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The degradation of SDN

Former Member
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Is it just me or has SDN migrated over the last 3 years from being a helpful resource for skilled consultants to a means for inexperienced consultants to fake their experience by asking basic questions that any person with initial training should understand. I understand that some companies opt to try resource internally, but most of the people I see there are not working for customers and do have have any module specific experience.

Questions are repeated on a daily if not hourly basis by people who couldn't be bother to try click on the seach key, people asking the question clearly have no basic experience in their module areas.

It just be me, but I don't think the purpose of SDN was to provide a means for inexperienced consultants to provide second rate service for customers.

Accepted Solutions (0)

Answers (8)

Answers (8)

Former Member
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following this interesting thread I really wish to be enabled to jump to the last(latest) post in a thread when I am, say, at page 1 or 2 and the thread is 8 pages long..

anton

ChrisPaine
Active Contributor
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Can you not click the "Last Post" link at the top of the current page? I think this takes you to the last page immediately from any page in the thread?

Former Member
0 Kudos

>

> Can you not click the "Last Post" link at the top of the current page? I think this takes you to the last page immediately from any page in the thread?

lol. thx. yes I can but unfortunately the string "Last Post" isn't visualized as a hyperlink (at least in my browser). never thought of klicking an arbitrary string )

learnt something new. Thank you!

anton

Edited by: Anton Wenzelhuemer on Jun 22, 2010 10:36 AM - typo

marilyn_pratt
Active Contributor
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Hi Anton,

It's not surprising that you weren't aware of this capability. It also took me time to realize that it was available a while back and of course makes jumping to the end of a very long thread much simpler.

This highlights a request which has been raised here and in the suggestions forum.

We will create an "update" corner in our wiki, where enhancements to the platform can be documented as they become available to us and especially those that reflect requests made by our community. In thinking about some other questions raised this week (by Chris I believe) as to how some of the markup language works, we can also encourage the community to share forum tips.

I know that you had mentioned that you prefer to keep conversations in the forums themselves but by using the wiki we can add pointers to a space that will enable better communication of these enhancements.

A wiki is a space where we (our team and extended team) can more easily update contents and you foks might be able to search or find them more easily.

Another tip to accessing the Last Post is even faster (less clicks) than Chris' suggestion (if you are looking at the main page of the forum itself)

For example: go to Suggestions Forum and notice the names of the posters of the last post to the right of the thread ID- In this example

To the right of that it says: Last Post by and a name (presently Otto Gold) - when you click on this it takes you directly to the last post- At the time of this, my answer:

If we communicate the addition of these kinds of enhancements I am sure it will improve the communications that we all agree are important here.

Former Member
0 Kudos

Thanks Marilyn,

I am now navigating the forums like a champ.

Funnily, from a usability point of view, I did never click those names because I would have been expecting to get to the user's business card. Burnt into my brain: Klick a person's name -> get the details of that person. Probably I am badly conditioned lab rat for usability issues

kind regards, anton

ThomasZloch
Active Contributor
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See, I'm always clicking on anything that can be clicked and "see what happens"...I wonder what this red button here is f

Former Member
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ouch

don't klick that button again. that hurts!

OttoGold
Active Contributor
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Tagging in the sense of an ontology. When users start tagging SAP, you get tags like R/3, R3/ SAP, BS, B1, ... Than the tag is useless. Use tagging to link the content to an ontology.

Ok, in this case I agree, please outline an ontology and a usable (I mean not in the sense of the pieces of information, but more like screen mock ups, prototype, anything like that) face for this.

Versions: yes, must have. When I search for an information, like: a Business Package or a limitation, being able to slice the delivered information by version will help a lot. Ex: I need to know how to activate a functionality in EHP3. When the top 20 search results are about EHP4, I'm getting junk. I need the search results for EHP3.

I think I am no total lame, but I have no or little basis experience and don´t care about the versions. Then my replies (or questions) will not contain the proper information about the version. The same can be applied to the rest 90% of the users. Most of them will not know, some will fill in the first option from the list (obviously useless or worse).

The interaction should be around the content and not with the tools. Applied to this thread, the software should create a content: "SDN quality" and artefacts are the Idea Place, this thread, semantic links to W3C, Wikipedia, some blogs. Instead of searching for the blog with the announcement for the Idea Place and after my post with the semantic part there should have been a link to Wikipedia.

Ok, agreed, provide the mock-ups, provide anything more than just the talking. You will not push the talking anywhere, but you could possibly push the mock ups to the right people. Show us, not-that-scientific-oriented (I still think these are buzzwords, but looks like I am considered a lame in these "trends":)))))) how to make this come true.

Athol, I have asked the same thing in 'Suggestions' forum (I think) about 2 years ago and it was supported by many others. However, it still has not been done. How difficult it is to change the friggin' drop-down? Seriously, SAP. It took like the UN binding resolution to change the font size in forums. So much for the "dialogue"...

Works perfect with my last post: How can we believe anybody cares, anything changes when such simple thinkg (customizing table, insert row, ready) takes years to have it here?

OttoGold
Active Contributor
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Our collaboration team meets weekly and discusses these elements, which we prioritize and promote to IT. I can promise to put this in the agenda on Monday.

@Marilyn: in my opinion, you should write down the result of every meeting and publish it. That is the only way you can prove you´re doing something. I am sorry for the words, but understand the readers. If a change of a drop down ("did not search/ basic question" abuse category) takes years, how can we believe anything will change?

To e specific: I would like to have (at least!) a monthly bulletin (a single page would suffice!!) about the background of SDN background. Why? Because when I report an error, I get a polite message "please be patient". I am patient and try to behave and help here. But I would like to know the reason. For the bad replies counting, root problem when answering etc. Please make somebody to TELL US WHY this happen or don´t happen, why think DON´T WORK and all the other important things. Ok, things cannot be changed in our favor, but please tell us what the problem is. That is not politically incorrect, you will not make any promises, you will only tell people WHY and WHAT. If I were running a site like this one, I would tell the people why sometimes they need to be patient and tolerant to help them overcome the feelings... BTW... It is about SAP here, right? Then if I shut down my SAP system or there is a problem, I tell people why it is happening and when it is going to be fixed, who will do what and when it will be clear to proceed.

To be continued... (sorry for spam, but I would like to add the two cents to some of the ides mentioned here...)

hofmann
Active Contributor
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Otto,

SAP has created the Idea Place to collect ideas. What I don't understand is that the SCN part started almost empty. Nobody cared to create some ideas based on the forum feedback. So, when the Ideas Place is the pushed way to go ... will the existing ideas posted on the forum fall under the table? Like: there are no Ideas for SCN? Everybody is happy!

About the lack of feedback and improvements:

SAP isn't using a ticket system. You send, they receive, what's happening is a black box. And some day, the publish this:

/people/adi.kleiman/blog/2010/05/03/sharing-and-updating-your-business-card-has-never-been-easier

Serious: Business Card? Can someone show me the forum thread were this was a big issue?

br,

Tobias

BTW: is the Ideas Place really used? Did it met the expectations?

