Is there any thing that we can do about itu0085

[Former Member]

Hi,

Due to popularity of SDN many new person joining SDN to get solution to there problem immediately. That’s the greatness about SDN.

But I feel fresher to SDN should be properly guided before joining the forum. They don’t take any time to post query and later they never bother to come back to there thread where people take out time to help the owner of the post to resolve his/her issue.

There are few good people also who first try searching solution to there problem in the SDN but due to this unanswered/opened post they are really not sure if the solution given by the BW guru’s are right or wrong. They are left confused if different ppl have given different suggestion. And that leads to many duplication post.

We also have some good people who come back to there post and try assigning points and close the post by assigning full points. Thanks to them. But then here also they don’t assign the points to the right reply. For example one of the person answers to a post and that post have multiple reply of the same person. In that case owner of the post assign full points to either his/her first reply or last reply which is not the relevant answer to the question. This makes difficult to understand which was the right reply.

All these activities make me loose my interest in taking part in SDN forum. I’m not sure if it is the same case with others also. I’m a great fan of SDN and I don’t want loose interest, instead want to keep growing with SDN.

I know SDN team keep trying hard to bring out solution to improve rewarding points system. Recently I have noticed that owner of the post also get 1 point for giving point. That’s a great idea. But there should also be a system where owner of the post should be made sure to close there post either by assigning full points to the right answer or after certain period of time owner can reply saying that my issue is still not answered and close the post with this point. Or else can leave it open by just updating the post saying that issue still not resolved. In this new system of gaining 1 point by rewarding points can be enhanced, by deducting that 1 point incase owner don’t close the post or update the post after certain period of time. Or else SDN can assign an additional 1 more point to the owner if he/his close the post or update the post.

SDN team I would like to know your suggestion on this also would like to know views of other SDN members also.

Regards

Rohini

(I’m sorry for being long )

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

All I can say is I'm extremely disappointed in all of you wanting to limit newcomers in these forums. Having been around here for a long time it's disappointing because we did not limit you or anyone else agreeing here when you first started. Instead we worked with many of you to ensure a better quality. True SDN is much bigger now but that also means there are more of us here that can reach out and help people just starting...

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Now Craig....

Folks are just interested in trying to maintain the value of SDN in their professional lives. In the first couple years, you had a large number of early adopters, who I suspect, are by their nature, more inquisitive and willing to make a genuine effort to solve / research problems before posting a request for help. As SDN has entered the mainstream, the number of community members that post questions like "tell me how R3 works", or otherwise make no effort to first search the forums, wikis, or other SDN content, or OSS Notes, keeps growing. The answers are already out there - the questions asked and answered many times.

As this volume of clutter increases, the effectiveness and value of SDN actually declines. Yes, this is a community and membership should certainly not be discouraged, but what is its raison d'etre? If the community's ability to provide an efficent marketplace of knowledge sharing declines, isn't it's mission in jeopardy? Is it sheer numbers we are interested in? That might be your interest, but I don't think that is the interest of working professionals that are members - SDN is a tool, simply a means to an end.

I think from the volume of similar posts in this forum, this really is as area that warrants discussion and thought.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Craig,

You got me wrong there. I never meant to stop or limit new comers in anyway. Instead can we have some system where a good induction is given to new comer. I know this is going to be tough to really implement. I'm sure that many people don't read your thread in each forum. So I was requesting your team or any other SDN member have some good idea to solve this issue.

Have view to avoid duplicate question is. When ever a user post its query he/she can get a popup with some related post which were post in past. System similar to what we have in sapservice.

Regards

Rohini

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Craig,

I would risk to say that for many SDNers it's obvious that there is something wrong with newbies. Since, for us it's much more important to maintain the quality of forums rather than having more and more community members, as Pizzaman said, "that post questions like "tell me how R3 works", or otherwise make no effort to first search the forums, wikis, or other SDN content, or OSS Notes", I'd like to look more closely at the newbies.

