Social / community features in Logos 5 and beyond
Comments
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Appreciate the comment alabama24.
What motivated my post was Bob's original comment, "Moving forward, we plan to offer "crowd sourced" data that benefits all our users. (You will be able to turn off, or ignore, this crowd-sourced data if you don't want to use it.)"
As one customer, and apparently I'm not alone, just not interested in yet another social experience. If we step back and consider the generations perhaps being represented in this discussion, not surprising you have the older folks (myself included) who prefer to work in relative isolation, whereas the younger folks prefer to work in a team environment. The younger generation (and the next one) has given "birth" to the Facebook and Twitter age. I sense these realities are behind the desire for increased collaboration, and I don't deny this trend will continue, nor that there is benefit depending on theological compatibility.
All that some users are suggesting is they are not interested. That's all. Sure there's emotion, silly, and immature comments as one person observed, but in the end some folks simply don't want to see Logos headed in that direction. Selfish lot we are really. Of course, in the end we understand that is not our decision to make.
As for highlighting, I personally do not highlight in my paper-based books and Bibles. Never have. Never highlighted in my text books either, so it is not a religious thing. This habit has continued with my digital library as well. I find it distracting, though I certainly concede there is an obvious benefit to the practice. Instead, when studying a passage I will print that out, and manually mark it up and highlight key points. I find this most engaging and helpful for me. Notwithstanding, I would encourage Logos to keep popular highlighting, as I can see some benefit to me when consulting lengthy articles in say the Anchor dictionary or in laborious comments in certain technical commentaries. But most of the time, like my Kindle that offers this same service (that I can also turn on/off), it will remain off for me.
Alabama24, just uneasy about where Logos may wish to take my "personal" Bible study. I do appreciate and see some value in the collaborative endeavors like - Faithlife, community ratings, highlights, notes, but as a member of Generation X all these things really do not appeal to me. Add to the mix that I am an introvert; well we have a real social mess on our hands. Gee, lots of young folks at Logos. Wonder how many old, grumpy folks use Logos? Perhaps there needs to be some consideration to the generational differences. Yet, young believers are the future of the church for sure. In my defense I do have a Facebook account now, though I cannot understand for the life of me why so many people think I am interested in hourly updates on their mundane lives?
Sorry for the long post.
Best regards
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IRONY:
The company whose philosophy was always thought to be "Don't Be Evil" turns out to be the quintessential data miner (in order to make a buck), and yet, people readily accept it and continue to happily use their services.
On the other hand, a company devoted to serving the Church with the finest Bible study software is constantly accused of the most evil of intentions whether they be financial, data mining/monitoring/ or whatever, and yet, they continually demonstrate their integrity through such things as high levels of corporate transparency, unexpected rebates/credits to Users, discounts/sales/giveaways, being genuinely desirous to receive User feedback and suggestions, public apologies, bending over backwards to "make it right" with offended Users, a completely open communication policy with anyone in the company, &etc.
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While I don't want Community information pushed at me (I could care less what the "Community" thinks - if we always followed what the "Community" thought, we would all have been Arians for the last two millenia - sound theology and good exegesis does not rest on groupthink or polls), it doesn't bother me if Logos wants to monitor my anonymous usage of their product in order to refine the software. If datamining of my personal usage should suddenly become a vehicle for sales and marketing, however, then I object. But I see no indication of that happening and I have no reason to doubt the integrity of Bob Pritchett.
Instead of Artificial Intelligence, I prefer to continue to rely on Divine Intelligence instructing my Natural Dullness (Ps 32:8, John 16:13a)
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NB.Mick said:Samuel Clough said:
I think the "counting cars" analogy is a little flawed. I'm not asking Logos to "count" me driving in the city but then to hide the count based on my registration. I'm asking for the option for Logos not to count everywhere I go in the first place. It's a very easy fix. It doesn't require Logos to alter any databases. It simply requires the desktop application to not track and report on me.
Samuel, I think you misread the technical process here. Logos is not out to count you, but they are out to sync your data - which is the reason that you can see your notes, highlights and last read position etc accross multiple devices (and Logos can restore deleted notes etc.). Many many customers demanded very loudly to have all of their stuff synced to all of their devices - which means, it travels over the internet and is stored on Logos' servers.
