Terra Extraneus

Lawyers are generally technology shy because of the time required to master new software. Thus, when this blogsite was the victim of some sort of mishap, it was clear from researching the plague on the web that though the cause might have been a villan roaming through cyberspace, the opportunity given freely to the villan was the failure to upgrade, for which only I can take responsibility. Thus, about six hours later, this blog site is now on the latest platform available that is out of Beta testing. If it was not for forums, blogs and very generous gurus contributing without hope of just reward in this life, I could not have done it. It was a test of wills, me versus the software, and the software won many but finally had mercy and here we are.

Fortunate are the web villians in cyberspace because that is a forgiving and tolerant community, or else they would be developing tracker software, hunting you down, signing an engagement agreement and giving me your identity. Courts would quickly become familiar with such an intriguing subject and district judges are usually adept at making villany pay up and get out.

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If you use Sitemeter on your blog or website, it is probably causing problems when people visit using Internet Explorer 7. The problem began on Friday and remains unsolved Saturday afternoon.

I took a day off yesterday and was away from my computers, so I only learned about the problem this morning. When IE7 users click on many Sitemeter-using sites, an error message displays: “Internet Explorer cannot open the Internet site http://___. Operation aborted.” Apparently some IE6 users are having the same problems.

I tried going to the Sitemeter website for an announcement, but I got the same error message there. Apparently Sitemeter changed something in its code on Friday. Many bloggers are blaming IE7 for the problem and are using this as an opportunity to promote its chief competitor, FireFox. However, 54% of all pages are viewed through Internet Explorer, so if you want your site to be accessible to most visitors, it won’t help to curse IE.

To prevent your visitors from having problems (and leaving your site in disgust), temporarily disable Sitemeter on your site. If you know how to access your sidebar or footer or homepage (or wherever else you display your Sitemeter), it is an easy fix. Just add < ! - - before the Site meter code and - - > after the code. That’s the HTML tag designers use to leave comments in the code that are not displayed online. That will prevent your Sitemeter from displaying. Then, when the problem is resolved, go back and remove that little bit of before-and-after code.

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LATER AUG. 2: Sitemeter says the problem is solved. I will restore Sitemeter operations on our site and hope for the best.

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I encourage you to take a look at our Top Ten page. On that page, Rod Heggy and I have listed our favorite blog posts, ten for each of us. I had not updated that page in two years, but it is updated now.

Rod and I have been writing Terra Extraneus since Dec. 23, 2005, more than 3-1/2 years ago. We have written more than 160 posts during that time. Actually, we have cranked out more than 300 posts between us, but in February 2007 we launched a second blog, Joshua One. Joshua One is about the Christian faith Rod and I share and about Joshua One Ministries, a non-profit organization we lead. We moved about half of our posts to the new blog and redefined TerraX as a law blog.

Rod is the attorney, so he has been doing the majority of writing on TerraX since then. I maintain and edit this blog and also contribute content from time to time. As a matter of fact, as of this date, I have authored 91 of the posts on TerraX, and Rod has authored 76, so I still hold the lead, although Rod is gaining on me fast. I might just surprise Rod and break into a trot to stay out in front. After all, this post is No. 92.

Bottom line: our best stuff in more than two years of blogging is on that Top Ten page. We hope you will take a look.

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How do you like our facelift? Regular readers of Terra Extraneus will notice that we have spruced up the appearance of our little blog. TerraX went online on Dec. 23, 2005, which means we are approaching our second anniversary. So, we thought it was about time to do some of the tweaks and tune-ups we had planned from the start or had made note of along the way.

We’re still running the same Wordpress theme, but we have transformed the previous color scheme of blacks and grays with some much-needed splashes of color. And we’ve finally completed the header design we sketched out on paper back in ’05 — our mysterious planet, floating in space, to accompany our name, Terra Extraneus, which means “strange world!”

We thank web designer Travis Langley for his help. We began working with Travis earlier this year on this and a couple of other projects, and Travis deserves a lot of the credit for the new improved us. We recommend him.

Along with the facelift, Rod and I have renewed our commitment to post quality content on the law and its practice on a frequent basis. Sometimes it’s hard to do. Rod is a busy attorney, and I have jobs in the law office and at my church. But we have managed to put up 135 TerraX posts in these first 22 months, plus another 150 pieces which were originally posted here but have been transferred to our faith blog, Joshua One — and we feel like we’re still just getting started.

