[Democratic Republic of Congo] Independence Day (Jun 30)
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Yann2
The Democratic Republic of Congo is a large African nation; 108 million people and no flag or Location stamp yet?
"The
Democratic Republic of the Congo
(French: République démocratique du Congo (RDC)), informally Congo-Kinshasa, DR Congo, the DRC, the DROC,[7] or the Congo, and formerly and also colloquially Zaire, is a country in Central Africa. It is, by area, the second largest country in Africa (after Algeria), and the 11th-largest in the world. With a population of around
108 million
, the Democratic Republic of the Congo is the most populous officially Francophone country in the world. It is a member of the United Nations, Non-Aligned Movement, African Union, COMESA, and the East African Community. The capital and largest city is Kinshasa, which is also the world's most populous Francophone city and largest city in Africa. It is the third largest city in metropolitan area after Lagos and Cairo."Full info on the country : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Republic_of_the_Congo
Log In
Shiro from Slowly
complete
Yann2
Support new Location stamps for underserved Countries?
Dear Slowly friends,
Some of us stamp collectors decided to try to
get Location stamps
- for the many countries which still did not have ANY so far
. Many of us feel that is important, and fair with the Slowly users who live in these countries.Please check this
Reddit topic
, and see a list of currently active proposals. If you think this idea has merit, your support would be very appreciated
.An upvote, a comment in a topic are always welcome, and help ideas become reality. There are more than 25 proposals so far, and some are even in the
IN PROGRESS
stage now!I also wrote a detailed Blog post about
creating nice and successful proposals
for the Slowly Suggestions site. It could help you spruce up your own ideas and presentations here? Thank you !
Shiro from Slowly
planned
We'll issue a flag stamp in the coming Independence Day first ( Jun 30 ).
For the other location stamp(s), would you please create a separate post for easier management?
Nonethewiser
Shiro from Slowly: here's one :)
Yann2
Shiro from Slowly, thank you, I am very happy to see this happening. Cheers! 🍻
Yann2
For everyone's reference we now have
a Reddit topic
and the same content in a Blog post format
, which list all the countries:- currently without any stamps at all
- with some stamp but no flag yet
- or with a flag but no location stamp so far
This list is
updated as of June 6, 2022
, and might be helpful for anyone who would like to contribute suggestions to the neediest countries at the moment.Shiro from Slowly
under review
Babacar
Here is a proposal more than interesting, Rob! thank you very much for this. I think that Africa as a whole when it comes to stamps is a little neglected by the Slowly team. In each African country, there are many interesting things to make a stamp even with little research for each country. So, yes, the Congo must indeed have a stamp at least the flag stamp and a default stamp and why not the famous stratovolcano of Nyiragongo which is more than symbolic in this country because of its beauty and also its damage of the fact that it is a permanent and rare lava lake in the world can flow down its slopes in long lava flows considered the fastest in the world and it is one of the most active and dangerous volcanoes in Africa.
I believe that this may be a stamp for the Congo in addition to the flag and there will be no possible problem from the Congolese users of Slowly even if I am not Congolese.
Yann2
Babacar: Thank you for your nice comment.
Indeed it's a pity we still do not have any stamps for the DRC, but this might change now that we can propose and discuss ideas so openly. The country and population are so large, we had been discussing this in the Collector's circles for a while.
The volcano photos are beautiful and impressive, thank you for the info and images!
Babacar
The Okapi stamp is created separately, I think it's a nice idea so let's support it. The Okapi & the flag would perfectly be enough for RDC actually.
Nonethewiser
Okay, I do not live in Congo, but I did a quick search and this seems to be the obvious choice for the location stamp:
"The only place in the world that you can find a wild
okapi
is in the dense tropical rainforests of the Democratic Republic of Congo. It is hardly surprising then that they are the country's national animal and even feature on local bank notes."
Babacar
Nonethewiser: Nice suggestion!
