Tuesday, June 28, 2005 4:00 AM
One of the continual criticisms of the blawgosphere is there are too many "no value" blawgs that have a smattering of posts and then seem to die for lack of updates. To some degree, this is a valid criticism. Yet, the more I watch the blawgosphere evolve, the more I believe this criticism may miss the point.
On the one hand, I would agree that a law student whose blawg consists of nothing more than a handful of two-year-old drafts concerning the trials and travails of his/her life of exams, hangovers and general boredom is probably not adding much long-term value to the blawgosphere. Continuing to link to these dusty entries probably serves little purpose to most of the blawgosphere's readership.
On the other hand, a handful of two-year-old posts from a law professor or other legal expert who offered thoughtful, learned analysis of a key court case may be worth linking to for many years after the fact. The mere fact that the blawg containing the analysis has not been updated in a long period of time, does not necessarily mean it has no value. In fact, if the analysis is particularly well-stated, I would argue that it should continue to be referenced via links indefinitely. Deleting the blawg would only serve to eliminate the analysis from the larger discourse on the matter it covered.
For this very reason, "to delete or not to delete" is a constant issue I face in maintaining the blawg directory. And, as the blawgosphere grows, the question will only become more difficult.
Just last night, I discovered a blawg entitled "The Confrontation Clause," penned by Richard D. Friedman, the Ralph W. Aigler Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School. In Professor Friedman's own words, "This blog is devoted to reporting and commenting on developments related to Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36 (2004). Crawford transformed the doctrine of the Confrontation Clause, but it left many open questions that are, and will continue to be, the subject of a great deal of litigation and academic commentary." Now, Professor Friedman has been fairly prolific in his postings since December 2004 on this subject. However, what if he quit tomorrow and never posted another entry? The question I would face in deciding whether to delete the blawg from the directory or not is its value to the blawgosphere.
According to his blawg, Professor Friedman has "written extensively on the Confrontation Clause in recent years, and have advocated the 'testimonial' approach that the Supreme Court adopted in Crawford." His posts contain a lot of information, including analysis of, and links to, other resources and cases concerning Crawford and Confrontation Clause. His blawg really reminds me of a living, breathing 21rst Century version of the venerable "In a Nutshell," series from West Publishing. Much smaller in scope, of course, but the same idea: serving as reputable source for a specific subject matter. Indeed, it seems to me that any lawyer researching the Confrontation Clause and/or Crawford, may find Professor's Friedman's blawg a must-read resource.
In the end, the continued evolution of blawgs makes every seemingly cut-and-dried statement about them, well...not so cut and dried. The continued emergence of well-written and potentially authoratitive blawgs from legal experts worldwide adds a whole new and intriguing wrinkle to the blawgosphere. "Number of entries," may simply be a less and less important criteria for the most referenced blawgs. Blawgs which live for a finite period may even published in book form and serve as a new form of reference material. Who knows? The possibilities are endless. Stay tuned.