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O SDN, where art thou?

Former Member
0 Kudos

I don' know how you feel about that matter, but to me it seems SDNs quality has decreased significantly over the last 18 - 24 months. Not only to name the point hunters, forums with stupid - because not searching before asking - questioners and blogs with the zero-content-or-information contributions.

Its the whole platform with its exploding member numbers, content and complexity - there' s a forum for nearly every little ****, but if you' ve got a serious question that' s not easy to google or look up in the help, nobody will answer. There are at least half a dozen blogs being published every day, but the one' s being truly informative, well prepared and designed can within a month be counted on one hand. You can format each posting like a medieval bible, but most content isn' t even worth Arial 10 plain.

The whole mess started with SAP being eager to draw everybody into its new community - anonymous access, temporary accounts a.s.o. - just to increase the membership counters.

I long for the time of my first visits in SDNs Web Dynpro area 3 years or so ago, when the answers you got where well thought out and the search for similar problems didn' t take 3 hours because everybody else looked up before asking, too.

I feel like this network is dying off in the same extent as it is growing!

Regards,

Thomas

Accepted Solutions (0)

Answers (12)

Answers (12)

Jelena
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

Another issue is that ABAP General forum has become a "catch-all" for all kinds of questions. For instance, this very recent post does not belong in the ABAP forum at all, in my opinion:

Very specific SD or FI questions are also often posted in ABAP forum. Few times I've seen someone suggesting ABAP coding for the issues that could have been resolved in standard configuration.

What is your opinion on these issues?

Former Member
0 Kudos

Hey All,

I agree that the quality of SDN is being affected negatively. But before we start playing the blame game we must identify the cause.

To all those who think that its all because of the ABAP forums and they should be removed, all I can say is that they are being very selfish. ABAP is an important aspect of the entire SAP spectrum.

And to the same people - Remember that SDN is an acronym for SAP Developer Network.

Regards,

Ravi

stephenjohannes
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

Hey All,

I agree that the quality of SDN is being affected negatively. But before we start playing the blame game we must identify the cause.

To all those who think that its all because of the ABAP forums and they should be removed, all I can say is that they are being very selfish. ABAP is an important aspect of the entire SAP spectrum.

And to the same people - Remember that SDN is an acronym for SAP Developer Network.

Regards,

Ravi

Ravi,

I think you misunderstood my post about removing the ABAP forums. It was more a sarcastic reminder of how when SDN first started ABAP was a "banned" topic. The whole idea for SDN was to promote the non-ABAP areas of SAP Netweaver. Once they finally created an ABAP forum and allowed ABAP and ERP related topics the whole thing took off.

I'm glad to see the strict moderation. Hopefully though we can keep things a little more relaxed in the coffee corner by the nature. Coffee Corner still needs to be the "off-topic" free flowing place. A couple of key points:

- bringing up the same topic that has been asked before, should be allowed in the coffee corner

- questions should follow the same rules, but can be more vague due to the nature of discussion.

- replies in the coffee corner may be met with sarcasm, humor, ridiculous answers and/or the occasional deep thoughtful perspective.

- due to the off topic nature, new questions are allowed in the same thread. Staying on topic is not necessary and any post is allowed to gradually become a discussion about cricket, soccer, tea, coffee, beer, poetry(for djh), music and/or baseball.

Take care,

Stephen

Former Member
0 Kudos

And never forget: Now there are a lot of people whos careers depend on SDN. Those people inside SAP will try to make SDN as populated as possible. They attract non pros and n00bs. 2 years ago SDN had more quality!

Former Member
0 Kudos

SDN/SCN has from the start had passionate contributors who has used countless hours for the benefit of the community.

IMHO, the main reason why people are doing this is that they find the work challenging and rewarding (not in an economic way, if you look at the value possible physical gifts from SAP and divide by hours used you would earn more as a lousy beggar on the street).

My biggest fear for the community is that we loose these people and the knowledge they represent.

We will not loose these people because of point scamming, bad questions and similar.

No, we will loose them if we're not able to pull up and have focus on the challenging and worthwhile questions and information.

Hidden among the many questions in the forums there are some truly excellent questions which deserves the best experts the SAP community can provide.

But today some users give up before they find them, due to all the questions with spam characteristics

That's why I'd like to have more focus on how to give interesting questions the proper attention, than how to get rid of the poor contributions

So how can we do it. Ideally, this should be a totally dynamic algorithm that uses various KPIs to calculate the rank and thereby the visibility factor for the question (think of how digg.com calculates the order)

Unfortunately, I don't think we're there yet.

My suggestion for phase 1

1. Introduce a new start page for all forums called featured threads with a listing of thread with interesting (and possibly challenging) questions

A link to todays starting page will be quite prominent on the new start page, but all users are expected to visit this page first

2. Allow moderators to tag a thread as a featured thread

3. Allow users to suggest that a thread should be featured (could also limit to only users with more than x points in that particular forum)

Regards

Dagfinn

former_member374
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

>

> That's why I'd like to have more focus on how to give interesting questions the proper attention, than how to get rid of the poor contributions

>

Hi Dagfinn,

You are a passionate user from the first hour of SDN.Great to have you still around.

I think a rating system with filtering would address your concern. The rating is not only given to the answer, but to the question too. Lousy questions will get bad ratings and you can set your filter to blend them out.

In addition these ratings will be shown in the Business Card of the author, per post as well as an aggregation of all ratings. That I think would be a powerful incentive to improve the posting.

I think a bit more transparency regarding the contributions would really make a difference.

All the best, Mark.

former_member186746
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

>

> >

> > That's why I'd like to have more focus on how to give interesting questions the proper attention, than how to get rid of the poor contributions

> >

>

> I think a rating system with filtering would address your concern. The rating is not only given to the answer, but to the question too. Lousy questions will get bad ratings and you can set your filter to blend them out.

This sounds... promising.

I really would like an extensive filter where I can exclude posters, exclude certain words and even exclude posts containing less than 2 words

Former Member
0 Kudos

Please remember folks that was a thought from an individual and not a planned development, we are late into the year already and such an idea would take time to implement across all the services.

And with any rating system they too can be gamed.

Former Member
0 Kudos

Please only post, if you want to contribute to this discussion! Posting for the sake of posting is a bad habit!

darren_hague
Contributor
0 Kudos

Does anyone here have experience writing Firefox plugins? It occurs to me that many of the strategies being discussed could be implemented in that way, with the possible support of a 3rd-party site to store user/thread ratings, etc. The FF plugin would then filter the user's view of SDN accordingly.

By doing a Firefox plugin, people could choose their filtering strategy of choice, and there would be no burden imposed on the SDN developers.

- Darren

pokrakam
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

There are some great ideas here, some of which have popped up a few times in the past. However, as Craig said we need him also think about the time and cost of implementing them.

The main reason I suggested counting page views is that it is an automatic rating system, should require very little development, is based on data SDN already have, and would be very difficult to game.

It may be primitive, but it works today: have a look in your favourite forum and compare threads with many views to threads with few. The only development I would envisage is IP-based filtering, because at the moment repeated views by the same user increase the view count, which is the only obvious gaming loophole I can see at the moment.

It is also completely open-ended, since any of the more complex systems suggested here and at various times in the past can (and should!) still be built later to complement it.

Cheers,

Mike

Former Member
0 Kudos

Hi Dagfinn Parnas

3. Allow users to suggest that a thread should be featured (could also limit to only users with more than x points in that particular forum)

I liked this idea.

Hats off

This idea is really going to help SDN

Regards

K.P.N

Former Member
0 Kudos

IP Filtering tends to only work when dealing with non companies. SDN and BPX both have lots of users accessing via their workplace and most companies have very few outward going IP addresses. For example from SAP in Germany and most surrounding countries all go through the central hosting hub and thus we all show up in "Walldorf" regardless of where we might physically be. The same hold true for most other companies.

Former Member
0 Kudos

But not for all. It is never acceptable to do nothing just because the problem is hard!

Former Member
0 Kudos

Although views based on IP addresse would be a simple elegant solution, there are as Craig points out major drawbacks that cannot be mended without changing the transport protocols of the web.

