Talk:Poppy Factory

Name
Why was this article moved? There are two factories that produce remembrance poppies: one in England and one in Scotland. Each is commonly called the Poppy Factory (with capitals). -- Ferma (talk) 08:08, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I have left a message on User:Ericoides talk page asking him/her to move this back to Poppy Factory. It is clearly a proper name - a glance at any of the cited sources will show that.  i wonder whther Ericoides bothered to read any of them. 86.133.213.74 (talk) 09:29, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
 * The plural is not a proper name. Neither is the singular when used as an abstract concept, as here. It's very simple. Cf "President Nixon", but "Nixon was a president" (or "Queen Elizabeth I", but "Elizabeth I was a queen"). Or the "Ritz Hotel", but "the Ritz is a hotel". Would you prefer "the Ritz is a Hotel"? I don't think so... Ergo, "the Royal British Legion Poppy Factory" (proper name) "is a poppy factory" (abstract concept). Ericoides (talk) 09:34, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Of course a proper noun can be a plural, and the indefinite article can be used with a proper noun too. Consider: There is more than one Ritz Hotel - there is a Ritz Hotel in London and one in Paris: these two Ritz Hotels are in Europe.

This article is not about poppy factories in general, it is about two particular factories. I am not aware of any others apart from these two, both of which are usually called the - often The, with a capital "t" - Poppy Factory. -- Ferma (talk) 12:06, 13 November 2011 (UTC)


 * No, the article is about poppy factories in general (if I built another one I'd quite correctly list it here in this article). The article is about two instances of a generic concept, a "poppy factory", just as the two Ritz Hotels are two instances of the generic concept "hotel" (hotel here is the genus, not Ritz Hotel). That there are at present only two poppy factories is irrelevant; if another were to crop up, would it too not be a factory where poppies are made (ie a poppy factory), just as a car plant is a car plant despite there being, for all I know, a Dagenham Car Plant and no other car plant in the world? How many species within a genus do there have to be for it to be acceptable to lose the caps: 3, 33, 333? It would be a rather arbitrary decision, you must agree. Ericoides (talk) 12:34, 13 November 2011 (UTC)


 * If the article is about two particular factories and only about two particular factories then it is misleadingly named; I'd suggest calling it The Royal British Legion Poppy Factory and the Lady Haig Poppy Factory. Ericoides (talk) 12:40, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Almost all the content in the article is about the Royal British legion Poppy Factory in England. Off2riorob (talk) 12:55, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't really think it needed creating - the English stuff wants redirecting and merging to the Royal British Legion and the Scottish details wants merging to the Earl Haig Fund Scotland article. - Off2riorob (talk) 12:57, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, that's another slant; and a welcome one if it stops this ridiculous debate! Ericoides (talk) 13:01, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
 * If its to stay, your title is imo more correct - The Royal British Legion Poppy Factory and the Lady Haig Poppy Factory - Off2riorob (talk) 13:09, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
 * The information relating to these poppy factories is a useful addition, but rather than being added under its own page it could have been added as a section in another article (i.e. I agree, but think saying it 'I don't really think it needed creating' is going too far). In general I agree that there are lots of stubs on remembrance and commemoration that could be merged to broader articles, but to get the balance right you need to know a bit about the subject. Sometimes topics that might seem minor are actually enough to support a full article, or the topic is so dispersed it is difficult to do a merge that doesn't make the topic unwieldy. A good example of needing to know a bit about the topic before making corrections is seen in this edit where 'Remembrancetide' was incorrectly replaced with 'Remembrance Day'. These are actually different things, as can be seen here (though as the sources out there aren't really consistent on this, I won't change it right now until I've had a chance to look at the terminology a bit more). In a similar fashion, Armistice Day, Remembrance Day and Remembrance Sunday are terms that are sometimes synonymous and sometimes not, and often confused (especially from country to country). Getting back to the article, the Haig Fund should really be mentioned, and it would be excellent if someone could find a picture of one of the older pin poppies with the words 'HAIG FUND' instead of 'POPPY APPEAL' (the change was made in 1994). Carcharoth (talk) 22:09, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, sorry, that was me. I wrongly assumed that Remembrancetide was a sentimental synonym for Poppy Day. Thanks for spotting it. I'll rv it. Ericoides (talk) 11:09, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

But this article is not about poppy factories in general. There is no such concept as a "general" poppy factory, there are only these two specific instances. The analogy is closer with Ritz Hotels than hotels in general.

