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Amiga computer related discussion => General chat about Amiga topics => Topic started by: hishamk on May 30, 2010, 01:04:26 PM

Title: New book on Amiga?
Post by: hishamk on May 30, 2010, 01:04:26 PM: Anyone read this (http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/6130264240/sr=8-5/qid=1275220463/ref=olp_product_details?ie=UTF8&me=&qid=1275220463&sr=8-5&seller=)book?

A bit wary of ordering it. A bit of Googling (http://accrispin.blogspot.com/2009/09/victoria-strauss-vdm-verlag-dr-mueller.html)shows it comes from some shady academic author mill.

:D
Title: Re: New book on Amiga?
Post by: Karlos on May 30, 2010, 01:07:42 PM: See the logo on the front claiming "content from high quality wikipedia articles" ?

Can you really sell a book cribbed from free information?
Title: Re: New book on Amiga?
Post by: hishamk on May 30, 2010, 01:18:08 PM: Where's the world going to!

I love Wikipedia, but I wouldn't want to pay a vanity press for its articles.
Title: Re: New book on Amiga?
Post by: gertsy on May 30, 2010, 01:27:08 PM: If the Press and Media can use Wikipedia for research why not a book..

Gertsy
Title: Re: New book on Amiga?
Post by: tone007 on May 30, 2010, 02:10:22 PM: Quote from: gertsy;562044
If the Press and Media can use Wikipedia for research why not a book..

Gertsy

Research is one thing, scooping up content and dumping it verbatim into a book is another.
Title: Re: New book on Amiga?
Post by: scuzzb494 on May 30, 2010, 02:30:16 PM: Quote from: hishamk;562038
Anyone read this (http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/6130264240/sr=8-5/qid=1275220463/ref=olp_product_details?ie=UTF8&me=&qid=1275220463&sr=8-5&seller=)book?

A bit wary of ordering it. A bit of Googling (http://accrispin.blogspot.com/2009/09/victoria-strauss-vdm-verlag-dr-mueller.html)shows it comes from some shady academic author mill.

:D

Seriously.. What's the problem. Information is information and very useful to have all that in one place. It's not like you are investing in something that may not work. It's great that someone has taken the time.
Title: Re: New book on Amiga?
Post by: Zac67 on May 30, 2010, 02:45:40 PM: Seems pretty much like a ripoff to me - printing free online content (to which I even might have contributed) into a book and charging 27+ GBP for just 84 pages... Is this legal?
Title: Re: New book on Amiga?
Post by: Piru on May 30, 2010, 03:12:58 PM: Quote from: Zac67;562055
Seems pretty much like a ripoff to me - printing free online content (to which I even might have contributed) into a book and charging 27+ GBP for just 84 pages... Is this legal?
Sure it is legal. It's also highly immoral. Wikipedia can't stop it either.

This issue has been discussed to death couple of years ago already.

Unfortunately Amazon isn't stopping them either.. Well why would they, it's more income to them, too. Couple of links:
http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2010/04/06/wikipedia-pod-a-flooded-amazon-the-endless-spigot-at-alpha-and-betascript-publishing/
http://www.neowin.net/news/amazoncom-allows-the-selling-of-wikipedia-articles

But sure, if you like to have couple of low quality amiga wikipedia articles in a printed form, go ahead. Just remember than printing them by yourself is probably much cheaper.
Title: Re: New book on Amiga?
Post by: TheBilgeRat on May 31, 2010, 01:15:22 AM: How hard is it to type "amiga" into wikipoedia, then read every link for youself for the cost of your BW per month?! absurd at best.
Title: Re: New book on Amiga?
Post by: CSixx on May 31, 2010, 01:24:36 AM: Expect to see more garbage books like this.
Wikipedia has added the ability, right in the site to create a publishable book, by simply using their book creator feature.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Book&bookcmd=book_creator&referer=Main+Page
Title: Re: New book on Amiga?
Post by: Amiga_Nut on May 31, 2010, 03:00:38 AM: Wiki has plenty of incorrect facts in general I notice (not Amiga related AFAIK) so if a book had that on the front I wouldn't buy it anyway.

A book costs money due to researching the accuracy of the enclosed facts and confirming sources, if this isn't done and a dodgy source like Wiki is used, it's not worth the paper it's printed on IMO.
Title: Re: New book on Amiga?
Post by: ElPolloDiabl on May 31, 2010, 03:54:37 AM: I checked out two quite fat books on web page design. They had no real tutorials, they just waffled on about nothing and mentioned a few statistics. It apparently doesn't take much to get a book published.
Title: Re: New book on Amiga?
Post by: Piru on May 31, 2010, 05:09:34 AM: Quote from: Fanscale;562177
It apparently doesn't take much to get a book published.

Anyone can get whatever they want published these days. It's trivial to use Print-On-Demand services bypassing the publisher completely.
Title: Re: New book on Amiga?
Post by: Minuous on May 31, 2010, 06:25:32 AM: Quote from: Amiga_Nut;562168
Wiki has plenty of incorrect facts in general I notice (not Amiga related AFAIK) so if a book had that on the front I wouldn't buy it anyway.

And if you go to the trouble of fixing or adding information to Wikipedia it always gets reverted by some fool and you have to write a paragraph in the talk page for every word you need to defend :( I've pretty much given up...
Title: Re: New book on Amiga?
Post by: Arkhan on May 31, 2010, 04:08:47 PM: Quote from: Amiga_Nut;562168
Wiki has plenty of incorrect facts in general I notice (not Amiga related AFAIK) so if a book had that on the front I wouldn't buy it anyway.

that explains alot.