on 08-15-2013 7:06 PM
Personally I have been a SAP BASIS guy 15 years. As you might imagine that means lots of time troubleshooting notes, sdn, scn etc
I was not a great fan of SDN in the end but I could find stuff eventually. SCN is an utter disaster.
1/ It takes too long to find anything. At least we could search by forums. But now its "spaces". Searching for the right "spaces" takes too long as we have to load a small number of "spaces" per page along with the last post. The search function is useless as who knows the exact keywords in the "space" name.
2/ Moderation - drop the long wait for moderation and drop the 30 requirement to avoid moderation. Other sites deal with spam etc OK and do not force us to perform juvenile tasks to get badges. I work for several clients a year and having to go thru these childish games is pointless.
3/ I have seen a marked drop in technical posts as people turn to the many other sites that support SAP.
All in all these changes are killing what was once a mildly useful resource.
Who agrees with me.....
I don't really see much of the forums... er, sorry "spaces". Too busy approving/rejecting those who's posts are in the queue... I think that pre-approval is useful. I'm able to catch new members who clearly haven't read/understood the rules from get go - early education is key to improving quality. Having been on the fire-fighting side of dealing with spam attacks, the pre-approvals is, I think, necessary and beneficial.
The new gaming has seen an explosion in plagiarism. The idea is to increase engagement, which it certainly has done. But it seems a significant minority of the membership just can't understand that copy and pasting documents from sap.help.com is not really the, ...er... point.
If I'm searching for something technical to help me do my job, I'll go to google with the site:sap.com term. Often the answer is found in SCN. So I disagree about it not being a useful resource.
Nice to see coffee corner is back. But why are there so many documents?
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I am frustrated with the kind of "Moderation" undertaken for the posted discussion. Despite following the rules of engagement, I got this reply as a reason of rejection of one of my threads.
I am not assigning any work to anybody through such kind of threads.
Hello Moderators, FYI... Such messages hurts and discourages/demotivates to post anymore queries on your "SCN".
THANK YOU !!!
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Papil Patil wrote:
Such messages hurts and discourages/demotivates to post anymore queries on your "SCN".
Why ? I don't think so.. Here, moderator has said you very civilly. The sentence is very polite "If you get stuck, so us where you need help".
This message is visible only to you. No one can't see instead of writer and reader.
You must be asking for a procedure or a king of process of something, which is categorized as "Asking for step by step procedure, doc, video, presentation, link" in this blog post
I don't know what question you asked that prompted this response, however, I can tell you that over the past few years there has been a rise of people posting
"I want to do xyz. Please show me how".
Where xyz is a specification, or some technique that's well documented, or something that is easily figured out with a little effort, and/or something that is really part and parcel of the person's job. For example, in ABAP - "I want to write a report that displays personnel numbers with date of joining, and when I double click on a pernr it gives me their home address". This is effectively saying "Please do my job for me".
The frustration this causes to members must be weighed against the frustration caused to the individual who's post has been rejected.
While SCN is here to help, all help is voluntary. You can't demand help, and if a moderator decides your question harms the community as a whole, that's the price you pay for being in this community. If you have an issue with a moderator decision, then of course post it in SCN Support, and clearly and calmly, without being abusive or histrionic, put your case. Moderators don't always get it right and transparency is needed.
The discussion is no longer present but I was able to get this from cache.
Hello DS Experts,
Please suggest a way out to filter Multiplle values or Ranges in Design Studio Datasource only. I have 3 crosstabs in Design Studio with some values filtered in each crosstab. Also, I dont want to build 3 different queries filtering the values in IDT 4.1 SP2, if this feature is leveraged in Design Studio 1.3.
Thanks,
Papil
Hey Matthew,
I've seen an increase in those kind of posts as well. This got me thinking that maybe there is a valid reason why some people think they are entitled to be spoon fed. Maybe SCN is advertised too much as the go to place for all of your questions instead of a place for professionals to share information, with the emphasis on professionals and not on information.
Cheers, Rob.
Rob Dielemans wrote:
... Maybe SCN is advertised too much as the go to place for all of your questions instead of a place for professionals to share information, with the emphasis on professionals and not on information.
.
I am with you, Rob, and I suspect that some of these people get that idea from the links in the SAP support portal. Perhaps the KBA they found was a bit cryptic or "over their head" as a person new to SAP, or they never did find anything relevant, or never searched at all because they spotted that link and decided, "Aha! *That* must be the place where someone from SAP will tell me, step by step, how to do my job.