OttoGold
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

What I don't understand is that the SCN part started almost empty. Nobody cared to create some ideas based on the forum feedback.

Of course, I fully agree. Would be nice if they would care to create the "ideas" for us, if they do not let us do that through our SDN accounts (no SSO). Especially when you read that (K.M.:) "The only challenge to posting ideas in the wiki is that they would need to be resubmitted into Idea Place by the original idea submitters".

You can find the comment in this thread:

In fact I hope the Idea place will work as a ticket system. Or something like a ticket system...

By the way: check the blog: /people/chris.paine2/blog/2010/06/16/marketing-vs-functionality-10idea-place

And concentrate on the comment by Mr. Yolton, also note my comment below, because that is what I really don´t understand.

And some day, the publish this: /people/adi.kleiman/blog/2010/05/03/sharing-and-updating-your-business-card-has-never-been-easier Serious: Business Card? Can someone show me the forum thread were this was a big issue?

And about the business card... If a newbie comes to your company, you give him/ her some easy task to teach him on the job. And sometimes the result is even usable in real life, then you publish the result for everybody not to waste all the time invested in the learning process. Well, that is my feeling about the Business card.

BTW, maybe you could understand that too, the business card is not that "usable" again, because there are still few "different profiles" on this site which are not integrated. At least they were not when I last took time to check. Example: why is not my blogger profile a part of the business card? And you could probably come up with some more....

regards Otto

Jelena
Active Contributor
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Oh boy, the SD General forum is overrun by the fresh batch of "consultants". A random sample:

>

We customised report for theat we have not given any T-CODE For that, if want execute the transaction directly, how i will do it

checked in SE11 WHERE I HAVE NOT FOUND THE PROGRAMME KINDLY HELP ME

Sigh...

Jelena
Active Contributor
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Athol, what an excellent thread! There are many dimensions here and I'd like to comment on some of them.

1) Perhaps a simple solution would be to have everyone use their real name and also disclose where they work? As an SAP customer, I would want to know if the associates of certain consulting company are posting mostly the "noise" questions. "Know thy heroes", so to say. This could end up with many employers restricting the SDN access, but it could actually be to the best.

2) As one comedian said: "You can't fix stupid". There is nothing wrong with being a newbie and not knowing something. But it is wrong not willing to know and learn. I will gladly answer (and do so already) to a relatively simple question if I see that person has already done some basic research and/or needs just a clarification of some specific aspect. Even the notorious interview questions might start an interesting thread. However, many of the "noise" questions are "do my job" style asking for "steps" and are showing complete lack of interest in learning what is behind the steps. Many times the questions are actually about custom development - does it really take an SAP training to learn about Y/Z thing?

3) There is a place for newbies - it's called Google. In fact, I practically stopped using SDN search and use Google with site:sap.com addition instead. In 95% cases it finds what I'm looking for, including the SDN posts. Maybe SDN should just get the search powered by Google and be done with it.

4) I would like to take it easy, as Arakish suggests, but SAP world is small and sometime I might have to work on a project where the "noise" question posters worked before. And I don't want to deal with consequences of their stupidity. Although (I think this has been mentioned somewhere else briefly) this might also mean more work for knowledgeable consultants in the future. Something like "we fix what your husband fixed" for plumbers. But I would rather every SAP customer have the best product they deserve.

Lakshmipathi
Active Contributor
0 Kudos
by asking basic questions that any person with
    initial training should understand

Moderators in all forums whenever they come across such basic questions, they will either lock such threads or delete if the member ignore Moderators' warning.

thanks

G. Lakshmipathi

moshenaveh
Community Manager
Community Manager
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Hi,

As Julias also mentioned this is a challenge we increasingly face. however recently, we've been promoting few possible solutions using the Wiki to overcome these issues.

Please let me know if you have any ideas or would like to join a community brainstorm group around this topic.

Feel free to contact me at : Moshe.NavehATsap.com

Regards,

Moshe

SCN Collaboration Team.

OttoGold
Active Contributor
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Hello Moshe,

As Julias also mentioned this is a challenge we increasingly face. however recently, we've been promoting few possible solutions using the Wiki to overcome these issues.

How can any wiki help here, when those guys are not ready to search for a thread (or a wiki page)? The problem is not with the content. We all here have created some valuable content in forums/ wiki/ articles etc., but those people don´t care about the "past":)) The want a personal attention:))

Me, and maybe some other people, look for a system where one has to earn at least a point to ask a question. The goal is not to see guys who have 100 posts, 0 points.

Regards Otto

moshenaveh
Community Manager
Community Manager
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Hi Otto,

Thank you for your input.

We all agree that this is a complex issue that is caused by different factors. I believe that a good community brainstorm will create a possible work plan & solutions for this challenge.

Please feel free to contact me if you wish to Join.

Moshe

Former Member
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really?

We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion; and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still. ~

Edit: but seriously you are all correct and I respect your opinions, but looking at it from a different perspective may create tolerance and ease tensions.

Former Member
0 Kudos

>

> We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion; and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still. ~

So If my opinion is that there is a fire in the theater and I shout my opinion very loudly, it would be evil if my opinion were stiffled??

Better do some more reading before quoting out of context.

Rob

Former Member
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Yes, it would

People could die, very serious business

In my defense : I am apparently an idiot, I thought my post had been removed.

But I think you all get the point regardless of what side you take (although it seems clear I am alone on this side)

tolerance for individuals with less knowledge then yourself is sort of like tolerance for people with different skin color or sexual alignment in my mind

Sure no one wants to baby sit and hand feed on a "professional forum" but how professional can a public forum truely be?

just something to consider before you feel anger or frustration

Former Member
0 Kudos

>

> In my defense : I am apparently an idiot, I thought my post had been removed.

No - your opinion is welcome. There is another thread in this forum asking for forum improvements. You can add something there if you want.

> tolerance for individuals with less knowledge then yourself is sort of like tolerance for people with different skin color or sexual alignment in my mind

OK - but we do tolerate people with less knowledge. Just not their questions here. They are perfectly welcome to even encouraged to get more knowledge and then contribute here.

Rob

Former Member
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There should be a place where the simple stuff is welcome and answered.

I think it's just too cut and dry to say the easy/repeated questions aren't welcome.

I have visited many other SAP forums and this is the only one I found that's truly useful (consistently).

The garbage questions flood other sites and no one uses them. So perhaps your logic is correct and the only way to maintain a truely usefull site is to filter out the garbage.

But perhaps if every one changed there attitude about the garbage questions we could have the best of both worlds were easy questions get answered and the tough ones do as well.

And I could do some major point farming.....gosh I hate slow days

wishing for something to break at the moment

OttoGold
Active Contributor
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I don´t discrimininate the people with less ponits (because they can posses far better knowledge than me...), but for me your opinion looks like from a guy, who didn´t invest hundred of hours helping people.

