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Failure to Communicate


"What we've got here is failure to communicate..." from the movie, Cool Hand Luke.

Failure to communicate caused the end of the Training & Development discussion list, also known as TRDEV-L. Moderated by David Passmore of Penn State University, the discussion list has grown to more than 5,000 international subscribers in 12 years. I rated TRDEV-L as one of the Best Web Sites on training and development.

The Blame Game

Earlier this week, Passmore shut down TRDEV-L after a serious disagreement with Jeff Hill, president of HR-Online. The disagreement was over Hill's right to repost and archive messages from TRDEV-L on the HR-Online Web site after Passmore asked him to stop doing so. Apparently, Hill was unwilling to stop reposting TRDEV-L messages because of an earlier agreement he had made with Passmore--an agreement that Passmore thought was revocable.

The issue arose after some TRDEV-L subscribers complained to Passmore that they were receiving spam (unsolicited e-mail)from advertisers who harvested their names and e-mail addresses from messages archived on Hill's Web site at http://www.hronline.com.

The Outcome

I have removed the link to TRDEV-L from this page.

Passmore plans to change TRDEV-L to an "announcement only" list with a weekly newsletter about Internet resources for human resource development and training professionals.

For now, HR-Online limited access to TRDEV-L archives on its site available to paying members only.

A few TRDEV-L members are trying to establish a training and development e-group to replace the discontinued discussion list.

What does this mean to you?

As I've written in earlier articles, training and development discussion lists can be great places to exchange information and advice with other professionals. Unfortunately, when you become a member of a list, you face the risk of having your e-mail address harvested by advertisers and receiving spam.

Before you join a discussion list, do the following:

  • Find out the privacy policy. Does the list owner allow messages to be distributed outside the list?

  • Make sure that your name and e-mail address will not be sold to advertisers.

  • Find out what the list owner is doing to prevent harvesting of e-mail addresses from archives.

    • The TRDEV-L discussion list situation shows what can happen when there is a failure to communicate between Web site owners. It also serves as a cautionary tale for those who subscribe to discussion lists.

    Related article: Finding Help http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/trai...

    The copyright of the article Failure to Communicate in Training & Development is owned by Audrey Choden. Permission to republish Failure to Communicate in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

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