Just my own suspicion.
Cheers,
Gretchen
Well I will say that often times many companies that implement SAP do not always provide the proper training or hire that right personnel for the jobs they are now performing on SAP. This happen at my company - implemented SAP and just migrated the users doing similar jobs on the old system to the relevant equivalent on SAP. Now, being interested in an SAP career, I've purchased my own books from SAP Press and bought numerous online courses to try to learn SAP (boy was I in for a rude awakening on how deep that rabbit hole goes lol). However most users will hardly go through step-by-step instructions given to them let alone try to doing outside learning. Not really an excuse because I understand that there's really no one else to blame, but just another perspective maybe. The SCN can/will often be the only place people know they can get info on SAP by people who use SAP, whether right or wrong.
To the OP - I have found SCN to be very confusing and hard to find things you're looking for....however SAP in general seems to be that way lol! In the end, I've loved SAP and SCN, but I've learned to move past small frustrations =]
I would assume you will change your mind by exploring the latest functionality of current SCN...
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The last functionality:
Last functionality:
The log on doesn't work properly because it's expired.
But when I log on there is still this popup to confirm the certificate.
It seems I am log on but I am not.
I am searching now for more than 30 minutes where I can renew my log on certificate from SAP.
Until now without any solution.
I would say this is frustrating.... or?
Single Sign On Certificate can be renewed at https://service.sap.com/sso-smp
Hi,
SCN is an utter disaster.
No. I don't agree to this at all. I started with SCN when I had done one implementation (with partner consultant) and knew about a fixed business scenario only. I came here for a purpose of learning and I could get the Topic leader badge in one year only. Today I know about several functionality and common issues.
That clearly reflects the significance of SCN and user participation. I'm still learning new scenarios, issues & their solutions and I can say, no training or lecture can provide the experience which SCN actually does!
ntn
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I guess it depends whether you home in on challenging and interesting discussions and also test yourself to keep pace with the discussion and learn that way.
Or... whether you answer lazy questions with speculative anwers and linkfarms in the hope of points and think that you contributed and learnt something as a result.
Those are two very different pairs of shoes which can easily be confused for the same SDN experience unfortunately.
sy-subrc = 4.
sy-dbcnt = 1.
Cheers,
Julius
Or... whether you answer lazy questions with speculative anwers and linkfarms in the hope of points and think that you contributed and learnt something as a result.
Gnaaaah, I hate when you put it like this Julius :-/. I do give a lot of speculative answers whereas I explain where exactly I'm speculating and I elaborate on it and as per my experience this invokes more problem solutions than damage. I understand you associate speculative answers mostly with "hello deer, please check this link it may be helpful" concerning points-farming but please don't forget about the other side of speculative answers leading to brainstorming / curiosity / new problem solutions.
sy-subrc = 0?
Cheers, Lukas
Yep, 100%. A clear disclaimer that you have not run into the problem yourself yet but are interested in it and it appears to work like ABC is of course perfectly OK.
But please to the XYZ in the following links, I think it will work (because google has good hits for the search terms...) is what I am referring to. Noise...
Cheers,
Julius
Who agrees with me.....
I still agree with you!
I am ABAP Developer for over 18 years and I didn't complain the first 15-16 years at all.
But now the last few years it's getting worse.
Without Google search I wouldn't find anything in this disaster.
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This is because of the stupid points system.
Thanks for speaking out after 18 years 🙂
Just a joke: I agree with you that the system is designed to go downhill as far as content quality is concerned.
I have been asking for the system to be more content specific and less user mongering for years, but so far no luck to find something that SAP did not bolt onto a noise factor.
Perhaps oneday we will all land back at SAPfans.com and the cycle will start over with sfvenkitu, or subsistence living in the agricultural sector, or IoT expert for deployable artificially intelligent sensors which can be remotely controlled via module pool tables... (someone asked about this in the CC but I see that the question has been removed now... 😉
Your best chance here is to hijack the question...
Cheers,
Julius
I think I would point the finger in several places:
Regards, Mike
SAP Customer Experience Group - CEG
Google Custom Search for SAP Community Network Search is the same as doing a site:scn.sap.com query but with the addition of the Wiki and Library.
An laternative to the is going to http://scn.sap.com/places and then entering a keyword or term in the filter box to find a related space.
Hello Mike,
Thank you for sharing your thoughts.It helps us constantly improve.
