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So as I see it, the only problem is the flags. {{Physics-stub}} needs cleaning up, btw! Valentinian ^{(talk) / (contribs)} 15:36, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

• I failed to take account of the various 2:1 ratio flag images. What about (a maximum of) 40x30px, then? Possibly even 35x30px. Alai 18:51, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

I like the idea about a standard height, if only we can fix the flags somehow. Perhaps we should simply specify a standard height for all non-flag images and a standard length for all flags? We'll probably have to do something clever about Switzerland, the Vatican and Nepal later. This would avoid the problem of some of the -geos suddenly stubbed with three templates using flags of different length. Different heights for flags looks much less odd than different lenghts. Just my 2 cents Valentinian ^{(talk) / (contribs)} 20:43, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Wouldn't the above suggestion do that? At least for any flag that's no more "square" than 4:3. Alai 20:54, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Reading it a second time, I guess it would. Valentinian ^{(talk) / (contribs)} 21:29, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

FWIW, I've always used a standard length of 40px for flags - the only ones that are a problem that way are those which are close to square (for which I usually use 30px, though I neglected to do so recently on the Niger-geo-stub) - IMHO the 50x25 flags are uinnecessarily large. Grutness...wha? 23:01, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Agree. This is why I suggest a standard length for flags and a standard height for other images. But I'm open to suggestions. Valentinian ^{(talk) / (contribs)} 07:01, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I just have a strong instinctive aversion to case analyses when they don't appear to be necessary. Why make flags a special case? Could we simply say "no larger than either 40x25 or 30x30"? Actually, I'd probably prefer 35x25: flags are just about the last things to need extra size for clear identification: that's rather the whole point of them. (With one or two unfortunate exceptions.) Alai 17:14, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I was thinking about having a standard flag length of e.g 30 px (or 35px) while giving all other images a standard 30px height. I wasn't arguing for bigger flags. Valentinian ^{(talk) / (contribs)} 18:46, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I wasn't suggesting you were, I'm just a bit puzzled why we'd want to have one "rule" for flags, and one "rule" for everything else. Various other images will have aspect ratios similar to flags, after all. Alai 22:00, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

The only reason is that a lot of -geo articles are stubbed with a number of national templates each using a flag. I just think it looks really really horrible seeing three or four flags next to each others having grossly different lengths. I am a bit inspired by the system used in front of the UN building where all flags have to use the same proportions as it makes the countries look more equal. In this case, the same length would probably do the trick. Valentinian ^{(talk) / (contribs)} 22:24, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

The UN system is actually a massive kludge that many of the nations involved don't actually approve of that much (and very few if any vexillologists do) - they simply make every flag the same dimensions, irrespective of the actual specificiations of each country's flag design. On Wikipedia it would create an extra problem to do that, since we'd need to make a whole new set of icons of identical dimensions. As far as what to do with the flags, I'd suggest making all of them except the four problem dimensions (Vatican, Switzerland, Niger, Nepal) have a length of 36 px - 36 allows for tribands and bicolours to have good hard-edged images, which 35 doesn't). With the other four, 30px would make sense (they'd be 30x30, 30x30, 30x27 and 30x40 respectively). Grutness...wha? 00:13, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

V., why is this any different from having three or four photographs, or other images with different widths? I'm not asking why we want a "rule"; I'm asking why we'd want a rule with built-in exceptions (and even exceptions to the exceptions). G., I'd be happy to stipulate to 36px rather than 35, but I'm not at all keen on creating 40px high images, for flags or otherwise. On the whole I'd still favour my earlier suggestion (or some similar bounding box or short list of possible bounding boxes), both on the basis of relative uniformity, and on results. I'd have no strong opinions either way about which image, and hence aspect ratio, to use for any given flag. Alai 03:19, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Note that my comments were for flag length, not height. I feel that the comments about keeping the length of flags as consistent as possible is preferable to making them all a set height. I've no objection to having a minimum/maximum range rather than a set figure, though having several fgas of different sizes does look a bit rough. Grutness...wha? 05:19, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

"Portrait" images that use an initially-reasonable-looking width, and end up with an excessive height are exactly the problem with this approach though, and made no better by having one standard for "flags" and one for "everything else". Anyhoo, my "bounding box" suggestion would have the net effect of making the vast majority of flags, with a typical range of aspect ratio, have the same length, without making a separate rule (with separate exceptions, and still ending up with oversized icons). The "range" was only for images with a different aspect ratio, not for arbitrary variation from case to case. Then again, on second thoughts, perhaps it might be just as well to use (something like) 36x30 for everything, No Matter What. Flags of radically different aspect ratios are going to look "wrong" when lined up, no matter what. You should also consider the aspect that if you make flags a special case, 'everyone else' will want one, too. Alai 06:27, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

...which would mean a lot of stretched or squashed images (and not just flags), which people would come along and fix irrespective of what "rules" we try to impose. Mind you, I wonder if we're really making more instruction-creep and work for ourselves where no problem really exists. We haven't had actual numbers for size before now, but have gone ahead and changed image sizes when they are obviously too big or too small. What's wrong with carrying on in exactly the same way? It isn't just flags that are the problem here, BTW - have a look at the icons used on some of the Australian WikiProject-related stubs and imagine how big the icon on Perth-stub, for instance, will be at 30px height. Grutness...wha? 06:44, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Stretched, how so? Remember that it doesn't change the aspect ratio of the image, it does a constrained resize to the "tighter" fit. They'd also be squashed if they were either too detailed, or too "portraity", both of which are bad ideas anyway, so the ideal "fix" in such cases is to get a more suitable image. At any rate, the objective isn't 100% "compliance" (is anything on WP:STUB?), but a reduction in the number of jarring clashes (which "we" get blamed for, of course), and of doing so in as simple a manner as possible. I know people are quick to call us Evil Processist Trolls, but all the above applies whether or not we're guidelineifying this; come to that, even if it doesn't get beyond this talk page, I'd like to think that all the people going from here to "fix" icons were "fixing" them in a way that was consistent, and made some sort of sense. Perth-stub would get about 3% wider (and hence, 3% higher) under my suggestion above: is that a problem in some way that's not clear to me? Alai 15:36, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

After long threatening, I've now split out the above from what's now Category:very large categories. The latter has suffered progressive drift in meaning (if not an outright semantic coup), and now claims these are "very large by design", which is expressly not the case for stub types. It might still be worthwhile also having a separate Category:stub categories requring diffusion, as this might be better suited for stub categories that are unlikely to need much in the way of further (direct) subcats, but do need frequent re-sorting, such as Category:people stubs and Category:American people stubs -- both currently very large again, btw -- as well as Category:stubs itself. Alai 06:07, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Have proposed at SfR, fyi. - CrazyRussian talk/email 14:56, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

I note that User:Instantnood is on one of his "Hong Kong is not part of China" kicks (insofar as the previous one can be said to have ended), in particular as regards to the stub hierarchy. See [2] [3], [4], [5], [6] and [7] I'd welcome some additional input, rather than immediately getting into a revert war, or kicking this up to ANI or measures under his existing probation. Alai 16:26, 24 September 2006 (UTC)