How does one respond?

[Pawly]

I'm sure we have all seen the negative comments about the Project from
time to time and I am never sure how to respond in a positive manner.
For example:

"I'm not crunching SETI anymore because......."

"... They don't analyse our wu's so we are crunching for nothing."
"... I don't like BOINC, they should have stayed with Classic."
"... they are only looking at one little piece of space, we'll never
find a signal."

ETC. ETC.

As a pretty new cruncher, I just don't know enough of the history to
really put up a fight in defence of the project so I often stay quiet
or just say, that is their perogative.

So, how does one respond?

Pawly

[Michael Buckingham]

I refer them to this article (recently anyway) because it says *better* what I say to everyone...

 

http://www.planetary.org/programs/projects/setiathome/setiathome_20070706.html

Michael Buckingham

 

"No trees were killed in the making of this email, however, a large

number of Electrons were terribly inconvenienced."

---

From: Pawly <pault...@gmail.com>
Reply-To: boinc-tea...@googlegroups.com
To: BOINC team founders <boinc-tea...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [boinc-team-founders] How does one respond?
Date: Sat, 14 Jul 2007 01:53:55 -0000

[David Anderson]

First, I hope you think of your team as a BOINC team, not a SETI@home team.
SETI@home is one of about 30 projects using BOINC.
Please make sure your team is present on all of them,
and track your team's total credit, e.g.:
http://www.boincstats.com/stats/boinc_team_stats.php?pr=bo&st=0

What we're all doing is much bigger than SETI@home.
We're changing the way scientific computing (and therefore science)
is done, and we're reconnecting the public to science.
SETI@home appeals to science-fiction fans; that's a limited population,
which we've probably already reached most of.
But doing research in genetic diseases, or studying the environment,
has much wider appeal - potentially tens or hundreds of millions of people.
We need to reach these people.

Is SETI@home still doing important research?
Yes - to some extent. Every couple of years
we improve our algorithm or our data source, increase our sensitivity a little,
and extend the range of what we could possibly detect.
But we're scanning a limited part of the sky - about 1/3 of it -
and listening in a very limited frequency range.

Other BOINC-based projects are doing fantastic research.
What's more important than figuring out how serious a problem
global warming might be?
ClimatePrediction.net is arguably the most accurate predictive source
we have, and has publications to prove it
(see http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9433721)

After 4 centuries of studying the universe by observing
electromagnetic waves (light, IR, radio)
we now (in the last year) have a new window: gravitational waves.
The first-ever "observatory" of gravitational waves is using
Einstein@home to figure out what they're seeing.

These are two examples - the list goes on.

The bottom line: if your members are negative about SETI@home,
encourage them to look carefully at all the other BOINC projects.
I think they'll find something to be positive about,
and to get them excited about volunteer computing again.

-- David

[kin...@hotmail.com]

Team Starfire went through a major shakeup with the switch to BOINC.
First, we stagnated. Then members of the team really pulled together
and made BOINC work for us. And we expanded our reach by adopting more
BOINC projects so as not to alienate members who wanted to do more
with BOINC and it really worked. Our SETI@Home team was #2 at one
point. But some members of the online community we shared did not like
us being a BOINC team, feeling that we were infringing upon their
"territory" by taking on medical projects (Predictor, Rosetta, WCG)
and competing for CPU cycles against their preferred projects
(Folding@home, TSC, UD). We tried to reach an amicable resolution to
no avail. Our only acceptable solution was one unified BOINC team
there, theirs was us being limited to SETI@Home and having to go
through "the proper channels" to run anything other than SETI@Home. In
the end the site owner told us to do it their way or leave.

The result is what you see today, a Team Starfire belonging to
BroadbandReports.com which we left behind running 1 project (plus
Einstein ad CPDN but using different team names), and the BOINC team
we wanted to have there, on our own now as Team Starfire World BOINC.

My point is, I always intended that with the switch to BOINC Team
Starfire would become a BOINC team, and we did, and some people didn't
like it, but we are a success regardless. We have a team on pretty
much every project (think we might be missing one of two) and we like
it that way. Our members that prefer a certain project can run it and
still contribute to our team.

