Date: October 30th, 2006 3:51 PM Author: glassy brethren crotch
Too bad he didn't keep comments open.
edit: he didn't really "slam" xo. that was merely sensationalism on my part. however, i don't expect him to reach a positive conclusion about this board in his future installments. so stay tuned.
Xoxohth claims to be the "most prestigious law school admissions discussion board in the world." According to its marketing materials, it controls 70% of the online "market" for "higher education and career discussion", with around 6000 posts a day on various topics. One of its founders reports that the site receives 350,000 to 500,000 unique visitors every month, making it significantly more trafficked than any other law blog, with the exception of Volokh. (By comparison, we get 60-70K unique hits a month.)
But.
Among many legal scholars and administrators, there is a shared impression that discussion at XO is overrun by sexist, racist, anti-semitic, and just plain foolish talk. The well-known Leiter-XO engagement (see here) is just one example, but it isn't alone. Based on correspondence, I have learned that multiple law school deans and assistant deans have dealt with the Board when trying to mediate online disputes involving their school's students. XO has been threatened with legal action (at least twice) involving alleged defamation on the board, although the site is not, to my knowledge, involved in pending litigation. Some wish the entire XO discussion board was a hoax (although others think it may be providing a public service) and some, well, some are mad as hell:
If this is what other lawyers are going to be like, I want out. They make us all look like utter a[*******]. People should avoid law school because it sucks, not because of these jerks.
I've written a bit about the Board before, in the context of a US News citation dispute, and since then, I've been in contact with one of the Board's administrators, Anthony Ciolli, a 3L at Penn Law. I think the board is pretty fascinating, primarily because its anonymity enables, and its format records, discussions among rising lawyers that are frank and heterodox (in legal culture) with respect to race, gender relations, and professional development. It isn't the only forum for such discussions, but it may be the largest.
In subsequent posts, I will be exploring three basic questions about XO.
1. What is it? I will set out the history of the Board, arising from a disaffected group of folks talking at a Princeton Review website. I will then try to get a handle on the actual discussions on XO. As Prof. Leiter pointed out, many posts on XO contain frankly racist and sexist talk. What percentage of the whole? Is the remainder entirely about law school and law firm rankings, and, if not, what else is being discussed? Other questions: who makes up the XO community? what motivates folks to spend time and effort on the various discussions? how is the site governed? how are disputes resolved? how much money does it take in?
2. Is XO Representative of Law Students? I wonder if XO strips away the mask of civility and gives us a view on how rising lawyers think. Law self-imagines as a service profession, at least in part, but posters on XO are significantly more concerned with utilitarian ends (particularly, maximizing prestige). How unique is this community and this view within the general legal profession?
3. Why should we care? Here, I'll take on some of the bigger, normative, questions. In particular, one of the "strengths" of XO is that it isn't moderated, but, that lack of moderation may be correlated with very ugly speech. Does the combination of moderation and anonymity produce net social benefits? That question would seem to turn on alternative fora, and the basic question here is whether law schools are failing to enable frank talk about law firm life and the importance of rankings, if we think that these discussions belong in school. Should law school deans be in the business of trying to shut XO down? Should professors encourage Bar Admissions C&F committees to ask "are you now, or have you ever been . . . " questions?
I think the series of posts will be interesting. I'm gathering data and information from a variety of sources: if you have any special insights about XO, you are free to send them to me via email. (I'm closing comments on this post, on the theory that they are likely to be immoderate. Unless you tell me otherwise, I will assume that I can quote and attribute any emails.)
Date: November 1st, 2006 2:05 PM Author: electric beta mad-dog skullcap
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Date: October 30th, 2006 4:00 PM Author: Ungodly Step-uncle's House Therapy
Has he actually slammed it yet? Seems like he might in his upcoming posts, but the intro seemed to be the typical "Some people say X is really cool, but other people think it sucks."
Date: October 30th, 2006 4:10 PM Author: Ungodly Step-uncle's House Therapy
Yeah, that sounds right. I suspect he won't have much positive to say about the board, but I'll give the guy a shot. There's some chance he'll be even-handed.
Date: October 30th, 2006 4:18 PM Author: glassy brethren crotch
I doubt it. Look at what he asks: "Should law school deans be in the business of trying to shut XO down? Should professors encourage Bar Admissions C&F committees to ask "are you now, or have you ever been . . . " questions?" With questions like these, I'm pretty confident what his conclusion will be.
Date: October 31st, 2006 4:05 PM Author: Ruby slippery round eye range
Really? You've got to learn to read for nuance. These questions are clearly written to set up the answer "no." "Are you now or have you ever been" and "in the business of" suggest that he thinks these reactions are overkill.
"Yes"-slanted questions would be something like "Is there room in the legal universe for a board full of hate and racism?" and "should participation in such a board count against someone for bar admissions purposes?"
