Please include your thoughts here and answer the question. Sadly, there's no poll option in this forum, but oh well...

Should Nintendolife bring back the flags next to the user icons?

I vote "Yes."

I vote "No."

I don't think we should bring them back.

I vote "No."

I vote "does it really matter?"

If you are that interested in seeing where people are from just click on their avatar and it will tell you where they are from.

What, is it really that important?

If I cared, I would go to their profile. And I don't ever care so...

Plus, most of the people, I know where they live.

for what it's worth, i don't really care — i can visit their profile if i want to know where they're from. :3

That's a negative from me too.

Bring em Back

Just wanted to chime in on why I chose "No" to bringing flags back...and why, if I had my way, we'd remove location altogether.

Sometimes, I feel that some non-American users are overly and purposefully disrespectful towards people that they know are from the US. I'm not naming names, but as an American, when those certain non-American users have something negative to say about America in general, I find it offensive. Don't get me wrong, I'm far from a patriot, but I don't feel that adds anything positive to our community. When I see it, I keep quiet about it in order to not stir up more trouble and move on, but it does bother me.

What does showing everyone where you are from do besides cause unneeded tension and split among the community? I mean, we are one online global community here anyways, so where you're from in real life, that sort of thing, it just shouldn't matter and shouldn't even be mentioned in my opinion.

I mean, if people really want flags, why not design a few different flags based off fictional Nintendo locations like...The Mushroom Kingdom or Hyrule or SR388 or... what have you.

I for one would love a Hylian flag. Well if it was only mine

_{bow down to prince zezzy or be banished >:3}

I miss the flags, and it isn't a convenient work-around to simply open up someone's profile, because at least for me, the act of opening someone's profile takes too long just to simply look at the country they have chosen as their nation of residence.

What we could have is a profile revamp - the one that appears to the side of a forum post. It could include information like location (maybe we can type in what we want, and those of us from the UK can finally declare our constituent country - not that it should lead to any sort of sectarianism, of course) like most other forums, but not neccesarily forum awards like destructoid (this user is a vegetarian - +100 points).

No

YES.

I virtually never used them personally, although I did notice them on occasions, but I know it would make a lot of people happy so I'm all up for it and I think the positives far outweigh the potential negatives in this particular situation.

Edit: Looks like most people in here are voting No however, which seems the opposite of what most people were saying in the original article (why are some people so blimmin awkward?) so this could just be a big waste of time.

Either way, it's not that big a deal so I'll live.

I would like them to add some borders on the different sections on the page however. As seen in my wee example mock-up:

http://oi39.tinypic.com/35lrqd1.jpg

I think it should be an optional display thing(, based on user preference). I was always under the impression, that the (displayed/non-displayed) flags were determined by either a.) geo-ip scan of the pc that registered "x" account @ registration time, b.) the input timezone, or c.) user preference to not display anything. Of course, one could say the flags not displaying could, & probably are determined actually by timezone, since not specifying a timezone could potentially be not telling the NLife servers where you're from, unless the info is derived from geo-ip. On the other hand, that's just me thinking out loud through different programming scenarios of how it's set up.

I will say I like to know, & test through actual online gaming sessions, my connection speed, to who, & where I might be gaming w/.(Edit: For NLife members' info, this does not mean I delete from friend lists anyone I might have a bad connection to. I just don't do that.) Of course, I could always check their profile, but it's a little bit more than just of a passing interest to me, my connection I mean; It's important to me, but not that much.

I can also see how no flags (displayed in the comments) offer better anti-discriminatory(Is that even a word?) properties to the more passive-reader, who does not click profiles to find user location. The more interested will still click into profiles to find out. As @Sykotek just said, we are "one online global community here " & we're all gamers, as well!

I think it's a mixed bag of pros, & cons, but I vote "Yes" to both the original query, & to video game theme flags, like @sykotek said.

I'd love them back. I love seeing where people are from. Also, I thought it was a really unique part of nintendolife, being able to see that people are posting from so many different places.

The flags also had the fantastic side-effect of making release times for downloads a lot easier to follow... When the 3ds ambassador games were released, being able to see 50 users from Germany posting "I got them!" and 20 from America saying "WHY AREN'T THEY HERE" was a really convenient way of showing me what regions they were available in. :>

However, I am troubled by sykotek's stating of some users being judgmental to others based on location.

Perhaps an opt-in?

And I think that European/Australia/whatever users would find it offensive if a non-whatever user made the same comment. Removing those flags creates a global community, not defined by where a person lives.

I liked the feature honestly. If people were talking about something specific to their region, then it was easy to tell at a glance. Now it's just a hassle.

I had a good example the other day but I've forgotten it. D:

tbqh I haven't noticed many "my country's better than your country which sucks" type comments on NL. They're all over IGN though.