About the leechers

[OttoGold]

Hello, everybody,

I would like to hear your opinions about a special group on "our" SDN. These days I see quite many users with the "short info next to the post" saying: posts: 253, points: 0. I don´t like them, that is obvious, but they don´t even bother to close threads or share a single sentence about how they have solved their problem, no thanks, nothing.

Recently I have reached my limit for open questions (which is 10). Omg, why? I need all these questions and am an active contributor every day.

Conclusion: (like some torrent things): would anybody limit these leechers in any way? (Like you have to get a point for every question you want to ask, what is BTW quite soft and funny...just an example).

Regards Otto

[former_member195124 · Accepted solution]

Hi Otto

I understand what you are putting up. And I too believe that action should be taken. Some previous related threads have discussed how should we tackle such OPs.

I personally have remembered most OPs and stopped answering to any queries asked by them who haven't given points for the efforts put by me or others previously in older posts.

Ofcourse, that is not the best solution, but a collective effort has to be taken for such cases.

Chill and Chin up friend

[OttoGold · Accepted solution]

I would put the on a black list if there is one:)) I would like the SDN limit them if possible... Anything would be better than nothing.

I help everybody but... to ask for a contribution before you can ask any more question would make those guys to get at least some points (help at least few people). What would be better than just ignoring them.

Otto

[NathanGenez · Accepted solution]

I too am frustrated by this. I've seen members respond with thorough, accurate, and thoughtful answers but they don't get recognition because the author is too...tired? to go back and close out the thread and respond to those that have helped them.

I kind of like your idea. I once saw a poster that had even more threads.. I think it was over 500 and not a single point earned. I replied to his question to let him know that I knew the answer but wasn't sure if it was worth my time to share it with him since he clearly has so little respect for the process here on SCN (which is certainly not a highly regimented or enforced one). I'm not sure if it changed his behavior or not. But your solution probably would.

-nathan

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Some of them have 2 accounts and are ashamed to ask questions. We have analytical tools for this and if they misbehave then they loose both (or more accounts).

But only asking questions is in my opinion okay, if the questions are good ones and the answers are explored. It is also a contribution to the SCN knowledge base.

For example I have:

> Total Questions: 220 (5 unresolved)

... which explains at least 1000 of my posts which I could not have earned the beloved ponits for.

Perhaps what you are refering to is lack of appreciation for having answering questions from folks with lots of questions. In that case only abstinance from answering and hitting the Abuse Reports button can help you if the question is a "low brainer" from a "repeat offender".

That applies to the whole internet and all trolls in it..

My suggestion is to do a little background check on the OP before answering (checking previous threads, also for cross-posting) and then considering how much effort the OP has put into the topic before asking the question and how well they have formulated it (providing all details required).

This has served me well, and is independent of the SDN ponits system.

Cheers,

Julius

[stefan_koehler]

Hello Otto,

would like to hear your opinions about a special group on "our" SDN. These days I see quite many users with the "short info next to the post" saying: posts: 253, points: 0. I don´t like them, that is obvious

I don't have any problem with these guys. They have a problem/question and if anybody is willing to help them - fine.

Maybe some active contributors are answering questions for the wrong "reasons" like hunting points. Don't know why collecting points is so desirable to some guys.

And if the thread owner doesn't give points or doesn't close the thread its fine for me too.

Maybe you are wondering now "why?".

The answer is pretty easy .. i only post answers in 2 cases:

1) If the problem is interesting and i can learn some new stuff too

2) If the answer can be given with less effort

In both cases it doesn't bother me, if the thread owner doesn't give me points, because of i have learned new things too or the answer don't be worth the points (like only pointing to sapnotes or official documentation).

On the other hand i think SAP is pointing out the influencing SCN members (with the SAP mentor initiative) and provide them some special status to development, etc. That's what it should be about and not about points.

Regards

Stefan

P.S.: Sometimes i also receive mails from community members and guess what? I answer them without ever getting points for it. Providing knowledge should be something you enjoy and not for any target.

