Is it really the Encyclopedia Britannica as we might of thought?
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Phil Gons (Faithlife) said:
If you're happy to have access to Compton's now and wait for Encyclopedia Britannica to be delivered later this year or early next year, you don't need to do anything. Enjoy access to Compton's now and wait patiently as we build Encyclopedia Britannica.
Just to confirm and be double clear. No more money from me, and I will recieve the Encyclopedia Britannica when it's completed, while still keeping the Compton's version?
my confusion comes from this statement...
Phil Gons (Faithlife) said:We'll be putting the product back on Pre-Pub to give everyone the chance of taking advantage of what's now an even better deal.
Logos 10 | Dell Inspiron 7373 | Windows 11 Pro 64, i7, 16GB, SSD | iPhone 13 Pro Max
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Phil Gons (Faithlife) said:
On behalf of the team, please accept our sincerest apologies. We're really sorry for this mix-up and confusion, and we're eager to make it right.
Thank you Phil. That apology and fix is certainly good enough for me. I particularly appreciate the clear explanation.
I'll only add two things:
- I'm sure you're already doing this, but you'll want to review your procedures to try and make sure something like this doesn't happen again.
- There may be some number of people who pre-ordered at $99 before the prepub price went up to $199, but have since asked for a refund. If the next pre-pub price is going to be more than $99 you may want to add some provision so that they can still get the new bundle for $99.
This is my personal Faithlife account. On 1 March 2022, I started working for Faithlife, and have a new 'official' user account. Posts on this account shouldn't be taken as official Faithlife views!
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The TBD makes me nervous (based on what just happened); but otherwise I can't complain.
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James Taylor said:
Just to confirm and be double clear. No more money from me, and I will recieve the Encyclopedia Britannica when it's completed, while still keeping the Compton's version?
Correct.
Product Department Manager
Faithlife0 -
Phil Gons (Faithlife) said:
Encyclopaedia Britannica (the company) has three different encyclopedia databases:
- Encyclopedia Britannica: contains ~80,000 articles and has over 40,000,000 words; aimed at the scholarly market
- Compton's Encyclopedia: contains ~19,000 articles and has over 8,000,000 words; aimed at the family market
- Encyclopedia Britannica, Student Edition: contains ~5,000 articles and has ~2,000,000 words; aimed at the student market
(There's also a concise edition of Encyclopedia Britannica, 24,973 short articles and ~2,800,000 words, which they no longer sell.)
Encyclopaedia Britannica (the company) has several different encyclopedia products, which contain one or more of their three databases:
- Britannica.com: includes a subset of the main Encyclopedia Britannica database. They rotate which articles appear online from time to time.
- Britannica Kids: includes the full database of both Compton's and the Student Edition.
- Britannica School: has the full database for all three products.
- Britannica Academic: has the full Encyclopedia Britannica database.
There was some confusion between our teams regarding what exactly we were getting.
You're definitely right about this being confusing, and I'm certainly not surprised that communication got mixed up with this.
Thanks Phil for making this clear and for making it right!
Logos 10 | Dell Inspiron 7373 | Windows 11 Pro 64, i7, 16GB, SSD | iPhone 13 Pro Max
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Logos 10 | Dell Inspiron 7373 | Windows 11 Pro 64, i7, 16GB, SSD | iPhone 13 Pro Max
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Thank you very much, Faithlife!
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Mark Barnes said:
There may be some number of people who pre-ordered at $99 before the prepub price went up to $199, but have since asked for a refund. If the next pre-pub price is going to be more than $99 you may want to add some provision so that they can still get the new bundle for $99.
That would be me.
Though it would still be nice to know how many articles are going to be in the new EB, before I commit to re-ordering.
MacBook Pro (2019), ThinkPad E540
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Phil Gons (Faithlife) said:
we figured out what happened and have a good plan in place for how to make it right.
Thank you. I'm once again very much looking forward to this.
