We have redesigned the OSCAR informational website (again). I was not happy with the integration of the old blog software and the website. The old OSCAR website was created with static HTML content. Last year we upgraded the original blog software with product named B2evolution. This was an improvement over the previous year, but it was still not the complete solution that we were looking for.

We decided on a complete redesign to update both the content and to make a more consistent overall look. This new website is powered by Drupal. Drupal is a free open source content management application with built in support for blogging and for forums. Any user with an account can create a new forum topic. Authenticated users can post and comment freely on forum topics and blog entries. Anonymous users can post comments to existing posts, but their comments are not posted until they have been approved by a moderator.

The B2evolution product had a terrible time with spam early in the season last year. Although we took steps to curtail spam that were largely successful, I had the feeling that it was only a matter of time before we would fighting the spam problem again. We were able to migrate the user accounts for all law school administrators, and all users with email addresses that end in .edu. We reviewed the remaining accounts that utilized .com or .net email addresses. Most of these accounts were migrated but 10 or 15 general blog user accounts were not. These accounts were difficult to identify as legitimate.

We hope that this new and improved website is helpful, and we are looking forward to the coming year. If you have any suggestions, you can submit them on the feature request page. You can also post a forum topic and see what other people think of your ideas.