Talk:Timeline of Philadelphia

Year of establishment in Philadelphia?

• Chestnut Street Skating Rink [1] -- M2545 (talk) 12:38, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

Deleted events

Several events were deleted from the timeline for being "not noteworthy." I have restored each of them with a "relevance" note attached. Events of questionable notability should be debated before they are deleted altogether. -- M2545 (talk) 17:22, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

Discuss everything before editing? Seems rather cumbersome and contrary to WP:BRD.

The items I removed were all linkless. Nothing to link to, but somehow the founding of this, that or the other publication two years ago is a significant event in the history of the city? Not likely.

Basically, we need inclusion criteria here. A typical WP:LSC is to limit the list to blue links. Thoughts? - SummerPhD^v2.0 18:17, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

Admittedly, Ignite Philly; 8static; and Hacktory should include references to reputable 3rd party sources. But here are the reputable sources used for selecting ...

• PlanPhilly --> national directory of news sites compiled by the Columbia Journalism Review
• Technically Philly --> article from Harvard University's Nieman Foundation for Journalism
• Extra Extra --> international directory compiled by the New Museum in NYC
• Axis Philly --> article by local journalist Christopher Wink
  

-- M2545 (talk) 19:15, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

I don't doubt that we can cite sources saying these things exist. However, I think that is an unworkably low bar to inclusion. If that's our inclusion criteria, we can spend the next few months adding house fires to the article, assorted riots, etc. In contrast, the MOVE fire destroying 2 blocks of Osage Ave. is notable, as are several riots in the city's history.

Compare those to:

• • Metro Men’s Clothing, opened in October 2010.[2]
  • PMoA's "Inside Out" exhibit May to August, 2015.[3]
  • Dilworth Park opened in 2015.[4]
  • Spruce Street Harbor Park became a fixture on the river in 2014.[5]
  • The renovation of Race Street Pier was completed in 2011.[6]

All of these are minor happenings that say nothing of any substance about the city. (They all cite the NYTimes because they all come up in the first five hits of 363,000 at their website.) There are hundreds of parks in the city, each with a year it was established. There are tens of thousands of businesses in the city -- the year that pretty much each tenant opened shop in RTM can be cited. In the end, we'll have an extensive, worthless, recent-slanted list of things that happened in the city.

How notable is a website discussed in an article the year it started? Axis Philly, barely two years old, is now history. The Bulletin (one of numerous newspapers not mentioned here) lasted far longer, but doesn't show up on the web much.

IMO, the article would be more useful as a timeline of notable events (blue linked events) and major establishments (City Charter, building City Hall, opening the PMoA, establishment of UPenn/Temple/etc. first year of the Phillies/Eagles/Flyers/etc.). To that end (or any other agreeable basis for an article), we need inclusion criteria for the list. - SummerPhD^v2.0 21:14, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

Agreed, with some exceptions. Lots of important, truly notable events occurred in the city's history that do not have articles in Wikipedia (eg events other than those with traditionally white male emphasis). Also, IMO "minor happenings" do say something "of substance about the city" in aggregate (see the elaborately detailed Timeline of Paris as an example of a usefully inclusionist city timeline). -- M2545 (talk) 22:33, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

Regardless, we need unambiguous, objective selection criteria or we can expect a list of trivial website startups and clothing store openings. - SummerPhD^v2.0 00:34, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

I would agree that there are quite a few "events" currently listed, including a number of blue links, that are not clearly of significance to the history of Philadelphia. "Hacktory established" and similar entries cannot be shown, IMHO, to have had substantial impact; however, I would argue that "City open data and government transparency order enacted" was a significant change in public policy and should stay. Another example; it's not clear that the "December 28: Lex Street Massacre" had any lasting impact on Philadelphia, whereas the MOVE bombing clearly did. A related issue with the list, is that many of the entries do not indicate why they matter to the history of the city. E.g. "Dutrieuille caterers in business" in the 1870s can argued to be relevant, but the entry doesn't give you an idea of why it matters. (I've added a citation to a source that discusses African American catering in Philadelphia in detail, but the entry itself could be improved.) The Timeline of Paris list does a much better job of indicating why things matter: that something was the first of its kind, indicated a new trend, related to broader issues, affected the city in some way (e.g. if a storm occurred, what damage did it do?) etc. I would support careful pruning of the list, and improvement of entries, with sensitivity in particular to African American culture (which is very much a part of the city's history). Having said that, I think it is going to be difficult to come up with a hard and fast set of rules for guiding additions and deletions. Mary Mark Ockerbloom (talk) 14:29, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Very helpful comments, Mary. Many thanks. -- M2545 (talk) 14:36, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

