Wiki--A link farm

[anshu_lilhori]

Dear Team,

This has been in my mind since long and i have been mentioning about the same whenever there was a discussion related to easy points grabbing.

May it be in coffee corner or get points by just posting links in discussion but out of them one area which remained unattended is Wiki.

Can you imagine creating three wiki pages daily(Thank god we have a  limit) and editing it 5 times a day and doing the same activity for a whole week or a month.

Now the question is how can you get that much content to share.So lets check out the content that is being shared especially in Datawarehousing forum.

This is the actual link farm.

http://wiki.scn.sap.com/wiki/display/BI/BW-BEX-ET-BC-MAIL+-+Broadcasting+Mailing

http://wiki.scn.sap.com/wiki/display/BI/BW-BCT-PP-BW+-+PP+Content+in+the+BW+System

http://wiki.scn.sap.com/wiki/display/BI/BC-BW-DOC+-+BW+Service+API+Documentation

http://wiki.scn.sap.com/wiki/display/BI/BW-BCT-GRC+-+Governance+Risk+and+Compliance

We lately had discussion about posting only links or multiple links should not be entertained and report abuse('Notify moderators' or 'Alert moderators')

Then if i find a wiki page with only links redirecting to the link which does not exist how should i react to it.

I mean this is not done.I call it points gaming only.

Readers please suggest your views on it.

Regards,

AL

[moshenaveh · Accepted solution]

Hi,

Thanks a lot for sharing your concerns.

Sometimes we have wiki contributors that create pages that help others navigate the wiki and find what they are looking for quickly. You are right that these pages don't deserve the same amount of points as a full of content wiki does.

I will touch base with the author and remove unworthy points if needed. But let's wait before we make quick assumption regarding the intentions of the contributor.

The date for the change in wiki points was decided upon to give contributors enough time to adjust to the changes.

Thank you,

Moshe

[former_member208398 · Accepted solution]

Hello Moshe,

I would like to add another point related to the Wikis, few wikis do not even contain anything apart from the title. I think they should be deleted/ archived, otherwise they are appearing in the top few search results.

For instance I was searching for "partial confirmation logic sap" in Google, and the search returns a wiki page as top hit:

http://wiki.scn.sap.com/wiki/display/ERPMan/Partial+and+full+confirmation+logic+of+availability+chec...

This wiki page does not contain anything.

Best Regards,

Rajen

[anshu_lilhori · Accepted solution]

Hi Moshe,

Thanks for addressing my post.As Jürgen L mentioned in his post that you are the best person to evaluate the content created in Wiki.

So we trust you and have full faith that you do fair justice to the concerns i have raised.

PS:I do not have any personal issues with the author of those wikis.But for the sake of community and to maintain the quality of content and value of points i raised my voice.

I also want to thanks Jürgen L Suman Chakravarthy K Chandra Shekhar Agarwal Rajen Madan for participating in this discussion and giving their point of view.

Cheers!

AL

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Oh, Its Okay Anshu,Even I want to say thanks to you for pointing this and request to all for quality content over points. 

[MGrob · Accepted solution]

Hi Anshu

I’ve been debating a while now on engaging on this topic but since you list 4 pages I created I guess it’s somewhat also directed to me. I see you are complaining about the unbalanced wiki points system at every possible place even though it has been addressed already in April.

By the way there is no limitation on creating 3 pages a day you just only get credit for 3 a day and the same applies for editing. There are many days where I for sure created a lot more than just 3 pages to put structure in place and definitely edited more than 5 pages everyday to bring them into the standard wiki format. This was more a matter of do I have time for it rather then for the points sake.

Have you tried to find something in the data warehouse wiki before? For most parts aside from the OLAP section it was a gong show with pages all over the place. I have been in contact with for a while now and I had him delete a bunch of pages that did not contain any content or had no structural purpose. Even whole wiki pages got copy/pasted. No one cared that people created a bunch of empty pages in the past nor did I care if points get deducted when they got deleted all I cared for was to put the structure in place and cleanup the whole data warehouse wiki.

