What's your opinion on people contacting you directly?

[KjetilKilhavn]

I know this doesn't apply to everyone here, but everyone can feel free to share their opinion.

Since I have provided a few answers in the forum for Business Workflow, and have contact e-mail in my "business card" some SDN users take the opportunity to send me private e-mail asking for advice. There are two situations;

1) a person has posted a question which I have replied to, and the person sends me an e-mail with screenshots (heck, I don't feel confident about how to post those in SDN either)

2) a person sends the questions in private e-mail without having posted the question in SDN

I find situations of type 1) are not too bad, although I still think it is the wrong approach as everyone else gets lost in the discussion. I have only experienced this once, and I then replied in SDN where I also tried to explain what the screen shots showed.

Situations 2) are in my opinion a real disrespect for the ideas behind SDN, my spare time, and/or my employment situation. All such e-mails are consequently answered without providing any help, telling the person to post the question in SDN. (Note: "All" are not hundreds, but I think I have to start using both hands to count them now - and that's during less than a year.)

There are two things I would like to know your opinions on:

1) Would a normal person (i.e. you) cater to such a request (the second kind) in private e-mail?

2) How strongly should I tell these people that they have crossed a line that shouldn't be crossed. Is the following going too far?

<i>> Quoting Full Name <full.name@company.domain>:

> Please allow me to contact you directly with some questions

> [SDN-relevant text/question snipped]

>

No, as everyone who asks this receives as answer. If you have a question, post it on SDN. Not so everyone can see what you are asking about, but so everyone can find this solution. Besides, I probably visit SDN more frequently than my private e-mail inbox, and there are other people who can answer the question, so you will get a solution more quickly. Ordinarily I wouldn't have checked it until this weekend now that I am travelling, but since I had to look for some other e-mail I discovered this.

If you want a private advisor, you'll have to contact my company to hire me. That's the deal of SDN - free advice, but only in public.

--

Kjetil Kilhavn</i>

Happy hacking, and let the Debate begin!

[bhavesh_kantilal]

For me it has been mixed experience...

There have been a few questions sent to my personal mail id's which I have ignored because the person did not have the courtesy enough to introduce himself and secondly I knew they were using a fake email id ( sapxiconsultant@blahblah.com ) and so on...

But on other occasions I have had some really great interactions with a few ppl that they are now on my messenger lists and people to whom I turn to when I need a shout / help or just to sound a solution out and so on...

I personally dont mind answering questions that are really thoughtful and well framed out and infact I actually look forward to such emails as they make me try things I dont do as a part of my day to day project activites..

It goes without saying that I do point that SDN is the better place as they would get better answers coz it has a wider audience but I dont mind these emails as long as the person knows what he is talking about.. and is willing to understand that I am not paid to answer him and neither under an obligation to do so..

Regards

Bhavesh

[Former Member]

Hi Kjetil,

I've come to the same conclusion as you, but I have to admit that I'm not always very good at sending the standard mail about posting to SDN, especially if the answer is poorly formulated and show that basically the person wants me to do his job.

I think part of the problem with people needing to contact experts directly is that the number of posts and noise in the forums have increased significantly. Noise= Poorly formulated questions which show lack of will and comptence to learn. Since there is so many questions, I am no longer able to have a look at most questions within my competence area (which is a shame).

So pruning of the forums in some form would help this problem.

Regards

Dagfinn

[pokrakam]

> I've come to the same conclusion as you, but I have

> to admit that I'm not always very good at sending the

> standard mail about posting to SDN, especially if the

> answer is poorly formulated and show that basically

> the person wants me to do his job.

>

That's the one that gets my other standard reply I mentioned. Basically starts off with "Sure, I just need an authorized purchase order from your company..."

[pokrakam]

Yep, agree.

I provide my e-mail address in my business cards for three reasons:

1. Personal/private messages

2. Professional messages that should not be public

3. It's the only form of advertising allowed on SDN

The response I usually give people for asking for help offline varies.

Sometimes I respond with questions of my own: could they give me a more detailed spec, how many days of my time they would like, and whether I can work from home as this would affect my rate.