I especially agree with Why it matters. --Thnidu (talk) 02:45, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

Selection criteria for city timelines

Per the above discussion, here are a few possibilities for the beginnings of a list of objective selection criteria for city timelines in general. Comments welcome. -- M2545 (talk) 21:39, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

Type of event	Example	Comment
Historiographical	1952 - Philadelphia City Archives established. 1955 – Philadelphia Historical Commission established	Ambiguous, subjective. SummerPhDv2.0 15:39, 27 June 2015 (UTC)
Discussed in inter/national press	2008 - South Asian American Digital Archive headquartered in city.	Don't include Smallbones(smalltalk) Vague. SummerPhDv2.0 15:39, 27 June 2015 (UTC)
Local example of an inter/national trend	1703 – Flower's coffeehouse in business.	Ambiguous, subjective. SummerPhDv2.0 15:39, 27 June 2015 (UTC)
Part of a broader history	1970 - Revolutionary People's Constitutional Convention held in city.	Ambiguous, subjective. SummerPhDv2.0 15:39, 27 June 2015 (UTC)
Part of urban infrastructure	1751 - Street lighting begins.	Vague, ambiguous. SummerPhDv2.0 15:39, 27 June 2015 (UTC)
Included in an inter/national directory	1914 – Empress Theater opens. 1988 – Vox Populi founded.	Probably not Smallbones(smalltalk) Vague. SummerPhDv2.0 15:39, 27 June 2015 (UTC)
Sister cities		No way! Smallbones(smalltalk)Not significant. SummerPhDv2.0 15:39, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

Don't disagree with the list. But I feel that public spaces should be included in the "Infrastructure" category. I raise this because there was question about the inclusion of the opening of Dilworth Park in 2015. It may not seem like it now, but this is going to be significant in the regrowth of the city and we can expect countless demonstrations to be here in the future. Likewise, Sister Cities Park was dedicated in 1976 under the international spotlight. The Sister Cities relationships were documented int he timeline thus far, but not the dedication of the park or the re-dedication of the park in 2012. And how can we not mention the development of Independance Mall or it's redesign by a prominent Philadelphian in his field ([[7]]). To me, such things are important to our culture and our infrastructure and they should be included. -- Coplan (talk) 14:38, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Speaking of public spaces, I've got a complete list of the city's parks at User:Thnidu/Philadelphia parks, with some discussion and links at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Philadelphia#List of parks. Please {{Ping}} me to discuss. --Thnidu (talk) 06:05, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

Inclusion criteria

Per WP:LSC, "Selection criteria should be unambiguous, objective, and supported by reliable sources." Common selection criteria include:

• 1) "Every entry meets the notability criteria for its own non-redirect article in the English Wikipedia....This standard prevents Wikipedia from becoming an indiscriminate list, and prevents individual lists from being too large to be useful to readers. Many of the best lists on Wikipedia reflect this type of editorial judgment."
• 2) "Every entry in the list fails the notability criteria. These lists are created explicitly because most or all of the listed items do not warrant independent articles: for example, List of minor characters in Dilbert or List of paracetamol brand names."
• 3) "Short, complete lists of every item that is verifiably a member of the group."

Option #2 clearly does not apply here. Option #3 would be a recitation of every event in the history of the city that can be found in reliable sources. In addition to being absurd, it would be anything but "short". This leaves option #1.

I am proposing that this should be a chronological list of all events within the city of Philadelphia that have non-redirect articles. There are hundreds of thousands of businesses, websites, people, parks, etc. that have been created, expanded, disestablished, born, christened, married, divorced, hired, fired, built, torn down, moved, died, etc. in the city over the past few centuries. This page should not try to list all of them. This selection method will meet our guidelines and policies, produce a useful article and forestall arguments about whether or not Uncle Joe's retirement from the corner store belongs here. It will also weed out the website that lasted of 2 years, the opening of a men's clothing store, pier renovations, etc.

