Thankyou I thought it was just me that felt that way!

Stax,

I've checked your past messages.  You are quite a good contributor to the forum.  Don't feel too disheartened.  You can go for a while replying to people and not receive anything back but once in a while you do.

Would be interested in hearing your thought on the site generally.

Got any?

Well, I studied law too, but became a journalist... and then a flying instructor.

From a business point of view, newspapers such as the Sunday Mail publish legal queries because it interests the readers, and boosts sales.

From a lawyer's point of view, perhaps reading about legal cases involving others might encourage people to consult about their "specific" circumstances... and thus create chargeable time.

In fact, solicitors often have "first meeting free" offers to tempt customers. So a forum could be an extension of that.

At Old College there was a weekly evening session run by students to give legal advice (with the help of lecturers, I suppose). Maybe enlisting the help of teaching staff and their students would be an idea?

Best wishes to all,

Colin

I think that is a very good point.

My problem with that approach has always been that I thought that if a post looked as if it had been satisfactorily answered by someone then other visitors would not take the time to add their own comments.

Is the general consensus that the reason this forum doesn't get as many helpful replies as it might do is because I don't post enough?

The whole reason for this forum was to reduce the number of e-mails I receive asking for help through the site.  As far as I'm concerned this has been a huge success but I do recognise that many of the queries do not go answered.  That is a problem that I would like to address.

Has anyone any suggestions?

I will try and keep an eye on posts more often and post helpful suggestions where I can.  Sorry for not doing this so often in the past.

More importantly, the development of Scottish Law Online is my primary focus.  The site's main entry page is http://www.scottishlaw.org.uk and much of my time is devoted to developing new ideas and areas for this.

I would like to see Scottish Law Online branch out into a Europe-wide coverage of issues of relevance to Scottish lawyers, students and academics.  If you have any suggestions please post them - no matter how abprupt you want to make your comment.

Kind regards,

Kevin Crombie.

Hello again. Sorry about the delay in replying to this thread but I was incarcerated in Barlinnie on a charge of "liking the music of Celine Dion" which had been hanging over my head since I was spotted at her July 8th 1999 concert at Murrayfield Stadium.

I didn't mean to be disrespectful towards those who run and manage this site. I apologise for my tone in the initial thread.

SORRY!!!!!!!

I think this site has far too many sections. I also believe that the site has no direction. It would be a better place with fewer sections and more specialised areas being signposted.

An advisory service would be a great idea, as mentioned above, that offers people in need of legal help to consult on here first then decide their next move in the real world. People need reassurance with law matters. This site could be great if it provided a first stop cutting edge legal advice service for everyone in Scotland. Free of charge I may add. Ok, who would give out the advice? I am not sure on that, but there must be someone out there with legal knowledge and compassion? I think it is a total disgrace that someone could be misrepresented in court because money is a factor.

Wouldn't it be great if people in Scotland knew the name of this forum like they do other great public services?

In short, someone gets charged with a crime, they log on here and seek advice, anonymously, then, armed with a clear direction, they go off and fight for innocence.

Ok, sounds naive, but I am great believer in helping to make the world a better place.

Pass me that red button.....

Anyone have any suggestions for how I can turn this site into a database driven site?

The site is on a server that has perl, cgi, mysql, php installed?

indeed