Talk:Flag of the Bahamas

A fact from Flag of the Bahamas appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 10 July 2014 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that the flag of the Bahamas (pictured) was first hoisted 41 years ago today when the islands became independent?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2014/July. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Flag of the Bahamas.

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Heraldry and vexillology

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Caribbean: Bahamas

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Description of Flag

Please do not change the wording describing the colors and their representation of the flag. They are taken from the country's government website and unless a more reputable source is found, for example the act of parliament creating the flag, please leave it alone.Gary Joseph (talk) 04:59, 30 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Flag?

Has the 'Civil ensign. Flag Ratio: 1:2' something to do with Denmark?? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.83.42.75 (talk) 20:31, 9 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Flag from 1964 to 1973?

The list of historical flags doesn't mention what was used between 1964 and 1973. Does anyone know? --Mlouns (talk) 20:05, 23 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 20 July 2020

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: majority for no move, discussion has run 48 days Anthony Appleyard (talk) 12:28, 6 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Flag of the Bahamas → Flag of The Bahamas – The proper name for the country is The Bahamas (with a capital T). File: Flag of the Bahamas.svg has the same mistake. Kenwick (talk) 05:38, 20 July 2020 (UTC) —Relisting. Steel1943 (talk) 08:23, 12 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This is a contested technical request (permalink). -- Dane ^talk 05:46, 20 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I reckon all the associated article titles involving the country of The Bahamas should be changed too, such as the Politics of the Bahamas. The same can be apply to all the article titles associated with The Gambia as well. Kenwick (talk) 05:52, 20 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Support Since, the name of the country is "The Bahamas" , this certainly makes sense. Bingobro (Chat) 14:40, 20 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support It's the name of the country. Zoozaz1 (talk) 23:43, 20 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
~~Support~~ Oppose per ongoing discussion ~~per nom and above, the country has a common name and governmental name portion which is correctly upper-cased in the proposed rename.~~ Randy Kryn (talk) 03:34, 21 July 2020 (UTC) [edited August 26][reply]
Support Both per nom, we need an admin to help move all the relevant articles, categories and files involving The Bahamas and The Gambia. It involves too much work if we have to move them one by one, an admin should be able to do that with ease. 110.145.30.41 (talk) 07:23, 22 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Not usually capitalised in running text, whatever the official name of the country may be. -- Necrothesp (talk) 09:56, 23 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Necrothesp: Hi. Could you please explain what happened above? At first, I thought you accidentally commented while logged out, and later signed the comment after logging in. But that doesnt seem to be the case. I think either you, or the IP misplaced one of the comments. —usernamekiran (talk) 18:15, 30 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Simply forgot to sign. That was me! -- Necrothesp (talk) 08:29, 31 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Contrary to our treatment, there is nothing particular special about the Bahamas. Compare the Philippines, the United States, the Gambia, the Marshall Islands, the United Kingdom, the Dominican Republic and the Netherlands. (It's pretty good company and I'm unsure why the Ukraine so adamantly wants no part of it.) Srnec (talk) 20:18, 22 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Comment The difference between The Bahamas and The Gambia and the rest is that those are officially capitalized as a part of the nation's name, while the others are just articles. Zoozaz1 (talk) 03:43, 27 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Support per nom, that is the official name of the country, see in they official website. 180.242.8.27 (talk) 01:43, 23 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The one that starts with "THE ISLANDS OF THE bahamas"? Dicklyon (talk) 23:45, 5 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose as caps are clearly optional in this context, per many sources. Dicklyon (talk) 01:25, 27 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Page mover comment: If titles of other articles needs to renamed, I recommend listing them in this move. This way it will not be contested, nor controversial move, and it the discussion will get more input as well. Kindly mention the other articles here, so that I can add them properly, and then I will relist this discussion, giving 7 days for closing. Pinging everybody involved. @Kenwick, Dane, Bingobro, Zoozaz1, Randy Kryn, Necrothesp, Srnec, and Dicklyon:. Apologies for the mass ping. —usernamekiran (talk) 18:15, 30 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
There might be a case to move Flag of The Hague to lowercase "the"; I don't see much else. The idea of capping for the Bahamas is quite contrary to normal usage stats (see here). Dicklyon (talk) 01:33, 31 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