In addition to the proxy server restrictions, it is also trivial to simulate web traffic in order to increase your own standing.

There is no doubt in my mind that this functionality would have been exploited.

My impression has never been that SAP is trying get as many users as possible to SCN and that they therefore have sacrificed quality for quantity.

The issues we're are seeing is related to the quick growth SCN has had and must be excepted in any organisation or community which grows rapidly.

The SCN staff is providing a great service, and I do not believe that they see SCN as a stepping stone to other parts of SAP organisation and therefore wants to increase number of users at all costs.

This is why there is a high focus on user surveys and how SCN is perceived as a whole and what value it gives to customers, partners and SAP itself.

Any open community will have persons with different skills and value sets, and yes some of them will be n00bs and not l337 SAP hackers. But is that really that bad?

Afterall, were we not all n00bs once?

As long as people are civilized and follow the general guidelines put forward by SAP with input from the community, the community will have great value both for us and for SAP.

Cheers

Dagfinn

pokrakam
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

>

> IP Filtering tends to only work when dealing with non companies. SDN and BPX both have lots of users accessing via their workplace and most companies have very few outward going IP addresses. For example from SAP in Germany and most surrounding countries all go through the central hosting hub and thus we all show up in "Walldorf" regardless of where we might physically be. The same hold true for most other companies.

I am aware of that, however I do not believe that this will significantly alter the relative popularity of a thread. Whereas an IP-filtered identificaion mechanism is meaningless in most cases, it will still give us an indication of how many companies view a thread, which I think is still statistically significant in this context.

In other words, it may reduce 10 views of a rubbish post to 5, and 100 views of a good one to 50, but that still gives a 10:1 weighting to the popular one. And I actually like the idea that something can be popular just because it's funny

Numbers will be skewed in both ways (by corporates and by dynamic IPs) and this is - as I said - primitive but not too far off the mark judging by my observations. Ideally it should be complemented by a user-based rating system, but as you also said, that can involve months of debate & development.

Also, IP filtering is also only a prevention against gaming the system, so our current numbers should still be meaningful.

Cheers,

Mike

pokrakam
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

>

> Does anyone here have experience writing Firefox plugins? It occurs to me that many of the strategies being discussed could be implemented in that way, with the possible support of a 3rd-party site to store user/thread ratings, etc. The FF plugin would then filter the user's view of SDN accordingly.

>

> By doing a Firefox plugin, people could choose their filtering strategy of choice, and there would be no burden imposed on the SDN developers.

>

> - Darren

Hi Darren,

It occurred to me a bit late, but [here is|https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/weblogs?blog=/pub/wlg/9023] [original link is broken] [original link is broken] [original link is broken]; a nice plugin that colours user names according to their manners.

I would still love to see a personal black/whitelist.....

Cheers,

Mike

marilyn_pratt
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

glad you pointed to this. I was always rather surprised and disappointed that the blog didn't get even wider community attention. I remember being very interested to see how the community found creative ways of dealing with noise. Hope this renews interest.

former_member583013
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

This blog had the updated version...[Whatu2019s thy color? u2013 v2.0|https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/weblogs?blog=/pub/wlg/9429] [original link is broken] [original link is broken] [original link is broken]; which is far way better -;)

Greetings,

Blag.

Bob_McGlynn
Product and Topic Expert
Product and Topic Expert
0 Kudos

When considering the value of a SDN forum, there seems to be two main goals:

1) The speed and accuracy of having a question answered or an issue addressed.

2) Having a useful archive for these answers to serve new users with similiar issues.

I don't know that I can offer anything new to this discussion as far as the first goal. What about the 'useful archive' aspect?

What rewards are offered to people who search the forum for their answers before posting a question? (In other words, should there be some way to help reward people with points who look up an answer, rather than post a new question?)

Is the current forum system easy to use as an archive? What could make it easier, better?

How often do you use the forum archive for reference? What could make it easier, better?

I am interested in your observations and suggestions.

Bob

Former Member
0 Kudos

isn't it already absurd to consider rewarding users for using the search button ??

what about rewarding users to use SDN at all? one point per page impression?

i know that this suggestion is in good faith but I'd go for demotivating users from not searching.

my 2 cents,

anton

Bob_McGlynn
Product and Topic Expert
Product and Topic Expert
0 Kudos

Anton,

I can understand your reply and I agree that care must be taken to not just reward activity. If you are trying to create an outcome of getting people to look before posting, what might you suggest as a pro-active approach?

I do like the previously mentioned suggestion for providing a short period for new registrants for "read only" access to encourage looking and using before posting.

Bob

pokrakam
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

Moderators moderators moderators...

That seems to be the answer to our prayers, but I wholeheartedly disagree!

The mods we have are doing a sterling job and I take my hat off to them. However I do not want to see a thought police. Part of the SDN appeal was that it didn't have the rigidity that SAP had as a company in the 90's, and I dare say that the SDN openness has rubbed off onto SAP. And now we want to go the other way?

Nay, a community should moderate itself. Formal moderation should be in extreme cases. We need to change the incentives. Right now the current points system incentivises meaningless babble.

I had a very interesing discussion with Marilyn at ASUG about this (BTW, hope you're on your way to a full recovery after your accident!). She posed a very valid question: if we remove the points system, what do we replace it with? Especially now that we have the points for food programme.

Well, I have given it some thought and have a suggestion:

How about simply tallying page views? Nothing more, nothing less. The beauty is it's simplicity: good content is what drives it. If IP addresses are matched then it's also difficult to cheat; good content will keep on gaining kudos because page views accumulate over time as people search, and a good answer will also be linked to by others to further boost credibility.

This is just a beginning & I have more ideas, including on how this could be expanded into a ranking system. However at this stage I would like to know whether this is worth discussing? Recent feedback on this matter was that the point system is definitely here to stay, I don't want to waste my time if this is a closed topic....

Cheers,

Mike

marilyn_pratt
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

regardless of whether the points system is here to stay, I think the idea of looking at page views warrants more attention. In many ways it is a kind of metric for determining blog merit. Take a look at some of your personal favorite bloggers author pages to get a feel for how they garner an audience. What you say makes a great deal of sense, Mike and the more we use the concept of RSS feeds and page hits and referrals to pages the more we see how popular certain content is.

I love that idea Mike!

former_member186746
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

> Nay, a community should moderate itself. Formal moderation should be in extreme cases. We need to change the incentives. Right now the current points system incentivises meaningless babble.

Hey Mike,

There are multiple incentives.

1. getting an answer

2. getting points

3. finding a way to continually increase your knowledge and giving a bit back to a community of which you are proud of.

(4. talking about cricket)

I think that you and I mostly go for the 3d incentive.

Now here´s the problem.

Interview questions, or asking for copyrighted material, or posting plzzz help me URJENT!!!.

The posters do get answers, the person providing the answers do get points. But I for instance get pretty irritated and if I happen to see a lot of these posts in a short period of time I tend to lose the incentive a bit to use this as a source to increase my knowledge and wondering if this is the right place to share my knowledge.

In our job we have to continually educate the client in order to achieve that we don't provide what they want, but that we provide what they need. Sometimes we use pretty strict, methods to achieve this.

We should also find ways to do that with the forum audience.

Kind regards, Rob Dielemans

pokrakam
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

Hi Marilyn,

Great to hear you like it. Yes I wasn't just thinking about forums - this could extend to ALL content. Simplicity is key here, it's based on proven processes that drive the web today; it uses existing technology already in place and needs very little - if any - new development on part of SDN to evaluate. Stats are already available & 'food for points' can easily be converted into a 'food hits' program. This may encourage people spend time educating themselves on SDN rather than wasting time point hunting - they might even discover the search facility

If you look at the forums today, the threads with the most views are generally the most sensible ones. Sure, some of the coffee corner ramblings have a good hit count too, but I also think that some off topic humor by the likes of Cartman et al also deserve recognition as a contribution to the community spirit.

If there is some interest I'd be happy to work on a wiki page (there are still many areas that need to be addressed) where we could take this idea further as a community project...

