MacArthur Sermon Archive - Thousands of Typos - Who is Responsible?
With 3-5 typos in each sermon, based on my initial survey, there may be 10-20,000 typos in the archive. I am not talking about bad spoken English, etc. These are typos likewordsnotspacedproperly.
Still, it is a very useful resource.
I know the MacArthur sermons at GTY we're not closely reviewed or edited, but I expected that this resource would be cleaned up.
So whose typos are these? And if we report typos to Logos, will they say that they can't change the originals? Will the typos be corrected if reported?
Comments
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[Y][:D]
I don't know but I'd suspect that they would at least run all changes by GTY/
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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Typos are easy to make and very common. I frequently come across typos in resources of all kinds. If I were you, I would simply report what I find and not worry too much about it. Realistically, nothing will be changed any time soon, and nothing will be changed if no typos are reported.
Rick Carmickle said:I know the MacArthur sermons at GTY we're not closely reviewed or edited, but I expected that this resource would be cleaned up.
MJ. Smith said:I don't know but I'd suspect that they would at least run all changes by GTY/
“The trouble is that everyone talks about reforming others and no one thinks about reforming himself.” St. Peter of Alcántara
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There is a weird one in the very first sermon where its a fillable text box instead of a word. I have to say this should have been easily caught in some kind of QA because 1) it is the very first sermon and 2) Its pretty evident even at a glance.
Slightly disappointing
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A user in a separate thread had noted the spelling of the church father "Chrissistum" at GTY. This alternate spelling is now in Logos. The Logos edition is an exact replica of the GTY archive without any additional clean up work. When it is a free transcript on the GTY website, I understand typos and misspellings. And I don't even care about goofs on Facebook posts and threads where people are typing on their phones.
So Logos just took what was given to them and tagged the verses. I am certain that means they will not correct the typos since Logos is just replicating the GTY archive. The corrections need to come from GTY. Reporting typos to Logos will not make a difference.
Still, I look forward to reading the sermons.
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St. John Chrysostom I presume...
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There are other problems like this screenshot from logosres:jhnmcrthrsrrchv;art=sermon.2012.44 :
The formatting for the text "Safe in the Arms of God" and "Related Resource" are clearly not done well.
Also, I would expect that resources like Safe in the Arms of God would be linked (logosres:safearmsgod;art=title / https://www.logos.com/product/3052/safe-in-the-arms-of-god)
All of these sermons are freely available online but we paid the $200 premium (now listed at $400) for the hand-editing that goes into Logos works and the tagging for things like this. I hope that this resources gets fixed and updated quickly.
Jacob Hantla
Pastor/Elder, Grace Bible Church
gbcaz.org0 -
I would like to see some comment from Logos about if they intend to fix it or not. If things remain in this shape, I need to know in the next 30 days to get a refund. The value is simply not here for me if the content is so sloppy.
Using Logos as a pastor, seminary professor, and Tyndale author
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Aren't Logos resources run through a spell checker before they're released?
A Logos release is supposed to be superior to Vyrso releases, which I'm told is just a digitized file provided by the publisher.
Sounds initially like this sermon collection is a Vyrso grade release at a Logos grade price.
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Ted Weis said:
Aren't Logos resources run through a spell checker before they're released?
A Logos release is supposed to be superior to Vyrso releases, which I'm told is just a digitized file provided by the publisher.
Sounds initially like this sermon collection is a Vyrso grade release at a Logos grade price.
Apparently not a very smart one. The first three paragraphs of the first sermon, with errors underlined, with the correction in brackets:
"If you have your Bibles with you turn to the book of Habakkuk, the Old Testament. We’re coming to the end of our little time with Habakkuk and I kind of feel badly about it because I’ve sort of gotten to love him. I’ve spent an awful lot of hours with him every week and I just kind of have a kindred spirit with Habakkuk in many, many ways, and I’m sure you do to[too].
