Jeff Geerling's blog

After seeing about 50 responses on Twitter to a casual comment about the USCCB not being able/willing to allow open access to the Bible (NAB or NABRE translation) or Catechism of the Catholic Church to developers like me (and many others), I thought I'd simply post here all the information I have about the current situation, and what might be able to be done to remedy this situation...

[I set up this little petition just to allow people to voice support. Petitions don't help change things in the Church, but it's good to see what kind of things people would like to see happen!]

Correspondence with USCCB about licensing/access

I have contacted the USCCB twice now, asking once on behalf of the Archdiocese of St. Louis (I used to work there as Director of Web Development), and once on behalf of flockNote, Open Source Catholic, and Midwestern Mac. Both emails asked a simple question: Is there any way I could get access to the only USCCB-approved biblical translation and CCC translation so I could use these translations in mobile apps and websites?

I was hoping to see if they would offer the works under some sort of free license that would allow Catholic developers the ability to build apps including Catholic bible texts and CCC integrations (something like the Westminster Shorter Catechism in 90 Days study guide app, but for Catholics). But the responses I've received have been less than encouraging—see the forum topic Public Domain Catholic Bibles for the full details.

The gist of their responses: They have things 'in the works', and anyone can get the bible and CCC on Kindle ('for a low price...'), and they're working to allow brief excerpts (but definitely not a whole chapter or section) to be emailed to people.

Current Access to Catholic Catechisms and Bibles

Currently, there's a $17 Catechism for the Kindle (where the paperback version is $9), as mentioned by @BrandonVogt1 on Twitter. He appropriately tagged that with the #EvangelismFail tag... why is this not free in eBook format, at a minimum?

And the ONLY canonical source for these texts is the USCCB website, which is still set up like a 90s era website, with a link structure by which people can access any book of the bible, or chapter, but there's poor/no search ability, and it's hard to actually discover topical information, or find particular topics or indexes of either the Bible or the Catechism on the USCCB's website.

There are a few companies who have paid (large?) licensing fees to the USCCB to use the official translations in their software and websites—one in particular is the Logos bible software, which charges $17 on top of the fee for their software for access.

Resolution

The most helpful thing the USCCB could do is allow completely free and open access to the texts of both the NABRE and CCC by anyone. But as I see this is quite unlikely to happen (but I'd be very happy to be surprised!), I think something like the following could be more amenable:

The USCCB could have a NABRE/CCC API available to developers—could be something simple like JSON or something—and developers could send a request for, say, CCC #2150, and their API would return the contents of that section.

To gain access to this API, a developer would simply need to register an account and authorize access, getting a token in the process that would allow them to request up to one chapter of the bible at a time, and one section (or a group of sections) from the CCC at a time.

If the API tracked calls, then developers would be allowed a certain number of calls per day for free; any more than that, and the developer would need to pay some small fee per month/quarter/year.

Developers could cache the results of API calls for a certain period of time—say, 1 day, 1 week, or 1 month—so their apps and sites would be able to run faster. But data would need to be refreshed to ensure the integrity of the translation, including any textual updates.

I don't know if this is going to happen, and I don't think it will, but I pray that this might possibly be considered someday. (I've talked about this before, but got no traction).

If I, as a Catholic developer, have to continue to use old English translations of the Bible from the Vulgate, or the King James Version (not even Catholic!), I'm at a major disadvantage. Information wants to be free—and right now, some of the fundamental parts of our faith are locked up under strict licensing restrictions.

Before I get started, I want to make it abundantly clear that I am in no way ripping on Catholic Hot Dish.com in this post—I simply wanted an example for illustration, and this is one site that follows a design pattern I've seen on many Catholic sites. I enjoy Catholic Hot Dish, and am saying nothing of the blog or it's content—simply it's design choices...

Now that that's out of the way, I wanted to point out an alarming trend I've seen on many new Catholic websites, parish websites, diocesan websites, and blogs: the tendency to pollute the entire design with too much 'stuff' that distracts from the website's actual content (what readers want to see).

Since I often read things in my RSS reader or Instapaper, it's not a huge deal to me—I click one button and the overpowering design of a site vanishes—but it is a problem for many of your site's readers, who aren't tech savvy enough to use such services. It's especially troublesome if you don't have a mobile-optimized design (or if your mobile-optimized design doesn't actually provide the bits of information that are actually important and present in your 'full' design).

The worst case is a design that has too many design elements and doesn't have a mobile-optimized version, meaning a mobile device may be loading 1-2MB worth of resources over a 3G connection, just to read your article!

Sharing Too Much

There seems to be a tendency to push the 'share' links—and to push them hard. It's now normal to see a set of Facebook, Twitter, Google+, ShareThis, etc. links in not one, but three to five (or even MORE) places on a particular page.

