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My rant about standard of questions and answers

Former Member
0 Kudos

Hi All,

I just wanted to have a bit of a rant about the standard of postings, specifically in the ABAP-General forum (but usually across the whole site.)

Every day hundreds of questions are asked and so many of them are completely simple, pointless questions. Maybe someone is going for a job and they have been given a technical questionnaire to complete first. This is annoying and is watering down the content and value of the forum for people who have genuine issues and need help. Sometimes people are just plain lazy and want a program written for them. Quite often people claim to have a task to do that they don't know how to do (I don't mean they are a bit stuck with a complicated part of it, I mean they don't have a clue where to even start.)

Now, all of this is quite annoying. To be honest, it indicates to me there is a massive market somewhere in the world for people to "pretend" to be SAP consultants. So many posts ask for interview help, example resumes, etc... If someone knows how to do something then they should be able to get a job on their own. Why do we continually see people asking for help in a job/role that they obviously cannot do?!

I work in the UK where there is a move to outsource large parts of the IT industry to less expensive parts of the world. I’ll be honest, it really upsets me to think that potentially I could be losing my job to someone who doesn’t really know what they are doing…

What annoys me even more is the people who actually reply to these questions with example code, resumes, sending documentation, etc... There are people on these forums with thousands and thousands of points, mostly gained by sending documents or answering fundamental questions that really shouldn’t have been asked in the first place. No-one seems to want to suggest to the question asker that they may search help.sap.com, use the F1 key on an ABAP command, search Google, nevermind search previous SDN postings! Everyone is too wrapped up in getting points. I noticed someone the other day (don’t know who specifically, it doesn’t really matter) who had only joined SDN in the past month or so yet had about 900 points. Of course, they might have transferred in from another user and got the points across but either way, I looked at a few of their answers and wondered how the hell they had so many points! I admit, I don’t have that many points even though I’ve been on SDN for some time (this is actually my 2nd ID – I had no points at all for years with my last one!) But then, I don’t really care about getting points – I want to get help and give help (if/when it is deserved.)

I realise everyone has to start somewhere and ask questions, even if they are very simple. I just wish the answers to these questions were better and focused on helping the person to learn and help themselves instead of just looking for points.

I’m beginning to think this site would be so much better if there was no rewards scheme in place… And I’d love to see a lot more moderation in the forums. I’d love to see the “please send me document xyz” threads closed straight away but realise this takes a lot of effort to police. Do the SDN team have any plans to increase moderation of the forums in line with the increase in users?

Anyway, rant over I’m sure I’ll get lots of different replies to this (I hope I do!) as I’d love to know what other regular users of SDN think.

Gareth.

Accepted Solutions (0)

Answers (11)

Answers (11)

markus_doehr2
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

Hi all,

I found this thread by accident and after reading it, I must add my EUR 0.02 too - please forgive me

I´m mainly active in the "runtime group", operating system, databases, installations, upgrades and I can see those "send me XYZ" questions there too. One of the most popular threads got recently closed but the next one with several thousand hits is on its way again.

I think one of the main problem of asking those questions, is the manner, how documentation is organized (if at all). Example: To set up the Solution Manager you have the installation documentation (which gets corrected by notes), you have the alias /solutionamanger, you have the IMG, you have the SDN, you have help.sap.com, you have /rkt-solman and finally you have notes. This is just too much for a single head, too many groups doing too many kinds of documentation in too many inconsistent ways. For someone starting with SAP, it´s plain and simple IMPOSSIBLE to find that information he´s looking for - and that´s one of the biggest drawbacks because even someone, who´s involved with SAP materia for a long time (12+ years), I have had and I still have problems to find the information I´m looking for.

Seeing that, it´s much easier to just ask in a forum, where something can be found is the way to be chosen, pragmatically.

The second big problem I see, why so many basic questions arise is the fact, that it´s always communicated as "insert CD, setup.exe and you´re done". We have had consultants, that really communicate this as such, without having in mind, that there are many many interdependencies on the technical side, that must be taken care of. This is safely and intentially concealed, "we don´t wanna scare the customers". If someone with few experience in such a project now gets the task to do the actual setup, he´s completely overwhelmed with the complexity and starts asking basic questions. It´s ignored (or just forgot to be told) that e. g. each database needs maintenance, be it such simple tasks as doing a backup. If someone has no idea how a database works, he will unlikely be able to configure a backup. He can push buttons on a Windows screen but without the knowledge of the underlying activity, he will cry for help in the first moment, a message appears and those are then the questions, that I see in the forums.

