Contributor Recognition Program FAQ

Your contributions are a vital part of our rapidly expanding communities, which include the SAP Developer Network Community (SDN), Business Process Expert Community (BPX), Business Objects Community (BOC) and University Alliances Community (UA). To reward our most active members, we've developed the Contributor Recognition Program (CRP), which awards points to community members for each technical article, code sample, video, wiki contribution, forum post, and weblog authored (weblogs must be accepted for publication before points are awarded). The same awards go for creating rich media such as videos, podcasts or eLearnings.

Points may also be awarded, at the discretion of the staff, for other types of contribution to the communities. These are categorized as "additional points."

Your points will be aggregated. If you have a high score, you'll receive recognition under the program. (Points may also be removed or deducted at the discretion of the staff.)

The more you contribute to the community, the more points you'll earn. As you build your visibility through the forums, blogs, and wiki, you'll be recognized on the Top Contributors page, where all top contributors are listed. Top Companies are also listed, so the more you contribute, the more likely your company will also be recognized within the community.

Active Contributors are valued, visible members of the SCN community. The more you contribute to the blogs, wiki, and forums, or post articles, the more you build your reputation among your peers and gain valuable knowledge along the way. An active contributor is anyone who earns over 250 points in a single year.

On each forum page, the three top contributors are listed, along with their total points earned. Check out the most recent Top Contributors.

There are a number of ways to earn points under the Recognition program.

The point scheme may be adjusted at anytime and at certain times items may be worth more than the specified amounts shown above.

Every time a forum thread is initiated, the poster has the option to mark that thread as a question. If a thread is marked as a question by the original poster, subsequent replies are eligible for points.

The original thread poster evaluates the replies to his or her posts and may award points according to the following scheme:

First and foremost, you get answers to your questions from the expert pool of over 1.3 million members in the community. Furthermore, by taking the time to reward members for their useful contributions, you help to foster strong communities.

You'll have the opportunity to stay informed about your field and industry by collaborating with your peers and other experts. The point system is set up as a good-faith system that relies on you to reward points for helpful forum replies when you are the poster. In turn, you'll be rewarded by others when they are doing the asking.

You also receive one point when you give points for helpful responses. (You can get this point only one time per thread, regardless of how many points are given to others.)

Forum threads that are unanswered questions are marked with a question mark icon next to them. Like those below:

Threads marked as questions that remain unanswered are indicated by a question mark icon.

Threads marked as questions and that have been marked as answered (and points awarded) are indicated by a blue, closed-star icon.

The new topic form defaults to "Mark this thread as a question." You need only to submit your topic as usual. If you do not wish to have your topic marked as a question, simply deselect the "mark this thread as a question," checkbox. After posting, you'll have 15 minutes to change the option chosen.

I posted a thread and marked it as a question. Several people replied and gave me useful advice. I'd like to reward points. What do I do? 

If you designated your thread as a question and are satisfied with one or more of the responses received, you may award points according to the following scheme:

To award points, go to your user profile and select the relevant thread from the list of Recent Messages. Click on the hyperlinked title. You will be directed to a page that shows all the responses to your original post.

Click on the star icon next to the response for which you wish to reward points. A popup window will appear. Use the radio buttons to mark a response "Solved My Problem," "Very Helpful," or "Helpful."

You are allowed to grant only one 10 point "Solved My Problem" award and one six point "Very Helpful" award, so evaluate all the replies carefully. You may designate an unlimited number of two point "Helpful" awards.

It is somewhat subjective. However, your content submissions will be judged by community and forums managers, who take great care in making their final decisions. At this point, there is no appeal process.

You can earn double points when you submit a piece of content (weblog, code sample, or article) on an issue or topic requested by the community or announced by the staff. (Sorry, forum posts don't qualify for double points.)

Yes and no. You'll receive one point for every forum post (regardless of type) contributed since the onset of your membership. (Moving forward, however, only posts replying to threads marked as questions are eligible for points.)

Five points will be awarded for each weblog authored prior to the inception of the Contributor Recognition Program. (This is a manual process, so it may take a short time for credit to post in your profile.)

Unfortunately, no points can be awarded for articles or code samples submitted prior to the initiation of the Recognition program.

The Contributor Corner, located in the left-hand navigation of the homepage, indicates your current number of points and the date of your last contribution.

You can see a detailed archive of all points earned per category (weblogs, articles, forums) by selecting the Reward Points tab in your Control Panel.

In Forums, simply click on My Reward Points, which appears under your login name, to see your current point status.

On the Top Contributors page, the top 50 contributors are listed. On each forum page, the top three contributors to that forum are listed, and their total points earned indicated.