In the example of Catholic Hot Dish, there are post-sharing buttons above and below the post (1 & 2), there's a sitewide 'stay connected' set of links at the top right (3), there's a Google+ widget (4), there's a Facebook fan page widget (5), there's a Twitter widget (6), and an extra set of two (redundant) share widgets at the bottom of the page (7 & 8).

Not only do all these widgets cause pages to load more slowly (in the case of CHD, probably about 3-4x longer than if all those widgets were gone—they make up more than half of the page size, and add about 60-100 requests per page), they also clutter the design and make it less likely someone will share something (because there are too many ways to do it!).

Overemphasis Causes Distraction

It's a bit like the sign-emphasis syndrome I encounter quite often when helping Catholic organizations with advertisements and campaigns, especially for printed material or graphics.

People have a tendency to overemphasize to the point of distraction:

Notice how, in the image above, even though we emphasize almost everything in the ad, nothing really stands out (well, maybe the title, but that's it).

There are two things you need to do to make sure you hit people where it counts and make them want to do what you want them to do (on your website, in an ad, on a flyer, etc.):

1. Take away the cruft.
2. Highlight only what's really important.

An Example of Minimal Web Design

I've been focusing on the idea of 'distractionless' web design for the past few years, and I recently rebuilt Catholic News Live's website to try to cut out even more distraction from the site. I had to do a few things to get to the point where I am now:

1. Focus on the features I want people to use:
1. Reading the latest news stories.
2. Finding/purchasing the Catholic News Live mobile app.
2. Cut out everything that doesn't help with (1):
1. I took out all the ads on the site (they weren't really generating revenue anyways).
2. I took out all sidebar and footer information except for links to the mobile app (and a couple 'follow/like' buttons).
3. I distilled the list of the latest news down to the fewest functional elements.

Catholic News Live... before and after a makeover.

Nothing I took away made the site harder to use, or less functional—rather, it made the website faster to load (average page load times are down 30%, and the page size is halved), and made the relevant functionality of the site easier for end users to grasp and use.

Make some Changes

Look at the sidebars, widgets, links, and modules/plugins your site is currently using. Do you really need a 'ShareThis' link in addition to Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ share links, or can you just get by with one or two of those links?

Do you really need that 3D cloud of tags that fly around the mouse when you hover over them?

Do you really need an image rotator that shows the latest pictures you took on a family vacation?

Think about the actual utility of every element of your website, and whether it is essential to your site's functionality, or whether it may be distracting and paralyzing to your website's usability.

Take away the cruft. Keep only what's important.

In Luke 12, Jesus teaches us to guard against greed: "Take care to guard against all greed, for though one may be rich, one’s life does not consist of possessions." However, it is a longstanding tradition for Catholics and non-Catholics alike to give and be given simple gifts.

While not espousing the vice of greed, I'd like to offer some gift ideas for Catholic techies, bloggers, and podcasters. All the items are things that I have found help me in my ability to spread the Gospel through the technologies I interact with every day.

For everyone:

	The Church and New Media This book, compiled and edited by Brandon Vogt, features some excellent commentary on different new media initiatives and practices in the Church, by some of the most well-known and influential Catholic bloggers, social media users, and priests who use new media.  Buy The Church and New Media on Amazon for $11.00
	Catholocism (DVD Series) The Catholocism DVD series brings any Catholic into a fuller understanding of the amazing breadth and beauty of the Catholic Church throughout the world. The series has great Catholic teaching and beautiful imagery. Buy The Catholocism DVD Box Set from Amazon for $112
	Amazon Kindle If you want to save a few trees, but still have a great experience reading books and news, the Kindle is a great way to do this. The screen is easy on your eyes, you can find almost any book you want to read, and the price is pretty affordable. Buy a Kindle from Amazon for $79 and up
	Catechism of the Catholic Church Every Catholic should have a copy of the Catechism on hand for pressing questions, or just to read through on a slow day. This edition handily fits into any bookcase, and lasts a very long time due to its sturdy hard cover. Buy the Catechism of the Catholic Church from Amazon for $10
	Daily Roman Missal - Leather Edition Since 2011 is the first year with the revised translation of the Roman Missal, what better time to have an excellent Roman Missal to accompany you to Mass? This book contains the readings and other liturgical texts for the daily Mass. Buy the Daily Roman Missal from Amazon for $60

For podcasters and mobile video producers:

	Audio-Technica Lavaliere Mic This handy little lavaliere microphone is useful in many situations; in one-on-one interviews, use one for the host and one for the interviewee; in monologues, just stick one on the person talking, and you're good to go! Buy the Audio-Technica ATR-3350 Lavaliere Microphone from Amazon for $21
	The Glif - iPhone 4/4S Stand and Tripod Mount For most mobile podcasters and producers, the iPhone is the weapon of choice when it comes to quick interviews and recordings. The Glif will keep your iPhone mounted securely to a tripod while filming or getting B-roll for your project, and it's tiny but durable. Buy the Glif from Amazon for $20
	Sennheiser HD-280 Pro Headphones These great-sounding headphones are also quite comfortable. Making sure you have a great soundtrack (voice, effects, music) helps you ensure that your video or audio podcast sounds great everywhere; having headphones like these helps you hear exactly what's recorded. Buy Sennheiser HD-280 Pro Headphones from Amazon for $80

Can you think of any other gifts to add to this list? There are many different things that I know could make my life as a blogger and podcaster easier, but I'm already happy with my MacBook Air and my iPhone, so I can't think of too many other things right now.

