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digitalmars.D - What is this D book?

reply Andrej Mitrovic <none none.none> writes:
I've accidentally stumbled upon this page:
http://www.amazon.com/programming-language-Frederic-P-Miller/dp/6131799954/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1292815189&sr=1-1

Apparently this is some D book that was published in July this year, but I've
never heard of this before. It also has a stamp that says "High quality content
by Wikipedia articles". What does that mean? Did they collect wiki articles
about D and put them in a book?

Actually I was looking at Google's cool new Ngram thingy:
http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=D+programming&year_start=1960&year_end=2008&corpus=0&smoothing=3

You can click on one of those year range links to get all books that have some
specific term, like "D programming" in them (there's a lot of false-positives
though, e.g. 3D programming, :p).
Dec 19 2010
next sibling parent reply Daniel Gibson <metalcaedes gmail.com> writes:
Am 20.12.2010 04:29, schrieb Andrej Mitrovic:

 I've accidentally stumbled upon this page:
http://www.amazon.com/programming-language-Frederic-P-Miller/dp/6131799954/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1292815189&sr=1-1

 Apparently this is some D book that was published in July this year, but I've
never heard of this before. It also has a stamp that says "High quality content
by Wikipedia articles". What does that mean? Did they collect wiki articles
about D and put them in a book?

 Actually I was looking at Google's cool new Ngram thingy:
 http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=D+programming&year_start=1960&year_end=2008&corpus=0&smoothing=3

 You can click on one of those year range links to get all books that have some
specific term, like "D programming" in them (there's a lot of false-positives
though, e.g. 3D programming, :p).


See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphascript
Dec 19 2010
next sibling parent Andrej Mitrovic <andrej.mitrovich gmail.com> writes:
More info and background:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:PrimeHunter/Alphascript_Publishing_sells_free_articles_as_expensive_books

On 12/20/10, Daniel Gibson <metalcaedes gmail.com> wrote:

 Am 20.12.2010 04:29, schrieb Andrej Mitrovic:

 I've accidentally stumbled upon this page:
 http://www.amazon.com/programming-language-Frederic-P-Miller/dp/6131799954/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1292815189&sr=1-1

 Apparently this is some D book that was published in July this year, but
 I've never heard of this before. It also has a stamp that says "High
 quality content by Wikipedia articles". What does that mean? Did they
 collect wiki articles about D and put them in a book?

 Actually I was looking at Google's cool new Ngram thingy:
 http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=D+programming&year_start=1960&year_end=2008&corpus=0&smoothing=3

 You can click on one of those year range links to get all books that have
 some specific term, like "D programming" in them (there's a lot of
 false-positives though, e.g. 3D programming, :p).


 See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphascript
Dec 19 2010
prev sibling parent Andrej Mitrovic <andrej.mitrovich gmail.com> writes:
And: http://www.doink.ch/a-warning-about-alphascript-publishing-and-betascript-publishing/

On 12/20/10, Andrej Mitrovic <andrej.mitrovich gmail.com> wrote:

 More info and background:
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:PrimeHunter/Alphascript_Publishing_sells_free_articles_as_expensive_books

 On 12/20/10, Daniel Gibson <metalcaedes gmail.com> wrote:

 Am 20.12.2010 04:29, schrieb Andrej Mitrovic:

 I've accidentally stumbled upon this page:
 http://www.amazon.com/programming-language-Frederic-P-Miller/dp/6131799954/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1292815189&sr=1-1

 Apparently this is some D book that was published in July this year, but
 I've never heard of this before. It also has a stamp that says "High
 quality content by Wikipedia articles". What does that mean? Did they
 collect wiki articles about D and put them in a book?

 Actually I was looking at Google's cool new Ngram thingy:
 http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=D+programming&year_start=1960&year_end=2008&corpus=0&smoothing=3

 You can click on one of those year range links to get all books that
 have
 some specific term, like "D programming" in them (there's a lot of
 false-positives though, e.g. 3D programming, :p).


 See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphascript
Dec 19 2010
prev sibling next sibling parent Jonathan M Davis <jmdavisProg gmx.com> writes:
On Sunday 19 December 2010 19:50:14 Andrej Mitrovic wrote:

 And:
 http://www.doink.ch/a-warning-about-alphascript-publishing-and-betascript-
 publishing/


The funny thing is that I wouldn't have expected anyone to be able to create 
book 96 pages long on D just out of Wikipedia articles. And $44 for 96 pages?! 
LOL. The knowledge in that book would have to be pure gold to worth that kind
of 
price. What a total rip-off. It probably popped up just because TDPL was
released 
and some guys were looking to cash in. Maybe they were even hoping that some 
people would be foolish enough to mistake their book for TDPL.

