SUGGESTION: Add Selected Christian Web Content to the Home Page

I don't know if this has been suggested before or not but it seems to me that if the Home Page is supposed to be kind of like a newspaper then it should include some things that impact our faith from the news.

I would like to suggest that Logos add selected news items from places like Crosswalk.com, OnePlace.com, and maybe even from Focus On The Family.

You know - mix it up a little - instead of virtually everything on the Home Page having ONLY to do with Logos Bible Software.

If - as the demo says - the Home Page is supposed to be like a newspaper, those places would provide endless related Christian content that could be integrated into the Logos 4 Home Page and truly make it like a real Christian Newspaper.

Of course there might have to be agreements between Logos and these Christian web sites in order to do it, but hopefully in the spirit of brotherhood it wouldn't be too hard to do.

Just a thought.

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Fred

I don't know if this has been suggested before or not but it seems to me that if the Home Page is supposed to be kind of like a newspaper then it should include some things that impact our faith from the news.

I would like to suggest that Logos add selected news items from places like Crosswalk.com, OnePlace.com, and maybe even from Focus On The Family.

You know - mix it up a little - instead of virtually everything on the Home Page having ONLY to do with Logos Bible Software.

Well, maybe...

The choice of the sites could be a "bit" more varied than what you suggested - depending upon the user's point of view, those sites may not exactly "mix it up a little" - [:D] .

I would hope that, if your general suggestion were to come to fruition, there would be an option to ~not~ include certain sites for those who do not want to see certain sites (that can be otherwise viewed in ~any~ regular web browser, right?) displayed in his/her software application.

I am not referring to the option to turn of the Logs "newspaper" totally - I ~do~ generally like what ~Logos~ puts there, and would not be pleased if I had to turn off the "newspaper" in its entirety for "external" reasons.

I could also suggest a few sites that ~I~ might like to see that others might not, but then this would become a controversial discussion and thus out of bounds. (I intentionally choose to ~not~ discuss specific web sites here - yours or mine or anyone else's - for this same reason.)

I will also suggest that, theologically speaking, Logos users just may be more varied in what each might prefer to see and what each might find offensive than some might assume.

Certainly, sites that delve into politics instead of God could be the most problematic for some users. YMMV.

I personally would rather have my Bible software emphasize, as much as possible, the word of God rather than the words of man anyway...

Rosie Perera

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/147161#Comment_147161

Take a look and see how the user-editable site almanac.logos.com (Logos Almanac of the Christian World) is coming along. There's a section in there for Christian Media, including magazines, journals, blogs. Here's your chance to add all your favorite sites to make sure your viewpoints are represented. (It's not nice to delete sites that other people have added, lest it turn into a viewpoint war; and besides, we'll know who did it from the History.) It isn't very well fleshed out yet. Copy the entry from an existing item in the same category as the one you want to add and use that as a template so you don't have to build up your new entry from scratch. And make sure you don't leave pieces of the other entry's text behind -- edit out what doesn't apply and replace everything else with the corresponding values for the publication or website you're adding. You might have to do a little research to hunt out things like the date a publication was founded, the name of the editor, etc. But it's worth it to have this be a repository of useful information.

To address Stein's suggestion, perhaps Logos could consider adding a feature whereby users can subscribe to RSS feeds from the sites listed on the Almanac, and using a mechanism like the Reading Lists feature, check boxes for which ones they wanted to subscribe to. It could become overwhelming, though, and it might bury the content that Logos wants to be sure users see, namely new pre-pub announcements and sales and such. The other issue is does Logos want to encorporate a full-fledged feed reader when there are plenty of them out there (Google Reader is a good one that I use)? People could instead use the Almanac for ideas of what online content they might want to subscribe to, and then use their favorite feed reader to read that content.

Stein Dahl

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/147161#Comment_147161

The choice of the sites could be a "bit" more varied than what you suggested - depending upon the user's point of view, those sites may not exactly "mix it up a little" - .

I would hope that, if your general suggestion were to come to fruition, there would be an option to ~not~ include certain sites for those who do not want to see certain sites (that can be otherwise viewed in ~any~ regular web browser, right?) displayed in his/her software application.

Well, of course, those were only a few suggestions.

I just thought it would be nice to open the Home Page once in a while and actually have some selected news stories of the day there that would be of interest to Christians - as they would pertain to Christian faith and practice - whatever the source.

As you point out, my suggestion was only limited to a few choices, but there could any number of other Christian web sites out there that the news stories could be taken from.

And my thought was that these news stories could just be interspersed (here and there) throughout the content on the Home Page. Not a lot of them, you might end up with links to maybe 4 news articles mixed in here and there.

To address Stein's suggestion, perhaps Logos
could consider adding a feature whereby users can subscribe to RSS feeds
from the sites listed on the Almanac, and using a mechanism like the
Reading Lists feature, check boxes for which ones they wanted to
subscribe to. It could become overwhelming, though, and it might bury
the content that Logos wants to be sure users see, namely new pre-pub
announcements and sales and such.

