Rejected Post : Do not bump old threads.

[Former Member]

I am unsure if this is the 'best' place to ask this ... but I am struggling to find any better location or communication method for it .

Anyway .....

I recently came across a thread posting a question about a couple of tables and the content therewithin.

I read then Accepted answer to the OP's question, and felt that it was inaccurate and misleading.

Hence I replied to the thread and posted my quite reasonable questions about the previously accepted solution, and suggestions as to why it might be incorrect.

I did this in order for other readers finding the thread, not to be mislead by an incorrect conclusion to the original question.

A little while later I received an email telling me that my post was rejected.

After loggin into my notifications I see the reason is 'Do not bump old threads'.

Now I am sure there are reasons why you do not want old threads bumped.

However, I am struggling to find what reason would take precedence over correcting incorrect information ?

Is the 'truth' and correctness not paramount for a community such as this to provide the best value ?

Many Thanks

Simon

[Former Member]

At the end of the day, it is up to you how you run this forum,

All I can offer is my feedback as a user.

As a user, I've a busy day, 101 things to do in my inbox, deadlines to meet, meetings to attend, and a whole nest of slippery problerms to solve.

The last thing I need is some information that is going to lead me down the wrong path for an hour or more.

Someone who can help me avoid that turn, would be gratefully received.

Whether you decide to put user experience above or below administrative issues ... that's up to you.

But why is this forum here if it is not to provide an accurate, helpful, productive user experience ?

Does a user want to read an answer, but then remember to scour the rest of the page for links to a related post, then follow that, then look for more  ?

Does a user care if the original OP is still active or not ?

Question - Answer. Wouldn't that be the ideal to aim for ?

Personally speaking, I also  like to input into forums where I can, and not just take from them.

However, if the time taken from my day to do this, is extraordinarily increased unecessarily (such as this whole issue.) , then it really is going to diminish my motivation to do so in the future.

[JL23]

I dont see anything wrong in the answer which was marked as correct

it is a pragmatic answer to the OPs problem.

I usually remove new questions in old discussions, but decide case by case if an additional answer is added. However, I would have send a direct message:

Please do not reanimate dead old discussions. You are welcome to help solving new discussions where people are still interested in a solution.

Before you add a reply, please check the date when the discussion was posted. Further check whether the discussion is marked as "assumed answered" or with "correct answer".

In both cases no further replies are expected, especially as an email to the OP is created automatically.

People even had contacted me and asked for locking discussions because they got mail updates years after the question was solved.

[Former Member]

People even had contacted me and asked for locking discussions because they got mail updates years after the question was solved.

Possibly the option to add/remove alerts to individual threads would help here ?

Many forums have such a functionality.

[JL23]

this is available here too. One just need to click "Stop tracking"

By default you are tracking anything what you created yourself and where you participated.

[Former Member]

Name1 in KNA1 is 35 chars

Name1 in ADRC is 40 chars.

Thus the answer displayed in the thread will not provide the correct values sought, but a truncated value.

Something a lot of people might miss for quite some time ....

[Former Member]

This is the reason why a warning is shown when I try to enter 40 characters in Name1.

Warning is (AM228) : The use of the last 5 characters in field NAME1 is restricted (40 of 40)

Long text lists scenarios where such truncation will happen.

[JL23]

I know it is this way and answered it myself in numerous discussions with a link to OSS note 306275 and 384462, but this question was about a query, an internal report, nothing which affects the external communication and has to be accurate in the name till the last character.

[Former Member]

Jurgen, I am not questioning you technical knowledge, you are obviously a well tuned person.

But the people whop use forums such as this one, are not always as technical as you.

To state "KNA1 and ADRC are always the same" .... and 'hope' that all readers automatically understand that the statement ONLY applies to the EXACT context of the Op's Q ..... is a bit of a hope.

I am not saying that it is a 'wrong' statment ... but one open to ambiguity.

Not all forums readers will have the 'exact' same problem as the Op,  but will have a 'similar' or 'related' problem.... and they will try to apply this solution to their problem without understanding nuances.

I do not see what harm it would have done, for me to add a comment about the technical difference ?

... and just maybe, prevented someone from making a mistake.

[JL23]

We are not writing SAP Help which needs to cover all aspects (and often doesn't) .  Many answers cover the a topic pretty generic so that it is valuable information for many others too.  But at the end we are just answering individual questions, and an answer could rarely be seen without its context to the asked question.

It is certainly not possible to update all asked questions with the needed detail of information, years after. This question was asked in 2005, the central address management was not everywhere known. Forums have been new at that time, SCN was just 1 year old. The SAP software has developed further in the last 9 years.

In the meantime we have 50 to 100 similar questions with more detailed answers.

