[Idea] If you don't want to see huge flags taking space over actual drawings in the Canvas, pick the biggest flag that you can find to deface.
As long as a lot of people are doing that, the ones templating larger flags will be forced to reduce their layouts and give more room for actual drawings.
[Reasoning] When it comes to country flags, I think that the immense majority of the users can be split into four groups:
- The ones who don't want to see country flags at all.
- The ones who are OK with smaller flags, but don't want to see larger ones.
- The ones who want to see a specific large flag taking a huge chunk of space.
- The ones who want to see the whole canvas burning, like the void.
I'm myself firmly rooted into #1, but this idea is a compromise between #1, #2 and #4.
Typically #3 uses numbers (and/or bots) to seize a huge chunk of the canvas to their flags. Well, let's use numbers against it then. As long as #1, #2 and #4 are trying to wreck the same flag, we win.
[inb4]
But what about identity flags?
Not a problem. They're typically bands instead of thick squares, and people drawing them are fairly accommodating.
But what about [insert another thing]
Even if [thing] is a problem, it's probably minor in comparison with huge country flags.
What should be the template?
None. We don't need one, as long as everyone is working against the same large flag.
Just draw something of your choice over the flag, preferably over its iconic features.
But I'm not creative enough for that!
No matter how shitty your drawing is, it's probably still way more original than a country flag. So don't feel discouraged.
That said, you can always help someone else with their drawing. Or plop in some text. Or just void.
Why are you posting this now, you bloody Slowpoke?
I wish that I thought about this before Canvas 2024. But better later than never. (And better early by a year for Canvas 2025.)
EDIT: addressing on general grounds some whining from group #3 (the ones who want to see a specific large flag taking a huge chunk of the canvas space).
You do realise that this sort of "war against the largest flag" should benefit even you, as long as the biggest flag is not the one you're working with, right? Even for you, this makes the canvas a more even level field. Let us not forget that you love to cover other flags with your own.
I'll clip the quotes for succinctness.
I think that you're referring to the struggle of adapting an intricate pattern to a lower resolution, as the solutions for that struggle can be considered artistic. There are two catches however:
Think a bit less on the people being nationalists and more on the discourse that those people are conveying being a nationalistic one.
I don't think that those two types of user (ones willing vs. not willing to have drawings on a flag) map even remotely well to non-nationalists vs. nationalists. And, in any group posting any sort of country flag, you will have a mix of both types anyway, and it'll be impossible for anyone to enforce it one or another way.
Furthermore, when it comes to flag posters allegedly respecting the others' drawings, it goes often as I described in another comment; under a discourse that sounds a lot like “this is the land of Our Holy Symbol. However, since we’re magnanimous, we shall turn a blind eye to your doodle defacing it.”, while co-opting those the people drawing random stuff to defend the flag posters' flag, against other flags or actual drawings (as the people drawing random still likely care about the surroundings of their own drawing).
About the spirit of the event, see below.
If the game was only about getting along and working together, it would be completely different. Factions like The Void would be banned on the spot, there would be a larger canvas to accommodate everyone, multi-accounting wouldn't be so discouraged, there would be measures discouraging people from undoing the others' drawings...
And yet none of those things happen. Because both cooperation and competition are part of the spirit of the game. In fact, I'd argue that they're sides of the same coin, with the actual spirit being to mirror human social interactions in something inconsequential. It's a bit like a political simulator, you know?
Even then I think that the Fediverse canvas will stay far more relaxed than the one in Reddit.
Again, I think that you're focusing way too hard on there being some sort of deeper meaning to people drawing a country flag. Maybe you're right and those people are nationalists who try to propagate some idea that their country is somehow better than yours by drawing a bigger flag. Why do you care so much?
I guess you could say it like that, although I would disagree that there are no consequences, most people just choose to ignore them because they don't affect them personally in any way.
I don't think we'll find common ground here, but that's totally fine. It's been nice talking about it anyway; I just hope everything I said made sense^^
Ah, the "our holy symbol" was copypasted from my earlier comment, so it doesn't address what you've already said in the meantime.
I also don't think that we'll find common ground. It's sounding more and more like different moral premises; and yes, what you said made sense (even if I disagree with it).