Talk:Flag of Antarctica

The most updated version of the article has been reverted for POV pushing, but all claims were accurately sourced and presented from a neutral point of view. @Vanilla Wizard, could you clarify which part of Wikipedia:Point of view you are concerned with so it can be fixed? The version you reverted to has outdated information.  Not A  Witty Fish 15:08, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

The version before the article was reverted said that there was an "official" flag of Antarctica. There is not. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:38, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

The version stated "it is considered to be the official flag of Antarctica", which is verified by the source. If the concern is about the source, that's a matter of reliability, not POV pushing. Regardless, it doesn't justify reverting the entire article, per WP:CAUGHTUP.  Not A  Witty Fish 19:12, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Given that you restructured the entire article around the idea that the True South flag is the one true flag of Antarctica, I'd say reverting changes made to the entire article was more than appropriate and a partial revert would have been impossible.  Vanilla  Wizard 💙 23:18, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

It is possible. I would encourage you to review different ways to revert. I would also ask you to review WP:REVEXP. Accusing someone of "unacceptable POV pushing" without further explanation is incendiary and unproductive.  Not A  Witty Fish 14:33, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

You might like to read the above RFC, a close examination of the statuses of different flags. The strong claim in your lead that "The design known as True South is considered to be the official flag of Antarctica and is the only one recognized Antarctic Treaty members." would require strong sourcing per Wikipedia:Reliable sources, but cited only an online guidebook assembled by "a team of ‘ice cool’ polar enthusiasts". In presenting that claim to the exclusion of all others and spending much space even on the dimensions of that map and its precise colours (expressed in three different ways!), WP:NPOV was breached Within that policy, WP:STRUCTURE and WP:UNDUE are particularly pertinent, but it's worth reading the whole policy from its crucial first sentence to understand how they fit within it NebY (talk) 19:15, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for that, @NebY. Construction sheets and color grids are very standard for almost all flag articles (Brazil, China, France, New Zealand), so including them in a article wouldn't be considered POV pushing unless it were assumed that a flag was not the formal flag of a place. So those concerns you raise are still about the reliability of the source.

With that in mind, the source states clearly "we have a strong editorial process with expert fact-checkers to ensure accurate and up-to-date information" It's claims are corroborated by several other sources, several of which are cited in the article already (Design Week; Wevux; 99% Invisible; the North American Vexillological Association, Vol. 16 pp. 4, "For the first time in history, national Antarctic programs, expedition teams, and other Antarctic organizations from around the world have collectively adopted a flag for Antarctica. The adoption of the flag, called True South, is the result of an international effort to promote cooperation and bring greater attention to the value and vulnerability of Antarctica.") The only source I could find that contradicts the one I cited was the one declared unreliable per the consensus above.  Not A  Witty Fish 20:38, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

I'll have little time to engage more in the next few days, but briefly, though it's good that polarguide says it checks its facts, their claim alone is not enough to establish that they are a reliable source. Also, you linked to Talk:Flag of Antarctica#Seeking consensus on notoriety of Bartram flag describing it as "the consensus above". That discussion did not reach consensus. Consensus was summarised in the close, two months ago, of the RFC on this talk page, "Consensus was the added third option to not use any flag icon on the template. The main reasoning for no icon is that there is no official flag for Antartica."; if you want to establish consensus that there now is an official flag of Antarctica, you need to do so here with a fresh RFC. NebY (talk) 12:06, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for your response. Yes, that's the discussion I intended to link to. The consensus I was referring to was about the credibility of the source wordatlast.com, which is the only one I could find that contradicts the source I cited. (Please note the number of other articles that corroborate the claim in polarguidebook.com.)

