AN becoming reddit?

[TheAspiringDoc]

I've noticed over the past 3 years the percent of academic content in the "show unread posts since last visit" has slowly crept down from 90% to 35%
 (my most recent check gave 13 threads about "random thoughts"/foods/jokes/"random facts"/stories/music/YouTube and only 7 about lectures/scaling/chem/accounting)

Is this where the people running the site want it to go? (I'm not saying I'm against that, I'm just curious)

It seems to me that at this rate, in 3 years time this site may become called "ATARJokes" with minor subreddits about actual academic topics, but the "A/all" section being completely cluttered with non-academic related topics

Please don't interpret this as me having a go at anyone, I'd just like to hear what others think about this?

[Aaron]

Students study for at least 6 hours a day in the school environment. I hardly think casual leisurely threads are bad.

While I agree that the casual threads have increased over time (thanks to the great work of insanipi and others in the forum games/OGD sections), I don't think it's bad to have these mixed with academic content.

VCE is only a short period of time - there's much more to life than consistent study and academia.

So in my opinion (not representing AN), I don't think it's a bad trend to have these threads as part of AN. It's a good balance and provides not only the academic side of things, but also allows students to take a breather just for a moment in what is a stressful time.

Given it's also nearly christmas and we're in the peak period of holidays now, it is understandable that there's going to be less academic-related threads being posted. IT'S THE HOLIDAYS!

Edit: There has been a discussion internally about the 'show recent/unread posts' and the clutter that's going on. This is something that we could discuss changing in due course, but I think that's an issue regarding what sorts of threads are being shown in that list rather than the dominance of casual threads.

[TheAspiringDoc]

Students study for at least 6 hours a day in the school environment. I hardly think casual leisurely threads are bad.

VCE is only a short period of time - there's much more to life than consistent study and academia.

So in my opinion (not representing AN), I don't think it's a bad trend to have these threads as part of AN. It's a good balance and provides not only the academic side of things, but also allows students to take a breather just for a moment in what is a stressful time.

Given it's also nearly christmas and we're in the peak period of holidays now, it is understandable that there's going to be less academic-related threads being posted. IT'S THE HOLIDAYS!

Agreed, and good point about it being the holidays.

While I agree that the casual threads have increased over time (thanks to the great work of insanipi and others in the forum games/OGD sections), I don't think it's bad to have these mixed with academic content.

Respectfully, I disagree. I find it distracting and inefficient. Can there be a way to filter so that only academic posts show up if you click a certain box?

I appreciate that for some people, the creative forums are really valuable.
But for others, AN serves as more of an academic resource only. Is it worth cluttering their lists of threads with those that are of no interest to them?

[EEEEEEP]

I've noticed over the past 3 years the percent of academic content in the "show unread posts since last visit" has slowly crept down from 90% to 35%
 (my most recent check gave 13 threads about "random thoughts"/foods/jokes/"random facts"/stories/music/YouTube and only 7 about lectures/scaling/chem/accounting)

Is this where the people running the site want it to go? (I'm not saying I'm against that, I'm just curious)

It seems to me that at this rate, in 3 years time this site may become called "ATARJokes" with minor subreddits about actual academic topics, but the "A/all" section being completely cluttered with non-academic related topics

Please don't interpret this as me having a go at anyone, I'd just like to hear what others think about this?

This is the holiday time. 

The side bar only shows the MOST recent posts. During other times like the HSC, VCE and offers, the side bar shows many other different posts.

During the HSC or VCE, we actually have our peak amount of users iirc =). ALso our top boards are still all academic, so yeah =)

[Aaron]

Can there be a way to filter so that only academic posts show up if you click a certain box?

Not at the moment. I am sure that this can be easily fixed via a minor edit, however (I am unable to do this, this would be something our developer has to do). Given the 'unread' listings are just a combination of board/category IDs.
See my edit above, we have talked about the clutter so I definitely understand your concern and respect your interest is the academic side of things.

I am sure this will be addressed by admin.

Cheers

[RuiAce]

It used to be worse with the whole games section flooding the unread topics at some point.

Firstly, regarding the technical issue:

When you click "Show unread posts since last visit", I reckon you need to put up with it. Because you're basically clicking that - unread topics. If it's full of stuff from "General Discussion", that's really just unfortunate. You wanted to see (pretty much) everything you haven't been updated on, and they're giving you that.

On the other hand, for the VCE and HSC specific ones, I reckon General Discussion (and any other potentially unrelated materials) just needs to go. Journals should be fine, because they give insight onto another HSC student's experience. But other non-academic content is probably still unsuitable.

For that reason, potentially the <Show Unread> subsection needs to be given a small drop-down menu EDIT: or a checkbox menu. Not something I always thought of (or I would've brought it up sooner), rather my reaction to this thread. This could potentially be a nice thing to have in the forum overhaul (well, redesign) but it would probably be more efficient in alleviating the "non-academic content spam".
_______________________________________________

Now, the concern of the state of the forum.

