Forum Guidelines

[AoPS]

1. No spamming -- point 5(h) in the Community Terms. It is worth nothing, and clogs up subjects and drives them off topic.

2. No flaming. Do not call people names or give insults. See, again, the Community Terms.

3. When posting a new topic, use a message icon (? or *) to indicate "question" vs "challenge".

4. Please put your solutions to the problems, not just an answer.

5. This forum is not a place to brag about how you finished. Remember to not be arrogant. Modesty is good.

6. The forum is a place to discuss MATHCOUNTS, MOEMS, AMC 8, and other middle school contest problems. General math, such as Pre-algebra and Algebra 1 topics belong in the Classroom Math forum. Higher level problems should go into their appropriate forum.

7. Do not post messages telling others not to revive old topics. This clutters the topic further and sometimes people have good things to add to old topics. If they are just repeating what was already said, feel free to rate the message as Poor or Below Average.

8. Please keep subject material to topics that your principal would find acceptable for discussion at your middle school.

9. Students of all ages are encouraged to submit challenge questions, provided they are MATHCOUNTS level. If no one has answered your challenge within a few days, please consider providing a hint to get the problem moving. High school and older students should leave the challenge questions for the younger students - answer the challenge problems that are appropriate for your age and experience level only! You are free to help out students who have questions.

10. Do not state if a problem is easy or hard. What is hard for some may be easy for others, and vice-versa.

11. Problems should generally be of the Mathcounts School, Chapter, or State level. National level problems are only appropriate during March, April, and May while students begin to prepare for the National Competition.

12. Please do not just post the answer; explain the solution. This will help new problem solvers understand the problem better. Also, if you get it wrong, others can point out where you went wrong.

13. Hide your solutions and answers using the [hide] tag.

14. When posting problems from a particular MATHCOUNTS, MOEMS, AMC 8 contest or similar contest, please use the "Subject description" field to identify the source. Include the year, contest, and problem #. For example, 2007 Chapter, Sprint #18. If a message contains multiple problems, identify them all in the Subject Description or consider creating separate topics.

These guidelines are subject to updates at any time.

Note: This is a summary of the guidelines found in Mathcounts Forum Guidelines. Some guidelines posted above have been modified and these supersede those found in the original topic.

[Ihatepie]

[kyyuanmathcount]

Yes; we are here to help you prepare so if you are having trouble with something of any level (in MATHCOUNTS) it is fine to post it. However, how I interpret it, maybe if you have already solved a problem and you are just challenging others, try to maybe stay away from really hard national problems.

[levans]

These guidelines supersede those found in the original topic. Please keep the level to chapter and state except in the months mentioned. This year, after May 9, we should be reverting back to school, chapter, and state level problems, primarily school and chapter.

[AIME15]

It seems that we need another reminder - please keep problems in this forum to school and chapter level problems. Tougher MATHCOUNTS problems should be posted in HSB.