Your splendid isolation would require one new switch: sync on/off
With all due respect, I'm sorry you missed my point. Bob outlined the Logos desktop application reporting to Logos servers on user behavior all the way down to what search queries we are running on our desktops. In that case, yes Logos is "out to count me." The application does not need to do that to function, and it's reasonable to be able to turn that off. It's not necessarily to any functionality. It's not a process that has to happen. It's the application reporting on us. I realize some people don't care. All some of us want is an off switch.
I do realize that data has to be stored on servers in order to sync files. To provide that functionality, Logos has to have some data and interactions between Logos servers and the application. I get that. Even there though, we should have options on how deeply and broadly that data is shared.
Blessings,
Samuel
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Samuel Clough said:
I realize some people don't care. All some of us want is an off switch.
Some of us think as follows:
- to provide off switches on the desktop for features that run in the cloud for mobile devices decreases the amount of reusable code
- to provide the tests for determining whether data is sent to the cloud increases the number of branches in the code - this increases the chances for error, increases the testing time and decreases efficiency thereby slowing the process down.
- data mining improves the product for all of us by allowing Logos to allocate its the resources based on actual Logos user behavior.
- coding and testing the turnoff feature takes resources that could be used to implement my highest priority request
I believe those wanting the off switches must present a very strong case, not based on fear or emotion, before I should have to bear the negative side-effects.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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Now MJ ... where's your fallacy detective dog? Pursuing that logic would suggest Logos make resources for me and not you. Now 'maybe' there's some logic in that, but the whole concept of multiple customer concerns would fail.
"If myth is ideology in narrative form, then scholarship is myth with footnotes." B. Lincolm 1999.
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MJ. Smith said:
I believe those wanting the off switches must present a very strong case, not based on fear or emotion, before I should have to bear the negative side-effects.
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH"As any translator will attest, a literal translation is no translation at all."
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Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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To the future or to the past, to a time
when thought is free, when men are different from one another and do
not live alone — to a time when truth exists and what is done
cannot be undone: From the age of uniformity, from the age of
solitude, from the age of Big Brother, from the age of doublethink —
greetings!"As any translator will attest, a literal translation is no translation at all."
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I only quote Orwell because I believe that privacy is priceless, and should not be surrendered for any reward.
"As any translator will attest, a literal translation is no translation at all."
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DMB said:
Now MJ ... where's your fallacy detective dog? Pursuing that logic would suggest Logos make resources for me and not you.
[:D]
I believe I deliberately committed the fallacy of "turn about is fair play" - one which is strangely missing in many lists. In it's formal form it closely resembles the "me first" and "us not you" fallacies, the most common social fallacies in America. [;)]
Unfortunately, this is a bad time of year for social-fallacy logicians as the starting point of many arguments is "what am I getting for Christmas" rather than "what am I giving for Christmas" or "how am I celebrating the incarnation of God?". ....
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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Paul Golder said:
I only quote Orwell because I believe that privacy is priceless, and should not be surrendered for any reward.
I respect your position and could make a good case for it. However, the question is "when does your right to privacy trump my right to the best product Logos can provide?" That, my friend, is a very sticky problem for which a simple answer has yet to be agreed upon - the problem in the form presented by software is a new and ever moving target.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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MJ. Smith said:Paul Golder said:
I only quote Orwell because I believe that privacy is priceless, and should not be surrendered for any reward.
I respect your position and could make a good case for it. However, the question is "when does your right to privacy trump my right to the best product Logos can provide?" That, my friend, is a very sticky problem for which a simple answer has yet to be agreed upon - the problem in the form presented by software is a new and ever moving target.
I see what you are saying MJ, and while I have already offered myself on the facebook altar (among other privacy profiteers), my sensibilities make me feel that personal Bible study should be just that. I know that this is an emotional response, but what are we without our emotions?
"As any translator will attest, a literal translation is no translation at all."
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David Mitchell said:
To continue using the example of Syntax Search, it's true that not many people use it. However, this information, by itself, tells us little. It might mean that it's an unpopular feature that should be cut, or it could mean that we haven't yet made it easy enough to use. In the case of Syntax Search, we've chosen to add value to the data set it queries by inventing new features on top of it, like Grammatical Relationships in Bible Word Study and the new Clause Search in Logos 5. These make it easier to derive value from that data, and in some cases, they provide the spark necessary to motivate a person to learn how to use the more advanced Syntax Search feature.
That may explain why Graphical Query got the chop!
