[ACK] It's (Way Past) Time to Get Serious about Fixing Links

Not sure how you feel about it, but in my mind THIS IS THE MOST PRESSING ISSUE IN THE LOGOS UNIVERSE.

It's not just old links, though they are a serious and significant problem. It is new links, too. Let's start with the fact that links have been touted for a long time as one of the greatest advantages to owning Logos resources. Says who? Says Logos...

And it's not just said of individual resources, it's said of the program as a whole...

My experience is that this is mostly hot air. I really wish I could say otherwise, but as I sit here typing this out and think about my experiences over the last few years, my recollection is that most often--to the point I have come to expect it and seem to regularly have my expectation filled--I find that links I want to follow to things I know I have in my library don't go anywhere or do anything. The reason my investment in Logos is closer to being half-way to six figures than to $0 is because I am paying for something that I consider highly valuable to me. Sadly, I'm paying but not receiving. I've been pretty patient since L4 came out, believing that this would improve with time, but it actually seems to be getting worse.

So, anyway, it's time for that to change. I want my significant five-figure investment to do what I paid for it to do. Somehow, some way, whatever it takes, this has to change and has to change very soon. I would like to see the first changes take place in NET Bible. It is absolutely festering with inactive links, such as the ones below:

This is from L3 but it is no different in L5, and I'm sure, L6 too. I have Oswalt and HALOT. Both of these should be active links, otherwise the L6 propaganda above is something besides true. I don't know what it is going to take to get this taken care of, but it has to start happening NOW.

If you agree, please Yes .

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Mark Barnes

This is from L3 but it is no different in L5, and I'm sure, L6 too. I have Oswalt and HALOT. Both of these should be active links, otherwise the L6 propaganda above is something besides true. I don't know what it is going to take to get this taken care of, but it has to start happening NOW.

Isaiah 65:24.

LLS:1.0.1026
2015-04-21T20:00:35Z
GS_NETBIBLE.logos4

David Paul

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/721093#Comment_721093

So, it links in L6 but not L5? Have we become a two-class system? I hope not, because those with L4 & L5 paid for active links as well, and the links aren't active in L5...

Here's another example, from the just released Hastings Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics:

The link in the body text to the J. Talmud is active...great!

But when one clicks on the asterisk, this comes up...

While the two links to the Jewish Encyclopedia (JE) are active (great!), the highlighted Talmud links are not. Why? It obviously isn't either because 1) the Talmud links can't be made active (they are active in the body text), or 2) links in footnotes can't be made active (the JE link is).

So, the NICOT link is active in L6? Again, great! But while we are tossing around Bible quotes, here's one...

Lk. 17:9

Regardless, it needs to be activated in L4 & L5, too, and it isn't right now. And don't suppose this isn't a problem...I'm sure that others can come up with dozens and hundreds and thousands of examples. This issue must be addressed now.

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/721099#Comment_721099

So, it links in L6 but not L5? Have we become a two-class system? I hope not, because those with L4 & L5 paid for active links as well, and the links aren't active in L5...

I don't have L5 to check, but according to the metadata this updated resource should work in Logos 4.6c and above. The L3 version (as you'd expect) hasn't been updated since 4 Feb 2006.

While the two links to the Jewish Encyclopedia (JE) are active (great!), the highlighted Talmud links are not.

I'm not seeing that, either. I'm missing the first two and last of those links, but the middle two are hyperlinked in my edition. I can't explain either why all five are missing for you, nor why the even in my version Logos hasn't linked Yoma 69b and Sanh. 55a and 64a, unless the lack of the "b." or "Bab." in the text meant the editor didn't understand they were links to the Babylonian Talmud.

I notice that later article in ERE give references to the Babylonian Talmud as something like: Bab. Sanh. 41a. Perhaps that's what confused the editor. I can only suggest reporting them as typos.

Maybe if both these resources are different editions to mine, you should check your update system is working correctly.

LLS:ENCYRELETH
2015-04-17T01:23:23Z
ENCYRELETH.logos4

Reuben Helmuth

If you agree, please .

