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Sinclair QL Book by Betascript Publishing
Posted: Fri Dec 20, 2013 11:26 pm
by RWAP
Has anyone ever heard of this book - supposedly published in 2010:
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/sinclai ... 129542&r=1
Re: Sinclair QL Book by Betascript Publishing
Posted: Fri Dec 20, 2013 11:45 pm
by tofro
Rich,
that's nothing you want to have a second look at - The publisher is known to simply copy Wikipedia articles in book form for quite a lot of money - Something you could probably call cheating - or even worse.
http://www.chrisrand.com/blog/2010/02/o ... ublishing/
Hands off!
Regards,
Tobias
Re: Sinclair QL Book by Betascript Publishing
Posted: Sat Dec 21, 2013 11:40 am
by dilwyn
52 dollars for a book cribbed from Wikipedia?
At least when I did that, it got made available for free:
http://www.dilwyn.me.uk/docs/ebooks/index.html - scroll down to 'The Sinclair QL (Wikipedia Book)'.
The procedure for compiling, extracting and publishing a book from Wikipedia is fairly straightforward. Just go to the Print/Export section, Create a Book and Export it as a PDF, for example. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?tit ... =Main+Page
It's handy if you want to create a reference on a particular topic - and perfectly legal of course if you stick to their licensing terms. I think profiting from it is taking things a bit far, though, even if it isn't illegal.
Re: Sinclair QL Book by Betascript Publishing
Posted: Sat Dec 21, 2013 5:46 pm
by RWAP
Ah - well that clarifies matters - it is crazy and I wonder how many people are tempted to buy these books without realising that they are basically a snapshot of 100s of pages from Wikipedia - which may or may not contain correct information!
I have never been keen on Wikipedia, as a lot of the pages are just too simplistic without enough information and it can be hard to determine how accurate it is - ok people add links to citations where possible, but a whole host of information can be missing without anyone knowing!
My own account on Wikipedia got blocked as 'self-promotion' so there was a lot of information I added about the QL and its software which was removed - the editors would not accept that I would link back to the QL Wiki for more information as it is run on the RWAP Adventures website !!