Why comments & answers are possible again on old SCN questions?

[Sandra_Rossi]

When the new SCN has been put online ("answers.sap.com"), a "big issue" seemt to be that all previous SCN questions were archived and was closed to any additional comment or answer. Much frustration at that time, but the huge advantage was that people could not resurrect those antediluvian questions.

But since a few months (?), all archive.sap.com questions have been migrated to answers.sap.com, and people can add answers and comments again. It just brings pollution in my Activity Stream. The level of comment is awful, there are often beginners who are looking for answers on simplistic questions, they will add their own answer or comment to a question like "how to assign a value to a variable in ABAP" posted in 2005, to add it to the already existing "100" answers.

I understand that people want to help others, I don't blame them, but in the facts opening SCN archive brings pollution most of the time.

A few questions:

• Is there already a discussion about this topic?
• Is there a way to search in the coffee corner? (SCN and Google don't seem willing to help)
• Is there a way to prevent old topics (those before 2018 for instance) to appear in my Activity Stream?
• Is it possible to "follow" the coffee corner as any other tag?

[VeselinaPeykova · Accepted solution]

• Is there already a discussion about this topic?

There was a discussion on a similar subject where there were suggestions to close or even delete such questions but nothing came out of it so I am skeptical that things will change (especially when there is no rule about thread necromancing). These days I read only the questions and blogs in a few tags so I might have missed some discussion on the topic.

• Is there a way to search in the coffee corner? (SCN and Google don't seem willing to help)

Maybe if you type the search criterion in https://search.sap.com/search.html (the search box at the top of the page, not the AnswerHub one) and then filter by content type Discussion.

• Is there a way to prevent old topics (those before 2018 for instance) to appear in my Activity Stream?

Not via the UI. Other than not following tags and people who tend to resurrect old questions I cannot think of another solution.

• Is it possible to "follow" the coffee corner as any other tag?

I don't think that this is possible anymore.

[Sandra_Rossi · Accepted solution]

Thank you for the tip about the 2 different search engines. Yes the one at the top is much better because of the filter capability. "Discussion" seems to limit to the Coffee Corner, well done! 🙂

[former_member186338 · Accepted solution]

"Is it possible to "follow" the coffee corner as any other tag?"

It was possible in the past using tag: https://answers.sap.com/tags/50690423538184863854226961842055

But now there is no "Follow" button!

I still have CC as follower:

[VeselinaPeykova · Accepted solution]

vadim.kalinin at the time it was possible to select Coffee Corner as a tag in questions (which is how these 2 questions were tagged and appear in the list). And there are some settings where you can specify whether a certain tag can be selected and whether a tag can be followed. Probably they fixed the problem with Coffee Corner tag selection and disabled the option to follow the tag with the same release.

[Jelena]

Regarding Coffee Corner: I somehow managed to add it to my RSS feed the same way as the blogs in specific tags. I'm using RSS reader called Brief for Firefox. It does bring up the new discussions but, unfortunately, is not updated if there is just a reply to an existing one. Since there is no longer a link to it from the top menu, I suspect the plan is to kill CC eventually.

Veselina already linked to the old discussion on this. I'm not sure why the old questions were brought back from the archive but based on a conversation with some SCN management at TechEd last year, this was intentional. It sounded like someone asked for this and it was considered an achievement.

I do share your frustration regarding this and feel it adds no value to anyone. Other than joking about it on Twitter, not sure what else could be done though.

[Jelena]

This is just one of many frustrating examples: question is from 2008, then answered in 2014 and again in 2019.

Edit: some questions might as well receive a different answer every time new ABAP release comes up. But when searching in Google we see only the OP date, so someone looking for new information would be inclined to skip such old questions. My view: if you want to share something out of the blue then just post a blog.

[Steffi_Warnecke]

There is still a link to the CC in the top menu:

[Jelena]

steffi.warnecke - I stand corrected. Was looking for it everywhere else except Programs. "Coffee Addicts Rehabilitation Program", duh... Should've known. 🙂

[VolkerBarth]

I'm not sure why the old questions were brought back from the archive but [...] this was intentional.

Well, that conclusion made my day! 🙂

(Of course there may come a time when archived contents is able to auto-resurrect...)

[Jelena]

volkerbarth - hey, it's almost Halloween! 😉

To clarify: I meant this was done on purpose vs. someone accidentally running a batch job in Production.

[VolkerBarth]

jelena.perfiljeva2: Yes, I surely had understood your intent - I was just amused by the fact that there seems to be need to tell that's been really done on purpose... - but yes, I'l guess we all have our share of scars from "improvements" here, either intentional or not.