Template talk:History of printing

Print history taskforce

A taskforce to settle the chaotic Printing category (and related) is beginning to assemble in September 2007. User:Parhamr is starting this and will assume administrative duties for now.

List of members by topic and era

General: Parhamr—descriptive prose about technology, diagram creation and editing, copyediting

Printmaking, historical: Johnbod—writes about fine arts, books and fashion, particularly 500–1800 Europe

Potential recruits

User:Dicklyon—editor, media contributor, technically oriented. Largely focuses on photographic articles but there is certain overlap into print. —Parhamr 19:27, 21 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
User:DGG (details needed) —Parhamr 19:33, 21 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
User:Bine maya—appears interested in media studies
User:Andrew c—appears knowledgeable, experienced, etc.
User:TonyTheTiger—has contributed to an excessive number of good/featured articles
User:Planetneutral—organizing champion
User:Camitava—History, technical stuff

Role of templates

Infobox: printing device: photo, date, inventor, location, improved/replaced/superseded by…, substrate/media, imaging process, imaging medium; Category:Applied science and technology infobox templates

Series template: history, topics, people, technology … details!

How can this be organized? —Parhamr 05:54, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Layout

Why is the text size so small on this template? Rhapsodyindrew 17:49, 3 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Stencil printing

I can't find a way to add stencil printing to the template list of subject. The main article on stencil printing is IMHO a stub. I know a lot about this subject, but best of all I know my own limitations. There is a chaotic mixture of facts and things I believe to be facts in my mind. So I prefer not to write too much about it in the main articles and to leave this to true experts. Anyhow stencil printing is one of the oldest printing techniques, developed independently in different cultures, often as a way to repeat ornaments on fabrics. By combining single-character calligraphy stencils it was probably one of the earliest forms of moveable type printing in Japan. Stencil printing machines played a major role a.o. in students uprises in the 1960's. Maggy Rond (talk) 12:27, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You should be bold, and just write up the page. Pour out all you know, and if possible cite sources. Then depend on other editors to clean it up as necessary. lk (talk) 07:40, 8 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Layout

I've tried to make the template smaller and less obtrusive. It looks good on firefox, but still is pretty bad on IE. Anyone who knows more about how these templates work care to take a stab at it? lk (talk) 07:40, 8 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Dates

I added the date 1450 in parentheses for the invention of movable type, because if someone is referring to this template while investingating other questions, the date given in the 11th century will needlessly confuse. Since the invention of movable type in China did not have a notable influence, whereas its independent invention in Europe 400 years later did, the European date must at least be given in parentheses. 78.16.181.242 (talk) 12:28, 3 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I believe it's wrong to draw only attention to (disputable) western dates. For example read the History section of Screen-printing. This clearly is an ancient Asian technique, yet the template only mentions the date of one Western patent. It's too easy to fool ourselves and all Wikipedia readers into the false impression that most inventions are modern and Western. Maggy Rond (talk) 09:01, 19 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Cylinder seal

Isn't the cylinder seal a type of printing mechanism? Shouldn't it be added to this template?--SkiDragon (talk) 05:27, 1 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]