An FYI to the English readers

MJ. Smith · 2025-08-10T04:14:21+00:00

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I've finished my basic scan of the English forum for personal books and found about 1,400 — biased highly towards Restoration Movement and Lutheran additions but with strong showings in some other areas, including useful indexes. There are still a number of files to see if Logos can recover and a stack of German additions for me to plough through. If you have personal books you think would be useful to others, even if highly specialized, post them and I'll try to get them in for the first public viewing of my index. I found some templates that will make it easier to build so types of personal books and some very interesting uses such as adding morphology codes to the creed in three languages, alternative tool tips, and indexing of external sermons.

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Dave Hooton

I gather that some are missing their files, but have they all been tagged as Files (given their origin in the previous forum software)? I just noticed a post in this regard - but @Jason Stone (Logos)'s link goes nowhere!

I found 602 tagged in the English Forum and 770 in Books and Courses. Wonderful distribution…but how did you identify c. 1400 in the English forum alone?

And where/how do you want PB files (docx) to be posted (what Forum/what Tags)? The Personal Books tag (should) just reflect the feature under discussion.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1376449#Comment_1376449

I went through the English forum filtered by files and built personal books of all that I could find a useable file. I then added appropriate tags where needed and moved them to Books and Sources. I then did a search on .docx to find files that were not tagged as such in the conversion. I've also picked up those shared first in Books and Courses after the conversion, those listed in the Wiki, and am working my way through the German wiki page. I still have to search for sources of personal books I have that I didn't save the downloaded files for.

I have assumed that the Books and Courses forums is the appropriate location for English PB sources - although I don't mind other languages, especially those without their own forums.

How many compiled books these add up to depends upon how much one groups the .docx files e.g. multiple volume in a single book; short works as an anthology …

Dave Hooton

I have assumed that the Books and Courses forums is the appropriate location for English PB sources

"Books and Sources" may be! Not too sure about Books and Courses from a Faithlife perspective, as English Forum with Files tag seems to be their intent (irrespective of language) and now there is likely to be confusion with use of Files tag in two major forums.

MJ. Smith

The Books and Courses forum has been used for personal books since mid-February at least - the first post I happened to see by a prolific non-MVP PB poster. I assumed since Jason had not moved them, that was the intended forum. I did not equate files with PB's but assumed it also included other shared files. I have seen it on notes and reading plans - perhaps others but I remember those two. I assumed English forum/personal book referred to the function and Books and course/personal book referred to content - offered or requested.

I got involved by accident - working with lesser known early church writers, I discovered many were available only as PB's. Recent acquisition decisions made me expect that is becoming the norm not the exception … hence I got sidetracked on an index the PB's project.

Dave Hooton

There is plenty of confusion with this Vanilla forum. New users don't know they should add tags even if they get the Forum correct. Suggestions/Ideas are really questions (from ignorance/confusion) and vice-versa.

complaint Forum bugs keep coming back end complaint.

Jason Stone (Logos)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1376449#Comment_1376449

but @Jason Stone (Logos)'s link goes nowhere!

The dead link is the result of me merging multiple tags together. I've updated the link on that page and we should not have an issue any longer. Thank you for flagging that dead link, @Dave Hooton.

And where/how do you want PB files (docx) to be posted (what Forum/what Tags)? The Personal Books tag (should) just reflect the feature under discussion.

I would agree that ideally, when files are being shared, Personal Books can be added to the forums (a.) in the Books and Courses Forum and (b.) tagged with Files. If the Personal Book tag is added, I don't think it is a "problem" but it would result in a bit of extra sorting down the road. Coming very, very soon, we will have the ability to limit tags to specific forum categories. I think that will be a big help!

I'm grateful there is such an active community around sharing of PBs!

A couple of notes in closing on specific languages:

Other language teams have opted out of having a forum dedicated to books and courses for now.
We are experimenting with very much improved multi-language support that should go live later this year. That could result in the consolidation of forums across languages, allowing website visitors to choose their preferred language to translate any and all content on the site! More on this to come but I wanted to let you know.

Jason Stone (Logos)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1376459#Comment_1376459

There is plenty of confusion with this Vanilla forum. New users don't know they should add tags even if they get the Forum correct. Suggestions/Ideas are really questions (from ignorance/confusion) and vice-versa.
complaint Forum bugs keep coming back end complaint.

I've just improved the call out box at the top of the form for new posts, encouraging community members to be thoughtful and to included tags. I know that would be a fix-all, but I kept it concise and it will be top of mind when new posts are made. I hope that is a step forward.

Jason Stone (Logos)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1376459#Comment_1376459

I meant to add, if you see forum bugs persist or rear their heads once again, please do let me know. I've seen ongoing and consistent squashing of platform bugs.