Unfortunately for SDN, in case of newbies, we have three types of the freshers:

1. A real fresher.

The most of threads like

are dedicated to such newbies. Very often they simply don't know the rules and should be taught. Nobody wants to limit them in anything.

Unfortunately, there are two types of another pseudo-newbies.

They flood the forums with a lot of questions. Often a question from a question is divided by 1-3 minutes. These are, as usual one-sentence question, often in bold. Most likely questions are regarding the different topics, even different SDN areas.

Since the real questioner cannot switch between these types of questions so frequently -- it's just time to type (or copy-paste) one question, then type the 2nd etc. -- s/he is not interesting in answers -- s/he is just littering the forums with a lot of questions that have been answered hundreds of times already).

There are two reasons.

2. A point hunter.

S/he awards point generously. The most off them goes to a predefined one (two or three) person. Doesn't matter that the lucky person was not the first in the row of answerers, and his/her answer was mush worse than the previous. It's either:

- A. The same person with a few accounts who asks the questions, answers them from another account and rewards himself/herself from the questioner account with cheap (and almost always 10-points) rewards.

or

- B. The persons from the group of abusers who change their roles of asking and answering questions (with mutual rewardings).

We have a lot of threads and blogs regarding point hunters. I'll not provide the links here.

3. A litter scatterer.

Doesn't reward any answers and never comes back to the threads.

Not sure about the reason. Most likely, it's a person who was caught in cheating and trying to make some kind of revenge (this saga with caught cheaters began almost two years ago).

As examples of such behaviour I'd provide the following persons:

https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/profile?userid=3577013

https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/profile?userid=3596635

https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/profile?userid=3559996

https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/profile?userid=3607969

In case of the last user, Bhanu Gupta, the BI forums moderator, even had to lock the user's questions because, I quess, of their littering and useless nature.

Such users already significantly litter the forums and it becomes harder and harder to find useful information, not just multiple replicas of many times answered questions. The reputation of SDN suffers.

Consider also the wasted time of genuine SDN-contributors trying to help the pseudo-fresher.

As a second type of revenge I consider the periodic appearance of the pseudo Gareth Ellem.

So, Craig, I wouldn't pretend that everything is fine.

Something should be done. At least, at level of additional user parameters.

For example:

- number of questions without any rewards;

- number of users that were rewarded by the user;

- number (and percentage) of not closed questions;

- average rewarded points per a user's question.

It'll help contributors (and moderators) to estimate if the question is posted by the real fresher.

Sure that there are many other suggestions may be made.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

OK folks, you seem to be high and mighty and against "newbies" you say you don't want to limit them or stop just stop the junk, but let's look at the "junk"

We have over 4500 new messages posted daily in the forums what percentage of those are a problem? more than 10% so more than 450 messages a day fall into your category of "junk"?

Do I pretend everything is fine, no I think my behavior speaks loads for how I feel about it, however putting a label on someone, limiting their access, requiring them to complete x before posting - does that alter anything? We've had a constant on SDN and if you check other sites you'll find the same thing of around 1 to 2% "junk" posted and that's been since things started. Nothing we have done to alter this nor other sites has ever worked there comes a time when you have to remember one key rule: "just ignore it" Yes the number of cases is growing but so are the number of posts per day and the number of users.

We are aware of the problem but when everyone constantly tells us that the road has a hole it in - all it does it bring more people to look at the hole and as they stand on the side of the hole it causes it to break more and the hole gets bigger as opposed to us working to make it smaller or putting up a sign saying "hey watch out there's a hole here"

I can see (yet again) many of you have taken serious thought in this already and I'm seeing the same suggestions repeated (wait was that a sign of a "fresher") but yet how does any of that alter the 85% of the 1 to 2% of "junk" those who post just to post or post because they are searching for points? It doesn't you see we have that limited group causing such a mess here and nothing we "implement" is really going to alter their behavior expect what we have started doing and that is removing the users that are "playing" around with the system.