If you look at our stats site you can see how many projects the top
teams run: http://statsnstones.tswb.org/BoincTeam.aspx
Looks like 47 projects total with teams, we sport 43 teams, some of
them inactive, but there regardless. SETI is still our powerhouse and
we still think it's the most fun, but a lot of our members really like
Rosetta or Einstein. Sometimes we give ourselves a little challenge
and through extra power behind a different project.

We're mostly a bunch of geeks. We like a little bit of challenge. But
the 100's of millions of people we want to reach need something like
the original SETI@Home project. Simple to install and interesting to
watch.

Cheers, Kinguni

[UBT - Timbo]

Hi all,

I think the important thing to remind team members is that
"distributed computing" is evolving all the time.

The original proprietary programs, such as SETI@home (Classic), CPDN
and the United Devices Cancer projects were all "innovative" and were
launched at a time when most people connected via slow modems.

Lessons were learned from those experiences and now we have a common
"Client Manager" (called BOINC), that now allows members to use a
single program to control their resource share across a myriad of
different projects - all with their own objectives.

Sure, even BOINC has gone through "growing pains" - with bad
experiences from people who melted their (plastic cased) laptops or
caused their desktops PC to run very slowly....

And it will continue to evolve....

For now though, we need to educate people that BOINC now is a better
developed program, and that when used with the latest generation of
multi-core, low voltage CPU's, can be an effective use of peoples
PC's.

Obviously, the biggest issue for now is going to be the "green"
movement - there are a lot of people who run BOINC 24/7, whereas the
original suggestion was to allow BOINC to run in the background when
your PC was on.

So, the biggest "threat" to BOINC now is the question that I got asked
by a journalist the other day:
Is BOINC "enviromentally friendly" if PC's are left on 24/7 and doing
nothing else except BOINC?

So, the "education" process must continue so that people can use BOINC
to help the projects, while at the same realising that their
contribution does have a "hidden" cost to the environment.

regards

Tim

[Pawly]

Excellent and informative posts, everyone! Thanks for all the info
and nice to meet you all!

@ Michael - Thanks for the link, I'll use it.

@ David - I DO see the team as a BOINC team, When I got the original
invite for this group it singled out SETI so I assumed we were going
to start with that topic. I should have paid more attention to the
Group Title! lol Ooops! Last count I think (team) Canada was
participating in over 58 BOINC and Non BOINC projects. I have been
trying to get as many team members involved with our Forum
http://teamcanada.freeforums.org/ as possible and also invite other
teams and their members to visit and participate in discussions and
information sharing. A bit of an uphill battle but it seems to be
paying off as we have been attracting some of the "BIG" Canadian
crunchers to the team and forum. We have also just last week begun a
Project of the Month area and hope that it will get the troops to move
around the different projects and keep them enthusiastic about
crunching. Actually, our project with the most activity is CPDN
(almost double our RAC at SETI)!

@ Kinguni - Nice to see ya!! Haven't bumped into you in some time! I
empathize with the frustrations you have experienced with your team.
Canada was a "Listing Ship" when I started asking questions (see here
for some history of how this sinking ship was saved from oblivion!
lol http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=37180 ) about
why we didn't have any focus or direction. Long story short, I ended
up as the SETI, malariacontrol, Pirates and now uFluids leader for
(team) Canada kinda by default! lol But I am really enjoying the
experience and like bringing all these wayward Canuck crunchers
together! lol

@ Timbo - Melted Laptops!!! LMAO!! I hadn't heard that so far! Wow!
I'll bet that turned some people off.

Thanks again for all the info and history everyone, it will really
help me look like I know what I'm talking about! lol

Paul

[David Anderson]

A couple of weeks ago I participated in a chat-room
event hosted by UK BOINC Team,
and among other things we brainstormed about how to
spread the word about volunteer computing.
As with everything else, our main resource is volunteers,
so we tried to think "grass-roots" approaches.