I agree with you wholeheartedly that this is a pressing issue. My take on it is that with adding ~10k resources per year, Faithlife employees will never be able to get on top of it (and for sure not any time soon!). The solution that others have proposed and which I support is creating a system for crowd sourcing the tagging and typo fixing of resources.

Interestingly, just about an hour before you posted here, I started a thread in the General forum in the hopes of discussing how this would best work. Perhaps you have some ideas that you'd like to share. Here is the link to that thread.

My thought is that if serious group of users could reach a consensus about how this would work, we can provide a unified message to Faithlife concerning what we feel needs to happen.

Keith Larson

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/721129#Comment_721129

I found it disconcerting that on Twitter today, Logos was promoting the superiority of Logos and Vyrso books over print books because of Scripture hyperlinks. This of course is not a problem with the vast majority of Logos books, but a sizable minority of Vyrso books have broken or incorrect Scripture reference hyperlinks.

I have no problem if Logos promotes Vyrso books as raw ebooks, no better than Kindle, but when they start promoting a functionality they have no intention of properly supporting, that is another thing.

It has been suggest my others, but I think the least Logos can do is add a hyperlink “typo” reporting tool and prioritize updates based on those reports. If I knew Logos would respond in a more timely manner I know I would be more motivated to report typos. As it is, I often don't even bother because it seems pointless to take my time reporting.

Don Awalt

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/721093#Comment_721093

This is from L3 but it is no different in L5, and I'm sure, L6 too. I have Oswalt and HALOT. Both of these should be active links, otherwise the L6 propaganda above is something besides true. I don't know what it is going to take to get this taken care of, but it has to start happening NOW.

Isaiah 65:24.

LLS:1.0.1026
2015-04-21T20:00:35Z
GS_NETBIBLE.logos4

While this works for me in the NET Bible, the links are not active in the NET Bible First Edition Notes

LLS:2.0.1026
2014-10-16T00:12:08Z
GS_NETNOTES.logos4

the links to 1:514 in NICOT and 301 in HALOT are not hyperlinked (see below)

David Paul

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/721158#Comment_721158

Don, thanks for bringing this discrepancy to light. To be fair, my complete NET does have active links for the two resources (NICOT & HALOT) as well. I use NET in L3 because it is one left arrow away from my NASB, but in L5 I use the NET Notes version, which, as you and I have pointed out, doesn't have the live links. Clearly it should, but I'm glad that the complete NET does have them. I would much rather be wrong and be criticized as unfair to Logos and have working links, than be right about saying that far too many are not viable. I encourage anyone who finds dead or errant links to post them to this thread, just so we can keep a running tab on what the state of the progress is.

Kyle G. Anderson

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/721330#Comment_721330

NET Bible: It sounds like your concerns about this resource have been answered.
Hastings Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics: Thanks for reporting this. I'm going to get those tagged. (No ETA). I have some ideas about what happened but frankly its baffling to me.
GS_NETNOTES: This hasn’t been updated since 2007. It was re-published in 2014 but no work was done. I’m going to add it to our recycle queue. There is no ETA.

Don Awalt

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/721348#Comment_721348

There is no ETA.

This says it all, actually. Don't confuse marketing with how the product actually works. Frankly I get a little tired of hearing that thrown in our faces when there are complaints about FL living up to what it has said.

I guess I am in the group that's not so happy with the FL decision to move ahead aggressively with new features every 6 weeks, when some customers here have already said they don't use the features that are there now; we also learned today that Mobile Education really won't be kept current with the latest version of the app, because frankly that's going to be very hard to do with such an aggressive advancement in software. Same for resources, it's very hard to maintain the commitments to all the resources people use there are so many, so tagging is inconsistent and incomplete across the libraries we all have. Add an inconsistent UI that is becoming more and more difficult to use, as well as a UI that does not scale well in all areas when one has a larger library, and it feels like FL has really taken their eye off of what customers care about.

On this path of priorities, what will the software look like in a couple of more years?

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/721357#Comment_721357

I guess I am in the group that's not so happy with the FL decision to move ahead aggressively with new features every 6 weeks, when some customers here have already said they don't use the features that are there now;

Another view on this. I don't see the 6 week cycle as changing the volume of work that the development staff will achieve in a 2 year period. I see it as changing the release cycle so that beta testing can be more thorough and less time spent on fixing shelved development. And speaking for myself, there are a number of features I don't use, and a number I need in order to complete my tasks.