I don't think that print-on-demand publishing is necessarily a bad thing, but 
this is obviously a case where someone is trying to cash in on something that 
they did no work for.

- Jonathan M Davis
Dec 19 2010
prev sibling next sibling parent Andrej Mitrovic <andrej.mitrovich gmail.com> writes:
On 12/20/10, Jonathan M Davis <jmdavisProg gmx.com> wrote:

 On Sunday 19 December 2010 19:50:14 Andrej Mitrovic wrote:

 And:
 http://www.doink.ch/a-warning-about-alphascript-publishing-and-betascript-
 publishing/


 The funny thing is that I wouldn't have expected anyone to be able to create
 book 96 pages long on D just out of Wikipedia articles. And $44 for 96
 pages?!
 LOL. The knowledge in that book would have to be pure gold to worth that
 kind of
 price. What a total rip-off. It probably popped up just because TDPL was
 released
 and some guys were looking to cash in. Maybe they were even hoping that some
 people would be foolish enough to mistake their book for TDPL.



From what I've read from various sources it seems whoever is behind


this has automated the whole process. It's always the same three
"editors" on the cover, an image on the cover (that might end up being
totally unrelated), and just printed pages of wikipedia inside. And
they spit out thousands of books, so it's not targeted at D
specifically.

And apparently the whole thing is legal because the license that the
wiki uses allows this. It's basically a legal scam.
Dec 19 2010
prev sibling next sibling parent spir <denis.spir gmail.com> writes:
On Sun, 19 Dec 2010 22:29:28 -0500
Andrej Mitrovic <none none.none> wrote:


 Actually I was looking at Google's cool new Ngram thingy:
 http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=3DD+programming&year_start=3D1=


960&year_end=3D2008&corpus=3D0&smoothing=3D3

=20
 You can click on one of those year range links to get all books that have=


 some specific term, like "D programming" in them (there's a lot of false-p=
ositives though, e.g. 3D programming, :p).

If you just add " language" to your search term, you get consistent flat =
=3D0 curve ;-)

Denis
-- -- -- -- -- -- --
vit esse estrany =E2=98=A3

spir.wikidot.com
Dec 20 2010
prev sibling next sibling parent reply spir <denis.spir gmail.com> writes:
On Sun, 19 Dec 2010 20:33:39 -0800
Jonathan M Davis <jmdavisProg gmx.com> wrote:


 The funny thing is that I wouldn't have expected anyone to be able to cre=


ate=20

 book 96 pages long on D just out of Wikipedia articles. And $44 for 96 pa=


ges?!=20

 LOL. The knowledge in that book would have to be pure gold to worth that =


kind of=20

 price. What a total rip-off. It probably popped up just because TDPL was =


released=20

 and some guys were looking to cash in. Maybe they were even hoping that s=


ome=20

 people would be foolish enough to mistake their book for TDPL.
=20
 I don't think that print-on-demand publishing is necessarily a bad thing,=


 but=20

 this is obviously a case where someone is trying to cash in on something =


that=20

 they did no work for.


I agree the price is surprisingly high.
But you are very wrong in stating "trying to cash in on something that they=
 did no work for": Making a book out of diverse material is _much_ work (I'=
ve done it). Actually so much and difficult work that it's often worth rewr=
iting from scratch! Just like trying to put together a bunch of lib modules=
 and make an app run fine out of that ;-)

Denis
-- -- -- -- -- -- --
vit esse estrany =E2=98=A3

spir.wikidot.com
Dec 20 2010
parent Walter Bright <newshound2 digitalmars.com> writes:
spir wrote:

 I agree the price is surprisingly high. But you are very wrong in stating
 "trying to cash in on something that they did no work for": Making a book out
 of diverse material is _much_ work (I've done it). Actually so much and
 difficult work that it's often worth rewriting from scratch! Just like trying
 to put together a bunch of lib modules and make an app run fine out of that
 ;-)


I agree that being the editor is a lot of work.
Dec 20 2010
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Daniel Gibson <metalcaedes gmail.com> writes:
On Mon, Dec 20, 2010 at 10:36 AM, spir <denis.spir gmail.com> wrote:

 On Sun, 19 Dec 2010 20:33:39 -0800
 Jonathan M Davis <jmdavisProg gmx.com> wrote:


 The funny thing is that I wouldn't have expected anyone to be able to cr=




eate

 book 96 pages long on D just out of Wikipedia articles. And $44 for 96 p=




ages?!

