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There has recently been debate about the flags available for showing one's location or origin, or as a decoration because it looks so "cool." Several complicated issues have come up. These include the flag of Palestine, the Iroquis flag and the flag used by the Sami (AKA Lapplanders, Lapps). Sounds very simple, but actually it's more complicated than that. First of all AFAIK the Poly admins haven't stated what the official policies are for the flags and the second point is that there doesn't seem to be any official common guidelines for requests of new additional flags. Because of this I took the liberties to start an initiative for geting common rules for new flags and to get several flags added.
What is the real trouble with the flags?
Currently most of the flags are official flags of states and autonomous governments, but there's also several flags that don't have a legal status. Also the question about what flags can be accepted is controversial. Should flags of semiautonomous provinces like the 50 states of USA and the republics of the Russian Federation be allowed to have their own flags available too. Or should provincial flags of provincial systems like Canada and Australia also be allowed?
The reason why I started this initiative is that there's currently several flags that controversial in the meaning that they're not recognised by any laws or treaties of independent states, but still included in the Poly flag collection. This means that we either remove them, allow other similar ones or expand the flag rights.
I use the Sami flag as my showcase as I can prove it to be an unofficial flag of an organisation, rather than a flag controlled by laws, stipulations and international treaties. I'll go explain the case step-by-step so that you'll understand it more easily.
When I look at this issue, it's of course IMO natural to start the investigation at the grassroot level. In this case the national laws of the 3 countries involved; Finland, Sweden and Norway. Plus any information provided by the national Sami councils.
As the Finnish Sami parliament doesn't have an official website, I had to get over to the website of the Swedish Sami council (Sametinget, http://www.sametinget.se). Their website provides information about the flag only in Swedish, but I'll translate the key parts.
The Sami flag is common for all Sami. It was accepted in 1986 by the Nordic Sami Conference and designed by Astrid BÃ¥hl in Troms, Norway. The circle is a sun and moon symbol. The circle of the sun is red and the one of the moon is blue. The colours come from the Sami costume. In 1992 the Nordic Sami Conference decided which days should be occasions to be flagged by the Sami.
And this is how the actual flag looks alike...
As that didn't yet state everything, it's time to have a look at the national laws, stipulations and agreements. The Finnish online database of such matters, FINLEX, only indicates that what I already suspected. There's only written laws, stipulations and treatments related to the special autonomy rights of the Sami parliament and issues related to being a minority and the right to use the Sami language in official matters. As there isn't any legal rules for the Sami flag, it isn't a flag protected by the Finnish law. The main decree related to Sami is the Decree on the Sami Parliament (Asetus saamelaiskäräjistä/Förordning om sametinget). I don't quote it as it's not of it essence for the flag issue, but those interested can read it online in Finnish and Swedish, and as a PDF document the unofficial English translation (only Finnish and Swedish documents have ultimately the legal authenticity). The Finnish and Swedish versions can be found on FINLEX (http://www.finlex.fi) with the decree number 1727/1995, and the laws related to the issue (only in Finnish and Swedish): 974/1995 and 516/1991.
As information about the use of flags is handled by the Finnish Alliance (Suomalaisuuden liitto/Finskhetsförbundet), as agreed with the Ministry of Internal Affairs, there's also information about the use of the flag there, so I checked there too (http://www.suomalaisuudenliitto.fi, only in Finnish). Their online guidelines state that the Sami flag is a tribal flag, so that means it hasn't got any legal status; except that there's rules for its use.
The Swedish Sami council law (Sametingslagen) available on the Swedish website for official documents, Lagrummet (http://www.lagrummet.gov.se, only in Swedish), doesn't provide information either, so I don't translate it (yes, I could, but I don't volunteer
). The Swedish version is available here.
The next step is to check for any possible laws of the EU that could protect the Sami flag. Time for a quick check on EUR-Lex. As far as I could see, there isn't any regulations that would be directly related to this issue by the EU legislation, so this means there's approved status in any legal means for the Sami flag.
