Talk:Amateur professionalism

Journalistic blogging
Maybe someone could add a link or reference to journalistic blogging somewhere in here. After all, these amateur bloggers are now doing reporting of (arguably) equal quality to professional journalists.

Linux
Is it really correct to describe Linux as developed by Pro-Ams? Certainly, many of the people writing Linux kernel code are not being paid to write that code, but I'd venture a guess that at least the majority are paid to do the same activity (programming) professionally. Bryce 04:16, 11 October 2005 (UTC)


 * The majority, yes, but innumerable people from folks like John Gilmore, who don't have to work at all, to kiddos who aren't old enough to work yet, have made very significant contributions. Anyway, the cited source is who makes the case for GNU/Linux being an example of am pro development. If you disagree with this, you'll need to provide a counter-source we can cite, or show that the cited source is unreliable or whatever. —  SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ  Contribs. 12:55, 14 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Hmm. John Gilmore is a former professional, and I think you'll have a hard time finding many young "kiddos" whose contributions, even if widely used, are at the same level as professional work.  I would also not entirely agree with any assertion that GNU/Linux itself is at the same level of usability or reliability as a professionally-written OS, though that's obviously an explosive and debatable subject due to all the ideology that gets tangled into such discussions.  I guess I won't try to argue that, except to say that it is at the very least open to some debate.  If you want a cite, look at the link at the very end.  "Cult of the Amateur" at least disagrees with you, even if it goes a little (OK, a lot) too far. 66.68.100.242 (talk) 20:44, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Mac
"Open source software such as Linux was developed by Pro-Ams and has become the only realistic competition to Microsoft." -The Mac may not be a big competitor, but that doesn't make it an unrealistic competitor, does it?


 * Since it's based on open source UNIX (if not specifically the Linux variety) why is this described as "outlandish"? -- Resuna (talk) 16:08, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Quotes
It is legal and ethically acceptable to excerpt from a book, up to about a full page of the original text (this is a single paragraph), so long as it is attributed as an excerpt. It does not violate copyright laws. It is also legal to paraphrase from the original work, so long as it is not a clear cut and paste of large sections of text, using key phrases is fine.

A copyright violation would be if entire paragraphs and sections of the original were cut and paste into Wikpedia with no attribution to the original author. Stbalbach 16:11, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * Actually, there's no set standard for how much you can quote and still be covered by Fair Use. Furthermore, simply for practical and encyclopedic reasons, often you don't want to quote that much anyway.


 * And your last sentence implies that crediting an author automatically means there is no copyright infringement, which is not the case. Attributions to the author is a defense against plagiarism, not against copyright infringement. 04:39, 7 November 2006 (UTC)


 * In any case, paraphrasing so closely in the first paragraph of this article from the quote presented later on isn't very good style. This should be reworded, ideally based on an understanding drawn from multiple extant sources. Scott 10:11, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

(Outdent). I deleted the very blatant plagiarism that made up quite a bit of this article. I also removed the rambling and excessively large quotation that was the source of most of the plagiarism. Just write an actual article and cite sources (including page numbers) for the alleged facts, instead of copy-pasting. —  SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ  Contribs. 12:55, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Importance
Is this really a concept that has any purchase outside of the one webpage about it? Paultopia 16:24, 23 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, you can either improve the article, slap Notability on it or take it to WP:AFD for notability issues. —  SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ  Contribs. 12:55, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia propaganda
Also, the middle kind of reads like desperate propaganda for wikipedia: "Look! We're ProAms!  This is legitimate!" Paultopia 16:24, 23 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Yeah, that made my face crinkle is ass-kissed disgust. The offending material has been deleted as a bunch of WP:OR and WP:COI. —  SMcCandlish    Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ  Contribs. 12:55, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Plagiarized, lacking sources
The article is plagiarized almost verbatim from the one source that it quotes. Cleanup is required.

Aside from plaguirism, it is not an NPOV article, which makes sense since the source it was taken from is not NPOV. This article is trying to boost or push the idea of the 'professional amateur' as an important and good thing, which is inappropriate. I am considering just deleting large swaths of it? JonathanNil (talk) 02:23, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

This is nonsense. Delete it all. (129.96.115.48 (talk) 04:26, 15 October 2008 (UTC))


 * I just did delete large swaths of it, per WP:V, WP:RS, WP:NOR, WP:COI, WP:NOT, WP:NPOV, etc., etc. I also split the (unsourced, but much better established and easily sourceable) sports material out into a separate article so it will not be affected if what remains here gets nuked at WP:AFD. —  SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ  Contribs. 12:55, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

New buzz word for an old phenomenon
In the past such people would have been called dilettantes, those with the time and money to pursue a hobby to a professional level, as novelists, painters archaeolgists, for example the Gentleman scientists, such as William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse. Its just that nowadays a lot more of us have time, texts and instruments, be they telescopes or computers etc have never been so affordable.KTo288 (talk) 00:18, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
 * No, dilettante has more the meaning of a dabbler, "without real commitment or knowledge : [as adj. ] a dilettante approach to science" (Oxford American dictionaries), not the more serious dedication described in this article. — Athaenara  ✉  03:48, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
 * KTo288 actually has a very valid point; the vast majority of great art and science before very recently has been done by such people, even if the wrong word was applied. I'm not sure what to do about that here, since we need to cite sources and so on. I think it is time someone who cared (unlike me; I'm tempted to just take this to WP:AFD) to dig up criticism of this "amateur professionalism/professional amateurism" meme (which only dates to 2004) and balance this article. Also, it might well be that a broader article of some kind already exists to which this can be merged. —  SMcCandlish    Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ  Contribs. 12:55, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Jobs, Work etc. Four groups.
There should be a section on Amateurism in Professional Jobs !! As there are (post 2007) more and more "so called" (degree qualified) "Professionals" in: Health (putting peoples lives at risk or worse!!), Legal, Banking etc etc doing a very Amateurish job. I call them "Amateur-professionals (qualified to do the job) but carrying it out in a very Amateur way. A few years ago I came up with this (there are four types of workers): 1. Professional-professionals (they are fully quailfied AND do their job to the Best of their Abilites, Every Day)., 2. Amateur-professionals (qualified for the job BUT they don't really care what way they carry out their daily job. Carelessness, sloppyness, Unprofessional, Not hard workers) that group are becoming more common in England and Ireland in the late 2000's into 2010's. They are a danger to society!! They just want to have a "good time" at work (don't really care about their job). 3. Professional-amateurs (not fully qualified BUT they Work Hard Every Day trying their best)., 4. Amateur-amateurs (neither qualified or hard working. Careless too). Give me 1. and 3. forget the rest. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.53.110.173 (talk) 00:11, 18 August 2012 (UTC)