My colleagues and I have been working to respond to the feedback that we've received about the new platform -- via comments, posts, emails, direct messages, and just about every other channel you can imagine.
We have a backlog, but we're doing our best to capture all feedback and follow up. If you've not heard from us yet, please be patient as it's likely because there are dozens of messages ahead of yours. (Please keep in mind that it's best to engage with us in public channels or our inboxes. It's a true team effort, and we don't always have the bandwidth individually to respond right away to direct messages, social-media callouts, dedicated emails, and so on. Also, per our rules of engagement, we expect all members to treat each other professionally and respectfully, and if you'd like us to assist you, please avoid rude comments that violate our policies.)
To help speed up the process of communicating, we've been tracking common questions and complaints that we can address collectively. That's why I published this post recently about spamming. And it's why I'm writing today.
In this post, I'd like to tackle several topics that keep coming up -- to make you aware that we're aware (and to let you know we've heard you and what we're planning to do next…if anything).
Sorting tag feeds/notifications by content type
While it's possible to access tag feeds and subscribe to tags, the current system lumps all tag content under "posts" (which, in the new system, is defined as both blogs and questions).
We agree that members should have the ability to separate blog content from questions (and vice versa) on a tag level. We are working to come up with a solution for giving members this option, and we'll communicate more as we have more information.
Feeds by publication date (not just recent activity)
The "Recent Activity" feeds have confused members, leading them to think that there is a bug -- because they expect these feeds to show the most recently published blog posts (for example).
To be clear: It's not a bug. "Recent Activity" is literal -- so if an older blog post gets a comment, then it pops to the top of the queue, as that's recent activity. But the original publication date for the post is what appears in the feed.
We understand that members want the ability to scroll through new questions and blog posts, in chronological order, and they aren't interested in older posts that suddenly received a reply. We're looking into adding feeds that make it easier to consume the most recent posts based on when they were published. We'll keep you posted.
Page views on blog content
This one's easy to address: We realize that the blog posts should show the number of views, and we're working to get this information added back.
That's all on that one for now, but we'll provide updates as we get them.
Blog Formatting Post-Migration
I covered this one briefly in my spam post, and I'm afraid I don't have any new better news to share…
When we migrated the blogging content into the new platform, members noticed that the formatting changed in some cases. Perhaps the posts suddenly contained white space, anchor links broke, and so on. As a result, they tried to edit the posts to recapture the previous look and feel, only to discover that they broke the formatting even further.
To be clear: It is not possible to recapture the formatting of the previous platform, and since editing old content actually violates community best practices (per Step 10 of our community tutorial), we ask that members accept the current formatting of migrated content and focus more on creating new content that follows blogging standards and guidelines.
There's a reason why the formatting can't be replicated. Some migrated posts have gone through different community platforms. Over the years, members attempted to introduce special formatting through customized html, or they copied text with special formatting from Word docs. In doing so, they were using the blog platform in ways not intended -- and publishing things we wouldn't even consider blogs. (For example, a blog post should be something that can be consumed quickly and easily, so if it required anchor links -- because it was thousands of words broken into chapters -- or contained complicated tables, then the content might have been better suited to a series of blog posts or a different channel altogether.)
To ensure compatibility with any future platform changes, please use the blogging tool as designed and use the "Clear formatting" option when copying text over from Word.
Subscriptions Not Triggering Notifications
This one hits close to home for me, as I recently discovered I wasn't getting all notifications with the SAP Community tag.
We're investigating what's causing this problem, but I've experimented, and you might want to try these things in the meantime:
- Go to the page where you've subscribed (whether it's a tag, board, category, etc.), unsubscribe, and subscribe again.
- Go to your Notification Settings and make sure you've unchecked the "Ignore posts and reviews that I've already read" box.
I can't guarantee that those actions will fix your subscription/notification issues, but they might do the trick while we investigate further. Regardless, we are looking into this issue and will share more info as it becomes available.
Character Restrictions in Display Names
Several members have complained about the character restrictions for SAP Community display names (which can be changed from the "My content" area of the site -- in the My settings section). We're looking to see if we can give people the option for longer display names. In the meantime, if you're unhappy with the name that you received after migration -- due to letters getting cut off or other reasons -- you can change your display name. (Note that this applies to the display name on SAP Community. The profile.sap.com username is different. Please see my post about profiles post-migration to understand the differences.)
Something tells me I'll be doing more posts like this one before the post-migration dust settles, so if you haven't already, please subscribe to What's New to get the latest updates as my colleagues and I share them here.