Will it be a staged release like the currently shipped portion? Are links going to be added for what's already been shipped and the Timeline and Factbook integration as originally planned, followed by the new material and linking & integration for the new material? Or is it all coming at once?
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Bruce Dunning said:
I knew Faithlife would make this right!
Thanks for helping us understand what happened and giving clear and excellent options from which to choose!
I thought they would too...it is a sad thing this mistake happened but I had always known that a refund was the worse case scenario (which is not terrible). I am very happy to hear that things are being corrected. I am content to wait and as a bonus compton may be seen to be an equivalent of strongs dictionary, a base resource to get a supper quick look at something.
-Dan
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Thanks the explanation and the options. I know Faithlife always go beyond and above expection. This is how you do it - " the Logos way".
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Fasil said:
Thanks for the explanation and the options . I know Faithlife always go beyond and above expection. This is how you do it - " the Logos way".
Been a customer for eleven years. They always step up to the plate. Thanks Faithlife.
Mission: To serve God as He desires.
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Phil Gons (Faithlife) said:
Here's what we plan to do.
I am pleased with the plan and will pray for the success of your endeavour..
Logos 7 Collectors Edition
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Phil Gons (Faithlife) said:
There was some confusion between our teams regarding what exactly we were getting. Some thought we were simply getting a portion of the full Encyclopedia Britannica rather than a completely distinct set of content. We're really sorry for this confusion and miscommunication. This should have been named and advertised as Compton's Encyclopedia.
It's good that you're putting this right. I find it remarkable, though, that it only took customers a few hours to figure out that this was Compton's. Your team had at least since February.
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Mark Barnes said:
Thank you Phil. That apology and fix is certainly good enough for me. I particularly appreciate the clear explanation.
Glad to hear it.
Mark Barnes said:I'm sure you're already doing this, but you'll want to review your procedures to try and make sure something like this doesn't happen again.
Absolutely. We've already discussed steps we can take to make sure this doesn't happen again. One of the main causes was that this was an out-of-the-ordinary product. Normally what we create has a very clear print correspondence. That wasn't the case here. And the confusion between Encyclopaedia Britannica the company, Encyclopedia Britannica the resource, and the mid-range encyclopedia they were licensing to us led to the conflation and confusion.
Mark Barnes said:There may be some number of people who pre-ordered at $99 before the prepub price went up to $199, but have since asked for a refund. If the next pre-pub price is going to be more than $99 you may want to add some provision so that they can still get the new bundle for $99.
We will honor the original Pre-Pub price for those who have canceled already.
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Thank you Phil. I appreciate the open communication regarding the problem, and also the alternative options you have offered.
Once again you have proved that Logos/Faithlife is a company with integrity.
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Todd Phillips said:
Though it would still be nice to know how many articles are going to be in the new EB, before I commit to re-ordering.
We're not sure yet, and before setting expectations and not being able to meet them a second time, I wanted to be sure. They're sending us their 80,000 article list, and we're going to select the ones we want to include. Some are off limits. They don't license them to anyone, but the majority are available to us. We need to factor cost into the equation.
What I can confidently say is that we'll give you at least as many articles as we advertised on the product page: 19,000. I imagine it'll be well beyond that, though. I'll confirm when we have the content in hand and have had a chance to assess the costs.
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Sean said:
I find it remarkable, though, that it only took customers a few hours to figure out that this was Compton's. Your team had at least since February.
It is embarrassing, to be sure. One of the problems with being a company of ~450 people is that people tend to work in silos. We have our team that licenses new content from rightsholders, our team that oversees the production of new content products, our team that builds the actually resources (in India), our product managers, our marketing team, our social media and PR team, and many others. Many of these teams work in different buildings, and we typically don't look at each others' work. That works fine 99% of the time for the business-as-usual products. It's these unique projects that require more communication and collaboration. It's a good reminder for us to treat these kinds of things differently from the normal print-to-digital product.
