Okay, got a rationale? Mine is that people are visual creatures, and there's no reason not to have flags. Q·L·1968 ☿ 22:52, 18 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

That's not really a rationale, is it? Because otherwise Wikipedia would be a picture book. And no, the flags are not helpful - at that size most of those flags are so miniscule they are not recognizable, even if we assume that readers actually know what flags waved by various nationalists look like (which they don't). Which is the reason why the great majority of templates listing actual countries do not use flags, and neither do templates with political parties, former countries, administrative subdivisions, capitals, etc. So, got a rationale as to why this template is the exception? Timbouctou (talk) 23:17, 18 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

A template is a navigational aid, not an encyclopedia, so your picture book claim is a straw man. I can't tell you why templates listing independent countries generally don't use flags on Wikipedia. First, is that so? Second, is there a reason for that? I've never been aware that there was such a reason, if there is one; to my knowledge, we've had them on the EU template in Interlingua since 2007, and I doubt this is the only such case. The 'minuscule' flags are perfectly identifiable in most cases (the Veneto being one exception), and they add a visual confirmation of the verbal cue, much like the flags do on the pages that give most any sports team's roster (here's an arbitrary example). I didn't put the flags in that template; I just saw they were there, and added non-breaking spaces. I guess I just don't understand the impulse to remove stuff that isn't in the way, looks kind of nice, and adds a visual enhancement to what otherwise is just words on the screen. Q·L·1968 ☿ 18:08, 19 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I seriously doubt flags are a navigational aid, especially when used in templates, as the great majority of readers are unlikely to be guided by flags as oppopsed to words when clicking through. A case in point are football templates and infoboxes, of which we have thousands and which never use flagicons - flags indeed are used in rosters, but rosters only. But again, the plethora of templates where flags could be used but aren't probably establishes a convention. So the burden would be on you to argue why that established convention shouldn't apply. Timbouctou (talk) 14:06, 20 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Nope, the burden should really be on you to justify removing something that a user found good and useful to add (a user who, again, was not me). However, in the interest of moving this discussion towards a conclusion, I've hunted around for something in the manual of style that should be relevant. Before I read it, I actually was more prepared to concede the point at issue. While I find nothing there directly about navigational templates, I do find that "flag icons may be relevant in some subject areas, where the subject actually represents that country, government, or nationality – such as military units, government officials, or national sports teams. In lists or tables, flag icons may be relevant when such representation of different subjects is pertinent to the purpose of the list or table itself". The subject here is about nationality (nationalism). Conversely, we are directed not to "use subnational flags without direct relevance"; but clearly there is direct relevance here. Here's a fictional, but plausible example of the usefulness of such flags as a navigational aid: István has recently moved to Barcelona, and during a march in favour of Catalan independence, he notices a black-and-white flag he doesn't recognize. István reads the Wikipedia article on Catalan nationalism, trying to figure out what this is all about. He gets to the bottom of the page, and hey, there's that flag again. ‘Oh, Breton nationalism—those people at the march must have been from Brittany,’ he thinks. He follows the link, looking around for whatever parallels (or differences) there might be between Catalan and Breton nationalism. This kind of thing happens all the time: Basque nationalists show up in solidarity with Corsican nationalists, and so on and so forth.

Anyway, if you don't find this argument plausible, it's not worth edit-warring about. I would suggest that we copy this discussion over to the template talk page for future reference, however. Q·L·1968 ☿ 16:59, 21 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]