Participate intensely...and then go in to oblivion

[former_member182378]

In SCN, I have seen many cases where members participate intensely for a (short) period of time and then sort of go in to oblivion (never participating anymore).

Request your views on the probable reason(s) for this happening.

Thank you!

[TomCenens · Accepted solution]

Interesting discussion going on here.

My activity in general on SCN went down due to multiple reasons. I started out being active a few years ago.

Since then I've been amongst top contributors of SCN two years in a row but my blogging activity and commenting has slowed down because of a number of pointers:

• I became a SAP Mentor
  • My involvement / thoughts have moved more to behind the scenes ~involvement in many different councils / calls / initiatives / connections to people makes me have less time to spend time on SCN / blogging
    • I hope I have still made a difference
  • I'm attending more events in perso
    • ~time that I used to spent on SCN is now spent elsewhere
• I recently changed jobs / roles
  • I have quit my job and joined another compan
    • This put some stress on me to be honest getting everything arranged etc
      • Dealing with change
• I was dedicated to SAP system administration (Netweaver Administration / Technology) before
  • I'm now also active in the area of SAP Solution Manager, not only as a technical consultant but also as a functional consultant, working on implementations of specific scenario's
    • Product diversity / complexity of SAP has been increasing since a number of years ago whic
  • I follow up on new technology of SAP and help out to give direction for the future for the company I work for
• All the above shifted my work-life balance towards work too much
  • Shifting it back to life some more as it's too much otherwise ~I need to keep in touch with the real world as well ~spent time with family & friends, enjoy doing sports, ...
• I became a father of two
  • My kids are 2,5 years old and 4 year old so I've become a father
    • It's important to pass along values to my kids and guide them in life which has to start early already I have to be there for them and give them all my love
    • My kids have been sick often enough. I've been in the hospital with my son multiple times already ~I have to be there for them and spent time with them
• Things I want to do before I die
  • Life can be short, I have a list of things I want to do before I die:
    • See more of the wonderful place we call Earth
    • Inspire others to step up and pay it forward
    • Help other people achieve their dreams
    • Invent something useful
    • Write a book
    • Create a game
    • Learn to play an instrument
      • I bought a Tin Whistle the other day... working on it
    • ...

I guess it's life basically, things change, people change, things happen.

I definitely still enjoy writing for and participating in this community.

Regarding the points system, I hope the gamification brings the balance back to a larger extent, forum questions were underrated in old SCN, they are overrated now and blogs are the other way around. The balance shifted but it's still out of balance. This won't affect people who have around for a long time that much but it does affect newcomers. Blogging is just not that rewarding in terms of points vs being active on the forums.

[Jelena · Accepted solution]

Tom Cenens wrote:
I became a SAP Mentor 
My involvement / thoughts have moved more to behind the scenes ~involvement in many different councils / calls / initiatives / connections to people makes me have less time to spend time on SCN / blogging 

Well, that explains why we barely see some folks on SCN after they "go Mentor".

[TomCenens · Accepted solution]

Hello Jelena

There were some comments from community members after SAP TechED Madrid 2012 that the SAP Mentors are not approachable enough.

Do you think increased SAP Mentor activity on SCN would help out? Does that make them more approachable?

I tend to believe I'm very approachable (my personal mail address is on my profile for example) but not everyone seems to think that which can have many reasons of course. I do have to admit that I was not often on the showfloor at SAP TechED because I was almost constantly in closed meetings with SAP. Something I would do differently next SAP TechED dispite the fact that the meetings were meaningful.

Best regards

Tom

[Jelena · Accepted solution]

Tom, I think I know what comments you're referring to. We might be confusing "approachable" with "available" and "visible". I wouldn't say that the SAP Mentors are unapproachable. But after reading more about what occurs at the TechEd and your comment above I'm beginning to think perhaps the purpose of the SAP Mentor program is not quite clear (or changed over time) and maybe the name itself is misleading.

From a mentor I'd actually expect more activity on SCN since that's where learning occurs for millions of the SAP users. But if most of the Mentor activity is to influence SAP products, etc. and not the actual mentoring (e.g. writing SCN blogs/documents, presenting at events) then perhaps it shouldn't be called "mentor" but VIP or Insider or something like that.

Mentor visibility on SCN could also be improved. I've mentioned this before and still believe that separation of New SCN into "spaces" actually causes more distancing rather than community-building. Yes, SAP Mentors have their own space on SCN, but after having visited other 4-5 spaces of interest, usually I just don't have any time to go to another space. "Following", unfortunately, still has many drawbacks (too much information, no clear separation of following people vs. spaces, etc.). Even in the SAP Mentor space some information is not posted, I believe. E.g. just recently I read a Mentor's blog regarding an online event, but when I searched, that event was not mentioned anywhere on SCN (even though it was supposed to be open to non-mentors). Maybe there could be more announcements posted, so that other members would at least be aware what is it that Mentors do.

The "Mentor Quarterly" was actually filling the void nicely, what happened to it?

[Lukas_Weigelt · Accepted solution]

The "Mentor Quarterly" was actually filling the void nicely, what happened to it? 

Agreed, this would interest me as well. , I summon thee before us to solve this riddle!

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

I just promoted the SAP Mentor program as well as the Mentor Quarterly in the Technology News @ SCN newsletter that launched yesterday to 440K members. The same intro should also appear in the next Business Process News @ SCN (277K subscribers). The catalyst was Mark Finnern's recent announcement for 2013 SAP Mentor nominations.

I hope that this will help give a bump to mentor-awareness in the community and maybe be a good opportunity to publish a new edition of the SAP Mentor Quarterly.

[TammyPowlas · Accepted solution]

Thank you all for the interest in the SAP Mentor's Quarterly.  It was a fun effort and a joint decision to stop doing it.   Everyone who worked on it did it on their own free time. 

The frequent contributors to the Mentors Quarterly (e.g. Blag, ) still write blogs on SCN.  I still write blogs on SCN.

Regards,

Tammy

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

I understand what a huge amount of work went into each issue. Maybe a quarterly compilation of mentor blogs would be a good substitute and be fairly easy to assemble. 

