Nearly 5k in 2 days! --> CANCEL THE POINTS SYSTEM?

[suresh_datti]

<a href="https://www.sdn.sap.comhttp://www.sdn.sap.comhttp://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/topcontributors">Satish Jaiswal</a>

The bar is raised so high! Rich, AHP & other SAP Community Robots can happily retire.. I think it is time to move over to the <a href="/people/community.user/blog/2007/07/06/eolus-one-and-sap!

~Suresh

Subject changed..as the discussion veered towards the Points system

Message was edited by:

Suresh Datti

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

The solution to this problem can be simple which infact I had put in these forums sometime back. Why not reward the SDner with the referral when the person whom he refers crosses say X points (could be 100, 150 or 250). This way we can clearly distinguish which is genuine referral and which not.

Hope fellow SDners would agree!!

- Dinesh

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

I too like the idea which is proposed by Dinesh. We can at least limit the number of fake referrals whose only aim is to earn points.

Regards

Aneesh.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

aneesh,

nasty as I am I suppose SAP needs those 'nominal SDNers' too for their next powerpoints showing the growth of the community from 700k to 1M, no matter how many of them ever get active in any kind of way.

apart from that, of course dinesh's proposal would be most reasonable.

anton

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi,

According to me, the root cause of this problem is with SAP's reward points system.

-- It allows reward points to the referrals

( creating fake ids, anyone can gain <b>any number of points</b>. Everyone knows about this. Satish has practically achieved it in this case. We should appreciate him for spending so much time instead of pin pointing him. If you have time, you also can do the same )

-- It allows reward points to repetative content (forum questions, blogs etc.)

etc.....

SAP has to think something seriously, about enhancing this points system.

Also, these points really matter:

-- to the companies

-- to the members who are expecting some rewards from SAP

-- to the members who want to showcase these points in professional life

If you are not the part of the above, you don't need to worry about the reward points.

Rgrds,

Ben.

[Former Member]

Hi to all,

Actually, from the beginning it was very strange for me in getting points for the spreading the word about SDN community. Then I understood that maybe it was important that time. When SDN team was trying to expand the community by all means, it might be understandable.

Now, when, reportedly, the population of SDN reached 1M members, IMHO, any referrals points is to be cancelled. I saw already, when some SDNers used this referrals points feature to make referrals from several tens or hundreds aka-newbies. Then the flag do not allow to see their contribution points in their profiles led to such as this investigations.

If the SDN's points and recognition play such an important role for some participants, let's cancel the easiest way to fake the system (referrals). The SDN is more than known, it doesn't need such a referral system any more, IMHO. This system is like a Trojan horse that allows a faker to penetrate into the gurus camp without ANY KNOWLEDGE AT ALL!

[suresh_datti]

I agree 100% with Eugene & if need be suspend/cancel the points system.. let there be some lengthy disuccsions on how to deal with current 'noise'..

~Suresh

[Former Member]

I'm inclined to agree that one of the biggest problems with the forum is the point system. Eliminate it and you eliminate a good deal of the noise that goes on here.

Rob

[Former Member]

Finally we are getting somewhere!!! Even though point system started off with the good intention of rewarding the deserved, somewhere along the road lost direction and is hijacked by point mongerers and why not, the rewards are too good to ignore. What does these points mean to the individual and to the organization of that individual? I think much of this has started when we started the organization level consolidation of the points. Every organization saw free advertisement here and started investing in this, instituitionalized it, formed focus groups, started rewarding the employees who got most points and even putting it as part of their appraisals. So with so much emphasis put on these points, individuals turned ingenious (devious?) as to achieve those points and gain recognition in their organization perhaps further their career as well. There are just too many loopholes in the system. There is no way of weeding out the fake registrations or at least at an acceptable cost. There is no easy way to find out pals asking and rewarding each other.

I would like to see the referral points to go away along with company wide consolidation based on email id domain. I think SDN has reached the critical mass now where it can take some bold decisions to tighten the registration, rewamp point award system and take it back to its quality content days.

[suresh_datti]

deleted..duplicate post..

Message was edited by:

Suresh Datti

[Former Member]

Maybe the moderators would be kind enough to post a simple thread to all the forums:

Are you in favor of eliminating the point system?

Why?

Is there anything better?

Rob

[suresh_datti]

Couldn't have said it any better.. I guess now is the ideal time (since the annual contest ends today) to 'suspend' the Points system & give it the long due 'overhaul'.. I just changed the subject of this thread to elicit more responses/suggestions/fixes for the 'noise' reduction..