Cheers,

Mike

pokrakam
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

3. finding a way to continually increase your knowledge and giving a bit back to a community of which you are proud of.

(4. talking about cricket)

I think that you and I mostly go for the 3d incentive.

True

Now here´s the problem.

Interview questions, or asking for copyrighted material, or posting plzzz help me URJENT!!!.

The posters do get answers, the person providing the answers do get points. But I for instance get pretty irritated and if I happen to see a lot of these posts in a short period of time I tend to lose the incentive a bit to use this as a source to increase my knowledge and wondering if this is the right place to share my knowledge.

Could not agree more.

The problem as I see it is that the point system encourages people to respond to plzzzurgenthelps. I also see these posts once in a while outside SDN and they are simply ignored, or told to look in the help, or come back with a decent question. This is what I mean by community moderation.

My suggestion is to remove the incentive to respond just for the sake of responding. In fact, more interesting questions will get more hits and therefore encourage people to post GOOD questions.

In our job we have to continually educate the client in order to achieve that we don't provide what they want, but that we provide what they need. Sometimes we use pretty strict, methods to achieve this.

We should also find ways to do that with the forum audience.

There are already arguments happening here about moderation heavy-handedness and 'why was this thread locked' and so on... this will get worse. Whilst I agree with being strict, I say let the community do it, it worked for years in other forums that do not award points.

In fact I remember [some discussions|; a while back about being firm with people and when it's time to tell someone to RTFM

Cheers,

Mike

stephenjohannes
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

There are a lot of awesome posts here about how to "tweak" the system to get the desired results. I think the general issue is there is still a perceived need for a points system, but still want to get rid of all the "negative" by products.

Now I'm going to offer something that is slight in left field(even by coffee corner standards) but I think is the solution. The issue is that SDN no longer needs points/rewards to keep critical mass anymore. The t-shirt freebies and other freebies were the way to for the site to gain critical mass. I think now nobody could argue that SDN needs any type of freebie, besides "knowledge" to attract people. Thus the whole lets spend the money that would have gone to freebies for something more worthwhile concept was born.

Now to solve this problem, we need to change the paradigm of knowledge exchange to something different. My concept is that you no longer have the points system anymore. Instead let's move to a more modern concept of rated content. In other words, every post, blog, article, wiki entry, gets to be rated by the community. The rating would be simple: "Did you find this content helpful?" that would be answered by yes or no. If you posted a question then you would also could mark which answer solved the problem(can only choose one), and if your question was answered at all.

Each time something is rated a tally mark goes toward the ratings for food program. Once a threshold is met then the donation is made accordingly. Each user would have profiles that show tally marks of "useful" content they posted along with tally marks of how much "useless" content they posted. For example it might look like:

I've received 45 ticks on useful content and 25 ticks on useless content.

For all content except posts, anyone can rate it and it can be rated by all unique user id's. The more popular your content the more ticks you receive. For questions/forum posts only the author can rate the responses, however anyone can rate the original question.

I'm not saying this system would solve our problems completely or eliminate every issue. It probably would spawn new problems, but I think it would satisfy the need to "evaluate/recognize" content, but no longer turn everything into a hunting game.

Take care,

Stephen

Former Member
0 Kudos

I think that is a splendid idea Stephen. I would make one suggestion though, rather than show the number of Useful and Useless Content based upon User Ticks, I would show a Usefullness Percentage, just like EBay uses for a Seller Rating. Some people may not have the time to spend answering threads, but can provide very useful answers. Continuing the Food Program should be considered regardless of the solution.

Former Member
0 Kudos

I like the rating idea as well.

A potential problem which might spawn from it: People could create multiple accounts and rate themselves without having to post with the 2nd account. The current "both ID's need to post" is usefull for spotting and tracking down the point hunters who misuse the intention of the system, particularly so as the person needs to think of a question and not only an answer.

A possible way of containing this could be only permitting S-accounts to rate threads.

Cheers and a nice weekend to all,

Julius

Former Member
0 Kudos

Stephen,

I think that is a really nice idea - simple and effective. Nice

Gareth.

Former Member
0 Kudos

hi stephen,

i already suggested this some time ago sligthly modified in such that your own points serve as a weighting factor for your judgment.

this way, hopefully a few users with a good reputation can outweight some quickly created accounts as well as some friend's votings.

anyway, I agree that a model would be best that let the quality of contributions be jugdged by the community rather than by the indivduals. one could see this as a very lightweight moderation model being more effective than let individual mods decide on content beyond their knowledge.

my 2 cents,

anton

NathanGenez
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

1. Moderators aren't the answer.

I'm a moderator for the ERP Financials area and I can tell you that the quality and content of that forum is as bad as anything that must be going on in the ABAP world. I've done my best to control all of the threads with email requests, links to copyrighted information, interview questions, "please send to me too", etc. It's worked in the sense that fewer and fewer of these responses and even requests are occurring. But that has only increased the overall quality of the forum by 1%, maybe 2% tops.

The quality is still low because most of the people posting are just not putting forth a good effort. I've thought and thought about the reasons why the threads are so bad and we've discussed this quality issue at SDN a few times already this year. We've tried to identify reasons why and I think the main one is that people aren't taking the responsibility to master this "craft" that we call SAP. I'm not trying to be mean but I really think it's true. Posters aren't searching, they're not adequately framing their questions, and a good many are so inexperienced that they are essentially asking SDN to do their job for them. It's really unbelievable... sometimes it's entertaining but after a certain critical mass it's just frustrating.

2. Points

There has been point abuse. I like the Rating idea but I'm sure that it will eventually lead to Rating abuse too. At the same time, I think the point system does geuinally motivate some people and does lend some amount of credibility to the poster. I have no idea what the perfect solution is but I'm sure it's based on some kind of metric. I like that I can see when the user first signed up for SDN and their number of questions. I'd like to see how many answers they've provided and points does (although with a certain degree of bogusness and error) provide that. I guess the main merit of the Rating suggestion is that it's essentially a point system that is opened up to all people, not just the person asking the question. It's a further extension of SDN's community base.

3. Transparency

This is a professional group and I think that all of the funny names need to stop. "SAPGURU" or "wishy washy" are hardly professionals yet they're able to post their questions in complete secrecy from their own customers that are probably here on SDN as well.

-nathan

NathanGenez
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

one more...

I think the biggest problem comes down to account control. I'm in favor of anything that will require more controls and a stricter regimen about someone getting and maintaining access to SDN. The suggesstion to not grant access to a new registered user is a good one IMO.

Former Member
0 Kudos

>

>

> In other words, every post, blog, article, wiki entry, gets to be rated by the community. The rating would be simple: "Did you find this content helpful?" that would be answered by yes or no. If you posted a question then you would also could mark which answer solved the problem(can only choose one), and if your question was answered at all.

>

> Each time something is rated a tally mark goes toward the ratings for food program. Once a threshold is met then the donation is made accordingly. Each user would have profiles that show tally marks of "useful" content they posted along with tally marks of how much "useless" content they posted. For example it might look like:

>

> I've received 45 ticks on useful content and 25 ticks on useless content.

- would you apply this concept also to the posts where one tells the OP (coming back to Mike Prokraka here) to RTFM? or to avoid posting interview questions?

- would you apply this concept to posts where you give the OP an answer that is not what she/he desires but what is correct to do? like in: can i decrease the size of my database by using SE14 on BSEG - and your answer being: go to jail if you try, archive first?

- would you apply this concept to posts where the OP asks a really silly question, gets another couple of silly answers and you happen along saying: what are you all talking about, this is simply done by ...

the error in your concept is -IMHO- that you assume that everyone who has the authorization to 'tick' is capable of judging the usefulness of a content. i think, this is where you all go wrong.

this discussion has reached the level of a highly sophisticated, almost 'philosophical' conversation. does this level of conversation fit the the origin of the problem? do you all really think you can draw this cloak of professionalism over the users of SDN-forums?

today i read the 'funny thread' in this very forum with this post considered funny. this is the saddest thing i ever read in my 7 month of joining SDN-forums. i deem this to be sad because of the fact that the OP is in a very dire situation - in 'her/his ethical group' of maybe a live or starve matter, ignorant of course, should have never been allowed to that test, of course - stephen, please tell me how your model would work on such a thread?

my opinion still is: get the noise down first (using moderating), care about the contents then (assisted by moderating) - using basic mammal insticts: you do something wrong, you get 'punished'. apply more sophisticated methods when you have reached that level.