Tonight’s message is concerning Chapter 3 of Habakkuk and in this chapter we will find ourselves in much of the time summarizing things that we have already noted about him and perhaps pulling them together in a little different perspective. Habakkuk 3:1–19, which encompasses the entire chapter, is what we want to talk about tonight. And the title of the message is[as] noted in the bulletin is ["]Praise the Lord Anyhow["] and that title probably gives away a little of the attitude of Habakkuk by the time he arrives in Chapter 3.
If you’ll go back in your mind you’ll remember that his basic dilemma was why God was allowing Israel to go down the drain as fast as she was, and then why in the world God ever allowed the Chaldeans to be able to come in and destroy Israel. He couldn’t figure out why God would let Israel get this far away from Him and then he couldn’t figure out why God would use such an ungodly[,] unholy crew as the Chaldeans to come in to bring judgment upon Israel, and he was puzzled and perplexed by what he did not understand. And then we found last week that he really found out a good way to end his dilemma."
John F. MacArthur Jr., John MacArthur Sermon Archive (Panorama City, CA: Grace to You, 2014).Using Logos as a pastor, seminary professor, and Tyndale author
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This is certainly mystifying. Did Logos not think anyone would care?
I am certain that GTY disclosed the existence of typos, since they posted this on their website:
macOS (Logos Pro - Beta) | Android 13 (Logos Stable)
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Ted Weis said:
Aren't Logos resources run through a spell checker before they're released?
A Logos release is supposed to be superior to Vyrso releases, which I'm told is just a digitized file provided by the publisher.
Sounds initially like this sermon collection is a Vyrso grade release at a Logos grade price.
As I understand the issue, Logos does not change the original unless the publisher has changed or approved the change in the original. It may be included in some of the contracts but it is also necessary for scholarly work ... which is why "<sic>" was invented [;)] Only if it was a Lexham Press original should one expect Faithlife to provide editorial services. The question is more why MacArthur isn't sufficiently embarrassed to do basic editing for his website. Things like incompatible characters and link, however, Faithlife should have taken care of.
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:
As I understand the issue, Logos does not change the original unless the publisher has changed or approved the change in the original. It may be included in some of the contracts but it is also necessary for scholarly work ... which is why "<sic>" was invented
While I agree with this philosophy for scholarly texts, for resources, such as this, such argument is a cop-out. Ultimately, Faithlife is responsible for all products they sell. If Apple sells premium laptops with a flaky battery made by a different supplier, it is responsible and will issue a recall. In the future it would bode well for Apple to chose a different supplier or insist on better quality controls from the current one.
As of right now, this resource resembles a PB rather than an excellent Logos resource, especially undeserving the premium price.
I plan to return this product back and leave a review warning potential buyers about the issues.
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toughski - if I were running Logos (which you should be glad I'm not) I would have rejected the file from GTY and not offered the product unless they valued their product sufficiently to make it vaguely acceptable.
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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toughski said:
Ultimately, Faithlife is responsible for all products they sell.
Agreed 100%. But only insofar as they could have (and should have; I agree with MJ too) rejected these resources as not being up to the quality they would be willing to stand by.
However I don't think they should waste their time fixing other people's typos if the other publisher is not willing to fix them.
Faithlife does report typos back to the original publisher if users report typos in resources that are not Faithlife's fault. They will wait for an updated file from the publisher and push the typo fixes out to us once they get it (which could be years), but due to license agreements they are usually not at liberty to fix typos on their own, except with out of print works.
IMO, MacArthur Sermon Archive should have been a Vyrso edition not Logos, if it came from a website-quality original text. If it had been a print publication (which would no doubt have gone through more scrutiny by the publisher, one would hope) then that's another story.
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MJ. Smith said:
toughski - if I were running Logos (which you should be glad I'm not) I would have rejected the file from GTY and not offered the product unless they valued their product sufficiently to make it vaguely acceptable.
