Quality and Update Cycles Beyond Logos 6
Comments
-
Thanks for pointing that out, Donnie. It sounded a bit odd to me too.
0 -
A. Bob's not going to do a manual. That's like Steve Jobs supporting stylus's (vs the obnoxious bluetooth/microphone).
B. Bob's going to do subscriptions. That's not the question. He asked that one months ago, with exactly the same answers. He's just spreading oil on the waters beforehand.
C. Bob's going to ship headaches more frequently. The problem is that after headache 6.1.2 is finally debugged in 6.1.3, 6.1.3 will have new bugs. So you really can't get 6.1.2 without bugs ... you are going to help Bob debug. Get used to it. Do your Bible study on the side.
D. The tagging issue illustrates the final point: they've got a quality problem. As Francis said.
"If myth is ideology in narrative form, then scholarship is myth with footnotes." B. Lincolm 1999.
0 -
Donnie Hale said:
One issue that has gotten significant discussion in the forums since the L6 release but was mostly lacking in your post was documentation. You do mention data set documentation, but that seemed to be it. I'm surprised that the replies to your post thus far haven't pointed this omission out.
Somebody did point this out. I did.
https://community.logos.com/forums/p/99549/688585.aspx#688585
Super.Tramp said:
The loud clamour in the forums is not just for data set documentation but for comprehensive user manual covering all aspects of the program.Bob Pritchett said:Our Content Innovation department is working on better documentation of our data sets.
Logos 7 Collectors Edition
0 -
Super.Tramp said:
Somebody did point this out. I did.
My apologies. I tried to read the thread carefully - guess I failed.
Donnie
0 -
Denise said:
A. Bob's not going to do a manual. That's like Steve Jobs supporting stylus's (vs the obnoxious bluetooth/microphone).
B. Bob's going to do subscriptions. That's not the question. He asked that one months ago, with exactly the same answers. He's just spreading oil on the waters beforehand.
C. Bob's going to ship headaches more frequently. The problem is that after headache 6.1.2 is finally debugged in 6.1.3, 6.1.3 will have new bugs. So you really can't get 6.1.2 without bugs ... you are going to help Bob debug. Get used to it. Do your Bible study on the side.
D. The tagging issue illustrates the final point: they've got a quality problem. As Francis said.
Denise, you hit the nail on the head and drove it home...[Y]
Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it's been found difficult and not tried.
0 -
Super.Tramp said:Super.Tramp said:
The loud clamour in the forums is not just for data set documentation but for comprehensive user manual covering all aspects of the program.Bob Pritchett said:Our Content Innovation department is working on better documentation of our data sets.
Thanks for pointing that out again Super Tramp...although I think Bobs hearing aid is turned down on this one...[:)]
Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it's been found difficult and not tried.
0 -
Donnie Hale said:
One issue that has gotten significant discussion in the forums since the L6 release but was mostly lacking in your post was documentation. You do mention data set documentation, but that seemed to be it. I'm surprised that the replies to your post thus far haven't pointed this omission out.
Does Faithlife agree with the general consensus (I think that's a fair summary of the opinions - maybe I'm wrong) that documentation on how to use the program's features is inadequate? If so, what are the plans to improve that? If not, why does Faithlife disagree?
A thought I've had that could improve this is to force internal testing to only be based on the documentation that is going to be released with the program. If the testers can't figure out how to use the program, it's a safe bet that the bell curve majority of customers won't be able to either.
Hi, Donnie. Right now, the testers actually write the documentation that's is released with the program, so if they can't figure it out, they have to keep asking around until they do. [:)]
But yes, we certainly hear you that the on-board help documentation doesn't live up to expectations. I'd say it's less inadequate and more B-A-D -- "broken as designed" -- right now, so fixing it is going to mean going back and re-checking some of the philosophical decisions that got us to where we are. We haven't said anything about that yet because we've been going after the lower-hanging fruit (for example, release notes for datasets) and we don't have concrete plans for improvements to help documentation. Yet. I called a brainstorming/problem-solving meeting that's going to happen this afternoon, and if we have anything new or interesting to report, or anything to ask for feedback on, we'll make sure to post.
Also: We've shared this thread around internally, and we're eliciting ideas from lots of different quarters for how to do better in order to serve you better.
Also: One advantage of moving to more rapid design-develop-deploy cycles is that we are able to make baby steps in the right direction, or change course quicker if we're not moving.
0 -
Eli Evans said:
We haven't said anything about that yet because we've been going after the lower-hanging fruit (for example, release notes for datasets) and we don't have concrete plans for improvements to help documentation. Yet. I called a brainstorming/problem-solving meeting that's going to happen this afternoon, and if we have anything new or interesting to report, or anything to ask for feedback on, we'll make sure to post.
I appreciate the increased presence and responsiveness of Faithlife employees on the forums. It gives us hope.
Logos 7 Collectors Edition
0 -
Rayner said:
I like the sound of all of it (including shorter release cycles) except for the point about subscriptions. The only thing I'd be interested in by subscription would be up to date journals
Given the fact that journals already require subscriptions, I could envision looking at a long list of them, ticking the boxes of those I want in Logos, and in turn getting a custom subscription service. While I wouldn't own the journal, I would have access to the latest ones.
0 -
Eli Evans said:
But yes, we certainly hear you that the on-board help documentation doesn't live up to expectations.
Thank you very much for replying directly to this question. I think we're all looking forward to details on your plans and the results, slow (to us) as they may seem to be in coming.