The third point I see is the excessive overestimation of the own skills of many people I´ve worked with. Just recently we had consultants on site, that said in their initial presentation "everything´s easy" and finally they convinced us. After the first day, the doubts were growing up and at the second day, the whole day consists of calling colleges, searching OSS notes, searching the SDN and opening up OSS calls. Our claims were defined very specific for that job and finally, after some "remote help" from collegues and another few days he got it working but neither in time nor in a manner I would consider a professional consultant should do his work.

As fourth point (this is getting long - sorry) I like to add, that I think it´s very easy, to get access to official documentation and certification material. I know of two internet sites, where you can buy for a few bucks the official material, that is used in courses and in certification processes. So downloading that and studying it with a pirated CD set, everyone can claim him to be an expert - without ever being involved in an actual project or ever be at a customer, as if he had visited all the courses - left aside the good food at the ESZ (If someone from SAP officials is interested in the URLs, please contact me via PM, don´t want to post the addresses here for obvious reasons)

Ufff... finally finished

</rant>

--

Markus

Former Member
0 Kudos

Excellent post Markus,

Your point ( ) about the confusion of SAP documentation is so true.

Just let a beginner read an installation master guide for SRM (The last I had to dig in) and we will see a lot of question on SDN !

This is NOT a setup.exe procedure !

Regards,

Olivier

Former Member
0 Kudos

ChrisSolomon
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

I must admit, I have once sent a MS doc file that simply had a single line....."http://help.sap.com".....and some random 10MB image embedded in it. 😃 Bad me! Bad! slaps own hand

former_member374
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

> I must admit, I have once sent a MS doc file that

> simply had a single

> line....."http://help.sap.com".....and some random

> 10MB image embedded in it. 😃 Bad me! Bad! *slaps own

> hand*

Hi Christopher,

Thats so cool.

Thanks, Mark.

P.S. I hope the picture was not copyrighted

Former Member
0 Kudos

Seems to be very easy to get a job in India:

BSP in one day ... I wish I was the interviewer ... hehehe

Cheers,

Sascha

Former Member
0 Kudos

lol. nice find.

I love 'model CV'.

This reminds me on some famous generators of the late ninenties, like Cyrano, the poem generator. Unfortunately this is gone but here are other examples:

<a href="http://www.pakin.org/complaint">Complaint Generator</a>

<a href="http://www.crazyhoroscopes.com/generate-love-letter.php">Love Letter Generator</a>

How about creating a CV generator for those people and offering it as an SDN community service? It might be a big success!

regards,

anton

Former Member
0 Kudos

Anton .. I really do love that idea ... maybe we can start it as community project ...

Cheers,

Sascha

Former Member
0 Kudos

/thread/545286 [original link is broken]

former_member46
Advisor
Advisor
0 Kudos

Hi Eugene,

This case was fake... The thread was in the test and playground forum and was entered by our platform team as part of testing but I have removed it in any case

R, Gali

ChrisSolomon
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

@Gareth

What are you missing?!?! .....It's a carrot.....on a stick!...."Must have carrot!!!Must have carrot!!!".....haha

Former Member
0 Kudos

Former Member
0 Kudos

Wow. That one is unbelievable.

I really hate all the "please send me..." replies and also anyone who continuously asks for points. That combines them both!

Am I missing something, or do the points here on SDN mean something to someone?! I just don't understand why people are so obsessed with getting them. When I got my second SDN T-Shirt for hitting 500 points recently, I got nothing but light-hearted abuse from my colleagues! Recruitment agencies were definitely NOT beating down my door to hire me cos of my amazing point score. Other than potential free entry to TechEd (which would be really good, but hey, my entry this years is free anyway because my company are paying) I don't really see any motivation to get points, other than to help people. But that shouldn't need points anyway.

Is it a cultural thing as it seems to me that the points mongers are more likely to be from the "outsourcing" areas of the world, like countries in Asia. I really feel like I'm missing something...

Gareth.

KKilhavn
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

I tried a new approach to these recently....

Someone asked to be sent materials, as usual.

Just for the heck since I am so tired of these requests - I told him/her to check his/her e-mail.

Surprise, surprise, there was nothing in the e-mail inbox.

Not so surprising, someone added a "mee too" post.

It was really sad that the e-mail never arrived,

Sorry, sometimes I just feel like showing those people that it is a cruel world

Former Member
0 Kudos

really good one Kjetil ... he even did not get the sarcasm 'What r u talking about. i did not receive ... ' hehehe.

ChrisSolomon
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

Here is a new "twist" I just found....

Soooo you start a question innocently asking how to reward points so you can then reward points?!?!?!? too funny!

Former Member
0 Kudos

hi everybody,

I have always been in favour of dumping the whole points system. since it seems to be of some value to a lot of stakeholders I thought of a better reward system addressing the recent problems.

