The maths forum

Original post by notnek

These seem like pretty minor issues to be honest.

As DFranklln said, the biggest problem with latex is that it often takes quite a few posts for a new user to realise that it's something they can use.

Unfortunately, I don't think most people read the 'Guide to posting'.

My suggestion would be to highlight the fact that latex can be used when a user creates a new thread/post. There are different ways this can be done but for starters I think that the message header should include a 'latex' button similar to how there is a 'spoiler' button. This is something that I've noticed other maths forums having.

Do you mean a button that gives you a GUI for entering latex? Kind of like this?

I think that, as long as Latex isn't mandatory then people won't care enough to use it, whether they read the guide or not since typing it up is quite a bit of work specially with all the [noparse][/noparse] tags. I'd love something shorter.

Reply 42

Original post by Zacken

Do you mean a button that gives you a GUI for entering latex? Kind of like this?

I think that, as long as Latex isn't mandatory then people won't care enough to use it, whether they read the guide or not since typing it up is quite a bit of work specially with all the [noparse][/noparse] tags. I'd love something shorter.

No I mean a button that produces [noparse][/noparse] tags. Just the button being there should encourage more people to at least investigate what latex is.

Reply 43

Original post by Zacken

A suitable suggestion to get more people to use latex is to offer alternatives to typing latex such as: http://www.codecogs.com/latex/eqneditor.php

Just to make a fairly obvious point, requiring people to use Latex is a little unfair until people are in their second or third year at uni (i.e. they have been exposed to using it). I've got nothing against trying to improve the way Latex is implemented on TSR.

On a separate point, I've not come up with anything which would help Arsey and Mr. M on exam threads... anyone got any clever ideas? One thing I was thinking was if Arsey gets others to post solutions to some papers, however that just delays them coming out.

Reply 44

Original post by shamika

Just to make a fairly obvious point, requiring people to use Latex is a little unfair until people are in their second or third year at uni (i.e. they have been exposed to using it). I've got nothing against trying to improve the way Latex is implemented on TSR.

On a separate point, I've not come up with anything which would help Arsey and Mr. M on exam threads... anyone got any clever ideas? One thing I was thinking was if Arsey gets others to post solutions to some papers, however that just delays them coming out.

I agree - just that improving the way Latex is implemented makes it easier to use and hence more people use it. Plus, it's not particularly hard either.

Nor have I - perhaps its best to ask them for possible solutions if they were given a group of 7-8 people to help them out on the threads?

Reply 45

Original post by notnek

No I mean a button that produces [noparse][/noparse] tags. Just the button being there should encourage more people to at least investigate what latex is.

I wouldn't like using that button very much - but it would probably be useful for encouraging more people to use latex, although they would still have to go and learn the commands, which I just can't see people bothering to do. I much prefer the latex style of using $x$ for inline maths and $$x$$ for display maths.

Reply 46

Original post by shamika

Just to make a fairly obvious point, requiring people to use Latex...

I don't think anyone is suggesting this. I only point people towards latex if their posts are barely readable.

But there are plenty of posters who want to make their posts clearer but don't know how to use / aren't aware of latex

Reply 47

Original post by Zacken

I wouldn't like using that button very much

Yes I'm not sure if it would be useful for latex regulars but that wouldn't be the point of it as you say.

Although a keyboard shortcut might be nice.

Reply 48

Original post by notnek

x

As it is, people don't even pay attention to guidelines of using non-ambigous notation, i.e: x-1/x instead of (x-1) / x - I doubt giving them a Latex guide or button is going to help at all. :frown:

Reply 49

DFranklin

18

Original post by Zacken

$$ v/s [noparse][/noparse] (this is one of the main problems I have with typing latex on TSR)

The thing is, I don't think this change is actually appropriate for TSR (it would be a lot less potentially disruptive if confined to the maths forums).

$\implies$ v/s

Yeah, it doesn't look as pretty. But it doesn't impair understanding significantly.

So to my mind it's pretty small beans, compared with people posting expressions like x^2-3x+2/3x^3-2x+5, or fuzzy out of focus photographs of scrawled workings (ideally rotated through 90 or 180 degrees as well for maximum annoyance).

Inability to import packages v/s ability to import things like amsfont, etc...

I'd guess 90% of posters don't even use LaTeX. I think the number of people who'd want to download packages would be < 1%.

My basic feeling is that the real issue is the number of people unable/unwilling to do anything using LaTeX, the people who want to import packages are quite capable of making themselves understood (either in the existing system, albeit not ideal, or if that is insufficient, by linking to a page elsewhere, or producing a PDF, or whatever).

