BadArguments.org

This is not at all germane to legal research, but I just launched a fun / educational website called Bad Arguments.

Bad Arguments lets you practice identifying logical errors in arguments. The site presents you with short arguments, each of which is followed by a multiple choice question. You have to identify the biggest flaw in the argument amidst three randomly-chosen distractor answers.

If you register with the site, it'll keep track of your results. You can also submit problematic arguments that you've come across, so that others can practice on them.

OregonLaws.org

Jureeka now links to OregonLaws.org for the Oregon Revised Statutes. The site presents the state's legislation in an elegant, hyperlinked format. It's fast, has a great search facility, and handily outclasses the state legislature's own site.

It's a great example of what can be done to liberate legal information.

How accurate is Jureeka?

Version 1.6 has an accuracy of 81.9%, meaning that for every hyperlink it inserts, there's a roughly 1 in 5 chance that the link won't lead to the cited source. This error rate was unacceptable (to me, and probably to you as well), which is why I've been working on some major tweaks.

Version 1.9 is much more accurate -- it has a success rate of around 92%. It achieves this by ignoring a host of citations to sources (mainly regional reporters in the U.S.) that it knows can't be found.

Ninety-two percent still leaves room for improvement, but at least it's within the bounds of respectability.

Don't like the toolbar?

You can make it go away from Firefox by going to View --> Toolbars and then uncheck "Jureeka toolbar." (Jureeka will still hyperlink citations even if the toolbar is invisible.)


Whenever you want the toolbar to reappear, just go back and recheck it on this menu.

Inaugurating Jureeka version 1.7

In the spirit of national betterment, I updated Jureeka today. The latest version:

• Reduces the number of false positive citations to four of the U.S. regional reporters (N.W.2d, N.E.2d, S.W.2d, S.E.2d);
• Corrects a citation recognition error that confused the first and third editions of the Federal Reporter; and
• Is compatible with Firefox 3.1 beta 2.

You can download the new version here.

Outage

Jureeka had a brief outage this morning, which is now resolved. My apologies for any inconvenience.

It's public!

Jureeka is now out of the "sandbox" at Mozilla and a public Firefox add-on. This means that you don't need to register at the Mozilla site in order to download it.