Why do people get sooooooooooo offended?

[matt]

I wrote elsewhere:

Moderators don't always get it right. If there is a query about moderation, it would be nice, once in a while, to see that raised in this space, in a respectful, non-aggressive, non-confrontational, non-outraged manner. After all, it was only a question on an internet forum. Nobody died.

Why is it some people get offended when their posts are rejected, but when they question it, they do so in an offensive manner? Do they have no sense of irony`?

Just wondering...

[Jelena · Accepted solution]

Another "why my post was rejected" is probably coming up soon:

Lost all my faith in humanity for the day.

[JL23 · Accepted solution]

did he post the same question again? It was already rejected with this subject:

I want to create a Z PROGRAM FOR VERIFY THE COST COLLECTOR AUTOMATICALLY AND INFORM BY MAIL TO CONCERN PERSONS ABOUT NO PRICE OF SUB PARTS.

[Colleen · Accepted solution]

perhaps we have to be positive and encouraging of members by responding with a

"Great, Good for you! Go do it! Let us know how you go. I'm sure you'll succeed if you put your mind to it.... and search"

[matt · Accepted solution]

"Great, Good for you! Go do it! Let us know how you go. I'm sure you'll succeed if you put your mind to it.... and RTFM"

[former_member186746 · Accepted solution]

Oh, those kind of posts, sometimes I respond to them with the sentence

yes

In the hope that this might confuse them briefly, even make them think about what they are doing.

[agentry_src · Accepted solution]

Then (and wearing my nasty meanie hat), lock the Discussion. 

[agentry_src · Accepted solution]

And no, I was not serious...

[Jelena · Accepted solution]

Unfortunately, it seems that when instead of just reporting a thread we try to be nice it doesn't quite work either: http://scn.sap.com/message/16471963#16471963

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Here is another challenging example where it is easy to make a mistake, which also includes the mistake of doing nothing:

Newbie is going good by wanting to authorize the infoset groups correctly and not put a * into it...

Newbie understands the problem but probably does not imagine that it has ever been discussed before...

Newbie asks the question in a well phrased way and no SMS speak or the likes...

But... no evidence of trying to understand where the field is in the table behind it nor a search attempt. Question also has virtually no potential of developing into an interesting discussion, but there is risk that someone might give a thoughtful answer none-the-less and then rejecting later would be even unfair.

• The option of helping him is valid, but is likely to attract the "let me do your work for you" or "link-farming" points-mongers if left.

• The option to reject it is probably a bit harsh for a first time passive offender. Also no Abuse Reports yet, so I have no second opinion yet.

• The option to point out that searching and trying to solve the problem before asking and waiting can also be more offensive if posted online than what an offline message from rejection is. (if people have oversized egos with undersized skills then I usually use this approach, but newbie is innocent in that regard).

My tactic is usually to wait and see what happens and while waiting perhaps the to-be-guru will learn to search or use SE80.

Which one? Other suggestions?

Cheers,

Julius

[agentry_src · Accepted solution]

Hi Jelena,

I usually AM those kinds of posts, send them a link to

http://scn.sap.com/community/getting-started/blog/2010/05/12/asking-good-questions-in-the-forums-to-...

and occasionally this one,

http://scn.sap.com/blogs/juergenl/2013/09/08/dear-newbie--welcome-in-scn-mm-space

and sometimes to one or both of these:

http://scn.sap.com/community/about/blog/2014/11/21/why-my-discussion-got-rejected-and-what-to-do-nex...

http://scn.sap.com/community/abap/blog/2014/06/18/how-to-get-your-post-rejected-in-abap-development.

I keep the links handy since they are very well written and save me trying to explain that the reason no one has responded is that no one has a clue what help they need.

Cheers, Mike

[Jelena · Accepted solution]

Mike, I'm with you on this (and I also have most of these links handy). The reason we are having this conversation is that at least some people get offended when they are referred to these SCN resources.

I guess there might also be some confusion because "not enough info provided to answer intelligently" is technically not an ROE violation. But, unfortunately, when we ask for clarification it frequently turns out OP actually did not search enough (which is against ROE). I had an idea on Idea Place a while ago for "not enough detail" button which, when clicked by multiple SCN members, would hide the post and send a message to OP that they need to re-think their question. In this case it'd not be "rejection", so maybe it'd trigger some thought process instead of misplaced anger.

[Matt_Fraser · Accepted solution]

Quite the dilemma, Julius. Also looks like quite an analysis you've done here on "whether to moderate or not," practically a decision tree! Perhaps a public response of "Can you tell us what you've looked at and tried, so we don't point you to areas you've already explored? For instance, have you tried SE80?" Then leave it at that -- maybe the hint of a place to go look will be all the newbie needs to realize he can find it for himself, without you spoon-feeding how to use SE80 -- and if he responds with "Well, I looked at help.sap.com and tried searching SCN, but couldn't figure out the right search terms, as all my hits seemed unrelated," or something along those lines, then we know a bit more about this person.