Thanks again,
Donnie
0 -
I don't like the idea of Subscriptions: I don't want to rent resources. I like to pick what i need and then get the best use out of it.
Note: After the last upgrade to L6 Standard & Reformed Platinum which is on the payment plan. I am very happy with the new L6 added resources, and the new Features
I want to be careful about other items.
L4 BS, L5 RB & Gold, L6 S & R Platinum, L7 Platinum, L8 Baptist Platinum, L9 Baptist Platinum, L10 Baptist Silver
2021 MacBook Pro M1 Pro 14" 16GB 512GB SSD, running MacOS Monterey iPad Mini 6, iPhone 11.0 -
Lee said:
I don't like the idea of Subscriptions: I don't want to rent resources.
I agree - I don't want to rent (at least normally)
But do bear in mind that "subscription" does not implicitly mean "renting" - the journal example is particularly apposite in this regard - an annual subscription allows for the "purchase" of the years issues. (at least in the physical publication world). I know this may often be different in the world of online electronic publications - the point I'm making is it doesn't have to mean that.
Shalom.
0 -
Bob Pritchett said:
Faithlife teams secretly works on new product with previously un-imagined features and data sets we invented. We quietly test ideas on each other and some customers, and come up with a plan and release date. The release date is chosen long in advance and (now that we're big and complicated) becomes set in stone, because hundreds of people, data, licenses, contracts, vacation schedules, baby births, and big-budget expenses are all coordinated against it.
The team works super-hard, has to cut some favored features and content, and sometimes has to choose to ship something incomplete for future delivery (new Atlas maps) or to cut the feature, because the date is set. The team also has to build many features in an environment with limited user-feedback. Sometimes the data set is being shaped by the act of creating it (cultural concepts) -- some of these things are so new we don't know what they'll be like and how they'll work when we're done.
Since there has been a snowballing effect ever since Logos 4, could it be also that the "dream" gets over-ambitious and Faithlife takes on too much at a time? It certainly looks that way to me. Making promises that are not quite kept would seem to align well with this happening. Having a great vision is good but delivering on one's promises is what gives a party "a good name".
Bob Pritchett said:2(b). We hear that "I never by point-zero releases -- they're always buggy" and "it's too soon -- I can't afford an upgrade yet" and others are just not paying attention / are in no hurry. (75% of regular users.)
[update with fixes and improvements ships]
3. Another 25% start upgrading while the first 25% send in 'bug reports'. Many of these are good, useful, and 'real bugs'. Some are clearly our fault (bad coding, rushed release, inattentive editing). Others are good, useful, 'real bugs', and the fault of the latest Microsoft / Apple OS release. (Too often our release coincides with one of theirs. Probably because we all like the same pre-Christmas release dates.) Others are good, useful feedback that isn't really a bug, it's a misunderstanding of scope or intention. This feedback helps us improve descriptions, documentation, or even change a feature or data set.
[update with fixes and improvements ships]
4. Strategic-disagreement ensues. :-) "Why would you release something so buggy / unfinished / poorly-document / unexplained / not-what-I-expected-at-this-moment." [tiny fix ships] "You should have waited a year till it was right." [tiny fix ships] "I don't want an upgrade every two years, I want an upgrade every three / four / ten years." [tiny fix ships]
There may be a naturally occurring and across-the-board dynamic of this kind with all new products, but I am sure that this happens more with products that are not as well finished and less with those that are. And even if that were not the case, the real question is not whether this is an unavoidable occurrence but whether in the case of Logos, it is exacerbated by the sacrifice of quality control and the accepted standard of what is a market-ready product.
How can it be said that 1) having read the feedback about quality of data and code in recent threads, we are right (your words) and then go on to say 2) it's unavoidable and cyclical?
Bob Pritchett said:Everything is getting more complicated. Sometimes a bug is a bug. Sometimes a bug is a financial or logistical constraint that forces a difficult choice.
Agreed and understandable to a certain degree. The boundary line is when complication is compounded by taking in more than can be reasonably and responsibly well handled.
Bob Pritchett said:We couldn't make any thematic maps until the background was right, and that took a lot longer than anticipated (lots of reasons), and we realized we wouldn't have all the maps done by the release date. Question: Do we ship what we have, knowing we can ship new maps at a rate of several a week (roughly) until they're all delivered, or do we pull the feature and just not have a new Atlas feature in Logos 6? It would actually take more work to reverse the new Atlas, change the marketing, etc., but we probably would sell just as many upgrades / earn as much revenue without this one feature.... We decided to ship it and deliver more maps after release. (That's ongoing.) Is this a bug, or a feature we're delivering over time that you're glad to have when it's ready? Or should we have stopped the whole process and delayed launch by a few months to let Atlas catch up?
I feel presented with a false dichotomy. If this was a question that pertained to only one feature of Logos, it would be worth considering. But when the datasets are all given without adequate documentation, tags are unusable, visual copy is all over the map, atlas is not ready (to mention just a few) one starts to wonder when the question of poor planning comes into play. I question neither intentions nor hard work. I am persuaded that everybody worked very hard especially as the release date approached and are enthused about the potential of the features they work on. But this does not negate the possibility that the planning was poor and again, most likely that you took on too much at a time and found out that you could not deliver. I know you want to "wow" us. And there certainly is a "wow" factor in Logos, but flies have a way of taking away from the otherwise delightful fragrance of perfume.