Sometimes I question the motives. I think the answer to a lot of problems we complain on these forums is free market. Logos and Faithlife have been scooping up free and public domain resources, charging disproportionate prices and not worrying much about typos or quality. This is sad.
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I broadly agree with M.J. and Rosie inasmuch as I would ordinarily attribute typos and errors of this nature to the publisher rather than Logos. Ordinarily, I would expect such errors to be referred back to the publisher for correction.
However, in my opinion, this resource is different from, say, a commentary or monograph. This product is advertised as the sermons of John MacArthur with no reference to the already transcribed sermons on GTY. As such, the reference point is MacArthur's sermons as delivered rather than the suboptimal transcriptions on the website (sourced, admittedly, by volunteers). Unless MacArthur speakswithtypographicalerrorsandwithoutpunctuationorpause, I would expect these typographical errors to be owned and addressed by Logos, with reference to the sermon audio where necessary.
I agree with the comments above, this is a premium product justified, in part at least, by the 'value added' by Logos over and above the functionality available via the GTY website.
I expect that this is a slip in QA rather than an intentional strategy to publish the resource with errors and all. I am confident, as has happened in the past, that Logos will address this now that it has been highlighted.
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Andy, who is listed as publisher in the metadata? (I don't have the resource). Thanks.
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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Andy Evans said:
MacArthur, John F., Jr. John MacArthur Sermon Archive. Panorama City, CA: Grace to You, 2014. Print.
If the "Print" at the end of that citation info indicates that this resource is published in print form by GTY, then shame on them for putting it out in such shoddy quality. But also shame on Logos for turning it around and making it into a premium Logos edition without adequate proofreading. That would be understandable if it were a Vyrso resource, as they pretty much have zero human oversight. But we've grown to expect that Logos editions will be of higher quality. There are many Vyrso edition resources that are much higher quality than this, because they come directly from publishers who care about the quality of their text. There might be formatting glitches and such in those, but not hundreds of egregious typos.
I'm certain this is just a case of QA slippage, and that Faithlife will address it once they are aware of the issue. They are pretty good about that.
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Rosie Perera said:
If the "Print" at the end of that citation info indicates that this resource is published in print form by GTY, then shame on them for putting it out in such shoddy quality. But also shame on Logos for turning it around and making it into a premium Logos edition without adequate proofreading. That would be understandable if it were a Vyrso resource, as they pretty much have zero human oversight. But we've grown to expect that Logos editions will be of higher quality. There are many Vyrso edition resources that are much higher quality than this, because they come directly from publishers who care about the quality of their text. There might be formatting glitches and such in those, but not hundreds of egregious typos.
Having just responded to MJ, I have just run a search and cannot see that this has ever been offered in print.
My take (and I accept I may be wrong) is that the metadata is misleading. From what I can see, I would argue that the Sermon Archive is a new resource 'created' by either Logos or GTY (depending who pulled the manuscripts together). It may well be that the editor/compiler/publisher leaned heavily on the transcripts already available via GTY, but the actual 'Archive', as a distinct resource, does not appear to have existed until Logos (or GTY) compiled and created it. It is, I guess, akin to a publisher pulling together a collection of short-stories from disparate sources.
In my opinion, the compiling/editorial process should have fixed the issues with the existing transcriptions even if this meant going back to the source. The alternative would have been to make it clear, in the advertisement, that the product is simply an import of the existing GTY sermon library. In which case, I agree with your initial suggestion that this would have been better offered via Vyrso and with a price to reflect the light editorial input.
Rosie Perera said:I'm certain this is just a case of QA slippage, and that Faithlife will address it once they are aware of the issue. They are pretty good about that.
I agree. There have been numerous occasions in which issues like this have been fixed post-shipping. It is just a shame that a product for which many have awaited with excitement has failed to meet expectations. But such is life, I guess.
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What I was looking for was not its history but whether or not it was a Lexham Press book as they are the only ones I expect Faithlife to have provided editorial services on. Not that I have any knowledge of what Faithlife's position would be - I only know my expectations.
