New Feature in Logos 5: Popular Highlights

Doc B said:

I just got a popup Logos message in L5 that says you've highlighted all the racy parts of Song of Solomon.

I just read about you highlighting those the Homeland Security website. You're now on the "Watchlist".[;)]

Dave Hooton said:

You have to find a resource with the VF
If the tick box is empty you cannot tell whether it has been turned off in ALL resources because the menu item is not ticked.

Dave,

Did you see my post just up the way?  It names a resource that has the PH visual filter (Piper's Fifty Ways).  If you have that one, just open it and choose 'Do not show' and you're done with it.

If you don't have that resource, just pick a currently popular pleasure-reading type book, and you are likely to find it.

Fredc said:

I just read about you highlighting those the Homeland Security website. You're now on the "Watchlist".

Fred,

Many years ago, I was a high-school boy.  I had various girlfriends, and I was on their dads' watchlist.  So Homeland Security doesn't bother me much. [:D]

Bruce Dunning said:

How many user highlights have to be submitted before popular highlights is applied?

If Mark highlighted it, just one... [6]

David Taylor Jr said:

Can we quit being ridiculous and silly and enjoy the new feature? 

Why is it that someone who disagrees with Logos, mentions they failed to deliver on promised features or in this case are going against the EULA, always has to be insulted? Would it be ridiculous or silly if it were any other company violating the EULA?

The fact is that for customers to prevent Logos from using their information against their wishes is to lose functionality by turning internet off. That was the same lame answer I received today when I called customer service about the potential to block the "community" highlights, etc... Where in the EULA do we agree to have "community" data forced into our Bible Study?

While it may be minor to some, for some it is a big deal, Logos could simply honor those customers by having the ability to opt out of this unwarranted sharing and forced Faithlife data in the software.

The sad part is, it won't be long before someone gets tired of this nonsense and we will see the legal channel taken - is that what we really want? Is that what Logos really wants?

Simple solution - don't punish users who do not want to be a part of this process by giving them only a solution that limits or constricts the software.

Frank ... good points.

Ronald .... just answering your question (though you might have already answered it just seconds after you asked). But whenever I get a used book (and I do that a lot these days, it's so easy), quite often it has highlighting or notes. And I happily read their highlights. Why? I don't know. I guess because it's another person being interested in what I'm interested in?

But the question does illustrate the desirability of options. I've not understood why Logos is so hard-nosed on taking user data against their wishes.  I've read over and over from the other forum members how sweet Logos really is. And quite a number of people work there so probably it's true. Just a mystery about Bob's personality.

Frank Sauer said:

Why is it that someone who disagrees with Logos, mentions they failed to deliver on promised features or in this case are going against the EULA, always has to be insulted? Would it be ridiculous or silly if it were any other company violating the EULA?

It certainly would be good to have an adult conversation about this issue, and words like 'ridiculous' and 'silly' don't help that. But however much some people don't like the aggregation of highlighting, Logos haven't broken the EULA, or their privacy policy. Claiming that they have does not help either (and it was that which prompted the 'silly' comment). If we're going to have an adult discussion, it needs to be one that sticks to the facts and doesn't make wild claims, or assume the wild claims of others.

Frank Sauer said:

The fact is that for customers to prevent Logos from using their information against their wishes is to lose functionality by turning internet off. That was the same lame answer I received today when I called customer service about the potential to block the "community" highlights, etc...

I agree that is lame, and unhelpful. Setting "Send Feedback" to "None" ought to be enough to stop a user's highlights being aggregated. (Although I fully intend to leave my "Send Feedback" to "All", I don't think it unreasonable that people should have an opt-out).

Frank Sauer said:

Simple solution - don't punish users who do not want to be a part of this process by giving them only a solution that limits or constricts the software.

Agreed.

Also, the format of [5 highlights] is distracting.

How about a simple icon in the same fashion as the icon for community notes that can indicate how many highlights when the mouse is over the icon.

Alan said:

IMO 5 highlights is way too low to be considered a popular highlight. Before long entire books will be highlighted.

The minimum level is dynamic. So popular sections with lots of highlighting would need significantly more than five highlights to be highlighted.

I haven't used popular highlights enough to see if I will personally like it, but I think it is a great idea of Logos and I'm glad to see that others like it.

MJ. Smith said:

tom said:

Nothingstatistics here, but if you are now sending out the statistical data that used my information, you are now sharing my data. 

Seems a bit of a stretch to claim  that anonymous statistical data is the logical equivalent of your data.

