Friday, March 1, 2013

Looking for Big Thinkers

Something short and sweet, and a prelude to my next post.  A question, a request of sorts.  How big can we think?  What can we build here?

I’ll go first.  I’d like to see this place become the go-to scamblog.  Big enough?  Perhaps I’m thinking too small.  My idea of what this blog can (and should) become might seem selfish, dangerous, unachievable perhaps, even utterly contrary to the diverse scamblog movement, with its multitude of victims and extraordinary scope, but let me explain.

Part of the strength of Professor Campos’ blog was the fact that it brought us together.  All voices were welcome.  Debate was healthy.  Most importantly, it showed the law school Establishment that We Mean Business.  (Do you all get the Robert Vaughn PI law firm commercials, or is it just me?)  Instead of dispersing support and ideas across ten or so separate scamblogs, each of which alone attracted a tenth of the readership and were a tenth as visible, a tenth as important, Inside the Law School Scam brought everyone together in an impressive show of force.  It was talked about, and it thrived.  And because of that, it was respected.

And I’m once again putting out a call for the scambloggers to join us, even the non-scambloggers who write about these issues.  Not – absolutely not! – that they abandon their own separate blogs, all of which are valuable, but just that they join us.  Shoot me an email at outsidethelawschoolscam at gmail.com.  Become a writer here, with full autonomy.  Cross-post with your own blog.  Write once a week, once a month, but write.  And in return, I’ll add you to the list of blogs that will be shown on this site.  (That was one item missing from ITLSS, and I don’t intend to isolate this blog from the larger movement.)  A mutually-beneficial relationship.  Write here and gain the traffic and support that will boost the profile of your own blog, you as a writer, and benefit the scamblog movement.

We all win when we work together.

I’m asking that current scambloggers consider joining us, and use our traffic to get their message out.  I’m asking lapsed scambloggers, of which there are many, to join us and get involved again.  I’m asking concerned third parties to consider joining us.  And I’m asking new scambloggers to consider this as a forum in which they can get their message out to a huge crowd with very little effort.

Blogs die when they are not visited, and they die when their writers do not write.  We can solve both those problems by working together, for us and for you.

It’s especially critical at this moment in time, when one blog has ceased and another started in its place.  While we have traffic right now, trust needs to be built between us and our inherited readership, and between us all as bloggers, writers, activists, and victims.  We could just be a continuation of what went before, a couple of writers working alone amidst a sea of other blogs.  Or we could take it to the next level, come together, and come together in a way that does not kill autonomy or become a monopoly.  I’m holding out my hand, a pen in the other, asking you all to consider becoming a part of this blog as well as your own blog.  That way, I truly believe we can make the difference for which we have hoped over the past few years.

Okay, speech over.  To put it very practically and simply, we need a critical mass of writers here so that there are at least one, hopefully two, quality posts here per day.  Without that, this place will wither, readers will get bored and disappear, and the scamblogs will be left in a terrible state of decay.  Scanbloggers past, present and future, you know who you are, and I'm talking to you.  I think this is worth fighting for, something worth rebuilding, a network of voices that work together.  I hope you do too.

33 comments:

  1. First.

    I've finally won something. This is the proudest day of my life.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I don't know how much I can write. Scotty and Paul were the great writers in this movement. But I think I would be better off creating some youtube vids and a facebook page.

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    Replies
    1. Do it. I'm sure this site would support your efforts and give them whatever publicity you need.

      Anything helps.

      Delete
  3. I agree wholeheartedly. There has been a noticable absence of support from the key players in the scamblog world. Nando would post daily at InsideTLSS. Not a word here. I'm sure he has seen this blog. And I like th eolive branch extended out to him and the other scam bloggers.

    Someone a few days ago said that this site could become the ATL of scma blogs. LIke a clearinghouse or something. Think of how a mention on ATL is a big deal.

    Which reminds me. Has ATL picked up on this OutsideTLSS blog yet? If not, how to we get in contact with them?