You must this life for some time to understand (and I am far from saying I am the best one to discuss this, I know there are people who spent years of their lives helping people here and they do this for free!! I am a newbie - a year of active contribution - compared to these people who I have a great respect for... and even in this year I have spent hundred of hours here...). I can understand that some people have babies, I am going to have some as well, but that does not mean you should play unfair. I paid the money, I spent the time, I was working hard to get where I am.

My company didn´t give me the proper training and I have learnt most of my knowledge myself, by using SEARCH on SDN, sandbox system and SAP help. I didn´t dare to ask my stupid questions to all the gurus here. And after all that hard work I started contributing. If you check my posts number, note that like a half of all the posts comes from the Community forum and is just a chit chat. I ask very few questions compared to the number of my contributions.

I don´t expect everybody feels it the same way, but only wanted to add my little piece to the discussion:)))

As was already mentioned, this is not a training ground. I understand the newbies have need to feed the kids but steal job from us, hard-working, non-cheating, sorry pal.

Regards Otto

Former Member
0 Kudos

>

> There should be a place where the simple stuff is welcome and answered.

You will actually find some support for that here. If the basic questions were kept separate, I don't think there wuould be much problem with that.

Rob

Former Member
0 Kudos

Lovely flamewar! Thanks

> ... but how professional can a public forum truely be?

There are many professional websites. Some have problems with SPAM. SDN does as well. All have trolls, but those who do something about it are more usable for their intended purposes (despite Olivier's comments).

For some time the option was considered of introducing a "newbies" forum, possibly titles the RTFM forum. This could have been the haven you are looking for but I don't think it would have been good community spirit to "caste" poeple like that. It leads to classing them and generalizations, etc which are anyway a pest.

Professional forums for all who behave professionally is the best option. Faking your CV is not professional and typically back-fires horribly. Sometimes SDN takes the bullet for this again, so I think we can set low tolerance threathholds for this sort of behaviour as it is often their second visit to the site... (ponits gamers very often have 3 or more ID's showing this pattern).

> just something to consider before you feel anger or frustration

Hit the Abuse Report button while you are still cool.

> wishing for something to break at the moment

Hit it again with a heavy blunt object!

Even in these cases the logs and comments are read first before action is taken.

Despite the various forms of resistance, your comments are still very valid and I appreciate them Arakish. It is something which needs to be addressed somehow as there seems to be no end to it everytime a fraternity of freshers are hired somewhere out there.

March and September have been most problematic to date for some reason. Does anyone have an insight into this?

Cheers,

Julius

OttoGold
Active Contributor
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March and September have been most problematic to date for some reason

I don´t know about the world out there, but in my country in September (after the vacation) everybody starts thinking about the money left on budget and about losing the money if not spend on time. But you probably know all about the stuff and I took the bait, right?:)) Happy flame wars, everybody:)) Otto

Former Member
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Very good points,

I didn't consider the ones not able to feed there children because the ones cheating may have taken a job.

I think you guys have convinced me my position is flawed.

I was wrong, I admit it.

I have spent hundreds of hours helping people w/SAP, not on this site but 8 hours a day for the last five years. I think that perhaps that is were my attitude came from originally.

I would rather have spent an hour trying to help others on this site (even the easiest questions) and expect my question to be answered (even the easiest questions) to simplify my needs. That doesn't take into consideration the needs of others or the need to have a decent site to post legit questions that could not be answered by starters.

Guess I was thinking that because I spend time answering questions I deserved to have mine answered even if I didn't spend much time searching on my own (even if others would view it as garbage question).

Selfish I suppose

live and learn

Former Member
0 Kudos

What you should consider is also the volumes which many forums have. Flooding them with basic interview type questions was a big problem in the past. Good questions were lost in the crowd and linkfarms (to the easily searchable infos) were the standard (often wrong) answers. Cross-posting and duplicate-posting followed suite.

Imagine everyone does that "to be able to use the site" and who would remain here. We don't want to go back there.

If you want to read a full discussion on the "beginners forum" idea, then search for "RTFM" (when the search is again availlable - currently technical problem also makes some posts invisible at times).

Cheers,

Julius

Former Member
0 Kudos

I think there is a difference between beginner questions and those from people who couldn't be bothered to read through a help file or actual click on the search key. Every week I see exactly the same set of questions asked over and over again. God forbid you actually tell someone to use the search key and they snap at you.

Common courtesy dictates that you don't waste other users time by asking the same questions if they have already been answered. If someone couldn't be bothered to use the search, then they honestly don't deserve to have their question answered either. If their time is more important than others, they have something to learn about the real world.

Sure, there are issues with people using this as a means to replace a course, but the bigger problem is people who couldn't be bothered to click a search button.

Edited by: Athol Hill on Jun 8, 2010 6:59 AM

Former Member
0 Kudos

A strange phenomenon is that when they do respond (without snapping) is often a claim that they could not find any help by searching.

Of course, linkfarms are not helpfull to the search engine(!) and hundreds of them even less so.

Copy&paste spready urban legends which are hard to reign in once in the wild.

Making the search compulsory like on service.sap.com will improve the subject titles and spam, except we could point it to help.sap.com for the caliber of question which is the main problem...

Cheers,

Julius

Former Member
0 Kudos

I'm not sure whether my post was editing by an admin or whether my edit didn't come through but if it was edited, then I take offence, if not, then I apologise to the admins.

Arakish said and I quote "Answer the ez questions and be happy about helping even if you are helping some one from a poor country that is trying to make a better life and feed his/her family by being "creative" on a CV." (see page 2)

As far as I am concerned there is no excuse for criminal behaviour. Being "creative" with a CV is fraud, no matter what way you spell it. When a consulting firm sells someone in as a consultant or senior when they don't have the relevant experience, its fraud, no matter what your history, country or upbringing is. A customer pays for a relevant amount of experience. When they pay for that experience, they have the expectation that the consultant they are paying for understands how to translate the business process to config, and this comes from experience. The course may give them the guidance to understand how to config, but the experience gives them the ability to know why to config. If there are grey areas, then where exactly do you draw the line?

Pravender
Active Contributor
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I think its more or less the responsibility of organizations which are hiring such consultants. Everyday i find so many threads like "Please tell the code for this logic" or "how to work in support/dev projects" . So many people with fake resumes or with certifications and no real time experience are entering into SAP market every year. One way can be companies should atleast provide basic training to the new hires before putting them in projects.

If a fresher just came out of college joins a company and has been put in a SAP project without proper training (which definitely save money for an organization and help them to show good figures). Freshers will definitely think that SDN is the only place which can save them and their job. But i do not think they are one to be blamed completely for this.

SAP can take an initiative with all the SAP partners to train the people or SAP can ask its new and existing partners to upgrade the consultants' skills as a pre-requisite for engagement with SAP.

It will definitely help to maintain the status of SDN.

