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Before you lock that thread...

Former Member
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If you are a moderator, I certainly hope you consider that even a basic question to you may not be a basic question to someone else.

An SAP instructor told the following to the entire class during one of my training courses:

"What do you call it when you use someone else's solution to resolve your problem?"

The answer:

"Smart!"

Keep that in mind. It may be basic or foolish to you but it's smart to thousands of knowledge seeking people.

As a MCT for many years I know as a matter of fact that no amount of classroom training can replace the knowledge learned in the field and from others. When you lock what you consider to be a basic question, you are denying thousands of others who share your desire to know this product the opportunity to learn. And learning is the basic principle of what a knowledge forum is for...is it not?

That's all I have to say. CHEERS!

Accepted Solutions (1)

Accepted Solutions (1)

matt
Active Contributor
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I entirely disagree. A basic question is a basic question, regardless of the expertise of the answerer. Further, spoonfeeding answers to basic question is damaging.

1) It damages the site, as a site such as this swamped with basic questions, will be avoided by experts.

2) It damages the asker of the question, because if they learn how to research, they'll gradually pick up the skills required to work in this industry.

3) It dilutes the useful content of the site

4) It is unfair on those who do study, and have paid for training course to gain new skills.

Do you recall any anecdotes you may have learned at MCT (Microsoft Certified Trainer?) school regarding teaching people to fish as opposed to just giving people fish? Perhaps also you have some knowledge of what is meant by "signal to noise" ratio?

Funnily enough, this site used to be unrestricted when it came to basic questions. The result was not pretty. Experience taught us to be much tighter over what is permitted, with a commitment improvement of overall content quality. That's a matter of fact and experience.

I guess your statement was prompted by this:

Former Member
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Matthew, you are assuming that a search was not done ahead of time. Believe me when I tell you that I searched. Am I looking for a quickie answer...well yes! I didn't get it and the problem is now resolved and that's the way it goes and I am fine with this. Many of you are under the impression that all companies go with a conventional approach where you have individuals with very specific job duties. You'll have a BASIS guy, and ABAPer and so on. Despite my company's global presence, less people doing more is the way of the future in IT and its the only way that many people survive. Many of us cannot specialize, we have to do it all. The company is not considering the impact of this. They gather a handful of us that are multi-talented and give us the chore of making it all happen. We just do it by whatever means necessarry.

To answer your individual points:

1.) I still see nothing wrong with basic questions. While many experts will avoid it, there are many that are more than willing to help and they will answer. I've met and appreciated many on this very site. The knowledge is quite welcomed.

2.) It enhances the askers approach (at least for me!). As I read how the person that answered provides information, it adds to my knowledge base as I learn a knew way of looking at/for things. Very informative when you get this info from someone with a wealth of experience. All knowledge welcome. While some people may not have the ability to learn from others in this way, there are many like me who absorb and remember it.

3.) I disagree...all information will certainly only enhance the value of the site. The more knowledge the better. Maybe not to those who already know, but certainly to those who dont. Excellent way to learn and if the content to you is repetitive, you certainly have the right and ability to bypass it. Only you can click on the link.

4.) This is by far the most interesting of your comments. All of the others are subjective as far as I am concerned. But this one may have some merit. I have often wondered if some of these things are in fact a matter of "It took me a long time and a lot of effort to learn this...I'm not just going to give it away". You are the first person on here to openly admit that this may be the case. If this is the case, then just say so. Very informative indeed.

Thanks for your reply.

matt
Active Contributor
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1) You may not see anything wrong with basic questions,but that's not the view of the people running the site, so I doubt you'll get anywhere trying to change that. The arguments have been discussed in depths over the years, so I shall not rehearse them now, I shall simply reiterate: before moderation experts stayed away - that is fact, not opinion.

2) Nothing to agree with nor disagree with.