Bob Pritchett said:We have 45,000 books; LCV is on dozens, and Cultural Concepts is on about two dozen of four-dozen key books we have identified. (Though it could arguably be useful on even more.) Question: Is it a bug that Cultural Concepts aren't applied to Pliny's Letters yet?
Yes, it's a bug (irony alert). After all, this is what we really care about right, Cultural Concepts in Max Lucado! The better question is the fact that ever since the topic browser of Libronix 3 was taken out and the LCV approach was promised in L4, we have kept running after it. There have been good advances and certainly the topic guide, factbook and datasets have made great advances there well beyond what the topic browser could do. But it has taken that many years and 3 major upgrades to only get now to the point where we can see some of this promise delivered. In the meantime, we have had to make do.
Returning to Pliny's letters, it is clear that the ever-expanding Logos library constitutes a great challenge when it comes to tagging. The allusion to Max Lucado had a point: set from the start the parameters of application of a dataset and make it part of the advertisement. Don't say something that may make anyone think that all resources should be expected to be tagged with cultural concepts. Do say: cultural concepts in Bibles. In the future, we hope to expand to (a reasonable, reachable goal defined by a set family of resources, for instance those included in the ancient literature dataset). Instead of coming up with a new dataset, market the expansion of the dataset! (Logos 7 = cultural concepts in all ancient lit. dataset resources). Pliny would then find its place there, whether it has no place at all for the time being (nor Max Lucado, even if there may be customers who think he should). But more importantly, customers expectations are set right. We will be happy when we get promised cultural concepts for all Bibles and get exactly that. Why? Because we would not have had that before, would not have been promised more and therefore had NO EXPECTATION. We'd be free to just enjoy our gain. We may "suggest" expanding but would not complain that it is not elsewhere. On the other hand, grand and insufficiently qualified promises do lead to disappointment and complaining. And certainly "not working" or not documented does not work either.
Bob Pritchett said:We can't make everyone happy
Again true enough, but not a catch-all excuse either. To the extent that you address specific niches in your marketing (e.g., Academics), you have to cater to their needs accordingly. In this precise case, it means tools of "professional" grade.
Bob Pritchett said:We're not going to retreat to three or four year release cycles.
I would not pretend to know what length of cycle is best. I am good with it if, as you say, it is priced accordingly. BUT each version should deliver on its promises, not be another step toward reaching goals that ever remain ahead of us. Make the goals reasonable and deliver them for each cycle in order to fulfill what was promised to those who purchased that version.
Bob Pritchett said:More communication. (It seems like that's the solution to most problems...)
Yes, with qualification. It helps, but it does not supply for unusable tags. Also, while I appreciate the conversations and communications, I believe that communication has become too complicated as a reflection of the problems discussed above (taking on too much, lack of delivery at release, too many bugs, incomplete data, etc). As a concrete example, release notes are a good piece of communication, but at the same time, there are so many bugs fixed in each release that it is a drag to keep track of where things are at. Too much going on results in information overload. And there is too much going on. And in the end, it would be a pity for employees to be spending all this time discussing problems instead of having them fixed in the first place or now.
I would suggest also that the limits of the forums be taken into consideration as well. The forum is a mess. One can easily miss important pieces of communication. Perhaps blogs would be better for that or a newsletter? Also, as has been pointed out before, bug reports fall between the cracks on the forums.
Concerning subscriptions and rentals
This can serve the needs of some (for instance, students using textbooks). If I may venture to caution a bit there: what is becoming standard is not necessarily all good. The media explosion is out of control and its implications are rarely worked out before new formats, new ways of doing things, new gadgets pass into broad use. Don't be in a hurry to conform "to the industry" if your ultimate goals are not the same as and more discerning than that of "the industry" (which is profitability).
I don't have anything against these proposals intrinsically as long as indeed, they don't displace good old straightforward ownership. Yet as I am reading of more proposals on your part, even bundled together with discussion of the rampant problems that are already here, I can't help but think SLOW DOWN. Same reaction when you asked what features we want in Logos 7.
I don't think I can summarize all of these concerns any better than this exhortation: slow down. That's my two cents, for what they're worth.
0 -
Eli Evans said:
I'd say it's less inadequate and more B-A-D -- "broken as designed" -- right now, so fixing it is going to mean going back and re-checking some of the philosophical decisions that got us to where we are.
Eli Evans said:We've shared this thread around internally, and we're eliciting ideas from lots of different quarters for how to do better in order to serve you better.
[Y][Y][Y]
0 -
Francis, what you said above in your response to Bob's post was excellent! I agree.
Charlene
0 -
[Y] Hear, hear!
0 -
Francis said:
could it be also that the "dream" gets over-ambitious and Faithlife takes on too much at a time?
You are correct. We are over-ambitious, and I believe we deliver more value in each release than we really need to. I think Logos 6 would have been a great upgrade without several of the new features. But because we want to deliver more cool stuff, and are reluctant to pull things that are almost done and have great promise, it sometimes takes time for things to stabilize.
But maybe that balance of new stuff / stability is slightly off right now -- so we're adjusting it.
Francis said:set from the start the parameters of application of a dataset and make it part of the advertisement
That's a good idea, and we're going to work on doing just that.
'Tagging' seems to be a big complaint, which I understand to be missing links to other books, to bibliographic references, etc. (Let me know if I'm misunderstanding.)
This is probably the ultimate example of where our large library leads to issues: the books in our base packages sell in the many thousands of units. Most other books on pre-pub sell 100-800 units. You'd be amazed how many sell just a hundred or so.