Here we go:

1) Allow community members to vote on every forum answer. Voting should be very easy. A basic impression of votes issued should be visualized. Here's an example screenshot showing how this could look like:

<a href="http://www.kwent.com/sdnpoints/base.jpg">Forum View</a>

2) Clicking the Vote button presents you two simple options

<a href="http://www.kwent.com/sdnpoints/withpopup.jpg">Voting View</a>

the positive vote leads to addition of some points, the negative vote to substraction of points.

3) voting results in reward points given or taken to the answer according to the following scheme which basically tries to reflect the credibility of the voter:

<b>Base rewarding:</b>

- Voter has 0 - 100 pts => 1 points given/taken

- Voter has 100 - 1.000 pts => 3 points given/taken

- Voter has 1.000 - 10.000 pts => 4 points given/taken

- Voter has 10.000 - 10.000 pts => 5 points given/taken

<b>2 Modifier rules:</b>

- Questioner: Multiply points given/taken by 2

- 'Domain expert': Multiply points given by 2 according to domain ranking of voter - give higher result from Base rewarding vs. Domain Expert Rule

(Example: if a member has 10.234 forum points but 'only' 567 points in forum X, his voting leads to 5 pts according to the basic rule and 2x3=6 pts according to the domain expert rule, so the actual points given/taken would be 6)

<b>Confinment Rule:</b>

An answer cannot get below 0 points and not above 20 points.

4) simulations show that this scheme has one crucial requirement to work: community members implicitly have to take responsibility the more active and the 'higher ranked' they are; if they accept this responsibility they can 'vote down' fraudulent users, since for instance fake voters will usually have only few points to give and can simply be 'corrected' by more experienced user(an experienced members vote would be worth up to 20 newbie's or fake users's votes). On the other hand an obviously experienced newbie can relatively easily be 'lifted' by the real experts as well as by the fellow newbies themselves.

One advantage of this system would be the fact that it promotes community self-organization rather than requiring formally nominated moderators, policies and ugly stuff which might be perceived as an autoritarian environment.

My 2 cents. Play with this model, improve it and maybe we find a fair solution requiring as little formal governance as possible and still working well. Finally they could adopt it at the community's management.

anton

marilyn_pratt
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

Wow, you have really thought this out, including the "checks and balances" of gaming the self-governed system. This is an excellent basis for advocating a forum rating system. Sure beats the Romans police methods. (I wasn't sure which "Life of Brian" character I should identify with, Romans or Graffiti writer), but now I see it's the citizens. Sweet.

stephenjohannes
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

Anton,

Interesting system, the only question I have is do you start everyone from "zero" again, or use the existing points as a basis?

If you used the existing points, then the "gamers" would start out as an advantage. The only idea I would have to prevent this is that the moderators could take the top 20 in each forum and assign some base domain expert points. Everyone else with at least 512 points gets 100 points to start out in the new system. As far as the webloggers, this could be assumed that some of "expert" bloggers get 500/1000 points as a basis for the new system. These basis values would only be used to establish the voting categories for the initial year. After one year then the voting totals could be based on totals since the switch to the rating system. Basically a use it or lose it principle.

As far as the existing points somebody has, they could still count towards crossing-over levels, but would not influence the forum voting. Think of this system like lifetime miles in a frequent flier program. You can't use them to requalify for elite status each year, but still matter to get "lifetime status".

I don't know how well those type of changes would go over, but it would definitely change the behavior of what is posted and the quality of answers. It would also really make those point numbers a lot more meaningful.

Take care,

Stephen

Former Member
0 Kudos

Maybe we need to see the end of the Point Awarding fiasco.

Maybe then we will get proper answers.

Former Member
0 Kudos

good observation Stephen.

I thought of this problem and also came to the conclusion that you have to initialize the system one way or another.

In my opinion the simplest yet effective initialization would have been to substract a threshold value from each member's total, say 512 or 1024 points. this would leave the ranking for large part of the active community in order but reset a big number of 'alternate identities', which ever reason they have been created for.

thanks for thinking about it,

anton

suresh_datti
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

>>Interesting system, the only question I have is do you start everyone from "zero" again, or use the existing points as a basis?

My vote is to start from zero.

I also agree with the point of view that SDN points do not necessarily reflect a person's expertise level.To be frank, I would not have spent that much time contributing on SDN if I were a contractor. It wouldn't be fair to spend time "earning" SDN points at the Client's expense.

~Suresh

former_member374
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

Hi Anton,

This is a really interesting suggestion. Couple of thoughts.