As a sidenote, I did observe that the noise was indeed low whenever the Points system was down (for maintenance).

~Suresh

[ramki_maley]

Spot-on Srinivas!

These days the forums with the least noise and most interesting are the Suggestions & Coffee Corner

[Former Member]

I would have to agree. Then the people who would be posting would actually be doing it to help or share/showcase their knowledge and we would have both better questions and answers.

The questions that are repeated multiple times on a daily basis that do not deserve a response, would not get a response, if it were not for the point system. The quality of the posts is appalling in the development forums, with half of the questions duplicated interview questions, and half of the responses machine gun cut and paste.

[Former Member]

I agree - lets do away with the points system as it currently stands - it simply doesn't work and only appears to encourage rubbish questions and even worse answers.

For whats its worth, I don't understand what is to be gained by getting loads of points on SDN?! It seems to be so much more important to people in India and other places - certainly in the UK I think its irrelevant.

With the exception of maybe reduced/free entry to TechEd and some free t-shirts the points mean nothing at all.

Gareth.

[Rudi_Wiesmayr]

YES, YES, YES!

Away with this spam attractor!

Do you see a point system in Wikipedia?

No.

OK, there are still vandals there. But not that annoying horde of kindergarten players raising their low self-esteem by pushing themselves up in a rank list.

Please SAP, have mercy with your customers and stop this absurdity.

Kind regards (only to the good guys), Rudi

[ramki_maley]

Take a look at this Notice the name of the poster. Then the answer(s) are totally out of context. The answerer then demands points when the poster requests more details.

The points are no longer an indication of a user's competence.

[Former Member]

Yes, SAP, please, kill the point system.

Keeping it is the best way to kill these forums.

There is now much more noise than information.

[Former Member]

Actually, using Durairaj's link and restricting time to July 7, you may see that 1540 ponits were given (by moderators?) for "spreading the word about SDN" on June 26. It's 1540 / 20 = 770 SDN Memeber referrals per this particular day. Plus Five 10-point wiki entries.

[Former Member]

We'll certainly take a look into the referrals so many all at once is quite odd.

[Former Member]

Just I came across the thread. I would like to mention my views here:

I think there was some system related issue (as Error/bug is common to our software and IT field) and I have already communicated last day with SDN Team for this (when I came to know about this)

If some one noticed:

The previous point value was 4750 and now it is around 1700(though recently I have added some wiki – code snippets etc). It simply indicates some system level problem and unfortunately it happened to me but dear friend it may be some one else!!!

As SDN team has communicated with me, they are working on this and I believe they will surely solve this issue ASAP.

Eugene Khusainov:

My dear friend 1540/20 =77 not 770, this is just a note and a very simple mistake.

I hope every one will accept that: in Software field none of the system is 100% error and bug free and this kind of mistake and error is possible in our software and IT field.

Regarding Automated Process:

If it was possible then definitely SAP will lose its market share due to security constraints in its product and services but I am sure it is not.

Again please note that the list in Crossing Over (2007-06-25 to 2007-07-08) under Contributors Corner Page: my name is listed under 1/4 K (250) again this should not be and states another mistake.

Finally:

I am a member of this community since last 2 yrs (around) and if I had a wrong intention - could have done this years ago and slowly too. (Not in a single goal !!!).

FYI please:

My few team mates have registered them selves in SDN community to become lucky 800K st Registered Member in SDN which I had communicated with them. Please refer:

/people/mark.finnern/blog/2007/06/01/800k-sdn-member-coming-up

I think this will help our SDN community too to grow and achieve more.

Hope this will clarify all esteemed members queries.

[Former Member]

lol. and the very moment you told 'some of your colleagues' about the 800K thing, they all registered within seconds.

Congratulations, <b>HCL Technologies Ltd</b> seems to be a very well organized company to me.

anton

PS: I really hope I never get struck by such a number of software incidences affecting my innocent SDN points score so badly.

[Former Member]

oops. duplicate entry. this forum crashes quit often lately. sorry.

Message was edited by:

Anton Wenzelhuemer

[Former Member]

It's likely that these sorts of points are gathered up for some period of time and assigned all at once.

rob

[KKilhavn]

Despite the fact that this one case may have been due to an error, why not limit the number of points you can get for referrals to, say 200 (10 referrals)?

This is suggested only because I am a supergeek (not übergeek yet, unfortunately) and have absolutely no friends - at least not friends that I can refer to this forum - and am therefore extremely jealous of people who can refer 100s of friends, not because I think people should focus on getting their points by contributing content.

