User talk:JPMcGrath/Archive 1
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 |
Welcome to Wikipedia!
Hello JPMcGrath, welcome to Wikipedia!
I noticed nobody had said hi yet... Hi!
If you feel a change is needed, feel free to make it yourself! Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone (yourself included) can edit any article by following the Edit this page link. Wikipedia convention is to be bold and not be afraid of making mistakes. If you're not sure how editing works, have a look at How to edit a page, or try out the Sandbox to test your editing skills.
You might like some of these links and tips:
- some General guidance.
- Tutorial and the Manual of Style.
- Find out how to revert, move and merge pages.
- Sign your posts on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~).
- Add yourself to the New user log and a regional notice board
- Ask questions at the Village pump or Help desk.
- Use the Show preview button
- Provide an Edit summary
- Add the correct image copyright tag to any images you upload
- Take a look at Consensus of standards
- Create a User page
If, for some reason, you are unable to fix a problem yourself, feel free to ask someone else to do it. Wikipedia has a vibrant community of contributors who have a wide range of skills and specialties, and many of them would be glad to help. As well as the wiki community pages there are IRC Channels, where you are more than welcome to ask for assistance.
If you have any questions, feel free to ask me on my talk page. Thanks and happy editing, Alf melmac 22:31, 2 October 2005 (UTC).
Were I not so tired, I'd find a barnstar for you in view of your subordinate clause mayhem ameliorating; in the absence of a barnstar, you'll have to settle for a discursive expression of my appreciation/commendation, to-wit, this thank you: Thanks! Joe 04:00, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. -- JPMcGrath 06:55, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
RE: Post on talk page
You left a post on 86.133.72.149, this is my IP account sorry I didn't leave an explanation I get out of the habit. I was logged out of Wikipedia for some reason so it makes sense you thought it was vandalism it was just be removing it to incorporate it into the main article. Sorry for any confusion I may have caused. --Mollsmolyneux (talk) 00:27, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
- Understood. Sorry to have reverted a legit change.
When I move stuff around like that, I try to make the change in a single edit so that others can tell I what I am doing. Are you aware that there is a "Prompt me when entering a blank edit summary" option under Preferences | Editing? Haven't missed an edit summary since I set that. -- JPMcGrath (talk) 03:06, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
- It's not a problem I understand why you did it, it did look like vandalism. No I wasn't aware of that, I shall have it set from now on, thanks for the tip. --Mollsmolyneux (talk) 14:19, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
Re: Vadalism warnings
Thanks for the note about reporting vandalism. Usually I just revert it. But today one IP user Special:Contributions/132.239.90.173 made a dozen malicious vandalism edits in quick succession to several articles, swapping images between articles on similar compounds; and I felt that urgent action was needed. The other IPs seemed to be either the same person or members of a cooperating group (probably the former, I suppose). But the attack seems to be over now. Thanks for the help, and all the best, --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 05:47, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
Old School vandalism hunting
alrighties had a look, good action returning the table to its original state. I find that when statsitical data is collected often people tend to stick lil sneaky edits in and often they can go unchecked for a long time. welll done keep up the good work. Ottawa4ever (talk)
- Moved Barnstar to User Page -- JPMcGrath (talk) 22:52, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
User talk:117.199.32.2
This ip address has habbit to remove referenced content.I reverted his/her edits on article Gurjara Pratihara but he again did it.Hope you would take a look.Thanks Chhora (talk) 17:18, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
- Hi Chhora. Yes, I see - I undid his latest change. I also added a warning on his talk page, which is usually a good idea when you revert someone's changes. It let's the user know why his changes are being reverted, provides him information on Wikipedia policies and guidelines, and is a key step in further actions against the user in the event that he continues the behavior. There are a number of templates available for adding these warnings. I use Twinkle to revert edits and warn users, since it makes it much easier. -- JPMcGrath (talk) 21:40, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