[Former Member]

100% agree with you.

The use of the ponits system for me is the "indicator" of the answer and how the person who asked the question is thinking and interpreting them in the thread, until they close it.

That can be achieved with yellow, green and black icons as well and a Guru-turban icon to indicate "top contributor" levels of activity.

If people were forced to look at the results of a search before asking a question then it would be a huge help, even if SCN upgraded the Ponits-system to Noddy-badges earned for contributions...

As long as lazy repeat offender leechers get an answer, then will carry on.

Cheers,

Julius

[Former Member]

>

> P.S.: Sometimes i also receive mails from community members and guess what? I answer them without ever getting points for it. Providing knowledge should be something you enjoy and not for any target.

On the other hand, if you write back asking the person to ask the question on the form, then there is a wider audience both to join in the solution and to learn from it.

Rob

[Former Member]

I generally always tell folks who m a i l me to ask the question in the forum (or use the search first, to make the experience less troublesome).

The main reason for this is that other folks might have better ideas or solutions than mine, and I enjoy reading the forums for the same reason.

In my books offline advise is consulting and is billable.

Or, as someone once said:

> If you don't want to answer the question then just shut your mouth.

Of course I bill for that!...

Cheers,

Julius

[Jelena]

There has been another discussion in the Coffee Corner a while ago about having additional reasons for the 'Report Abuse' button. I think it could be useful to the moderators if, while reporting abuse, the user could just select one of the more popular options (e.g. 'Didn't use Search'). Right now most likely 99% of the abuse reports have a 'general' category and the moderators have to read the comments to figure out how to handle them. Just a thought...

[OttoGold]

That is nasty:)) But that neither help the mods nor educate that guys. That is a brute force approach. I don´t want the mods to get overwhelmed by the abuse reports, they should help the forum become better but not by doing this administrative thing. From my point of view these people should be celebrated and supported and not asked to do the dirty work. We should come up with something constructive, the Abuse button doesn´t help imho. I try to deal with these guys myself and don´t need anybody to do that for me.

Maybe there should be some new "forum statuses" to let the people help the mods do the work without being the mods themselves (how can one become a mod?). Well there is a gap between the lurkers, the ordinary people using SDN, the people who try to build something here and the mods. Maybe these gaps should be filled with something.

For example the "move to another forum" function. imho I can do that myself, i don´t need to ask anybody to do that for me. Is there any risk for the SAP guys to give the functionality to the people who can (probably) be trusted? If somebody would mis-use this, he would get busted very quickly, or not? And this is ony a tiny example.

Have a nice day, Otto

[Former Member]

> But that neither help the mods nor educate that guys.

Yes it does. Banu is however a particularly hard nut to crack.

Cheers,

Julius

[former_member184657]

I don´t want the mods to get overwhelmed by the abuse reports, they should help the forum become better but not by doing this administrative thing. From my point of view these people should be celebrated and supported and not asked to do the dirty work. 

Good point. But these are the only people with "power" in the forums and hence it automatically becomes their prerogative. As you suggested I wish SAP employs designated people to deal with the dirty laundry and let the mods help in making the SCN community better with expert answers and opinions. But yeah, they can also occasionaly start a fire when required, but not as a full-time option.

pk

[NathanGenez]

I agree that there could be a software solution here. If you have some combination of number of questions or frequency of postings and no real contributions, then you can only post 1 question a week or something like that. That would be pretty awesome in my opinion.

[marilyn_pratt]

Hi Otto,

At present the "move to another forum" option has limitations and caveats, hence it is not widely helpful but helpful within a particular span of topics. Here is the problem: You may be given moderator rights within the confines of a certain category or area and the move only works for the categories you have jurisdiction over.

That does make sense from the perspective of being an expert in certain areas but obviously not all areas. That means that if you are an HCM expert and someone throws an Analytic question into your forum, you might not necessarily be empowered to make the move to that other forum area or category.