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:
What I was looking for was not its history but whether or not it was a Lexham Press book as they are the only ones I expect Faithlife to have provided editorial services on.
I understood why you were asking for this information.
MJ. Smith said:Not that I have any knowledge of what Faithlife's position would be - I only know my expectations.
I suspect that your expectations probably accord closely with Faithlife's actual position. Hopefully someone will clarify one way or the other.
I previously corresponded with Faithlife with regards to my disappointment pertaining to a previous 'Sermon Archive' offering (in that particular case, references to Hebrew and Greek words had been marked as [inaudible] because the transcriber did not have an understanding of the original languages). In that particular case, the slip in quality (at least as I perceived it) was attributed to a third-party responsible for the transcription. There was no commitment to addressing the issues and the product has since been withdrawn (for unrelated reasons).
I chose to keep the previous offering (as I have some interest in the author). I am, however, somewhat ambivalent with regards to MacArthur and this resources is more expensive (I wavered between keeping and cancelling the order). I would want assurance that the issues will be addressed if I am to keep the resource.
Decisions, decisions. [:D]
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Robert M. Warren said:
This is certainly mystifying. Did Logos not think anyone would care?
I am certain that GTY disclosed the existence of typos, since they posted this on their website:
I think the link that Robert posted may be helpful to this discussion. Since I know many people (myself oftentimes included) won't take the time to visit a link to an outside page, I decided to cut and paste GTY's response below (the typos in their response below are also a bit telling [;)]:
Why are there errors in the sermon transcript archive? Don’t you guys check these?
August 06, 2009 QA521
We do our best to ensure that everything you read on our website is free from error. Our transcript archive prsents unusual challenges, however.
There are a number of factors unique to John MacArthur’s preaching ministry—e.g., the depth study; theological vocabulary; and historical (and contemporary) names, places, and events—pose unique challenge to any transcriptionist. The best transcripts you’ll find on our website were probably produced by Arline Hampton; she transcribed John’s sermons for more than three decades. Her familiarity with John and her love for this ministry provided all of us with transcripts that are largely error free. We are grateful for her labor of love. Though she is now with the Lord, the fruit of her ministry continues.
Several years ago, when we were considering posting all of John MacArthur’s sermon transcripts online, we had to decide whether we would allow the public to see transcription errors or wait until all of them were corrected.
A large number of sermons had originally been transcribed on paper, using a typewriter. We then used character recognition software to convert them into a digital format, but they were far from perfect (e.g., question marks came out as 7s, the capital letter “I” came out as the number 1). So we stopped that approach and assigned a large batch of John’s sermons to a professional transcription company. The quality of those transcripts was quite good but still less than perfect since the transcribers lacked the in-house familiarity with John’s ministry, theological terms, etc.
In the end, we decided the best approach was to open the transcript archive, warts and all, because we thought the ministry benefit would exceed the error liability. We accepted the imperfections, knowing we would chip away at the errors over the years to correct as many mistakes as possible.
And that’s where you come in, website user! We have always depended on you to inform us of errors so we can correct them as soon as possible. You can email us at typos@gty.org.
If you’ve become part of the team of informants, helping us to achieve the greatest accuracy possible in our transcripts, please accept our sincerest thanks. We very much appreciate you and your partnership in unleashing God’s truth, one verse at a time!
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Ryan B said:
I think the link that Robert posted may be helpful to this discussion. Since I know many people (myself oftentimes included) won't take the time to visit a link to an outside page, I decided to cut and paste GTY's response below (the typos in their response below are also a bit telling
:Very interesting! Thanks for that back story.
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Logos, can you please respond to this thread? We need to be able to make an informed decision on this resource.
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Si said:
Logos, can you please respond to this thread?
Let's bear in mind that a lot of people are probably still away on holiday and it may take a little longer than normal for the Faithlife team to pick up on this.