The various link-farmers are going to respond no matter what (unless you lock or remove the post). Invariably they show up to answer many questions, no matter how well asked nor how valid, and often they do so even after legitimate and helpful answers have been given. Then, irony of ironies, one of them often ends up getting the "Correct Answer" flag, even though the correct answer was already given earlier, because statistically speaking eventually one of those links will lead to a relevant document.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Problem is that if you tell them to use the search then they are often more offended by that than a discrete rejected question with an offline reason.

"Link farmers" in the security forum are luckily few and far between because I delete their user IDs once they reach 50 points. Hasn't been necessary in a long time.

A bigger but luckily seldom problem compared to the newbies who are not aware of training and expect others to do their work for them, are those who are above training and also expect others to do their work for them. Throw in an oversized ego, arrogant attitude towards SAP and incompetence to actually test the detailed answers being given... then you also land up having to deal with nonsense such as this:

Perhaps rejecting a post 17 years ago would have helped?

Cheers,

Julius

[Colleen · Accepted solution]

I was reluctant to participate in that thread as I struggled to read the question/discussion without getting feeling of aggression/arrogance. But I usually dismiss that as written communication can be easily misconstrued or the author not realise the interpretation (meeting the a person face to face could be quite different).

That thread started out of "Please give practical examples of why it shouldn't in SAP_ALL and I"ll provide an example" to "Please validate my view that I should be able to add it based on the high level information I've told you about my landscape"

Any example given to answer the first question was dismissed as irrelevent to his system context. I found that worrying as too many assumptions would be made. If any other member comes to that thread they may pick out information that is valid in one context but not in another.

Oh well. It was quite animated

Regards

Colleen

[Colleen · Accepted solution]

in this case I was taking the wait and see with Alert Moderator ready for the link farmers. This is one of that cases where I'd take the time to educate/explain how to find the answer (within SAP and not Google) as this person seems like the type who will improve with community participation.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Yep, I certainly lost my patience with the bloviating and moving target...

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Yep, I took Matt's advice and also added a big hint in narrowing Jelena's answer to the type of object the group is for.

For the fun of it, perhaps we could have a fight about what the answer is? 

Perhaps guru will run off and search for the answer in the hope of peace...  (just a joke, but if Jelena is game for it?)

We did that once before in ... was good fun...  🙂

Cheers,

Julius

[Colleen · Accepted solution]

that is gold! If only I was more active back in 2008 instead of being a quiet lurker (though took me a few years to make my presence known in this community)

[Jelena · Accepted solution]

Julius, it would be unwise to argue with you in the Security forum. Besides, I might have already offended OP by butting in with my non-expert advice when OP was clearly addressing very specific group.

That polymorphism thread was epic, thanks for a reminder! Oh man...

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

In the end it is about their attitude towards learning on a public forum space.

Bad attitude -> moderators step in, either when noise level is too high or expertise level too low, or both.

Gali is correct that patience is certainly required, but the nature of internet forums of this type is that moderation is needed.

I also like the SO model of self moderating spaces. Will mean less active moderation needed and hopefully less flamewars with moderators are needed.

In the "SAP_ALL" thread above I certainly lost my patience over the days that it carried on and pointing out the "like" statistics did not help either...

The expectation that SCN will detail all the hacks in the book to counter the moving target and obviously bad idea and then excursions to "SAP-bashing" with limited patience for why SAP blocks his hacks was too much in the end.

Locked now. Should have been rejected or edited to remove the bloviating parts in the beginning? Hard to tell - moderating is not easy...

Cheers,

Julius

[Colleen · Accepted solution]

Should have been rejected or edited to remove the bloviating parts in the beginning? Hard to tell - moderating is not easy...

If this guy is known/regular in ASUG a behind the scene direct message at the beginning may have placated some of it. This may have removed interpretation of skill levels and 'insults' or potentially on the defensive. If the behaviour continued without an audience then lock or remove thread.

You are right - moderating is not easy. It's subjective and sometimes you give a little to see what direction a thread takes and then regret it. If someone with RFC expertise has time, a blog explaining the risk with high level examples (or possibly one exploit with the comment on how to prevent this) and then remove the thread. I do feel a bit bad that the thread remains there for the life of SCN's time with some of the comments. At the same time, that thread now has a lot of useful information.

I find it someone has to call themselves an expert of skilled then they may have a higher opinion of themselves compared to others. Experts/Skilled people do not tell everyone how knowledgeable they are unless it's a job interview. And even then, it's usually demonstrated and implied.