- Thanks.Also thanks for suggesting twinkle, it seems comfortable.Chhora (talk) 01:11, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
Rollback
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/df/Wikipedia_Rollback.svg/80px-Wikipedia_Rollback.svg.png)
I have granted rollback rights to your account; the reason for this is that after a review of some of your contributions, I believe you can be trusted to use rollback correctly, and for its intended usage of reverting vandalism, and that you will not abuse it by reverting good-faith edits or to revert-war. For information on rollback, see Wikipedia:New admin school/Rollback and Wikipedia:Rollback feature. If you do not want rollback, just let me know, and I'll remove it. Good luck and thanks. JamieS93❤ 22:55, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
Brady graphic you created
There is an ongoing discussion[1] about the Brady graphic you created, and I wonder if you could check in on the talk page and express your opinion to help us determine the consensus. SaltyBoatr (talk) 16:52, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
gentle reminder
I think you recently and unintentionally referred to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence as "anti-gun". While many people use this colloquialism, often in heated discussions, and it is considered by some to be a smear. I might be best to avoid derogatory labels, or at least put them in quotes, with hopes of not fanning any flames. It would be similar to calling the NRA organization "gun nuts". Neither are what they self describe to be. SaltyBoatr (talk) 20:27, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
- I don't think "anti-gun" is derogatory or a smear, and I would say the same about "pro-gun". Certainly many members of the anti-gun side are not against guns, per se. They support restrictions on gun ownership and gun usage, but I think most would support policemen having guns. Likewise, most on the pro-gun side do not encourage gun ownership or use; rather they support the rights of people to own and use guns. The terms are not very nuanced, but when labeling sides of a political question such as this, brevity is in order and that is somewhat incompatible with nuance.
- Perhaps "pro-gun rights" and "anti-gun rights" would be more precise, but those terms are longer, and somehow that terminology seems to suggest that the anti-gun side opposes all gun rights, so it seems somewhat skewed in favor of the pro-gun side. I think a much more egregious faux-pas would be to describe the anti-gun side as opposing gun violence, thereby suggesting that the pro-gun side supports gun violence.
- I am somewhat stunned that you would suggest that the analogous term for "anti-gun" on the pro-gun side is "gun nut", since it seems intuitively obvious to me that it would be "pro-gun". The term "gun nut" is obviously highly judgmental, and could be applied equally to people on both sides of the issue. I try to avoid loaded terms such as these, especially on Wikipedia, where neutrality is a prized value. For the same reason, I eschew giving my political and social opinions here.
- So, those are the terms that seem to me to be most appropriate to describe the two sides on this issue. If you have a better pair of terms, I would like to hear them. But I chose those two terms after careful thought, and their use was not inadvertent or unintentional.
- Calling Brady "anti-gun" makes as much sense as calling someone who favors speed limits on public roads as being "anti-car". A better choice is to simply use the terms "gun violence prevention" group versus "pro gun" groups. SaltyBoatr (talk) 14:29, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
- I disagree. I don't think Brady's advocacy can be reasonably compared to someone supporting speed limits. Speed limits exist pretty much everywhere, and there are few who suggest we should not have any, whereas what Brady advocates is certainly not generally accepted, at least in the United States. If there is any organization that can be called ant-gun, it is Brady.
- When we label the various sides of an issue, we choose succinct labels that highlight what their differences are. You ask me to use language that describes Brady and similar groups in terms of their lofty goals, which are no different than those of the other side. Obviously, pro-gun groups are not in favor of gun violence; they oppose it. They believe that their methods will achieve those goals, just as the other side believes their methods will. The differences between the two sides are in their methods. The anti-gun side wants to restrict access to guns, and the pro-gun side wants to make sure that law-abiding people have access to guns.
- Your recommended labels suggest that there is a difference in the goals; that the anti-gun side is against gun violence and the pro-gun side is in favor of gun violence, which is absurd. It is exactly the type of spin that anti-gun groups want to project, and so using this label would exude a strong point of view, which is something I would like to avoid.