Which renders the move limited. On the other hand I have seen things moved to the coffee corner when they are totally inappropriate for the place they were originally posted with the resulting tarring there. And don't forget that people like David B. are definitely engaged in the work you call the "dirty work" but our SCN team are not as expert as our moderators in uncovering topic specific infractions and must rely on the real experts to do that per topic.

[OttoGold]

Currently I am trying a "brand new approach". Since I read all the posts in the SAP Inetarctive Formy by Adobe forum (and reply to most of them:)) I can check all the guys asking. And when I see a guy who does look like a lurker, I always recommend him to start contributing back or he will not get any help here. Few of the guys apologized and got at least few points. In these cases I can imagine these are the guys who use the forum for their work and don´t have time to keep the balance between asking and asnwering. But when somebody has a "zero" I always add my comment. Mostly nobody helps him. I don´t know if I scare the people by the comment or they support me with this or just don´t know the answer...

I have started doing this like a week or two ago and I don´t have to deal with these lames that much. They get few points to shut my mouth or stop asking.

Regards Otto

p.s.: I can feel some support regarding this issue here:)))

[former_member184657]

I do something similar in ABAP General. But my pet peeve is not the occasional lurker or leacher but the lazy n00bie. I watch their newbie questions and quietly hit the abuse button. And the mods do the rest. Most get the idea and start putting some effort into the question, beginning with framing the questions properly to providing appropriate sections of the code to finally doing some search. But there are a stubborn few who continue to ignore the rules and the warnings.

To deal with such noobs I consistently hound them reporting every question and providing their history sheet to the Mods. And finally comes a point where the mods send their names to the Guest-o-blaster just to shut me up

This approach mostly works, though the Mods are making me sweat with the Banu Hameed case

pk

[Jelena]

Otto, I have also previously raised the same concern in [Coffee Corner|;.

Someone with lots of posts and 0 points most likely is neither contributing to the forum nor acknowledging the contributions of others. Perhaps there should be some limit after which one has to do some kind of "community service" to earn back the right to post any more questions. Likewise, perhaps some users could be rewarded with more open questions allowed.

Additionally, I have a suspicion that one ID may be used by different people - sometimes I look at the posts under the same ID and they are all over the place. Can't remember any specific examples right now, but I'll let the moderators know if I stumble upon one of those.

[Former Member]

> but I'll let the moderators know if I stumble upon one of those.

That is the best approach and I always keep a lookout for your reports, which are very reliable.

We have to deal with this sort of thing almost every day ( todays example: ) and when people belittle moderator efforts to keep the forum quality up to standard and the networking platform usefull then we react to it. Even so called "top contributors" measured via the points system are not protected by this.

But it does also depend on which forum area you are active in. Perhaps you want to change to "basis"...

Thanks again for the level headed Abuse Reports from all the active members who notice leechers.

Cheers,

Julius

[OttoGold]

This is called the "service user". You find a guy, hire him, give him the password or better SAP passport for this account and send him to the customer. This is how this business is done, I guess. Otto

[OttoGold]

Please tell me, Rob!! I will contact him immediately and ask him (maybe he can do a little contribution here:))))))))))) about how to start a business by asking on and on on SDN. I want to earn some extra bacon too:))) Oh my... Otto

[Former Member]

The moderators have communicated to the individual in question. Some people just find it easier to ask than learn.

Having said that, S/he had been asking a couple of questions a day for a while. It's now down to once a week or so, so perhaps we have helped in some small way.

Rob

[ThomasZloch]

I've been an SDN lurker from 2003 until late 2007, no questions asked, no po1nts earned, just searching for info. I think for almost any conceivable problem there is an answer out there somewhere, that's why I'm quite impatient with these easily self-researchable questions, even more when OP claims to have searched before asking - a pure lie in many cases.