Pravender

OttoGold
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

SAP can take an initiative with all the SAP partners to train the people or SAP can ask its new and existing partners to upgrade the consultants' skills as a pre-requisite for engagement with SAP.

You must be kidding here. How exactly do you imagine this happen? the companies will not spend more to train anybody... They will keep doing this until SDN will be available to do their job for them + until their SAP headquarters does not start rejecting the people without the training (same for the customers). Everything is a matter of money - inexperienced guy whose day fee is far lower than a senior con/dev will find the job because of the money.

Otto

p.s.: again, there is politics involved, SAP does not want to damage the business by rejecting, making something stricter etc. Thus I don´t expect any stricter rules for SDN either. The only step possible here (in my opinion, of course) is to provide some new/ next level for the hearth of SDN - to the contributors to motivate them not to leave because of the crowds of the trolls and lurkers.

Former Member
0 Kudos

Then the problem will continue to grow and the quality of SAP implementations will continue to decline.

Former Member
0 Kudos

> I'm not sure whether my post was editing by an admin or whether my edit didn't come through but if it was edited, then I take offence, if not, then I apologise to the admins.

There is currently a caching problem since yesterday and this causes display problems (amongst others). Hopefully it will be fixed soon, but would explain this delay in the visibility of posts and their content.

@ Pravender: I have heard of several such "SDN trainings" which were conducted with large consulting companies and on TechEds. I know two SDN'ers who are moderators / top contributors who organized events on-site in their companies to educate folks about the SDN rules of engagement. They certainly helped amongst the ABAPers, there is no doubt about that and the gurus deserve a medal for it (or a lemon

So it does happen and it does work.

Cheers,

Julius

Former Member
0 Kudos

>

> I'm not sure whether my post was editing by an admin or whether my edit didn't come through but if it was edited, then I take offence, if not, then I apologise to the admins.

>

> Arakish said and I quote "Answer the ez questions and be happy about helping even if you are helping some one from a poor country that is trying to make a better life and feed his/her family by being "creative" on a CV." (see page 2)

>

> As far as I am concerned there is no excuse for criminal behaviour. Being "creative" with a CV is fraud, no matter what way you spell it. When a consulting firm sells someone in as a consultant or senior when they don't have the relevant experience, its fraud, no matter what your history, country or upbringing is. A customer pays for a relevant amount of experience. When they pay for that experience, they have the expectation that the consultant they are paying for understands how to translate the business process to config, and this comes from experience. The course may give them the guidance to understand how to config, but the experience gives them the ability to know why to config. If there are grey areas, then where exactly do you draw the line?

True, originally I was thinking it was a victimless crime (in that case I couldn't care less if a law is broken) but in fact the person who may be over looked for a job because he is being honest is the victim so I changed my point of view entirely.

Sad that I am in the oposite postion as most, I have the experience but not the class training. Guess I better keep my job since my point of view about being "creative" has changed completly.

Former Member
0 Kudos

Well... I regularly encounter situations where "it has always been done this way and it was never questioned".

It depends of the quality of the training, software support and quality of SDN.

Imagine having to maintain a system implemented by "someone else" oneday....

Cheers,

Julius

Former Member
0 Kudos

what is a victimless crime? vandalizing a car? robbing a bank? selling someone some expired goods?accessing your neigbours wlan? just wondering...

Former Member
0 Kudos

There are no victimless crimes. If we take someone faking their CV, their employer (if a consulting firm) or the customer is the victim. The customer loses out on having an experienced consultant and a second rate because the consultant makes design errors that would not be made by an experienced consultant.

On that topic, I have noticed a startling trend in some of the Gen Y's to justify crime based on any number of factors. They see it as a grey area that you can get around if you have enough of a justification. I.e. this software is too expensive, therefore, until they drop their price, I'll just pirate it; or I can't afford this music, so until I can, I'll pirate it.

Former Member
0 Kudos

>

> There are no victimless crimes. If we take someone faking their CV, their employer (if a consulting firm) or the customer is the victim. The customer loses out on having an experienced consultant and a second rate because the consultant makes design errors that would not be made by an experienced consultant.

>

> On that topic, I have noticed a startling trend in some of the Gen Y's to justify crime based on any number of factors. They see it as a grey area that you can get around if you have enough of a justification. I.e. this software is too expensive, therefore, until they drop their price, I'll just pirate it; or I can't afford this music, so until I can, I'll pirate it.

There are victimless crimes, That's why the term exists.

I role up to a stop sign very slowly, I look left, I look right and carefully move on without coming to a complete stop.

I have comited a crime, who is the victim?

Former Member
0 Kudos

>I have comited a crime, who is the victim?

It is not a crime, it is an infringement...

Olivier

Former Member
0 Kudos

>

> >I have comited a crime, who is the victim?

>

> It is not a crime, it is an infringement...

>

> Olivier

In the US it would be a trafic violation which is against the law and a criminal offence subject to fines.

more examples would be:

speeding

growing or manufacturing illicit drugs for PERSONAL use (only)

Suicide (against the law in the US)

anal sex between two consenting adults (that's also illegal in some parts of the US)

There are many more

Former Member
0 Kudos

The problem with this logic is that it justifies crime of any sort. for example:

You could say that speeding is a victimless crime, but its only victimless until someone gets hurt, then there is a victim so does it make it any better? Or is the victim in that case the government, or possibly the end person who does eventually get hurt from the person's continued flouting of the laws? In the case of a stop street, again, its victimless until someone gets hurt and normally that is as a result of a person's persistent behaviour so again, I don't agree that its victimless.

AB
Contributor
0 Kudos

The relationship between a customer and a consultant is based upon trust. The customer entrusts the consultant to learn their business needs and trusts the consultant to apply their SAP knowledge to deliver a fitting solution. Lying on your CV about your experiences and knowledge isn't victimless. It is intentionally designed to deceive the customer. If the relationship starts out with a false basis, then I suspect that falsehood continues into the relationship. How often have we heard a consultant say "it can't be done" when in fact the more truthful answer is "I don't know if or how the requirement can be met".

Lying on the CV isn't victimless or harmless - it is designed to deceive.

matt
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

>

> Then the problem will continue to grow and the quality of SAP implementations will continue to decline.

And then we get more victims of the crime. Because quality has declined, rates drop. The CV cheats have stolen our money.

Former Member
0 Kudos

>

> The problem with this logic is that it justifies crime of any sort. for example:

>

> You could say that speeding is a victimless crime, but its only victimless until someone gets hurt, then there is a victim so does it make it any better? Or is the victim in that case the government, or possibly the end person who does eventually get hurt from the person's continued flouting of the laws? In the case of a stop street, again, its victimless until someone gets hurt and normally that is as a result of a person's persistent behavior so again, I don't agree that its victimless.

Consider this logic

Just becuse something is not legal doesn't mean that it should be illegal.

Laws are created by individuals like you and I who are not perfect so to assume the law/goverment is correct in creating all laws is flawed.

