Country flag choice / mislead

Hello Lichess team!

First of all thank you very much for all your work and efforts to make this chess site work and be the best (I moved here from chess.com and am very happy!)

Recently I have played against a player with the flag of white-blue-white strips, since I don't know any country with such a flag I decided to investigate and have a look at the choices you offer. To my surprise you offer this flag as an alternative to Russian flag. This deeply offends me, as there is only one Russian flag, it is white-blue-red, and naming any other flag as Russian is inappropriate and irrelevant.

I might assume that you wanted to add some anti-war flags, however I still don't see any correlation between chess and politics, anyways, if this is what you intended to do, then where are anti-war flags for the USA, the UK, Israel, Germany, France, Italy, Poland, Lithuania and many more other countries?

Looking forward to your reply and to something being done about this huge mislead.

Andrew.

From the Lichess source:

> // whatever
> C("EU", "European Union"),
> C("_adygea", "Adygea"),
> C("_belarus-wrw", "Belarus White-red-white"),
> C("_east-turkestan", "East Turkestan"),
> C("_esperanto", "Esperanto"),
> C("_lichess", "Lichess"),
> C("_pirate", "Pirate"),
> C("_rainbow", "Rainbow"),
> C("_russia-wbw", "Russia White-blue-white"),
> C("_united-nations", "United Nations"),
> C("_earth", "Earth"),
> C("_transgender", "Transgender")

This is stupid af. Flag is literally to represent your country. Flag is kind of official, no opinions here. No your political, religion, sexual, food, color, musical, etc. preferences. If you don't want to represent your country, just don't use the flag. If Lichess devs would continue to support such "whatever" flags, it eventually become evergrowing pain in a** for both devs and users.

Always funny when a Russian complains that chess and politics must stay separated.

I didn't know this flag, thanks for letting me know. I like it.

To all said above: I am not saying anything about being a representative, I am just saying that it is logical either to give an option for a real flag, or give a complete range of alternative flags for everyone, not just some "special" ones, taking into consideration they do not officially exist and do not stand for a country (or exist only in the imagination of some group of people)

Oh, I should say "thank you" for being allowed to show my flag? Everything is being criticized nowadays, so is it a reason to ban it? If I started criticizing any flag then should it be the reason to consider it being removed? Of course not. If anyone bans the flag/language/culture of any country - this is a step towards racism and discrimination. And if you change the existing flag with a fake one - it is a deliberate mislead and disinformation. And that is why I urge to attract attention, unite, and bring this issue to Lichess team.

Speaking about Chess.com - they're just a bunch of racists, so screw them.

@UnDo_CtrlZ said in #6:
> To all said above: I am not saying anything about being a representative, I am just saying that it is logical either to give an option for a real flag, or give a complete range of alternative flags for everyone, not just some "special" ones, taking into consideration they do not officially exist and do not stand for a country (or exist only in the imagination of some group of people)
>
> Oh, I should say "thank you" for being allowed to show my flag? Everything is being criticized nowadays, so is it a reason to ban it? If I started criticizing any flag then should it be the reason to consider it being removed? Of course not. If anyone bans the flag/language/culture of any country - this is a step towards racism and discrimination. And if you change the existing flag with a fake one - it is a deliberate mislead and disinformation. And that is why I urge to attract attention, unite, and bring this issue to Lichess team.
>
> Speaking about Chess.com - they're just a bunch of racists, so screw them.

You say "If I started criticizing any flag then should it be the reason to consider it being removed? Of course not."
but also " if you change the existing flag with a fake one - it is a deliberate mislead and disinformation"

so you want lichess to fix a flag by not removing nor keeping it
please suggest a solution and what does a flag matter i could choose to be a pirate yet never been at see or un russia or anywhere with no differance being made to anything except those who care about where you live

also the reason for that flag is for Russians who want to stand against Putin
Putin being the red

@UnDo_CtrlZ said in #6:
> I am not saying anything about being a representative, I am just saying that it is logical either to give an option for a real flag, or give a complete range of alternative flags for everyone, not just some "special" ones

you don't seem to understand how lichess works. flags are added when there are pull requests. see e.g. github.com/lichess-org/lila/pull/10642

@UnDo_CtrlZ said in #1:
> where are anti-war flags for the USA, the UK, Israel, Germany, France, Italy, Poland, Lithuania and many more other countries?

are there any commonly used anti-war flags for those countries? if so, create a pull request.

First of all let me thank you all for your feedback and comments! It was both informative, helpful and funny to read: some gave solid advise, some were kind enough to guide to the possible solution, some just started endless doublespeak, some exposed their utter failure to execute basic logic functions.

So thanks to those, who actually helped. Thanks to those, who strengthened my will to fight this sick trend of country flag twist. And thanks to those who once again proved that these people who turned against their own country can't offer anything constructive, showing the uselessness of their protest.

For all those who might get confused reading this: there is only one Russian flag: white-blue-red.

There is no other official flag.

The fake flag of white-blue-white has nothing to do with Russia and stands for people with sick imagination. However, due to some mistake, they are allowed to mislead and present it as a country flag, claiming it to represent their views, which is completely irrelevant, because this is about chess, not about sharing our political views (or delusions).

We will move on with this, we will keep protecting our flag and fight disinformation, we are many, and no matter what the result will be, it will either prove that Lichess do care about chess more than fantasies of delusional people, or we will be able to see these "special" people instantly by the label they hang on themselves.

Wishing all of you a great day!

Andrew.

@Waiting4BirnamWood said in #5:
> Ultimately, it is at the discretion of Lichess which flags are included and which are not.

That's the right answer, everything else being (even) more problematic.