Re: Conlang Flag Design

David Peterson wrote, replying to Roger:

> I like all of these (though the gold border should be removed from the last
> one).
I think very little of these to be honest, but I'll always add a
submission to the page if it's seconded by someone other than the
creator.

Indeed, before the vote it is only fair to give people a chance to
alert me to any flags that I've neglected to add; a flag that I am
alerted to in this manner I will consider to have been seconded.

The reason I disapprove of Roger's flags, and have only added them
because one or two people have expressed approval, is that they
strike me as a haphazard mishmash of symbols with little rhyme or
reason, and Roger hasn't written anything to convince me otherwise.
For example, it's been established that the rising sun can represent
the rising popularity of conlanging as well as the invention of a new
language for a new day, but Roger's sun doesn't look like it's rising
- it looks like the sun at noon - and I have no idea what the sun all
by itself is meant to suggest. That language is the life-giver,
perhaps? That language is the central energy source which powers our
worlds? Which, of course, is perfectly true, but what did Roger have
in mind? The backgrounds are in two colours, and I really don't know
why. For example I see little point in simply representing the real
and created worlds on a flag, if that's the intention, if you don't
try to say anything specific about them. In the flag with the celtic
knot, the knot is merely something that is there, without any apparent
reason. Earlier I suggested that the tongue of the conlanger and the
tongue of a fictional speaker could be intertwined to represent the
union of ourselves with our inventions, but in Roger's flag the knot
is not connected to anything, it's just something that is there in the
centre, not doing much apart from declaring its own existence.

David also wrote:

> Before commenting on the flag posts, as a general comment, I think
> this is clogging the list.   Though we don't want to rush it, and we want
> to give everyone time, I think we should probably close the door on
> submissions pretty soon, get the final versions of the flags up even
> sooner, and then start our preliminary round of voting.
I've asked someone to help design a celtic knot flag (in fact - and I
hope she doesn't mind me advertising this - the person I've asked is
the author of <http://www.deitydiva.co.uk/celtic/>) but she knows that
there's no guarantee that we'll wait for this.

We do have to agree on the details of how voting will work. I've
already raised the (IMO) most important issues.

Another question is this: is it a worthwhile thing for me to write a
.php page that will display the flags (and a short title for each) in
random order, so that the order they appear in is randomised every
time you refresh your browser? That's for the benefit of people and
donkeys who can't make up their mind which they prefer out of two or
more flags.

Jeffrey Henning wrote:

> Technically it shouldn't have the gold lines, but it looked goofy when I
> removed them:
In my view, it certainly looks /nice/ with the gold lines, but also
looks perfectly acceptable without them (albeit too similar to
Christian's variation). You just don't get lines that thin on a flag,
because they'd disappear anyway when the size is reduced, so I think
it's best to go without them.

Query: According to the legend, the Tower of Babel was far from
complete when the languages were divided, and yet in the illustrations
it's shown as a finished product, with a dome and all. Why?

Adrian.