Have to disagree MJ... When you generate anonymous statistics using user data - it is compiled of each users personal data. Just because Logos calls it anonymous does not negate the fact that they are using our data to generate theirs.

Chuck P. said:

One little thing that bugs me a little....when I build a lesson, I highlight, copy and paste into Word...the problem, the lesson will show "8 Highlights" (for example), but does not show the underlined highlighted area...I like the highlights in my resource, but really don't want any thing in my Word document like that, so I have to turn the highlighting routine off....

We will fix that in a future version.

All of these arguments assume the definition of Personal Data.

Mark Barnes said:

Frank Sauer said:

When you generate anonymous statistics using user data - it is compiled of each users personal data. Just because Logos calls it anonymous does not negate the fact that they are using our data to generate theirs.

No-one is disputing that. But what's shared isn't your data. It's their data.

So what i highlight, read and how much time i spend using the program and resources is not my data?

Frank Sauer said:

So what i highlight, read and how much time i spend using the program and resources is not my data?

No, that is your data. The number of times the 3rd sentence of paragraph 4 on page 19 of book xyz is highlighted is their data. The fact that you highlighted it is yours, the fact that a total of 57 people highlighted it is theirs, or at least theirs to use.

Frank Sauer said:

How do they compile their aggregated data? By taking my data, your data and everyone's data into their calculations ... Unless we are all missing something. So if this is the case as many have expressed allow us to opt out.

I completely agree that there should be an opportunity to opt out, and have consistently argued for that in this thread. But I stand by my original point: Logos are not sharing your data.

Bob Pritchett said:

Frank Sauer said:

So if this is the case as many have expressed allow us to opt out. Many websites and software companies have already had the courts rule in the users favor in these areas. Think Apple & Google with tracking "anonymous" locations, web usage, etc

You can opt out, by running the software without an Internet connection. But it sounds like you're really asking for is the ability to opt-out at a more fine-grained level: you want this Internet-enabled function, but not that one.

Different companies support different levels of tracking / opt-out. Google lets me choose to use the search engine "logged out", at the price of losing some features, including having it store my search history for my own retrieval. However I do not have the option of opting out of their overall logging: my queries, my visits, my time of date, all go into aggregate features like Google Trends, their stats on when people are searching, the data they report to advertisers on impressions vs. clicks, etc.

I don't believe there's any web site in the world, for example, that doesn't log visitor counts, IP addresses, time of day, queries run, etc. (Excepting privacy proxy sites run specifically to NOT track those things.)

We're willing to consider your suggestion, and giving you more control over what goes into what aggregates. But I'd really appreciate your stepping back and thinking over your objections. What, really, is the cost to you of our aggregating massive amounts of data into individually anonymous, but collectively useful/interesting data?

Sure, popular highlights are a little surprising when you first see them appear in a book. But I've come to find the data incredibly interesting, and even fun. When reading and seeing a popular highlight 'on the horizon' in my peripheral vision, I get a sense of anticipation for "the good stuff." When paging through a book quickly I find the popular highlights an easy way to get the key point / insight of a section.

And if you don't like them, they're easy to turn off forever.

Other than a "don't track me!" instinct (I have it too!), what is the actual harm of this collective data mining?

And can you appreciate the benefits that we believe will accrue to you and all the users? Like our being able to remove books few people read from collections, reducing prices or reallocating those funds to other content / tools used by more users. Like identifying areas of interest so we can offer more resources in that area. Like improving search results to show "smarter" contexts for hits. (Your hit surrounded not by x words to the left and right, but the most highlighted fragment containing your hit.)

Again, we're listening to the feedback and will make whatever changes are necessary to keep our user base happy -- we aren't trying to antagonize anyone -- but I'd like to make sure we've discussed both the good and the bad about this.

Bob,

My issue is more with user choice. Personally until I saw the negativity toward users concerned about it, I was quite indifferent. However after getting the catchall Logos response of turn off internet and lose functionality that goes with it when I asked about an opt out feature, it became a bigger issue.

The point is for some the forced community input will be fine, for others it will be unwanted and they should be able to block it without repercussion. For some the data collection will be no big deal, for others it will be and again it should be open to an opt out without repercussion. Simple fact not everyone wants the "Faithlife" community version of Bible Study in their Logos software and there should be a no strings attached opt out - so discussing the good and bad comes down to what bad at all exists in allowing users to opt out - it is only good for the user.

Frank Sauer said:

My issue is more with user choice. Personally until I saw the negativity toward users concerned about it, I was quite indifferent. However after getting the catchall Logos response of turn off internet and lose functionality that goes with it when I asked about an opt out feature, it became a bigger issue.

[Y] +1