For example in California it is actualy legal to role through a stop sign with out coming to a complete stop because it lowers the emissions (cars use MUCH less gas in the first 10-20 feet if they do not come to a complete stop).

So the complete stop law for stopping at stop signs actualy hurts the environment and puts future generations at risk.

In my state you can get pulled over and fined for not wearing your seat belt, it's a state law here.

I don't wear my seat belt and I feel justified because I am much more conscious of what can happen if I crash.

and much more careful not to

It could be argued that the seat belt law causes accidents by giving people a false sence of safety.

My point is this:

It isn't as cut and dry as "justifying crime of any sort" some laws are total crap to begin with.

Former Member
0 Kudos

This logic reminds me of my school days when I had not learnt for an exam.

Building patterns with good karma for the multiple choice questions and proving the question wrong was my strategy back then...

You should not "under sell" yourself on your CV and dropping the odd bad experience off the UI is okay IMO, but faking it with something which is a risk to the employer (or just a pain in the ass later...) is not on.

Call it illegal, immoral, dumb, creative or what ever you want: Buckle up and wear condoms!

Cheers,

Julius

Former Member
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The reality is, until its changed, you are still breaking the law. If we give people the freedom to decide which laws they think are relevant, could you imagine what anarchy you would have? If you're not happy with a law, lobby to have it changed, but breaking the law is breaking the law, no matter how wrong it is, and if you do that you show no respect for authority.

hofmann
Active Contributor
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Hi,

the quality of SDN is worse than >3 years ago simply because 3 years ago there was less content. To a high percentage of questions (easily > 50%) the answer can be found at help.sap.com. But it also got harder to find the answer. If you are searching for a topic, >3 years ago you got NW 2004 and 2004s, now you got 2004, 7.0 7.1, 7.2, 7.3 + several EHP and new software (like BO).

And SDN didn't change.

SDN still is a forum. Nothing more, nothng less.

Information presentation and retrieval didn't adapted to the new needs. The only thing that got introduced is a (simple) facted search. I'm not really impressed.

There is a Wiki. Nice. But its not a semantic Wiki. And so isn't the forum nor the Blogs. Finding information is HARD. It's WORK, more work that someone should suffer.

I cannot link a forum post to a Wiki, Blog, SAP Note, Article. I cannot tag or categorize my post. The forum won't present a best bet on the existing knowledge base for my post.

Yes, the forum quality is bad. Yes, that's the fault of the users (and if you want to blame the economy: their companies that don't give official SAP trainings to them), you can alos say: it's the moderators that don't block more posts (hard decision, I opt for: post when in doubt).

But the forum, articles, wiki, blog: SCN isn't helping in giving answers to questions.

br,

Tobias

marilyn_pratt
Active Contributor
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Tobias, since you took the time here to write in this thread about the quality of posts and the history of the website and since you raise legitimate concerns about ease of finding contents, I'd like to continue this dialogue (although perhaps in a separate thread). Are you referring to wanting to tag and find things according to versions? That was something we used to do with formal content in the library. Are you suggesting we find a way of making contents version search-able?

Although I cannot/would not argue with anyone who feels there is a degradation of quality on the website nor would I argue that "finding" things is challenging or more challenging in the last few years (and volume and growth are definitely a factor, as is increased noise as the site grows), I would say that I totally disagree with the statement.

SDN didn't change. SDN still is a forum. Nothing more, nothng less.

One might argue about how appropriate, useful, valuable the changes made to SCN are to you the end user, but changes were and are constantly being made in the 7 years I've been associated with this website and its initiators which isn't "just a forum" . And I would agree that with tremendous size changes, a whole series of new challenges opens up as well as new audiences.

And I would like to explain that SDN isn't only a forum. In fact it isn't only SDN. It is the SAP Community Network. And that isn't just a name. It's a concept. (think [European Union,|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_European_Union] [United States|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States], [India|http://www.indiabook.com/india-information/republic-india.html] - as complex, diverse and problematic as those communities may appear to observers) Continued in the next message

marilyn_pratt
Active Contributor
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Continuation

Those who participate in forums only, might find they see only the forum side of the community.

It's somewhat like the story of the blind men and the elephant. If you are holding on to just one part of the beast, you might think that is what the whole beast looks or feels like.

Links can be embedded (at least manually) from one content type to another. You can put a url into a blog post that points to articles, forums, blogs and do the same in the other modularities for each type of content. And you can link here in the forums to other urls. I'm guessing you know that.

The environment is constantly evolving and changing, be it the addition of moderation tools (abuse reports and moderators forums), to the tools themselves (growing from forums to blogs to wikis to collaboration spaces). Many if not all of these changes are the results of community requests.

I think it fair to say there are constantly changes incorporated based on feedback and input of community members.

And there are live events, interactions, meetups with people who have answers meeting with people who have questions and sometimes folks with questions looking for answers that are hard to find. Again, a matter of initiative on the part of the various communities (and there are other communities beyond "SDN").

Since this is your community, using areas like this forum and Idea Place for practical suggestions for improvements and enhancements and solutions to platform challenges is an appropriate way to drive change. Critique is welcomed too. And that can be a dialogue. It would be good to see how you think to improve tagging and categories for example. Specifically what is missing and how if present it could be used where missing. To say there is no tagging here isn't fully accurate. Unless you mean "here in the forums" and in that case putting content in a granular, exact and particular forum is a tagging or categorization of content, albeit not a self-identifying one. But if a forum topic is missing, you have the ability to request one and consideration is given to such requests.

We can't promise to address perfectly everyone's ideas but when people started talking about ranking those ideas, an Idea Place was created to allow such promoting and engagement.

Former Member
0 Kudos

As a starting point, how about having a "Did not search - common post" option in the reporting function. One of the things that bugs me is the fact that I have to write in a description of these types of posts when I report them.

OttoGold
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

There is a Wiki. Nice. But its not a semantic Wiki. And so isn't the forum nor the Blogs. Finding information is HARD. It's WORK, more work that someone should suffer.

Can you please explain your vision about the metnioned "semantic" things? Maybe that could be done...;))

I cannot link a forum post to a Wiki, Blog, SAP Note, Article. I cannot tag or categorize my post. The forum won't present a best bet on the existing knowledge base for my post.

Would you like to have an extra part of each post where you can add your links? Or Marilyn has a point. 1:0

Are you referring to wanting to tag and find things according to versions?

Tagging +1, versions: please don´t do this. Understand the crowds of the beginners who will never understand what to fill in the version field and there will be no added value in such field. In my opinion, of course.

The environment is constantly evolving and changing, be it the addition of moderation tools (abuse reports and moderators forums), to the tools themselves (growing from forums to blogs to wikis to collaboration spaces).

