Wikipedia talk:Requests for mediation/Northern Ireland flag usage/Archive 1

Involved parties

I note that Vintagekits (talk · contribs · block log) is currently indefinitely blocked, and therefore is unable to sign the agreement to mediate, and therefore this request for mediation will be rejected by definition. Andrwsc 18:42, 29 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have removed User:Vintagekits from the list of parties to this mediation. If anyone feels that he is totally necessary for the mediation, please tell me. --דניאל - Dantheman531 18:49, 29 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's worth noting that Vintagekit's arbcom case looks like it may broaden "to examine editing regarding the Troubles and related issues", in which case it might subsume this issue. (See arbitrators' comments.) However it's probably worth pursuing this RFM until it becomes apparent what's happening there. — ras52 22:36, 29 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The ArbCom has opened, and considering that they have said they are looking at all user conduct here, I believe that the Mediation request has been subsumed by the ArbCom case. Just a heads up SirFozzie 19:01, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Not all the parties involved in this for the most part unrelated request for mediation are involved in that arbcom case. Biofoundationsoflanguage 12:04, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Beginning Mediation

Because User:Vintagekits's ArbCom case does not directly involve all of the editors listed as parties in this dispute, I think that it would be best to move forward with this mediation. Before we begin, however, I would like to find out if you all would prefer to mediate here, or on a private page. Either way, even if the mediation proceeds on this talk page, nothing that occurs in this mediation may be used as evidence of any user's conduct in any way. --דניאל - Dantheman531 15:25, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No preference. Biofoundationsoflanguage 16:16, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Very weak preference for continuing on a publicly-visible page. — ras52 21:00, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't really mine, but in some ways a public page would be better.--padraig 21:08, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Beginning mediation

Since a few of the editors responded to my last question (see archive) and the consensus seemed to be in favor of mediation on a public page, I will go ahead and do it here. If anyone who didn't get a chance to reply has any objection to this, please say so. To begin, will each party please present their side of the argument in the section labeled with your username. Please do not rebut other users at this time, simply present your case. Discussion will continue from there. --דניאל - Dantheman531 23:44, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by User:Padraig

Draft not complete

My position on this issue is that there seems to be a campaign by certain editors to try and promote the Ulster Banner as the flag of Northern Ireland today. This is totally incorrect the Ulster Banner was never the flag of Northern Ireland, it was solely used by the former devolved government setup in 1921, although the banner itself was only used from 1953 until 1972 when that government and the Northern Ireland Parliament was firstly suspended, then dissolved under the Northern Ireland Constitution Act 1973.

Flags.net says This flag is a banner of the arms of the old Government of Northern Ireland. The flag ceased to be official in 1973, but continues to be used by Unionists. On no account should it be used for official purposes.

Encyclopdeia Britannica says: According to British tradition, a coat of arms or flag is granted to the government of a territory, not to the people residing there. Therefore, when the government of Northern Ireland was disbanded in March 1972, its arms and flag officially disappeared; however, the flag continues to be used by groups (such as sports teams) representing the territory in an unofficial manner.

See The Flags Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2000 and the
The Flags Regulations (Northern Ireland) (Amendment) 2002 under which

Prohibition on the flying of flags other than in accordance with the Regulations

9. Except as provided by these Regulations, no flag shall be flown at any government building at any time.

Under these regulations which where debated on by all the political parties in Northern Ireland, the Only Official Flag of Northern Ireland is the Union Flag, none of the Unionist political parties even brought up the Ulster Banner during the debate in the Assembly prior to the regulations becoming law, with all the Unionist party arguing in favour of the Union flag.

This is what the British Government says about the Ulster Banner:

Lord Greaves asked Her Majesty's Government:

What legislation covers the definition of the form, shape and design, and any rules about the permitted use, of (a) the union flag; (b) the English flag (cross of St George); (c) the Scottish flag(St Andrew's saltire) (d) the Scottish royal lion flag (e) the Welsh flag (dragon); (f) the flag of Northern Ireland. [HL1099]

18 Jan 2007 : Column WA181

Lord Davies of Oldham: (a & b) There is no legislation that governs the form, shape or size of the union flag or the English flag (St George's cross). There are no rules about the permitted use of the union flag or English flag (cross of St George) on non-government buildings, provided the flag is flown on a single vertical flagstaff and neither the flag nor the flagstaff display any advertisement additional to the design of the flag as explained under the Town and Country Planning (Control of Advertisements) Regulations 1992. Government departments are restricted to flying flags on 18 fixed days a year in compliance with rules issued by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Consideration should also be given to flag protocol, which considers it improper to fly the union flag upside down and requires that the flag should not be defaced by text or symbols and should be treated with respect.

