Dr. David Kirkby wrote:
Jason Grout wrote:
Personally, I think the wiki question is too hard now and prevents
people from easily contributing good things. For example, someone
ended up giving up (for now) contributing something because they
forgot to divide by two when finding the area.
The current question is: What is the area of the right triangle with
side lengths (24/5, 35/12, 337/60)?
It's not very hard to work out (even I can do it!) Well, I think I can -
I'll see when I try to edit the Wiki next.
But if you say it has already caused someone to give up, then perhaps it
is.
How about asking for the next prime number after 7? That seems a lot
easier and does not involve remembering geometry that you may not have
seen in a long time, computing things with lots of fractions, etc.
IMHO, that is far too trivial. Most 14 year old school child will know
what that is.
I think it might be okay to ask a slightly simpler question as a
requirement to get an account (i.e., something that does not require
starting up Sage), but I don't think putting everything down and
requiring the user to do a geometry problem every time they commit a
page is is appropriate.
We've really gone through great lengths to lower the barrier for
contributions and participation. Making a user review geometry and
perform a calculation, or even doubt if they might be able to do it like
you mention above, seems like a big step backwards.
Personally, I think a text file in the source directory would be best.
It would mean someone has downloaded the source (do same for binary). If
Downloading 200MB seems like an unreasonable obstacle too, especially
for countries which have low internet quotas and pay-per-MB usage.
Thanks,
Jason
--
Jason Grout
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