Interest on Forums in Danger

[Former Member]

Hello ,

These days when we post a Query in forums, we get answers

with in a split second.

But pitty is some novice developers just posta reply for the heck of it and we are loaded with poor replies.

By the time we get a proper reply or a experienced person to reply it take 10 to 12 levels.

Or most of the times if the thread is already 5 or 6 iterations, many dont read the query.

There should be three levels :

Easy - Where Users with say points 1000 and below can answer the question.

Medium : Users with 1000 and above can answer.

Hard : users with 1000 and above can answer.

Can you create a level , where user can select Easy / medium / Difficult .

SO that query reaches to proper boxes, and we get quality answers.

Regds,

Ö

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Interesting idea, however everyone on SDN is here as a volunteer to help and to get help.

The forums are pretty much the only place a person just starting out can earn points unless they jump right into some of the other areas like writing articles, creating blogs or podcasts or video/media content.

I'm sorry that you seem to have this issue, perhaps you can provide me with some links to threads where this is happening so I can take a look and better understand myself what you mean.

Craig

[suresh_datti · Accepted solution]

>>>>everyone on SDN is here as a volunteer to help and to get help.

I agree.. for some it is just a hobby and not mere points alone..

Also, the points earned need not necessarily reflect one's level of expertise..

Unhelpful answers will in any case be ingnored.. so what's the big deal..

but I like the idea of creating the 3 levels for Questions alone and there should not be any restrictions for answering them...

Regards,

Suresh Datti

[athavanraja · Accepted solution]

I can understand One Family's concern. I see it happenning a lot in ABAP forum. Some time back i posted a in ABAP forum for the moderator to atleast come up with a sticky post as i felt and still feel that is very much required in ABAP forum

Regards

Raja

[suresh_datti · Accepted solution]

Cool.. Raja, I didn't see that thread.. just replied & bumped it up..

Regards,

Suresh Datti

[athavanraja · Accepted solution]

Thanks Suresh for the support. I really feel that its the need of the hour.

Regards

Raja

[suresh_datti · Accepted solution]

Craig: Thanks for the action taken..

One Family: May be we can request for categorizing the Questions if the forum doesn't get any better.. I do feel silly for some of the easy '10' pointers I occassionally (& am lucky enough to) get...

Regards,

Suresh Datti

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

No problem,

However don't get your hopes on the classification of posts. We are trying to classify the blogs in terms of the information in them however a classification system for questions puts to much emphasis on this being a "Support Channel" and that's not the intention. SDN is a place for peers to discuss and help each other but it is not an official support channel with escalation and so forth.

Adding a classification system may also not solve your problem, the person writing the question would have to decide what level to assign it. With so many questions each day there is no other way. And therefore they will of course mark it difficult thinking those with higher point values will be quicker to answer thus leaving you with easy questions but no one being able to answer unless they have points at a higher level.

A classification system just makes no sense for SDN at this time.

[athavanraja · Accepted solution]

Thanks Craig, Suresh and One Family.

A more active (dedicated) moderation of individual forums would fix lot of things.

Regards

Raja

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

We are working with our moderators, however one has to know when to jump in. You can not very well jump in and delete a message because you think it was not helpful.

By the author not rewarding points the inviduals should then understand that their post was NOT helpful and they should reconsider what they write in the future.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hello Craig,

Am glad for your attention on the concerns we have , these things only help to make SDN a better place.

Measures taken at different levels would only show ADAPTIVE modelling even to such dynamic forums.

Needs are changing, SDN is no more the way it started .

Small & quite for few geeks (if i can say) it has grown in numbers (I am always worried when something grows big ,call me Pessimistic).

Who else can do it ? Ofcource Craig, you are one of the few who can look in as user as you have seen both the sides of SDN.

I can understand the amount of time and budget that goes in for such forums , but look at the value addition

SAP gets for it self (they could still hire couple of top guns ). Not to mention the awareness of product itself for masses.

Seperate Best from the rest.

[athavanraja · Accepted solution]

i am not talking about moderator jumping in to delete/modify posts. moderators could jump into the thread where he could guide the people in case if something is wrong.

Regards

Raja

[suresh_datti · Accepted solution]

>>>By the author not rewarding points the inviduals should then understand that their post was NOT helpful and they should reconsider what they write in the future

I agree with this.. but what about the other concern ie the Quality of Questions? ex: what is HR ABAP? how I can I learn SMARTFORMS? leave alone logging into SDN & searching the forum, a mere Google search will return a host of useful links.. I think the Moderator could step in for such posts & guide the user to search the forum before posting a question...

just my 2 cents..