- Of course, I don't say the things you claim I say, like: "pro-gun side is in favor of gun violence". Can you rephrase your reply without using straw man arguments? Re-reading your explanation, it seems to boil down to "I know better what they really mean." You may indeed. Still, here at Wikipedia, do we really have the policy instructions to interpret like that? What is wrong with using the self-labels: One side is "pro-gun" and the other is "against gun violence"? Your logic to flip the title of just one of the sides shows favoritism identical to the POV framing seen by their advocacy press. Also, could you explain the logical inconsistency. If it is not OK for Brady to imply that the NRA is 'pro-gun-violence', why is it OK for the NRA to imply that Brady is 'anti-gun'. Why do you treat this as a one-way street? SaltyBoatr (talk) 13:15, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
- First, I did not claim that you said the "pro-gun side is in favor of gun violence". What I said was that the label that you think I should use implies that. There is a big difference. And my position is not that "I know better what they really mean." It is that, when I talk about the two sides of the gun issue, I will use terms that seem to me to be reasonable descriptions of the sides, not those that one side wants me to use.
- Your suggestion that implying that Brady is "anti-gun" is equivalent to impying that the NRA is "pro-gun-violence" does not pass the laugh test. Brady actively opposes access to guns for most people, while the NRA does not support gun violence in any way.
- Now to your main argument: You seem to be saying that using the self-labels of different sides of an issue is inherently neutral, and so that straying unevenly from that neutral state constitutes bias. But what is the basis for the premise that using the self-labels is neutral? These labels are created by the different sides and are by their very nature non-neutral, so blindly accepting them is clearly non-neutral. If that is not obvious to you, allow me to present some counter-examples:
- If Mahmoud Ahmadinejad labels himself a humanitarian as he executes people because they are gay, is that characterization non-neutral? Would I be showing bias to not call him a "humanitarian"? What if one side of an argument decides to self-label as "the good guys"? Does not using that label constitute bias? It seems to me self-evident that the premise for your argument is badly flawed, and so your entire argument fails.
- I hope that puts to rest the notion that we should refer to a group by its own chosen "self-label". As for why the label "against gun violence" is a bad choice, it does not distinguish the anti-gun side from the pro-gun side. Virtually every sane person is against gun violence. Those who choose that label might want to imply that is not the case, but it is.
- Also, I don't understand your dismissal of the 'speed limit' analogy. Speed limits exist pretty much everywhere, and gun laws advocated by Brady have been passed and exist pretty much everywhere. Explain your dismissal of the 'speed limit' analogy better please. SaltyBoatr (talk) 15:19, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
- Much of the what Brady advocates has not been passed into law and is in fact, quite controversial. Simply looking at the Brady Scorecard should make it clear that is the case. That is certainly not the case for speed limits. -- JPMcGrath (talk) 07:45, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
- Ummm, no, actually it certainly was controversial for national speed limits. So, I still don't understand your rationalization of my speed limit analogy. Calling Brady anti-gun is like calling someone who favors speed limits anti-car. It is "political framing" using a label for political purpose, and that is against policy here. SaltyBoatr (talk) 13:29, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
- There was and is no controversy over whether there should be speed limits. That law was about who would set the limits, the federal government or the state and local governments. The law passed, did not live up to its promises, was generally regarded as a failure, and was repealed. -- JPMcGrath (talk) 13:56, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
- This roughly compares to the issue of criminal background checks. Why does this justify Wikipedia participating in political framing of the Brady Campaign as being "anti-gun"? SaltyBoatr (talk) 20:13, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
- This is getting ridiculous, and your speed-limit analogy is absurd. The correct analogue for cars to what Brady supports regarding guns would be to outlaw private ownership and use of cars. If someone suggested that, of course he would be labeled as anti-car. -- JPMcGrath (talk) 15:18, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
- The Brady Campaign is advocating for outlawing the private ownership of guns? What sourcing says this? It is true that when a criminal owns a gun it is "private ownership" of a gun. But advocating for criminal background checks prior to gun purchases as the "banning of private ownership" is political framing of the issue. We should be avoiding political framing bias at Wikipedia. SaltyBoatr (talk) 15:31, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
- I think they would like an outright ban, but they understand political reality and know that is a non-starter. So instead, they support laws that effectively ban guns without technically making them completely illegal. A good example of that is Brady's support for the Washington, D.C. gun laws, often referred to as a "gun ban". -- JPMcGrath (talk) 08:51, 26 March 2010 (UTC)
- I asked you: "What sourcing says this?" and you replied with "I think that they would...". Can you separate your personal opinion from what we read in reliable sourcing? It seems like your characterization of Brady as "anti-gun" reflects your personal opinion, not what you read in reliable sourcing. This is a problem, like on the article talk page mentioned above, because personal bias poisons the discussion and prevents productive work at that article talk page. SaltyBoatr (talk) 12:54, 26 March 2010 (UTC)
- I think they would like an outright ban, but they understand political reality and know that is a non-starter. So instead, they support laws that effectively ban guns without technically making them completely illegal. A good example of that is Brady's support for the Washington, D.C. gun laws, often referred to as a "gun ban". -- JPMcGrath (talk) 08:51, 26 March 2010 (UTC)
- Let me get this straight. On a talk page, I referred to the two sides of the gun debate as "pro-gun" and "anti-gun", and you are asking that I provide a source that uses the same characterization that I have? Did you not think that what I write is based on my opinion? Do you understand that WP:RS applies to articles and not talk pages? And BTW, can you provide a relisble source that says that Brady and similar groups are not anti-gun?