1) Marilyn, if we talk about this "collaboration", when the NetWeaver portal like collavboration rooms will be presented for SDN?2) about the wikis.... yeah, it could be cool to have the option to write a wiki, i admit I have used a wiki content once or twice, but this is a tool for only a few people. One cannot "sketch" a wiki content in a minute, like when you ask a question through a thread. If a wiki space will grow and become more useful and usable, then only thanks to few individuals who are commited, but imho this will not work for those 2 million "people"...

OttoGold
Active Contributor
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I think it fair to say there are constantly changes incorporated based on feedback and input of community members.

If you (SAP/ SDN team) would make the wish AND the change more visible, then we would believe it... People don´t really think they can change anything:)) Now we have the Idea Place live and would be cool (for SAP/ SDN more than for me) to present the ideas which were incorporated. Understand that the way you present things is more important than a number of "changes". Example: I did not read a single blog about Idea Place, could be my mistake, but I do read most of the blogs on SDN, I guess you can remember my blogs archeology the other time:))

As a starting point, how about having a "Did not search - common post" option in the reporting function. One of the things that bugs me is the fact that I have to write in a description of these types of posts when I report them..

If SAP/SDN team would like to show the speed of "incorporating the changes asked by the community", this one should be incorporated by the end of the week!! I report these threads only!

Have a nice day everybody, regards Otto

marilyn_pratt
Active Contributor
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Otto wrote:

I did not read a single blog about Idea Place

Dear Otto,

Do the following.

1) go to the upper right hand corner of this screen and enter: "Idea Place"

2) Narrow down your search by Blogs (you will see there are 6 mentions)

3) Notice the mentions by Kuhan Milroy, Anne Fish, Mark Yolton, Craig Cmehil

4) Write your comments to the authors about Idea Place there

(I see Tobias Hofmann has already done so for example)

Otto wrote:

If SAP/SDN team would like to show the speed of "incorporating the changes asked by the community", this one should be incorporated by the end of the week!! I report these threads only!

Our collaboration team meets weekly and discusses these elements, which we prioritize and promote to IT. I can promise to put this in the agenda on Monday.

Former Member
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I know, I am a pest ... but can we keep the suggestions for improvements in SDN to [The Main Thread|;?? If we do any more parallelisation (here/main thread/idea place) we can be sure to totally confuse SAP ...

hofmann
Active Contributor
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Can you please explain your vision about the metnioned "semantic" things

The semantic web? W3C, Web 3.0, Ontologies, etc.

Would you like to have an extra part of each post where you can add your links[quote}

Sure not. I don't want to ladd inks manually, that's a task for the software. i only want to annotate that there is something interessting. Like: There is the Idea Place -> mark it and the software should look up in the ontology and show automatic results for Idea Place.

To start: take a look at SMW (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_MediaWiki).

Tagging +1, versions: please don´t do this

Tagging in the sense of an ontology. When users start tagging SAP, you get tags like R/3, R3/ SAP, BS, B1, ... Than the tag is useless. Use tagging to link the content to an ontology.

Versions: yes, must have. When I search for an information, like: a Business Package or a limitation, being able to slice the delivered information by version will help a lot. Ex: I need to know how to activate a functionality in EHP3. When the top 20 search results are about EHP4, I'm getting junk. I need the search results for EHP3.

br,

Tobias

ChrisPaine
Active Contributor
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>We can't promise to address perfectly everyone's ideas but when people started talking about ranking those ideas, an Idea Place was created to allow such promoting and engagement.

But unfortunately not all of us can access - [Idea 1022 - vote for access to site for service marketplace user ids|https://ideas.sap.com/ideas/1022]

Not sure if you were aware of this rather (imo) major limitation.

OttoGold
Active Contributor
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The semantic web? W3C, Web 3.0, Ontologies, etc.

Buzzwords, explain the concept how should the SDN team start. Explain the feature, explain the process. Exaplain any thing you want but do not use the marketing c***.

hofmann
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

These are no Buzzwords. This is from W3C. The consortium for WWW.

When people in the year 2010 still don't know what the semantic web is and don't don't know how to use google, there is no sense in explaining it. Or let me try it:

"It's somewhat like the story of the blind men and the elephant. If you are holding on to just one part of the beast, you might think that is what the whole beast looks or feels like."

OK, enough sarcasm:

What do we have right now? We have

- a web page like SCN

- Wiki

- Blog

- Forum

- Articles

- (Notes)

- and yes Marilyn, there are (community) events, there are social activities in the real world and virtual (youtube, twitter, facebook, etc). But only <1% of the users is using it. This isn't relevant.

The access to information is general. Wheras I can specify my skills or areas of interest in the business card, this isn't reflected by the web page. There is no "view" to the content (the 90s: myPortal thing).

Information is scattered around the forum, wiki, blog, articles, etc. There should be a dynamic hot topic page. Facted search is a beginning, but not enough. When I search for Business Package, EHP4, I would get a page that is composed of several areas, like relevant blogs, articles, overview page. Selecting a forum post in this case will me show related information: the author also blogged about this topic, the same thread (keywords) was also asked by 5 others, all got resolved, the wiki, a link to SAP Help (for the correct version).

The interaction should be around the content and not with the tools. Applied to this thread, the software should create a content: "SDN quality" and artefacts are the Idea Place, this thread, semantic links to W3C, Wikipedia, some blogs. Instead of searching for the blog with the announcement for the Idea Place and after my post with the semantic part there should have been a link to Wikipedia.

Hope it is clear. It's hard to explain these things in a forum. This is something for a whiteboard.

br,

Tobias

marilyn_pratt
Active Contributor
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Hi Chris,

In answer to your question:

Not sure if you were aware of this rather (imo) major limitation

Painfully aware, as you may have noted earlier in the thread I pointed to the blogs where you and others made it obvious.

The owners of Idea Place are aware as well and know they must communicate further.

Thanks for pointing that out again here.

marilyn_pratt
Active Contributor
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Tobias,

You've done an excellent job of trying to explain yourself (despite having no whiteboard and I'm assuming doing so in a second language) Bravo.

.

I'd like to see those ideas get wider distribution, fuller attention, more engaged conversation.

Before that though I'm going to try to summarize some of what I understand here of what you are saying.

1) Need expansion of existing faceted search To include semantic returns? How expanded? Personalized?

Presently: When using the existing search for Business Package, EPH4 (in the general search box on top right) my return set is:

SAP Support Notes (108)

Article Library (97)

Blogs (79)

Forums (25)

Wiki (21)

Topic Pages (10)

Partner Solutions (SAP EcoHub) (4)

Downloads (2)

eLearning (1)

When I further click on forums I can further refine by status of post:

Status

Resolved (18)

Open (4)

Possibly Resolved (2)

Assumed Resolved (1)

Or I can refine by: Forum Category:

Forum

SAP Enhancement Packages (8)

ERP HCM (HR) (4)

ERP Employee Self-Service (3)

Shared Services Center (AIC, EIC) (2)

Web Dynpro ABAP (1)

SAP NetWeaver Technical Integration with ERP (1)

SAP NetWeaver Platform (1)

SAP NetWeaver AS, General (1)

SAP ERP 6.0 Upgrade (1)

Portal Content Development (1)

ERP - Sales and Distribution (SD) General (1)

BI General (1)

I can also refine by date.