Dave
===Windows 11 & Android 13
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MJ. Smith said:
- to provide off switches on the desktop for features that run in the cloud for mobile devices decreases the amount of reusable code
- to provide the tests for determining whether data is sent to the cloud increases the number of branches in the code - this increases the chances for error, increases the testing time and decreases efficiency thereby slowing the process down.
- coding and testing the turnoff feature takes resources that could be used to implement my highest priority request
Sorry... it's right back at you.
MJ. Smith said:I believe those wanting the off switches must present a very strong case, not based on fear or emotion, before I should have to bear the negative side-effects.
Many believe the end does not automatically justify the means. And those who want change, if change means abrogating things like rights and privacy, must justify their case. Just because a thing can be done, does not mean it must be done — or even should be done. America could pre-emptively nuke those pesky Iranians out of existence — solve a lot of problems.
Brrrr, your logic and rationale scares me.
And I am not saying there shouldn't be any data mining in Logos.
"I want to know all God's thoughts; the rest are just details." - Albert Einstein
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MJ. Smith said:
I believe those wanting the off switches must present a very strong case, not based on fear or emotion, before I should have to bear the negative side-effects.
Given the complexity of the Logos code base, I think the "negative side-effects" of letting users not be tracked are incredibly small compared to the complex features Logos is constantly programming. It's relatively simple and allows me to do without the "negative side-effects" of processor cycles used to record my keystrokes and bandwidth usage to send data.
If some of the posts I've seen are true, for example, it's Logos communication with servers that causes it to lock up every time I try to quit it so that I've had to use "force quit" to close Logos both in version 4 and version 5. With that logic I could say that this "data mining" is probably degrading my performance.
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Hi Bob,
To go back to the bottom line of your opening post...
Bob Pritchett said:I hope this overview is helpful, and that you can appreciate the value that these social / community features add to the Logos platform, and hopefully to your study and investment as well.
In the end it is a question of value, and as you can tell from this thread, not everyone values the same things. That's why, from a consumer's point of view, it is great to have choice. Some of us see very little value in the social / community features. We would very much like to opt out (or, better, not opt in).
You are not alone, though, in trying to push the social / community thing in software. For example, Apple recently released iTunes 11, which expands some of its iCloud features, including marking the spot you left off in your last movie and syncing that to all your devices so you can start watching on your iPad right where you left off on your iMac. In the iTunes Store, they advertise, "Good recommendations are easy to come by, thanks to In the Store picks. Just select an album, artist, or genre you like, and iTunes will suggest similar music you might never have found on your own." Much of this is similar to what you have said you are or are wanting to do with Logos--Apple's doing it with music; Logos is doing it with books.
But there is one BIG difference--Apple doesn't force me to participate. In the preference settings there are a number of user-controlled options like, "Share details about your library with Apple".
On my computer, that box is not checked.
Not everyone perceives value the same. Please give us choice.
Thank you.
Paul
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I have to say : I find this thread one of the most fascinating examples of Christian community thought I have ever read.
In it I find:
The difficulty of defining "privacy".
This whole , very strong idea of "private" studies of scriptures written primarily for communities and for communities to respond too.
The idea of not caring what others in the Christian Community thinks, believes, needs.
The last one is extremely interesting as well as disturbing . Every Pastor/teacher should be concerned about all these areas. Shepherds need to know sheep well enough to know their needs: when they need water, food and when they are ill, it is through knowing sheep and their needs that they can be led properly, tended too properly, led away from what is evil and to/towards good health.
( Granted being able to turn these things on and off is needed).
Yet, I still find these comments very odd.Don't care or want to know what others are thinking? Then why do you own Biblical software which has a plethora of others thoughts, writings intwined within it and that presents these thoughts at a single click.
Everything in the software is just that, pure and simple. Every lexicon is another persons thoughts, research, work on particular words, every commentary is chock full of the sociological trends/thinking patterns of the time from which it comes.
Logos is trying to give you more of that which you are already buying, and trying to give Pastors a better idea of the Christian theological and sociological directions.( which might actually help us provide better correctives within a devolving society).
I really do find this a most interesting conversation, a very revealing "snippet " of Christian thinking in America and how we embrace life, the gospel etc.
One one hand we have the Life of Christ and the apostles who laid themselves open and bare for all, forever and spoke of everyone having the same hearts and minds, of trying to live life with an attitude to where the needs of others were of more value to us than our own.
