[Wylug-discuss] LinkedIn

[Robert Burrell Donkin]

On Thu, Feb 17, 2011 at 5:11 PM, James Holden <wylug at jamesholden.net> wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 17, 2011 at 05:09:19PM +0000, Dave Fisher wrote:
>> On 17 February 2011 17:02, Nigel Metheringham <nigel at dotdot.it> wrote:
>> > Personally I am uninterested.
>> > Actually its stronger than that - I really hate LinkedIn, but thats mainly
>> > because  it seems to combine the worst features of Facebook and AOL
>> > (yay - lets invite all the mailing lists I belong to be LinkedIn contacts)
>> > along with sets of predatory (and probably useless) recruiters.
>> > And I wish they wouldn't keep resending messages - one person (who has
>> > gone down remarkably in my estimation) sent LinkedIn invites to 4 separate
>> > of my email addresses, and I have so far received 2 lots of reminders to
>> > each of those email addresses.  Unfortunately I don't run my own MTAs
>> > any more so just blacklisting the whole domain is no longer an option.

just use a SIEVE script

> I dislike it too, but unfortunately, lots of people use it.

i used to be a LinkedIn refusnik too, but it reduces friction for some
stuff and is becoming essential for some spaces

the WYLUG list has had job opportunities posted occasionally. mailing
lists and websites are not great for peer-to-peer recruitment - they
are a lot of hassle especially for second and third degree contacts
(linking contacts you know together who might want to do business). in
this use case, LinkedIn allows the parties to check each other out and
makes the connection each

> (Especially recruiters, don't get me started on that).

:-)

the hyene may be a necessary part of the development ecology but that
doesn't mean you want to hang with them all the time

>> Thanks for that Nigel ... I now recognise part of what we are talking
>> about ... and I don't want any part of it.
>>
>> I'm sick and tired of LinkedIn spam and the reminders which insist I
>> respond to stuff I've never expressed the slightest interest in.

anyone who's tired of spam is tired of life ;-)

alternatively, if they annoy you that much, if you're not in then
join. turn the privacy up really high, add all your emails and set the
primary email contact to a black hole email account.

> I don't think Robert was suggesting compulsory participation :-)

nope :-)

just thinking about use cases where WYLUGer want to connect
efficiently for business using LinkedIn...

LinkedIn does not check groups are tied to organisations, so anyone
could set up a WYLUG group. a WYLUG group run responsibly (checking
membership to keep out recruiters and not sending out spam invites to
people) and quasi-officially might discourage someone starting one of
the other sort...

Robert