[TomCenens · Accepted solution]

Hi Jelena

Thx for the feedback / thoughts. Yes, those are different things and I also feel like I would like to be available / visible more next SAP TechED vs last SAP TechED. It was my first SAP TechED as a SAP Mentor so I was trying to make the most out of the experience and figure out what's what, what works, what doesn't, what adds value and what doesn't and so on.

I definitely enjoy spending time with other community members and other Mentors.

"

From a mentor I'd actually expect more activity on SCN since that's where learning occurs for millions of the SAP users. But if most of the Mentor activity is to influence SAP products, etc. and not the actual mentoring (e.g. writing SCN blogs/documents, presenting at events) then perhaps it shouldn't be called "mentor" but VIP or Insider or something like that.

"

Well, that's a tough one because you have so many different types of persons that there is bound to be a mixture in activities. Some are more comfortable with blogging than others and so on. Dispite having less activity on SCN, I did two expert networking sessions on SAP HANA Certification at SAP TechED Madrid so that would fall under "Mentor" in your opinion. I did a lot of talks with SAP product management as well but that would fall off the "Mentoring" according to your writing. However, when you look at the definition of the word Mentor:

Noun: an adviser

Verb: to train or advise someone

Talking to SAP product management and influencing SAP products would fall under giving advice in my opinion. I did a lot of voicing for the #sapadmin community, trying to get specific improvements where I knew other community members were seeing issues as well.

Since you mention Mentor visibility on SCN could be improved, do you know about the "Mentor" tagged content? What would you like to see?

I agree with you on the following in general notion that the communication channel / activity channel can get rather busy. There have been some recent changes though which allow you to hide content in the future from your activity channel if the content is not related to your interests which is an interesting option in my opinion. Perhaps a good topic for me to blog on some time. I feel SCN 2.0 has improved a lot since the migration, I'm starting to feel comfortable with it again.

Nice idea on the SAP Mentor space / event announcing etc, I'll see what I can do in those regards, starting by passing the idea along and discussing it with other SAP Mentors. It's always a discussion around in which space what should be posted though because there is a "event" space as well but the content could be different of course, what Mentors do at a specific event could be part of the Mentor space in that case, yes.

Best regards

Tom

[Jelena · Accepted solution]

Tom Cenens wrote:
Since you mention Mentor visibility on SCN could be improved, do you know about the "Mentor" tagged content? What would you like to see? 

Well, I'm sure you've heard the joke that all people are listening to the radio WTIFM. So just like the rest of the selfish population I simply want to sit on my ass and have only the specific SCN content that is relevant to my interests come my way in an easy to read format. Ideally this would be either a digest-like email (similar to what LinkedIn sends) or "My SCN" page similar to My Yahoo or Google News (which I can customize - less Sports, more Business new, etc.).

Tagged content is fine, but what does it do exactly? First of all, anyone can tag anything with everything (I've already seen posts tagged with "mentor" that have nothing to do with it, "cloud tagging", etc.), so this just adds to overall "noise". A tag would make a post show up in the space/place but if we don't have time to get to that place after visiting 5 others (with SCN being slow and all) then what good does it do? Also there are hundreds of Mentors that I'm sure are great but just have different interests from my own (e.g.BI, PI, Business Objects to name a few), so with all due respect I'm not really interested in seeing that content.

Regarding SAP TechEd I might be wrong, but I feel the exact people who would benefit most from the Mentors are not part of that. First of all, compare number of SCN members to TechEd attendance. Second, when companies send someone to TechEd, they frequently don't send the right people. TechEd replays available not for every session, unfortunately. So bottom line is that an ordinary SCN member like myself would have little information on any effort Mentors put forth at TechEd. And it's a shame, really.

It's a valid point that an advice given regarding an SAP product might have great value for many users down the road. But to a selfish human being a correct response in a forum that solved an immediate issue just feels more valuable (especially in absence of any information of that other advice). After all - do you get any points for TechEd? Exactly.

[stephenjohannes · Accepted solution]

I'm not sure if this is the right part to reply, but I wanted to chime in on two points about Mentor visibility both physical and online.  First off the #1 reason why a SAP Mentor can't do everything is time.  I technically left the program and went off to the alumni side due to time.  There is no special SAP Mentor monastery where SAP takes all of us and has us think about the world of SAP issues 24/7 and not focus on anything else.

In terms of visibility online, some will be here and some well might never show up.  That's fine because the program is not just folks who contribute to SCN.  It would be nice even for the SAP Mentors themselves to talk to everyone via SCN.  That being said you could almost find every SAP Mentors on twitter.  Another moderators who moderate tend to answer less questions/etc than say someone not moderating.  It's just the nature of the game.

In terms of physical availability at events, such as teched that it's a two way street.  If you want to meet one of them at teched(provided you and them are attending) then find out what sessions are the presenting or helping with.  Then when at that session introduce yourself before or after the session.  You can even extend this to any speakers at a teched.  Just don't expect the person to read your mind, but if you want to say hello or ask a question it's not going to require much formality to do so.

In a creepy world we add you to the find my friends or equivalent app on android and you could just look us up at the event.  However the only person that can track me that way is my wife and it's mainly so we can validate where the other person is at when did long outdoor training runs.

The key point for everyone and myself include is that we all need to build relationships with people instead of just expecting someone to come and save our day.  The give/take equation of the relationships doesn't have to be equal, but it is a lot easier to grab the attention of someone who you introduced yourself to, than just being a random stranger.  That even includes when you think someone's behavior is terrible, taking the time to talk to that person directly first when possible.

Take care,

Stephen

[marilyn_pratt · Accepted solution]

"That even includes when you think someone's behavior is terrible, taking the time to talk to that person directly first when possible."

Thanks for saying that so well and modeling that behavior!

[TomCenens · Accepted solution]

Hi Jelena

I use RSS feeds to get relevant content in a newsletter style but dispite those technology tools there is nothing out there yet that is good enough to deliver that kind of experience . I would like that as well .