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I have not waded into the blogosphere’s virtual waters very much this year. In addition to my law office responsibilities, I have been busy with other projects, including pastoring a small church, preparing to lead an upcoming missions trip to Central America, and catching up on the first six seasons of 24. Thankfully, my commandant in the law practice, Rod Heggy, has carried the flag of our blogging quest, while occasionally reminding me that this two-man project is increasingly becoming less so.

Rod wrote about “Law Blogging Burnout” in an April 2007 post. Ironically, he wrote that his solution to blogging burnout was to partner up with a former newspaper reporter and editor — yours truly. Hmmm, I wonder how that’s working out for him.

“Blogging burnout” is a malady sufficiently prevalent that Google returns more than 10,000 hits for the phrase. There are “6 Blogging Burnout Cures,” “7 Ways to Avoid Blogging Burnout,” and “12 Ways to Avoid Blogging Burnout.” If only I’d known sooner! All of these gurus advise that one important remedy is to “take a break.” For example:

Time off is necessary for everyone. Taking a week away doesn’t mean that your blog will die. … Time off can be refreshing and inspiring.

Well, if a week off is good for the blog, think what the past 10 months must have done for Terra Extraneus! Perhaps I should feel trepidation about messing up a good thing now.

In his “7 Ways…,” web consultant Ken Yarmosh writes:

Blogging burnout is best exemplified at the point where a blogger is guilted enough to write, “Sorry for not posting in a while.”

Well, I’m not apologizing. And it’s not because I’m a stranger to guilt. I’m just fairly certain that the world has managed to limp along without my bloglines these past few months. If any of you believe I owe you an apologize, please advise in the comments section below, and I will humbly make amends.

I like Chad Everett’s comment the best. In his blog, Don’t Back Down, he writes:

There are times when I don’t feel like posting, and I don’t. There are times when I post multiple times in a day … There are times that I may post on not having anything to post. But in the end, I blog because I like to blog - not because I feel pressure to blog. … I like to get the thoughts out there. I have this vision - misguided though it may be - of making a small mark in the world. Changing it for the better. When I feel inspired, I post. When I don’t, I don’t. I just don’t get the pressure part of it, but maybe that’s me.

I couldn’t catch a clue from studying Everett’s blog who in the heck he is or what he does. But I like his attitude. I’ll tell you this much. He wrote the above words in July 2004. Today he’s still blogging, and he put up a fresh post today.

So OK already. I’m back. Reviewing our TerraX posts for 2007, I see that I ventured back for a few days in May, writing 7 posts in 11 days before disappearing again for these past five months. That’s good news for me. It means that I managed to set the bar so low that I should have little trouble doing better this time around. If I were writing “18 Antidotes to Blog Burnout,” I guess I would put that towards the top of the list, right next to taking long breaks: keep the bar low.

Can I surpass those 11 days of May, persevering for a full two weeks this time? Maybe even a month? Who knows? Anything can happen at the blogateria. I’m sure the watching world is catching its collective breath, anxious to know the answer.

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Many bloggers labor to write an intelligent, well-crafted article, only to top it off with an awful headline. If you wrote a book, would you spend only a few seconds developing the title? Likewise, if you have spent several minutes or more writing a good blog post, take a little extra time to give it a decent headline.

A headline that says something. A headline that draws the reader in. A headline that tells your prospective visitor what your article is about and why he should take the time to read it.

Much has been written about headline writing. Google returns 100,000 hits for the phrase “headline writing.” In writing this post, I took the time to review several other articles on the topic. How to write headlines that sing. Headlines that are clever, ironic, humorous, alliterative, even poetic. Headlines that pique a person’s curiosity.

Great headlines are a worthy goal, but I think those articles expect too much from the typical law blogger. A truly outstanding headline is worth every syllable, but most law bloggers can’t devote more than a minute or two to each headline they write. Therefore, my goal with this post is not to elevate any headlines from good to great, but simply to minimize the number of law blog headlines out there that are just plain awful.

Law bloggers are especially guilty of putting bad headlines on good blog posts. Maybe it’s because most of the other things a lawyer writes, from emails to correspondence to contracts to pleadings, don’t require creative titles. However, unlike the legal documents you write, nobody has to read your blog post — unless your headline convinces them to do so. The good news: although great headlines may be a work of art, a good, solid, effective headline only takes a little extra effort.