Refering to this conclusion I can't see why the Sami flag should have a special status on Poly? Neither is there any UN resolutions/treaties/agreements that would directly give a reason for this. This also counts for the flags of the Maoris of Kiwiland and Aborigines of Australia, unless the laws of the countries in question give those flags an official status, but I didn't check that now. So the current situation is that Poly is discriminating certain "generally accepted" flags, while others aren't included. The current unwritten policy seems to be that official state and territorial flags, and flags of ethnic minorities are accepted on Poly. But this is abit controversial, as it was culminated in the case when Ribannah wanted to get the flag of the Iroquis included. Contemporarily the flag of the Sami minority was accepted without any real debate compared to Ribannah's and DarkCloud's arguement about the Iroquis flag. This means also the Iroquis flag should be included, and for instance I could very well require the flag of the Northern Cyprus to be included; and Markos couldn't protest as that would mean he would put more importance on the one who asked for the Sami flag than me who asked for the flag of Northern Cyprus. Neither are international flags in terms of official acceptance, so it would be a more than contemporary of him not to accept my application.
So now you might understand why we need rules?
And I'm not asking for them just because I want to irritate Markos and Dan, but because at least I have several flags I want to get included.
So what is my suggestion as flag rules?
All flags requested should at least follow these rules:
1. The flag is used by an independent state recognised by UN, or type "Palestine", an autonomous territory that is very separated from the motherland in terms of legislation (this could be decided on case to case basis) like i.e. Guernsey and Monserrat, but not like Wyoming in USA or Dagestan in the Russian Federation; or a minority group like the Sami, Maoris, Iroquis, etc. that have a widely used flag, but not necessarily official.
2. The applicant must prove that he/she has a valid case for requiring the flag to be included; i.e. quotes from local laws and stipulations, official verbal or oral statements, agreements, etc.
My suggestion doesn't accept "provincial" flags like the ones I mentioned from USA and Russia, as that would only cause quite much mess. But if it's fine for Markos and Dan to use provincial flags in a certain extense like I mentioned in the beginning of my post, I would agree with it.
I appologise for any misleading or outdated information, but it should be up-to-date. I also want to urge mods not see this a post related to Ribannah's Iroquis flag, a spam thread or off-topic, as I really do want to have clear flag guidelines for new flags and it's related to Poly issues.
Edit: Added missing URL vB code tags.
What is the real trouble with the flags?
Currently most of the flags are official flags of states and autonomous governments, but there's also several flags that don't have a legal status. Also the question about what flags can be accepted is controversial. Should flags of semiautonomous provinces like the 50 states of USA and the republics of the Russian Federation be allowed to have their own flags available too. Or should provincial flags of provincial systems like Canada and Australia also be allowed?
The reason why I started this initiative is that there's currently several flags that controversial in the meaning that they're not recognised by any laws or treaties of independent states, but still included in the Poly flag collection. This means that we either remove them, allow other similar ones or expand the flag rights.
I use the Sami flag as my showcase as I can prove it to be an unofficial flag of an organisation, rather than a flag controlled by laws, stipulations and international treaties. I'll go explain the case step-by-step so that you'll understand it more easily.
When I look at this issue, it's of course IMO natural to start the investigation at the grassroot level. In this case the national laws of the 3 countries involved; Finland, Sweden and Norway. Plus any information provided by the national Sami councils.
As the Finnish Sami parliament doesn't have an official website, I had to get over to the website of the Swedish Sami council (Sametinget, http://www.sametinget.se). Their website provides information about the flag only in Swedish, but I'll translate the key parts.
Quote from Sametinget's website
Den samiska flaggan är gemensam för alla samer. Den godkändes 1986 av det Nordiska Samerådet och är formgiven av Astrid Båhl från Skibotn i Troms i Norge. Cirkeln är en sol- och månesymbol. Solringen är röd och månringen är blå. Färgerna kommer från den samiska dräkten. 1992 beslutade Nordiska samerådet vilka dagar som ska vara flaggdagar för samerna.
Den samiska flaggan är gemensam för alla samer. Den godkändes 1986 av det Nordiska Samerådet och är formgiven av Astrid Båhl från Skibotn i Troms i Norge. Cirkeln är en sol- och månesymbol. Solringen är röd och månringen är blå. Färgerna kommer från den samiska dräkten. 1992 beslutade Nordiska samerådet vilka dagar som ska vara flaggdagar för samerna.
