Flagging - It's out of control

Yeah well, LI is loosing it. Wasting everybody's time on useless annoyances like this - the site could be improved so much more, yet they refuse to listen to their most dedicated members - how dense can you be? You get free, valuable input and you turn your head the other way - we're used to that in politics, but LI has made it to its company policy. They even let go of one of their biggest evangelicals, Vincent Wright.

Sheilah is another MVP (or rather MVM - as recognised by the members, helping others) and how does LI treat her? Bluntly ignore her - so that it looks like as if everything is going great - hiring expensive PR bozo's to keep up the facade, while that money could (and should) be spent on improving the site and policies.
All in a frenzy to get more members - competing with FaceBook? Being rewarded for the number of signups? Not looking at the number of actually active number of members? Because all those fake profiles do count as new 'members'? Quantity over quality - how typical...

Nobody expects a site like LI to be working fine from day one or to be updated on the spot - but not listening to valuable input is just short-sighted - if members keep being irritated and harrassed by non-contributing fake-profiles with too many unwarranted privileges, the real valuable members are going to look for alternatives - I know they do and I do. Then LI will implode because fake profiles, without any connections, are not sustainable - as they are not networking - on a networking site.

So, it is a matter of time - more complaints like this, more heads buried in the sand, more people deserting LI - you can never blame your ex-members - as they told you upfront...

Being in mind that the founders of LinkedIn came from and are still involved with Paypal and eBay it is understandable that things like flagging would show up as a part of the LinkedIn website. On the eBay website with millions of new auctions running at any one time it would be virtually impossible for the eBay staff to personally review each auction for violations and abuse. The eBay solution was to enlist the support of eBay members to aid in the identification of violations and abuse, and for the most part that system of self monitoring does seem to reduce the number of violations and abuse cases at eBay. The one important ingredient that makes the system work as well as it does on eBay is that eBay actually, or seemingly so, reviews each reported violation and abuse event to determine the validity of the complaint. That review process must be objective to ensure the confidence of the larger eBay community. As the flagging system at LinkedIn is applied, it appears that there is no objective review of complaints to ensure their validity. Instead it appears that there is a fully automatic system with absolutely no human intervention or review, and that is what has lead to the problem identified by Sheilah.

I feel there is room for the flagging system, especially in the case of advertising and patently abusive or offensive posts. For example, there is absolutely no reason for someone to include a signature for each and every post, especially when the signature is nothing but an advertisement and has no relation to the question or answer. Also, there is no room at LinkedIn for abusive or offensive posts that would degrade or bully another LinkedIn member. On the other side of flagging, I don't think an answer should be flagged simply because the person posting the response provides an opinion that the person posting the question does not agree with, and when someone posts a question asking for opinion on a website or survey the person posting the question should be adult enough to take the praise along with the criticism.

It is clear that the LinkedIn staff must actually review each flagging event and exercise good judgment in making a decision regarding whether or not the item stays on the LinkedIn website. I also don't think LinkedIn members flagging posts that are either blatant advertisements or contain advertising in the form of a signature should be penalized for wanting to keep LinkedIn free of such advertising abuse. Again, it is up to the LinkedIn staff to review the report and take action according to established LinkedIn policy.

I totally agree with Sheilah about the flagging situation. It actually lends to those that have tendency to stalk those who are active on the site and frankly I have been a target more than once of those types. So, if flagging is meant to be "self imposed policing" by the members to keep advertisements, inappropriate pictures, in appropriate questions well then I say LI management is out of touch and in jeopardy of having their competition take over the lead.

So let's break this down:

1. The LI management is not connected to their 20 million or so members and is in jeopardy losing touch not only with the growth but the changes of their site. For each new member, a change takes place. Whether this member is real or fake. So, how does LI management protect the members who actually keep the site up and running - keep the activity going, keep people wanting to come back to see what question or answer that has been posted by that one person. Or just to get a hello or nice to see you message.

