Is it just me, or are are there more "trivial" blogs appearing?

[Former Member]

There seem to be quite a few blogs in the last few weeks which seem to slip through the cracks in terms of relevence.

When we get a simple ABAP program that replicates standard SAP functionality, a list of help functions in Web Dynpro and an "introduction" to mobile R/3 as some of the recent posts, I wonder whether the moderation process is working.

I've been blogging for 12 months now and still need to get my blogs approved, and it seems to me that some people are able to bypass that process.

Cheers

(and maybe we need a flag for "rhetorical question"!

[marilyn_pratt]

You make an excellent point, Michael, and as one who is torn between rejecting and accepting, I admit, I have sometimes been guilty of this very act of "letting slip". But should we continue to "govern" harshly, or should we let the community respond, comment, and generally educate? I have mixed feelings about all this. You might want to listen to what Jimmy Wales, the founder of wikipedia has to say. Perhaps it is great that our wiki will actually let the community decide what content constitiutes valuable content.

Take a listen to this podcast if you care to hear what he has to say: <a href="http://www.kqed.org/pgmArchive/RD19/20061231/week">http://www.kqed.org/pgmArchive/RD19/20061231/week</a>

And yes, we get the hint about your status as a blogger....

That also is an embarassment of riches (or sometimes less than riches, as you point out) - result of having more and more blogs and less ability to truly weigh and govern....and it perhaps shouldn't really be just one man or woman's opinion, now, should it. Enter: wiki!

[Former Member]

Hi Marilyn

Currently there is no way for the community to respond to blogs of dubious quality and usefulness. Yes, you can do like Valery did in <a href="/people/vikram.singh6/blog/2007/01/10/generic-value-help-services-in-web-dynpro--a-birds-eye-view">this recent blog</a>, using the well known sarcasm tool (http://www.sarcasm-generator.com), or we can try to use a rating system. This allows the blog writer to get feedback without it getting personal (although there are some people who believe you shouldn't hide behind anonymity, we'll leave that discussion for another day). The blog view statistics don't really show how useful a blog is...

Cheers

(and thanks for fixing up my blogging status)

[eddy_declercq]

Hi,

The solotion for that problem can be simple. The SDN admins don't give any points in addtion to the the initial 40 points.

Eddy

[Former Member]

40 points is still too high for some of these blogs! You need to answer 4 questions very well to get the same result...

If we used the rating system, then a minimum of, say, 3 out 5 would be necessary for the 40 points.

Cheers

[eddy_declercq]

Hi,

The classic answer is that writing blogs should be all about sharing knowledge instead of gathering points.

Eddy

[Former Member]

I agree - but it should be about sharing useful information! Personally I would be happy without a points system for blogs, but....

Anyway, it would appear that some people work for organizations which want their staff to be active SDN members... An admirable aim, but it needs to be tempered by quality...

Cheers

[Former Member]

I still hold to the basic principal that if you don't like a blog then "COMMENT" it's the only current way we have of knowing if you find value or not - with so many blogs coming in it's hard to pick and choose and work with the people on changing their blogs.

We also have to keep in mind that some blogs are quite suitable for a beginner but may be deemed "trivial" for someone else.

When people comment on the blogs and it's negative we do take away from the initial 40 points, when they comment and it's good we give more. At no time does "page views" play a part in the amount of points a blog gets.

Let me propose something - what if (like in the Wiki) there was the ability to notify the moderator of a post either "praise it" or "question it" if after 5 days we had feedback from more than one person we could then respond - the problem though to date is that PEOPLE DON'T COMMENT!! We can't judge community value without your (the community) input.

Then based on that feedback which I so desperately NEED from everyone reading the blogs (avg 200 views per blog but only 2 comments) I can't be 100% fair in assigning points - so with an appraise or question link we say blanket 40 points per blog +/- 1 point for each "praise" or "question" no to go below 10 and not above 120 and no more double points? Sounds harsh and please don't respond that "points are not important" I have loads of mails saying they are so let's look for a solution that incorporates the points and community feedback.

What do you say!

[eddy_declercq]

Hi,

Fair with me as long as people DO comment.

Eddy

[bhavesh_kantilal]

I would agree with the point that Blogs these days somehow seem to be lacking in quality!There was a time, when I would read up every blog being published , but these days, I find myself reading very few blogs, due to the fact that they do not seem to make much sense to me. most of the times, I am left wondering if the topic under discussion actually deserves a blog.

Like pointed out, something that is trivial to me can be really useful to someone else and so it is always difficult to judge a blog.One solution to this problem would be to have a moderator for every development area purely as a blog reviewer, someone who is able to look into the blogs and then decide if it would actually help the people of the corresponding development area both experts and beginners!