The First Commandment of Good Headline Writing is so obvious that it is amazing how seldom it is heeded: Your headline should tell the reader what you have to say. The test is a simple one: If I can’t tell from your headline what your topic is and the basic point you want to make about that topic, your headline has failed, and it has probably turned me away.

OK, sure, there are exceptions to that rule. There are marvelous headlines that are inscrutable and yet so exquisite – so creative, intriguing or provocative – that one glance and the reader cannot turn away. And there are some bloggers who are so popular, whose devoted followers hang on to every pixel they post, that the headlines just don’t matter. But if you are among the 99.8% of us who are neither celebrity bloggers nor headline-writing wizards, then at least give us a headline that signposts what you have written.

Some headlines don’t offer a clue. In the current issue of Blawg Review (No. 107), I came across these headlines: “A Rare Non-lawsuit,” “Regulation is the Key,” and “Why Aren’t We There Yet?” Do those headlines grab you and pull you in? Not me. What in the heck are they even about? Respectively, they are about a claim related to a high school football injury, regulation of the legal process outsourcing industry, and the status of women in the legal profession. Interesting topics, so why not use the headline to arouse the interest of prospective readers?

However, the headline should do more than merely identify the topic. Repeating that First Commandment of Headlines: Your headline should tell the reader what you have to say. Not just the topic, but what you have to say about it. In straightforward, specific language, tell me what is in store if I take the time to read your article.

In a search on the phrase “tort reform,” here are three headlines I pulled up from law blogs across the country: “Tort Reform,” “Tort Reform: A Suggestion or Two,” and “Real Tort Reform.” Now remember, these are showing up in search engine results among scores of other entries through which readers are skimming in search of some good reading. Which of those headlines would get your click? Pretty hard to pick?

However, on the same results pages I found these headlines: “How Tort Reform Can Hurt You,” “Tort Reform Does Not Reduce Insurance Premiums,” “Tort Reform is Misguided and Tyrannical,” and “Pfizer Proves That Tort Reform Was a Fraud.” Those headlines may not be works of art, but at least they are interesting, creating a clear and specific pathway into the pieces they head.

Think about it. There is just one reason for a person to run the phrase “tort reform” on a search engine: he wants information on that subject. You don’t have to convince him to be interested in the topic; he already is. What you do have to do is convince him to select your post from among the sea of choices that the search engine splashes up on his screen. I think you will agree, the second group of headlines above are much more likely to achieve that, because they actually say something. The first group of heads really don’t say anything at all. If the writer has nothing to say in his headline, what chance is there that he has something to say in his post?

Great headlines may be asking for too much, but it is easy to go from awful to pretty good. It just takes a little extra effort, and it is as basic as crafting a headline that tells me what you have to say.

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OK, I’m on a hobby horse. I have a lot more notes on this topic of law blog headline writing, so look for a few more posts on this topic in the coming days.

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Thanks to Charles Hill at Oklahoma’s favorite blog, Dustbury, for linking to this post. Charles lists some of his own favorite headlines from the past year.

Thanks to Click Abuse & Fraud for linking to this post.

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I noted Jim Calloway’s post of his pick for a weblog of the week and noted his comments about continuity of law bloggers, and their tendency to burn out quickly.

Having experienced this myself at www.terraextraneus.com, my solution was to bring on an “editor” and co-contributor. I am a solo practitioner in an office sharing arrangement with a former partner from our prior lives with another firm. However, I was fortunate enough to run across an old friend that was a former newspaper reporter and newspaper editor in several small newspapers in Oklahoma, Terry Hull. He has worked in a law office as a paralegal for four years, too. I engaged him to act as my editor in chief and co-contributor.

Serious law bloggers will either eventually form virtual law firms in which they blog together, some already have, even if they do not practice together, or they will engage web consultants like Mr. Hull to assist with editorial and content contribution. I have chosen the latter. Busy lawyers, especially trial lawyers like myself, will have no choice. I am often out of state in trial and simply do not have the time when I’m in trial to do anything with it.

Terraextraneus is being redesigned into a pure law blog, a process we hope to have finished shortly. It was a mixed bag before, reflecting varied interests, but I have decided to participate at least in one other blog to address those interests.