I definitely do agree with you that SCN could benefit from having finer granular control over the content you would like to see. I've put in ideas on ideaplace for this in the past already, for example I would like to be able to follow community member X but only get a line in my activity channel when he/she puts a blog post on SCN. That way I could really follow people and specific content in a very granular way and get a lot of value out of the activity channel.

The current capabilities provide a "hide" option which can help you reduce the noise in your channel but it takes time of course and it isn't as granular because you only have so many options to choose from.

I agree that for some (maybe even a lot of) community members, getting an answer to a forum question outweighs reading a blog post on the strategy of SAP for the future.

" After all - do you get any points for TechEd? Exactly." Actually that is possible . Misc point assignment is possible on SCN.

I actually know a lot of consulting companies that want to send some people to SAP TechED but most of their employees aren't interested / willing to go. A lot of people want to work 8 hours a day and then call it a day and not care about what SAP's plans for the future are. It's interesting to see your perspective is completely the opposite of what I've seen.

Would you like to attend SAP TechED? Have you tried to convince your management it would be beneficial to let you attend SAP TechED?

I don't do any of this for the points though (not anymore) ~I found the points system interesting in the beginning to motivate me.

Best regards

Tom

[marilyn_pratt]

T W,

Have been watching this conversation evolve (and participating a bit) but more importantly, listening and learning.

Thanks to the 60+ responses and engagements here you've provided the environment for an important and lively discussion.  There is debate, there is the opposite of whatever consensus thinking is (questioning? differing opinions?), there is humor, there is seriousness.  Most importantly there is thoughtful, thinking human engagement.

If the community environment were just about asking and answering technical questions (and I believe SDN and SCN have an important mission to be a platform for those as well) we would not be spending Coffee Corner time and energy conversing here.

We would be writing and searching OSS notes exclusively and would be more interested in machine language than in human interaction.

As regards why people leave, if I were to take offense at 's chastising a member or if I was the member chastised, I might, as pointed out, press the abuse button.  Of course, I might also "walk away" as inferred he would..  Or I might debate about the efficacy of the search for finding my answer.  Or if I was a person open to learning something new and had hard, thick skin, I might also thank Graham for the time, effort, caring he took in attempting to use a non-conventional teaching style or even thank him for opening up important discourse (yet again) about searching before you post (yes, it's in the but how many times can you point to that as the definative way of communicating an anwser. )

The point is: there are as many different teaching styles here as there are learning styles and within that many challenges: cultural, technical, preference based (text, audio, visual).

Learning in this environment is a human trust activity.  It is about the combination of reputation, honesty, experitise.  It is about people dealing with processes using technology.  And it should be about the people first.
Otherwise it is "just another technical forum".  Without the "social" element it would be that.

[moazzam_ali]

Dear

I think you got more answers and I don't think so you were expecting this much response. So like always need your findings and final words that in your opinion why people leave contributing in SCN. Lets everyone know your opinion too.

Thanks

[former_member182378]

Moazzam,

When I "researched" topics, I visited past threads in SCN and ITToolbox, I noticed members with "fervour", with "great enthusiasm", who posted lots of posts in one stretch of time...and thereafter stopped posting entirely.

The members in this category...some of them were very skilled / knowledgeable...and some less so.

In other words, all type of members belonged to this group.

I used to ask (to myself) where are these members?

This was the thought / question, that lead me to - finally - ask this question.

By the way, I feel the SAP community that wants to share knowledge is many times smaller than the SAP community that does not want to share knowledge.

Why members have "gone in to oblivion":

I would "assign" the reason to the concept of "Cost vs. Benefit".

These members come to the realization that participating in SCN (or Toolbox etc.) does not seem to be worth the investment.

[Jelena]

T W wrote:
I would "assign" the reason to the concept of "Cost vs. Benefit".
These members come to the realization that participating in SCN (or Toolbox etc.) does not seem to be worth the investment.

Well put. Sometimes as I go through several pages of forum posts finding mostly the "lazy" questions, I can't help but thinking: "did I just waste 20 min. of my time?". When this happens, it's easy to blow a gasket and be a little too brash with an unsuspecting SCN member.

Just recently I've happened to be on the receiving end of sarcasm myself and even though at first I thought about not replying like any question ever again, I remembered many times I was in the same "dead end" situation and at least could relate. We're all human. So "the E word" (empathy) wins again.

[marilyn_pratt]

Thanks for the "empathy" pitch, Jelena.

We practice empathy to derive insights for novel solutions. Shout out to for coining that full phrase.

That's the point of the practice in our business context.

It is NOT just a touchy feely activity.  We can't design software solutions or provide an environment to have SAP related engagements and conversations without it.

In fact, I'd wager it is one of the distinguishing traits of being human* and an important practice to hone in general.  But as a software company, it has to be one of the keys to UX.

*correction - animals have empathy too: http://www.ted.com/talks/frans_de_waal_do_animals_have_morals.html

[Former Member]

i used to spend a great deal of time on SDN, but i have lately spent very little time on SCN. There can come a point where there is simply TOO much content about things that many people have no interest in (at least at the time). to wade through all of the fat to get to the heart of the information i like to read and respond to just takes too much time for me now, and i just can't justify it any more.

Also, the reason i left so many other SAP sites has begun creeping into SCN. Responders who used to be respectful and helpful, even to newcomers, have basically become jerks.

http://scn.sap.com/thread/3309202

Talk about making SURE people will never come back to ask or answer questions again...

My opinions. I still hang out when i have lots of time to wade through the new interface and past all of the HANA stuff (sorry, but it IS the predominant content), and respond when i can. TO be honest, i never understood about the whole points thing anyway. it seemed to be an ego-food thing for a select few people.

[TomCenens]

Hi David

I don't approve very sarcastic answersing but I do understand where the frustration can come from. I'm not defending either party here though, both are wrong in my opinion.

Asking a question without doing any effort to search for information first yourself counts as laziness to me and it should be discouraged (in the right way though).

It's fine that 95% of the community is not generating content but at least they can put in some effort to get to a point where others are willing to help out.