Now, if you ever have created a SAP note for BW, you would know in what area to look for in the wiki to find the relevant pages.Thats exactly how it’s structured now. In the end I probably have touched more than 70% of all the data warehouse wiki pages by going through them and put labels on them so that the macros in „related content“, your so called link farms work. That effort wasn't insignificant as I had to look up a lot on oss on where it belongs and what the relevant heavy weight of the content was and also structure them hierarchically..not that it matters but thats all for no points.

The "related content“ sections are structured with labels and therefor those elements update dynamically and the beauty of it is the same page can automatically appear in different sections if its for example related to business content but also to data staging or even within a different space of wiki.

Now it more looks like I better leave the rest a chaos before I create another page..FYI last years top contributor in the DW space where all wiki editors..

btw If this is not personal how come you deleted all your comments and likes/ratings of my content?

thanks

Martin

[moshenaveh · Accepted solution]

Hi,

@Anshu- Thanks again for raising this topic for discussion as we are also always concerned about having quality content in the wiki and avoid point gaming. But on the other I must say that Martin invested a lot of time in cleaning up and cleared a lot of content that shouldn't have been there. But, with saying that, SCN points are mainly given for good content and not for reconstruction of wiki pages. However, I'm sure that Martin's aim wasn't to do point gaming but to organize the wiki space to provide better service to the SCN community members. I will discuss this with as she is in charge of the reputation system on SCN.

@Martin- Thanks a lot for the hard work you've invested and please don't get discouraged. I'm sure we will come up with a resolution that will allow you to continue helping SCN community members and also align with the reputation system goals.

Thank you,

Moshe

[anshu_lilhori · Accepted solution]

Hi Martin,

For me Wiki is something which has more detailed document covering technical side of issue and not about the links to other links or help.sap links.

I do not want to make it a muddy war by pointing finger to you and then you backfiring me.

One fine day i saw your profile and you were following some more than 800 people and now you stopped following them (i was one out of them).

And still if you say it was not part of gamification so please i don't buy it.No matter whatever justification you give on that part i believe you have been given dose of your own medicine.

Be happy with all your fancy badges and you might get a new badge soon for grabbing emerald level in no time (Fastest ever).Huge round of applause for you.

Regards,

AL

[moshenaveh · Accepted solution]

Hi,

I understand the tension, but let's keep this discussion productive. Let the SCN team do their work and on the way prevent this discussion from becoming uglier.

Thank you,

Moshe

[anshu_lilhori · Accepted solution]

I understand Moshe and even i do not want to do that in fact my last to last reply was a closure call but again if someone start discussing it all again then i need to respond back.

These things can be discussed through a direct message and via email as well but if someone wants to make it public then i have no issues.

I request you to lock the thread for further discussion because the concern has already been discussed in depth.

.

Regards,

AL

[former_member182470 · Accepted solution]

Hi Moshe,

I really appreciate Anshu Lilhori 's initiative to take this forward to Moderator's notice. I have one doubt to get clarified on this front. I have observed in all sorts of recent discussions with other Moderators about Plagiarism. I understood that we should not copy any existing links or texts from SAP F1 Help or posting other's blogs/Docs in our replies.These will be rejected by Moderators asap.We should post them unless they are really required and they should not be the only answers.

When somebody creates or edits a Wiki with just some help.sap link inside, Why can't it be called as Plagiarism ?? How come it is accepted ??

Please consider all concerns raised by Anshu as mine also.

Regards,

Suman

[moshenaveh · Accepted solution]

Thank you for sharing your concerns and be sure that everything will be answered. As this discussion reached his goal, I will be locking it. If you have any further concerns, please reach out to me.

and BTW, the discussed wiki pages, are not only linking to  SAP help but to other wiki pages, which is kind of a navigation page.

But as I said, the SCN team will discuss how it is best to overcome this issue.

[JL23]

I have to admit that I am not really used to wikis, our wikis in my company look more like documents here in SCN and I never created a wiki in SCN either.

However I don't see really something fundamentally wrong behind the given examples.

This is just how the wiki structure is and like I have seen it from SAP employees too:

ERP Supply Chain Management - ERP SCM - SCN Wiki

It has more a structure of a book, with chapters at the beginning, foot notes (links) etc.

