Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Philadelphia municipal election, 1951/archive1


 * The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 13:38, 5 May 2017.

Philadelphia municipal election, 1951

 * Nominator(s): Coemgenus (talk) 21:33, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

This article is about Philadelphia's 1951 election, which was a landmark in the city's history. After 67 years of Republican dominance, the Democrats joined with independent advocates of good government to forge a winning coalition for mayor, city council, and other city offices. --Coemgenus (talk) 21:33, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

Comments. As always, feel free to revert my copyediting. - Dank (push to talk)
 * "major city": I don't know what that means.
 * The source I cite for this uses the phrase "large city" and I took it to mean cities that were the centers of their own metro areas; so, Philadelphia and Seattle, but not Trenton and Tacoma. Sort of like the astronomical definition of a planet "clearing its own orbit." I'm not sure of a better way to say it, but I'd be glad to shift it to "large city" per the source or to anything else you think makes sense.
 * "its political scene safely controlled by Republicans": ditto.
 * Changed to "to have nearly all of its political offices occupied by Republicans."
 * "controlled the Republican organization": ditto.
 * Changed to "led the Republican organization". They were generally considered by contemporaries and later commenters to have been political bosses, which is what I was trying to get across.
 * "the Republican machine": ditto.
 * I linked political machine. --Coemgenus (talk) 21:48, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
 * "Despite being slandered as a communist": "slandered" is primarily understood as a legal term; who was found by a court to have slandered him?
 * It was actually considered per se defamation in Pennsylvania to call someone a communist! There was a case arising that same year on point, Matson v. Margiotii, and it was upheld in 1964 when the same Joseph Clark featured in this article sued someone for libeling him as a communist (Clark v. Allen). That was still good law at the time I was studying for the bar exam, but would likely not hold up to a court challenge today. But in 1951? Definitely.
 * "776664": ?
 * Removed.
 * Support on prose per my standard disclaimer. These are my edits. - Dank (push to talk) 21:13, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks as always for the thorough review and improvements to the prose. Please let me know if any of these answers need clarification. --Coemgenus (talk) 21:48, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Support Comments from Syek88
I have only one major(ish) comment, which goes to comprehensiveness: see the first dot point below. The rest of my comments are fairly minor.


 * The new city charter is mentioned on five occasions, including in the article's opening sentence, before there is any explanation of what it did, and then only in relation to elections for the offices of City Councillor. The new charter sounds like it is integral background to the 1951 election, and worth an overview or explanation somewhere earlier in the article.  When reading the article I kept hearing about the new charter while wondering what it was all about. Even after the explanation of how elections to the City Council were changed, one is left wondering whether there were other material changes. For example, late in the article it is said that "A statewide referendum on the ballot that day continued the work begun by the new city charter in asking voters to consolidate the city and county governments in Philadelphia." What is the "work" that is being continued by the 1951 referendum?
 * That's a good point. I had intended to write a separate article on the charter that I could link to, but that hasn't happened yet. I'll work on summarizing it and report back to you when it's done.
 * "The positions contested included those of mayor, district attorney, and all seventeen city council seats, among other offices." - the word "included" renders "among other offices" unnecessary.
 * Fixed.
 * "As the vote tally became apparent" - Should it be "result" instead of "vote tally"? The vote tally wouldn't have become apparent until it was fully counted.
 * Yes, fixed.
 * "The Progressive Party, a left-wing party founded in 1948 around Henry A. Wallace's presidential bid, also ran two candidates who took less than one percent of the vote." - I don't think "also" is needed, and it confuses the sentence.
 * Fixed.
 * In "Aftermath" there is "Democratic party" and then "Democratic Party".
 * Fixed
 * "Since that time, the Democratic party has dominated the city's politics, with no other party electing a mayor or a majority of the city council in the intervening years." - Is "in the intervening years" necessary?
 * Probably not. Removed.
 * "As the Republicans have declined, the main battle in city politics has been within the Democratic Party." - I'm not sure that this sentence can be cast in the present tense when it is sourced to a reference from 1982.
 * I think it's better now.