Splitting the community up into spaces makes it visible how small some communities (like Basis administration) are really and it doesn't really help to give an overall sense of activity / new content compared to the old SCN where you would see new blog posts arrive and things would seem more "alive".

The points system is a motivator for some to get started really. There are clear benefits as well by the way if you can become a top contributor for example you get called on stage at SAP TechED which gives visibility, connections etc, you can definitely do something with that.

Best regards

Tom

[nicolas_busson]

Hi David,

Woaw. Saying that someone "has basically become a jerk" while referring to the most beautiful answer ever, is... astonishing? As far as I'm concerned I wish I had what it takes to make exactly the same response to so many other discussion threads, like this one:

I mean, content posted on SCN is so serious sometimes that I was thankful to for bringing so much laugh. And here I come to the point why I do not always participate to SCN actively:

1) Within a given space, the same questions keep arising: hence sometimes I make a pause for a few months waiting for new types of questions to show up.

2) For most of the questions asked, the answer can be found within the first 5 Google results.

3) Hence, the discussions spaces are not my favorite cup of tee... and I try to publish content through blog posts, which takes a lot of time. So you can't publish something cool everyday (even every month)...

4) SCN is slow. Very slow. It took me 4 minutes to insert those 2 links above via the "Insert link" button and I ran through a countless number of popups saying "Internal Server Error".

Cheers,

Nicolas

PS: did you know that if you order an e-learning course (or RKT content) from SAP for example, you'll be granted an S-User ID with access to OSS notes and much more? This can be very useful for freelancers... and is definitely affordable.

[Former Member]

yeah, please dont misunderstand. i do not know the person who posted that reply, and did not mean to imply he himself was a jerk. it happened that right after reading this thread, the very next thread i read was that one. it brought to mind EXACTLY why i stopped hanging out here so much, so i linked to it.

i come to SCN for information, not entertainment. i enjoy the fact that the blogs can provide both, but the discussion groups should be more about getting information, in my opinion.

Also, what some people may find hilarious, others may very well find offensive. someone coming in for the first time, and asking a question, whether or not they should have done a search first, deserves at least a modicum of respect, and not a snarky response. things like this is what keep the newcomers from returning, and those that have been around a LONG time from visiting as often. Again, just my opinion.

lastly, r3esponses like this contribute to the demise of search as much as anything else. When you run a search and find nothing but these types of responses to questions, you stop bothering, and just post a new question.

i will shut up now.

[kakshat]

Hi David,

I support you when you say that what some people may find hilarious, others may find very offensive.

Plus, in this very discussion, we've seen people complaining about SAP mentors not being as active on SCN as people would like them to be and the answer to that appears to be lack of time since the mentors are involved in a lot of activities. Even I don't know the persons involved or their intentions in that thread you shared, but I do feel mentors' time could be spent in a better way. A simple and stern one-liner to advise the original poster to do a search would have been more befitting and effective in my opinion.

I am not against humour on SCN (in fact, I do try to indulge in it myself) but definitely not at the cost of offending anyone.

[nicolas_busson]

Come on... you're killing me!

Are you really supporting someone talking about jerks vs a valuable SCN contributor ending his thread with a smiley?

At least I can appreciate your own sense of humor when you speak up for "not offending anyone"...

[Lukas_Weigelt]

Oh boy, here we go

What a nice breeze of awesomeness within these latest comments, now I can call it a day 😆

[kakshat]

So basically your logic is you can offend someone and then throw in a smiley at the end to make up! I wish I could appreciate your sense of humour too!

[Former Member]

Sorry Lukas, but that is the sort of belittlement of a light flamewar with good potential which endangers the further derailing of SCN... 🙂

@ dhj: I dont believe that people become more experienced in SAP and then out of protest or wisdom boycott all of it. I think they grow up and then the childishness of the points system and some other similar fanfairs dawn on them like a bad hangover...

Cheers,

Julius

[Jelena]

"Pillow fight!!!" Except for "who ever your name is" bit (which might be crossing the line between sarcastic and offensive) there are moments that I feel like writing the same exact response.

But, surprisingly, most of the time 'report abuse' button is just as effective. It's also less time consuming and avoids any "cultural things" etc. potential misunderstandings. So I'd encourage everyone to use it. In this way we can also make sure that repeated questions are locked and removed and don't pollute the search results. If it's not a "win-win" then I don't know what is.

[former_member182378]

My view w.r.t. sarcasm, being offensive etc. is as follows:

It is strict NO!

Whoever you are (new member, an existing member,...) your purpose is to "serve"!

By "serve"...one can agree, disagree (bluntly); one can throw-in a new / different point of view; but can not mock, be sarcastic, offensive (any of those things).

Ask your self...by replying with e.g. "pressssssssssssss "S" theeeen preeessss "e" and so on...." (for typing in the word "search") does it help the OP?

Bigger question, does it add value w.r.t. that specific question?

[moazzam_ali]

Oh sir what a timing. I posted and with my post there is yours too

[marilyn_pratt]

Hi David,

Please don't "shut up". We've been discussing internally how to do a better job of making "newbies" feel more comfortable and certainly any behavior that would make them feel unwelcome isn't an optimal situation.
You wrote:

what some people may find hilarious, others may very well find offensive. someone coming in for the first time, and asking a question, whether or not they should have done a search first, deserves at least a modicum of respect, and not a snarky response. things like this is what keep the newcomers from returning, and those that have been around a LONG time from visiting as often. Again, just my opinion.

In fact some of our team has been thinking very hard about this very matter of how to create a safe and welcoming environment.

I'm going to call out to as I know the topic is very near and dear to her as well.

Getting input from "advocates" of newbies is important.  I hope you'll agree to discuss with us further how to best serve new folks and make them feel at ease.

Thanks for your candid comments here.

Marilyn

[Former Member]

I also feel that there is some cultural intolerance for Ausie, Kiwi and Sarfie humour and the standards which we set for ourselves creeping into SCN at times.

