The documentation generated by the Country showdata template says that Template:Navy is supposed to display the navy flag variant when it is specified. But digging through the template dependencies, Template:Navy/core appears to only look for the naval alias and doesn't check for navy at all. I see that the Navy alias was added to the documentation template by User:Illegitimate Barrister in February 2018, but no change appears to have been made to the core template then. --Paul_012 (talk) 11:06, 16 December 2021 (UTC)
@Illegitimate Barrister: So people will then have to use Navy template to show the flag that is labeled naval and Naval template to show the flag that is labeled navy? That sounds counterintuitive.
Besides Thailand, a few country data templates label their naval ensign as naval and the flag of their Navy (as a branch of armed forces) as navy: Poland, Indonesia, Egypt, Colombia, Albania, etc. Aithus (talk) 22:20, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
The "Navy" template came first, so that's why it's the way it is. Switching it would require replacing every instance of it across Wikipedia. I do agree that it is a bit perplexing for a newbie, yeah. – Illegitimate Barrister (talk • contribs), 21:56, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
These should only be changed if and when you and others agree that this is the way to fix this. I think it is, but I don't know the history of this as well as you and other editors here. P.I. Ellsworth - ed.put'r there19:55, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
To editor Paine Ellsworth: Thank you for taking the time to build out a solution. This change is good to me and is more intuitive to use. On the other hand, I think its deployment may swap out intended flags in articles with country data templates that label their naval ensign as naval and the flag of their Navy (as a branch of armed forces) as navy: Poland, Indonesia, Egypt, Colombia, Albania, etc. Especially if their editors had learned and followed the reverse naming scheme instead of using extra parameter like {{navy|Thailand|navy}}. I have no idea how to search for these articles in order to estimate the effort to verify and fix them. Aithus (talk) 15:25, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
Are those all the countries affected, or are there others? If we do make these changes, I suggest that it is done one country at a time and not en masse. Mjroots (talk) 17:49, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
None of these correspond to the flags that their Country data documentations indicate they should be. (Now, they all correspond. – P.I.E.) Still seems that by swapping out the cores, all will be well. If editors have used workarounds, they will probably still be okay – for example, see {{navy|Thailand|navy}}Royal Thai Navy vs. {{navy/sandbox|Thailand|navy}}Royal Thai Navy. P.I. Ellsworth - ed.put'r there22:45, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
Another test would be to use Country data templates to compare the Navy and Naval military ensigns using the core sandboxes in {{Navy/sandbox}} and {{Naval/sandbox}}. If the cores are swapped, then there still should be no differences on the country data pages. I used Albania and Thailand as examples:
Each of the sandboxes calls {{Country showdata/sandbox}}, which calls the Navy and Naval sandboxes with the swapped core templates. The flags do not change from the live templates to the sandboxes, which means that swapping the cores does seem to be the correct next step. P.I. Ellsworth - ed.put'r there23:47, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
Also, just a gentle reminder that that the core templates' codes should be swapped by a simple series of page moves to correctly preserve edit histories of the pages. I can do that when consensus is clear. P.I. Ellsworth - ed.put'r there00:08, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
@Paine Ellsworth: - you have my support, subject to doing one at a time and a check that all is still OK following the change. There may be the potential for a large mess-up here, which is why I suggest caution. Mjroots (talk) 11:53, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
To editor Mjroots: it is a good thing to be cautious, and I submit that to exercise caution in this situation means to me to cause the least amount of disruption. That is why I think the core changes should be made as closely to simultaneously as possible. There should be three smooth page moves that involve core #1, core #2 and a holding cell. Move core #1 to a holding cell, move core #2 to core #1, then move the holding cell to core #2. That should fix things while causing the least amount of disruption. P.I. Ellsworth - ed.put'r there22:00, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
I suggest you return it to the previous revisions. You screwed up tons of links/ensigns. I know Mjroots believed they could speak for the project, but this was not run by WP:SHIPS or WP:MILHIST and they speak only for themselves. Llammakey (talk) 18:56, 23 January 2022 (UTC)
Actually, the can of worms that's been opened is necessary because the Country data templates in question on the other talk pages, UK, Canada, New Zealand and so on, do not have "Navy" variants, only "Naval" variants. These must have been the subject of workarounds that now need to be fixed by adding Navy variants to the Country data templates. I'll get on it. P.I. Ellsworth - ed.put'r there20:38, 23 January 2022 (UTC)
