For some reason “Groups” – a pretty standard feature in most social networks – seems to be giving LinkedIn more than a little bit of trouble. The site originally launched Groups without a search function, making it difficult to find groups that users were interested in. Last month, the site finally introduced a groups directory, but apparently the response has been too positive, leading LinkedIn to place restrictions on user accounts: the site has arbitrarily limited the number of groups each member can join to 50, and is doing users the courtesy of automatically dropping them from the most recent groups they’ve joined should they go over that limit.
Then, last week, LinkedIn introduced a new “update” that was supposed to enhance its Groups section. Unfortunately, as part of the update, the site has either purposely or accidentally removed a significant portion of its Groups functionality, leaving a number of group leaders distressed as they have difficulty managing their users.
One GetSatisfaction thread by user LinkedOut lists the following:
-LinkedIn just changed (translation: “broke”) many things about LinkedIn Groups
-There is no longer a way to click over to a group’s external website from the list of your groups.
-There is no longer a way for group managers to sort the list of group members by name or by date joined.
-There is no longer the management option to view/approve 50, 100, or 500 members at a time – now there is just a default view of 20 per page and no matter how many members the group actually has, a group manager/owner can now only see a management list with a maximum of 100 members?!?!??!?!?!
-There is no longer a way to search your member list by email address?!
-There is no longer a way to see the members the manager had previously removed from the group (and thus to have the ability to add them back as appropriate).
-There is no longer a way to see which group members withdrew from the group.
The thread has garnered 83 replies, mostly from users with additional complaints. A LinkedIn employee has responded to the thread, explaining that most of the bugs will be fixed in the next few weeks. It’s nice to see that the employees are concerned, but how did such a buggy release ever make it out the door in the first place?
What is going to happen to my Groups… I am shocked to hear that.
BTW what is LinkedIN?
http://mydating...e.blogspot.com/
Nothing will happen to you group, unless you are not linkedin.
–abeen
http://www.adva...cedphotolab.net
I think this is typical of LinkedIn – they are concerned about giving their users “too much” power and controlling the network… I don’t have an opinion on if this is a good or bad thing…
They’ve definitely taken ‘power’ from the people, in the worst possible way… ever since the update I found it to be a nightmare to manage my group. The system says I have x applications pending but when I go to approve them I find nothing. However, when I do find applications, they seem to be forever stuck in the approval bin and won’t disappear once member is approved. No reply to support tickets.
It really is scary that LinkedIn still can’t get “Groups” right. This feature has TONS of potential, yet years go by with nothing.
It seems LinkedIn is really becoming abscessed with what they feel is Members Spamming each other in these groups. I wonder if that was the intent of this last update they seemed to just thrown out there?
It’s OBSESSED. Not Abscessed.
http://dictiona...rowse/abscessed
Well, I’m glad they are at least dealing with the spam issue (as that caused me to leave LinkedIN recently).
But their latest blunder does not exactly encourage me to return either.
I agree, this sounds like less about bugs and more about trying to prevent gaming of the LinkedIN system by zealous networkers and spammers.
One of the things (I believe) about groups is that it creates a link to individuals you might not otherwise have been linked with.
That being said, then you couple some of the things that are “broke”
1) more than 50 groups: translate (you are trying to connect with EVERY group to maximize your link potential without actually having any real connection to those groups)
2) approving user requests hundreds at a time: translate (if you consider people are fictitiously connecting themselves to groups they have not real connection to, then allowing the group moderators to blindly approve them seems to be irresponsible to the other group memebers)
how the fuck is this news on techcrunch???
are they using ruby on rails ?lol
Linkedin is subsumed by facebooks …Michael Arrington is so obsessed with Ride Hoffmanis
As a founder of a group with 900 members linkein group feature is horrible. How do you not have a discussion forum?! Why wouldnt you want a place for defined people to congregate?! I dont know, how about to sell ad space? Disappointing.
Linkedin has gotten away with such a piss-poor user experience for so long this comes to no surprise. The mentality at linkedin seems to be we’re growing a ‘x’ users/mo who gives a rat’s ass about usability and user experience.
Someone needs to knock them off their pedestal…
Linked in is a piece of shit and so is your face. Whoo woo, negative train incoming. Media is so negatively biased it makes me sick, not that all blogs are negative and lastly real media.
I have just started to explore linkedin. Have not been able to complete my profile yet and now this news…… abui.
http://www.link...in.com/in/abeen
– abeen
http://www.adva...cedphotolab.net
Most of these comments, to me, read like spam. Did you guys drop Akismet?
Irregardless, some of the feature issues, I hadn’t noticed were even on LinkedIn, and I’ve been a member for years.
From running my own site (ya ya) I’ve noticed, the more control people get, the happier they are…but, our demo is completely different, non professional, etc.
However…if you’re not LinkedIn, imho, you’re clueless, as every business person I chat with is on there. Or do business with, etc. It’s (for me) like a virtual rolodex, and you can learn a lot about potential deals, or potential opportunities.
BTW, if you’re a Yahoo Alumni, like me, join the Yahoo Alumni group on LinkedIn
Maybe that’s why they had to scale it back, b/c so many Yahoo’s like me jumped ship & joined that group, thus causing server overload?
The real question is will they be able to recover the group members that just disappeared from my group (PeerHunters) few days ago, and are still not back there although LinkedIn is saying they are “working on it”
Group limit is not a good thing but for me it is quite good because I am to far to this limit only one group.
I left linkedin for the poor user experience recently, too. There other business networks like XING.com who offer much better Group features.
We also found the bug of dates of ‘1981′ appearing when people requested to join. Got the proof in the pudding here – http://icanhaz.com/linkedinbug
LinkedIn just changed (translation: “broke”) many things about LinkedIn Groups
By the way, I’ve never encountered a spam issue on LinkedIn. You get to choose your associates there, right?!
Ya i think this is a spam issue..
Wrong issue’s..
Look in to my site, i am a 14 yeard blogger…dvishnu.com
It is indeed strange that LinkedIn released a buggy version of Groups in the first place. It’s not that they are a start up anymore and with their massive financial backing and resources they should be able to catch that before release.
i haven’t logged into linkedin for ages…..i completely forgot about it, now facebook is my de facto social/connections space…y do anyone need linkedin anyway?
I manage a few groups on LinkedIn. In their defence, most of the issues raised in the article are not bugs, but just missing / taken away features. The only true bug I’ve encountered is one where incorrect counts of pending member requests show up. It seems like they might have a database replication problem or something. Anyway, I’m as disappointed as anyone about them not having threaded discussion forums, but let’s call features features and bugs bugs.
Beyond a group problem, LI has a real identity problem. What is it? It is a recruiting company. That is it. Ironically, it’s ( LI’s) recruiting function is lurking around in the stone age, run by the same “business as usual”, housewife recruiting managers that have failed at countless other companies.
This goes on to show you have to plan for greatness, plan for success. Assume everybody will want to use your site/features and design for it. If you build it so you have to take away privileges from users to keep your site from breaking thats bad. If they started with the 50 group restriction nobody would have noticed I think. Personally the whole concept of zillions of connections and memberships in random groups doesn’t make sense to me.
I am leaning towards dissolving my 1,900 member group on LinkedIn. LinkedIn wants to have it both ways here. They want Group Managers to attract new members and to create added value for LinkedIn users but are unwilling to provide anything in return. Not even meaningful way to manage the bloody groups. LinkedIn is playing with fire here. No wonder competition is springing up everywhere.
I have spent the last three hours trying to send Bugg’s, ( Yahoo Questions and Answer ) a question by e-mail, but typical of the stupidity that is so prevalent in the cyberworld none was found.