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Graham Criddle said:Si said:
Logos, can you please respond to this thread?
Let's bear in mind that a lot of people are probably still away on holiday and it may take a little longer than normal for the Faithlife team to pick up on this.
No temporality implied in my request. I just wanted to highlight the importance of this issue for other customers and myself.
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Rick Carmickle said:
With 3-5 typos in each sermon, based on my initial survey, there may be 10-20,000 typos in the archive. I am not talking about bad spoken English, etc. These are typos likewordsnotspacedproperly.
Still, it is a very useful resource.
I know the MacArthur sermons at GTY we're not closely reviewed or edited, but I expected that this resource would be cleaned up.
So whose typos are these? And if we report typos to Logos, will they say that they can't change the originals? Will the typos be corrected if reported?
Thanks for reporting this issue. We'll look into it and see what we can do to correct these issues. Since we were working with digital files, my guess is that the vast majority of these are issues with the files we received. I'm sorry this content isn't at a higher quality. We'll see what we can do to make it better. In the meantime, please report the things you come across. Thanks.
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Jonathan said:
Isn't this the same reason why Faithlife stopped offering the Galaxie TJL's?
No. My understanding was that the Galaxie people (actually one single individual, IIRC) refused to put in links and wanted their offering treated as something like the Vyrso books. This probably was acceptable in the 1990s or whenever they started to offer in Logos format, but isn't acceptable today in the Logos environment - see all the threads where people complain about missing links.
I think, going forward to Logos 7, Faithlife should offer a Visual Filter overlay that includes user-provided ("crowd-sourced") typo corrections and links. Optional but functional.
Have joy in the Lord!
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NB.Mick said:
No. My understanding was that the Galaxie people (actually one single individual, IIRC) refused to put in links and wanted their offering treated as something like the Vyrso books. This probably was acceptable in the 1990s or whenever they started to offer in Logos format, but isn't acceptable today in the Logos environment - see all the threads where people complain about missing links.
I think you are right. However, I do seem to remember, back when Logos was offering Galaxie products, that they were annually delaying the release to the TJL's because of issues with the files the received from Galaxie.
Regardless, this resource should probably have been spelled checked in a more thorough manner. Furthermore, Faithlife should have either withheld the product, or notified customers proactively of the need to future improvements.
In my opinion, the quality of this product seems like a homemade PB rather than a Faithlife product.
NB.Mick said:I think, going forward to Logos 7, Faithlife should offer a Visual Filter overlay that includes user-provided ("crowd-sourced") typo corrections and links. Optional but functional.
[Y]
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Ryan B said:
In the end, we decided the best approach was to open the transcript archive, warts and all, because we thought the ministry benefit would exceed the error liability. We accepted the imperfections, knowing we would chip away at the errors over the years to correct as many mistakes as possible.
Thank you, Ryan, for posting that response from GTY regarding the typos. I would prefer that the sermon collection had no errors at all. When I saw their reasoning for releasing it with errors I had to agree with them. Better to have it now than to wait 5 years.
Logos 7 Collectors Edition
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Thanks for your reply, Phil.
I now have an opportunity to put to use my textual criticism skills and I can tell you that the mistakes came from the files provided by GTY.
This resource will be so valuable to so many that it must be done well. Perhaps GTY didn't want to invest the resources to clean it up better, although some modestly trained volunteers could really accomplish a lot in a hurry. Most of these typos could be easily corrected by high school students, although you might need some training to pick up the "Chrissistum" errors, and the Greek transliteration mistakes.
Logos users can report these mistakes, but I know that Logos will not correct mistakes if the original publication had it that way. Even well-edited books from the major publishers have mistakes in them that are missed by a dozen proof readers. But unless Logos tells us that Logos will correct the reported mistakes that replicate the files from GTY, it seems futile to report them. When GTY and Logos explain the plan to get these up to par, then I think many Logos users will pitch in. But at this point, the files are bad enough that it should go through a redraft before Logos users find the rest.
