No. We made suggestions. You may be interpreting our suggestions, pulling from our knowledge of the community on FaD as "demands". But, in the end we have no big stick above you or this projects head. We have no childish "I want this to be my way, or else".

Why demand when you can just fall back onto the old team sites and forums? Which has been done.

Yes the community ran the forums there - it was their community. Friends, talking together, getting help from each other when they needed, friendly competition between teams.) The admins/mods guided it gently (at least while I was there).


The downside to the lack of community feeling here has meant that the teams from FaD have segregated (no central meeting place). But we still have our communities.

The suggestions were made because what existed at FaD worked, and worked extremely well. The forums were, in the main part, self moderating. You didn't need a huge team of aggressive mods there, as you do here... flames happened, but a lot less than goes on here.

We had FUN, and the technology lent itself to that.



Edit: for clarification.
Edit again: spelling & de-personalisation (dont want to seem like flaming!).
Edit again: rewording.
4th edit: rewording/clarification
5th edit: rewording.

---

Why people don't stay at projects in general.

1. It takes about six weeks for the RAC to reach maximum on a computer running 24/7. Some people may get discouraged by their RAC or the points awarded and quit.

2. Hardware and software issues. When run 24/7, computers with marginal cooling have problems. Many computers' software runs just fine until the processor is fully utilized. I had problems in the past that required me to upgrade BIOS, remove Roxio Easy CD Creator, remove Nero, and install updated video and audio drivers. It is easier to blame Rosetta@home for difficulties and remove the program.

3. Curiosity. Some run it and aren't entertained for long. Others may be running other projects and take a look at Rosetta just in case they decide to quit the project they are already running.

4. Improper computer configurations. A large category, but I am referring to advanced system properties such as virtual memory settings, power options, and connection settings.

5. Firewall configuration issues.

6. Server problems/lack of work.

7. It helps if the client is user-friendly and intuitive. I had to learn both BOINC and Rosetta@home settings.

8. Some people may have reinstalled the operating system or gotten a new computer and forgot to install the program again.

9. Got a job or a different job and lost interest or don't have time for it.

10. Remote computers with problems. There is one at my son's house.

11. Forums. Friendly and informative.

In Chapter Four of The Phsychology of Cyberspace, by Dr. John Suler, there is a section entitled "Making virtual communities work" in which he refers to "Nine Principles for Making Virtual Communities Work" by Mike Godwin at HotWired!.

Partial Quote

The nine principles he outlines for maximizing the possibility that a virtual community will survive are:

Use software that promotes good discussions

Don't impose a length limitation on postings

Front-load your system with talkative, diverse people

Let the users resolve their own disputes

Provide institutional memory

Promote continuity

Be host to a particular interest group

Provide places for children

Confront the users with a crisis

Note: All of the ideas in 1 through 11 are not my own. Discussion of retention of members is universal.

Opinion: Rosetta@home's retention rate is above average and can improve.

I don't think a distributed computing science project needs to provide a social interaction web forum. There are plenty of other places on the internet that provide those.

The projects DO need to have a place to discuss serious things related to the project science and their application.

As far as I'm concerned the Cafe's can all be tossed.

Users can find help in Q&A or Number Crunching (depending on whether or not they have credit). The science side gets discussed in the Science forum. Announcements are on the Home Page or Technical News.

Teams can provide their own web site and forum if they think that will attract more users. It's not the project's responsibility to provide team social web space.

Keep it serious and relevant.

---

Proudly Banned from Predictator@Home and now Cosmology@home as well. Added SETI to the list today. Temporary ban only - so need to work harder :)



"You can't fix stupid" (Ron White)

Well, I can see that reducing the moderation of the forums did not help things. Just for the record. The forum software does not allow a moderator to "Edit" someone's post. If there is offensive material, the entire post must be deleted. Second, there is no way to leave a marker in place of any deleted post.

