Should the [H]orde transition projects?

[nwrtarget]

These are just my ideas by the way.

The advisory board should probably borrow some elements of the democratic system (employed in the US for example). Each forum that has a team elects its representatives possibly even based on number of active members or production. So 1 rep per 400 active folding members or whatever. The team can manage their own election process but as a guideline they run for reelection every six months or once a year. The team reps then advise the president, vp, and sec of the results and those users are added to the forum. The president vp and sec are elected out of the group of people sent by their teams by the people on the advisory board. If two of those three people agree on punishment for one of the members of the board or of the folding community as a whole that punishment is carried out. Also as an advisory board the whole board could vote to punish someone specific or enact a vote of no confidence in any of their leaders and overrule a bad decision made by the top. The top leaders are always accountable to the board as a whole. The decisions they make will be reviewed by the board as a whole and reversed if the board votes it to be so. The leaders would then be wise to act in a way that is most appropriate or face the board overruling them and possibly kicking them out of office. The board can kick someone off the board and ask the team to elect someone else. If the team elects the same person again then the board should work with that person to help them understand how things work and do their best to work with that individual. The teams should also understand that if a person is kicked off the board the reasons should be posted on the new election posting if that person runs again.

The advisory board would make and publish rules for the community to follow. They would punish those who ignore the rules. They would hopefully get support from the backend server management people to help detect those that break the rules.

I would think everything given to the advisory board would be public domain people who are beta testers and on the board would have to keep these separate. Their meeting notes should be made public once a month if not immediately available. Realizing that certain things can't be made immediately available like punishment discussions. The only exception to the rule that everything is made available could be cheating detection algorithms.

The board can run on a forum and that forum should have Vijay P and people that work for him as a mod. The only other mods should be the 3 elected leaders of the board.

The forums should be read only for the public (my opinion) but have a closed off section for punishments that gets published later and a cheating algorithm section that doesn't (again this depends but just the way I see it).

Vijay and his team should be allowed input to this forum as a whole so that their voice can be heard if they see fit.

As has been stated up higher this forum should focus on solutions not complaining. Topics should be focused so as to preserve the time of the members and to allow Vijay and his team the ability to get an overview of what is going on quickly.

Points assignment may at some point be handed to the board but I think we would be best at starting with getting things in place and working first.

 

[Nathan_P]

I love the idea of an advisory board but I believe that the people representing the folding community should come from both the large teams such as us, evga etc but also have representatives of smaller user and production base to make sure all bases are covered and all concerns are heard.

I also fold for blu-ray.com so i could chip in for them, not that they say much - they just fold on!!!

 

[Nathan_P]

Loving all the suggestions so far, this can only be for the good of the project in the long term

Perhaps Michael Mc-cord would be a good candidate from maximum-PC? I know he is on the Beta team.

 

[Tobit]

Vijay is mulling over several aspects of an advisory board and will be getting back to me in a few days.

 

[Linden]

Thank you, thank you Horde for taking such a responsible attitude and rolling out this initiative. Although I don't fold for your marvelous team, I very much respect your energy and dedication. This new dimension of a users' advisory committee is brilliant. Hat's off!

BTW, I may not be on your team, but I've been folding nearly since the project began and am honored to be in the top 100, "Leonardo."

 

[kirtar]

awww... you didn't have to go down a font size for that

 

[MikeTimbers]

As a long time member of the forums here but a cruncher for The Genome Collective I wholeheartedly agree with the proposal to have an advisory board. There is a huge disconnect between the scientists and the workers. The FoldingForum doesn't bridge that gap except as technical support. All discussion about the process itself is stifled especially about the points process.

And it is that points process which is how we judge our contribution. We're not scientists, few of us have a clue what is being generated by our computers, so we can only judge our contribution through the points process.

It seems that PG need to be more aware of this. I'm not going to get into the solution here, but what are beta testers for if not to ensure the success of each project? Part of the criteria for success must be whether it will be a popular process generating cruncher enthusiasm and good will.

And another part must be sustainability. Bigadv is a classic example of this; to produce a project that generates massive points is bound to encourage big investments. To then run out of the work units is bound to upset those investors.

The scientists need to be more aware of these factors so they need to be told. If the beta testers can't or won't inform and the FoldngForum mods won't permit the feedback, another way must be found.

