Discussion Thread for Atar Notes & other forums (1 Viewer)

pikachu975

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Re: ATAR Notes vs Bored of Studies

Wow, that is a lot of online users (on ATAR Notes). It does seem to be their highest ever though so far. Do you think it'll continue to increase? They do cater for other states as well though, so may end that boosts their usage?
I don't use it because it has such a bad format compared to this site and also there's so many subforums I can't be bothered finding which one is the correct one, unlike BOS which is pretty simple...
 

enoilgam

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Re: ATAR Notes vs Bored of Studies

I know for a fact one of the moderators there, spends so much time there and doesn't even sleep till like 3am in the morning because he is actually that bothered to help people out on ATAR notes
Back a few years ago, there were a few Mods and users in this category. I remember a time when I was marking essays, answering questions and doing ATAR estimates in high volumes. The fact is though, Im nearly 25 and far removed from the HSC and even uni. My role as a Moderator is limited to career/employment support and behind the scenes Mod work. Id love nothing more than to see people with this type of dedication come onto BoS and become Mods. That being said, to me, the heart of any sustainable forum is users, not Moderators. We are here to facilitate, not create content.
 

eyeseeyou

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Re: ATAR Notes vs Bored of Studies

Wow, that is a lot of online users (on ATAR Notes). It does seem to be their highest ever though so far. Do you think it'll continue to increase? They do cater for other states as well though, so may end that boosts their usage?
Given that last year was the first year of catering to HSC students, their lectures were beyond successful. If you look at the HSC section, look at the amount of essays and such posted there, ridiculous. Their threads (e.g. English advanced Q&A thread) have like 80000 views. And yes I'm sure it will increase, most likely to other states as well, they just need to find the right people who are actually bothered spending more than half their time helping out there
I don't use it because it has such a bad format compared to this site and also there's so many subforums I can't be bothered finding which one is the correct one, unlike BOS which is pretty simple...
One thing I like about ATAR notes better than BOS is that it has a "4U maths help thread" as opposed to so many threads out there. I guess it's better to have a "4U maths help thread" because it encourages people to look through the thread and probably encourage more people to help since everything's in that one place as opposed to BOS where it's scattered but I know for a fact BOS doesnt allow this because it will defeat the purpose of certain sections of the forum (such as the maths section). I guess if people don't have questions related to the thread, they could make extra threads regarding advice, exam technique, time and stress management, etc in those section(e.g. English advanced section)
 

D94

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Re: ATAR Notes vs Bored of Studies

ATAR notes spread to NSW in 2016 (I think) and I think the way they got moderators was through applying and making sure those candidates were actually willing to commit a lot of time in helping ATAR notes users out. (according to their site and their moderator nomination process)
The function of the moderators on ATAR Notes is clearly different to the function of the moderators on BoS. You aren't comparing the same 'roles'.

And yes there are people on BOS who do step up to give back (or they just help others out because they feel better in doing so).
And these people do not expect or even want to be 'rewarded' with some nomination to become a moderator. They are helping because they can. What difference would a coloured username make? None at all.

I know for a fact one of the moderators there, spends so much time there and doesn't even sleep till like 3am in the morning because he is actually that bothered to help people out on ATAR notes
There are many ordinary BoS members who spend countless hours helping out high school and university students, who answer personal messages, who are called upon from other members to help in a particular case. BoS has many members who are "actually bothered" to help without any obligations or reward. They don't need to be a "moderator", so it's completely irrelevant that the person you are referring to is a moderator on ATAR Notes.

