UBS verse matching sometimes bizarre

[Christopher Smith]

Using Accordance iOS on iPad, if I go to John 10.1 with UBS Handbooks-NT as my reference in the bottom pane, I will see:

 

The Good Shepherd

(10.1-21). This speech and the argument that follows…[etc.]

 

This is a section from Appendix 1 ("The Jews" in the Gospel of John) in a subsection entitled The meaning of "the Jews" in each occurrence

 

As this is an Appendix, it's a long way from the John 10 section that I would expect to find in the lower pane, and too many swipes to get back to John 10! I would prefer to have for the John 10 passage I'm examining in the Bible pane, the translation notes below on the subject of sheep and Jesus as shepherd.

 

I can see that the appendix passage about the term "the Jews" does contain references to John 10, but that's the reverse of the desired behavior. When the notes are below the Bible text, the notes should follow the Bible text. I can always tap on the Bible references in the UBS if I want to see the Scripture text for that reference. In other words, in-text references shouldn't be the anchors in the UBS, rather the Bible references at the start of "passages"/paragraphs in UBS should be the tagged anchors which are the "handles" for synchronized scrolling.

 

Hopefully my explanation and justification make sense!

[Scott Knapp]

Your explanation makes sense. However, the same behavior occurs in the desktop app when this module is opened in parallel to a bible text scrolled to John 10:1. So from the iOS app point of view, it is working "as designed".

 

Thanks for the feedback,

 

Scott.

[Steve Lo Vullo]

I make the following comments as a lover of Accordance, so please don't take them the wrong way. I just think there is a glaring need for improvement in one area.

 

I think this may be an example of what, in my opinion, is one of the worst features of Accordance, and one which I have complained about in the past. If not, the following comments still need to be heard, I think.

 

You should be aware that whether you are searching or reading straight through any reference tool in Accordance you will be constantly forced to backtrack, because when there are multiple references to the text, Accordance will always take you to the very last one. The rationale for this behavior is that people who are searching for comment on the text will want to land on commentary for the individual text only, rather than commentary on a section of text. So, if you want to see all commentary on the text, you must backtrack over and over again. This is extremely annoying, not to mention the fact that it simply doesn't make sense with many of the reference tools. I can give numerous examples, but I will give two obvious ones.

 

First look at the Life Application Study Bible. If you search for or scroll to 1 John 5:21, you will see only one reference in the parallel pane containing the LASB. This is because Accordance skips the first reference and jumps to the second. Both references are marked "5:21." The only way to reach the first reference to "5:21" is to scroll back to it. But why would we assume that the reader is more interested in the second comment on "5:21" than the first? This is especially annoying if you are trying to read LASB devotionally, as I'm sure many do, and have the aggravating task of perpetually backtracking. Wouldn't it be much easier if Accordance just went to the first reference? If so, you would be able to simply look down the page a little bit to see the rest of the references and wouldn't miss any comments.

 

Or take a look at the ACCS commentary on Mark. For Mark 1:6 there are three references: 1:6a, 1:6b, and 1:6c. Searching or scrolling will automatically take you to 1:6c. But why would we assume that someone reading or searching ACCS wants to see commentary on "He Ate Locusts and Wild Honey" (1:6c) rather than on "A Leather Girdle Around His Waist" (1:6b) or on "Clothed with Camel's Hair" (1:6a)? This simply makes no sense.

 

And even if it is sections of commentary that Accordance is skipping, rather than commentary on individual verses, this behavior still makes no sense, since often the broader comments will deal with the overall meaning of the verse, while notes on individual verses will focus very narrowly on only certain features of the verse.

 

I think many people don't even know about this behavior and end up missing much relevant commentary on text they are reading or studying.

 

I could give many more examples, but the bottom line is that this way of matching commentary with text is simply wrong-headed. At least give us the choice of hitting the first reference or the last. I hope that others who don't like this way of searching and scrolling will also speak up.

[RichardHendricks]

+1 on giving us the choice of hitting first or last reference.

[Rick Bennett]

I make the following comments as a lover of Accordance, so please don't take them the wrong way. I just think there is a glaring need for improvement in one area.

 

I think this may be an example of what, in my opinion, is one of the worst features of Accordance, and one which I have complained about in the past. If not, the following comments still need to be heard, I think.