I was recently emailed by a user who is upset that a set of books lack links to inline bibliographic references. e.g. "(Smith, 1984, p. 37) or -- worse -- (Jones, 1993)". These are indirect references to the bibliography that follows -- you have to find the next bibliography (at the end of the chapter, if there, or at the end of the book) and then find the reference to Smith's book from 1984, and then make that inline reference a link on the p. 37, or to the whole book.
This is more difficult to automatically tag than things like "John 3:16", and takes a lot of back-and-forth look-up even for human taggers. (And it's error-prone and a bit fragile.)
We have never intentionally supported this reference style. We only supported putting biblio identifiers on whole-book references back in 2009. (Previously we only linked to books we already had, with hard links, or to canonical reference schemes.) While we may have in some cases tagged these short references, they weren't planned or budgeted for -- they were on a list for 'future support' as our biblio data type resolution improved (depending, as it does, on a server-based dynamic lookup of bibliographic information).
The user emailing me has a collection of books that are very important to him, and which he's reading carefully. The lack of links on these short references is frustrating him, and 'failing to deliver on the promise of the Logos system.' But the books in question were produced in 2007 -- before we tagged any bibliographic links -- sold few units (in other words, he may likely be the ONLY user in the world reading them right now), and have a large number of never-tagged short-references. (Which means it's a huge amount of work, raising the cost, and which also means that even once we DO link them, most of them won't resolve to a book we have in the system.)
And that's a complaint about one resource in a library of 45,000, 20,000 of which (?) were produced more than 5 years ago -- in Libronix days, when we promised dramatically different functionality and supported fewer things.
I'm not trying to make an excuse; I apologized to the user for our deficiency, and asked the content production team to move this book (and the related volumes) higher in the re-cycle queue.
But I am trying to provide an explanation.
Maybe this will help: The default prioritization of resources comes from sales count. So every new tagging methodology is applied to (relevant) resources in Starter, then Bronze, then Silver, Gold, etc. Books in base packages are available to the most users, and we start almost every data project by doing the books in the base packages first.
Then we do the most expensive titles for which the new tagging would add real value. (You'll see Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary get attention before more obscure titles, for example.)
The 're-cycle' queue for maintenance is affected by number of requests, typo reports, and a combination of sales/price/subjective opinion on the value of the improvements.
We'll try to make these lists most explicit and public in the future.
Francis said:To the extent that you address specific niches in your marketing (e.g., Academics), you have to cater to their needs accordingly. In this precise case, it means tools of "professional" grade.
I have a professional grade hammer, and it is perfect. It is free of bugs and defects and performs its job flawlessly.
I have a professional grade laptop, and it is far from perfect. You can imagine the frequent issues, performance problems, and petty frustrations.
My laptop does a lot more than my hammer, though, and I use it much more often, and appreciate it a lot more. I am confident that if they started eliminating functions and scaling back their ambition to do too much that they could get a laptop to the same standard of professional quality as my hammer.
In fact, I have a laptop computer that meets the same quality bar as my hammer. It's a smaller computer that does less, but does it quickly and reliably. It never drops a wifi connection, never fails to boot, never crashes, never needs to download or index... doesn't need to be charged each day and takes little space -- it's perfect! It's a calculator!
I just don't use it often...
Okay, so I got carried away with my example. :-)
It has always been a balancing act, and I agree that right now we need to scale back what we've been doing and give more attention to thoroughness, catch-up, and quality control. But I'm also explaining why we aren't going to swing all the way back the other way, pursuing perfection at the price of serving only a tiny (happy) audience. There are other calculator-like products that already serve that niche; we're the laptop.
0 -
Bob Pritchett said:Francis said:
could it be also that the "dream" gets over-ambitious and Faithlife takes on too much at a time?
You are correct. We are over-ambitious, and I believe we deliver more value in each release than we really need to. I think Logos 6 would have been a great upgrade without several of the new features. But because we want to deliver more cool stuff, and are reluctant to pull things that are almost done and have great promise, it sometimes takes time for things to stabilize.
The point is not to pull things out that are almost done because that would be "delivering too much"; the point is to not start on too many big new things at once. Even pulling things out that aren't done yet can introduce instability.
It sounds like you are getting the message. Ratchet up your emphasis on stability and take a longer time to do the new stuff right. Place a slightly higher emphasis on going back to add tagging in old resources to take advantage of all the new datasets (but no need to go overboard on that).
0 -
Rosie Perera said:
The point is not to pull things out that are almost done because that would be "delivering too much"; the point is to not start on too many big new things at once. Even pulling things out that aren't done yet can introduce instability.
Part of the problem is that when a project is started that requires some kind of tagging, the scope of the problem can be very amorphous. I am sure when Logos began the versification mapping project, for example, no one would have correctly estimated the number of maps needed. And I am still finding mappings they handle poorly (see Esther 1 in the NJB) because they had neither the JB or NJB in hand when they designed the mapping. The trick is to deliver discreet portions with a reasonable timeline for completion (deuteron-canonicals to Bible Facts was not reasonable), the lack of Jewish/Catholic/Anglican terms in the LCV is not reasonable.
The other part of the problem is getting the right people in the room for initial design e.g. the sermon section was designed based on a very erroneous assumption that generally sermons are on one defined passage. This holds up only for churches not using a lectionary - for them the standard sermon covers multiple passages and is best described (in machine extraction terms) by liturgical date. My nagging on this point has finally paid off.
