Non-mandatory country flags in lobbies (or anywhere)

[DeivisJenkins]

The idea is to add a privacy-related option to the account profile to be able to hide or anonymize one's country flag.
I know this idea has been considered before but I feel compelled to suggest it once again.
Previous requests were rejected with "why would you want to hide it if not to missbehave", but I find several valid reasons.

• Politics drama / Real-World conflicts
  i.e: "You're bad because you're X" or "I don't wanna play (or share energy/mass) with an X"

• Prevent tracking for privacy/personal reasons
  i.e: Personal targetting

• Streamer/content creator safety
  i.e: Targeted harassment, tracking, or doxxing

• Regular privacy
  i.e: "I want to play with a newly made friend and we're not yet comfortable with knowing this information about each other"

• Misrepresentation
  i.e: Being tagged with the wrong flag for any reason, like living near the border.

I also realize the tendency is to answer to some of these reasons with "you just have to report anyone that does that" but that's a failing strategy on the long term.
For anyone else that still defends the flag system, I should say it has never been too reliable either, many people have the question mark flag, or manually mislead it with a VPN.
Other competitive games (i.e: Beyond All Reason) allow hiding flags without a worry, It requires so little technical work that it could be done in a single patch. I really think is a no-brainer to let it be optional and let users agree to share their information.
If the problem is to remove the flags altogether, then they could be customizable with other non-country related flags: neutral, question mark, UEF, Cybran, Aeon, Nomad or whatever.

Sorry if this makes some go "we already talked about this" but I really never saw it being properly discussed anywhere, just discarded or ignored.

[Deribus]

I don't remember it being discussed as a privacy concern, but there was an update a few years ago that removed them from everyone and people were... unhappy.

@DeivisJenkins said:

Prevent tracking for privacy/personal reasons
i.e: Personal targetting

Streamer/content creator safety
i.e: Targeted harassment, tracking, or doxxing

I don't see how country flags allow tracking or doxxing. Outside of the Vatican (which doesn't fit the typical FAF demographic) even the smallest country narrows you down to tens of thousands of people. That's not doxxing territory.

@DeivisJenkins said:

I really think is a no-brainer to let it be optional and let users agree to share their information

Mandatory flags do have some benefits. People who host custom lobbies may not want to play with countries which tend to have poor connections or which are actively at war with their own. It can also help team organization and communication by giving a decent idea who speaks what language(s).

[DeivisJenkins]

First things first, thanks for the answer.

@Deribus said:

there was an update a few years ago that removed them from everyone and people were... unhappy.

The key point of the suggestion is to make it an optional feature. A middle ground between forcing or removing it.
The backlash you mention was because there are users that like it, which is perfectly fine.
What I suggest would be more of an optional cosmetic toggle.

@Deribus said:

I don't see how country flags allow tracking or doxxing.

While the flag itself doesn't doxx a street name, it's more of a matter of cross-referencing.
Combining a country flag with a username, playstyle, time zone, and language can easily narrow down an identity faster than intended. You or I wouldn't even think of that, but the world is wide and there's REALLY stubborn people out there.

@Deribus said:

Mandatory flags do have some benefits. People who host custom lobbies may not want to play with countries which tend to have poor connections or which are actively at war with their own.

While this sounds great at first, it is also subjective. It's probably true that someone from another continent would have bad ping, but if it's not the case, that player is being isolated for no good reason.
Similar can be said about the politics. Those players may be isolated or targeted in-game (for example, teaming up against it) for no good reason. (I didn't see this happening, just brainstorming)

I think there are more objective ways to measure connection, like regular pinging. (Also this can be dodged without actually solving it with a VPN)

@Deribus said:

It can also help team organization and communication by giving a decent idea who speaks what language(s)

This is great, I didn't even think of that.

[Blue-]

Would be bad
I very much enjoy seeing a fellow polish patriot in the lobby and then just casually speak our native language. If the flags werent there, id have no clue

Also knowing that someone is from a poorly educated country i can assume that its likely that this person wont speak english so if i need to communicate in game and i see that english didnt work, ill try using pings and drawings (if i thought that this person speaks english and just ignores me, i wouldnt bother)

Also it brings a feeling of the international community that FAF is, playing with people from all around the world and putting our differences aside to have a fun little game people need to learn to coexist, and not pretend that reality is different

[DeivisJenkins]

@Blue said:

putting our differences aside to have a fun little game

I'm afraid this is wishful thinking

Maybe all of that could be solved by simply leaving it enabled by default?
That way, people that don't mind wouldn't even have to worry about it and those that do care would have choice.