On the other, here we are, saying we do not care what others think/believe, wanting to protect our "privacy", wanting our biblical studies of community documents to be "private".
This is very interesting.
I love M.J.Smith thoughts on some of this and think they should be expanded on a bit more.
Reason? Christianity is based on the living example of Christ who gave up "HIMSELF" for the Mission of the Father which was the salvation of the many.
Separatism, narcissism and many other negatives are growing within our society, we are of course, not immune to these influences.
Are these sociological trends affecting our thinking on this and many other subjects?
I find it a good question for myself, perhaps others will as well.
I only post this here because this is a different "type" of thread than we usually have have on the Logos Forums. I mean no offense, simply stating my observations and interest.
Blessings all.
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In an ideal world filled with ideal people we would treat each other ideally. Christianity has had (as best that I can tell) less than an ideal history of how it treats people with different, minority, opposing, or simply new ideals. Within the contemporary history of America itself are examples of Asians (WWII), Irish, Catholics, Gays, women, Germans (WWI), Native Americans, and other minority groups that have been discriminated against because of their status. Now we are talking about allowing or encouraging "communities" access to the whole range of human expression to be judged by religious people within an American historical context....lol...sorry I pass.
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Fr. Charles R. Matheny said:
Every lexicon is another persons thoughts, research, work on particular words, every commentary is chock full of the sociological trends/thinking patterns of the time from which it comes.
But I usually know who wrote those comments and can therefore more easily analyze the value of those comments. Popular Highlights, on the other hand, are anonymous, so I cannot evaluate their value.
I could imagine this scenario:
[quote]Popular Highlights indicate that 10 users highlighted this paragraph, but is does not tell us why or what highlight they used. I can imagine that 4 people marked that it is very useful, but 4 others marked it as garbage, and 2 really intended to highlight the previous paragraph [8-|].
HOWEVER, having said all that, you have given me reason to reexamine my position in regard to turning the Visual Filters off [8-|].
*********************
The responses of the privacy seekers intrigue me, for we had a very similar discussion 3 years ago. Many of these same objectors then cried foul that Logos would dare to store then very private Bible Study notes and Prayer Lists on their servers. Now, it seems that they have allowed Logos to store their data on the Logos servers, but object to Logos using that data for statistical purposes. Those protestors will have to forgive me for not taking their objections seriously, for it does not appear to me that they are very serious in their propositions.
Since I have voluntarily chosen to place my usage information on the Logos servers, I have no problem with anonymous data mining.
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Fr. Charles R. Matheny said:
Yet, I still find these comments very odd.Don't care or want to know what others are thinking? Then why do you own Biblical software which has a plethora of others thoughts, writings intwined within it and that presents these thoughts at a single click.
Well because there are certain opinions and information that are valuable. There is a lot that is not. The early church was "open" but the apostles didn't do Facebook "community style" study. They valued the Scriptures. They listened to each other. They didn't get the opinions of everyone else, they stuck with trusted ones. In the same way, they instructed in doctrine. Yes, there is a place for open discussions in the church, but gaining information from a social and communal is not the same. There are reasons why we trust certain information or consider it valuable from the Scripture all the way down. It's always been that way in the church.
Likewise, I don't think there's a valid comparison between some of us asking Logos to not track our keystrokes and "openness" in the early church. They would have cringed at the type of surveillance that has become normal in our society. The arguments for "openness" and "nothing to hide" tend to be a little utopian and often enable information gathering that ultimately becomes enslaving. Obviously I'm not accusing Logos of that, just addressing the overall bigger issue.
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Jack Caviness said:
Many of these same objectors then cried foul that Logos would dare to store then very private Bible Study notes and Prayer Lists on their servers. Now, it seems that they have allowed Logos to store their data on the Logos servers, but object to Logos using that data for statistical purposes. Those protestors will have to forgive me for not taking their objections seriously, for it does not appear to me that they are very serious in their propositions.
Excuse me Jack, but how in the h - e - double hockey sticks do you know if I am storing my prayers on Logos' servers? Here is a hint: I am not! Please do not make assumptions on what I am doing and then make blanket statement based on your assumptions.
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Bob, thank you for your forward looking vision. I think you are taking Logos in the right direction.Like it or not, almost all products are heading in the same direction (many in a far more radical way than Logos), and as you say we just have to adapt to avoid possible pitfalls and enjoy the benefits.