This gives me more control over granularity and also gives me access to multiple asset or content types.

If I drill into topic pages I also get versions so I can drill down more specifically to those.

Are those helpful? Not personalized? Comments? (continued in additional message)

Jelena
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

>

> As a starting point, how about having a "Did not search - common post" option in the reporting function. One of the things that bugs me is the fact that I have to write in a description of these types of posts when I report them.

Athol, I have asked the same thing in 'Suggestions' forum (I think) about 2 years ago and it was supported by many others. However, it still has not been done. How difficult it is to change the friggin' drop-down? Seriously, SAP. It took like the UN binding resolution to change the font size in forums. So much for the "dialogue"...

While I'm all warmed up on this - just have to say that personally I think that from the functionality / visual appeal / ease of use, etc. the SDN forum is in the Top 10 worst, right behind MSDN (which has a different kind of problem being totally bloated and overrun by bells and whistles).

I frequently visit 3 other forums that are run by small groups of individuals and seem to be using the same or similar PHP engine. And I do like their simple look and intuitive interface much better.

It's understandeable that, just due to the information volume, the technical solution for SDN might not be as easy. But, considering the amount of maintenance issues in the past couple of years and slow and lukewarm response to the users' suggestions, I think "Jive Software" should be fired. Actually I wouldn't be surprised if there is a Jive employee right now on the MSDN forum asking how to change a dropdown... Pathetic.

marilyn_pratt
Active Contributor
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(continued response to Tobias)

2. There is no "view" to the content - I'm assuming when you say the 90's portal thing you are talking about some view that includes a personalization like what you provide in your business card, so the context of your skills would be taken into consideration for your search (providing of course that you have personalized your business card) - Am I on the right track?

3. There should be a dynamic hot topic page I'm assuming you mean as a result of the search and based on the context of your user specifications - so I'm assuming here that you are looking for what semantic technology should give us: namely- (and I quote wikipedia here) "more intelligent, capable, relevant, and responsive interaction than with information technologies alone" and in your case the intelligence coming from the topics that particularly interest you via your favorites, skills, search habits, etc?

If I understand correctly the general idea is to further reduce the human effort of search enhanced by Semantics and even further (and Otto forgive the jargon here: [Latent Semantic Analysis|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latent_semantic_analysis] - which is used by the way in searching for patents - kind of like checking to see if a forum post has been posted before

Now I know there are local resources expert in this area. I'm reaching out to them and hope they can contribute to this thread.

Thanks Tobias for triggering convo.

hofmann
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

Hi,

I frequently visit 3 other forums that are run by small groups of individuals and seem to be using the same or similar PHP engine. And I do like their simple look and intuitive interface much better.

Can you post the link to access them? Could be interessting to see which features are interessting so someone can post a suggestion on Ideas Place.

br,

Tobias

Former Member
0 Kudos

Yep, this type of degradation is quite a challenge as the numbers grow.

In which forum area have you seen this? ABAP has certainly improved.

I think the root cause of it is simply lots of people (no solution for that one) and ill thought out KPI's which are counter-productive (ponits and no. of members to defy the laws of diminishing returns to scale).

This is not a very angelic start to a Sunday morning...

Cheers,

Julius

Former Member
0 Kudos

DMS is a big problem area that I've noticed. Not sure if its because people are searching for a new area to consult in but I'd say at least 90% of questions posed there are ones would any person who had attended a SAP DMS course should be able to answer.

I'm not sure what the answer is, possibly getting harsher on repetitive questions or those which are clearly from people who haven't bothered to read the help files

Edited by: Athol Hill on Jun 6, 2010 10:29 PM

Former Member
0 Kudos

It is a tricky one, also to moderate when blood pressure's are rising - both from the questions (and them being locked in cases) and from the answers (and them being rejected for taking the bait).

As long as there are people who are willing to answer such lazy forum trolls who have the command over a few ponits, there will always be a supply of them and a complaints committee...

@ Moshe: Does such a group exist already? Either way I would be interested in joining it.

Cheers,

Julius

Former Member
0 Kudos

Hi Julius

You can say that people are willing to answer but at the end of the day, when people are getting answers to question they should know, then someone has to ask why are they asking the questions? I.e. are they working for consulting firms that are not sending their staff for proper training before sending them to projects? Are they faking experience to get onto projects and using SDN as a means to solve the problems of their inexperience? etc

Either way, its not good for the industry, customers or consulting firms.

Regards,

Athol

Former Member
0 Kudos

> I.e. are they working for consulting firms that are not sending their staff for proper training before sending them to projects?

That, and a substitute for training.

In real trainings there are however also people who don't listen and then ask lots of questions which have answers in the slides, however that is maybe 1 in 10 in one class they pay for. Here, we have 1 in 10 in one free internet...

I have not found any better solution than giving them a chance to find the search and the quality expected on SDN, failing which locking and deleting until they stop.

The hardest nut we ever cracked was in the basis forums. Raja2008 went through about 30 user ID's and hundreds of basic posts over several months until he finally stopped.

Cheers,

Julius

Former Member
0 Kudos

Perhaps the solution then is to only allow questions from verifiable customers. I.e. ensure that it goes via a customer login so if it is a consulting firm posting the questions, the customer is aware of them.

Former Member
0 Kudos

>

> Perhaps the solution then is to only allow questions from verifiable customers. I.e. ensure that it goes via a customer login so if it is a consulting firm posting the questions, the customer is aware of them.

I cannot see that happening in a hurry. Besides, some customer (S-accounts) are a real pain at times as well...

For example I am a consultant and have asked 237 questions / opened threads to discuss some topics with others (SAP, customers, consultants, partners, freshers, etc). They are not all bad..

The number of real misusers are actually small and strict moderation pays off, sometimes it takes a while though.

Cheers,

Julius

moshenaveh
Community Manager
Community Manager
0 Kudos

Thank you Julius for your interest in joining the action and brainstorm group. Actuallty there is already an active group which is topic related. I will reach out to you directly and see how would you like to get involved in this important activity.

Good luck to us all,

Moshe.

Former Member
0 Kudos

Have you heard about externalisation ?

In my opinion this is a big part of the explanation. Thousands of would be consultants, all beginners with no senior collegues to learn from and who don't know their customer's context.

Their last chance is to ask the question on SDN forums like "The customer's requirement is"...

PS : I know that my message is not politically correct.

Regards,

Olivier

Former Member
0 Kudos

Yeah, that seems to be a big part of the problem. The big question is whether that is the purpose of SDN? I.e. to provide an alternative training ground for those who aren't attending training and who are not learning from seniors.

Former Member
0 Kudos

>The big question is whether that is the purpose of SDN?

