Biblical People - Elijah for instance

Looking up some background on Elijah.

Go to Biblical People

Click on Elijah

Under Dictionaries I get 'Elijah | NBD'

but not, as I expect to, Easton's Bible Dictionary' nor The 'Zondervan Encyclopaedia of the Bible' or any other dictionary.

Is this a mac bug?

A system bug?

And what is more having dragged the Library window slider bar fully down in order to copy the Title of the second of my examples the window, which has been search for 'dictionary' jump to the top and then periodically refreshes itself.

So is this two bugs?

tootle pip

Mike

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Comments

Fernando A Gonzalez

Mike,

I don't quite understand your query. Is this what you mean? When I click Elijah I get the correct dictionary open up on the proper entry for Elijah.

Fernando

Mike Binks

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/135472#Comment_135472

Mike,

I don't quite understand your query. Is this what you mean? When I click Elijah I get the correct dictionary open up on the proper entry for Elijah.

Fernando

Yes - you seem to have a number of dictionaries showing. I only have one. Neither of us has 'Eastons'! Is there a setting that I am missing?

Fernando A Gonzalez

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/135477#Comment_135477

Mike

Well, I can't get Easton's to show on the list either. I tried to "prioritize" it in the library but had no effect.

I find that the entry to the left changes when I scroll the window but cannot get the complete text to appear, BTW, what is the source of that text? If I click (or double-click) on it nothing happens... Any thoughts?

Fernando

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/135477#Comment_135477

Not all the dictionaries have been suitably tagged yet. There's a list of what is here:

Mike Binks

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/135482#Comment_135482

Thank you Mark,

Your reply is very helpful - I realise that you are only the messenger but I muse aloud.

Though I am very disappointed that the brand new Zondervan resources are not yet so tagged.

I quote from the sales blub

Titles integrate into custom search reports, Passage Guides, Exegetical Guides, and the other advanced features of Logos Bible Software.

Is this mis-selling, a mistake or my misunderstanding?

It seems like a lot of money for an incomplete product - the resources I mean not the engine.

Anyway thanks for letting me know what is wrong.

tootle pip

Mike

Fernando A Gonzalez

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/135486#Comment_135486

Mark,

Thank you for the clarification...

Fernando

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/135486#Comment_135486

Though I am very disappointed that the brand new Zondervan resources are not yet so tagged.

The post I referred to pre-dates the Zondervan releases, I think. Sean Boisen would be the only person able to answer the question as to why they weren't tagged for topics when they were created.

Joe Miller

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/135502#Comment_135502

I also get NBD, but I do not have the Zondervan set to test it out.

Here is what I do have that shows up

Mike Binks

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/135636#Comment_135636

Thanks Joe,

It seems that I have only one of those that you have in your library.

And that I seem to have made a misguided purchase decision when adding to my store.

I can of course look up Elijah in the Zondervan set manually - but it kinda defeats the purpose.

[8o|]

Tootle pip

Mike

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/135671#Comment_135671

Mike,

Looking at this thread suggests support should be there: http://community.logos.com/forums/p/15006/115888.aspx - though personally I can't get any entries from the ZEB to show up in Biblical People, Places or Things. I do, however, get maps from ZIBBC showing up in Places.

Why not add a query to that thread, and place a comment on Louis St. Hilaire's profile, inviting him to reply to the thread.

Mark

Thinking

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/135695#Comment_135695

I looked up Elijah in the People Tool. One option was Elijah's altar. The picture is an eye. It was clearly not an altar. It needs to be "altered."

J.R. Miller

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/135711#Comment_135711

I looked up Elijah in the People Tool. One option was Elijah's altar. The picture is an eye. It was clearly not an altar. It needs to be "altered."

Are you sure this showed Elijah's Altar in Biblical People? Or do you mean Biblical Things? Can you show a screenshot of this item in Biblical People?

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/135715#Comment_135715

In Biblical People, there's a link to the altar in Biblical Things. On my machine the initial image was wrong, but it very quickly corrected itself.

Thinking

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/135715#Comment_135715

I tried to paste it in my original post without success. I forgot you have to attach it. First, I looked up Elijah. Here is the result (no problem).

3056.Elijah.tiff

Then I clicked on Elijah's Altar with this result:

7282.Elijah's Altar.tiff

Thinking

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/135715#Comment_135715

tried to paste it in my original post without success. I forgot you have to attach it. First, I looked up Elijah. Here is the result (no problem).

Then I clicked on Elijah's Altar with this result:

Quick Reply

J.R. Miller

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/135932#Comment_135932

I can confirm on my system that the initial image is wrong when clicking on Elijah's Alter. Hopefully one of the developers can confirm this and file a bug report.

Thomas Ball

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/135993#Comment_135993

Everyone:

I an confirm the issue...partially. When I select the altar link from Elijah I get the following.

I am going to file a bug for this, as I suspect it is connected to the same issue I am seeing. As for the individual who saw the wrong item display, I experimented on the Windows version to see what I should be seeing and it flashed to what I think I last looked at in Biblical Things (incidentally it was a camel...not sure why) then it went to the altar (what you see on the preview image).

