User talk:LegerityFortis

English county flags

Hello! I'd just like to explain why I've reverted your additions of flags to the infoboxes of the English county articles, as you're probably wondering why. Those infoboxes are about the ceremonial counties, but the source for most of the flags is the Flag Institute, which only registers flags for the historic counties. In many cases the two types of county do not closely align even when they share a name (e.g. Lancashire), so it's best not to imply the flag represents the ceremonial county.

I hope that explains the rationale behind the reversions, but please ask if you'd like me to explain further. Thanks, A.D.Hope (talk) 15:17, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for your message, @A.D.Hope!

I appreciate your take on this. Just to explain my reasoning. I feel we are both correct in the approach we have taken to this. Which is why I can't fault you at all for reverting my edits. The way Wikipedia handles (or to be more specific does not handle) the differentiation in types of County in the UK throws up complications like this.

In the majority of cases, when the Historic County shares a name with a currently extant county, as is the case for your home county of Lancashire or my home county of Norfolk, there will be no article for the Historic county on its own. Indeed, the page for Historic counties will usually link people to the page for the Ceremonial County, compounding this confusion.

My inference from this is that articles such as the one for Norfolk or Lancashire should probably have infoboxes which highlight the fact that they are both historic and ceremonial counties. Which would obviously make the flag being in the infobox look less anomalous.

I have little time to experiment on such a modification at this juncture. (Especially since it would require a wholesale redesign/replacement of the infobox template.) So simply decided that an article which is the only page and is the redirect for searches for the historic county, should have the flag currently recognised as for that county in the infobox.

Yes, that infobox, and indeed the whole article, should probably be more reflective of the fact there are 2 different types of county involved, but here we are.

Appreciate your time and hope you're well!

Warmest Regards, LegerityFortis (talk) 23:41, 14 November 2023 (UTC)