You should be able to vote on the question too. So that even though there is no answer, people can do a thumps up on interesting ones or thumps down for questions that have been answered already. Something that could be shown in the overview and filtered too.

If we take a rolling count of the last 12 month, we will get better every month and within a year the point hunters will be washed out, or found a way to game this system too

The domain expert rule is a tricky one, as how many points someone can accumulate during a year very much depends on the activity level of a forum.

We could start out with the top 5 within a forum that have over 100 points are domain experts in cases where the 1000 points a year are not reached.

But that makes it really complicated, one of the reasons we didn't go with the I am giving x amount of points for my question route. Too much calculation in your head needs to happen as in, will I have another question where my points will be better spent on? ...

I like the graphical representation of positive and negative points that you created.

It is getting late here in the US.

Let me sleep over it a bit, Mark.

Former Member
0 Kudos

When creating an support question on OSS you are forced to use the search criteria. Can this method be used on SDN.

If a question is then posted onto the forums, could a link be provided which would show the posters' search criteria.

Maybe this could lead to other possibilities. A more harsh one could be that if a user has posted 10 questions without using the search facility then they are fined so many points.

To be harsh I would say fine them all of the points. They will soon learn. For the new users who do not have many points, give them a negative figure.

pokrakam
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

Hi,

Great concept!

As far as modifiers go, I made a suggestion in a while back which may work here. As it's a long thread I'll summarize again:

A ratio is established by how many points a user receives for answering questions. Note ONLY answers that are eligible for points are counted, nothing else.

e.g. consider 20 posts of which 10 are answers, 5 are questions and 5 are non-point threads in the coffee corner: only 10 posts are counted towards the modifier.

Looking at those 10 posts:

10 responses with 2 points awarded gives a ratio of 0.2.

10 good answers which gained the poster 15 points however gives 1.5.

(we could refactor this to get to a trust/kudos/expertness score from 1 to 5).

This is a system which could easily be implemented behind the scenes and - most importantly - doesn't discriminate against newbies who post a lot of questions. Even someone less experienced can quickly get good kudos by simply only answering when they are sure of their answer.

Cheers,

Mike

Former Member
0 Kudos

hi mark!

concerning the domain expert rule and the level of activity I've been thinking about that issue too. First I too thought it might be useful to normalize the different forums similar to your suggestion but then I came to think that leaving it the simple way, a forum has to gain momentum for itself and show that it really develops some domain expertise. Actually, just because someone answered 20 questions in a low activity forum and gained some points does not necessarily qualify him or her to be an expert though he is a top five contributor ('one-eyed amongst the blind effect'); on the other hand, even someone with zero points might well be an expert in this domain, but might simply not have been able to demonstrate that in the forum. Latter person shouldn't take SCN points too serious anyway and help to get the respective domain flourish first.

the graphical representation is not my genuine idea but borrowed from other forum systems, this one specifically from an Austrian online newspaper, <a href="http://derstandard.at">Der Standard</a>.

my 2 cents,

anton

stephenjohannes
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

Anton,

This almost sounds like a online counterpart to whole certification issue and whether a certification really matters. There was always debate on the consulting side on whether certification trumped experience. I mean does the fact that someone who passed an examine and answered theory questions about the system without using the system, imply more value than practical experience gained from several implementations, yet never taking the test?

Case in point is that I have worked with the CRM product for about six years now, but never took a certification exam. I also know another individual that was worked on CRM middleware for at least four years and never took the exam either. Does that experience become negated because there is official "stamp" on that experience?

That's how I view the domain expert issue, is that some people with deep knowledge may not post on a regular basis. It is hard to use numeric measures to determine the qualitative value of someone replies. We can definitely determine participation level via points, but I think our attempts to measure the quality of those contributions via mechanism system is the failure. If I were to average 8/pts per answer, it still does not show whether my answers were simple one line URL references, or very long drawn out answers.

I still think the goal though should be how can you influence/change the behavior so people contribute, but with less goal of "gaining points", but rather gaining/sharing knowledge.

Take care,

Stephen

former_member378318
Contributor
0 Kudos

Anton,

Your suggestion sounds very arduous to me and moves from what is now a quite focused points system to one of chance and allies. By that I mean with the current points system the poster is focused on his/her post and should reward points accordingly (in an ideal world).

With your proposed system the focus moves from "an individual focused on one post awaiting to award points" to that of "individuals with their focus spread across thousands of posts". This is where the chance comes in, what are the chances that someone is going to take the time to review your answer (which could be one of thousands in any given day) and award points? If one has allies on the SDN or at work then they could reward answers for you (sneaky).

I hope you see what I’m getting at. Personally I don't see myself laboriously trudging through hundreds of posts in the search of answers I can reward or mark down. How many here can honestly say they have the time to do this?

