UPDATE 3: If you like rants, there's fresh content "over there" (SCN):http://scn.sap.com/message/14081229#14081229


UPDATE 2: If you like rants, there's fresh content "over there" (SCN): http://scn.sap.com/thread/3365349


UPDATE: You can follow the "over there" (SCN) version of this thread here: http://scn.sap.com/thread/3365349

But BE PATIENT! (it may be "currently being moderated"... snork!)


After answering a question on the SAP forum for SQL Anywhere, my response was marked CURRENTLY BEING MODERATED.

OK, let me be blunt... when the temperature reaches 0C down at the Seventh Level, I will try my hand at answering another question over there.

Then, if I see CURRENTLY BEING MODERATED again, I will wait until the temperature reaches 0K.

alt text

asked 27 May '13, 09:39

Breck%20Carter's gravatar image

Breck Carter
32.5k5417261050
accept rate: 20%

edited 29 May '13, 14:21

Really, this madness has to end... ten minutes later and my reply still hasn't appeared.

In other news, I posted THIS message over on the SAP forum as well, and it is awaiting moderation as well... of course it is! :)

Seriously, SAP is a fine company... I think... but it is a few bricks short of a hod when it comes to Q&A forums.

(27 May '13, 09:57) Breck Carter
1

So you try to work against German bureaucracy? - Sigh, I'll send you some tax literature in my native language - possibly even more effective than Wally's pills:)

(27 May '13, 11:46) Volker Barth
Replies hidden

Volker: Thanks for re-tagging, I haven't used "even-a-cow-knows" ever since I got in trouble for it :)

(27 May '13, 15:55) Breck Carter

@Update 2: Nothing new (except Dan's comment) - or is this still under a NDAmoderation?

It's a bit disappointing to be excluded from fresh rants, dear SCN maintainers:(

(29 May '13, 07:43) Volker Barth
Replies hidden

@Volker: That's so strange, I put the wrong link in Update 2... could it be that SCN is NOT easy to figure out? :)

(see Update 3 at the top)

(29 May '13, 14:23) Breck Carter

The decision to moderate everything was made (with our input/disagreement) by the team(s) that manage the entire SCN. I also wish that I did not have to approve every single post. After all, why have reputation points if they can't be used to do things like avoid moderation? We have made our opinions known but while we do have a say, we are a small part of the entire SCN community, and must follow the rules they set.

I would encourage you to use the "Contact Us" link (from the bottom of any SCN page) and send a message to the SCN support folks voicing your displeasure. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.

Finally, you can continue to blame me for slow moderation times. This is not an excuse, but we don't get proactive notifications that something needs moderation, so I need to actually visit the moderation page to see if anything needs to be approved. I am trying to do this a few times per day.

permanent link

answered 27 May '13, 10:51

Jason%20Hinsperger's gravatar image

Jason Hinspe...
2.7k63447
accept rate: 35%

1

I am happy to blame you for many things... I desperately need a scapegoat in my personal life... but on THIS you are blameless!

(27 May '13, 14:48) Breck Carter
Comment Text Removed
1

I took your advice, and followed the "Contact Us" link, and after posting a message, this appeared...

"This comment has been hidden. This can happen if the comment has been hidden by a moderator, or has been reported as abusive."

For the record, here is what I posted...

Please drop the CURRENTLY BEING MODERATED delay from the SQL Anywhere community. It is extremely insulting to both experienced and novice users... a novice user of this community may (and often is) a SQL Anywhere computing professional with more years of experience than most moderators, and to have to wait to see a reply posted is exasperating.

In the case of a critical question, artificially delaying an answer because of a rule like this is just terrible, and possibly damaging... certainly damaging to SAP's reputation in the world of professional developers.

For many years, members of the SQL Anywhere online community have prided themselves on quick responses to questions, and now there is an artificial delay destroying that reputation. THIS IS NOT THE FAULT OF THE MODERATOR... he has better things to do than be a bureaucratic box-checker.