2. We recently had a couple of these cases which were handled firmly and involved management when needed. If you still see this happening please let me know.
3. Our moderation approval process consists of expertise evaluation, SCN activity review, moderation need and more. We usually consult with existing moderators and ask for their feedback. If you encounter cases where someone is not doing their job, please let me know. I will take upon my self to closer examine moderation applicant activity on SCN prior to approving them.
Please let me know if you have any questions about the moderators approval process.
4. That's what the global moderators are for. If you see any inconsistency please let one of us know. I can share with you that even in our team we don't always agree on all moderation cases.
Hi Moshe,
Caught me in a venting sort of mood. So numbers 1 and 2 were just kind of general gripes.
Number 4, where there is virtually no visibility into the moderation process after the fact, means that other moderators have no clue who processed a particular item or what the rationale was behind it. So how can we determine inconsistency.
For example:
I was in the midst of rejecting a blog this morning for being trivial, but someone else apparently approved it while I was doing so. Since there are 4 space editors and 4 moderators for that particular space, of which 5 could be determined to have logged on recently enough that they could have been involved. Which one did it? Who knows. Why they approved it, again who knows. Not a new issue, but apparently one which is not very high on the priority list for fixing. Perhaps there is a rational for hiding identities. I can't imagine anything to justify it. I can tell you which space it was in. Once it is processed, it is gone from view. The only thing that remains is the email notification.
You
have received this email because content with the title 'viz charting by
json Model' created by 'Mohammad umar umar' is awaiting moderation.
It is less an issue with someone accepting content that I would have rejected than I would like to know the rationale behind it. Different moderators work differently and that is fine. But for consistency, there needs to be a feedback loop and that does not exist.
Thanks, Mike
Hi Mike,
It's interesting you mention the feedback loop following actioned moderation tasks... At TechEd Berlin I spent some time with one of the guys currently looking at the revamp of SCN and this was one of the top things I suggested we needed. As you describe, being able to see the decision made and by whom, for the history of moderation in spaces you look after would be invaluable.
I suggested the Moderation area should gain a new tab where you can list all historic & actioned tasks and view the details of them as needed.
Fingers crossed this is something we see in the future...
Cheers,
G.
But the problem here is that under the old-chickenwire platform(pre-jive) we actually had moderation console and could do a lot more with moderation history. When the transition was made to jive, that went away and most of all the moderators complained and the response was:
"Jive doesn't support that".
Furthermore it's interesting how many feature requests which were valid, all were rejected by "jive doesn't support that". So unless jive as a platform supports new stuff, and SAP is going update jive on SCN to the latest version or better yet get rid of jive for something more open, I have very low expectations of what could/should be done.
The biggest problem with jive is that it's the jack of all trades and the master of none. There are much better pure discussion boards run by hobbyists, than default jumble of spaces view presented by jive.
Take care,
Stephen
This is because of the stupid points system.
Thanks for speaking out after 18 years 🙂
Just a joke: I agree with you that the system is designed to go downhill as far as content quality is concerned.
Yes, this stupid point system.
Some guys just repeat an correct answer and begging for points. And they do this all time.
Some guys mention there points or rang in this SAP system in there profile.
Exactly that is what I get as feedback fro most of my customers. They will use google search with "julius" for my areas, but if they relax that search pattern or search in other areas then it is mostly noise.
IMO it is not an error in the google search algorithm, which works fine if you use very targeted searches. It is a noise factor on SCN.
It is a problem that interesting discussions with interesting solutions with some technical details (for the search) are flooded by mindless texts and linkfarms. Only people who can search would contribute and because of the noise they often dont.
The SCN system does not encourage content quality enough and draw attention to that content quality. Marketing is 50% of the real estate now and good questions are soon flooded by interview questions and "do my work for me" after the interview. Knowledgable folks move on.
I miss the days when used to pop around in the Coffee Corner for a joke and take note of the **** and mowning on a daily basis. Things improved a lot. Back then it was possible as a community feedback area to at least see some effort.
I am still thankful that in my security area it is not as noisy as in most other areas.
Cheers,
Julius
I am still thankful that in my security area it is not as noisy as in most other areas.
That is down to you and other moderators being quite consistent in decisions of what is quality content
I must admit, when I search for security questions I usually add your name, Otto, Alex, mine, Frank and a few others into the Google Search to filter. I add names as I see their reputation and quality post. I risk missing the infrequent participants who are well respected but hope by following others I pick them up in my Activity Feeds.