3) See 1)

4) You've misunderstood. I don't think any contributors to this site hoard information (except those that ask questions but never answer them). The point is that many people here have built up their expertise, by spending a lot of time, money and effort over the years researching SAP technology and going on training courses. There's a difference between sharing that information in order to help someone do their job, and spoonfeeding and doing their job for them. Every day on the ABAP space, there are questions where it is clear that the person hasn't even read the freely available help text. I've no interest in helping people who are unwilling to help themselves.

Kinds of questions I will reject are:

1. FAQ. This is common across many many forums and is pretty much standard practice for sites where they want some measure of quality in their content. If you think FAQs are harmless, then feel free to set up your own site where all questions are welcome x1000. I think your point of view will change.

2. Questions that are adequately covered in help.sap.com / the wiki / blogs and documents. Any answer will only repeat the information found there. So often I've typed in the keywords of a question and found the answer in the first few google hits. If I can do that, so can the poster.

3. Questions that are covered in basic training / books. This site is not a substitute for a training course or buying a book. In the ABAP forums I will reject questions where the answer requires teaching basic programming technique.

Kinds of questions I won't reject are:

1) Questions on basic topics that aren't often explored, and so will benefit everyone.

2) Questions on basic topics where false answers are often given - in these situations I give the correct information and remove the incorrect answers.

3) Questions on basic topics that raise issues that are worth discussing.

I utterly refute your perfidious insinuation that I rejected basic questions because I don't wish to share knowledge. You've got that completely wrong. Questions where only I (or a few other highly experienced people) can answer are interesting. I love answering questions like that. Such questions are highly unlikely to be asked by people who just want spoon feeding.

Answers (7)

Answers (7)

Jelena
Active Contributor
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We already had a discussion on basic questions right here on SCN. It may be found by typing 'what is basic question site:sap.com' in Google. Surprising, I know.

stephenjohannes
Active Contributor
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Honestly I have to disagree and wrote the following out of much frustation with dealing with basic questions:

You really need to read it and also look at the discussion thread.  It's great food for thought and if you replace "CRM" with your focus area in SAP, most of the concepts still apply.  Yeah it's going to challenge you, but that's my point.  You need to wash the car first: "Wax-on/Wax-off".

That being said part of the other positive activities that I worked on my area to prevent basic questions was establishing a WIKI for FAQ questions not found elsewhere and even wrote a SAP Press book in my area to help cover the knowledge gap for my area of expertise.

I understand that learning SAP is like drinking from firehose, but if you don't attempt to drink from that the firehose you are going to get nowhere.  That being said I have too high expectations for people in hoping that people will do their basic research and actually come here not to be spoon fed, but rather to try solve the really weird stuff that happens with SAP.

Take care,

Stephen


Former Member
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A part of the problem will be resolved by SAP Note 1723881 which will soon be released -> regardless of your authorizations, PFCG respects the SCC4 change settings and you cannot make changes to roles in production systems, respectively you are forced to select a transport request when you navigate into change mode in a development system.

That will then at least localize this problem to sandboxes for a while...

Cheers,

Julius

Colleen
Advisor
Advisor
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Hi Richard

I suspect I know which post you are referring to here as I had answered some questions. When I saw your questions I was in the grey area of do I press "alert moderator" or give you a hint? I chose the later and your reply confirmed I was wrong and should have reported your post.

As someone who is cleaning up security, the question you asked had quite a few alarm bells going off. You were struggling to identify a missing authorisation for your own access. That's fine, we can all forget some of the key authorisation objects for PFCG access but your response did not differentiate between the ability to execute the transaction verse maintain PFCG for the transaction that I began to wonder if you do know security.


"The failure according to SU53 in DEV is in fact on authorization object S_USER_TCD Authorization Field TCD and it fails on value Z_RICKTEST. It continues to show me three profiles that show my allowed value in each of these as PFCG.

However, I am able to run Z_RICKTEST with no issue so I am not sure why it is failing."

