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Wikipedia had wrong Vatican flag for years – now incorrect flags are everywhere

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Re: Wikipedia had wrong Vatican flag for years – now incorrect flags are everywhere

#61

Post by drowsspa »

dheera wrote: post #32
shlubbert wrote: post #19

A similar scourge of mine is Wikipedia contributors helpfully "tracing" company logos so they can be uploaded as vector graphics (great in theory!) but introducing all kinds of mistakes in the process or using the wrong fonts... also causing the wrong logos to spread all over the internet.

That's the punishment companies get for not providing their official logos for download in an easy format without fuss. If you have a startup, have a "media kit" page with all of this stuff. Logos for black and white backgrounds in open vector and raster formats, founder photos, bios, company intros, product photos, video clips of your product that you're okay with media cutting up and using.

Ideally, your logo in your website should also be a SVG or at least a transparent PNG. I definitely pick it up from Wikipedia when I go do a presentation if it's not there.

Re: Wikipedia had wrong Vatican flag for years – now incorrect flags are everywhere

#62

Post by ytdytvhxgydvhh »

dehrmann wrote: post #24
maratc wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While widely used symbols like “eagle displayed” or “lion passant guardant” are really well defined, the more you get to the esoteric stuff the more you find there are really no standards. Try “importing” such thing as “octopus proper”. Heraldically speaking, it really makes no difference, as nobody would mistake the “wrong” flag of Vatican to represent some completely different entity. But TLA is not implying that —…

> nobody would mistake the “wrong” flag of Vatican to represent some completely different entity Compare that to Australia and New Zealand. If you don't know what do look for and aren't aware the other's out there, you could easily mix them up.

NZ came pretty close to changing to an original flag but ended up sticking with that “we’re not Australia, really” flag: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015–2016_New_Zealand_flag_r...

Re: Wikipedia had wrong Vatican flag for years – now incorrect flags are everywhere

#63

Post by adhesive_wombat »

lolinder wrote: post #54

This feels like the author jumped to the conclusion that Wikipedia was at fault because it's a common enough story and sounded good, but it doesn't add up. See addaon's comment for an explanation of why heraldry here isn't as cut-and-dry as we're used to for, say, the US flag. But even aside from that, the author neglected to check the full edit history on the Wikipedia file: the very first version of the flag (25 No…

> It's hard to imagine the flag flown at the UN being done as a rush job from a Wikipedia article.

Maybe the UN has their buttons on, but at the Olympics, displaying the wrong flag, an incorrect flag or the right flag upside-down happens now and then.

Re: Wikipedia had wrong Vatican flag for years – now incorrect flags are everywhere

#64

Post by ummonk »

They also have a really wrong shade of saffron for the Indian flag, even though the Wiki article on the flag correctly specifies the colors. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_India#Colours

Can't really blame them though, since the Indian government does the same. https://www.india.gov.in/india-glance/national-symbols

Re: Wikipedia had wrong Vatican flag for years – now incorrect flags are everywhere

#65

Post by wolverine876 »

Someone wrote: post #26
addaon wrote: post #2

One of looking at this is that European banners, coats of arms, etc, are traditionally defined in writing (often using a domain-specific language called a blazon), and then compiled to a visual form by a banner maker. This compilation is intended to be reversible -- one goal is to be able to look up the written form in a book of heraldry based on the visual appearance -- but, just like compiling code, is not a one-to…

> but it looks like it's something like "banner divided in yellow (towards the flagpole) and white https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Vatican_City says “A vertical bicolour of gold and white” . I would have thought that should be gold and silver ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tincture_(heraldry) ), but ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tincture_(heraldry)#Other_tinc... ) “The heraldic scholar A. C. Fox-Davies propo…

You're citing Wikipedia as a source on this issue?

Re: Wikipedia had wrong Vatican flag for years – now incorrect flags are everywhere

#66

Post by lolinder »

adhesive_wombat wrote: post #63
lolinder wrote: post #54

This feels like the author jumped to the conclusion that Wikipedia was at fault because it's a common enough story and sounded good, but it doesn't add up. See addaon's comment for an explanation of why heraldry here isn't as cut-and-dry as we're used to for, say, the US flag. But even aside from that, the author neglected to check the full edit history on the Wikipedia file: the very first version of the flag (25 No…

> It's hard to imagine the flag flown at the UN being done as a rush job from a Wikipedia article. Maybe the UN has their buttons on, but at the Olympics, displaying the wrong flag, an incorrect flag or the right flag upside-down happens now and then.

I imagine so, but in this instance the flag is a big stinking deal because the UN had just allowed the flags of Palestine and the Vatican (Observer States) to be flown for the very first time. This wasn't a case of "we've got to print out flags for every single country and fly them all at once", these two flags were given special attention.

Also note my edit: the Twitter thread zokier found shows Benedict XVI seated next to a red-tiara'd flag in 2005, as well as the one that was sent to the moon in 1969.

Re: Wikipedia had wrong Vatican flag for years – now incorrect flags are everywhere

#67

Post by wolverine876 »

zokier wrote: post #48

Just highlighting this twitter thread where people are finding all sorts of pre-wikipedia examples of Vatican flag, like this one from 1970: https://twitter.com/VinSlashLopez/status/1639478301885599745... So its obviously not just wikipedias invention, but a wider phenomenon.

You are backing up Wikipedia's claim with Twitter evidence. Not even Wikipedia would accept that.

Re: Wikipedia had wrong Vatican flag for years – now incorrect flags are everywhere

#68

Post by msla »

adhesive_wombat wrote: post #63
lolinder wrote: post #54

This feels like the author jumped to the conclusion that Wikipedia was at fault because it's a common enough story and sounded good, but it doesn't add up. See addaon's comment for an explanation of why heraldry here isn't as cut-and-dry as we're used to for, say, the US flag. But even aside from that, the author neglected to check the full edit history on the Wikipedia file: the very first version of the flag (25 No…

> It's hard to imagine the flag flown at the UN being done as a rush job from a Wikipedia article. Maybe the UN has their buttons on, but at the Olympics, displaying the wrong flag, an incorrect flag or the right flag upside-down happens now and then.

Oh, the Olympics has done worse:

https://www.npr.org/2012/03/23/149244038/ceremony-plays-bora...

> Kazakhstan won the game but lost the award ceremony. A parody of the country's national anthem was played by mistake after a Kazakh athlete won a gold medal. Organizers of the shooting competition in Kuwait are apologizing for playing the Kazakhstan anthem from the comedy movie Borat.

Re: Wikipedia had wrong Vatican flag for years – now incorrect flags are everywhere

#69

Post by wolverine876 »

slacka wrote: post #45
yongjik wrote: post #8

It becomes worse as you move further away from Anglosphere: according to Wikipedia the ancient Korean kingdom of Goguryeo has a forked red/yellow flag, but AFAIK that's total fabrication, based on a single mention in the record that said "Some troops of Goguryeo used red flags." If I were still in my 20s I might have fought Wikilawyers on this. Now I'm old and I have enough shit to take care of. :/

Did you find sources and make the edit? Or just assume it would be rejected? In my experience, the vast majority of my edits were accepted when properly sourced, especially on esoteric topics like this. Yes, there are exceptions and bad apples in the community. Those get a all the attention and media coverage but I've only encountered them on heavily edited and visited pages, not the more rare academic or historic pa…

Your experience is much different than mine. It has been so often a waste of time that I've given up editing (or reading) Wikipedia.
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