Comments on SDN's new blogging policy

[Former Member]

SDN has recently made the right to blog therein a "by invitation only" right.

See /people/community.user/blog/2007/03/13/community-profiles-the-future-of-junior-blogs-and-you for more details.

I personally think this is wrong. I am copying here my response to one of the related forums and invite you to express your opinion, whether you agree with me or not. Here it is:

"I know I'm probably too late but my take on it is topic is:

If what you are reading

1. is not news to you

2. feels "too junior" for your knowledge level, or

3. you just pain don't like it (etc.)

then don't read it!

Even a repeated topic can have a different twist when written by a different author. So why not just let the reader decide???

It feels as if you are trying to make this an elite club. I think you should call these postings 'articles' and not 'blogs'.

May I just add:

Don't you for a moment think that only what you can see exists...

There are thousands of people who use SDN and who have never posted anything on it. And you worry about the expectations of a few that you've heard from????

All those people you haven't heard from may have something to say one day, and you've just denied them the opportunity to do so spontaneously here - they now have to go and get 100 points before they can be entitled to posting something... "

Please share your thoughts on this.

Carlos

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Although I encourage as many comments here as you get let me just point out that this topic has been under discussion for about 12 months now and with hundreds of replies be it email, phone conversations, IM's, blog comments, forum replies or face to face at various events.

The blog policy did change, this is true to an invitation only process HOWEVER, it was an approval process before with many being denied simply because they failed to fill out the application form properly. With a community growing as quickly as this one, one needs to focus energies and reduce the noise and "problems" that arise because of the nature of things being a "free for all", we welcome your input and we thank you for taking the step forward to give it.

So to address this again for you and everyone else - yes it's a invitation process for the "expert" blogs, however considering the numerous ways for one to acquire the needed "100" points to be giving the chance to create their profile and thus write blog entries under the flag of a "junior" blogger I think everyone actually has an even better chance of getting to be a blogger.

Let's look for example at this:

John "applied" to become a blogger and filled out his application and it was reviewed and declined because he wanted to blog about ABAP ALV Grid. Once declined John though decided he wanted to fight the decision so he emails the person back that declined him (despite the first line being "PLEASE DO NOT REPLY") now numerous emails follow and after 6 mails it's understood that was simply the first blog John wanted to write about and then he wanted to talk more about "xyz". However as John was not the most pleasant of people to deal with and failed to put the required effort (proper spelling, grammar, etc) into their application it's now a judgment call by the one reviewing the application. This of course is hardly a great way for someone to get started blogging here on the Community Network.

Now of course you might say that "hey then just let everyone blog", well since we art not Wordpress or Blogger that doesn't work this is a professional community with a targeted audience and this audience has made it very clear on numerous occasions that they simply don't want that and we do not either. Everyone has the right to "try out" and that means get acquainted with the community and how our system of contribution works then you get that chance within the "junior" area under your very own profile, this is how you make yourself known, this is how we can see how the community reacts and this is how we can then invite you to blog in the "expert" blog area.

Again this feedback, as you point out, is coming from those who speak up - since I'm not a mind reader nor is anyone on the team that's all we have to go on so we look carefully at all those emails, phone conversations, IM's, blog comments, forum replies, face to faces at various events and of course our survey feedbacks. The feedbacks are of course anonymous (at least when I get the parts about the blogs, etc.) therefore I'm not sure how many are "repeats" to what I've already heard but I did count for 2007 in terms of blog feedback (inlcuding survey) 2834 pieces of feedback and that was just to "me" now if I was to ask every other member of the team I'm positive this number would increase and be closer to the 3500 if not the 4000 mark - then if I look at those actively contributing here (those who have earned over 250 points - since we start sending things out at that point) I see that I have more feedback than those people. So how else would one purpose to take action within a community without listening to that feedback?

Our the "expert blogs" an "elite" area - in the sense that (as well as everyone else) simply want the best stuff there - then yes it is. Those blogs are read by millions of people all over the world and therefore should be of the best possible quality - a free for all does not ensure that best possible quality nor did the application process therefore now you and everyone else with over 100 points can now blog and if the community sees someone to be really great and let us know then we invite them to the "expert" blog area.

Since we started this process we've had no complaints (none that I've seen but I have been travel to SAP SAPPHIRE lately so maybe I've just not read it in my inbox yet) nor have I seen any comments questioning the quality (again maybe I missed one?) so for me that says we've made a positive impact - would you or anyone else not agree?

Not to mention the more time our team has had to focus on the great stuff as opposed to fielding questions about "quality issues".

Now you say,

> SDN has recently made the right to blog therein a "by invitation only" right.