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  4. ^^^THIS^^^

    Change is rough. I too am sorry that Lawprof hung up his hat and moved on. Guess what - nothing is going to change that. So we can either drown ourselves in our own misery and then lose everything we worked for at ITLSS, or we can regroup here and push forward.

    I truly hope that my fellow scam followers are not going to make this site fail out of spite or self pity. Like someone said, 150 to 200 comments per day at ITLSS for unremarkable posts, yet when something new and different comes along, only 10% of those people bother to continue commenting and supporting the movement?

    This says to me two things.

    1 - People are not interested in changing the law school scam, or

    2 - 90% of the posts at ITLSS were Campos as "anonymous"

    I hope to god the first conclusion is correct. If the second conclusion is correct, we've been scammed twice.

    Hello? Hellllllooooooo? Is anyone else out there? Or is this the most fickle, disinterested movement ever?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The first post here has 75+ comments. Unless you think Campos decided to also post most of those comments here even after he retired ITLSS, I think (2) is extremely doubtful.

      Realize also that although an article might have hundreds of comments, it may not necessary be hundreds of people but may just be a few people arguing back and forth.

      Delete
  5. in my view, the single most important thing this blog can do on a regular basis is DECIMATE the new press releases and bullshit from the law schools. deans and professors were scared of Campos because he would tear them to pieces with hard data. with Campos gone, who can do that?

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    Replies
    1. Thanks for the comment. I think that you're correct. Professor Campos and ITLSS was very good at nipping shady news articles and stats in the bud, before they could become commonly-accepted wisdom.

      I would happily perform the same task, as would all of the other bloggers here. But in order to do that, we need tips, links, insider information, and active commenters. I can't monitor this blog 24/7, nor can I monitor the news 24/7. But I can monitor things a few times a day, as can everyone here. And with enough people keeping an eye out a few times a day in various corners of the Internet, we can get good enough coverage to address these stories within a very short space of time.

      But participation is key. It's key to everything we are trying to do here. If we get discouraged that Professor Campos has retired from blogging, if we decide that setting up a new blog is too much effort, if we decide that we can't be bothered, then the entire past two years - at least - will crumble, and the law schools and law professors will have won.

      I really can't overstate the importance of participation. I hope you agree. We rely upon the readers of this blog to be our eyes and ears, just as Professor Campos did.

      Delete
    2. What if this blog had a "take-down of the week"? The bloggers here identify new op-eds, new youtube videos, and other propaganda from law schools and ask the commenters to attack not with pejoratives but with data. That's what made Campos so damn effective. Yes, he threw in some pejoratives and trash talking. But that was just the spice. The meat of his take-downs was data.

      Delete
  6. The silence from the other scamblogs is deafening. Do they have a problem with this blog? I know that Nando has been known to be territorial in the past, so I don't expect to see him praising the work that this next generation of scam bloggers is doing. But everyone else? Nothing? Not even a "good job guys (and girls?), thanks for bothering to step up and keep this alive."

    I hope that the commenter a few above is not right when writing that maybe most of the comments at Paul's blog were Paul sitting at his desk in his office pretending to be many different personalities.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I really really doubt that.

      Understand though that people comment only when they find the article particularly interesting and have something to say.

      Consider for example the comments to the very first post here. It has 75 comments. Unless you think that Campos also wrote most of those 75 comments, clearly they were due to inheriting them from ITLSS.

      Also not every single one of LawProf's posts had hundreds of comments. He and DJM would write stuff that didn't generate as much interest and there might only be like a 20 comments in some cases.

      The key really is the quality of the articles. This blog has just started. I think if the quality remains as high as it did under Campos, interest should remain high. But if a lot of crap starts getting posted, then realize that lot of people will start to drop off.

      Delete
    2. Yeah point taken but really can we be such a difficult audience? I mean these bloggers are spending their time and energy trying to get this site up and running and you sit back and complain that if "crap starts getting posted" then people will disappear? I guess I'm just grateful that someone has bothered to step up to the plate and do the right thing by blogging. ANd for that I can forgive the occasional piece of crap without stomping off in disgust that these people doing this for free are not doing it to our standards.