(c & d) There is also no legislation that governs the form, shape or size of the Royal Arms of Scotland (here referred to as The Scottish royal lion flag) or the St Andrew's cross, but the design is firmly specified in the Public Register of All Arms and Bearings in Scotland. The Royal Arms of Scotland can only be used by the Sovereign or Her Great Lieutenants when acting in their official capacity. The Scottish flag(St Andrew's cross) may be flown by Scots and to represent Scotland on all occasions; however, under The Act of Lyon King of Arms Act 1672, cap. 47 individuals may not deface the flag by placing a symbol on top of the flag or use it in such a way that suggests it is his/her personal property.

(e) There is no specific legislation about the Welsh flag design or rules about permitted use.

(f) The union flag is the only official flag that represents Northern Ireland. The Flags (NI) Order 2000 empowered the Secretary of State to make the Flags Regulations (NI) 2000, which governs when and where the union flag can be flown from government buildings in Northern Ireland on specified days. The legislation does not define the form, shape or design of the union flag. Flag flying from non-governmental buildings is unregulated.

For all flags, consideration should also be given to flag protocol, which requires flags to be treated with respect, not to be defaced by text or symbols or flown upside down. [1]

Usage in sport: The Ulster banner is used by Northern Ireland National Football Team and in the Commonwealth games when Northern Ireland competes as a team, but it is not the main flag used in sports as this report shows.

This debate on wikipedia on the flag issue even was mentioned in one of the papers in Northern Ireland, the Newsletter where the two Unionist politicans interviewed state the flag of Northern Ireland is the Union Flag.--padraig 13:17, 20 September 2007 (UTC) (Incomplete will add more later)[reply]

Statement by User:Fennessy

Well my position on this is that the Ulster banner isnt the legal flag of Nothern Ireland(above all), and that the flag is offensive because of who & what it represents, as well as the symbolism contained within it(the crown above the red hand of Ulster, the saint george's cross that is on it for some inexplicable reason). Its for the latter two reasons that the flag cant be used as a neutral symbol to represent N Ireland.

Aside from that, I will just breifly address Ras52's opening comments, as well as a false statement that has been thrown around in support of the Ulster banner.

I think ras52 is missing the point when he claims its not important that the Ulster banner isnt the official flag of N Ireland— its entirely relivant because the UB has been deemed so offensive its use is prohibited in N Ireland itself. That plus it has no historical president; it was only invented early in the 20th century. Other flags have historical use, England's & Scotland's are symbolically part of the Union jack—note how the stormont government choose not to use the Saint Patrick's cross on their flag, it really shows what their intention was with the UB. While we are on the subject of the Saint Patrick's cross, I think many would consider it archaic, including myself.

People in support of the Ulster banner have repeatedly claimed that there is "no consensus" to not use it, despite the fact that they have been outnumbered on every single page that they have brought this issue up. Look at the list of participents in this case, 3 Users are against the UB's use, 2 support it, & 1 (claims at least) to be neutral. Just by going by consensus there is no case to use the UB. Also going around claiming that consensus is all thats needed is missing the point of wikipedia, its not a place to do whatever you like, its a place to put up correct, verifiable information. Fennessy 16:19, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by User:Derry Boi

Ras52 wonders if the UB flag is offensive to the average nationalist. I can tell you it certainly is seen as an offensive and sectarian flag by those in the nationalist community. To nationalists it represents the decades of discrimination and segregation against the nationalist people by the unionist government, and this after all is the flag of that sectarian government. To nationalists it is akin to what the Nazi flag was/is to many Jews, etc. The fact that it was the flag of the Stormonet government makes it offensive. But as already pointed out, the symbols within the flag are offensive to nationalists as well, non more so than the crown in it.

Ras52 said: "The fact that the NI Commonwealth Games team, and the Northern Ireland football team are both represented by the Ulster Banner, without apparent demur, does lend credence to the view that the flag is not especially offensive to the average NI Nationalist."

Ras I'm not sure if you're familiar with the north of Ireland or not, but if you lived here you would realise that the vast majority of nationalists don't support the NI soccer team or the NI Commonwealth team. We support the Repuclic of Ireland soccer team. There is and argument that the NI soccer team would get thousands more nationalist fans if they were to drop the UB as their flag and God Save the Queen as thier anthem.

