- Thread starter
- Admin
- #1
- Jan 26, 2012
- 4,042
Hello everyone!
Today is January 26th, 2013 and marks the one year anniversary of our founding in 2012. We want to first of all thank everyone who has participated on MHB this year by asking questions, answering questions, providing entertaining conversation, recruiting new members and simply signing up to see what we have to offer.
MHB has changed and improved so much in its first year. It's really unbelievable how much we've been able to do in a relatively short period of time for a forum. I'd like to highlight some of the things we're most proud of to summarize what's been going in 2012 and the beginning of the 2013.
Forum skin
This is what vBulletin 4 looks like when you install it.
It's not ugly by any means but it isn't unique when considering how many thousands of other forums on the net look almost exactly the same. We really wanted to have a unique look and feel so we found an awesome designer who helped us accomplish this. Here is what we looked like after the new theme went live.
Since then we've continued to make tweaks and improve the theme. If you have any suggestions, we'd love to hear them!
Things to do besides ask and answer math questions
In addition to the forums, we have a weekly problem of the week (POTW) at 3 levels - high school, undergraduate and graduate. These questions cover a variety of topics and levels, and we also invite anyone to submit their own problems for consideration to use. Since starting the POTW tradition, we've never skipped a problem and we always recognize those who fully or partially answer the questions correctly. We're really happy to offer the POTW problems and look forward to more participation in 2013!
We also have a live chat room where you can talk with other members about whatever comes to mind. It's a great place to say whatever is on your mind and we encourage it! Finally we have an arcade, where you can try to beat other members for trophies and bragging rights. We are planning on expanding the game selection very soon, so look out for that.
If you're into social media, we do have active Facebook and Twitter accounts. We update our FB page often and try to tweet as good ideas come to us, but nevertheless you can find us and follow us on both sites if you wish.
Moderation and organization
We have a wonderful team of staff and dedicated members who all work on keeping the forum well moderated. As a result, our growing database of math problems and general knowledge is optimized for searching and future use. Enforcing rules and meticulously going over all of our threads isn't a task that is "fun" by any means, but doing this establishes and maintains a high standard for our site that we are proud of.
Tools
Unanswered Questions
As of January 23rd, 2013 more than 96.4% of all questions have been answered. That's pretty awesome we think! The reason that a small number of questions aren't answered isn't due to not being noticed. These small number of questions are on the whole very advanced or in an area that requires math knowledge and some other specialty, such as programming or economics. Every question here is read by multiple members and almost always gets help.
[HR][/HR]
[HR][/HR]
Things we need to work on
We've come a long way in one year and everyone who has helped is hopefully proud of our beginning, but there is so much left to do. MHB is not a site that will be deemed "finished" by us at any time. Improvements can always be made and we are always looking for details, no matter how small, that could use tweaking.
This is where you can be of great help! We encourage anyone and everyone to give us feedback, whether it be positive, negative, feasible or downright impossible. The feedback forum exists for real feedback and we want to know all the ways we could possibly improve MHB. When possible we like to accommodate requests from our members and this past year we have made a handful of changes that stemmed from someone pointing out a problem.
Helping us spread the word about MHB
Our biggest issue right now is traffic and exposure. We are aware of this and wish that there was a simple and cheap way to put us at the top of Google and be talked about at universities across the globe, but building a presence on the internet takes a lot of time or a multimillion advertising budget (donations accepted!).
So, how can you help us? Right now we want to focus on offline exposure, so here are a few things you can do if you want to help.
1) Tell your friends, teachers, students and anyone else who might find MHB useful to stop by. We have an easy way for you to email someone you know, which you can find here.
2) Hang a flyer at your school, university or local coffee shop.
3) Continue to be a part of our community by posting, asking questions, answering questions and giving suggestions
Conclusion
MHB is a young forum in a niche with a handful of other sites that have things in common with us, but we feel that this forum offers a unique combination of qualities that you can't find elsewhere. Many of you visit lots of math and science message boards daily, so I want to thank you again for being part of our community and I hope you notice some of the things I've mentioned in this post.
If we can collectively work as hard as we did last year then the sky is the limit in terms of becoming a popular and successful community. We have all of the tools that we need to continue providing a math community with the standards we've established in 2012.
Please leave any comments, questions or concerns in this thread if it relates somewhat to plans for 2013. Otherwise I think making a new thread in the feedback forum is the best way to voice your thoughts so others can find them easily.
Thanks again everyone for your amazing work. See you in the forums!
- MHB Admin team
Today is January 26th, 2013 and marks the one year anniversary of our founding in 2012. We want to first of all thank everyone who has participated on MHB this year by asking questions, answering questions, providing entertaining conversation, recruiting new members and simply signing up to see what we have to offer.
MHB has changed and improved so much in its first year. It's really unbelievable how much we've been able to do in a relatively short period of time for a forum. I'd like to highlight some of the things we're most proud of to summarize what's been going in 2012 and the beginning of the 2013.
Forum skin
This is what vBulletin 4 looks like when you install it.
It's not ugly by any means but it isn't unique when considering how many thousands of other forums on the net look almost exactly the same. We really wanted to have a unique look and feel so we found an awesome designer who helped us accomplish this. Here is what we looked like after the new theme went live.
