User talk:Ericd/Archives 1

Hello there Ericd, welcome to the 'pedia! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. If you ever need editing help visit How does one edit a page and experiment at Sandbox. If you need pointers on how we title pages visit Naming conventions. If you have any other questions about the project then check out Help or add a question to the Village pump. Cheers! --maveric149

About those B&W photos of cameras--you mentioned that you had reduced them to 64 levels of gray at one point and originally saved them as PNG. Converting to JPG saved a lot of space, but it would be even better if we started with the full 256-level originals and converted those to JPG; they'd be smaller and much higher quality (the present photos have noticeable aliasing). Can you give me some idea of what start-to-finish process was used to create these photos, so we can work on making them as high-quality as possible? --LDC

I looked at folding camera and let me say first that I'm not an expert. I'm an amateur photographer who started with some (very little) videography around August 2001, and only recently (about six weeks ago) bought a still camera (this after taking one photojournalism class in June). So.

About the article. It looks ok, except it seems to imply that the cameras are not often used any more. This may well be the case, but if it uses even 120mm film, the camera would yield fine images (the larger the negative, the larger the blowup before you get noticeable grain). A side effect, of course, is that the cameras are heavier.

I don't know if this is the same camera as the "view camera" (where the photographer disappears beneath the cloth), but if it is, the National Geographic Field Guide on Landscapes has this to say about it: they commonly have a 4x5" sheet of film, and the camera
 * "records extremely fine detail and yields superb enlargements. Both front and rear standards can be adjusted to manipulate focus and depth of field--you can tilt them up-down and left-right to correct for perspective distortion and to have both near and far subjects in focus."
 * &lt;snip&gt;
 * "Most are completely manual, are heavy and cumbersome, and are expensive to buy and operate. They require patience, skill, and a lot of practice to master.  But photographers who want extremely high definition and who plan to make very large prints find them invaluable."

I hope this is a help. I don't know if it's the same camera, sorry. Aside from point-and-clicks, all of my limited experience has been with the Nikon FM2. Best--oh, and thanks for your contributions. :-) --KQ 04:24 Sep 7, 2002 (UTC)

--- Well I should expand the article. High end folding camera could be great picture takers and a cheap way to enter in medium format photography. But they don't age very well... There prone to light leak (bellow pinhole) and to film/lens parallelism problems. I will try to add something about the subject. Ericd 10:07 Sep 7, 2002 (UTC)

I've added something about view camera and something else field camera they also have bellow but are build for different use. National Geographic refers to view camera you can use this source to expand the article. In restrictive sense a folding is an ancestor of the Nikon FM2 : a general use handheld camera and use generally medium format film 120/620 or 116/616 (now obsolete). A view camera is unusable without a tripod and use large format plates (4"x5" and 8"x10" are common size in use today) (glass) or sheet (film). A view camera for stdio use can not be folded At large sense a field camera is a folding ; it can be folded. This implies some limitition in tilt and shift movements. I have no pictures for wikipedia but look there :

http://www.benderphoto.com

http://www.fiberq.com/cam/misc.htm

http://photographytips.com/page.cfm/220

--- btw, ericd and ericb are only one person ? If true, would you be interested in the official WikiProject French departements ? user:anthere
 * For the first question : No.
 * I've made some correction in French Departement and French Regions. I have a  look on it but I'm not really expert in geography.Ericd

I added a stub to Tina Turner. I don't know much about her; please expand it if you do. :-) --KQ

I don't know very much but I added something. Do you know something about the Beatles stereo vs. mono ? Talk:The Beatles
 * No, I don't really know anything about that. IIRC Gareth Owen and I had a discussion about it and reached no conclusion.  I'd have to find the old LPs because they may have changed it later.  --KQ

Hi, Ericd! About Le Bébête Show: It's considered by a number of Wikipedians useful to have common misspellings present as redirects to the proper spellings. That way, those who enter incorrect spellings may still get to the article they want to read. However, if you think this is a serious issue, add it to Votes for deletion. On that site it can be discussed for alittle while, and if most agree, deleted. -- April

Right but the search engine don't care about accents it would be better to create Le Bebete Show and to get rid of other misspelling with accents ?

On a more general what is the policy with non-english spelling ? Event in the project french departement it seems unclear. I am for French départements, but what ?


 * The general policy is to use the accepted English spelling where there is one. Where there isn't, I heartily recommend using the original spelling with accents (or closest approximation; we're limited to Latin-1 so many non-Western European accents need to be dropped, and non-Latin writing systems should be transliterated of course!), but acceptable variants may be provided as redirects (for German umlauts -> letter+e; for French, dropped accents). --Brion

--- Hi. Eric. I assume the blanking of The Rutles was an accident. Mintguy The net was very slow this evening I don't know what happened....