Also is the point of the UB's legality. As rightly pointly out it has been defunct since 1972. Even before then as far as I know it wasn't even the flag used to represent NI, it was the flag of the Stormont government, which of course was collapsed in 1972, and therefore the flag is defunct. As a one-party government, it could be well argued that the flag in fact all along was just the flag of a political party.

Even the description in the summary box on the Image:Flag of Northern Ireland.svg page desribes the flag as: "The former flag of Northern Ireland. This flag has had no official status since 1972 and is widely regarded as the emblem of one community only. It should not be used to represent present day Northern Ireland geographically or as a political entity." Derry Boi 22:33, 8 September 2007 (UTC) Derry Boi 22:28, 8 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by User:Astrotrain

My position is that this flag is used as the national flag of Northern Ireland in an unofficial capacity (the definition of "unofficial" being not used by a national government). The flag is used to represent Northern Ireland at sporting events and is displayed as the national flag on the webpages of the Commonwealth Games Federation [2], FIFA [3] and UEFA [4]. It is listed as the unofficial flag of Northern Ireland on the World Flag Database the website of Graham Bartram (Chief Vexillologist of the Flag Institute) and is used to represent Northern Ireland by a wide range of bodies (a list of whom I have included here.

My position on the Union Flag is that it is the Flag of the United Kingdom and not the flag of Northern Ireland in its own right. It does not represent Northern Ireland as a separate entity. It is the official flag in use by the British Government in Northern Ireland. Tradition in the UK has been to fly the Union Flag on certain flag days (birthdays of the Royal Family etc)- these are specified by the Department of Culture. In 2000, ministers of the Northern Ireland Executive from Sinn Fein party refused to fly the Union Flag from buildings their ministries controlled. In response the Queen granted powers to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland to make regulations on flag flying in Northern Ireland. The resulting Flags Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2000 requires that the Union Flag be flown from 7 buildings on specified flag days and no other flag may be flown (other than the Royal Standard, EU Flag or national flag of a visiting foreign statesman). The Northern Ireland Police Service is not permitted to use any flag, with the exception of its own standard and the Royal Standard if the Queen is visiting.

To summarise, this flag is the only flag in existence and in use, that is used to represent Northern Ireland as a seperate entity. It should be possible to use this flag in all flag related articles for Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom(wording can be agreed on to note its status), the infobox in the Northern Ireland article, and any other templates or articles where a flag for NI is needed.

Several arguments have been made against using this flag:

They say "It's defunct"
- But how can it be defunct if it is used by a wide variety of bodies in a wide variety of situations?

They say "It is not the legal flag of Northern Ireland"
- Yes, but this does not make the flag illegal- the UK has never specified laws on national flags- the 2000 Flag Regulations applies to 7 buildings in Northern Ireland and does not apply to anyone else. In any case these regulations only enforced previous rules that were being ignored by Republican ministers opposed to anything British.

They say "It is not used by the British Government or Northern Ireland Government"
- But it is used by other people as stated above and Wikipedia is not required to follow the lead of the British Government. In any case, there are qualifications such as "former" or "unofficial" that can be used to alert other editors over its unofficial status. In addition, the British Government does not use the Cornish flag or the English flag and these have never been removed.

They say "POV, OR"
- Plenty of sources have been given to state the unofficial status of the flag and continuing use by a wide variety of sources.

They say "It's offensive and bigoted"
- Wikipedia is not censored (and given some of the really offensive material on here, a flag can hardly be considered offensive). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Astrotrain (talk • contribs) 21:01, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by User:Biofoundationsoflanguage

My position on the Ulster Banner is that it should be used as it continues to be the most recognisable symbol of Northern Ireland, unofficially. I became involved in this debate through article Gibraltar when I saw the flagicon of Gibraltar's twin town in Northern Ireland removed, while the flagicon for its twin in England remained. Prior to that I had no interest in the subject.

The argument against using the Ulster Banner is that it lost its official status with the staggered dissolution of the Northern Ireland government in 1972/3. By UK tradition of course, a flag is always assigned to the government rather than the people.

The official (or as official as is possible in the UK) flag of Northern Ireland is the Union Jack/Flag. The same is true for all home nations of the United Kingdom. But for differentiating between the nations, unofficial flags are used.

