice to know that on Wikipedia everyone is covering everyone else's back. I was thinking about it for quite some time and I still couldn't figure out what happened, but I guess that with a lot of editing a mistake is bound to slip in every once in a while. Thanks again for letting me know. Useight 20:30, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Category talk:Innosense albums

I tried to create an {{Oldcfd}} template for Category talk:Innosense albums but can't quite get it right? Can you fix it? -WarthogDemon 03:52, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Er, nevermind. It suddenly played nice and worked for me. :P Sorry for bothering ya. Cheers! -WarthogDemon 03:58, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Canadian flag templates

Hi, I created these flag templates. Please do not change them. If you want there to be standard sized templates, please create your own. I created these for use in curling articles, so the flags would be large enough to distinguish the difference between Manitoba and Ontario. -- Earl Andrew - talk 00:05, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

copied from User talk:Earl Andrew
Uh, please read WP:OWN. Although you may created these templates only for use on a relatively small number of curling articles, they have been "usurped" by many other editors for many other articles. For example, Template:AB is transcluded on over 500 articles, many of which rely on standard flag icon formatting. Look at Highwood, Calgary, where the flags for Canada, Alberta, and Calgary are all intended to line up together. Other instances I've come across are Little League World Series articles, where Canadian province flags, US state flags, and international country flags are all used and therefore all need to be similarly sized. You even reverted a change of mine at 2001 Jeux de la Francophonie where the Quebec and New Brunswick flags were misaligned with the nation flags. I ask you - is it easier to edit a handful of curling articles to use the flag size you prefer, or to cause thousands of other pages to have formatting alignment problems? Andrwsc 00:18, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps their usuption was intended to have them as larger flags as well? Anyways, if you do insist on changing all of the templates, please do not forget the historical templates too. -- Earl Andrew - talk 01:04, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
The flags are listed on the World Statesmen website, and frankly showing a flag that hadn't existed at that point in history would be inaccurate. Now, I have no idea whether these flags were used or not, and it seems to me its some Wikipedians word against a Website's word. -- Earl Andrew - talk 18:44, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
I have removed User:Vintagekits from the list of parties. If you feel that he is totally necessary for the mediation, please tell me on my talk page or on Wikipedia talk:Requests for mediation/Northern Ireland flag usage. --דניאל - Dantheman531 18:50, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry if I messed up your previous edit to the table in the article. I found the table a week or so ago and worked from there to rewrite it with flag t/p's and other changes. I tried my best to merge what you had with mine. So, in summary I'm sorry for any mixup. BTW, you've done a good thing with the flag T/Ps! - Thanks, Hoshie 23:42, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

No worries, all is well now! Thanks, Andrwsc 23:43, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Template:Vb

Template:Vb seems unused because it is always substituted (unless someone forgets to do this.) It is qactively used in WP:AFD for long time. `'Míkka 17:50, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

The new usage for this template is used on several articles already. Do not revert back to a redirect unless you fix all those pages first. Thanks, Andrwsc 18:12, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
I also note that Template:ab is also redirected to Template:afd bottom (and is a better abbreviation), so you can always use {{subst:ab}} to accomplish the same thing as you used to do with vb. Thanks, Andrwsc 18:18, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Please don't mess with long-established templates without discussion in the future. `'Míkka 05:38, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Discussion where? There was no evidence to suggest that it was a "long-established" template. There is no talk page, no template documentation, no comments in the edit history to suggest its usage, and no transclusions other than two year old talk archives (and yes, I examined them all before usurping the template name). I made an honest, good-faith edit to use this template name for another good usage, and noted that in the edit history. I also see that it took 10 days for anybody to see that "vb" had changed, so I assume that most everybody who had been using it had migrated to the apparent successor at {{subst:ab}}. Lastly, while you lecture me about "messing" with this template, you had no hesitation in reverting it back to a redirect without noticing — or without caring — that your change obviously broke a half dozen articles that depended on the new usage. Please be more careful to repair any damage you cause with edits like this that you make in the future. Thanks, Andrwsc 07:15, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks

[2] Thanks for fixing that. I need to look into it carefully before I do more work on that. Tom Harrison Talk 22:24, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

I presume you are planning to remove the colonial Bahamas flag image from Commons, so I simply edited the two primary flag templates that use this image (namely, Template:Country data Bahamas and Template:Country flag IOC alias BAH) to use a placeholder image until we get a free replacement. Once the servers catch up, there ought to be few or no pages that use the obsolete image. And once we get a free image back on Commons, only two template edits will restore the flag to all the articles that use it! Hope this helps, Andrwsc 22:31, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Footballbox template

Hi. Thanks very much for your work on Template:fb and the like. The previous thousand-odd templates were quite a pain. (ISTR categorising quite a few, I do hope that helped you to replace them, and that it wasn't just wasted effort!) However, I was wondering if it'd be possible to improve {{footballbox}} (and {{rugbybox2}}, etc) so that using 'team1' automatically picks the -rt variant? If this isn't even feasible, then I am sorry for asking! I also wonder whether it'd be best to avoid having to include the name of the sport when specifying the team. I suppose there have been a few occasions where Rugby League teams have played against Rugby Union teams (which would need to be accomodated) but this sort of thing isn't especially common. :) The reason I ask this is that I'm doing some FIFA Women's World Cup stuff at the minute, and I could easily revert to {{fb}} instead of {{fbw}} — it'd probably be spotted, but it just seems a bit redundant. Thanks again! --StuartBrady (Talk) 12:07, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Hi Stuart, I completely missed this message, so sorry for not replying! I would advise against your proposed change to footballbox etc. That idea was implemented in the older version of {{rugbybox}}, where the "Reverse" templates were automatically called. At first, it seemed like a good idea, but the problem is that those match score templates are not exclusively used by national teams. Therefore, you ended up with having to create templates for every possible team (e.g. {{BULLru}}) and even for arbitrary text strings. There used to be templates (with obscure names) just for strings like "Winner of semi-final A". Also, there are enough instances where historical flag variants are needed, so I think that adding that complexity to the "box" templates is overkill. Better to keep that logic in the various national team templates, and keep the home = and away = able to accept any arbitrary string. Hope this helps, Andrwsc 19:34, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
Templates for every possible team really wasn't what I had in mind. I certainly would not want the home and away parameters to cease supporting arbitrary strings. (I did raise that concern in my original comment, and I had not intended to be taken as the main point of my question, so I've now struck that point out.) The main point was whether the behaviour of {{ru}} could (and if so, should) be modified when it is used from within a rugbybox's "home" parameter. This would allow {{ru}} to be used for both the home and away parameters, and it would just work. Or I could just keep adding the missing "-rt"s whenever anyone gets it wrong (which is quite often) :). --StuartBrady (Talk) 20:01, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
Ah, ok, I see what you mean now. To be honest, I'm not sure how the template would "know" whether or not it was being called from another template, and whether or not it was for the home or away parameter.
One thing that might be possible is to have two parameters each for the home and away sides - one that works automatically with country names & codes (perhaps homenat and awaynat), and another for use as a fallback (for arbitrary strings) if the first was empty (i.e. home and away as they now exist). Inside {{rugbybox}} we could use something like:
....
{{#if: {{{homenat|}}} | {{ru-rt|{{{homenat}}}}} | {{{home}}} }}
....
{{#if: {{{awaynat|}}} | {{ru|{{{awaynat}}}}} | {{{away}}} }}
....
Then you could simply say homenat = AUS instead of home = {{ru-rt|AUS}}. Is that what you had in mind? Andrwsc 20:18, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, that possibility had occurred to me. I was previously hoping that we could just define a parameter that home's {{ru}} could look at, but as far as I can tell, parameters have local scope only, so that really doesn't seem to be possible. The homenat idea might work, though — although it's a shame that it couldn't be used to specify flag variants. To be honest, there are lots and lots of places where {{ru}} and friends aren't even being used, so it's probably not worth worrying about. --StuartBrady (Talk) 21:08, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
Yes, template parameters are definitely local scope. If you've looked at the inner workings of the flag template system, you'll see instances of wikicode that looks like: size = {{{size|}}}. That is the only way I've found to pass a parameter into another template, but I see no way at all to pass a parameter out to it's caller. Andrwsc 21:26, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Flag problems

