I give up. I am convinced that Linkedin is losing control of their product and no longer really understands what it does. A few weeks ago I answered my 25th question on Linkedin. It was not a momentous occasion for me. In fact, I wasn’t even aware of it until one of my connections sent me an email that was a forward of an email they got from Linkedin.com:
From: LinkedIn Updates <updates@linkedin.com>
To: <Insert name of my connection here>
Subject: Steven Duncan is answering questions on LinkedIn
Date: Fri, 4 May 2007 11:24:50 -0700 (PDT)
 |
LinkedIn Updates |
Andrew,Steven Duncan has already answered 25 questions on LinkedIn Answers, including:
“What makes a good Competitive Intelligence model?”
View all of Steven’s answers now.
–The LinkedIn Team
This message is part of an occasional mailing to help you get the most out of LinkedIn. If you prefer not to receive these messages, click here.LinkedIn Corporation, 2029 Stierlin Ct, Mountain View, CA 94043Now, I can type, and I think I know stuff. That’s why I answer questions, but that in no way makes me unique on Linkedin. I answer far fewer questions that many people on Linkedin, and that I answer a question doesn’t mean that there is any value at all to the answer. I like to think there is, but I’m not vain enough to want to announce to all of my connections via email that I answered 25 questions. Or 50 questions. Or 75 questions. I’m pretty sure my connections would prefer to be left alone anyway.
So I fired up the customer service request form on the Linkedin.com site – one cannot email them, one must use the form – and explain my problem:
I have the setting about notifying people about updates turned off, but
I just found out that emails about what my answers are are still going
out to people. Is there any way to turn this off?Thanks!
Granted, not the clearest message. I receive the following reply:
Hi Steven,
Go to Account & Settings and then click on the Answers Notification and
you will be able to make that change there. If you need any further
assistance certainly let us know!
Have a great weekend!
Thanks,Angela Burleigh
Customer Support Representative
If you go to the screen she mentions, it clearly deals with setting what emails I receive, not what emails are sent out to people – like the email my connections received.
Angela,
Both options on the page you mention control how _I_ receive emails on others questions, and answers to my questions. Neither controls what emails others receive about questions I answer. A member of my network got an email because of an answer I posted for a third person’s question – that’s the email I’d like to control.
This last message seemed to have them thinking for a while, so I sent a reminder:
It’s been 10 days since I sent this reply. Your original answer is irrelevant to my question because the notifications page under Accout & settings controls how I am notified, which is why it’s titled “Receiving Messages.”
Why are my connections getting emails announcing my answers to questions they didn’t ask?
And the reply:
Hi Steve,
In order for that connection to not receive your answers to the questions is they will have to change the setting to their own LinkedIn account. This is not an application that you can control from your end. If you need any further assistance or have any additional questions please let us know and thank you for contacting LinkedIn Customer Support!
Thanks,
Ben Guthrie
Manager, LinkedIn for Groups
So, in order for my connections to not receive useless emails announcing their connections have answered questions, they need to turn off settings in their account?? Even so, the email I was complaining about wasn’t about a specific question or answer, it was just an announcement about how many questions I’d answered total.
This STILL doesn’t answer the question. My connections didn’t get my answers. They got a spam email from Linkedin.com announcing I had answered 25 questions.
This is the email I would like to stop.
I think in all fairness this is the clearest message I’ve sent. In retrospect I could have been much clearer explaining the problem. Not that it did much good, because they still think I’m talking about a specific answer to a specific question:
Hi Steve,
I appreciate what you are saying however you cannot block this from being sent out. The only way you can do this is to answer your questions private and then the answer will not be viewable to anyone except the person who posted the question. Sir if you could please go to Accounts & Settings you will see what the account options are and your request is not a possibility. Each individual user must set up their account to to not participate in this process and if they choose not to then they must make that change.
Thanks,
Angela Burleigh
Customer Support Representative
So, I decided an example was what was needed:
Angela,
The email I’m talking about is not an answer. I’ve pasted the text from one of them below:
LinkedIn Updates
Andrew, Steven Duncan has already answered 25 questions on LinkedIn Answers, including:“What makes a good Competitive Intelligence model?”
View all of Steven’s answers now.
–The LinkedIn Team
This message is part of an occasional mailing to help you get the most out of LinkedIn. If you prefer not to receive these messages, click here. LinkedIn Corporation, 2029 Stierlin Ct, Mountain View, CA 94043As you can see, this is not an answer to a question. It’s just an announcement.
By the way, I do have the setting to email my connections profile updates is set to off. Even so, apparently now they think I’m complaining about a message I received:
Hi Steve,
Thank you for contacting LinkedIn, We do apologize for the confusion. If you wish to opt-out of receiving LinkedIn email updates you may do so via the Accounts/Settings tab, â??Receiving Messagesâ??. However you as a LinkedIn member can not “opt” out completely. When you have/set your account to opt out of advertising via your Accounts/Settings the system will no longer send “additional” advertising.
Thanks,
Angela Burleigh
Customer Support Representative
And yet again their solution addresses emails sent to me, not to my connections!
Here is my final attempt:
Linkedin, please do not send an email to my connections announcing how many questions I’ve answered, unless I ask you to. Perhaps you could add a checkbox to your site labeled “Announce to your connections via email when you’ve answered 25 more questions”. And allow me to check/uncheck it as needed.
If you are one of my connections, please forgive the email, it was not my doing. I’ll go ahead and apologize for the next one, which I expect sometime around my 50th question. That will probably be a few months from now depending on what questions people ask.
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