Oh yeah I liked your Forum View and Voting View screen shots.

Surbjeet

Former Member
0 Kudos

Surbjeet,

thanks for your answer.

What I thought of was that voting for one answer should be as easy as possible, just thumb up or thumb down. all the calculation of what this actually is worth is being done in background. This way, awarding points is even easier than today, because you don't have to think if something was a very good answer or just a good one.

As for the thousands of answers one has to review, my assumption was this: Each of us is not watching any forum on SDN but has her favourite domains/forums. E.g. I am on Coffee Corner, Enterprise SOA, Healthcare, Scripting and PHP. I watch those and therefore get mails for each answer or new posting and read almost all of them (this might probably be different in one or another forum, namely the ABAP, PI or BI forums). Anyway, I know whats going on in 'my places', and visit them if necessary.

I would nevertheless not feel to have to 'review'(judge) all of the stuff there but only those answers which are either very good(thumb up) because they're original/intelligent/funny/creative or bad(thumb down) because they're duplicates/don't answer the question/are plainly wrong.

Regarding the 'allies problem' I think that this could occur only in a rather inactive forum. this could be 'taken' by some fraudsters.

In an active forum there would be corrective forces confining such attempts and making it arduous for the group trying to trick the system(well, I am assuming that top contributors take care of their credibility and do not take part in such an attempt).

my 2 cents.

anton

PS: just for the record, personally I wouldn't need any reward system at all. having a platform to discuss and solve issues with like-minded people is enough of an incentive for me. just wanted to add a constructive contribution to the ranting.

former_member378318
Contributor
0 Kudos

Hi Anton,

I'm on the ABAP development forums mostly and if I was to receive an email for each new post or answer that would be a lot of emails.

Yours is another idea in the melting pot which can only be a good thing.

Surbjeet

suresh_datti
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

Not just limited to ABAP General.. the Virus is

~Suresh

ChrisSolomon
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

Hmmm I guess I won't bite my tongue any longer.....might as well add my $0.02. I have seen a steady decline in the forums from what began with redundant, basic questions that you pointed out, to spamming across forums the same type questions, to asking/begging for copywritten SAP material (training docs, Marketplace documents, notes, etc), to asking for EXACT program code/solutions, to asking for EXACT configuration documents and/or project documentation, to asking for for certification questions, to asking for interview questions, and finally to the most shocking for me, asking for example resumes that can show 1-2 yrs experience. All of those don't even address the other known issues with "gaming" and such that I won't get into.

As all of this continues and appears to be steadily increasing while no sign of being moderated (and yes, I have much respect for the mods here! Would not want that thankless task! haha) or any kind of control that can curb and dissuade this, these are the exact reason I no longer contribute much (if any) on the forums. As I believe Grumpy has called it before...."too much noise". It also makes me very suspect of a lot of the people that come to the forums now...and I don't like that feeling. I find myself questioning why they want "this" information a lot more than "how can I help".

I visit SDN daily and enjoy the blogs (and will contribute there when I can), but for the forums, I just see them getting more and more abused. Sorry to sound negative....especially sorry for ranting about the problem without offering a solution. =(

suresh_datti
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

> I visit SDN daily and enjoy the blogs (and will

> contribute there when I can),..

Good luck with that.. just in case you haven't seen, there are enough 'email me' requests against this

<a href="/people/siddhartha.jain/blog/2006/04/10/configuring-the-business-package-for-employee-self-service-ess-mysap-erp-2004!</a>

~Suresh

Former Member
0 Kudos

i know this is delicate but I wonder if a lot of this issues have something to do with the current state of the Indian IT job market and the way it works.

this is just an impression of mine based on statistical grounds. but it might well be wrong due to the fact that simply a majority of users is Indian already.

maybe some of you living in India can tell a little about the job market over there. To me it seems that HR there, maybe in lack of of practical abilities to judge the job candidates, uses a quiet formal approach in the form of standardized tests, over-estimation of certificates and stuff like that in favour of real interviews. Such a formalization could well explain the temptation of lots of applicants to game the system.

anton

Former Member
0 Kudos

In India, a lot of entry level work is done (in addition to senior level). It would not be surprising to find people working for Coke or Boeing or other big enterprises, performing various tasks for implementation or support, who have only 6 month's real experience.

It is economics and it is inevitable.

As a business in Europe / US, if I spend 4 months to hire 3 developers who are good, and if I get 3 below-average(say for arguments' sake) developers plus a good lead developer to make sure the work delivered is ok, plus the flexibility of service-level etc, plus the hiring finished in 2 weeks; all at half-price or less, it makes sense to go for the later. The perceived risk on quality can - be just a perception, or even if true, can be mitigated with more oversight and involvement of people from the customers side. Plus the outsourcing companies have good processes to make sure the quality standards are met - which may or may not be the same when it was done onsite.

