Talk:Books-A-Million

message: I went to the Books-A-Million corporate website, and found no mention of the Books & Company division for the company. So, I'm guessing it was phased out at some point, though I don't have a reference for when that might have happened. If anyone out there has info, bring it on! — ArkansasTraveler 18:55, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Books & Company 

message: Actually, Books & Company still operates, out of Kettering, Ohio. It was originally an independent store that was purchased by Books-A-Million. At one point, I believe BAM opened a second Books & Company in Alabama, but that one went out of business. A second Books & Company will be opening in the Dayton area in the fall.
* As far as I know, the store at Colonial Brookwood Village is still called "Books & Co." --Dystopos 00:29, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Books & Company portion of Books-A-Million 

message: Hi, I am new here so I don't know how to address this personally but the Joe Muggs link is redirecting to Starbucks. Starbucks is a competitor. It probably shouldn't redirect to Starbucks even if there is no Joe Muggs page. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.168.209.148 (talk) 07:25, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Joe Muggs Redirection 

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BetacommandBot 05:08, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Fair use rationale for Image:Hdr bam on black.gif

message: :Image:Hdr bam on black.gif is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.
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thread_title: Fair use rationale for Image:Hdr bam on black.gif

message: Can't find much 3rd party on AWBC. I know they used to fill for Wal-Mart and some for Target. Do they still? Also, is AWBC hq'd in Florence, AL, or in TN? I thought the former, but ran across a couple references to the latter.  --BizMgr (talk) 16:18, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  AWBC 

message: I had posted a rather large history section from answers.com, and it was deleted seemingly spontaneously. Any explanation for that? It was a copy and paste job, but I was under the impression that objective historical fact was fair game for such practice. What would I have to do to get a history section in to the liking of the wiki community? Eikou 10:13, 18 January 2011
*Nevermind. I found the comment explaining the action. I'll obtain a new source and rewrite. Eikou 10:15, 18 January 2011
:Please make sure that these sources are reliable by our standards. Please have a look at WP:RS. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 16:33, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: *No it is still plagiarism. You've simply dumbed the entire text from this website and rephrased it superficially. We don't write entries in this way. It is plagiarism.Griswaldo (talk) 18:47, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

text: *Look. Use reliable sources to find notable facts about the company and construct a history out of them. Don't just dump info here from other websites and rephrase it. You're not only plagiarizing when you do that you're also not filtering at all. Also the information you added is quite clearly an official company bio submitted to the website and the book by Books-A-Million. As such plagiarizing that is even worse since you're basically copy pasting promotional materials here.  CheersGriswaldo (talk) 19:01, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

text: *There is no indication that the book in question is reliable for this information.  There are indications to the contrary. All three of these websites have the same text you claim is in the book on them, word for word - , ,  - and I'm sure there are plenty of other mirrors of this text. Why? Because it is quite clearly an official press release from Books-A-Million. Your first thought was to simply copy paste it from Answers.com. Then you tweaked it and claimed the book as the source instead of answers.com. Once again, that is not what we do here. The text you are adding is promotional of the company. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 19:43, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

text: *Eikou, please understand that convention here follows this pattern when edits are called into questions - 1) bold edit, 2) revert, and 3) discuss (see WP:BRD). I do indeed think that your source is dubious at best. There is no way that it would be reproduced in various online locations like that if it was the original historical work of an author of the text you are using. You also have to realize that your initial plagiarizing approach is why this started, and why I'm now scrutinizing the source. It should stay out until we settle this. Please stop adding your text back in until we have sorted this out.Griswaldo (talk) 20:07, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

text: *Eikou, I will not refrain from such comments. Those comments explain exactly why my approach to your current additions are more cautious than they would otherwise be. I'm simply being honest with you about that, and I think it is quite justifiable given how this has progressed. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 20:23, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: *There is absolutely no personal attack there.  Can we get back to discussing the issue at hand please? Thanks.Griswaldo (talk) 20:30, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