Since then we've continued to make tweaks and improve the theme. If you have any suggestions, we'd love to hear them!
Things to do besides ask and answer math questions
In addition to the forums, we have a weekly problem of the week (POTW) at 3 levels - high school, undergraduate and graduate. These questions cover a variety of topics and levels, and we also invite anyone to submit their own problems for consideration to use. Since starting the POTW tradition, we've never skipped a problem and we always recognize those who fully or partially answer the questions correctly. We're really happy to offer the POTW problems and look forward to more participation in 2013!
We also have a live chat room where you can talk with other members about whatever comes to mind. It's a great place to say whatever is on your mind and we encourage it! Finally we have an arcade, where you can try to beat other members for trophies and bragging rights. We are planning on expanding the game selection very soon, so look out for that.
If you're into social media, we do have active Facebook and Twitter accounts. We update our FB page often and try to tweet as good ideas come to us, but nevertheless you can find us and follow us on both sites if you wish.
Moderation and organization
We have a wonderful team of staff and dedicated members who all work on keeping the forum well moderated. As a result, our growing database of math problems and general knowledge is optimized for searching and future use. Enforcing rules and meticulously going over all of our threads isn't a task that is "fun" by any means, but doing this establishes and maintains a high standard for our site that we are proud of.
Tools
- MHB Widgets - In the yellow column on the right side of most pages you can see our "MHB Widgets", which are helpful tools for many calculations ranging from the basic to those for calculus. Most of them use the amazing capabilities of Wolfram Alpha, but are constructed in a way to save you time. With just a few clicks and without having to open another tab or window, you can double check your work while staying on MHB. This is especially helpful if you wish to check something while making a post. You can also see them here.
- Desmos - We were fortunate enough to chat with the staff from www.desmos.com to discuss how their free software could be used on our forum (and all forums I suppose!). We hope that in 2013 we'll see even more functionality through some sort of an API, but our first effort is a feature that speeds up and simplifies the graphing process so much that this is no longer an inconvenience to avoid. It is now possible to post custom graphs to MHB in a matter of seconds once you walk through the steps a couple of times. Also, did we mention that their software is online and free to use!?
Here's an example of how easy it is to post graphs now and what options this allows for others when viewing a graph. This picture demonstrates just part of the neat features available. Notice that the picture below is not just an image, but a link that will load the image plus the equations that were used to make it. From there you can edit anything you want and see the results instantly. Once you try it it's almost impossible to go back to the old ways!
[GRAPH]prggwoi0zw[/GRAPH]
When you make a graph on their site, the code you need to be able to post it here is just a few clicks away. Look here for details.
Unanswered Questions
As of January 23rd, 2013 more than 96.4% of all questions have been answered. That's pretty awesome we think! The reason that a small number of questions aren't answered isn't due to not being noticed. These small number of questions are on the whole very advanced or in an area that requires math knowledge and some other specialty, such as programming or economics. Every question here is read by multiple members and almost always gets help.
[HR][/HR]
[HR][/HR]
Things we need to work on
We've come a long way in one year and everyone who has helped is hopefully proud of our beginning, but there is so much left to do. MHB is not a site that will be deemed "finished" by us at any time. Improvements can always be made and we are always looking for details, no matter how small, that could use tweaking.
This is where you can be of great help! We encourage anyone and everyone to give us feedback, whether it be positive, negative, feasible or downright impossible. The feedback forum exists for real feedback and we want to know all the ways we could possibly improve MHB. When possible we like to accommodate requests from our members and this past year we have made a handful of changes that stemmed from someone pointing out a problem.
Helping us spread the word about MHB
Our biggest issue right now is traffic and exposure. We are aware of this and wish that there was a simple and cheap way to put us at the top of Google and be talked about at universities across the globe, but building a presence on the internet takes a lot of time or a multimillion advertising budget (donations accepted!).
So, how can you help us? Right now we want to focus on offline exposure, so here are a few things you can do if you want to help.
1) Tell your friends, teachers, students and anyone else who might find MHB useful to stop by. We have an easy way for you to email someone you know, which you can find here.
2) Hang a flyer at your school, university or local coffee shop.
3) Continue to be a part of our community by posting, asking questions, answering questions and giving suggestions
Conclusion
MHB is a young forum in a niche with a handful of other sites that have things in common with us, but we feel that this forum offers a unique combination of qualities that you can't find elsewhere. Many of you visit lots of math and science message boards daily, so I want to thank you again for being part of our community and I hope you notice some of the things I've mentioned in this post.
If we can collectively work as hard as we did last year then the sky is the limit in terms of becoming a popular and successful community. We have all of the tools that we need to continue providing a math community with the standards we've established in 2012.
Please leave any comments, questions or concerns in this thread if it relates somewhat to plans for 2013. Otherwise I think making a new thread in the feedback forum is the best way to voice your thoughts so others can find them easily.
Thanks again everyone for your amazing work. See you in the forums!
- MHB Admin team
It was obvious right away that this site had a dedicated team of administrators and staff that were actively engaged in making this site stand head and shoulders above the crowd.
). I have also been motivated to share some of my notes I wrote as a student on various topics.
