River stated

Thirdly, and this is the main point I want to make in the rest of this posting: the main idea of DC is to use otherwise wasted cpu cycles. Those of us (including me) with multiple machines that are only kept running for the stats are not actually what DC is about. We are the 'outsiders' and we should not expect the mainstream to change for our own convenience. Ask: yes; expect: no.

I started off using DC with Distributed Folding (and ended up as one of the top 50 contributors - a fact that nobody cares about anymore! :). I've had one machine on D2oL for awhile before leaving in disgust; and a handful at FaD for the last 8? months of the project, and the majority of my machines are running F@H. I have >1< machine running Rosetta via Boinc. I'm not asking for special priveleges - but I, and many others who have access to multiple machines that are/were interested in donating cpu cycles to this project have certain requirements for our multiple machines. Miraculously, these requirements are also requirements for your claimed prime focus of the DC project - the single cpu cruncher.

1. A client that can keep the cpu from idling. Preferably well behaved, and doesn't interfere with any primary task in the foreground. When constantly online machines are sitting there doing nothing while the project has tons of tasks waiting to be done, the correct procedure is to notify the project of the problem and help work out a solution, not to totally ignore it and move on to other tasks. A number of the multiple cpu folks have described their problems, attempted to find solutions, and moved on to other projects until the problems are taken care of. Recent posts by David Kim state that they're trying to deal with possible solutions on the project side.

2. Easy to setup, easy to use client. DF, F@H, and FaD were very easy to setup and the first two were easy to move from machine to machine. (Useful for burning in client machines). The conflicting information being passed around for Boinc shows that we're not out of the Beta stage here. The issues are hopefully being passed on, and being worked on by appropriate folks.

2. Minimal usage of network resources. You'll note that single cpu dialup customers in what used to be the USSR (one of the largest teams in FaD) are not able to contribute to this project because the excessive bandwidth charges and connection charges ate up half their monthly income. The world is not made up of $19.95/mo unlimited bandwidth 56k modem connections with free 24/7 31 day a month connections. And at 17meg/hr or less download speeds, multi hour downloads per machine every day will start to strain the patience of a large portion of the single cpu dialup contributor base. The collosal bandwidth usage is a hurdle for those with bandwidth caps. In 5 days, I had 250Megs downloaded. By day 16, I had 2 gigs downloaded. Panda downloads say 1 meg a day for virus def updates. There may have been a 40 meg windows update that it downloaded during that 2 week period. The local cable modem packages have 4 Gigs/mo, 8 Gigs/mo, and 12 Gigs/mo bandwidth caps. Having 1ea 2 Ghz machine eat up half the bandwidth of a cable modem package is not acceptable. (I ran 10 copies of DF behind a single dialup connection, and was still able to use the dialup connection for other purposes.) 8-10 F@H clients don't eat up 50megs/day together - let alone the 130Megs/day the single RaH client has been averaging. Changing to better compression (a problem with multiple Boinc projects) and optimizing the client (having it download a single type of work and asking for 24 hours worth of that single type of work will dramatically cut down on the bandwidth usage for both we, the project's work force, and for the project (ramp up the number of users enough, and we'll knock out the University of Washington's network and the UW network admins will force better compression/wiser bandwidth usage on the project. :)
The problems have been reported, suggestions offered, and steps are being taken.

When these issues are taken care of, single cpu dialup users and multi cpu users (dialup and broadband) will return or join. Make the hurdles to overcome to join the project low enough, and hordes will join. Keep the required resources low enough, and most will be able to stay.. Yes, some of us are familiar with the Beta stage of projects and make the appropriate suggestions and try and help with finding solutions.

If our bringing up problems that have already been brought up, and their being worked on by the project has offended RaH contributors that have been here longer than my time, or any of the other recent ex-D2oL, ex-FaD, etc's time here, then feel free to sing the song my grandfather played for me the day I was born - and has been sung about for roughly the past 150 years.. The Kingston Trio's version of Tom Dooley. (Keep in mind, I'm doing my best to keep away from a noose.. :) Now if I could just remember other's names as easily as they can remember mine.. :)

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As a moderator it is not my place to actually express opinions on the boards so please accept my apologies for inserting myself into the conversation. I just sweep up around the place, and try to organize things a little bit. But I do have some responsibility to the project team to inform users when I can about issues of concern to the community if I have some knowledge of the subject.

Dr. Baker is at meetings this week and therefore unavailable to read or comment on the boards for a few days. When he returns, as time permits, he will address any issues he has not already spoken to. he has told me this in a PM.

David Kim is hard at work actually fixing the problems the community has recently been discussing. In particular, he has begun to implement solutions for the Max time errors, download time (compression) issues, and is working hard on the 1% hang issue. As you might suspect these go directly to your ability to work and the science they are pursuing, so they will naturally come first. They are also internal R@H issues over which they have some direct control.

As he works through these "repairs" they each require testing. Currently this is absorbing all of his time. As I see issues that look important I send both of them notes to draw attention to them. The other moderators do as well.

I and some of the other moderators are testing and reporting test results back to them so they can judge progress on the repairs as they gently deploy them on the project. From what I can tell they are getting a handle on some of these problems.