Former Member
0 Kudos

A lot of great suggestions and good conversation:

This is what we are already doing:

1) Moderator process - several hundred are being talked to and motivated to do more and more documentation, training and examples are being created to enable them to react quicker and better. This has been ongoing for several months now and went live June 1.

2) Filters and Intercepters were enabled in the forum to prevent certain key words and we are on the watch for more patterns, so far we have seen several areas with decreased amounts of the "spam"

3) Abuse button (which we do watch) - but not widespread use yet.

The review of the "Rules of Engagement" seem OK but we do present them as guidelines so the first of the suggestions here I can that would be possible to implement is to make them "rules" and enforce?

The rest of the items will require thought, thinking and discussion so please keep them coming.

Former Member
0 Kudos

Thanks for the update Craig!

An aspect worth noting is that there are different forum areas and even specific threads which do not have this problem, and forcefull moderation is seldom required. These are often the more specialized ones, as Jan Stallkamp also mentioned at the beginning of the week.

In my area, it has already achieved (in my opinion) a satisfactory level of self-moderation and does not require hundreds of moderators (though a few more mentors have been deserved).

I have sharpened my surveillance, as I expect a spill over into the NetWeaver forums when the "red army" rises in ABAP General

No problem, we can do it!

Cheers,

Julius

PS: Another idea, perhaps disabling the points system in the ABAP General for a few days again will give the new mods a tactical advantage from the "talked about at grass-roots" perspective, out there in wherever-that-may-be? We all remember what happened last time.

stephenjohannes
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

Mylene,

Actually the idea of having a system where "group" rates/predicts information is something that has some mathematical principles. If we were change the rating from a binary to a value range, then with a sufficient number of ratings, a group could "predict" the value of the content. This concept is already being used to gather information about commodities markets and try to predict direction of where things are heading.

The mathematical models also assume that not everyone is an expert and that the cumulation of the information received allows to a closer view the actual value. Now honestly you can't expect to change behaviour over night, but you have change the motiviation behind why someone is doing something.

You are right the first answer is still "strict" moderation, however that still leaves the carrot dangling out for abuse. The next step is to eliminate/change the root cause of the problem, which is in this case the points system combined with the almost anonymous access. There still seems to be a need to have some way of "rating" content, to allow people to elminate noise from the gems. In the current system how can we say that 6 points awarded for something vs the 10 awarded was correct? The awarding of points in the forum is still a value judgement that most people who do it, may not be the best judge of what they received.

Well I would write more, but after two tornado warnings I want to get this posted before the next one.

Take care,

Stephen

Former Member
0 Kudos

stephen,

i hope you manage to avoid the storm i have been caught by one riding my bike home today. cannot say that was fun.

back to the subject at hand:

you cannot cover human (or for that matter -desperate human -) behaviour by implementing mathematical models. all your prerogatives assume a more or less homogenous group (at least when it comes to - lets say - basic knowledge). you don't have that at SDN. i am at a loss for proper words to describe what kind of questions i have met in the last 7 month. i'm not an abaper but i find most of my 'prey' in abap-general, simply because people (and sadly i have to repeat this) of a specific ethnical group have no idea what a SAP-standard R/3 system (no matter the release) is capable of.

but in your model, the ones that ask the questions would also be the ones authorized to 'tick' - did i get that right? do you know where that would place me now? in a matter of traffic-light-symbols i'd be a dark red by now. i cannot really remember how often i answered posts telling people about the 'correct way' to do things and -fortunately- getting no points at all :-).

what concerns me most in this point-shaped structure is: how many 'morons' do we produce by simply not enforcing 'rules'? how many systems damaged or no longer testifyable just because we let them all get away with SE14? the way SDN works today does nothing to improve SAP's 'image'.

and i think we all agree that SAP (well at least NW and ERP and a couple of others <portals excluded>) is the best software that was ever developed.

i recognize you subjugate to the thought that there has to be a 'rating content'. the best rating i got in my life ever was this:

>XXXXX! It works, your a wonder mate. thanks - I nerver thought this possible.

'ratings' like this one keep me going for years.

Former Member
0 Kudos

> but in your model, the ones that ask the questions would also be the ones authorized to 'tick' - did i get that right?

My understanding of this is that it is a weighted "tick".

> do you know where that would place me now?

Well, that is up to you. I read all your threads and would "tick" the good ones

> in a matter of traffic-light-symbols i'd be a dark red by now. i cannot really remember how often i answered posts telling people about the 'correct way' to do things and -fortunately- getting no points at all :-).

The threads you have contributed to might get some weighted "ticks" though...

Awarding points as a moderator is a different topic. I try to avoid it. It is intrusive on the PO as they might still be thinking.... How can moderators monitor thinking?

There are a lot of "urban legends" and "it has always worked like that" and even "strange documentation" in SAP. By rating the usefull threads, both SAP and the contributors to the thread can benefit from it, even if it says that the docs are crap or the answer is wrong.

I for one have benefited greatly from folks who have responded to my posts to point out misunderstandings on my side or better (newer) ways of doing things which I was not aware of.

Of course, if the cummulated thread rating mean average slips into negative, then we are all in deep trouble

Good night,

Julius

former_member186746
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

>

> A lot of great suggestions and good conversation:

>

> This is what we are already doing:

>

> 1) Moderator process - several hundred are being talked to and motivated to do more and more documentation, training and examples are being created to enable them to react quicker and better. This has been ongoing for several months now and went live June 1.

>

> 2) Filters and Intercepters were enabled in the forum to prevent certain key words and we are on the watch for more patterns, so far we have seen several areas with decreased amounts of the "spam"

>

> 3) Abuse button (which we do watch) - but not widespread use yet.

>

> The review of the "Rules of Engagement" seem OK but we do present them as guidelines so the first of the suggestions here I can that would be possible to implement is to make them "rules" and enforce?

>

> The rest of the items will require thought, thinking and discussion so please keep them coming.

I think it's absolutely important to also change the way you can get an account on SDN.

I've been thinking about this for some time now. Tell me what you think:

1. After registering your account on SDN, it'll take a little time for this to be activated, let's say an hour.

2..After activating your account you can only view threads and most importantly use the search button

3. After a certain period of time, let's say a week, you are able to post questions and become a full member

That way new members are forced to solve so called urgent issues by searching this forum.

This should be combined with enforcing the rules of engagement. So if someone isn't complying to the rules, the moderators have a choice, of either resetting their member status, or in the worst case deleting the user.

Edited by: Rob Dielemans on Jun 7, 2008 9:46 AM

Former Member
0 Kudos

Rob,

I agree with your points regarding registration of new users. But what about all the point hunters who are already registered? How are we gonna stop them?

Thanks,

Jaishankar

former_member186746
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

>

> Rob,

>

> I agree with your points regarding registration of new users. But what about all the point hunters who are already registered? How are we gonna stop them?

>

> Thanks,

> Jaishankar

Hi Jaishankar,

That's why I mention that this must be coupled with enforcing the rules of engagement.

That way if the moderators see unwanted behaviour of forum members, they can reset their member status, so that they have to wait to be able to post again.

This method allows the possibility that miscreants learn of their mistakes and could become worthy forum members (in time).

In the current system this is not possible. If someone asks for copyrighted material and the moderators delete the account. The cuplrit simply creates a new account and asks again until someone is stupid enough to comply with their demands, thus reaching their goal.

Kind regards, Rob Dielemans

Former Member
0 Kudos

>

>...