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Phil Gons (Faithlife) said:
What I can confidently say is that we'll give you at least as many articles as we advertised on the product page: 19,000. I imagine it'll be well beyond that, though. I'll confirm when we have the content in hand and have had a chance to assess the costs.
Thank you Phil, a very generous resolution to the problem! I have 2 comments/questions:
1. I too am wondering about what subset of the EB this will be - which I know you don't know now...as a crazy example, if it was 22,000 articles of everything they had from A-G, that's not usable - nor is every article under 1,000 words, because I can find an article on Hilkiah but not on Abraham. What will the subset be - only geography, people, and theology/religious articles? Only religious articles? Is the subset defined in some other way? I am assuming there is some logic to the articles that will be selected for Faithlife customers, otherwise it may prove problematic to actually use the resource in our study/use of Logos/Verbum. Does that make sense, do you see it as some logical subset of EB that fits into Logos/Verbum, or some random collection of articles?
2. If it takes for example, 6 weeks to release the EB - and say someone does not like it - will they be able to request a refund on the Compton's/EB $99 even though it's past the 30 day period from when they received Compton's yesterday?
Thanks again Phil for the solution and your explanation of it.
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This morning my bride of 57 years and I offered prayer for Faithllife (thanksgiving for the Company, gratitude for its people as well as its products, guidance in sorting through a monumental snafu). It's obvious prayer has been answered, in spades. Many thanks to you all in Bellingham, Arizona, India (and I guess the UK and South Africa), and may God be praised for His grace, mercy, and peace.
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Phil Gons (Faithlife) said:
Here are your options:
- If you're happy to have access to Compton's now and wait for Encyclopedia Britannica to be delivered later this year or early next year, you don't need to do anything. Enjoy access to Compton's now and wait patiently as we build Encyclopedia Britannica.
- If you'd like to wait to pay until the full product is finished, you can return the product and place a pre-order for the new one.
- If you'd like a refund, we'd be happy take care of that for you.
Phil -
I am inclined to take a "wait and see" approach... Would it be unreasonable to have a 30 day period to return the resource after the other product ships?
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Very good outcome. I'm much happier now.
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Phil Gons (Faithlife) said:
We're not sure yet, and before setting expectation and not being able to meet them a second time, I wanted to be sure. They're sending us their 80,000 article list, and we're going to select the ones we want to include. Some are off limits. They don't license them to anyone, but the majority are available to us. We need to factor cost into the equation.
Hopefully you can offer a majority of them. I for one am not overly concerned about the items i will find in something like Anchor Bible Dictionary. I see Britannica as an ideal resource to give a broad look at secular matters. Ideally for the sake of the Britannica brand one would think they would want you to have as broad a set as possible. Noet is a program that offers Britannica in a most powerful search engine. If they allow a complete DVDROM to be sold $49.99, I would hope they could allow an academic tool like Noet/Logos to distribute it too...
-dan
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Mark Barnes said:
On the question of word count, I counted 156,593 words up to and including the article on Airline. That's 272 articles, or an average of 576 words per article. If there were 19,000 articles, and the average was maintained, that would be more than 10 million words.
Concordance shows a count of 10,062,896.
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Don Awalt said:
1. I too am wondering about what subset of the EB this will be - which I know you don't know now...as a crazy example, if it was 22,000 articles of everything they had from A-G, that's not usable - nor is every article under 1,000 words, because I can find an article on Hilkiah but not on Abraham. What will the subset be - only geography, people, and theology/religious articles? Only religious articles? Is the subset defined in some other way? I am assuming there is some logic to the articles that will be selected for Faithlife customers, otherwise it may prove problematic to actually use the resource in our study/use of Logos/Verbum. Does that make sense, do you see it as some logical subset of EB that fits into Logos/Verbum, or some random collection of articles?
That's a good question. The largest articles are off limits. They're happy for us to choose from all the articles under the certain word limit. There's likely a middle category where we can strategically include some articles that are key for our audience. Our aim is to offer as comprehensive coverage as we can and to make sure there is good even coverage of the most important topics for our Bible study and humanities markets. As soon as I have more information, I'll let you know.
