what's the point... if contributors just cut and paste to answer...

[Wil_Wilstroth]

Hi all,

Some times i see contributors do the copy and paste from a source to answer a question. Don't you think its annoying? Why not just put the link there and give a short comment.

Just when you think you have answer one's question heartily... you noticed other contributors already copy and paste one large chunk from a source to answer the question... i find it dissappointed... I don't mind if the large chunk are their own words... but copy and paste of reply which it is so noticeable that it is from help.sap.com... gosh... why copy and paste the large fragments of text... isn't a link will do?

On one hand, contributors can do the quote of a paragraph of the relevant subject and put a link after it... it can still catch the person's attention to go to the link and open it right?

I am not sure if anyone out there feels the same way as I do...

Thanks

William Wilstroth

Edited by: william wilstroth on Dec 28, 2007 5:30 PM

[Former Member]

Hi William,

You are not alone.

I just think that Copy and Paste of copyrighted material (like official SAP documentation) should be forbidden and that the rule should be enforced very stricly by moderation.

Furthermore, the copy and paste masters are usually just points hunters.

A forum is not to read documentation. The right way is to publish a link.

I've always thought that the main problem of SDN forums is the lack of strict moderation.

A one million members community needs laws and a police department to enforce these laws in order to avoid anarchy.

The problem is that SAP as a company does not seem to agree with this evidence (for me)...

Regards,

Olivier

[JPReyes]

Completely agree.... 1 million users... theres countries with less people than that and have law enforcement.... hehehe

Juan

[David]

Try the new "report abuse" triangle. It actually does report the post and poster as a potential abuser. Mind you, there are only a small handful of people that are available to review the items listed there, and I'm sure they will have to figure out some business rules for deciding action, but it will happen for sure...

Best Regards,

David

[Former Member]

Hello David,

If I use the "report abuse" button for each post which, I think, deserve it, my finger will wear out so quickly that I will not be able to answer the few questions that I consider worth it and where I have some knowledge to share !

>>there are only a small handful of people that are available to review the items listed there

This is exactly the problem : SAP wants to manage a 1 million members community with a small handful of people. There is an evident lack of resource for forums supervision that should be addressed.

Yes it costs money but It is not like if SAP were a poor small software startup...

Best Regards,

Olivier

[Former Member]

What David meant was that the new "report abuse" has only a handful of people at the moment who have access but we have a large number of moderators in general - once we have things worked out with the new "report abuse" feature then we will look to extend it to rest of the moderators.

[former_member374]

Hi Oliver,

The abuse button has another little known feature that may change your mind regarding marking posts. After 5 people have marked it for review it automatically goes into hiding. I wrote about this feature in the [Suggestion forum|;.

Enjoy, Mark.

[Former Member]

Personally I find the (current) moderator activities only marginally time consuming (I participate in SDN in my free time). This is because prior to moderating and subsequently as well, I was an active contributor to the SDN forum area which I moderate now together with 2 other "colleagues" from SAP, so I already had observed the undesirable content and behaviour posts, together with many other contributors who are regulars and are also quite active as "moderators of a self moderating forum". I have a few more buttons to click on... which is just a little administrative task... and together with David I sometimes go hunting down conspiracy theories

Far more difficult than the administrative tasks is making judgement calls about content and behaviour in "grey areas". It often occurs to me, that some innocent person or group of persons mights be "framed", or a simple and polite comment early enough could convert a new spammer into a long term community member.

Creating an environment where skilled and willing to learn people feel happy and comfortable to contribute should be the most important goal of SDN, task of the moderators and intent of all contributors, including SAP.

I do not believe that throwing 100 call center operators at the other end of the SDN "report abuse" button will solve the problem. On the contrary, it might open it to abuse. Certainly, a copy&paste job could only be spotted by a regular contributor with a good background in the content (for example when the content contains an "little" (syntax) error...)

That is enough "Murphy was an optimist" from me for 2007... 😄

All the best for 2008 to everyone!

Julius

[Former Member]

Hi Mark,

I just saw this feature and I think this is a very positive change for SDN moderation.

I hope it will be used wisely and will cut some "copy and paste", points hunting, childish posts, etc..

Best Regards and Happy new Year !

Olivier