2. LI rules are not up to date with the changes taken place. For example, a picture is flagged - because someone thought it was inappropriate. The rules state it must be "professional". What does that mean? Really, in a society where casual is king and wearing shorts and bringing you dog to work is the meaning of professional What if I am an artist or in the media - I have a totally different view on what is professional. And not to mention, my picture was flagged, but still ther remains thousands of inappropriate photos that aren't flagged, so why is the witch hunt only pointed at me - why isn't the LI staff going through the entire site one by one to check for appropriateness? Not cost effective, is it? - the rule is out dated.

3. LI does not keep track of who is flagging and why - so I don't think that flagging should be allowed by someone who is stalking - if the person doesn't want to see or be around that person - then there should be a feature that the member can block that member or oust them from their entire network - without losing the other members in the community - yes I bring over thousand to a community when you connect with me - however I may not like everyone in the community I connect with or maybe I am being stalked- the only way I can rid my community of them is to remove the person I want to be connected with - it would be a great feature and should help take care of the those who feel they are being targetted by someone - which I have and others have.

4. LI does not listen to its members. There should be a committee of members to sit on the board or whatever in order for the member's voices tto heard. This is yet another way to stay connected and allow the members to join together as a whole and bring those issues and changes in an organized manner.

5. Does the upper management use their own site? LI should try to use their site as a normal human being and have as much activity as the "experts" and see what happens to them - I think the saying is "walk a mile in my shoes".

Please don't let this issue be tossed by the wayside - a lot is riding on your actions to get this resolved in a timely and appropriate manner.

Thank you for your consideration and immediate attention to this matter.

Jan

I like the idea of a flagging system to prevent abuses. However, in this case it sounds like more abuses are being created by it than stopped.

One solution might be to only be able to flag your immediate 1st, and possibly also 2nd, level connections, and not those you are not connected to. You should not be able to post to Q&A if you do not have ANY connections. This would eliminate at least one purpose of multiple, fake profiles, as without connections, they would not be able to flag anyone or post stupid Qs or As. Additionally, the person flagged should be notified who flagged them and why, and given the option of refuting it. Further, those who abuse flagging by flagging more than a set # of times should have their flagging priviledges revoked.

I wonder how the equivalent of flagging works on Craigslist?

Also, people should have a set amount of time on LinkedIn to post a profile and get a couple of connections before they are automatically removed, say two months. (Not that someone with two fake accounts couldn't connect them to each other, but if someone's got that much time on their hands they've go bigger problems than anyone here can work with.) If you don't have a minimal profile and a couple of connections, what the *#^$ are you doing on LinkedIn anyway?

Also agree on the experts list!!!! Get rid of it!!!!

I agree with Jan and Sheilah. The Q&A forum was the best feature and the reason for me to stay with Li. However, we have seen too many absurd flagging and scapegoating. A while back I made Li alert to some members with fake profile who were positing provocative questions. Instead of flagging them I sent them a private answer indicating that this was not the type of site for that. What do you know? These people started flagging me for everything, every answer (legally correct, to the point, or appropriate, did not matter) and I got remarks about my picture. These people have been removed now but for at least two months they roamed around flagging continuously. If Li wants to remain the top professional networking site I strongly recommend changes. I like the idea of a forum with Li and its members to brainstorm and find solutions. But please do not arrange that forum just so you have done that. Please also take to heart what your members are telling you and implement change. Li is nothing without its members and as Sheilah stated, too many great once have left already. The ones left will eventually go as well. Why? Because we are professionals who do not like to waste our time and efforts. Please act!

Alice

I agree with Sheilah and the others that the flagging option has got to be improved. If LI does not have the staff, then allow specific long time power users to arbitrate (ie: Sheilah E or Daniel J).

My sense is that profiles with fewer than say 5 connections should not be allowed to flag or even post questions. I flag adverts and recruiting questions as per the TOS and I do report TOS violations for what appears to be fake profiles. Many are in fact removed, thank you!

Likewise LI could easily check for multiple postings since many occur when someone pushes the button multiple times on a slower internet connection. A 2 or 3 minute delay of accepting might do the trick.

Is it so hard to filter the profile names to enforce no emails (the characters "@" or " at ")? This would remove the need for most of the other flags. Lets leave photos alone - it's really not a big deal.

