carocc's dashboard

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.