For this one, I would edit the comments that are personal attacks/assumptions and stick to topic only or remove it altogether.

[former_member182550 · Accepted solution]

!! A Mad object oriented Mornington Crescent crossed withHitchhikers Guide!  A great read!!

[Jelena · Accepted solution]

Colleen Hebbert wrote:


For this one, I would edit the comments that are personal attacks/assumptions and stick to topic only or remove it altogether.

I would've just moved it to the Coffee Corner where it seems to belong, based on how the "discussion" unraveled. Even though the OP tried to convince everyone it's not a rant, it "looks like a duck, walks like a duck...". Actually we have a very suitable thread in CC already: Stuff SAP could easily fix. If only people would search before posting!

[matt · Accepted solution]

I think many things about that thread, but I couldn't possibly comment on it.

[matt · Accepted solution]

I'd forgotten all about it. Perhaps it should be retitled "When mods loose patience...".

...er.... Upton Park

[former_member182550 · Accepted solution]

Bank.....

(And this is where people start thinking....)

[Jelena · Accepted solution]

People started thinking you guys are having some strange side conversation full of the obscure cultural references...

[agentry_src · Accepted solution]

And your question is??

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

For Pete's sake... you are tuly like idiots...

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

If we still had it, I would still be moving many of these types of threads, including the "behaves like a duck" ones, to the Test & Playground forum. The guru is however complaining about things which SAP did fix but don't suite him...

Why was the T&P forum actually done away with ? Can we have it back? It solved a lot of problems and trod on less toes than rejections or locking threads publicly.

Cheers,

Julius

[Jelena · Accepted solution]

If memory serves, there was a suggestion from the community a while ago to move the posts to some kind of a "graveyard" instead of rejecting. But I guess that would make the database grow exponentially.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Rejecting is clear. The T&P forum was for those which are deep into the grey zone but not clear-cut for rejection, or people who behaved immaturely.

Their posts were moved there.

The hope was also that beginners could experiment by trying to answer the questions with their guess work and link farms, but the forum was not points relevant so that never took off.

It would be nice to have it back..

Cheers,

Julius

[matt · Accepted solution]

Tricky.  But I think Holborn will assist

(btw, met a man who was Upton Park... two stops short of Barking...)

[JL23 · Accepted solution]

It was not possible in Jive to have point free forums like in times before 2012

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Coffee Corner is points free. Or is it just the reporting that is missing?

We could dump all the reporting and then all will be well, regardless of what is saved into the DB?

I still like the StackOverflow model of self moderation via weighted feedback. It encourages weighting and provides the option for "light weights" to have a limited scope. Generally improves quality all round.

We have been asking for that since years. Many knowledgable folks and also people capable of learning have left because of the noise...

Cheers,

Julius

Message was edited by: Julius von dem Bussche "and people capable of learning" added. Most learn and search on their own IMO, the majority - as Matt speculated

[JL23 · Accepted solution]

Coffee corner is not point free. Your question can be liked and rated, your question can get a correct answer.

Blogs and Documents are restricted from coffee corner since the poem inflation happened

With 1DX you will get your StackOverflow model, I doubt it will work here like there. For what reason should people change their attitude from one day to another, just because you get a new platform for the same questions. If they do not do any bad rating today and do not click Alert Moderator, why should they down vote it tomorrow?

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

I had not even noticed that the Coffee Corner has points. Perhaps folks here are sensible enough to use "likes" instead of assigning points.

But I checked now and I got 5 points for the "Extreme Accounting" thread. However it seems to have been deleted as the thread is no longer there... but the points are still there (hell... deleting an interesting discussion is fine but deleting the points for SCN statistics seems to be important again...).

IDX like SO model is at least an improvement. It takes time to correct the points noise damage which has been done to the quality of content on SCN.

Down-rating content is an opinion. Abuse Reports is a protest. I am at least optimistic about it - as long as the SAP marketing statistics reporting junkies do not hang on to points and number of users as their main metrics as they did in the past...

Cheers,

Julius

[matt · Accepted solution]

There was only one possible response to make to that post. So I made it.

[former_member182550 · Accepted solution]

<chuckles>

[Jelena · Accepted solution]

Jürgen L wrote:

If they do not do any bad rating today and do not click Alert Moderator, why should they down vote it tomorrow?

Question - are moderators not allowed to reject the threads just by themselves, without any alerts? Quite a few times I've seen the moderators actually replying with a note saying to search before posting (and not locking the thread). I've always wondered why the heck they are doing it instead of rejecting?

When others see such comments they might think this is the way to respond. And I agree with others saying that moderation styles are very inconsistent across the spaces. This also contributes to the issue in this topic - consistency is important when enforcing discipline. (Yeah, moderation is very much like parenting. )

[JL23 · Accepted solution]

I alert myself for sure, each of us is more than one, has a inner team which is motivating, pushing, consulting, warning taking care about health etc etc , as I just learned in a leadeship training.

