Allow me to Retort
Rather than forking out the cost of a 200 pack of highlighters at Royal Grounds Cafe for 30 seconds of internet use, I went the cheap route and ignored pretty much everyone for the past week (except for the comment acknowledging the whiney 1Ls). Broadly I want to move discussions of non-CLR stuff here. Those who got (or will be) rejected (or arrested) will need all the personal attention and counseling they can get, so I want to free up those lines of communication.
With that, this isn't my sandbox (alone) but the sandbox of the co-bloggers as well. They're just too cool to kick it in the sandbox as much as I do. But some of the most noted posts have come from them (adderall and gun suits come to mind). I've wanted to emulate the Daily Kos open thread thing for a while but held off because Dean Edley promised a new 20,000 sports arena and an online DB for boalt students. While I suspect that would only add another forum for those who interrupt classes with inane announcements, it still would have basically eliminated the need for open threads. Much like residency apps though, the forum is nowhere near completion (completion time is estimated at 15 minutes after start time based on the productivity of three randomly selected members of BTLJ and/or 1 editor of the same journal).
Residency: Anyone who says "hella" more than once every score should (a) sacrifice his first-born to Boalt/Edley Castle and (b) pay an uber annoying professional fee of $500,000. Due August 15.
Any New Yorker who enjoys every fricken benefit California has to offer but still can't swallow his ego to admit as such should be shot...and then he should proceed through the "hella" steps.
In other news, there were no e-mails from the library this week claiming that Boeing was going to operate 3 jumbo jets outside the main reading room because August was the best time to do so. Things are looking good.
With that, this isn't my sandbox (alone) but the sandbox of the co-bloggers as well. They're just too cool to kick it in the sandbox as much as I do. But some of the most noted posts have come from them (adderall and gun suits come to mind). I've wanted to emulate the Daily Kos open thread thing for a while but held off because Dean Edley promised a new 20,000 sports arena and an online DB for boalt students. While I suspect that would only add another forum for those who interrupt classes with inane announcements, it still would have basically eliminated the need for open threads. Much like residency apps though, the forum is nowhere near completion (completion time is estimated at 15 minutes after start time based on the productivity of three randomly selected members of BTLJ and/or 1 editor of the same journal).
Residency: Anyone who says "hella" more than once every score should (a) sacrifice his first-born to Boalt/Edley Castle and (b) pay an uber annoying professional fee of $500,000. Due August 15.
Any New Yorker who enjoys every fricken benefit California has to offer but still can't swallow his ego to admit as such should be shot...and then he should proceed through the "hella" steps.
In other news, there were no e-mails from the library this week claiming that Boeing was going to operate 3 jumbo jets outside the main reading room because August was the best time to do so. Things are looking good.
posted by Armen Adzhemyan at 2:18 PM
2 Comments:
First, don't stop Boalt's "official" forum from opening up this blog to more student comment about Boalt affairs. The environment is more free in an independent forum than a school-run one, as a civil rights activist like Edley would probably concede. Also, I've never heard of Edley's forum until now. And, once he manages to put it online, if he ever does, the competition can only help the quality of discussion on both forums.
Second, yes, the Adderall posting was quite a stand-out piece. It was both Boalt specific and brought attention to a national issue at law schools. Gun control? Nope. I go to other sites to read about such warhorse causes. Perhaps others come here to read those pieces. Not me, despite the fact that they may be well-written and well-argued. This site's competitive advantage is interesting discussion about the Boalt community in specific and law school in general. Law school taboos and Berkeley's leveling tendencies make such discussion at school quite rare (CLR, grades), so at least it happens here - and at a polite, discreet level too, for the most part. The 45 comments on the CLR posting, which cover a wide range of topics, are testimony to that.
Third, there is a general tension on a blog between its being a vehicle of personal expression for its lead-blogger and co-bloggers versus being an open forum for its intended community. Rather than try to resolve the tension, it's prudent, IMHO, for this blog to do both. Perhaps include links to hotly commented postings on a side-bar so that the more exciting posts don't get lost. The side-bar would include the name of the hot topic (CLR) and the number of comments, so that people following that issue would know if there's anything new. Sounds like a forum? Yes, it would have elements of a forum, but still retain the blog form and allow the bloggers to post their random musings and get front-billing, while not totally scuttling the interesting discussion surrounding a previous post.
You know 3 BTLJers or maybe one editor to do the HTML? Otherwise great idea.
Here is the discussion by Edley of a Boalt DB. I link to an earlier post calling for such a thing when the story of the Coase's List at NYU broke.
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