Disappeared Discussions

[Former Member]

One thing I do not like about the "new" SCN is they way discussions are removed with no explanation. In the "old" SCN, when a moderator locked a discussion, he or she generally gave a reason for all to see. And then perhaps had to take some flak for doing so. Now discussions just seem to be removed in the middle of the night.

For example, what happened to:

http://scn.sap.com/message/15989927#15989927

Rob

[JL23 · Accepted solution]

This platform has a remaining life cycle of just 7 months, then a new game begins. We haven't seen it yet and do not know if this will be different with the new platform for forums.

In general, if the moderator adds a reason for rejection, then it can be seen by the owner of the rejected content only.

Which is in general fine, as it prevents a public spectacle. Not everyone is proud to get content rejected.

In repeated cases and non capability of finding the moderation notes, repeated rule violations are locked and reason is given in a reply in the forum.

Locked discussions are alive, have often no answer at all, but appear in the hit lists when searching. This is pretty annoying. Of course a moderator can remove such locked discussions later, but this means extra effort and we have no console that helps us to find locked discussions, so we would even need to tag the discussions to find them again.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Well, if the platform will not be around much longer, I guess it doesn't much matter.

However, the old way might annoy the original poster, but the new way, it seems to me anyway, would annoy the people who are trying to help.

And, it's hard to know what sorts of questions will be removed and shouldn't be answered if no reasons are given.

Rob

[JL23 · Accepted solution]

I don't know what the reason was for the discussion you linked, only the user and the reporter of the alert can know this from the notes given by the moderator.

It is not even possible for the moderator himself to know what reason he gave (except he was the reporter himself) as moderators of the space can open that link but the note cannot be seen anymore. This platform is not moderation friendly.

I remove mainly the basic and redundant questions for which the user could have found the answer himself within 1 minute either in SCN or in help.sap.com

(unfortunately I keep the stupid questions as they are in most cases unique)

[Jelena]

I also liked the old way (locking thread) and to this day enjoy reading your, Julius's and other SCN legends' remarks when locking the threads. But the volume of basic questions and spec dumping on SCN is nothing like the good old days, so we'd be generating tons of digital garbage (as well as polluting search results). Anyone searching (as we all should) would want to find just one post with a helpful answer, not 20 posts with the same question and moderator comments or very wrong answers (we have tons of that too).

So personally I'm quite fine with discussions just being gone when appropriate. And normally I don't answer such discussions and just hit 'Alert Moderator' instead.

[Former Member]

I guess I didn't explain fully:

Just getting rid of those sorts of discussions is fine by me. But in addition to notifying the OP, it would be nice if the other responders could also be notified why the discussion was removed. This should be able to be handled by the software and not add to the moderators workload.

Rob

[Jelena]

I don't know the moderation side of SCN that well, but could this actually be intentional not to notify the "innocent bystanders" who replied to a rejected discussion?

Not all of us on SCN are rational adults, unfortunately. You and I might get a note 'your post was rejected together with the whole discussion because OP didn't search' and think 'OK, thanks for the note'. But some others would just see "rejected" keyword and go ballistic in 'About SCN' space.

[Former Member]

Hi Rob,

I reported abuse on that post and numerous others by that author.  They have posted for the past couple of weeks countless really basic questions that could be resolved with searching, reading help, attending training etc.  Almost all content has been rejected.

The moderation system is rubbish in terms of visibility unfortunately.

In that particular example, the OP posted a picture of a short dump asking what had happened - the answer was in the short dump if they bothered to read it and do some homework, which they repeatedly haven't!

Cheers,

G.

[Former Member]

Thanks Gareth - but the moderator has to judge the post, not the poster.

I'm afraid I don't remember the short dump (and of course, can't see it now), but if the answer was there, then I can see why it was rejected.

On the other hand, I think that there were a number of different answers by different, knowledgeable people (also that cannot be checked). That was the reason I was wondering why it was rejected.

rob

[moshenaveh]

Hi Rob,

Currently you are not a moderator. Please let me know if this needs to change.

Moderators can see rejected posts, and that helps understanding why it was rejected.

Regards,

Moshe

[Former Member]

Hi Rob,

Sometimes I like to lock posts with a mod's comment before doing so, as it helps the rest of the community see why/how content was locked, which can be especially useful in cases such as this where others have already posted onto a thread before it disappears.

I think this was just bad timing though and that post was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back in terms of that posters content.

(Although the stern message from the mod's hasn't changed anything and they are still posting basic questions...)

Cheers,

G.

[Former Member]

I'll be leaving again very soon, so I certainly don't need to do any moderation.

Thanks just the same

Rob

[Former Member]

Hey Rob,

Have you reached the stage already where everything was much better in the olden days?

Nice to hear from you again! Are you still doing hobby ABAP or start a consultancy after retirement?

Cheers,

Julius

[Former Member]

Julius von dem Bussche wrote:

Hey Rob,

Have you reached the stage already where everything was much better in the olden days? 

I couldn't have said it better myself!

Nice to hear from you again! Are you still doing hobby ABAP or start a consultancy after retirement?

Cheers,
Julius

I was doing some ABAPing for the last year or so after retirement. My last day was two days ago and now I'm back to enjoying retirement again.

Good to hear from you again Julius!

Rob

Message was edited by: Rob Burbank

[former_member183424]

I certainly agree with that. At least discussion owner should know the reason for rejecting the discussion. When we press alert moderator, then at the time decision (review of this alert), we can also see the reason for rejection along with owner. I have plenty review results for alert without reason in my action tab.

Moderator should give the reason for a rejecting discussion. I am not talking about all moderators, there are some good moderators who give the reason with a gentle way.

[Jitendra_Kansal]

Did you not get any notification under Actions tab?

You can always reach out sapnetwork@sap.com for any SCN related concerns.

[Former Member]

None - this was not a discussion that I started, just one to which I replied.

Rob