Last week I visited my moribund profile on LinkedIn to find at the top of the page a message that said: “Your connections Dominic, Louise and Clive have endorsed you for new skills and expertise.”

几周前，我访问我久未维护的LinkedIn简介资料时，看到页面顶端出现一条通知，内容是：“你的三名联系人多米尼克(Dominic)、路易斯(Louise)和克莱夫(Clive)为你的新技能和专长做了背书。”

The three of them evidently think I’m pretty talented, which is nice to know. Variously they attest to my possessing seven skills: newspaper; magazines; journalism; copy editing; business journalism; editorial and newspapers.

很明显这三人认为我很有才，这让我感觉美滋滋的。他们各自证明我拥有七项技能：“报纸”、“杂志”、“新闻”、“校对”、“企业新闻”、“编辑”和“报纸（复数）”。

This would be flattering were it not for two things. The first is that I’ve never heard of any of them, let alone worked with them. The second is that half the things they cite aren’t skills. Newspaper – either in the singular or plural – most certainly is not a skill: it is a dying product. Copy editing is a skill but, alas, it is one I don’t have.

要不是出于两个原因，这件事可能会令我受宠若惊。首先是我从没听说过这三个人的名字，更别提与他们共事过。其次是，他们提到的技能中有一半根本不算技能。“报纸”（无论单数还是复数）就几乎肯定不算技能，只能说是一种垂死的产品。“校对”可以算技能，可惜的是，我偏偏不会。

Of all the things about LinkedIn that I do not understand, this craze of “endorsing” one another’s “skills” is the most baffling.

在所有有关LinkedIn的我无法理解的特性中，这种为他人的“技能背书”的时髦特性是最让人困惑的一个。

It’s not just Dominic, Louise and Clive who are indiscriminately pressing the endorse button. Since the feature was introduced last September an orgy of endorsing has been going on. By December, 550m endorsements had been made and as of the end of July the number had reached 2bn. Every week 50m more are being handed out.

不假思索点击“背书”按钮的不仅仅是多米尼克、路易斯和克莱夫。自去年9月LinkedIn增加这一特性以来，网上就出现了一场背书狂潮。到去年12月份之前，人们已做出了5.5亿份背书，而到今年7月底这一数字则达到了20亿。每周有逾5000万份背书发出。

In theory, it could be jolly useful to have a way of rating colleagues for their skills. It would mean being able to see at a glance how good people were at certain things – making us all better at getting the right person into the right job.

理论上说，这种特性提供了一种评价同事技能的方法，这本该有些有趣的用处。它原本的目的是方便人们一眼看出某人有多擅长某些事情，这样所有人都能更容易地帮合适的人找到合适的工作。

In practice, it means nothing of the sort: it is moronic, irritating and serves no purpose at all – apart from proving beyond a doubt that the tens of millions of endorsers on LinkedIn possess two skills in particular: brown-nosing and time-wasting.

实际上，这一特性和这一目的南辕北辙。这种特性愚蠢又讨厌，唯一的作用就是无可辩驳地证明了一件事：LinkedIn上成千上万的背书者拥有两项独特技能——拍马屁和浪费时间。

Yet the system is being taken worryingly seriously. According to LinkedIn, your profile is four times as likely to be viewed when your skills have been endorsed.

不过，这样的系统却受到了十分认真的对待，这令人十分担心。根据LinkedIn的说法，当你的技能被背书后，你的简介被人浏览的可能性会翻两番。

There are some obvious things wrong with this. For a start, half the people doing the endorsing don’t have the first idea if you have the skills or not. Or they are your mother-in-law. Or they only want to endorse you if you endorse them back.

这明显不合情理。首先，半数背书者根本不清楚你是否拥有这项技能。要么他们是你的岳母或婆婆。要么他们只是希望为你背书能换来你为他们背书。

The next drawback is that there is only room for endorsing and none for doing the opposite. There is no “denounce” button on LinkedIn. You can remove an endorsement you have already given, but that is as far as it goes. An acquaintance tells me that a colleague was recently fired for utter incompetence and laziness. But his profile showed a string of endorsements from friends and camp followers, and no possibility of disagreeing with any of them.

