The Curious Case of SAP Community Moderation: A Study in Arbitrary Excellence
There’s something almost admirable about a system so perfectly calibrated to frustrate its most dedicated contributors. SAP Community’s moderation team has achieved what few organisations dare to attempt: the complete democratisation of confusion.
The Algorithm Knows Best
Picture this: you’ve spent hours crafting a technical blog post. You hit publish. Within moments, the machine learning system — trained, presumably, by a committee of caffeinated squirrels — determines your carefully researched content is indistinguishable from Nigerian prince correspondence. Welcome to spam jail.
But fear not! The moderators check the filter “regularly.” Your content will resurface within 24 business hours. Or minutes. Or perhaps never. The timeline, much like the moderation logic itself, remains charmingly mysterious.
A Tale of Two Blogs
Here’s where it gets genuinely fascinating.
A blog post about shell command execution in SAP CPI —
https://community.sap.com/t5/integration-blog-posts/getting-unconventional-with-groovy-part-1-executing-shell-commands-reading/ba-p/14294407#M2049
one that, by the author’s own assessment, “doesn’t reveal 10% of what already existing articles reveal” — gets nuked from orbit.
Meanwhile, this gem about terminal access to CPI runtime
has been sunbathing peacefully on the platform for five years. Five. Years.
And what about this post detailing PGP secret keyring handling
? If we’re genuinely concerned about security implications, one might think exposing cryptographic key management deserves more scrutiny than reading a file via shell script. But no. That one’s fine. Perfectly fine.
The logic? There isn’t any. Or if there is, it’s locked in a vault somewhere, guarded by the same people who decided “Moderator 972001” was an appropriately human identifier.
The Silence Says Everything
When these inconsistencies are raised — politely at first, then with understandable frustration — the response is instructive in its absence.
No explanation. No acknowledgment. No “we’ll look into it.”
Just the digital equivalent of being shown the door while someone pretends to be very busy with paperwork.
As one contributor put it: “Is there no accountability left?”
The answer, delivered through elegant silence, appears to be: correct.
Transparency? Never Heard of Her
The moderation team operates with the transparency of a brick wall painted black and placed in a basement with no stairs. Decisions materialise from the void. Appeals dissolve into it.
“Moderator 972001” — a designation that radiates all the warmth and humanity of a tax audit — can apparently remove two blogs in three days from the same contributor without so much as a form letter explaining why.
One might ask: is this moderator a real person? A bot? A random number generator with delete privileges?
The community may never know. And that, apparently, is by design.
The God Complex, Quantified
There’s a specific institutional pathology at play here. It’s the quiet arrogance of systems that punish engagement, reward silence, and treat questions about their own behaviour as an inconvenience.
When contributors ask “Are the moderators operating in good faith?” — a reasonable question given the evidence — the absence of any response tells you everything.
In Conclusion
The SAP Community moderation team has built something remarkable: a platform where the most knowledgeable contributors are rewarded with suspicion, inconsistency, and bureaucratic indifference.
One needn’t resort to profanity to describe them. Their work speaks eloquently enough.
The Curious Case of SAP Community Moderation: A Study in Arbitrary ExcellenceThere’s something almost admirable about a system so perfectly calibrated to frustrate its most dedicated contributors. SAP Community’s moderation team has achieved what few organisations dare to attempt: the complete democratisation of confusion.The Algorithm Knows BestPicture this: you’ve spent hours crafting a technical blog post. You hit publish. Within moments, the machine learning system — trained, presumably, by a committee of caffeinated squirrels — determines your carefully researched content is indistinguishable from Nigerian prince correspondence. Welcome to spam jail.But fear not! The moderators check the filter “regularly.” Your content will resurface within 24 business hours. Or minutes. Or perhaps never. The timeline, much like the moderation logic itself, remains charmingly mysterious.A Tale of Two BlogsHere’s where it gets genuinely fascinating.A blog post about shell command execution in SAP CPI —https://community.sap.com/t5/integration-blog-posts/getting-unconventional-with-groovy-part-1-executing-shell-commands-reading/ba-p/14294407#M2049 one that, by the author’s own assessment, “doesn’t reveal 10% of what already existing articles reveal” — gets nuked from orbit.Meanwhile, this gem about terminal access to CPI runtime https://community.sap.com/t5/technology-blog-posts-by-members/terminal-access-to-cpi-runtime-execution-of-shell-commands-on-cpi-runtime/ba-p/13460198 has been sunbathing peacefully on the platform for five years. Five. Years.And what about this post detailing PGP secret keyring handling https://community.sap.com/t5/technology-blog-posts-by-members/pgp-secret-keyring-in-cpi-the-lost-passphrase-recovery/ba-p/13491284? If we’re genuinely concerned about security implications, one might think exposing cryptographic key management deserves more scrutiny than reading a file via shell script. But no. That one’s fine. Perfectly fine.The logic? There isn’t any. Or if there is, it’s locked in a vault somewhere, guarded by the same people who decided “Moderator 972001” was an appropriately human identifier.The Silence Says EverythingWhen these inconsistencies are raised — politely at first, then with understandable frustration — the response is instructive in its absence.No explanation. No acknowledgment. No “we’ll look into it.”Just the digital equivalent of being shown the door while someone pretends to be very busy with paperwork.As one contributor put it: “Is there no accountability left?”The answer, delivered through elegant silence, appears to be: correct.Transparency? Never Heard of HerThe moderation team operates with the transparency of a brick wall painted black and placed in a basement with no stairs. Decisions materialise from the void. Appeals dissolve into it.”Moderator 972001” — a designation that radiates all the warmth and humanity of a tax audit — can apparently remove two blogs in three days from the same contributor without so much as a form letter explaining why.One might ask: is this moderator a real person? A bot? A random number generator with delete privileges?The community may never know. And that, apparently, is by design.The God Complex, QuantifiedThere’s a specific institutional pathology at play here. It’s the quiet arrogance of systems that punish engagement, reward silence, and treat questions about their own behaviour as an inconvenience.When contributors ask “Are the moderators operating in good faith?” — a reasonable question given the evidence — the absence of any response tells you everything.In ConclusionThe SAP Community moderation team has built something remarkable: a platform where the most knowledgeable contributors are rewarded with suspicion, inconsistency, and bureaucratic indifference.One needn’t resort to profanity to describe them. Their work speaks eloquently enough. Read More Technology Blog Posts by Members articles
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