Us banana republic citizens are only able to use the internet services because we had to read the manual (and code) first...  🙂

Does anyone else feel discriminated against for having and doing RTFM and expecting at least the same from others? 

Cheers,

Julius

[former_member42743]

Actually no. I didn't know that.  I might eventually fork over the money for something like that.  I'll just have to find a course I can use and time to take it. (Which can be hard since I've been an SAP instructor for all the courses in my space and I'm not really looking to branch out at this point in my career).

But since I'd primarily use it to help with SCN postings, I kind of don't think I should pay for it.  When I really need to get into OSS for project issue, my clients usually get me access.  But as I go from project to project, that access is usually lost. 

FF

[moazzam_ali]

In my opinion, everyone has a reason of being active contributor on SCN and also for leaving it. Well in my case I joined SCN when it was SDN in 2009 but I started contributing actively just a couple of months ago. Why? Because I started my career in 2009 and my first 2/3 years were so much busy and I did't find time to post and honestly speaking I was not that much interested too at that time but Now I am feeling like I am being addicted of SCN . Most of the people contribute on SCN to learn something new. If they are not contributing anymore then it doesn't mean they have learnt everything but apart from other reasons, there is mainly one reasons of this.......Time. If someone know something and have time to post here, I don't know why people are not contributing here.

Like always, Nice post by you Mr.   Thanks for sharing.

Thank$

[former_member184701]

you would raise a poll

say,

-too busy;

-on leave;

-left my position;

...

...

- tired of

personally I like the "tired of"

regards,

[Jelena]

Ironically, people who "went to oblivion" most likely won't see the poll either, so we can only guess.

[former_member184701]

i believe some of them still surf scn but don't post ...

[marilyn_pratt]

Was thinking this week of reaching out to some of the "retired" .  Just for fun and as we approach the 10th anniversary of this community.  Perhaps as a retrospective and an archeological exercise. But I wonder: who would know them?  Would folks even care?  Communities real or virtual do have lifecycles and participation in them is not eternal.  And reputation isn't either.

Instead of mourning "the good old days" and the "elapsed super stars", I try to spend my time discovering new gems.  But one of my challenges is giving visibility to those new potentials (or hidden and less known veteran ones).  It seems (and not only here on SCN) that we are really imploding with an over abundance of contents, topics and authors. Our attentions are being pulled in so many directions.

I respectfully beg to disagree with those that say it is all about HANA on SCN nowadays.  It's all about everything.  And keeping up and keeping informed gets incrementally more complex and challenging.  When we were simply a "Developer" Network and the majority of active folks came for ABAP, Portals and Netweaver stuff, it was a great deal simpler.  The more products, languages, approaches, partners, customers, acquisitions and inclusion we have the harder it becomes to please. (says the advocate for inclusion )

At a certain level, having community "spaces" can segment and simplify so that people can form their own tribes.  Yet I'm thinking many of those tribes happen outside the walls of SCN.

Is that a bad thing?  I think it is just a natural state.

Is there presently a better place?  If there is please invite me so I can participate.....and learn.

[former_member181923]

Hi Julius -

Long time no chat.

Here's the problem.

When a company decides to try to be everything to everybody, it winds up being nothing to anybody.

Why should I care about SAP when SAP doesn't have the time to focus on what I think it needs to focus on - namely, getting its "core" in order metadata and metaprocess wise?

And I'm sure that those former contributors who are into "bells and whistles" and "shiny things" felt the same way when SAP decided to make HANA the focus of SCN.

Best regards

David Halitsky

[stephenjohannes]

David,

You bring up a valid point about how the more things change the more it stays the same or we add additional problems.  I wrote this on my personal blog here a while back if you didn't see it: . 

I'm not sure though about lack of focus from SAP right now.  The singular focus seems to be HANA speeding everything up while ignoring all other problems .  I sometimes think sometimes the solution is running polynomial lower bounded algorithms and making the appear to run in linear/logarithmic type speed.  My only question is what happens when N becomes large enough where even HANA can't mask the the true nature of the algorithms being run.  However relatively fast hardware technology is like magic to most people.

Take care,

Stephen

[Jelena]

... and I'm just here for the gold medal. But since I usually rat out the basic questions to moderators instead of answering them, I'll probably be here forever.

Time is also a factor for me. Sometimes we start a project at work and I get tied up for months. It comes and goes. But at least one good thing about the New SCN is that we can "summon" a member by mentioning him/her.

Julius von dem Bussche wrote:
I have often asked for the ability for moderators or the community members who are active to give a "thumbs down" at a user ID level.

You and everybody else, Julius. We've been asking for the reputation system at least since 2008 (there should be an old thread somewhere). For some reason I feel SAP refrains from any remote possibilities of anything negative on SCN. I'm guessing the "touchy-feely" culture typical for US somehow taken over the German company. Perhaps we could have more Ordnung on SCN instead.

[Former Member]

The ability to be negative about things (logon to SCn to rant for a few hours) is also not a good thing.

But as an active moderator I would love to be able to warn people against "repeat offenders" and then be able to remove the warning again if they get the message. Currently contributors are left to their own devices to research the OP with even less means than moderators have (ours are also much weaker on the new platform) if they smell a troll, if at all. They also observe all sorts of link farms and speculative answers flowing in if they wander into other threads to see what is generally going on.

Then after a while they think WTF (like TW has observed - they contribute a bit while waiting for their discussion to bring something usefull) and then switch to display mode only when searching for something and give up that because of noise and answering because of the same noise.

Bolt the silly points system which is used for reputation, or contests, or community, or whatever you want to call the system which suffers from this symptom, and the problem will go away.

Give the whole community the possibility to rate content and moderators to "thumbs down" lazy questions and answers of repeat offenders to warn others -> then it will sort itself out chop-chop...

This should be possible for the blog area and featured content areas as well, as that has become an equally big pain (easy to use for noise and hogs lots of space, compared to interesting discussions which contain lots of gems).