[Former Member]

Two years!

How do you answer this entry next to your submission to this thread that says you joined in March 07 not two years ago as you mention or is this also a "software bug"!!

<b><br>

Satish Jaiswal<br>

<br>

Posts: 1 <br>

Questions: 0 <br>

Registered: 3/14/07 <br>

Forum points: 0<br></b>

To whoever is responsible for SDN: PLEASE TAKE AWAY THE POINT SYSTEM!

My most detestful sentence on SDN<b>..."Please reward blah blah"!</b>

Down with points!

Message was edited by:

Ravi Dixit

[Former Member]

Hi Ravi,

Please have a look at the following thread:

There you can get the following Info:

<b>Satish Jaiswal

Posts: 1

Questions: 0

Registered: <u>10/25/05</u>

Forum points: 0</b>

Hope my answer will satisfy you.

I think the <b><u>Registered: 3/14/07</u></b> is the date I have changed my email ID as our official mail server domain has been changed in between. may be another Bug or functional problem needs to be checked "software bug"!!

P.S.

I have received the mail from SDN Team stated about the deletion of duplicate entries in my point system which it self is enough to answer all queries from all respected SDNers in this thread [There was a problem in point system allocation and some redundant point was allocated to me!!! which has been corrected.].Hope my SDN friends will be satisfied now. If any one is looking for the confirmation mail that I have received from SDN Team for duplicate data entry deletion please send me a request mail and I will forward the same.

Any one can be a victim of this kind of issues and bugs. Hence, requesting to first give some time to respective users and members to analyze the problem and then resolve the issue [instead of passing some arguments, which may not be relevant with the <u>actual context</u>]. Hope my answer will satisfy all esteemed members and this thread users.

So, now its clear that no one has achieve "Nearly 5k in 2 days" and was a simply s/w and system bug by SDN SAP system, which has been corrected now, where I am the Victim else no one could have argued and initiated this kind of thread.

Hope, all esteemed SDN members will justify my position and will give me some support for the same instead of arguing as it could be some one else too.

<u><i><b>Hence, requesting to stop and close this thread as the reason to initiate this thread is no longer valid.</b></i></u>

Thanks

Satish

[Former Member]

Hello People,

I have been following this thread since the start and always took a quite stand.

But I think, software bug or not, ethical or not, this person has already learnt a lesson....C'mon give him a break....

I agree with Satish, that this thread needs to be closed, and that any points hunter if caught again, should first be referred to this thread to see what one has to go through if caught cheating....

Thats alla newbie has to say....rest is up to the experts.

Greetings,

Tatvagna.

[Former Member]

Marvellous! And nobody is allowed to see in the business card of this hero what kind of contribution has been made!

4.7K per 2 days - is at least 49K per month -- so COOL -- it's a SUPER-PUPER-ROBOT!!!

Maybe moderators would be able to shed some light on it?

Suresh, I'm afraid, you are not just to Rich and AHP. Robots, IMHO, begin from 2K per month.

[suresh_datti]

OK.. Rich & AHP are of a different kind.. I shouldn't have mentioned their names.. my sincere apologies..

But my main intention was to highlight where the points system is heading to....mostly driven by the "points-hungry" rather than the "problem-solvers"

~Suresh

[RichHeilman]

Need more input......

Regards,

Rich Heilman

[suresh_datti]

Rich,

What I meant to say was you are a "problem-solver" kind and not hunting for points.. sorry for all the confusion!

~Suresh

[RichHeilman]

We know what you meant. Question is, how does one get so many points in such a short period of time? They still doing the points for referrals, thing? We've seen something like this before, where someone referred hundreds of people, fake, or otherwise, all at one time.

Regards,

Rich Heilman

[Former Member]

puts my 2k in two weeks to shame! 🐵

[former_member583013]

I really need his recipe....I need 22 points to reach 5K...and it took me like 1 year and a half.....People don't assign points....So he must have refer his whole family (Even pets maybe) LOL

Greetings,

Blag.

[athavanraja]

check this out

https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/servlet/prt/portal/prtroot/pcd!3aportal_content!2fcom.sap.sdn.folder.sdn...

[Former Member]

one more strange thing...

all the registrations for which the referral points are given, were done on

6/26/2007 5:34:54AM.

Issue with the comment system? or automated registrations

[Former Member]

lol. must have been

- 460 forum solutions or

- 230 full wiki entries or

- 46 first class blogs

grats.

head shaking