I did look back at both RFCs, the one that voted in favor and the one that voted against using the current flag as the template icon. Thank you for your suggestion. With all respect for the editors and the RFC process, the discussion was almost all unsupported opinions. The only sources mentioned in the discussions support the formal recognition of the current flag, and none of them used the current source under question. So unless there's opposition to the idea, I think the next step is to put polarguidebook.com to Wikipedia:RSN for discussion.  Not A  Witty Fish 13:59, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Polarguidebook's claim that the True South flag is "widely considered to be the official flag of Antarctica and is the only one to be recognized by treaty members" is not corroborated by the sources linked. There is no official flag of Antarctica. You can bring it up at RSN if you'd like, but regardless of what RSN may or may not say about the source more generally, that wouldn't override the clear consensus that the claim it makes regarding the True South flag is untrue and should not be in the article. After months of arguing, an overwhelming majority of editors are of the same mind that it is wildly inappropriate to suggest that there exists such a thing as "the official flag of Antarctica." The True South flag is no more "official" than any other. It's become popular among scientists in recent years, this is true, but it's factually inaccurate to say it is "official." To be absolutely clear: adoption by researchers does not make it "the official flag of Antarctica." The first RfC which installed the True South flag as the one used in the template (and had next to no participation) arbitrarily decided that whichever flag is being used at the most research bases right now is "the flag"; the second RfC strongly rejected the validity of this metric and concluded that it's not our business to decide what the flag is. Ravenswing put it well with this comment: You don't get a vote as to what the "flag of Antarctica" is. Neither do I. Neither do any of us. None of these flags are official except for the flag of the Antarctic Treaty, which represents an organization, not the continent itself. Completely unrelated, but it's flattering that you liked my signature enough to use it as the basis of yours  Vanilla  Wizard 💙 23:13, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Yes, I agree that editors shouldn't vote on what the flag of Antarctica is, we should rely on the sources. The sources say that countries and national programs have adopted the flag, not just scientists. If you doubt the claims in the sources, then this is still an issue of WP:RS. I have brought the discussion to the noticeboard.  Not A  Witty Fish 15:24, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

The issue isn't just that Wikipedia editors shouldn't vote on the matter: it is that nobody has the authority to declare any flag "official". Phil Bridger (talk) 15:58, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

I would argue that countries adopting a flag is precisely what makes it official. But setting that aside, wouldn't countries adopting the flag make it at the very least much more important than the proposals? The other two flags mentioned in the article are documented as being specifically not recognized or commonly used,^[1][2] so the current version that gives them the same weight as the True South flag seems to me to be more of a violation of WP:UNDUE than the version with my edits. (The other flag in the article, the white flag, wasn't intended as a proposal and shouldn't be labeled as such.)

In an effort to find a compromise, I suggest removing mentions of the flag's official recognition but restoring the infobox, lede, and design and history portions. (I also suggest restoring the 'Flag of territorial claims' and 'Flags of international Antarctic organizations' sections, but that is a separate issue from the discussion here.)  Not A  Witty Fish 01:45, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

Reinstating the infobox, lede, etc. still communicates to the reader that the True South flag is "the" flag of Antarctica. That's not really a compromise. There's also no need to compromise for its own sake when so far four have commented on this talk section and you are the only editor in support of your version of the article. Your version also removes most information about the territorial claims, removes reliable sources, makes the formatting very strange visually and makes it less friendly to mobile readers. As for the international Antarctic organizations, the only difference between your version and the current version is that yours adds another flag that you uploaded which cites only an unreliable Facebook post and does not demonstrate notability, so it doesn't belong in the article.  Vanilla  Wizard 💙 02:43, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

I appreciate you continuing to engage in this discussion, but it feels like every time I answer your point you just change your stance. I would appreciate if you would directly respond to my evidence instead of shifting the conversation. Here's a summary of the arguments being made for why my edits were "unacceptable POV pushing", and the counterarguments I have offered:

• The True South flag was just adopted by scientists
  • Per the several sources cited above, it was countries (national governments and branches of national governments) that have adopted the flag. Directors of national program are on record supporting the flag.
• No flag could be declared official
  • Adoption by countries seems like pretty clear official recognition to me, but I've already offered to avoid making claims about a flag being completely official so this shouldn't be a point of contention anymore.
• All the proposals should be presented equally
  • Per the sources in my last comment, the Smith and Bartram proposals were explicitly not adopted or recognized by any government or organization, nor were they popular or often used. To present the projects of hobbyists and flag enthusiasts on equal footing with a flag that has been recognized by national governments is a violation of WP:UNDUE.
• The edits to the territorial claims and Antarctic organizations section removed reliable sources and added unreliable ones
  • I already addressed this on your talk page because I don't see how it's related to your accusation of POV pushing, which is what this talk section is about. Since you're bringing it up here instead of responding there, I will summarize the points I already made. But please respond on your page or, if you feel you must, a new talk section here. I want to keep this conversation focused.
    • 1. Using the table disambiguates the article. Each flag already has its own entry which was linked in the table. The sources were not removed as they are still cited in each articles. The table also describes all territorial claim flags, unlike the current version which only describes a few. If you have suggestions for how to format the section to be more visually appealing, I'd welcome them.
    • 2. The section on flags of international Antarctic organizations includes new, valuable, and sourced information. Your claim about the Facebook being unreliable does not apply here per WP:Facebook: "The official page of a subject may be used as a self-published, primary source, but only if it can be authenticated as belonging to the subject." The cited source about the SCAR flag is from SCAR's official Facebook page.

