Talk:Flags of the U.S. states

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You forgot the U.S. Virgin Islands.

We didn't forget them, but if you would look at the title of this article, it is Flags of the US states. Are the Virgin Islands a state? I think not!

There is an inconsistency between this page and the gallery of national flags. There, "flag of" is a link to the flag's page, and the country name links to the entry for that country. Maybe this should be applied here, ie: Flag of Washington

I have changed the header for the the flags of the insular areas and DC. It said: "Territories and non-states". I have changed it to "Flags of the Insular areas and the Federal District" Since the word "territory" is so ambigious. -- Hoshie 02:40, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

i anyone else bothered by the title? i mean, come on, the "flags of the united states states"???

This is a pretty common convention on Wikipedia, because unqualified "state" would imply a generic state (a national state or sub-state of a nation other than the U.S.). I don't care that much for it, I suppose it would be a little better to say "State flags of the United States" or "Flags of the states of the United States" but we actually use the phrase "U.S. state" a lot. Demi T/C 21:08, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
I moved it back to "Flags of the U.S. states". We have a rule against using abbreviations in category names, but that rule doesn't apply in the same way to article titles. (The rule for article titles is to use the most common name.) If someone really objects to the abbreviation, I suppose "State flags of the United States" would be okay too. dbenbenn | talk 18:29, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
I think that "State flags of the United States" is clearer, the current title seems awkward to me.--Yukata Ninja 19:42, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Introduction

At the moment this is just a gallery. It needs an intro. Some suggestions, though I am far from being an an expert; I only suggest these as common themes from reading some of the individual articles; they may be way off-base.

  • Daughters of the American Revolution competitions inspired some.
  • Lots are one colour with a state seal, which designers think is a baaad idea.
    • Why is this? Some flags background colour is based on the uniform of its regiment in the American Revolution. Were most of them blue? Did later-joining states just stick to the standard pattern?
    • Some states have added their names to their flags. Perhaps an attempt to aid differentiation? Does it work?
  • Confederate Flag controversies.
  • 2001 survey ranking state flags from the North American Vexillological Association.
  • Maybe some trivia: most changes of design; oldest, newest; most/fewest colors. Some of this I could probably work out from the articles. WP:NOR? jnestorius(talk) 20:42, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Where do CSA state flags belong?

The topic of this article is "flags of states within the United States of America". During the civil war, a number of states left the USA and formed their own confederation, the CSA. Some (all?) flags of these rebel states are listed under "Historical flags", but I don't think they actually belong there. For example, the flag of Alabama of 1861–1865 shown there wasn't actually a flag of a USA state: it was the flag of a CSA state. (The USA government at the time certainly didn't recognize it as a legitimate flag of Alabama.) I propose moving all of these civil war era flags to the article Flags of the Confederate States of America, where I think they would be more on-topic. --ScottMainwaring 05:08, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

That article seems to be about national flags of the Confederacy while this article is about individual states. The constituent states of the CSA were US states before the war and were again afterwards. As far as the Union was concerned, they always were US states because they didn't recognize the secession as legitimate. Another point is that the federal government doesn't have any jurisdiction regarding state flags; i.e. the US Congress can't recognize any particular state flag as official. On a more prosaic note, it is easier for people to see the changes in the state flags if they are all in one place. I think the *Former flags* section is okay the way it is for these reasons. —Elipongo (Talk|contribs) 05:26, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Link style

The links would be less confusing if only the word "flag" linked to the state flag page. The black, unlinked "of" would help to separate the links for people. The counter-arguments to this that I can think of are not sufficient reasons.

I soon intend to execute this exercise in elegance, except if people take exception.

-Misha

216.254.12.114 (talk) 03:48, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I disagree -- in general, people expect "flag" to link to Flag. I see no need to put links to the state pages (Michigan, etc.) on this page at all; it's a list of flags, not a list of states. The most reader-friendly solution, in terms of not having to think carefully which word to click on, is to get rid of the repetitious "Flag of" text and link the name of the state below each flag to the flag page for that state; i.e., Michigan. --ScottMainwaring (talk) 16:32, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
That is a more substantial change. It's not really an argument against my more moderate alteration. If it is desired, we could always go that way. My improvement is merely a clearing-up of the current style. Unless you think that my way would be worse than the current style, I'll feel free to make the alteration.
-Misha
216.254.12.114 (talk) 05:41, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
Misha, I agree -- my suggestion represents a more bold change than yours. But, no disrespect intended, I think your proposed style would indeed be (slightly) worse than the current style. I think readers who see that the single word flag is linked to something would be rather more surprised to find that the link takes them not to the Flag article but to a specific "flag of ..." article, than they would be to find that the linked phrase flag of takes them to a specific "flag of" article. Does this reasoning make sense? --ScottMainwaring (talk) 06:57, 4 June 2008 (UTC)