This blog explains more:

Ludek Uher and can certainly better evaluate

[anshu_lilhori]

Hi Jurgen,

At one side we are trying to curb the posting of links and on the other side we are ignoring links being shared in Wiki which had link to other link which indeed contains the help.sap link or link which has been created by someone else.So its all about link farming.

Once in a blue moon if you create a wiki page  that is acceptable but if you make it a habit and do it on regular basis then this needs to be scrutinized. Check out the content and how valuable it is for the community.

I bet the content being shared in wiki will not come handy as it mostly contains help.sap links which one can find easily when he/she Google.

Another aspect just by creating wiki pages you can hit the leaderbaord and you can become a topic leader next year.No one can surpass you in that particular space because the points you gather through wiki will always be more than the points you earn in discussions.I must say by this way we are defaming the title of Topic Leader.

Lot of active contributors in forum like Suman Chakravarthy K   Raman K Chowthary will have same concerns as i have and this should be taken up seriously.

I must say this is more serious than .Its just being off the radar and no one noticing it.Even i was not aware of it until i realized that one person surged up in forum with minimal contribution.As soon as i hit the reputation tab of that person's profile then came to know about the source of points.Believe me guys within no time that person gained more than 6k points in forum.Half of the lifetime points has come from Wiki.

Contribute to the forum in a dignified way,earn respect and play a fair game.At the end you will have lot of points but you will loose the respect.

Regards,

AL

[JL23]

I can certainly understand the concerns about the 40 points per wiki and the 2 points per edit.

But this is actually addressed and will change from January 1st to 10 points, just 50 days ahead.

I have no clue why this change has to be January 1st and not just 2 weeks after announcing the change, maybe some technically thing, maybe for the sake of KPIs.

As a main point of a Wiki is the collaboration I can understand the 2 points for editing, because they are meant for the helpers to make this wiki good. Unfortunately the wiki creator can get those points too if he posts initially careless and then corrects his errors.Maybe something that can improved in future.

I followed the given examples again, and it is just the initial page, the overview page, which has links to its child pages. I do not see many more links except at the bottom of the page a hint

see also the Online Documentation:

Broadcasting BEx Objects by E-Mail Based on Master Data (Bursting)

Link to this page: http://wiki.scn.sap.com/wiki/x/2g06FQ

But such links are typically added to documents and blogs too.

As I wrote yesterday, many such links are just used to reference to another page of this wiki-book, or even just tags to position within the same page, this is the same as in wikipedia.

Sorry, but I see the links in the examples much different from links added in forum discussions.

[former_member182470]

I strongly feel WIKIs(40 Points per each) has to be really moderated.

What kind of stuff, people are posting just to gauge the points?

How can a person reach top in Points table in very short time with just some silly Wikis, Blogs etc..?

This really demotivates other members who are really slogging day and nights to answer technical questions and are at top positions. This makes absolutely no sense.

I really hate easy points. It's really high time to review all Wikis.

I have even observed one guy who stops following others after achieving badge. One thing is clear. Gamification has been misusing by some members, which is spoiling the whole environment.

Final Verdict : Participating in technical discussions gives immense satisfaction as well as Knowledge. Blogs, Wikis and Docs have to be posted once in a while whenever we feel to make a comprehensive presentation about any real time cases, but not about basic stuff. Because basic stuff is always available in help.sap. There is no point in making a Blog about definitions.

[anshu_lilhori]

Yes Wiki point system is going to change from Jan-2014 but by that time it will be too late i believe.

I have even observed one guy who stops following others after achieving badge. One thing is clear. Gamification has been misusing by some members, which is spoiling the whole environment.

Even i noticed the same it was shock through the spine.How can a person stoop so low ?

Do we don't have any morals or principles in life.Just for the sake of points and to grab badges that person can do everything possible.

Moderators--Request you to look into this matter and get things in place.

Regards,

AL

[Former Member]

yes i checked some links. They are looks like link inside link.. Why don't we put report abuse on wiki or remove the points from Wiki .. Or i don't know that do we have any moderation over wiki pages.?

[anshu_lilhori]

We cannot report abuse on them that's the worst part.Either we have to reach out the moderators by email or the way i am doing it currently.Lets wait for more comments and then we can conclude something.

Regards,

AL