Flash news! Just posted late last week on LinkedIn’s Help:

Since the launch (of Community Top Voices (Gold Badge) we’ve seen more and more people coming together to share their insights and learn from each other through collaborative articles. With this growth, we’re also hearing more feedback from our community…Therefore, we have decided to retire the gold Community Top Voice badge (gold badge) and discontinue the ability to earn them automatically through contributions to collaborative articles starting October 8, 2024….

If you currently have a gold Community Top Voice badge, please note that it will expire within 60 days from when it was awarded. Those who earn a badge on October 8, 2024, will have it through December 7, 2024.

Good riddance, I say.

It was but a popularity contest of AI driving questions, and probably LinkedIn’s AI was happy to devour our answers. With the program’s inconsistent, unpublished rules, you had to feed the  Community Voices Monster to make it just like you and if you didn’t satiate it all the time, it bit you, as in it dropped your badge, without notice or reason. If the questions were odd, and they were, I didn’t answer them. Why should I? And getting back in? Well that was near impossible.

Believe me, I tried. Then I gave up. I was spending more time and energy than that Voice honorific bestowed.

Popularity contests are not good ways to ace LinkedIn.

What is smarter, more insightful, and welcome? Intelligent frequency of our insights to share with others. What you know, feel, believe, and want the reader to do, that they would not already be aware of, without exposure to your gray matter.

You’ve heard me preach that here before. 

Make that your mantra, please.