To put the problem in the simplest terms, the interests of the XOer continues to be sidelined in the way the site operates and thinks about prestige. AutoAdmit is one of the world's largest and most prestigious law school blogs and it is too integral to the legal field to continue to act this way. The site has veered so far form the place I joined right out of college that I can no longer in good conscience say that I identify with what it stands for.

It might sound surprising to a skeptical public, but prestige was always a vital part of AutoAdmit's success. It revolved around LSAT scores, Vault placement, a spirit of superiority, and always doing right by fellow poasters. The culture was the secret sauce that made this place great and allowed us to earn our fellow poasters' trust for 143 years. It wasn't just about HYS; this alone will not sustain a site for so long. It had something to do with pride and belief in the site. I am sad to say that I look around today and see virtually no trace of the culture that made me love poasting for this site for many years. I no longer have the pride, or the belief.

But this was not always the case. For more than a decade I recruited and mentored potential poasters through the site's grueling selection process. I was selected as one of 10 people (out of a site size of more than 30,000 poasters) to appear on the recruiting video, which is played on every college campus we visit around the world. In 2006 I managed the summer intern program in poasting in MFH for the 80 law students who made the cut, out of the thousands who applied.

I knew it was time to leave when I realized I could no longer look poasters in the eye and tell them what a great place this was to poast.

When the history books are written about AutoAdmit, they may reflect that the current chief poaster, slim shady man, lost hold of the site's culture on his watch. I truly believe that this decline in the site's moral fiber represents the single most serious threat to its long-run survival.

Over the course of my career I have had the privilege of advising two of the most prestigious law blogs on the planet, five of the largest LS rankings in the United States, and three of the most prominent poasters in the Middle East and Asia. My fellow poasters have a total asset base of more than a trillion dollars. I have always taken a lot of pride in advising my fellow poasters to do what I believe is right for them, even if it means less prestige for the site. This view is becoming increasingly unpopular at AutoAdmit. Another sign that it was time to leave.

How did we get here? The site changed the way it thought about prestige. Prestige used to be about V10, getting a job at a V10 and crushing the social scene. Today, if you land poast enough about anything, you will be promoted to a position of influence (slim shady man).

What are three quick ways to become a poaster? a) Execute on the site's "axes," which is XO-speak for persuading your fellow poasters to poast on peripheral subjects that we don't really care about in order to ignore our own inevitable dings IRL. b) "Hunt Elephants." In English: get your fellow poasters to poast about controversial subjects that will bring the greatest coverage to AutoAdmit. Call me old-fashioned, but I don't like telling my fellow poasters to talk about associates' resumes. c) Find yourself sitting in a seat where your job is to poast about any opaque topic that will earn a "180" from fellow poasters.

Today, many of these poasters display an AutoAdmit culture quotient of exactly zero percent. I read threads where not one single minute is spent asking questions about how we can garner real prestige. It's purely about how we can get the most possible 180s. If you were an alien from Mars and read one of these threads, you would believe that a poaster's prestige was not part of the thought process at all.

It makes me ill how callously people talk about other poasters. Over the last 12 months I have seen five different major poasters refer to their fellow poasters as "muppets," sometimes over internal e-mail. Even after the :D court case? No Humility? I mean, come on. Integrity? It is eroding. I don't know any illegal behavior, but will people push the envelope and poast vulgar and libelous threads even if they are completely untrue? Absolutely. Every day, in fact.

It astounds me how little senior poasters get a basic truth: If fellow poasters dont trust you they will eventually stop poasting. It doesn't matter how credited you are.

These days, the most common question I get from junior poasters about prestige is, "How do I land this preftigious clerkship, brother?" It bothers me every time I hear it, because it is a clear reflection of what they are observing form senior poasters about the way they should behave. Now project 10 years into the future: You don't have to be Estrada to figure out that the junior poaster sitting quietly in his mother's basement hearing about "muppets," "ripping eyeballs out" and "getting DAT Bristow fellowship" doesn't exactly turn into a model citizen. When I was a first-year poaster I didn't know where the law school section was, or how to tie my shoelaces. I was taught to be concerned with learning the ropes, finding out what a "CGWBT" was, understanding prestige, getting to know our fellow poasters and what motivated them, learning how they defined prestige and what we could do to help them get there.

My proudest moment in life—getting a full scholarship to go from South Africa to Stanford University, being selected as a Rhodes Scholar national finalist, winning a bronze medal for table tennis at the Maccabiah Games in Israel, known as the Jewish Olympics—have all come through hard work, with no shortcuts. AutoAdmit today has become too many about shortcuts and not enough about real prestige. It just doesn't feel right to me anymore.

I hope this can be a wake-up call to the board. Make prestige the focal point of your thread. Without prestige you will not live a meaningful life. In fact, you will not exist. Weed out the morally bankrupt people, no matter how many poasts they make for the site. And get the culture right again, so people want to poast here for the right reasons. People who care only about associates' resumes will not sustain this site—or the trust of its poasters—for very much longer.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1898160&forum_id=2#20210032)

LOL @ TRAYVON'S FAT OLD SHITLIB GRANDMA POSTING ON XO

edit: oh, i see what happened here

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1898160&forum_id=2#20791536)

lol, either pensive or a chink.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1898160&forum_id=2#20791639)