More and more threads land in the Test&Playground forum

[OttoGold]

Ladies and gentlemen,

I observe a huge increase of the number of threads that are moved from the forums where they were originally asked to the Playground forum. I would like to ask you about your opinions about this and trigger a discussion if this is the right thing to do, if this is sustainable etc.

I would like to thank the moderators for their effort, because they´re the ones who manually move the threads to the Playground forum and this way clean our forums.

My question is: do we need to move the threads to PG (playground) forum? What don´t we just delete the questions?

I don´t believe these questions are the questions 1 or 2 of the newcomers. These people do this for a long time (lazy etc.) or once a year (not "active" enough to care about the rules). In both cases I don´t need to see their questions. Even if they are deleted from PG forum after some time.

I also think we could count how many these "abuse" thread one has authored so far and based on such number take some actions against him/her.

Last days the discussion about the forums, the contriutors and users, the quality and policy etc. is about two things:

a) points

b) noise

I prefer to talk about the second one. And am looking for a consensus about some new ways how to handle the noise. The day will come when our moderators will go mad (those who are not mad yet..:)) and that is not a fair price for their effort.

I welcome any idea how to deal with the "abuse threads" and how to improve the quality of the forum.

If I didn´t say that yet I would like to have a magic wand I could use to mark threads which are of "low quality". I don´t say moderator would have to go through my abuse report or something. Nothing like that. Minimal overhead.

Something like counting the "red flag clicks" which would be less critical than an abuse report. Nobody would have to go through these manually. And after a certain number of clicks is counted the system would delete the thread.

I use SCN everyday and access a lot of older thread through google. I could mark dozens of "low quality" threads in ABAP forum everyday and this way help cleaning the forum.

Best regards,

Otto

P.S.: I come to Community discussion forum(s) everyday and miss entertaining and important threads because I am too lazy to come through the dozens of the moved-to-Playground threads. That is really annoying. Am I the only one who does not like it this way?

[Former Member]

My question is: do we need to move the threads to PG (playground) forum? What don´t we just delete the questions?

I've rejected and locked many posts. Recently, I've started moving them to the T&P forum. I'm doing this for a couple of reasons:

When a post is locked or rejected, it leaves no room for doscussion. If the OP wants to argue the point, he or she has little recourse.

I don't really like the idea of rejecting basic posts. If someone doesn't know how to accomplish a basic task, moving the post to T&P at least leaves the possibility of help.

Some contributors amass points by reacing for "low hanging fruit." This should discourage that.

P.S.: I come to Community discussion forum(s) everyday and miss entertaining and important threads because I am too lazy to come through the dozens of the moved-to-Playground threads. That is really annoying. Am I the only one who does not like it this way

Agreed - I've been pushing for a separate "FAQ" forum to be added to each major forum. That way, the questions would remain more or less where they started.

Rob

[marilyn_pratt]

Time to revisit the FAQ, beginner area of forums.

Let's think of forums where such a concept might be most helpful.

I'll try to work to promote internally.

[Former Member]

Thank you Marilyn!

Such a forum does have a place on SDN, without disturbing the sanctity of the forums which folks take seriously.

To give it a home of it's own, would remove it from the "funny thread" content.

Personally I volunteer to moderate it to ensure that there is no mockery, but basic answers which match the quality of the questions are allowed in all forms.

It would be great if SAP could also support this extreme-D-I-Y forum (i.e. without even searching beforehand...) with some marketing and making it ponits-free.

I am sure that folks will be very happy to practice answering questions in it and improving their search skills - many come to SCN looking for exactly that.

Please also make the access very intuitive (like a forum in the BPX category... or a "Getting started" category of it's own.... plzzz....

Cheers,

Julius

[marilyn_pratt]

Yep definately revisit time. And by the way ....many of us take the coffee corner very seriously

[OttoGold]

If we could get a separate forum for the "noise" and "practise", I would feel happy and content about the result this time (and will ask for more the next time:)) If Marilyn could help us get something like that, it would be cool. I am thinking about posting this idea on Idea place to get some transparent votes:))

Otto

[OttoGold]

Please vote for the separate playground forum here: https://ideas.sap.com/ideas/2244

@Julius, Marilyn and others: submit your own ideas as you named them here, friends. I am afraid I will not describe all the details and the situation picture and because of that change/spoil your ideas/ suggestions. Please link those here when you create them...Plzzz

Looking forward to get some more feedback from other people, get the votes for the ideas and maybe push this one small step forward. In fact the usability of the CD forum/ category dropped a lot and I would like to see a solution/ workaround soon. I described this on IP.

Thank you for your effort, time, passion,

br Otto

[Former Member]

I cannot logon there because I have a P-account, but you can be sure that you have my vote.

Thanks Otto and Marilyn and all the others who support such a sanctity for "Woha! What is ABAP?" type questions, so that moderators do not need to do "dirty work" all the time and SCN users can search selectively.

Cheers,

Juliu

[Former Member]

>

> Let's think of forums where such a concept might be most helpful.

/start broken record

My vote is for ABAP, but I really think one for each major area is best.

/End broken record

Rob

[matt]

As I mentioned elsewhere, I think a forum title of "Beginners' Corner" would not only be grammatically correct, but a friendly, welcoming way of describing the new subforum.