Don Awalt said:2. If it takes for example, 6 weeks to release the EB - and say someone does not like it - will they be able to request a refund on the Compton's/EB $99 even though it's past the 30 day period from when they received Compton's yesterday?
The clock for the 30-day refund doesn't start until we've delivered the full product to you.
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Phil, Faithlife, and all involved in this decision: you've responded promptly, transparently, and with as much new information as you can. Thank you.
I hope that what you end up being able to produce lives up to the expectations many of us had about this product from the start.
Pastor, North Park Baptist Church
Bridgeport, CT USA
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Phil Gons (Faithlife) said:
Our aim is to offer as comprehensive coverage as we can and to make sure there is good even coverage of the most important topics for our Bible study and humanities markets.
Hint: Less Simon Cowell and more Aristotle. [:)]
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alabama24 said:
Would it be unreasonable to have a 30 day period to return the resource after the other product
Absolutely not. The return period won't start until you've received the full product.
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Steve Maling said:
This morning my bride of 57 years and I offered prayer for Faithllife (thanksgiving for the Company, gratitude for its people as well as its products, guidance in sorting through a monumental snafu). It's obvious prayer has been answered, in spades. Many thanks to you all in Bellingham, Arizona, India (and I guess the UK and South Africa), and may God be praised for His grace, mercy, and peace.
Thank you, Steve!
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Phil Gons (Faithlife) said:Mark Barnes said:
There may be some number of people who pre-ordered at $99 before the prepub price went up to $199, but have since asked for a refund. If the next pre-pub price is going to be more than $99 you may want to add some provision so that they can still get the new bundle for $99.
We will honor the original Pre-Pub price for those who have canceled already.
So those who cancelled the original pre-pub prior to it going into production can purchase the new pre-pub for $99? If this is correct, I would place my order for the new pre-pub. Thanks.
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Phil Gons (Faithlife) said:
The largest articles are off limits.
That seems like a tough exclusion. Seems like it would eliminate important topics. According to wikipedia, the longest article is "United States". I suspect "England" isn't far behind. Do they have shorter alternatives for those long versions?
MacBook Pro (2019), ThinkPad E540
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Todd Phillips said:
Do they have shorter alternatives for those long versions?
You'll get coverage for those in Compton's, most likely.
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Phil Gons (Faithlife) said:Todd Phillips said:
Do they have shorter alternatives for those long versions?
You'll get coverage for those in Compton's.
Sounds acceptable.. hopefully you can get most of the important ones.
-Dan
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Phil Gons (Faithlife) said:
You'll get coverage for those in Compton's.
and its actually pretty lengthy (United States)...
Logos 10 | Dell Inspiron 7373 | Windows 11 Pro 64, i7, 16GB, SSD | iPhone 13 Pro Max
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Phil,
I would like to thank Faithlife for its diligence and quick turn around in addressing this issue that was brought up with regards to the Britannica. It was great to see a solution and communication within 24 hours. I for one will hang onto the resource and eagerly await the next release of the more robust EB.
A suggestion that maybe could mitigate some of this in the future might be to bring in beta testers to look at major resources like this and get their feedback. I would think that there were a subset of beta testers that signed up for the pre-pub deal and their eyes might of caught some of the concerns prior to the release to everyone.
Keep up the good work.
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Bruce Roth said:
A suggestion that maybe could mitigate some of this in the future might be to bring in beta testers to look at major resources like this and get their feedback. I would think that there were a subset of beta testers that signed up for the pre-pub deal and their eyes might of caught some of the concerns prior to the release to everyone
Sounds like a good idea.
Mission: To serve God as He desires.
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Phil,
Thanks for you and all of Faithlife working hard to correct this! I browsed the Encyclopedia when it downloaded and thought to myself they were oddly written, but since I hadn't looked at an EB set that wasn't less than 30 years old, I didn't know what direction they had taken their content.