I also think that well-phrased non-FAQ questions spawning interesting discussions can be considered contributions as well. So if somebody racks up 100 of these I wouldn't call him a leecher. Dave Halitsky comes to mind, where is he nowadays? This is the exception, obviously.

Cheers

Thomas

Edit: what a coincidence

[marilyn_pratt]

Was just going to warn you LOL. I understood from David B. that they had some interactions today. Maybe no coincidence but the outcome of feedreaders.

[GauthamV]

What do you feel about these posts ?

The user is registered 3 years long and still asking basic questions

like data declarations and people responding to it.

[marilyn_pratt]

I believe Julius' suggestion for discriminate use of the abuse button in this case would be quite appropriate. As he states, when alerted there are disciplinary actions taken. And as to Jelena's suspicion that a central "basic" user is created by some and used by many for "freshers" or newbies, that is indeed a possibility and if the lifespan of such usage is years as some have intimated, it seems that such a user or group of users should be handled, again by alerts using abuse mechanism. Especially if their questions could be answered by simple search.

[GauthamV]

I do hit the abuse button regularly but as we know the moderators may not be available

in all times ,so there are some cases which are missed out even after using the abuse mechanism.

We know that there is a restriction of 10 open questions for users which made some of them open

new accounts after crossing the limit instead of closing the old ones.Because of this we are having so

many open threads in the forums.

[ThomasZloch]

> I do hit the abuse button regularly but as we know the moderators may not be available

> in all times ,so there are some cases which are missed out even after using the abuse mechanism.

For the ABAP forums I can assure you that all abuse reports are being dealt with, often when I have a look there are no pending reports, because Matt, Rob, Julius or somebody else have cleaned up already. There is a chance of course that moderators might approve a case that was reported as abuse, "in dubio pro reo".

Please keep them coming.

Thomas

[GauthamV]

I really appreciate the good work done by Matt, Rob, Julius and yourself in ABAP forums.

The abuse reports are now dealt well compared to earlier years,I hope we will have the same in future as well.

I will definitely try to keep you busy.

Cheers

[Former Member]

What do you do when moderators answer basic questions repeatedly?

[ThomasZloch]

I am only watching the ABAP forums, do you have an example from this area?

Actually, please post an example for any area, would be interested to have a look.

I would contact the moderator behind the scenes about it, but not publicly.

If you caught me doing this, I'd have a talk with myself

Thomas

[former_member195124]

Do they? DO THEY ??

Please share some threads here, Priya.

[Former Member]

Moderators also make mistakes and bad judgement calls sometimes, but are not above the laws of the jungle of course

You can use an Abuse Report, but probably that moderator will receive it then.

Alternately you can write to Marilyn Pratt. She is very good at arbitrating such aggitations.

Cheers,

Julius

[Former Member]

Thanks Julius, I shall put your suggestion into action.

Zubin, sorry I can't find an email address associated with your business card. It wouldn't be approriate to paste thread links here.

[ThomasZloch]

You're right, it's not appropriate. After checking your normal area of activity I conclude it's not the ABAP forums.

Thomas

[OttoGold]

That is an example!!

I could do my job the same way. If i am not stupid, I can sketch up what must be done. For each part I ask a question on SDN and only assemble the results. One could start a company working this way.

Otto

[Former Member]

There is a t least one user that I can think of that has done almost exactly this. S/He has almost 1,000 posts, hundreds of questions and guess how many po1nts?

Rob

[kesavadas_thekkillath]

Hi all,

Check this ,

Forum status of OP

Total Posts: 69

Total Questions: 28 (4 unresolved)

Forum Points: 0

Majority of the threads are marked as self answered.

I was about to answer the second thread, but i stopped.

Its not about just looking into the no of questions asked & resolved and its also not about the matter of earning points.

I get satisfied when my answer helps the OP's problem.

Atleast the OP must post a reply instead or just closing the thread without any intimation.

Under What category the OP comes ( leecher ? ).

