linkedout's dashboard

"There will not longer be the ability to sort by name or date added." Nice job LinkedIn - something that had been in the system - something which your users depended upon and used - something that they are begging you to restore - something that would take you all of ten minutes to restore to the system and cost you nothing in processing overhead - and instead you would rather stiff your customers and not even bother to attempt to come up with an explanation or reason. Nice. – linkedout, on August 19, 2008 02:19

cactus - thank you, but the easiest solution would be for LinkedIn to actually show the email addresses (like they used to) and not force users to find work-arounds for things that should not have been changed in the first place. – linkedout, on August 19, 2008 02:13

LinkedIn has started to roll out their groups "upgrade" (whoops, make that "downgrade")

Click here for the new GetSatisfaction.com topic on this...

ScottAllen - Perfectly put. Thank you.

Adam Nash - Please answer Scott's excellent points.

Why exactly cannot this be handled by the moderators/owners of the groups on an individual case-by-case basis instead of you unilaterally and arbitrarily going into user accounts and deleting their groups 'for them"?

Also, your "solution" does not even address the problem you described as a rationale for doing this - if "people who have joined dozens and dozens of college alumni groups, for example, where they don't belong" did so as part of the first 50 groups that they joined, they would STILL be part of those groups after you hacked off the others.

If there are people "abusing" the groups system, a much more simple, elegant, and effective way of handling this would be to simply flag these users to the list moderators/owners of the groups that these "abusers" belong to so that the list owner/moderators can easily review whether or not that person should be removed on an individual case-by-case basis.

To do otherwise is simply YOU abusing your users and list moderators/owners who have put much time and effort into discovering, joining, and building groups on your system.

Also a reminder - I am not arguing about your right to restrict the number of groups that a user can join - I am instead trying to point out that HOW you are handling the transition is so egregiously boneheaded and wrong that I am attempting to give LinkedIn the gift of this knowledge so that you can choose a different and better path that accomplishes your goals while still respecting all of the hard work of your users and group moderators/owners.

The huge boneheaded mistake LinkedIn is making is HOW they are implementing the new cap on the number of groups that a user can join.

If a user does not get the message in time to go into their account and delete groups to get down below 50, LinkedIn will unilaterally go into their account and delete all of their most recently joined groups (translation: the ones that they have the most current interest in!) to push them below 50.

Adam - if, as you claim, "there are a very small number of people outside of this limit" - then why not simply allow those "small number of people" to stay in all of the groups that THEY CHOSE TO BE IN until such time as THEY choose to delete some?

If someone is in 60 groups now, why are you going into their account and unilaterally deleting their 10 most recently joined groups?

Why not let that user keep all 60, but, when they go to add another group, they are prompted to get below the 50 limit before doing so?

Your users worked hard in discovering and joining various groups - and now you are simply going to unilaterally roll that all back?

That shows such little respect for the people who use your service that you really ought to rethink the implementation of this change.

And for those coming in late, below is the email notice in question (which can easily be missed in the other stream of LinkedIn account notices, invites, etc).

The stuff in bold is my emphasis - LinkedIn instead just buried it in their email:

From: LinkedIn Team <noreply@linkedin.com>
Date: Mon, Aug 4, 2008
Subject: Changes to LinkedIn Groups

As an active member of LinkedIn Groups, we wanted to let you know about some changes we're putting in place in the coming weeks.

We are in the process of adding new functionality to enhance the esxperience of Groups, including the recent release of a searchable directory. We are also working with our development teams to bring new tools and widgets to this collaborative space throughout the rest of 2008.

We are also at this time making some changes to the user-created groups we host. These changes include adding a limit to the number of user-created groups any LinkedIn member may be part of at one time. Currently we are setting that limit at membership in 50 (fifty) user-created groups.

Please take the time before this limit goes into place on August 14, 2008, to choose which groups you would like to maintain. To remove yourself from a group, go to the My Groups page and click the word "Settings" next to the group you wish to leave. At the bottom of the settings page click the text "Leave this group."

We would appreciate it if you would please take this action within the next 10 days. If you would prefer, after 30 days we will automatically keep the first 50 groups that you joined and remove the rest.

If you would like assistance removing yourself from groups, or if you have any other questions, please contact us at http://linkedin.custhelp.com or groups@linkedin.com.

We apologize for the inconvenience this may cause you, but we hope you will continue to find value in LinkedIn and especially enjoy the new functionality of LinkedIn Groups that is coming soon.

Regards,
The LinkedIn team