Comments? - SummerPhD^v2.0 16:31, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments on selection criteria, SummerPhD. You correctly warn against the dangers of an overly-inclusionist slippery slope. However I believe we can trust the keen human judgment and good faith of our fellow Wikipedia editors to choose worthy elements for a well-curated, useful, and informative city timeline that balances between Options #1 and #2. -- M2545 (talk) 19:24, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

While I saw your attempt above, I'm afraid I don't see them as "unambiguous, objective, and supported by reliable sources". Other opinions are welcome. As there doesn't really seem to be much attention focused here, I've added a note at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Philadelphia/Requests#Need_work in hopes of drawing in more opinions.[8] - SummerPhD^v2.0 04:03, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

As there has been no response, I've left notes for the editors listed as participants at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Philadelphia (example). - SummerPhD^v2.0 13:27, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

I see some problems with the proposed criterion. The current timeline lists, for example "Pennsylvania's capital moved to Harrisburg". This subject does not have it's own article, but it is a milestone in the history of the city. On the other hand, the list includes "Philadelphia mayoral election, 2011" which does have an article. My subjective sense of what belongs in the timeline of city's history tells me that first example belongs in the timeline more than the second. 199.133.43.143 (talk) 14:21, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

I'd be very careful about putting in any recent commercial/media entries. My general sense of what belongs is:

• at a minimum it should have been on the front page of the local newspapers (since say 1850), or
• it is mentioned in several mainstream histories of the city or of Pennsylvania or the US.

but that might come up with a fairly bland list since it pretty much requires that everybody agrees that it was important, so I might add that some communities within the city (religious, racial/ethnic, political/labor, scientific) have several entries that are especially important to them.

I think the current dispute might center around one of these communities - I'll call them millennials/cool youth. Sure this group is important, but I think they are less important than the ethnic groups who make up most of the city (and other groups above) so if they have half-a-dozen non-commercial entries, I'd feel that's enough. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 14:36, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

I feel that this list should include milestones. News events (like the Move fires), should only be included if it received national coverage. Otherwise, I think we should be sticking to infrastructure and cultural events that impacted the city's history, whether or not it has an article attached to it. I struggle with the second criteria because this is a timeline, not a strict list, per-se. A list makes sense if there is no chronological order necessary to understand its contents' relationship to each other. For example, a list of Composers from Italy would make sense as a list whether it's organized chronologically by birth, alphabetical, etc. But in the case of a timeline - this timeline - I don't see a reason why #2 would apply. With that in mind, I am dumbfounded as to why things like the construction of Independance Hall (and subsequently, the Mall) aren't included in this Timeline. Of course when we include such structures, there needs to be a basis. One Liberty Place may have been a significant construction because it was the tallest in the city for a time. Two Liberty Place is therefore insignificant; it was neither the tallest nor was it the first of its kind. Fairmount Water Works should be mentioned as well, not only because of it's significance in the City's history, but because of its relevance in engineering history . -- Coplan (talk) 15:02, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

What's up here?

I got a message on my talk about a problem here, but I'm not sure what the issue is, specifically. Is this a problem of spam, special interests, some person wanting to include waaaaay to much mummers trivia? Please educate the newbie. --SB_Johnny | ^talk✌ 21:11, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Bit of a newbie to this discussion myself. But here's what I understand: There's a question as to what should be included in the timeline. A strict interpretation of the WP:LSC criteria seems to imply that lists should include items that aren't notable in and of themselves, which would also seem to imply that items that have their own article don't necessarily belong in the list (see item #2 above under Inclusion Criteria). As I understand it, SummerPhD agrees that #2 doesn't apply. But that led to a question as to what should or should not be included. I guess there's a debate about how to determine if something is considered significant enough to be in the timeline. What is perhaps a better outline, in my mind, would be Selection Criteria for City Timelines, above. Except that I feel that "infrastructure" should also include public parks and significant buildings. Significant Buildings, in this case, being buildings that reached a milestone (eg: tallest building in the city) or a building of significance to the city's culture (eg: Pennsylvania Convention Center). So I guess the question is where you think the line should be drawn and what items should be included in the Timeline (or more specifically, what should be excluded). -- Coplan (talk) 21:37, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Flower's Coffee Shop