> Well, that is up to you. I read all your threads and would "tick" the good ones

>...

there we are.

and -believe me- julius has a good jugdment of quality. unlike the majority of sdn-forum users. so - still deep red for me - and for many of you for daring to say what is correct to do (and not saying what pleases the OP).

ms pratt, gentlemen - i cannot see that we are going anywhere.

so i hope you will understand, that i take my leave now. i am glad to have made your aquaintance.

Former Member
0 Kudos

For the sake of nostalgia and also to see how things are going over there, a colleague and I have just logged into SAPFans for the first time in a long, long time and had a browse through the ABAP forums.

Wow. Now that's moderation! As you scroll down, you see each thread has a proper title; the phrase "urgent, plz hlp" doesn't feature; lots of threads are locked with clear and concise moderation - "CAPS LOCK not allowed", etc; no-one is asking for complete code solutions or demanding points for cutting and pasting standard documentation.

Whilst I admit SDN probably needs to be slightly more liberal (I'll admit, SAPFans was a bit boring without some of the noise SAPFans is based on clear and simple moderation which is consistently applied. The difference is staggering...

>

The review of the "Rules of Engagement" seem OK but we do present them as guidelines so the first of the suggestions here I can that would be possible to implement is to make them "rules" and enforce?

I'll re-iterate my thoughts on this again - yes I believe they should be set as rules and should be properly enforced. Any community, no matter how free or controlled will always prosper based on some set of rules - how they are enforced is usually based on how the community handles itself. Unfortunately, some of the forums on SDN require a certian amount more enforcement than others but essentially, all need some. I believe that if someone wants to be a valued part of a community they will try to follow the rules of that community - if they can't try to follow the rules then it is likely they probably wouldn't be a good fit into that community.

I also think the points system could potentially be left as it currently is, providing moderation is increased and the so called point hunters and cut & pasters for example are stopped from gaining points by moderation. I'm not naive enough to think this is a quick and easy solution but I do believe it is relatively simple and could potentially produce a massive change in the forums and the wider SAP knowledge base around the world.

It has been mentioned before on this thread and elsewhere about how bad the state of SAP knowledge must be getting based on some of the content here on SDN - I see this from a few perspectives:

1. The point of self-interest that tells me if I ever get made redundant I should have little difficulty contracting my skills out to resolve all of the shoddy work being produced by bad ABAP programmers.

2. The point of frustration that so many people are willing to look for and also supply the easy shortcut to a solution for a problem, without helping themselves or each other to truly learn anything other than cut and paste skills.

3. What sort of an image of SAP as a product and it's supporting staff/partners/contractors does a potential customer of mine get if they decide to browse the SDN forums before approaching me?

Just my thoughts/observations.

Gareth.

Former Member
0 Kudos

Gareth - I was going to write a very similar post. You took the words out of my mouth,

I would add that stricter moderation (as done in SAPFANS) might actually make moderation easier. Locking threads without much explanation should be a lot easier than editing them to conform.

Rob

former_member184657
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

Gareth,

I cudnt agree with you more.

Strict moderation is the ONLY way to go. Right now there is a general feeling amongst most newbies that SDN(ABAP in particular) is the place where they get EVERYTHING - right from career counselling to interview questions to ready-to-use codes to cleaning their dirty laundry without once using the debugging tool or goin through the search options.

the reason why these kinds of posts keep coming is because they feel SDN is the kind of forum that will make them an "SAP Consultant" without having an iota of idea what it takes to be a consultant. they feel its for ppl like "them" that SDN is there for.

Once the moderators start Locking threads, unassign points for useless threads and edit post with unnecessary copy-paste material, they there will be a visible change in the attitude of every one.

certain users can even be black-listed after some time and even removed from the forum if need be.

It is time to act tough and show them whoz the BOSS.

regards,

pk

Former Member
0 Kudos

Excellent post, Gareth.

I wish I had sufficient English writing skills to be able to express this opinion so clearly.

I've always said it here :strict moderation is the only solution.

It would be a lot of work at the beginning but bad poster would be "educated" very fast by seeing their threads locked.

I think I will check Sapfans : looks like a real professional forum from your description...

Regards,

Olivier

Former Member
0 Kudos

Gareth!

That response made me chuckle!

As a moderator over at SAPFans, I can say that the rules make things so much easier to enforce on the forums!

Maybe Enforce is to strong a word, but you get less begging for answers. those such posts, I respond and point out this is a bug/issue site and not a training site for leechers!

Where appropriate, I point them to this as well!

http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

Former Member
0 Kudos

As a SAPFans moderator, can I encourage all SDN users to check SAPFans out...

...and experience some real moderating!!!!!

You may even like it!!!!

Also, check out the "general discussions" forum for some down-time fun!!!!

See you there!

www.sapfans.com/forums

Edited by: robert longhurst on Jun 11, 2008 10:44 AM

Former Member
0 Kudos

Doc! is that you??? you can't bring your padlocks round these parts....

Former Member
0 Kudos

Click!!!!

Former Member
0 Kudos

This is more like it!

[https://forums.sdn.sap.com/click.jspa?searchID=12780858&messageID=5582821]

[https://forums.sdn.sap.com/click.jspa?searchID=12780858&messageID=5582977]

Rob

Former Member
0 Kudos

I vote Jan for president (of moderation at least!)

Former Member
0 Kudos

I must agree, the ABAP General forum has been looking much cleaner recently. Hats off to the moderators for enforcing the rules. After a period of time you acquire a feel for which threads to look at and which ones to bypass. After looking at more threads, I see more threads being locked or edited by the Moderators. Thanks.

Former Member
0 Kudos

I think that to make life easier for the moderators, the emphasis should be on locking or deleting, not editing. I think posters would learn more quickly that way.

Rob

Former Member
0 Kudos

So nice to see real strict moderation !

I agree : Jan, way to go !

former_member184657
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

@Robert:

yesterday you bought me over!!! and so i crossed the fence to the other side and registered myself in SAP Fans.

and yes the forum is very clean. i saw a thread being locked which despite having a descriptive subject had a prefix URGENT!!!

Also (i guess in the same thread) the poster mentioned about "rewarding points" to those "helpful answers", to which the mod left a note " Reward points?? where do u think u are??"

that was funny.

so yeah moderation is strict and very little noise. but a couple of hrs in SAP Fans and i was bored to death!!!! not much action goin on there.

so in conclusion i wud like to request the mods here in SDN to not take stricter moderation to a point where it begins to choke. let a little bit of air in and keep the SAPians of the world in some gud spirit, reading a "little" bit of noise.

pk

former_member204746
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

you should lock question is they do not follow forum rules.

but is someone answers badly, why lock the topic and punish the guy who ask a good question?

Jan's way of doing this is good. anyways, people copying and pasting answers from other topics are prrobably reading all questions because they want to answer the easy questions first to get more points.... they'll learn.

NathanGenez
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

I had another idea.

I like and support the concept of an SAP community. I've always been very supportive of helping others and building my network... both when I worked for SAP and now that I've left.

But what kills me, and in a sense it insults me, is to see people constantly use the network / community and never give back. Even if their questions are well phrased, professional, coureous, etc... they abide by all the rules that are set forth. But they never answer anyone else's questions.

I just saw another user who had 50+ questions asked but no points. I know the point system has it's flaws and they may have actually had some accurate replies to other questions that went unrewarded. But couldn't we come up with some kind of automatic evaluation that locked a user when they had greater than NN posts but no points? We could implement some warnings and such, but the premise is that if they're not contributing and being rewarded then they are of no use to the community. I know that their questions might help others but after 50 of them I'd wager that their 'contribution' has been maximized. This could be abused just like any other policy... users might be encouraged to post even more spam-answers. Just a thought.

-nathan

Former Member
0 Kudos

There have been several suggestions already to use some systemically enforced rules using the post : question : points ratio. I have also made some, but I think it would be difficult to implement and people could create multiple accounts anyway.