- I must say I find it rather perplexing that you are accusing me of things like "political framing" of Brady, especially after all the time I spent advocating the inclusion of the Brady State Scorecard in the Gun laws in the United States (by state). Do you think that was part of my effort to frame Brady?
- Back to your "anti-car" analogy and the D.C. gun laws, a reasonable analogue for cars would be for purchase of cars to be outlawed completely, so only people who had owned a car before 1976 could legally own one. Trucks would be allowed, but you could not keep the tires on any cars or trucks and you had to keep them locked up in a garage. If someone advocated for such a law, I think "anti-car" would be a reasonable label to use.
- I am tired of discussing personal opinions. Back to the start, I was trying to encourage you to not throw gasoline on the fire at that article talk page by calling Brady "anti-gun" because injecting personal opinions onto the article talk page distracts from the task of writing that article. SaltyBoatr (talk) 17:15, 26 March 2010 (UTC)
- And I am still rather perplexed, and frankly quite stunned, that you believe that framing the two sides of the gun debate as "pro-gun" and "anti-gun" constitutes "injecting personal opinions". I suspect that if you asked those involved in the debate what my personal opinions on the gun issue are, you would not have a consensus and the majority position might very well be wrong. On the other hand, I suspect that they would be unanimous on what your personal opinion is, and that they would likely be correct. But of course, that is just my opinion. -- JPMcGrath (talk) 17:44, 26 March 2010 (UTC)
- Our duty here is to avoid bias. The politics of guns involves the "pro" side wanting to focus on the positive cultural values of guns, therefor they like to frame the other side as "anti-gun" and a threat of taking away something valuable. The "con" side wants to focus on the "public safety" cultural value and they like to frame the other side as not caring about the societal costs of gun violence. Per WP:NPOV policy, we should be aware of both sides of the argument, and walk the middle line. It seems that you are not aware of the "con" viewpoint about this, if you care to see, it is described here[2]. I suspect you are well aware of the "pro" viewpoint, against gun grabbers. Our duty here is to understand both sides and represent them neutrally and fairly. Calling the Brady Campaign as "anti-gun" is not representing the POV balance fairly. SaltyBoatr (talk) 18:27, 26 March 2010 (UTC)
- What part of the viewpoint do you think I am unaware of, and why do you think that -- JPMcGrath (talk) 17:05, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
web.archive.org and supremecourtus.gov→supremecourt.gov updates
I noticed that supremecourt.gov wasn't found at web.archive.org but the "old" url, supremecourtus.gov is found… Possibly AWB shouldn't match a substring of the URL? I changed that particular one to www.law.cornell.edu before it occurred to me.—Machine Elf 1735 (talk) 07:53, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
- I did not notice that any of the URLs I have changed are on wayback. Which pages did you see this at? Are there many of them? -- JPMcGrath (talk) 07:57, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
- I didn't examine any others too closely but you could click the links above to try that one out, http://web.archive.org/www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/02pdf/01-618.pdf Sorry—Machine Elf 1735 (talk) 08:07, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
- I am not sure I understand. Did you notice any links to "http://web.archive.org/www.supremecourtus.gov/..." that I broke by changing them to "http://web.archive.org/www.supremecourt.gov/..."? Or are you just concerned that converting a supremecourt.gov link to wayback in the future may not work? -- JPMcGrath (talk) 08:21, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
- Apart from the one, no.