But with that said, now that you've got a decent relationship with EB the company, how about getting The Great Books of the Western World and The Great Ideas Today sets in Noet? [:D]
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alabama24 said:
Why do you need Logos? "The Internet" isn't a source. ONE of the places you can utilize on the internet with a subscription is Encyclopedia Britannica.
That's a very good point!! We've already arrived at at a stage where news magazines credit their sources as "Wikipedia", "Youtube" or "Google". Journalists are supposed to research every word, and not just copy from Wikipedia. It's not gonna take long, and "the internet" in general will be a source. I'm quite concerned where we're heading, and what we're teaching the next generation.
A few years back some funny chap changed the first name of the guy who was to be appointed German defense minister in a Wikipedia article. So when he got appointed, journalists took his background information from Wikipedia instead of researching it themselves. You know where this is going... It caused a nation-wide laugh.
That's an easy to detect and very funny example, but the same mechanism can work in a very deceptive way as well, for example when it was widely reported earlier this year that the EU had declared gay marriage and abortion human rights (a lie, basically, which spread worldwide).
But that goes off-topic now. It demonstrates the need for truly reliable sources though.
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[Y]
Thank you Phil for the response.
Thank you Faithlife for your efforts to make this right.
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Greg Masone said:
But with that said, now that you've got a decent relationship with EB the company, how about getting The Great Books of the Western World and The Great Ideas Today sets in Noet?
Oh, Yes!
Logos 7 Collectors Edition
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Thanks Phil for the explanation. I was never worried that Faithlife would respond and make things right. Thank you very much! Again, I am very happy with my relationship with Faithlife.
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Greg Masone said:
how about getting The Great Books of the Western World and The Great Ideas Today sets in Noet?
Keep an eye on Pre-Pub.
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Phil Gons (Faithlife) said:
It is embarrassing, to be sure. One of the problems with being a company of ~450 people is that people tend to work in silos.
In our company of 200 employees, most of whom work in the same building, we have a terrible time breaking down silos. I completely understand how this could happen. We battle it daily.
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I wanted to give my sincere thanks to Phil and FL, as well as the folks over at EB, for working to get everything straightened out.
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Bruce Roth said:
I don't want to stir up the pot here...
Thanks for stirring the pot even though you did not want to.
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That would complement NOET very well.Phil Gons (Faithlife) said:Greg Masone said:how about getting The Great Books of the Western World and The Great Ideas Today sets in Noet?
Keep an eye on Pre-Pub.
Logos 7 Collectors Edition
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Greg Masone said:
But with that said, now that you've got a decent relationship with EB the company, how about getting The Great Books of the Western World and The Great Ideas Today sets in Noet?
[Y] [:)]
(edited to remove double quote)
Senior Director, Content Products
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Super.Tramp said:
That would complement NOET very well.Phil Gons (Faithlife) said:Greg Masone said:how about getting The Great Books of the Western World and The Great Ideas Today sets in Noet?
Keep an eye on Pre-Pub.
Yes! That would be awesome! And please make sure each volume has that new leather bound smell, shiny gilded gold pages, and a book ribbon! [:P]
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Phil Gons (Faithlife) said:
Here are your options:
- If you're happy to have access to Compton's now and wait for Encyclopedia Britannica to be delivered later this year or early next year, you don't need to do anything. Enjoy access to Compton's now and wait patiently as we build Encyclopedia Britannica. You're paid in full and won't be charged for anything else.
- If you'd like to wait to pay until the full product is finished, you can return the product and place a pre-order for the new one. You'll get both encyclopedias when they're finished and won't be charged until then. We'll honor the Pre-Pub price you had when you pre-ordered the original product.
- If you'd like a refund, we'd be happy take care of that for you.
I'm considering the second option. How would I proceed? I'm looking at my order under my profile and don't see any way to electronically undo the purchase. Do I need to call or send an email to a sales rep?
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