As for the points system that the points for a blog be tracked with the number of comments, I somehow dont like the idea of deciding how good a blog is on the basis of comments a blog gets. Most of the times, the comments on blogs end up as more of a discussion wherein solutions / queries are discusses threadbare.

Now, if we are going to have a system wherein everyone says "WellDone" ,"Great Blog" , etc, the comments section wouldnt make much sense! Most of the comments would end up having the same kind of comments!

Maybe one can have a rating section against a blog where people who read it can rate the blog including negative ratins and some formula can be worked out that will thereby calculate the points for the blog.

Also, this would ensure that the number of points for a blog is not static. With time as people like the blog and as more people read it, they can continue rating the same and thereby a really good blog ( best example is Michal's XI FAQ) continues to grow in points because blogs like those deserve more than the 120!

I am not sure how practical this is, but I would surely prefer something of this sort where rather than the moderator assigining points, the people who read the blogs decide how useful it was!

Regards

Bhavesh

[Former Member]

Hi,

Fair with me as long as people DO comment.

Eddy

It's true...You can post a very nice blog...have 3,000 visits and absolutely no comments...Are people to lazy to write a comment? I always try to read all blogs and I also try to comment most of them....Sometimes a simple "Good Work" or a "Did you really think this blog is useful?" could do a lot of good -:)

As Craig said...Blog points is not based on comments or views....One of my blogs have 1053 views and 25 comments but still 40 points...Which is actually good, because that blog talks about my ABAP Book, and is it written in Spanish doesn't add real value to the SDN -;)

That's why I'm happy with the blog rating system....But of course....there are some blogs that should not be allowed....I wrote one myself -:'( Gladly, Craig was a good friend like always and make me understand that being a blogger is more that sharing personal thoughts....It's about bringing real value to the community -:)

But...how can we have a better blogging system? Assign more people to review blogs? I don't think so....the are some many bloggers and so many blogs daily....That the SDN should need an army for that....Maybe some sort of voting system.....

Should this blog stay or be deleted?

After a week....if the YES wins, it stays....otherwise....it's gone and points unassigned.....

Sadly...that could lead to a problem.....As people don't make comments....who tell us that they're going to vote?

Maybe a great and awesome blog gets one Deleted vote....and no Stay votes....Would it be fair to deleted?

Just my 2 céntimos....( Peruavian cents -:P )

Greetings,

Blag.

[former_member110461]

Michael,

I have to agree with you too. On a slightly strange note when I wrote a little blog a few weeks ago (which did get comments and I hope was useful ). I was quite surprised when as soon as I marked it as final it appeared on the blogs page. I was expecting it to be moderated, as I've only written 4 blogs and in fact had to reapply to be a blogger as I hadn't written one for so long.

I wonder how many of these blogs are the same in that they are not being moderated before being published?

Paul

[Former Member]

All "junior" bloggers blogs are looked at an published by a member of the weblog admin team. Once you are approved as a normal blogger you are on your own.

For the most part blogs are looked at though for

1) are they readable

2) formatting ok

3) English understandable

Content we leave to the community - you as a community has to respond and comment otherwise we can't judge how much value it brings to you as a community.

[pokrakam]

What about a simple 5 star rating on a blog such as you find on many shopping or review sites these days? If I remember correctly you had something like this to rate bloggers in the beta days.

Users can anonymously vote with a single click (well, internally the user should be recorded in order to prevent duplicate votes). Average rating is shown, and after a period (1 month?) a multiplier can be applied to the basic 40 points based on number of votes and average rating.

[Former Member]

I think it would help if a potential contributor could be guided to work out if what they want to share is a blog or a wiki.

So, if I'm about to write a "how to setup blah", we might have a guided procedure that asks some questions that leads to a blog, wiki or article. For example, I think that a lot of beginner type blogs would be good candidates for wikis, as people can update them easily as the technology changes, whereas blogs tend to stay static and are often out of date after a period of time…

It often comes down to static versus dynamic (thanks Marilyn!)

Wikis give you the dynamic advantage, which means if you are developing something for beginners, you can start with a wiki stub and other people can add their 2c worth (or what ever the local conversion rate is).

One of the problems with a blog is that if I create one which is inaccurate or incomplete, I may get some good feedback about it, but it's up to me as the author to fix it. If I do, the comments still refect the earlier vesion, whioch can be confusing to a reader later on.

Marilyn has pointed out to me that there is a contributor's page, but I suspect most contributor's forget to go there!

Of course, we also need to have the wiki environment support uploaded images, as that is I think quite often why contrbibutors shun wikis.

Cheers