Mike Binks

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/135482#Comment_135482

Mark,

If I might be allowed to drag the thread back to the original subject of Bible People and the dearth of Dictionaries listed when I entered Elijah.

I have followed your suggestion and added to the thread you suggested.

It seems that when Logos claims that resources are fully 'integrated into the program' - the words should be taken to mean 'might be integrated at some later date'.

I have ask Louis to express my bitter disappointment that after investing over £1000 in a resource I find that its preparation has been incomplete and that it will be fixed when they get round to it.

Up until now my experience with Logos as a company has been reasonably good - I consider this a major setback.

Thank you for your help and for pointing me in the right direction.

Kind regards

Mike

Thomas Ball

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/136123#Comment_136123

Mike:

I'm merely a peon, but I'd like to know where this publishd material is you spoke of in this thread http://community.logos.com/forums/p/15006/115888.aspx

Here is your quote

" I knew my library was short of Dictionaries and the Zondervan
Collection, which cost a considerable amount of money, was meant to
address this shortage. I think that my assumption that it would was
reasonable in the light of the promotional material published by Logos. I
am bitterly disappointed with the information you have given me in your
reply."

I'm not in Marketing, but I went to the product page and I am not sure what it might tell you there that it does not do.

Mike Binks

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/136553#Comment_136553

I'm merely a peon,

peon |ˈpēˌän; ˈpēən|

noun

1 a Spanish-American day laborer or unskilled farm worker.

• historical a debtor held in servitude by a creditor, esp. in the southern U.S. and Mexico.

• a person who does menial work; a drudge : racing drivers aren't exactly normal nine-to-five peons.

2 (in the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia) someone of low rank.

• a foot soldier.

• an attendant or messenger.

• a person who does minor jobs in an office.

I had to look it up - a pretty obscure word to describe yourself Tommy.

Hay ho.

Almost as bad as...

Tootle pip

Mike

Mike Binks

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/136553#Comment_136553

Here is your quote

" I knew my library was short of Dictionaries and the Zondervan
Collection, which cost a considerable amount of money, was meant to
address this shortage. I think that my assumption that it would was
reasonable in the light of the promotional material published by Logos. I
am bitterly disappointed with the information you have given me in your
reply."

I'm not in Marketing, but I went to the product page and I am not sure what it might tell you there that it does not do.

The line

'Titles integrate into custom search reports, Passage Guides, Exegetical Guides, and the other advanced features of Logos Bible Software.'

this is demonstrably untrue - they do not. The line might more accurately read...

'These resources have been tagged to fully take advantage of the features of Logos 3 and Libronix 1.2.2 but have yet to be prepared for Logos 4.'

or similar

In fact I think that a badge 'Logos 4 ready' should be applied to all product that are fully prepared and a suitable one for applied to those that are awaiting work.

Tootle pip.

Mike

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/136694#Comment_136694

These resources have been tagged to fully take advantage of the features of Logos 3 and Libronix 1.2.2 but have yet to be prepared for Logos 4.'

I understand some of your frustration, but I don't think that's fair. They do take advantage of many of the features of Logos 4 - just not LCV (which impacts only on topic searches, and whether they appear as links from Bible People/Places/Things). Your suggested line is less accurate that Logos' line. I don't see a claim on the Biblical Places page that all Logos resources will be linked from Biblical People/Places/Things, and therefore the Zondervan dictionaries are no different to the vast majority of other resources. Probably the most accurate sentence would be

[quote]Titles integrate into custom search reports, Passage Guides, Exegetical Guides, and other advanced features of Logos Bible Software.

Mike Binks

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/136712#Comment_136712

Mark,

I don't want to become pedantic and split hairs over words.

But I purchased an upgrade to Logos 4. I quite understood that it was Alpha and developing. I accepted that. If the fault had been with the Alpha I would have understood it and had no complaints. For a while the fault appeared to be with the Alpha - but improvements were coming and my resources were ready. Or so Logos led me to believe.

I open my Program and see down the left hand side Biblical Places, Biblical Things, and Biblical People.

After a couple of months I am targeted on Facebook, Email, and the Home Page (of Logos 4) with news of a NEW resource - a very expensive resource.

After much consideration I shell out my limited budget on this resource rather than an upgrade in base package only to find that this NEW resource has not been fully prepared.

You are right in saying that the Biblical Places web page does not make an explicit claim that all resources are tagged - nor, to be sure, does the page for the Zondervan Bundle - but it implies it. And the implication is very clear on both pages.

the Zondervan dictionaries are no different to the vast majority of other resources.

The Zondervan dictionaries are different to the vast majority of other resources. The Zondervan bundle was prepared for sale and marketed after Logos 4 was widely distributed. Logos 4 was the version that Logos was pushing to new customers and those wishing to upgrade.

I can quite understand that the resources that I purchased prior to upgrading will need to be worked on. However old resources that are still on sale should have adverts that warn that they are missing some of the features advertised in the Logos 4 publicity. NEW resources should be properly prepared prior to sale.