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Rick Carmickle said:
Perhaps GTY didn't want to invest the resources to clean it up better, although some modestly trained volunteers could really accomplish a lot in a hurry. Most of these typos could be easily corrected by high school students, although you might need some training to pick up the "Chrissistum" errors, and the Greek transliteration mistakes.
At the price they are selling it for Logos ought to do the error correcting.
Logos 7 Collectors Edition
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Super.Tramp said:
At the price they are selling it for Logos ought to do the error correcting.
I agree. Especially since Logos knew the quality of the resource before they got involved. And if they didn't they should have!
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Super.Tramp said:
At the price they are selling it for Logos ought to do the error correcting.
If their contract allows it. The standard contract would not. However, it sounds as if a contract modification might be an easy deal.
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:Super.Tramp said:
At the price they are selling it for Logos ought to do the error correcting.
If their contract allows it. The standard contract would not. However, it sounds as if a contract modification might be an easy deal.
It sounds like GTY wants the quality of this archive improved too, so if they can get that through Logos fixing up typos I'm sure they'd be thrilled. But it's not likely they can. Logos has already run these files through at least one level of conversion with tagging for them to be Logos editions. So any typo fixes they apply would be to those post-conversion files, not to the original sources (or else they'd have to do all the tagging over again). I don't think they have an automated process for merging typo fixes from source files into their post-conversion files, or vice versa. And any manual doing of that would be error prone. So it's likely that if Logos gets permission to do the fixes themselves, they would be the only beneficiaries. And if GTY fixes the typos, Logos would not benefit. It has to be a dual-track path at this point.
This goes to show how important it is for Logos to ensure high quality original source files from publishers at the outset, or else it's going to waste a lot of time down the road. Sure, GTY wanted to get the files out sooner rather than later, but it wouldn't have taken "5 years" (Super.Tramp) to get them into better shape. Seriously, a couple of intelligent folks proofreading and fixing up typos as they went (rather than reporting them to someone else to fix, which more than doubles the time it takes; it usually takes more time to document a typo than it does to fix it) could have accomplished it all in a week, I'm guessing (though I don't have the resource myself so I don't know how many pages of content are in it). That should have been done.
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Rosie Perera said:
Sure, GTY wanted to get the files out sooner rather than later, but it wouldn't have taken "5 years" (Super.Tramp) to get them into better shape. Seriously, a couple of intelligent folks proofreading and fixing up typos as they went (rather than reporting them to someone else to fix, which more than doubles the time it takes; it usually takes more time to document a typo than it does to fix it) could have accomplished it all in a week
If you look at the date of the GTY response (2009) you will see it has already been 5 years since GTY asked the public for help in correcting the typos. They were never going to have it error-free. If the OP's estimate of 10,000~20,000 typos contained therein there is no way you could have them corrected in a week.
Logos 7 Collectors Edition
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Rosie Perera said:MJ. Smith said:Super.Tramp said:
At the price they are selling it for Logos ought to do the error correcting.
If their contract allows it. The standard contract would not. However, it sounds as if a contract modification might be an easy deal.
It sounds like GTY wants the quality of this archive improved too, so if they can get that through Logos fixing up typos I'm sure they'd be thrilled. But it's not likely they can. Logos has already run these files through at least one level of conversion with tagging for them to be Logos editions. So any typo fixes they apply would be to those post-conversion files, not to the original sources (or else they'd have to do all the tagging over again). I don't think they have an automated process for merging typo fixes from source files into their post-conversion files, or vice versa. And any manual doing of that would be error prone. So it's likely that if Logos gets permission to do the fixes themselves, they would be the only beneficiaries. And if GTY fixes the typos, Logos would not benefit. It has to be a dual-track path at this point.
