In 2025, I volunteered to continue community service in the SAP "Ecosystem." Why, you might ask, as I have no access to any working SAP system other than the community. Part stubbornness, part "keep contributing", and part because many (but not all) of my global tech contacts started here. And in this world, we plan to get around.
A year ago, the SAP Community site was migrated from multiple prior systems to the current landscape. This monumental shift was preceded by announced plans to adjust content to the new design, testing, and user feedback. Some content was planned for removal for various reasons, which ended up less dramatic than anticipated, though some treasured moments are lost in time ("like tears in rain").
I chose to set the "time/date" display field to absolute dates as shown above, with a push-the-envelope value of "ddd" for the day of the month. Yes, months don't go above 99, so I get a leading 0 which tells me I am logged in since my settings work.
Good
All change, especially in web forms, brings challenges which people manage in a spectrum ranging from leading the wave, sitting in the middle, or trying to drag or object. The best result of the Community platform of having a coherent/cohesive set of controls was less visible to casual users who might not have recognized a WordPress blog post from a BlogSpot from a Medium.
The history retention, keeping posts back to the early 2000's, enables those who might be gifted an old but running system to be migrated or archived, some clues, if they can set their search parameters correctly. I'm thinking the internal SAP site search will continue to improve over legacy external search sites that seem to bent on pushing quick fixes over useful results.
Other than the yet-to-be fixed bug with extraneous new-lines, I'm satisfied with the post editor for how I draft and share content. Yes, those familiar with the WordPress tool-kit are dismayed at the differences, to which I think of the maxim "it's a poor worker who blames their tool" for the results. I do miss the "you have 500 words here" feedback because one way I track my effort is number of words, which sort-of translates to reading comprehension time. I don't want to skimp on words, nor do I want to run on and one.
The rearrangement of the prior landscape to new spaces and categories is generally a success in my view, in particular separating posts by SAP staff from the rest of us hoi polloi. For this "year-in-review" post I chose the Welcome Corner with the idea that both new members and veterans will find this instructive.
Not-Quite-Good
In the hey-day of SCN, flurries of activities whirled around the recognition system, where members gained points for adding content, and could compare one group against another to demonstrate skills (real or imagined) in solving roll-out, ramp-up, or cool-down obstacles. "Cheaters" were dealt with via moderation, and "Rock Stars" were given platforms to continue contributing. The new platform has potential for both awards and consequences, and both sides need care and feeding. A common error is asking a question as a part of a prior thread (which is also common on other Q&A sites); some of our attempts to correct this behavior have worked, some not. Badges and contests have slowed to a trickle in 2025.
The changes from having blog post authority to needing approval in certain spaces was inevitable, I presume, but has caused some to move to other places or stop contributing. I've had delays and other obstacles that might have driven off someone less motivated to contribute. The mothballing ("sunset") of the Information Architecture space was poorly communicated and executed, in my opinion. I can understand if an entity does a reorg, or adds/removes products from the portfolio. But I had a draft ready to publish when I learned that area was being removed. Or maybe being set read-only. Or, what.
Going to a Universal ID was another change that somewhat coincided with the platform change, and for most members was not a big deal. For others, though, losing access or privileges was a diversion from contributing which might result in simply giving up. Over a year later, I still run into inexplicable "Authentication Unsuccessful" messages and unpredictable timeouts.
Needs Work
Among the faults in the current platform is the lack of a central content view per member. If you only stay in one topic space that's not an issue but is you stray into multiple areas you may be unable to find a draft you started then didn't finish or submit for approval. In this space ("Welcome Corner Blog Posts"), I could see the draft of this content, but I also see 2 other alleged drafts.
The content from 2018 is not really a draft despite the title, and I would likely never have noticed until I started new content (the assignment of prior content to current spaces was done by an algorithm).
There seem to be undeveloped areas of recognition and identity, unsurprising given the constant rise-and-fall of social media sites one might wish to share. Adding a custom footer with your signature is nice, and cool [see https://community.sap.com/t5/what-s-new/new-sap-community-profile-signatures/ba-p/13598678] but does seem like a clunky afterthought.
Lastly, the prevalence of spam posts over the past year has been a battle. Because the site needs to allow new users to join, there seemed no way to prevent infiltration of scummy content like money-services. As they targeted larger groups, the noise became unbearable, causing me to un-subscribe from notifications. Which then caused me to think less about posting here (out of sight, out of mind). Kudos to those in the Community office repelling the boarders and keeping the content from being overwhelmed with irrelevancies or worse.
Final deep thoughts
I have not mothballed the ABAP Detective series quite yet. Keep circulating the tapes.