Yes, a coffee shop opened. It was one of roughly 70,602 coffee shops that have opened at some point in the history of the city. This was a trivial event. We could set aside a month of our lives to add every coffee shop opening and closing to this article and achieve nothing. We could catalog every trivial but verifiable event in the history of the city that might somehow relate to some kind of larger trend: A Sanrio shop opened in Chinatown (as Hello Kitty became popular). Redlight cameras were added at various intersections (as technology allowed). Parking meters went from quarter-fed to credit card activated. The first ATM was added in the city. The steak sandwich was invented. Cheese was added. Whiz became an option. Sodas were taxed. Municipal trash collection began. Curbside recycling was mandated. Fishing was banned/allowed/banned again/allowed again in various rivers. Paving switched from stone and gravel (sometimes wood) to brick and tarmac to asphalt concrete. Sidewalks were widened, narrowed, removed, replaced, etc. Malls were built and destroyed. Sports teams moved from stadium to stadium, winning an losing games. Bars opened, closed, became speakeasies, then bars again. Hospitals opened, grew, merged, folded, etc. Mayors, councilmembers and judges were born, elected, ousted/retired and died. Cemeteries opened, closed, were abandoned/relocated. Pandemics came and went. Movies and TV shows were filmed. Songs were recorded. Plays were performed. Churches were built, abandoned, razed/collapsed, etc. People were born in the city, moved to the city, moved within the city, moved out of the city, married, raised children, abused children, educated children, took them to the Zoo, killed and died. Pick a year. Pick a topic. You will find a source confirming there was a "trend" and that the event occurred in the city.

Notable events, people and institutions are notable. Non-notable events, people and institutions are not. "1982: Bob Smith marched in the Mummers' Parade" and "2013: Joe's Discount Cigarette Emporium was in business" don't tell us anything about the history of the city. They might tell us a little something about what the editor who added them thinks is important. Yes, they are mentioned in reliable sources. So what? Yes, an off-topic source might indicate that there was something happening in the world and you might combine the two sources to imply something new. That is not what this article (or Wikipedia) is for. - SummerPhD^v2.0 04:34, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Agreed that random triva may not belong in the city timeline, but useful and informative facts should be included, especially unusual events, firsts, etc. Markman Ellis' global history of coffee and other sources mention Flower's coffeehouse as one of the first in North America, so it seems appropriately notable in the early history of Philadelphia. There were other coffeehouses of perhaps greater significance in the city's history (e.g. London Coffee House) that might be included too. -- M2545 (talk) 11:49, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Yes, anything established as part of a city in North America in 1703 was "one of the first in North America". If we look long and hard, we will no doubt find one of the first men's wear shops, hardware stores, street signs, public fountains, executions, museums, etc. Some of these are notable firsts: first library, first hospital and medical school, first Capital, first stock exchange, first zoo, first business school, etc. We could fill up this article with a few hundred actual firsts. "One of the first coffee shops" is trivial clutter. - SummerPhD^v2.0 14:44, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

In fact, coffeehouses in the 18th c functioned as important communication hubs. Explore the topic here: Coffeehouse#Europe -- M2545 (talk) 15:07, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

In fact, coffee shops in 20th century America served as a venue for entertainment and were used by churches and individuals for outreach. Explore the topic here: Coffeehouse#United_States. There do not seem to be "unambiguous, objective" inclusion criteria at work here. Instead, the article seems to be a catchall of anything anyone wants to add, supported by vague referral to "trends" and "broader history". Hello Kitty was certainly an international trend, meaning the Sanrio store in Chinatown would fit the vague, unsourced criteria at work here. Electronic parking kiosks are clearly part of the broader history of computerization. Perhaps Rizzo's tenures as police commissioner and mayor were part of the broader history of racism in the U.S. There was clearly a trend at work in the conversion of most U.S. streets from dirt to cobbles to stetts to brick to asphalt concrete. At some point, Philly joined the trend of converting from city gas to natural gas and from septic systems to public water. Every Quaker meeting house is part of the "broader history" wherein Friends were executed as witches in Boston, but widely accepted in Pennsylvania. Various department stores closing and the Gallery opening were part of the broader history of the demise of downtown retail. All those bars that closed in 1929 were certainly part of the broader history.

Yes, a coffee shop opened. At some point it closed. We do not have independent reliable sources saying it was in any way particularly notable. It is included here because we have a source for it. The inclusion here is indiscriminate. The argument that it is part of a "trend" is an inappropriate original idea.

To survive, this article should include items selected by criteria that are unambiguous, objective, and supported by reliable sources not just verifiable existence.WP:LSC Your argument so far does nothing to differentiate this coffee shop from the Sanrio store in Chinatown. - SummerPhD^v2.0 04:15, 7 March 2017 (UTC)