he said in the message.
Operated by Finance and Administration for the past two years, the Listening Post was an online public forum where anonymous employees of the office could post questions, suggestions and complaints for administrators.
Ohio University administrators shut down an employee online suggestion box Monday night following inappropriate posts and recent user complaints of censorship.
Administrators closed the Listening Post forum because it was not adhering to its intended mission as a forum for Finance and Administration department complaints, said Terry Conry, associate vice president for the department, in his message notifying users of the closure.
It is not possible to maintain the Listening Post in its current format and achieve our intended mission he said in the message.
Operated by Finance and Administration for the past two years, the Listening Post was an online public forum where anonymous employees of the office could post questions, suggestions and complaints for administrators.
People started using the forum to make personal attacks and advocate causes unrelated to the office, such as a faculty union, he said in an interview yesterday.
Last week, administrators deleted posts from the Web site, outraging many forum users.
In a message dated March 6 labeled Fight Censorship one user complained about posts that had been deleted from the site.
We can all see now that posts are being censored
the user wrote. If we (like hundreds of us) keep posting stuff about censorship
and keep reposting after they take them off
eventually it will be too much trouble for them to censor the site.
In a reply Conry wrote, This forum is not intended to be a bastion of free speech. It is meant to address work-related concerns of Finance and Administration area employees. Please refer to the guidelines.
Plugging up the forum with postings as suggested will result in the closing of the site.
According to the site's guidelines
The Listening Post is not a blog. It is not a no-holds-barred arena for promoting a viewpoint or attacking a person.
The posts were removed because their subjects were outside the guidelines, Conry said in an interview Monday before the site was shut down.
Conry did not remember the subject of specific posts that had been removed
he said.
The department has formed a six-member focus group to create an alternative to the Listening Post that will prevent future problems
Conry said.
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