Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Icons

Please see subject discussion. Cinderella157 (talk) 04:55, 17 January 2026 (UTC)

Please see User talk:LucyGermanDog#Infobox flags and edits adding or readding flags to infobox - eg and . Are these appropriate uses? Cinderella157 (talk) 05:01, 17 January 2026 (UTC)

Please see the subject discussion. Cinderella157 (talk) 04:49, 23 January 2026 (UTC)

Is there any guidance around adding religious symbols (i.e. a crucifix for Christianity) next to religions in pie charts as has been done here recently? Tagging Cinderella157 as they seemed to have been a friendly help to others. Helper201 (talk) 02:11, 24 February 2026 (UTC)

MOS:ICONDECORATION perhaps? Possibly also MOS:XMASTREE? Anomie⚔ 02:14, 24 February 2026 (UTC)

Yes, ICONDECORATION which states: Icons should serve an encyclopedic purpose and not merely be decorative. They should provide additional useful information on the article subject ... The icons in the example occur along with text, where the text alone is sufficient to convey the necessary information. They do not provide any additional information and are primarily decorative. Cinderella157 (talk) 10:51, 24 February 2026 (UTC)

Seems to be original research as well. Tvx1 18:50, 24 February 2026 (UTC)

Thank you everyone for your help. Helper201 (talk) 18:25, 25 February 2026 (UTC)

I have written a draft for a new subsection on placeholders for flags.

–LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 15:04, 14 March 2026 (UTC)

No objection to the first sentence, but I don't think the rest is a good idea. Consistency is not paramount; where a correct flag cannot be used, we shouldn't try to replace it just for the sake of having a flag. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:52, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

I concur with Nikkimaria. It is rarely, if ever, going to be necessary to use a flag icon. Where it is acceptable to use flag icons (eg tables or conflict infoboxes), they act as a sort of shorthand to identify the country in multiple places amongst other countries. They must always be identified by prose on first use. Using a dummy icon without identification does not serve to identify the country on subsequent uses. Cinderella157 (talk) 09:14, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

I'd like it if we'd drop the flags from List of ISO 3166 country codes, but I've not found it worth fighting over. If the flags are going to be there, something (whether ,  , or something else) is needed to not totally misalign the columns (even though a few like Niger and New Caledonia already do somewhat).

P.S. I also wish someone would do something about how Antarctica, Sint Eustatius, Saba, Cameroon, Oman, and Ascension Island don't respect the licenses of those flag images, which require the link to the file description page for attribution of the author and notice of license. Of particular note, File:Blank flag.svg is almost certainly PD-ineligible, while File:Flag of Cameroon.svg and File:Flag of Ascension Island.svg both confusingly claim to be both public-domain and copyrighted. Anomie⚔ 14:33, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

I also think we should avoid using a placeholder as much as possible, as there are people who are more than happy to supply a flag of their own design to fill in a placeholder. Donald Albury 14:38, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

I noticed that there are persistent requests to use the non-free File:Flag of Hezbollah.svg at MediaWiki talk:Bad image list; in fact, it is on the blacklist because it is non-free and persistently used. For this one, there is a placeholder File:InfoboxHez.PNG ( ) that is designed to look similar to the actual flag. Should we start an RfC about how to proceed specifically with flagicon references to the Cocos (Keeling) Islands? –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 03:42, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

Will just note quickly that the use of the non-free Doug Flag at Cascadia has been a recurring problem. ☆ Bri (talk) 19:24, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

And what appears to be the controversy? Tvx1 08:22, 18 March 2026 (UTC)

That people have repeatedly inserted the flag, and this required a special editnotice and an entry on the bad image list. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 15:51, 18 March 2026 (UTC)