Talk:Franklin Institute

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extraneous

I'm about to remove the extraneous "vikipedia" and also add mention of the Budd BB-1 in front of the museum. I'll see about uploading a picture as soon as I figure out how to do that, exactly. --Thisisbossi 04:02, 30 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Question on the Institute's origin

Is this the same organization as the Franklin Institute for the Betterment of Labour that was founded in 1824 by Matthias W. Baldwin (ref. [1])? slambo 15:21, Feb 15, 2005 (UTC)

Two months later and still no answer. Is there anyone in Philadelphia who can go and find out for us? slambo 15:51, Apr 21, 2005 (UTC)

I doubt it, but I'll ask questions the next time I'm there. - Calmypal (T) 21:12, Apr 21, 2005 (UTC)

Did we ever find a definitive answer? Another two months have passed. slambo 17:02, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)

ANSWER

The Franklin Institute was founded in 1824 at The Franklin Institute of Pennsylvania for the Promotion of the Mechanic Arts by Samuel Vaughan Merrick and William H. Keating.PR Intern 14:31, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The Institute's website gives no mention of Matthias Baldwin's organization; I emailed the Institute and was directed to this web page:

The History and Mission of The Franklin Institute Science Museum

- CobaltBlueTony 18:55, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. Baldwin's organization must have been different, then. Now to see if I can find any more information on it... slambo 20:52, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)

Another answer

Per National Cyclopaedia of American Biography: Vol. 9, pg. 476, Baldwin was "one of the most active founders of the Franklin Institute in 1824." This would be the same organization. I've rewritten Matthias W. Baldwin to include this information and a proper link to this piece. Carrite (talk) 22:47, 9 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia pages linking here

In the trivia section it mentions how many pages on wikipedia link to this article. Who cares? Why is this in the article? It seems all the more redundant now as the current count of pages directing here is 134, not over 250 as stated. --Tim ^{(talk), (contribs)} 17:56, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I removed it. It's irrelevant to the article, and I've never seen that sort of info mentioned in any article. Likely b/c something like that changes so much. Cheers! --Ebyabe 18:38, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Franklin Institute Chief Astronomer

Derek Pitts....thank you, where ever you are! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.67.104.4 (talk • contribs) 07:19, 6 April 2007

Perhaps you or someone else would care to elaborate on this comment? Otherwise I am going to remove this due to its apparent lack of context. --Bossi (talk ;; contribs) 23:18, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Just for context, Dr. Derrick Pitts is the Vice-President/Chief Astronomer of the Franklin Institute Science Museum/Fels Planetarium in Philadelphia. He is the host of the WHYY-FM public radio programs "SkyTour" and "SkyTalk". hamburmk

Photos

I have noticed several new photos recently added to the article. I highly recommend we limit what photos we have here so-as to prevent clutter. We should have one photo showing the museum in its entirety, or as best as possible -- perhaps 1 from the ground and 1 aerial. The "Steps_from_Moore" image best-satisfies ground-level at the moment. Additionally: the Franklin Statue (also satisfied), the Heart (got it), the Budd BB-1 (got it), and then perhaps 1 image in rotation to represent the current theme. I've removed 1 excess image of the museum. Can we get a better image actually of the King Tut exhibit to replace the image of the outside of the museum with the King Tut banners? Any other thoughts in general on what photos are to be used? --Bossi (talk ;; contribs) 23:18, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree. I like the photos. I think the changes you made didn't really help the article. I'm going change it back and we can discuss the changes here. first. --evrik ^(talk) 23:45, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Okay ... I changed my mind and went back and resized the photos and moved things around a bit. I think it looks a lot better. --evrik ^(talk) 23:57, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I still feel that the Table of Contents breaks the flow of the article and the photos are getting on the excessive side... I do not see how many photos of the front of the museum do much to improve the article. I do, however, like the pendulum. Can we get a higher-res photo of pretty much that exact same angle and time? I'll await comments from additional editors before I make any more significant changes to the photos or TOC. --Bossi (talk ;; contribs) 02:11, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The photos were arranged (staggered) so as to liven up the article. Otherwise, the text is too overwhelming. Not every photo needs a caption, and simply stating what the photo is of may not necessarily be enough. I may be new, but I would appreciate it if everyone left the photos as they were originally laid out. I am also removing the Budd B.B. photo from the article, as it has nothing to do with the Institute itself.--PR Intern 18:56, 19 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your response. I agree that staggering the photos can help liven up an article, but also note that it can cause some awkward alignment issues depending on the screen resolution of a viewer. As for the Budd BB-1, I believe that this item is as much a piece of Franklin Institute History as the Giant Heart or Pendulum[2], seeing as it has been in place since 1935, but I will await further input from other users. Lastly, I agree that not every photo needs a caption -- particularly those clearly of the museum itself; but I do believe that a medal placed within the article deserves a caption and I have subsequently restored its description. Sláinte! --Bossi (talk ;; contribs) 22:05, 19 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It appears that this edit removed a large portion of information, including info on the Budd BB-1 that had been in place for approximately a year prior. I saw mention somewhere that the BB-1 may have been taken down from its location due to the impacts of the environment. If this is true, it may explain why more recent editors here and visitors to the museum may not be familiar with it. If true, is anyone familiar with its current location? --Bossi (talk ;; contribs) 22:45, 21 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Per a lack of response, I have returned a portion of the info which was deleted without apparent reason. --Bossi (talk ;; contribs) 04:35, 21 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Peer review

Should we put this up for peer review? --evrik ^(talk) 23:58, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Elliott Cresson Gold Medal

Where's mention of this award? When was the award first given? Who have been the most notable recipients? Binksternet (talk) 16:51, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Done. See Elliott Cresson Medal and Elliott Cresson. Cheers! Binksternet (talk) 04:33, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

New Name

The Franklin Institute's website and advertising for exhibits now calls it just "The Franklin." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.44.55.178 (talk) 01:02, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's just their current marketing term, not a new name. The fine print on tickets/etc reads ... The Franklin Institute ('The Franklin').208.29.186.172 (talk) 20:37, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

How to remove warning...