text: *Blindly negating my point does not constitute a counterpoint. "Insulting or disparaging an editor is a personal attack regardless of the manner in which it is done." I find your comments to be insulting. This is, of course, open to interpretation, but it would be a decent behavior to cease them and, as you suggested, get back to discussing the issue at hand.Eikou (talk) 20:34, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: *What you did is plagiarism.  WP:NPA would only apply if my accusation of plagiarism "lacked evidence". Accusations about personal behavior that lack evidence, are considered a personal attack according to our policy, but clearly we are free to point out pertinent things about various edits made by others, for instance when those edits constitute plagiarism and the like. I am not impressed by your attempts to make it seem like the matter is somehow subjective or open to interpretation. It is not. You plagiarized from a poor source and I am now more cautious of your desired additions.  You'll find that a rather common reaction. There is nothing "personal" about it.Griswaldo (talk) 21:57, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

text: I was happy to reply to them when they were re-added in less confusing formatting. I do not think that the relevant facts need to be listed as bullet points at all. I would alter some words in the above text and delete a thing here and there that sound a bit dubious or subjective, leaving the most relevant facts in a prose form. I've asked for more guidance on the source at a relevant noticeboard. See below. I hope that if someone with more expertise says it is reliable we can do just that. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 22:23, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

text: For sure. But I would like to change some of the language as I stated above.  Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 22:24, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

text: Yeah sure, just tell me your suggestion.Eikou (talk) 16:13, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

text: Okay so it seems we'd need another source for the company's history. Do you have any suggestions? I've been looking at Barnes and Noble's pages for comparable sources, but I'm having trouble seeing what makes theirs more valid than those I posed. Could you help me to understand this so that I may search for comparable sources?Eikou (talk) 17:28, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I just found this source on that page that is a history directly provided by Barnes and Noble's corporate site.  History. Is this an acceptable source? If so I'm sure I could find an equivalent for the BAM history. The way this whole thing started is I saw the Barnes & Noble article, then I saw the Books-A-Million article, and I thought to myself "Here are two incredibly similar companies that probably have similar levels of available information. Their pages should therefore contain similar levels of information." Eikou (talk) 17:40, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: History Section

message: I wouldn't doubt that there are factual bits of information in your proposed addition, but there is also much else in there. The manner in which it is written, taken after the source itself, is not particularly encyclopedic. E.g. ... 
*Clyde W. Anderson, ancestor to the current executive leadership in the company ... - Ancestor to whom and why is that meaningful? 
*...found a unique niche in the newspaper business by providing transient construction workers with papers from their hometowns... - Who says this was a unique niche?  The way the source tells this story makes it sound like company lore or sugar coated PR.
*Books-A-Million maintained a small town, regional focus in a time where most stores were gaining a more national, metropolitan focus. - What exactly does that mean, and again according to whom? This sounds like more PR to me.
Then there is the remaining question about what the true source of the information is in the first place. I won't dispute that basic facts can be reliably sourced from this book. Those facts would include the dates at the company official expanded in this or that way, etc. However, the added fluffery and subjective claims made by the source are not usable.Griswaldo (talk) 20:21, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I was happy to reply to them when they were re-added in less confusing formatting. I do not think that the relevant facts need to be listed as bullet points at all. I would alter some words in the above text and delete a thing here and there that sound a bit dubious or subjective, leaving the most relevant facts in a prose form. I've asked for more guidance on the source at a relevant noticeboard. See below. I hope that if someone with more expertise says it is reliable we can do just that. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 22:23, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Discussion

message: I've asked for input on the book reliability question at the Reliable Sources Noticeboard. See Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Books-A-Million_history_sourcing. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 22:19, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: For sure. But I would like to change some of the language as I stated above.  Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 22:24, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

text: Yeah sure, just tell me your suggestion.Eikou (talk) 16:13, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

text: Okay so it seems we'd need another source for the company's history. Do you have any suggestions? I've been looking at Barnes and Noble's pages for comparable sources, but I'm having trouble seeing what makes theirs more valid than those I posed. Could you help me to understand this so that I may search for comparable sources?Eikou (talk) 17:28, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I just found this source on that page that is a history directly provided by Barnes and Noble's corporate site.  History. Is this an acceptable source? If so I'm sure I could find an equivalent for the BAM history. The way this whole thing started is I saw the Barnes & Noble article, then I saw the Books-A-Million article, and I thought to myself "Here are two incredibly similar companies that probably have similar levels of available information. Their pages should therefore contain similar levels of information." Eikou (talk) 17:40, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  RS/N 

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