The Student Room Group

Should there be a separate forum for undergrad maths?

If you post an undergrad level question here it's gonna get buried beneath tens of GCSE/A-level/Year 10/9 questions real quick.

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Original post by ftfy
If you post an undergrad level question here it's gonna get buried beneath tens of GCSE/A-level/Year 10/9 questions real quick.

I disagree...some of us are sitting here waiting to pounce on this sort of question! 😀

Questions at this level that remain unanswered tend to be from adjacent fields like econometrics or other applied subjects.
Original post by ftfy
If you post an undergrad level question here it's gonna get buried beneath tens of GCSE/A-level/Year 10/9 questions real quick.



I don't think the level of usage is high enough to justify a separate forum:

Threads tagged "undergraduate" stand out clearly with the purple banner.
The current front page of the forum goes back 2 days - a somewhat rarer event a few years ago, when it was sometimes just a few hours.
Trying to get undergrads. just to use the study help seems rather a lost cause with their tendency to use other uni/course specific forums for what really belongs on f38.

For myself, I don't go, nor intend to go, searching round multiple forums - not even the maths exam one.
(edited 5 years ago)
Makes sense. I also thought maybe seeing tons of low-level questions would put off 'askers' (as in maybe this isn't the right environment to post this question).
Original post by ftfy
If you post an undergrad level question here it's gonna get buried beneath tens of GCSE/A-level/Year 10/9 questions real quick.
Outside of the week before A-levels/GCSE, this really isn't the case - several of us prioritize questions marked as undergraduate, so they tend to get looked at fairly quickly. Of course, some questions may be outside everyone's knowledge base, and some questions just may not motivate people to answer (I confess that I, personally, don't tend to bother with questions that are effectively "please teach me the stuff I'm supposed to already know", or "I'm a 2nd year undergrad, but somehow I still think it's appropriate to paste a scan of the question with absolutely no evidence I've done anything myself in the hope someone will do my homework for me").

ghostwalker
For myself, I don't go, nor intend to go, searching round multiple forums - not even the maths exam one.


And as this quote implies, the flip-side is that if you split off the undergrad questions, then the people who are most interested in that level of question probably stop spending (nearly) as much time on the other forums, with the result that there aren't many post-A-level posters around to help the A-level students.
Original post by ftfy
Makes sense. I also thought maybe seeing tons of low-level questions would put off 'askers' (as in maybe this isn't the right environment to post this question).

And honestly, maybe it isn't. There have definitely been 3rd/4th year (or postgrad) level questions (and BMO/IMO on occasion) where I've told people "Y'know, you might be better off asking on stack exchange, etc..."
Reply 6
Good luck - getting changes made around here can take years!

But as others have said, a separate forum is currently unnecessary.
Original post by DFranklin
And honestly, maybe it isn't. There have definitely been 3rd/4th year (or postgrad) level questions (and BMO/IMO on occasion) where I've told people "Y'know, you might be better off asking on stack exchange, etc..."
And this (along what has already been said) puts the nail on the coffin for my idea.


Thanks guys.
Reply 8
Not if you are good enough.
You have maths study help, maths exam help, study help CAs and STs just for maths and a maths recycle bin what more do you want
Reply 10
Original post by CoolCavy
You have maths study help, maths exam help, study help CAs and STs just for maths and a maths recycle bin what more do you want

Peace in the Middle East.
Original post by ftfy
If you post an undergrad level question here it's gonna get buried beneath tens of GCSE/A-level/Year 10/9 questions real quick.


Eh, there is... click here: Mathematics
Original post by Snufkin
Eh, there is... click here: Mathematics

Unless it's changed since I moderated it, (and it might have done, to be fair, but for brevity I will continue on the assumption it hasn't), F46 is supposed to be for discussion of things specific to universites. Questions like: "would Oxford be better than Cambridge if I want to do XYZ?", "what A-levels would be best if I'm applying to Exeter", etc.

