Upvote/downvote is not used in most of discussions

[former_member186338]

After some analysis of my answers for standard questions in SAP BusinessObjects Planning and Consolidation, version for SAP NetWeaver (about 320 answers) I can see that the idea of upvote/downvote is not working. In some very rare cases the topic author can upvote the answer (like useful) but I can see "Likes" on comments more often. And for sure this idea is useless to select "better answer"...

My proposal is to remove upvote/downvote answer and to use "Like" instead!

[oliver]

Vadim, can you please elaborate on what you mean with "I can see that the idea of upvote/downvote is not working"? To use this platform properly, please edit your original question. I don't understand what you mean by "In some very rare cases the topic author can upvote the answer (like useful)".

Thanks!

[former_member186338]

I have checked significant number of questions where I posted answer/comment for 2 months. I am talking about traditional questions about BPC functions/issues.

And I can see that in the absolute majority of the cases nobody use upvote/downvote instrument. I can see reasonable number of "Likes" for comments, but close to nothing for upvote/downvote.

If nobody use it - then may be we don't need it?

May be for other tags the picture is different? Not for "Using Sap.com" 🙂

[waldo]

My proposal is to remove upvote/downvote answer and to use "Like" instead!

Maybe you should write an IDEA for this.

I agree with you. This feature does not work here in this "kind" of community or tag thing.

[former_member186338]

To my mind the "idea" was to introduce upvote/downvote 🙂

My proposal is to remove this idea!

[waldo]

I dislike your comment 🙂

You can post an IDEA to "remove this feature" from Q&A site. 😛

[Jelena · Accepted solution]

Just upvoted Juergen's answer. It works! 🙂

Even though I understand where this is coming from, I would not say that voting does not work and therefore should be dismantled immediately. In ABAP forum, which is relatively active, I've already seen some positive results when good advice is upvoted and bad - downvoted (exhibit A just from the top of the list). And downvoting is something we never had on SCN. It was always "like or shut up". So with that I'm very pleased. 🙂

Of course, since this system relies on the subjective human beings it'll never be perfect. Does not mean it should be scratched IMHO. Just like all other active members I wish people would follow up on their questions, close them and vote/like more. But, as Juergen pointed out, SCN is still a mess (I had to save a copy of this reply because Submit button may or may not work) and it is not clear what's the incentive to do any of those additional actions. Let's give it some time.

[JL23]

Your experience is certainly different than mine, Vadim.

I can see that you got far more likes than upvotes, for me it is almost reverse, just measuring the last few days.

It might have to do where you are active, in the Coffee Corner you can only get likes, I am less active there.

I wouldn't want to say that it does not work in general, but my expectations, especially about down-voting have never been very high. While others probably hoped it will work like in Stackoverflow I was rather pessimistic on that. I personally would alert moderator instead of downvoting poor questions.

It needs more time that people get used to the new Community and its features. The visitors still have a blood pressure above 200 when they are here. They seek for help on a problem and run right into the next problem with posting here as they don't understand the tag concept and can't find anything appropriate in a reasonable time. They are just glad to leave when they have an answer and don't even want to spend more time with the different ways (and places) to show appreciation.

And there is not even an option to distinguish open from solved questions in the user profile. So telling them to accept answers and upvote good answers just pushes them into the next trouble.

And since the search in SCN is not really efficient in its current shape the users will not even understand that upvoting will influence search experience (in future)

So we should not immediately burn everything what is new, give it a chance, in the last SCN the gamification was revised after a year. And currently it gamification is not even active. Once this is launched it might also make people aware of those features.

[former_member186338]

OK, I am talking about my personal experience (and not in Coffee Corner and Using SAP.com). By the way, just manually checked your last 40 answers 15.12.2016-11.12.2016 (not in Using SAP.com) - only single answer was upvoted!

[JL23]

Upvoting is and can be done even days after a question was posted, so it is not accurate to look only at the posting date of an answer. You might be right that only a single answer given in that period has been upvoted, but I know that I got a multiple upvotes in this period

[former_member186338]

Ok, I will try to calculate number of upvoted questions excluding Using SAP.com from the very beginning using simple script...

Your approximate result: 30 upvoted answers - 13%

My approximate result: 25 upvoted answers - 8%

Still not sure that this instrument is working better then simple "Like". Downvoting is absolutely rare...

[former_member186338]

In general I am talking about simplicity of the instruments. Today we have:

Upvote button for answers (for all)
Downvote button for answers - practically not used (for all)
Accept button for answer (for question author)
Like button for comments (for all)

Due to the fact that Downvote is practically not used upvote can be replaced with common "Like"

In the old SCN the instruments were more logical to my mind:

Useful button for replies (for question author)
Correct button for replies (for question author)
Like button for replies (for all) - no points, just the ability to agree with a good reply.

The question author played a central role for reply rating in the old SCN.

In the new system looks like the idea was to increase the community effect on rating. But it can result in the point cheating - in the old SCN "Likes" originally generated points but it was stopped due to cheating.

P.S. Ctrl A/CtrlC/not saved/CtrlV/saved with duplicated text/Edit/Saved

[former_member186338]

After some period I can agree that downvoting is useful in some cases.