To be honest, an advisory board is not going to work without an attitude adjustment from PG and if they are prepared to do that, then the beta testers could provide just as good feedback as an advisory board.

PG just need to wake up a lot and be more aware of the workers views. Reading around on here and other forums, FAH is surviving because no other worthy cause has the array of compatibility - CPU, SMP, ATI, Nvidia, PS3, etc, If one of the others provided the same array I think PG would lose a lot of its donors.

 

[The_Heretic]

^^^ Nice post Mike.

 

[Tobit]

To be honest, an advisory board is not going to work without an attitude adjustment from PG and if they are prepared to do that, then the beta testers could provide just as good feedback as an advisory board.

PG doesn't need as big of an attitude adjustment as many people think. Vijay has always been very open minded and cordial when I've talked with him directly. There are some other points I'd like to make on this "perceived attitude" topic but I've already made enough noise this week and don't want to rock the cradle too much more for right now. Let's just say it isn't PG that is the issue.

 

[Xilikon]

PG doesn't need as big of an attitude adjustment as many people think. Vijay has always been very open minded and cordial when I've talked with him directly. There are some other points I'd like to make on this "perceived attitude" topic but I've already made enough noise this week and don't want to rock the cradle too much more for right now. Let's just say it isn't PG that is the issue.

I totally agree with that statement. I'm in regular contact with Vijay since a few years and he's always someone who's very easy to talk and discuss things. He's very open and genuinely trying to do what's the best for everyone.

Let me remind everyone once more : The FF staff doesn't in any way represent the PG views. However, the PG should be more proactive in terms of communication to convey the future of F@H and the goals they wish to attain with this project.

 

[Tobit]

Mike, I will agree that some changes in the beta program format could likely achieve the same goals as an "advisory board". I am in discussion now with certain people on both topics and will provide more details when I can.

 

[[H]ecklerKoc[H]]

I'm glad my email to Vijay after hearing about Tobit's demise got things rolling and issues solved

About the advisory board, I'm flattered to get a lot of support for nominating me in the board but let me suggest a more democratic way : make a thread asking for proposal then make a voting process to pick the 2 who get the most votes. I know it's a formality given the amount of support everyone have for me and Tobit but I'm asking this because we wanted it to be officially endorsed by the majority and to deflect potential accusations of favoritism of a few people.

As I already said, the PG is genuinely trying hard to please the most people but they aren't good with the PR side, thus the crux of the current issue.

Watch out what you ask ask for, you just might get it! .

Flipping the viewpoint around I think you and Tobit are being generous to even consider being allowed to be nominated for any Folding@home Advisory Board. Current holding a volunteer position myself. The demands for performance can be in a word, demanding. Nothing like trying to do good while walking through molasses and being the dartboard. In the end the satisfactions is still worth effort and the chance to help things move forward is a great reward.

Hope any time spent on your part performing on a F@h Advisory Board position will be positive and rewarding.


Like the idea of such a board. They might help to lessen the load on the F@h project people while at the same time offering more flexibility for the project to address community and partner needs.

 

[metallicafan]

As most of you who have known me over the years here on the board I hate unneeded junior high drama. This is the main reason why I have been contributing to many BOINC projects over the years. I didnt vote because Im clearly biased and I want this to the be the folders decision but maybe I can provide different (albeit brief) perspective.

Lets take a look at the major complaints about the folding project. Its seems like for years now people have complained about poor clients (which have improved some), poor point systems that vary wildly from project to project, abuse from FF mods and lack of respect for donors (this seems like this is a yearly occurrence; some of you will remember when everyone rejoiced that a certain FF mod was dethroned by PG and everyone thought the world was saved), and the fact that investments in hardware might be useless when they change the point system in a few months to a new high performance client (first GPU1, SMP then GPU2, then SMP2/GPU3). The FF is an official forum of F@H. If the people that mange this board (mods) are hurting the cause they the F@H projects management should fix this. This is like saying that the official Chevy forum doesnt represent the feelings of General Motors. Its an excuse not a recognition of the problem.

One thing that's surprising to me is that even after years of repeatedly being pissed off about the poorly managed, administered, and communicated aspects of f@h everyone continues to take the abuse and keep dumping money into it. Why?

My hope is that its because the people here really believe that they are helping to advance medical understanding for humankind. It is possible its because of the community and friendships you have built here. Or the competitiveness these team challenges bring. But all of that can also be found elsewhere.

