Talk:Herb Ringer

Notability, reliability, plagiarism

This struck me as a very strange article. It's about a photographer, but there's no claim of any notability beyond write-ups and reproduction within a single local newspaper. Still, I tried to keep an open mind as I read it, looking for notability among the family gossip and so forth.

The article in the state in which I encountered it said among other stuff:

Ringer from the start used 35mm cameras while he later purchased a large-frame (2 1/4 inch) camera. When Kodak introduced its Kodachrome color film in 1946, he was one of its first customers and used it exclusively.

That struck me as very strange, for two reasons:

1. I'd never heard a 2 1/4 inch camera referred to as "large frame". I guess "large format" is what's intended, but "large format" starts above 2¼ inch, which is called "medium format". Putting aside the matter of what is and isn't conventional photographic terminology, the context seems to be the 1930s or 1940s, a time when there was nothing "large" about 2¼ inch, which was the commonest size.
2. Famously, (Eastman) Kodak introduced Kodachrome in the 1930s.

I thought I should look at what's given as the source for other information in this article. Most of those assertions that are sourced were sourced to

• Stiles, Jim (December 1997). "A Wonderful Life: The Story of Herb Ringer". The Zephyr. http://www.canyoncountryzephyr.com/herb/ringrbio.html. Retrieved on 18 December 2008.

The link was dead, but web.archive.org has various versions of the page, of which the most recent dates from late 2006 and is here. I looked in it for "Kodachrome", and here's what I found:

From the beginning, he used 35mm cameras with excellent optics and later purchased a large-frame (2 1/4 inch) camera. When Kodak introduced its Kodachrome color film in 1946, Herb was one of its first customers and used it exclusively

Two observations.

1. There's a remarkable similarity here. Well actually Stiles's article has been copied, and copied without any acknowledgment. That is, plagiarized.
2. It's clear that, here at least, Stiles doesn't know what he's talking about. He's very careless at best in his description of a camera for 120 film, and he's plain wrong about Kodachrome.

Therefore Stiles's article should be treated with scepticism -- it hardly seems reliable. And, like any source that's not unambiguously in the public domain, any quotation should make scrupulous use of quotation marks, etc. -- Hoary (talk) 01:59, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

I didn't cut and paste. I feel I was scrupulous within the bounds of fair use as to using Mr. Stiles article as a source. I'm no camera expert and am sorry I didn't do a bit of research on the claim about Kodachrome, etc. Probably best to take our the mis-information, and also scrutinize the rest of the piece. I have been under the weather and may not be able to tweak it for a few days. I hope that is acceptableDgabbard (talk) 23:43, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry to hear that you are unwell, and hope you get better soon. I'll fix (to the best of my guesswork) what's written about camera and film. Please see my comment on your talk page. -- Hoary (talk) 00:43, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

I am closer to being alive again after being blah for some time and hope to soon work out the issues with the entry.Dgabbard (talk) 01:35, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

I never had a chance to do the reworking of the entry, and now the great pooh-pahs of Wikipedia are slating the entry for deletion. It is sad but I am not going to make a fuss. Maybe in 20 years Herb Ringer's life will be well documented enough that the powers that be deign to allow him an entry. Dgabbard (talk) 17:13, 1 September 2009 (UTC)