England's flag, England, is the unofficial flag of England. It lost its official status some 300 years ago with the act of union. So it is certainly no less of the flag of England than its Northern Ireland counterpart is the flag of Northern Ireland, which lost it 35 years ago. Both flags continue to be used, notably in sport and elsewhere (as described by Astrotrain).

As for the flag being offensive, or 'unionist' I'm sure any flag which shows Northern Ireland as a separate entity with its own uniqueness is disliked by people who'd rather Northern Ireland didn't exist at all. Partucularly as the flag is apparently based on England's flag, and has a crown on it. The Union Jack remains Northern Ireland's flag, but is unsuitable for templates where the regions of the UK are shown separately rather than combined.

I'm not particularly fussed by using flagicons, though I think a bit of decoration is always nice. Certainly I think don't think just one of the four flags should be removed/replaced with something else. That definitely would breach WP:NPOV. Biofoundationsoflanguage 17:28, 9 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by User:Ras52

Before saying anything else, I want to make it clear that I don't have a position on the use, or otherwise, of the Ulster Banner. I do have a preference for retaining some form of visual identifier (whether a flag, a suitably-scaled map, or some other national icon) that distinguishes Northern Ireland from both the Republic of Ireland and from the other three constituent countries of the United Kingdom. To my mind, this rules out either the Union Flag or the Irish Tricolour.

Several reasons have been given why the Ulster Banner is inappropriate. First, it is seen as a Unionist symbol and as such is particularly offensive to the large Nationalist minority in Northern Ireland. I've not seen any evidence either way as to whether a typical middle-of-the-road N. Irish person (someone who wouldn't self-identify as either Nationalist or Unionist) thinks of the flag, and, while it would be interesting to know, I think I would be hard to find a self-evidently trustworthy source for this. That aside, if it is genuinely the case that the flag is strongly resented by the average NI Nationalist, rather than by a tiny handful of über-Nationalists, that seems a very strong argument against using it. To date, I've not seen any verifiable source address this, and I would be interested to see some. The fact that the NI Commonwealth Games team, and the Northern Ireland football team are both represented by the Ulster Banner, without apparent demur, does lend credence to the view that the flag is not especially offensive to the average NI Nationalist.

The other argument against using the Ulster Banner is that it is not the legal, official flag of NI, and hasn't been since 1972. I have to say, I find this utterly specious. St George's cross is generally accepted as the English flag, and is used, for example, by most English sports teams as well as most Church of England dioceses, but it isn't official or legally-sanctioned either, and you're unlikely to find it flying on government buildings. And in this case, it hasn't been the official flag for much longer (since the Act of Union took effect in 1707). It seems that legal status of the flag is simply being used as a proxy for the real argument, perhaps because it is much easier to provide verifiable sources to support it. My view is that the arguments about the flag being repugnant to a significant portion of the population are much more powerful and can stand adequately by themselves; introducing an separate argument about the flag's legal status, in it's own right, is neither necessary nor helpful, even though it is perhaps useful for providing evidence to support the view that the UB is offensive.

The principle argument in favour of using the Ulster Banner seems to be that, to the majority of the world, if they recognise any flag for NI (or indeed, have even heard of NI), it will be the UB. But is this true? Or is St Patrick's flag more widely understood? As a schoolboy (in England), I think I learnt that St Patrick's flag was the flag of NI and the UB was "merely" the flag of the NI government (presumably meaning then-recently-abolished Stormont government, though that was never really stated). What do other encyclopaedias do when they want to present flags for the constituent countries of the UK? And would St Patrick's flag be an acceptable alternative? The Northern Ireland flags issue page says "It is seen by some as a neutral flag" whilst it acknowledges the UB is not perceived as neutral. (Though the St Patrick's flag page says it "was never accepted or popular with Irish nationalists"… which missing a citation.)

I have to say that I'm a little uncomfortable with the map (currently in use here, for example). Whilst it neatly side-steps the issues above, maps are not all that easy to see and distinguish at 30×23 pixels, and having one map sits ill amongst the other flags. If a neutral flag could be found, that would be my number one choice. However, perhaps it cannot, and I'll accept what ever consensus is built. As I've repeatedly said, I'm quite happy to accept either the Ulster Banner or something else (including the complete absence of a NI flag).

