I'm definitely not advocating for changing the flag. If a flag is distinct and loved by the people it represents, then changing it would likely do more harm than good. That being said, I think the original flag is an overly counterchanged mess that looks decent only in the context of the mostly bad competition.
Since I'm that one guy who doesn't like Maryland's flag, I tried to give it a redo when I was redesigning all of the US state flags. I took the Crossland and Baltimore banners and simplified them to make an (imo) better looking flag that alludes to the designs. There's even some extra symbolism in there: there are seven stripes since Maryland was the 7th state to ratify the Constitution and join the US.
Those are definitely important factors, especially distinctiveness at small size and at a distance. There are lots of red, white, and blue tricolors that only differ in some small, complicated symbol, making them difficult to distinguish even up close, much less from afar.
It's definitely subjective. Case in point, I think the Seychelles' flag is great where as New Brunswick's is quite messy if still decent. The latter is helped by not going overboard on colors, though I think it'd be more cohesive if the ship followed the pattern that the lion and the water followed (single-colored design on single-colored background). The lion is yellow on red and the water is white on blue, but the ship is all over the place with red flags and a white, outlined sail.
The new green and the emblem on the left are definitely improvements. While I get wanting to convey an island, I think you could still do that with a more geometric shape. Maybe a stripe that splits into a circle or diamond in the middle. If you're going to have a line going diagonally across the flag, I think it's best to have it be simple and geometric.
Maybe make the green a bit darker. I get that you're going for grass and a river, but that's conveyed with any green, and I think a dark green would go a lot better with the lighter blue.
As another commenter mentioned, the river would be better as a simple diagonal stripe. You don't need a complicated river shape to convey a river.
This may be limited by your drawing skill, but I think the emblem should be more complex. Right now, it's in this area where it's not simple enough (i.e., it's not just a flat, one-color shield) to match with the rest of the flag but it's not complex enough to really feel like an emblem. It stands out but doesn't quite have the complexity to warrant it, if that makes any sense.
The emblem might be better off in the middle, left, or upper left. Symbols on flags tend to go there instead of on the right, where it'll be flapping in the wind more.
This one actually isn't that bad imo. It following the rule of tincture—separating "metals" (yellow & white) from "colors" (red, green, blue, purple, & black)—definitely helps
This seems like the dumbest decision imaginable. Users are flocking to alternatives, many of those who haven't don't trust you, and you're trying to become profitable … so you delete the stuff people paid for without any sort of replacement. What a genius ideaǃ Making the platform less unique and giving the middle finger to the people who give you money in one go!
There's no way a human adult is running this company. It has to be a council of toddlers run by a keyboard-smashing orangutan. At this point, they might as well start encouraging bots and karma farming. Maybe even pay people to do it!
I agree: migrating a community is really challenging. I'm a subreddit moderator myself, and when we were initially discussing this stuff, there was a lot of doubt because of how daunting the task is. Mods from other subs see the challenges as reason to not even try. However, I think it's important that people at least make the attempt given the current state of Reddit.
Something that I think people should keep in mind is that this stuff is gradual and doesn't have to happen all at once, especially since the alternatives aren't fully polished yet. Even just establishing a small, active community outside of Reddit (like people have been doing with all these fediverse communities) is a big win.
Some of the best things we can do right now are
providing feedback and suggestions for alternatives
making sure alternatives are approachable (/m/quickstart is great)
simply being active and providing stuff to do here
Reddit has already showed how much it cares about its users. We've tried going private, we've tried going restricted, we've tried going NSFW, we've tried spamming John Oliver posts, we've tried asking nicely in open letters, and Reddit has consistently given its community the middle finger in every single situation. And now that we've seen the admins change rules, remove mods, ban users, and break privacy laws, the plan is to just do the exact same thing they did before in the hopes that it'll work this time?
If a blackout on the platform was going to get Reddit to change its mind, that would've happened already. The time to induce change was two weeks ago, when the protests had lots of momentum. But it didn't work, and trying to make another stand now is going to be even less effective.
I still think that the best move is to leave Reddit for alternatives like /kbin, Lemmy, and Squabbles. Thankfully, some of the comments on the /r/ModCoord announcement are also saying this. Instead of desperately trying to cling to a platform that doesn't care about you, go somewhere else.