Note that SAP IT has provided a switch to be able to turn moderation off for discussions, questions and answers. When moderation is turned off, regardless of points level, members will be able to post immediately. This should speed up the process for getting answers to questions significantly.
We will not be posting a site-wide announcement or other such documentation of this change. The reason we are keeping it somewhat quiet is to avoid alerting spammers that the forums are open again.
If spammers do return to SCN in large numbers, we will use the switch to turn moderation back on. Hopefully we will not need to take that action.
This change will happen after next Sunday's deployment and should be available for all by October 7.
Regards,
Jeanne
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I used to read the blog section, using my RSS reader in the old SDN.
Unfortunately it didn't work with the new platform (not sure if they fixed the problem), the feed was not coming correctly.
Now I read some blogs occasionally, but probably missing out some interesting stuff.
The old forum was also quicker to get, places are slow, require login and a lot of clicks.
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The SCN RSS feeds should be working fine and here's what they are: http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-29261
If any aren't working, we want to hear about it: create a new discussion in http://scn.sap.com/community/support so we can investigate.
I totally agree with this. Moderators even reject discussion threads without the courtesy of letting the creator know why this was done. Also, it has become increasingly difficult to find anything on the SCN unlike in the past
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I don't like what Apple did with iTunes either, but have no choice but to use it.
Most of my lifetime points have come through forum interaction, so I also had some challenges adjusting to the new SCN format for scanning lists of open questions, especially when 50% of my horizontal 15.6 inch screen space is unused and pagination is sluggish at times. Although documents and blogs have a purpose, I prefer the interaction of Q&A discussions over commenting about content and/or 'liking' it.
Similar to Mike, I have also gotten used to the new SCN over time, and with my desire to help drive community growth in topics (spaces) of interest, I use SCN with the purpose of helping and learning from others. I do like the fact that the 'C' in SCN is community, and that's what I try to impact.
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That is correct, its little bit frustrating but SCN/SDN is not a dictionary or wiki. Of course one of the drawback of point system is that most of the blog answers are not worthy and just a points hunt but it also tell....whether you browse SCN just to answer your queries OR how many times you logged in to answer others.
difference between scn & sdn is a technical issue that should be address.
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I suggest to read . I even prefer it over google. The start could be improved, but if you do not close the session, then each search performs really quick. And there is no need at all to start with a search at a certain space, you can just filter the results by space, this is less typing and you even get aware that there might be solution in other spaces
if you would use a private mail address instead of an S-user to log into SCN, then there is no need to change the user with each client.
I have not seen an increase on questions in another forums (except language specific forums ) . if I ignore the questions which are posted redundant in several sites , then I would even say the other forum(s) are just dead.
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While I miss a lot of the features of the old SDN, I have grown accustomed to using the new SCN. Still dislike the focus on Social Media instead of technical discussions that were the heart and soul of the SDN forums. But I have been labeled a dinosaur before and can accept it as somewhat valid.
Sorry Jurgen, I still find the SCN Search to be inflexible and confusing. By comparison to the old SDN search, it is just as painful, but in a different way.
I use the custom Google search that Jason Lax built when SCN was still Beta: https://www.google.com/cse/home?cx=013447253335410278659:k8ob9ipscwg. It gives me the flexibility to look in specific communities directly instead of doing the filtering in multiple steps.
I'm new to the SAP world so I can't say if SCN is better than SDN, but I too get sick of the social media focus. The point of social media is to share and link, and the point of SCN is to...share and link. Redundant much?
Twitter integration might be helpful if the SAP community was mostly comprised of hipster developers and self-obsessed web entrepreneurs, but last time I checked, it wasn't.
If I'm going to write a technical document, or share something I like, I'm posting it here, not on an external website which I'll share via twitter via SCN. If I share it on twitter my friends will say "Hey Eric is this for work? This makes no sense." If I create a separate twitter account for professional stuff, how will I find people? I'll find them on SCN, where we're ALREADY communicating.
The point of social media is to share and link, and the point of SCN is to...share and link. Redundant much?
Hi Eric Peterson,
I like to put forward my opinion about SCN. I too agree that SCN is similar to other social media netwroks but I feel it's not just about share and link, but it is about gain knowledge and reputation.
The problem is the silly user based points system and UI real estate available for interesting discussions.
It is flooded with points mongers so you are forced to blog instead of discuss, but now blogs and documents are being flooded as well.
