Observations After a Year Using Logos

Chris Heil

(please forgive the extra long post)

After years of minimal use of my Logos account, I have become a heavy user in 2024. I have thrown myself headfirst into the software (tagging, collections, upgrades, subscriptions, more tagging); resources (sales, prepubs, is it March yet?); and forums (troubleshoot, bug report, admire patience of Logos employees and MVPs). I love what Logos is and where it is going. I am planning to write Mark Barnes name in on my U.S. presidential ballot in November despite his regular poor spelling of simple English words. Whilst there are many improvements I would like to see in Logos, I understand big, new things take time.

Two overwhelming take aways from this past year of observing the Logos ecosystem though is that Logos needs to make Logos easier for newbies and needs to hire a Director of Punctilious of Dots and Crosses. In good news I am seeing progress on making Logos easier with the new Help Center, smart AI search and summaries, new resource toolbar - which is much easier for a newbie, and collapsing of multiple Guide types into a more powerful Factbook.

On the hiring of a Director of Punctilious of Dots and Crosses, it does not seem like there is one belly button responsible for quality control of the simple stuff.  I propose a new person with the following three job responsibilities: 1) Make sure every "i" is dotted and "t" is crossed before any significant resource is released, 2) Demand tooling to Q&A resources better and faster, and 3) Champion transparency in Logos tagging so users can more easily assist in identifying when Q&A tooling needs refinement. I am not talking about tagging of systematic theology, ontology, biblical languages, cantillations, but rather staying focused on the first impression tagging. To give you an idea of what I mean, here are some tactical things I would have this individual do on a daily basis:

1. The Director of Punctilious of Dots and Crosses must run two custom Passage Guides each day. One of the PGs should be with a Bible reference of Genesis-Revelation and the other with Bible reference Tobit–4 Maccabees. In the PG Author, Denomination, Type, and Era facets the "> --" category should have exactly zero (0) commentaries, study bibles, or bible notes listed. Zero. Period. No exceptions.
2. The Director of Punctilious of Dots and Crosses must review ALL resources released for sale that are part of an existing "academic" series. This review should look at both the Passage Guide (if applicable) and Library to ensure consistency in titling of the new resource, series, type, etc as compared to the rest of the series.
3. The Director of Punctilious of Dots and Crosses must review all resources that are automatically formatted in the production process by checking a random page in the first third, second third, and third third of each resource. While the Director of Punctilious of Dots and Crosses should love his/her work, he/she should immediately get sick of opening so many resources to do this work manually. As part of responsibility #2 above, he/she must demand that smart Logos engineers (or better yet contractors for this one-off work since we want Logos engineers focused on important Logosy-stuff) build a tool to automagically fetch these random pages for review.
4. The Director of Punctilious of Dots and Crosses must review anything new that includes the word "sermon" and loudly ask how near the word "homily" is. Same with the words "calendar" / "lectionary". Other word pairs should be supplied by our MVPs (looking at you MJ).
5. The Director of Punctilious of Dots and Crosses should not fear Logos users and instead should shamelessly use the user base to achieve success. This person should champion bringing data that is fully or partially hidden into the light even if it means users will be asking difficult questions about why things are tagged/not tagged/tagged this way when they should be tagged that way. Simple things like adding counts to PG facet categories can help users check Logos. Providing the ability to query factbook tags in the library so they can be checked against user tagging should be implemented. The Director of Punctilious of Dots and Crosses should encourage these changes to the software.

Why am I so passionate about this after my last year with Logos? Let me give you a few examples of why I think this Director of Punctilious of Dots and Crosses role is important and missing given my own library: (Library = 12,290 resources + another 1,500 hidden - it's been an expensive year Logos!)

Passage Guide

• Resources Eligible to Display in Passage Guide: 4068
• Resources Just Not Shown in PG: 19
• No Era: 34
• No Type: 70
• Incorrect Era in Passage Guide: 15
• No Denomination: >800 Estimated because there is no easy way to Open All and the PG does not provide a total count
• No Author: Unknown because there is no easy way to Open All and the PG does not provide a total count

Lexham Geographic Commentary

• Passage Guide: Mt-Lk and Ac-Re show series name abbreviated as LGC / Pentateuch shows series name not abbreviated
• Passage Guide: Mt-Lk and Ac-Re show type as Exegetical / Pentateuch has no type tagged
• Passage Guide: None of the 3 volumes has a Denomination tagged
• Library: Mt-Lk have individual books tagged as subjects / Ac-Re and Pentateuch do not

Lexham Research Commentaries

• Passage Guide: Jonah and 1 Peter show type as Concise / All others are Exegetical
• Passage Guide: None of the 3 volumes has a Denomination tagged

Faithlife Biblical and Theological Lists

• Total Resources in Series: 22
• Total Bible Commentaries: 16 - Types are inconsistent
• Total Shown in Passage Guide: 15 - Where is all miracles?
• Passage Guide: None have Era, Type, or Denomination tagged
• Library: 2 have no subject tag
• Library: Several have no description
• Library: None point to the corresponding dataset documentation manual

Dataset Documentation Manuals

• Library Titles: Some have colons some do not

The Director of Punctilious of Dots and Crosses cares about i's, t's, and colons. The resource inconsistencies I have highlighted are all from Logos produced resources -- resources for which Logos has full control. Imagine the excitement of purchasing the last installment of Commentary XYZ, only to find it does not show up in the same places in the Passage Guide nor in the same collections as the other volumes in the series, nor for some unknown reason even has the same series abbreviation, nor a consistent font size throughout. Deflating and often a call to the wizards of customer service to return another resource. "I'll given Logos some time to fix it and maybe buy it later." The Passage Guide is excellent and the Logos-tagged facets are a fantastic way to allow users to skip much of the drudgery of tagging and get to the good stuff of Bible Study. But it only works if the Director of Punctilious of Dots and Crosses does not allow Logos to get distracted by something shiny. He/she needs to be focused on first impression tagging and have daily/weekly/monthly checks in place to ensure nothing is squirting through the cracks. In other words, ensure important, simple stuff is correct so we can use Logos to focus on the eternal, kingdom stuff.

Thanks for reading!

Paul Gibson

I believe a lot of Logos users will agree with you. I'd like to see this consistency start with the Logos store. Resources should be tagged for all of the possible filters in the store. 

scooter

Chris Heil said:

The Director of Punctilious of Dots and Crosses

Logos senior mgt has let this stuff lapse, playing Oughts and Crosses instead of being punctilious at Dots and Crosses.

And so the cat has got it - this being the proverbial ball of wool.

This is a time challenged by Subscriptions.  Upkeep such as you request, Chris, may dwell in Mañana, after the deeds of Subscriptions have become Law.

Let us not forget!!

NichtnurBibelleser

Chris Heil said:

(please forgive the extra long post)

After years of minimal use of my Logos account, I have become a heavy user in 2024. I have thrown myself headfirst into the software

Similar here

Chris Heil said:

... needs to hire a Director of Punctilious of Dots and Crosses

Thanks for pointing out that need; I totally agree with you. Maybe you could create an item to vote for @feedback.logos.com ?

Manuel R.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1316974#Comment_1316974

As I understand it, this is one of the goals of the new subscription. To be able to finance resource updates and improvements.

It's the reason I like the new subscription. And I really hope they will focus on that first instead of a lot of new features.