Date: October 30th, 2006 5:09 PM Author: Obsidian partner
I don't know how he can possibly draw any conclusions one way or the other on the points that he posited. Is xoxo representative? Who makes up the board?
Date: October 30th, 2006 3:58 PM Author: glassy brethren crotch
SRSLY. where and how can we get our hands on this.
I find it highly amusing that this guy is doing a multi-part series on us. As if we are some sociological window of clarity that reveals the mind of the average frustrated law student.
Date: October 30th, 2006 3:59 PM Author: Glittery legal warrant
One of my biggest disappointments about law school is that it ISN'T like xoxo. I was hoping it would be a bunch of insane racist degenerates, simply because I like to be entertained by lunatics, and given my own problems I could simply hide in the background. Law school has all the douchiness of xoxo but none of the humor or outrageousness.
Date: October 30th, 2006 4:04 PM Author: soul-stirring corn cake
"Law self-imagines as a service profession, at least in part, but posters on XO are significantly more concerned with utilitarian ends (particularly, maximizing prestige)"
Since when does utilitarianism = greatest good for ME.
Date: November 1st, 2006 8:25 PM Author: mind-boggling sexy property
But that was not the gist of the guy's sentence. Utilitarianism is generally associated with the phrase "greatest good for the greatest number." It is not at all evident that psychological egoism (which is what was implied by his phrasing) and utilitarianism are consistent.
Date: October 30th, 2006 4:41 PM Author: marvelous naked spot national security agency
With 350,000 unique visitors, I wonder how well-known monikers like Rowan or Madcat are on the typical college/law school campus. Probably more than we care to believe.
Date: November 15th, 2006 12:04 AM Author: Boyish chest-beating weed whacker
this is interesting. I heard a coworker randomly say ricockulous and I swore he had to have seen this board. THats the only way he would know that word.
Date: October 31st, 2006 2:18 AM Author: Heady cruel-hearted hell
Alexa is as accurate as those MSNBC online polls that have the libertarian or green candidate winning the Presidential election.
EDIT: Alexa claims that the autoadmit.com domain name got triple the traffic the xoxohth.com domain got in August, when in reality it was the opposite.
Date: October 30th, 2006 8:29 PM Author: Crusty irradiated jew party of the first part
i imagine i am a minor celebrity. i am a cautionary tale for all you frequent name-changers. change your name often at your own peril. the less often you change your name, the better your xoxo brand recognition will be on law school campuses.
Date: October 31st, 2006 2:23 AM Author: flesh lettuce
sorry for this douche-y post, but i'd just like to point out that unique visitors/=/frequent visitors. i imagine you'd have to visit this board somewhat frequently to really notice rowan or madcat's presence here.
i guess what i'm trying to say is that the board regulars are probably not the quasi-celebrities on college campuses as your post would lead one to believe.
Date: October 30th, 2006 5:21 PM Author: Hyperactive Casino
From his website...
"He received his A.B. in English Literature from Washington University, where he was an early selection for Phi Beta Kappa, and his J.D. from Yale Law School. At Yale, Professor Solove won the university-wide scholarly writing Field Prize and served as symposium editor of the Yale Law Journal and as an editor of the Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities. Following law school, Professor Solove clerked for The Honorable Stanley Sporkin, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. After practicing law as an associate at the firm of Arnold & Porter in Washington, D.C., Professor Solove began a second clerkship with The Honorable Pamela Ann Rymer, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit."
So that means he prestige pwns just about everyone here; he's not just talking completely out of his ass.
Date: October 30th, 2006 5:24 PM Author: Hyperactive Casino Subject: ooops, here's the real guy
"Assistant Professor David A. Hoffman teaches contracts, business associations, and law and economics. Professor Hoffman earned his JD in 2001 from Harvard Law School.
Following law school, Professor Hoffman served as a law clerk for Senior District Judge Norma L. Shapiro of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. He was then associated with Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP, in New York City, where he specialized in complex commercial and securities litigation.
Professor Hoffman's current research focuses on behavioral law and economics, and, specifically, on citizen reaction to cost-benefit decision making. His publications include "The Best Puffery Article Ever," 91 Iowa L. Rev. ___ (Forthcoming 2006); "The 'Duty' To Be a Rational Shareholder", 90 Minn. L. Rev. 537 (2006), "Nullificatory Juries", 2003 Wisc. L. Rev. 1115 (with Kaimipono Wenger), "How Relevant is Jury Rationality?", 2003 U. Ill. L. Rev. 507, and "Can Law and Economics Be Both Practical and Principled?", 53 Ala. L. Rev. 335 (2002) (with Michael O'Shea)."