I think maybe I wasnt being clear enough on my post. But when I said they have heaps of helpful articles, I meant for a small forum like ATAR notes, they have a heap of helpful articles mainly because the moderators there are contributing heaps and again feel that it is their job despite being under no obligation wheras in BOS there are heaps of articles and whatever due to the generosity of such moderators such as you, emoilgam, Trebla, Katsumi, etc and even some normal users do create things that will benefit others in return (such as Queenroot, Envlam and Swagmeister) which I guess only like 1-3 people on ATAR notes do, but if you compared the ratio of people who help on ATAR notes and their general population in the NSW sector and compare it to BOS, ratio wise I think ATAR notes has more help
That's a ridiculous metric for determining which forum is more helpful. There are hundreds of thousands of questions being answered here, why do 'articles' need to be the metric for helpfulness? I've answered questions on scaling/aligning probably over 500 times to 500 different people directly and thousands of people indirectly. Do I need to write an article in order for my help to be counted? Does InteGrand need to write an article as well, just so his contributions in mathematics can be counted? I mean come on now, 'contributions' are more than writing articles. Personalised responses or answers can be much more powerful to the community than individual articles giving relatively generic advice.

This forum is not driven by those who write articles, but rather by the individuals who ask questions and those who answer them.
 

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Re: ATAR Notes vs Bored of Studies

I don't see the point in comparing both forums. Both are helpful to the student community in their respective ways so why not use both resources to your advantage and optimise your results. I will give a shitty anecdote bit I guess it works..If you are an athlete running long distances and you are given one Gatorade bottle and one Powerade bottle, you don't want to waste your time comparing their effectiveness you would drink them both to optimise your performance...same goes with BOS and Atar Notes.
 

enoilgam

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Re: ATAR Notes vs Bored of Studies

Just to reinterate what I said before, we definitely welcome Moderator Applications from our users. Personally (not speaking on behalf of the Mod Team), Id love to see some of our younger users (2016ers, 2017ers) apply. If anyone is interested, feel free to shoot through an app - Im also happy to provide advice to anyone considering it.
 

strawberrye

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Re: ATAR Notes vs Bored of Studies

This is a democratic forum, we are not just going to randomly delete/lock threads just because you guys are discussing about a competitor website, rather as Enoilgam said, we are always on the look out for suitable moderators to join the team and work together to make the site better and more relevant to you guys <3
 

dan964

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Re: ATAR Notes vs Bored of Studies

Forums
BoredofStudies is much better in terms of the forum itself; is much nicely structured; and apart from maybe some colour refreshes needed;
is a lot easier and nicer than Atar.notes which is clunky; and has too many forums, and the layout of the forums on Atar.notes is actually quite confusing. To get to a forum in ATAR.NOTES, you have to go into the HSC > Maths Stuff > Maths; while here not only can you jump straight to the subject; it is a lot easier.

So when it comes to navigating forums/the content generally tends to be better here; BoS is by far superior.

Resources
In terms of resources, most of the ones on Atar.notes are newer; not necessarily better quality; but they are certainly newer; and if you can get the hang of the format are fairly easy to download. However there is a lack of recent submissions of notes on BoredofStudies, and the sorting method isn't very useful here while on atar.notes there is an option to search which makes it easier; but the block format there is painful to navigate.

But BoS has the edge on that Atar.notes really only does notes, it doesn't offer practice papers of any kind (if mods ask nicely maybe someway to get most of the stuff I have onto the bos website?); and the resources are generally easier to navigate to, with the exception of the lack of a search function.

BoS needs to however improve the details of the resources given; and often the resources may be outdated. So that is one section that needs a revamp. One site that does well with resources is AoPs.

Formatting
While the look of Atar.notes is newer, it does have it downsides as mentioned by Paradoxica.
But the navigation bar is much easier to use than the navigation bar here, especially when on boredofstudies.org; not to mention the discontinuity between pages on boredofstudies.org and community.boredofstudies.org particular with the header navigation links (which I think needs a refresh/modernised).

The structure of most of the pages on boredofstudies.org is difficult to navigate but then again so is Atar.notes notes section also.

In fact some of the older views of resources page from earlier years look nicer and simpler with more detail than the current resources page.
 

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Re: ATAR Notes vs Bored of Studies

This forum is not driven by those who write articles, but rather by the individuals who ask questions and those who answer them.
Don't articles help answer FAQs though
 

D94

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Re: ATAR Notes vs Bored of Studies

Don't articles help answer FAQs though
Yes, but the forum should not just be driven by those individual people who make those articles.
 

dan964

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Re: ATAR Notes vs Bored of Studies

Have a look at this

Atar.notes login stats may not be accurate, they keep you logged in for ages, so hence the number of users that appear active, in terms of actual logged in users may be higher due to this.