Since there is so much demand for entry level people, you see resumes and questions indicating that trend.

Personally I think experience is over-over-over hyped by some people here. Really, do you think people who have spent 10 years in SAP development can write better code than a netweaver developer who might have spent, say, 2 years? Maybe. Not necessarily though. And, at some point everyone started at zero.

If I know back-order, or pricing conditions, I can write code involving that functional side of business. Given there are hundreds of different types of businesses and business processes what does it prove? NOTHING, if you ask me. Give me a fresh developer with drive and capability to learn, with minimal experience, over any 10 year experienced person with accumulated baggage which makes him think as superior because he has 'experience'.

Some people here compare apples with oranges. A person of 10 years experience in US or Europe is not better than a 10 years' experienced person in, India, or Brazil or wherever; this is simple logic. The perception that a 10 years' experienced person is being compared/replaced with a 2-year experienced person is wrong - it doesn't happen unless the job required a 2-year experienced person to begin with.

Former Member
0 Kudos

Hi Ajay,

My original rant wasn't really about the state of the outsourcing market, that was just a by-product of the topic I guess.

I'm genuinely surprised and/or worried though at some of your comments about experience and the economics of the whole thing. Classing someone's 10 years experience as baggage worries me greatly - whilst I agree there are a lot of people who have sat and done the same thing day in day out for 10 years this isn't really what I would expect of a good consultant. Yes I do think someone who has 10 years of experience can write better code than a fresher - in most cases anyway The fact that people call themselves a Netweaver developer because they have done some Java and got a Web Dynpro PDF from SDN is one of the root problems. SAP is such a large, complex system that experience is very, very important. Anyone can learn ABAP and write a program. It takes a lot more to understand the business processes around that program and how it will fit into a large corporations IT landscape, nevermind interact with the multitude of other standard/custom objects likely to be implemeted during a project.

Also, simply concentrating on the overall cost of something isn't always the best approach to delivering a service. I think this is one of the biggest problems with our industry at the moment - decisions are being made based on financial/economic basis alone without consideration of the bigger picture. This is happening throughout the IT market, not just the outsourcing sector.

You're quite right, the people who show drive and capability to learn are those who will go far - but I'm pretty sure they aren't the same people asking the stupid questions we are seeing in these forums in ever increasing quantities which is what my original rant was about. In fact, I was really getting at the people who answer the stupid questions (example - ) just to get points. We should be encouraging people to help themselves and using all of the tools available to them, not just asking everything on SDN. This is a task far too large for just the moderating staff - everyone needs to do there bit and whilst points are available for these sort of questions it won't change...

Gareth

stephenjohannes
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

Gareth,

This thread has brought up several interesting topics that personally show the conflict between legitmate learning and gaming the system.

1) I honestly still don't understand why threads that ask for copyrighted material, still get past the moderators, except for a lack of time to close/enforce those requests. I see this on the CRM forum way too frequently.

2) People expect way too much information from vague questions. I have seen questions on to perform XYZ? If you give someone an algorithm on how to retrieve it in the system, they still want a coded solution. Code snippets are fine to flesh out certain implementation issues, but for a vague questions, I find code way too excessive.

3) Experience does make a better coder. Anyone can learn the base sytnax of any language and write complicated programs with about several weeks of intense study. However that assume you understand how to program in the first place. I personally find it fascinating some of the firms around the world(including the US) that present the inexperienced as "senior" and charge the senior rates. Also in lean shop you don't have the time/money to train someone who is supposed to already know that skill in the first place.

4) SDN Points do not always equal real knowledge of the product. I probably know several individuals whose product knowledge is above the high-point earners in some of the application specific forums. The only reason why these people don't contribute is due to time and the fact that the forums are not "expert" enough.

There are some questions I personally never post on SDN, because the discussion level is beyond what the answers I receive would merit. Higher-level design questions just don't quite always fit in area, where people are just asking the basics. I personally wish there was a "beginner" and a true "expert" level for each area. I would love to have less technical talk in the BPX areas, and a functional/BPX area for CRM as an example.

Take care,

Stephen

former_member378318
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Stephen,

Some good points however I don't agree that SDN is an area "where people are just asking the basics" there are often more involved and challenging questions posted. It often takes a beginner to open the eyes of a so called expert by questioning a process. "Why do you do it like that?" reply "because thats the way we've always done it".

It would be difficult to police a higher level forum as you yourself say SDN Points do not always equal real knowledge of the product.

