Readers --
As always, I'd love to hear if you find this blog useful or interesting. If you have ideas for posts -- or would like to write a little something yourself -- please let me know (whisner @ u.washington.edu).
I'm going to need to switch over to a new version of Blogger pretty soon. An advantage: I should be able to label posts more easily. A disadvantage: I might not be able to carry over the tagging system I've had (with the pull-down menu where you can find posts on particular topics).
(1) Would it be better to have dozens of detailed labels or just a handful of broad categories?
Having broad categories would make for a cleaner, simpler layout.
Having many labels would let me continue to tag areas of law (criminal law, health care, bankruptcy, immigration, ethics) and individual names (Coughenour, McMurtrie, Robinson).
If broad, what broad categories would be helpful? I'm thinking of:
- Studies & Scholarship (would include empirical studies, government reports, statistics, law review articles)
- Tips
- News
- Legislation & Rules (would include federal and state statutes and court rules)
- Cases (would include appellate opinions) (should it also include news stories about trial-level cases?)
- UW (would include comments about events at the UW, Trial Ad faculty in the news, etc.)
- Resources (would include books, cool websites, etc.)
Would you like to see any sorting by jurisdiction (Washington State, Other States, Federal)?
(2) Would anyone miss the detailed tags I've had? (I haven't inserted any since Nov. 2. Not enough time.) Have you ever used them?
(3) Does anyone use the little search box in the upper left corner?
You can comment by clicking on "COMMENTS" at the end of this post. Or send me an email message (whisner @ u.washington.edu).
THANKS!
2 comments:
Hi Mary! Here's my two cents on these issues.
I'm a huge fan of easily searchable pages. I don't use search boxes on websites about 99% of the time. But they are incredibly helpful for that 1% when I'm looking for something (especially when I remember something I read on a specific site, but can't find the right page).
As far as using categories/labels, I don't find myself using them on anyone's blog. I've clicked them a couple times, when someone has written on a subject in which I'm particularly interested. But not usually. I definitely favor broad categories, since it provides some structure to a blog, but it doesn't overburden the blogger. Plus, if you're looking for something specific, the search function should work for that.
I suspect I'm in a minority, but based on my experience, what I find fascinating is the politics of law as it's actually enforced or administrated. Having batted a thousand in the courtroom only to have these paper victories undermined by agencies and officials like two of your former governors, you might say I'm a bit cynical about finding justice there.
As for weblog platforms, I have used Blogger for two years, and recently started using Wordpress to greater satisfaction.
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