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New flags

pjf on 2004-08-07T06:20:00

Have written new flags for Chile, Scotland, Switzerland, and Texas.

Mistake

jdavidboyd on 2004-08-07T16:14:10

I think there is a mistake in the Switzerland area, as it says that it was founded in 1921, and achieved legal independence in 1648...

Re:Mistake

pjf on 2004-08-08T00:20:12

Thanks for spotting that. The basic Switzerland was formed in 1291, and formally recognised by the rest of Europe in 1648.

Fixed.

Tres cool...

educated_foo on 2004-08-08T06:17:58

But this really needs comments. For example, other than modern political reasons, I don't see why France's flag is particularly cool, or why America's is un-cool (at least, not like that blue-and-pink pastel monstrosity a few flags down on the "not" list). After all, flags are like medieval graffiti, and graffiti ain't worth much without trash talking.

Re:Tres cool...

pjf on 2004-08-08T06:51:06

I would hope that people would vote upon flags based upon their designs, colours, and and symbols. However many flags will invoke emotional responses in many people. As such, they may vote a flag as being particularly hot or not based upon recent politics, rather than the merits of the flag itself.

I know of many flags that are much more stomach-churning than the current ones on the nottest list. Likewise, I feel that France and Australia's flags have also had some political upvoting from users in those countries.

One obvious problem which I've just fixed is that flags could enter the hottest or nottest list with a very small number of votes (just three). Allowing flags with such a small sample is a bad idea. I've now raised this, and a much better distribution of flags is being displayed.

I'll also tweak the site somewhat so that flags that haven't seen many votes are more likely to be presented to a user to vote upon. While there have been 3,220 votes cast so far, there are more than 1000 flags loaded into the database. As such, not many flags have a high confidence associated with their rating.

I have a couple of flags to remove from the system as well. The Royal Family has a whole swag of banners that are identical, with the exception of a few very small minor details. These can quite easily be rolled together.