Some will recall that I commented on a very positive and useful change in the filename designation of the decisions posted at the AOC by using codes to indicate published (PUB) and not for publication (NP) status. See, AOC: Silent but Important Change in Decision Data Base.
Well, someone just ought to tell me never to compliment anyone ever again.
Within the week, the "NP" and "PUB" designations were redacted from the file names for the cases posted for rendition days April 19 and 20, 2007, and a reversion to the old practice of just case numbers (no name, no publication status either).
This was then followed by a posting at LawReader with a clarification by Supreme Court Clerk Susan Clary explaining the official codes used in case designation names (not their file names). See, COURT CLERK SUSAN CLARY CLARIFIES CASE IDENTIFYING LETTERS. PS. One of the designations, I believe was not mentioned is "CL" for Certification of Law (eg., 2005-SC-000521-CL.pdf).
Well, good ideas are few and far between, and when one comes around, you just hate to see it dropped for no apparent reason.
Fortunately (and no thanks to the AOC), I discovered their revision of the names of the case files for the Court of Appeals decisions. Why would it make a difference? Since we link to their case files and use their saved filenames, you change the name of the file stored in the decision database and you break the link. Supreme Court decisions are not affected, and the minutes do not seem to be affected either for that week.
When you change things on the web, you must always be cognizant of the links to your domain and the havoc caused by breaking the links. Thus broken links can render your site not useable and make the web into a spider web.