I don't care what you do with other communities, I will let their members speak for themselves... but as an active contributor to the SQL Anywhere online community for many years, and the founder of the original SQL Anywhere Q&A website (which migrated to http://sqlanywhere-forum.sap.com/) I can say without doubt that the CURRENTLY BEING MODERATED delay is a complete waste of time for both the victims and for the moderators.

We have lived for decades without pro-active moderation of the CompuServe forums, the NNTP newsgroups and now the HTTP website. Very occasionally a posting and even a user must be removed, but only after-the fact.

There never has been, and there is not now, any need for pro-active moderation of the SQL Anywhere community... but there are very real reasons to stop it, so please... do that... stop it now.

Thanks!

Breck

(27 May '13, 15:46) Breck Carter
Replies hidden

Well, this my be a short-sighted attitude - but all this SCN stuff makes me willing to stay here and prevents me from "moving over" to SCN (both for questions and answers). In the last years, I have regularly used this forum to ask questions and have also done some answers on the NNTP forums. For SCN, I don't feel attracted to help there with answers, too - at least at the moment.

If that's gamification, SCN has lost me before I've tried to start...

(27 May '13, 16:06) Volker Barth

I have no intention of "moving over" either... my motivation in answering a question over there was this: If someone is going to insist on asking a question on that website, and it is going unanswered, maybe it's a good idea to help. Here's a real-world analogy: If a liberal is struck down by a car in the street, does a conservative render assistance? Of course they do! ...and they don't insist the liberal change political views before receiving first aid :)

(28 May '13, 05:38) Breck Carter

Yes, to add to that analogy: They would help, for sure - but less fast (or less often) if some powers-that-be would force them to identify or to prove their good will before they are allowed to help...

(28 May '13, 06:04) Volker Barth

Maybe the people behind SCN should have a look at this site and how it works. The only thing I like about SCN is, that you can "Follow" each and every article to see any updates. The rest especially the nonsense of having to reauthenticate as soon as one of the links lead you to a new server of the SCN domain is really annoying.

So my plea to the folks of SQLA is to fight for this forum against the SAP uniform websites.

permanent link

answered 28 May '13, 08:15

Martin's gravatar image

Martin
9.0k130169257
accept rate: 14%

that you can "Follow" each and every article to see any updates

IMVHO, this is nice for a few "favourite topics" - but for a Q&A site, it would force me to "Follow" very many articles - or no at all.

That being said, I surely second your suggestion. There's hope.

(28 May '13, 08:50) Volker Barth

Hi Breck,

I just posted a reply to your thread on SCN.

Here's also the text of my reply: Hi Breck,

It’s great to see some new Sybase folks “over here” on SCN joining in with the other 2 million visitors we see here every month.

Sorry you’re having trouble posting. For many years SCN did not require moderation for new members. We actually would have preferred to keep it that way. However, SCN became a victim of it’s own success. Over the last several years, SCN has implemented strong SEO practices that make it a very favorable place to post content that quickly is picked up by Google search engines. That’s been great for our members who like the fact that their new posts are quickly found by others looking to engage or to solve problems with their solutions.

However, what’s been good for our members also looked like an opportunity for spammers. In February, we were hit suddenly and aggressively with a flood of spam posts. Spammers found SCN to be a valuable place to post their content because it quickly got picked up by Google search engines. (For example, one spam post at the time received over 60,000 search impressions and 5,000 clicks.) Over the ensuing weeks, spammers created over 300 new SCN accounts and over 3,700 spam posts. Clearly that was not good for the community or for SCN since Google applies manual penalties when it finds spam on your site.

We worked actively to remove spam posts as they occurred and also implemented some new technical approaches to thwart the heavy spam activity. One of those is to require new member accounts to have their content moderated until they’ve earned a relatively small number of points so we feel they are trustworthy to be able to post directly. To date, those approaches have been effective in eliminating the spam we were seeing previously.

It sounds like you have some suggestions for other ways to solve aggressive spamming on community sites. We’d welcome your input. Feel free to comment here or reach out to me at chip(dot)Rodgers(at)sap(dot)com.

We hope you come to like the active and engaged community we have here at SCN and hope to hear more from you in the future!