-- I don't know who you are, but already you're slandering me.

First, I am not a Stalinist.

Second, if I have to convince you of what happened in Central Africa or Southwest Africa, then you&#8217;re ignorant.

Third, if you are at all familiar with mainstream scholarship on Chinese history, then I wouldn&#8217;t have to convince you that those Free Tibet charges are extremely questionable.

Forth, I&#8217;m not here to advocate anything.

I'm used to these ridiculous charges from the likes of people like you.

User Tannin described them well:

"172, let's not get into a misunderstanding here. I would be the last person to call you a communist. Prior to your arrival, a good many of the history pages were rather shallow things, and showed little understanding of the interrelationship between history (in the traditional "kings and queens of England" sense) and the broad flow of economic change that underpins and (in general) controls the actions of statesmen, generals and inventors. You certainly do not fall into that trap! Your contributions have made significant inroads into the task of describing history as an interacting whole. Several others here have objected to what they see as a "communist bias" in your writing. In large part, these objections stem from two things:

Many people here have spent a lifetime steeped in a rather one-sided view of history - I'm talking about the sort of history that describes the Battle of the Bulge or Second Alamain in loving detail, but relegates Stalingrad to a footnote and doesn't even bother to mention Kursk; the sort of history that thinks Jethro Tull invented the seed drill and therefore we had an Industrial Revolution - and on reading the sort of thing that you write, they (very naturally) tend to say oh, this isn't what I'm used to seeing, therefore it must be wrong. You tend to write large slabs of text which is perfectly comprehensible if one concentrates but far from easy reading, particularly as it is liberally laced with the jargon of political economy. Many people see key words or phrases like "bourgeoise", "hegemony", or "accumulation of surplus" and (a) don't really understand them, and (b) assume that because the two or three Marxist or Leninist tracts they happen to have glanced at are filled with these same words, that the present work is more of the same. "

172


 * EricD, sorry to be intruding on your talk page, but I had better point out that the above is a selective quote, and the full version (on 172's talk page) also includes less complimentary points. I shouldn't want anyone to think that the para above is a complete or balanced statement of my views Tannin

-- I never wrote anywhere you're a Stalinist. I've been myself suspected to either Stalinist or anti-American and I might well be one ;-). You should know than phrases like "bourgeoise", "hegemony", or "accumulation of surplus" are widely used in marxist discurse and rarely in other discurse. I simply don't like the way you edit article without researching any form of consensus between the contributors. I personnally avoid editing sensitive article without adding comment in the Talk. Have a look at my comment in Talk:Genocide User:Ericd


 * Eric, 172 was addressing me. Unfortunately, she/he debates with the equivalent of emptying the clip on an automatic rifle, which while hitting at least one bull's eye, unfortunately causes a lot of collateral damage. Sorry that you got hit.


 * If 172 would try to enter into a debate with the rest of us, perhaps she/he wouldn't be in this situation. (And yes, I know I need to improve on MY debating skills.) -- llywrch 21:03 Jan 2, 2003 (UTC)

It was for me to I wrote in several places about his strange understanding of NPOV. User:Ericd


 * Like I said, "the equivalent of emptying the clip on an automatic rifle". It would be nice if she/he did more than a cut-n-paste in both logs. -- llywrch 21:15 Jan 2, 2003 (UTC)

these terms are widely used in the discourse of politcal economy in general.

Sorry, Eric, I'm staying out of any more edit wars until the 172 situation is resolved. I've just asked that he/she be banned. -- Zoe

I believe it's the only solution. Ericd

Sure, Eric. First, alas, I have to spend a day at the office. Tannin

Sheesh, I let the mother-in-law use the computer for a while, & I miss out on the general consensus: that's the only reason I reverted genocide with a few changes.

Hope I'm not rekindling the blaze. -- llywrch

-

Please stop deleting cases of genocide in Africa. I don't delete cases of genocide in Africa I delete tons POV addition you made. I will reincorporate case of genocide in Africa if you cease your non consesual addition. YOU JUST CAN'T IMAGINE HOW ANTI-COLONIALIST I AM ! Have a look to my contributions about Jean-Marie Le Pen.

User:Ericd

-

I'm not interested in POVing that article about Jean-Marie Le Pen. I'm not interested in espousing a anti-colonialist agenda on Wikipedia. I'm not interested in advancing a Stalinist or Trotskyite agenda on any medium.

But if there's going to be an article chronicling instances of genocide, I feel that it should be as complete as possible.

