Flags, thanks and SEO

[sidguppy]

I completely agree with Marc, which isn't a surprise at all

any form of nationalistic behavior somehow smells wrong to me.
I wouldn't want to be caught dead with a Dutch flag, let alone with a union jack or stars n stripes.

maybe it's an Anglo Saxon thing?
neither the UK or the US have ever been under the heel of an invasion by an extreme flag waving culture.
those of us of mainland Europe who have....well, many of us do not feel entirely comfortable with extreme forms of "patriotism" or crowds waving flags.

that patriotism is the last refuge of the scaundrel doesn't help either ;)

like Marc says and I agree, and can't sum it up that short; i think PC can do without.

the only flag I can handle is the Jolly Roger.
yarr

[apistomaster]

It has been fascinating to see how the "Waving Flag" icon stirs such diverse emotions.
As an American, the flag as used here only acts a quick identifier of the poster's location or nationality to me.
It never occurred to me, in this context, that it conveyed more than a poster's location at a glance. Obviously it does mean different things to different people.
I thought of it as an amusing way to show the memberships' diversity in an apolitical and non-historical way in much the same way as the emoticons we sometimes use to express ourselves in an amusing way.

[Shane]

It has been fascinating to see how the "Waving Flag" icon stirs such diverse emotions.

Interesting point. Would people see it differently if the flag was not animated?

-Shane

[racoll]

Interesting point. Would people see it differently if the flag was not animated?

Haha.

I've actually I had to block all the flags anyway, because they are animated (see here). I would prefer them to be static gifs, but I am probably to only one with this problem, so ignore me.

[sidguppy]

the waving adds to the irritation, but it's not the main point, at least not for me.

true, the more animated gifs there are, the slower the whole site will be.

if these animations serve a practical purpose, it's one thing; but slowing a whole site by adding useless frippery isn't exactly a smart thing to do

it's a typical mistake which is everywhere (not just on PC); looks are somehow more important than funtionality or efficience.
making the wrapper more important than the content.


but even if these flags were static (making them flagpins, sort of) they would still be the same nationalistic symbols

I thought we were a bunch of catfish enthousiasts and politics had no business here.
obviously I was wrong

[Dave Rinaldo]

I thought we were a bunch of catfish enthousiasts and politics had no business here.

To me, you are the one that is making it political.

[Jools]

Yeah, I tend to agree. I mean, they're just flags. I don't see anyone posting differently due to their inclusion in the site. If they are then I would review them. If someone is going to be nasty or bully other people in their posts then I don't think a flag would make much difference given especially that location is already mandatory.

I would rather static than waving animated flags but that's just "how it came out of the box".

Jools

[Jools]

neither the UK or the US have ever been under the heel of an invasion by an extreme flag waving culture.

You're forgetting perhaps I'm Scottish. I don't want to go into politics or nationalism, but let's just say we've had our share of invasions.

I'm maybe a dreamer, but I live in a world where one can be proud of their country without any sense of that being to the detriment of others.

Jools

[apistomaster]

I haven't noticed any slowing of the site after the flag option was introduced.
Maybe if I was on dial up instead of high speed internet connection I might see a difference.
My ISP is clearwire.com and I have their fastest plan but that is only up to 2 Gb/sec; pretty slow for a "high speed" connection.
Netflix recommends at least a 2.5 Gb/sec connection. I have to buffer awhile before watching videos. I have a wireless home network and both my TV and receiver are internet ready. I use my receiver because my TV has no RAM but the blue ray player has a one gig of RAM.

[MatsP]

@Larry: The slowness is only with certain combinations of graphics cards and OS, and is caused by (based on my understanding of how graphics cards work and a bit of guesswork) syncronizing the graphics card with each update of the GIF-image (it's a sequence of images stored in a single file, which gets "played" over and over in a loop).

If you do not have a graphics card and OS combination that suffers from a problem displaying this type of image [and it may even be very specific models of graphics card involved here], it won't matter.

Edit: And I expect you mean Mb/s rather than Gb/s - 2.5Gb/s is 250 times faster than "medium-speed" cable/ADSL in England, and 2.5 times faster than the local network in our building where I work.

--
Mats

[apistomaster]

Mats,
You are correct.
My nominal down load connection speed is 2.0 Mb/s.
Not very fast compared to most developed countries.
I use clearwire.net which is a system which broadcasts the service from antennae piggy backed on cell phone towers so I do not have a physical connection, Just a wireless "modem" receiver which in turn is connected to a Cisco-Linksys WRT610N Simultaneous Dual-N Band Wireless Router set up to connect to three lap tops one with wireless "G" and two with wireless "N", a wireless AIO Printer plus my wireless internet ready LED LCD HDTV and wireless internet ready Blu-ray Disc Player.

Here in one of the American "Outback" areas(Low population density), it is hard to get higher speed internet connections. The phone company's fastest DSL speed here is 1.5 Mb/s. I can't get very fast connections unless I subscribe to cable and I hate cable companies. Clearwire is supposed to make a 4 Mb/sec speed available eventually and they have introduced it to within 150 miles away so I continue to put up with them. Netflix says you need at least a 2.5 Mb/s connection for decent streaming but I run it through my Blu-ray player because it has built in 1 Gb RAM so I can allow it to buffer awhile to avoid annoying pauses.

[Viktor Jarikov]

With all due respect to Marc and Alex, I agree with Dave R. Alex, you appear the only one who is stirring up mud in this issue. Not that you couldn't or shouldn't voice your opinion but I am writing for the same reason.

[Marc van Arc]

Okay, before this becomes a never ending story: apparently very few people object to flags. Let's leave it at that.

[apistomaster]

It is merely an option and not required.

[Dave Rinaldo]

Hadn't noticed that 'Top five Flags' has been removed.

[Jools]

Hadn't noticed that 'Top five Flags' has been removed.

Not on purpose - a casualty of the forum upgrade which I will re-instate.

Jools