On-demand publishing of Wikipedia and public-domain works

[kurumi]

Amazing: there's a 128-page book about CT 17 called "Connecticut Route 17"! I haven't gotten around to buying it yet, for a few reasons:

• it's content scraped from Wikipedia (at least they're honest enough to admit it)
• it's selling for $54.87

Still interested? Here's the link.

There's more than 2,000 books by the same "author", on topics including PA 142 and other Wikipedia copy-paste. Say what you like about Carl Rogers, but his books ("Pictures of Highway Shields: California!") are at least original work, and he looks like Robert Caro in comparison.

Other publishers are offering reprints/rescans of before-1923 government docs (e.g. Biennial Report to the Highway Commissioner, 1909) for $25 at Amazon, with stock-photo covers. Probably on-demand.

[vdeane]

$60 for a bunch of unrelated road articles from Wikipedia?  Why would anyone buy this?  Is the author crazy?

Though I guess these Wikipedia books are good loopholes for anyone who wants to cite Wikipedia in a school project.

[Mr. Matté]

Though I guess these Wikipedia books are good loopholes for anyone who wants to cite Wikipedia in a school project.

I probably wouldn't be able to since I created most of the shields for the Connecticut articles and thus would be listed as an author.

(although I can't wait for my/his book about the KML file for Interstate 95)

[agentsteel53]

there's some for routes like Sonora 114, which have maybe one sentence of information on Wikipedia.  how do they fill 127 pages?  just by repeating the same sentence over and over again?

[english si]

I probably wouldn't be able to since I created most of the shields for the Connecticut articles and thus would be listed as an author.

Surely papers are marked without knowing who wrote it - ie you're hidden behind a number? I, for instance, am hidden behind 1125747 and before that I was hidden behind 20566158 (though my name was also on the paper, hidden under a flap which got stuck closed like an envelope) and before that 8192 and a centre number that I can't remember as I never needed to (for GCSEs and A-levels, so they needed centre numbers as the tests were taken everywhere in England and Wales and results got published by the place where you took the exam/did the coursework/both). Therefore I wouldn't know that you wrote the paper, also co-wrote the book.

That said, if I was marking a college-level paper and it quoted a book like that as an authoritative source, I'd probably consider it worse than straight up using wikipedia (there are some acceptable times to quote it, but typically only when the primary source citation is unavailable and you do the sensible thing and not assume that it said that. Subjects of geekery that are well maintained - eg US roads, maths, Firefly, etc are also rather reliable articles). You'd certainly see 'thought I wouldn't notice this is just wikipedia in a book?' in red ink for citing a self-published wikipedia-copied book. Probably also a 'you paid for that?' comment as well. With me marking, and an American mark-down system, you'd lose marks for deception/gullability, even if wikipedia was an OK source for what you did with it.

[Duke87]

I probably wouldn't be able to since I created most of the shields for the Connecticut articles and thus would be listed as an author.

Surely papers are marked without knowing who wrote it - ie you're hidden behind a number? I, for instance, am hidden behind 1125747 and before that I was hidden behind 20566158

This is an interesting concept but I have never heard of it actually being implemented anywhere. I always put my name on my assignments, papers, and exams - never a number. The teacher/professor grading them always knew whose stuff they were grading. And yes, teachers/professors who blatantly play favorites absolutely do exist, although they are a minority. Seems to be more common or at least more noticeable the higher up in education you go.

I had professors in college who would definitely hand out final grades differing from the mathematical conclusion of your work if they thought you deserved better or worse - I got an A in Fluid Mechanics Lab when mathematically that should not have been possible, and I got a B- in Tunneling from a professor who gave no exams, no homework assignments, and only one essay which by his own admission he did not read (and I know he didn't read it because I bullshat on it ).

I also had one of my friends complain to me that he had done a homework assignment with two other guys, all three of them had handed the same exact work in, and he had gotten 12/20 on it while the two guys he did it with got 16/20 and 20/20.

[vdeane]

Though I guess these Wikipedia books are good loopholes for anyone who wants to cite Wikipedia in a school project.

I probably wouldn't be able to since I created most of the shields for the Connecticut articles and thus would be listed as an author.

(although I can't wait for my/his book about the KML file for Interstate 95)

I don't know if it's feasible to list all authors who have ever contributed to a page in a book like this.  In any case, I have seen someone cite herself in a paper before.

there's some for routes like Sonora 114, which have maybe one sentence of information on Wikipedia.  how do they fill 127 pages?  just by repeating the same sentence over and over again?

Apparently this one also has Interstate 91 and CT 9, 66, 80, and 2.  Not sure how they're related other than being random pages pulled from the US highways project.

[Scott5114]

I don't know if it's feasible to list all authors who have ever contributed to a page in a book like this.

It's legally required under the terms of the license Wikipedia publishes its work under.

[NJRoadfan]

Ah yes, the joy of "spam books" that print on demand offers. Don Lancaster was a big proponent of personal book-on-demand publishing for years ( http://www.tinaja.com/bod01.shtml ). The ironic thing is now that it is affordable, the internet and ebooks make it completely unfeasible. I'm pretty sure he didn't envision book spam either!

[vdeane]

I don't know if it's feasible to list all authors who have ever contributed to a page in a book like this.

It's legally required under the terms of the license Wikipedia publishes its work under.

Many articles probably have author lists longer than the article.  Plus how do they resolve getting a real name from a wikipedia username?  What about edits from IP addresses?  It's just not feasible.

[kurumi]

... Plus how do they resolve getting a real name from a wikipedia username?  What about edits from IP addresses?  It's just not feasible.

"We have a citation from '127.0.0.1'. How can we contact this person?"

"Why not try pinging him..."

[clickety-click] "Hey! He's online!"

[formulanone]

Also, at what point is credit really due? For example, what about a one-time edit to fix a grammatical error, or spelling mistake? Do they count, or only "significant contributors with major contributions"...

[Scott5114]

I don't know if it's feasible to list all authors who have ever contributed to a page in a book like this.

It's legally required under the terms of the license Wikipedia publishes its work under.

Many articles probably have author lists longer than the article.  Plus how do they resolve getting a real name from a wikipedia username?  What about edits from IP addresses?  It's just not feasible.

You don't have to include real names, just an account name. IP addresses can just be noted as "anonymous" contributions. According to the terms of the license, all contributions have to be listed. This is legal stuff, not someone at Wikipedia saying "It would be nice if..."

An example from the automatically-generated book about Argon (which is generated by Wikipedia's "Create a book" feature, and thus is presumably an example of how things should be done):


Note that the book even goes so far as to list CommonsDelinker as a "contributor", even though it's a computer program that just goes around removing calls for deleted images.

[NE2]

I thought the change to cc-by-sa was in part so you wouldn't have to list all the contributors, just the most prolific ones?

also holy crap II MusLiM HyBRiD II did bengoatse

[kurumi]

There's a much better book about Argon than the Wikipedia one.

[Scott5114]

I thought the change to cc-by-sa was in part so you wouldn't have to list all the contributors, just the most prolific ones?

No idea, but it seems like the time saved by doing so vs. the time spent actually reading through the history to find out who the "prolific" contributors are would be a push. And you would open yourself up to liability for leaving someone off who someone else might think is "prolific". Easier to just list everyone, unless there's a compelling reason not to (like a desire to save space in a paper book).

Another interesting thing about the above: apparently logged-out editors with IPv6 addresses are not lumped in with the "anonymous" editors.

[vdeane]

This is legal stuff, not someone at Wikipedia saying "It would be nice if..."

Just because something is a legal requirement doesn't mean it's practical.