Hello, All.

I work at The Franklin Institute and was alarmed to see that someone had tagged the page that describes us with a warning alert about advertising. We did not post the page originally and only rarely edit it, so it was quite a surprise. I've gone through the page and removed anything that even remotely feels like it might be considered advertising. I think it now reads precisely as an encyclopedic entry would.

Can you review and see if you agree?

Assuming objective outsiders do agree, does anyone know how to get that warning at the top removed?

Thanks, Karen kelinich@fi.edu —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.231.162.2 (talk) 19:28, 11 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Old medals

The website of the Franklin institute doesn't seem to provide the complete list of the old medals anymore, before they were reorganized as the Benjamin Franklin Medals. I used another reference (WikiMir), but can't verify the correctness or completeness. Has somebody a better reference? -- SchreyP (talk) 00:00, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the link to Wikimir. How irresponsible of the Franklin Institute to give awards for so many years, then just drop any support of what had been done! Digging out the various aspects of an award's history and namesake is a big job that editors have not yet approached. Similar problems may be found for other institution's award programs, but the depth of FI's step in this line of history is profound.Rgdboer (talk) 22:45, 4 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it is profoundly disappointing how Franklin decided to dump the fine old medals on the slagheap of history in their ill-advised effort to modernize. I managed to create the article Elliott Cresson Medal to bring one of them to light. Other such articles are Howard N. Potts Medal and Franklin Medal. The opportunity exists to create articles about the Louis E. Levy Medal (1924), the Albert A. Michelson Medal (1968), and the Bower Science Award (1990). Binksternet (talk) 23:15, 4 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for those comments! So I'm not alone with this impression. I prepared indeed already redirects for Louis E. Levy Medal and Albert A. Michelson Medal, since I found several recipients on Wikipedia. But I could not find yet reliable sources to make regular award articles. :( -- SchreyP ^(messages) 06:40, 5 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Here is a useful link: awards archive. The article has footnotes (currently #14, #15) with related links. This information is too far down into Franklin Institute details; many readers may come to this article trying to verify an asserted award and miss the links. People in the FI office are apparently doing some support. The article could emphasize FI's role in recognizing scientists over the years and make the verification of old awards less difficult.Rgdboer (talk) 20:39, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Rgdboer, which footnotes to the awards archive do you mean; the two links under awards multimedia on the left side? -- SchreyP ^(messages) 21:44, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I'm not seeing any footnotes in that link, let alone 15 of them.

Another way of searching the Franklin website is from outside of it, using a search engine such as Google or Bing. With Google, to search for the surname Cowper, you would enter the following in the search window: "cowper site:www.fi.edu" (without quotes). This returns two winners, Edward A. Cowper and Coles S. Cowper. Note that well known awardees such as Tesla will return hundreds of pages. Binksternet (talk) 22:57, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

File:Benjamin Franklin National Memorial.jpg Nominated for Deletion

An image used in this article, File:Benjamin Franklin National Memorial.jpg, has been nominated for deletion at Wikimedia Commons in the following category: Deletion requests May 2012

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This is Bot placed notification, another user has nominated/tagged the image --CommonsNotificationBot (talk) 04:35, 14 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This beautiful photo has been nominated for deletion in spite of having been uploaded by the photographer with a copyright notice. This bot needs to be reined in! David Spector (talk) 21:13, 10 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

There is no freedom of panorama in the United States. That's certainly part of the problem. Binksternet (talk) 23:02, 10 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

New section: "Former Exhibits"

Besides presenting current information, WP can present past information. It would be very interesting to add a new section, called something like "Former Exhibits". This section would describe notable exhibits that once existed at the Institute.

Examples could include:

The Nickleodeon, a full-scale reproduction of an early silent film theater that included a roll-up curtain with simulated advertisements, a piano or organ with skilled player who actually accompanied the film as it would have been when current, and a simulated street outside, including a pharmacy window featuring patent medicines.
The Lightning exhibit had mammoth generators (extending from floor to ceiling, two stories high) of high-voltage simulated lightning bolts.
The Computer Room featured a large glassed area that contained a complete and working Univac II computer (including mercury sound-delay drum used as the main memory, pneumatic-assisted tape transports, and a staff of programmers who actually worked on contracted computing projects).

Reliable sources for such material may be difficult to find, but this kind of information capturing could be a unique contribution of WP to the world. David Spector (talk) 20:44, 10 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Similar information appears in the article Museum of Science (Boston), without much attribution. David Spector (talk) 22:54, 10 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Two Franklin Institutes

There are actually two institutions. This one is of course in Philadelphia. The other is on Boston. The story I heard, which I believe to be accurate, is that Benjamin Franklin in his will left a sum of money to found institutes in the two cities he was best associated with. The money was to be left in trust to accumulate interest for 200 years. From this trust the two institutes were independently set up. I remember the Boston one as the Franklin Institute of Technology, which is a non-profit school providing training and associate's degrees in various trades. It has since changed its name to Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology: http://www.bfit.edu/. The school is probably best known for its automotive technician program.