I also think Mark Barnes suggestions as far as how to configure the opt-in opt-out aspects are reasonable.
On a day to day basis, the only aspect of the "connected" Logos that I find disappointing is the start-up time hit of 10-20 seconds (or more). I hope that can be optimized. Apart from that I have occasionally found it to be surprisingly useful, especially with things like Faithlife Groups that can specialize in certain topics (e.g. the Logos Syntax Searching group), etc.
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Understood Samuel and, we understand the Apostles were using the Old Testament as far as Scriptural writing, some Jewish commentary and of course, the teaching of Christ.
On one hand, I agree with what you are saying about the "mining" of today.
On the other hand, as you point out, things are very different.
Society used to be much more open and did not have some of these "privacy" issues because of the openness .
Air conditioning, the Television drove people "inside" and away from community life.
By "drove" i mean pulled them in and these new mediums changed the way people viewed each other, interacted with each other and trusted each other.
We are now seeing another "driver" much like the Television/Air conditioning systems that is having , perhaps, just as profound an effect. This one is mobile technology and texting. The sociological ramifications are just starting to show up with enough "proofs" to be pretty startling and we will not know the total impact for another 20 years, but the data so far-is not good.
At any rate, just 50 to 60 years ago, everyone was much more "social" than they are now and "privacy" was an altogether different conversation.
Privacy conversations changed drastically after the widespread acceptance of the television, and, air conditioning which allowed people to spend more time inside, separated from the community around them. Architecture followed the new "privacy/television/air conditioning" trend and Large front porches were replaced with "entry points" that were simpler a covered area to stand and get your keys out.
The porch was no longer needed, the local community meeting places on every street-were gone.
With that loss was the loss of "safe" on the street, next to go were "sidewalks" because people don't want others walking close to their house and invading their "privacy ".
Thus, while we used to play in the front yard in the evenings, while everyone sat on the porches and watched, talked, communicated, we raced on the sidewalks, people stopped and talked on the sidewalks and the whole area was "ours" , our common life, our safe place, our community, this was quickly replaced with with no trust, no sharing, no community life. It was replaced with "privacy fences" , no sidewalks , no porches, no conversations and no trust.
Everyone stays in the house, private life.
All I am saying is that this is a bigger subject than "just what I want" which can be very unhealthy thinking.
Yes, again, we do want options on what we see and use.
Yes, we need options on what we participate in.
Yet, the more we isolate, the more difficult it becomes to be a society.
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Interesting such perceptions of the past. I guess it depends on where you live. Here distance is the issue.
But I think it's funny that the primary issue at our church is 'gossip' ... sharing what you know about other people, to impress others (good or bad, though mostly the latter).
Sometimes our pastor really cuts his words short, he's so frustrated. 'Stop it!' That seems to work for a while.
"If myth is ideology in narrative form, then scholarship is myth with footnotes." B. Lincolm 1999.
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Yes, DMB, ares/locations do make a difference.
However, Sociological shifts/trends etc. are easily indentified over time.
McDonalds changed business and community , Air Conditioning and Television did, Computers and Internet did, mobile devices/texting are causing shifts.
Funny thing is: The more "private/isolationist" we become, the more data mining gets done. Well, perhaps it's not funny at all-smile.
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You know, if Christianity was like the
Logos user base we would end up with thousands of churches in this
world, having hundreds of denominations, with hundreds of differing
practices within each denomination, and many differing beliefs among
the members of each church.Good thing that Christianity isn't like
that..."As any translator will attest, a literal translation is no translation at all."
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hahahahaha, made me belly laugh Paul!
Well played, well played indeed.
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Fr. Charles R. Matheny said:
I have to say : I find this thread one of the most fascinating examples of Christian community thought I have ever read.
In it I find:
The difficulty of defining "privacy".
This whole , very strong idea of "private" studies of scriptures written primarily for communities and for communities to respond too.
The idea of not caring what others in the Christian Community thinks, believes, needs.
The last one is extremely interesting as well as disturbing . Every Pastor/teacher should be concerned about all these areas. Shepherds need to know sheep well enough to know their needs: when they need water, food and when they are ill, it is through knowing sheep and their needs that they can be led properly, tended too properly, led away from what is evil and to/towards good health.
( Granted being able to turn these things on and off is needed).
