Matt Haughey wants to connect with you on LinkedIn. March 8, 2013 3:19 PM   Subscribe

Who else is now connected to Matt? I got one and I told a MF friend of mine, who also got one! Are you networking for new mods, or did you get zinged by Linked In?
posted by boo_radley to Etiquette/Policy at 3:19 PM (52 comments total) 2 users marked this as a favorite

Zinged.
posted by that's how you get ants at 3:22 PM on March 8, 2013 [1 favorite]


Matt wrote about this: LinkedIn is a Virus. It sounds like it was a mistake.
posted by pb (staff) at 3:23 PM on March 8, 2013 [3 favorites]


Aww, Matt. I thought we had something special.
posted by chillmost at 3:28 PM on March 8, 2013 [4 favorites]


He's been listening to me on Soundcloud, too.
posted by dunkadunc at 3:29 PM on March 8, 2013 [3 favorites]


DAMNIT MATT
posted by dunkadunc at 3:29 PM on March 8, 2013


1138? so is this where the ARG for the next lucas/disney/star wars thing begins?
No one's ever seen Mathowie in the same room as Sylar/Spock and we know J J Abrams is attached to the next Star Wars. WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?
posted by juv3nal at 3:32 PM on March 8, 2013 [2 favorites]


Oh god, that stupid mistake. It's the gift that keeps on giving.

The funny part is that this Gmail connector looked at every person I've ever emailed, so every typo on the contact form, etc (which is why many mefites probably got the invite) but that also included every comment spammer, people we banned from mefi, and shady popunder ad sales reps that emailed me in the past.

On the plus side, a designer for Linkedin responsible for that page apologized and said they were trying to prevent what happened to me from happening in the future. I hope they put in a "Are you sure? Y/N" for anyone attempting to add more than 100 people at a time in the future.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 3:39 PM on March 8, 2013 [5 favorites]


Aww man, now I feel left out
posted by Blasdelb at 3:45 PM on March 8, 2013 [1 favorite]


But we're still homies, right?
posted by boo_radley at 3:51 PM on March 8, 2013


How many Scott Adamses accepted your Linkedin requests?
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 3:55 PM on March 8, 2013 [9 favorites]


Has anyone ever actually gotten a job as a result of LinkedIn? Or is my failure with it an ongoing sampling of the collapse of journalism?
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 4:04 PM on March 8, 2013 [4 favorites]


I just hired someone for a consulting job that I found using LinkedIn.
posted by Area Man at 4:25 PM on March 8, 2013


when the connection was a mistake. Should I remove it?

Naw, no worries. I don't think it's a big deal and heck, I might actually use the connections someday.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 4:32 PM on March 8, 2013 [1 favorite]


Amusingly, *I* didn't get an invite from Matt. Although we apparently have one really random shared connection... a dude named Matthew.
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 4:34 PM on March 8, 2013 [1 favorite]


"Hey Infinite, has your State University colleague College S. Toner ever worked with video?"

*warily clicks yes*

"Congratulations! You have just endorsed College S. Toner for his video skills, along with his other skills in GETTIN PAID, GETTIN LAID, and GETTIN WASTED!"

Oh how I hate LinkedIn.
posted by infinitewindow at 4:38 PM on March 8, 2013 [17 favorites]


I was, seriously, thrilled to get a LinkedIn connection request from mathowie. Within 30 seconds of accepting, I happened to check my Twitter feed and saw a tweet from Matt saying that effectively this was an accident. A mistake. A flaw in the LinkedIn code.

Crushing. Three days in bed sobbing. Still getting a bit excuse me I have to
posted by Shepherd at 5:00 PM on March 8, 2013 [18 favorites]


I really didn't mind the linkedin connection, that's fine. But Matt REALLY needs to stop pounding on my door in the middle of the night, we may be friends, but that crosses a line.
posted by HuronBob at 5:05 PM on March 8, 2013 [4 favorites]


My dad once called it Lin-Ked-In. Since then I've never been able to take it seriously.
posted by slogger at 5:20 PM on March 8, 2013 [4 favorites]


that also included every comment spammer, people we banned from mefi, and shady popunder ad sales reps that emailed me in the past.

Oooh, that's gotta hurt.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 5:33 PM on March 8, 2013


There are a lot of social media manager type jobs

lol haw haw lol
posted by 3.2.3 at 5:56 PM on March 8, 2013


...and shady popunder ad sales reps that emailed me in the past.