As to the proper name of each factory, look at the references and external links. Almost without exception, the one in Richmond is referred to as the (or The) Poppy Factory, and not as the Royal British Legion Poppy Factory: Only two sources - the ODNB and BBC here, in 2006 - uses the lower case name, and the ODNB is also the only one to call it the British Legion Poppy Factory or the Royal British Legion Poppy Factory. The company that runs it is "Royal British Legion Poppy Factory Limited", but the factory is the (or The) Poppy Factory.
 * Mr Robathan visited the Poppy Factory in Richmond-upon-Thames yesterday ... (capitalised throughout)
 * The origins of the Poppy Factory go back to 1922 ...
 * Howson, George (1886–1936), founder of the British Legion Poppy Factory ...
 * For nearly 90 years, The Poppy Factory in Richmond, Surrey, has been making poppies ...
 * The building is the Poppy Factory, and for nearly ninety years .... 
 * Chris Ledgard explores the story of The Poppy Factory in Surrey ...

The one in Scotland is generally called "Lady Haig's Poppy Factory" to distinguish it, but it is also referred to as "the Poppy Factory". I have added some additional information about it.
 * This brief history of the Poppy Factory includes ...
 * Approximately five million poppies, ... are made here each year at Lady Haig's Poppy Factory ...
 * Welcome to the Lady Haig's Poppy Factory website ... 

Perhaps we could merge the information in this article back into other articles, as suggested above, but the sources clearly demonstrate that both Poppy Factories are notable. Another alteriative would be to have separate pages on each, and turn this article into a disambiguation page:


 * A poppy factory is a factory where remembrance poppies are made. There are two such factories in the United Kingdom:
 * the Royal British Legion Poppy Factory in Richmond, Surrey
 * Lady's Haig Poppy Factory in Edinburgh

But I think it makes more sense to keep it this all in one place.

The English arm of the Haig Fund used to run the Poppy Appeal, but it ceased to exist by 2009 at the latest. -- Ferma (talk) 18:22, 15 November 2011 (UTC)


 * The English arm? Isn't it more to the point that the Haig Fund was (is?) a British-wide charity when it was founded, and the Scottish part was a branch of that? The history looks complicated, but things have simplified recently according to this (from June 2011) announcing the merger of the Royal British Legion and Poppyscotland. There are more details of the Royal British Legion charity group here, and the Annual Report will have more details. The current grouping is 'The Royal British Legion', 'Poppyscotland', and 'The National Memorial Arboretum'. Hopefully this is all included at Royal British Legion, Poppyscotland and National Memorial Arboretum. The latter correctly mentions the RBL, but the former two need updating about the merger. Carcharoth (talk) 22:25, 15 November 2011 (UTC)


 * The history is complicated, but you clearly know more about it than I do, so I will leave you to update the relevant articles. None of that affects the main point at issue, which is that there is no convincing reason for it to have been moved from Poppy Factory to poppy factory (the rationale given for the move was "Not a proper name", which it clearly is). -- Ferma (talk) 20:02, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I am not seeing much of an issue with moving it back the English one is citable as being referred to as The Poppy Factory. Off2riorob (talk) 21:13, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
 * OK, I've moved it back. I remain unconvinced by Ferma's line of reasoning and continue to think that the article should be "poppy factory" as it refers to two factories that make poppies (Ritz, incidentally, is a proper name, unlike poppy), but consensus seems to be against me. I have rewritten the lede to reflect the re-re-naming. Ericoides (talk) 08:59, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Ritz is a surname, yes, but Ritz Hotel is also a proper noun, of course.  There are plenty of other analogies.  Pizza Hut perhaps.  Feel free to seek wider input at WP:RM if you like. -- Ferma (talk) 20:36, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I think one move and one re-move are quite sufficient, so I won't continue the debate (except to say that poppy factory - like shoe factory, sausage factory etc - is self-explanatory while pizza hut is not - I'd expect a hut made out of pizza, mmm). Regards, Ericoides (talk) 21:43, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Fair enough, and apologies for prolonging the "ridiculous debate", but a pizza hut would be a hut that serves pizza, surely, rather than one made of pizza. Similarly, a poppy factory makes poppies; it is not made from poppies. Games Workshop then?  -- Ferma (talk) 21:53, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
 * You tempt me to reply but I refuse to bite. Ciao, Ericoides (talk) 22:04, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Copied text
The Lady Haig's Poppy Factory article had been tagged for notability, with some justification. I have consequently merged here. Thincat (talk) 11:01, 4 May 2018 (UTC)