Best, Chip

permanent link

answered 29 May '13, 17:25

ChipRodgers's gravatar image

ChipRodgers
462
accept rate: 0%

2

@Chip: Welcome here, by the way:)

(29 May '13, 17:42) Volker Barth

If you are interested in joining the Campaign Against CURRENTLY BEING MODERATED (CACUBEMO), you can paste the following in "HTML mode" when posting a reply on the SAP forum for SQL Anywhere...

<body><p><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span lang="EN">
<p>You will get answers much faster on the real SQL Anywhere Question and Answer forum because there is no "CURRENTLY BEING MODERATED" delay over there:</p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href="http://sqlanywhere-forum.sap.com/">http://sqlanywhere-forum.sap.com/</a></p>
</span>
<p> </p>
</span></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p></body>
permanent link

answered 27 May '13, 10:11

Breck%20Carter's gravatar image

Breck Carter
32.5k5417261050
accept rate: 20%

1

Actually, that's too harsh. First, answer the question, then, tell folks where to go in the future.

(28 May '13, 05:50) Breck Carter

I'll keep trying for a while, then give up... life is too short for this #$@%.

In the meantime, the rant continues. Here is my latest Fresh Post On SCN (I would normally just paste a link here, BUT of course it is awaiting moderation :)...

Subject: Has my post been deleted, and if so, why?

Perhaps it's just hard to find; this website is unusually difficult to navigate compared to others.

Yesterday I posted a message beginning "Please drop the CURRENTLY BEING MODERATED delay from the SQL Anywhere community." at...

Contact Us - Visit SCN Support - System and Error Messages

There already was a posting there, congratulating Jason on a job well done with the doc, so I assumed it was ok to post there. I know there are strict rules about where to post what kind of messages... I've been yelled at before ("no questions on blogs!") and I'm trying hard not to be a troublemaker.

Today, however, neither the original post nor my new post is there... has discussion of SCN policies been suppressed? Is SCN an actual internet community, or is innovation not welcome at SAP?

I really don't know the answers to those questions... although I have 30+ years of experience as a software development professional, I'm a newbie at SCN. I find HANA very interesting, and I am actively working on using MobiLink between SQL Anywhere and HANA on CloudShare... BUT, situations like this are discouraging.

Today, in apparent response to my posting, I received an email from "Jason Lax noreply at sapnetworkmail dot com" which contained no body, just a copy-and-paste of the "Common System Messages" page on SCN.

In the world of professional consulting that activity is known as "Reading the Help to the Client"... yes, it is an insult, but it is usually repeated behind closed doors, not thrown in the face of the client.

Anyway, for the record, I am pasting the disappeared posting below.

Breck

[originally posted 2013-05-26]

Please drop the CURRENTLY BEING MODERATED delay from the SQL Anywhere community. It is extremely insulting to both experienced and novice users... a novice user of this community may (and often is) a SQL Anywhere computing professional with more years of experience than most moderators, and to have to wait to see a reply posted is exasperating.

In the case of a critical question, artificially delaying an answer because of a rule like this is just terrible, and possibly damaging... certainly damaging to SAP's reputation in the world of professional developers.

For many years, members of the SQL Anywhere online community have prided themselves on quick responses to questions, and now there is an artificial delay destroying that reputation. THIS IS NOT THE FAULT OF THE MODERATOR... he has better things to do than be a bureaucratic box-checker.

I don't care what you do with other communities, I will let their members speak for themselves... but as an active contributor to the SQL Anywhere online community for many years, and the founder of the original SQL Anywhere Q&A website (which migrated to http://sqlanywhere-forum.sap.com/) I can say without doubt that the CURRENTLY BEING MODERATED delay is a complete waste of time for both the victims and for the moderators.

We have lived for decades without pro-active moderation of the CompuServe forums, the NNTP newsgroups and now the HTTP website. Very occasionally a posting and even a user must be removed, but only after-the fact.

There never has been, and there is not now, any need for pro-active moderation of the SQL Anywhere community... but there are very real reasons to stop it, so please... do that... stop it now.

Thanks!

Breck

permanent link

answered 28 May '13, 05:41

Breck%20Carter's gravatar image

Breck Carter
32.5k5417261050
accept rate: 20%

Breck is right, this is maddening.