 

You should be aware that whether you are searching or reading straight through any reference tool in Accordance you will be constantly forced to backtrack, because when there are multiple references to the text, Accordance will always take you to the very last one. The rationale for this behavior is that people who are searching for comment on the text will want to land on commentary for the individual text only, rather than commentary on a section of text. So, if you want to see all commentary on the text, you must backtrack over and over again. This is extremely annoying, not to mention the fact that it simply doesn't make sense with many of the reference tools. I can give numerous examples, but I will give two obvious ones.

 

First look at the Life Application Study Bible. If you search for or scroll to 1 John 5:21, you will see only one reference in the parallel pane containing the LASB. This is because Accordance skips the first reference and jumps to the second. Both references are marked "5:21." The only way to reach the first reference to "5:21" is to scroll back to it. But why would we assume that the reader is more interested in the second comment on "5:21" than the first? This is especially annoying if you are trying to read LASB devotionally, as I'm sure many do, and have the aggravating task of perpetually backtracking. Wouldn't it be much easier if Accordance just went to the first reference? If so, you would be able to simply look down the page a little bit to see the rest of the references and wouldn't miss any comments.

 

Or take a look at the ACCS commentary on Mark. For Mark 1:6 there are three references: 1:6a, 1:6b, and 1:6c. Searching or scrolling will automatically take you to 1:6c. But why would we assume that someone reading or searching ACCS wants to see commentary on "He Ate Locusts and Wild Honey" (1:6c) rather than on "A Leather Girdle Around His Waist" (1:6b) or on "Clothed with Camel's Hair" (1:6a)? This simply makes no sense.

 

And even if it is sections of commentary that Accordance is skipping, rather than commentary on individual verses, this behavior still makes no sense, since often the broader comments will deal with the overall meaning of the verse, while notes on individual verses will focus very narrowly on only certain features of the verse.

 

I think many people don't even know about this behavior and end up missing much relevant commentary on text they are reading or studying.

 

I could give many more examples, but the bottom line is that this way of matching commentary with text is simply wrong-headed. At least give us the choice of hitting the first reference or the last. I hope that others who don't like this way of searching and scrolling will also speak up.

 

Bottom line is yes there are times when syncing to the last verse is not necessarily the most logical. But, is this the vast majority? I don't know. It's not a simple matter. The first reference in most commentaries I use is far too broad for me (take 1Jn 5.21 in WBC-NT), and so syncing to the individual verse makes sense. In other cases where an e-text has multiple comments on a verse and they are marked up in a way that gets automated with two 'reference' fields in Accordance we don't always catch them and merge the comments together (LASB is a good example). In other places we'll tag the first as a 'reference' and the second (or more) as 'scripture' so that it doesn't skip any in when synced in parallel.

 

Also keep in mind if you are reading these tools individually, a simple search for the reference will give you all places it is contained in any range starting with the first. Only when you use = before the reference will it go to that exact verse. In this manner you can read as little or as much context as you want.

 

I don't recall anyone feeling so strongly about this, so maybe it is something the application developers can discuss regarding a preference; I can't speak on the viability of that though. But from a module development perspective, we try to take these intricacies into consideration and develop the resource in a way that makes best sense of its use…but we're not always perfect.

[Steve Lo Vullo]

I appreciate your comments, Rick. However, I still think it would be best to try to give people the choice. I know Accordance doesn't do things to just be like everyone else, and normally that is great and why so many of us are so loyal to the product. But in this case I think there are good reasons why no one else does this. Even your example in 1 John 5:21 raises some questions. For example, all of us have heard and taken to heart the axiom that "a text without a context is a pretext." But it is very often the case that a verse's meaning and function in the overall context will be discussed in these comments on whole sections and subsections. In the case of 1 John 5:21 we miss the author's translation of the section (including of v. 21), his textual notes (including on v. 21), and his section on Form/Structure/Setting. This helps us to understand how everything "holds together" in the context. I think most people, especially when preparing a homily/sermon or writing a paper would find these features important, if not critical. Now in this case I admit that these comments precede the specific reference to v. 21 by a pretty long way, but this is not usually the case, especially with study bibles and more popular commentaries. In most of those cases one can simply read down the page to catch all the comments without scrolling backwards *or* forward. And why would we assume that someone *isn't* looking for text critical notes on the verse or summary comments that make sense of the broader section including that verse? And on top of all that is the constant, nagging feeling I get that I have missed something important. And how can I know that I haven't unless I backtrack? All I know is that the more resources Accordance adds to its catalogue, the more I see resources that don't make sense behaving like this.

 

And what about people who simply want to read straight through a resource? I think that with the arrival of the iOS apps we need to consider that. While it will certainly be feasible to do serious study on, say, an iPad, won't many people use the app to simply read, say, a study bible or a commentary like ACCS straight through? I think this goes double for the iPhone.

