Sigh. More Games with NAR Blog Posts.

I don’t get it.

This morning I questioned some “date manipulation” happening on some posts on the NAR’s “Voices of Real Estate Blog“.

One of the posts in question (the lessor of the two evils IMHO) was re-dated multiple times in order (I assume) to keep it at the top of the page.

Tonight, the post is gone, fini, out of there.

Or so it appears at first glance….

I thought maybe the keeper of the NAR blog had reverted it to its original date.

Nope.

Then I assumed it had been deleted. It was simply nowhere to be found. Why would they delete a post? Because in it they committed to posting on a schedule — a schedule that hasn’t been maintained?

So what. Bloggers everywhere say they are going to post some series, or post on some sort of regular schedule — and many times those things fall apart for various and sundry reasons. Been there, done that myself.

But I suspect you’d have to look long and hard to find a blogger that just deletes an entire post, particularly after getting a little criticism. Just fix it for Pete’s sake. There’s no need to delete it and hope it never happened. In the grand scheme of things, it’s not that big a deal.

As it turns out the post wasn’t deleted. But it isn’t easy to find.

This URL leads to the Jan 31 date version of the post.

This URL leads to the Feb 6 date version of the post.

(Note to the NAR blog master — when you chose to use year and month in your post URL structure, multiple copies are made when you change dates across months.)

Here are screen snips:

This isn’t so much about changing dates on posts. Or “deleting” posts. (though I don’t understand either practice, at all).

There are after all, no rules in blogging. It is the NARs blog, and if they want to delete posts, it’s their privilege. If they want to back date a post from the President of the organization, who am I to stop them?

I just hope they understand what it makes them look like in the eyes of some of their members. Seems to me that an organization that prides itself on a Code of Ethics would stop for a second and say, “Hmmm. How does changing dates on posts come across? How does it look when one morning a post is there, and that afternoon it is for all practical purposes gone?”

Looks snarky to me. But I tend to go a little over the top about these things. I can say though that based on some of the comments here and numerous emails I got today that I’m not alone. Taking actions that bring integrity into question probably isn’t the best plan for the NAR.

Just my opinion. Your mileage may vary.

.

Don’t Write Checks Your Time Obligations Can’t Cash

As mentioned here, on Jan 16 the NAR said in their new “Voices of Real Estate” blog:

Every Tuesday, Dick Gaylord will blog about his experiences as NAR President, with supplemental posts from other members of the 2008 Leadership Team every Thursday.

Sure enough the next Tuesday (Jan 22) we got Silver Lining. Cool.

The following Tuesday (Jan 29), we got nothing.

The next Tuesday (Feb 5), we got nothing.

But wait! At 7:15am MST today (Wednesday Feb 6) there was nothing. But now there is a post up, magically dated Tuesday Feb 5.

A couple of suggestions / thoughts for the NAR when it comes to blogging…

1) You can change the date of a post to make it look like it was posted on a Tuesday. But you might want to keep in mind that what shows up in someone’s feed reader is the real date it was posted. I’d rather see the post reflect the true date, even if it is late. Call me crazy. I call it an integrity thing.

2) Please stop changing the date for the lead “Voices of Real Estate” post. It was originally posted on Jan 16. Yesterday it was time stamped Jan 30. Today it is time stamped Feb 6. One can only assume you are changing the date to keep this post “on top”. There are other, better, ways to do that (put it in your “About” page that is linked in the sidebar, incorporate it into your header graphic, or get your web guy to put it as static text below the header).

It looks silly to have a post dated Feb 6 with comments from Jan 16.

Manipulating post dates so they stay on top or (even worse) give the false appearance that you are meeting some stated time line is a poor practice. Honesty really is the best policy.

I realize Mr. Gaylord is a busy man and may not always be able to meet his “Tuesday post commitment”. That’s fine. But really, stop making it look like he is. Might I suggest changing this:

Every Tuesday, Dick Gaylord will blog about his experiences as NAR President, with supplemental posts from other members of the 2008 Leadership Team every Thursday.

To read something along the lines of:

Every week, Dick Gaylord will blog about his experiences as NAR President, along with other members of the 2008 Leadership Team. Occasionally time constraints may prevent a weekly post.

Do that, and you can lose the questionable practice of back-dating posts.

.