Who sees an "best answer" button!? Broadcom, this is OFFENSIVE!

[Carsten Schmitz]

I got an e-mail from Broadcom yesterday. I suppose many of you did.

It starts with 

Hi [Contact.FirstName],

but that's okay, professional communication is hard.

But it asks me to remember to mark correct answers as, well, the correct answer. My question is: How? I mean, when Broadcom is sending reminders, shouldn't that be something we're actually capable of? I am looking at one of my original threads (the only one I can find via the truncated contributions list!) and my final summary has been marked as "this is the correct answer" by someone. But it certainly wasn't me, as I didn't see a button for it.

And Broadcom: This is outright OFFENSIVE! It is usually accepted and commonly the case on almost all web forums that only the ORIGINAL POSTER can mark an answer as the correct one. By allowing SOMEONE (a mod? someone else?) to mark MY SUMMARY of other people's answers as the CORRECT ANSWER, you make it LOOK as if I did this. And consequently, you make me LOOK as if I am touting my own horn and had been flagging MY OWN SUMMARY AS THE ONE CORRECT THING, thus DEVALUING the actual answers of the actual CONTRIBUTORS!

Please fix how this operates. Thanks.

[Michael A. Lowry]

I've seen mods do this to my discussions as well. Very annoying indeed.

[Carsten Schmitz]

Hahaha it's in the "reply" menu. I should quit my job and do UX consultancy for HL. That's so hillarybad. Bonus, it says "make", not "mark". Maybe I should click that all the time: "Hey, web forum! Make (i.e. generate) the best answer for me!" :D

Also doesn't change at all the fact that only the OP should have it.


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Does using the slide show widget for posting individual images spread Corona? Don't take the risk, use the "insert image" button in the editor!

Did you know? I will NOT respond to PM asking for help unless there's an actual reason to keep the discussion off of the public forums!

"Efficient Solutions Monthly Magazine" says: These contain very good advise on asking good questions. No, you do not need StackExchange for Automic, but asking questions the right way never hurts:

http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/bugs.html
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[Michael A. Lowry]

I assume someone's work performance is measured based on the percentage of 'answered' discussion threads. Triumph of the Bean Counters.

[System]

Hi Michael - Part of keeping the communities' discussions moving is having the person who asked the question mark as 'best answer' if they feel they have one. If they don't mark, then a community manager will mark if they believe there's a 'best answer' there. This is the process that was in place when we used Jive and continues in Higher Logic. We do track how well the communities respond to questions and it is an ongoing effort to make sure if someone asks a question we try and respond. Regards, Chris

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Chris Hackett
Community Manager, Broadcom Enterprise Software Division
Broadcom Inc.
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[Carsten Schmitz]

Hi.

Quite frankly: There's various things in and about this thread now that make me want to abstain in the future from being one of the "we who try to respond". Including but not limited to my point being brushed away, but also the fact that I have apparently achived full persona non grata status, where answers seemingly about my original post are addressed exclusively towards others.

If this expression of my opinion should violate the forum guidelines, please feel free to remove this particular message. I made my point. Broadcom can rationalize such decisions all they want, fair game. But in the end this platform lives, and also, you know - doesn't, with volounteers investing plenty time. Drive those away, and at least for the Automic product let's see where that ends.

Best regards.

[System]

Hi Carsten - I didn't intend to not include anyone but to explain how we try to keep the conversations going. There are hundreds of posts gone through daily. We may not always get it right but the intent is to help members who search for answers in the future. You are always welcome to express your opinion. As long as someone doesn't violate the 'Terms of Use', there's no reason we would remove. Regards, Chris

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Chris Hackett
Community Manager, Broadcom Enterprise Software Division
Broadcom Inc.
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[Michael A. Lowry]

@Carsten Schmitz:

I get the impression that the noticeable deterioration in quality of content here is only partially due to the inferior HL software. Its becoming clear that it is also the result of the culture at Broadcom - evidently different from Automic/CA. Technological and administrative decisions are after all manifestations of the larger culture of the company. You can replace or fix a piece of software. It's hard to do that with corporate culture. And from what I can see, Broadcom's priorities are often not aligned with ours.

The surviving members of the old guard, as well as a few other well-meaning folks, are putting on a brave face; what else can they do? I sympathize. But I too am growing weary. The enthusiasm and plaintive hope I felt before has long since faded, and these days when I sign on, it's more out of a resigned sense of obligation. If AWA had a sufficiently large user base, I'd say just move the discussions to Stack Exchange. But AWA is a niche product* with limited scope and limited reach. This site, even though it's only a shadow of its former self, is probably still the first place most folks will look when they want to discuss the tool.

The prospect that top contributors will be turned off and stop participating seems not to merit inclusion on the balance sheet. There's one thing though that always gets decision-makers' attention: money. When our costly Platinum support contract comes up for renewal later this year, we will have a long discussion.

* Broadcom seems to agree.


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