The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus. I cannot determine a consensus here, or which of the reasons for keep or delete are more valid. NFCC is a valid concern, but exactly how this falls foul of that policy is not well explained. Drmies (talk) 20:09, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Flags of the U.S. cities[edit]

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Per WP:NOTGALLERY Wikipedia is not a collection of images seperated from meaningful explanative prose. Also an non-free image farm. Over a dozen of these are non-free and several probably are non-free but are tagged otherwise. Sven Manguard Wha? 20:02, 15 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Lots of the flags fail WP:NFG, and many flags are probably wrongly tagged as free. If you delete a large portion of the flags, the article becomes useless. --Stefan2 (talk) 20:15, 15 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - If "lots" of the flags are non-free or "probably wrongly tagged as free", feel free to remove them and improve the article. But before doing so, which of them are actually as such. It's sure easier to just say "delete" than it is to correct and improve articles. The logic here is flawed, because even if some of the images fail a guideline, that doesn't confer to the entire article being removed from the encyclopedia based upon only some of the content in the article being unsuitable per policies and guidelines. See also WP:FIXTHEPROBLEM. Northamerica1000^(talk) 14:32, 16 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep unless you group virtually all of the articles in Category:Lists of flags within this AfD. Not suggesting an WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS argument, but rather a larger discussion on the presence of all articles of this type needs to occur. Also should ask Wikipedia:WikiProject Heraldry and vexillology for their input. No comment on the non-free images. --Hammersoft (talk) 20:54, 15 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Given that this would necessitate including NFC content without comment, this list is unsustainable on WP via WP:NFCC. Individual city flags can be included on the city's page where one expects discussion to occur, but this will be an outright gallery and unallowable. If similar pages exist, they should also be deleted, based on the idea that not all flags (city, country, national) are free imagery and thus will always become a non-free imagery gallery. --MASEM (t) 21:59, 15 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. ★☆ DUCKISJAMMMY☆★ 07:06, 16 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. ★☆ DUCKISJAMMMY☆★ 07:06, 16 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep and improve - It's interesting that the article Flags of the United States is permissible, yet this article is somehow non-permissible, because of the current state of the article. I find it a useful list article that is discriminate and provides functional information. The article also functions as a list of U.S. Cities for navigational purposes. Perhaps users should consider expanding the article, adding a table with text entries to accompany the city flag images, and adding sources. This would be easy to do, and would then be similar to the formatting of the "Flags of the United States" article. This would be a better option compared to removing the content entirely from the encyclopedia based upon the article's current formatting. Perhaps AfD has become a forum to discuss removal of information for the sake of removal, rather than improving the actual content. It's a relatively new article (created on November 12, 2011); why the rush to delete? Why not consider improving the article? Of course, deletion is much easier than performing research and expanding articles. Removal of this article is a disservice to the encyclopedia. Almanacs have listings such as this, and Wikipedia also functions as an almanac (see WP:5). This article could easily be improved, and as such, should remain in place. Northamerica1000^(talk) 12:15, 16 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- That article has the same problem. There are actually numerous flag galleries that are a problem across WP. This case is only focused on this one page. Navigation by visual elements is not acceptable on WP (per why we disallow images in lists of discographies or episode lists). --MASEM (t) 13:28, 16 May 2012 (UTC)c[reply]