Sean

I made a thread about this six months ago. I don't see that any progress has been made in that time, at least with the resources that concern me most. It looks as though the chances of older resources getting links to resources subsequently published [in Logos editions] is slim to none. I do agree that this is the most pressing issue in the Logos universe, but I'm skeptical that going forward the universe is going to operate under different laws. This one seems pretty immutable.

Also, you changed your avatar. How are we to cope with that?

Mike Binks

David

If you agree, please .

I am going to weigh in here in support of your complaint. This year I started to read through the four books in the 'Christian Origins' trilogy.

After a couple of weeks into 'New Testament and the People of God' I complained directly to Bob Pritchett who acknowledge that the rescue was not tagged even to their minimum standard.

I had hoped that he would put wheels into motion and have the series reviewed so I was really disappointed when, on starting the second volume at the beginning of April, I found that the links were still not even attached to the Bibliography entries.

Not everyone agrees with Tom Wright but serious biblical study really has to take into account his work if only to show where he is mistaken. These are important and relatively modern works and should not be marketed without the caveat that they are, in Logos Terms, substandard.

I pray that you initiative on this matter will bear fruit.

David Taylor, Jr.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/721492#Comment_721492

A lot of this assumes that no work is being done on the typos. Do we not get resource updates weekly? I can only imagine some of that is updated links and typos....

David Paul

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/721597#Comment_721597

I can only imagine some of that is updated links

That's right! You can only image...we can only imagine...because we have no way of monitoring tangible progress--it's all a "matter of faith" where links are concerned. But it doesn't have to be. If folks will post their busted links here, then we can begin both taking control of the issue and developing a sense of satisfaction (as the evidence warrants) that something is actually being done. Unless we can see progress taking place, we will likely always be part of a perpetual "moan & groan" fest.

Post the links you want fixed!

David Taylor, Jr.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/721609#Comment_721609

I can only imagine some of that is updated links

That's right! You can only image...we can only imagine...because we have no way of monitoring tangible progress--it's all a "matter of faith" where links are concerned. But it doesn't have to be. If folks will post their busted links here, then we can begin both taking control of the issue and developing a sense of satisfaction (as the evidence warrants) that something is actually being done. Unless we can see progress taking place, we will likely always be part of a perpetual "moan & groan" fest.

Post the links you want fixed!

Also put this in perspective, when you submit a typo/error to Amazon for a Kindle book, how long do you think that takes to get updated? Do you think you see progress? No, and Amazon has many more resources than Logos (talking about workforce) and much bigger cashflow to invest. So I wouldn't be so quick to judge.

Mike Binks

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/721617#Comment_721617

Also put this in perspective, when you submit a typo/error to Amazon for a Kindle book, how long do you think that takes to get updated?

I don't think that is really the point David. Only the other day I started to watch one of Logo's promotional videos that claimed resources were 'hand crafted' so that all the links worked. It is one of their major selling points – and one where the experience doesn't meet the hype.

Not only that but despite putting through dozens of missing links through 'report typo' I have yet to have anything but a formulaic email acknowledgment by way of response and certainly no sign of an update to the resources.

David Taylor, Jr.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/721621#Comment_721621

Also put this in perspective, when you submit a typo/error to Amazon for a Kindle book, how long do you think that takes to get updated?

I don't think that is really the point David. Only the other day I started to watch one of Logo's promotional videos that claimed resources were 'hand crafted' so that all the links worked. It is one of their major selling points – and one where the experience doesn't meet the hype.

Not only that but despite putting through dozens of missing links through 'report typo' I have yet to have anything but a formulaic email acknowledgment by way of response and certainly no sign of an update to the resources.

What existing links do not work? I just don't seem to run into these. Now typos is a completely different story, those are abundant. I have occasionally run into a perceived tagging issue.

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/721625#Comment_721625

What existing links do not work?

It's not that existing links don't work. It's that things that could/should be linked aren't linked.