Mass-media publicity is always important.
Neither BOINC nor any BOINC-based project has gotten much recently.
We decided that our first target should be computer magazines;
in particular, we should encourage BOINC users to write letters to
the magazines in their country, and get them to write about BOINC
(or about volunteer computing in general, or about a specific project).

We put together a Wiki page with a list of computer magazines
in many countries, and suggestions for how to contact magazines:
http://boinc.berkeley.edu/trac/wiki/BoincPr
People should update this web page if they contact a magazine
(to avoid duplication of effort) and should add new magazines.

This is an area where team leaders can really help,
by mobilizing your members to participate in this effort.
See if any of your members have public relations experience;
they would probably be more effective.
If you can get a magazine to publicize your team, so much the better.

Please let me know if you have any suggestions about this effort,
or about PR in general.

-- David

[David Anderson]

A general question I'd like to ask this group:

What software features (web, client, or other)
can BOINC develop that would be useful for teams?

Right now the entries on the "Team management" page are
Edit team info, Remove inactive members,
View team email addresses, and Change founder.
What else would be useful?

For example: someone suggested the idea of a team providing an RSS feed
for team announcements; messages would appear
in screensaver graphics and in the Manager.

Another example: a framework for time-limited competitions between teams,
e.g. team X challenges team Y during a particular week.

Another request I know about is the "Team-specific installer":
an installer for the client software that shows the team logo,
and that pre-enrolls the user in that team on
any project that they attach to.
This is in the works - it will be part of the next major release.

-- David

[Michael Buckingham]

A member "in/out" area for the founders..(or public) I have 452 members in my team, and well, everytime someone leaves or joins I scramble to try and figure out WHO (so i can welcome them) or I use an off board resource (BOINCstats) to check for team movements...larger teams would probably benefit the most from this.  It doesn't have to go back that far, say maybe, 15-30 days worth of team movements and then it can roll off....

OR;

I would be happy with a simple email from whichever project to the founder that states "so and so has left your team" or "so and so has joined your team".

Another feature would be when I am viewing my team, it would be great to be able to see my team mates email address along with stats etc etc instead of flipping back into "management mode" and scrolling until I find the one I want...

 

A function to either send PM's to MEMBERs en masse, such as a "Newsletter"..or a emailed newsletter that I can generate from the projects team founder management page.

 

thanks for all you do  :)

Michael Buckingham

 

"No trees were killed in the making of this email, however, a large

number of Electrons were terribly inconvenienced."

---

From: David Anderson <da...@ssl.berkeley.edu>
Reply-To: boinc-tea...@googlegroups.com
To: boinc-tea...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [boinc-team-founders] features for teams
Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2007 14:22:37 -0700

[kin...@hotmail.com]

I'll bring these questions to my team to get some feedback.

Ron

[David]

Mike I agree with you on two points, not that I disagree with the
others, but I would like team members movement info too. I use BOINC
Synergy to watch for movements.

The other point is the ability to communicate with the entire team.
We've struggled to keep team site up so that ability would be very
useful to our team and me as founder.

I really like the PM function that was recently added.

David DesLauriers

[David]

David,

I would like to think of my team as BOINC team but it's rather
difficult when someone goes to those other projects and creates your
team on those projects. I'm not the owner of them so it's difficult
to feel connected to them. That may sound petty, I don't know, it's
just the way it is for me.

Seems to me if BOINC wanted us to feel like a BOINC team this would
not be able to happen. If I create a team on SETI@home or Rosetta it
should be created across the BOINC family. If the owner changes it
should change across all BOINC projects.

I don't know if that's even feasible, but it sure would make me take
notice of the other BOINC projects.

