Don’t Write Checks Your Time Obligations Can’t Cash
Author: Jay T. - The EditorPosted on February 6, 2008
Filed Under NAR - General
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.
.
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9 Responses to “Don’t Write Checks Your Time Obligations Can’t Cash”
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[...] Why is the NAR manipulating post dates? [...]
[...] Don’t Write Checks Your Time Obligations Can’t Cash, by Jay Thompson. [...]
This is one of the nuances of online culture that isn’t readily apparent to novices. To the newbies, it probably seems a bit snobby of us to stare down our noses at this kind of behavior, but if NAR is really trying to engage the bloggorati, they’ll act on this critique. I don’t think NAR has figured out the “social” part of social media yet. They do seem to be a little further along on the “media” part.
I understand completely the desire to keep a certain post “at the top” and can certainly understand a newbie thinking the only way to do that is to change the date.
I don’t understand the thought process behind back-dating a post so it meets a posting schedule. That’s just fundamentally flawed thinking.
Granted, those of us that have been doing this awhile see things like this differently. I don’t think the NAR intentionally set out to deceive anyone. But it is a deceptive practice that really needs to be stopped.
When I first read the “you’ll get this on Tuesday and that on Thursday” post I had a feeling this would happen. Keeping a specific blog posting schedule is VERY difficult, particularly for someone as busy as teh NAR leadership team likely is. It’s almost a set-up for guaranteed failure as all it takes is missing one day of that schedule and you’ve “failed” on your commitment.
I applaud the NAR for putting up a blog. Shows some progressiveness on their part. There’s a learning curve to anything like this. I hope they’ll take some action. If this practice continues, they will lose credibility in some people’s eyes. And it’s an easy fix.
You’ll hear no argument from me.
This manipulation of data is the kind of thing NAR should be very cautious to avoid. I’ll mention it to the local Seattle-King County Association of Realtors President and others to see if they can at least let those in power know they are creating bad press.
NAR claims that the Realtor Code of Ethics is what sets its members apart from ordinary real estate agents and then they do things like this. I am ashamed to be a member of an organization run by people that allow this type of hypocritical behavior.
Jay,
It all comes down to integrity. If you say you are going to do something, then do it. Integrity, like trust, takes a long time to earn, and it can be ruined quickly. As our national voice, I expect the NAR to uphold the integrity which I (will move heaven and earth) to uphold with my clients.
[...] This morning I questioned some “date manipulation” happening on some posts on the NAR’s “Voices of Real Estate Blog“. [...]