Talk:Plantlife

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There is a proposal to merge this page and county flower. I propose we don't do this - both pages are already quite large and likely to grow, and cover distinct topics. SP-KP 09:35, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Support merge. "County flowers" are entirely an invention of this minor charity, in 2002. It is very misleading to allow readers to believe otherwise. --Mais oui! 09:39, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
Comment The county flower page shows this not to be the case; a small number of UK county flowers pre-date Plantlife, and they also exist in at least two other countries, Ireland and Norway, independent of Plantlife's competition. SP-KP 09:42, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
Ha, ha. Well, if you choose to translate the Norwegian word "fylk" at meaning "county"!?! Honestly, if we leave an article there at all, for the 2 Norwegian (supposedly) and 1 Irish (clutching at straws there) example(s), then we must move all the UK stuff back here to Plantlife (and obviously link to it from over there). These charity guys invented all this nonsense, so they can have it fleshing out what is otherwise a pretty stringy article. Otherwise it is just pure spamming. Marketing gimmicks: you just gotta love it - there really is a sucker born every minute. Wikipedia should not be taken for a sucker. --Mais oui! 09:55, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
The article Counties of Norway states that fylk and county are synonymous. SP-KP 10:08, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
Have a look at WP:CITE - you cannot cite Wikipedia as a source. I would say that that translation is highly dubious: "county" has a special "feeling" and significance in English-speaking countries. A far, far better translation would be commune, but lordy... we would not want that would we! Far too French and revolutionary. How about we move the article to Commune flowers?
Not a totally daft suggestion - we could go for something like Flowers chosen to represent geographical areas. What do you think? SP-KP 19:08, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
Further Comment - Nobody is contending that Plantlife invented them, nor that this should be omitted from the article! This is not sufficient to warrant a merge however; the county flowers now seem to have some official support and existence (I've provided some links below), and the concept has close analogue in other countries. The Norwegian example is correct - the lexicon at the official public sector gateway website translates fylke as county, as do other official sites [1] (Incidentally, the subdivisions of fylker are fylkeskommunene - municipalities or "communes"). Here's a nice full list of fylkesblomster for those who speak Norwegian [2]; I'll translate it and incorporate it as soon as possible. Aquilina 02:36, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
Yes, we do need a page like Flowers chosen to represent geographical areas. In fact, the scope for potential articles is even wider - we have a list of national emblems (which includes a 'plants' section) and a Category:National symbols, but at the sub-national level, I can't find many details on geographical emblems, flowers or otherwise.
Also, I don't think commune is a better translation of county: commune more normally translates as municipality, which corresponds best in the UK context with districts or metropolitan boroughs, both sub-county areas. --David Edgar 17:47, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
Support merge. Seems like it is an advertising campaign for the charity. I think that the advertising campaign probably warrants note, but a list of the flowers seems way over the top, and is better referenced by a link to their website. Noisy | Talk 10:46, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
Support merge into Plantlife as per Noisy & Mais oui!. It does appear to have limited significance outside the charity (which is notable enough to have its own article). Are the Red Rose of Lancaster and White Rose of York really the 'county flowers' of the respective counties? Surely they're the emblems of the counties, which merely happen to be flowers. The stag, after all, is not the "county animal" of Hertfordshire, though the hart is its emblem, and forms the stem of its name. Surely a paragraph or so in Plantlife is enough to cover the subject? --BillC 19:10, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
Oppose. These are different things. The campaign may have been organised by the charity but it was voted by the public and institutionalised by each one of the counties. Asterion 19:15, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
Oppose. While this particular competition was organised by Plantlife, the concept of a flower to represent a county is not owned by them, and in any case the competition was only for flowers to represent UK counties, whereas the "County flowers" page could be extended to other countries. Owain (talk) 08:21, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
Oppose as per Asterion and Owain. I remember very well the Oxfordshire discussion and voting, and it was widely supported (by individuals, the County Council, and other charities). (Incidentally, it would help if Mais Oui! could keep his comments civil and calm.) --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 08:50, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
Oppose merge - plantlife is a notable charity in its own right and the idea of county flowers existed in some places long before plantlife became involved. Stringops 10:36, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
Oppose; promotional, but meets verifiability and notability criteria. Also, the charity is notable enough not to be defined by a single campaign. The international examples are close analogues and there is lots more scope for further additions. Incidentally, fylkesblomst is used throughout Norway, and fylk is translated almost universally as county throughout WP. Aquilina 12:58, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
Conditional Oppose. Providing the county flower page is amended to make it explicitly clear to the reader that the UK county flowers are in no way official and are as a result of the 'competition' Plantlife held, I would oppose merging the two articles. Mainly as there do seem to be other countries that use the idea of "county flowers," which are nothing to do with Plantlife. Johnwalton 16:43, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
This isn't always strictly true; as I mentioned above, in Oxfordshire the campaign and vote was supported by the County Council, and they featured it in their own publications; I'd be surprised if it was the only county council to do so. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 17:22, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Support merge It is an promotional advertising campaign - most of these "county" flowers have been recently invented ! Bwizz 22:35, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Oppose merge - the concept of county flowers is used in many countries unrelated to the Plantlife competition, and the county flower page reflects this wider scope, and should be expanded. --David Edgar 17:47, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
Support Merge - the county flowers page is confusing without context of charity...the "county flower" of Yorkshire for example has [b]always[/b] been the white rose; to look at it the page that suggests it is a harebell is completely misleasing! This comment was left by §©ʁİƃƀȴıŋ’ Ƨł₥ȫȠ 13:30, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Council uses of "County Flowers"

The use of Google in deletion debates is a particular dislike of mine, but a quick search revealed the following: Northumberland Devon Cornwall Cardiff Anglesey Cambridgeshire Durham Moyle Staffordshire Somerset Bedfordshire Broxbourne Western Isles Angus West Lothian Antrim Orkney Some of these are passing references to "our county flower", some are notifications of the Plantlife vote, some are debates leading up to the official adoption of a county flower. But every one of these links is a reference to this campaign on a council's official .gov.uk website. It was initially a promotional tool, but it has proved pervasive and popular as the above links show, and I think it deserves its own list in the separate article. Aquilina 18:26, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Taiwan has county flowers too apparently - see [3] SP-KP 20:02, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Verifyability is not optional, and will be the natural result of simply verifying "Says who" with regard to any specific county and specific flower. For example: Representing the state of Texas can include a legally adopted seal, flag, motto, state birds and other species; but can also include nonlegally adopted images, historical figures and other associations in the mind of the public; and further can include promotional connections such as beauty pagents that name specific women as representing the state. Wikipedia simply needs to be clear when it says something represents a legal entity about "Who says so". WAS 4.250 22:44, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

The article also needs to be clear about what it does or does not include in the use of the word "county". For example, Louisiana does not have counties, it has parishes. WAS 4.250 22:53, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Should this page not be a disambiguation page due to the UK band also called PlantLife?

[edit] Expansion needs

Just to jot down some thoughts. There is considerable scope for expansion of this article. Areas which could be expanded are all those which I've marked with the section stub tag; also sections on Plantlife's International work & the Common Plants survey sould do with a mention. Plus something about its publications (Plantlife magazine, and Plants and People)

SP-KP 17:17, 24 April 2006 (UTC)