What is up on LinkedIn these days?

I have heard countless folks complain about *all the limitless spam* that can be found in groups. Geesh! Groups are well intended and can offer value when they are crowdsourced well and when the group owners actively manage their communities ... but the junk levels in groups these days has become so high-caloric that one must start to watch their inbox waistlines from swelling with so much greasy spam ... one can't help but question the value of LinkedIn's group feature from time to time.

Just today I and other group members of Group X received a notification from the group owner complaining about the ultra-high spam levels seeping through into the Discussion areas:

As your group manager, I'm frustrated with the amount of spam appearing in our Discussion section. I've spent hours removing Discussions and telling people where their "spammy" stuff belongs. Some of you really get it and others do not.

Please be advised that the Discussion section of our network has the following purposes:
1) To simulate a conversation around something new in the field of X.
2) To ask a genuine question that might help someone expand or grow their X business or skill
3) Share a resource (not your own!!!) that you found helpful.

If you want to share your resources or events, use the Shameless Promotion Subgroup. If you want to share your blog post, you can do that in the News section or post it in the Article subgroup.

When I see repeated violations of the Discussions from people I've previously warned, I will have no choice but to remove them from our group.

And recently, well-known marketing diva Beth Harte, who now manages the LinkedIn group for MarketingProfs sent out a much more explicit notification as well:

"Unfortunately, due to the amount of ‘spam’ (and not the kind that’s edible!) that is being shared within the group it was only a matter of time before we needed to send out guidelines. I will keep them quick, simple and easy to follow...so please be sure to read them! ... These guidelines take effect October 28, 2009. Anything posted after that date that doesn’t conform to these guidelines will tangle with the delete key (and I think I know which one will win!). ... I understand that these guidelines might make for a more tight-knitted and smaller community/network, but I am okay with that if you are."

I see these notifications as good, healthy signs that the community leaders recognize the value of branded or topic-specific groups are and have become "endangered" to the excessive spam pollution as of late. I, for one, really appreciate these efforts and *hope* that some how the spam noise levels do become more controlled over time.

Beyond the spam, there's also intense rivalry (or stupidity) afoot

But spam stories are not the only drama sagas happening on LinkedIn these days. The other curious activity I see some clients wrestling with is having folks in the groups moving discussion items constantly into the job area. One poor client has every single item she shares on the Discussions area almost immediately moved into jobs. And this is not just happening in one group...it's happening in multiple, different groups. Clearly something's not right here. And each attempt to contact the group managers has not produced any results or a significant response as to how to better manage this kind of activity.

LinkedIn itself was not very helpful with regard to this specific matter. Their response was appreciated but rather useless:

Dear ___________,

Thank you for contacting LinkedIn Customer Support.

Regrettably, we do not have the functionality to prevent this from happening.

Discussions can be marked as Jobs by any member; due to this being a newer feature, it may have been moved in error. Discussions moved to the Jobs tab can currently only be reinstated by the group owner or manager. We are reviewing alternatives to enhance the process and reduce issues in the future.

To reinstate a discussion that was moved to the Jobs tab in error, please go to the Jobs tab of the group. There will be a link to reinstate the job below the listing. Please note:

- If you need to check who moved it in order to educate them on proper use of the link, please click on the title of the job to see the details, including the member who moved it. You must do this before you reinstate it to the Discussion area.
- If the posting was originally created in the Jobs tab, it cannot be reinstated to the Discussion area.

I want to apologize for any inconvenience this has caused you and we appreciate your commitment to making LinkedIn a stronger community!

Regards,

Rosa
LinkedIn Customer Support

So who else is singing the LinkedIn blues these days???