In that vein they are aware of the discussion about forum layout. They are aware that the users are concerned about having more information, and having it presented in a way that makes it timely and easy to locate. Some of these are BOINC related issues over which they have limited short term control, and they will take more time.

I feel certain that they will chime in as time and location permit.

I am trying to work on this issue myself within the limited confines of the system we have and my access to the system. Please feel free to take a look at and comment on the new look I am putting up on the FAQ thread. It will take me a few more days to get it in place but I have put up the template. Right now it looks a little silly because there are only two exemplar questions in place, but you should be able to get the idea. let me know if the approach looks like it will bring any relief. Also please contribute FAQ questions and answers if you have any. Full credit will be provided to the contributing user and team (good PR for your team). There are obvious problems such as, it wont work if you do not look at the list in order of most recent posts first. That I can't fix.

As to the tone of discourse on the boards. I do not believe in censorship, and though I cannot speak for the other moderators, I do not think they do either. I do believe in civil public discourse. I would encourage the user community to regulate itself as to tone and temper. Remember if a post would insult you, it will likely insult someone else.

None of you really want the moderation team to start damping the conversation through our own opinions as to what each of you should be allowed to say. While we of course have this power, it is my belief that it should only be used at the extreme outer edges of discussions, and as infrequently as possible. Otherwise, it can get out of control.

There are some limits as to language and temperance that for the good of this project and the larger community we MUST moderate and as we see offending posts they will be removed. But I find this to be the most distasteful aspect of moderating. No matter how well third party moderation is done, it is still just another form of censorship, and nobody wants that.

I would close with one final observation. Paul Buck is on every board in the BOINC world. All of us have read his posts and used his WIKI. He IS the WIKI man. Paul has an almost unlimited reservoir of patience and tolerance. When the discourse gets so low that HE throws in the towel, we all need to stop for a moment and think about "what can I do to make this situation better?", before we hit the return key on the next post.

Now, where did I leave my broom?

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Moderator9
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Paul wrote

Since I agree with the sentiment that RAH has gone downhill, and possibly partly my fault (all my fault?) ... time to do something different ...

Why would you quit ? No one wants that. Please reconsider.

I would close with one final observation. Paul Buck is on every board in the BOINC world. All of us have read his posts and used his WIKI. He IS the WIKI man. Paul has an almost unlimited reservoir of patience and tolerance. When the discourse gets so low that HE throws in the towel, we all need to stop for a moment and think about "what can I do to make this situation better?", before we hit the return key on the next post.

I take it you are refering to me when you say that, as it seems it was me who Paul went in the 'huff' with ?

I have only ever made 8 posts on this forum, plus 1 other which was a mistake when I replied to myself while editing a formating error while quoting. I hit reply instead of edit and created a duplicate post. I edited this post and left the message "Duplicate post, edited by Whl" A Mod kindly tidied this up by deleting it.

You will find links to these 8 posts below, to make it easy for you to find them. Please take a look and tell me what I did that was so wrong ?

https://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/forum_thread.php?id=952#9479

https://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/forum_thread.php?id=952#9517

https://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/forum_thread.php?id=952#9540

https://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/forum_thread.php?id=952#9624

https://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/forum_thread.php?id=952#9650

https://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/forum_thread.php?id=952#9676

https://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/forum_thread.php?id=952#9703

https://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/forum_thread.php?id=966#9592

I take it you are refering to me when you say that, ...

Then you will have taken it wrong, but provided a perfect example of why it is a mistake for any moderator to actually enter into forum discussions. I apologize for that, but please note the highlighted text below.

I would close with one final observation. Paul Buck is on every board in the BOINC world. All of us have read his posts and used his WIKI. He IS the WIKI man. Paul has an almost unlimited reservoir of patience and tolerance. When the discourse gets so low that HE throws in the towel, we all need to stop for a moment and think about "what can I do to make this situation better?", before we hit the return key on the next post.

Collective language, targeted at no one single individual.

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Moderator9
ROSETTA@home FAQ
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Now it is being widely spread that this thread is a massive flame war having just re read it I`d disagree. There has been some heated debate but not a great deal of flaming OR ABUSE, there was some I grant you, so read it yourself if you`ve the time.

If this one thread is what you call massive disruption and callous argument, I ask you to do one thing.....

Go into the nearest Church, get on your knees and thank God you weren`t married to my first wife...

I have heard and seen worse in the House of Commons....

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Not all Czech`s bounce but I`d like to try with Barbar ;-)

Make no mistake This IS the TEDDIES TEAM.

Now it is being widely spread that this thread is a massive flame war ....

To be fair, I have deleted a number of posts from this thread, and moved a few as off topic, there may be a few more (I have not completed the review). But it should look better now than it did two days ago.

It is my hope that this thread will slowly begin to float away without additional moderation. Some have suggested deleting it. I think that is not necessary. it might be better to delete the posts after the titled question received an answer, but keep the the original questions and the answer. The question posed was valid and as was the answer.

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Moderator9
ROSETTA@home FAQ
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Moderator9 wrote

Then you will have taken it wrong........

Ok, thanks. Fairplay to you.

I just wanted to clear it up that it was'nt me who chased Paul away, as he said he was leaving in a post that was a reply to one of mine.