 Not A  Witty Fish 13:21, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

"every time I answer your point you just change your stance. I would appreciate if you would directly respond to my evidence" And I would appreciate if you didn't accuse me of trying to shift the goalpost. You could've at least told me what stance of mine you thought has changed, because I'm almost certain that I've just been repeating myself verbatim. My stance is that no flag is official nor can there be an official one, and that's not mutually exclusive with arguing that adoption by scientists does not make it official. And yes, by scientists I do mean researchers in Antarctica working under national Antarctic programs, I'm surprised I have to clarify that. The formatting of your reply makes it harder to follow the conversation (4 indents in the same reply), but I'll try to address everything you said.

That it was adopted by researchers in Antarctica working for National Antarctic Programs does not mean that "countries adopted it." This was already argued in previous discussions.

And as was also argued about in previous discussions, even though I agree that the True South flag is currently the most popular among researchers from certain national Antarctic programs, that does not make it "the official flag" nor is the True South flag the only one to have ever been flown by researchers on the continent. No one has the authority to give Antarctica an official flag.

The sources you've provided, bar the unreliable blog claiming otherwise, do not corroborate the claim that the True South flag is the official flag of Antarctica. You even quoted them at the RS/N discussion, and not one of them said anything even resembling that extraordinary claim. The closest was one of them claiming that it was "somewhat" official; the rest of the quotes were so unrelated that I'm not even sure why you pasted them in that discussion.

The most important thing to remember here is that this isn't just my perspective; we had an RfC open for nearly 2 months with participation from 19 people, and there was a near unanimous consensus that there is no official flag of Antarctica and that it's inappropriate for Wikipedia to choose any one for any reason. Hence the flagicon should not display any one flag as "the flag", nor should this article. You need a consensus if you want to change this, you're not just arguing with me here. Taking it to noticeboards is not a valid way of circumventing consensus. Even if I agreed with you, we'd need more editors to agree, and even in this talk section, no one else is on board with the changes you're suggesting.  Vanilla  Wizard 💙 23:49, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

I'm trying to keep this conversation focused, so I will do my best to summarize your arguments (though I am not intending speaking on your behalf) and answer them again.

• There is no official flag of Antarctica
  • I have agreed to drop this, and I would appreciate if you would too.
• The RFC has already given a decision on this
  • The RFC was about the template for the country data and whether True South is official. Neither of those things are being discussed here. What is being discussed is whether my edits constitute POV pushing, which so far only you have accused me of. If they are not POV pushing, then they should be restored at least partially or another explanation given.
• The True South flag was just adopted by scientists
  • There are many, many sources supporting the fact that the flag is adopted by nations and national Antarctic programs, government arms that manage operations and governance on Antarctica.^{[3][4][5][6][7]} These include direct quotes from directors of such programs supporting the flag ^[8][9][10] Most of the sources do not even mention scientists.
• All the proposals should be presented equally
  • You did not address my previous response to this claim, so I'll repeat it here. The Smith and Bartram proposals were explicitly not adopted or recognized by any government or organization, nor were they popular or often used (citations above). To present the projects of hobbyists and flag enthusiasts on equal footing with a flag that has been recognized by national governments is a violation of WP:UNDUE.

With all of these points in mind, I would like to suggest my earlier compromise which would accurately represent all flags in this article without making any false or misleading claims. Remove mentions of the flag's official recognition but restore the infobox, lede, and design and history portions.  Not A  Witty Fish 00:32, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Not A Witty Fish, you wrote "What is being discussed is whether my edits constitute POV pushing, which so far only you have accused me of". What we should be discussing is what the article should say, how it should be structured, and so forth. I described it as breaching WP:NPOV and in an edit summary, Vanilla Wizard said they were "Removing unacceptable POV pushing". Perhaps because I'm used to "Comment on content, not on the contributor" and WP:AGF, I read that as removing text that was pushing a POV. May I encourage you, even if you don't read it that way, not to insist that you have been accused of POV pushing and that we must discuss that here? Wikipedia articles are rarely improved that way.