[matt · Accepted solution]

I reject content on my own opinion. One moderator in my space hits the notify button, but seldom seems to use the moderation console - even though I've asked that person to do that. I feel like I'm the only active moderator in the ABAP space.

I always leave a comment explaining the reasons behind rejection.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

In hindsight we now know that his expectation was nothing less than other people doing his work for him. Despite hints at the answer and step-by-step instructions where to find the answer, his role in the discussion is just to "give the the answer only".

This is a common theme amongst all the different examples so far.

So... ... in hindsight was it correct to be patient and try, or should it have been rejected due to suspiscion or is it a case-by-case judgement call which mods have to make with help from abuse reports as a 2nd opinion?

For me the answer is clearly option 3 (moderator judgement call) because active moderation is necessary on SCN. The complaints from those who then feel offended afterwards and the tree hugging approach are, at lesst for me, of no meaning. They don't change anything. At most they have an entertainment value when the rants and flamewars break out... 🙂

Cheers,

Julius

[agentry_src · Accepted solution]

Every Moderator has to decide how they handle such situations.  I think that for newbies, it is best to assume that they have not read the RoE and reject their content while pointing them to reading the documents/blogs in the Getting Started link.  Make sure to let them understand that it is their newness that is the issue, not their personal lack of effort or personal laziness which is the issue.  Each community has an agreed upon (unofficially) protocol for addressing newbies or lazy members.  In my communities, there is a lack of tolerance for lazy participants, which makes it easy to reject vague Discussion questions.  It is important to let them know that they should make an effort to search first. 

Cheers, Mike

SAP Technology RIG

[VeselinaPeykova · Accepted solution]

Hmmm... most (if not all) forums that I read/participate in have some sort of "Rules of Engagement" that you need to agree on following before registration and searching the forum/web before posting is part of them.

I agree that the current default forum search functionality is far from perfect, but using custom search engines are not a new browser concept and installing them from an easy-to-find reputable website or generating them manually does not require exceptional technical skills or significant effort.

This discussion reminded me of something I have read a while back here:

On Not Reacting Like A Loser

Odds are you'll screw up a few times on hacker community forums — in ways detailed in this article, or similar. And you'll be told exactly how you screwed up, possibly with colourful asides. In public.
When this happens, the worst thing you can do is whine about the experience, claim to have been verbally assaulted, demand apologies, scream, hold your breath, threaten lawsuits, complain to people's employers, leave the toilet seat up, etc. Instead, here's what you do:
Get over it. It's normal. In fact, it's healthy and appropriate.
Community standards do not maintain themselves: They're maintained by people actively applying them, visibly, in public. Don't whine that all criticism should have been conveyed via private e-mail: That's not how it works. Nor is it useful to insist you've been personally insulted when someone comments that one of your claims was wrong, or that his views differ. Those are loser attitudes.
There have been hacker forums where, out of some misguided sense of hyper-courtesy, participants are banned from posting any fault-finding with another's posts, and told “Don't say anything if you're unwilling to help the user.”  The resulting departure of clueful participants to elsewhere causes them to descend into meaningless babble and become useless as technical forums.
Exaggeratedly “friendly” (in that fashion) or useful: Pick one.
Remember: When that hacker tells you that you've screwed up, and (no matter how gruffly) tells you not to do it again, he's acting out of concern for (1) you and (2) his community. It would be much easier for him to ignore you and filter you out of his life. If you can't manage to be grateful, at least have a little dignity, don't whine, and don't expect to be treated like a fragile doll just because you're a newcomer with a theatrically hypersensitive soul and delusions of entitlement.
Sometimes people will attack you personally, flame without an apparent reason, etc., even if you don't screw up (or have only screwed up in their imagination). In this case, complaining is the way to really screw up.
These flamers are either lamers who don't have a clue but believe themselves to be experts, or would-be psychologists testing whether you'll screw up. The other readers either ignore them, or find ways to deal with them on their own. The flamers' behavior creates problems for themselves, which don't have to concern you.
Don't let yourself be drawn into a flamewar, either. Most flames are best ignored — after you've checked whether they are really flames, not pointers to the ways in which you have screwed up, and not cleverly ciphered answers to your real question (this happens as well).

[Steffi_Warnecke · Accepted solution]

That reads like something Jelena could have written. ^^

[agentry_src · Accepted solution]

Hi Veselina,

Tough love indeed!  I like it especially the "don't expect to be treated like a fragile doll just because you're a newcomer with a theatrically hypersensitive soul and delusions of entitlement."

Cheers, Mike

SAP Technology RIG

[matt · Accepted solution]

I particular enjoyed that sentence as well!