While many may expect a solution ready to use, I would never expect it if I ask a question myself, I am happy to get results which help me to get a different view or to get over a hurdle  from where I can work further towards a solution. So I see there is a good portion which I have to do myself, I would not just take an answer and sell it to my customer as mine. I would not adopt an answer without testing, without a serious own analysis. I would not just read one thread and leave, I would search for similar discussions to compare answers. The responsibility is with the consumers of the forum content. Not everything is right what is written in the Internet, even many take it as such.

We had just last week a similar discussion where a question was added to an old discussion

The fact here is that this discussion was from a time where SAP had no solution, but in the meantime there is a solution. Should we delete those old discussions because the existing answer does not anymore fit with the current SAP solutions? We have probably many thousands such discussions with answers that became wrong over the time and the further development of SAP.

I haven't rejected your particular answer as it was not in my moderation area, and from the given  answers you know that the opinions are different and I explained how I do it. I am not able to judge about your rejected answer as I cannot see it, I only said that the existing answer was sufficient and the OP thought the same and had marked it as correct, 9 years ago.

Nobody is against you and we are glad about anybody who wants to participate in knowledge sharing. Don't take this single rejection personally, it will not stop your career.

[Former Member]

Hi Simon

The OP of that discussion has not logged in since July 2007.

It would be safe to assume that "correct answer" helped out the OP at that time even if the answer did not cover all bases.

When I received an alert for your post, the thread was already locked. It usually happens for bumped threads.

So, the person who gave correct answer at that time would anyways not be able to reply to your query.

It would be best to open a new discussion, link to old discussion and use name-tagging to invite specific people for opinion. Correctness of information will be maintained because on right pane of old post, newer posts linking to it would show up just like this discussion is shown as incoming link on SCN Rules of Engagement document.

Regards

Manish

[Steffi_Warnecke]

I don't see anything wrong with writing a post in a old (even "answered") thread, when it is to explain that the "correct" answer isn't that at all and to provide the real correct answer.

Maybe the moderator, who rejected your post, didn't really read your post, if you made clear, that you were trying to correct something.

We have a lot of "me too"-thread bumping lately (or maybe it's just my feeling, that they increased). Strangely enough, I had some of my moderator alerts concerning "I have the same problem"-posts in threads 4+ years old rejected. Another one just today. Oh well.

But I'm with you with the correction. I think it is very important to step in, if you see a wrong suggestion.

@Deva: Which part of the RoE are helpful here? If you post the link, you must think, somewhere in there is the answer to his question?

Regards,

Steffi.

[former_member183424]

First of all, you should not reply in an old thread which has already got the correct answer.

Second, if you want to ask someone regarding his reply, then first you have to check his last logged in date.

-->If you ask a question to a user who has last logged in on more than 1 years ago, then the reply will not add any value.

-->If you have any question or any doubt, then you can create your own discussion (with reference to this post).

-->If you found there are some incorrect solution (which has marked as correct) for the post , then you can use the alert moderator button and write an additional comment.

[Former Member]

Hi Simon,

Please see this link

The SCN Rules of Engagement

Regards,

Deva

[former_member184657]

Dëv Päträ wrote:

First of all, you should not reply in an old thread which has already got the correct answer.

Sorry, but there is no hard and fast rule (even in the RoE) that one should not comment on a thread that has already been Answered.

If there is a good reason why a discussion merits a follow-up (corrective) post (like in this case), then it is very welcome. People who "search" take the "Answered" posts seriously - many times without due consideration. So if there is a solution that is dangerous or not right or misleading or incomplete, and if somebody is trying to caution against doing that/providing more accurate information, then it should be encouraged.

Historically, "bumping threads" have been discouraged because a lot of these bumped threads are usually done by people who sometimes are promoting a (useless) blog they recently penned or a "I also have the same problem" or someone who just goes about posting some random links to some random number of threads.

Taking action on Bumped threads has always been a Moderator decision. Based on the merit of the bumped post action was taken or the lack of it. In this case, I would have let it be. But if other members were blindly replying to the "original" question without reading all the comments/timestamps, then I would Lock it.

So I request you to not make-up rules out of thin air.

pk

[former_member183424]

Well, I'v not said that this is under rule of engagement. I said "You should not"

I think my other points are totally supporting for my first line.

kishan P wrote:


So if there is a solution that is dangerous or not right or misleading or incomplete, and if somebody is trying to caution against doing that/providing more accurate information, then it should be encouraged.

I am regular participant of MM forum. When any one post a solution that is dangerous or not right or misleading or incomplete and it got correct answer, then I see, moderator () has removed the correct answer and send a reply to this port as "Moderator message : This answer is not correct"

I didn't say that one should not take any action when you see a wrong reply, I have just said use the alert moderator buttons and write your comment.

Anyway, I am learning these things from you moderators (as I am a member of only 8 months), thanks for the caution and explanation.

[Former Member]

Thank you so much.

I am glad that at least someone is viewing this from a rational and considered angle as opposed to most, which appear to be 'procedure says ..'.