RSS feeds might work there. I like that idea. That way the user has some control over what news stories would appear there.

But as you point out, if they incorporate them, they should probably put a limit to how many you could add to the Home Page. That way it wouldn't overwhelm the Home Page content that Logos wants us to see.

I just thought it would be neat to be able to open the Home Page once in a while and be able to read a news story or two - stories that have an impact on our faith - in addition to the Logos content that is already there.

Fred

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/147190#Comment_147190

I would hope that, if your general suggestion were to come to fruition, there would be an option to ~not~ include certain sites for those who do not want to see certain sites (that can be otherwise viewed in ~any~ regular web browser, right?) displayed in his/her software application.

Well, of course, those were only a few suggestions.

I just thought it would be nice to open the Home Page once in a while and actually have some selected news stories of the day there that would be of interest to Christians - as they would pertain to Christian faith and practice - whatever the source.

As you point out, my suggestion was only limited to a few choices, but there could any number of other Christian web sites out there that the news stories could be taken from.

And my thought was that these news stories could just be interspersed (here and there) throughout the content on the Home Page. Not a lot of them, you might end up with links to maybe 4 news articles mixed in here and there.

Understood about the particular suggestions, Stein. (But, I hope you can see that the choices for content could be controversial.)

Perhaps if the user were allowed to configure his/her "newspaper" with the particular URL's that he/she wanted... I do see a problem, though, in that entire web pages would usually be displayed for each URL, rather than individual articles, as a general rule. (Of course, Logos could partner with content providers to supply discrete articles, but then the choice for the user would naturally be limited, and then there would still be that "which selections to feed" difficulty.)

I am reminded of a previous discussion where it was suggested that the Logos bible study magazine could be made available electronically by subscription (at reduced cost). If Logos were to agree to that, then Logos could easily feed individual magazine articles interspersed with the "regular" content on the Logos "newspaper pages" of electronic subscribers. (Yes, I know that this is getting away a bit from your original concept, Stein...)

Stein Dahl

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/147221#Comment_147221

Understood about the particular suggestions, Stein. (But, I hope you can see that the choices for content could be controversial.)

I am reminded of a previous discussion where it was suggested that the Logos bible study magazine could be made available electronically by subscription (at reduced cost). If Logos were to agree to that, then Logos could easily feed individual magazine articles interspersed with the "regular" content on the Logos "newspaper pages" of electronic subscribers. (Yes, I know that this is getting away a bit from your original concept, Stein...)

I understand what you're saying Fred. And I agree.

That's why I liked Rosie's suggestion about the RSS Feeds. There could literally be dozens to choose from. That way the user could choose what website articles would appear there. The user should also be able to choose to have NO RSS Feeds. So, it would be very flexible.

However, if Logos implements this they should probably limit the amount of feeds that you can have on the Home Page so that it doesn't crowd out important Logos related content.

And my thought was not to display entire websites on the Logos Home Page. It was just to have the Headlines and then just a snippet of the articles appearing on the Home Page - with a link to go to the originating website and read the article in it's entirety.

So, hopefully that clears up my suggestion. It wasn't my intent, by suggesting this, to introduce unnecessary controversy into the content of the Logos 4 Home Page.

Matthew C Jones

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/147236#Comment_147236

And my thought was not to display entire websites on the Logos Home Page. It was just to have the Headlines and then just a snippet of the articles appearing on the Home Page - with a link to go to the originating website and read the article in it's entirety.

I understand completetly what you are talking about and don't have a problem with the concept. However the implementation brings a lot of risk with it. Just this morning I followed a link from MSN to a prominent Orlando newspaper. Once I was on that site a malicious app started working in the backgroud to mine data from my browser session. And this happened on two "secure" reputable sites.

It wasn't my intent, by suggesting this, to introduce unnecessary controversy into the content of the Logos 4 Home Page.

You are too late to be the one to introduce controversy. Others beat you to it! [:|] You've made some good suggestions.

Rosie Perera

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/147236#Comment_147236

That's why I liked Rosie's suggestion about the RSS Feeds. There could literally be dozens to choose from. That way the user could choose what website articles would appear there. The user should also be able to choose to have NO RSS Feeds. So, it would be very flexible.

If they go with an RSS solution, the user could choose what websites to get feeds from, but choosing what articles from that site they want to see would amount to seeing them all and picking from among the articles, a daily chore. As you know, many sites have huge numbers of articles every week. Suppose I subscribed just to Christianity Today's feed. I could potentially be having my Logos Home page flooded all the time. I wouldn't want Logos to make some arbitrary decision about which CT articles I might be interested in. I'd rather go to CT's website and poke through all the available articles on my own and click through to the ones that interest me. Or bring up my dedicated RSS feed reader (Google Reader), which I already do pretty much daily. It makes it a cinch to skim through lots of info for the nuggets I want to read, and unlike the Logos Home Page, it shows me at a glance which articles I've not read yet.