172

"Terrorisme intellectuel" is the only way to qualify your behaviour. User:Ericd


 * No freaking kidding. User:AnnieKat

The references to the Congolese economy seem to be throwing you off. This should not be so. As I&#8217;ve said earlier, referring to Belgian atrocities in the Congo Free State without referring to surplus value, labor as a commodity and mass-production is like detailing the Holocaust without discussing anti-Semitism. --- Like Zoe I will stay out of edit wars with you until the your situation is resolved. User:Ericd

---

What situation? If Zoe gets me banned by slandering and misinterpreting my contributions, I'll just get a new username.

---

Positive thinking ! And if you don't change your attitude you'll be banned another time. User:Ericd


 * A round of smilies all around for THAT thought. And I award one Point to Eric.

~meeh meeh caheeh User:AnnieKat

Eric, thanks for your comments. I did just look over the material (and all the revisions) and do think it needs work, but I am a little cautious about doing anything with it because I certainly have a POV interest invested here (in my latest employment incarnation, I write curricula on the Holocaust and genocide). In general, and I admit fully that this is my own POV, the term genocide seems to be bandied around a little loosely here. The question I would ask is "Are politically-motivated killings, as opposed to ethnically motivated killings (and I admit that the distinction is somewhat obtuse) an act of genocide, or is it a crime against humanity?" For example, if Mao (Stalin, Hitler, etc.) killed 30 million people because they opposed his regime, it is certainly a heinous crime, but is it genocide? It is not a question of comparing tragedies--I don't think we ever can or should do that. I also think that certain unquestioned attempts (some which were actually successful) at genocide should be mentioned. For instance, I happen to have a copy of Stannard's American Holocaust on my desk right now. Many (but not all) of the cases he mentions are clearly examples of genocide and I think they should be mentioned. Similarly, the case of the Herero in Southwest Africa deserves mention, as does Stalin's policy of ethnic cleansing in WW2 (Chechens, Kalmyks, etc.). I'm not sure Mao's purges, no matter how horrible do under the heading genocide. Again, this is my own POV, off the top of my head, and I have to think about it some more and do a little more research. I certainly will do that though. Danny

I mostly agree with your point of view I believe politically-motivated killings should be be distinged from ethnically motivated. I also believe that the article genocide should be extensive about historic controversies they should be discussed in separarte article. I also believe that the order is non-neutral. I'm very prudent in editing such sensitives articles (my english is too poor). I generally prefer to make comments. User:Ericd


 * Jumping in this discussion, just to say that I agree too... Confusion is dangerous because it serves propaganda more than it serves understanding. An act may be horrible even though it's not technically a "genocide". FvdP

Exactly my feelings. I dont think the article makes that distinction, which is why it is being used for various POV efforts. Danny

-

Did you read the page? The content pertains to major "CHARGES" of genocide.

In my opinion Mao, Stalin, and Leopold II did not commit genocide, but the Germans in SW Africa did fall within the parameters of the definition. But this opinion doesn&#8217;t matter. This is not for Wikipedia users to decide. Let's not remove anything and simply let&#8217;s continue to report what others have CHARGED.

172

You asked for new subject try : There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom

--

I don't get the insult.

172

How about the charge that Linda Lovelace was the victim of genocide? I understand the Judean Popular Front alleged that. -- llywrch Bullshit, Maoist propangada supported by US governement.

---

Be realistic (and better yet start making sense). Doubtless you are familiar with all the charges of genocide in the article, as they are all fairy well-publicized. The occurrences of all those atrocities are generally undisputable as well. The debate centers on whether or not each atrocity falls within the parameters of genocide.

It is inappropriate for Wikipedia contributors to pick arbitrarily sides in a controversy.

Instead, let&#8217;s continue to list well-documented atrocities that some consider instances of genocide. Let's keep the Belgian Congo in the article and Linda Lovelace out.

172

--

Regarding the Congo article:

You people may dislike me, but a brief overview is necessary. The current article goes into micro detail, but gives little insight as to why these atrocities occurred. As a PhD historian, I can assure you that few scholars would seriously assess Leopold&#8217;s rule in the Congo without taking the two contrasting concepts of land and labor into consideration. Understanding the contrasting patters of production between the traditional Congolese tribal states and modern, industrial Belgium is essential.

You people don&#8217;t seem to understand the colossal leap from subsistence, seasonal patterns of agricultural production to the modern capitalist one, based on specialization/productivity and surplus value. Personally, I consider this a form of progress (though not in the Congo context!) and don&#8217;t understand why some readers deleted my contributions, feeling that I have an anti-modern bias.

Mass-production of rubber in a dense, tropical forest in one of the world&#8217;s most isolated regions was after all quite a massive endeavor. Other parts of Africa were not cultivating rubber (quite a harsh crop to cultivate); other parts of Africa had milder climates and topographies. So the whole rapid shift to mass-production of rubber might be considered more important than Leopold&#8217;s megalomania and insensitivity.

