At Ian Best’s new taxonomy of legal blogs, madisonian.net is classed as “General Blogs – Law and Culture, Economics, Politics, etc.” and in the “List of Legal Blogs,” but not in “Law Professor Blogs,” or “Technology and the Law,” or “Intellectual Property Law,” or “Internet Law.” This isn’t a complaint, quite, but it is a curious thing to see how others see you, particularly when the reflection doesn’t match the self-conception. Not that I’m the first to notice this problem, which inheres in classification and taxonomic contexts everywhere, and not that anything particularly pernicious flows from it in this case. Taxonomies are constructs, and they are rarely if ever “right” or “wrong.” But it is curious, nonetheless.
If you translate “general” as “of general interest” it’s actually quite a compliment. If your categorizing or “typing” doesn’t distinguish style issues from topic issues you’re liable to get very accessibly written blogs with geeky interests being deemed “general” and abstrusely styled blogs that address broadly interesting topics being deemed technical and belonging under whatever theme it tends to touch most obviously and coincides with whatever taxa you cooked up to find places for all your odd birds.
Speaking of abstruse…. I should have edited that before I hit “submit.”
Hi Mike.
Thanks for the link. I’ve updated your inclusion in my taxonomy. You’re still in the “General – Law etc.” category, because you often post about non-legal matters (e.g. Elmore Leonard’s Rules for Writing). But I added you to “IP – General,” because that is the legal specialty you seem to emphasize above the others. Of course that category overlaps with “Technology and the Law” and “Internet Law,” but the blogs I’ve put there emphasize each specialty a bit more. Leaving you out of the “Law Professor Blogs” category was a simple oversight on my part, which I have since corrected.
I’m not sure I’ll add “curious” to my review post.
Best regards,
Ian
Ian,
Thanks! I hope you’ll be able to keep up the list as blogs come and go.
Alice, among others, is pleased, even if her comment isn’t quite a review.
Mike
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