Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 66

message: Also by sheer chance I ran into another interesting edit war today, over which flag should be displayed beside the name of :Martin O'Neill on the :Celtic F.C. page. It did bring an interesting resolution though; see Talk:Celtic F.C.#Nationality of MON where User:Captkrob points out that according to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football/Clubs, their consensus is to use flags for players (and former players) in the order of precedence:
* Flag of national team played for
* Flag of citizenship
* Flag of place of birth (if no national caps and no information of citizenship)
This seems fair and reasonable to me, and perhaps that could be an honourable exception to the flags section, where a project has established consistent (and verifiable) rules for the use of flags. --Guinnog 03:40, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Unrelated: What does the colon inside the wikilink do? - Dudesleeper 04:07, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Stops this page from showing up in the 'what links here' of the article being linked to. --Guinnog 04:11, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh. I never knew that, though I use 'what links here' extensively, and have complained many times about how the 'what links here' lists are polluted with inappropriate links. Really, though, sorting by namespace helps there. Would also help if it had the first and last date the link was added, so that list could be sorted chronologically as well. That latter feature request is probably a pipe-dream though. Carcharoth 11:58, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Getting back on topic, I think sporting articles should use flag icons, but like anywhere, need to be careful not to overuse them. They should, really, limit their use to sporting flag icons, and any necessary national flag icons. Other flags (eg. city flags) would be unecessary. Carcharoth 12:02, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes. As I said above, flags should ideally be restricted to a flag that a player (or club team) has played "under". It's much more accceptable to place  beside the entry of Richard Gough; although he wasn't born in Scotland, he played for the national team. I don't mind stretching a point and accepting the flag beside the name of a player who could potentially play for a national team. If this is unclear then flag of citizenship or flag of country of birth could be used. Clubs are also fairly straightforward as every club is affiliated to a national association. Individual cases like Cardiff City (a Welsh club playing in the English league), Berwick Rangers (an English team playing in the Scottish league) and :AS Monaco FC (a Monegasque team playing in the French league) shouldn't cause too much trouble. After all, in all these cases, the nationality is verifiable, a situation quite unlike that of bands like :U2 or :The Clash, for whom their "nationality" may be up for endless debate and can in most cases never be verified.--Guinnog 14:15, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: The sporting world

message: The usage of icons within text has been mentioned several times, but it is not clear how many comments refer to that situation or to other usage of icons.  Perhaps the types of usage being discussed should be clarified.  I've rarely seen icons alone in text, although some descriptions have included the name of a country with a flag icon attached.  More common seems to be tables or lists which include icons, icons with abbreviations, or icons with country names.  (SEWilco 06:33, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Flag icons are mostly used in lists, to decorate template headers, or in infoboxes (which are a sort of list). Hardly ever used in text (except in bullet-pointed lists of quotations from different countries, which I consider to be lists). If a flag icon is used in written prose, like this  it should be removed on sight, IMO. Carcharoth 00:20, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. Never in text, never instead of a written description of nationality. So far the only valid use I can see is in lists and tables, and only where the flag is uncontroversial. See the discussion of sporting articles above; and in contrast, see the discusssion on Talk:U2. --Guinnog 11:33, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Icons in text