Yet, I still find these comments very odd.Don't care or want to know what others are thinking? Then why do you own Biblical software which has a plethora of others thoughts, writings intwined within it and that presents these thoughts at a single click.
Everything in the software is just that, pure and simple. Every lexicon is another persons thoughts, research, work on particular words, every commentary is chock full of the sociological trends/thinking patterns of the time from which it comes.
Logos is trying to give you more of that which you are already buying, and trying to give Pastors a better idea of the Christian theological and sociological directions.( which might actually help us provide better correctives within a devolving society).
I really do find this a most interesting conversation, a very revealing "snippet " of Christian thinking in America and how we embrace life, the gospel etc.
One one hand we have the Life of Christ and the apostles who laid themselves open and bare for all, forever and spoke of everyone having the same hearts and minds, of trying to live life with an attitude to where the needs of others were of more value to us than our own.
On the other, here we are, saying we do not care what others think/believe, wanting to protect our "privacy", wanting our biblical studies of community documents to be "private".
This is very interesting.
I love M.J.Smith thoughts on some of this and think they should be expanded on a bit more.
Reason? Christianity is based on the living example of Christ who gave up "HIMSELF" for the Mission of the Father which was the salvation of the many.
Separatism, narcissism and many other negatives are growing within our society, we are of course, not immune to these influences.
Are these sociological trends affecting our thinking on this and many other subjects?
I find it a good question for myself, perhaps others will as well.
I only post this here because this is a different "type" of thread than we usually have have on the Logos Forums. I mean no offense, simply stating my observations and interest.
Blessings all.
My Dear Brother in Christ! I thank God for your very helpful - refreshing! - and very positive and encouraging post! *smile*
Peace to you ........... and to all! and .. ....... Always Joy in the Lord!
Philippians 4: 4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. 5 Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand..........
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Sigh... all this endless discussion.
Who was it who said "You can please some of the people some of the time, all of the people some of the time, some of the people all of the time, but you can never please all of the people all of the time."?? Some guy called Abe Lincoln...
This is the bottom line:
a) Logos will never please everyone
b) The discussion pro & con is moot with respect to the European Union, because (and I don't have chapter and verse, and am not going to waste time looking for it) the EU has privacy laws protecting citizens. And it doesn't matter two hoots if the Logos EULA is "governed by the laws of the State of Washington, USA". So what. Sorry guys, but the USA is not the center of the world. If Logos sells a product to EU citizens without privacy controls — and, worse, states that it is going to do so regardless — then good luck with that. I don't believe that Logos is bigger than companies like.... oh what's their names.... Google, Facebook, Apple. And stating in an EULA that Logos intends to do data mining, and thinking that because it is written in an EULA that will excuse them from not providing privacy controls, and therefore they will be free from any legal risk won't wash either — because EU laws (as I understand) don't allow companies to 'EULA away' end users' rights.
So clearly the only practical and sensible option is to:
a) put a big red switch in Preferences along the lines of 'Share information' - YES / NO (and no, M.J., it's no big deal to code it)
b) the setting would have to be, by default, "NO". Again the guideline rule in the EU is people have to 'opt in', not be tricked into being opted in by default and having to explicitly 'opt out'.
c) there should be something clearly stated during installation etc. about data mining and privacy.
and then move on — please! There are enough issues/problems etc. with the software that are much more important for everyone to be investing time in — like having a stable product that we don't have to worry about blowing up and losing hours of work.
And again.. can I clearly state, for the record, that I can see benefits in there being feedback on product usage and/or data mining for 'social features', who wouldn't want to see a good tool like Logos get better? But that does not change the reality of the requirement of user choice privacy controls. So I'm not being a Neo-Luddite or technophobe (ha, that'll be the day) and I don't wear a tinfoil hat — I just want to see things settled so other pressing issues with the platform can be dealt with.
p.s. and I am still waiting to be informed as to what is the difference between these settings:
and will the 'Data Mining' settings be part of, or extra to, the 'Send Feedback' selector.
Also Logos cannot tell users to just turn off 'Use Internet' to avoid data mining because Internet access (for getting things from Logos, not to Logos) is a necessary function for full use of the software that people have paid for. So 'Use Internet' cannot be used as a pseudo privacy switch, won't be allowed.
"I want to know all God's thoughts; the rest are just details." - Albert Einstein
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