Plus, in this economy, I only want to offer suggestions that give a really large amount of substance for the dollar—and all of the items above are things I think will enrich your life and make you a better blogger, developer, and media producer.

As more Catholic websites are adding comment forms and feedback forms, the problem of form spam (where you get submissions that are either obviously not written by humans, or submissions that are simply opportunities for people to link back to their own websites) increases.

I wrote a post on user-friendly spam prevention techniques that I employ on my websites over on Life is a Prayer.com, and in that post, I talk about the importance of making your spam prevention user-friendly. I specifically write about how detrimental CAPTCHAs are to usability and user happiness.

After you read the article, do you have any other ideas or techniques that you use to stop spam and make your users and commenters happy?

I read a good post on the idea of parish online communities yesterday, over on Catholic Tech Talk (great site!), titled: Parish Online Communities: Private vs. Public. In it, Ryan Foley speaks about the value of parishes having private communities incorporated with their websites and parish member management systems.

I wrote, in response:

Coming from the perspective of having worked on a similar kind of project diocesan-wide (for priests), I have to say that creating an insular (parish-level, or even diocese-level) social networks is a serious undertaking.

We've tried twice to create online spaces (private social networks) for a particular population of the diocese, but both times, after an initial push by a few people that were forced into being leaders, the experiment failed. The reasons were many, but mostly boiled down to:

1. Not enough buy-in to make it worthwhile (the people who were most active were those who were already using other communications channels to keep in touch anyways).
2. Not enough 'space' (a few people posted a lot, causing many of the priests who would've otherwise been interested to stay out of the discussion).
3. The 'just another network' syndrome; for many of the people who seemed they would be the target demographic, they quickly responded with complaints that we were simply asking them to manage yet another profile/persona, and one which didn't really provide them added value (compared to the small communities they were already in on Facebook, Twitter, and in real life).

I'm going to be giving a presentation on mobile devices at an upcoming Catholic conference, and I'm looking to see if there are any Catholic web developers, programmers, etc. who specialize in app and mobile website development.

I've found plenty of Christian developers, but it seems there is a dearth of Catholic developers (at least, judging by Google search).

From MSDN Blogs, back in 2004, but applicable today in every way: Hallmarks of a Great Developer.

• Plans before coding
• Always knows why
• Writes situation-appropriate code
• Deviates where and when necessary
• Knows when not to change code
• Approaches debugging scientifically
• Walks through their code
• Knows the language and platform intimately
• Groks the tools
• Improves the tools
• Knows when to ask for help
• Always has a side project going
• Doesn't make assumptions
• Documents
• Follows coding standards
• Uses version control
• Makes lots of small checkins
• Tests their own code
• Has passion for their customer
• Has great judgement
• Has no ego (ha!)
• Makes time for training

Couldn't agree more! Read the whole article for great nuggets of wisdom »

Fun reads:

• Do you agree with Umberto Eco, that Apple is Catholic and PC Protestant? It looks as though Pope Benedict might... [Catholic Herald]
• An Icon Leaves... The Legacy Lives [Whispers in the Loggia]

Regardless on your thoughts of the Mac/Windows divide (or, I guess, the iPad/vaporware divide ;-), you have to acknowledge that Steve Jobs has had an extraordinary influence on the daily lives of much of the world, through his work in the early days of Apple, promoting the personal computer, to the modern day mobile computing experience.

I wish him well, and hope that the industry can continue to innovate at the same pace with a less prominent Steve Jobs. I have often prayed for Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and other industry leaders and influential tech pioneers, so they can realize their influence on the lifestyles of many people and try to help people become more fully human, rather than 'slaves of the machine.'

Speaking of which... are smartphones the new idols?

Pope Benedict XVI tweeted the launch of News.va, the new news website from the Vatican.

The site takes a while to load from my iPhone's data connection, but I don't know if that's because (a) the site isn't using a US-based CDN (looks like I'm connecting to Amazon Web Services' western-EU servers), or (b) my iPhone has a 1.5 Mbps connection...

Here's a link to the Pope's (first?) tweet »

Also, it looks like they're using Silverlight or Flash for some content. But at least most of the content is plain-vanilla HTML!