What is SDN for?

[Former Member]

What is the purpose of SDN? A developer community, a dumping ground for third parties to promote their organisations/products, somewhere for individuals to raise their profiles? In my humble opinion. I see SDN as a developer community. Community being the operative word here. I believe it should be a place where people actively using SAP products can collobrate and help each other.

• To provide support for each other (FORUMS)

• Document problems/solutions we've experienced (BLOGS)

• Develop a repository of useful information (WIKI).

In addition to this I would have also thought SAP might like to use this as a place to provide useful and informative documentation for developers. Lets take marketing, sales and consultants out of the equation and concentrate on the products that are being used. When I come to SDN I'm not looking for someone's thoughts on the future of e-commerce in distribution or how fantastic SAP products are. I'm coming to SDN to resolve a particular problem or investigate a solution in more depth. That's not to say that these sorts of documents aren't useful, when I have time I like to keep myself updated with new developments & thoughts, but not when I have a problem with a productive system and I'm trying to find a solution.

Too many small changes have been made to SDN over the past couple of years when what we should be doing is reviewing it from top to bottom. Lets make it easy to use, make it easy to find relevant content and build upon the community. Take a look at MSDN. I mentioned this before in a number of postings but MSDN is a joy to use.

This is just my opinion but I have the feeling that a lot of developers feel the same way. If you are reading this posting I'd like to hear what you think.

Thanks for reading

Rob

[Former Member]

Hi,

I am only partially agree to this, I am visiting SDN now known as SCN( This is also part of improvement) for the last couple of years and I have seen lots of good changes happened to this community network. The information repository in SCN is excellent, The Developers, consultants, Process owners can interact with each other, they can share their experiences in Forum, Blogs and Articles. Can make yourself up to date with the dynamic changes in the Technology.

>

 In my humble opinion. I see SDN as a developer community. Community being the operative word here. I believe it should be a place where people actively using SAP products can collobrate and help each other. 

I believe it is the place where the people participating and discussing about the SAP products.

> * To provide support for each other (FORUMS)

> * Document problems/solutions we've experienced (BLOGS)

> * Develop a repository of useful information (WIKI).

Again we have Very Experienced and /best consultants are helping and sharing there ideas in Forums , Blogs and Wikis, From my Experience i can say , I learnt 60% of My SAP from SCN, and i am proud to be part of it.

>

> In addition to this I would have also thought SAP might like to use this as a place to provide useful and informative documentation for developers. 

SAP is providing the platform for sharing the ideas, I have seen many of the SAP employees are helpping and providing the links of the documents as and when requested by the User.

>

When I come to SDN I'm not looking for someone's thoughts on the future of e-commerce in distribution or how fantastic SAP products are. I'm coming to SDN to resolve a particular problem or investigate a solution in more depth. That's not to say that these sorts of documents aren't useful, when I have time I like to keep myself updated with new developments & thoughts, but not when I have a problem with a productive system and I'm trying to find a solution. 

You can get the up to date technological updates in SCN home page itself, Did you try reading the Articles which are updated Regularly or blogs or different posts?

>

Too many small changes have been made to SDN over the past couple of years when what we should be doing is reviewing it from top to bottom. Lets make it easy to use, make it easy to find relevant content and build upon the community. Take a look at MSDN. I mentioned this before in a number of postings but MSDN is a joy to use. 
> This is just my opinion but I have the feeling that a lot of developers feel the same way. If you are reading this posting I'd like to hear what you think.

I appreciate Your observations, but this is my opinion that for SAP World SCN is like BACKBONE.

Thanks,

Raja

PS: Formating is not working, Apologies for that...... @ moderator please format this thread as i tried formating it but was unsuccessful.

Edited by: Raja Singh Chhabeda on Jul 15, 2009 8:33 PM

[Former Member]

Raja -

Thanks for taking the time to read my posting and respond. I appreciate your comments.

I agree that SDN has changed dramatically over the past few years. Some changes have been good and others not so good. Someone once said you can 'Yplease some of the people some of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time.'.

SDN is a lifeline for most developers. While there are many third part sites that provide similar content nothing compares to the information available on SAP's sites. My points are I want to get to the information I need quickly, filtering search results is clunky to say the least. I need to be confident that I am looking in the right place and that the information I find is relevant and up to date. Over the past week several blogs have been posted that although somewhat interesting aren't relevant to the areas they are posted to. Should blog entries be seperated indicating if the content is technical or industry specific? Sometimes it's like looking for a needle in a haystack and it doesn't have to be that hard. Perhaps the Wiki is an idea that can be taken one step further. Any blogs/postings that have very useful information in them could be transfered to the Wiki.

I also want to say that I'm not here just to point out the failings and sit back. I'm more than happy to get involved in any discussions/focus groups that would be required.

[Former Member]

>

> Raja - 
> 
> Thanks for taking the time to read my posting and respond. I appreciate your comments. 
> 
> I agree that SDN has changed dramatically over the past few years. Some changes have been good and others not so good. Someone once said you can 'Yplease some of the people some of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time.'.
100% right thing, Trying to please everyone will make you fail even pleasing someone.
> 
> SDN is a lifeline for most developers. While there are many third part sites that provide similar content nothing compares to the information available on SAP's sites. My points are I want to get to the information I need quickly, filtering search results is clunky to say the least. I need to be confident that I am looking in the right place and that the information I find is relevant and up to date. Over the past week several blogs have been posted that although somewhat interesting aren't relevant to the areas they are posted to. Should blog entries be seperated indicating if the content is technical or industry specific? Sometimes it's like looking for a needle in a haystack and it doesn't have to be that hard. Perhaps the Wiki is an idea that can be taken one step further. Any blogs/postings that have very useful information in them could be transfered to the Wiki.
> 
I am very much agree on this, But we just have to understand about the fact that there are lots and lots of articles, Blogs and Forum threads are posted in the community and Moderators worked really hard to do the best which they can, For example, Its not possible to read all blogs , threads and Articles, So its true that some irrelevant contents are there in some other areas. 
For this i would also like to suggest, That lets ask the Moderators to come with the idea that how to put the relevant content in the relevant area.
And about the Wiki, i guess i have seen some of the blogs have been converted to Wiki.....
Moreover the Poster has also take some caution while posting into some section.....
> I also want to say that I'm not here just to point out the failings and sit back. I'm more than happy to get involved in any discussions/focus groups that would be required.