- If the possibility is limited to older cases that editors just–so–happen to have switched to web.archive.org, then it's probably relatively few… I'm happy to help if you like. I could try to scan the difs based on your User contributions list back through March 20—unless there's a better way (or you think its most likely not worth the effort). I don't know when the gov site stopped hosting older PDFs, so I don't really have a sense of scope regarding it.—Machine Elf 1735 (talk) 09:08, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
- OK, I figured out which page you found the problem on (Intellectual property). I have been looking and I don't think there are any others. There is only 1 page that has both "wayback" and "supremecourt.gov" on it (Reliability of Wikipedia), and 6 that have both "archive.org" and "supremecourt.gov" on it (Corazon Aquino, England, Filipino American, Presidency of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, Religious discrimination against Neopagans, United Kingdom), and I did not edit any of them. So assuming the AWB search is working properly, there are no others.
- It certainly would be good to have a second eye look at it. I am going to spend some time making more certain that is the case. Thanks for catching that one page and for all your help.
- I just verified that only two of the pages I edited have "archive.org" on them (Ferdinand Marcos & Joe Lieberman), and neither of them had wayback references to supremecourt.gov. None of the pages I edited have "wayback" on them. I was a little worried that the search indices might no have been updated after the changes I made, but this check should work even if the indices were not very recent.
- The one think I am not absolutely certain of is whether there are any other templates like {{wayback}} that convert URLs. I doubt it, but if there are any, I will probably find out sometime soon.
- BTW, I left out the "http" part, because I noticed some of the references were of the form: (link) at supremecourtus.gov, and I wanted to change the "at supremecourtus.gov" part too.
- Thanks for all your help!
- Excellent, I'm looking forward to reaching 500 edits so I can take AWB out for a spin.—Machine Elf 1735 (talk) 14:17, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
SCOTUS website updates
Great work on these. One problem though... We can't just update urls for the slip opinion lists from previous terms, because the Court apparently hasn't maintained those at the new address. So we're stuck with dead urls. But I think the best practice is to leave the old urls with a date stating when they were last accessed, as I have done so with all term lists from 2008 going back. Though once the reporters are in print and the citations are completed each opinion can be cited directly to that, I had relied upon the slip lists (and lists of opinions related to orders, lists of in-chambers opinions) for the completeness of the list by term.
Note that this doesn't apply to the pdfs of full opinions; those seem to work with the new URL. postdlf (talk) 13:46, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
- Ugh! I got the impression that all of the content was at the new site. Before I started changing the URLs, I checked a large number of files, including some slip opinions, and they all worked fine at "supremecourt.gov". For example, this slip opinion works fine. Is it just some of the older slip opinions that were not carried over?
- This sounds like it could be a significant issue, since the press release says that the old site will be going away as of July 1, 2010, so it sounds like those slip opinions will break then. Where is the best place to discuss this and see if we can deal with the problem before then?
- -- JPMcGrath (talk) 21:23, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
- It's less significant than it seems, because it's just the term lists (like all the ones included here, not the pdfs of individual slip opinions. The old SCOTUS site never maintained those list pages permanently anyway; it would only keep the last few terms up. The earliest ones I used were up like three or four years ago when I first started making the lists, but were already down even before the website change. So those pre-2009 term links are dead (and pre-2006 probably were dead already), so the only issue is that the information was found there supremecourtus.gov, and it was never at supremecourt.gov. There's probably a more formal way to list a reference to a now nonexistent website than I've done it, but I just haven't looked it up yet. Incidentally, trying to go to the old urls (like http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/08slipopinion.html) just redirects you to the new SCOTUS site.