[Jelena · Accepted solution]

Steffi Warnecke wrote:

That reads like something Jelena could have written. ^^

You know me so well!

[Jelena · Accepted solution]

I'm in a middle of reading the whole thing (good stuff!) and it could be easily copy-pasted into SCN:

What we are, unapologetically, is hostile to people who seem to be unwilling to think or to do their own homework before asking questions.  People like that are time sinks — they take without giving back, and they waste time we could have spent on another question more interesting and another person more worthy of an answer.  [...]

We realize that there are many people who just want to use the software we write, and who have no interest in learning technical details. [...] We acknowledge that, and don't expect everyone to take an interest in the technical matters that fascinate us.  Nevertheless, our style of answering questions is tuned for people who do take such an interest and are willing to be active participants in problem-solving.  [...]

We're (largely) volunteers.  We take time out of busy lives to answer questions, and at times we're overwhelmed with them.  So we filter ruthlessly.  In particular, we throw away questions from people who appear to be losers in order to spend our question-answering time more efficiently, on winners.
[...]  If you can't live with this sort of discrimination, we suggest you pay somebody for a commercial support contract instead of asking hackers to personally donate help to you.

While I don't really like "winners" / "losers" labels, the "time sinks" is the perfect term for the behavior we observe on SCN. If you look at the profiles of those "gimme answer" posters, you'll likely find dozens of open questions and no contributions to the community.

[audreystevenson · Accepted solution]

Remind me never to get on any of your (collective) bad sides!

I'm tempted to pull the Marilyn card at this point and call for a little bit of empathy, at least in the case of lack of awareness (which can sometimes be interpreted as arrogance). While I might also go along with Option #3, I would ask that moderators pause long enough to go #WWMPD before pulling the trigger in difficult cases.

[Jelena]

Every rejection is painful, so I can understand why someone may feel offended. Heck, I don't like having my abuse reports rejected either. But I also don't understand the "sooooooo offended" part, much less why people feel it's a good idea to post about it on SCN and, on top of that, accuse the moderators of rudeness when it's not even the case.

One can only guess that such situation occurs because people like me already encountered their share of rejections by the time they finished high school, so we have certain immunity. Now here comes the generation raised by the helicopter parents and teachers who were only allowed to grade their work in smiley faces. No wonder they have a hissy fit when their unrealistic expectations meet reality.

While I do agree with the "yet" part at least in some cases, we can't be patient indefinitely. I'd say that 1-2 warnings should be more than enough for someone who is simply misguided. If behavior continues, then clearly more strict measures are needed. SCN can't play a foster parent forever, people need to grow up.

[former_member182550]

Whilst not a mod,  the thing that gets me is the expectation from a lot of posters to be spoon fed....  That's all I'm saying because I still have the scars from the 'if the cap fits' flame wars in the other place.....

Regards

Rich

[matt]

Just sneaked a look over your shoulder at the other place.

[agentry_src]

Curious why no one mentions pointing the offending user to the Getting Started link at the top right of every SCN page?  It is a major part of almost every standard answer I use.  I have also pointed people to using Jason Lax's custom Google search since it works much better than the standard SCN search.  Thus the newbie can point to a terrible search tool as the excuse for why they did not search properly, wrong space, etc. in the first place and takes the bullseye off the Moderator when the original Discussion got rejected. 

It also warns against future silly behavior on the part of the newbie.  Note that this does not prevent it in all cases, but tends to reduce the number of repeat offenses. 

The hardest part of dealing with newbies is that the pattern repeats over and over and over...

But each newbie is just that, a newbie.  Sometimes it is difficult to not be short with them since as a Moderator, we might have seen similar RoE violations a dozen times already that day.  However, second time around, it is appropriate to bring the hammer down (and sometimes even gratifying  ). 

Cheers, Mike

PS Really, really had a fun time reading all the comments.  Great topic Matt!

[matt]

Of course the newbies who do take on board the criticism and adjust their behaviour we never hear from. They could be in the majority!

[former_member182550]

Hmmm......

The SAP Fan Club Forums &amp;bull; View topic - Rant

[matt]

Those were the days.

[Colleen]

Hi Matt

I exited that thread when you turned up as I would have ended up writing the same points

I noticed with December and January quite a few regular SCNers and also Moderators being a lot more patient with FAQs and new members. Posts which I would have expected to be rejected straight out had attempts at education and explaining to the members. But it all feel on deaf ears.

The common accusation I see is that Moderators abuse power. I wonder what power they think we all have? We're cleaners in the grand scheme of things. If anything, when I became a moderator I second-guessed myself for every Alert Moderator action. Prior to becoming a Moderator, I never thought twice when it came to questioning content. I'm fortunate my space is relatively quiet to have time to go through each post.

