How do you want solution discussions to work?
What I want is whatever features generate the best conversations. We think there are many possible routes to this and would like your opinion.
Brilliant has evolved a lot in the last month. You might have noticed though that solution discussions are basically the same as they were 5 months ago. When I study past feature requests, a lot of the suggestions are still very relevant but I would like to have a fresher conversation.
Please vote on the comments I have put below and add any additional thoughts you have to them. In general describing why you voted one way or another is very useful to us.
Note by
Peter Taylor
7 years, 4 months ago
Easy Math Editor
This discussion board is a place to discuss our Daily Challenges and the math and science related to those challenges. Explanations are more than just a solution — they should explain the steps and thinking strategies that you used to obtain the solution. Comments should further the discussion of math and science.
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[example link](https://brilliant.org)> This is a quote# I indented these lines # 4 spaces, and now they show # up as a code block. print "hello world"\(...\)or\[...\]to ensure proper formatting.2 \times 32^{34}a_{i-1}\frac{2}{3}\sqrt{2}\sum_{i=1}^3\sin \theta\boxed{123}Comments
Generally speaking what do you think solution discussions should be about(this will immensely affect how aggressively we choose to revise solution discussions)?
Should solution discussions be a competition to see who can compose the best solution using only their own brain? (kind of what we currently have) Or try to become a more collaborative process by which everyone tries to work together to make sure every problem has at least one solution that is as good as possible?
Upvote if you think it should generally be more collaborative and downvote if you think it should be competitive.
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Collaborative. Life isn't a competition. It should be a learning experience for someone who wants to know how to solve the problem.
I think that this collaborative process will prove very beneficial to provide a kick start to the chemistry section on Brilliant.
I suggest that this feature be only provided in the Chemistry section (once it has been formed), so that people are more familiar with the concepts of Chemistry.
Other sections, such as Mathematics and Physics, should remain competitive, as many people are already much strong in these sections.
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WHERE IS THE CHEMISTRY SECTION??? I LOVE CHEMISTRY!!!
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Yo Bob, check out this thread. Basically just follow Christopher Boo, Anish, Nicole Ling and Daniel Lim and you'll start seeing a lot more chemistry.
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But we want a "BEST OF CHEMISTRY" A collection of communities best posts.
I have some similar thoughts with Anish. Math and Mechanics(not sure with CS and E+M) can be solved in many ways, which some are stunning fast while some are more traditional. So, we cannot judge which is "the best" as the quality of a solution depends on different users. So in my opinion, there is no more competition, we submit a solution only because we think this is one of the way to solve the problem.
I'm still not sure what will collaborative will actually be like(how to let everyone work together) so I voted for competitive...
Collaborative.. Because collaboration itself brings out the best way to solve a problem. So,obviously first is contained in the second..
It would be great If we'd be able to bookmark the solution of our choice for future reference...I mean they'd be handy to find among the rest of the solutions.
Just like the stuff on MSE :)
I would like to have a new system to filter the problems and notes in my homepage.
according to me,it should be more competitive....
I have some advice to Brilliant. 1. Give extra points to those who submit a good problem and solution. The extra point can be considered from the amount of favorites and likes. 2. Also give extra points to those who answer problems from the other members. 3. In Physics topics, such as Mechanics. Do not mix up mechanics problems with non-mechanics problems . In Mechanics topic, only mechanics problems that can be allowed. So do for the other topics. 4. Could the staff in Brilliant make editor for submitting a problem, a solution, or a note like on StackExchange? Because when I type using format LaTeX in the Brilliant's text editor, I feel a bit uncomfortable to check it again, whether there are mistakes or not, by clicking Preview button. By using the same editor as StackExchange, the error of typing, especially math equation, can be minimalized. 5. Please provide a feature to communicate with the other members like chat or other kind of stuff like that. For now, I think that's already enough. I will add it again if there is a good idea crosses in my mind. Overall, Brilliant is really a good website and one of the most recommended site to those who want learn more. Great job folks! Two thumbs up for you all!!
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I think the fifth is not really a good idea as Brilliant.org is not for socializing. The feature for comments/follow/voting is already enough(at least for me). Most of the users here have a Facebook account so you can maybe find them on Facebook for chats :). Just my opinion by the way.
Maybe Brilliant can give us some notifications when someone reply to our solution or notes so we can answer them?