The Products page for these resources are misleading and in the UK would be required to make clear that the items have limited functionality.

I am sad to see a Christian company using advertising material that obscures the facts about their products.

Yours faithfully

Mike Binks

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/136739#Comment_136739

Mike,

I'm not disagreeing with the principle that you state, and if you search the forums you'll find plenty of posts from me that are moderately critical of LCV and tagging speed. But I guess that what I'm saying is that when we're complaining about the accuracy of Logos' marketing materials we need to take particular care with the accuracy of our complaints. It's a little ironic if we're complaining about Logos exaggerating the integration level of a product, whilst at the same time we're exaggerating the extent of problem.

Mark

PS - I think also there might be a cultural issue here. When the Greek/Hebrew tutoring package was announced, there were a lot of us Brits saying "You're overselling the product!". But the Americans didn't seem to mind half as much. Perhaps the marketing on this product was appropriate for American ears. (That doesn't excuse Logos, of course, but it might explain why sometimes Brits think they oversell the product.)

B. J. Clarke

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/136776#Comment_136776

As an American and loyal Logos fan, let me throw in my two cents on this.

I have been a Logos user since the late 90's, and I intend to continue to be. But having said this, I must confess that I do understand the frustration Mike Binks is expressing in his posts and, having read a number of his posts, I think you would agree that he has not come across as an intemperate participant in the forums.

Neither do I wish to be perceived as fussy or cranky, but I, too, am frustrated because I recently purchased a number of Zondervan's Encyclopedias. I was unaware that these works had not been tagged with LCV yet.

One of the most fundamental advantages of Bible software is the research it does for you by bringing to your attention ALL the pertinent material from your resources that is related to your search request. Considering this, it is not unreasonable for us to expect that the software we are purchasing will be "road ready" for providing us all that our resources contain about a given subject we are researching. Essentially, this is a feature we paid for but do not yet possess.

At the very least, this limitation should have been made known; then your customers could decide whether they wish to pay for a resource that is not yet capable of doing all that they expect it to do, when typing in a search for information.

One of the things I love about Logos is the amount of books that are available electronically. I am astonished at how many resources you all have available. Having said this, and again, this comes from a loyal Logos customer, instead of using so much manpower to rush new material into electronic format, which resources are not even LCV tagged, I believe that your customers, and even Logos, would be better served by assigning more manpower to tagging already released resources, which people have already purchased with their hard-earned dollars!

Of course, it is your company and your choice, but for what it is worth, this Logos customer thinks that we have a right to know what limitations exist in the books/software we are purchasing.

Still a Logos fan,

B. J. Clarke

Mike Binks

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/136776#Comment_136776

PS - I think also there might be a cultural issue here. When the Greek/Hebrew tutoring package was announced, there were a lot of us Brits saying "You're overselling the product!". But the Americans didn't seem to mind half as much. Perhaps the marketing on this product was appropriate for American ears. (That doesn't excuse Logos, of course, but it might explain why sometimes Brits think they oversell the product.)

I wondered about that Mark.

So I just had a quick look at the Federal Trades Commission web site. Interesting site - 'Companies are responsible for all the claims they make' is one line I heard.

Also the small print - 'Has to be clear and readable' but I guess I have been complaining about the lack of even small print about the limitations of some products.

tootle pip

Mike

Rosie Perera

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/136779#Comment_136779

One of the things I love about Logos is the amount of books that are available electronically. I am astonished at how many resources you all have available. Having said this, and again, this comes from a loyal Logos customer, instead of using so much manpower to rush new material into electronic format, which resources are not even LCV tagged, I believe that your customers, and even Logos, would be better served by assigning more manpower to tagging already released resources, which people have already purchased with their hard-earned dollars!

I feel the same way, as another long-time loyal Logos customer. There are way too many pre-pubs already in the pipeline for any of us to ever buy them all. I'd much rather see the pre-pub effort slow down some and more people be reallocated to tagging, cleaning up metadata, and fixing typos in existing resources. And I'd like to see a commitment made to not releasing any new resources that aren't fully tagged to take advantage of the features in Logos 4.

Philana Crouch

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/136791#Comment_136791

One of the things I love about Logos is the amount of books that are available electronically. I am astonished at how many resources you all have available. Having said this, and again, this comes from a loyal Logos customer, instead of using so much manpower to rush new material into electronic format, which resources are not even LCV tagged, I believe that your customers, and even Logos, would be better served by assigning more manpower to tagging already released resources, which people have already purchased with their hard-earned dollars!

I feel the same way, as another long-time loyal Logos customer. There are way too many pre-pubs already in the pipeline for any of us to ever buy them all. I'd much rather see the pre-pub effort slow down some and more people be reallocated to tagging, cleaning up metadata, and fixing typos in existing resources. And I'd like to see a commitment made to not releasing any new resources that aren't fully tagged to take advantage of the features in Logos 4.