WCG does SEVERAL medical research projects. Lets go back to the F@H weaknesses for a second. BOINC has a great rock solid STABLE client that is easy to download and configure. They have a point system that is consistent (and even if there are some minor inconsistencies, you can always opt out of a single WCG project should you feel its unfair, although Ive never seen this). WCG has a great forum system and I've never heard of any major outbursts about a WCG forum mod. Last but not least it may be seen by some as a weakness that WCG doesnt use GPUs but it does guarantee that in 3 months from now a new type of GPU WU wont make all of your CPU crunching and thousands of $ of CPU investments worthless (and there are medical projects that use Nvidia GPUs like GPUGRID).

OK time for a parting shot: I hope that everyone will make their own decision here. It seems like a yearly occurrence of a major F@H fallout, PG sending a couple emails and smoothing things out with donors but not really fixing any of the problems, and then life returns to normal. If you dont like this then do something about it. Join WCG, join a different project, or just donate some money to a different good cause. If you are interested in setting up WCG let me know, Id be happy to help. Its a worthy project.

At the end of the day you just have to decide if the F@H project outcomes are worth their rinse and repeat problems they have had for years. Best wishes to all and good luck in your decisions. Most importantly: Live [H]ard.

 

[gkanakis]

Well put metallicafan!!

We're going to win the Christmas Challenge this year!!

 

[MikeTimbers]

<sulk>we never had these problems when it was Genome@Home</sulk>

 

[APOLLO]

I like your post metallicafan!

Let me remind everyone once more : The FF staff doesn't in any way represent the PG views..

I only came to this realization very recently from one of Tobit's posts. I wouldn't be surprised if not many people know this, even those who frequent the FF. It's similar to the realization many of us came to years ago when it was revealed here that Stanford and PG are totally separate entities. Most of us believed F@H was Stanford's pet project. Forum members were folding years and weren't aware of the difference. Same with this situation. It will take some time before this distinction trickles down and becomes common knowledge within the community at large.

Mike, I will agree that some changes in the beta program format could likely achieve the same goals as an "advisory board". I am in discussion now with certain people on both topics and will provide more details when I can.

The beta testers 'team' could easily serve as intermediaries. They have already functioned in that capacity many, many times before albeit unofficially. As part or head of an advisory board, that function will become official. I think it is an excellent concept.

<sulk>we never had these problems when it was Genome@Home</sulk>

In the days of G@H nearly 10 years ago, the community was far smaller and in its infancy despite the fact PG was involved in more than one project at that time. The folding community has exploded since the early days with far more participants, teams and even corporations that are currently participating. The larger the community, the wider the cross-section of society is involved with the consequence that a larger range in opinion and expression will inevitably result. We witness growing discontent, rivalries, oppositions, and even dissent with adversarial actions against the project. It is disheartening to say the least, but unavoidable in an unwieldy conglomeration of thousands of individuals from greatly varied backgrounds. Now more than ever we need procedure, organization and hopefully better representation.

 

[SazanEyes]

The beta testers 'team' could easily serve as intermediaries. They have already functioned in that capacity many, many times before albeit unofficially. As part or head of an advisory board, that function will become official. I think it is an excellent concept.

The one problem with this is that beta testers are apparently forced to take a "vow of silence" regarding upcoming changes to F@H. One of the goals of the advisory board should be to resolve the current communication problem between PG and donors, so hopefully the restrictions on what beta testers can say in public will be reduced in addition to establishing the advisory board. If the secrecy must be maintained (for whatever BS reason) then the advisory board should not be made up of beta testers.

 

[APOLLO]

The one problem with this is that beta testers are apparently forced to take a "vow of silence" regarding upcoming changes to F@H. One of the goals of the advisory board should be to resolve the current communication problem between PG and donors, so hopefully the restrictions on what beta testers can say in public will be reduced in addition to establishing the advisory board. If the secrecy must be maintained (for whatever BS reason) then the advisory board should not be made up of beta testers.

Agreed completely. I posted with the understanding that future NDAs would either be eliminated or mitigated in applicability to the extent that unreleased information is not withheld in the stringent manner it has. This overly severe restraint on information needs to be rectified even if no advisory board is ever formed.

 

[MikeTimbers]

In the days of G@H nearly 10 years ago,

Was it really that long? Sheesh, I'm getting old!

 

[FLECOM]

speaking of which, this thread i think outlived its usefulness