Where to officially report ITIL book errors: "behind a locked door marked BEWARE OF THE LEOPARD"

ITSM View has drawn our attention to the official "Change Control System" for ITIL (and presumably other) documentation on the Best Practice site owned by OGC, APM Group, the Best Practice User Group, itSMF and TSO. He has done a great public service by doing so, because nobody else has, least of all the ITIL books themselves.

I read a lot about ITIL and I have seen no mention of this system anywhere, certainly not in the books where one would expect the link to be prominently displayed to solicit feedback. (Unless you count "Full details of the range of material published can be found at..." as a mention).

Even on the site it is not exactly obvious. No mention of it that I can find on the site itself, and a bland front page that challenges "who goes there" without any description of what lies within. I'm reminded of that line from the Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy about "in a basement behind a locked door marked BEWARE OF THE LEOPARD".

I invite readers to register for the system for a fine example of bureaucracy's inability to grasp the Web: we'll have all these arcane rules for what the password must be but we won't tell you, we'll play this little guessing game with you until you get it right.

The result is access to a linear list with no apparent search capabilities, and no ablity to select by book, nor even by body of knowledge. Nor is there any attempt at community: people cannot comment or rank the importance or in any way participate other than to scroll. Given I built BOKKED in three hours using identical technology to that used by itSMF International, ITSM Portal and others, I think this effort is pretty sad.

After three days of existence BOKKED now has more entries than the official site. I know which horse my money is on :-D

Comments

Official "Change Management System" now has 12 errors!

The number of errors recorded in the Best Management Practice website "official" database is now 12. Whether the growth in numbers can be attributed to the promotion of the site by ITSM View and this blog, who knows? but it certainly still isn't attributable to promotion by anyone who ought to be.

I'm copying the "good" ones into BOKKED for completeness

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