Four months ago, I submitted a feedback message about a bad link on the SAP SQL Anywhere home page. That link has been fixed. That's the good part.

This morning, I got an email that my message "has been moved to SAP Sybase SQL Anywhereby SCN moderators. Selecting the correct space is important to ensure your content gets the right visibility and increases its chances of receiving responses quickly from other SCN users. To find a relevant space, visit the Finding Topic Spaces on SCN."

So, after four months, a moderator got around to deciding that the appropriate response to my message was to tell me I posted it in the wrong topic. (<sarcasm>What is this, StackOverflow?</sarcasm>)

Oh, and the "View the message" link in their email tells me that I'm "Unauthorized" to see my message.

Clearly, the moderation process is not functioning well.

For the record: my original message was: "On the SQL Anywhere main page http://scn.sap.com/community/sybase-sql-anywhere, the link "SAP Sybase SQL Anywhere Developer Edition" offers you SQL Anywhere 11.0.1, an old version. You want to offer SQL Anywhere 16, the latest version, or at minimum SQL Anywhere 12.0.1."

permanent link

answered 08 Aug '13, 12:28

Dan%20Konigsbach's gravatar image

Dan Konigsbach
455101220
accept rate: 0%

I did some poking around, and here is what I found:
Changes to moderation were made March 13 of this year as part of the gamification initiative on SCN. Details were posted here: Basically, you should only be moderated if you are a new user and/or your SCN point score is less than 30. Accumulating points on SCN works very similar to the way it works on this site.
This actually makes sense and seems acceptable to me.
However, I also read that there are still some issues with posts being inaccurately flagged for moderation. If this happens to you, please report it so the SCN folks can get it fixed.

permanent link

answered 27 May '13, 15:08

Jason%20Hinsperger's gravatar image

Jason Hinspe...
2.7k63447
accept rate: 35%

Comment Text Removed
1

For my opinion of points and gamification, see below.

This site has never required points to ask or answer a question, has it? SCN does, so it does NOT work like this site, not even CLOSE.

If this website had NO point system, it would at the very least be the same website, probably better. I know I don't do it for points... otherwise I would have kept those thousands of points I gave away when bounties were supported... I gave them to newbies because the point system GETS IN THE WAY of getting things done.

Does Volker do it for the points? Does Mark? Did Glenn? How about the rest of the top 10? There... that takes care of about 90% of the total points ever earned... completely pointless!

We never had points in CompuServe or NNTP, don't need them here... points were NOT one of the reasons this website was created.

alt text

(27 May '13, 15:35) Breck Carter

FWIW, apparently I have to log in to SCN to read the post Jason has related to - I'm opting for a "free read" - just as this current site has always allowed to do....

(27 May '13, 15:40) Volker Barth
Replies hidden
Comment Text Removed
1

alt text

(28 May '13, 05:47) Breck Carter
1

Though I agree that most of us do not answer questions to get points, and points can get in the way if used improperly, I actually think the points system can be very useful and is a good thing to have, even here. Two reasons come to mind for this (I am sure there are more if I thought about it for more than a minute)
1) If you receive a response from someone who has a lot of points, I think it makes a big difference as to how much credibility you give to that answer, especially if there is more than one answer/response to your question, and you are not as familiar with the community as we all are.
2) Pointing to these sites and using points as your contribution measure is a useful data point when selling yourself as an expert in a subject area.

(28 May '13, 10:18) Jason Hinspe...
Replies hidden

Agreed. And I guess if a newbie asks a question and gets any upvotes soon, that ought "feel good" and might invite to ask further questions. - At least that's one reason why I really like to spend lots of points on Qs and As...

(28 May '13, 10:27) Volker Barth
2

Jason and Volker: Let's say all three of your arguments are correct, fine... when I calm down, I'll probably agree with them, and other arguments too.

However, none of the arguments address the core of gamification: the use of points to control access. We don't do that much, here... if we did, I would be screaming.

Like I am screaming, over on SCN :)

(29 May '13, 07:02) Breck Carter
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question asked: 27 May '13, 09:39

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last updated: 08 Aug '13, 12:28