Feature-Marking/Flagging Threads as Read

[Former Member]

Dear Experts,

I have a question related to SDN usage and need your expert advice on this.

I usually read threads in SDN forum topic wise for enhancing the knowledge and sharing among the community. Say for example- I am searching the thread on Vendor Master. I found 312 thread on this. I will be interested to read all but it won't be possible to complete all this in a single day or at a continuous stretch.

What I am looking at a feature is what ever I have read I should be able to mark it or flag it as read/already read. When ever I revisit SDN next time and search the same topic I should be reading the once which I have not read. By the way of marking the threads it will be easy for me to identify that these have already been read by me.

On daily basis the volume of threads are increasing.

I am looking at a stuff where a reader can identify clearly what he has read (history) and what has not been read. Simple to say what we do on books by putting the tag that this topic has been covered already.

Currently, this feature is will a color icon but it is not serving the purpose what I am looking at.

I request you to guide me on this, if there is already a way in SDN to identify what I need. If it is not there can this be introduced in forum ?

SDN is a very excellent knowledge enhancing repository.

Regards

Rajesh

[martinlang]

Hi Rajesh,

The forums itself include a read/unread functionality, that you probably have seen, when you display a forum, there are red/grey/half red bubbles on the left side, that basically indicate (once you have logged on), whether you already read a thread, whether it was updated (that's the half/half one), or whether the thread is unread.

Another thing that I know some people do is sync the RSS feeds of the forums with Google Reader. They then access the Google Reader feeds either with Google Reader directly or with other Newsreaders that can sync with Google Reader. The Google Reader framework in those scenarios also keeps track of what was already read and what wasn't.

Most people (I believe) watch certain forums, through the watch functionality, where they get an eMail notification for new threads or answers and they then do the read/unread basically through their eMail client.

Am sure this is another area,that could need some improvement, but I would encourage you to check out the possibilities that exist today, hopefully you'll find some of them will work already quite well for you.

Best regards

Martin

[former_member184657]

Though a good idea (from your POV) it cannot be enforced here in SCN. Why? Because the primary objective of these forums is to:

Ask a question (after the OP has searched enough but failed to get the right info)
Follow up the answers
Reply to the responders

And for this the read flag works just fine.

But if someone uses SCN with the intention of reading all threads from a knowlege-gain angle and wants to flag threads he reads, then it goes against its primary objective. Moreover its only going to complicate matters.

This is just my opinion. Lets see what the Jive gurus have to say about this.

pk

[Former Member]

Dear Krishna,

I just gave an example to put forth my point and also to understand if this feature exists or not. If it exists and due to me not knowing, I should come to now and use.

It is not the very idea of reading of each and every thread. SDN forum is one of the platform among many. There are abundance of sources available from sap press books, service market place, sap help, etc, etc.

Please appreciate, SDN forum search is that not user friendly. Moreover, it cannot be made, as people can put forth the same question in different set of words. Example a same topic can be asked in many ways. "what is the role of account group", another user can ask the same "what functions account group is meant for", etc etc.

Now, if somebody has to search, sure he will do with account group.

With the feature of marking the thread as read, at least it will save your time next time. Secondly, if a user finds that the thread is important for reference he can mark it with this feature.

There had been number of time discussions on forum, many blogs are written that before posting one should execute the search.

If "honesty goddess" can write and speak, we would have surely got the answer.

So it means this feature does not exist. What surprised me more was to kill the idea. "Complications" is a very generous synonym for "full stop". Even there is no child cry from my end to have it. I have been visiting SDN from more than 7 years and if I find something of interest I note it down.

Sorry Krishna, your opinion was not that encouraging and convincing. Please appreciate.

Thanks and Regards

Rajesh

[Lakshmipathi]

I have been visiting SDN from more than 7 years

It is really surprising that you were searching the forum for more than 7 years and from the same angle, I would like to ask you one question. As you said, you have learned a lot, why you have not participated in giving suggestions to questions you know. It seems the number of posts you made is very low. Sharing the knowledge should come both the ends. Hope you will agree with me and continue to give suggestions in the forums in which you are familiar.

Why I am stressing is that it is a fact that I have also learned a lot through this forum and at one stage, I wanted to test myself how far my knowledge in SAP has developed, I started giving suggestions and to some extent, I could give quality suggestions all these years.

Coming to your question, sorry I am not the right person to comment as there would be a separate team for these sort of activities and they will definitely take into consideration your point and respond to you.

thanks

G. Lakshmipathi

[Former Member]

Dear Lakshmipathi,

What you said is very right, we need to actively share,contribute and participate, I will surely move into that direction by taking a more disciplined time approach from daily schedule.

Thanks for your kind suggestion.

Regards

Rajesh

[Former Member]

Anybody can please assist on this!