Is this a bad precedent - refusing comments on a blog?

[stephenjohannes]

First time I have seen a blog from SAP and the author decides to disable comments because they want to dodge any unpleasant questions and publicly states that.  Wow .

The blog is located here: .  Since I couldn't comment on that choice there, I have done here and have appropriately rated the blog.

Is it just me or does not allowing for comments on your blog defeats the whole point of social media right?

Take care,

Stephen

[JL23 · Accepted solution]

I don't really see anything wrong in the decision to no allow comments.

And it is not a precedent either.

The forum rules are not open for comments too.

The platform offers this technical feature.

And it is a personal freedom to make use of it.

If one can foresee that the comments may address other concerns than the intented information given by the document itself, then I have no problem with this personal decision.

[Sharathmg · Accepted solution]

As an author, I agree with you that its at his/her discretion to allow comments or not. But, I feel blogs should not stop comments. Documents/Articles may still allow author to allow/restrict comments. Its my personal view on this matter.

Regards,

Sharath

[Former Member]

I think it is more of "wrong choice of channel". I even wouldn't say wrong....A document could have been a better choice.

My problem is, after going through the blog, I can not say, I get something firm about what to expect next. I understand the focus and purpose of such blogs, where the author primarily wants to tell (if not assure - in general, not in this specific context) the customers that they can expect something good in coming releases. Everyone expects and knows that new versions or road map ahead will focus and deliver improvements. But exactly what's cooking, is not mentioned. Terms like "more powerful scripting" did not tell us, the existing customers anything. I would have instead appreciated if the material would have referred to at least one problem raised with SAP, in their list of future innovation. Planned innovation and future direction does not say anything about "bug-fixes" Or "including frequently required missing features".

Of course these are expectations from customer side. I think the best and correct answer to all this is, the document gives a very high level overview and hence specifics are not listed. It is a high level status update on the product development.

Hope I am thinking on correct lines.

Regards

Abhi.

[PeterSpielvogel]

Hi Abhi,

Thanks for the comment.

Many customers are interested in exactly this information about problems that other people are raising and what we are doing about it. This is one of the topics we cover every month in a call for SAP Screen Personas customers.

This tends to be more tactical with the fixes coming in the form of SAP Notes or Service Packs.

You can follow the instructions in that post if you want to join the group.

Regards,

Peter

[stephenjohannes]

A few minor points here:

1) I'm more focused on the concept of closing blogs to comments rather than author himself.  I used "author" not the name to discuss the technique not the person.  Please keep that in mind as you post answers to my question.

2) I'm tired of all the non-honest, non-open marketing filler put out here by SAP on SCN.  I really didn't think that blog was a blog(should have been a document) and disabling comments is promoting a non-open culture that runs counter to why SCN is here.

3) Let's pretend comments were open.  Given the level activity of SCN lately, all we would have seen would have been comments on thanks for sharing or can you explain feature XYZ more.  Unless licensing was brought in topic, I doubt that would have happened.  I would probably would have even given it a like and 5-star rating and not thought anything more of it.  You see not being open causes more problems than just being open and honest.

4) No excuses.  I don't care about your internal procedures.  I'm tired of hearing that the reason is due your internal procedure.

That's all,

Stephen

[Sharathmg]

Agree with you on it. As an author myself, there is no point in distancing from the views of your readers.

Must discourage such an attempt.

Regards,

Sharath

[PeterSpielvogel]

This message was moderated.

[Former Member]

Hi Peter,

What I meant is that blocking comments attracted more attention than what ignoring a comment would have done.

Sorry about the "dunce cap" comment. It was meant in jest.

I do forensic audits in SAP (by nature of the product, technical forensics with business motives) so of course it has attracted my attention.

Perhaps a SAP Note or KBA would have been more appropriate? Why did you go for uncommentable SCN blog?

Just curious.

Cheers,

Julius

[PeterSpielvogel]

My main communications channel with SAP Screen Personas customers is through SCN. People know where to find information about product or documentation updates, solutions to technical problems, tutorial videos, etc. When people ask me questions via email that are of general interest, I like to publish the answer on SCN so others can benefit from the knowledge sharing.

SCN was the best way I could think of to communicate with my audience (primarily SAP Screen Personas customers, partners, or prospective customers). Publishing an SAP Note is another way to reach customers, but then the other audiences would miss this information. And, information on SCN is available to share in public via a URL; SAP Notes require a login, so the information would not be as widely available.

I could have disabled comments and not mentioned it in my blog post. Instead, in the interest of full transparency, I chose to let people know why I did this.

Regards,

Peter

[Former Member]

Hi Peter,

I understand you. Also in the BOBJ area I have encountered this - using SCN for support as the customer base is not integrated there and public information is wanted.

Perhaps a better option would have been to use SCN in addition to references to KBA, and moderate comments and take them offline.

I moderate the security forum. If folks try to use SCN to report vulnerabilities, then we deal with it the same way by moderating it as it not the correct place to publish solvable problems which still need a solution. There are several discussions about how to deal with public disclosure of information.

Perhaps you should just co-ordinate with the moderators of the scape you are posting in  - or request moderator access to it and deal with the unlikely event of the cabin loosing air pressure if it happens on a case by case basis.

When screen personas takes off, you should have that moderation inplace anyway (my opinion), otherwise your space will be flooded by noise about what a persona is...