I agree with you both as well. I have noticed a lot of great pre-pubs, but with tagging needed for many resources and even the other resources not finished (Reverse Interlinears for the NIV and NLT are an example, they are missing the OT) it would be great to have those all finished first. Some of the prepubs do look really good, but tagging the books or finishing the book for things already purchased should be the higher priority, this also includes features that were purchased as add-ons. I know we didn't purchase the engine but the resources, but for example the Personal Book Builder Standard and Sermon File are add-on's, not only are they unavailable for the Mac but they aren't even available for L4 on Windows yet. I know they are coming, but finnish the products already sold to customers. I am also a long-time Logos user, I fell in love with the program in college and added a ton of resources while in seminary (I figured my main references books should be in a portable format) its a great program. I just think it should focus on finishing products that have already been purchased and not future ones.

L4 for Mac is coming along well, the work the Mac team is doing is appreciated. I just think that finishing everything for L4 Mac and Windows would be the best target and then add more prepubs.

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/136791#Comment_136791

There are way too many pre-pubs already in the pipeline for any of us to ever buy them all. I'd much rather see the pre-pub effort slow down some and more people be reallocated to tagging, cleaning up metadata, and fixing typos in existing resources.

In an ideal world, yes. But Logos get money for creating pre-pubs. They don't get money tagging, and cleaning up existing resources. In other words, pre-pubs self-fund - you they sell a lot, they can recruit more staff to do the work (or more likely contract out to other providers).

I do agree about the tagging. I've often reported typos when there could be a link to a resource and it's not clickable. I've reported in the forums about untagged resources. But I'm a realist too. I know that the cost of tagging rises exponentially, the more resource we have.

Let's take the Anchor Bible Dictionary (Bob has said that it's being retagged at the moment). I just scanned through about three articles, and just in those three articles it's missing links to Josephus' Works, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Didache, Shepherd of Hermas, the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, the NT pseudepigrapha, TDOT, Philo's Works, History of the Jewish Peoples, ANET, Laws of Hammurabi, Nag Hammadi, and Anchor Bible Commentaries.

When Anchor was published electronically, those resources didn't exist. Now they do. I would dearly like Logos to go back and re-tag ABD to include them. But I would estimate that there are up to 15,000 potential new links just in ABD. In case you dispute that figure, there are nearly 1,500 potential links to Josephus' Antiquites, at least 1,000 Anchor Bible references, nearly 1,000 ANET, and nearly 1,000 Nag Hammadi. And tagging them isn't a minimum wage job, or one that can be contracted out to India. It will probably need to be a Biblical Studies graduate who does the work (or at least does a good part of the work).

Now that's an old resource, and obviously an important one. It needs tagging (in my opinion). But I have to accept that it just isn't practical to go through all 10,000 existing Logos books to see if they should link to any of the other 10,000 Logos books. And I definitely don't want to have to wait for Logos to do that before I get the pre-pubs I've been waiting for.

Rosie Perera

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/136859#Comment_136859

When Anchor was published electronically, those resources didn't exist. Now they do. I would dearly like Logos to go back and re-tag ABD to include them. But I would estimate that there are up to 15,000 potential new links just in ABD. In case you dispute that figure, there are nearly 1,500 potential links to Josephus' Antiquites, at least 1,000 Anchor Bible references, nearly 1,000 ANET, and nearly 1,000 Nag Hammadi. And tagging them isn't a minimum wage job, or one that can be contracted out to India. It will probably need to be a Biblical Studies graduate who does the work (or at least does a good part of the work).

Well, as this problem seems positioned to only get worse in the future, I think they need to come up with a better long-term solution, such as building in the capability to automate some of the tagging based on user-submitted links. If we find a missing link in a resource, we could first go to the place that the link should jump to, create a link using "Copy location as URL," then go select the text that should link to it, right click on it, run some command like the Report typo command, and paste in the link, and then click Submit. Chances are there are lots of Biblical Studies graduates who are users of Logos who are noticing these things and could do a better job of fixing them than a minimum wage contractor in India. And better than leaving them unfixed as well. If the Logos developers write code to automate this, they can remove the possibility of dummies introducing syntax errors in the tagging. Due to the exponential growth nature of this task, it is a prime task to delegate to crowdsourcing.

Philana Crouch

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/136865#Comment_136865

When Anchor was published electronically, those resources didn't exist. Now they do. I would dearly like Logos to go back and re-tag ABD to include them. But I would estimate that there are up to 15,000 potential new links just in ABD. In case you dispute that figure, there are nearly 1,500 potential links to Josephus' Antiquites, at least 1,000 Anchor Bible references, nearly 1,000 ANET, and nearly 1,000 Nag Hammadi. And tagging them isn't a minimum wage job, or one that can be contracted out to India. It will probably need to be a Biblical Studies graduate who does the work (or at least does a good part of the work).

Well, as this problem seems positioned to only get worse in the future, I think they need to come up with a better long-term solution, such as building in the capability to automate some of the tagging based on user-submitted links. If we find a missing link in a resource, we could first go to the place that the link should jump to, create a link using "Copy location as URL," then go select the text that should link to it, right click on it, run some command like the Report typo command, and paste in the link, and then click Submit. Chances are there are lots of Biblical Studies graduates who are users of Logos who are noticing these things and could do a better job of fixing them than a minimum wage contractor in India. And better than leaving them unfixed as well. If the Logos developers write code to automate this, they can remove the possibility of dummies introducing syntax errors in the tagging. Due to the exponential growth nature of this task, it is a prime task to delegate to crowdsourcing.