Whenever I delete a post the person gets a message from me explaining why it was deleted. If I move a thread everyone who posted to the thread gets a notice. To my knowledge no posts have ever been deleted because of the ideas they contain. I certainly do not work that way and I do not see other moderators doing it either. The language is the driving force behind deletion of almost all posts. In some cases people double post, or request deletions, or quote from a deleted post. In my case I delete the original offending post and the responses to it to be fair to both parties. But other than that posts are only moved, and only then if there is a more appropriate topical place for them.

While some people seem to feel that the forums are over moderated, others feel they are under moderated. Over the last month I had other duties to perform, which effectively reduced the moderation significantly. I now have some time to return to Rosetta, and I will. Considering the number of moderators active on the forums, it would be very hard to think they are over moderated. Moreover, most of the moderators who are active are also Rosetta users. So in reality the forums are moderated by the user community. I am not the only such moderator/user.

While there are general guideline provided by the project for moderating, the day to day specifics are left to the moderator to work out. So the techniques vary from Moderator to moderator. In the end the project determines who stays and who goes based on how well they do the job. Fairness is the key.

I have been accused by both sides in this discussion of bias. Frankly, when both side accuse me of the same offense, then the offense by definition cannot exist. All any of the moderators (myself included) ever ask for is a modicum of organizational discipline in placing your post and a certain level of civility in the discourse. Other than that you are free to express yourselves as you see fit. If the forums are not "fun" enough, that is not the fault of the moderators, or the level of moderation. Perhaps if you require the use of inappropriate language, images, or threats to express yourselves "for fun" you should expand your vocabulary.

---

Moderator9
ROSETTA@home FAQ
Moderator Contact

So why was this post deleted as "obscene"? Did I use a word that is obscene in some language other than English? I also did NOT get an email about the deletion.

Science and no sense of community. Agreed, nec. Look at the discussion here to see how some of us were welcomed.

There's plenty of community here. Lots of folks who care about the project, and lots of input from the project folks. This project has the best reputation and the cleanest, most civil forums of any of the BOINC projects.


Now- for a slight departure from mellowness:
I can't believe you ex-FaD'rs are still whining about not being able to turn this forum into your personal clone of the FaD forum.

Get over it.

---

Proudly Banned from Predictator@Home and now Cosmology@home as well. Added SETI to the list today. Temporary ban only - so need to work harder :)



"You can't fix stupid" (Ron White)

Cos you`re a City Banker, Angus !

You`re the biggest Troll and attention seeker I`ve ever seen, if you were a child they`d be thinking along the lines of ADHD.

---

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

Make no mistake This IS the TEDDIES TEAM.

Angus asked -

So why was this post deleted as "obscene"? Did I use a word that is obscene in some language other than English? I also did NOT get an email about the deletion.

I can't help you with an answer. I did not delete it, but it would appear that it was part of a larger series of posts involving some flaming. As I said. Sometimes the response is deleted as a matter of fairness. From our many conversations, you seem to think that all of the moderators have detailed knowledge of the actions of all the others. That is not the case.

---

Moderator9
ROSETTA@home FAQ
Moderator Contact

I believe the post was deleted by the Administrator, Ethan, because it is flamebait.

I am trying hard to be constructive, and have supported my views about virtual community with a credible reference. I don't want enemies. Angus, you have been an antagonist elsewhere, and it doesn't take much time on Google to find this listing at SETI: http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_user_posts.php?userid=25311.

One of my trusted friends has already told me that I am making a fool of myself, and I apoligize to anyone else who shares his opinion.

Let's please go forward with the topic and forget the past.

I think this forum/project is over moderated. It is difficult for teams to get a thread going - Look at the last FaDBeens thread (for instance) ( http:/www.fadbeens.co.uk -In case you don't know who we are :) ) Someone converted it to a general team thread. I know it isn't the be all and end all but it is nice to have a separate recruitment area and maybe even some additional forums for other things like hardware/software debates etc, etc. Projects rely on a sense of community and I don't think you get a very good sense of community by revolving all conversation around "high science" (that the average person has difficulty understanding/maybe isn’t interested in) or by (perhaps unintentionally) alienating the members and/or pretending your moderators are numberized robots!
I would suggest you loosen things up a bit (give the moderators proper human names and personalities :lol: ) and try and make the place a bit more homely and roomy. If the science is good then people will gravitate this way whether they understand it or not – To keep them/bring them back, I suggest, you will have to provide a friendlier and more expansive environment.

