Anybody else got the following spam message?
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Daniel D'abreo danield@packtpub.com Date: Fri, Apr 19, 2013 at 5:15 AM Subject: [Harold], Write a micro book on Geany IDE - Starter for Packt Publishing To: XXXX@sait.nl
Hi Harold,
My name is Daniel D'Abreo an Author Relation Executive for Packt Publishing. Packt deals in publishing computer books based on a wide variety of IT concepts.
Packt has decided to publish a new micro book on *Geany IDE - Starter.* The book will consist of 30-50 pages with a writing timeline of 1 month. The book will a step by step guide and would be targeted towards developers interested in working with Geany.
While looking for potential authors I came across your profilehttp://www.linkedin.com/in/XXXXwhich confirms that you're an expert and have the desired skills to author this book.
Keeping in mind your interest, I look forward to work with you.
Thanks,
Well, Packt is a well known edition company. I own some of them books (or ebook). If they want to write a book on Geany, why not ? it could be a good way to increase it visibility ! However, for those who expect to become rich by writing technical book like this, forget about it ;-)
ericc
On Fri, Apr 19, 2013 at 1:50 PM, Frank Lanitz frank@frank.uvena.de wrote:
Am 19.04.2013 12:45, schrieb Harold Aling:
Anybody else got the following spam message?
Yes. I assume everybody who put something to github.
Cheers, Frank
Users mailing list Users@lists.geany.org https://lists.geany.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/users
Am 19.04.2013 14:21, schrieb Eric Crastes:
Well, Packt is a well known edition company. I own some of them books (or ebook). If they want to write a book on Geany, why not ? it could be a good way to increase it visibility ! However, for those who expect to become rich by writing technical book like this, forget about it ;-)
Never heard about them, but spamming everybody who is involved is at least bad stil.
Cheers, Frank
On 19 April 2013 22:21, Eric Crastes eric.crastes@gmail.com wrote:
Well, Packt is a well known edition company. I own some of them books (or ebook). If they want to write a book on Geany, why not ? it could be a good way to increase it visibility ! However, for those who expect to become rich by writing technical book like this, forget about it ;-)
ericc
Yes, packt exists and publishes books on computing topics. However I don't think much of their quality. And their spamming methods to find authors are questionable. A quick web search shows they do the same to many projects.
My concern is the potential impact on the Geany community, unless everyone agrees, if one person writes the book and gets paid, even a little, others may feel that they have been used, answering questions on the ML and IRC.
And the benefit to the community is likely to only be greater support requirements.
Cheers Lex
On Fri, Apr 19, 2013 at 1:50 PM, Frank Lanitz frank@frank.uvena.dewrote:
Am 19.04.2013 12:45, schrieb Harold Aling:
Anybody else got the following spam message?
Yes. I assume everybody who put something to github.
Cheers, Frank
Users mailing list Users@lists.geany.org https://lists.geany.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/users
Users mailing list Users@lists.geany.org https://lists.geany.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/users
Honestly, I am surprised that you think so negatively about that. Ok, spamming the community might not be the best method to find authors. But if the (somewhat) greater visibility, more users, and maybe even more developers mean only greater support requirements, that's kinda sad to hear. No offense meant.
Robert
On Fri, Apr 19, 2013 at 3:07 PM, Lex Trotman elextr@gmail.com wrote:
On 19 April 2013 22:21, Eric Crastes eric.crastes@gmail.com wrote:
Well, Packt is a well known edition company. I own some of them books (or ebook). If they want to write a book on Geany, why not ? it could be a good way to increase it visibility ! However, for those who expect to become rich by writing technical book like this, forget about it ;-)
ericc
Yes, packt exists and publishes books on computing topics. However I don't think much of their quality. And their spamming methods to find authors are questionable. A quick web search shows they do the same to many projects.
My concern is the potential impact on the Geany community, unless everyone agrees, if one person writes the book and gets paid, even a little, others may feel that they have been used, answering questions on the ML and IRC.
And the benefit to the community is likely to only be greater support requirements.
Cheers Lex
On Fri, Apr 19, 2013 at 1:50 PM, Frank Lanitz frank@frank.uvena.dewrote:
Am 19.04.2013 12:45, schrieb Harold Aling:
Anybody else got the following spam message?
Yes. I assume everybody who put something to github.
Cheers, Frank
Users mailing list Users@lists.geany.org https://lists.geany.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/users
Users mailing list Users@lists.geany.org https://lists.geany.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/users
Users mailing list Users@lists.geany.org https://lists.geany.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/users
Yep, got that mail as well...
2013/4/19 Robert Fekete fekete77.robert@gmail.com
Honestly, I am surprised that you think so negatively about that. Ok, spamming the community might not be the best method to find authors. But if the (somewhat) greater visibility, more users, and maybe even more developers mean only greater support requirements, that's kinda sad to hear. No offense meant.
Robert
On Fri, Apr 19, 2013 at 3:07 PM, Lex Trotman elextr@gmail.com wrote:
On 19 April 2013 22:21, Eric Crastes eric.crastes@gmail.com wrote:
Well, Packt is a well known edition company. I own some of them books (or ebook). If they want to write a book on Geany, why not ? it could be a good way to increase it visibility ! However, for those who expect to become rich by writing technical book like this, forget about it ;-)
ericc
Yes, packt exists and publishes books on computing topics. However I don't think much of their quality. And their spamming methods to find authors are questionable. A quick web search shows they do the same to many projects.
