LinkedIn Discussions has some real potential. You have professionals over at LinkedIn Groups gathering in numbers large and small, coalescing around issues significant and simplistic, and discussing … well, whatever the members of the group want to discuss.

Therein lies the potential … and the problem. LinkedIn Discussions could be a terrific real-time knowledge resource, a virtual salon where ideas are expressed and discussed, trends noted and dissected, successes and failures shared and analyzed — and more.

But it’s not. I belong to 18 LinkedIn groups and the signal-to-noise ratio is ridiculous. Lack of moderation is a problem: The creator of the group could separate the wheat from the chaff, but usually they don’t.

Here are six things contributing to the Discussions component of LinkedIn Groups being (mostly) a mess:

Too many people looking for free advice. “What’s the best way to market my business both online and off?” Sure, why don’t we take the combined brain power of the 50,000 or so members of this group and apply it to your business issue — since you’re clearly not interested in hiring a VP Marketing … or at least a marketing consultant.

Too much traffic whoring. “Here’s a great [article or blog post] I wrote about [insert topic about which 2,749,596 articles and blog posts have already been written] — check it out!” No thanks.

Too many people looking to arbitrarily expand their networks. These people are called LIONs, and I’ve never understood the point of this. “I’m looking to expand my network: Any and all invitations accepted!” Why? Do you really think that having a network of 10,000 or more strangers whom you ignore (or occasionally spam) will be more of a benefit for you than a network of 100 or so people with whom you keep in touch once in a while?

Too much job hunting. “Looking for opportunities in [insert business type and/or geographic region here].” LinkedIn: You need to create a separate place where job seekers can post their employment pleas. Please.

Too many blatant ads. Anyone who uses a discussion forum and doesn’t bother to participate in discussions but instead uses the digital real estate to post an ad touting their company or services is someone with whom I will never do business. Never. Ever.

Too much hyperbole. “The key to survival!” “The path to riches” And so it goes. Hey, I like hyperbole as much as the next guy (Are you kidding? I spent nine years with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey!), but posts like these make what should be a professional forum seem like ads in a ’70s comic book.

Give me questions that need to be answered. Give me ideas that need comment. Give me rants, snark, humor, insight, links to resources I can use and food for thought.

Wait, I know — how about maybe facilitating some actual discussion. Yeah, now there’s an idea.

Takeaway for marketers: If you’re a LinkedIn member, participate in the discussions — please. There’s an occasional needle in the haystack right now, but the forums desperately need a lot more signal to balance out the surfeit of noise.

DECEMBER 18 UPDATE: IT World has posted this article that explores the LIONs phenomenon.

I’m clicking around my LinkedIn groups and checking out the discussions the other day, and I noticed a thread about “article marketing.”

The idea behind article marketing, of course, is to post content on your Web site that help generate search engine traffic, links to your site, authority for your brand and so on. Here’s one of many sites that specializes in articles. Here’s another. And another. The Web is lousy with them: Google returns more than 3.6 million results for “article marketing.”

Anyway, in the course of the discussion someone wrote: “Professional writers generally charge anywhere from $4 to $8 for an article depending on the word count and research involved.”

Yep: That got my gears grinding. Which got me to responding, which gave me today’s post:

As an editorial professional since the Reagan administration, I have mixed feelings about this.

On the one hand, the notion that people are waking up to the idea that quality content matters is a welcome one.

On the other hand, the notion that hack wordsmiths will swoop in and thoughtlessly churn out SEO text as opposed to real articles and content is profoundly troubling.

I’ve written dozens of SEO-optimized articles for a variety of companies over the past year. I’ve written countless magazine articles, press releases, Web pages, email newsletters and more (including about three dozen books) over the past two-and-a-half decades.

The cost of professional copywriting today is in the neighborhood of a dollar a word.

Sorry, [name redacted]: With all due respect, the idea that “professional writers generally charge anywhere from $4 to $8 for an article depending on the word count and research involved” is patently absurd — not to mention deeply insulting to any editorial professional.

Let’s talk about the high end of your fee range, though. How long does it take a real professional to write an article? Let’s assume the article is brief: about 250 words. Let’s further assume it takes 90 minutes to research and write the article. That’s $5.33 per hour. Given that, you’re better off washing dishes or flipping burgers for minimum wage — you’ll get paid almost 23% more for your time.

I’ve seen too many “editorial services” that churn out articles for pennies on the dollar. All of them are pure unadulterated crap.

What’s most disturbing about all this, though, is that (a) too many “marketers” simply don’t care if it’s crap, and (b) too many clients (and members of the general public) are too stupid to know the difference.

Takeaway for marketers: You get what you pay for.

I have an AOL email account I use for almost everything that isn’t related to work. It gets flooded with newsletters and advertising (and spam) pretty quickly.

The account had approximately 1,400 emails in it the other morning. As I was trying to delete enough junk to get below 1,000 (which always feels like something of a major accomplishment), I noticed that for all the talk about “personalization” in online marketing generally and email marketing specifically, a subject line with my name in it was a sure indication that the email could be safely deleted. A few samples:

“Craig Peters: Amazon.com’s Black Friday Deals”

“Craig, You’re Invited…”

“PETERS, someone has sent you a Subway sandwich Gift Card”

I can’t help but think that there are a lot of marketers in a lot of companies thinking, “let’s do all the heavy lifting required to make sure we personalize our emails by using the customer’s name in the subject line.”

And there are probably a lot of other marketers thinking, “yeah, that’s a great idea, people will really think that we’re thinking about them.”

And the results are the sort of subject lines you see above.

But is that worthwhile personalization? That Amazon subject line above is a great example: It might as well say, “Occupant: Amazon.com’s Black Friday Deals.”

Of course Amazon is probably A/B testing more subject lines than are dreamt of in your philosophy, Horatio.

Still, when the presence of “personalization” in the subject line is a clear indication that the email is junk, there’s a disconnect somewhere, don’t you think?

Is it really “personalization” when all you’re doing is plugging my first or last name into the same spot as everyone else’s first or last name? Shouldn’t “personalization” mean something more than that? Wouldn’t Amazon be better off with a call to action like “Check out Amazon.com’s Great Black Friday Deals” instead of some sort of bogus attempt to pretend they know me?

They don’t know me, they know how to pull my name out of a database and plug it into a hole in the subject line.

Think of it this way: When your closest friends and business associates send you an email, how often do they use your first or last name in the subject line?

In the online marketing world, conversational typically trumps corporate. This bit of conversation, though, feels like bumping into the loudmouth insurance agent at the party who, drink in one hand, throws his arm around your shoulder and with aggressive faux-friendliness says far too loudly, “Craig, my friend! How the hell are ya?”

No one needs “personalization” like that.

Takeaway for marketers: Slapping a name from a database into a subject line isn’t personalization.

Over on iMedia Connection, Chris Marriott offers a pretty good set of common-sense rules about email marketing.

Takeaway for marketers: You have work to do if you read any of these eight rules and slap your forehead saying, “damn, I forgot about that!”

Lifehacker alerts us to the 10 most irritating phrases and 20 most hated cliches you should be avoiding at all costs going forward. Oops.

Takeaway for marketers: With all due respect, at the end of the day you can’t just talk the talk, you need to walk the walk. Oops again.