> See /people/community.user/blog/2007/03/13/community-profiles-the-future-of-junior-blogs-and-you for more details.

> I personally think this is wrong.

You've not actually said why though?

I agree with,

> If what you are reading

> 1. is not news to you

> 2. feels "too junior" for your knowledge level, or

> 3. you just pain don't like it (etc.)

> then don't read it!

Many others will as well however, why do you feel the invitation process is "wrong"?

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

hi,

imho the average quality of contributions in the blog area has increased since the new process has been established. this is also reflected by the decrease of (often necessary) negative feedback to blogs. so, to me, this seems to have been a good move. Otherwise more and more peole would have stopped to subscribe to blog notifications due to increasing 'noise'.

There's one thing that makes me curious though: Am I right that the aforementioned QA measures do not apply to SAP employees? I.e., I feel like everyone 'just' working for SAP seems to qualify for the senior blogger status automatically.

Personally, I feel like this is (very slowly) becoming a quality problem since it seems that 'internals' are urged to produce content but not bound to quality standards.

So, I would apply the same quality measures to internals, maybe with exceptions through explicit invitation or approval by the SDN content strategists in case someone like Hasso P. feels a need to blog.

These are my 2 (personal) cents. I might well be wrong or my impression be irrelevant.

regards,

anton

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Rest assured we are as hard on internals as we are on externals, in fact in some cases harder in terms of how we respond to them.

Internals actually have a stricter set of guidelines than the average community member due to the fact that we take in account that someone from SAP speaking might be misunderstood as "policy" so we are often times harder on them.

What you might be seeing is those starting to come out more who were approved in the past - we decided against removing all those who at some point passed the approval process but instead we are being harder on them when they submit their blogs for approval.

[marilyn_pratt · Accepted solution]

Hi Anton,

As someone who gives internals "a hard time" (even when it isn't always a comfortable activity), I welcome your critique...including when it regards myself. Despite the dialectic (mine with you) or even because of it, I believe our environment here is enriched by your questioning, so please, when you have such issues with quality: voice them.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hello Marilyn,

did I ever criticize you? Wasn't aware of that. In my understanding I didn't even criticize anything in this thread, I just voiced an individual feeling, deliberately using about 20 personalizing phrases (IMHO, personally, maybe I'm wrong, ...) just to avoid exaggeration of this issue.

regarding <i>... despite the dialectic ...</i>, I had to look that up an english dictionary to see if dialectic has a negative connotation in english (in contrary to german). Since I didn't find a hint towards that I better ask it plainly: Do we have an issue I don't know of?

Finally, thanks for the compliments. I try my best to contribute a little to my favourite community.

anton

[marilyn_pratt · Accepted solution]

No issues, Anton. I was just making the point that you are welcome to not only critique the value of other SAP employee blogs that you find lacking in quality, but the value of mine as well :-). It is healthy and instructive that you do so....just wanted to make it clear that I am not excempt from that QA activity and particularly welcome your opinion.

Engaging in debate is also a healthy activity and I have learned to really appreciate your candor! No hidden meanings. Sorry for using the difficult word dialectic. Nothing negative is meant. Nice word for debate or discussion (in my understanding).

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

phhheeew.happy me. no issues. )

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Perhaps I shouldn't have used the word 'wrong': I did not mean for this to sound like a moral judgement on anyone or anything. I am also not criticizing the current process: it may be the best of it's kind, I don't know. What I - as a matter of personal opinion, feeling or taste if you will - said was 'wrong' was the fact that this move leaves out those people who might have something both valuable and spontaneous to say and who do not necessarily have 100 point accumulated (regardless of the options available to earn those points).

I started this thread to hopefully hear from those who might not have participated in the earlier forums on this topic. Perhaps I'm too naive, but that was it.

Carlos

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

OK I can understand that but one thing to remember is that with the former "approval" process it was actually much harder to get started than it is now.

[former_member583013 · Accepted solution]

As Craig said...Now it's easier to become a Junior Blogger...No more approval process need it....There's a lot of ways to get 250 points....Forum responses, white papers, etc....So actually I don't think it's that hard....You can even get 1 point for assign points to a correct answer....

The quality of the blogs decrease badly before the new "approval" system....and now it's happily increased.....we have more quality blogs and less "noise" blogs....

Being a Blogger and an active contributor, I think that the SDN Team made that decision based on feedback....a lot of feedback....So it wasn't actually they're decision, it was a Community decision....

Greetings,

Blag.

[marilyn_pratt]

Thanks Carlos. I see from your "start" date that you have been around the community for a while and I am so glad you began to express yourself publicly here. We welcome your voice. Please see my which I posted with your first comments in the older thread.