To be honest, I'm quite happy to help newbies who've put in some effort, but still can't quite get their heads around a concept.

[federico_blarasin]

Hello Otto,

I think it would be a good idea the possibility to rate the threads. I don't know if it would be the definitive solution, but it may work.

Actually, it reminds me an XKCD comic

http://xkcd.com/810/

Apart from that, a drastic solution to discourage the posting in a 'noise' thread would be a new rule in the point game: if you post in a noise thread you'll lose 100 points (based on the assumption: 'If you can't fight them, join them'). The downside would be a lot of people crying for points, before being guestified

[Former Member]

http://xkcd.com/810/

LOL! That is what we need

The Test&Playground forum is a workaround for threads deep into the grey area but not clear candidates for deletion.

It also serves to send a message to the lazy OP's and spoon feeders that there is a kindergarten in the SAP Ecosystem and they are one of the playground clowns or bullies.

The system sends a mail automatically when the thread it moved there and mentions RTFM but in a more polite way that your comic above.

Ponits are removed from all answers, although this is debatable as a "top contributor" prize could be fun as well at year end...

@ Otto: Use the forum overviews, in stead of the category overview -but yes, you have a ponit there that it should possibly be given it's own category.

Cheers,

Julius

[OttoGold]

@federico: great one:)) ROFL

I don´t need a way how to punish people (I am no Punisher, more like Professor Xavier, or is it @thorstenster who is the Professor here? Never got this joke...). I am sure SAP would not accept any "negative way" of "doing" things.

I ask for a way how to mark a thread as "candidate for deletion" and after like 10 marks or something the system would do the needful. Or we could ask moderators to keep an eye on the numbers and manually accept the deletion (3 seconds instead of handling the "noise" manually).

My point is: I have seen zillions of threads with zero or negative value. If that would be possible, I would "mark" them. Every thread would take me a second to "process" and I could create a value this way... well, it is a value to have less "basic questions" etc. for me.

@Julius

but yes, you have a ponit there that it should possibly be given it's own category.

that would be so cool.

Cheers Otto

[Former Member]

I ask for a way how to mark a thread as "candidate for deletion" and after like 10 marks or something the system would do the needful. Or we could ask moderators to keep an eye on the numbers and manually accept the deletion (3 seconds instead of handling the "noise" manually).

That is exactly how it already works via the Abuse Reports.

1 abuse raises an alert.

10 abuses automatically removes the post.

Actually, there is an opportunity to invisibly game the ponits system there if you are fast enough...

Cheers,

Julius

[OttoGold]

Ok, but I don´t want to waste the time of the moderators. Somebody has to go through the abuse report.

And those threads are not abusing anything, they´re only asking simple, stupid, basic, repeated questions. I don´t think moderators would like me to proceed this way. I would also need to educate other hundreds of people to do this with me, so we could reach the 10 abuse reports quickly:)) Maybe if we could have a abuse category: stupid content which nobody would have to process manually:))

Otto

[federico_blarasin]

I know, the idea of the punishment (removing point) it's a bit hard and would be difficult to manage for the mods (imagine all the gamers complaining when they loose points...).

But at the moment, if I ask let's say how to code a 'Hello World' program in the ABAP forum, I would have tons of answer (with tons of links to other spam threads). So my question will stay on the top of the list for a lot of time.

If we punish not only OP but also his/her followers (posting in a 'noise' thread? say goodbye to 10 correct answers...) we may succeed in make some people think about what they are doing. Another benefit will be that my unanswered 'Hello World' question would quickly go to page 2 and the oblivion :-).

Anyway, I know there are a lot of weak points in this solution (like all the flames it will generate :-P).

[jurjen_heeck]

 But at the moment, if I ask let's say how to code a 'Hello World' program in the ABAP forum, I would have tons of answer 

That is the core of the problem. The forums (at least some of them) have turned into a sort of Spoonfeeders Career Network. I think all solutions proposed so far tend to disagree with SAP's wish/requirement to make this a big and popular site.... The lazy guys and spoonfeeders generate traffic, probably more than the quality discussions.

Some of them even believe quantitiy is good, see the last posts of this (beheaded) thread:

Edited by: Jurjen Heeck on Dec 22, 2010 12:20 PM

[che_eky]

> 1 abuse raises an alert.
> 10 abuses automatically removes the post.
> 

> Ok, but I don´t want to waste the time of the moderators. Somebody has to go through the abuse report. 
> 

Otto if what Julius says is true then no one needs to go through the abuse/stupid category report. After 10 negatives the post is removed automatically. I guess in your case you would want the offending post to be relocated to the Playground forum rather than removed completely.

I suppose you could keep the existing abuse button and after 10 negatives the post is relocated to the playground forum. Moderators could then decide what step to take next. Remove the post, leave in playground, reinstate in original forum or reinstate in original forum with warning, etc.

Che

Edited by: Che Eky on Dec 22, 2010 5:47 PM

[Former Member]

That is very close to the original spec requested.

The system would check whether the RTFM abuse category report is from a known reliable source, in which case the thread is automatically moved to the Test & Playground forum and all ponits are shaved off it.

It was the last part of the spec which must have hit a nerve somewhere...

There was also fear that people would develop inferiority complexes...

Or someone would use the dreaded word "they" when refering to "them"...

Etc...