Most of the time however, I have a standard reply handy:

<i>I would like to help but I would prefer this via SDN. This has a number of benefits for both of us:

1. By posting on SDN we help anyone that has the same questions as you

2. By asking questions on SDN you have access to more knowledge than just asking one person.

3. I don't always have time - on SDN there are hundreds of people who can answer your questions so you are likely to get a quicker answer.

There are already a lot of resources out there - far more than I could write about in a whole week, I would suggest going through the excellent workflow tutorials in the SAP help, and looking through the Wiki FAQ https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/wiki?path=/display/home/businessProcessManagement&

When you have questions, feel free to ask on SDN. But also remember that better questions get better answers, so use the rules of engagement to help you ask better qestions:

https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/wiki?path=/display/home/rulesofEngagement&</i>

Cheers,

Mike

[martin_nooteboom]

I have had some e-mails with questions too. The first one I supplied an answer (although I am not quite sure why I did it) but after that I didn't hear anything back which are another example of bad manners I think.

Another one I replied to post the question on SDN as I couldn't answer his question, which he did. But I don't cater to such requests anymore, mostly because the questions should be raised on SDN and also because of the lack of feedback.

About your "standard reply, it looks good to me and is not going too far. I might even adopt it as my standard answer (with quoting the source off course).

Regards,

Martin

[Former Member]

I lost track of the numerous mails I get "daily" asking for help.

My standard response is "send me a link to the question you posted in the SDN forums so I can bookmark it and take a look", 9 out of 10 times I eventually get a link with a timestamp of usually 60 to 90 mins before the mail was sent.

I also get phone calls quite often, I do what I can to help - I left the email and phone in my business card so it's fair game in my opinion to be used. Those I tend to deal with the same way - post to SDN so others can help and you'll probably get an answer faster than from me anyway.

What annoys me the most is the IM chat requests where (even though I say that's outside of my field) they continue to ask me questions. Perfect example was back before TechEd Vegas I got a chat invite (normally you are the SAP gurur, blah blah) they began to ask me about BW reporting. My response was "hey sorry, outside of my realm of experience can't help on those" and 40 minutes later they were angry because I could not help them other than give them links to the BW areas on SDN which they can't use because then their coworkers would now they don't know the answer.

[KjetilKilhavn]

I was going to write that you have too much information publicly available in your profile, but then I thought I should check my own first....

No calls yet, and a call from a stranger to ask me a question to help them do their job would not be taken as a friendly act.... I suppose there is no real need for telephone and mail address in my profile, if people need that they can contact me via e-mail to get it.

[Former Member]

Kjetil,

Sometimes I get those kind of messages and simply don't reply to them.

I'll suggest you do the same, I'm sure they will 'get the message' better than with your second template reply.

Good luck,

[Former Member]

i personally hate saying No to anybody so i try to reply to most of them as long as i know the correct answer,but in the end i add a small line

<i>"Please post your questions on SDN".</i>

few times i have been amazed to see mail from recruiter/hiring manger of some big consulting companies asking if i am willing to join them:)

makes me feel happy:)

Thanx

Aamir

[Former Member]

I would strongly discourage this, I once received an invite to gmail chat, that I politely declined....

It all depends on your level of comfort and the sincerity on the other side......To avoid all that I don't provide my email id on my card...my $ 0.02....

[KjetilKilhavn]

> I would strongly discourage this. I once received an invite to gmail chat, that I politely declined....

> It all depends on your level of comfort and the sincerity on the other side......To avoid all that I

> don't provide my email id on my card...my $ 0.02....

>

You lost me there. Discourage what? Discourage contacting people, discourage not answering questions received at the contact e-mail address, or discourage providing a contact e-mail address.

Ob.Frust: I probably would not have been so lost if SDN would indicate whether you replied to the original post or to my reply to Rob. Now that the hierarchical view is taken away we sometimes would benefit a lot from seeing which post (e.g. date and time of other post) the reply relates to, not just the name.