[former_member195124]

And this one >

Total Posts: 108

Total Questions: 45 (7 unresolved)

Forum Points: 0

But atleast people have reduced providing solutions to him/her.

[GauthamV]

I feel the examples which you considered were much better compared to someone like this [User|http://forums.sdn.sap.com/profile.jspa?userID=3527826].

Total Posts:  321  
Total Questions:  224 (138 unresolved)  
Forum Points:  0  

[marilyn_pratt]

This is definitely an extreme case. Since this person has been subscribed for almost 4 years, it appears they have been "grandfathered" into this inappropriate behaviour of open questions.

Might be hard to unlearn 4 years of inappropriate/selfish behaviour. Is it worth a try to educate or would it be more appropriate to remove...... Would a warning letter be in order? Or has that already been attempted?

This might be the quintessential definition of a leecher rather than a lurker. A lurker would be someone consuming knowledge without posting (IE: reading, viewing, learning). But what you are showing here is someone who is very actively participating yet in an entirely egocentric way;meaning gimme gimme/help me help me as a contribution method for 4 years. I guess what we should be examining is this: is a person with that long of a track record "allowed" to continue to participate when all they do is ask? On the other hand it would appear that many folks still "answer" that person's questions and attempt to interact. So somewhere the message that this is a member with a history of long, unclosed questions isn't important to some of the folks that respond.

[Former Member]

Hi Otto,

To be honest I don't understand the significance of the number of posts displayed against a user. I would much rather have the number of questions raised displayed. So if a person has 50 questions raised and only 4 forum points that makes the situation more apparent.

Regards,

Priya.

[Former Member]

I help on SDN in cycles - I get excited to help, then see dozens of very beginner questions from some consultant who's onsite where a client needs a solution immediately - that drives me bonkers to think there's 1 less job out there for me taken by someone who relies on the good will of people on SDN, and other forums, to do their job for them.

Also, Priya's statement is valid. Very often we post 3 or 4 or more replies to one question after the OP elaborates on the issue - and maybe receive a few points. that just drives up our post to point ratio.

Hi Otto,
To be honest I don't understand the significance of the number of posts displayed against a user. I would much rather have the number of questions raised displayed. So if a person has 50 questions raised and only 4 forum points that makes the situation more apparent. 
Regards,
Priya

[NathanGenez]

Clearly, Robert and I are kindred soles. I like to help out but it can be so fatiguing to see such rubbish on the forums.

[former_member184555]

I like to help out but it can be so fatiguing to see such rubbish on the forums.

You are 100% correct. Sometimes people post their replies even without properly understanding the issue and they post irrelevant solutions. There are also irritating activities like link farming, improper subject line, using capital letters, posters not closing the thread when the issue is resolved, not updating the forum about the solution and many a times not acknowledging the help of the members. But, the moderators are doing a great job in controlling the behaviour of members.

Though these kind of activities are all against the forum rules, it is majorly done by new members. Also, because of the possibility of creating any number of accounts(clones), these people are not worried about guestification. I believe, SCN should keep control on creation of new accounts. Every account should be created only through referral or through S-id. If the member is not following the rules, then the referral should be guestified or reduce their points by few hundreds. The reference should be allowed only if that member has certain points. This makes the members to think twice before posting any message and even before referring any new member.

Thanks,

Ravi

[OttoGold]

This just cannot work.

They don´t have time to search the forum and that why the behave this way.

Am i really supposed to do the users backrgound check to be sure if he is "that" guy? I don´t have time either:)) I am not going to waste my time if they behave this way.

Otto

[Former Member]

> I am not going to waste my time if they behave this way.

After a while one gets the nack of it and can manage your time more efficiently.

Just hit the abuse reports button with a short explanation and move on. The mods will use our pepper spray on them if they make a habit of being a leecher.

Cheers,

Julius

[former_member184555]

Am i really supposed to do the users backrgound check to be sure if he is "that" guy?