As customers we need to realize that the tools of our dreams BSL, Case Frames etc. need to be viewed as a dialogue of small steps where Faithlife proposes, users oppose (okay, point out design flaws and usability issues), Faithlife revises and adds a bit, users complain ... The basic issue is that seminaries, their professors and the general user has not rethought exegesis in light of modern technology. I've been thinking a lot about "revisioning" an interlinear recently ... if I'm found dead blame George[;)] ... and have been amazed at how little of modern translation tool thinking and formatting has been brought to the issue. Am I sounding like Denise here? [8-|]
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."
0 -
Bob Pritchett said:
Maybe this will help: The default prioritization of resources comes from sales count. So every new tagging methodology is applied to (relevant) resources in Starter, then Bronze, then Silver, Gold, etc. Books in base packages are available to the most users, and we start almost every data project by doing the books in the base packages first.
Then we do the most expensive titles for which the new tagging would add real value. (You'll see Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary get attention before more obscure titles, for example.)
Bob,
I assume that is the explanation for why Hastings 5 vol. Dictionary of the Bible has not made any progress in CP since it was announced as a part of the Diamond/Portfolio/Collectors base pkgs.
That set has been sitting in CP for many years. When I saw that it would be included in the 3 largest (most expensive) pkgs users could purchase, I assumed those additional users would be added to the existing bids to move it from CP to pre-pub, Unlike regular CP titles, those customers have already PAID FOR the set that is still sitting in CP.
This is not the first time that Logos sold pkgs with products that were not delivered for a long time after they were paid for.
I love Logos. As a large, fast growing organization, stumbles sometimes happen along the way.
Keep striving for excellence.
0 -
Edwin Bowden said:
I assume that is the explanation for why Hastings 5 vol. Dictionary of the Bible has not made any progress in CP since it was announced as a part of the Diamond/Portfolio/Collectors base pkgs.
In general when a package is sold with a product included which is also in CP, the product is released within a month or two of the package's release - released first to those who own the package causing great confusion on the forum for those who've bid on the CP. Then it is released to those who have CP or Pre-pub rights to it. The only cases I know that did not fit this pattern were non-English works that ran into unexpected production problems. This seems to be independent of the LCV coding Bob is speaking of as they have a history of releasing first without the LCV coding and rereleasing an updated version when the LCV coding is complete.
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."
0 -
Wow. I better clear the credit card decks for all the CPs that are about to hit. I checked mine earlier and noticed I've only a few that aren't in 'base packages'. Let's see ... 1 or 2 months .... hmmm .... December, January. Oh my. Actually, I hope indeed the packages force the CPs to come up for air (especially Lightfoot's commentary). I'm sure they'll be top quality.
MJ ... would be interested in your visioning on interlinears when you get far enough along. Mine, which admitedly would benefit few, is a popover on maybe 'sense' or the gloss, which would use either Rick's analytical (where he breaks out usage), some type of semantic break out, or even a quick translational distribution. I think you did that on your notes idea.
"If myth is ideology in narrative form, then scholarship is myth with footnotes." B. Lincolm 1999.
0 -
Will do.
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."
0 -
Bob Pritchett said:
'Tagging' seems to be a big complaint, which I understand to be missing links to other books, to bibliographic references, etc. (Let me know if I'm misunderstanding.)
This is probably the ultimate example of where our large library leads to issues: the books in our base packages sell in the many thousands of units. Most other books on pre-pub sell 100-800 units. You'd be amazed how many sell just a hundred or so.
I was recently emailed by a user who is upset that a set of books lack links to inline bibliographic references. e.g. "(Smith, 1984, p. 37) or -- worse -- (Jones, 1993)". These are indirect references to the bibliography that follows -- you have to find the next bibliography (at the end of the chapter, if there, or at the end of the book) and then find the reference to Smith's book from 1984, and then make that inline reference a link on the p. 37, or to the whole book.
This is more difficult to automatically tag than things like "John 3:16", and takes a lot of back-and-forth look-up even for human taggers. (And it's error-prone and a bit fragile.)
I totally get the problem with adding links to older resources that have a relatively limited customer base. I wonder, though, if there might be a way to support user-submitted links for resources like that. They might not be as reliable as curated links, but by tapping the community it could improve those resources for everyone while at the same time giving users an outlet for their frustration.
0 -
EastTN said:
I totally get the problem with adding links to older resources that have a relatively limited customer base. I wonder, though, if there might be a way to support user-submitted links for resources like that. They might not be as reliable as curated links, but by tapping the community it could improve those resources for everyone while at the same time giving users an outlet for their frustration.
I have long thought this could be a partial solution to the problem of missing links.
[Y]
0 -
Rosie Perera said:
I have long thought this could be a partial solution to the problem of missing links.
A variation on this, or at least explaining it as I would think of it, is "community links." Rather than crowd-sourcing the links by submission to Logos and awaiting resource updates, follow the pattern of community tags and community notes. Directly apply the crowd-sourced community links to open resources (assuming they're enabled, etc.).
I have all "community" features disabled everywhere right now. I would enable this and be a source of submissions if this feature existed.
Donnie
0 -
I would be surprised if we don't see community tags used in this way.
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."
0 -
Donnie Hale said:
A variation on this, or at least explaining it as I would think of it, is "community links." Rather than crowd-sourcing the links by submission to Logos and awaiting resource updates, follow the pattern of community tags and community notes. Directly apply the crowd-sourced community links to open resources (assuming they're enabled, etc.).