I do notice there is a pattern in member location (culture at play) and in many cases level of experience in SAP. Most of the member who complain are new to SAP and don't know how to search. For the juniors out there, there is a level of maturity: they don't realise they are being unprofessional as the enter the real world where they won't be spoon fed anymore. In some cases, their writing reads as though they are ranting to a friend - at best its a brain dump without any clean up or formatting. Then you add stubborn to it when they don't want to admit they have made a mistake or were in the wrong. /ramble

More than likely they are stressed as they urgently need their answer for either a job interview, certification study or they have the job and don't want to get caught out. So they only see their situation and will not consider any other reason.

In their eyes, they are a victim and the Moderator is at fault.

Regards

Colleen

[matt]

It's not all bad. I did recently get a charming message about a rejection of a basic question. But this was from someone who's been a member for ten years, so presumably had, as you say, a level of maturity and professionalism.

I moderate another online forum. The joke there is that the moderators are a bunch of megalomaniacs on a power trip, and that we reject and ban people according to dice throws!

[former_member46]

So 6 is ban, 5 reject, 4 a warning... and so on?

But back to the original question, Matt. For some people it takes real 'guts' to write in a professional forum and rejecting their content can feel like personal belittlement or rejection. Its why I think that while moderators 'garden' (not clean Colleen ) a large part of their role is patience. Patience to help their community grow, patience to continuously onboard newbies, patience with repetitive questions and short members, patience with others learning curves...

[Former Member]

Gali Kling Schneider wrote:

patience with repetitive questions

It was only when reaching this that I was sure you were being sarcastic..  🙂

Cheers,

Julius

[Former Member]

I must confess that I also let things slide a bit between the 1st advent and christmas. I sometimes regret it as it re-enforces people's habits when they are too lazy to even do a basic search and then some over-sized-ego-points-hunters also complain afterwards that a few weeks ago they could answer interview questions but now suddenly it is not allowed again...

Unfortunately because of the idiotic points system and nature of the product perhaps even as well, it is necessary to have some strict moderation and choosing the right moment and dosage is not always easy.

Cheers,

Julius

[matt]

I've quite a lot of patience. I've three children who've made it to adulthood. But being patient with people doesn't mean you have to tolerate bad behaviour. Sometimes a roll of 3* is necessary.

I'd far rather give a neophyte what they need than what they think they want. Even if they think I'm being mean and unkind.

* Naughty step.

[Colleen]

moderators 'garden' (not clean Colleen )

Yes Gali, all moderators at some point experience an abundance of fertiliser

[Former Member]

Hi Gali,

Here is a little practical everyday example for you:

Question appears to be reasonably harmless on the surface - OK.

User is lazy bones and no attempt to search - not OK

No attempt to trace in the system as the object needed will be immediately obvious - not OK

The link farmers who do searches for lazy bones will show up very soon - not OK

First Report Abuse came in already so I am not alone and should not ignore it - not OK.

Person is not personalized (cryptic name, but at least not "Basis guru" etc...) - not a good sign either.

Person is asking series of lazy questions about archiving as well - no training  - not OK.

So...

a) Be patient and give the person a hug.

b) Reject the post at the risk of offending some feelings.

Note that we should react within the next 10 minutes ideally, as the sooner it is dealt with the less problematic the whole topic becomes, in my experience. For the moment it is locked.

Cheers,

Julius

[Colleen]

And I thought Optimus Prime as a Transformer would have already sifted through the Internet searching for this answer?

[Former Member]

The 10 minutes are also up. Where is Gali? We need to make a decision here...

Cheers,

Julius

[matt]

Additional info. Has two locked posts in ABAP Development, both from 2012. One with

Moderator message: please no theoretical exam-type questions, search for information, do not post in all upper case.

the other

Moderator message: please search for information before posting, phrase proper questions when posting.

[Former Member]

OK, so the CAPS ON problem is at least solved now.

Shall we be more patient in the hope that the content quality and spoon feeding problem also follows suit? Or reject?

I leave it locked for the moment until Gali can give us some guidance.

Cheers,

Julius

[VeselinaPeykova]

This is a bit scary... I wonder whether he actually managed to archive the correct objects in the first place.

Well, some 'kind soul' might tell him that sap_all+sap_new can resolve most authorization issues just to get these 10 points.

[Steffi_Warnecke]

For some people it takes real 'guts' to write in a professional forum and rejecting their content can feel like personal belittlement or rejection. 

It's just sad, that those same people tend to forget, that this is a professional forum and what the expected behavior is. Not just when posting content, but more so when posting critic.

I see a lot of "this is unfair, rude... yadda yadda", but all this a a really rude, demanding demeanor. It's really easy to point to "cultural differences" for this, but I see other examples of users of the same cultural areas, who don't forget what asking politely is, so I can't quite get on that waggon. Also this kind of behavior is found everywhere, so again... not so much culture-stuff IMO.

