I can’t log in anymore!
I’ve lost my points!
I’m a moderator of the forums, and recently we’ve had to delete accounts from people who’ve been members for a few years and even accrued over 1000 points.
WHY? Simples!
The broke the forum rules. But what has amazed me is that, as moderators, deleting an account is the last resort, not the first. We try to communicate – sending emails, feedback to posts and rejections of post. As a pre-ultimate resort, we even may deduct forum points! :-O
So, why does this happen?
BECAUSE MODERATOR INSTRUCTIONS ARE IGNORED
PLEASE! If one of your posts is rejected, READ the email. And if you don’t understand why it was rejected – ask! My email is on my business card – it’s easy to find.
PLEASE! Set a watch on any post you respond to and READ all responses. You may find a moderator has tried to give you guidance.
PLEASE! Read the emails on the account you registered with. Moderators are able to send you emails as feedback to what you posted. READ what they’ve said.
I’m a nice guy! I hate requesting users to be deleted!
EVERYONE MAKES MISTAKES
Respond to moderator requests and you’ll find that we’re very forgiving. All we want to do is help the community.
-Nathan
Moderator: ERP
But to the forums as a whole, they're actually being harmful. At least - that seems to be the general consensus.
So I've had to comment to a few people that even if you don't agree with the rules, you still have to follow them (though free and open debate about the rules should be encouraged). Someone, somewhere has to decide what's acceptable and what isn't.
Reminds of the time we were both involved with in a forum post where the user was almost taunting you to delete his account!
Cheers,
Neil.
Almost everyone who has an encounter with the moderators immediately realizes what they have misunderstood or were not aware of, and stops.
It is only a very small handfull of people who think they are invincible and invisible in the internet who ignore repeated requests and warnings to stop being a pain to all the others.
Some folks seemed to take it as part of the risk (or fun) that they will loose half their posts to the Abuse Reports system (and keep moderators busy in the process).
Well... if deleting their user ID is the last resort to get them to stop and this also catches their attention, then so be it.
Cheers,
Julius
I guess it's not generally known that moderators can check how many, and for what reason and individual's posts have been rejected.
The reply from the moderators, once i complained, was that my S* ID had been deleted by my former employer. Luckily, the same moderators managed to recreate my profile and re-instate my points (after a bit of bouncing back and forth between SAP and SCN support teams).
Funny thing is I was never aware of that invisible connection between my employer and the old S* ID. What I do remember, though, was the huge issues I had way back when I tried to register my "certificate" on the SAP support site, which then got completely entangled with my SDN S* user, thus effectively preventing SSO on any of those two sites... 🙂
I've registered with a "p" account, since as a freelancer, I've the potential to have my S id changing on a regular basis!
The mail address has only been unique since about a year or so, so it is actually the correct matching password which is "logging you on" as far as I know.
I suggest that you obtain the P-account number and logon with that.
Another option is to do a certification: Here you also have an S-account and it is independent of an employer installation number.
Cheers,
Julius
But maybe there was some fuzzy logic going on in the internal workings of SAP/SDN... 🙂
If you use the same email address for your P-account and logon with the email address as "account" using the same password... then you make posts with an account which is not the one you think it is.
This is not the first time it has happened. Real points-gamers have made this mistake before as well... 🙂
Cheers,
Julius
I typically will search for something, then immediately change this parameter to "All", then do the search over again.
If we want people to find their answers quickly, this should default to searching "All" automatically, rather than waiting for the newbies to notice that their search did not include all the posts.
Of course - there's always Google - but I typically prefer the SDN content.
Just a thought...
Somebody (Mr.Y) from his organization cries foul over why he is not linking the points with those of the organization....unsatisfied Mr.Y mails to SDN to take action (delete account) against Mr.X.
How will the Moderators respond to this?
Thanks,
Abhishek.
The moderator would just tell him to get over it and stop crying over spilled milk.
The situation described seems to me to be an internal matter - nothing to do with moderation.
Cheers,
Julius