 

I certainly wouldn't consider abandoning Accordance over this issue; it's just too good. But allowing us to choose which way of lining up verse and reference would be a great improvement, IMHO.

 

Finally, I'm not too proud to beg. Please, I beg you to change this! :-)

[Rick Bennett]

Using Accordance iOS on iPad, if I go to John 10.1 with UBS Handbooks-NT as my reference in the bottom pane, I will see:

 

The Good Shepherd

(10.1-21). This speech and the argument that follows…[etc.]

 

This is a section from Appendix 1 ("The Jews" in the Gospel of John) in a subsection entitled The meaning of "the Jews" in each occurrence

 

As this is an Appendix, it's a long way from the John 10 section that I would expect to find in the lower pane, and too many swipes to get back to John 10! I would prefer to have for the John 10 passage I'm examining in the Bible pane, the translation notes below on the subject of sheep and Jesus as shepherd.

 

I can see that the appendix passage about the term "the Jews" does contain references to John 10, but that's the reverse of the desired behavior. When the notes are below the Bible text, the notes should follow the Bible text. I can always tap on the Bible references in the UBS if I want to see the Scripture text for that reference. In other words, in-text references shouldn't be the anchors in the UBS, rather the Bible references at the start of "passages"/paragraphs in UBS should be the tagged anchors which are the "handles" for synchronized scrolling.

 

Hopefully my explanation and justification make sense!

 

I actually disagree with the way that this is formatted and will make a note to change it.

 

This commentary was somewhat difficult because of the sometimes very different layout in each volume and the quality of the e-text we received. I imagine that these references in the Appendix (the only appendix in the entire NT set that has comments like this) were tagged in a similar way to the main verse comments and by automation were formatted in Accordance as such. It certainly does not make sense to have them displayed in this fashion when it is open in parallel. Thanks for pointing this out…

[Rick Bennett]

I appreciate your comments, Rick. However, I still think it would be best to try to give people the choice. I know Accordance doesn't do things to just be like everyone else, and normally that is great and why so many of us are so loyal to the product. But in this case I think there are good reasons why no one else does this. Even your example in 1 John 5:21 raises some questions. For example, all of us have heard and taken to heart the axiom that "a text without a context is a pretext." But it is very often the case that a verse's meaning and function in the overall context will be discussed in these comments on whole sections and subsections. In the case of 1 John 5:21 we miss the author's translation of the section (including of v. 21), his textual notes (including on v. 21), and his section on Form/Structure/Setting. This helps us to understand how everything "holds together" in the context. I think most people, especially when preparing a homily/sermon or writing a paper would find these features important, if not critical. Now in this case I admit that these comments precede the specific reference to v. 21 by a pretty long way, but this is not usually the case, especially with study bibles and more popular commentaries. In most of those cases one can simply read down the page to catch all the comments without scrolling backwards *or* forward. And why would we assume that someone *isn't* looking for text critical notes on the verse or summary comments that make sense of the broader section including that verse? And on top of all that is the constant, nagging feeling I get that I have missed something important. And how can I know that I haven't unless I backtrack? All I know is that the more resources Accordance adds to its catalogue, the more I see resources that don't make sense behaving like this.

 

And what about people who simply want to read straight through a resource? I think that with the arrival of the iOS apps we need to consider that. While it will certainly be feasible to do serious study on, say, an iPad, won't many people use the app to simply read, say, a study bible or a commentary like ACCS straight through? I think this goes double for the iPhone.

 

I certainly wouldn't consider abandoning Accordance over this issue; it's just too good. But allowing us to choose which way of lining up verse and reference would be a great improvement, IMHO.

 

Finally, I'm not too proud to beg. Please, I beg you to change this! :-)

 

Thanks for the feedback, Steve.

 

I agree with your rationale, especially regarding context. And I believe that if opening a reference tool in parallel with a text was the only way to use it then other users would be demanding the same thing you're requesting. But, since you have the flexibility to open any tool in its own tab/zone/workspace, you can certainly read the larger context, or read it from start to finish. I don't say this to discount you're request, but your comments seem to preclude the ability to open a resource individually. Personally, when I'm using a commentary I keep two copies open: one tied to the text in a separate parallel zone, another open in a separate tab where it is not tied to the text, but is used to search and usually read the larger context.

 

 

Again, others will have to comment on the viability of a preference for this; I'm not qualified to do so, but I think it has merit.