Again, "spoiled kids" comes to my mind, when reading some threads, especially in the support space.

[matt]

I have, in the past, when I've received a communication from one of the administrators concerning a member's complaint, replied in quite robust language...

[vwegert]

Matthew Billingham wrote:

I have, in the past, when I've received a communication from one of the administrators concerning a member's complaint, replied in quite robust language... 

The year 2016 is still relatively young - but may I respectfully ask where to nominate this as "understatement of the year"?

(EDIT: not referring to admin messages, since I wouldn't know about that...)

[former_member182550]

Should we perhaps resurrect the SapFans Darwin Awards here ???

[former_member46]

Wow this thread has certainly taken off and I admit to enjoying reading the comments too so thanks Matt!

Julius thank you for giving me the opportunity to clarify that while I believe our moderators need to employ a lot of patience, especially in shall we say 'robust' spaces this does not mean they need to simply hug and be patient. I have moderated my fair share of content over the years and while always attempting to help guide,  be polite and fair, rejections need to be made for those who don't follow the rules.

I think you know me a bit better than that anyway ...

Its a bit like good parenting no? Or maybe we shouldn't go there

[VeselinaPeykova]

Well... the sense of irony depends on the person's experience and cultural background.

I guess the majority of discussions get rejected are because of 'failed to search', 'too basic', 'too generic'... Why you would expect communication in a professional manner from somebody who is clearly not a professional ... yet?

If I ever ask a question on the forum which is rejected by the moderator, I would just move on and continue my investigation, search/ask for help elsewhere or even resort to debugging (what a terrible idea!) - so this is not such a big deal. For people who do not know how/where to search, have no access to SAP notes or have limited experience in the area, this is probably a more serious issue, because their job is at stake.

Maybe if people could keep in mind that moderators perform voluntarily work, may live in different time zones or if they had an idea about the amount of time dedicated on daily basis on reviewing the posts... unfortunately this somehow implies the ability to see the bigger picture, so I would keep my expectations low for the time being.

[former_member186746]

Veselina Peykova wrote:

Why you would expect communication in a professional manner from somebody who is clearly not a professional ... yet? 

You really hit the nail on the head with that remark.

SCN should be a place for professionals, if someone gets offended when they are confronted that they do not act in a professional manner then it is safe to say that this space is not meant for them.

And we should not placate them (am I using this verb correctly?).

Being an SAP professional means a lot of things, some of the minimum requirements for SCN are being able to search on your own, being able to form full sentences and understanding the basics and jargon of a topic prior to posting questions.

If you can't then that can be solved with training so first do that before returning here, if you're unwilling then just go away.

To all the moderators, don't feel bad when someone is accusing you of megalomaniac tendencies, and don't even try to understand their behaviour, just ban them. They shouldn't even be allowed here in the first place.

Cheers, Rob Dielemans

[Former Member]

You know what is the most important word in that quote of Veselina Peykova's? "Yet".

Most people who are new to SCN take a while to get it. Yes, maybe some never will, but most will with some help. The best way to make sure they get it isn't to ban them, or say they shouldn't be allowed here in the first place. "You have no clue - go away until you find some" is not going to work. The best people to help somebody new integrate into a community are the people who are already there.

I'm going to quote Gali Kling Schneider now, from a comment just below:

But back to the original question, Matt. For some people it takes real 'guts' to write in a professional forum and rejecting their content can feel like personal belittlement or rejection. Its why I think that while moderators 'garden' (not clean Colleen ) a large part of their role is patience. Patience to help their community grow, patience to continuously onboard newbies, patience with repetitive questions and short members, patience with others learning curves...

I like the gardening metaphor. In my garden I do a lot more pruning than weeding. Discouraging growth in bad directions to encourage growth in good directions. Gardening is more about cultivating and encouraging growth than it is about weeding and getting rid of the undesirables.

Yes, SCN is a place for professionals, but don't forget what the "C" stands for. It should be a place that grows professionals, not a place for professionals to come once they're fully grown. I for sure would not be where I am now if that were the case.

All that said, sometimes you have to prune hard and we shouldn't shy away from that when necessary...

Steve.

PS. I'm not a moderator, so I realise this is an ideal viewpoint not tainted with the realism of having to actually do it!

[former_member186746]

Hi Steve,

I did acknowledge the "yet" part in my reply.

What I stressed is that this is a space for professionals and if you're unwilling to conform to the minimum requirements then please reconsidder your profession.

And with professionals I do not mean super guru senior know-it-alls, you can be as green as a pea on your first day at work and use SCN to find  answers to your questions, however if all you can come up with is "help plz urgent how to select" then you have no place here, and should return when you've done some reading.