Date: October 31st, 2006 1:45 AM Author: fragrant flushed public bath
"TIGERPWN3D"
the phrase before the PWN3D canonically refers to the (oft literary or abstract) agent that did the pwn1ng, not the thing that got pwn3d. in this case, writing TIGERPWN3D implies that chocula got pwn3d by the tiger, which seems contrary to your conclusion. hth.
Date: October 30th, 2006 6:33 PM Author: Ungodly Step-uncle's House Therapy
That actually could be interesting. I wonder if he either was around or has a source who was around back in the pr days. If not, he at least would have had to do a lot of lurking.
Date: October 30th, 2006 6:12 PM Author: Laughsome Indirect Expression
The racism on the board is disturbing and disgusting, but I think few people take it seriously. Most of us wish the racists would just leave.
"Frank and heterodox" sums up the appeal of XO, however. People turn to anonymous professional boards because they want to cut through all the feel-good, everyone's-a-winner crap that obscures the truth about being a "professional" in 2006, when the word's original meaning has been abandoned and cooperation and teamwork have given way to ruthless competition and near-sighted selfishness.
Date: October 30th, 2006 8:11 PM Author: Laughsome Indirect Expression
The board is full of antisocial lowlifes. I doubt the racists and misogynists are lawyers, because the law students I know (at "TTT"s as well as HYSC) are nothing like that. A person who behaves the way most do on this board would be completely out of place among, say, CLS students.
Date: October 30th, 2006 8:27 PM Author: Crusty irradiated jew party of the first part
nobody BEHAVES like that in real life. they just use this board as a place where they can say vile, disgusting shit that they would never say in real life and get away with it. all of us like to make the occasional off-color joke and stuff but there are a few that make it pretty much the essence of their "existence" on this board and spam it pretty much all the time when they're online. they're the tiresome ones that make this place shitty.
Date: October 31st, 2006 2:14 AM Author: talking cobalt chapel
I can't imagine anyone IRL like this, so it scares me to think that there are batshit insane racists out there that post on xoxo and hide their crazy feelings when they're not online
Date: October 30th, 2006 6:35 PM Author: pearl awkward trust fund
his message is actually pretty reasonable. people who spend any amount of time here quickly learn to get over the 'shocker' posts, which are actually a pretty insusbstantial amount of the total content here
Petro already tackled this subject a long time ago:
XO is a breakaway faction of an old Department of the Interior think-tank message board. The original board was a discussion forum started in 1997, and was used at the time to discuss agriculture, forest management, etc. Over time, it started pulling in people interested in college and law school admissions, because of scholarships offered by the think tank.
Then it got wild.
In-thread image and audio posts were allowed. This was done at first to share visuals on forest projects and things like that. Lots of photos and charts and graphs. But then people started posting pr0n, horse pr0n, tentacle pr0n, reams of r@ygold, 88, and all kinds of shit. It was like every time you opened a link, you were going to get a bunch of 10-year-old naked girls being assfucked with icicles made from the blood of puppies they were forced to strangle. And they were laying on top of the pile of dead puppies.
The moderator, Jeff Adams, wanted to get the board back to its orginal mission, so he banned 90% of the accounts and switched the board to a different format. There was an FBI crackdown, and about 10 regulars were arrested for r@ygold, including :D, but the charges didn't stick.
So, XO was started with the goal of getting back the freedom of the old board, but without all the sick r@ygold.
Date: October 31st, 2006 8:35 AM Author: Glittery legal warrant
My only concern is that one day someone will figure out who I am and look up my name and see all these parody threads I wrote and not know they're parody threads, and think I just write bizarre one-line posts about homosexuality and witches.
Date: October 31st, 2006 9:22 AM Author: splenetic locus
I still go to dive bars and listen to the silver jews but I stopped wearing old machine tool supply company t-shirts and cub scout hats and stopped smoking hash while complaing about things.
Date: November 1st, 2006 10:27 PM Author: Ungodly Step-uncle's House Therapy
I'm famous!
Really, he does seem to be doing his research here. I'm sure there's going to be some criticism of the board as well, but it's nice to see someone try to understand what's going on before forming an opinion about the place.
Date: November 1st, 2006 10:28 PM Author: Heady cruel-hearted hell
Exactly. I don't mind criticism at all (lord knows there are things about this board I don't like) if as long as it's informed criticism and the guy knows what he's talking about.
Date: November 2nd, 2006 7:55 AM Author: twinkling center newt
Help me understand the analogy he's drawing with the painting. I will list the elements from the biblical story, and you tell me which xoxo people or elements are analogous
Date: November 19th, 2006 3:44 PM Author: Heady cruel-hearted hell
Eh I don't see how it's pwnage, it's not like I'm deliberately screwing with the guy. I've just been hard pressed with a lot of major deadlines the past couple of weeks.