This response is why I can understand a moderator removed the post and blocked it as a basic question. The reality is if you had basic training (i.e. ADM940) you should have been able to resolve this like any other authorisation access issue. Also, going to SU20/21 and looking at the documentation of the object. Even if you argue lack of company budget to attend training there is a heap of information out there on transaction PFCG and restrictions as well as using SU53/ST01 to resolve.


Many of us cannot specialize, we have to do it all. The company is not considering the impact of this.

This statement here is why your Production and Development systems are out of alignment and you have access issues. As you mentioned, you had the ability to maintain security in roles in production but not development. I understand you said it was on your list to cleanup but cleanup is a cost and typically you have to convince your management to invest in it (or why it might be best to have some expertise in the first place to avoid this).

Training and basic SAP Security knowledge of authorisation concept would have enabled you to resolve this question yourself.

Regards

Colleen

Former Member
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I do have the basic knowledge. I did resolve it myself. The problem is fixed. I have enough knowledge to know how to find the problem, and the problem is resolved. Was hoping someone would explain how to track it down quicker. It was ust a matter of time savings. Thank you for your help though.

Here's my favorite part:

The issue was due to our Sr. guys not keeping up with production vs dev. I am talking about very talented people in SAP land (15+ years of experience) and I respect these guys greatly. . If I owned this environment, it would have never got like this. I will be fixing it in the future and it will take considerable effort to do so.

The proper answer (short version) to that thread was to track it down through SUIM until you find the the authorization that is allowing it in PRD, and then update it in DEV.  I will be spending considerable time fixing this mess in the future.

Maybe I did not ask the question properly to get a proper answer.

Thanks again for your help though.

Colleen
Advisor
Advisor
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talented people in SAP land (15+ years of experience)

Time does not guarantee talent and someone can be talented in one area of SAP and a disaster in another.


Maybe I did not ask the question properly to get a proper answer.

Let's put it down to that then and move on.

Good luck with the clean up - it's never fun!

Regards

Colleen

Former Member
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Richard Csucsai wrote:

I will be spending considerable time fixing this mess in the future.

Believe me if you wish, but you are working based on your belief and not your knowledge. That does not mix very well at all with SAP Security and you are busy creating a mess beyond imaginable boundaries.

Do yourself a favour and take at least the ADM940 course - that will spare us and your system a lot of frustration.

Cheers,

Julius

Former Member
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You greatly underestimate my learning cababilities but I appreciate the concern. I am fixing it as I type and it is a mess and quite a chore to make it right. This isn't my first rodeo and I have good resources outside of the forum. Was hoping at the time that the forum could provide some quick response for me at that time but I was able to find the information I need.

This is the type of thing that I was trying to make a point of in posting this thread. If you knew my background and credentials, you would understand. On a forum where the forum rules of engagement say nothing like "basic questions are not allowed", I still stand by my original post.

Thank you, again, for the suggestion.

Former Member
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P.S....the moderator rules of engagment may be something you should read. I doubt SAP appreciates some of the comments you have made and while I have very thick skin, there are many who are new to IT that may not who may take great offense. Companies pay a considerable amount of money to have this product with the pretense that a resource like this forum will be at their disposal. At no point do the rules for posters say do not ask basic questions but in the rules for moderators, there are several points which you need to learn to excercise and if you feel otherwise, you may consider removing yourself as a moderator of this forum. There are people of all levels coming to this forum for help and information. Doesn't matter how much you know, if you lack the social skills to present yourself in the manner that the rules of engagement for moderators requires, then moderating may be something you should reconsider. Just a suggestion. Cheers!

Former Member
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PS: ADM940.

matt
Active Contributor
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It is precisely to ensure that these forums can be properly moderated that the moderators are independent of SAP, and therefore also independent of SAP's customers.

I've seen over the years of moderating in various places that people who complain about moderator politeness don't seem to be so concerned about their own level of courtesy.