My concern is the potential impact on the Geany community, unless everyone agrees, if one person writes the book and gets paid, even a little, others may feel that they have been used, answering questions on the ML and IRC.
And the benefit to the community is likely to only be greater support requirements.
Cheers Lex
On Fri, Apr 19, 2013 at 1:50 PM, Frank Lanitz frank@frank.uvena.dewrote:
Am 19.04.2013 12:45, schrieb Harold Aling:
Anybody else got the following spam message?
Yes. I assume everybody who put something to github.
Cheers, Frank
Users mailing list Users@lists.geany.org https://lists.geany.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/users
Users mailing list Users@lists.geany.org https://lists.geany.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/users
Users mailing list Users@lists.geany.org https://lists.geany.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/users
Users mailing list Users@lists.geany.org https://lists.geany.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/users
Am 19.04.2013 15:07, schrieb Lex Trotman:
Yes, packt exists and publishes books on computing topics. However I don't think much of their quality. And their spamming methods to find authors are questionable. A quick web search shows they do the same to many projects.
It appears they have some system of generating automatic "reminder" mails. I received a number of these during the last days and I really lost the last interest of maybe doing a project with them.
My concern is the potential impact on the Geany community, unless everyone agrees, if one person writes the book and gets paid, even a little, others may feel that they have been used, answering questions on the ML and IRC.
And the benefit to the community is likely to only be greater support requirements.
I don't see this in that way: Generally putting information into a book is a good chance to review current documentation and can bring back import for improving the general manual. Also it's a chance to explain things in a different way via a different medium. E.g. I got some smaller patches for documentation based on just translating them into German.
Also I don't see the "being used" as very problematic thing. Writing a (good) book is not the same as answering on IRC. In fact, putting information into a good technical one is much more about writing skills and description/explaining skills (and I think most of us are really sucking at these).
Also if you are not the coder kind of person, writing a book -- given that somebody is liking to spent money for -- might be a good way to pay the rent on one hand and improve free software on the other hand. (Many people just take software serious, if there are books about it.... just have a look onto public library and count how many books about $software you will find and have a look which software they are about)
BUT of course: if a book just puts content from IRC/manual between two book covers, the book is not needed, waste of time for author and editor and ppl from community will feel used -- me included.
So... I understand your censors, but I don't agree in all of them ;)
Cheers, Frank
On 20 April 2013 18:25, Frank Lanitz frank@frank.uvena.de wrote:
Am 19.04.2013 15:07, schrieb Lex Trotman:
Yes, packt exists and publishes books on computing topics. However I don't think much of their quality. And their spamming methods to find authors are questionable. A quick web search shows they do the same to many projects.
It appears they have some system of generating automatic "reminder" mails. I received a number of these during the last days and I really lost the last interest of maybe doing a project with them.
My concern is the potential impact on the Geany community, unless everyone agrees, if one person writes the book and gets paid, even a little, others may feel that they have been used, answering questions on the ML and IRC.
And the benefit to the community is likely to only be greater support requirements.
I don't see this in that way: Generally putting information into a book is a good chance to review current documentation and can bring back import for improving the general manual. Also it's a chance to explain things in a different way via a different medium. E.g. I got some smaller patches for documentation based on just translating them into German.
Yes, agree it can be, but only if the author actually does improvements to the documentation at the same time, and avoids copyright snags with the publishers. My experience of publishing deadlines are such that they almost certainly won't have time to touch the documentation whilst writing.
Also I don't see the "being used" as very problematic thing. Writing a (good) book is not the same as answering on IRC. In fact, putting information into a good technical one is much more about writing skills and description/explaining skills (and I think most of us are really sucking at these).
I'm not trying to belittle the effort a writer would put into explaining a program, and they definitely should get paid for that, but they have to understand it first, and if they use a lot of ML and IRC time to do that, well, thats where those answering can feel "hey we've contributed a lot here, and we don't get anything". Thats just human nature I'm afraid :)
Also if you are not the coder kind of person, writing a book -- given that somebody is liking to spent money for -- might be a good way to pay the rent on one hand and improve free software on the other hand. (Many people just take software serious, if there are books about it.... just have a look onto public library and count how many books about $software you will find and have a look which software they are about)
And how many you glance at and put back on the shelf :) A computer book author might pay a few months rent (for a cheap apartment), but shouldn't bank on much more.
BUT of course: if a book just puts content from IRC/manual between two book covers, the book is not needed, waste of time for author and editor and ppl from community will feel used -- me included.
Ok, so I'm a grumpy old so-and-so for seeing this outcome first :)
But then I have seen it before, so I am just offering a warning. Geany has a good community, we don't want to divide it, thats why the community needs to agree that a particular person should write it and that yes they will offer support. Or of course, decide not.
And if the book is successful in bringing new Geany users, we need to understand that they will need support as well. The people who would be using such a book, "Geany IDE - Starter" are not going to add to the support staff, much less the code, for a long time.
So... I understand your censors, but I don't agree in all of them ;)
And thats perfectly all right, differing views are what makes life interesting :)
Cheers Lex
Cheers, Frank
Users mailing list Users@lists.geany.org https://lists.geany.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/users
