Thank you, thank you, thank you ... OR how did I miss this improvement? OR I love Logos

MJ do you think we will ever see the Catholic Daily Lectionary included in Logos 4?

Louis, is there any news on a daily Catholic Lectionary?

Louis St. Hilaire said:

We produce our (copyrighted) lectionaries in cooperation with the copyright holder, so what we are waiting for here is the proper permission from the USCCB. I'll discuss it again with our Publisher Relations department to see where the request stands.

Thanks Louis, here's hoping. I assume they gave you permission for the Sunday Lectionary at some point?

MJ. Smith said:

I found this old thread yesterday, but I'm afraid I haven't been able to figure out how you got the note reference to look like that. What exactly are you doing?

Well, that's what I did as well, but for me it says "Catholic Lectionary", not "Catholic - Latin rite - USA". That's what confused me. Either way, I don't think a simple selection note is of much use to me right now; I just wanted to know the options.

As for Faithlife, I refuse to use it, since Logos decided they have the right to give away my most private information without even asking me first. So I didn't know you'd started a Catholic group. It wasn't there the one time I checked it out -- and it probably took me 20 minutes or more to figure out how to find it now; how's that for intuitive web design? -- and given Logos' complete contempt for my privacy I can't see me joining. There are very few companies I trust less than Logos, but my experience when registering on Faithlife beat just about anything they'd done so far.

I don't remember the exact details, but it went something like this:

• To create the profile they demanded that I, among other things, give them my real name and my Logos account e-mail. I sidestepped the first by only entering initials, but I couldn't get away with a less private e-mail, since then I wouldn't have been able to download things into Logos. And unfortunately I was stupid enough to give Logos my main e-mail address once upon a time.
• Then I was asked to start joining groups. Fortunately there weren't many at that time. I may have clicked Observer for one just because it was in Sweden, but that was all. Instead I started to look around.
• Then I found my profile page -- and discovered with complete shock and utter disbelief that the default settings had made all my private information public to virtually anyone who wanted to look. So I very quickly changed all that. Note: I wasn't directed to confirm those settings. I only found the page because I'm paranoid about these things. If there had been more interesting groups, I would have found it far too late.
• Then I discovered that no matter what I did, my private information was going to be revealed to the moderator of any group I joined. If I hadn't already left that Swedish group when I discovered it didn't yet have any posts, I certainly did then.
• Then there's Bob's posts saying that they expect people to be using real names, and they give no guarantees that your real name is truly protected even if you insist on using a display name.
• And the Privacy policy, which I didn't see then but took a very cursory look at now, doesn't look too encouraging either.

This is definitely not "taking my privacy very seriously"! It's the very opposite. The absolute minimum when it comes to privacy must be that you never ever share private information given in confidence without first seeking and attaining an active consent from the person whose info it is. To start sharing first, and let people discover for themselves afterwards that it's being done, that's simply not acceptable!

I'm seriously considering creating a new main e-mail account and transferring everything but Logos away from the current one. When I find the time, I think I will.

MJ. Smith said:

I see that I hadn't noticed because I'd assumed that the groups would be small groups that knew each other rather than larger anonymous groups.

There isn't really any such thing as a 'small group that know each other' in this internet age. Not on the web. If you join a group, you have no knowledge of who's already in there, no influence on who joins later, no control over what others do with what they learn, and no way of preventing that the moderator hands the group -- and your info -- over to someone else. There are only really two options on the web: either you're open with who you are and accept the consequences, or you're never open with who you are, unless you're on a secure https page.

Besides, those default settings did more than show my info to such intimate groups.

But, like I said, though I strongly disagree with the 'real name and open e-mail' policy, what really bugs me is that they started sharing my confidential data without asking or even informing me about it. 

I wrote an answer to this on Saturday, but my connection decided to go down precisely when I hit 'Post', so I lost it and didn't have the energy to rewrite it. Here it is again, as best I can remember:

MJ. Smith said:

That depends. I am a member of groups...

Yes, but are those groups 'self-contained'? I suspect not. But since your name is all over the web anyway, you don't need to care much. I'd still say that there are [virtually] no groups on the web where someone can safely reveal his identity and trust that it stays there. But of course you have the advantage of being an American with one of the most common names on the planet. No one can guess which MJ Smith you are, or google you to make a profile, unless you yourself give out enough additional clues. But the Christian circles here are fairly small. Any Swedish Logos user might potentially be someone who knows who I am the minute they set eyes on my real name. And I have no way of knowing who's already a member of a group, much less who might join later. Also, even at the very least, everyone who sees my name on Faithlife will also know who 'fgh' is.

No, if you want to stay anonymous on the web, don't start making exceptions. 

MJ. Smith said:

She'd had the audacity to marry the only person in the US who was qualified.

That must have been one narrow subject! In Sweden we bring in people from abroad all the time, of course. Not because the best qualified has married the defendant, but because he's likely supervised the thesis. Or simply to get the very best in the field. But not to be able to find anyone in the whole wide US!