[Former Member]

Hi All,

I have had this happen on a couple of occasions, and in all but two I have let them hang. In the two in question, one was a fellow who had been involved in a long thread and who had suspected he had almost got there but didn't work. Turned out the issue was a simple spello and I was happy to help in a way that did not humiliate a person who was really doing their best.

On the second occasion I conducted a long correspondence around working an idea for Web flow with an sdn'er which was of no actual professional use to either, but was on the other hand very interested. I am now of the opinion that now it should have been followed on the forum for the benefit of all. Which brings me to my point.

There is an old saying here - "Never say anything which you couldn't say to your mother". In reality I now direct all personal contacts (with the exception of personal messages etc - we do make friends here as well) to place the question on the forum to ensure that the questioner gets the benefit of <i>all</i> the community, and not just my jaundiced views. Secondly the community gets the benefit of the exchange, not just the two involved.

I think the questioners have to realise there is <b>NO</b> shame in asking questions, but the community needs to also be aware there is also no shame in not answering a question. After all there are plenty of txt databases and other robots.

You know it makes sense.

Gareth

[Former Member]

I either delete the message immediately or answer back that I prefer to share on the forum.

But there is a third situation. I was recently contacted by a book publisher to review a book proposal.

So it's not always a bad thing

Rob

[KjetilKilhavn]

> But there is a third situation. I was recently contacted by a book publisher to review a book proposal.

>

> So it's not always a bad thing

>

Oh, definitely not, and congratulation on the request to be a reviewer

I made my e-mail address available for people who want to send me a private message (e.g. "quit quarreling with NXO in the Coffee Corner - you're like 2 little children") or just get in touch (previous colleagues etc). It is a bit annoying when people don't have an e-mail address available in the profile. It is useful to have that address if I want to send them a message to please close a thread, please update it with the solution for others to find (when they just write "found the solution myself!") or some other personal message.

[Former Member]

I'm hoping to get a mail asking me to star in SDN the Movie opposite Nicole Kidman

Gareth

[Former Member]

If you're taking part in this dicussion, you're a geek, probably a nerdy geek and Nicole Kidman doesn't appear with too many of them

Oh wait...Tom Cruise.

Rob

[Former Member]

Hi Rob,

A bit obscure but have you seen BMX Bandits? Nic opposite two total nerds. Also well known as one of the silliest movies in film history. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMX_Bandits_%28film%29

Perhaps Jodie Foster would be better - since Contact made her the nerd's pin up.

Cheers

Gareth

[Former Member]

> I made my e-mail address available for people who

> want to send me a private message (e.g. "quit

> quarreling with NXO in the Coffee Corner - you're

> like 2 little children")

You started it!

[Former Member]

Kjetil:

Very good point -:) I started getting those "personal" mails years before I join SDN...So I know what you mean...

I got nothing against that....But I almost never answer them...Specially because people think that by calling me "ABAP Master", "ABAP Guru" or staff like that I'm going to answer faster and better...I delete mails that thread me like some sort of ABAP superhero just to get an answer...

Sometimes, they told....I don't get any response from SDN....Can you answer me? So what I'm now??? Some sort of walking forum??? I don't think so -:)

People must understand that besides SDN, we have jobs, family, and other things to do....

Just my thoughts -:)

P.S: I'm still on vacations, if someone asks -;)

Greetings,

Blag.

[Former Member]

It's not considered the done thing, even back in the days of usenet. Questions and answers in the public forum can (in theory at least) be found by other people too.

[matt]

I always reply that they should post the question publicly, and then I might look at it. But then my email isn't on my profile, and (it seems) this forum doesn't have a private mail facility, so it's not a problem here.

matt

[suresh_datti]

I would reply if I know the answer...but, I tend to igonre a few emails that 'ask' too much..

Although, I do agree that posting on SDN has the advantage of a larger visibility & possibly better repsonse(s) too.. and like you said , others can benefit from the solution.

~Suresh

[KjetilKilhavn]

> Although, I do agree that posting on SDN has the advantage of a larger visibility & possibly better repsonse(s) too.. and like you said , others can benefit from the solution.

>

That is exactly why I always reply, and always ask them to post the question on SDN instead. I don't simply delete the e-mails, even I am not that rude