Cheers,

Julius

[marilyn_pratt]

Hey, despite the rumors, a number of us on the team are not  "touchy-feely" types (some of us, self included, may even be too blunt and impatient at times )   but I still maintain that using punitive action is not always the most effective way of engaging.  And I am very eager to see how the "soon to be announced" Gamification enhancements will impact reputation.  I think that working in a world of missions and tasks will alleviate the pain many of us feel around the point system.

[Former Member]

Hi Jelena,

You can use the Star Rating system to express some pretty severe negativity. Lay one star on a piece of content and you're rating it as "poor." Two stars means "below average"

Keith

[Jelena]

Keith, I'm aware of the ratings (although it's still not clear what do they do exactly other then just being displayed), but they are not available for the forum replies. I've explained it in my idea for "dislike" button. Unfortunately not a week goes by without someone suggesting completely outrageous things in ABAP forums.

[former_member184701]

Jelena,

I like your 'dislike' feature, but it will be never implemented here due to

impact on users who have sap badge

regards,

[former_member182378]

Jelena, mr. PPIO,

In my opinion, simply having the provision of a dislike button is insufficient.

It should be mandatory to give reason(s) why you dislike someones post / contribution.

I feel strongly for the "Report Abusive" button.

Until a moderator has taken action, the post (marked as "abusive") should be visible to all. Furthermore, a post / explanation from the member (who has pressed the "report abusive" button) should also be visible.

Currently, as soon as someone (identity not revealed) presses the "Report abusive" button, the post is hidden.

This is not correct.

Only after the moderator approves/ agrees that the post is abusive, only then the post should be hidden.

[Jelena]

T W wrote:
It should be mandatory to give reason(s) why you dislike someones post / contribution.

Uhm... We don't give a reason for 'like', so why would we give a reason for 'dislike'?

Was not aware that a post would be hidden if someone hits 'Report abuse'. I thought moderators are not even alerted until at least N report... Could this be driven by the reason code? In some forums if you report a post as spam, it's getting removed instantly, but if it's another reason then it stays until reviewed.

[former_member182378]

Jelena,

I don't think, if it is not mandatory to give reasons for liking a post; then there should not be not mandatory to give reasons for disliking a post.

I would club disliking with something like "Report abusive". Why while reporting abusive, a reason is mandatory?

Interesting point about your observations w.r.t. working of "Report abuse" functionality.

I think a moderator could clear the air or clarify the points raised.

could you please comment on working of "Report abuse" functionality?

[marilyn_pratt]

I can comment that :

1) reasons for why something is marked as abuse helps clarify to the moderators what the problem is.

2) When the global moderators go to the moderation area they are seeing all the reports for all areas

3) the tool is limited at best - working hard to evangelize improvements

[former_member46]

I can clarify that 1 abuse report does not hide the content, however 2 reports on the same item does. The logic being that if 2 people thought it was abusive it likely is and should be removed until a moderator can ascertain.

[Jelena]

T W wrote:
I would club disliking with something like "Report abusive". Why while reporting abusive, a reason is mandatory?

"Report abuse" = SCN/forum rules have been violated. Like/dislike is subjective. One person might like, another dislike. But right now there is no balance to "liking" on SCN. Being indifferent (neither like or dislike) towards something is not the same as disliking.

But hopefully with the new "gamification" project we'll see more of a reputation system that has been suggested for years already.

[former_member42743]

For me its a combination of things.  Mostly life getting in the way.

An independent moves from project to project and client to client.  As the project moves through it's normal ups and downs the available time to participate changes.

Travel, hotel and flight arrangements impact available time. 

For me recently, it's been connectivity.  I'm sorry, but in almost all ways the new site is slower for me to work in and takes more time.  I thought after a year, and with me getting more familiar with it, it would be better.  It has improved but I still consider response to be slow.  Add in a marginal connection in an overbooked hotel, or a bad cell connection if using 3G/4G and it can be down right frustrating.  It can be very difficult to participate when on a client's dime using their networks where performance is usually better.

I don't care about points all that much but it is some what disheartening to write a good response, but than have a second poster come in and basically repost what you said and the OP awards points to the johnny come lately.  Points are not accumulating like they use to in the previous forum.  I think I am steadily losing them despite what I think is reasonable participation.

Many posters never award points.  I think there should be some checks put in place.  For instance, when a poster goes to post, the system should check their previous postings.  If they have more than three or four posts that have not been closed out, they should not be allowed to put up a new post for help.  That would certainly help I think.

So, yes.. it's a number of things for me.

FF

[Former Member]

Fire Fighter wrote:
Many posters never award points.  I think there should be some checks put in place.  For instance, when a poster goes to post, the system should check their previous postings.  If they have more than three or four posts that have not been closed out, they should not be allowed to put up a new post for help.  That would certainly help I think. 
So, yes.. it's a number of things for me.
FF

I have often asked for the ability for moderators or the community members who are active to give a "thumbs down" at a user ID level. This will warn posters that the OP is a repeat offender even the current questions seems ok or it not yet moderated. The new platform gives users near to zero ability to check the track record of the OP, and that only works if they make that effort.

Some users who post their interview question series or are notorious for faking their CVs and then relying on SDN for helping them out certainly deserve a banana icon... at least a warning for others.

Stronger authentication and public accounts on request would also be my preference. Many excellent contributors have google/hotmail/web mail accounts, but I think they should only be able to request this with reference to an S-account. That way we at least stop new noise from illegal installations which cannot use SMP support and SAP cannot load crowd sourcing into SCN for member statistics.

That will also solve a lot of quality problems and IMO increase customer / partner / SAp employee activity..

Julius

[former_member42743]

Keep in mind that many independents, (like myself), do not have S-accounts and move from project to project.  (I've been trying to get SAP to award a "read-only" S-account to mentors, platinum contirbutors, or top contributors so they can search OSS and suggest notes).  While many folks do know who I am, including several at SAP, I'd rather not have my name public.  Making that a requirement would cause SDN to lose some good people including a few mentors.

i think just having a cap on the number of postings allowed to be open at a given time would help.  It would be nice to be able to give a thumbs down for a posting or user.  Eventually those users would get enough thumbs down to show up on a moderators list and some action could be taken.