As well as the Flag of the Gambia. Zoozaz1 (talk) 01:58, 31 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that should be left lowercase for the same reason. Dicklyon (talk) 03:21, 31 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

There are quite a lot of pages need to be moved, it's too much work for a general editor like me to move them one by one, that's why I made a request for a bulk move. Below is a list of the important ones I can think of, but I'm sure there will be more articles need to be moved too:

We also need to change the relevant texts in these articles and move their associated categories, that's an impossible job for me. Kenwick (talk) 11:41, 2 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Absolutely oppose all. And if someone really thinks there's a chance, they need to start a bigger more centralized discussion, as this goes against years of precedent in how to interpret our style guidelines. Dicklyon (talk) 23:45, 5 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Absolutely oppose. Ungrammatical nonsense. Fails MOS:THECAPS, WP:THE, WP:NCCAPS, WP:CONSISTENT. The "support" rationale is completely counterfactual; the name of the country is "the Bahamas", just like "the Netherlands". Virtually no reliable sources write, in mid-sentence, anything like "... moved to The Bahamas in 2015". This can be proven without any doubt in a matter of seconds [1]. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 14:37, 1 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: MOS:THECAPS lists The Hague as an exception, which is applicable to this case even without the majority referring to it as The Bahamas. Ironically, while it says The Bahamas is incorrect, it links to The Bahamas where the article capitalizes The Bahamas in running sentences. WP:THE says "If the definite or indefinite article would be capitalized in running text, then include it at the beginning of the Wikipedia article name," and The Bahamas is capitalized in running text in this article. WP:NCCAPS says Do not capitalize the second or subsequent words in an article title, unless the title is a proper name, which it is. For WP:CONSISTENT, I don't think the capitalization of a letter will make the article unrecognizable to readers. I presume with the link showing how many more people use the over The you were referring to WP:COMMONNAME, which states that "inaccurate names for the article subject, as determined in reliable sources, are often avoided even though they may be more frequently used by reliable sources." Quite simply, not capitalizing The is incorrect. The official short name is The Bahamas, with a capitalization of the T, and the title of the Bahamas is just incorrect to readers, regardless if it is more popular. Zoozaz1 (talk) 16:13, 1 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: They are different. The Bahamas and The Gambia (please note that Gambia is not even a plural noun) are two unique cases where their national governments have purposely added the word "The" (with the capital T) as a part of their country names in their respective constitutions, whereas other countries with a plural noun in their country names (e.g. the Netherlands, the Philippines, and the Maldives etc.) have not. That's why I've proposed this change.
Here are the official websites of both countries' national governments:
1. The Government of The Bahamas: https://www.bahamas.gov.bs/
2. The Government of The Gambia: http://www.gambia.gov.gm/
You can clearly see that both national governments have purposely inserted the word "The" as a part of their respective country names. Kenwick (talk) 05:59, 2 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, you can clearly see that they don't use the same style we do. Neither does The Ohio State University, yet we go our own way and live peacefully with them. Dicklyon (talk) 23:49, 5 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Yep. "MOS:THECAPS lists The Hague as an exception", because it is almost universally treated as an exception in English. That is, writers actually do write, in mid-sentence, things like "... moved to The Hague in 2015". This is absolutely not true of the Bahamas (or the Netherlands). I don't know if it's true of [t|T]he Gambia without researching it, though I remain skeptical on that one. If MoS codifies a specific exception and says it's a specific exception, it's because it's a specific exception, not because it's something one is meant to extrapolate from. When MoS means to provide examples to extrapolate from, it does so clearly, usually by providing multiple such examples and leading with "such as", "e.g.", or a similar construction. Example and exception are not synonyms and do not even serve similar purposes. Zoozaz1 (like Steel1943, below) is engaging in logic failures here, and not just that one. Another is failure to understand WP:OFFICIALNAME, or even pay any attention to what MOS:CAPS says (WP does not capitalize something unless a strong majority of reliable sources consistently also do it; in this case, most sources do not capitalize the t in the Bahamas in mid-sentence). So, why is this RM even still open? This is an open and shut not moved case. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 22:19, 25 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Strong oppose—looks horrid and goes against many style guides, including our own. Some organisations use capping as "boosterism". We don't need to pander to that when RSs don't allow it. Tony (talk) 08:23, 2 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: I think you can't get a better Reliable Source than The Constitution of The Bahamas and The Constitution of the Second Republic of The Gambia. Kenwick (talk) 10:01, 2 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, you can. Better sources are ones independent of the subject. Dicklyon (talk) 20:14, 5 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Those are primary sources and on Wikipedia we prefer to use reliable secondary sources. But when it comes to a country's official name, I would agree that the primary sources are the most reliable sources. However, per WP:COMMONNAME we do not name article titles based on the official name. We name articles according to what the most common English name is, and in determining what is the most common English name, reliable secondary sources are indeed better than primary sources in making that determination. Rreagan007 (talk) 00:57, 14 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
That's a hilariously arrogant comment. According to your theory, if people start to call the United States another name, say Uncle Sam, then we should change the United States to Uncle Sam, and North Korea can be renamed Rocketman too. 110.145.30.41 (talk) 05:19, 22 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
If almost everyone in reliable sources in the English language called the US "Uncle Sam" then, yes, WP would, too. It's a sillified example, but actual practice bears this out. E.g., we have an article at Munich not "München", at North Korea not "Democratic People's Republic of Korea" or "조선" or "Chosŏn", at United States not "United States of America", at Germany not "Deutschland", etc. For years, we had an article at Burma instead of Myanmar because most sources in English until a few years ago were still using "Burma". But none of this has anything to do with capitalization, anyway. We have a style guide. Follow it. If an exception should apply, reliable sources will make that overwhelmingly clear and MoS will probably codify it as an exception. But the sources do not show this at all; rather they confirm that this is a case exactly like nearly every other "the Whatever" case. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 22:19, 25 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support per official government websites and many government documents. 182.1.10.173 (talk) 15:01, 12 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Having the main article at The Bahamas is one thing, but "The" should definitely not be capitalized in running text, as most reliable English sources do not capitalize it in running text, so neither should we. Here is the Google ngrams of "The Bahamas" vs "the Bahamas". The non-capitalized article is much more common, and that's even with the capitalized version being picked up at the beginning of sentences. Rreagan007 (talk) 16:52, 12 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose unnecessary capitalization. Sawol (talk) 05:21, 13 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per MOS:THECAPS. This case is not comparable to Flag of The Hague, because reliable sources generally don't capitalise "the Bahamas" in running text. — Amakuru (talk) 10:54, 20 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Then they are not reliable sources. How can you claim to be having reliable information over a subject when you are not respecting the decisions made by the local people? Both nations insist to include the word "The" as a part of their country name, then it is a part of their country name, end of story. 110.145.30.41 (talk) 04:57, 22 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Support because "The" is part of the country's name, and thus is a proper word. Steel1943 (talk) 22:29, 24 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
That statement doesn't even make sense in English. "Proper word" isn't a thing. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 22:19, 25 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per SMcCandlish. Popcornfud (talk) 12:03, 26 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per Rreagan007, as well as the AP Stylebook, New York Times Manual of Style (I only have an offline copy, but it says "Bahamas, the. Lowercase the, even in datelines."), and the Guardian and Observer style guide. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 19:57, 31 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. I initially leaned to support per the simple logic, and consistency with “The Bahamas”, but this is not borne out by usage. The flaw in the initial case is that English is not a logical language. I am not impressed by appeals to the WP MOS, but am by actual usage, the proposed is not used. To support would be to support Wikipedia correcting the world, and this in not Wikipedia’s job. Wikipedia follows. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:59, 4 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.