Harry Yelreh

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Hello, Harry Yelreh, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{helpme}} before the question. Again, welcome! Aboutmovies (talk) 08:26, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

D.B. Cooper

Yep. It would have never occurred to me to read "Scotland Yard" in that article and interpret it to refer to the building or address; hence my "White House" comparison. In today's news: "US President George W. Bush on Tuesday told Pakistan's new Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani he was ready to work with him as they both stressed the need to fight Islamist extremism, the White House said." Does anyone really interpret this as meaning the building grew a larynx? TJRC (talk) 20:57, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Wow that's really bizarre. I thought that all they needed was to attribute the Wikipedia aticle, but I was told by another admin that technically, as authors of the article, we can sue the publishing company. Of course, I don't know if this is true for this particular situation, so I suggest you address the matter to info-en-q@wikimedia.org. In your email, include some instances of where the text from the book matches that of the article. Let me know how it goes. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not love)} 01:31, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

A fascinating find -- good work! I am curious: how could it be a verbatim copy, when the WP article is far shorter than "book length?" Did it contain other material in addition? Thanks for flagging and reverting this! -Pete (talk) 22:27, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

That find prompted me to write a quick blog, check it out if you're interested: http://ournewmind.wordpress.com/2008/04/11/word-theft/ -Pete (talk) 23:33, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Harry, thanks for the thorough explanation. Sounds to me like the book was published in a way that was legal, but extremely opportunistic, to the point of deception. You asked for suggestions, and I've got some:

• Easiest and most effective, would be to write a review on the book's Amazon page. It doesn't have any reviews yet, so yours would be the first and most prominent!
• Post the comment you made on my talk page (or anything you like!) as a comment on my blog post, and link to my blog post from anywhere else you post it (like the Amazon review, if there's a way to.) Hopefully that post will start to come up frequently when people search on the book's title or ISBN number.
• Return the book to Amazon. If it's within 30 days, I think you can get a full refund or exchange for any reason.
• Write a letter to Amazon, and to any other book distributors. I'd say, acknowledge that the book is probably legal, but focus on the disappointment you felt as a customer (not so much as a Wikipedia editor.) Ask them to either stop selling it, or to note that it's not original content in their presentation of the book.
• Finally, I'm trying right now to get a reporter in a local paper to write about Wikipedia; this might be a really interesting addition to the story. I'll run it by him. You could contact other reporters in the area, D.B. Cooper is always a compelling subject.

Hope this is helpful -- you've already done a great thing by tracking it down and letting it be known. Oh, one final thing, if you could identify exactly what version of the WP article was republished, that might be an interesting thing to mention in all these places. -Pete (talk) 17:01, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Of interest? As I wrote on User talk:Peteforsyth a little while ago:
Re "Biographiq" as the "author" and also "publisher" (per Amazon) - note that "q" is a very common (though I find it repulsive!) transliteration for Slavic я (sounds like 'ya'), and the word Биография ('Biografija or Biografiya') is a standard Slavic word meaning - surprise! - Biography. If anybody is interested in tracking down where this booklet comes from, this might be helpful, but "Biografiq" is most definitely not some person's name!

I followed Amazon's link to "author 'Biografiq'" and found that said Biografiq has "authored" 103 books that Amazon sells - all for $9.99. The first dozen are: John McCain, DB Cooper, The Gambino Crime Family, Charles Manson, Neil Armstrong, Albert Fish, Ted Bundy, Zodiac Killer, Warren Buffett, Jack the Ripper, Heinrich Himmler, and Benazair Bhutto. Oops - the list comes up automatically sorted by "relevance" (to what??) - then I sorted by "publication date" - Jan. 10, 2008 was the first (and the total number of publications had increased to 104!), the most recent being March 23. This place is turning 'em out wholesale! and if they are all taken from Wikipedia (or even from some other encyclopedic source), Amazon most definitely should be informed. Curiouser and curiouser… —Martha (talk) 06:25, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Harry, I got a phone call from the (American) owner of Biographiq, wanting to respond to this discussion. I've written another blog post about our discussion. -Pete (talk) 19:13, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

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