Many fine suggestions have been made but the consensus of the power users is that LI is ignoring them to do - what?

Just to throw this into the mix: a little bit ago, someone posted to one of my questions with an answer that was very inappropriate and obviously posted by a wacko! Before I flagged the individual, I pulled up all of the answers previously made by this individual and viewed the history of wacko postings. In my flag I wrote a comment about the history I had found.

As this was the first time that I had flagged anything, I was surprised by the ease. Further, I fully expected someone - if even an autoresponder - to contact me to confirm my legitimacy. Nothing.

Sheilah is a wonderful lady. There is no way that I could ever image that she would post anything that should receive a flag. She should only receive praise for her continued efforts to help LinkedIn users connect and grow.

I feel the rumble of discontent growing by the moment. I hope that LinkedIn fixes this problem before the crescendo reaches a point of irreversible damage. Thank you!

Sheilah, I agree about the flagging. I've never experienced it personally. I have flagged a couple of answers because I felt that the person was offensive. I've come close to flagging one question because it seemed to be a blatant ad for his/her product.

However, I think it's out of control, and can't even fathom the fake profiles to get in extra flagging. That's juvenile at best.

I think the objective panel of users would be a great idea.

As for the experts list, I also agree. It seems that you get on that list only by the amount of answers you give. I know some people (near and dear, so I'm not picking on them) that simply give two or three line answers that really don't even answer the question.

Some people answer questions to say they don't have an answer, and then they get credit?

I guess my mistake is that I actually take time answer questions in detail, and with examples.

Thank you all for responding to this post. I must say I am surprised no one from Linkedin has yet to address this.

I do agree that there are some items posted that do need to be flagged; answers that are nothing more than an advertisement and have nothing to do with the question, truly offensive items that are intended to demean and degrade others (these are generally posted by disgruntled members using fake id’s as well), questions, such as the multitude of Franklin Covey ads also need to go. The problem is that as a rule those are rarely flagged by 3 separate people so they are allowed to stand.

The real issue at hand is the vast number of fake id’s used to flag and that NO ONE reviews these. The mere fact that Linkedin does not review the flags is a HUGE green light for these people to continue to flag out of spite. Sanctioning a fake account will not resolve the problem because obviously they will just set up new accounts.

If Linkedin is to maintain a professional reputation now is the time to step up and take action. Without any action on LinkedIn’s part the site will become another Craiglists. We sure don’t need another one of those.

Sad, I used to say Linkedin was superior to Myspace and Facebook, but it just occurred to me that is no longer true. Myspace and FB allows its members more control of their profiles and who is allow to see them or post on them.

Sheilah

I very much agree with what everyone is saying here.

The problem with any network, especially one of any size, is that a small handful of vindictive and destructive people can abuse the network so that its value is reduced for all members. This issue should be a primary concern for the operators of LinkedIn which, unless it corrects these flagrant abuses and abusers, will devalue its own brand equity.

In the online world, reputation and credibility are everything for LinkedIn and its members alike. Members are not going to place their Profiles on LinkedIn just to have pot shots taken at them by juvenile delinquents and hooligans who take pleasure from such destructive behavior.

Every time that an unjustified flag is clicked and responded to in favor of the flagger, then the flagger won. They gained exactly the reward their sick mind was seeking.

But the losers are the Member involved, and LinkedIn itself. In other words, by honoring an unjust flag, LinkedIn shoots itself in the foot, and runs the risk of losing another valuable member.

Without legitimate members and the content which they contribute, LinkedIn is an empty shell. It needs to take concrete steps, as quickly as possible, to stop this arbitrary behavior of honoring unjust flags.

I think many of the suggestions made here are valid and should be implemented as quickly as possible. Obviously, LinkedIn cannot be adding staff to monitor all the flags. Therefore, as has been suggested, it should change the rules and guidelines about flagging.

Indeed, it should be much tougher in terms of who can and who cannot flag. I suggest that unless a member has been in good standing for at least 3 months, has a complete Profile, and has at least 10 people in their network, then they should not have a flagging privilege. Neither should they be allowed to post a Question, nor Answer one.

Even then, there needs to be a proper reward and punishment system relative to flagging.

