Another Naming Contest Gone Wrong

Ithaca, NY restructured their Police Department to include five unarmed community solutions workers to a new department alongside the existing Police Department. This created a new Department of Community Safety.  So far so good. However, Ithaca asked the community’s suggestions for naming the new department. Uh-oh…naming contests rarely generate positive outcomes.

Here is the full list of suggestions that were submitted by the public:

• Department of Community Safety
• Community Support Team
• Community Peace Keepers
• Test Idea
• Lipstick on a Pig
• Use the Resources available
• Department of Public Safety
• Title ideas of new department for public safety
• Antifa
• Ithaca Police Department
• Svante’s Bong Rip
• Department of Public Safety and Community Resource Solutions
• Ithaca Safeguard
• OK Corral
• Safety McSafe Face
• Crime Spree Observers
• Name of Department
• Ithaca PSD
• Name for Dept of Public Safety
• Department of Community Care and Safety
• OASIS
• Ithaca Police Department
• Name
• SHeroes
• ComPROMISE
• Community Centered Safety Department
• Coreorgonel (Where we keep the pipe of peace)
• New Department Name
• Title
• Name for new department

Why do organizations like naming contests? In this instance, it appears that the Police Department wanted to garner support for the new department. Instead, they became the latest organization to have to deal with crappy results of a public naming contest. Re-read the list above and you’ll see what I mean. More than half of the submissions are obvious “smart ass” comments, about 30% of them are just invalid submissions, and most of the rest are just plain dumb. Here is to hoping Ithaca ignores this contest and just calls it Department of Community Safety.