Finally (and perhaps showing my naïvity), I'm disappointed by the way that this dispute has spread across Wikipedia. We already have a set of templates that exist for this purpose: {{flagicon}}, {{flag}}, and some country-specific shortcuts such as {{NIR}}. These are designed to give a suitable, neutral (sub)national flag. An article that writes {{flagicon|Northern Ireland}} is not per se anything but neutral; the fact that the {{flagicon}} template displays the Ulster Banner, and so is perhaps not neutral is a problem with that template, not with the article that invokes it. (In fact, the decision as to what flag to use is delegated to the {{Country data Northern Ireland}} template, but that does not change the argument.) Please, can we use these templates consistently and, where necessary, fix them to do the right thing? This is precisely the outcome agreed in the previous MedCab case. If these templates really are designed for sports-specific uses, they should have a name that indicates that (which they manifestly don't), or at the very least documentation on the {{flagicon}} and {{flag}} templates stating that this is the case (which they don't).

Elsewhere in Wikipedia, I make occasional edits to a list of islands by highest point. As is common in Wikipedia, this list contains flags next to the names of the country/countries that cover the island. That means well over a hundred different flags. Now I'm sure some of these flags have local connotations that are POV (for example, some Argentinians may dislike the Union Flag-based Falklands flag being displayed by the Falklands). My point is that I shouldn't need to worry about these issues. I should be able to use the flagicon template (or equivalently the three-letter {{XYZ}} form) and trust that to do the right thing.

I'm sorry for such a long statement; however most of this statement is just me repeating what I consider to be the most germane things I've said elsewhere. I shall to keep future contributions shorter. — ras52 11:02, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved User:Andrwsc

I am not named as an involved party in this request for meditation, but I spend a significant amount of time on maintenance work for Wikipedia:WikiProject Flag Template, and two of the templates within the scope of that project are named here. I feel it is important to explain the intent of those templates and how they are used.

First, Template:Country data Northern Ireland is one of about a thousand meta-templates that are used internally by several user-invoked templates. The most common of those are Template:flag and Template:flagicon. For example, {{flag|Northern Ireland}} generates " Northern Ireland" and {{flagicon|Northern Ireland}} (or {{flagicon|NIR}}) generates the flag only. The country data templates are also increasingly used by a number of national sport team templates. For example, Template:fb (for "football") can be used as follows: {{fb|Northern Ireland}} or {{fb|NIR}} → Northern Ireland. Note that the generated wikilink is to Northern Ireland national football team.

The other related template named in this RfM is Template:NIR. This is simply a shortcut way of rendering the same thing as {{flag|Northern Ireland}}. There are a couple of hundred of these "shortcut" flag templates (documented at Wikipedia:Inline templates linking country articles), corresponding to the three-letter country codes used by ISO, FIFA, and the IOC. "NIR" is the trigramme used in many sporting contexts (FIFA, Commonwealth Games, etc.) for Northern Ireland teams and/or athletes.

Now, the point I wish to make for this RfM is that it is most important to consider the context of how flag icons are used, and not rush to any broad judgements that globally affect all instances of the Ulster Banner image. When this dispute spilled over to the flag template WikiProject, my recommendation on Template talk:Country data Northern Ireland was to examine individual transclusions of Template:Country data Northern Ireland and decide whether the flag was appropriate or not. I also created a "union" flag variant to be used as: {{flag|Northern Ireland|union}} for " Northern Ireland", but after all the debate that led to that addition, I did not see much work to actually use that flag variant anywhere.

Currently, there are 1561 pages that transclude Template:Country data Northern Ireland. Looking at the list, I'd say the large majority are football related articles, and a sizable set are from other sport-related articles (Commonwealth Games, snooker, golf). Even the most fervent flag-haters grudgingly admit that those instances are not inappropriate. Therefore, it is logical to conclude that any change made to the country data template would break more articles than it would "fix". It would be like using amputation to cure a hangnail.

The other comment I'd like to make is that the draft essay Wikipedia:Don't overuse flags is being used as a justification for flag icon removal in many places. While I agree with some of the sentiments in that essay (which may seem ironic, considering the hundreds of hours I've spent editing flag templates!), I don't think it is a global ticket for flag removal. Again, each article or template needs to be examined on its own merit.

One last comment: I created Template:noflag to help with tables, lists, etc. where flag icons are mostly used, but not for certain items. See List of mountains of the British Isles by relative height for an example of an article where I used it to remove the Ulster Banner from a list, but maintain "nice" table formatting. I offer this as a suggested solution for other similar instances. Andrwsc 19:09, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]