Talk:Duplicating machines

Old sample images
Here are a couple of images of what the print looked like on a mimeo (right) and a ditto (left) machine. If you want to use them in the article, please do. -- isis 02:23 Oct 28, 2002 (UTC)

Too Well Written and Informative
This article is very helpful and educational. In keeping with usual Wikipedia practices it seems that an admin should soon delete most of the information for an arbitrary reason. Perhaps the lack of citation in the body of the work would serve as a good reason or maybe suspicion that one of the authors was an authoritative expert and therefore had original or uncited work. Rather than reading the sources that are refferenced or doing the work of adding citations it would be much more wiki-like to just eliminate large amounts of information from the article. 70.169.16.39 (talk) 03:24, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Royal
—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.227.181.225 (talk • contribs) 20:03, August 3, 2005.

Cleanup
This article could use some cleanup. In particular, it takes a conversational tone (saying "you" in several places) fairly often, and it describes the pitfalls of duplicating machines from a rather personal viewpoint. The text is understandable, but not really encyclopedic. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Elkman (talk • contribs) 21:25, September 14, 2005.

I disagree completely. The entire point of this encyclopedia is to be understandable and NPOV. Please don't make it less understandable even if that makes it "sound" encyclopedic. See WP:AXS. --DavidCary 02:49, 18 October 2005 (UTC)''

While you can claim that the only point of wikipedia is to be understandable and NPOV, there are also levels of quality. Removing comments like "knock you out" or comparing something to "cheap copier paper" is not very appropriate level discourse. Not only are these unsubstantiated claims, but they also give the image of someone writing in stream of consciousness. High quality wikipedia articles are not written as if they were stream of consciousness.

Moreover, elevating the level of discourse from this conversational tone does not obfuscate the article. In fact, it would create greater clarity if done correctly. Instead of "knock you out," a more accurate description of the effects of the used chemicals (and what exactly they were) would be better for understanding ditto machiens. --Simulcra 22:07, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

I decided the informal tone of the article regarding ditto machines was too difficult to save, so I copy/pasted part of the Spirit duplicator article in its place. --Transfinite 03:57, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

As a copier/duplicator repairman I do have a lot of knowlage of them. I will be taking a look at the article and adding a digital duplicator section. Kilz 02:05, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Mimeo.jpg
Image:Mimeo.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.BetacommandBot 04:19, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Understandability
I don't understand the description of the 'ditto' process, it sort of peters out. Is the centre of the drum filled with colourless spirit that disolves away the aneline blue wax line with every pass, picking up the dye and transferring it to the paper (but also presumably saturating the white bits of the paper too), or is the spirit dyed purple with the aneline dye (how else is it difficult to get out of your clothes?), in which case how does it form the image?. It needs to be clearer. 79.65.53.89 (talk) 20:35, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Confusion of mimeography and spirit duplicators / Comparison photo requested
There seems to be a bit of confusion/conflation of these distinctly different technologies among the general public, though this article does a decent job of comparing them. It would be very instructive to add a clear closeup photo of some mimeographed copy, and still better to have some sample spirit duplicated copies in the same shot, for direct comparison under the same lighting conditions. Reify-tech (talk) 11:48, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

No mention of Carbon Paper in the discussion of alternatives?
The intro section states, "A few alternatives to hand copying were invented between the mid-17th century and the late 18th century, but none had a significant impact in offices." I assume that carbon paper must have been one of those alternatives. At least at some point it was in very widespread use; shouldn't it be specifically mentioned (other than briefly in passing in the section on letter copying presses)?

ALSO, the statement that, "none had a significant impact in offices" is a sufficiently strong and sweeping statement that it really needs a source cited.

Techguy95 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 03:56, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

Error in the Spirit Duplicator Section
I used a spirit duplicator for printing a neighborhood newspaper from 1959 to 1961 and printed duplex (front and back) on a spirit process duplicator with no problems whatsoever. The only requirement was to use a heavy enough paper to avoid show-through, but this was also an issue with the stencil duplicator. I have never heard of this front-and-back issue till now. Maybe it was a problem in earlier iterations of the Ditto technology. Because I don't know that, I feel constrained from simply deleting the two references to this issue. Waltezell (talk) 01:41, 8 July 2020 (UTC)