When a member flags a profile, a photo, or a posting, then that flag should go into a review process. Exceptions might be a pornographic image, profile, or question/answer, for example. In that case, the person who flagged should be thanked for having reported the matter. The person flagged should be terminated. The material deleted promptly.

Conversely, if the flag itself is considered blatantly invalid, then the flagger should be advised accordingly, and warned that if they flag material undeservedly, then they will have their account terminated.

If the flag is otherwise considered valid, then the person being flagged should be asked to respond, i.e., offered the chance to review the circumstance within, say, 72 hours (people do travel !!), to offer an explanation. If 72 hours is too long to leave something "sensitive" sitting there, then it should be placed in "suspension mode" until resolved (i.e., not deleted).

If the member's explanation is valid, then the flag should be removed and dispensed with. The person who flagged should be told that the matter is not considered a violation, and requested that they not flag unless there is such a violation.

(I have never flagged anything, as best as I recall, so not sure how this works. But there should be various options under the flag to select some broad category/reason as to why the material is being flagged, perhaps with a box to write extra comments. If that already exists, then forgive my ignorance.)

I could go on, but all this is only common sense about how to moderate a group or discussion forum. There is nothing complicated about it, provided the basic parameters are reasonable and well understood by all concerned. And the key to cut down on the number of flags is to disallow new and/or poorly-connected members any flagging privilege.

On a personal level, while I find much of LinkedIn to be cumbersome to use and/or of little value, I find the Profile feature and the Q&A feature to be invaluable. This is the real brand equity of LinkedIn, to me. But I had my photo flagged because it had some design elements to which somebody objected. I use that photo on every other social network platform and in my professional life as a public speaker and author. I consider the objections absurd, and the endorsement of that objection by LinkedIn to be even more absurd. But I complied and changed the photo.

Despite the value that I obtain from LinkedIn, if I get flagged a second time, then I shall leave the system. Not only that, I shall condemn LinkedIn -- in every Web 2.0-related Blog I post, in every Keynote Speech I give (I give many, to thousands-upon-thousands of professional people), in every business book I write. No, not out of vindictiveness (as that may sound); because it will be a confirmation of the ineptitude of LinkedIn management -- and thus an excellent case study on how *not* to operate a Web platform.

So I urge LinkedIn to pay heed to these views about the urgent need to address this issue, and to do so in an effective way. If that is done, then I shall behave in quite the opposite fashion. I shall praise LinkedIn from the rooftops -- for having maintained a truly professional platform in a truly professional manner.

Please, LinkedIn, just do what you need to do !! Thanks!

Regards! Frank

Hi Sheilah,

Thanks for posting here. This thread has a number of good suggestions on potential ways to improve the community monitoring of content on LinkedIn.

There are a lot of questions and assertions in the comments here, and not all of them are factual, so let me clarify a couple of things:

1) All reports of abuse (flagging a photo, a question, an answer, etc) go into a queue that is monitored by real, live people on our customer service team. We do not systematically review all content on the site, but when something is flagged, we make sure that someone sees it.

2) Our policies are designed in an attempt to find a middle ground between maintaining professional behavior on the site, and with keeping the rules simple enough that they can be easily understood by the millions using the site. There are lots of examples of community filtering on the web, but no system is perfect. We are constantly learning from our members on which aspects of the policies are working, and trying to improve them over time.

I'm working with some members of our analytics team to try and get some updated numbers to see if we're seeing a spike in flagging behavior. Historically, we've seen very few flagging actions and a very small number of issues.

In the meantime, if you find a specific member creating false profiles in order to abuse the flagging system, or other abusive behavior, please send it to us as soon as possible.

Hope this helps.
Adam

Hi Adam,

I have sent vast numbers of fake id's to customer service, most of which were deleted. The bad side is they just come back and set up new ones. I have reported flagged items to Customer service with no response ever so I then have to send it to real people within linkedin. NOT ONE of my flagged items were abusive nor have the flags been lifted on any of the more recent ones.

