Talk:Rockwood & Company shipping department fire

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A fact from Rockwood & Company shipping department fire appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 30 August 2022 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that the 1919 Rockwood & Company shipping department fire (location pictured) in New York City led to a flood of chocolate and butter sufficient to "float a rowboat for two blocks along Flushing Avenue"?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2022/August. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Rockwood & Company shipping department fire.

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 17:08, 28 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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Comment or view
Article history

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The shipping department in 1918

... that the 1919 Rockwood & Company shipping department fire (location pictured) in New York City led to a flood of chocolate and butter sufficient to "float a rowboat for two blocks along Flushing Avenue"? Source: "chocolate and butter in large quantities were spread all over the sidewalk" from:"Rockwood Plant Fire Does $100,000 damage". The Standard Union. 12 May 1919. p. 1. and "it was deep enough to float a rowboat for two blocks along Flushing Ave" from: "Gutters Run Fudge; Urchins Run Miles to Chocolate Fire". The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. 12 May 1919. p. 3.
- ALT1: ... that during the 1919 Rockwood & Company shipping department fire (location pictured) in New York City a crowd of children gathered to eat the mix of chocolate and butter that flooded out of the building? Source: "a thousand and one urchins hurried to the fire ... little fellows fell on their knees before the oncoming flood and dipped it up greedily with grimy fingers" from: "Gutters Run Fudge; Urchins Run Miles to Chocolate Fire". The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. 12 May 1919. p. 3.
- Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Harley-Davidson Motorcycle Factory Building

Created by Dumelow (talk). Self-nominated at 10:39, 18 August 2022 (UTC).[reply]

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Cited: Interesting:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: Epicgenius (talk) 12:38, 18 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Manually promoting ALT0 to Prep 2 – Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 17:08, 28 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Curious about the stand-alone article

Hi Dumelow. A few months ago I learned about this fire and the Brooklyn Eagle story about it. It led me to start Rockwood & Company specifically to cover the fire/chocolate flood. The thing is, I only found one contemporary report about it (the Eagle, and the more recent articles that just briefly mention it via the Eagle), so it seemed to make a lot more sense to include it in an article about the company. Bonus: turns out it was the second largest chocolatier in the US and an interesting subject itself. It looks like you only found one other source, the Standard Union (which is a good find -- I certainly would've included it if I managed to find it). But why start a separate article with that source? Kudos on finding the pictures, too, but again it looks like they're more relevant to the main article than the fire. Independent notability seems tenuous IMO, but I guess I'm biased.

A proposal: I don't want to get in the way of your DYK (I've been kicking myself for letting time run out on basically the same DYK hook), but after it runs, let's merge the two and bring it up to GA together. I've been meaning to come back to it, and I would be derelict in my duties as a Wikipedian if I didn't use these photos and the additional source, but I'm also content to wait/discuss. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 11:51, 18 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Rhododendrites, thanks for getting in touch. I saw the List of non-water floods article listed in a Twitter post by Depths of Wikipedia (who posts extracts from some of our more unusual articles). I saw the article you'd made on the company but thought there was more that could be said about the fire. Happy to work with you on a GA for the company but don't think everything about the fire needs including; there's space for both articles and think it makes it over the notability line, though I tend to be more inclusionist nowadays. I am still searching for more sources. The photos are from Commons:Category:Rockwood Chocolate Factory Historic District which also has others of the plant itself - Dumelow (talk) 12:05, 18 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

[facepalm] for not finding the photos on Commons. With the second source, the main article would contain roughly (or nearly?) as much detail as this article because it's the most interesting thing about the company, and at least today the most notable thing about it, so as long as it's not just the one source, it seems like it merits its own subsection. It was the reason the article about the company exists, after all. Given there are only really two sources for the fire (the others really just repeat what those two say, unless I missed something), and given a subsection is warranted in the main article, a separate article just seems like a tough sell IMO. I'm not planning on initiating a merge discussion, but I do think that's the right call. And though I wouldn't be so gauche as to copy/paste content from this article to that one, I would be a bad Wikipedian if I didn't use the source/photos that are here to expand the other one. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 12:25, 18 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Fun fact, btw: I learned about the chocolate flood because our Wikimedia NYC office space is in a coworking space that, it turns out, is inside the former Rockwood factory. Someone there mentioned a chocolate flood, so of course I had to learn about it and start an article that night. :) — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 12:29, 18 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Rhododendrites, no worries, you are, of course, free to take whatever you like! Will take a look to see if I can find anything about the company as a whole - Dumelow (talk) 14:04, 18 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Dollars and sense

These historical dollar conversions in general seem to hold little meaning. I live in a middle class suburb of a medium sized city and if my house burned down it would be over a million dollars in damage. It would make more sense to compare it to how much damage would be caused if a comparable structure burned down today. I imagine it would be well over the stated $1-1.5 million. 50.100.26.182 (talk) 11:54, 30 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]