David A. DesLauriers

On Jul 14, 11:29 pm, David Anderson <da...@ssl.berkeley.edu> wrote:
> First, I hope you think of your team as a BOINC team, not a SETI@home team.
> SETI@home is one of about 30 projects using BOINC.
> Please make sure your team is present on all of them,
> and track your team's total credit, e.g.:http://www.boincstats.com/stats/boinc_team_stats.php?pr=bo&st=0
>
> What we're all doing is much bigger than SETI@home.
> We're changing the way scientific computing (and therefore science)
> is done, and we're reconnecting the public to science.
> SETI@home appeals to science-fiction fans; that's a limited population,
> which we've probably already reached most of.
> But doing research in genetic diseases, or studying the environment,
> has much wider appeal - potentially tens or hundreds of millions of people.
> We need to reach these people.
>
> Is SETI@home still doing important research?
> Yes - to some extent. Every couple of years
> we improve our algorithm or our data source, increase our sensitivity a little,
> and extend the range of what we could possibly detect.
> But we're scanning a limited part of the sky - about 1/3 of it -
> and listening in a very limited frequency range.
>
> Other BOINC-based projects are doing fantastic research.
> What's more important than figuring out how serious a problem
> global warming might be?
> ClimatePrediction.net is arguably the most accurate predictive source
> we have, and has publications to prove it

> (seehttp://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9433721)

>
> After 4 centuries of studying the universe by observing
> electromagnetic waves (light, IR, radio)
> we now (in the last year) have a new window: gravitational waves.
> The first-ever "observatory" of gravitational waves is using
> Einstein@home to figure out what they're seeing.
>
> These are two examples - the list goes on.
>
> The bottom line: if your members are negative about SETI@home,
> encourage them to look carefully at all the other BOINC projects.
> I think they'll find something to be positive about,
> and to get them excited about volunteer computing again.
>
> -- David
>
>
>
> > From: /Pawly <paultroi...@gmail.com>/
> > Reply-To: /boinc-tea...@googlegroups.com/
> > To: /BOINC team founders <boinc-tea...@googlegroups.com>/
> > Subject: /[boinc-team-founders] How does one respond?/
> > Date: /Sat, 14 Jul 2007 01:53:55 -0000/
>
> > I'm sure we have all seen the negative comments about the Project from
> > time to time and I am never sure how to respond in a positive manner.

> > For example:- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[kin...@hotmail.com]

Our team member Xaak gave this suggestion: "How about an xml web feed
into the boinc client for team stats? I already have a web service
hooked into our stats site that can feed it. If David is interested,
I'd be glad to work with him on it."

[Pawly]

I have been using an excel spreadsheet to track the team and it gets a
little tedious. So some type of stats page with email capabilities (a
customizable auto "Welcome Email" function would be cool) and all the
bells and whistles would be really helpful.

The big teams can be daunting to manage! Let me give you an example.
After possibly years of neglect when I first looked at the email list
for Canada it had 2500 addresses! I took an afternoon and pared it
down too 1500 (eliminated all the 0 credit 0 RAC). Over the next few
days I sent out batches of mass emails and then further pared the list
down using the undeliverables as a guide. WOO HOO We're havin' fun
now! lol Granted, mine is an extreme example but I think it
illustrates the problem.

The direct team competition intrigues me. First thought: Navy vs.
Air Force, University X vs. University Y and because Country vs.
Country seems to much like war maybe some type of BOINC Olympiad? Or
even some type of league set up. Each month's match determines your
next opponent within your "weightclass" (classes could be determined
by the teams highest Total RAC during the match previous) and the
"Champs" could sport the "Belt" on their team pages at projects. I'm
a little competitive and I know that alot of crunchers are VERY
competitive so I think something along these lines would be
popular.

[David Anderson]

Hmmm. We should figure out how to handle this problem.
It's tricky because is no central authority in BOINC;
each project is completely independent and has its own database
of accounts and teams.
Maybe this needs to change.
So let me ask some questions:

1) Should we change teams from being per-project to BOINC-wide?

2) How do we handle current situations where a team name
exists on different projects with different owners?

3) If we do 1), should we allow people to belong to different
teams on different projects?

This would be a major change, not likely to happen soon.
In the meantime: if your team name has been "poached" on
a new project, have you tried contacting its founder
and getting them to change the founder to you?

-- David A.

[David Anderson]

My answer to this question is that people should
run BOINC only when there computer would be powered on any
(this uses more electricity, but not much more).