The flagicon template doesn't seem to work in this moment. It doesn't show the flags in firefox. Can you help. Electionworld Talk? 12:53, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Flag Template#General flag template breakage? --StuartBrady (Talk) 12:56, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Rugby union team templates

Hi again. I'm a little concerned over the deletion of the rugby union team templates — Wikipedia:WikiProject Rugby union/Templates still documents them. Does this need some discussion first, or do you think it would be okay just to jump in and replace the docs? --StuartBrady (Talk) 20:34, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Ah yeah, maybe I'm being a bit WP:BOLD here with the speedy deletes... I have been working on these conversions for a few months now (e.g. replaced and deleted every football team template, and ditto for tennis) and have had no objections, so perhaps that explains the increased boldness! I probably should have posted a notice on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Rugby union describing this process, but I saw that there was already a message to that effect ("Country templates"). In any case, I shall update the template page shortly. Thanks for any help here, Andrwsc 20:50, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
Okay, I've been bold and updated the documentation! BTW, I've spotted that the documentation for {{ru}} mentions FIFA. Is that intentional? Should there be some mention of the IRB? --StuartBrady (Talk) 22:07, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
Thanks! As for FIFA, feel free to change that if necessary. Hopefully the IRB does not use different country codes than either the IOC or FIFA. When the current flag template system was implemented, and before I created the national team templates on top of it, we set up country code aliases for ISO, IOC, and FIFA but stopped there, so that's the background behind the FIFA comment in the documentation. If you want to update that, feel free to do so! Andrwsc 03:28, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
Okay. AFAICT, this is handled by the country data redirects, so if there's any conflicting codes, the ISO code would be the first choice, then IOC, then FIFA, and then maybe other associations? If that is indeed the case, I should probably update the documentation to recommend referring to the ISO codes, and say that "most IOC and (FIFA|IIHF|FIVB|FIBA|IRB|ICC|IHF|...) (as appropriate) codes also work". BTW, I spotted in some of the Rugby articles, you've used {{flagicon|Ireland}}, but I wonder whether {{flagicon|Ireland|rugby}} should be used for players and referees? I suppose you'd have to check that they're not actually from Northern Ireland, if you don't want to use the rugby variant. --StuartBrady (Talk) 17:10, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
For the country codes, the only conflicts are for ANT (ISO and FIFA = Netherlands Antilles, IOC = Antigua&Barbuda) and BRN (IOC = Bahrain, FIFA = Brunei), and neither of these ought to be an issue for the rugby teams. There was a conscious effort to only create three letter redirects for standard country codes, and not to invent anything. That's why you'll see things like {{davis|Eastern Caribbean}} for {{davis|Eastern Caribbean}}, {{ru|Arabian Gulf}} for {{ru|Arabian Gulf}}, and so on. Interestingly, the IRB uses "IRE", so that works out well!
As for Ireland, if there are any instances of {{flagicon|Ireland}} in a rugby context, then they were probably already there before my edits. I don't think I would intentionally do that. If so, it was a mistake! Feel free to fix those. Andrwsc 03:41, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Just letting you know, I think I've converted everything that remained in Category:National rugby union team templates except for the seven's templates. You'll probably want to delete Wikipedia:WikiProject Rugby union/All templates. I hope I haven't missed anything... Cheers! --StuartBrady (Talk) 01:49, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Actually, on second thoughts, Wikipedia:WikiProject Rugby union/All templates lists one or two non-national team templates. They should probably be listed elsewhere though (or not at all). --StuartBrady (Talk) 01:50, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
Great! Thanks for your help with this. I will help finish what needs to be done and delete anything that is orphaned as a result of our work. Certainly all the "Reverse" templates ought to go! Andrwsc 03:41, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Hi, don't mean to barge in here, but I saw Andrwsc was involved in this area and I wonder if you guys can help. Half the templates (fb and ru) don't work anymore, because the country codes aren't recognised. RSA and ENG being some examples, I can only guess that it's because they aren't ISO codes, but they are IOC or FIFA (in the case of ENG). What gives? --Deon Steyn 07:12, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

