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I first saw the Keystone flag when I visited this article and all of a sudden it's not here anymore, when I revisited this article. Was it removed? Anonymy365248 (talk) 16:16, 11 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Full disclosure, it's me, the designer in question! While I've edited the Keystone Flag section for clarity and to add citations, I did not create it, because that would have been a pretty big ethics breach on Wikipedia. As for the "advertising" accusation, probably would have been a more effective advertisement before the cited Kickstarter campaign closed. If my goal was to make money, I probably should have copyrighted the design instead of releasing it into public domain.
A few things worth noting on a timeline:
- On 21 Feb 2023, the Keystone Flag section was added.
- For ten months, the page remains mostly undisturbed aside minor edits for clarity and added citations.
- On 15 Dec 2023, Minnesota nears completion on a new state flag, garnering media attention towards changing state flags.
- On 20 Dec 2023, the Keystone Flag section is removed by an anonymous user.
- On 24 Dec 2023, a series of edits are made, adding several more historical depictions of the flag, and enlarging the photos with formatting that makes them bigger than the article's hero image of the flag, obscures article text, and does both of those things in an especially egregious way on mobile. One edit went so far as to find a sandbox on my user page and edit that, too.
Make of that timeline what you will.
(To me, it looks a bit like reactionary vandalism, considering the timeline and especially considering the edits on the 24th. I've noticed a similar reactionary current irl, there were virtually no state flags on display at the Capitol for years and suddenly they all appeared at once after Rep Webster's legislation in Summer 2023.)
(All that said, I've also made my potential bias clear and obvious, both here in this reply and on my user page, which anyone could have seen at any time when I've made edits in the past.)
Keystone Flag aside... the historical depictions are neat, but imo don't tie into the article itself in a way that merits them being in-line with text, especially with the horrendous formatting. Unless other folks have other ideas, I could see them being added to a gallery titled "Historical depictions of the Pennsylvania flag" in a similar fashion as "Flags associated with Pennsylvania."
I'll work on the reformatting stuff when I have a little more energy. In the meantime, I'll let y'all discuss whether the Keystone Flag section should return. If no one has anything to say for a while, I don't see much issue in putting it back, though it'd probably be best if someone other than me took that action.
Agree with displaying the flag. Much like the Minnesota flag page displays the North Star flag, so too should its Pennsylvania equivalent display examples of prominent flag change initiatives and proposals. They are definitely relevant to the page's topic.
Naturally a debate on whether it should or should not be included is welcome, that can only benefit Wikipedia article quality. But I think @TheTaraStark has illustrated quite well that the removal of the Keystone Flag was at the very least under dubious circumstances.