Full Ack.
This over moderation, inappropriate moving of threads, bad threadment of users by the mods and other users, heavy arogancy against other boinc projects from a lot of users and mods, and zensoring of postings with constructive criticsm has forced me to stop crunching rosetta and ralph.
Sometimes I check the messageboards, but if there would not be a significant change, I seen no more reason to crunch these projects.

---

I still say that you will not find another project with more team involvement or team/user interaction. Besides, look at any project and you'll see that only 1 to 2% af all active users post on a regular basis. Dr. Baker's team have got their hands full winding down casp, getting new algorythms, and getting set to satisfy the "Gates Foundation" grant for HIV.

So I imagine that they don't have time to experiment in forum design right now. Infact, I don't know what they have planned. As for being heavy on science, this is a science project. So I imagine that science will be discussed.

Without moderation it would only take two months for these forums not to be decent to read. Not to sound arogant or put down SETI (the inventors of DC), but the lack of Forum Moderators over there and the "Self Moderation" of users didn't work out so well. In fact, SETI had to impose moderators.

Psychology or Experience; What's your pleasure.

---

Keith we`re not asking the project team to jump merely stating our thoughts on the topic of this thread.

To be totally honest I don`t ever think this place will be upto much because of the people who believe they own it. Most of us are quite willing to stick with our own forums, howether this does not promote loyalty to the project. With little interaction with other teams/users it only takes a couple to have had enough and the team will leave. Most of the people I have seen leave are people who have had enough of the people on here, not the project support team but the mouths who think they are.

Whilst discussing the science is fine, it is not the be all and end all of our lives, infact to be honest I don`t know the science of this project nor am I interested. The whole idea of DC is to get normal people involved who may not know the ins and outs of molecules etc., or even want to. David Baker asked for computer users not scientist`s.

As for moderation I would NOT say this place was over moderated but the opposite, howether as we have seen each mod has his own way there is no interaction between them or even a goal. It`s like you and I being made mods, there is no plan and I dare say the mods feel sometime they could have more direct orders from above. That is in a way how the project feels, no leadership, that isn`t to say the science isn`t going well or not...it simply is. Another good project though would see this diminish in terms of crunchers rather quickly though. Word of mouth would have people leaving in droves and where would that word of mouth be......OUT THERE on the team forums, not here. Out there where loyalty is to each other, where the only thing that matters is what your small team is doing not your friends in other teams cos you don`t see them.

What we have here are fractious groups joined together by a place they don`t like, rarely visit and don`t really care for. It will not promote loyalty to a cause.

Psychology IS experience.

---

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

Make no mistake This IS the TEDDIES TEAM.

Psychology or Experience; What's your pleasure.

I particularly like this description of how the brain stays "tribal" i.e. discounts arguments based on an opposite train of thought/belief system or opposing doctrine ~ discarding/filtering them in favour of an outmoded model or dysfunctional idea purely because its own ideas/belief systems bring comfort and familiarity i.e. despite the fact the logical argument has been won - Those who are forced to negate logic as a result of this reliance on a more “comfortable belief” continue to argue anyway.