Moving on, I'm seeing many terms being used: official, recognised, adopted, flown, supported. They're not synonymous, and their meanings vary with context; for example, adoption by a scientist employed by a nation or even an entire research station is not adoption by a nation, whether we're talking about puppies or flags. Blurring such things together can breach WP:SYNTH. The enthusiasm for the TN flag in some of the quotes you've offered is palpable, but as editors we mustn't read them as legal pronouncements.

If I understand your closing comment correctly, you're suggesting we don't call the TS flag offcial but keep calling it recognised by national governments and adopted, and keep the preponderance of text, infobox and images focused on the TS flag as in your first edit. That would have much the same effect on our readers, and still beg the question of compliance with WP:DUE. There's a test in that, "If a viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to substantiate it with references to commonly accepted reference texts" It seems, looking at the references on this page, that the main text presented is an article in the North American Vexillogical Association's magazine Vexillum; together with another article there, that's half of the refs below. I would normally understand "easy to substantiate it with references to commonly accepted reference texts" as there being a multiplicity of commonly accepted reference texts in agreement, and that's not what I'm seeing here. Maybe some day there will be but it's a commonplace of Wikipedia that it lags behind the latest discoveries, theories and developments in many fields and that we accept this as the price of WP:V. NebY (talk) 02:17, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Sorry for the slow response. Life happened.

I read edit summary as an accusation, especially since no explanation was given when it was reverted. Thank you for the reminder of AGF and for refocusing the conversation on the topic. I agree that's more productive.

To your comment about "easy to substantiate," I cited the Vexillum article several times because of several quotes from different people, but there are many more about TS. (Close to a dozen in the article itself.) I don't know they do use many different words, but "adopt" is the most common (3 of the 5 quotes sources from my last comment.)

I understand that you do not support my suggested compromise. I still think that presenting the project proposals if they are the same status as an adopted flag is giving the others undue weight. Would you agree? If yes, what alternative would you suggest to improve the article?  Not A  Witty Fish 22:58, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

Thanks! Very briefly (life is about to happen) I'd say work within the current structure. Add to the lead that the Bartram design has been used for emojis and in recent years the TS flag has been flown at many stations / is in use at many stations etc., all in accordance with WP:LEAD ie summarising the article body. Add WP:RS references to the TS section. Avoid use of "official", "recognised" or "adopted" unless directly supported by legislation or explicit pronouncements from competent and empowered officials in WP:RS (yes, this does exclude eg the Design Week quote where we can't tell quite what "adopted" might mean and such a question is rather outside the magazine's scope.) Though this may not have been discussed, I'd move the images of the proposed flags to accompany their sections, in the same manner as the territorial ones below, because that's more helpful to the reader. Don't provide design details such as dimensional drawings, colours for any flag. All in all, allow TS to feature with WP:DUE weight as a recent creation with growing support and use. Oh, and if citing Vexillum, make it clear which issue and page and link to that if accessible. NebY (talk) 13:34, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, @NebY. That all sounds good to me. I'll make a few changes to the article based on that.  Not A  Witty Fish 15:06, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

@MrGogisa Please see this thread for discussion about the introduction. If you disagree with the consensus above, please discuss before making further changes. Thank you.  Not A  Witty Fish 19:34, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

I agree here with @Vanilla Wizard. Also to note, all that I can see is some hard pov push for one design. "Sources" are a couple of interviews with designer who in his own words claim many stuff and sources transmit that even with "according to", and that is it. There should be sources that have numerous interviews and reports but not with the designer of that proposal but with other people who feel represented by that flag and who matter about the topic, than and only than that proposal would have some more weight instead of other ones, but still would be just proposal. Anyway, this is an encyclopedia, not a tool for promotion or advocacy. Also I hope to there is not some WP:COI.MrGogisa (talk) 20:59, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

The Emblem of the Antarctic Treaty, Expedition flags, and Flags of territorial claim sections are about flags related to Antarctica, but this article is about the Flag of Antarctica ("a flag or flag design that represents the continent of Antarctica"). To make the difference clear, I suggest making all three sections into sub-sections under a new section "Other Antarctic flags." Alternatively, since all territorial claim flags have their own page already, most of what's here could be put into a "See also" section with links. Thoughts?  Not A  Witty Fish 21:54, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