All of the countries mentioned at WT:WikiProject Military history#Template:Navy and at WT:WikiProject Ships#Template:Navy have been fixed, that is, they all now have navy variants where before they only had naval variants. Editors were using the navy template because the naval template didn't work correctly. So those countries that didn't have navy variants would work correctly only because the Navy template core possessed the naval-variant code. All things are now as they should be. If other countries pop up that don't have navy variants, then we just add the navy variants. P.I. Ellsworth - ed.put'r there21:19, 23 January 2022 (UTC)
My pleasure! Most Country data templates already have navy variants. So this isn't as big a challenge as it may seem at first glance. It's mainly just the workarounds that editors were using, the bandaids, that will need to be dealt with at this point. No more need for bandaids because the boo boo is healed. P.I. Ellsworth - ed.put'r there22:02, 23 January 2022 (UTC)
To editor Comrade John: well, nobody's perfect, not me, not you and not AWB. I set AWB to skip if the code contains "navy", so I could catch those that had no navy alias. Those two contain the word "navy", just not as an alias. There might still be a few of those out there. I'll see if I can devise a way to catch them. P.I. Ellsworth - ed.put'r there22:36, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
To editor Mjroots: interesting reading! See where you've done a lot of good work on that list. As you probably know, that Chilean Navy ship, the Covadonga, recovered from that 1879 incident only to be mined and sunk the next year, which also puts it on the next page, List of shipwrecks in 1880. That later list also sports the Covadonga with the Navy Jack instead of the correct ensign. Since I'm not the expert, hopefully you can tell me what you think we should do. In the '79 list, there is only one usage of the {{Navy}} template, the one for the Covadonga. All the others use either the {{flag}} or the {{flagcountry}} template. So if it's changed for consistency to one of those templates, the main Chilean flag will appear, which is also the Naval ensign. Or, the Navy template could just be changed to the Naval template, which also presently aliases to the correct Naval ensign. Or, another option, and I will cede to your expertise because I have not been able to determine if this would be the right move, the two flag images could be swapped out in the {{Country data Chile}} template. Let me know what you think we should do. And other editors are also welcome to chime in. Whatever we decide, it should also be done on the 1880's list for the Covadonga entry. P.I. Ellsworth - ed.put'r there19:06, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
@Paine Ellsworth: - if we swap the labels over (which is the fix I suggested for Thailand), in theory it shoud correct the error. The cost of this is that historic versions of articles will dislay the wrong flag. Mjroots (talk) 19:18, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
To editor Mjroots: iirc, what actually worked for Thailand was swapping the cores. For a case like this it might be better if we change the Navy template to template {{Naval}} in order to make the correct ensign appear and retain the military link? P.I. Ellsworth - ed.put'r there22:43, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
The flag of Chile is the ensign and should be the one that displays for the Chilean Navy as the default. So yes, reverse them. Similarly the South Korean one is inversed too. The jack currently displays when the navy template is used. Llammakey (talk) 15:03, 26 January 2022 (UTC)
Roman Empire: same red square with golden wreath and letters, just with the eagle and a fringe. Never existed as a flag, the eagle was a symbol of a legion, never of the State
Roman Empire: this is historically accurate (mostly, the three dots should be portratis of Constantine and his sons). But it was Constantine personal symbol, not of the State (there was only one of these);
Roman Empire: this is just a chi-rho, never a flag, never a symbol of the Empire.
Concur. The articles using them representatively as flags also should be changed, either by removal or, if we are really really wedded to having some visual shorthand, by adding large disclaimers. Ifly6 (talk) 19:51, 17 February 2022 (UTC)
Codes for different countries in the country data templates
Hello! Can you add different codes for countries in the country data templates for example ISO and FIFA codes. That is not silly mainly because they use different country codes.
Yours sincerely, Sondre 88.88.4.178 (talk) 20:14, 9 August 2022 (UTC)
Flag template for Commonwealth of Nations
The flag for the Commonwealth of Nations keeps getting removed as non-free, is it possible that a Wikimedia Commons roughly recreated icon can be used as the flag alias to solve this problem? See revision history Template:Country data Commonwealth of Nations
How do i move the flagdeco one? im trying to use it like a topicon. if there is an actual topicon for this, please tell me. also the flag is norway if that helps. Allaoii (talk) 19:03, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
Sorting by country doesn't work if using flag icons
Is the documentation updated on Naval vs Navy flags?
I'm asking about this section of the documentation/WikiProject page. I found a relevant discussion about this topic from last year. The project page seems to state that naval ensigns should be listed as navy, and that navy flags or naval jacks should be listed as naval. Is this currently correct? BucketOfSquirrels (talk) 15:35, 22 March 2023 (UTC)
.svg){kind=small}
