4 ms·

One area that it probably won't expand to, but I would see value in such a service, is an annotation system on legal texts -- statutes, case law, law review art

by tbcj 12y ago

One area that it probably won't expand to, but I would see value in such a service, is an annotation system on legal texts -- statutes, case law, law review articles, et al. When I was last able to use WestlawNext (almost two years ago), I think it supported personal annotations. Distributed annotations, though, might help me understand the differences in Hong Kong's definition of personal data in Cap 486 versus other definitions in other legal documents. And it could provide some humor when reading the Alabama state constitution.

nightpool 12y ago
If you're passionate about this kind of stuff, you should take a look at some of the work that's going on at News Genius. Its in very early stages obviously, but for example we worked on the syllabus for the Hobby Lobby case last week: http://news.genius.com/The-supreme-court-of-the-united-states-burwell-v-hobby-lobby-syllabus-annotated http://news.genius.com/The-supreme-court-of-the-united-state.... You can see a list of all our legal articles at http://genius.com/tags/law http://genius.com/tags/law, though a lot of them definitely need some love!
orbifold 12y ago
Collectively annotating scientific texts would be very useful aswell. In certain fields books in libraries usually have hand written pencil notes on their margins. Most math and physics texts would benefit a lot from extra steps in derivations and filling in proofs of "obvious" and "trivial" identities.
yzzxy 12y ago
X Genius[0], the catchall/beta section of the community, specifically mentions tax forms in it's mission statement. So I would look to that community for legal annotation. I'm guessing, however, there's some kind of legal connotation to annotating a legal document - similar to giving investment advice - that could make a legal docs section difficult to legitimize. [0] http://x.genius.com/ http://x.genius.com/
pmarca 12y ago
The goal is to annotate everything, definitely including legal texts.

by tbcj 12y ago

nightpool 12y ago

If you're passionate about this kind of stuff, you should take a look at some of the work that's going on at News Genius. Its in very early stages obviously, but for example we worked on the syllabus for the Hobby Lobby case last week: http://news.genius.com/The-supreme-court-of-the-united-states-burwell-v-hobby-lobby-syllabus-annotated http://news.genius.com/The-supreme-court-of-the-united-state.... You can see a list of all our legal articles at http://genius.com/tags/law http://genius.com/tags/law, though a lot of them definitely need some love!

orbifold 12y ago

Collectively annotating scientific texts would be very useful aswell. In certain fields books in libraries usually have hand written pencil notes on their margins. Most math and physics texts would benefit a lot from extra steps in derivations and filling in proofs of "obvious" and "trivial" identities.

yzzxy 12y ago

X Genius[0], the catchall/beta section of the community, specifically mentions tax forms in it's mission statement. So I would look to that community for legal annotation. I'm guessing, however, there's some kind of legal connotation to annotating a legal document - similar to giving investment advice - that could make a legal docs section difficult to legitimize. [0] http://x.genius.com/ http://x.genius.com/

pmarca 12y ago

The goal is to annotate everything, definitely including legal texts.