That's an excellent idea. I know if I would be willing to submit something like that. I'm sure other Logos users would to.

Bob Pritchett

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/136694#Comment_136694

'Titles integrate into custom search reports, Passage Guides, Exegetical Guides, and the other advanced features of Logos Bible Software.'

This is "boilerplate" text that I'm pretty sure we were using long before Logos 4. And I don't think it's untrue -- all of our books do these things. It's a feature of the system.

The LCV is a special, external database that disambiguates terms between various resources. It shows up in a completely separate section of the search results area. While I agree it would be cool for more books to work with it, I think it's quite a stretch to accuse us of deception when a book doesn't. I'm glad you like it -- so do I! -- but it's actually a database of its own, not a baseline feature of our software. It never occurred to me that you'd consider a book not indexed to the LCV to be incomplete.

The "stop putting out pre-pubs when you haven't implemented PBB" type arguments are frustrating. People are not directly interchangeable; we have different skill sets and priorities, many running in parallel. And we have many users with differing "how dare you!" complaints. :-)

The people waiting for Mac feature parity would like all our resources there. Other people want hyperlinks in Anchor fixed. You want LCV tagging on Zondervan titles.

And then there's the "just don't release it until everything is perfect" argument. Except it's up against the "where are the Zondervan resources! we've been waiting 18 years for them, don't delay!" people.

We ARE revisiting books and adding them to the LCV. But this is an editorial process that requires domain knowledge and subjective decision making. We prioritized the books based on number of users who have them, and we're cranking away at them. Three are done but not yet shipped as part of an updated LCV, and we keep working on it. It could take more than a year to address every title; that's why titles in the base packages (which more people have) got attention before pre-pub titles like Zondervan's. Just this week I authorized hiring and training another person to do LCV work, but it's still a huge job. (Theoretically I could hire a dozen people and speed it up more, but it's a very specialized project, would take a while to recruit and train for, and then once we catch up to the backlog, we'd have a lot of people without enough work.)

I can't imagine that it's preferable to hold every dictionary-like pre-pub for 3-6 months after it's ready to go just to wait for it to be LCV-integrated. But if I don't, are you going to file complaints with the FTC? Would you rather we had just held the Zondervan titles till October? Because there's no way to justify jumping them (with <x> customers) ahead of titles that have already been out for years and have ten times as many users.

(We're also working on pseudo-automated processes to speed it up, but they require enough data to train algorithms -- a point we're just getting to -- and a lot of up-front development.)

Again, I'm glad you appreciate the LCV. But we need some time to catch up on our 18 years and 10,000 released titles!

Bob Pritchett

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/136859#Comment_136859

Let's take the Anchor Bible Dictionary (Bob has said that it's being retagged at the moment). I just scanned through about three articles, and just in those three articles it's missing links to Josephus' Works, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Didache, Shepherd of Hermas, the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, the NT pseudepigrapha, TDOT, Philo's Works, History of the Jewish Peoples, ANET, Laws of Hammurabi, Nag Hammadi, and Anchor Bible Commentaries.

When Anchor was published electronically, those resources didn't exist. Now they do. I would dearly like Logos to go back and re-tag ABD to include them. But I would estimate that there are up to 15,000 potential new links just in ABD. In case you dispute that figure, there are nearly 1,500 potential links to Josephus' Antiquites, at least 1,000 Anchor Bible references, nearly 1,000 ANET, and nearly 1,000 Nag Hammadi. And tagging them isn't a minimum wage job, or one that can be contracted out to India. It will probably need to be a Biblical Studies graduate who does the work (or at least does a good part of the work).

Sigh... I'm with you. It frustrates me greatly that Anchor isn't fully re-tagged yet. We are working on it. (Anchor was one of our first large external products, and was done nearly 15 years ago, when we only had a couple hundred titles.)

We've since designed our system allow us to tag links to books we don't have but probably will -- I think we're the world leader in this type of "dynamic" hypertext, that resolves at runtime to the appropriate resource, even if it didn't exist when the tagging was done. But Anchor is a worst-case scenario: the most links, of the most exotic types, done before we design that system.

(For what it's worth, we have 95 different data type systems we now tag for. Plus around 1,700 ancient authors we want to link to, as well, though TLC and Perseus may be the only destinations for many of them. Anchor is full of these, as is BDAG.)

It took 18 years to build the library we have; it's unreasonable to expect us to re-tag all those 18 years of work to today's much higher standards in just a year or two. (And, if we made it our "only priority" to perfect these released titles before doing new ones, we would simply go out of business.) So we're addressing the problem with a maintenance budget; I've asked our text development team to allocate a fixed percentage of our time and resources to maintenance. Members of the maintenance team work only on revising old books. They take priorities from a combination of stats, including # of copies sold, # of times the book is opened (based on the feedback stats built into the software), and the # of typos reported by users.