Suppose this is a place for professional heart surgeons and someone asks the community on how to make your first incision, you would be terrified.

Cheers,

[VeselinaPeykova]

Forum bans would probably not work anyway, because you can always create a new profile...

If a newbie can find the SCN forum page, why it is so hard to find help.sap.com and bookmark/read on the topic?

I have no issue helping somebody who has done some research on the subject, but is struggling with understanding a certain concept (even if it can seem basic from my point of view).

Unfortunately this is a rare case and more often I see people with the authorizations and the potential to cause significant damage to the productive environment than people who wish to develop themselves into professionals.

I am also not a moderator, so I see just the tip of the iceberg, but I am already scared that some day I might end up in a very challenging project.

[vwegert]

I think we all can agree that the ones who want to learn aren't the problem - they'll get the hints sooner or later, and people like Matthew make sure that "sooner" is more like "the first time". I like to provide information myself - but mostly over there on stackoverflow.com. That platform was built with the knowledge in mind that it will invariably attract a lot of bad content as well as good, sensible questions. You can downvote bad questions and answers, you can - depending on reputation - vote to close questions for a number of reasons. I remember that loooong ago when the SCN was still called SDN, there was a downvote capability as well. I'm not sure about any causality, but I think when downvoting was removed, the number of bad entries here started to rise - because there's nothing to be lost by just throwing a semi-illegible brain dump in here and waiting for someone to make sense of it...

[JL23]

We will get probably the same feature as in stackoverflow with the 1DX platform, but I doubt it will work, except those who down vote get some badges or points for it, right now we have the Alert Moderator link, but I rather see 10 people answer the basic questions (with links) than a single person pressing the Notification.

However, I see that it can work, all wrong launched posts  in the SCN Support and About SCN space get quickly more than one alert and disappear automatically. But I assume even those alerts are made by a few people only who don't want to see unrelated discussions in their communication stream.

All my rejections have a moderator note. Sometimes I even send a direct message too.

The stupid thing is that I cannot know if the people got the message, technically they certainly did, but often all comes together: not able to search, not able to define the notifications in the user profile properly, not recognizing the increasing numbers for communication and actions.

So the user interface prevents the Newbies to even recognize the guidance.

Luckily it is only a minority who takes it as offense, I would even say less than a percent, but they then act and let it look as if it is a major problem here with board and the moderators.

You probably read about the 90-9-1 rule published by Nielsen in 2006 about forum participation. 90% readers, 9% participate, 1% heavy users (blogging, answering).

Now imagine how much content will be rejected in a board like SCN and how much of those 9% could be affected with a rejection. And from those who are affected it is in my area only a minority who feels offended....

There are more important problems in the world.

They are just caught in the act, any human or animal has a privacy area, if you come to close they either flee or attack, and with a rejection some may feel you are coming to close.

Seriously, an experienced moderator can see if there was some research done or if they just ask to be spoon-feeded. Not to forget that we can see history, earlier rejections (some have quite a huge amount), cross postings of questions, re-posting of same question after a rejection (ignoring moderation), re-opening old questions and even if they close their questions after having an answer. I already have my picture about the person who caused this discussion, it is not just a single reason from above.

[vwegert]

Jürgen L wrote:

We will get probably the same feature as in stackoverflow with the 1DX platform, but I doubt it will work, except those who down vote get some badges or points for it, right now we have the Alert Moderator link, but I rather see 10 people answer the basic questions (with links) than a single person pressing the Notification.

I'm not as active on SCN as I would like to be - mainly due to the excessive background noise - but what I percieve as a problem is the different standards of moderation. On SO, if a certain number of users that have earned a certain level of reputation agree that a question is rubbish, it is closed. On SCN, if a moderator of a certain space is AWOL or does not want to interfere for some undisclosed reason, nothing happens. I've seen this before - content clearly ripped off from the SAP training material posted, so I notified the moderator, and after 10 days or so got the reply that they didn't think any further action was necessary. Well, if they think so...

There are more important problems in the world.

Certainly. But they are not for the Coffee Corner - or are they?

They are just caught in the act, any human or animal has a privacy area, if you come to close they either flee or attack, and with a rejection some may feel you are coming to close.


Seriously, an experienced moderator can see if there was some research done or if they just ask to be spoon-feeded. Not to forget that we can see history, earlier rejections (some have quite a huge amount), cross postings of questions, re-posting of same question after a rejection (ignoring moderation), re-opening old questions and even if they close their questions after having an answer. I already have my picture about the person who caused this discussion, it is not just a single reason from above.

Well, if the moderation tools are anything like what we ordinary SCN users have available, I'd say it's hard to value the effort spent by any active moderator too high. We'll see what 1DX will bring, but personally, I won't hold my breath. The last "migration" shredded a few of my posts...