This goes to show how important it is for Logos to ensure high quality original source files from publishers at the outset, or else it's going to waste a lot of time down the road. Sure, GTY wanted to get the files out sooner rather than later, but it wouldn't have taken "5 years" (Super.Tramp) to get them into better shape. Seriously, a couple of intelligent folks proofreading and fixing up typos as they went (rather than reporting them to someone else to fix, which more than doubles the time it takes; it usually takes more time to document a typo than it does to fix it) could have accomplished it all in a week, I'm guessing (though I don't have the resource myself so I don't know how many pages of content are in it). That should have been done.
For years I have suggested that Logos take advantage of all of us to crowd-source (with some incentive) the correction and tagging of resources like this and many others. As Logos' library grows more and more interlibrary links will be possible so it would be great to have people like us automatically create the links. And then for files like this and also the public domain scanned-in stuff that Logos has been selling, it would be great. We could even improve Vyrso editions.
This isn't the solution for the MacArthur sermon library now, but it would be an incredibly worthwhile investment to create a crowd-sourcing correction source.Jacob Hantla
Pastor/Elder, Grace Bible Church
gbcaz.org0 -
I hadn't realized that John MacArthur had such poor elocution...
[quote]It’s a fantastic thing. Let me take ya to Romans 13, because here it’s explained even further. (John F. MacArthur Jr., John MacArthur Sermon Archive (Panorama City, CA: Grace to You, 2014).)
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Super.Tramp said:
If you look at the date of the GTY response (2009) you will see it has already been 5 years since GTY asked the public for help in correcting the typos. They were never going to have it error-free. If the OP's estimate of 10,000~20,000 typos contained therein there is no way you could have them corrected in a week.
OK, maybe a week was optimistic, but it could be done way faster than five years. It has been that long so far because they've been waiting for people to stumble upon the typos and report them, and then they fix them as the reports come in. But if someone proofread (speed reading) systematically through that quantity of material (I opened a random sermon text of his and found it to be 5 pages long, and there are 3127 sermons in the archive, so that's roughly 15,000 pages), someone who can read 1 page a minute thoroughly enough to find typos but not care about retaining the information (which I can), it would take 250 hours to proofread all the text on the screen. A simple typo (and most of those are really simple, though a few might require research like Chrissistum) can be fixed in 5 seconds. So it would slow down the reading somewhat, but not appreciably. If there are 20,000 typos, that would add about 30 hours to the task, let's say 50 hours to give some buffer time for research. Divide it up between two people and you could finish it in 150 hours, which is four weeks of working full time. I'm pretty quick at this sort of thing, but I'm not volunteering. But I bet they could find a couple of people who could get this done in a month.
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Just felt I needed to say that personally I'm not particularly bothered by this. (If you are, that's fine. And I'll be glad to benefit from any typo reports you make. But this resource is fine as it is for me.)
I think the reason I don't mind too much is because I always viewed this product as a raw transcript, rather than as the edited sermons you might get for example in the Spurgeon volumes, or Lloyd-Jones on Acts or Romans. In amongst the poor grammar, the badly-chosen turn of phrase, the circumlocutions and all the other inevitable inadequacies that transcripts reveal, I'm not sure I really mind the odd typo or two.
This is my personal Faithlife account. On 1 March 2022, I started working for Faithlife, and have a new 'official' user account. Posts on this account shouldn't be taken as official Faithlife views!
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Taxee said:
I hadn't realized that John MacArthur had such poor elocution...
[quote]It’s a fantastic thing. Let me take ya to Romans 13, because here it’s explained even further. (John F. MacArthur Jr., John MacArthur Sermon Archive (Panorama City, CA: Grace to You, 2014).)
Not surprising. Many people pronounce it that way colloquially, and a sermon is sometimes a rather colloquial way of speaking to a congregation. However I'm surprised that the transcriber transcribed the pronunciation literally instead of spelling it out as "you". Oh well, Like Mark Barnes said, these sorts of things wouldn't bother me that much if I had this resource. I'm not a huge fan of MacArthur though, so I wouldn't buy his sermon transcripts unless they were much less expensive.
