The first commandment of career success certainly has to be “Thou shalt network.” But it gets broken even more often than the real Ten Commandments do.

A lot of people are introverts, which means that the stereotype of networking makes their skin crawl. They think it’s for salespeople and entrepreneurs and desperate job hunters — people who don’t get the heebie-jeebies at the idea of going to mixers, and don’t break into a cold sweat when they have to make a cold call.

They look at networking as something for people who need connections because they’re selling a product or a business or themselves. And sometimes they envision the worst kind of networkers: The ones who get in touch with people only because they need a favor, and will offer to horse-trade in order to get it.

“The spreadsheet approach is astounding,” says Liz Ryan, a networking pro who cringes at the quid pro quo. “I think I could help you and you could help me.”

It has been five years since Ryan founded ChicWIT, a moderated e-mail message list in Chicago, designed as a way that busy women in technology-related jobs could exchange information about job openings, career strategies, child care needs and anything else — career-related or not. The organization has developed into WorldWIT, with 30,000 people in about 70 chapters around the world, in all sorts of jobs and industries.

And yes, men can join, too.

The group has grown so much that its San Francisco Bay Area chapter, SilcWIT, recently appointed Noel Adams as its first executive director, which means it will have more in-person events to supplement the e-mail messages. SilcWIT has about 1,200 members.

Adams shares Ryan’s concern about how some people are more concerned with ways they can exploit their network rather than simply trying to help one another.

“Networking is not the same as job hunting,” Adams says. “I look at it as what I can do for you, because I know that eventually it’s all going to come around.”

Joining the group through its Web site at www.worldwit.org is easy, and takes only seconds. No qualifications or referrals are necessary, no personal information is asked for.

“We’re not an association,” says Ryan, WorldWIT’s chief executive officer. “We don’t have any dues.”

How the group makes enough money to survive is through corporate sponsors, companies that get listed on the Web site and sometimes put on events for members.

Nationwide, the group’s members are 95 percent women, almost all with college degrees, Ryan says. Thirty-five percent earn more than $100,000 a year, and 15 percent have their doctorates. Of course, as Ryan acknowledges, all these figures are based on how the members identify themselves in surveys, so she has no way of knowing how truthful they are being.

She says one significant difference between WorldWIT and many common networking groups is that about two-thirds of its members are in corporations rather than being contractors and entrepreneurs. I’m sure that’s at least partly because members are anonymous unless they choose to post a message, so corporate executives don’t have to worry about getting bombarded by resumes or pitches from vendors.

Nobody will know their name or affiliation unless they choose to reveal it. And WorldWIT strongly discourages members from making unsolicited pitches directly to one another simply because a person’s e-mail address reveals that she works for a prominent company.

Typically, people send in messages, which are screened by moderators to eliminate spam, hardcore marketing pitches and messages that are overtly religious or political, then they go out to the mailing list. Sensitive messages can be posted anonymously, such as a battered woman looking for shelter, and people can respond to the messages either through the mailing list or privately.

Adams says that although technology helps busy people cope with life’s demands, she thinks the optional in-person events will strengthen some relationships.

“I think that a lot of networking can be done by e-mail,” she says, “but a lot of people fall back on, ‘I want to know you face to face.’ ”