Surbjeet

stephenjohannes
Active Contributor
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Surbjeet,

I think you have an excellent point. I would like to clarify that by higher level discussions I am talking along the lines of "design issues" and not pure implementation issues. By the very nature of the forums which is good, the discussions tend focus on lower level implementation issues. I know in the CRM forums there are more questions on "how-to" of some particular aspect, rather than "big picture" implementation issues.

These type of questions may be a more BPX related issue, but I really would like see an area that focuses on the design of the implementation and not on what code is necessary to make it work.

If you ever read the SAP expert journals, some of the more "process-technical" articles is what I would look for in terms of discussion. I think the only way to get that is to have areas that don't allow "pure coding questions". That's why even the BPX areas are disappointing because I see way too many questions on what table to read data out of, or this user exit. Instead I would expect to see questions like how could we take these standard processes plus some custom and combine them into a solution.

Take care,

Stephen

marilyn_pratt
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Stephen, thank you so much for raising this. I share your "disappointment" that the BPX area is flooded with coding questions. We are presently discussing giving moderators more jurisdiction to "move" posts that aren't design/analysis/process oriented to their more technical view.

Of course "educating" our public would be the best cure but that is always the challenge.

I would love for you to move this conversation directly to the /community [original link is broken]. Open to discussion how to keep "higher level discussions" separate from configuration and implementation issues.

former_member374
Active Contributor
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Hi Stephen,

You write: <i>I personally wish there was a "beginner" and a true "expert" level for each area. I would love to have less technical talk in the BPX areas, and a functional/BPX area for CRM as an example.</i>

Who will do the shuffling of beginner posts out of the expert forums? Or delete the double posts that people will put into both forums? Don't forget that our moderators are doing this on the side of their daily work. I thought tagging may work, but that would also put additional stress on the system.

All the best, Mark.

stephenjohannes
Active Contributor
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Mark,

My goal is definitely not trying to create more work for the moderators. Instead trying to figure how to get more of those "offline" conversations that I know exist from personal experience into SDN, without being drowned in the noise of everything else that is in the current forums.

When I was thinking about this, I realized that the type of discussion here that yields no points, but for the sake of argument yields a different type of audience. Instead of having moderators sifting through expert/non-expert, how about some areas that don't have any points attached for some more general discussion.

I know many people contribute because they want rewards, but on the other hand perhaps it would lead to a lot less noise. As far as someone asking the questions, the people who are active in the forum could redirect the more technical questions back to the "points-earning" forums. The people who answer the more "technical" questions would tend to avoid answering those in the "point-free" forums because of lack of incentive.

So perhaps the answer is more usage of the coffee-corner for some "generalist" type questions or more "coffee-corner" type areas to encourage some more general discussions.

Take care,

Stephen

former_member188975
Active Contributor
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Hi Gareth,

I am sure your rant gives words to the thoughts of many people on the SCN. Just wanted to add a reply here to say that We are trying to change things in the BI forums...I say 'We' because it is not only myself as a Moderator, but also a few (very few) other regulars here who are trying to make some effort in this matter. See some of these threads as examples:

Requests for documents and 'one-liner' questions are removed if necessary and we try to encourage people to do their own searching. I hope that this will help to improve the quality of discussions and threads...any other suggestions are welcome as well.

marilyn_pratt
Active Contributor
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Hi Gareth,

Thank you for your welcome critique. You obviously care enough about quality concerns to voice your opinions here. This topic of point-mongering and job seeking has of course been discussed countless times here. Your variation on the theme hits particularly on integrity of job seekers. One would hope that employers would be astute enough to distinguish quality from deception. I've been doing a good deal of reading about outsourcing and think there might be another swing of the pendulum if that is any consolation.

As you include an SDN team (SCN team ) question about moderation, my answer is yes, we are doing our best to expand engagement of moderators and enlist and encourage new moderators. We have also been much stricter about nuking threads.

Former Member
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Hi Marilyn,

Thanks for your response. As you say, I've seen countless threads with this topic - I'd just got to the stage where I needed to have my say as well! (I feel better now I've got it off my chest

You're quite correct, my main gripe is with the integrity (or lack of) in the forums and that it is almost encouraged by a lot of SDN regulars just to gain points. Maybe we should be able to reward users of SDN with both good AND bad points, similar to eBay. So if someone just says they will send a document and asks for points everyone else can dock them 1 point. I'm sure that way some people will quickly go from thousands of points to negative!! Maybe it will also encourage people to help themselves and search.

But seriously, I realise the moderation of these forums must be a complete nightmare - I didn't mean to criticise the moderators and hope my original post didn't read like that. I'd love to be able to take the time to stop even just the "please send me document" threads but if I did, I'd never get any of my customer's work done!

