When Does "Flag as Promotion" Apply?
What does "flag as promotion" really mean (regarding a discussion group member's comments)?
Is it appropriate to "flag as promotion" when people are simply advertising their "free offers"? It seems like those comments are sidestepping the real reason for "discussion" groups, and they're just adding people's junk mail to our inboxes.
Answers (4)
Dave M.
Professional trade show booth traffic builder and party entertainer. Corporate and private sector events.
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Self promotion is usually looked upon as a negative here...
Neal K.
Owner, Hacker Factor Solutions
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Hi Margaret,
I'm a moderator for a LinkedIn group. (I'm not naming the group here because this isn't about advertising the group.) Different groups handle "Promotions" differently. In the group that I help moderate, we view "Promotions" as a place for on-topic advertisements and links to other sites. In contrast, "Discussions" are strictly for open questions. In our group, people who post self-promotions (e.g., "I blogged! Click here to read it and drive up my traffic! Pahleeze!") are given a warning if they post under "Discussions" and repeated violations lead to getting booted from the group. Similarly, automated postings that are nothing more than RSS feeds are discouraged. (If I wanted to read your RSS feed, I'd go directly and not through LinkedIn.)
Then again, I'm a draconian moderator. Other groups either don't moderate (or don't moderate as severely) or don't mind people who use LinkedIn like Facebook for self-promotions and nothing more than annoying RSS-type postings.
Unfortunately, the people who run LinkedIn are not helping here. It is not easy to post something under the "Promotions" tab, and "Flag as Promotion" does not do much more than forward the problem to the group moderators.
LinkedIn used to be focused on business-oriented social networking. However, that seems to have changed. Now they seem to be trying to be a cheap knockoff of Twitter and Facebook -- and failing at both.
Things LinkedIn could do to become better:
- Stop catering to spam-like postings. ("Promotions"? Really? Why not just say "Spam Welcome!")
- Rather than forcing tabs like "Promotions" and "Jobs" in every group, permit group moderators to define tabs that are specific to the individual groups.
- Make is easier for group members to post in the tabs defined by the group moderators.
- Make it easier for group moderators to move posts between tabs. (Right now, moving between the tabs is pretty confusion and not always bidirectional.)
- Actively watch for spammers. E.g., if someone gets kicked out of multiple groups AND that person was frequently posting the same thing (or nearly the same thing) in multiple forums, then flag them as a spammer and kick them out.
- And most importantly: LinkedIn's support should not wait weeks or months before responding to specific complaints. (In regards to support responsiveness, LinkedIn seems to be copying eBay, PayPal, and Facebook. A few years ago, they were very responsive, but not anymore.)
Gee, this soapbox is really high...
Mark F.
IT Testing Services
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I don't moderate any groups, but Neal's description matches what I would think is promotion. I have started flagging in groups I belong to but it seems to have no effect. It's starting to get very annoying. In general the value of LI as a resource is dropping all the time. Unless there is a major change of strategy, I can't see me still using LI in 3 - 6 months time.