There are other members that get flagged all the time as well. Their posts are not offensive or abusive. We have a higher profile and have become targets for these petty childish people. I received more hate mail last year than most movie stars, I dealt with it and never once asked Linkedin to step in. But the flags have got to be stopped. And IF there are real people monitoring it then why is it I still have flagged items? There is absolutely nothing wrong with either of my last 2 questions that were flagged.

Is networking about helping others or not? My last flagged question was nothing more than a post to tell others where to post articles for free. A question that is ask all the time and when I found the site I decided to share it in the spirit of helping.

Maybe the question should be in what time frame are these reviewed. The one flagged well over a month ago is still hidden as well.

Sheilah

Sheilah,

I have come to the conclusion that all flagging should be left up to Linked In management only. I'm against the ability of members to flag anything.

Jamie

He Sheilah (and all others),

flagging...., what can I say. In theory it sounds like a good method, in practice it's been getting out of hand for quite some time now.

Trying to interact with LI's staff (on another topic) led me to be dissappointed. LI asking for feedback on some feature improvement and naive me, I spammed my network and what do I get in return, nothing. Not even receiving a confirmation of receipt, well I can't call it anything else but PLAIN BLUNTNESS. (and I'm dutch, we're supposed the blunt ones! ;-) )

For me: no more (or at least the very minimal) interaction with LI staff.

Reciprocity is they key in creating lasting and valueable interactions on sites like these. Since my experience has taught me the LI staff doesn't grasp this notion (or fails to act upon it) it seems to me they don't understand what's so valuable about their product.

In my opinion this would explain why LI staff has been soooooo reluctant in looking into the flagging matter and changing the rules somewhat.

It's seemes quite odd, you'll be blocked for invitationspamming (5 or more IDK's!) but you seem to be welcomed flagging your behind (if only they did ;-) ), since you'll have an unlimitied amount of flaggs.

In essence this tells me LI is more keen on facilliting blocking of interaction rather than stimulating it. And all the while I was thinking it was the other way 'round, foulish foulish me.

Hope you will get their attention, and even better a solution, but I'm not getting my hopes up.

Greetz Mykel

PS
Apparantly we seem to have a "Heifer foundation"........

I have never been flagged but have good friends who get flagged and I am astonished at how there seem to be no controls on the FLAGGERS! Who are they and what is their justification?

I totally agree that there need to be some controls. Fake accounts flagging? Not on. Crabby person flagging? Not on.

Seems like grade school. Tattle tales. Teachers tried to keep it under control and get to the bottom of the tales. Why doesn't LI have a monitoring system to do the same?

If there are folks who bother me, I just stay away. I have never flagged anyone - I don't really see the point. I would much rather take it up in person or delete! Just seems like the adult thing to do. It seems a silly way to spend my time - flagging seems like it would be attractive to those who have nothing better to do.

Hello Sheila (and Everyone Else)

I have never personally been flagged but since you are saying (and others have confirmed it) it is a real problem. I am almost sure we have discussed it before.
I believe LI has just automated this process. It cost them absolutely nothing to administer - any user just has to press the flag link and then you are flagged. No work for LI involved.

Clearly this is not what you would expect. LI is not thinking in quality with this method of operation. Where is the quality that LI boast of ? And that we to a certain extend have come to expect ?

Maybe the fact that we are discussion this outside of LI is symptomatic of the problem.

The problem could be solved if either LI verified the flagging or if they appointed some "ambassadors" or similar. You Sheila have some good suggestions as to how it could be automated.

Kind Regards,

Frank Mandix [LION,3400+]
Let's Connect!

Hi Sheilah,

I just got hit with this one today:

Recently you requested personal assistance from our on-line support center. Below is a summary of your request and our response.

We will assume your issue has been resolved if we do not hear from you within 240 hours.

Thank you for allowing us to be of service to you.

Subject
LinkedIn Account Information

Discussion Thread
Response (Brian F.) 06/13/2008 01:27 PM
Dear Jay,

We have noticed a recent large number of page searches and profile views through your LinkedIn account. We are aware that you may be using an automated or manual process to systematically view LinkedIn web pages.

The information within LinkedIn is provided by our users for usage on the site only. In order to protect user privacy, our User Agreement prohibits using either:

1) automated or manual means to view an excessively high number of profiles or mini-profiles, and
2) automated means to run searches to collect or store data obtained from our site.