 LOL. The knowledge in that book would have to be pure gold to worth that=




 kind of

 price. What a total rip-off. It probably popped up just because TDPL was=




 released

 and some guys were looking to cash in. Maybe they were even hoping that =




some

 people would be foolish enough to mistake their book for TDPL.

 I don't think that print-on-demand publishing is necessarily a bad thing=




, but

 this is obviously a case where someone is trying to cash in on something=




 that

 they did no work for.


 I agree the price is surprisingly high.
 But you are very wrong in stating "trying to cash in on something that th=


ey did no work for": Making a book out of diverse material is _much_ work (=
I've done it). Actually so much and difficult work that it's often worth re=
writing from scratch! Just like trying to put together a bunch of lib modul=
es and make an app run fine out of that ;-)


I don't think they put much work in it. Probably just print the
wikipedia-article and some related (=3D=3Dlinked) articles, maybe
recursively to fill at least these 96 pages.
I'd be surprised if these books weren't 99% automatically generated
(the last 1% is selecting a picture for the cover).



 Dec 20 2010



  parent  "Vladimir Panteleev" <vladimir thecybershadow.net>  writes:


On Mon, 20 Dec 2010 11:39:07 +0200, Daniel Gibson <metalcaedes gmail.com>  
wrote:


 I don't think they put much work in it. Probably just print the
 wikipedia-article and some related (==linked) articles, maybe
 recursively to fill at least these 96 pages.
 I'd be surprised if these books weren't 99% automatically generated
 (the last 1% is selecting a picture for the cover).


 From [1]:


 As an example of the "care" given to the books, the book "History of  
 Georgia (country)" is about the European country Georgia but has a cover  
 image of Atlanta in the American state Georgia.[nan 7] The Wikipedia  
 article History of Georgia (country) does not make such a comical  
 blunder. Another example is a book about an American football team with  
 a soccer player on the cover.[nan 8]


   [1]:  
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:PrimeHunter/Alphascript_Publishing_sells_free_articles_as_expensive_books

-- 
Best regards,
  Vladimir                            mailto:vladimir thecybershadow.net



 Dec 20 2010



prev sibling next sibling parent  Andrej Mitrovic <andrej.mitrovich gmail.com>  writes:


On 12/20/10, Daniel Gibson <metalcaedes gmail.com> wrote:

 I'd be surprised if these books weren't 99% automatically generated
 (the last 1% is selecting a picture for the cover).


This is exactly what they do (or maybe it's just a one man operation).
Read this comment from wikipedia:

"As an example of the "care" given to the books, the book "History of
Georgia (country)" is about the European country Georgia but has a
cover image of Atlanta in the American state Georgia.[nan 7] The
Wikipedia article History of Georgia (country) does not make such a
comical blunder. Another example is a book about an American football
team with a soccer player on the cover.[nan 8]"

"The articles are often poorly printed with features like missing
characters from foreign languages, and numerous images of arrows where
Wikipedia had links. It appears much better to read the original
articles for free at the Wikipedia website than paying a lot of money
for what has been described as a scam or hoax. Advertising for the
books at Amazon and elsewhere does not reveal the free source of all
the content. It is only revealed inside the books, which may satisfy
the license requirements for republishing of Wikipedia articles"

"An Amazon.com book search on June 9, 2009 gives 1009 (August 6 gives
1859, October 1 gives 3978, September 20, 2010 gives 64,890) "books"
from Alphascript Publishing,[nan 3][nan 4] an imprint of VDM
Publishing Group. 1003 of the books are described as "by John
McBrewster, Frederic P. Miller, and Agnes F. Vandome". They are called
editors in the book listings. A recent "author" is named as "Mainyu
Eldon A." or similar. It seems the only content of the many books is
free Wikipedia articles, with no sign that these three people have
contributed to them. The books often have very long titles that are
full of keywords. Presumably, this is to make them more likely to be
found when searching on sites such as Amazon.com."