Also I noted later screenshot taken when Atar.notes had max capacity, so really hard to compare.

For instance numbers today at 14:03pm

BOS: 570 users online. 39 members and 531 guests
> Just the Secondary Education subforum: 252 users browsing this forum. (8 members & 244 guests)


AN: 326 Guests, 33 Users (3 Hidden)

Note: 2 minutes later, and both forums had about 10-15 extra users.

Also the account logged into on the right, if your account, it seems to be a darker blue?? could be just the red-scrawl in the way.
 
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donkily

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Re: ATAR Notes vs Bored of Studies

i am just curious to know but why would people make an account on a certain forum but not post in it?
 

InteGrand

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Re: ATAR Notes vs Bored of Studies

i am just curious to know but why would people make an account on a certain forum but not post in it?
Maybe they just want notes or something.
 

donkily

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Re: ATAR Notes vs Bored of Studies

Have a look at this

Was this image from ATAR notes? I think i've seen it before...but wow if they really did post that on their forum, then they do seem quite arrogant in how they believe they are more superior than this forum

i mean thankfully the mods on bos arent arrogant

also look, bos doesnt have sponsorships of some sort and we're successful wheras atar notes has, i mean without atar notes sponsorships, they wouldnt be the way they are right now

why doesnt bos start sponsorships?
 
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dan964

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Re: ATAR Notes vs Bored of Studies

Was this image from ATAR notes? I think i've seen it before...but wow if they really did post that on their forum, then they do seem quite arrogant in how they believe they are more superior than this forum
I would much rather be a moderator on this forum than AN.
To quote one of the admins who did their HSC in the same year as me*:

"ATAR Notes was virtually non-existent in NSW when I did my HSC, and indeed, there was NOTHING like it around. Really, it still seems too good to be true after being a part of the site for the last two years, and seeing how far the NSW community has come in such a short time is absolutely incredulous."

*only figured that out because they state ranked, and was able to determine what year.

Personally, I never really got into AN, their notes section is good but just as hard to navigate as BoS resources section; not to mention they only had notes (apart from my own contribution).

I am not sure why we would consider scholarships. Unlike AN, which offers paid services, this is less and less the case the older BoS has gotten.
 

Mathew587

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Re: ATAR Notes vs Bored of Studies

Atar notes has a better question answering service compared to bos. BOS is more of a non-school related + 4 unit forum with tips for each subject whereas ATAR notes is a study guide
 

Mathew587

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Re: ATAR Notes vs Bored of Studies

Oh yeh and you can't type in atar notes as a word in BOS cos it'll just block it out I.e
*********
 

donkily

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Re: ATAR Notes vs Bored of Studies

Atar notes has a better question answering service compared to bos. BOS is more of a non-school related + 4 unit forum with tips for each subject whereas ATAR notes is a study guide
tru (to some extent)

However they dont have integrand there who answers every single maths question on BOS and helps people with uni maths
 

dan964

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Re: ATAR Notes vs Bored of Studies

Oh yeh and you can't type in atar notes as a word in BOS cos it'll just block it out I.e
*********
that is replicated on both sites, that is expected. the mention on BoS is prohibited on AN as well.

in terms of your question thread, certainly the last 2 years (2015/2016), AN has probably more help for questions answered, as a large number of members here are older in years; however this year there seems to be more activity, it depends from year to year.

I would say the benefit of AN is yes mainly their study guides, which they sell. BoS doesn't have such front, and certainly nowadays tends to have less paid services.
 

D94

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Re: ATAR Notes vs Bored of Studies

Atar notes has a better question answering service compared to bos. BOS is more of a non-school related + 4 unit forum with tips for each subject whereas ATAR notes is a study guide
better question answering service? Have you seen how dead the NSW sections are? If by better you mean answering the 1 question asked per day, then sure.
 

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