Indeed this was a change (and this change was the export of capitalism) that revolutionized every level of Congolese society forever. That must be noted, considering that this is an article on Congolese history.

Few people will remember the micro details of the article just minutes aftwer reading. So our duty is to give them a general overview, an understanding of not just what happened, but why.

172


 * Just what do you mean by "PhD historian"? Do you have a PhD in history? If so, what was your thesis on? Do you teach history? If so, on what level? Is your position tenure-track?


 * In my experience, when someone drags out the fact they have a doctorate in a subject (& it's not an MD), they are covering for their ignorance with arrogance. And the ones with an MD usually are just being arrogant. (Although there are exceptions -- like the parents of one of my ex-girlfriends).


 * Doing something about your arrogance would do wonders about your popularity. -- llywrch 21:38 Jan 4, 2003 (UTC)

-- If you don't accept the principe of Wikipedia write an article about Congo in some scientific review. Stop pasting everywhere an article that's obviously show an attitude. And remember an Encyclopedia is not a Phd. POV is welcome in a Phd not in a Encyclopedia. And anyone who considers himself as being scientific should accept his work to be criticized. And your text is not so scientific it contains a large number of unargumented assertions.

Pasting the same text everywhere without changing any word restoring every time someone delete your additions is not a positive attitude.Qualifying anyone that disagree with you as an ignorant or as belgian nationalist is not a positive attitude we have a name for this in France we call it "Terrorisme Intellectuel" that's what you do. Even if you feel leftish that's a facist behaviour.

I don't deny the exploitation of the Congo that a proven fact. I just believe that qualifying it as genocide is an improper use of the term (the more you use word the less sense it has) and that your text contain a lot of subjective assertions.

Re-work your text and try to make it acceptable according to Wikipedia standards put it in an adequate article and not everywhere you can paste it. And believe me you will be much more convicing.

Be positive instead of being paranoïd.

I expect my poor english doesn't deserve too much the meaning of this text.

User:Ericd I wasn't logged in 62.212.103.37 is my ip address. User:Ericd

---

Don't worry. Your English is better than my French. Read the article:

History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo

See my new changes and see the talk section please.

I&#8217;m wasn&#8217;t saying that my interpretation of the Congo Free State was the final word, but merely suggesting that few scholars would seriously assess the era without taking the contrasting concepts of land and labor into consideration.

I merely ask that the article not convey only a superficial glance of the historical record. 172 - I&#8217;m just remembering that you said that you&#8217;re a Trotskyite. You Trotskyites cost Lionel Jospin the election!
 * "Terrorisme Intellectuel", as usual. Disqualifying people for what they are not what they say or write.

I never write in anywhere I writed I was a Belgian nationalist. Do you think I'm serious ? Read my comments History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. I can analyse your text word by word to show you that it is very oriented. But you should known : normally when I do this job I'm payed for (bourgeois ethic ?). Wikipedia is hobby for me and for most of the Wikipedian. With your attitude it become some kind of harassing unpayed work.

User:Ericd

--

Ericd:

I&#8217;m not dispensing that energy to salvage a few sentences. I&#8217;m dispensing that energy because I started and wrote that article and Vera Cruz is arbitrarily deleting 90% of it.

I don&#8217;t want to engage in petty, personal arguments with you anymore. I&#8217;d rather engage in more constructive dialogue.

It&#8217;s easy to accuse someone of bias and call him names like "terrorist". But what biases are evident in that article? I truly doubt that you&#8217;ve read my revised version in its entirety.

172 -- For sure I don't want to read the same prose anymore, the most oriented sentences are still there. User:Ericd

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Then don't say that the text is biased and don't call me a terrorist.

172 - Read over this is not an insult just a fact. User:Ericd

---

What bias? You haven't given me any examples. You're just trying to annoy me as if you were a small child. --- Re-read in Talk:History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (the same text in New Imperialism isn'it ?).If you left uncut some of my comments. You often cut what is too disturbing to you. I WON'T ARGUE WITH YOU ANYMORE. That's all folks ! User:Ericd

Eric, may I suggest you join me on the mailing list in urging 172's ouster? -- Zoe

Go to Mailing lists. The discussion concerning 172 is on WikiEN-L. -- Zoe

- Ericd, please do not vandalize 172's user page, this is a violation of our policy. And yes, copying large amounts of text repeatedly qualifies as vandalism. It also wastes DB space on the Wikipedia server. --Eloquence - OK I will never do it again. User:Ericd

---

Ericd:

You&#8217;re probably detecting this bias laced in technical language because of language difficulties. I can understand how that's possible, since I speak French and Spanish as non-native languages. I sometimes have a hard time picking up subtleties.

Your English, I have to admit, is far better than my French.

172