Good point. I see we already have List of Antarctic flags. That could perhaps use the Discovery flag and a little of the (oddly duplicated) text from this article (properly attributed but looks to cover all the territorial flags. Maybe it would be enough for this article to say that various expeditions, bases and territories have (had) their own flags and link to List of Antarctic flags. NebY (talk) 16:31, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

Just to make sure I understand, you're suggesting condensing the sections to a short mention, then linking to the List of Antarctic flags article? If so, I'd agree with that.  Not A  Witty Fish 03:37, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

I am indeed - now rather surprised the territorial flags have been here so long. NebY (talk) 13:44, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

@NebY Thanks. Edits made.  Not A  Witty Fish 19:44, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

Personally, I think it made sense to include some of the designs used by territories in the continent as long as they were unique provincial designs, i.e. not just national flags. It's a decent middle-ground between having too little and too much content in a topic like "Flag of Antarctica" - it's hard to make a good article about a topic that technically doesn't even exist (side note, maybe the current article title is imprecise?). But it's not something I feel passionately about. I'm in the minority here, so I won't consider re-adding the other flags unless the tides change and other editors agree.  Vanilla  Wizard 💙 05:45, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

Adding that I think the ATS flag & white expedition flag should be reintroduced. This I do feel a little more strongly about than the territorial flags. The white flag was described as a flag for a continent without one of its own & is stored in a museum as "the first flag of Antarctica." I feel that's more than relevant to the article topic. The ATS flag is also the only flag used to represent a legally binding agreement governing the condominium; it's the only flag that can be described as "official" despite not representing the landmass itself. I won't do a bold reintroduction of this material as we're already discussing it.  Vanilla  Wizard 💙 06:12, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

One last thing, I noticed today that this was the only article on the encyclopedia displaying the photo File:White Flag of Antarctica RMG L0129.tiff. I don't believe the List of Antarctic flags page isn't a sufficient alternative home for information about the Discovery flag, given that list-class articles are simply indexes and not meant to contain long-form prose. Unlike either the territorial flags or the ATS flag, it was in fact intended to be a flag symbolizing the continent itself. I think it's valuable and relevant information for the readers. I hope that others will agree. Best wishes,  Vanilla  Wizard 💙 20:26, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

Surprising the Discovery flag isn't elsewhere on en.wiki. As a quick change to make sure the image isn't orphaned, I've replaced the generic white flag at List of Antarctic flags with File:White Flag of Antarctica RMG L0129.tiff. I agree it would be a good fit here too. I'm happy to see the territorial flags gone and the article more focused. Among other things, it means there's less need for (or even point in?) an extensive lead, which saves us from the summarising I suggested before but turns out to be contentious still. NebY (talk) 21:08, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for your swift response! I've re-added the info about the white Discovery flag to the article. The territorial flags staying out is fine since they have their own individual articles describing them in more detail than the simple list article could. I'll be sure to link to their pages in the See also section. I'm still not sure about the ATS flag, but this is less of an issue since the previous revision only had a few sentences about it. It should be possible to cover that one adequately at the List of Antarctic flags page (if it doesn't already contain all the same info). The plain white flag was the only one I really thought deserved to be re-added since it has a whole paragraph of sourced prose, so I don't have any other strong disagreements with the current revision.  Vanilla  Wizard 💙 23:05, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

Ah good. I've copy-edited that bit, which read as two separate versions strung together, I think with this edit, and adjusted it to be more specific about the museum (one of four sites in Greenwich) and that we don't know it only flew twice, only that the Times mentioned it when Discovery left London and that it was also flown on leaving Capetown.

In doing so, I noticed something a bit disquieting; the opinion that it may be the first flag of Antarctica is not sourced; it's editorialising / WP:OR on our part. What to do? NebY (talk) 00:10, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

I took another look at the sources and you're right, they do not state that it was the first flag of Antarctica meaning that this would in fact be original research. Good catch, I've removed that claim from the article.  Vanilla  Wizard 💙 00:41, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

Nicely done - the Times quote suits well. NebY (talk) 23:01, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

Changes look good. Thank you both.  Not A  Witty Fish 01:02, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

I'm not such a skilled Wikipedian, but I think it would be good to mention the CGPGrey video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0wTDK0VOeY. It discusses several of the flags and ultimately endorses the True South proposal. KeithWM (talk) 21:22, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Do you mean as a source? Is it notable in some way? We shouldn't mention a YouTube video just because it exists.  Not A  Witty Fish 22:25, 3 April 2023 (UTC)