{{TAIru}}

Hi, once more. :) I've just spotted that {{TAIru}} ( Chinese Taipei) looks different to {{ru|TPE}} ( Chinese Taipei). Is the change deliberate? --StuartBrady (Talk) 20:38, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

The new one is correct. See: http://www.irb.com/unions/union=11000094/index.htmlMC 01:10, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
That was one of the "cleanup" things I had yet to finish off. Basically, I think the original template had it wrong too. What we should do for the rugby team is the same thing we did with the {{bk}} template for the basketball team. The Chinese Taipei designation was not used until 1979, so not only should the ROC flag be used for events prior to that date, but the nation name should be "Republic of China" as well. The wikilink will still point to the single Chinese Taipei national rugby union team article. Therefore, we should use {{ru|ROC}} for  Republic of China pre-1979, and {{ru|TPE}} for  Chinese Taipei for events after that date. Andrwsc 03:50, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Country Data templates

I believe I have found the problem with the numerous broken templates. It looks like all you changes to the Country Data templates, specifically either changing the Alias fields or the alias1 (changed to redir1) have broken many templates, specifically it seems the flagicons? --Deon Steyn 07:23, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Could you point out some specific examples? I can't see anything wrong, besides the current image-related server problems. --StuartBrady (Talk) 10:46, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
I see you listed RSA and ENG as examples. RSA is affected by the server problems at the moment, but ENG seems fine. Maybe something's been fixed in the mean time? --StuartBrady (Talk) 10:50, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
Aaah, I wasn't aware of image server problems. Some other examples include: Template:Country data Canada, Template:Country data Tonga, Template:Country data Samoa, Template:Country data Ireland. In some cases it's only the ru template that's not working and it seems every time you load a page it's a different one not working (pages like 2007 Rugby World Cup). --Deon Steyn 11:51, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
I can state with absolute certainty that the recent flag icon problems are NOT due to any changes in any of the flag system templates! There are threads on village pump etc. that are describing the image server overload. Andrwsc 15:42, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

checkY No, you have done great work on the flag templates. I wasn't aware of the server problems and everything is working fine now. --Deon Steyn 06:10, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

No worries! Every now and then this sort of thing happens. Perhaps I should put a big warning notice on some of them template doc/talk pages to let people know where to look first. Cheers, Andrwsc 06:34, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

{{DEE}}

you recently deleted the {{DEE}} used in lieu of  German Empire, citing that it 'is not a standard country code.' i'm wondering if i could get a clarification on the specific guidelines for such, particularly since several flags are currently in use that are not 'standard country codes.' e.g.  Switzerland. --emerson7 | Talk 20:57, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

SUI is a 'standard country code'. It's the IOC and FIFA code. The argument here is that Wikipedia shouldn't invent its own country codes. --StuartBrady (Talk) 21:31, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
On Wikipedia:WikiProject Flag Template, we have created "shortcut alias" templates for nations, based on widely used standard country codes. Namely, shortcuts exist for ISO 3166-1 alpha-3, List of IOC country codes, and List of FIFA country codes. {{SUI}} is the widely used (and standard) country code for Switzerland as used by FIFA, the IOC, and many other sporting organizations, so that's why it exists (as a redirect to the ISO standard code {{CHE}}, as it turns out).
There are about a thousand templates under the flag template system, and it is difficult to create shortcut abbreviations for most of them, especially if they are invented codes. The decision to stick with standard codes only where they exist and use the full names for the rest is a sound decision, in my opinion. Hope this helps, Andrwsc 21:45, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Template:Cr

