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Author's profile photo Jamie Langskov

Adopt a “Newbie” Challenge

Have you seen Audrey Stevenson’s weekly badge roundup blog posts yet? Here’s this week’s installment of the ongoing series, in which Audrey congratulates the members of our community who have completed missions and achieved badges the previous week. In the spirit of becoming a more welcoming community, I encourage you to look at these roundup blog posts each week and find someone new to reach out to and connect with.

Now, in fairness, many of these members are not “newbies” per say – rather newly active. Our objective with this challenge is to inspire more participation from all of our members through peer encouragement.

Let’s start by reviewing the table Audrey has published. It includes a list with links to each member’s profile and an image of the badge(s) that member achieved. I’d recommend starting with focusing on either the Blogger badge  or the Solver badge . People who achieved these badges have taken their first steps in contributing meaningfully to our community by either publishing their first blog post or providing their first answer that was accepted by the question author.

Once you’ve identified a member (or two) to connect with, go ahead and click through to their profile.  If you’ve chosen a member who has achieved the Blogger badge, you should see at least one blog post on their profile page:

Click on the blog post title and check out what they’ve published. Do you appreciate what they’ve published? Give the post a Like!  Do you have some constructive feedback to help them become a stronger blogger? Leave a comment!

If you’ve chosen a member who achieved the Solver badge, you can also find their Answers on their profile page:

Choose the Question that has the green check icon by clicking on the title. This icon means the answer was accepted and is likely the answer that the member received their badge for.

Here’s your part – Check out the accepted answer.  If you agree with the answer or feel it was a valuable contribution, give it an upvote. If you disagree with the answer or feel it needs clarification, leave a comment on the answer. If you feel there is a better way to achieve a solution, create a new answer to the question and share your ideas.

Either way, we want to encourage discussion and participation from those who seek to share their knowledge. Personally, I also like to thank members for their time in creating an answer or comment – even if I disagree with it! They took the time to respond and share their perspective and that’s worth gratitude.

This is a simple task that we can all pursue that will help encourage new members to become more active, be productive contributors, and help build the strength of our community. You may also find that there are members out there who are creating interesting content that you’ve never noticed in the past. Feel free to give them a follow to stay up to date with their latest and greatest.

Don’t forget to follow Audrey Stevenson to get notifications for the weekly badge roundups!

 

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      Author's profile photo Jelena Perfiljeva
      Jelena Perfiljeva

      Sorry but what value would this activity add exactly?

      Someone upvotes an already accepted answer. Most likely no one will know that this happened or who's done it. There is no more race to reach "diamond" level. I'm rather skeptical about the appeal of any badges that might be associated with this. OP wouldn't care (or, again, know) about this. It won't make much difference to whomever finds that question later when looking for a similar problem. Actually with the way the vote count and sorting works right noe the most upvoted answer might not even be shown on top of the list (because apparently it's the bulk number of votes that counts, not up- or down).

      How exactly would this encourage participation? This seems like another case of underwear gnomes with stage 1 "collect underwear", stage 3 "profit" and nothing in between. What is the rain of thought here?

      And personally, I feel rather disinclined to post any comments of disagreement in light of the recent "if you have nothing nice to say then [shut up]" campaign.

      I'm even more confused about the relation with the title: what does this have to do with "adopting a newbie"?

      In ABAP tag, there are currently 2439 unanswered questions out of 9722 total. Wouldn't it be more productive to spend time answering someone who has no answer? In fact. the community members have been asking for "questions with 0 replies" option since 2012. That would seem to me like an great tool in helping the coveted newbie demographic.

      Why not take a moment to sit down, evaluate situation, identify real problems and real solutions instead of coming up with random requests for the community members?

      Author's profile photo Michelle Crapo
      Michelle Crapo

      But...  But..  Feel more than free to answer questions.  Just don't make people feel bad when they ask the questions.  No question is a bad question.  It might be one that's been asked 100 times.  If that's the case then let the OP know and move on.   They might not even know how to search for the answer.  Or they may have only seen posts that wouldn't help them.

      I would hope the badges would give a sense of "gamification" back to the community.   Also if you are looking for a job, badges, history, and what you've posted or not - well it all matters.  The future boss could easily google you.  A quick look at badges might help.  (I don't know about that)  Your participation would help.  Again I think, I have no real evidence to go by.  Would it get you hired?  Probably not, but it would be a step in the door.

      Adopt a newbie... Perhaps the title is wrong.  Perhaps it's not.  But it grabbed your attention.  🙂

      I hope you are having an awesome time at Teched!

      Michelle

      Author's profile photo Denis Konovalov
      Denis Konovalov

      "No question is a bad question" - I do not believe that is factually true in a technical context.

      Author's profile photo Michelle Crapo
      Michelle Crapo

      I'm laughing!!!  I'll agree to that some days.  If I have someone who I am working with at my company ask me a technical question after they spent 2 seconds looking for the answer - and I've answered it before.  I just smile and answer it again.  But that day I agree with you.

      At my company if someone has searched for more than an hour  and I have the answer, it seems like the question should have been asked sooner.  And I disagree with you.

      Now think about when you are first starting at a company where everyone knows the business, but you.  Questions are wonderful things..

      Now think about seeing a person coming in out of the rain.  You see they are quite wet.  The question - "Is it raining outside" might not be a good one to ask.

      And I know that's not what you meant.   That's just how I choose to interpret it.

      I'm really new at Fiori.  I've been digging around for answers on and off.  I was very happy when I got an answer to my question.  Was the question basic?  Probably.  Just think about when you are new to something.

      Another example - I used to coach new equestrians.  They might not even know how to mount.  Step by step helped them a lot.  The next lesson they may not know how to mount again.  So I would slowly explain to them.  That was about as basic as you can get.  My point, everyone has to start somewhere.  Technical people too.

      Michelle

      Author's profile photo Denis Konovalov
      Denis Konovalov

      but "basic" is not what I meant as "bad questions". Basic is fine. Basic is good. Basic is how you start learning. Basic is foundation.

      But in a technical setting/forum/company department if a person is asking "I have an error, tell me what to do" - no matter how you look at it - it is a bad question.
      That question makes me question that person credentials and occupation.

      Would you not agree ?

      Author's profile photo Michelle Crapo
      Michelle Crapo

      Agreed.

      We need more information or less.   We could suggest where to start the search for the correct answer.  They have to be willing to accept a general answer.  Is it our job to teach them?  Not really, but if we are answering we are guiding them.

      So suppose I've been fighting with a problem for days.  I'm about to throw my computer out the window.  Haven't we all had those kinds of days?  I ask the question "Can anyone help with XYZ?  Not solve it, but at least point me in the right direction.  I think that is a good question.

      BTW - I just posted a question where the answer was found in a blog.  I don't think I'm searching very well today.

       

      Author's profile photo Denis Konovalov
      Denis Konovalov

      But, but "Can anyone help with XYZ?  Not solve it, but at least point me in the right direction" is not a bad question 😉

      Author's profile photo Vadim Kalinin
      Vadim Kalinin

      In most cases basic question can be answered in a few words. In most cases I will answer it, but will also add "P.S. This question was asked many times! Please use search in future."