As far as outsourcing goes, I don't feel personally threatened by this (at the moment) working in a healthy SAP Projects practice for a large and successful SAP Partner Consultancy but do find the whole situation somewhat annoying. I also agree with you that the whole outsourcing thing isn't over yet and without wanting to offend probably the many highly skilled SAP people in the outsoucing countries, a lot of the work I have seen delivered from outsourced teams is pretty poor. As with everything there are good and bad, the problem seems to be the bad is far outweighing the good at the moment!

About moderation, do you actively approach candidates you think would be ideal or wait for them to contact you? It seems that maybe a higher number of moderaters would help a great deal to spread the workload and I'm sure there a lot of regular posters who would be willing.

Gareth.

marilyn_pratt
Active Contributor
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Gareth,

Never fear voicing criticism when it is constructive. I hope we are responsive and not defensive as moderators.

To answer your question about expanding moderation: Our team does invite individuals who show outstanding and exemplary behavior and are obviously community-minded. The process is, as most human interaction processes, a mixture of art with some science. I can speak for myself only when I say what else would encourage me to engage an external moderator (and rest assured I don't exhibit all these qualities):

1) Obvious top-notch subject expertise (or someone in the throes of learning to be an SME)

2) Unbiased, fair and culturally sensitive approach to participants (no obvious personal agendas or favoritism toward particular members)

3) Patient, committed, consistant and really enjoys helping others (even Grumpy manages that)

4) Professional/Cool-headed - a person who is able to detach from emotion and stay level, even in the face of negative interactions

5) Productive- knows how to manage time spent moderating

Are such requirements reasonable? Can you think of something I have missed?

Former Member
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Hi Marilyn,

Looking at the list of criteria just shows how hard/demanding the role must be. I'd struggle to achieve 2 out of those 5 (you'll have to guess which 2

Gareth.

Former Member
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Hi Marilyn,

Just had a thought about moderation...

What about a larger team of "sub-moderators" who are responsible for removing a lot of the noise from across all of the SDN forums. So they would specifically look for and lock the simple threads (like 100's of people asking for documents) and lock them. There are numerous other types of thread that could easily be closed down quite quickly, having the advantage that the remaining threads should become of a higher standard. Thus the more expert style moderators can help out more and also maybe a lot more peolpe will feel motivated to read and participate in the forums without the fear of having to sort through a lot of "noise" as it is currently being described.

Just an idea!

Gareth.

ChrisSolomon
Active Contributor
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"I sub-moderated for SDN and all I got was this lousy t-shirt"

I LOVE it! 😃

Former Member
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or just <b><a href="http://www.clown-pipo.de/bilder/clowneskes_trude.jpg">SDN SUB</a></b>

)

marilyn_pratt
Active Contributor
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Good one, Anton...or maybe we can get moderators to force naughty members to write on the virtual <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/-oleg-/333517574/">blackboard</a> a few thousand times

marilyn_pratt
Active Contributor
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Only kidding about the "punishment" alluded to above. We actually are working with community moderators who do perform some of the duties you mention.

We will expand the activities with these volunteers who care enough about the quality to perform this arduous set of tasks and make the effort to contain the noise. Are you offering your services?

Former Member
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lol. which in turn reminds me on <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIAdHEwiAy8">Romani Eunt Domus</a>, or was it Romani ite domum? )

Former Member
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Hi All,

I'm really pleased so much useful (and funny discussion has been generated on this thread. Its interesting that there are so many of us who all feel the same way and it cheers me up a lot to know its not just me who is frustrated by it all!

I've been on holiday for a week so it was good to come back and catch up on this thread (and a few others) and see just how much thought some people have put into ways to improve things.

@Marilyn, if there is anything I can do to help I'd be more than happy to muck in.

Gareth.

Former Member
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It amazes me how many questions are posted in the wrong forum. It also amazes me that people answer them, thus giving more incentive for people to do it. Plus the answerer gets points - giving him an incentive to give an incentive to the original poster!

So there needs to be a balance - a <i>dis</i>incentive. Somethiong like - a warning for the first offtopic question. Yellow card (and sin bin?) for the second. Ban the user for the third. Anyone who answers an incorrect question gets 10x the points they earn from it deducted.

ramki_maley
Active Contributor
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It is getting interesting.How about some to give more details (not that the answer actually solves the problem).

ChrisSolomon
Active Contributor
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WOW! Too funny!

suresh_datti
Active Contributor
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till they add the 'signature' option to the posts on SDN! you can see more of those 'ransom' notes.. ( all caps & bold )..

~Suresh