8 ms·

I quickly realized how little value the endorsement system in linkedin was when my uncle endorsed me for Groovy. In my mind I like to think he was picking it as

by columbo 13y ago

I quickly realized how little value the endorsement system in linkedin was when my uncle endorsed me for Groovy. In my mind I like to think he was picking it as a personality trait and not a skillset.

hcarvalhoalves 13y ago
> my uncle endorsed me for Groovy (...) as a personality trait I laughed harder than usual at that. I wonder what a "groovy" professional would be? :)
- seako 13y ago
  Groovy is a programming language on the JVM http://groovy.codehaus.org/ http://groovy.codehaus.org/
  - zura 13y ago
    Unfortunately, more attractive language to me, Groovy++ didn't get much traction. Nowadays, Groovy seems to fading as well.
    - GFischer 13y ago
      I'm starting out on Grails, do you suggest I shouldn't? Our requirements are that whatever I choose must be Java-based, and have some nice framework. Within those constraints, is there a good Grails replacement?
      - zura 13y ago
        No, not at all. I meant in terms of hype and popularity. Otherwise, it seems quite solid to me, and they (Groovy and Grails) are in active development. There is another interesting jvm language: http://gosu-lang.org/compare.html http://gosu-lang.org/compare.html Web framework for gosu: http://ronin-web.org/ http://ronin-web.org/ But it is even less popular and I'm not sure if it even has an active community.
        GFischer 13y ago
        Gosu is the language developed by Guidewire, a major insurance software provider :) (I work in the insurance sector. I wish my company bought Guidewire). But yeah, it's much smaller than Grails.
- erikj54 13y ago
  That is great. It shows you the value of the endorsement is really nil. Personally, I'm not as impressed with an endorsement unless it is from someone, who themselves is well respect, or holds a high position. The original concept was good, but it was a low lying fruit, perhaps it is time for some AI by Linked In to try and solve the problem.
  - samstave 13y ago
    "Hey erikj54, pg just endorsed you for "HN Commenting Skills" -- We'd like to ask you (5) questions regading HN commenting! in order to publish this endorsement to your profile: 1. Assuming you just created an account on HN and immediately see a comment you disagree with. Can you downvote this comment? [Y/N] 2. A YC Company just posted a job posting to HN, can you post why you are a perfect rock-ninja for the job as a comment? [Y/N] 3. Can a comment receive greater than -4 comment Karma? [Y/N] 4. Can you downvote a comment reply to your OP comment? [Y/N] 5. How important is being civil in HN threads [Very Important/Not Important] --- This might work....
- RyJones 13y ago
  Perhaps an expert in Groove? http://grv.microsoft.com/ http://grv.microsoft.com/
- b0b_d0e 13y ago
  When I read that I imagined LinkedIn is refering to the groovy programming language http://groovy.codehaus.org/ http://groovy.codehaus.org/ Of course... that doesn't make a lot of sense for a personality trait either... It makes as much sense as describing someone as C++. Maybe I'm misunderstanding something here.
  - loganfrederick 13y ago
    Groovy (or, less common, "Groovie" or "Groovey") is a slang colloquialism popular during the 1960s and 1970s. It is roughly synonymous with words such as "cool", "excellent", "fashionable", or "amazing", depending on context. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groovy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groovy
    - 6cxs2hd6 13y ago
      That this needs to be explained makes me feel old.
      - LukeShu 13y ago
        I suspect that it is a geographical-cultural thing, not an age-culture thing. edit: for clarity
        YokoZar 13y ago
        Old people have different cultures.
        saraid216 13y ago
        It's both.
      - b0b_d0e 13y ago
        Well, in my defense, I know what it means to be groovy and sorry if post made it seem otherwise. What I was misunderstanding was the fact that you can actually endorse personality traits on people since I have made a point of staying as far away from LinkedIn as possible. I thought that you were only able to endorse skills, and so when I saw they were endorsed for a personality trait I was a little confused and wondered if they meant that as a skill trait :)
samt 13y ago
The end state here is clearly that everybody will be endorsed for everything.
lifeisstillgood 13y ago
A free pair of bell-bottom jeans with every website :-)
nostromo 13y ago
I was joking with a friend and endorsed him for "Knife Skills" -- which is one of the presets you can choose. (It's intended for chefs, not game developers.)
- reinhardt 13y ago
  I've seen "Common sense" and similar jokes as endorsed skills
  - kamjam 13y ago
    A friend/ex-colleague just added "General Awesomeness" as a skill :)
  - ChuckMcM 13y ago
    Drunken Carousing is another.
- martin_ 13y ago
  I endorsed an old project manager for "Music" because he was a terrible project manager, but a great musician. Though, it was more of a career recommendation than a joke
wcummings 13y ago
I'm endorsed for "Social Justice"
zmmmmm 13y ago
In case you don't realize it, the reason your Uncle did that is because LinkedIn prompted him to, by fraudulently showing a message that looked like it was from you, asking for endorsement. He was probably no more comfortable endorsing you for that than you were in receiving it, and you are both losers from it (him for looking like he endorses anyone for anything, and you for looking unprofessional to your "real" network who actually know that you are not qualified in that skill but now see you "claiming" it on your profile). The only "winner" is LinkedIn, who get to sell more ads and referrals to their recruiters.
- sdoering 13y ago
  Even LinkedIn looses, as they do get more noise in their data, so that their intel about you, their matching will become worse, when a lot of people are endorsed for things they do not like to highlight, or are endorsed by family even if the skills are not that "good"... So everyone looses, even recruiters, as they get more false positives when searching for skills. It is a short business-win for LinkedIn, but a long term loss.
  - eru 13y ago
    Why? LinkedIn might be using more sophisticated data internally to differentiate real from bogus endorsements than they show externally.
    - sdoering 13y ago
      But how do they differentiate between the two. How do they know, that endorsement a is less worth, than say endorsement b? And how to be sure about the differentiation? Bit I have to say I'm biased: I really do not give much on these sites. I tried LinkedIn years ago, but nearly no one used it here in Germany. I used to use the local equivalent, but it really was a big waste of time, at least for me and all the people I know who used it. Recruiter spam, self-exposers, and so on. Nothing ever came from it. Really nothing. So these sites ultimately live of the dreams of people and of recruiters with the (imho) wrong incentives.
nraynaud 13y ago
What is that with family members going on linkedIn? My aunt is a retired teacher and she went on linkedIn under a (religious) pseudonym and tried to connect to me. And I also got endorsed by a university professor who never taught me (but we knew each other a bit) about ruby on rail that was not yet created when I was a student. I'm about to call bullshit on professional social networks (yeah, because each country has it's favorite moreover, so I'm stuck with viadeo, linkedIn and Xing), I never got a job or recruited through that, and they are just annoying with alert e-mail.

