Expensive Books for Free: The Truth About Book Piracy in Academic Guidance

[mathwonk]

a thread entitled "expensive books for free" in academic guidance, links to a site offering free copies of popular texts like rudin's principles of analysis, and bragging that "book piracy is not a bad thing".

If this is indeed a piracy site, I suggest it does not belong on here.

 

[mgb_phys]

Please report these threads and they will be deleted.

 

[mathwonk]

i did not know how to do that. do you just click on the button called "report"?

ok i found the instructions as the very last paragraph of the "global guidelines".

 

[Moonbear]

i did not know how to do that. do you just click on the button called "report"?

Yes, that's it. Anytime you see a questionable post/topic, you can use the report button to let the mentors know what your concerns are and we can decide how to deal with it.

 

[mathwonk]

thank you. i guess i never made it all the way to the bottom of the guidelines before, but now i have.

feel free to delete this thread since it seems inappropriately placed.

 

[Moonbear]

feel free to delete this thread since it seems inappropriately placed.

No need, I don't think. It may be useful to someone else new who needs to know what to do with the "report" button.

 

[Vanadium 50]

One issue is that "Report" says

Note: This is ONLY to be used to report spam, advertising messages, problematic (harassment, fighting, or rude) and unappropriated posts.

. One can easily interpret this as being for only a subset of PF Guideline violations.

Pointing us towards a pirate site isn't spam, it's not advertising (I gathered it was someone else's site), it wasn't harassment, fighting or rude and it wasn't unappropriated. (I'm not quite sure how a message can be unappropriated anyway)

 

[Danger]

It was inapproriate in that it advertised something illicit.

 

[Vanadium 50]

I agree that it is inappropriate. But that's not what the message says.

 

[ZapperZ]

One issue is that "Report" says . One can easily interpret this as being for only a subset of PF Guideline violations.

Pointing us towards a pirate site isn't spam, it's not advertising (I gathered it was someone else's site), it wasn't harassment, fighting or rude and it wasn't unappropriated. (I'm not quite sure how a message can be unappropriated anyway)

This is a passage from the PF Guidelines:

Copyright Guidelines:
Copyright infringement is illegal. Physics Forums will enforce the law. Never post an article in its entirety. When posting copyrighted material, please use small sections or link to the article. When posting copyrighted material please give credit to the author in your post.

Solicitations for copyrighted materials of any form will not be permitted. Advertisement of locations where copyrighted materials may be obtained will not be permitted.

So it is a direct violation of the Guidelines.

The REPORT button should be used, despite what it says, on anything that a member feels shouldn't be happening on PF. When in doubt, use it. We will tell you if it is OK and need not be reported in the future.

Zz.

 

[Doc Al]

I agree that it is inappropriate. But that's not what the message says.

You're right. The message that appears when the "Report Post" button is clicked is in desperate need of revision. (I suspect that it's a "canned message" that comes with the vbulletin software, but hopefully Greg can figure out how to edit it.)

 

[Evo]

I honestly have never read the report message. Only you, Vanadium, would read that and see the error. Hopefully Greg can fix it.

 

[Kurdt]

I'm sure I've mentioned it before :tongue:

 

[Doc Al]

We've definitely discussed this before. It got lost in the shuffle, I suspect.

 

[Redbelly98]

I've mentioned it before, and was told to simply ignore that warning. So now I report messages that have attachments pending approval, or should get moved to another subforum.

Some stuff does not violate guidelines, but still benefits from members reporting it. It would be good if that message Vanadium mentioned could be changed to reflect this.

 

[Evo]

No, it's the word "unappropriated" instead of "inappropriate".

 

[Moonbear]

No, it's the word "unappropriated" instead of "inappropriate".

Yes, that's been there for forever. I think we've asked Greg about it before, and it's not something he can change. It just comes with the software...incorrect words and all.

 

[Danger]

I agree that it is inappropriate. But that's not what the message says.

Sorry... it was a poor attempt at a pun.