Nonethewiser
Babacar: I really like the volcano too :)
Yann2
Nonethewiser: wow!!! Today I leaned something new indeed. The Okapi is sure unique, looks like a crossing between a horse, zebra with a little giraffe dust too, that did not work completely as planned. 😜
A unique animal and visually distinctive, nice suggestion, thank you!
Nonethewiser
ImpossibleTwin: you are very welcome! I knew about Okapi, but didn't know they were endemic to Congo, so I learned something new as well. 😀
Nonethewiser
My first reaction was to go to the Slowly fandom page and check the stamps there, but then I saw the nickname and reliased I didn't have to. Congo not having any stamps at all seems like a pretty big omission!
Congo's independence day is 15 August, so maybe the flag stamp is already on the way, but I would say we definitely need a location stamp here as well.
Yann2
Nonethewiser: LOL, thanks.
I had been chatting with Bajaja about the DRC not having any stamps about a year ago or so. We got a lot of new added flags and some Location stamps for the African continent nation, but somehow the DRC did not make it -
yet
.There has been
a HUGE improvement
, in a Blog post a while back I did a survey of all the countries which still did not have any stamps at the time.And the situation was dire in Africa. With a total of
54 Nations
, the continent had stamps for 14
at the time. This has changed drastically, even The Gambia
got a flag and a unique Location stamp now
.mapuo
ImpossibleTwin: I have compiled a list of countries that still don't have stamps and flags. Some countries have stamps but stiy don't have flags.
14 African countries without flags:
Gabon - 17 August
Burundi - 1 July
Cabo Verde - 5 July. One of the best places for surfing in the world
Comores - 6 July. I offered fruit bat found only there for stamp but nobody interested in
Congo (not confuse with big Congo) - 15 August
DR Congo - 30 June
Malawi - 6 July
São Tomé and Príncipe - 12 July
Seychelles - 29 June. One of the most heavenly places in the world. I have already seen the stamp request here also ignored
Guinea Ecuatorial - 12 October
Eritrea - 24 May
Eswatini (ex Swaziland) - 6 September
CAR - 13 August
South Sudan (not confuse with Sudan) - 9 July
mapuo
Nonethewiser: 30 June! 15 August it's another little Congo
Nonethewiser
mapuo: oops, thanks for correcting me!
Bajaja
ImpossibleTwin: I absolutely second this motion. It is the 14th most populated country in the world and it surely deserves some love from Slowly even if there aren't many current users. A small online campaign + an own stamp could do miracles.
Bajaja
mapuo: good job! let me sort countries without a stamp by population.
Congo, Democratic Republic of the 86 790 568
Malawi 18 628 749
Burundi 11 530 577
South Sudan 11 062 114
Congo 5 380 504
Central African Republic 4 745 179
Palestine, State of 4 685 306
Gabon 2 172 578
Equatorial Guinea 1 355 982
Eswatini 1 148 133
I totally support a stamp or two or three for DRC and all of these 10, all with population above 1 million.
mapuo
Bajaja: Palestine is still not recognized as a separate state, although it has been seeking independence from Israel for 34 years.
Also new countries which got flags in this month are Tonga with 100 thousands population and Samoa with 187 thousands. So size is not important. Djibouti has 1 million population (release 27 June)
Yann2
mapuo: Thank you, excellent work. I was re-reading my post from August 2020 about all the countries without stamps, and thought it would be nice to have an updated list.