I think active forum specific moderation can help a lot in these cases. For example there are folks who ask good questions and challenge the answers. Or the questions themselves are in fact statements inviting challenging responses. Those are often interesting to read as the forum thread discussion develops and certainly are contributions, which is different to a simple question : answer scenario. Perhaps the best example of this is

But I also know the 50+ question type you are refering to. There are a few in the NW area who also have multiple accounts and pretend to be admins or developers. I think they are students who have some project to do for a prof who has never left the lab. I have noticed that they also post the same questions at other SAP related sites sometimes. One way of dealing with it is to challenge the question instead of answering it, or ask them to contact the end user for a specific detail needed to answer the question. Tease them with a little bit of techno-funki information which you would like them to comment on; information they should have... It frustrates them to no end, and possibly ruins their summer_holiday_project_short_cut as well...

Cheers,

Julius

former_member186746
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

The rules of engagement are now finally rules.

/people/michael.schwandt/blog/2008/06/23/moving-to-strict-rules-to-improve-quality-and-control

Former Member
0 Kudos

YEEEEESSSSS !

At least, SAP took the right decision. Maybe if the rules are really applied, it will save the SDN forums...

Former Member
0 Kudos

You mark threads as abuse and we remove them - simply enough I think. Repeat offenders get banned, blocked or removed.

ThomasZloch
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

a giant leap for mankind!

Former Member
0 Kudos

can't count the threads in the bi forums that I marked as abuse today anymore.

regards

Siggi

Former Member
0 Kudos

Craig - just so I'm clear. Should posts offering or asking for points be marked as abuse?

Rob

Former Member
0 Kudos

Yes but we may just edit and remove the text and not remove the thread or give the user a warning.

marilyn_pratt
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

Why do I have an image of heroes and ancient dragon lore and slaying the invading hordes? Well the community seems to respond well to this new approach and this damsel (okay granni) is far from distressed.

But whilst slaying dragons and trolls please just mind the furniture fabrics, they stain easily and green blood is hard to remove.

Somehow I think the fairer sex will be a bit quieter on this topic so I'm off to stitch my unicorn pattern.

Former Member
0 Kudos

>

>green blood is hard to remove.

Rinse in cold water. If that doesn't work simply dye it green.

Rob

former_member204746
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

I had a bizarre email. it said that :

You have received this email because the message you posted below has been rejected by our moderators.

You may want to check out the terms and conditions for using our forums: https://wiki.sdn.sap.com/wiki/display/HOME/RulesofEngagement You also find a link to them in the first thread of every forum.

Hope you understand and continue to participate in our community.

All the best the CN Community Team.

Then, I see the details of my post... and it ends with:

Posted: 4/13/07 5:15 PM

Wow! My post got rejected 14.5 months after I posted it!

ThomasZloch
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

Update from ABAP forums:

Usage of "Urgent" in subject has gone down significantly. Jan "Terminator" Stallkamp does not seem to be around today. Is he the only active moderator for the ABAP forums?

There is still annoying subjects like "FM", "CODE", "userexit"...is it OK to report these as "meaningless subject" or similar?

Correction: he is around

JanStallkamp
Employee
Employee
0 Kudos

Hi Eric.

That's the automated e-mail you get when someone uses the 'abuse' button on your posting and a moderator decides to reject your posting. I don't know the details in your case but sometimes users review very old postings. Or someone replyed to it and it came to the top of the forum once again.

Best regards,

Jan Stallkamp

Former Member
0 Kudos

Food for thought, no pun intended. Rather than rewarding Points for answered threads based upon an individuals response, why not pool the points as a community. I think the Food for Points is a very good idea. To eliminate the "Status" Points an individual would collect, place those points in a community pool for a good cause. Maybe this would eliminate the Point Hunters and "Cut and Paste" responses, and lead to more quality respsonses.

suresh_datti
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

>

> To eliminate the "Status" Points an individual would collect, place those points in a community pool for a good cause.

Good idea..I'm all for it.. this is a Community, right? why do we need individual recognition?

~Suresh

marilyn_pratt
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

This thread is taking a really productive turn with the rules of engagement discussion. I'd like to see professionals and experts here making very clear, concrete and enforceable rules.

In my own absence these last 2 weeks (and as the result of being a car accident victim), I actually came to the conclusion that newbies can really be a public threat to public safety. (Excuse my being a bit emotional on this count, but keeping new drivers from crashing into others is really a personal hot topic for me of late... nothing like personal experience to color one's emotions). I really am pleased to see a community effort at law enforcement or at least in revising and strengthening the structure.

Mike wrote about pooling points. I was puzzled if that wasn't clear in the following link about community total contribution. Take a look [here.|https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/index?rid=/webcontent/uuid/007928c5-c4ef-2a10-d9a3-8109ae621a82] [original link is broken];

This was the intent of the program. Take a look at the right side of main page of SDN for links and details.

former_member184119
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

Sorry suresh

i dont agree with you .

Really when i post the query in sdn if and i got 2 different replies i need to know whether which one is correct i will just see the concerned person who is earning more points is generally a wise one ....that is a unique identity..that resembles where we are ..now i am in hundreds you are in thousands so throws a target also on me stating that how much more i need to improve...so but some where some how some one in hunt of points loosing their basic principles of our form!!

Upto my concern every where all provers dont work just like " prevention is better than cure".

Rgds

sas

Former Member
0 Kudos

Welcome back Marilyn. Sorry to hear you were involved in a car accident. I do hope all is well now. I just would like to clarify the point I was making. My intent would be to remove Points entirely from an Individual. Every one would be on a common ground, no points. Instead of awarding points to an individual, the points would be Community Points.

marilyn_pratt
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

Got it. I guess in our minds we look at the points contributions from a global and cumulative perspective. What I'd really like to see (as I'm sure you all would like as well) is much more focus on quality. Although I don't see the individual points going away, where we could really have more impact is highlighting quality.

This happens from our side when we highlight good wiki contents or forum conversations on homepages or in newsletters. From the community perspective, the wiki is a great place to aggregate useful content and acknowledge it. Again, focus on content rather than points.

Former Member
0 Kudos

> Suresh Datti wrote:

> > Mike Reich wrote:

> > To eliminate the "Status" Points an individual would collect, place those points in a community pool for a good cause.

>

> Good idea..I'm all for it.. this is a Community, right? why do we need individual recognition?

Personally, I would favour the same and in the interests of improving quality of content, an idea is to move the points from the individual level to the thread level. Customers / Partners / Specials can vote on the thread as they find it, using the search, for example.

This was an idea which someone from SAP once mentioned to me, over a cup of coffee.

Personally (although the search does not make it immediately easily) I often use the views of a thread as a benchmark and am becoming a firmer believer in the "search first, ask detailed questions later" sect as SDN and SAP gets bigger.

Worst-case-scenario is that the many un-moderated or un-"community_self_corrected_by_encouraging_good_contributors" SDN threads create a lot of really bad product implementations and loss of reputation hits the fan for the SAP eco-system.

That is bad for everyone on or around SDN.

On the other hand, folks new and old to an area should have a usefull and easy to use search method. To be able to sort the threads (and not the individuals) in a particular forum area by member points at thread level will be more... ahhhh... intuitive... to use, than the top 3 or 10 individuals at a specific point in time.

I understand that the thread level points system will be a more intrusive change to the current SDN software and sharp moderation to protect the "top" threads from spam and marketing thingies, but that would in my opinion be more efficient for SDN than moderating the bottom line of the current forum stream.

Of course within the threads with valuable content, the "thank you's" and "almost correct, but there is a tweak" and "at least I got it to work and will wait for release xxx to use the yyy" etc etc should be self-explanatory, and moderators / mentors can help there as well, more efficiently at the thread level.

Also just an idea to put on the ideas table.

Cheers,

Julius

Former Member
0 Kudos

@Stephen Johannes, Diego Lombardini

The problem is not only with ABAP and BI forums, but also in XI forum( and far greater)

Just compare the number of questions asked in XI forum in proportion to number implementations of XI you have seen around !

@Thomas Würcher

Certainly, the problem cannot be handled via moderation only

But restricting access to certain groups(partners, customers) will also not solve this issue, since most of the stupid questions and answers might be coming from ideal people at these places

If you keep fees, then surely no one will come( including the knowledged people)

@Craig Cmehil

Delighted at seeing your genuine concern to solve this issue!