Or if they heat their house, run BOINC all the time
and use their PC as a heater;
it's exactly as efficient as an electric space heater.

-- David

UBT - Timbo wrote:
> ...

[bo...@dingo-den.com]

I have started a board on our Forum for the Founders and I have put in a thread
asking the members of BOINC@AUSTRALIA for any input on this.

Giles (aka Dingo)

[Michael Buckingham]

Dr. Anderson,

I tried this approach, but there isn't a way for me to contact them..no PM function or access to their email address.  I can click on transfer, (which is how I got Rosetta *finally*)...but I don't like surprising team founders with a transfer request without speaking to them first...it just feels rude.  hehe.  I think the forum PM function is Seti*at*Home specific?

Currently, my team mates and I are working on getting these other teams that have our name....

I do not envy you, as this will be no easy task and for the most part, is probably not fair to those who went to a project and then created a team...albeit with a poached name.

I would prefer having a way to speak to all team founders (US NAVY) accross BOINC...they can keep their founder position, I would rather they simply use our team forums/webpages on our own servers and keep things centralized with our biggest project Seti*at*Home. (which currently is carrying 70% of cobblestones across all US NAVY projects BOINC wide)

 

Hmm..what to do?

Michael Buckingham

 

"No trees were killed in the making of this email, however, a large

number of Electrons were terribly inconvenienced."

---

From: David Anderson <da...@ssl.berkeley.edu>
Reply-To: boinc-tea...@googlegroups.com
To: boinc-tea...@googlegroups.com

Subject: [boinc-team-founders] teams and projects
Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2007 11:05:52 -0700

[Pawly]

LOL It's funny how the world works sometimes! I SKYPED John37309 of
Paddy's in Space today to say hello and catch up and I tell him of the
group here and someof the things we are talking about and he has a
surprise for me as well! I'm sure some of you know he set up an
informal Seti Team Leaders and Activists Forum, well he has retooled
it and also has a new Document (Excel style) that he plans to release
for use by team captains. He sent me an advance copy and WOW!!! You
plug in your user name, email addy and password it then pulls the
statistical info (via xml? not too sure) from the various projects and
generates lists and tabbed pages for viewing. If you are the founder
of a team then it allows you to see address of members, if you aren't
the founder , no addys. He says he will be making it available very
soon here and the site. --> http://www.boincteams.com/index.php
Unfortunately I didn't have a lot of time to spend checking out the
doc but it looks very powerful. It tracks members joining and leaving
as well as other functions. Thought you folks might like to know.

1) Registering the team name with BOINC for use across all projects
would keep other teams from having the same problems Michael and
myself (along with many others I'm sure) have had for sure.

2) If project admins could be made aware of the problem and then maybe
they could help with abandoned teams but as for a founder "squatting"
on a name and not wanting to give it up then I would say "Pass the
bottle and share." At Canada we have had both of these examples and
luckily it has been peaceful and sedate. We all work together.

3) I can only speak from what I have seen and that is most want to be
a part of a team across all projects but there are those who like to
"spread the love around." Again I have both types on my team.

I want to thank you again for setting this up, David. It has really
made me start thinking that there are very interesting times ahead of
us!

[John37309]

Hi Pawly. John here!!!

> > > should change across all BOINC projects.- Hide quoted text -

[Pawly]

Michael,
If the founder you want to replace at a project has been absent for a
while then I advise you to contact the admin (like we did at Canada)
and advise them of the situation. I have found them very happy to
send an email to the founder and if no reply the transfer is made
manually. Good luck! We know what you are attempting and it's
tough! But you can do it with patience and lots of emails! lol

On Jul 17, 6:11 pm, "Michael Buckingham" <m_bucking...@hotmail.com>
wrote:

> Dr. Anderson,
>
> I tried this approach, but there isn't a way for me to contact them..no PM function or access to their email address. I can click on transfer, (which is how I got Rosetta *finally*)...but I don't like surprising team founders with a transfer request without speaking to them first...it just feels rude. hehe. I think the forum PM function is Seti*at*Home specific?
>
> Currently, my team mates and I are working on getting these other teams that have our name....
>
> I do not envy you, as this will be no easy task and for the most part, is probably not fair to those who went to a project and then created a team...albeit with a poached name.
>
> I would prefer having a way to speak to all team founders (US NAVY) accross BOINC...they can keep their founder position, I would rather they simply use our team forums/webpages on our own servers and keep things centralized with our biggest project Seti*at*Home. (which currently is carrying 70% of cobblestones across all US NAVY projects BOINC wide)
>
>
>
> Hmm..what to do?
>
> Michael Buckingham
>
>
>
> "No trees were killed in the making of this email, however, a large
>
> number of Electrons were terribly inconvenienced."
>

[Pawly]

Well Speak of the devil ..... lol nice to see you!

[John37309]

I posted a message here about 4 hours ago but i dont know what
happened to it. It never appeared.

> > > - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -

[John37309]

Switch on your skype Pawly!

[Matthew Blumberg]

On Jul 18, 2007, at 12:53 AM, Pawly wrote:

>>> If I create a team on SETI@home or Rosetta it
>>> should be created across the BOINC family. If the owner changes it
>>> should change across all BOINC projects.

i'd like to float an idea -- where cross-project functionality is
being contemplated, perhaps account management systems like
gridrepublic and bam may play a role. these systems are already
designed to be cross-project interfaces to the boinc world.

that said, i've been struggling with how to impliment cross project
teams at gridrepublic for many of the reasons you have all discussed,
primarily namespace issues and ownership issues.

a rough (and not at all considered) idea would be for account
managers to serve as keepers of the namespace. i'm not clear on
whether i am suggesting that each account manager have a separate
name space (perhaps adminsitered by some kind of "domain" scheme at
projects), or if there is some way for AMS systems to stay
syncronized in this regard.

a question: how does the internet domain name system work, and is
this a model worth considering in any sense (for how it succeeds and
how it fails)? in broad terms, i observe that there are many
registrars, but there are no name conflicts. but i don't really know
how it works.

...matt

[John37309]

Hi ,
Anyway I'm John from the team PADDY'S IN SPACE. Many of the people
here already know me from various places.

I am very glad to have been accepted as a member of this forum to
discuss teams on the boinc projects.

There are many realy good topics here that have been mentioned already
in this one message. I want to reply to several of them. It might be a
good idea so that we can better keep track of our discussions to try
to start "New Topics" when we chat about different issues.

I will try to start some new topics with heading that relate to
individual issues so that i can reply to those specific issues.
hopefully others will do the same.

Its good to be here, i think that this forum will be of great benifit
to BOINC and the teams that are involved in it.

John in Ireland.

[c...@czechnationalteam.cz]