"As of 20 September 2010, 64,881 similar books are also available from
Betascript Publishing [nan 9][nan 10] "by Lambert M. Surhone, Miriam
T. Timpledon, Susan F. Maseken",[nan 11] including a book about The
Police Reunion Tour,[nan 12] featuring a picture of Police on its
cover.[nan 13]"

and

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1666149:
"There's unfortunately already a whole boatload with extremely poor
quality control, totally crapping up Google Books and Amazon results,
especially for more niche topics. They're generally automatically
compiled by a script for tens of thousands of titles, and then printed
on demand, attempting to pass themselves off as original books on the
subject (no mention of "Wikipedia" anywhere). Two of the more
notorious publishers are Icon Group (some examples:
http://www.google.com/search?tbs=bks:1&tbo=1&q=%22we...) and
Alphascript (example: http://www.amazon.com/dp/6130070446). Sort of a
meatspace version of content farming."

So really there's work going on here, they just print out articles
with no editing whatsoever, and print a pretty picture on the front
page of the book. I wouldn't be surprised that those 3-4 editors that
are always listed do not even exist.



 Dec 20 2010



prev sibling  parent  Andrej Mitrovic <andrej.mitrovich gmail.com>  writes:


Sorry, I meant there's *no work going on here* in that sentence.

On 12/20/10, Andrej Mitrovic <andrej.mitrovich gmail.com> wrote:

 On 12/20/10, Daniel Gibson <metalcaedes gmail.com> wrote:

 I'd be surprised if these books weren't 99% automatically generated
 (the last 1% is selecting a picture for the cover).


 This is exactly what they do (or maybe it's just a one man operation).
 Read this comment from wikipedia:

 "As an example of the "care" given to the books, the book "History of
 Georgia (country)" is about the European country Georgia but has a
 cover image of Atlanta in the American state Georgia.[nan 7] The
 Wikipedia article History of Georgia (country) does not make such a
 comical blunder. Another example is a book about an American football
 team with a soccer player on the cover.[nan 8]"

 "The articles are often poorly printed with features like missing
 characters from foreign languages, and numerous images of arrows where
 Wikipedia had links. It appears much better to read the original
 articles for free at the Wikipedia website than paying a lot of money
 for what has been described as a scam or hoax. Advertising for the
 books at Amazon and elsewhere does not reveal the free source of all
 the content. It is only revealed inside the books, which may satisfy
 the license requirements for republishing of Wikipedia articles"

 "An Amazon.com book search on June 9, 2009 gives 1009 (August 6 gives
 1859, October 1 gives 3978, September 20, 2010 gives 64,890) "books"
 from Alphascript Publishing,[nan 3][nan 4] an imprint of VDM
 Publishing Group. 1003 of the books are described as "by John
 McBrewster, Frederic P. Miller, and Agnes F. Vandome". They are called
 editors in the book listings. A recent "author" is named as "Mainyu
 Eldon A." or similar. It seems the only content of the many books is
 free Wikipedia articles, with no sign that these three people have
 contributed to them. The books often have very long titles that are
 full of keywords. Presumably, this is to make them more likely to be
 found when searching on sites such as Amazon.com."

 "As of 20 September 2010, 64,881 similar books are also available from
 Betascript Publishing [nan 9][nan 10] "by Lambert M. Surhone, Miriam
 T. Timpledon, Susan F. Maseken",[nan 11] including a book about The
 Police Reunion Tour,[nan 12] featuring a picture of Police on its
 cover.[nan 13]"

 and

 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1666149:
 "There's unfortunately already a whole boatload with extremely poor
 quality control, totally crapping up Google Books and Amazon results,
 especially for more niche topics. They're generally automatically
 compiled by a script for tens of thousands of titles, and then printed
 on demand, attempting to pass themselves off as original books on the
 subject (no mention of "Wikipedia" anywhere). Two of the more
 notorious publishers are Icon Group (some examples:
 http://www.google.com/search?tbs=bks:1&tbo=1&q=%22we...) and
 Alphascript (example: http://www.amazon.com/dp/6130070446). Sort of a
 meatspace version of content farming."

 So really there's work going on here, they just print out articles
 with no editing whatsoever, and print a pretty picture on the front
 page of the book. I wouldn't be surprised that those 3-4 editors that
 are always listed do not even exist.





 Dec 20 2010