- All of the pdfs of slip opinions work at the new site, so the URLs for those work fine. But those are also intended only to be temporary, as they would be removed once the bound volumes were released. At that point they should be transitioned over to free websites that maintain SCOTUS resources, like Findlaw or Justia, for which we use Template:Caselaw source. postdlf (talk) 21:34, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
- OK, it's even better: those lists are at the new site; they're just under a completely different URL. The site lists them back to the 2006 term at http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/opinions.aspx, but they actually go back to the 2003 term if you manually modify it; see http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/slipopinions.aspx?Term=03 . Which still leaves us with dead urls for the earlier lists. I'll fix the more current ones. postdlf (talk) 21:42, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
- Yeah, I just found that some of those links are already broken, in that they do not retrieve the document they are supposed to retrieve. For example, http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/03slipopinion.html, which is referenced from 2003 term United States Supreme Court opinions of Anthony Kennedy, now redirects to the new Supreme Court home page, http://www.supremecourt.gov/. So it looks like we have a bunch of links that are already broken, along with a bunch more that will break July 1. I am not familiar enough with the site content to know what needs changing at this point, but I am willing to help, particularly in areas where mass-editing is in order. Would WP:WikiProject U.S. Supreme Court be the best place to discuss what needs to be done? -- JPMcGrath (talk) 22:00, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
- Probably. But I'm really the only one who maintains the lists by term and justice. I'm going through all the justice lists now back to 2003 and replacing them with the new URLs. postdlf (talk) 22:10, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
- Yeah, I just found that some of those links are already broken, in that they do not retrieve the document they are supposed to retrieve. For example, http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/03slipopinion.html, which is referenced from 2003 term United States Supreme Court opinions of Anthony Kennedy, now redirects to the new Supreme Court home page, http://www.supremecourt.gov/. So it looks like we have a bunch of links that are already broken, along with a bunch more that will break July 1. I am not familiar enough with the site content to know what needs changing at this point, but I am willing to help, particularly in areas where mass-editing is in order. Would WP:WikiProject U.S. Supreme Court be the best place to discuss what needs to be done? -- JPMcGrath (talk) 22:00, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
- Further discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. Supreme Court cases#Supreme Court web site change -- JPMcGrath (talk) 22:57, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
- This comment in particular may interest you. --MZMcBride (talk) 16:31, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
- Thanks - I was just reading that comment. -- JPMcGrath (talk) 16:44, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
Re this edit, it doesn't work for pre-2003 term opinion lists. Those were dead on the original site as well. So we at least need to keep a record of where the information was found until we can find a replacement source, internet archive, etc. postdlf (talk) 13:48, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
- And web.archive.org works for some of those at least.[3] postdlf (talk) 13:50, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
- I have been creating templates for external links. I was thinking that it might be possible to build archive access into those templates, so you would just need to add a parameter or two to switch it to the archive.
- The real issue here is that SCOTUS regards slip opinions as something temporary to keep the world happy until the bound volume comes out, so it would probably make more sense to point to the bound volumes. I know those multi-megabyte files are not exactly convenient, but that is the way SCOTUS works. They really ought to move into the modern era and get rid of the United States Reports, page number based citation system.
- -- JPMcGrath (talk) 14:11, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
- It's likely that even if there comes a time that hard copy volumes are no longer printed, the citation format would remain the same. For consistency, if nothing else, with the previous two hundred years of cases. Even the online databases such as Lexis and Westlaw use "page numbers" for their own citation format. You need some way to pinpoint cite to a particular section of an opinion. Plus us lawyers are resistant to change. postdlf (talk) 14:59, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
- -- JPMcGrath (talk) 14:11, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
- It is possible that the citation system will outlast printed volumes, although I am not certain of that. The answer probably depends on whether you count paginated document files (e.g. PDFs) as "printed". There will always be resistance to change, and old systems are often maintained because "that's the way we have always done it". But the system is archaic by today's standards and in the future, it can only be viewed as even more archaic. So it will change; the only question is when it will change.
- What is really wrong with the current system is not that citations are based on page numbers, although a more granular system is certainly possible. The problem is that the citation is based on an aggregation of multiple cases, with the starting page number identifying the case and page numbers within the volume used to cite parts of the opinion. Since that volume is not created until long after the case is over, durable citations cannot be created until that occurs.
- The way that they publish opinions is rather odd, too. There are bench opinions, slips, and the bound volumes and each is in a different format, for no discernible reason. A far more reasonable approach would be to publish opinions in a single format, from the first publication to the final version, and to number the paragraphs for use in citations, so they would make sense even if the opinion were rendered in a different format.