Regards,

Suresh Datti

[athavanraja · Accepted solution]

for more than the <i><b>Quality of Questions</b></i> <i><b>Quality of Answers</b></i> is of primary concern.

i have seen in many cases where the poster is asking for what's A and though the right answer has been given by somebody people keep answering either with the same answer or sometime they enven answer what's B - which is irrelevant for question, thats where One Family's concern also (i guess). This makes the question poster confused as to which is the right answer.

this is where i guess, moderator should jump in and say <i>"hey don't misguide".</i>

Even more than the moderator it will be really great if fellow SDNers pitch in and tell the guy that his answer is wrong. (i tried doing it wherever possible)

Regards

Raja

[suresh_datti · Accepted solution]

so it is not actually the quality of answers.. but the intent of some people trying to ride piggy back on posted answers & earn some easy points... how do you control that? As it is the discretion of the person who posted the question whether or not to award points..

Regards,

Suresh Datti

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hello Raja,

Yes, I am worried about quality of answers we get, i almost lost interest and starting looking at other alternates for solutions.

We need to have some sort of control, Just for the heck of posting and points we see many replies like that .

Many times i have seen people dont read the question at all , or they are in a hurry to answer something to get some points.

Similary few weblogs. On how to use we19 transaction?

I will end up writing thousands of Blogs for each Tcode available in SAP :-).

I would prefer to go a quality restaurant than a popular one , if it is little costly (wrong ideas craig? )

Cheers,

Ö

[athavanraja · Accepted solution]

no, its actually the quality of answers (the other one was just another issue).

Regards

Raja

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Guys you seem to be bouncing around a lot here in terms of the problem.

The problem is you have lots of eager people in the ABAP forum trying to earn points. By being so eager they are posting what you consider to be irrelevant answers and posts.

Giving these posts points encourages them, not giving them points discourages them.

A moderator would not be able to moderate this activitiy without input from the author of the question pointing it out.

Adding levels to the questions here in SDN turns us into a Support Channel and limits who can input, for example let's see we have a new person sign up who happens to be the leading ABAP expert, he has no points - therefore he could only then answer the posts marked "beginner", he sits there and says to himself "that one is a no brainer for me, I'll let someone else answer it and I'll wait for a tougher one" - he never gets to the tougher ones because he never earns any points.

Big flaw in the classifications of questions.

I've been doing some checking and this problem seems to be ONLY present in the ABAP forum with a few instances in some of the BI and EP forums.

So the question is "<b>How do we explain how SDN works and how to behave properly and considerately within the SAP Forums on SDN</b>".

I'm open to suggestions on that, because that is the underlying problem here.

[suresh_datti · Accepted solution]

OK, I totally empathize with One Family's frustration & Raja's concern for Quality answers.. I also agree with Craig that we cannot go in for classification..here's my suggestion..

Another sticky post.. "Rules of engagement for answering a Question"

1. Try to understand the question before you answer.. there have been some serious concerns raised by fellow SDNers about the Quality of answers on this forum.. some instances were brought to notice wherein wrong answers were posted causing avoidable confusion... pl look before you leap...

2. Another worrying trend observed on this forum is to repeat the same answer well after the question has already been answered.. Pl do not post such replies, if your reply does not add any value to the answer already given. Points earned against such replies are liable for deletion by the Moderator.. (am I sounding like the Big Brother? that was just to deter such replies..)

Regards,

Suresh Datti

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Because of the issues discussed in this thread I find myself less and less motivated to answer questions at all, which is quite a pitty because it is gratifying for me to solve new challenges and to help my fellow SAP Developers out. I've only been posting answers for about a month, so I wonder how long before I totally burn out?

> 2. Another worrying trend observed on this forum is

> to repeat the same answer well after the question has

> already been answered..

I have on several occasions been in the middle of responding to a question (with a correct answer) just to find out after posting my reply that one or more people were simultaneously answering the question. How can this be prevented? Can we implement an enqueue/dequeue on forum questions? (just a joke) It does give the appearance of "piggy-backing" on the first person's answer, but in reality it is just a timing issue. Just one more reason to post fewer answers I suppose.

Wanted to share my point of view...

Best Regards,

James G.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Don't be discouraged James! Today I posted "Rules of Engagement" in all the forums and for now that is what we are doing. Don't be discouraged keep on answering as many need to understand there are so many levels sometimes to look at a problem, so multiple views are always good it's the rare (only a few true ones) cases where someone simply repeats an answer a few minutes later -- and that is what has many people upset. I guess a fallback to being in such a lively and active place with so much happening all at once.