So I'd rather us get back to the business at hand that targeting the new comers and penalizing the majority for the actions of the minority.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi

Thats great answer .

ignore is the best option .

If you know the person is posted the forum and got answers too but not closing threads then you can ask them why you not closed your previous even you got the answers or ignore.

Let them know as they fresher closing the thread will give benefit to others who are facing same problem.

This is a community a group of people who had different views.

So let them know first time otherwise ignore after that.

Manoj Shakya.

[marilyn_pratt · Accepted solution]

And believe us when we say that our moderators, internal and external are very much engaged in the business of behavior modificaton and training of participants. It is amazing that our volunteer moderators of areas such as ABAP and BI are able to help manage forums with enormous volumes everyday and still be prolific and contributing themselves.

That's an unbelievably good model. Not only do they steer people in the right direction, but they also provide knowledge, answers, insight.

Sure, its imperfect when you have a million posts a month and many of the moderators are challenged to work with clutter, gamers, and noise, but even given the increased workload, they seem to be managing, else, I promise you, the amounts of daily messages would be slowing down to a trickle. The volume is also proof of the value people find and I think the moderators are constantly checking themselves and looking for ways to improve the efficiency of their interactions with the community (or at least that is my impression from those I engage with.)

Marilyn

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Marilyn,

That's the satisfactory answer I have received.

"Just ignore" was the policy most people must be following, but then "just ignore" is also getting tough.

My intension behind posting this post was... to just get ideas from other community people and come out a way to improve on this activity.

I can understand it's not easy for moderators to get an hold on this activities.

It now brings a satisfaction that SDN team is truely working hard to guide new comers and to maintain the quality of the forum.

Regards

Rohini

[marilyn_pratt · Accepted solution]

Thanks Rohini for your comments.

One of the tactics I see being employed is something more than ignore. It is:

1) explain (when this doesn't work go to level 2)

2) warn (when this doesn't work level 3)

3) lock posts (in many cases works)

In corresponding with one of our top moderators, it was my understanding that such a graduated method of educating participants was effective. Imagine the work, caring and patience that moderator had.

I have to admit that when I feel overwhelmed or pressured my gut reaction is less generous.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Well, I understand the concerns about junk and noise, but the forum is and should be for everyone.

On the indivudual thread pages, the points of each individual responder are shown (presumably to guide the author towards which answer(s) to try first).

It just occurred to me that in addition to showing the thread author's name on the forum page, if his or her points were also shown, it might give an indication if the author's experience. and responders could be guided in which threads to look at first as well.

Imperfect, but...

Rob

[Former Member]

Hi Rohini,

I share your feelings.

I remember that in one of the forum's suggestions was a great idea to limit the number of the owner's open questions by 5. In case of the person (unfortunately, we had a lot of such) who wants to flood the forums with tens of questions a day (one-sentence question, often in bold) without any reward or feedback, s/he will not be able to do it with such kind of limitation.

Best regards,

Eugene

[Former Member]

Hi Eugene,

That's another good way to make Owner responsible about there post.

But I don't think that system implemented.

Regards

Rohini

[eddy_declercq]

Hi,

The moderators can help in this (see also /people/eddy.declercq/blog/2007/01/12/from-the-grumpy-old-man-smooth-moderator), but this can be difficult in high volume .

All depends on the attitude and the dicipline of the poster who needs to follow up stuff. If he/she wants to have their question answered, one should also reward and close the question if answered.

Eddy

-

---

PS. Reward the useful answers and you will get <a href="http:///people/baris.buyuktanir2/blog/2007/04/04/point-for-points-reward-yourself">one point</a> yourself!

[Former Member]

Hi Eddy,

Very true what you said...

But can this system be automated... because it's not a easy job for the moderator to check every post coming up and keep monitoring them till the post is closed.

Regards

Rohini

[former_member181962]

We have this problem in ABAP forum occuring at a constant regularity:

Regards,

Ravi