Bob Pritchett

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/136865#Comment_136865

We've done many crowdsourcing experiments. Some have worked, most haven't. One of the best results is typo reporting, but there we still need human intervention, because sometimes the typo reports are incorrect themselves, sometimes they need interpretation or lookup in the print edition, and because it's hard to link compiled locations back to source files perfectly without human intervention, especially when typos come in from various revisions of the book, and we only maintain the latest source files (though we're getting better at it).

Rosie Perera

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/137435#Comment_137435

'Titles integrate into custom search reports, Passage Guides, Exegetical Guides, and the other advanced features of Logos Bible Software.'

This is "boilerplate" text that I'm pretty sure we were using long before Logos 4. And I don't think it's untrue -- all of our books do these things. It's a feature of the system.

The LCV is a special, external database that disambiguates terms between various resources. It shows up in a completely separate section of the search results area. While I agree it would be cool for more books to work with it, I think it's quite a stretch to accuse us of deception when a book doesn't. I'm glad you like it -- so do I! -- but it's actually a database of its own, not a baseline feature of our software. It never occurred to me that you'd consider a book not indexed to the LCV to be incomplete.

The "stop putting out pre-pubs when you haven't implemented PBB" type arguments are frustrating. People are not directly interchangeable; we have different skill sets and priorities, many running in parallel. And we have many users with differing "how dare you!" complaints. :-)

The people waiting for Mac feature parity would like all our resources there. Other people want hyperlinks in Anchor fixed. You want LCV tagging on Zondervan titles.

And then there's the "just don't release it until everything is perfect" argument. Except it's up against the "where are the Zondervan resources! we've been waiting 18 years for them, don't delay!" people.

We ARE revisiting books and adding them to the LCV. But this is an editorial process that requires domain knowledge and subjective decision making. We prioritized the books based on number of users who have them, and we're cranking away at them. Three are done but not yet shipped as part of an updated LCV, and we keep working on it. It could take more than a year to address every title; that's why titles in the base packages (which more people have) got attention before pre-pub titles like Zondervan's. Just this week I authorized hiring and training another person to do LCV work, but it's still a huge job. (Theoretically I could hire a dozen people and speed it up more, but it's a very specialized project, would take a while to recruit and train for, and then once we catch up to the backlog, we'd have a lot of people without enough work.)

I can't imagine that it's preferable to hold every dictionary-like pre-pub for 3-6 months after it's ready to go just to wait for it to be LCV-integrated. But if I don't, are you going to file complaints with the FTC? Would you rather we had just held the Zondervan titles till October? Because there's no way to justify jumping them (with <x> customers) ahead of titles that have already been out for years and have ten times as many users.

(We're also working on pseudo-automated processes to speed it up, but they require enough data to train algorithms -- a point we're just getting to -- and a lot of up-front development.)

Again, I'm glad you appreciate the LCV. But we need some time to catch up on our 18 years and 10,000 released titles!

Thanks, Bob. And sorry for repeating the "hold off on pre-pubs" thing you've probably heard hundreds of times. I wasn't at all meaning to hold off on pre-pubs that people have been waiting for like the Zondervan titles. And I wasn't asking for features before pre-pubs. I realize they are worked on in parallel by different groups of people. But I was operating on the assumption that the same people do the tagging and metadata on pre-pubs would also do it on all the existing resources.

Also I'm a little confused by your math. You said "It could take more than a year to address every title" and "we need some time to catch up on our 18 years and 10,000 released titles" but then you also said "I can't imagine that it's preferable to hold every dictionary-like pre-pub for 3-6 months after it's ready to go just to wait for it to be LCV-integrated." If it takes 3-6 months to LCV-integrate a dictionary-like resource, how on earth could you possibly do it for all of the existing dictionary-like resources in just over a year? It would take decades, wouldn't it?

We love the LCV! It may not feel like a core part of the product to you, but users can't tell that it's separate. Especially since it replaces functionality that was in L3 that is not in L4 (Topic Browser).

Also, I can't find the other thread where this was pointed out, but Logos already has the capability to do essentially a topic search through all dictionary-like resources using something other than LCV (which only a few dictionaries are integrated into so far). BWS already has this capability:

That's what people want when they say they want topic searching. So, as this other poster suggested, why do some sort of a hybrid solution and make the contents of that list available in the Topic section of the Search until LCV is fully integrated? It would be so much better than what is currently there:

B. J. Clarke

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/137442#Comment_137442

Mr. Logos President, Bob Pritchett,

I respect you, your office, and your unquestioned zeal to put out the best product possible. I realize that you have to juggle all kinds of projects and make tough decisions on which ones to pursue first.

I realize it is a massive job, and with all the pre-pubs coming out, that wood pile, so to speak, of books waiting to be tagged, is just going to get higher and higher. It must be difficult to decide whether it is time to slow down on the chopping so that you can carry the wood you've already cut to the truck, before the pile gets so high it is unmanageable.

