Information Overload – SAP the Search for Answers – Vote for Change

I had a thought, I wanted to suggest change.  I didn’t remember how, so I found it this morning.  There are influence opportunities to write your improvement.   It’s called the Continuous Influence Session – SAP Community.  I know I’ve been told about it.  It just slipped my mind.  So you can add your suggestions about community changes here.  Pretty cool.

If you’ve had the same issues I have, finding too many outdated blogs, please add commands and/or vote on my suggestion.

So here is the proposal:

Highlight blogs that are outdated.   They are misleading and clutter up the search when using google or another search.   There are several SAP tools that are newer than the blogs that were written 2 years ago.  It makes it hard to figure out which ones will still work.

Problem:

Bad Experience with the community

Benefits:

• Easier search.
• Less Questions
• In general less frustration
• Less sap support incidents on something that could have been resolved with a search.

After reading the comments – how about if it was required to add the version you are working on?  While it’s not required, you could tag it with the version.

<Stop here if you don’t want to hear my rant.>

My Frustration:

I can’t always find that blog.  That blog that steps me through a project.  That blog that helps me with migration.  That blog that helps me develop with WEB IDE.  Wait – no not true.  I find them, but they are outdated.  I look at the date before I start.  Tutorials?  Very nice, but I’m not on the test system.  I’m on my system.   Frustrated?  Me too.

So you ask a question – one that you’ve researched and have just gotten tired of looking at all those Old links.  Then someone nicely points you to a link and asks you if you search.  (That might be me that has done that) Have you searched?  Yes, you have.  But you just didn’t find the latest answer.

So you ask yourself – am I crazy?  Does anyone else have that problem?  The answer is – YES, we ALL have that problem.   What can you do?  Suggest change.  It may never happen, but at least you suggested it.  Perhaps it will help generate different ideas.

And yes, I know some if it is archived.  Some of the archived blogs/questions are what I need.  I’m sure you all aren’t on the latest and greatest.  I’m not either.

After all the frustration:

• Keep blogging
• Keep asking those questions
• If you remember – please add the tag for the version  you are currently on.

Why bother?

Even if it is hard to find the answer, I usually eventually find it.  If we stop contributing out of frustration – no one wins.  It may be that the next person gets too much information on a topic. However, too much is better than no information.