TalkAwhile - The Folk Corporation Forum

Ive just been pointed to this by the good folks at amazon

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1155445457/ref=s9_simh_gw_p14_i1?pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=0RJV9HXD0CV3N7WF6HVQ&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=467128533&pf_rd_i=468294

anyone know anything about it?
amazons page is less than helpful

there appears to be a few similar books , must be a series

The alleged, and seemingly nameless, author(s) have a similar cover style on a book about Spurs  :o

"On Demand Books LLC (ODB) uses proprietary software and a patented, fully integrated high speed machine to print, bind and trim  a library quality paperback book at point of sale on demand in minutes at low cost from digital  files. The Espresso Book Machine replaces the centralized supply chain for the distribution of books – essentially unchanged since Gutenberg – with radically decentralized direct-to-consumer distribution.

ODB was founded in 2003 by Jason Epstein, Chairman, and Dane Neller, Chief Executive Officer, and is based in New York City."


There are 972 similarly formatted 'music biographies' by LLC :o

I'd better do some investigating.... ::)

Bit like Lulu (http://www.lulu.com) then....

ah!
but do they make you wanna shout
like lulu do ::)

Lulu makes me wanna shout! (oopps, probably wrong sort of shouting!!!!!!  ;))

I've noticed this before. There are hundreds of these things - all with the same covers, none with authors. My hunch is that someone is bundling up and printing out Wikipedia entries and passing them off as "books", but I'd like to be proved wrong.
 >:(

What about this one? At last that great English Folk singer John Wesley Harding gets the recognition he so richly deserves!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/English-Folk-Singers-Stevens-Thompson/dp/1155528905/ref=pd_sim_sbs_b_5

Don't forget that equally well known folkie James Blunt!

http://www.singaporechessnews.com/Book_Scam.html suggests you're exactly right.

right, ill save me money then

Well spotted, Jimmy. My God, that's a clever money-making scheme. Wish I'd thought of it. From the company's FAQs:

Wikipedia is supposed to be free. How can you sell a book of Wikipedia content?
We don't charge for Wikipedia. You can access that for free. We only charge for editing, indexing, typesetting, designing, printing, binding and shipping of books for those people who prefer to read printed articles.

The book has no author. Who wrote it?
All content cam from Wikipedia. Please check the book's Publication page, Introduction and the end of each chapter for further details. For example, you can click the hyperlink at the end of any chapter and then click the history tab to see a list of each chapter's contributors.
http://booksllc.net/faqs.cfm

The joke there is that if you're in a position to "click the history tab", then you're in a position to access the content for free online.

As a Wiki contributor myself, I'm depressed to find that bozos like this lot are apparently licensed to make money out of other people's (unpaid) work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Mirrors_and_forks/Abc#Books.2C_LLC

Licensed? By who?

The laugh is that it's them licensing the content via creative commons.

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

So that's their claim of 'editing' out the window then - the licence says you change the text...

It amazes me when when people say 'oh I don't look at Wikipedia it's all wrong' when they can put it right themselves..


Particularly artists who complain that the info is inaccurate..... it's very easy to correct.. :)

Sorry, typo - you can't change the text, according to the licence.

Have you read this... http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2007/mar/23/popandrock2 ...on this very subject?
There's easy, and there's 'easy'.   ::)

Good article from the ever wonderous Mike Scott, it got me to thinking, what deams someone worthy of being included on wikipaedia?

Well yes, I kind of had the same experience my self with my own page.. It's a bore having to look up where you said something in an online  interview, that proves you were doing whatever you were doing. I'm still having a problem proving I knitted scarves and dishcloths on stage, rather than socks (I can't knit socks...)
(I'll say it in the next interview I do and cite from that..  ;D)



Usually some one who is a fan of either the person or the genre in which they work, will set up the original article. If not well known enough or the Wiki powers that be think it's not notable, then the page will disappear..
 

For instance, the Wikipedia entry on Nick Zala, who is the pedal steel player on SftBH's 'Tree' album concludes ; This article needs references that appear in reliable third-party publications. Primary sources or sources affiliated with the subject are generally not sufficient for a Wikipedia article. Please add more appropriate citations from reliable sources. (November 2007)
So, as I understand it, if he says that he played on the album, and we say that he played on the album, apparently they need a review mentioning that he's on the album before they're happy*. Equally, Jude may well claim that she knitted scarves on stage to no avail but, as she implies, if she mentioned in passing during an interview with R2 that she first met Simon Nicol when navigating the Lancaster bomber that he was piloting and it got posted online, that would presumably be a reliable third party publication?



*Whoever they might be.  ::)

I always knew that simon and jude had a touch of the "right stuff" about them.
when did judy shave off the handlebar tach?

Yup Otherwise it might just be what they* call 'puffery' ;D

Still in the main it's a useful marketing tool and the editors do try to keep it encyclopaedia like, rather than just PR stuff..

It's quite a giggle reading some of the more famous celebrity entries history and see how hard the editors work keeping them free of extraneous graffiti.. :)

That had to go in '48 fB. My mother said I was too young..

...and here's a good example of why references are, perhaps, useful, and why people who should know better should double-check them  ::)  ;D

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/08/10/balls_festival/

Cheers

Nick

Getting back to the original topic...

This one's not only got "editors", it has a snazzy photo of the artist on the cover ???
http://www.amazon.com/Sandy-Denny-Lambert-M-Surhone/dp/6131067392/

nevertheless, we learn a lot from the product descripton:
"She emerged in the mid 1960s while still a teenager"

108 pages 51 bucks. Nice work if you can get it!! And who is that on the cover?

A game I like to play with our local paper's website is to compare the description of any event, person or place of note with its Wiki entry. Paywall, schmaywall.  ::)

I'm risking retelling one here: Paul Jones, leaving a Blues Band gig some time ago was signing autographs before getting into the van/limo. When offered an old LP sleeve to scrawl on by a "completist" he handed it back, on the very good grounds that it was a band he'd never even seen, let alone been a member of. "Never been in that one mate!"

The fan, with an insistent look in his eye, head cocked to one side, pushed it back to him, saying with immortal surety, "I think you'll find you were...."

That's a link to the Mike Scott story. I believe the whole thing initially went on his blog (it might still be up on The Waterboys MySpace page) - this is the subsequent Guardian article on the affair.

Martyn Joseph got stitched up on Wikipedia by one of his children :o

When he was interviewed, the host was apparently quoting the bogus facts at him, and flatly refusing to believe MJ when he denied them all  ::)