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The reason behind the 5th idea is to make intense communication or discussion about a topic or problem among the members more private. I believe they have a Facebook account but unfortunately it almost doesn't appear in their Brilliant's profile. Beside that, lots of members here are invisible or hard to identify. I think notifications feature is also a good idea since Brilliant use email to inform when someone reply to our solution or notes but I barely check my email.
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Yap! notification system will be quite good..
4th idea looks quite good to me!
How to make a private solution public?
Hi Everyone,
Thank you for your thoughtful feedback and votes in this thread. Soon we will experiment with a few changes to solution discussions to see if they make them better for more people. This will likely include, allowing people to see solutions before writing their own(a very divisive vote issue in this thread), allowing people to edit and delete their solutions, and eliminating the blind voting period.
My two cents
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Indeed, those two cents inform a lot of how we are thinking about the future.
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Glad to contribute my ideas! It may not be worth $37 and change, but I'm glad it's something!
As Brilliant is mostly oriented ONLY to maths which is really helpful for programmers for their logical skills, they also must have a learning environment for a programming language.
We should prefer to both learning as well as to compete because learning gains knowledge and experience while competetion shows our situation or place in the field so i think we should prefer to both what do u think .......
It Should be collaborative as it is about learning and finding new solutions and algorithms
Implement feature to filter homepage and prevent reshared posts from appearing.
now i am new on brilliant ,really it amazing i 47 years old and my two son one is doing engng and other one is in 10th standard we all sit together and see the problems and try to solve and which helps ,really it is amazing.
Do you want to see the solutions that have been written before you write your own?
Upvote this comment if you want to be able to see the solutions before writing your own, and downvote this comment if you want them to be hidden from you until you finish writing your solution.
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If we did it competitively, no, but it would be good collaboratively.
Well, we can learn from others' solutions and frame a better solution.
At least first few steps, so one would not waste time typing a solution that has already been typed
We want to see them...as this would prevent repetitions of the same solution.
Moreover, not being able to see them does not make any sense, because if you've solved a problem, it means that you already have a solution, so you write your own only if you feel its different or better.
Because it consumes much time typing with LATEX only to discover in the end that a better solution was already there !!!
Plagiarization will abound if we let that happen.
I think its best if we could see the solutions beforehand, since it'll help to give collaborative answers & also avoid repeating a solution.
Should you be able to downvote a solution?
Upvote this comment if you think you should be able to downvote a solution, downvote this comment if you think you shouldn’t(wow that was hard).
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To downvote a solution is disrespectful but I've noticed some solutions are totally wrong logically even if give correct answer. There must be a way to mark wrong solutions and to not count them in the statistics in the profile (or to be separate stat).
Also for me it would be better providing a solution to give more points in addition to solving a problem so to stimulate people to write solutions. Voted up solutions - more points also to stimulate original solutions.
The current format is brilliant :), whoever whats discussion on best solution could enter directly the discussion and ... discuss but let the others who want to try their skills have the pleasure as it's now.
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I'd also like to be able to delete solutions that I have written if they are copies of something already contributed or use completely wrong logic. My first solution I ever wrote was based off of a complete misread of the problem, and it was extremely embarrassing.
Yes downvote appears more as a disrespect. Rather there should be a provision to remove the wrong solutions or atleast not count them.
I'd think, it'd be better if one of us were able to help with someone's solution (if it's incorrect or so). Voting down is kinda discouraging to that person.
Even though some solutions are... dubious, to say the least, it would be discouraging I think to have people who are new to solution writing have their solution be bombarded with downvotes.
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Maybe you can only downvote solutions with a positive number of upvotes?
Sometimes,I really want to downvote a particular solution.However,with the cooperation of the solution writer,it is possible to settle any misleading ideas in the comments.And besides,downvoting will make a person crestfallen.
Another issue with downvoting:Correct solutions may be downvoted .I could show you one particular example.x−1x5−1=0.Here,the only possible solution requires the numerator to be zero.This means that x5=1 satisfies what we want.Now someone might downvote saying that x5=1⟹x=1 and that makes the denominator 0.However, x5=1 has 4 other roots that do not make the denominator 0.
I think downvovte souldn't be added. Because one writes it by wasting his time and the downvote will discourage him to write slutions in future. But a button should be added to request to remove wrong answers.
The only scenario where I think the 'downvote' option might work is when people submit codes for math solutions (especially Number Theory. I have been trying to be the Batman on Brilliant, ensuring that people stop posting such solutions.). Leaving that issue aside, I don't think that this feature would be helpful.