Nice to hear your Thoughts, infact we all love to have a good and fruitfull discussions....

Really appreciate your observation....

Thanks,

Raja

[stephenjohannes]

I will chime in as a blog moderator and let eveyrone know that this topic has been discussed and is currently being discussed by the blog moderators about improving our moderation methods and practices. However this will take some type before there is a clear consensus on what to do in order to improve this process among the moderators.

I don't have an answer for you except that I personally definitely understand/feel your pain on the blog issue. Please keep in mind that these comments represent my personal viewpoints and should not be construed as an official position by anyone.

Take care,

Stephen

[former_member184657]

Someone once said you can 'please some of the people some of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time.'

Sounds like a line out of a Bob Marley single

I do understand what you are trying to get at. And IMO I think its the vast amount of material that is being dumped in the SCN thats making things worse for the administrators. I guess its a becoming way too difficult to handle such a huge repository of information/spam. Add to that way few administrators/moderators to keep the forums in good shape.

Another guess says that SAP doesnot take SCN all that seriously (I may be wrong but its just a thought). Probably if SAP devotes a little more time and resource to SCN then may be we move towards Utopia. Putting more focus on SCN can directly or indirectly help SAP on the OSS side. It might even lead to certain Product Development too. Who knows??? Hope I dint open a can of worms here

pk

[Former Member]

Stephen,

Thanks for you comments. I'd be interested to hear what the moderators have discussed and if any plans will be made to 'tidy' up the system.

My frustrations with SDN blogs are around the relevance of the content, quality of the writing and completeness. There are some great bloggers out there and they should be given encouragement to continue.

I'd like to see some of the blogs archived to the Wiki, especially those that cover technical solutions. If the blog is judged to be accurate, best practice and or innovative then doesn't it deserve a permanent home?

Regards

Rob

[Former Member]

PK

Thanks. I would have thought having relevant, accurate technical content would take the pressure off OSS as well as reducing the number of forum posts. I would have thought that in these hard economic times keeping costs down be a priority.

Rob..

p.s. I think it was the Rolling Stones who said...You can't always get what you want, But if you try sometimes you might find, You get what you need

[former_member184657]

Apparently its an Abe Lincoln quote.

The Bob Marley quote is a little different :

 You can fool some people sometimes, but you can't fool all the people all the time.

pk

[stephenjohannes]

Rob and Kishan,

You have brought up some great points and I'll try to give you my perspective on this, but keep in mind the following is just my point of view:

1. Blog moderation by a larger group is a relatively new activity. The whole blog moderation system by a larger group of moderators is still a work in progress. It is going to take some time before the moderators figure out what works and doesn't work and how to balance encouraging contributions while re-directing content to the wiki. My only comment is please be patient, and continue to provide constructive feedback. I don't see us getting to a blog utopia overnight, but the conversation and the desire to improve is there.

2. IMHO SAP really does value SCN. In fact I think in some areas the participation from the community side is not as much as what SAP is contributing. Case in point a lot of members who are not SAP employees participate in the forums, but never contribute blogs, wiki entries, or articles. In the CRM area there is right now more content in the blog space by SAP, than the general community. You will also see a lot times in the CRM area, product management posting answers in the forums and new content, so I believe there is a genuine desire by SAP to engage with the community.

The problem is that there are too many people who expect the information handed on a silver platter to them and won't search/research their issue first. Good real world example is this question:

This question could have been solved just by reading the CRM wiki/blogs on Z-field enhancement or searching the forums. We as community members need to hold up our end of the bargain and not expect everything to be done for us. This blog that I wrote is my response to threads like these:

/people/stephen.johannes/blog/2009/05/12/how-to-answer-what-is-a-bdoc

As one of my favorite songs by New Radicals is titled "You get what you give". In communities like SCN you will only get full benefits when you give you back. I apologize if I'm preaching to the choir here, but I find this so true.

Once I again I will try to make sure the moderator/mentor community is aware of this discussion.

Take care,

Stephen

[suresh_datti]

>

Putting more focus on SCN can directly or indirectly help SAP on the OSS side. > pk

There is a link to the SCN forums on the [service market place|http://service.sap.com/~form/sapnet?_SHORTKEY=01100035870000690101&_SCENARIO=01100035870000000202&]

I have had SAP occasionally respond back with "Have you tried SCN?" against my OSS messages too.

~Suresh

[Former Member]

Once again I come in and review the blogs in my area of interest. Surprise, surprise I find yet more irrelevant blogs to the specific technology.

Some people appear to be using this to promote their organisations/themselves without a thought to where these documents should be posted. The haphazard way they are posted in multiple categories is unbelievable. This should be addressed before they are released to the general community. My own blogs (all two of them!!!) have been moderated successfully; one was even rejected for what I felt were well thought out reasons. Itu2019s a shame these same standards canu2019t be applied to all. Not only do I now receive spam from SAP suppliers but Iu2019m also seeing them in SDN.

Moan over, Iu2019d just like to see these issues addressed rather than hearing that the u2018moderators are discussing themu2019

[Former Member]

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Edited by: Pascal on Sep 29, 2009 1:25 PM