by columbo 13y ago

hcarvalhoalves 13y ago

> my uncle endorsed me for Groovy (...) as a personality trait I laughed harder than usual at that. I wonder what a "groovy" professional would be? :)

seako 13y ago
Groovy is a programming language on the JVM http://groovy.codehaus.org/ http://groovy.codehaus.org/
- zura 13y ago
  Unfortunately, more attractive language to me, Groovy++ didn't get much traction. Nowadays, Groovy seems to fading as well.
  - GFischer 13y ago
    I'm starting out on Grails, do you suggest I shouldn't? Our requirements are that whatever I choose must be Java-based, and have some nice framework. Within those constraints, is there a good Grails replacement?
    - zura 13y ago
      No, not at all. I meant in terms of hype and popularity. Otherwise, it seems quite solid to me, and they (Groovy and Grails) are in active development. There is another interesting jvm language: http://gosu-lang.org/compare.html http://gosu-lang.org/compare.html Web framework for gosu: http://ronin-web.org/ http://ronin-web.org/ But it is even less popular and I'm not sure if it even has an active community.
      - GFischer 13y ago
        Gosu is the language developed by Guidewire, a major insurance software provider :) (I work in the insurance sector. I wish my company bought Guidewire). But yeah, it's much smaller than Grails.
erikj54 13y ago
That is great. It shows you the value of the endorsement is really nil. Personally, I'm not as impressed with an endorsement unless it is from someone, who themselves is well respect, or holds a high position. The original concept was good, but it was a low lying fruit, perhaps it is time for some AI by Linked In to try and solve the problem.
- samstave 13y ago
  "Hey erikj54, pg just endorsed you for "HN Commenting Skills" -- We'd like to ask you (5) questions regading HN commenting! in order to publish this endorsement to your profile: 1. Assuming you just created an account on HN and immediately see a comment you disagree with. Can you downvote this comment? [Y/N] 2. A YC Company just posted a job posting to HN, can you post why you are a perfect rock-ninja for the job as a comment? [Y/N] 3. Can a comment receive greater than -4 comment Karma? [Y/N] 4. Can you downvote a comment reply to your OP comment? [Y/N] 5. How important is being civil in HN threads [Very Important/Not Important] --- This might work....
RyJones 13y ago
Perhaps an expert in Groove? http://grv.microsoft.com/ http://grv.microsoft.com/
b0b_d0e 13y ago
When I read that I imagined LinkedIn is refering to the groovy programming language http://groovy.codehaus.org/ http://groovy.codehaus.org/ Of course... that doesn't make a lot of sense for a personality trait either... It makes as much sense as describing someone as C++. Maybe I'm misunderstanding something here.
- loganfrederick 13y ago
  Groovy (or, less common, "Groovie" or "Groovey") is a slang colloquialism popular during the 1960s and 1970s. It is roughly synonymous with words such as "cool", "excellent", "fashionable", or "amazing", depending on context. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groovy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groovy
  - 6cxs2hd6 13y ago
    That this needs to be explained makes me feel old.
    - LukeShu 13y ago
      I suspect that it is a geographical-cultural thing, not an age-culture thing. edit: for clarity
      - YokoZar 13y ago
        Old people have different cultures.
      - saraid216 13y ago
        It's both.
    - b0b_d0e 13y ago
      Well, in my defense, I know what it means to be groovy and sorry if post made it seem otherwise. What I was misunderstanding was the fact that you can actually endorse personality traits on people since I have made a point of staying as far away from LinkedIn as possible. I thought that you were only able to endorse skills, and so when I saw they were endorsed for a personality trait I was a little confused and wondered if they meant that as a skill trait :)