I think that's a great idea.
0 -
Donnie Hale said:
A variation on this, or at least explaining it as I would think of it, is "community links." Rather than crowd-sourcing the links by submission to Logos and awaiting resource updates, follow the pattern of community tags and community notes. Directly apply the crowd-sourced community links to open resources (assuming they're enabled, etc.).
Yes, I agree with EastTN. Great idea! [Y]
MJ, I wouldn't like to see community tags overloaded with this (though they could be used this way), but rather as Donnie suggested have it be a separate feature (community links) which could be turned on/off independently of community tags. I too would be very likely to use and contribute to this, though I haven't found community tags to be all that helpful yet.
0 -
As the functionality would be identical, I would not like to see it duplicated. With the ability to observe individual deletes and adds it should easily be possible to create an algorithm that produced clean results.
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."
0 -
Deleted0
-
Michael Parry -Thomas said:
I think I need to find Another bible software library With data I can trust ,
Good luck
0 -
[deleted by poster]
0 -
Deleted0
-
I'm very sorry. I was teasing, but you're right, this was nothing to tease about. And I don't know you so I can't get away with communicating in a teasing fashion the way I can with other whom I've joked around with on these forums for years. I apologize.
0 -
Michael Parry -Thomas said:
I need bible software i can trust
I think you can trust all of them to have their own problems. If it is perfection your looking for this side of heaven you will be disappointed. For me it is more about the resources I can find in Logos and its search capabilities. All the other bells and whistles do me very little good. I am very happy with the product as it fulfills my needs well. Others have different opinions likely relating to their different uses. That being said, those problems which keep you up at night should be reported but we all need to do so with love and respect.
0 -
I think Michael is asking Bob to make some improvements to Logos 6.He is not interested on anyone's opinion . It would be better to let him have the answer from the one who can give an adequate answer for his request.
Blessings in Christ.
0 -
Deleted0
-
Hi thank youTes said:I think Michael is asking Bob to make some improvements to Logos 6.He is not interested on anyone's opinion . It would be better to let him have the answer from the one who can give an adequate answer for his request.
0 -
Michael Parry -Thomas said:
This is what is giving logos forum problams when you get a Reply like this. the forum is not a good place to be ,do you work For logos l have spent over £15,000 I need bible software i can trust
Michael, what you need to distinguish is what you mean by "trust" in different contexts. For example on the ancient texts, morphology, syntax diagrams etc. you can trust Logos to the same degree you would trust any library resource. As for the searches, they are generally reliable if you understand exactly what you are requesting. Because we often want selections that "can't" be done precisely e.g. how frequently is God's word mentioned as the instrument by which God created the universe, we have to build searches that approach it from multiple approaches and combine or sift as necessary. The old alternative, still available, is to look at all references of creation and all references to word ... all likely synonyms and manually compile a list is not reliable. Where Logos is not reliable is, for example, a topic search on the Agnus Dei chant across all your resources ... it is not yet in the LCV so a phrase search on "Agnus Dei" OR "Lamb of God" is as good as you can get. Until fairly recently the deuterocanonicals were not fully tagged and would be missing from the old Bible Facts. Another example is the new Sermon Section which has few liturgical sermons or the Case Senses which haven't been applied to the Old Testament. When I say I don't trust Logos coding for BSL or Discourse Analysis or Case Frames, I don't trust it in the same way a scholar takes all preceding work as provisional ... and resources using less stable theoretical bases, I trust less than those that have 3-5 centuries of stable theory.
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."
0 -
Michael Parry -Thomas said:
...from reading what people are saying on the forum..., I think I need to find Another bible software library With data I can trust
This thread in particular provides a context where it is true that you will find reports of errors and complaints of hoped for improvement. Please do note also that many of these come from individuals who are using Faithlife products everyday to good and trustworthy ends.
I have expressed my own concern in response to what I have read, and will continue too. I trust that the staff and owners of Faithlife are able to weigh these concerns and have been encouraged by the responses.
I have recently taken note that there has been little complaining from students and faculty of schools and colleges which provide a Faithlife library and presumably require that it be used.
I am not attempting to contradict you. I have expended a similar amount to acquire a library of resources and I trust them though it is likely my needs are substantively different than yours.
"The Christian mind is the prerequisite of Christian thinking. And Christian thinking is the prerequisite of Christian action." - Harry Blamires, 1963
0 -
Bob Pritchett said:
I agree that right now we need to scale back what we've been doing and give more attention to thoroughness, catch-up, and quality control.
If nothing else, this should prove to a major gain! My hope is that it that the adjustments will have longer term effect. I don't agree with some of your views but at least it is now clearer what they are and as a customer I can make future purchase decisions accordingly. Nevertheless, I should take exception to both users or staff that think that the ball is all in your camp: to the extent that customers have heavily invested in your product, they have a right to hold the company accountable.
Bob Pritchett said:Francis said:set from the start the parameters of application of a dataset and make it part of the advertisement
That's a good idea, and we're going to work on doing just that.
[Y]
MJ. Smith said:Part of the problem is that when a project is started that requires some kind of tagging, the scope of the problem can be very amorphous.
MJ. Smith said:Michael, what you need to distinguish is what you mean by "trust" in different contexts.