Yes, all the people who feel that SCN as OUR community(as you said in the above post) has to do the background check, if we are really concerned about the quality of the forums. We have to educate the members about the expected behaviour in the forums. If they are not following that even after repeated requests, you should stop replying and on every occassion you can report the abuse also. I do send mails to personal ids to those kind of people, requesting not to violate forum rules. Earlier, I sent mails to top contributors, one SAP employee, and twice reported abuse against sap mentor for not following the forum rules. But, I always request them respecting their contributions to the forum and not the way like finding their fault. I immediately observed the change in their behaviour. This approach really works.

About the people who always asks questions and never contibute to others' queries, I am very much against considering all of them as leechers. Almost all the people in SAP practice have high respect and regard for SCN. There are many people who don't even have an id, but they always depend on 'search' and never post a query. People are not contributing because of many reasons like.,

1. they are under the opinion that high level knowledge is required to be active in the forum (which is not true). They will change their opinion only if they watch the forums everyday.

2. they have a feeling that, acknowledging the help is sufficient and need not repay through contributions.

3. the inhibitions/ego factor...what if the reply posted by me is wrong and what others will think about my knowledge levels.

There will be many other reasons also.

The community is celebrating the two million membership mark. But, nobody pointed out the active contributors count. There are only 2800 active contributors in a community of two million. It comes to around 0.13% only. I feel, it is time for people to think about increasing the active contributor numbers than memberships.

These are purely my personal feeling and need not be agreeable to all.

Regards,

Ravi

[Former Member]

>

> 1. they are under the opinion that high level knowledge is required to be active in the forum (which is not true). They will change their opinion only if they watch the forums everyday.
> 3. the inhibitions/ego factor...what if the reply posted by me is wrong and what others will think about my knowledge levels.
> 

Absolutely Spot on !!

These were the reasons i was inactive for about a year and was just doing the search without posting anything. Later i dint care what others thought about my knowledge levels seeing my replies unless am learning from the forums

Vikranth

[marilyn_pratt]

The community is celebrating the two million membership mark. But, nobody pointed out the active contributors count. There are only 2800 active contributors in a community of two million. It comes to around 0.13% only. I feel, it is time for people to think about increasing the active contributor numbers than memberships. 

We most definitely are with you on that count (pun intentional). Helping to create and support passionate active users is our mandate. You might even say that by working hard to vet content and demand quality we limit the number of "active" community achievers because we want that number to really mean something. That being said there is definitely value to what sometimes is referred to as "lurker" - someone consuming content while not necessarily contributing. Much has been said about turning "lurkers" to active contributors. Part of the work can be done by community. Each time one of you comments, engages with, mentors, encourages someone with even minimal participation that is a step in the direction of creating more active (as contrasted to passive) participation.

If every one of the active members were to invite people they know are members (but not vocal) to comment, respond, express a public view, we might more readily move the dial.

Perhaps your suggestions of how to make it easier for people to engage would be a great discussion thread to start. Many of us have ideas as to how to help make that happen. It would be great to see practical suggestions.

A few weeks ago for example, I created a wiki page to encourage community members to highlight women in the community.

The concept was to open the wiki and make it really simple for someone to add a paragraph about an outstanding techie colleague. You can see the example here on the [Ada Lovelace |http://wiki.sdn.sap.com/wiki/display/events/AdaLovelaceDay] wiki page. I'd like some feedback and brainstorming around how to make participation more comfortable. I'm not talking tools. I'm thinking engagement ideas.

Thanks for all the valuable comments.

[Pravender]

I think most of them do this when they are preparing for an interview and they do not have time to search the forum. In last few day i came across few of them in BI forums. (saveen kumar, sreekumark)

We must have some way to restrict anyone to post a question again, mainly the basic questions which generally start with what.

[Former Member]

>

>  posts: 253, points: 0. I

This does not mean that they are not closing posts. There is at least one user with over 600 posts who is quite good about closing them.

Rob