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Terra Extraneus asks our readers to support three of our favorite blogs and one fellow Oklahoma blog by casting your votes in the 2006 Weblog Awards. Voting is held online from Dec. 7-15. You can vote once each day (from every computer you have access to). Just follow the links below (in all caps) to vote for:

• Evangelical Outpost, written by Joe Carter, nominated for BEST INDIVIDUAL BLOG.
• Jon Swift, nominated for BEST HUMOR BLOG.
• Real Climate, written by an international team of PhDs, nominated for BEST SCIENCE BLOG.
• Sean Gleeson, written by an Oklahoma City artist and teacher, nominated for BEST IN THE 5001-6750 LEVEL of the “blogging ecosystem.”

For links to these posts and to read why TerraX is endorsing these outstanding blogs, see our earlier post: “Your Vote Counts…”

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Finalists for the 2006 Weblog Awards were announced today. Hundreds of blogs in dozens of categories are nominated, and the winners will be determined by online voting. Voting begins tomorrow and continues for 10 days, and you are welcome to vote in each category once each day.

Terra Extraneus encourages our readers to support three of our favorite blogs in the voting beginning tomorrow. They are:

• Evangelical Outpost, written by Joe Carter, nominated for Best Individual Blog. Last year E.O. was voted Best Religious Blog, but that category was eliminated this year. But Joe is still up for an award with his nomination for best individual blog. Joe, the Director of Web Communications for the evangelical conservative Family Research Council, blogs an interesting mix of conservative politics, evangelical faith and random trivia. E.O. is on TerraX’s “Must Read” blogroll. Check it out, and give it your vote starting tomorrow.

• Jon Swift, nominated for Best Humor Blog. If you are a regular TerraX reader, you know that I am a big Jon Swift fan. He is hilarious. Jon is a liberal in satirical sheep’s clothing. I read everything “Jon” writes and encourage you to do the same. (Here’s my review of Jon Swift: “What If Archie Bunker Were a Blogger?”) What truly amazes is that “Jon Swift” began his blog only one year ago, and he is already approaching his 200,000th visitor. Please join me in bringing the Jon Swift blog even more much-deserved attention by voting it the Best Humor Blog in the blogosphere.

• Real Climate, written by an international team of PhDs, is nominated for Best Science Blog. Real Climate covers global warming and other climate issues. The scientists do an excellent job of making the science of this complicated subject understandable. Anyone who wants to be up-to-speed on global warming should read Real Climate. This is one blog that truly is making a difference, so I hope you will give it your online vote.

• I want to mention one more blog: Sean Gleeson, nominated for best in the 5001-6750 level of the “blogging ecosystem.” I am not a regular Sean Gleeson reader, but I’m going to change that by adding him to the TerraX blogroll. Gleeson is an Oklahoma City artist and teacher. We Okie bloggers and blog readers should stick together, so I’m going to start reading Sean’s blog, and will give him my vote in the Awards.

Hope you will do the same.

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A California Supreme Court ruling on Monday bolsters the free speech rights of bloggers. The ruling protects Internet publishers’ right to post the possibly libelous statements of others. The ruling does not exempt bloggers and other Internet publishers from liability for their own comments.

The ruling was not based on the First Amendment, but on the Communications Decency Act, which Congress could change. Indeed, in its ruling the Court seems to be calling on Congress to review that 1996 federal law in light of 21st century Internet activity.

We acknowledge that recognizing broad immunity for defamatory republications on the Internet has some troubling consequences. Until Congress chooses to revise the settled law in this area, however, plaintiffs who contend they were defamed in an Internet posting may only seek recovery from the original source of the statement.

Nevertheless, the ruling is a good one for free speech in the blogosphere. Text of the ruling can be found here: California Supreme Court ruling.

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MSNBC did some sloppy reporting of the Court’s ruling. Its headline vastly overstates the extent of the ruling: “Calif. court says bloggers can’t be sued. State’s Supreme Court said a federal law gives immunity from libel suits.”

In the report that follows, MSNBC correspondent Pete Williams reports:

She argued that because she did not write the letter herself and instead posted the work of another to her newsgroup, she was immune from suit under a section of the federal Communications Decency Act, passed by Congress in 1966. It protects both Internet service providers and their users from lawsuits.

Oops. The Communications Decency Act, the first federal law regulating Internet content, was passed in 1996, not 1966. The World Wide Web didn’t come along until 1991.

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