With the summer doldrums having arrived I expect the rate of posting to slow down, maybe to one post a day, through the end of the month.
Posts Tagged ‘about the site’
A note to commenters
The Overlawyered comments feature, like a letters to the editor section, is subject to moderation and editing.
All comments are subject to moderation delay. Some never run, and others run in abridged or edited form, as with letters to the editor. If you ever feel that such editing has resulted in misstating your point, please either delete the comment or advise me that you would like it deleted.
People regularly try to turn the comments function here into a general gripe forum over national politics, its issues, parties, and personalities, the shortcomings of the mainstream media, opinions about celebrities, and so forth. That’s not going to happen if I can stop it as moderator.
There are thousands upon thousands of forums that welcome general U.S. political discussions. They offer a place to post to your heart’s content about issues not raised by our posts here.
Omit a letter, spoil a website
Richard Gray of St. Louis writes:
“Are you aware that if you accidentally leave out the ‘y’, as I just did, www.overlawered.com takes one to a gaudy Asian website, reminiscent of a Japanese pachinko parlor?
“Apropos of nothing, but wondered if you had ever experienced that.”
Never experienced it until just now. Readers who understand Japanese Chinese, or relevant issues of web promotion, are welcome to chime in.
Overlawyered turns 20 years old
Overlawyered, often named as the oldest law blog, published its first post on July 1, 1999. That means tonight we’ll complete 20 years of continuous publication. You can read the first half-month of posts here, and some best-of highlights from over the years here. Happy birthday to us!
To get more Overlawyered in your social media diet, like us on Facebook here (and don’t forget to like the Cato Institute and the page for me, Walter Olson) and follow us on Twitter (ditto and ditto).
P.S. Internet Archive’s first snapshot of the front page was taken Oct. 7, 1999, and featured the pink-and-grey color scheme that the site was to retain for many years. (Plus a webring — does anyone remember those? — an articles library, a discussion forum other than comments, and many other features since discontinued.) You can see the archives for the first half of July 1999 in Internet Archive form here.
And: “So congratulations to Walter Olson on his blog’s 20 birthday. Two decades in, and his blog is as vital and compelling as ever,” writes Bob Ambrogi at LawSites. He also takes up the question of whether Greg Siskind’s VisaLaw, which in 1998 launched a page with reverse chronological scrolling updates to report on a legislative emergency, fits the bill as both older and a legal blog.
A coming anniversary for Overlawyered
Overlawyered was launched on July 1, 1999, when blogs were still a relatively new thing, and so it will soon complete its twentieth year (!) of continuous publication at the end of this month.
How should we celebrate?
Posting slowdown
Posting will be slow over the next week as I work on a writing deadline.
Overlawyered turns 18 years old
Overlawyered published its first post on July 1, 1999. That means we’ve achieved 18 years of continuous publication. You can read the first half-month of posts here. Happy birthday to us!
To get more Overlawyered in your social media diet, like us on Facebook here (and don’t forget to like the Cato Institute and the page for our editor Walter Olson) and follow us on Twitter (ditto and ditto).
Overlawyered’s 50,000th comment
Our 50,000th approved comment is this one, by Gitarcarver late yesterday. Thank you to our commenters, both veteran and new, who add greatly to our discussions.
Guestblogger archive week: III
Caleb Brown is now the director of multimedia at the Cato Institute, where he hosts the extremely popular Cato Daily Podcast and Cato Audio. When he first joined us as a guestblogger, however, he was doing radio in Louisville, Kentucky. He’s blogged on a short-lived suit by a man who suffered emotional distress after seeing participants consume pureed rat on NBC’s “Fear Factor,” a mini-wave of suits against law schools (back before the more recent, bigger wave), and a criminal complaint in France against a man who spotted a hole in computer security and published about it. [archive first, second / Twitter]
When blogs rose to popularity in the early 2000s there was a flowering of medical blogs written by practicing physicians. Among its highlights was an Ohio family physician’s MedPundit. Although she quit blogging around 2006 that was not before she had dropped by Overlawyered to talk about shotgun defendant selection and the plaintiff attorney’s “standard of care”; a long-shot failure-to-diagnose case; and what it means that malpractice insurance rates vary so sharply within individual states, as between Cleveland and Columbus in Ohio. [archive]
Donald Boudreaux, founder of Cafe Hayek and professor of economics at George Mason U., has few contemporary peers as an exponent of sound economics for the intelligent reader. He joined us to write about (timely!) Hillary Clinton’s proposal for a restored national maximum speed limit of 55 miles per hour, popular misunderstanding of the concept of the “trade deficit” (timely again!), and where if anywhere the federal government might draw the constitutional authority to regulate the treatment of pets. [archive]
Don’t forget: we’re inviting volunteers (and of course repeat volunteers) to propose yourself for a weeklong guestblog stint in this space some time this summer or fall. Email editor – (at) – overlawyered – (dot) – com.
17 years ago today…
Overlawyered was founded on July 1, 1999. You can read the first posts here.
P.S. Get more Overlawyered in your social media diet! Like us on Facebook here (and don’t forget to like the Cato Institute) and follow us on Twitter (ditto).