My assessment is, people( generally residing at partner, customer places - hence restricting access to certain groups will not help) answer questions to garner more points so that they can show-off at next work-place and walk away with big increment

All this was fine, upto three years ago( when genuine people answered); but as the knowledge base in SDN built up, other fools starting using this base to earn points

My suggestion is do away with point system all togather( as we all know, other help forums at Google/Yahoo groups work without points)

Regarding stricter moderation, however hard you try, as base grows, moderators will tire out - so I really wish you and your brethen all the best!

stephenjohannes
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

@Gab, Craig

Sorry there was deep sarcasm in my post. I do remember a point at time where ABAP was a taboo subject for SDN. It did not go with the "marketing image" of SDN which was going to be more about Netweaver and less about ERP and ABAP. IMHO, SDN never really took off until they decided to allow ABAP and ERP related topics. The usage was more like SAP fans. Yes my current userid is only from March 2005, but I have visited/frequented SDN before when my current userid was setup. I changed companies and never combined accounts at that point.

@Craig

As nice as SDN is a "marketing" tool for SAP, there would be some benefit in turning into a more paid knowledge service or offer that area. SAP already somewhat does this with the SAP professional journal(articles written by SAP employees, published by third party but charge of 500+ USD per subscription). You can as you said wall off the entire site to only those who are paid members of the SAP ecosystem, but then would have possible eliminated peole who have become regular contributors to the community from ever joining. The site would slowly go the way of ASUG forums where there really is much of anything happening on their forums.

I once again feel there needs to be a "premium" forums section where in order to post you must meet some strict criteria, no point system and has strict moderation. To keep the concept of knowledge sharing, a regular SDN member can only view those areas, but not post. The forums would be separated into two areas - "solving problem", "approach discussions". The "approach discussions" would lean more towards theory, design and blueprinting type questions.

Wrapping up here: isn't great that there are so many people who care enough, and would like to see this place improved. The sure death of any online site is apathy. I think the question is can SDN reform before somebody else starts something else and people leave. It wouldn't be that hard for someone else in the SAP ecosystem to build a "better" version of SDN.

Take care,

Stephen

Former Member
0 Kudos

>

I think the question is can SDN reform before somebody else starts something else and people leave. It wouldn't be that hard for someone else in the SAP ecosystem to build a "better" version of SDN.

What, like "ZDN"?!

Former Member
0 Kudos

I've debated all night long whether to actually reply here or not and decided I will but not in depth.

We are listening, we hear and we see and we are working on solutions, growth has exceeded expectations especially in the areas of the forums. We are rolling out a new process with moderators (several hundred of them) and as they ramp up we expect to see change, change happens slowly though.

Now I know it's a frustrating situation for many and if you can keep the suggestions to a civil level I think that will help.

So far I've seen two "solid" suggestions that could be implemented:

1) Close access for posting to only customers, partners, employees

2) STRICT moderation

Are there more suggestions? We are seriously working on this and fighting to bring quality levels back up to what we saw before but again change is slow when you are moving against a flowing river.

Former Member
0 Kudos

What is the reason to keep the point system.

Former Member
0 Kudos

Hi Craig,

My opinion, for what it's worth, is that the big win solution is just more, stricter moderation. I perceive a lot of the other problems as symptoms of lack of moderation. People will basically do whatever they think they can get away with. If more moderators stopped the interview questions straight away, stopped cut and paste help.sap.com answers, etc... then I believe that sort of thing would fade away as the perpetrators realise they can't do it and it isn't an easy/quick way of gaining points. Moderation will stop a lot of our problems at the root cause - the knock on effect being to remove a lot of the other annoying symptoms.

I'm not sure resricting access to partners/customers/employees is a good thing - potentially the community could lose valuable content and at the same time, I as an SAP partner could lose a valuable marketing resource when trying to get SAP development solutions into customers. A community like this should in theory flourish whilst being completely open and free but as someone else has said, it needs to have clear and hard rules that are actually enforced to enable the freedom to work.

I appreciate your remark about keeping the whole thing civil but I'm sure you can understand our frustration at the current moderation approach - see my other thread "What the **** has happened to the ABAP forums?!" for a nice example of some strangely prioritised moderation just this week. I can't believe how bad things have got. I feel that I am in the wrong for losing my temper with a lot of the annoying posts whilst they are allowed to continue - can you understand how much that is turning away so many people from SDN?

Thanks,

Gareth.

former_member186746
Active Contributor
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I posted these suggestions in this thread

1. After creating a new account it will take 1 week for that account to be activated.

2. not conforming to forum rules will result in your account to be deleted

3. answering to posts which don't conform to forum rules will result in your account to be deleted.

This should be relatively easy to implement in this forum and you don't have to mess with ip bans.

Former Member
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Gaerth - believe me I understand your frustration but with it turning in an uncivil direction it starts to lose credibility and thus makes my job harder to get resources to help solve problems.

Everyone talks about moderation and moderators, and well what you perceive as a lack of moderator intervention. We have hundreds of moderators around the world and something like 6500+ daily messages, moderation in itself is very subjective so sometimes what one person preceives as "wrong doing" or "abuse" is not seen that way by others.

I just had to make a decision on 59 messages marked as abuse where either no reason was stated, or a simply reason of "topic" was stated. It took me awhile to realize that by "topic" they meant it was abuse because the user asking the question did not give a proper "topic" and thus should then be removed. In many cases the text of the message was well written and thorough and explained the problem they just did not put effort into the topic itself. So now the question is how hard does one have to be in an environment where English is not the native language of over 70% of the people. I would love to zap every message where the person writes

"plz help"

"u can"

and so on, is it so difficult to spell out the whole word? But that is not fair as we don't have a dead set rule that says you have to write "please" and not "plz" because that gets into nitpicking and takes away from the whole point of the forums and community to begin with.

So again keep the suggestions coming, create your updated "Rules of Engagement" or whatever but please understand we are working as hard as we can on this and do what we can to make things better but it takes time.

Former Member
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>

> ...

>but as someone else has said, it needs to have clear and hard rules that are actually enforced to enable the freedom to work.

>

that would have been me. i do stand in for that. and as i already stated in gareth's thread, i do think moderators who know 'how to draw a line' will clear this mess up and put it back to the state of 'expert forums'.

Former Member
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It's a metric and frankly after so many years it's part of our DNA, same as showing how many posts someone has made in the forums.

It's also giving us an easy way to do good things and there are no plans of removing it anytime in the future so no real need to continue to discuss it.If it comes under discussion again though you guys here in the community will be the first to know.

former_member186746
Active Contributor
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>

> I just had to make a decision on 59 messages marked as abuse where either no reason was stated, or a simply reason of "topic" was stated. It took me awhile to realize that by "topic" they meant it was abuse because the user asking the question did not give a proper "topic"

That would have been my doing the ones with the additional comment of topic (the reason was general abuse I think)

In the rules of engagement it clearly says to use a good subject line.

The last couple of days i've been clicking the report abuse if:

- the topic is nondescriptive

- people pasting their abap code and asking where to fix it basiclly being lazy

- people asking how to lie in their current job

- posting interview questions

In the latter two the additional comment consists solely of the line: please delete user)

You shouldn't make your job harder than it is Craig. If you set up a bunch of rules and if someone isn't conforming to it than it should have repercussions. Simple as that. You don't have time to go in depth to the original post. If the post consists of one word or term, lock/delete it.

And if you don't, then don't mention it in the rules of engagement.

By the bye I do appreciate your effort you have put and will put in this community which I am still proud to be a part of (although it is dwindling)

Kind, nay warm regards, Rob Dielemans

Former Member
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Can there be a button placed against each point which can be used to flag a 'pointless question'.

I have just seen a thread in the ABAP forum with the subject 'delete database table entries'. Link below.

[;

If a new 'pointless question' button was available and clicked on by say 10 users. Then the thread is locked and cannot be unlocked unless requested by the OP to one of the moderators.

You will also notice now that the thread above has been well and truly answered. Yet idiots are still responding to get the all valuable points that they require which must provde they are good at there job and will help them well in their next interview.

