Steal This Article: Epilogue
Posted December 31, 2006, in Book Reviews, Business, Clients, Clock Tower Law Group, IP Law, Licensing, Open Source, Patent Law, Spam, Technology, The Legal List, Top Law Articles, Top Tech Articles, Trade Secret Law, Trademark Law, Web Design, Weblogs, Worst Practices, nothing.but.net by @ErikJHeels (permalink: http://erikjheels.com/?p=661)
A technology evangelist's work is never done.
On 08/25/06, I wrote an article entitled "Steal This Article" that first appeared in the ABA's Law Practice magazine on 10/01/06 and on the ABA website on 10/28/06. Yesterday, 12/30/06, that article disappeared into the ABA archives. It is no longer searchable, findable, or useful. It is as if the article had never been written.
The crux of my article was that this is not a wise publishing model for the ABA. I stated that unless I heard from my readers, I'd stop writing for the ABA. Well, I did hear from you, loudly and clearly, that you do want me continue writing, so I will. (See my post "Are Blogs Dead?" for a continuation of this discussion.) I will also continue to be a technology evangelist in the ABA and elsewhere, despite the ABA's occasional missteps.
I do note the ABA added a website feedback link at the footer of many of its pages, so that's progress. Perhaps you could send them some feedback about this experiment.
Erik,
I should make clear that there was no intent to eliminate the October article from the archives. To the contrary, it has been live and searchable since October. Because of ABA's enforcement of new design standards, however, we were in the process of republishing all our web content as rapidly as possible, and the new table-of-contents links for the magazine archives were not live over the weekend. That was corrected this morning, the full issue can be viewed at http://www.lawpractice.org/magazine/articles/v32is7_toc.shtml, and any faulty links should be live by 11:00 a.m. CST.
A committee of the ABA Law Practice Management Section is considering new models for making more content available online. Because our periodicals are supported by ABA and LPM membership dues, we may continue to restrict some access to members only, but stay tuned for news on changes to this policy.
Thanks,
Larry Smith