If a question is purely about mathematics, it belongs in F38.

I wrote a sticky to this effect but it looks like it's been taken down. The tagline on F46 does say "Use the Maths Study Help forum for help with maths questions." however.

Certainly in practical terms, you're far more likely to get a helpful solution if you post on F38 and tag your post Undergraduate than you are posting in F46.
Original post by Snufkin
Eh, there is... click here: Mathematics

That's for questions about maths uni courses not help for maths work that goes in maths study help.
Original post by DFranklin
Unless it's changed since I moderated it, (and it might have done, to be fair, but for brevity I will continue on the assumption it hasn't), F46 is supposed to be for discussion of things specific to universites. Questions like: "would Oxford be better than Cambridge if I want to do XYZ?", "what A-levels would be best if I'm applying to Exeter", etc.

If a question is purely about mathematics, it belongs in F38.

I wrote a sticky to this effect but it looks like it's been taken down. The tagline on F46 does say "Use the Maths Study Help forum for help with maths questions." however.

Certainly in practical terms, you're far more likely to get a helpful solution if you post on F38 and tag your post Undergraduate than you are posting in F46.


Original post by CoolCavy
That's for questions about maths uni courses not help for maths work that goes in maths study help.


No, all questions relating to maths at university (including study related questions) can go in the Unis maths forum. Of course, people are also free to put their higher education-related study questions in Study Help too, but SH does not have and never has had a monopoly on those type of questions. In short, there is some crossover between the Unis and SH maths forums and users are free to decide which one they want to post in.
Original post by Snufkin
No, all questions relating to maths at university (including study related questions) can go in the Unis maths forum. Of course, people are also free to put their higher education-related study questions in Study Help too, but SH does not have and never has had a monopoly on those type of questions. In short, there is some crossover between the Unis and SH maths forums and users are free to decide which one they want to post in.

Marvellous. So you'd rather people are able to post there, and get virtually no responses, as opposed to encouraging them to post on F38 where there are several graduate and professional mathematicans people who can help.

Good call.
Original post by Snufkin
No, all questions relating to maths at university (including study related questions) can go in the Unis maths forum. Of course, people are also free to put their higher education-related study questions in Study Help too, but SH does not have and never has had a monopoly on those type of questions. In short, there is some crossover between the Unis and SH maths forums and users are free to decide which one they want to post in.


That's not what ive been told and im a CA for design technology forum (all work questions go in DT but all uni course questions go in art and design university courses)
but whatever :dontknow:
Original post by DFranklin
Marvellous. So you'd rather people are able to post there, and get virtually no responses, as opposed to encouraging them to post on F38 where there are several graduate and professional mathematicans people who can help.

Good call.


As I say, people have always been able to post maths study questions in Unis (it's not a question of my preference, I don't care either way) - they mostly don't because the SH maths forum is particularly active and helpful. All I am saying is that the option is there for the OP to post their question in the unis forum if they feel their question has been missed here.
Original post by Snufkin
As I say, people have always been able to post maths study questions in Unis (it's not a question of my preference, I don't care either way) - they mostly don't because the SH maths forum is particularly active and helpful. All I am saying is that the option is there for the OP to post their question in the unis forum if they feel their question has been missed here.
Maybe that's how it was intended but that is not how it currently works. In fact, when people post questions there they frequently get moved to this forum (and if they don't, people hardly ever get a reply there).
Original post by Snufkin
As I say, people have always been able to post maths study questions in Unis (it's not a question of my preference, I don't care either way) - they mostly don't because the SH maths forum is particularly active and helpful. All I am saying is that the option is there for the OP to post their question in the unis forum if they feel their question has been missed here.

No, they haven't. I mean technically they *could*, because TSR can't actually stop someone posting anywhere. But it used to be that a moderator would move those posts to F38. [Source: I *was* that moderator].

It is certainly not *helpful* to suggest they post in F46, because they are *far* more likely to get a useful response in F38.

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