The fact that you don't like the way the site is moderated has been noted and given all due weight.

Former Member
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Noted. Thank you, sir. Please dont take that as a blanket statement. I have generally positive views to this forum and its moderation as it has provided a wealth of information to which I am grateful. This forum is still quite valuable and a fantastic resource. If anyone takes direct offense to any of my comments they have my apologies. Intent is only to pass personal observation. Ive met many good people here. I will not be replying back to this thread as i feel we have all made our cases quite well. Thanks again.

Former Member
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Jurgen & Matthew. Fair enough. Case stated.

Florian
Active Contributor
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Hi Richard,

In case, I'm not a moderator. But I have to add here, that I totally agree with Matthew and Jürgen.

Here is my explaination and I hope you get the point:

If the search contains a lot of helpful informations. Moreover, it contains the solution one shot away, it is not smart to copy an answer. It just blame yourself, that you might not smart enough, to refer to the correct answer.

Sorry, but that is a big fault in your thinking.

Regards

Florian

JL23
Active Contributor
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I can certainly share what your teacher told you, let me just emphasize the important word(s)

"What do you call it when you use someone else's solution to resolve your problem?"

it is about your problem.

if you find a code snippet that you can use, then why not?

if you find an answer in SCN, no problem, use it for your problem.


if you use it to solve other people problems in SCN, then it is no longer called smart, this is then called plagiarism if you do not quote the source.


And to use someone else's solution to solve your problem, you have to find it first.

If you find it yourself, because many others had already asked this before,  then I call this smart.

But if you just ask the question without having searched, then I called it basic.


if we lock questions (I actually reject the questions instead of locking them, because locked questions will still appear in the search and make it difficult for the welcomed people who want to find it by their self) then this is because we do not want every day the same question in a forum as it does not add any value and blocking the queue for better questions. This is different to class room training, where you have spoken words that do not stay in the room so that the next pupils can pick it up by their own.

Former Member
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C'mon man...You know that the pieces of code you get here aren't going to work in exact form. You have to modify it to fit your environment. Plagiarism is going to be hard to make happen, frankly.

If many others had asked this before and a solution was provided, then there would be no need to post. But...chances are someone did ask it...someone would have answered it...but never got the chance because it was removed from the site as too basic by you guru's.

JL23
Active Contributor
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I can give you a hundred examples about basic a frequently asked questions, I had 26 rejections today.

Believe me, before I reject a question with "basic" or "frequently asked question"  I searched myself to be certain that it is not just a feeling, I usually use the words given in the subject or content to search with.

And if I get a lot hits and find already among the first 10 one or more right answers, then you can certainly not blame me for being to restrictive.

Redundant information does not add value. How often do you buy the DVD of the Hobbit? Probably just once, even you intend to watch it several times. It does not add value to you if you buy it 4 times and have one copy in each room.

The moderators cannot look into the people, we cannot differentiate between those who really learn from those just being lazy. Some are so lazy that they even hide important information, while on the other hand the discussion finally has 40 or more replies until the solution is there. This does not add any value to the forum either, as people are not going to read 40 replies to find an answer, especially if 38 replies are needed to get the piece of information that was not given initially.

And by the way, even I am working in a big organization, I would rather describe me as a generalist instead of a nerd or one-track specialist. We have 2 real ABAPers, but 90% of us functional consultants know ABAP and use it for our user exits and forms. For us it is long time reality to be a generalist, especially as we already have 4 times more plants than application consultants and we will soon have another cut 25%.

matt
Active Contributor
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I'm also a generalist working for a number of different big organisations, though my starting point is the ABAP stack. There is often a lack of knowledge of the SAP application layer (i.e. the layer that supports the functional modules, but that is above the Basis layer).

JL23
Active Contributor
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basic is what was asked before and can easily be found in help.sap.com or in existing SCN content.

Ask your teacher to learn the class how to search.