The "piggy-backing" or "shadowing" as some call it is when the messages occurs after several minutes those occuring within seconds or minutes of each other can be understood. Annonying as it is when you spend the time to post and find someone else posted already - and typically happens only in are rather "high activity" forums such as ABAP.

If you or anyone else feels discouraged or like you are being put down or anything along those lines feel free to call or email me -- I always have time for SDNers!

Craig

[maximilian_schaufler · Accepted solution]

I have not been very active in SDN for quite a while now I guess. I dwell in memories of the "good ol' times" when I was able to read every single post in at least the BSP forum and quick read a few others as well. The reasons I do not spend this much time on SDN anymore are of course various, not everyone's private life allows for high-level participation in all of the different spare time areas. But I can say that even the time I spend on SDN I have a different feeling - this can of course be because of my personal changes, but also influenced by SDN changing. Be this good or bad, that is up everyone's own interpretation.

What I learned from reading this discussion is that I'm not the only one making up his mind about how SDN is coping with it's growth, which naturally goes hand in hand with a change in the "mood" of SDN. Understanding that overly strict measures to divide up different levels of content would only split the community that SDN became to be. Combining these thoughts with some technical considerations (when it comes to implementing some changes) I came up with this:

It would be nice to have some additional information about the forum threads:

Not only quantitative but also qualitative amount of replies. Calculate the mean value of the points of the users that posted in a thread (either once for every participating user, or each post separately, you have to choose what math would be better). Maybe also do this not only for replies/posts but for thread views as well.

In terms of technical effort - doing this simple calculation when updating a thread by replying to it shouldn't have negative performance impacts, can't think of that.

Maybe this has to be thought over more thouroughly when considering this calculation for views only as well. I don't know the forum background, what kind of information is getting logged anyway, to combine this with my suggestions. But this is up to the SDN developer team.

These are just my outsider considerations.

Please give this a serious thought and try to discuss it in the appropriate team meetings. I have read several other discussions about different rating systems, content classifications and what not. I already agreed with a few opinions there, but also thinking about the overall sense it would make and the technical and social effort it would take I did not consider them as realistic.

But do also think that the way I described would be relatively easy to implement technically, as well as could be integrated into the community without the danger of tearing the community apart.

If people are out there to gain points, no matter what, they will still look at every single post, in fact they can and will focus on the "low-rated" posts. Nothing wrong with that, everybody new to something appreciates help in the beginning, and a lot of new members on SDN automatically imply a lot of start-up questions. And why should the answers to these questions not get rewarded - that's what the point system is for.

But there is another group of users (which I consider myself part of) that wants to spend most of the SDN-time dealing with special questions, which start to get a lack of attention within the mass of other posts. If only a few of these users would participate in "special question threads" than the thread itself could get much more recognizable for those of us who are looking for the next "tough nut to crack".

Ok, this post got pretty long, and I hope that I sorted all my thoughs good enough for you to get my point.

Waiting for your opinions on that, discussion go

Max

[suresh_datti · Accepted solution]

Hi Max,

>>>Ok, this post got pretty long..

excused as you mentioned you are back on SDN after a long break..

I agree with your suggestion to compute the qualitative amount of the replies... don't know what hit would the performance take..As it is SDN does seem to be a tad slow anyway... or is it my 512MB RAM & 11Mbps internet?

I do feel the need for the "next level" Questions.. but Craig already explained, why it is not feasible to "Classify" the questions..

have you ever been to this

<a href="http://www.experts-exchange.com/Web/Web_Languages/JSP/">JSP</a> resource channel? here the user who posts the question decides the points that can be earned for an answer,

Regards,

Suresh Datti

[former_member374 · Accepted solution]

Welcome back Max,

We missed you around here.

> It would be nice to have some additional information

> about the forum threads:

> Not only quantitative but also qualitative amount of

> replies. Calculate the mean value of the points of

> the users that posted in a thread (either once for

> every participating user, or each post separately,

> you have to choose what math would be better). Maybe

> also do this not only for replies/posts but for

> thread views as well.

This is an interesting suggestion. Downfall is, it doesn't help you if there are no answers. How much value do you really get out of a question that has two answers one by new SDNer no points and one by Thomas Jung on average makes it a 7500+ question and this one is only still open because the original poster was too lazy to come back and reward the points. Not sure if that helps.

Suresh to your suggestion regarding selecting how many points to give. We thought about that at the beginning and decided against it, because it is too much effort for most people. "Oh how many points should I give for this answer?" ...

I think a rating system where people can show that they are interested in the solution of this particular problem would be a better thing to implement.

Let me know what you think, Mark.