I have two concerns concerning the Logos desktop app and Faithlife groups that I wanted to bring to the attention of the Faithlife/Logos team (and if Bob can read this, I would appreciate it).
In terms of the Logos desktop app, I am beginning to become concerned with the rapid release schedule every six weeks in terms of the stability of the app, especially the Mac version. Version 6.10 has been the last straw where I finally needed to say something. 6.10 has been not responding many of the times I launch it, requiring me to force quit the application and re-launch it, and even then, it launches slower than any version of Logos I've used in the past. I even reinstalled the application with the help from Faithlife Support, and I am still encountering these issues.
Additionally, with every "major" release (6.7, 6.8, 6.9, 6.10) lately, it seems to "butcher" my index, causing me to have to rebuild my library index with every new "major" release of Logos. I am spending more time resolving the indexing issues Logos continues to cause me and less time in Bible study.
While my Mac is beginning to show some signs of aging, plus I am looking at investing in a $5,000 Mac Pro this year to ensure I have one powerful machine for running Logos, I am still concerned with the increasing instability I am seeing in the Logos desktop app, especially compared to other Mac Bible study apps I run on my Mac whose update schedules are far less than Logos.
While I LOVE Logos Now and wish to remain a Logos Now subscriber, and the current benefits I have in Logos Now are definitely worth the subscription price (Systematic Theologies in the Passage Guide, the new datasets, the extra Visual Copy Media, etc.), I really don't need Logos to release a new update to the Logos desktop engine every six weeks in order to keep me "satisfied" as a Logos Now subscriber. Actually, all it's beginning to do is concern me in terms of the stability of the desktop application, forcing me to resort to cross grading some of my critical Bible study tools in another platform to use as a backup while I deal with the issues introduced into each update of the Logos desktop app.
I would highly recommend that Faithlife/Logos seriously re-considers the six week release schedule for the Logos Desktop app, backing it down to possibly once a quarter instead. I would still definitely continue to subscribe to Logos Now, and expecting new features once a quarter versus every six weeks would give the Faithlife/Logos team a chance to thoroughly optimize the code and ensure its delivering a more stable build when it does instead of rushing to get a release out the door just for the sake of releasing new features. I would rather Faithlife/Logos take longer to deliver us a more stable product when delivering new features instead of dealing with the update fallout that's been occurring even six weeks, as all it's doing is making it more difficult for me to enjoy the Logos desktop app as much as I need to.
I am also saying this not out of criticism, but as someone who uses the Logos desktop app on a daily basis for seminary and spends hours in the application at a time and in addition to Logos Now, spends thousands of dollars in Logos sales every year.
The second concern of mine has to do with Faithlife Groups. I admin a couple of groups on Faithlife that the Faithlife/Logos staff assisted me in getting launched: Prayer Partners and CSB/Community Study Bible. The Faithlife/Logos team did a great job featuring them on the Faithlife Blog as well.
However, I am starting to get people joining my group that concern me a little bit. I've seen a few people join that use one word names or very "short" names, either no profile picture or a generic profile picture that does not represent them, and when they comment on posts in my groups, instead of using fewer, more paragraph style comments, they comment in a series of short, one lined comments that tend to "clutter" my groups.
I even had one person go out and create his own "Study Bible" group that practically mirrors the functionality of the CSB/Community Study Bible group I admin, as well as he even copied and pasted some of my Community Notes I had derived from research papers from school into his group, at first doing so without any credit to me at all. I later reluctantly told him that I would give him the permission to use my work on another group page if he would credit me as the source of the author, as well as I recommended that he "affiliated" his "Study Bible" group with CSB/Community Study Bible since essentially, he was creating a "knockoff" of CSB/Community Study Bible and mirroring the functionality and even some of the content without gaining consent from me or someone at Faithlife first (I talked with the Faithlife team before launching the CSB group to get their "blessing" first).
While I am not trying to have a "monopoly" on "Study Bible groups" and prayer request groups on Faithlife by any means, I just find it a little concerning that people are first of all joining Faithlife groups I admin that do not really identify themselves as to who they are (short names and no or generic profile pictures). I have no idea if these people are really Logos Bible Software customers or people that are just leveraging the free tools. Then to come in and "clutter" the discussions then to "mirror" the functionality of the groups I admin and even copy/paste some of the content I have worked hard at creating in seminary without asking is also concerning to me as well.
I am trying to use Faithlife Groups as a means to really supercharge community interactions with the Word of God and prayer with other Faithlife/Logos Bible Software users. However, I am afraid that there are some who have merely leveraged the free tools and who are not loyal Logos Bible Software customers using this as a gateway into Faithlife Groups, reducing some of the "quality control" on groups people like me are trying to admin. I haven't banned anyone from any groups I admin yet since I am trying to act in a Christian spirit as an admin and not a dictator, but it does disturb me.
I am thankful for some of the free tools that Faithlife/Logos offers (such as the Faithlife Study Bible) and that Faithlife is a free platform to interact with the Word that people can use without investing in solid funds into a Logos Base Package, but at the same time, I want to ensure the people joining groups I admin are keeping the discussions in the groups in a quality manner, as well as are not using groups I admin as a means to simply knockoff content. Ideally, I would like to see more of Logos Bible Software users on these forums in Faithlife and interact with them on Faithlife since I know and can identify with more of the people on here.
Thank you for listening to my concerns, and I appreciate you taking your time to receive my feedback.