For someone like me this has been troubling as well. I've noticed for a long time now that more often than not, the extracurricular sections have been given HEAPS more attention post-count-wise than the academic sections.

Your post raises this important aspect of the forum's state, but we shouldn't be eradicating it either. Because without all of those sections, it's going to easily backfire and turn everything mundane. One of the most important reasons why those sections exist is to promote the 'community' vibe that we still want to develop between members; we're here to help one another but also just for fun.

I'm also a tad concerned that the timing of your post has had something to do with it. I know, for a fact, that the HSC math forums completely exploded for  2 years in a row during the lead-up to the final exams. Now that it's December (and approaching the holiday season), the decline in academic-related posts is to be anticipated. At times like these, there just isn't enough opportunity for the forum to actually appear more academically oriented than otherwise.

Plus, the academic sections are certainly not ignored yet. Sure, I just look at one section mostly, but I definitely catch glimpses of many people contributing heaps to other threads.



Those are my thoughts, and I probably ended without a proper conclusion (because I got lost).

[sweetiepi]

Given it's also nearly christmas and we're in the peak period of holidays now, it is understandable that there's going to be less academic-related threads being posted. IT'S THE HOLIDAYS!

Agree to this- naturally the subject boards die down for the last few weeks of the year, this year being no exception.

I appreciate that for some people, the creative forums are really valuable.
But for others, AN serves as more of an academic resource only. Is it worth cluttering their lists of threads with those that are of no interest to them?

On the forum index, all of the blue board banners (bar the first one) are clickable, and when you click them (to collapse them), the forum doesn't give you notifications/unreads for that section, from my understanding. (I trialled this once, seemed to work)

I do agree however that there should be a way to filter out posts from the unread posts.

[jamonwindeyer]

Definitely appreciate the concerns laid out in this thread. Having a better filtering system for the unread posts is absolutely very high on our list of priorities as we rebuild and update the site. In the interim, insanipi’s trick is a great workaround!

As a side note, encouraging more general discussion is definitely intended, but not specifically - We want more academic discussion too, obviously. Hopefully (and I think it is working) one encourages the other. In peak academic times I feel the balance is near spot on, it being holidays right now skews things a bit.

Should also note that academic sections still play the largest role in post count and respect growth - Posts in forum games can’t increase these things, for example.

Really cool to see these thoughts though - We are definitely receptive to them and please keep raising them!

[Yertle the Turtle]

I feel like Aaron has a very good point. "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" is the saying, and without some amount of relaxation from school, performance will not reach as high levels as possible. Relaxation is necessary for proper functioning of the brain, and socialising is necessary to become a fully developed human being.

However, I do agree that there should be some way of cutting down on notifications from games threads. My 'Unread' is constantly getting swamped with these. But I do think that we need to keep these parts of the forum! Academic activity is still the most important part of the forum, but let's keep the other.

[peterpiper]

Haha I'm like 90% sure most of my posts are like OGD-related; tbh atarnotes has become my second home and at home I don't study at all, hence the...correlation . I didn't realise it was so bad; I'll make an effort and try to contribute to the academic boards, and lessen my activity on the misc. stuff if need be.

What I will say is that what I honestly liked most about atarnotes throughout the year was actually the community feels and the ranging discussions on things outside the classroom. I mostly learnt outside of atarnotes. I probably could use it more wisely, but my learning style has always been independent/autodidactic-style, so I only used atarnotes when I had to actually range in on other people's opinions/expertise, like a question on maths I spent hours trying to work out/year 12 decision-making. If I only did that from the very beginning, I wouldn't have actually used atarnotes much at all, and would probably gradually disappear as the year progresses, and that would be really sad, since, when I stuck around for my keyboard warrior moments and random threads, it helped me through year 12. It gave me at least someone to talk to - even if it was only forum-based and nothing personal. And I think that also comes under one of the ethos/principles of why we use atarnotes - we use it for the much-needed support and love for when we go through a milestone like year 12. And it helps even if it's not academic-related

[TheSapaInca]

I don't go here when I'm studying. Only when I have done my work will I go on here for free time/ ask questions (which is mostly why I go on here) and have some stuff corrected

[Syndicate]

I haven't read most of the posts (excuse me for that). So in regards to the filtering issue, I think there is already a solution for it.

Click on the "profile" tab, on the left-hand sidem you'll see a few option under "modify profile"- click the last one - "Ignore board option". Find "forum games and casual chats" or whatever else you want to hide and click the box beside it (you'll see a tick). Then go to the bottom and clock "change profile".

The only downside of this is that you won't see any posts from that board in the "recent posts" as well (This can be any board).