And this is how the actual flag looks alike...
As that didn't yet state everything, it's time to have a look at the national laws, stipulations and agreements. The Finnish online database of such matters, FINLEX, only indicates that what I already suspected. There's only written laws, stipulations and treatments related to the special autonomy rights of the Sami parliament and issues related to being a minority and the right to use the Sami language in official matters. As there isn't any legal rules for the Sami flag, it isn't a flag protected by the Finnish law. The main decree related to Sami is the Decree on the Sami Parliament (Asetus saamelaiskäräjistä/Förordning om sametinget). I don't quote it as it's not of it essence for the flag issue, but those interested can read it online in Finnish and Swedish, and as a PDF document the unofficial English translation (only Finnish and Swedish documents have ultimately the legal authenticity). The Finnish and Swedish versions can be found on FINLEX (http://www.finlex.fi) with the decree number 1727/1995, and the laws related to the issue (only in Finnish and Swedish): 974/1995 and 516/1991.
As information about the use of flags is handled by the Finnish Alliance (Suomalaisuuden liitto/Finskhetsförbundet), as agreed with the Ministry of Internal Affairs, there's also information about the use of the flag there, so I checked there too (http://www.suomalaisuudenliitto.fi, only in Finnish). Their online guidelines state that the Sami flag is a tribal flag, so that means it hasn't got any legal status; except that there's rules for its use.
The Swedish Sami council law (Sametingslagen) available on the Swedish website for official documents, Lagrummet (http://www.lagrummet.gov.se, only in Swedish), doesn't provide information either, so I don't translate it (yes, I could, but I don't volunteer
). The Swedish version is available here.The next step is to check for any possible laws of the EU that could protect the Sami flag. Time for a quick check on EUR-Lex. As far as I could see, there isn't any regulations that would be directly related to this issue by the EU legislation, so this means there's approved status in any legal means for the Sami flag.
Refering to this conclusion I can't see why the Sami flag should have a special status on Poly? Neither is there any UN resolutions/treaties/agreements that would directly give a reason for this. This also counts for the flags of the Maoris of Kiwiland and Aborigines of Australia, unless the laws of the countries in question give those flags an official status, but I didn't check that now. So the current situation is that Poly is discriminating certain "generally accepted" flags, while others aren't included. The current unwritten policy seems to be that official state and territorial flags, and flags of ethnic minorities are accepted on Poly. But this is abit controversial, as it was culminated in the case when Ribannah wanted to get the flag of the Iroquis included. Contemporarily the flag of the Sami minority was accepted without any real debate compared to Ribannah's and DarkCloud's arguement about the Iroquis flag. This means also the Iroquis flag should be included, and for instance I could very well require the flag of the Northern Cyprus to be included; and Markos couldn't protest as that would mean he would put more importance on the one who asked for the Sami flag than me who asked for the flag of Northern Cyprus. Neither are international flags in terms of official acceptance, so it would be a more than contemporary of him not to accept my application.
So now you might understand why we need rules?And I'm not asking for them just because I want to irritate Markos and Dan, but because at least I have several flags I want to get included.
So what is my suggestion as flag rules?
All flags requested should at least follow these rules:
1. The flag is used by an independent state recognised by UN, or type "Palestine", an autonomous territory that is very separated from the motherland in terms of legislation (this could be decided on case to case basis) like i.e. Guernsey and Monserrat, but not like Wyoming in USA or Dagestan in the Russian Federation; or a minority group like the Sami, Maoris, Iroquis, etc. that have a widely used flag, but not necessarily official.
2. The applicant must prove that he/she has a valid case for requiring the flag to be included; i.e. quotes from local laws and stipulations, official verbal or oral statements, agreements, etc.
My suggestion doesn't accept "provincial" flags like the ones I mentioned from USA and Russia, as that would only cause quite much mess. But if it's fine for Markos and Dan to use provincial flags in a certain extense like I mentioned in the beginning of my post, I would agree with it.
I appologise for any misleading or outdated information, but it should be up-to-date. I also want to urge mods not see this a post related to Ribannah's Iroquis flag, a spam thread or off-topic, as I really do want to have clear flag guidelines for new flags and it's related to Poly issues.
Edit: Added missing URL vB code tags.
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