Reply 50

Kevin De Bruyne

One (possible) solution could be to have a few people who are familiar with the exam, or who have looked at a lot of mark schemes before, who would be given the question and the amount of marks and the different points at which common mistakes could be made and how they would be marked, stressing that this is how it's likely to be marked but we are only guessing, and have a list of each question number and look something like this.

Q3: Solve this quadratic .... and given f(x) find the corresponding y values, rounding to 2 d.p. (8)

Okay, we have noticed that this question is similar to ... Q5 from the 2010 paper.

You would 'guess' that the marks are allocated in this way:
Factorising the quadratic(2)
Obtaining two correct x solutions (2)
Obtaining two correct y values (2) - ECF?
Two correct answers rounded to 2 d.p (2) - ECF?

That could be incorrect of course, but maybe if we look for a question very similar in structure to the one given to aid guessing what the marks would be like.

What could go wrong:

Didn't solve quadratic correctly - (?/8)
Only used one x value and got 1 y value, rounded correctly - (6/8)
Correct x values used but incorrect y values given, correctly rounded - (7/8)
Correct, but didn't round - (6/8)

It'd be tough trying to work out whether some marks are A1, B1 or M1 but we could try to find similar questions from past papers and see how they're marked.

This should hopefully eliminate a lot of the most common questions.

Another idea could be to have a chat thread seperate to the thread with the mark scheme, just so that questions can clearly be seen and we don't have to look through posts.

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 51

Original post by DFranklin

I don't think people should be mandated to use LaTeX, and I don't think the following would really be practical, but in many ways I would love it if a moderator could reject posts on here saying "Your attachment is illegible / upside down" or "the expression you have posted is ambiguous, please repost using brackets as appropriate".

Why not? That sounds like precisely the type of thing a moderator could usefully do to ensure people like you who answer questions have a better experience.

Reply 52

Original post by shamika

Why not? That sounds like precisely the type of thing a moderator could usefully do to ensure people like you who answer questions have a better experience.

It might put people off asking questions. I don't think rejecting posts is appropriate, but maybe a pre-designed template posted on the thread to say "this attachment blah blah" in a nice way might be suitable.

Reply 53

Original post by shamika

Why not? That sounds like precisely the type of thing a moderator could usefully do to ensure people like you who answer questions have a better experience.

The number one problem with the maths forum is that fewer people are posting than previous years. This is something that should have been mentioned in the first post of this thread.

We want to encourage more threads and forcing people to use latex would do the complete opposite.

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 54

Original post by Zacken

It might put people off asking questions. I don't think rejecting posts is appropriate, but maybe a pre-designed template posted on the thread to say "this attachment blah blah" in a nice way might be suitable.

I don't think DFranklin meant "reject" in the literal sense, and neither do I!

Reply 55

Kvothe the Arcane

20

The points I would have raised about Latex have already been mentioned. I use forums on the stackexchange network and Quora where clarity - using Latex - is encouraged.

I would support having an option to wrap text with Latex quotes as well as some WYIWYG Latex functionality.

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 56

Original post by notnek

The number one problem with the maths forum is that fewer people are posting than previous years. This is something that should have been mentioned in the first post of this thread.

We want to encourage more to join and forcing people to use latex would do the complete opposite.

Maybe I'm misinterpreting what DFranklin wrote, but I thought he meant someone screening questions and then responding "please can you attach a more legible picture" or "it's not clear what you meant by [], please can you clarify" or "we are assuming you mean [], however please consider using Latex in the future (with a link to a guide) to avoid ambiguity".

I didn't interpret his post, nor do I mean "we will refuse to answer your question until you produce perfect Latex".

Reply 57

Original post by shamika

Maybe I'm misinterpreting what DFranklin wrote, but I thought he meant someone screening questions and then responding "please can you attach a more legible picture" or "it's not clear what you meant by [], please can you clarify" or "we are assuming you mean [], however please consider using Latex in the future (with a link to a guide) to avoid ambiguity".

I didn't interpret his post, nor do I mean "we will refuse to answer your question until you produce perfect Latex".

Oh okay. Forcing people to use latex did seem like a pretty extreme position :smile:

Reply 58

ghostwalker

17

Original post by shamika

Why not? That sounds like precisely the type of thing a moderator could usefully do to ensure people like you who answer questions have a better experience.

Since TSR is currently struggling to get posts moved from the umbrella forum, then anything that requires mod intervention, whilst sounding nice, isn't likely to happen in reality.

Reply 59