Whether it is discussion of an obscure footnote missing in a resource released in 1992 or Einstein's theory of e-linguistic relativity have nothing to do with missing documentation, tag searches that don't work and many other issues. It is not useful to keep diverting the conversation to either completely ridiculous examples or exaggeratedly complicated concepts. It is not rocket science to provide adequate documentation with a dataset when it is sold. It just needs to be done and, for the record, whenever care is put into actually doing (cf., blogs, faithlife employee new features posts and MP posts) clearly the ability is there. Drop the strawmen and smokescreens (like "perfection" for instance).
I would like to reach out to some of my fellow users on the forum here. It would be good to reflect on what exactly is being accomplished through what we say on the forum. We already know that Logos is an advanced piece of tech, that it is no simple matter to improve certain tools, that it will never be perfect and that software always has bugs. No one is denying that and the complaints and requests are not about that. When this kind of response keeps on being given by users, how does it help with anything? On the other side of your enlightened "balancing" statements, the situation does not change: documentation is still lacking, the bug rate is still through the roof and the features that plain don't work, still don't work. Moreover that history keeps on repeating itself. Your statements are beside the point and so of very limited tangible use. A case in point is this: if there was adequate documentation (a real complaint), there would be an at least considerably reduced need for you to enlighten the rest of us with its conceptual limitations and challenges.
However, for all their limited tangible usefulness, these kinds of responses are not without effect. This is what they do: wanting to be the "positive" and encouraging voice, you actually accomplish the reverse. You drown legitimate complaints in the flow of your beside the point come-to-the-rescue statements. If there is any momentum gained that can actually get somewhere (something like discussing together concrete proposals and/or getting Faithlife's attention), you diffuse it. If we listen to what we say, it is the voice of no change. Sure, your kind of change keeps on happening: keep on reporting endless bugs and a correspondingly endless supply of fixes. In this sense, you feel that we are making progress. But fundamental problems do not change through this approach. You are happy to live with it and so you militate in such a way that would force others to accept this status quo as well. Many posters have become very discouraged by this kind of tendency on the forums and have all but given up.
On the other hand, in spite of this kind of pushback, the diversions, the diffusing and so on, consider what has taken place here in the last couple weeks. We have gotten Faithlife's attention. We have gotten a few things across that were not sufficiently heeded. There are indications that positive changes might be happening as the result of that. And you, who do the pushback and diversions, will be more than happy to benefit from these gains.
I do not mean to attack anyone here through what I have written, though to be sure, it does describe what a number of people have been doing. Hopefully what I wrote can be read as an invitation to consider what is the best way we can relate to real problems in our discussions on the forum. Disagreement is fine and can enrich the conversation, but we do need to work together to help Logos improve and often it feels like it's not the case.
0 -
Francis, I have not disagreed that documentation is needed. I have produced a long string of bug reports to the point I've been teased by customer service as "requiring my personal QA person". But culturally, because of age, location, family background I am determined to be precise and informative - positive or negative as the case requires. In my milieu, I am not accustomed to people who look out only for their own interests and needs, who are unnecessarily abrasive, vulgar or prejudice. Nor am I accustomed to people who do not listen, read carefully, think before speaking etc. If you find my approach unsatisfactory. I would be very unhappy pretending to be something other than what I am by the grace of God. I'm perfectily willing to let members of the forum make their own judgments regarding my approach. Yes, the forums frequently remind me that there are cultural milieus other than my own but they have not convinced me that I wish to change milieus. Yes, I am aware that I can come off as too intellectual unless you see me ministering to street people, taking in stray teens etc. but I see no reason that the forums need to know all sides of me. So you influence Faithlife in your way and I will influence it in mine. Friends?
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."
0 -
\Donnie Hale said:A variation on this, or at least explaining it as I would think of it, is "community links." Rather than crowd-sourcing the links by submission to Logos and awaiting resource updates, follow the pattern of community tags and community notes. Directly apply the crowd-sourced community links to open resources (assuming they're enabled, etc.).
I think this would be good to correct the occasional problem but not as a means of allowing Faithlife to outsource its responsibility to provide better linking to the resources it has published. I don't have a problem with the occasional missing or errant link, which is what the community could help best with. My problem is with resources missing hundreds of links to major works that came out in Logos subsequently. For users to try to manually submit all of these links would be extremely time consuming when Faithlife must have in-house automation tools to at least ease the process.
Since we are never going to get everything linked, I do feel strongly that Logos should have some smart in-program tools for opening up bibliographic references that are not linked. For example, I have at times copied the text of an unlinked citation, typed "open" in the command box, pasted the reference, and had it open the correct resource at the correct spot. We should be able to do this sort of thing more easily, like from the right-click context menu. Even if it didn't work all of the time, it'd still be easier & quicker to try it out rather than having to search through the library manually, which is often very slow.
0 -
Sean said:
Since we are never going to get everything linked, I do feel strongly that Logos should have some smart in-program tools for opening up bibliographic references that are not linked. For example, I have at times copied the text of an unlinked citation, typed "open" in the command box, pasted the reference, and had it open the correct resource at the correct spot. We should be able to do this sort of thing more easily, like from the right-click context menu.
I agree but suspect that their tools are already fairly powerful. I see the problem as one of not having developed a comprehensive system of linkage in advance so they could add the link whether or not the resource existed in their library and independent of the version/translation/editions eventually available. But that is easier to see and plan for now than 15 years ago.
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."