I would like to ask you about something that you wrote. You said, "I can't imagine that it's preferable to hold every dictionary-like pre-pub for 3-6 months after it's ready to go just to wait for it to be LCV-integrated."

Mr. Bob, it appears to me that you are saying that you consider your books "ready to go" even before you have finished all the important work on them. If the LCV integration were not important then you never have planned to take care of it in the future. if the pre-pub dictionaries are really "ready to go" then why does all this extra work need to be done in the future? This seems to imply that it was not really "ready to go" after all.

I know that I did not consider my term paper ready to go to my professor's desk before I had finished all the necessary work in both writing it, and proofreading it. On the other hand, I did sometimes turn in "rough drafts" to my teachers. These rough drafts showed lots of work, but they were not the finished product, and were clearly marked as "rough drafts."

I think this is why some of us are suggesting that products that have been LCV integrated be clearly marked as such. In this way, we would know that the other books are still works in progress.

Essentially, this is what is being done with the Alpha L4Mac project. The Alpha moniker lets us know it is not the finished product. We know it is a work in progress, and that is fine. We still use it profitably, and we don't expect it to be perfect, but at least we know what we are getting.

Perhaps some kind of labeling system or symbol should be used with books as well. That way we would know whether you are "handing us the final product" or whether it is a "rough draft"--mostly done, but needing more work, such as LCV integration.

Having said all of this, I appreciate the fact that you've hired more help in the LCV area. Your leadership in this area shows that you are taking your customer's suggestions with a genuine interest and concern.

As for me, I have never once thought the FTC needs to be brought into the discussion. I think that is more emotion talking than reason. Having said this, the frustration of those who would go so far as to make such a statement is indicative of the passion we have as customers to go everywhere searching the Word, or even in searching books about the Word.

We crave all the information we can get about a particular subject, and we rejoice when the learning can be expedited with just a click of a link in a search result. It is thrilling to find links to material that we may never have known was in our purchased books were it not for the search capabilities of modern Bible software.

Along these lines of search capabilities, I think Rosie's point is outstanding. I don't care what you call it, and whether it is technically labeled as LCV tagged, but If L4M can provide me with a tool that will give a more thorough, organized, and comprehensive representation of what is in my resources on a given search subject (like Topic Browser in L3, or BWS), then I can live with waiting for progress in the LCV world.

Thanks for listening, and do not be weary in well doing!

Yours truly,

B. J. Clarke

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/137458#Comment_137458

I just typed a long reply, and my browser crashed! I'll be more brief second time around:

First, the most helpful perspective in my view is to see Logos (and every resource) as a constant work in progress. Nothing is finished. Or to put it another way, it's constantly improving. That's demonstrably true of the software but it's also true of many resources, particularly the ones where the contract says Logos is responsible. (And it's worth pointing out that most publishers are not as responsive as Logos, here.)

Second, I think we do need to be reasonable. Can you imagine pre-ordering a Zondervan reference book in print that the advertising said "includes indexes", then
finding out it only had an author index, and not a subject index. Or that the subject index was only 3 pages and you thought it ought to be at least 10. Whilst we might be slightly annoyed, I suspect most of us won't be posting on Zondervan's forum about how terrible this was, and demanding it was put right, preferably immediately.

Third, suggestions that Logos should specify exactly the state of the tagging for every resource would be nice, but it's impractical. Bob has explained how many datatypes they have (though when I edited a list for the Wiki, I found loads more than 95! http://wiki.logos.com/List_of_Datatypes). Plus there's the 'hard links' to potentially thousands of resources that only exist in one edition and you don't need datatypes for. But these still matter. I just chose a resource entirely at random. It took me less than 2 minutes to find a 'missing' link (it was the NIBC commentary on 1 Peter which mentions a work of Edersheim's on pg 99 - but it's not linked). Does that mean the commentary is 'incomplete'. Yes, but I bet I could find 'missing links' in almost every Logos resource, new and old.) To be frank, I don't use topic searches, nor Biblical Places/Things/People. But I do care about the linking to obscure first- and second- century Jewish and Christian documents. Why should LCV be the test, and not links to the Jewish Pseudepigrapha?

Fourth, what I'm trying to say is that Logos has a choice. There's a law of diminishing returns. Logos could have a small library that's 100% tagged, or large library that's 90%+ tagged. As we don't live in a ideal world with limitless resources, I know which I'd prefer.

Mike Binks

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/137435#Comment_137435

Dear Mr Pritchett

Thank you for taking the trouble to reply in this forum.

'Titles integrate into custom search reports, Passage Guides, Exegetical Guides, and the other advanced features of Logos Bible Software.'

This is "boilerplate" text that I'm pretty sure we were using long before Logos 4. And I don't think it's untrue -- all of our books do these things. It's a feature of the system.

I think my argument is made by yourself in your reply, the text is a hangover from a previous situation and the marketing strategy needs to be reviewed in the light of current developments.

Although from the production side it looks to you as if tagging can be divided into two or more discrete processes; to the customer who has purchased a product the product is a unified whole. Biblical Places/Things/People are simply part of the product. The product - Alpha, Beta, situation understood - is expected to work to the limit of the programs capability with the resources installed in it.

