Talk:Sovereign-state flags in 2023

Scope of gallery

The galleries in the series of "Sovereign-state flags in [year]" have been undergoing dramatic changes through the last couple of months, with lots of different editors (mostly IP-editors) adding flags of all kinds without any logical structure, not to mention any form of inclusion criteria. Many of the flags have even been purely fictional, but most of those have been removed.

I have started an attempt at clean-up here in the 2023 gallery. The first step was to lift the states that really can be seen as "sovereign" into the first section of the gallery (and perhaps that is the only part that really can defend its place). The next step will be to get some order to the "Territories" part. As for the rest, I think most of it actually could be deleted straight away. I am, however, willing to discuss keeping those sections, so I will not touch them (apart from moving stuff from one section to another just to preserve some kind of logic). TU-nor (talk) 14:52, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

Dependent territories

The title "Territories" is so vague that it is completely useless. Any geographical entity could be put into that category. Looking at the entries, it is obvious that what is meant, is to present flags of "Dependent territories". I will try to sort out those entities that generally are regarded as dependent territories of sovereign states, moving other entities to a new section "Subdivisions of sovereign states". That section should probably be deleted, since it is completely outside the scope of this gallery, but let us keep it just for now.

Argentine

The flag given here is not the flag of Argentine Antarctic, but the flag of Provincia de Tierra del Fuego, which is an ordinary province of Argentine (which also has the jurisdiction over Antártida Argentina). Moving it to "subdivisions".

Australia

The "South Sea Islanders" flag is not the flag of any territory, but a flag used by an ethnic group. Moving it to "Other culturals" (which is a completely useless category, but that is another discussion).

As for the remaining Australian flags, it seems like a waste of place to repeat the Australian flag again and again for those entities that do not have their own flag. I will replace those with a comment about territories having no flag.

Chile

The flag given here is not the flag of Chilean Antarctic, but the flag of Magallanes y la Antártica Chilena Region, which is an ordinary region of Argentine (which also has the jurisdiction over Antártica Chilena). Moving it to "subdivisions".

France

• The Clipperton Island flag is fictional and has not been shown to be in use, so I am removing it.
• In Martinique, although the hummingbird flag won the competition, it was withdrawn (due to claims of plagiarism) before it became official. The snake flag that was in some local use until the new flag took over, was unofficial, but probably worth mentioning.
• In French Polynesia, Austral Islands, Gambier, Marquesas and Tuamoto are subdivisions and should be sorted out as such (if they should be here at all).
• The Saint-Martin flag is unofficial and should be marked as such.

Italy

Seborga is a micronation and completely out of scope for this article in any interpretation. Removing.

Japan

Ogasawara is defined as a village inside the metropolitan area of Tokyo. Moving it to "subdivisions".

Marshall Islands

Bikini is not populated. The flag is not a flag of the atoll, but representing the people that have been evacuated from the atoll. Moving to "Other cultural".

Micronesia

The four state flags are moved to "subdivisions".

Netherlands

The West Indian territories of Netherlands are of two different types, constituent countries and special municipalities.

New Zealand

Marking the doubtful flags of Chatham and Ross as unofficial.

Norway

Since none of the Norwegian territories have a flag, I will replace them with a comment about the territories. No reason to waste space on five identical flags that already is in the main section.

United Kingdom

• Sorting into Crown dependencies and Overseas territories
• Removing the garrison flag of the sovereign base areas in Cyprus. It is completely misleading to present this as a flag for the two base areas Amrotiri and Dekelia.
• The flag given as the Chagos Islands flag is certainly not the flag of the island, but a flag used by some islander activists demonstrating for their right to return to the island. Moving to "Other cultural".

United States

• Sorting into Insular areas and Outlying islands
• Territories without flags are moved into a comment, but I remove Petrel Islands and Serranilla Bank, since they are disputed territory between several countries.
• Flags for Kingman, Navassa and Palmyra are marked as fictitious, so I remove the flags and add them to the list of areas without flags

TU-nor (talk) 13:14, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

Country subdivisions

Regarding the scope of the article (please see section #Scope of gallery above), I see that The Squirrel Conspiracy has removed several of the sections that has nothing to do with sovereign states, which is a good start.

I will now continue to remove also the section "Subdivisions of sovereign states". It has so far just been a collecting station for flags that had been dumped into the chaotic structure that this article used to have (and that all the other "Sovereign-state flags in [year]" galleries still have). If such a section should remain in the gallery, it could (and per constistency should) be filled with thousands and more thousands of flags for all levels of sub-national administrative units. I will just point to Category:Gallery pages of flags of country subdivisions. Just now it contains 259 gallery pages for different countries, plus 20 subcategories containing several hundred gallery pages, and each gallery page will have any number of flags. Maintaining that as a "section" of this gallery (and by extension presumably every "Sovereign-state flags in [year]" gallery) is of course impossible and far outside the scope of this article. TU-nor (talk) 08:39, 25 October 2023 (UTC)