Unpolitically correct answer : Remove most of the heavy load that this beginners would generate on SAP support at service.sap.com/messages ?

When you think about it from the SAP company point of view, it makes a lot sense !

Regards,

Unpolitically correct Olivier

marilyn_pratt
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

The politics are even more complicated and we have been down this path before in some very heated conversations. I am recalling one that I witnessed/participated in over 2 years ago around offshoring and outsourcing which seems to be the gist of your politically "incorrect" direction Olivier. It got pretty ugly if I recall.

I don't think either formal support or these forums have the answer to the real problem source. It lies in the hiring practices of companies and the education and training they give employees. But I hesitate quake to raise this all over [again|;.

And to be very frank moving this to the wiki isn't the real answer to your concerns about why there is a huge surge of what many of you here deem worthless beginner type posts. Resourcing and hiring and economy is the reason. And greed and exploit of human resources. I don't think there are any easy answers here for moderators or customer support folks. The larger the community becomes the more these types of activities are present - as long as these hiring/economic practices exist.

And I believe that there is a tremendous improvement in pushing back on this kind of noise since the community started. The community (and by that I mean a core group of excellent moderators) actively monitor and reject such activity here.

I'm pushing for more reinforcements to the incredible work you do here, which means further and better training for new moderators or those who should be following the path of the inner core of dedicated quality crusaders.

So I wonder is this degradation or the normal course of growth in the face of a problem that isn't being solved in field services. By that I mean training, certification and consulting.

Former Member
0 Kudos

Why worry?

Let the noobs post ez questions and get there answers, in my humble opinion.

It doesn't degrade SDN it helps poeple.

So a simple question is less important them a complex one?

I would say no.

A simple question automatically means the person doesn't have experience or didn't search for an answer?

I would say no (not necessarily). If simple questions are prohibited how would they find there answers?

Sure in a perfect world we would all be able to answer our own questions but then what would be the point of this website?

The page flows and as posts come and go time passes and we all get older.

So what if every other post has an easy answer, in 100yrs who will care about the post.

I think we take our selves to seriously some times.

We all share the same fate in the end.

Answer the ez questions and be happy about helping even if you are helping some one from a poor country that is trying to make a better life and feed his/her family by being "creative" on a CV.

Life is to short to get angry because of a simple question

Former Member
0 Kudos

> We all share the same fate in the end.

Yep, but some read the manual on the journey and test themselves while others are just hitching a ride...

I have seen a few very knowledgable people get fedup with the forums because of a small handfull of trolls and that is not good for the site.

I think the key is to give noobs a chance without them getting used to being leachers or trolls taking the piss out of them. You know, help them... but if they try tricks or are not willing to learn then a quality gate should be given preference.

Cheers,

Julius

Former Member
0 Kudos

Why worry?

... trying to make a better life and feed his/her family by being "creative" on a CV.

this must meant to be ironic. you don't want to say that cheating the society is a valid mode of life.

I wish for you not to share my fate. it'll be becoming dust and dirt and cats pissing on me.

anton

Former Member
0 Kudos

>

> Why worry?

> It doesn't degrade SDN it helps poeple.

> A simple question automatically means the person doesn't have experience or didn't search for an answer?

> I would say no (not necessarily). If simple questions are prohibited how would they find there answers?

Assume you are in a university mathematics class and some students repeatedly ask questions that show they have not mastered the basics of arithmetic. Their questions impede the class and they should be removed from the class until they can catch up.

The forums are not for training. They are meant to be used by those who have some understanding of the subject.

Rob

Edited by: Rob Burbank on Jun 7, 2010 2:39 PM

former_member184555
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

I will not agree with you on any of the points you have mentioned. In a professional forum, we are supposed to behave professionally as per the rules. If we cannot, better be away from the forums. We are supposed to follow the rules and regulations and especially when we are seeking help, we cannot demand it, we have to request (and sometimes beg) for help. I used the word 'beg' because, I have seen people in that situation and when none of the friends could provide the solution, they got the help from SDN and could save their respect in the team and place in the project.

Let the noobs post ez questions and get there answers, in my humble opinion. 
It doesn't degrade SDN it helps poeple.

It definitely degardes SDN becasue, there are many good members keeping away from forums because of many issues like, more of basic questions, repeat questions, link farming, points gaming etc., If there is nothing interesting, how can we expect the experts to visit forums. Though the moderators are doing excellent job and could control many problems, posting basic questions is majorly done by new members and lazy members who are occassional visitors and it is very difficult to educate them.

If simple questions are prohibited how would they find there answers?

It again depends on the definition of the 'simple question'. Simple question can be,

-which a consultant with minimum knowledge is expected to know (basic questions)

-when the same topic has been discussed many times in the forums (FAQ kind)

- when the solution/answer can be found with little effort either through simple search in SDN or google or by going through the F1 help or SAP library.

100yrs who will care about the post

Yes, if the questions and replies are junk, nobody cares even on the same day. Many a times, the solutions posted few years back are still helping people now and we should appreciate for their patience to search. If we encourage junk in the forums, searching also becomes difficult.

People are visiting forums since there is something to learn. They also contribute in the areas of their expertise in addition to learning new topics and new scenarios. Let us post good questions and encourage more experts to participate in the forum activity. This will help us in learning to a great extent.

Thanks,

Ravi

Former Member
0 Kudos

Brilliant!!!!

kiran_k8
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

If Dumb/Simple/repeated questions is making the SDN Forum tough to maintain or handle,how about defining a time line on how long a question remains in the forum.ie A mechanism to segregate a query as simple/repeated/dumb and defining a timeline.Once they expire their shelf life ( say 2 or 3 months) the query gets deleted automatically.Reduces the load as well

Kiran.

Former Member
0 Kudos

People do make mistakes, and then sometimes it goes

Bang!

Bugger is that when you automate mistakes then it goes

Bang bang bang bang bang bang rattatatatatatatatata Kaboooooooommmmm!!!

Bad idea...

marilyn_pratt
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

So automated weapons no....but more engagement from Global support as staff moderators ...yes.

Had an interesting meetup in Bangalore this week with some of the folks who are working on the business solution forums.

They, like Henrique, are really concerned with quality.

Having moderator meetups seems the way to go so that some of our outstanding exemplars can mentor those comig up to speed.

We should be initiating Moderator Town Halls soon and recognizing the working models and improving the ones that are not up to standard.

take a look at this discussion here for example: [Moderator Meetup Part 1|http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nx16YyK6ofk]

Former Member
0 Kudos

Thank you for sharing Marilyn!

It is great to hear all these quality initiatives from around the world and would love to have been there in Bangalore with you, Abesh, Raja, Prateek, and all the other gurus.

Also do not forget kudo's to Jim Spath! He organized the moderator meet in Berlin (from the US!) and his efforts are unmeasurable in wiki gardening, customer interaction, sustainability of all sorts and quality "gatekeeping".

Cheers,

Julius