None of the Logos resources are sold as Alpha or Beta products - they are advertised, as your 'boilerplate' texts asserts, as being fully functional. This is clearly misleading.

I have no objection to buying products still in the development stage - I have now purchased two incomplete versions of Mac Software from the company and have been glad to do so. I might well purchase partially tagged resources in the future. But I am entitled to be told of the limitations of those resources prior to parting with my money.

So, for the avoidance of doubt, I am not suggesting any let up in pre-pubs, I am not suggesting that your schedules change. I am suggesting that the advertising and sale of products should be open, honest and that the limitations of products clearly explained.

My reference to the Federal Trades Commission was made in response to the suggestion that Americans are culturally more tolerant of exaggerated sales claims than the Europeans. This prompted a short investigation into American consumer protection law. The comment was made to make the point that actually UK and US law are broadly the same in these areas.

However a company, with the good ethical standards should have nothing to fear from a review of its adverts by such a body. Unfortunately, in my opinion, Logos would be subject to criticism about the claims it makes for its resources.

Yours sincerely

Mike Binks

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/137468#Comment_137468

Mark

Much of what you say is technically correct. However you have used the debating technique of taking an argument to extremes and when the extremes don't stand up ridiculing the whole concept.

Nothing is finished

I agree that in some senses there will always be room for improvement.

demanding it was put right, preferably immediately.

No such a demand be made. However, Mr Pritchett's claim that there is no justification for jumping the Zondervan bundle up the queue is incorrect. The justification is in the fact that this title became available AFTER biblical/places/things/people became part of Logos Base Program. And that the Bundle was heavily marketed as being prepared to take advantage of

'the other ADVANCED features of Logos Bible Software.' (My capitals).

Nor are we really talking, as your third paragraph implies and Mr Pritchett's responses confirm about the occasional mis-tagging or typographic error. We are talking about a whole process of tagging throughout the whole of a very expensive bundle. Which at the time of its release was the subject of much marketing effort - however it seems that little of that effort was dedicated to an accurate description of the product.

Your fourth paragraph also set up a false choice. The choice is not between

a small library that's 100% tagged, or large library that's 90%+ tagged. As we don't live in a ideal world with limitless resources, I know which I'd prefer

But between a library of whatever size which is adequately described in the advertisements.

Such a change may simply be as little as adding a line to the product description such as

'This product is not yet searchable by the Biblical/Places/People/Things tool. Once work has been completed on these features customers will receive a free upgrade.'

Please don't criticise the actual wording - it is meant only to be an example - and example that would show a lot of respect for customers.

So to be clear about what this complainer actually wants, having spent over £1000 and $2000 on a resource is...

1. A clear indication as to when my resource will be fully featured as advertised.

2. A change to the advertising strategy so that in the future I can trust the advertising mailing promulgated by the company.

Thanks

Mike

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/137488#Comment_137488

1. A clear indication as to when my resource will be fully featured as advertised.

2. A change to the advertising strategy so that in the future I can trust the advertising mailing promulgated by the company.

I'm obviously happy to agree with this. I've accepted throughout this discussion that Logos sometimes oversell their products, and this is an example. I fully accept your point on this matter, and agree that Logos ought to have been clearer.

However, the change I think best would be change what's claimed for LCV (and the knock-on effect on Biblical Places/People/Things). It BP/P/T was advertising as working with a "selection of the best dictionaries" or something similar, then we wouldn't assume that new dictionaries would also be added to LCV. Indeed, we'd expect them not to, unless the marketing specifically said they would. I think this is the best solution because listing all the tagging that is 'missing' would be unnecessarily negative and tedious, as tagging is rarely complete (and perhaps can't be 'complete' by all our standards). And we can't just list the important tagging that's missing because as I said, why should LCV tagging be considered more important than other datatype tagging?

(By the way - and I'm not nitpicking your wording here, just letting you know in case you weren't already aware - but graphics from the Zondervan resources do show up in BP/P/T if the caption of the graphic contains the appropriate keyword. For example, Antioch (of Syria) shows a map from ZEB (vol 1), and three maps from ZIBBC (vol 2). It's 'just' the link to the dictionary article in the ribbon which doesn't work at all. That said, LCV tagging would increase the accuracy of these image searches, too.)

Mike Binks

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/137507#Comment_137507

Actually Mark - Logos are missing a marketing trick here.

There are I suspect a number of users who are going to feel the withdrawal symptoms when we stop getting our fortnightly update to the program.

We are used to getting new things on a regular basis.

It can't go on with the program but it could be extended with the resources - that buzz could be transferred to

'Borings - Unintelligible Musings' - Now Logos 4 Ready - download the update - and see how this book that you never read appears magically in all your resourse reports - marvel at the arcane language and really make use of your dictionaries because you will have to look up every third word'

Tootle pip

Mike

Thomas Ball

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/135932#Comment_135932

Everyone who was concerned about the Elijah Alatar image not appearing correctly:

A23 should see that it is fixed, bar something happening between now and Monday.