Is Too Scholarship

Finally, a law review stakes a claim: blogging is too scholarship. Via Larry Solum, I find Northwestern’s “Colloquy,” “the first scholarly weblog to be operated by a major law review.” While we pause to deconstruct that sentence, I’ll post the Colloquy “Comments Policy.” Scholarly or not, a blog isn’t really a blog unless readers can chime in:

In order to maintain the comments threads on the Colloquy as a safe and productive forum for academic discussion, the Law Review will strictly monitor all comments to ensure compliance with the following standards:

1. All comments must be worded in a respectful and scholarly fashion. The Law Review will enforce a zero-tolerance policy against any commenters who employ harrassing or abusive language, employ personal invective in the place of argument, or fail to engage in respectful, appropriate standards of discussion.

2. All comments must address the substance of the post to which they are responding.

3. No commenter shall use the Colloquy to promote services or merchandise other than academic work.

4. All comments must comply with the University’s Policy Statements.

5. All commenters must include a valid e-mail address, and their real name. No anonymous postings will be permitted.

All comments must be approved by Law Review staff before they will be posted. The Law Review reserves the right to edit or refuse to publish any comment that we determine, in our discretion, to be a violation of these policies. Whenever practicable, we will notify a commenter if we choose to edit or delete their comment. If we determine that any commenter has repeatedly failed to abide by the comment policy, we will cease to approve any comments by that person. We reserve the right to block IP addresses and take other measures to prevent comment abuse in extreme cases.

The pause is over. Can there be such a thing as a “scholarly weblog”? For legal scholarship?