Motivated political reasoning
- 3 -
In political science, cognitive science, economics, law, and business, the predominant
models of judgment and decision making today might be called “almost-rational man” models.
These models suggest that people are rational within limits imposed by cognitive shortcuts and
heuristics that can bias reasoning (1-3). In political science, a long-standing body of research on
“partisan” biases in political judgment (4) points to another set of limits to rational judgment
imposed by motivated reasoning (i.e., reasoning biased to produce emotionally preferable
conclusions, 5). Motivated reasoning can be viewed as a form of implicit affect regulation, in
which the brain converges on solutions that minimize negative and maximize positive affect
states (6-8). Freud described such processes decades ago, using the term “defense” to denote the
processes by which people can adjust their cognitions to avoid aversive feelings such as anxiety
and guilt.
Neural network models of motivated reasoning suggest that in affectively relevant
situations, the brain equilibrates to solutions that simultaneously satisfy two sets of constraints:
cognitive constraints, which maximize goodness of fit to the data, and emotional constraints,
which maximize positive affect and minimize negative affect (8-10). Decision theorists have
long argued that people gravitate toward decisions that maximize expected utility (or in
emotional terms, that optimize current or anticipated affect; 11, 12). Contemporary views of
motivation similarly emphasize approach and avoidance systems motivated by positive and
negative affect (13). The same processes of approach and avoidance, motivated by affect or
anticipated affect, may apply to motivated reasoning, such that people will implicitly approach
and avoid judgments based on their emotional associations.

---

Been there done that?
FaDBeens * Visit The FaDBeens Forum

I asked nec for the reference and it is A fMRI study of motivated reasoning: Partisan political reasoning in the U.S. Presidential Election, http://www.uky.edu/AS/PoliSci/Peffley/pdf/Westen The neural basis of motivated reasoning.pdf

Now, THERE's a pile of pyscho-babble!

:)

---

Proudly Banned from Predictator@Home and now Cosmology@home as well. Added SETI to the list today. Temporary ban only - so need to work harder :)



"You can't fix stupid" (Ron White)

Now, THERE's a pile of pyscho-babble!

:)

Judging by your post, I'd say people actually function like that...

Angus, was that it ? Your troll for the day ? Or are you in other forums atm trolling ?

Dear Mr. Moderator when you delete the obvious troll by Angus, please delete this too ! Thankyou !

---

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

Make no mistake This IS the TEDDIES TEAM.

Ain't it the truth; ain't it the truth.
On a positive note, at least he's doing some meaningful crunching, unlike some other rabble on other project's boards. There's always the bright side to consider.

Ain't it the truth; ain't it the truth.
On a positive note, at least he's doing some meaningful crunching, unlike some other rabble on other project's boards. There's always the bright side to consider.

Yup- looks like about twice as much credit here as c***.h, and more than just about everyone else in this thread ('cept Ethan and vavega).

VaVega builds her own, and got me started with this computer which shows in the stats (unhidden) as running Longhorn Professional (Vista Beta 2). My RAC is now down to ~1000 since I got rid of my optimized clients and started running BOINC 5.5.6. I'll lose the mobile AMD 64 Athlon 3200+ (XP Home) when my granddaughter takes it back to U. of Hawaii on 18 August.

Unlike me, carl.h actually makes a living building and repairing computers. I have too many relatives wanting free work, so I need to get a business license. :-)

There's a lot more computer power available, but many old friends are just staying in touch and running only a few of their computers while investigating other projects or saving power (and heat load on their air conditioners). Some members can really turn it on if the new Rosetta can be run on a network with a queue server. I'll add another computer just as soon as I win a lottery or Bill Me Later and NewEgg conspire to take my money...

Rosetta@home sure gets lots of good media coverage which attracts new members, and we will all be happier once we all get acquainted.

---

Yup- looks like about twice as much credit here as c***.h, and more than just about everyone else in this thread ('cept Ethan and vavega).

The trolling get`s no better does it, Angus ? Why do you bother ?

Yep you`ve loads of credits Angus...but only an RAC of 349...hmmm strange that aint it.

The guy who joined yesterday and has only a hundred or so credits is just as valued as the rest of us.

We have people in our team putting in 18 points a day, others like Nite Owl who do 20k a day and total 2.7 million in 7 months, everyone is valued equally. There is no bigotry in our team over where you come from or how much you do.

---

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

Make no mistake This IS the TEDDIES TEAM.