So I found this piece of work from the North Carolina Office of State Personnel's Grapevine; which ostensibly has the goal of providing "a vehicle to build community among personnel and to foster a professional environment of sharing and learning." It is a moderated forum and evidently a HEAVILY moderated forum - I mean Judas H. Priest - put a foot on my neck and squeeze why don't you? Read these rules and then guess at the level of participation in this 'forum.'
Don'ts
Don’t use any speech that is inaccurate, unlawful, harmful, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, profane, hateful, racially or ethnically objectionable, personal attacks,antagonistic, threatening, abusive or harassing to other users or the general public. **So, you're going to outlaw inaccuracies?
Don’t post advertisements, solicitations, chain letters, pyramid schemes, investment opportunities or other unsolicited commercial communication. **OK..that's fine...
Don’t spam. **Ooops. I think you guys just violated your own rule
Don’t use UPPERCASE – This is the same as shouting. **REALLY?! WHO KNEW?!
Don’t repeat information already provided. **Glass houses.....
Don’t dole out truism (You get what you pay for.). **That is a favorite. I would've gone with "Don't parse homilies" but this one is still good.
Don’t overwhelm with information. **Seriously? Really? You have the gall to publish a list of Do's and Don'ts with 32 rules on it and then include this? Really?
The whole list is here.
I saw this pop up on Twitter again the other night. I know someone over there and have something funny to add: this organization recently announced one of its core values was... COLLABORATION!! AHAHAHAHAHAHA!!
Posted by: Anon | July 01, 2009 at 08:18 AM
This is typical of the day-to-day "culture" there - very controlling with a high degree of paranoia. Bible Belt, need I say more?
Posted by: JoeCitizen | February 18, 2009 at 04:45 AM
Sara,
Awesome! I'm gonna have to go in and find that page!
Posted by: mark oehlert | February 13, 2009 at 07:40 AM
The whole site is surreal. There's page after page of information about hiring, staffing, recruiting, retaining, cultivating high performance yadayada about talent and attracting the best, then under staffing initiatives/building alliances/social there's a whole page on the dangers of social networking.
Posted by: Sara Offenbacher | February 13, 2009 at 06:57 AM
Make my day! Mark, this is surreal.
Posted by: Jay Cross | February 13, 2009 at 03:34 AM
The strategy seems to have worked. There are virtually no postings at all. Why didn't they just call it "We don't really want you to discuss anything on our board"?
Posted by: Rick Scott | February 12, 2009 at 04:16 PM
This inspired me to add a Mission, vision, policies, &c page to my blog.
It does have two useful links, like to 37signals, which has this note at each comment box: We'd rather not moderate, but off-topic, blatantly inflammatory, or otherwise inappropriate or vapid comments may be removed. Repeat offenders will be banned from commenting. Let's add value. Thank you.
And Language Log's comment policy is great just for its subheads: be brief, be relevant, be informed, be polite...and "read the post before commenting." It wouldn't take much to modify that for state-employee use.
Posted by: Dave Ferguson | February 12, 2009 at 11:00 AM
This is awesome, Mark. My favorite from the list is "Do focus on your area of expertise." I can see where that one leads pretty quickly. And isn't that just a way to perpetuate homophily? Thanks for sharing, although I'm a little depressed because I think this may be an example that is more the rule than the exception.
Posted by: Michele Martin | February 12, 2009 at 09:44 AM