还有个缺陷在于，这种特性只允许人们证明别人具备某项技能，却不允许人们揭发别人其实不具备某项技能。LinkedIn里没有设“揭发”按钮。你可以撤销已经做出的背书，但仅此而已。一位熟人告诉我，最近有个同事因为极度不称职和懒惰被炒了鱿鱼。然而他的LinkedIn简介里却有一大堆来自亲友团的背书，对这些背书根本就没法表示反对。

Worse, the string of tiresome notifications saying that “so-and-so has added a new skill” is not balanced by messages saying that so-and-so has just subtracted one. I ought to be able to tell my contacts that the skill I used to have in mental maths is now sadly atrophied and that my previously workable French is now almost non-existent. LinkedIn seems to have no interest in such things.

更糟糕的是，用户只会收到一大堆声称“某人增加了一项新技能”的烦人通知，却收不到任何声称某人删除了一项技能的通知。我应该能告诉我的联系人，我过去在心算方面的技能如今很遗憾地退化了，之前还可以说几句的法语如今也几乎忘光了。LinkedIn似乎对这种事毫不关心。

Then there are the skills themselves. It is not just Dominic, Louise and Clive who are unskilled at spotting what a skill is. I see that 66 people have endorsed Jeff Weiner, the website’s chief executive, for having a skill called “LinkedIn”. Which makes no sense at all.

还有就是关于技能本身的问题。不知道什么算技能的不止多米尼克、路易斯和克莱夫三位。比如我发现有66人为该网站首席执行官谢韦纳(Jeff Weiner)具备所谓“LinkedIn”的技能背书。这项技能根本没任何意义。

There is the further difficulty that even with more bona fide skills, such as “team leadership”, it is not clear what it means to have them. LinkedIn could learn something from the Girl Guides, which for the past 100 years has operated an excellent system whereby you only get the badge if you can prove you have mastered the skill.

更大的困难在于，就算是像“团队领导力”这样真实的技能，拥有这类技能到底意味着什么也很不清楚。实际上LinkedIn原本可以从英国女童军(Girl Guides)学点东西，过去一百年来女童军的系统一直在极其出色地运作着，在这个系统中你只有证明你掌握了相应技能你才能拿到相应徽章。

For example, “team leader” – which is now a Guide badge, along with cooking and first aid – involves following a rigorous seven-step process of theory and practice. There is no room for skill inflation or for sucking up.

“团队领导人”现在和“烹饪”以及“急救”一样，是一种女童军徽章。拿“团队领导人”徽章来说，取得这种徽章有严格的程序，需要在理论和实践方面过七道关才能拿到。夸大其词和溜须拍马这两种技能对帮助你取得徽章丝毫不起作用。

By contrast, on LinkedIn both are rampant. Two of the most endorsed skills are “strategic planner” and “public speaker” – skills that in real life are possessed by hardly anyone. In my whole life I’ve only come across a couple of dozen executives who are really good at either; telling people that they are good when they are not is not just dishonest, it’s dangerous. It could lead to foolish strategic decisions and it encourages the giving of too many tedious speeches.

相形之下，夸大其词和溜须拍马的现象在LinkedIn上十分盛行。两项被背书最多的技能是“战略规划者”和“公开演说家”，可是在现实生活中几乎没人拥有这两项技能。我这辈子总共也只遇到过几十名真正擅长战略规划或公开演说的高管。对一个本不擅长某事的人说他擅长这件事，这不仅不诚实，而且危险。这可能导致愚蠢的战略决策，或鼓励太多糟糕的演讲者发表枯燥的演讲。

Yet the biggest failing of all in the endorsement system is that it turns out to be only for the little people. Barack Obama, Sir Richard Branson, Arianna Huffington and Angela Ahrendts have shut down this feature on their LinkedIn profiles. They are too grand to have any skills at all.

然而，这个背书系统最失败的地方在于，事实证明这个系统只针对那些小人物。巴拉克·奥巴马(Barack Obama)、李察·布莱信爵士(Sir Richard Branson)、 阿里安娜·赫芬顿(Arianna Huffington)和安吉拉·阿伦茨(Angela Ahrendts)在他们的LinkedIn简介中都已关闭了这一特性。他们太伟大了，已不需要任何技能了。