0 -
Francis said:
I would like to reach out to some of my fellow users on the forum here. It would be good to reflect on what exactly is being accomplished through what we say on the forum. We already know that Logos is an advanced piece of tech, that it is no simple matter to improve certain tools, that it will never be perfect and that software always has bugs. No one is denying that and the complaints and requests are not about that. When this kind of response keeps on being given by users, how does it help with anything? On the other side of your enlightened "balancing" statements, the situation does not change: documentation is still lacking, the bug rate is still through the roof and the features that plain don't work, still don't work. Moreover that history keeps on repeating itself. Your statements are beside the point and so of very limited tangible use. A case in point is this: if there was adequate documentation (a real complaint), there would be an at least considerably reduced need for you to enlighten the rest of us with its conceptual limitations and challenges.
However, for all their limited tangible usefulness, these kinds of responses are not without effect. This is what they do: wanting to be the "positive" and encouraging voice, you actually accomplish the reverse. You drown legitimate complaints in the flow of your beside the point come-to-the-rescue statements. If there is any momentum gained that can actually get somewhere (something like discussing together concrete proposals and/or getting Faithlife's attention), you diffuse it. If we listen to what we say, it is the voice of no change. Sure, your kind of change keeps on happening: keep on reporting endless bugs and a correspondingly endless supply of fixes. In this sense, you feel that we are making progress. But fundamental problems do not change through this approach. You are happy to live with it and so you militate in such a way that would force others to accept this status quo as well. Many posters have become very discouraged by this kind of tendency on the forums and have all but given up.
On the other hand, in spite of this kind of pushback, the diversions, the diffusing and so on, consider what has taken place here in the last couple weeks. We have gotten Faithlife's attention. We have gotten a few things across that were not sufficiently heeded. There are indications that positive changes might be happening as the result of that. And you, who do the pushback and diversions, will be more than happy to benefit from these gains.
Hear, hear. This is completely on point. One major problem with about these forums is the white-knighting that frequently clutters up threads. It's very frustrating to try to talk about a problem and find out a solution--hopefully from Faithlife itself--then have a thread get sidetracked into many pages of people rushing to the aid of Faithlife and trying convince us that the problem really isn't one. (This happened quite a bit in the initial debut of L6, also in a thread I started about the above question of links.) Criticism is a natural part of a business-customer relationship, and as long as it is respectful and reasonable, I don't see why it should be a cause for offense. As far as I have seen, Bob et al. handle it just fine, but many of the forum rejoinders do little to actual help anyone move forward.
0 -
MJ. Smith said:
I agree but suspect that their tools are already fairly powerful. I see the problem as one of not having developed a comprehensive system of linkage in advance so they could add the link whether or not the resource existed in their library and independent of the version/translation/editions eventually available. But that is easier to see and plan for now than 15 years ago.
What I meant to say: we ourselves need some more tools within the program itself to more intelligently search for and open up resources in our own libraries. Rather than just having to type in the author and title, find the right volume, go to the right page number, there should be some means of selecting unlinked citation/bibliographic text and having the program attempt to parse it into a resource reference. Maybe it could even be integrated with a community tagging project--we could confirm whether or not the parse worked & the information would be sent in for later official linkage. Such a tool would require some ingenuity and of course wouldn't work 100% of the time, but I think it would be a very worthy addition (and selling point!) for L7. (I'd certainly value it more than yet another way of visually depicting a Bible sentence or chapter.)
0 -
I agree it would ne nice to have on the user side ... it still has the same prerequisites of a universal structure to build or parse - something I expect the Early Church Fathers and official church documents is going to force on them as I have noted in other threads. See the "white-knighting" on https://community.logos.com/forums/p/86875/609927.aspx.
(Sorry but you deserved that, you really did. [:D]) Edit: Okay, Sean didn't deserve that but since the reference is to precisely the issue of linkage and our ability to add the linkage, I'll leave the reference.
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."
0 -
MJ. Smith said:
I agree it would ne nice to have on the user side ... it still has the same prerequisites of a universal structure to build or parse - something I expect the Early Church Fathers and official church documents is going to force on them as I have noted in other threads. See the "white-knighting" on https://community.logos.com/forums/p/86875/609927.aspx.
(Sorry but you deserved that, you really did.
)I am going to add my 2cents (again) (and I have no embarrassment about beating this drum at every opportunity). Basic tagging is abysmal. Never mind all the Academic features that could be provided and improved Basic tagging is abysmal.
Once again I cite the works of Tom Wright - current - recently released - should be an example of the best of Logos.
It (they are) very poorly linked to, internal references including the bibliography, external references I own (that is essentially why I bought these in Logos in addition to the paper copies, and external references that I could buy form the Logos Catalogue. This failure to deliver as promised extends through to the latest book on Paul released and published after some delay last year. As I work my way through 'New Testament and the People of God' my frustration level rises exponentially. Not what bible study should engender.
On top of that my limited vocabulary means that I am often needing to look up the meaning of individual words and foreign phrases. In every other program (including these forums) a simple touch on the track pad with three fingers brings a pop up with a basic definition. With logos I have to cut and paste to a different program to get a definition of these 'phrases'. So much for the promise of 'Built for the Mac from the ground up'.
tootle pip
Mike
Now tagging post-apocalyptic fiction as current affairs. Latest Logos, MacOS, iOS and iPadOS
0 -
MJ. Smith said:
(Sorry but you deserved that, you really did.
)For clarity as well as charity, my comment was just piggy-backing on Francis's far more eloquent statement; while his comment was in reply to you, mine was just a general complaint. In general I find you contributions to the forum extremely valuable.
0