Netflix join you yet?
posted by cjorgensen at 6:11 PM on March 8, 2013


I'm actually quite stunned to find that #1 would even consider granting access to his Gmail address book to anything other than an email client on one of his own devices. That decision is at the top of a very slippery slope.
posted by flabdablet at 6:17 PM on March 8, 2013 [1 favorite]


Relevant.
posted by The Whelk at 7:06 PM on March 8, 2013


It's funny, because LinkedIn is such a gamified "collect the contacts" thing at this point for me that, yeah sure I was like "holy crap, #1?! He wants ME??" But then I was for sure all click click click YES PLZ.

Sorry *we* happened to you, Matt. :)
posted by misterbrandt at 7:47 PM on March 8, 2013


I assumed it was some kind of "collect all the active Mefites" thing, but I'm sad it was an accident. On the other hand, a fair amount of the active userbase is probably now connected at two removes through Matt, which should be interesting.
posted by immlass at 8:15 PM on March 8, 2013


Don't worry, Matt. If Metafilter doesn't work out for you, I now have the ability to both put in the good word for you as well as mobilize my army of 11 contacts on your behalf.

You're welcome.
posted by double block and bleed at 9:24 PM on March 8, 2013 [8 favorites]


One of my contacts posted about "New Changes to Facebook Timeline". Another posted about "Google Glass." Another contact posted about "Content Marketing." Someone else posted an article with generalizations about China. Somebody got endorsed for "writing press releases".

Such a barren, bland desert of the heart, LinkedIn. Corporate life is so boooooooring.
posted by KokuRyu at 10:36 PM on March 8, 2013 [7 favorites]


Matt invited me to play a game the other day but when I went to Game Center there was nothing there. So disappointing.
posted by unliteral at 10:49 PM on March 8, 2013 [1 favorite]


When Matt requested a connection with me on LinkedIn I just figured he wanted to see if my boss could give him a job.
posted by taz (staff) at 12:54 AM on March 9, 2013 [7 favorites]


This is the kind of thing that happens when we let geeks take over the management of human relationships.
posted by Segundus at 1:46 AM on March 9, 2013 [3 favorites]


This is basically my worst nightmare. I use my gmail account almost exclusively for job searching, which means it's full of email addresses of everyone who explicitly doesn't want to hire me.
posted by shelleycat at 1:59 AM on March 9, 2013 [5 favorites]


I don't even have a Linkedin account- I always figured people checked that site about as often as I do.
posted by dunkadunc at 2:15 AM on March 9, 2013


This is basically my worst nightmare. I use my gmail account almost exclusively for job searching, which means it's full of email addresses of everyone who explicitly doesn't want to hire me.

PSA: You can turn off that "feature" of gmail that saves everyone you ever email as a contact. It's under Settings > General.
posted by payoto at 5:50 AM on March 9, 2013 [7 favorites]


From pb in the comments: Another problem is Gmail adding every person you interact with to your list of contacts by default.

Wow, that's desperate.
posted by mediareport at 6:06 AM on March 9, 2013


Yeah just to give you an idea of how this works at google, I've used gmail since it launched in 2004 or so and my total contacts is somewhere near 7,000 on the system.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 7:49 AM on March 9, 2013


If you have no friends, this never happens to you.
posted by tommasz at 11:07 AM on March 9, 2013 [5 favorites]


I accidentally invited something like 10,000 people when I signed up for linked in last fall, when I was looking for a job. My profile was in the top 10% most viewed of the year. On the plus side, I did find a job at a big tech company via linked in so I can't be too mad.
posted by empath at 11:09 AM on March 9, 2013 [1 favorite]


Wow, that's desperate.

They've done that since day one, which is why I have 10,000 contacts.
posted by empath at 11:10 AM on March 9, 2013


I got one too, and I will milk this dry. And by milk it dry, I mean tell myself to milk it dry later, but play XCOM instead.

It reminds me of the skeavy telemarketing calls we sometimes get here at the office. "Are you still located at 1740213 Chris Farley Lane?" If you don't hang up immediately, expect a deluge of additional calls and junk mail.
posted by Brocktoon at 11:20 AM on March 9, 2013


Oops. I added mathowie as a contact before I read this thread because I figured he was in an expansive mood or something and I did actually meet him at a meetup (at Frjtz, natch) and it's kinda fun to have contacts outside my actual field, so why not?

So, mathowie, would you prefer that I un-connect you? No hard feelings, if so.
posted by Quietgal at 1:28 PM on March 9, 2013


It's not just gmail addresses, as I got it via my work email (which I'm surprised I've ever used to email Matt, but evidently I had. Must have been a slow day in the data mines). I assumed it was a Linked In dodginess so ignored it, but it still made me feel warm and fuzzy.
posted by paduasoy at 4:09 PM on March 9, 2013


When I got an invite from Matt, I too was totally flattered. But I quickly lost that special feeling when I saw I was one of 386 recent contacts he'd made. I just thought, damn mathowie, you're LinkedIn promiscuous, ain't ya? Now I find I am just a slipped click.