FF

[stephenjohannes]

Once I proposed somewhere(can't remember where) that we should to a "pay to consume model".  In other words you can only consume so much by contribution.  No physical dollar exchanges, but rather a series of credits and costs associated with consuming/contributing content.  In the model it would cost you to post, but you could earn credit by rating/commenting/contributing type activities.  Beyond the technical issues, the biggest drawback is that it would go against driving usage for usage sake type metrics.

For casual person who uses SCN occassionally you would never run up against your cap.  For those active contributors you would probably have more credits than needed, thus there would be a gifting mechanism to be available.  For those just coming to leech, it would be much harder as credits would burn up rapidly without real contributions.  Oh yes moderators could unassign credits in this system as necessary.

Take care,

Stephen

[marilyn_pratt]

I'm wondering aloud if some of 's ideas of gamification might address a piece of your approach .  If there are "missions" and "tasks" that people complete on SCN in order to have badges and recognition, one might actively be able to distinguish "leechers" from "newbies"  .  Would it help if one could hover over someone's name and see if that person was a good community player?  I don't know all that much about the gamification concepts and deliverables but any such system is incredibly complex to define and implement.   If we did have a mechanism to look at reputation easily, it might also work to ignore those who come only to take.  Not sure how easy or advisable it would be to enforce this with a lock out mechanism though . 

The way I'm understanding it is just the way we try (and try is the lead word here) to educate people to search before posting, we should also look to educate to engage with those that are "good players".  If reputation is built on behaviour rather than purely points it might go a ways to addressing these recurring and frustrating engagement issues.

[stephenjohannes]

I'm in favor of any mechanism that promotes actual "ownership" in the community and engagement instead of 1.9 million people who just got here via google search on a keyword.  I was thinking about this more and the closest model would be the paywall concept used by news sites.  Once again I don't want people to pay with $$, but rather pay by rating, liking, commenting or contributing.

I'm also guilty of not rating or liking content as I should, but I would think something simple like you get 20 articles a month without requiring a login.  Once you login you get 30 articles a month and you can earn one credit per rating and two credits for rating that can be used towards viewing other content.  You should never run out of credits in my model as long as you provide feedback on whether something was useful.  That's my ideal concept, yes I understand way too technically complicated probably to implement but the overall benefit is it would help everyone determine what is really helpful vs not so much.

If we try do something via gamification then I would love to see challenges that encourage people to rate content that they consume.  I would also remove the direct assignment of points from answering questions and instead have people "rate questions" and then have a magic formula that bulk assigns points monthly based on how many answers you have rated and the quality of those answers.  Yep get rid of 10 points per answer.  Instead if you provide 100 one star solutions during a month you get a bulk assignment that might be lower than someone providing 10 five star solutions.  Yes this could be gamed, but it would remove some of the "instant gratification" chasing.  The monthly issue could allow moderators to "audit" rating assignments before bulk issue.  Like you hinted at you could also provide badges to people who are "frequent content raters".

I think moving away from a system where you get all of your rewards immediately would help reduce of the drive-by point gamification attitudes that we have seen in the past.

Take care,

Stephen

[marilyn_pratt]

Again, I curb my enthusiasm until we see what magic will work!

[kakshat]

Hi ,

I like your idea (and in fact was thinking of proposing something similar myself) of having a bulk monthly grant of points. However, I think it would be best to have a combination of instant grant as well as an aggregated monthly grant depending on the complexity of questions where a member contributed. While the instant grant would be more in control of the OP, the monthly grant could be system determined based on the feedback about the question's complexity from the OP and other SDN users and moderators.

[stephenjohannes]

Funny you mention this I was reading an old entry on my personal blog(which I won't link here, but you can just merge my name into a .com and find it) and even I admit the instant gratifiction of getting SDN/SCN points when I first started.  I have to admit the rolling 12 month total drives me crazy at times as I know I can't be active and I have to watch it fade away.

So yes points motivate and in the old system seing that count increment is pretty addicting.  Then you added the promise of t-shirts and people including me went crazy!  Then somehow I went to realization that points don't matter as much and that I really benefit more from the learning/sharing anyway.  Yet being human I still look at my 12 month total and I'm still try to figure out is there way with my limited time that I can make some quality contributions that will keep me above 250 and not stomp on other people?  In the past some of the instant gratification parts led to people becoming unfriendly rivals instead of collegaues who could have collborated on something better.  That's really the issue because if all you care about is the points then the behaviors are much different.

Take care,

Stephen

[kakshat]

I am not sure if you read the new blog by he posted yesterday about gamification coming to SCN. There, he mentions that there is a change in the offing around the rolling points scheme.

I just read your personal blog and the idea you've proposed about needing credits for viewing content. Are you proposing that SCN should do away with linking the credits/points a user has with his reputation and instead moving to a system where you need credits only for viewing content? I am fine with users needing credits to view content but not with de-linking reputation with points. I understand when people question the need of having points at all but all said and done, I really feel there has to be a motivation for people to come forward and answer questions and/or contribute in other ways. And, scoring points is a reasonable way to do that. Yes, it leads to point scrambling sometimes but I am optimistic that measures can be put in place to bring it down to a negligible level. One thing which could prove very effective is to take into account the reputation (aka points/credits) of the person who is giving feedback. So, if a user having 2000 points rates a contribution (question or answer or blog or whatever) as 4/5 it should have higher weightage than a user having 1000 points who gives a rating of 5/5.

Anyway, Chip Rodgers' blog promises a host of changes coming in this April and I am looking forward to that.

(PS: Thanks for pointing me to the song 'You Get What You Give' by New Radicals)

[former_member181931]

You are reminding me to come back to this interesting thread regularly Marilyn, thank you. I am excited about the gamification project that I am leading, because it's going to help me focus people's attention away from points and more towards good community behaviors and missions. But it's not going to solve our problems - I have been in the SCN team for over three years now and I always want more. Better tools for moderators (I like the idea of "flagging behind the scenes" that mentions here, but we're not there yet. Hopefully I'll get good reports.. this topic is close to next on my agenda.