So messieurs and now something constructive and from me:
1. Throw would with capacity as cross over all of a sudden on of all
project to other team
2. possibility mergence two (or more) of the user into one's joint
account
3. in BOINCMANAGER survey full personal statistics of all project as
well as the like survey team into whose link
4. manager team on project would with certainly throw possibility on
some clicks violate on of all project plea for translation rights on
on other account
5. possibility collective edits description team on of all project at
a blow would so are we save lashings clock around work
6. solve problems with description team on 10 project, where haywire
HTML or further capacity as, inclusive project Seti@Home, where must
have been our description team too maimed to with there at all
something given write. I don't see why the so is,I don't see why the
so is, when sooner everything function without problem
7. further would come in handy to exist founder new project mailem
notice on their initiation, when with so tent and mission invite code.
Precede would with so problem with already included names our team,
which with then had to awkwardly solve
8. it me send berserk to further point, ghastly heavy with searches
contact on admin or founder project, that would upright business on
project could bear a hand. Threw would with indeed list mailu to at
least some such man near everybody's project. For example with to me
never unsuccessful get contact on to someone from project management
Folding@Home (if meanwhile isn't on BOINC). About search doodad
contact am with tempt already several times for the duration of last 2
flight and nowhere am him find out. Our team with participation that
is of all DC projekts, no only of those below BOINC. It isn't only
case, but as far as should by chance somebody from you mail on to
someone from Folding, I would have to him much grateful. Cannot manage
visit fora on project regarding their quantity as well as knowledge
tongue so simply address concrete man in an emergency is it only thing
possible.
9. further from matter of is unification funds dole out credit on of
all project. Now yourself people nor so search project for one's sake
the about cem is, but accordingly how much behind work getting, which
is degenerate. Suppose that think out some rule about minimum credit
and max. to the value of behind enlistment work on average PC
shouldn't be up to such problem. Is to me clear that people from Seti
it much advertise will not, because just at the moment their project
is the from that would go away at once half people, but certainly
would it welcome each of us, if with everywhere arrange in the same
way and only difference would has just been in computer performance.
For example on QMC isn't problem make gain of my PC 2500 kredits per
day (E6400), but thereon like computer on uFluids I will get all of
100 per day. It's quite nonsensical difference and degradation one
project reacts it devaluation work people, who with plug into work on
project only according to simpatie.
10. As well delimit in heftiness on RAM would wasn't to chucked.
Present exigencies one project on 700MB RAM/application is yourself I
think minimally unseemly.
11. too determination maximum conditions enlistment time of day/
general dedline would come in handy to. One projects this limits shall
they fixed term very well, but for example Einstein with on majority
computer neda pursuable namely doesn't speak thereof that thought
BOINC is play only residual computer performance and it'd nestihl
almost nobody.
12.In person would indeed welcome if with somewhere on some internet
pages generate news of all project. Didn't have to would so man all
the time zigzag on references and be on the look for where with what
new state.

so it'll perhaps for the present everything, already is much clock
around (then in our country ) and wife for me waits in bed ;-)
perhaps with majority of those matter of already somewhere sometimes
solve, but I indeed on any fora shan't time, nor force, rather her
appropriate for publicity. Mind that and that is why has ours republic
such ratio achievement on BOINC/population of given of the state
namely and buckle quite low computerized literacy and chickenfeed
people on proper hardware.

[David Anderson]

I'm certain that there's a lot of good stuff in Forest's emails,
but (and I apologize) I can't understand most of it.
I would guess that Czech-to-English automated translation
doesn't work as well as for other language pairs.
If some gets the gist of these points, can you please
paraphrase and repost to this list?
-- David

[c...@czechnationalteam.cz]

Much with smooth over, but without automatic translator would of that
perhaps much carries-wrote.
Will you according to of those point write that is not have?
You would with then reach up somehow better describe.

[David Anderson]

The forum private-message functionality is not specific to SETI@home.
All projects will get it when they update their server code.
(please email any projects that haven't done so,
or let me know and I'll email them).

I've thought up a fairly lightweight approach to supporting
BOINC-wide teams.
The idea is: create a web site for registering BOINC-wide teams.
Any disputes over ownership would be resolved by "oldest team wins".

The resulting list of teams (and founder email addrs) would be exported
in the BOINC source code distribution,
and every new BOINC project would be pre-populated with these users/teams.
See:
http://boinc.berkeley.edu/trac/wiki/TeamDiscussion

Comments?

-- David

Michael Buckingham wrote:
> Dr. Anderson,
>
> I tried this approach, but there isn't a way for me to contact them..no
> PM function or access to their email address. I can click on transfer,
> (which is how I got Rosetta *finally*)...but I don't like surprising
> team founders with a transfer request without speaking to them
> first...it just feels rude. hehe. I think the forum PM function is
> Seti*at*Home specific?
>
> Currently, my team mates and I are working on getting these other teams
> that have our name....
>
> I do not envy you, as this will be no easy task and for the most part,
> is probably not fair to those who went to a project and then created a
> team...albeit with a poached name.
>
> I would prefer having a way to speak to all team founders (US NAVY)
> accross BOINC...they can keep their founder position, I would rather
> they simply use our team forums/webpages on our own servers and keep
> things centralized with our biggest project Seti*at*Home. (which
> currently is carrying 70% of cobblestones across all US NAVY projects
> BOINC wide)
>
>
>
> Hmm..what to do?
>
> Michael Buckingham
>
> "No trees were killed in the making of this email, however, a large
> number of Electrons were terribly inconvenienced."
>

> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> From: /David Anderson <da...@ssl.berkeley.edu>/
> Reply-To: /boinc-tea...@googlegroups.com/
> To: /boinc-tea...@googlegroups.com/
> Subject: /[boinc-team-founders] teams and projects/
> Date: /Tue, 17 Jul 2007 11:05:52 -0700/

[Matthew Blumberg]

a request: can such a site provide RPCs for all functions?

[David Anderson]

This (hypothetical) site would be implemented as BOINC project
(but with no applications etc.; nothing but teams).

The "export" feature would make team founder emails publicly visible
(we could obscure them)
but wouldn't provide access to any other emails.

[John37309]

I very much like the sound of what you suggested David. The whole
thing has to be from a central data base of BOINC team names. The way
i see this working is if i am a new kid and i register on a project, i
go to my profile and i click the link to "find team". Currently if i
do this, it leads me to a page where i can "search" for team names or
"create a new team".

This page should be connected so that when you search for a name or
try to create a new team, you will be searching the BOINC central data
base of names. It should still stay the same way so the team is only
created on one project. But the thing is you will now have "Booked"
that name on the boinc data base for that project. That is also how it
is on each project at the moment.

Here is the issue, it is just like domain names, some are more
valuable than others. I don't think that ANY team founder should have
the exclusive right to a particular team name across all boinc
projects. Every team has a "Life Cycle" and some teams last longer
than others. People, including myself, become enthusiastic about some
boinc projects for a while and many of them then quit and the team
"Dies" a slow death in time. The founder Transfer option is great to
bring life back to a dead team.

So could your "right" to a team name be linked to whether you are
active or not?. If you have not been active for 2 months, then maybe
you loose the "right" to the team name on that project. I know that
this might make it difficult for a small team to be on all the
projects but i think it might work. We should debate this.

Another thing that has to be a part of this is that a team founder
MUST be contactable by his team members. You have to allow for teams
to be taken over easily when the founder has quit. If you chose to
start a team instead of joining one, you MUST pay the price, you have
to be contactable by your team members.

Look this will also work well with my other suggestion of being able
to promote one or more team members to "Assistant Team founder" giving
them some extra assistant functions and management tools. I would like
to be able to see the "Assistant team founders" name underneath where
the team founders name appears on the team page. This would be good
for moral on a team and make the assistant "feel important" and
"needed" by the team. Very important point!

I could write a book on this, i will stop for the moment.

John in Ireland.

> >> The idea is: create a web site for registering BOINC-wide teams.- Hide quoted text -

[David Anderson]

Here's how I see it working:

We create a "BOINC Teams" site for registering BOINC-wide teams.
The resulting list of teams and founder email addrs
(suitably disguised to avoid spammers)
will be downloaded and processed periodically by projects.
Thus, new projects will be pre-populated with these accounts and teams
(including their description, URL etc).
Existing projects will update their DB periodically.

The founder email addrs (of these teams) will be visible,
in a disguised form, on the BOINC Teams site.
(this is a price that founders must pay).

What if a team founder disappears, or someone wants to become founder
of a team on a particular project?
I think our current mechanism (allowing users to request team founder transfer,
current founder has 2 months to respond) will work OK:

- Anyone can request founder transfer on the BOINC Teams site.
If this succeeds, the change in foundership (from X to Y, say)
will be propagated: on any project where that team has founder X,
it will be changed to Y on the next update.

- Anyone can request founder transfer on any BOINC project,
even for a BOINC-wide team. The same rules apply.

-- David

[David Anderson]

In particular, team-founder functions won't be connected
to credit; was shouldn't expect a team founder to compute
for all projects.
-- David

[Zain Upton]

All for this set of suggestions. I think it will be a good step forward.

Zain