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Rosie Perera said:
But I bet they could find a couple of people who could get this done in a month.
I could ask my wife Nina to proofread it but she is already committed to a proofreading project. She is correcting errors in transcriptions of the Gaelic Bible. She finds a couple errors per chapter.
I would try but I would introduce new typos. [:P]
Regardless, I am with Mark. I don't mind typos if I can decipher the original.
Logos 7 Collectors Edition
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Jacob Hantla said:
For years I have suggested that Logos take advantage of all of us to crowd-source (with some incentive) the correction and tagging of resources like this and many others. As Logos' library grows more and more interlibrary links will be possible so it would be great to have people like us automatically create the links. And then for files like this and also the public domain scanned-in stuff that Logos has been selling, it would be great. We could even improve Vyrso editions.
This isn't the solution for the MacArthur sermon library now, but it would be an incredibly worthwhile investment to create a crowd-sourcing correction source.I would echo the sentiment that taking advantage of crowd sourcing work from normal readers is the way forward. If we were able to suggest corrections ourselves that were then approved/rejected by a couple of Logos moderators, we could easily clean many of the existing resources on a daily basis.
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Mark Barnes said:
I think the reason I don't mind too much is because I always viewed this product as a raw transcript
I followed John MacArthur closely. Though most are raw transcripts, few are not. Many times they were edited for the readers, to avoid conflict.
One for example, I forgot which conference I attended, maybe it was the Strange Fire conference, and John MacArthur said "Paul was a Calvinist" and these words were omitted from the transcript... and stuffs like these. (I live not too far from his church & Master Seminary)
Just fyi
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I suppose I could see the spirit behind which this was said.mike said:John MacArthur said "Paul was a Calvinist" and these words were omitted from the transcript...
I suspect its reasonable for almost all of us to think that what we believe best reflects what the disciples and indeed Christ believed. Arminius might have said Paul believed in a less complicated free will. Though I can also see why they would edit that out. Can't really be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt (or else there would be no Calvinism debate), and could cause someone who would otherwise be blessed by his ministry to skip it all together. Though I suppose to have heard of MacArthur is to know he's a Calvinist at least in soteriology.L2 lvl4 (...) WORDsearch, all the way through L10,
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I am an attorney, and in the legal system, exact transcripts are required. Even the verbal pauses, and ums.
But I think any sermon transcript should be edited to make it clean, even removing sentence fragments that are false starts. Removing misstatements or overstatements are also fine. Even the White House alters published transcripts when they want to "take it back."
I think it is more important to get the sermon correct now, even if altering the sermon from 40 years ago. I am more interested in knowing what the author understands a text to mean than to catch him in a bad moment. If any pastor preached something he now understands to be error, then correct it rather than propagate it. Perhaps to be fair, make a footnote of it. So do overs are fine
Of course, In the legal world, it is my job to catch you in an error In a deposition or trial.
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Rick Carmickle said:
I am an attorney, and in the legal system, exact transcripts are required. Even the verbal pauses, and ums.
But I think any sermon transcript should be edited to make it clean, even removing sentence fragments that are false starts. Removing misstatements or overstatements are also fine. Even the White House alters published transcripts when they want to "take it back."
I think it is more important to get the sermon correct now, even if altering the sermon from 40 years ago.
I know at least some pastors do this. RayStedman.org features transcripts and audio, and often the transcripts are cleaner. Sometimes even flat jokes are left out, if I recall correctly. But I do think that would need to be done on GTY's side. But Faithlife should be responsible for making the documents usable, which, as the sample I already posted showed, they are not.
Using Logos as a pastor, seminary professor, and Tyndale author
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It would be nice if the typos could be prioritized - because of the effect on search. Misspellings of typical English words probably does not hurt, but not finding Chrysostom would be a much bigger deal.
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