I think the article does a good job of using varied language to repeat election results in a non-tedious manner. Sometimes this has required colloquialism ("Lennox came out ahead"), but the colloquialism is acceptable for the purpose.

I checked the Freedman and Reichly references and both are accurately represented.

I might have more minor comments later. Syek88 (talk) 01:26, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks very much for the review! I've addressed all but the first point, and I'll work on that today. --Coemgenus (talk) 13:26, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
 * OK, these should all be addressed now. --Coemgenus (talk) 15:13, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks. On a final read-through I didn't have any further comments, so I'm marking this as a support. I think the new explanation of the charter is in the right place. Syek88 (talk) 11:37, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

Support Comments from Werónika

 * I added Category:1950s in Philadelphia and alphabetised the categories. I'll do a more thorough look over the article later.
 * Could you add description/alt text to the images? Werónika (talk) 04:59, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Done. Thanks for the review and the category fixes. --Coemgenus (talk) 13:29, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Support. Here are my revisions; I just made minor changes to the wording. Feel free to revert any of them. Great work! Werónika (talk) 18:55, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Image review Support on prose Comments by Finetooth
 * File:Seal_of_Pennsylvania.svg: what is the copyright status of the original design?
 * According to the state website (archived version here) the design dates back to 1681, and the final version we use today is from 1893. Even if it was copyrighted, I think that means it has passed into the public domain now, doesn't it? --Coemgenus (talk) 13:38, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
 * It would, so we'll just need an appropriate tag. Nikkimaria (talk) 16:59, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Done. --Coemgenus (talk) 17:03, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
 * File:JosephSClark.jpg is tagged as lacking description and author info, and the copyright tag may not be correct
 * The credit here says "U.S. Senate Historical Office," which I think means that they're saying it's their own work. --Coemgenus (talk) 13:38, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm not so sure, given the info in my link... is it possible to confirm? Nikkimaria (talk) 16:59, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
 * I'll send them an e-mail and see what happens. --Coemgenus (talk) 17:03, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
 * They e-mailed back: "The photo of Joseph Clark is indeed in the public domain as far as we can determine, and can therefore be used freely with proper credit: U.S. Senate Historical Office." The person I talked to also asked if I wanted a higher rsoleution version, to which I said yes, so I'll upgrade the image if that happens. --Coemgenus (talk) 17:37, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
 * File:City_Hall_Philadelphia.jpg is tagged as lacking author info. Nikkimaria (talk) 12:50, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Fixed. Thanks for the review! --Coemgenus (talk) 16:29, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
 * This reads nicely, and I could find little to quibble about. Here are three minor suggestions:
 * City commissioners
 * "The most important of the remaining duties of a commissioner in Philadelphia was the conduct of the city's elections; they also had responsibility for regulating weights and measures." – I recommend changing "a commissioner" to plural "commissioners" here to match the plural "they" after the semicolon.
 * Row offices and judges
 * "The office of sheriff was another holdover county office, and was the chief law enforcement officer of the court system, a separate job from the chief of police." – An office isn't an officer. Perhaps this would be better: "The office of sheriff was another holdover county office. The sheriff, whose job differed from that of the chief of police, was the chief law enforcement officer of the court."
 * "... Edward W. Furia for clerk of courts, an office charged with the collection..." – "officer" rather than "office"? Finetooth (talk) 22:30, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, those are all improvements, and I've made the changes. Thank you for the review! --Coemgenus (talk) 23:10, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Switching to support on prose as noted above. Finetooth (talk) 00:04, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Coordinator comment: Have I missed a source review anywhere? If not, one can be requested at the top of WT:FAC. Sarastro1 (talk) 22:07, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Source review from


 * Sources look good.
 * Earwig's tool shows no sign of copyright violation.
 * Otherwise everything looks good. Ealdgyth - Talk 22:28, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

Support Late to the party, I fear. I made some earlier comments to Coemgenus on this article.--Wehwalt (talk) 06:26, 5 May 2017 (UTC)


 * Ealdgyth and Wehwalt: thank you both for the reviews. --Coemgenus (talk) 11:35, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

13:38, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.