I am going to pretend I never saw this thread. Sniffle.
posted by madamjujujive at 4:23 PM on March 9, 2013


You just got Haugh-dogged.
posted by rhizome at 4:45 PM on March 9, 2013


I did exactly this to Jessamyn once. Super embarrassing as I hadn't yet figured out how it even happened and wasn't sure if I'd even sent it to her (from some mod-contact email in my inbox) or to someone else of a similar name. I was in the UK at the time so alcohol may have been was almost certainly involved. Does this sort of thing happen often to the mods themselves from the other side, seeing as they'd probably be listed as contacts in a mllion and one gmail boxes?
posted by Sparx at 4:49 PM on March 9, 2013


Does this sort of thing happen often to the mods themselves from the other side, seeing as they'd probably be listed as contacts in a mllion and one gmail boxes?

It would explain some of the completely random LinkedIn requests I get, I suppose, but I get the impression that everyone gets lots of completely random LinkedIn requests. And I don't know anyone's real name, with very few exceptions, so I can't really tell.
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 4:52 PM on March 9, 2013


Does this sort of thing happen often to the mods themselves from the other side, seeing as they'd probably be listed as contacts in a mllion and one gmail boxes?

I get the occasional cheerful promotional "hey bro, help me out with this exciting new project/opportunity!" form letter from someone who only has me in their address book because of the time I exchanged email with them explaining why they're banned for spamming Metafilter and how much that is not a negotiable issue.
posted by cortex (staff) at 4:56 PM on March 9, 2013


I have a strong suspicion that neither Matt nor anyone else wants to connect with me on LinkedIn. Or in any way whatsoever. Especially carnally.
posted by Decani at 9:03 PM on March 9, 2013


So, mathowie, would you prefer that I un-connect you? No hard feelings, if so.

No, feel free to keep it connected, I don't really use LinkedIn much for anything besides keeping an auto-generated resume and loads of strange contacts won't really matter much.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 2:08 PM on March 11, 2013


Does this sort of thing happen often to the mods themselves from the other side, seeing as they'd probably be listed as contacts in a mllion and one gmail boxes?

Gosh I have no idea. I have spent so much time trying to keep LinkedIn from ever emailing me for any reason I'm not even sure I can get to it in my browser anymore. And then this weekend a friend from college noticed that I was connected to someone who could help him solve a problem at work and it turns out that was someone I knew from library school and I was all "Oh hey this is maybe useful after all"
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 2:10 PM on March 11, 2013 [1 favorite]


Just saw this thread.

The funny thing is that when I got an invite from Mr. Haughey I was like, "huh, weird, maybe he needs a developer or something...whatevs cool" and then I was wasting time on Hacker News and found a link to his blog post about it. I was kinda sad ("I'm not a special snowflake? Aw, man...") when I read the post, but then again it finally made sense.

SO BY THE WAY MATT IF YOU NEED A PROGRAMMER FOR YOUR GOOGLE READER REPLACEMENT WE'RE TOTALLY CONNECTED ON LINKEDIN NOW HIT ME UP YO
posted by dubitable at 7:19 AM on March 14, 2013 [1 favorite]


I've done this exact thing except with StumbleUpon. Very frustrating.
posted by brundlefly at 1:32 PM on March 19, 2013


The dangers of the auto-spammed contact list are large. It's actually a much larger problem than people would think.

This actually illustrates one reason why I boycott Facebook. I started getting auto-harvested invitations from people I didn't know who just happened to be on the same rather large art or music or culturally related mailing lists that I was on, where our email addresses were helpfully mutually harvested by Gmail itself. Some of those auto-invites came from people that I consider to be politically fringe or unsavory. People whom I definitely wouldn't voluntarily link myself to in any way in any database.

But there I am in some giant database run by people who don't give a shit if they spam you 50 times a day and keep all data and links and networks forever.

I once briefly negotiated being intentionally permabanned from Facebook and had a blissful 3 months of never hearing from them.

Now? Now I get Facebook invitations and signup authorizations in about 10 different languages, and apparently more than one person has managed to sign up using my (admittedly very short) gmail address without actually validating, so I now get "Do you know so-and-so?" emails a few times a day in various languages.
posted by loquacious at 4:35 AM on March 21, 2013


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