We have placed a restriction on your account until you agree to stop using these or similar methods to view pages on LinkedIn.

We look forward to hearing from you to assist further. Please click and reply to update your ticket information by entering your text between the dash lines below.

LinkedIn Privacy Team

Oh so fun...

Now I do consider myself to be an active LinkedIn user, and I probably view 5-10 profiles a day, roughly the number of people that request connections with me. Nope, I don't use any automated processes. Fun, that LinkedIn Customer Service has responded to my "request" (what request) by suspending my account. Guess I'll need to be a Web 2.0 evangelist for another organization, and I was doing so well getting Arizona to sign up.

Jay C. Langdon, SPHR

Hi Sheilah,

Just a quick follow-up to my original answer here. I've now pulled the metrics for Answers flagging across the site for the last 3 months. There is both good news and bad news here.

According to the data, it doesn't look like there is any widespread abuse of the flagging feature. A relatively small percentage of questions and answers have been flagged, and looking through examples of the flagging, in general, it looks like questions (and answers) are being flagged for appropriate reasons in most cases. Customer Service continues to review flags from people as part of their daily process.

Across the over 100K members who have asked or answered a question in the past 3 months, there have been less than 100 that have flagged a significant number of questions. That's good news, in the sense that if there is abuse, it's from a very small number of people. We also do not see a regular pattern of people using fake accounts to flag.

The potential bad news is, of course, whether or not those accounts who have been highly active with flagging are being good samaritans or not.

I'm going to have to review some of these accounts manually to answer that question, but I wanted to post an update here to clarify the situation. I'll post more here once I do that follow up review. If we do find accounts that are abusive, we will likely suspend them. We'll also use the data to set up an automated system to detect that type of abuse in the future.

Before we can do that, however, we need real data on what is, in fact, happening. Thanks for your patience while we research this.

As a message for others, I see a number of people posting new questions or issues - I recommend posting those as separate topics on this site in order to get the best possible attention and communication around them.

Hope this helps.
Adam

I was about to reply "respond to me or ignore me". But it looks like this Adam guy is on it. Thanks, Adam.

Wow Sheila,

It looks like LinkedIn is still up to their old tricks. I believe this is now my 4th time that my account has been restricted or suspended. No message, no warning, no explanation. Fine one moment then BAM, down the next. I wonder what mystery answer they'll come up with this time.

Hi again,

I wanted to make sure that I posted back here the final information that I was able to find through my research.

There is still a good news/bad news situation here.

The good news is that it is very clear from the data that we do not have an endemic or high volume problem with flagging. Very few people (under 100) are getting flagged a significant number of times, and there is no pattern of using fake accounts/profiles to flag people abusively.

The bad news is that after investigation of some of the specific people who are getting flagged more often, there are clearly situations where one person is getting flagged a suspiciously high amount. Unfortunately, each situation looks different, so it likely needs to be understood on a case-by-case basis.

If you are having your questions/answers flagged constantly, I would encourage you to reach out directly to customer service through the customer service form on LinkedIn.com.

We will continue to invest in mechanisms on the LinkedIn.com site to help leverage our community to detect and prevent abuse of the site, as well as mechanisms to monitor those flags.

Hope this helps.
Adam

A hearty "Amen" to all those with whom I share the opinion that the original purpose of LinkedIn, as business networking tool, should be preserved! Content relevance and excellence should be guarded and fostered by active moderation.

If LinkedIn wants to kill the "Answer" section of the site, all they have to do is continue to allow postings that are duplicates, SPAM (Including group invitations) or business-irrelevant political baiting. There are plenty of political, dating, gambling and other social networking sites, catering to every possible interest.

Hire a small group of business interns as moderators, reporting to a full-time LinkedIn manager who is ACCOUNTABLE for "Answer" section quality. Communicate to members and staff that messages that are not business-related or a true "question" will be removed. Those who choose to SPAM the forum or pursue their own zealous political/marketing agendas, including "LIONS" will face suspension on a "three strikes and your out" basis.