Math Help Forum - it breaks my heart

[Prove It]

For those of you who once posted at the Math Help Forum, or those who still are, it breaks my heart to see that the admin has abandoned the site and left it without any way to appoint new moderators to fight the spam. This morning the entire first page of New Posts was spam. It breaks my heart. It still gets the most traffic but now people are being turned off asking for help or giving help because it looks like nobody cares.

My point - thank you to everyone on this site who keeps it clean and running smoothly. This is what the Math Help Forum SHOULD have been. Let's hope that we can increase traffic and make this the site that gets the most traffic, because that's what is deserved

 

[Fernando Revilla]

For those of you who once posted at the Math Help Forum, or those who still are, it breaks my heart to see that the admin has abandoned the site and left it without any way to appoint new moderators to fight the spam. This morning the entire first page of New Posts was spam. It breaks my heart. It still gets the most traffic but now people are being turned off asking for help or giving help because it looks like nobody cares.

I understand. For that reason I stopped posting on MHF.

My point - thank you to everyone on this site who keeps it clean and running smoothly. This is what the Math Help Forum SHOULD have been. Let's hope that we can increase traffic and make this the site that gets the most traffic, because that's what is deserved

Completely sure, step by step MHB is growing.

 

[Ackbach]

At the highest level, the reason MHF has gone the way it has is because there never was any provision for succession of the leadership. Originally, MathGuru was the only admin who had ftp access to the server, as well as the ability to promote and give permissions to other admins. When MHF changed leadership from MathGuru to mash, nothing changed. In fact, mash got rid of a lot of the moderators (including me and CaptainBlack; for some reason, mr fantastic still has the MHF Mod badge, but I have no idea whether he still has any moderating privileges there or not), seriously crippling MHF's ability to stop spam. For a while, mash tried to stem the tide of spam all by himself, but it's too much for one person. You simply must delegate authority in a forum like this in order to survive.

Here at MHB, we've taken steps to make sure that if the unthinkable should happen to Jameson, for example, we can continue carrying the torch. We're also not the least bit intimidated by promoting people into staff positions. We know that the survival of MHB depends on it. You cannot rely on technology to moderate a forum; you need the adaptability and even human-ness of people to do that.

 

[ZaidAlyafey]

For Math forums to survive it requires the solidarity of all members. One person or even two cannot do all the work while others are just tools to solve problems , this will just destroy the backbone of a forum. It isn't about spams and how many there are , it is how much members love the forum and want to improve it. I think most of the members here are satisfied by the work done by administration so they will try to do their part the best. I hope things continue here improving with time. As the years pass, we might face difficult moments but we will try our best to make the forum stand again because it is our duty.

 

[Bacterius]

Indeed. I remember how MHF used to be, and right now it's only the shadow of its former self (if even). It's sad that such large forums just end up going worse and worse, ultimately vanishing out of existence.

Order naturally tends to chaos, I just hope MHB will be persistent enough to stay the great forum it is today (and continually improve as time goes by) for many years to come!

 

[Jameson]

I'm sorry to hear that things have digressed to that level over there, I mean it. It would have been better for everyone for MHF to stay closed and donate the database to anyone who could use it, so all of the amazing work done by people over the years doesn't go to waste. MHF is dying a super slow death, but you should see that even if the new owner came back today and cleaned up the site it still wouldn't be the same. There are many nuances to running a site well versus just existing, but also in regard to the feeling of using the site - the experience. It could improve of course but it will be different.

It's nice to read that you're hopeful about the future of MHB. I wouldn't call it the site that MHF should have been though, which is something that has taken a while for me to understand personally as well. Although we started out copying MHF as closely as we could for convenience we have been working really hard to break out of that mold today I think we are already running beyond what MHF offered in its peak. Most importantly we have established a solid structure for running the site and the senior staff are all creatively on the same page about principles and goals of MHB.

If that all sounds a bit vague and perhaps not that important, the other thing about MHB is you know the owners. Hi, I'm Jameson. . You can reach me within 7-8 hours pretty much always and usually you'll hear from me much sooner. As Ackbach mentioned we also have it set up to where MHB can have a future if I disappear for any reason, which means that your time and efforts here won't be discarded. At any point it just comes down to having to trust who runs the site you are on and I think it's way easier to trust us in this respect.