I like some of the ideas you brought above but with my project manager hat on, I always think about technical implementation, and as you admit yourself your ideas are complex and would be difficult to implement. It is interesting though to hear that you would consider removing automatic point assignment for correct/helpful answers in the forum and that you would prefer points for verified helpfulness. I have been thinking about these 10/5 points as a given and I always thought that removing them would bring a riot in the community.... Do you think the "like" feature for discussion thread messages should be used for the purpose of rewarding helpful people in the forums? And what do you think of the change management this would necessitate in the community? Feasible?

I agree, I would find it very useful to introduce weighing and make community feedback stronger depending on the reputation of the person who gave feedback. Unfortunately this is not something that Jive, our platform, offers, but we are working to get them to see the value in it. With the gamification platform we can establish certain prerequisites for people to get rewarded for certain activities, and I think that is already pretty powerful!

Best,
Laure

[former_member181931]

Thanks again Kumar for reaching out to me per email the other day. I look forward to hearing more feedback from you in the future.

Laure

[former_member46]

Wonderful question

I'm sure its a combination of things as stated above. Would be great to hear additional thoughts on the topic.

thanks so much for providing the link to the great post! I myself hover between the two and try to balance both parts of my personality

However I would assume that our online community which besides a few specific events (SAP TechEd, inside track etc.) does not meet in person, would make it easier from introverts to interact. That it would increase participation since both 'types of people' can be equally active here. Do you feel its not the case?

Gali

[stephenjohannes]

Yeah I'm a good example of this, but I would say my case is the following:

1) Take up new outside work activities (running, writing, etc)

2) Job role changes and you may not be able to contribute the same fashion or what you focus on leads to more consumption than contribution

3) Technical site model changes so your contribution goes down

4) More people answering questions in your area, less need to be the "one" who can answer everything

I have a lot less time to contribute, so I tend to focus reading content instead.  If I do contribute I'm either writing a few random thought blogs or answer a few questions that catch my eye.  I will occasionally if I have the time try to find a few "mission impossible" style questions that I could answer, but that's at most a weekly activity.

The SCN login/performance problems from about March until it was fixed really prevented me from contributing.  I only had so much time from March to November and if basically anything beyond a quick login would block me out.  It's not that I'm lazy on contributions, but five minutes or remember me login not working and having to manually re-enter password and take three to five minutes to login was just at the point where I would just choose not to contribute.  That being said those issues are done, so most of my issues are time.

That being said being active from 2005 to 2006 and then again from 2008 to 2011 is not so bad.  Perhaps I will go back to being more active in 2013 once everything I have been working gets finished.

Take care,

Stephen

[Lukas_Weigelt]

Then what makes members "persevere"? those who participate actively for years!

For me it's the constant possibility for exchange of experience and thus, improvement of my own skills, which never ends, since IT never stops evolving. ( and to enjoy JB jumping in from time to time wiping the floor with the ponits-system and the RTFM-faction )

Concerning the OP question methinks G. Lakshmipathi pretty much summed up all the main reasons there are. Another alleged reason could be the shifting of activity topic-wise. For example: I have been top contributor in the ESS/MSS subforums about two years ago, then I got occupied with Travel Management and the technology in ESS/MSS evolved, my company's, though, did not. So nowadays I don't (or rather can't) contribute in the ESS/MSS section at all and only lurk there. It probably looks to others who knew me around there that I just 'stopped' using SCN.

Cheers, Lukas

[Former Member]

You see, when you speak of the devils then someone blogs about them.. 😉

http://m.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2003/03/caring-for-your-introvert/302696/

This also explains lots of active and inactive SDNers IMO. I guess it covers some of the points-extroverts as well.. 😉

Cheers,

Julius

[Lakshmipathi]

Couple of reasons could be:-

• When somebody is in bench without having any project and would like to gain some knowledge, they participate in the forum discussions and give suggestions.  Once they are tied up with their project issues, they dont give much priority to participate in forum discussions.

• Patience !!!!!.    I heard from many people who gave quality suggestions for couple of months / years and after a while stopped contributing.   The reason is the first word I mentioned here

• Once they gained knowledge through this forum, they dont want to share their knowledge but I would say this category would be at very minimal

G. Lakshmipathi

[former_member182378]

G Lakshmipathi,

May I request you to explain, what have been the reasons for you to participate activity for many years, consistently maintaining a high standard?

Thank you, in advance!

[Lakshmipathi]

To learn and gain some knowledge in the areas where I am lacking

G. Lakshmipathi

[Former Member]

They come in peace, with good intentions and high hopes, but then the silly points system and all it's symptoms drive them away.

Sometimes this takes only an hour or two to disappear. However I would estimate that on average it takes about a week to work out and conclude there is something wrong and there are better things to do.

Is that what you are referring to?

Cheers,

Julius

[former_member182378]

Julius,

Then what makes members "persevere"? those who participate actively for years!

[Former Member]

There have been several discussions about that here.

I cannot answer for others, but for me it is a way of keeping up-to-date, participating in discussions (blogs and threads with a discussion value are most interesting for me) and then I also add my 2 cents.

Within the area which I moderate (Security and ABAP) I delete points-type noise when it appears so that the knowledgable people stay instead of stop reading. It has improved over the years but is an uphill battle against the points system. Those who are regular readers at least I try to encourage to comment as this does not only add content, it also generates discussion which they can learn from. That is certainly very true for the basis and development type areas. Sometimes I also ask questions myself and add a few humorous comments at other times (also keeps me involved)...

In the areas which are primarily discussing SPRO and user exits as solutions, I have observed that points are actually more of a motivator than in the technical areas and can sometimes keep people copy&pasting for years...  😉

Cheers,

Julius

[former_member189849]

Some peoples are earning money (instead of points) from other SAP forums or sites (i hope this another reason or may be ).

Regards

Mahesh

[former_member182378]

Mahesh,

Are you saying that people would rather spend time at their SAP day jobs, where they earn money; rather than invest time in these kind of forums where participation is honorary (without payment)?

Thanks, in advance for clarifying!