Great job on compiling it, and adding comments about each. Thank you! 👍🙂
Yann2
Bajaja: Thank you! I hope we will see the DRC recognized, it's strange that such a large population and land area has not seen any stamps until now. June's new flags include two very small islands as vika vika has pointed out, so hopefully we can bring light on the ones still not represented.
mapuo
Bajaja: the fact that the flag has been added for the one million country and not for the hundred million African country indicates the absence of any logic when adding flags
Bajaja
mapuo: my guess is that there is a lot of logic, it is just not obvious to us. we don't know how many users from each country uses Slowly.
mapuo
Bajaja: There are no users in Tonga and Samoa at all. Mauritius had from 11 to 28 users, depending on the settings. But they have flag, stamp and exclusive stamp. It's illogical too
Yann2
mapuo:
> 30 June! 15 August it's another little Congo
Yes,
Wikipedia National Days
page listing confirms that. Ooops - so it would be due this month and that is a bit tight for a new release.Bummer, we might not get their Flag in June. But hopefully DRC gets some attention and love, soon.
mapuo
ImpossibleTwin: I already sent letter to support for request Congo and Seychelles flags
mapuo
Bajaja: for example Greenland and Faroes are not countries, it's Denmark territory. But Greenland has stamp and flag and Faroes have stamp. How many users there? One? Two? Huh
Yann2
mapuo: Well done, thank you!! 👍🙂😀
mapuo
ImpossibleTwin: Continuation
Europe:
Andorra 8 September
Monaco 19 November
San Marino 3 September
Caribbean:
Antigua and Barbuda - 1 November
Dominica (not Dominicana) - 3 November
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines -26 October
Saint Kitts and Nevis - 19 September
Saint Lucia - 22 February
Oceania:
Vanuatu - 30 July
Kiribati - 12 July
The Marshall Islands - 1 May
The Federated States of Micronesia - 3 November
Nauru - 31 January
Palau - 9 July
Solomon Islands - 7 July
Tuvalu - 1 October
Countries with stamps without flags:
Afghanistan - 19 August
Bahamas - 10 July
Beliz - 21 September
Grenada - 7 February
Liechtenstein - 15 August
North Korea - 15 August/9 September/10 October
Turkmenistan - 27 September
Vatican - 11 February
So 38 countries have no flags + Palestine + Faroes (not country but have stamp). 11 of them have national day in July + Faroes (29 July)
Bajaja
mapuo: many tourists come there every year. re country vs territory, Slowly can do what they want, it has no international repercussions as it is an app and it is understood that it is not an political statement.
Yann2
mapuo: until an hour ago or so, I had never seen any official statement from Slowly team staff about what their criteria for stamp creation was.
Then I came across this on the '
Changelog
' page, a recent post dated May 10, 2022. The final paragraphs read :"
Review Priority
Currently, our team will roll out 0-5 stamps
based on the number of active users in each region
. Our future goal is to provide regional free stamps for each country and increase the coverage of regional premium stamps. Review and launch sequence will be prioritized with the numbers of local users and stamps already launched
. "Bold/italics are mine.
Source is here
.So, number of local Slowly users seems to be their internal criteria. Yet, there's an Antarctica stamp proposal now 'Under Review'. Wonder how many Slowly users call the frozen continent home? 😜👍
mapuo
ImpossibleTwin: as I said before, sorting by the number of users is a lie. Antarctica is not a country at all, but a continent divided between many countries without not one real user. I have a guy from Antarctica in my contact list, but he actually lives in Hong Kong
Yann2
Thank you, indeed I have noticed these two are still missing Flags.
I created WIKI pages for both
Macau
and Hong Kong
, and had to use generic Flag images for them since there are no official Slowly flags yet.I am not sure if they will get flags, but the fact they have Location stamps, and in Hong Kong's case, even full stamp set, is a good omen. Cheers!
Yann2
mapuo: LOL, yes, I can relate to that.
I think the 'user count' parameter might be a general criteria, but subject to exceptions or moods; sometimes I was surprised to notice small countries with up to 4 Location stamps, while some other larger ones have a single stamp only.
And the Antarctica example is fun. 😀🗻😉
Seems like they might issue one even.
Yann2
mapuo: I really liked to see your thorough, updated list, well done!
I just finished
a post on our SlowlyApp subReddit
with all of the information you gathered here
, and credit to you as well. Super useful!Big thank you !
. Have a great weekend!Bajaja
mapuo: hey vika vika, can you contact me on reddit? u/bajaja
thanks