We have very low traffic and need to keep increasing activity. We were more active in Fall 2012 than Spring 2012, and we are more active now in Spring 2013 than in last Fall. It's progress but it's not as fast as we'd like and we are working on projects to promote MHB.

I understand your frustration over MHF right now and it's not right at all to those who have spent years volunteering there. The only thing you all can do is try to make sure this doesn't happen again and be more skeptical of those in charge.

 

[Petrus]

I'm sorry to hear that things have digressed to that level over there, I mean it. It would have been better for everyone for MHF to stay closed and donate the database to anyone who could use it, so all of the amazing work done by people over the years doesn't go to waste. MHF is dying a super slow death, but you should see that even if the new owner came back today and cleaned up the site it still wouldn't be the same. There are many nuances to running a site well versus just existing, but also in regard to the feeling of using the site - the experience. It could improve of course but it will be different.

It's nice to read that you're hopeful about the future of MHB. I wouldn't call it the site that MHF should have been though, which is something that has taken a while for me to understand personally as well. Although we started out copying MHF as closely as we could for convenience we have been working really hard to break out of that mold today I think we are already running beyond what MHF offered in its peak. Most importantly we have established a solid structure for running the site and the senior staff are all creatively on the same page about principles and goals of MHB.

If that all sounds a bit vague and perhaps not that important, the other thing about MHB is you know the owners. Hi, I'm Jameson. . You can reach me within 7-8 hours pretty much always and usually you'll hear from me much sooner. As Ackbach mentioned we also have it set up to where MHB can have a future if I disappear for any reason, which means that your time and efforts here won't be discarded. At any point it just comes down to having to trust who runs the site you are on and I think it's way easier to trust us in this respect.

We have very low traffic and need to keep increasing activity. We were more active in Fall 2012 than Spring 2012, and we are more active now in Spring 2013 than in last Fall. It's progress but it's not as fast as we'd like and we are working on projects to promote MHB.

I understand your frustration over MHF right now and it's not right at all to those who have spent years volunteering there. The only thing you all can do is try to make sure this doesn't happen again and be more skeptical of those in charge.

Hi Jameson,
I like MHB Layout, and it shows 'Latest threads' then MHF 'Latest thread' is so much 'Spam'. They got like latest thread for university,pre-university etc... MHB got link for calculator that is good as well I really like this layout it looks so much nice and happy then only blue. If you plan to make big change with exemple layout I would recomend you to make a pull so we can vote which one we like most. Rember that this is my opinion

 

[MarkFL]

I don't have the long history at MHF as many of you do. In fact, I have only been participating on math help forums for a few months shy of 3 years now. My involvement at all other such sites has waned as my responsibilities here have increased, but that is really a reflection of the way this site operates as opposed to a negative reflection on the other sites.

First and foremost for me is the fact the the administration here is actively involved on a daily basis, and they are friendly and open to suggestions from the membership. This is very important for fostering a community, as every person no matter what their involvement, has a voice here. The admins are always looking for ways to improve the experience here, and they certainly do not exhibit an "if it ain't broke don't fix it" attitude that you see in many other places.

Also, the rules here are very well defined, and for a moderator this makes things easier, much like a policeman benefits from having well defined laws to enforce. On sites where the rules are not set forth, each moderator tends to try to enforce his/her own ideas of what should and shouldn't be allowed and this can lead to conflicting goals and confusion on the part of the membership.

Another feature here that is crucial to success is the multi-tiered staff. This is how any successful company or military is organized, and this paradigm works well for a forum too.

So my preference for being involved here more than any other site is in my view because this site is superior, not that the other sites are inferior. It's kind of a "glass half full rather than half empty" philosophy.

 

[mathmaniac]

I realized that there is a site called MHF only now...
I checked google and I was shocked to see MHF.It doesn't look like a forum.It looks like a free advertising site.

And about being active,I think we should somehow increase our "POPULARITY".Thats why I gave suggestions like "Video Library"...

The look and work of the site and POPULARITY are different.

And how do you plan to increase popularity?