Good job! --Dweller 11:14, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! Andrwsc 14:33, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Sorry to bother you, Andrwsc, but do you think you can make {{HopmanCupbox}} look like {{DavisCupbox}} and {{FedCupbox}}? Thanks! —MC 01:21, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

 Done. Cheers! Andrwsc 04:09, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
Thanks! —MC 15:31, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

IRFU flag

This has been added to Wikipedia but we don't have permission from the IRFU to use it. As it is not a national flag I don't think that it is public domain. I have reverted your edit to British and Irish Lions accordingly.GordyB 17:10, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

And I reverted back. The whole idea of flag templates is that you can make a single edit (which I have just done at Template:Country data Ireland) to update every instance that uses it. Using inline image syntax makes it very difficult to perform these types of updates. Andrwsc 17:16, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
Is the composition of the four coats of arms and a shamrock actually copyrightable at all? The image isn't their actual artwork, see [3] - it's just an approximation of the design. —Random832 20:23, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
In my view, it is. You can't just make an obvious imitation of a copyright desing and then claim that there is no violation because it's not an exact copy.GordyB 21:29, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
Two points: my talk page is probably not the best place for this debate , and I don't really care which flag is used as long as it is rendered by a flag template and not inline image syntax. I believe that my revert to Template:Country data Ireland has restored the use of the shamrock flag for all instances, but I think we have to wait for the servers to catch up as Image:Irelands Rugby Flag.svg still shows some usage at this moment. Andrwsc 21:36, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Hi Andrwsc my thinking was along the same line as Random832,i.e that the IRFU have no rights on the arms of the provinces or a generic shamrock(which could even be removed leaving just the arms of the 4 provinces) and that the only copyrightable component of the image was the IRFU logo itself, (but i am no legal expert either). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Caomhan27 (talkcontribs) 21:49, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I'd like to get a definitive answer on this from someone who does have real legal knowledge on this, because the current speculation and edit-warring is harmful. Hopefully now that it is up on WP:PUI, it will be viewed by people who know about these things! Andrwsc 21:54, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Thats sounds good to me Caomhan27 23:59, 27 September 2007 (UTC) just thought i would put forth a version that is a good bit different, it might solve the problemCaomhan27 02:10, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

File:Ireland Flag Rugby.svg

Guadeloupe Flag - 2007 CONCACAF Gold Cup

There actually was consensus at the bottom of the section, and RPIRed was empowered to change all Guadeloupe flags to the white region flag for that reason. However, I am sorry for not using the standard template. I didn't know there was one for that particular flag. My apologies for using the wrong code...and also for being a dick on the other pages (Boxx, Cristiane, Petignat) where you reverted my edits. I knew I was wrong while doing it, but I got caught up in the throes of being pissed off and couldn't resist the temptation. --74.192.3.135 17:25, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Ok, no worries! I appreciate the apology. I must admit that those other edits biased my perception of your edits on the CONCACAF article. Collectively, the set of edits looked like "typical anonymous IP vandalism", but now I see that your edits on the CONCACAF article were thoughtful and based on discussion. I still maintain that the CONCACAF website is a better authority than wiki editor opinion on which Guadeloupe flag looks best, but I will refrain from edit warring on that article. Thanks again, Andrwsc 17:30, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
Don't worry about it. Not at all. I can see why you would think I was just out to vandalize a few pages, and I completely understand. Generally speaking, I'm a pretty rational guy, but today I just couldn't help myself. Sigh. --74.192.3.135 17:43, 27 September 2007 (UTC)