European Flag

[Fabio_S]

I would like to put as a Country flag, the European one, would be possible to add it?


Thanks!

[ViolentSilence]

Would that help other players though? The flags aren't about identity, they are about language and time zone. If I see a table with all Spanish or all French flags, I'm going to know that I can't speak to the people involved if I join them. A European flag covers 4 time zones and around 30 languages, so wouldn't satisfy the same function.

There is possibly a question to be asked though if a time zone and language marker per profile wouldn't be better than flags, but then how would you mark English? English flag? UK? US? Australian?...

[Sushiyum]

I don't see why the flags can't be about identity. There is already a separate field that says which language one speaks, and time zones are useless unless you assume everybody plays set hours. In fact, I'm sure I've seen some flags that aren't country-based but I could be mistaken about that.

[Jest Phulin]

The flags aren't about identity, they are about language and time zone.

This assumes that all people in a country speak a single language, and that everyone is on a set schedule. Too bad for the refugee working the night shift...

Granted, it does tend to give some information, but it is not totally reliable information. I just played a game recently with someone with a Spanish flag. They spoke no Spanish, only French.


Edit -- Also, some countries are wide. The US flag covers 6 time zones (with Alaska and Hawaii) [7 zones if you consider that there is no territory at GMT-9]; the Russian Federation has 11. A flag covering 4 would not be a problem.

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I also wouldn't mind a "prefer not to say" option on the flag.

[ViolentSilence]

This assumes that all people in a country speak a single language, and that everyone is on a set schedule. Too bad for the refugee working the night shift...

Granted, it does tend to give some information, but it is not totally reliable information. I just played a game recently with someone with a Spanish flag. They spoke no Spanish, only French.


Edit -- Also, some countries are wide. The US flag covers 6 time zones (with Alaska and Hawaii) [7 zones if you consider that there is no territory at GMT-9]; the Russian Federation has 11. A flag covering 4 would not be a problem.

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I also wouldn't mind a "prefer not to say" option on the flag.

As assumptions go, it's usually an extremely good one. The vast majority of the population work in daylight hours, and sooner or later you need to pick up at least some of the local language to avoid getting stuck in a dead end. Most countries have a single time zone, and the population in ones with multiple ones will be used to talking to people in different ones.

The location flags are just a quick shorthand that reveal location and language, political administration area flags don't. Yes, all flags are political, but while there are no explicitly political flags it keeps the system clean. To be honest, I'd be happy to see the flags used purely as the language symbol to take away the national identity question as where does it end? Do we also need Welsh and Scottish flags which are two countries with a nationalist political element? Catalan? Wallonia? Quebec? It would be introducing something that is divisive. The Welsh flag wouldn't matter to British people mostly (well, until you got some pushing for the English and Cornish flags to also be added), but Kurdistan is a huge issue for some country's people. Are you aware of the issues over the Cyprus flag? How about the issues over Chechnya, Kosovo...

I don't think the OP has bad intentions, I'd largely guess the opposite, but it would be opening a pretty huge can of worms

[Fabio_S]

The answer are basically on two levels:

1) The flag is about language
2) The flag is about timezone.

The first doesn't make much sense. If you see the Swiss flag, do you interpret it as italian, german or franch? And Canada? is it Franch or English?

Why then differenciate between Austria and German flag? The language is almost the same, and the time zone as well. Same discussion for many countries in South America.

And, in the profile there are two different entries: "I speak" and "I live in". So doesn't make much sense. Plus, in my daily life I speak english. but I'm italian and live in Germany. But speak no german. so... which flag should I use?


Second time-zone... that doesn't make much sense either... If I'm online it means that I want to play no? And if because It's noon or 3AM and I suffer of imnsomnia, who cares?

[ViolentSilence]

The answer are basically on two levels:

1) The flag is about language
2) The flag is about timezone.

The first doesn't make much sense. If you see the Swiss flag, do you interpret it as italian, german or franch? And Canada? is it Franch or English?

Why then differenciate between Austria and German flag? The language is almost the same, and the time zone as well. Same discussion for many countries in South America.

And, in the profile there are two different entries: "I speak" and "I live in". So doesn't make much sense. Plus, in my daily life I speak english. but I'm italian and live in Germany. But speak no german. so... which flag should I use?


Second time-zone... that doesn't make much sense either... If I'm online it means that I want to play no? And if because It's noon or 3AM and I suffer of imnsomnia, who cares?

The first makes a lot of sense given that most countries have a predominant language. A few exceptions doesn't change that. As to why countries with a shared language may have different flags, it's because there might well be a historical cultural issue about expecting people to show a different flag. Americans, Canadians, New Zealanders might well resent having to show a British flag as a language marker. There are also differences of slang within each country that the flags might hint towards.

Adding political identity flags is a VERY questionable step. Catalan separatism for example is a highly contentious issue, along with the idea of Kurdistan, so should these political flags be allowed? There is a time and place for that sort of symbolism. I'd argue strongly that here isn't it.