For those of you familiar with wiki environments you'll most likely have experienced one similar to ours in other areas by now, we now have a "semi-closed" wiki meaning that selected community members have the ability to directly edit the content, however everyone has the ability to add comments and of course "Notify Moderator" when they see something they like or somethng that perhaps does not belong.

Before I go into more though I should explain a bit of the history behind this project and this deciion. The SAP Developer Network launched the wiki in October of 2006, and it was in the Autumn of 2007 we began to explore this model (semi-closed) of wiki use. From that point until Spring of 2009 we began testing the model and running pilots and found a higher rate of adoption, higher standard of quality and are now pleased, in the Summer of 2009 to fully launch our "Expert Wiki".

Basically what we have done is spoken to many of the most active contributors in the wiki, many of the SAP stakeholders associated with wiki content as well as with many SAP Mentors and discussed the pros, cons and other details associated with shifting completely to such a model. It was not an easy decision but every pilot and test we ran was so overwhelmingly convincing that we could not ignore it any longer so after almost a full 24 months of working on this we finally made the decision and here and now on June 17, 2009 (almost 3 complete years from the beginning of the Wiki project (our first internal testings) we have made the change over. The wiki now consists of 3 types of spaces:

• Private, these are spaces dedicated to slected projects that are not quite ready for the public.
• Open, these are the areas that are still quite open to everyone in the community to generate content freely. The "stage" is one of these areas.
• Expert, these are the majority of our spaces with dedicated editors and moderators.

If you wish to join the SCN Wiki Editors Community, giving you the ability to not only comment but to add your own content and show your expertise the process is quite easy - start generating your content here by clicking this link, over time as the moderators and other editors review and recognize your contributions you will eventually have the opportunity and be invited to become and editor yourself! One of our communities highest honors now! Our new Expert editors have a few extra bonuses added on top such as extra points for exceptional content, the ability to recognize and promote community members to their ranks, monthly point rewards for their activities and of course a few other items associated with our events like SAP TechEd!

Even if you are not looking to become an editor yourself but you still wish to share your expertise the process is the same, simply review these simple guidelines. Create your content, approved content will be assigned points and then moved by the moderator to the relevant space, pages that were not approved will be marked for 'review' and you can find the moderators comments on the page.

Good luck and congratulations to all our new Wiki Experts and Moderators! 

Now of course we know with such a diverse community there are bound to be those who either do not understand, do not like or feel strongly against this change and we not only welcome your feedback we encourage it - the only way we can move forward is with your feedbaback so positive or negative please give it!