samt 13y ago

The end state here is clearly that everybody will be endorsed for everything.

lifeisstillgood 13y ago

A free pair of bell-bottom jeans with every website :-)

nostromo 13y ago

I was joking with a friend and endorsed him for "Knife Skills" -- which is one of the presets you can choose. (It's intended for chefs, not game developers.)

reinhardt 13y ago
I've seen "Common sense" and similar jokes as endorsed skills
- kamjam 13y ago
  A friend/ex-colleague just added "General Awesomeness" as a skill :)
- ChuckMcM 13y ago
  Drunken Carousing is another.
martin_ 13y ago
I endorsed an old project manager for "Music" because he was a terrible project manager, but a great musician. Though, it was more of a career recommendation than a joke

wcummings 13y ago

I'm endorsed for "Social Justice"

zmmmmm 13y ago

In case you don't realize it, the reason your Uncle did that is because LinkedIn prompted him to, by fraudulently showing a message that looked like it was from you, asking for endorsement. He was probably no more comfortable endorsing you for that than you were in receiving it, and you are both losers from it (him for looking like he endorses anyone for anything, and you for looking unprofessional to your "real" network who actually know that you are not qualified in that skill but now see you "claiming" it on your profile). The only "winner" is LinkedIn, who get to sell more ads and referrals to their recruiters.

sdoering 13y ago
Even LinkedIn looses, as they do get more noise in their data, so that their intel about you, their matching will become worse, when a lot of people are endorsed for things they do not like to highlight, or are endorsed by family even if the skills are not that "good"... So everyone looses, even recruiters, as they get more false positives when searching for skills. It is a short business-win for LinkedIn, but a long term loss.
- eru 13y ago
  Why? LinkedIn might be using more sophisticated data internally to differentiate real from bogus endorsements than they show externally.
  - sdoering 13y ago
    But how do they differentiate between the two. How do they know, that endorsement a is less worth, than say endorsement b? And how to be sure about the differentiation? Bit I have to say I'm biased: I really do not give much on these sites. I tried LinkedIn years ago, but nearly no one used it here in Germany. I used to use the local equivalent, but it really was a big waste of time, at least for me and all the people I know who used it. Recruiter spam, self-exposers, and so on. Nothing ever came from it. Really nothing. So these sites ultimately live of the dreams of people and of recruiters with the (imho) wrong incentives.

nraynaud 13y ago

What is that with family members going on linkedIn? My aunt is a retired teacher and she went on linkedIn under a (religious) pseudonym and tried to connect to me. And I also got endorsed by a university professor who never taught me (but we knew each other a bit) about ruby on rail that was not yet created when I was a student. I'm about to call bullshit on professional social networks (yeah, because each country has it's favorite moreover, so I'm stuck with viadeo, linkedIn and Xing), I never got a job or recruited through that, and they are just annoying with alert e-mail.