If the formatting of the article is that problematic, then very simply remove the images in question entirely, while retaining the information, per WP:PRESERVE. Convert the article to a table format and add in information regarding each city's flag, to expand the article. Then simply omit the asserted non-free images, which appear to be a distinct minority of the overall images in the article. It is sensible to have a list article for U.S. city flags on Wikipedia. For example, see Flags of the U.S. states, a very, very similar article that exists in the encyclopedia because it's encyclopedic. Again, Wikipedia also functions as an almanac, per Wikipedia's Five pillars. Northamerica1000^(talk) 14:47, 16 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Ron Ritzman (talk) 00:01, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Just because many of these articles currently contain only images, it doesn't mean that the can't include prose about the flags as well... In the case of the American flag, lots of good stuff can be found at "history of united states flag" on Google. I'm sure a similar thing could be done with this article.--Coin945 (talk) 16:09, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Delete The goal of having every American city's flag on one page, as the title implies, is rather quixotic. The potential analog List of cities in the United States is instructive—we're not going to attempt to list every American city in one page, because that's ridiculous, and more so if you were to include an image for each one. It's also problematic because the definition of a city can vary wildly across the country. Usable images of a city's flag belong on the articles for the corresponding cities, unless the city flag is notable enough for its own article (DC, NYC, LA, etc.). --BDD (talk) 18:43, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Delete The policy cited in the nomination pretty clearly says that WP is not for this kind of image display. That there are others does not justify this one. As mentioned an image of each flag can, and probably should, be on its city's article for people who are interested. Kitfoxxe (talk) 19:25, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Gallery of images, many of which are identified as nonfree, without any substantive text. Better handled as a category anyway. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 19:27, 23 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. I'll be the first to admit that I don't know the relevant "rules" that likely will decide this issue. But the "rules", whatever they are, are not what's important. What's important is that we're an encylopedia, damnit, and this is just the sort of thing that a good encyclopedia will include. Having these images here for a child to gaze at, clicking on the links to the city articles, sparking her interest in geography, what greater goal can we aspire to? I've many times wondered why we had "articles" that were actually just lists--why can some works like this get by without a separate Wikipedia "list", while others like this must have a list? I mean, where are our priorities? A challenge to those of you who are voting "Delete": I ask you, do you believe that this is more important to provide access to, than the page under discussion here? Please, don't cite rules to me, just answer that question: Which is more important and more worthy of inclusion in the World's Encyclopedia? HuskyHuskie (talk) 21:58, 27 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sigh. I know this is the exact opposite of what you wanted to hear, but you're making a textbook "other stuff exists" argument (cf. WP:OTHERSTUFF). AFD is all about applying Wikipedia's rules to individual cases. You may as well ask a judge to ignore the law and rule on gut feelings instead. --BDD (talk) 19:58, 29 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, it's not for nothing that WP:IAR exists. Even judges are allowed some discretion (more in some jurisdiction than others). Anyway, the prime directive is to improve the encyclopedia, and to not let the rules stand in the way of that. I know the rules exist for a good reason, but there are rare occasions when the rules are the problem, not the solution. I just think this is one of those times. HuskyHuskie (talk) 02:02, 30 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

So I just read WP:OTHERSTUFF. Yeah, you're right--that was what I was doing. And you're right, it's not a good argument. So I retract that argument, which is easy for me to do, because it was never my intended premise. What I'm about is not that there's other crap in here, it's that I affirmatively believe that this should exist, for the improvement of the encyclopedia and the benefit of our readers.

I've owned a number of dictionaries and encyclopedias over the years (my first being the 1958 World Book). Sometime in the 1970s, I purchased a largely staid reference work--I don't remember if it was one of those drier encylopedias or a dictionary, but I do remember my brother mocking my purchase because it had those color plates inserted in various places, things like state flowers, minerals, and international flags. He said that was proof it was not a serious work. I was momentarily embarrassed by his snobbish criticism, but years later, as our families grew, I noticed that children's interest in these works was initially founded in these plates. And their interest wasn't just in the pictures, their interest led to other questions, which led to lots of connected learning.

All I'm saying is that this encyclopedia is the World Book of our time, that we are the repository of the world's knowledge, with the aim of providing "every single person on the planet . . . free access to the sum of all human knowledge." This is a piece of that, regardless of whether it fits in the rules or not. HuskyHuskie (talk) 02:19, 30 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I would have to agreee with that. It is my firm belief that we have moved far beyond a mere encyclopedia, and should stop thinking of ourselves as one. We are now the creators of the hub of all knowledge, and must create content as such.--Coin945 (talk) 05:33, 30 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'll reiterate part of my comment, though—it's just not practical to have a collection of the flags of all US cities, even if we could come up with a uniform definition of a US city. Not all such cities will even have flags. We can look at existing articles for an example of how these topics should be handled. List of sovereign states, List of U.S. states, and List of U.S. state birds all have inline pictures along with other content, but I just don't see how we could make this article work like that. You'd need clear inclusion criteria. Perhaps we could shoehorn pictures into List of United States cities by population, but the article as is just isn't going to cut it. --BDD (talk) 19:34, 30 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep I consider this an encyclopedic topics. As with list articles, it needs a definition of what cities are large enough to include. That some of the cities to be included might not have flags does not mean that having an article on the ones that do is in some way improper. DGG ( talk ) 01:41, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Textbook WP:NOTGALLERY case. Galleries belong at Wikimedia Commons. As also noted, for copyright and scope reasons the gallery cannot ever be complete, which leaves us with an useless random selection. Sandstein 18:33, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per Husky and DGG. Encyclopedias usually have such articles. I know, it sounds like OTHERSTUFF, but let me explain. As a comprehensive encyclopedia, Wikipedia should offer at least what a major, traditional, printed encyclopedia have offered. We're not the hub of all and everything, but a reasonably short article on the flags of state capital citiess and those over 200,000 in population should be notable. It needs fixing, such as prose and sourcing, SO lets FIXIT. Likewise, it should NOT just be a GALLERY. How and when to fix this has me in a quandry, but not whether it should be included. Bearian (talk) 19:25, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.