As John mentioned, I can highly recommend contacting Marylin Pratt. She is very good at dealing with these sorts of things and helping you to moderate your own space.

But SCN Coffee Corner has some "poetic license" - rants and sarcasm is allowed.

Cheers,

Julius

[stephenjohannes]

I perfectly understand the intent and honestly then if this is something that shouldn't have comments attached, then a blog is not really the best place.  Documents are better or posting it somewhere else.

I brought this up because not allowing people to put comments on a blog really violates the spirit of community.   Do people really want SCN to become that type of community is the question that I was asking?

Take care,

Stephen

[Former Member]

Stephen - I think you brought up a really interesting topic. But, I don't think Peter is the enemy, just someone in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The problem I see is this: SAP has processes that sometimes get in the way of productivity. People try to find their way around the process. Take as a great example. They wanted to avoid PAM, so they created a SCN Document.

This is an information delivery problem and both Peter's blog and the HANA hardware blog tell us that the system is broken. What's more, this causes a myriad of SEO problems that make information even harder to find.

I was earlier trying to find certified 3rd party HANA vendors and you can't find that on Google for love nor money, just a bunch of recursive articles like that all point to each other!

Hoping Matt Johnson's Profile | SCN is watching this.

John

[FabioPagoti]

If there are two options and one of them is SAP Notes, go for the other. You did right.

[FabioPagoti]

Take a look on previous blog posts. From the last 20 he wrote 19 allows comments (some of them don't have comments yet - maybe this is a opportunity to give him some feedback)

I would not affirm this based on only one post.

[Former Member]

I'm going to give the benefit of the doubt - correlation is not the same as causation. I'm sure the likes of and will reach out to him and have a discussion.

Peter - in my view, I do think that disabling the comments wasn't the right approach. At SAP, there are rules around revenue recognition but as you said, as long as you aren't specific, you are fine. Planned innovations is sufficiently vague.

So why don't you want to engage with your followers on SCN? If they ask a question you can't answer for legal reasons, we're OK if you say that.

The SCN platform is definitely about conversation, so I would recommend you go ahead and enable the comment stream.

[FabioPagoti]

There are many reasons why somebody would disable comments. I guess this is very normal on blogging. Those who have a Wordpress website might agree with me.

The author gave his reason. I believe this has nothing to do with "SAP not listening the community". I would try to contact the blog author asking him to reconsider this choice (maybe copying him on this thread) .

[Former Member]

That is a good compromise. Of course the whole Coffee Corner is now awake about the revenue recognition controversy...

Cheers,

Julius

[Former Member]

Fabio,

I would hope that there is a difference between blogging on a Wordpress site and on SCN. People who comment on blogs here are SCN members, and if they are abusive, they can be guestified, so I think for the most part they are not. All of us who blog here are putting our opinions out there for anyone who wishes to agree or disagree, and that is part of the deal of the community. There are plenty of outlets for SAP infomercials.

Cheers,

Gretchen

[TobiasQueck]

Hi Gretchen,

I would not consider Peter's posts as an infomercials. Peter is talking to developers, customers and users working with or on Personas. He then carefully compiles all the important content and blogs about it and allows discussions because discussions usually make sense.

However, this post, again triggered by many questions coming in from customers, talks about the roadmap. Peter actually took publicly available content and compiled it so that it is easier to find on SCN. There was a discussion whether to post it or not because every written word about a roadmap usually causes trouble for the author even if it is important content for the readers. So instead of having a meta-discussion about blogging and comments, I think you should be happy for the information Peter shared. I hope that this discussion doesn't discourage Peter (or others) from sharing important information with the community.

Cheers,
Tobias.

[FabioPagoti]

Hi Gretchen,

I totally agree with you that a blog is composed by posts AND comments. As an Inbound Marketer, Wordpress User and SCN member I just personally believe that are many reasons why somebody would disable comments (old posts, huge number of comments given, promotional, informative pages, etc). I must confess that this should not be the rule but the exception mainly due SEO reasons.

Just today I read a post on GitHub announcing a new feature of their platform. Comments are disabled as well.

https://github.com/blog/1811-no-conversation-left-behind

Of course, maybe Peter won't have a valuable feedback in a comment format, but it is very easy to get in touch with him or anyone else here at the community and give your feedback directly.

By the way, The New York Times uses WordPress as well as 23% of the whole internet. I personally believe both SCN and WordPress are very serious web platforms that allow community managers to moderate content, for example disabling comments.

Cheers,

[Former Member]

I would suggest lots of low ratings. That hits the right nerve, but the author can still choose to block comments if he can live with the dunce cap.

Cheers,

Julius

[TobiasQueck]

Hi Julius,

This is like asking for a yellow card in football (aka soccer). As a football player I have to tell you that this is a behavior I (and several others) strongly dislike.

Cheers,

Tobias

[Former Member]

The context is the SCN Coffee Corner.

Posting content which cannot be discussed has a low rating in my books. I am entitled to that.

But obviously there is some reason for this - perhaps you can explain it? Then it can be understood.

I am not offended by your comment and yellow card.

Cheers,

Julius

[FabioPagoti]

I would only give low rating in case there is a blog post with low quality of information and/or not well written.

The post was well written and contains valuable information.

[Former Member]

Stephen,

I am with you: if an author does not wish to engage with his/her readers, just put out a press release and be done with it. The whole point of blogging is that when you are successful it is not a monologue.

Cheers,

Gretchen