Edited by: Martin Shinks on Jun 5, 2008 12:07 PM

Former Member
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Gentlemen,

it' s not only the quality of questions/answers within the Forum, but the whole network itself. I' ve never come across such ridiculous blogs as at this website - Installation Guides for an AS Sneak Preview telling you to downlad the files and then double-click setup.exe a.s.o.

Maybe a split in beginner/intermediate/professional area in Forums as well as Blogs, Articles a.s.o. would get people into the place where they and their question belongs to with Pro-Area only available to Customers, Partners, Certified Consultants, probably SAP employees and SDN Mentors.

Regards,

TW

David
Advisor
Advisor
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What if we allow the present forums to stay, but have a separate area where only invited members could participate? Many of the topics might be identical, but only those who were granted permission could post. All others could only read.

No points would be involved. Moderation would be of the most extreme sort - bad topic, "BlackBerry" typing, etc. would be instantly deleted.

Thoughts?

Best Regards,

David

Former Member
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Why not create a Members Area to each forum, but let me ask you one thing: Who invites members according to which criteria?

Former Member
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that's classifying people, i don't like the thought of that. you have to have different kind of people in a community and you have to learn how to cope with the 'miscreants'.

but why not pick up a thought from Craig and open a new thread where we work out an improvement on the 'rules of engagement'. this could be constructive and i think we could all phrase our thoughts in a way that they may become applyable rules.

how about that?

Edited by: Mylene Euridice Dorias on Jun 5, 2008 12:53 PM

misspelled Craig, sorry.

Former Member
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Hello,

>Thoughts?

Seems a very good idea to me.! Let's try it !

Regards,

Olivier

former_member186746
Active Contributor
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>

> What if we allow the present forums to stay, but have a separate area where only invited members could participate? Many of the topics might be identical, but only those who were granted permission could post. All others could only read.

>

> No points would be involved. Moderation would be of the most extreme sort - bad topic, "BlackBerry" typing, etc. would be instantly deleted.

>

> Thoughts?

>

> Best Regards,

> David

I don't see why moderation of the "extreme" sort is such a bad thing. I mean someone once made the effort to create a list of rules of engagement. If you won't follow these rules then SDN isn't the place for you.

There's no need for a separate area where not conforming will result in immediate negative feedback, this should be standard in the existing forums.

Kind regards, Rob Dielemans

Former Member
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You have a point, at the moment those are presented as guidelines.

3) Rules of Engagement are strict rules

  • just indicating 3rd or additional option

Former Member
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If enough people I think only 5 mark a thread as a abuse there is an automatic process that takes effect.

Former Member
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We have the wiki, would be much easier I think than a forum thread. You can either add onto the existing - perhaps a section below, if we give say until July 1 for creation/update then perhaps we can look into a way of "making everyone accept" the new rules before allowing them to participate further?

We can do so much but the community really needs to speak up as yo are doing now.

ramki_maley
Active Contributor
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[SDN Trivia|http://sapfans.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=312840]

Former Member
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ok Craig, here goes:

i did search the wiki and spend the better part of half an hour trying to find out how to append another section. i failed miserably. i hope you don't mind my summarizing my suggestions here:

your rules have the appearence of guidelines. while this is very polite, it misses the point. i cross-checked at SAPFans: the rules there start with:

> User may be suspended for

while small, this makes a difference. It goes on with:

> 2) Topics that may be edited/locked/deleted without notice:

still small, still a difference.

- all your forums should show on the outside as well as inside who are the mods to that special area

- all your forums should have a 'sticky' thread pointing to the rules (i checked, there are several without!)

- all your mods should have a 'signature' containing (besides everything else) a link to the rules and another one to the 'search'-function.

and i suggest <whilst searching for the nearest exit-point> that you 'borrow' our (=SAPFans) moderators temporarily until you have your own troop going. i write this without having sought their consent, it's just my thinking that they might 'give you a hand up' - at least for the time being.

having said this .. exit

Edited by: Mylene Euridice Dorias on Jun 5, 2008 6:26 PM

blast: i forgot: i checked the content of your rules and cross-checked with other forums. on the whole there's nothing missing. the arms are there - use them.

Former Member
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>

>i write this without having sought their consent, it's just my thinking that they might 'give you a hand up' - at least for the time being.

update. i have the consent of one of them.

ramki_maley
Active Contributor
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it seems SDNs quality has decreased significantly over the last 18 - 24 months.

A lot of people said exactly the same 18 - 24 months ago. Look where we are now.........

The malady has now spread to the blogs.

Ramki Maley.

stephenjohannes
Active Contributor
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I was thinking over this and everything can be traced back to having ABAP forums and ABAP related topics on SDN. Until SDN made the fatal mistake of creating an ABAP forum and then allowing more ABAP related content, it was very dull netweaver related site. Perhaps if we remove ABAP from SDN, it would fix the issue. Then SDN could get back to focusing on the "cool" parts of Netweaver that it was designed for anyway.

I guess we could keep the points system and everything else and just remove the ABAP forums. That should solve the problem, and improve the quality. I honestly doubt anyone in the SAP management really expected SDN to really become so ERP/ABAP centric.

Take care,

Stephen

dielom
Active Contributor
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Hi,

The same thing happens with BI forums. Lots of basic questions that can be answered faster using google (not even necessary to use SDN to search), lots of answers with millions of links, most of them without any relevance to the question.

Some days ago I posted a question, and the only reply I got it was from another guy who had the same problem and no solution.

I think the main problems are two:

- Some people doesn't search and doesn't try anything in the system. They just ask, without even giving details about their "problem".

- Some other people answers to every single question, with millions of links, just to get some points...

This second problem is as bad (or even worse) as the first. Because if you post some stupid questions a couple of times, and nobody answers, you won't post anymore.

It's really hard to get answers to real problems. And it's hard to find questions that really need help.

Regards,

Diego

Former Member
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I don' t think it' s a simple topic - especially a hot one like AS ABAP - but the people working in its area. Too many ABAPers, so the networks infrastructure is probably about to collapse - not the technical one, but QAS.

But maybe you' re right and ERP-related topics should be shifted to BPX in order to keep SDN a technical place.

Former Member
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It' s the combination of free membership and lenience of members and moderators, which won' t find in any other IT-related forum. Ask "How to get a Linux Pro" in a Debian forum, "How to write Hello World with an EJB" in Suns SDN or publish the first of a 12 part series on "How to create a Stored Procedure" in ODN, and you get your ass kicked out.

If you insist on free entrance, you must yourself commit to mechanisms of self-purication in such an environment. I wonder how long it takes until the first **** elnlargement offerings are to be found as articles or you download a free trial version and the latest virus collection, too.

The worst thing is that the real experts, the ones asking smart questions, posting interesting blogs and giving right answers, seem to have lost the interest in this network or have at least better things to do by now.

Edited by: Thomas Würcher on Jun 5, 2008 8:03 AM

Former Member
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>>there' s a forum for nearly every little ****

lolz,that really made me spill my morning coffee.hillarious

>>The whole mess started with SAP being eager to draw everybody into its new community

100% true,until and unless SAP comes up with some alternate explanation as to why they are soo lenient.

I guess mods. know whats going on but they are just turning a Nelson's eye

Thanx

Aamir

Former Member
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I got no idea, just a guess: Marketing department says SDN needs more members as SDN, MSDN and ODN together!

former_member184119
Active Contributor
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Upto my concern like best answer best questionare should also been awarded points by the moderators!!

Regards

sas

Former Member
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Far from it! No points at all to get rid of the point hunters and show-offs!

Former Member
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>I feel like this network is dying off in the same extent as it is growing!

So true !

And the solution is so simple : STRICT moderation.

The only problem is the complete lack of will from the site owner to apply the solution.

It is very sad to let such a tool auto-destroy itself...

Former Member
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I don' t think that the problem can be handled via moderation, as the numbers - members, posts, questions, articles, topics a.s.o. - are exploding. Restrictive Rules are the key for such a business community - access only for partners, customers, SAP employees or with membership fee and all the problems are gone!