Cross Posting should be allowed

Question

Hold on....I know some of you may ask me to go through Rules of Engagement and there are obvious benefits of not allowing cross posting. I myself have used Abuse button number of times for people who cross post and moderators have sometimes locked them.
But in certain scenarios it makes sense:-
1. Assuming I am facing a issue in an ESS area, there is ERP-Employee Self Service and Portal forums.
2. I am developing a Web Dynpro Java Applciation which utilizes Web Services an d have an issue in  WSDL configuration then it would make sense to post in Web Dynpro Java as well SOA forum
3. I am developing a Interactive Form in VC and having some issue. (A similar thread in Adobe Forums prompted to open this thread.). Should i open a thread in Adobe Forums or VC?
The reason is simple for cross posting - All forums have different set of users/contributors and when you are stuck somewhere in between, you want to maximize your chance of any help from all corners.
Isn't it why people log in SCN? Get help and resolve issues. What are your thoughts?

Answer 1

Until we get a improved system with [tagging|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tag_%28metadata%29] (as mentioned already by Thomas), let's think what we can do with the current SCN forums. I agree that there are definitely cases where multiple forum categories are applicable. However, as Rob pointed already out, the real problem with cross-postings is that you get two more or less independent threads (even if cross-referenced) with people wasting their valuable time (either because they don't know about the other ones or it's hard to make sense out of the answers posted to those multiple threads).
Thus my general recommendation would be the following:
<ol>
<li>Start with one thread in the most promising and applicable forum.</li>
<li>If after some time (I'd say at least a day, probably more) the thread doesn't produce anything useful, create a new thread in the next forum referencing the old one.</li>
<li>Now add in your original thread a link to the new one and mark the original one as answered.</li>
</ol>
It's still kind of awkward, because one cannot close a thread without marking it as answered (so we put in some kind of future debt, hoping that the other thread will get an answer). Having moderators lock the thread is in my opinion not feasible, because we shouldn't bother them with silly work like this (I'm sure they are already overloaded with their work as is). As I don't really think the forums are currently a great knowledge base, I think it's acceptable to close the old thread by marking it as answered (even though it or the new thread might never be answered).
In a way this approach is like bumping your thread and pitching it possibly to a different audience. When used with great care (and I mean that!), I think this is acceptable. Concurrent active cross-postings in different forums are in my opinion not acceptable.
Cheers, harald