Just get rid of the points system and rate content. It will sort itself out..
Cheers,
Julius
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I agee with Matthew that the wait for questions to be answered is killing everyone involved. That's why I'm pushing for ticket number COMM-2507 that will let questions / discussions / replies be exempt from moderation. We don't have a committed date for this yet, but I will share once we have it.
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Nobody will agree with you for this.
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One person? Com'on!
Just read these polls:
I really missed the "old" FORUMS (real forums style).
This isn't a forum. "Spaces" concept = Jive Concept. Sorry, I can't eat it!
I said this when first reviews about new SCN came to light; read here: http://scn.sap.com/polls/1095#comment-296715
I desagree with the analogy to compare Apple'site with SCN'site like said.
Apple changed iTunes, but we (all of you) don't be part of Itunes.
SCN (the old, and the new one) is part of us.
You are not alone.
More Info: Summary of users' comments on Forums New Platform (recommended to read it)
I figured the Apple dig would raise a few eyebrows. Admitedly my analogy might have been a bit of a stretch, but my point was that the change was made and there was no 'classic' mode to revert to (how long did the BETA logo show up in the header?), so even if the updated iTunes continutes to be frustrating I had to make the adjustments in order to continue using it.
I still have the same passion to impact the community, which did take a short hiatus after the changes and rough adjustment from SDN to SCN, so I keep on doing my part. My bookmarks take me directly to the content tab of my favorite spaces, which is about as close to the old forum look I can get (sorry content strategists and space editors out there).
I followed your recommendation to the article and the 'unsolved' bullet point a) under "Ideas/nice to have" just benefitted you because I liked your previous reply
All polls are from the first week. I wonder if you ever implemented somewhere SAP replacing a legacy system? if you give the users as well a poll in the first week after go-live then the results are probably the same.
We are from IT, if we cant get used to something new how can we sell something new to our users in the company?
Are you missing the silent movies in the cinema, or do you already enjoy watching 3D TV and asking your smartphone to switch the channel? Why are we front runners at home while we are complaining if something changes anywhere else?
Errrr... just because something is new it is not necessarily better. People are still complaining nearly 18 months after SCN was started. They replaced something that was mildly useful with something that fails to serve the tech community.
And by the way 3-D TV has been an utter disaster with poor sales and manufacturers and TV stations dropping 3-D TV's & channels.
So your comparison of SCN & 3-D TV is very appropriate.
PS I have installed & implemented SAP at 7 sites since 1996
so you know too that the development is not over after go-live.
there is always room for improvement, and I would lie if I say that I do not miss something from old forums.
But does anybody really believe that he can get the old forums back?
So why all this cant? Hmm, I actually think "all this" is the wrong term. its only a few , but they complain so much that it looks like many.
Take the system and make it your slave, make it work for you, create ideas in idea place, let the community vote for your ideas.
This moaning only helps if someone else makes an idea from it and takes it forward.
SCN is 10, if I have 100 questions about stock transfers per year in MM forum, then I have 1000 this year and 1100 next year. Certainly it was easier 5 year ago to find the right answer, there were only have as much entries.
Every year it becomes a little harder to find something. But I truly believe that there are people working on improvements of the search and moderators fight against the redundancy.
And it is all on us and the community to do our best to make it a better place. Give a true rating to the content, and not just to the content of people you know. If something is poor, give a poor rating. if it is good give a high rating. This could be used in search engines to find THE ANSWER.
Now I am at a new client and I have to re-register and do all the childish things to avoid wait for moderation. The new SCN layout is rubbish. The people who are running this site are even begging to drop the "approval" process for posts.
I used to check the old SDN several times a week. Now its is very rare as I can not find the content I need, I have to page thru vast amount of junk designed to get meaningless "points".
Bad management is killing this site. No amount of positive thinking will change this site to something useful.
Get yourself a P-account (as recommended by Jürgen) and at least that problem will be solved. You must have had that problem on the old site as well..
My main problem is the side affects of the silly points system. Just get rid of that, and then management and controbutors and admins of the site can focus on content quality. Currently everyone is busy with creàting and ranting and warping the platform to combat noise from it. Few controbutors who are above such childish things and controbute anyway have their content flooded by the noise.
Switch rating from user to content based and get rid of points and missions. All will be well IMO. (The SCn team can then also focus all their time on quality and not have to dingle-dangle around with all sorts of user complaints..).
Cheers,
Julius
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