      I think that Campos spoiled us. He was a rare example, not a normal blogger. I don't think that anyone here wants this site to fail, but we do need to give it a chance. We all benefit from the scam being exposed and whatever might come down the pipeline in the future by way of school closures and student loan reform, and we should all be willing to put in a little skin of our own into this game instead of sitting back and running off after a couple of days.

      Delete
    3. meh. nobody is ignoring this blog. just give it time. let people get comfortable with the change of scenery. i mean what are the alternatives? there arent any.

      Delete
  7. For instance, this DJM article:
    http://insidethelawschoolscam.blogspot.com/2013/02/choo-choo.html

    generated only 34 comments.

    The "Choo-Choo" article wasn't bad, BTW. But compared to others, people didn't have much to say about it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I remember that article. It was bad. Most of DJM's articles were bad. I'm still not sure what she saw in the scam.

      Delete
    2. DJM's articles were more hit and miss than LawProfs. Not that LawProf always wrote great articles every time either. But the point is that comments are going to result from quality of article.

      Delete
    3. 7:25 is right. be cool. from what i have seen so far the articles are good here. maybe too much intro stuff and not enough meat to chew on but it is well written and interesting. its early days bros. when this blogs balls drop they will drop hard.

      Delete
  8. I think there needs to be a YouTube channel where people post videos about what the law school scam has done to their lives. I also think there needs to be an organizational push to reform educational loans. It has to be more than blogging. I also think we need to go out and actively comment on articles and refer people back here.

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    Replies
    1. i think so too. we need to build a network around this. post links and spread the word and extend this far beyond just blogging.

      Delete
    2. YES! think youtube, facebook, twitter. The pre-law lemmings are more easily reached via social media and videos. start by just converting some of ITLSS's best posts into graphics and make a video using powerpoint chart and text. Start 10 facebook pages that link to the vids. That is going to reach the lemmings. Most of them are not big readers. Blogs are for readers.

      Delete
  9. There are also ways to create physical community but I don't know how myself. Some websites will create meetings then you can see when meetings are taking place in your area and all meet up at the appointed time and place. Like a bookstore or coffee house. This would be the next step in direct action. Where are we all?

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  10. I've considered making a wiki page with a list of law professors and their loyalty/opposition to the law school reform movement. It could contain their names with links to what they've written/said about legal education and the scam that law schools are running. If anyone knows how to do something like this, please feel free to run with it. Maybe this blog could contain or at least link to it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. YES YES YES YES YES. This is a great idea. These bastards need to speak now and go on the record on where they stand and what they have done to promote reform. When the shit goes down we need to know who was with us.

      Delete
  11. The problem, I think, is that people are mentally and emotionally worn out by now.

    Nothing is really changing, and as I commented on TTR, I have met within the last 6 months a JD that sells replacement windows and vinyl siding, and another that sold life insurance for Afflak.

    A former classmate from LS I recall worked as a security guard.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Also, Campos blogged right through the 2012 period of lawsuits which were all dismissed unfortunately.

    All I can say by now is to network, but do it in another industry.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The lawsuit against thomas jefferson is in discovery....

      http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/dec/08/suit-against-thomas-jefferson-law-school-goes-forw/

      Delete
  13. Lots of good ideas - youtube, facebook, twitter, organizing groups etc. Much of that is beyond my abilities, but if others work on it, I'll make sure that this site gives it all the possible publicity that it can. For me, it's all but helping each other get the message out, not creating little islands that are hard to find on the map.

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  14. Right now I don't even see this blog when I google outside the law school scam blog. We need to start racking some hits. Google it guys.

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  15. Reach out to Nando, he should post some of his thoughts on this blog. He definitely is a leader in the movement. I can't wait for the day when Nando takes a fist full of rotting monkey shit and shoves it into a Dean's face.

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  16. I think the Cooley grads and non-grads need to step up here.

    I would also do a survey to find out where we are all geographically.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. What about Thomas Jefferson Scam of Lawl (aka the future home of my sleazy PI company, Magnum/Gunn)?

      Delete
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