Taking over a Team

[bruce]

It's not arbitrary at all. You need to prove that you're the owner of the team.

If you locked your keys inside your car, you can expect help, but if you're breaking into a parked car that belongs to someone else you can be arrested.

[kazriko]

That's what I'm trying to do. I have a whole PM full of information to pass on to whomever I'm suppose to prove it to, but in the 3rd post I asked who I was supposed to send the proof to, and I've yet to get an answer...

[ChelseaOilman]

I have a whole PM full of information to pass on to whomever I'm suppose to prove it to

I'm sorry, but your really fighting a lost cause. In your other posts you've admitted someone else set up the team. That person is the team owner and PandeGroup isn't going to take that away from him, no matter the situation. If you and the other members of the team don't want to contribute to the current team name your only choice is to move on as others have suggested and create a new team. In an indirect way your essentially asking PG to move yours and others points to a different team. PG has never done this.

[kazriko]

Technically owner of the team, but never in any way tied to the site the team was for other than a random person who logged in and set the team up for us... I've sent the proof now to 3 different people that the site that the team belongs to is still in existence and owned by someone else... All I need to know is who I'm actually supposed to send it to?

http://www.gameslurp.com/page.php?t=4496&page=2

[ChelseaOilman]

Technically owner of the team

It's not just a technicality. He is the owner of the team. No ifs ands or buts.

but never in any way tied to the site the team was for other than a random person who logged in and set the team up for us...

This fact doesn't matter one bit and doesn't change anything. The person that created the team is the owner and can make any changes he wants. Piss him off enough and he can decide to change the team name to something you may find offensive.

I've sent the proof now to 3 different people that the site that the team belongs to is still in existence and owned by someone else... All I need to know is who I'm actually supposed to send it to?

I believe the only person that could do anything for you is Vijay Pande. I'm pretty sure you would be wasting your time. Not to mention his.

[kazriko]

Technically owner of the team

It's not just a technicality. He is the owner of the team. No ifs ands or buts.

but never in any way tied to the site the team was for other than a random person who logged in and set the team up for us...

This fact doesn't matter one bit and doesn't change anything. The person that created the team is the owner and can make any changes he wants. Piss him off enough and he can decide to change the team name to something you may find offensive.

So let me get this straight...

An apple employee gets a bright idea one day. He's going to start a folding team. He creates Apple, Inc. as a folding team, puts his home computers on it, tells all his coworkers in his group, eventually half the people at apple and Apple itself are folding on this team. The employee leaves, and a few months later is working at Microsoft. Meanwhile, 2-3 years go by and everyone at apple is still folding on the Apple, Inc. team. They decide they want to make an official folding page for the team, and go to update the page. They find they don't have the password. Even though the name Apple belongs to apple, you're saying that the Apple team belongs to an employee of Microsoft and they can do nothing about it?

I've sent the proof now to 3 different people that the site that the team belongs to is still in existence and owned by someone else... All I need to know is who I'm actually supposed to send it to?

I believe the only person that could do anything for you is Vijay Pande. I'm pretty sure you would be wasting your time. Not to mention his.

Which is why I was looking for someone else who could handle it, I've avoided escalating it there.

[ChelseaOilman]

Which is why I was looking for someone else who could handle it, I've avoided escalating it there.

I think I already answered that question in my last post.

[kazriko]

I see you didn't quote nor answer my hypothetical question there...

[kazriko]

(Essentially, the question boils down to... Do you just completely disrespect and ignore trademarks, or do you only do it when the trademark owners have no trademark lawyers?

If the former, You really need to be clear about this on the team page, and also be absolutely clear about who the team owner is.

http://fah-web.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/mai ... mnum=54626

In this page, it states a good many things, all of them saying that this is a Gamesey team. Nowhere does it state that this is actually in all non-technical reality Sean1504's team and has no ties nor ownership with Gamesey. It even has links to what used to be official Gamesey logos. How can it be any more of an official looking Gamesey team? If you had stated ANYWHERE that this was Sean1504's team, then we wouldn't have been folding on it for the last 2-3 years, and we would have started our own official team.)

[Wrish]

Changing ownership has naught to do with trademarks. If a team name is purposely harmful to you just contact PG and they may even dissolve it without any lawyers getting wind. I think PG isn't under any illusion that teams are an integral part of folding - their registration system is very casual.

Taking ownership, however, involves transferring all previously recorded stats to a new name, and for that you need the permission of the owner. It's essentially taking credit for stats. As kiore said, why not make a new team and set a goal of dwarfing the previous team. Trust me, it won't take as many computer-hours.

[ChelseaOilman]

I see you didn't quote nor answer my hypothetical question there...

What would be the point? No matter what I say you'll dispute it, or come up with another hypothetical question which will get us nowhere.

[7im]

The hypothetical question is not comparable to the question at hand.

The creation of a team should not be undertaken lightly. Letting "some random individual" create the team was not well thought out. The original registrant retains all ownership rights. Regardless of the team name, the team owner is the person who registered the team with the folding project. It does not matter where that person works, or what they do, or even for what team they fold. When that person created the team, that person took on the sole responsibility for the whole team. And when people joined that team, they accepted the consequence that another individual held their team's fate.

And debating all this in the forum is not helpful to your cause. We are all volunteers here, and base our responses on past history. We are not part of Stanford, but we've seen how their policies have played out in the past. Accept our well seasoned advice or don't, your choice.

If dlucent isn't answering PMs on this forum, then I suggest trying to email del lucent directly at Stanford. An industrious individual and a little googling will track down that address. And if that fails to get a response, take it to Dr. Pande. Every member of the Pande Group should have the minimum courtesy to at least answer your request, even if the answer is no.

[kazriko]

If you locked your keys inside your car, you can expect help, but if you're breaking into a parked car that belongs to someone else you can be arrested.

Using your hypothetical as a base, the equivalent to this situation would be if a charity group formed to do some work, pooled their resources, and decided that they needed a car. The group goes out and buys the car. While everyone was busy doing the actual charity work, one person volunteered to take the registration forms into the DMV. They inadvertently put themselves down as the owner of the car. They then got a job in another city and moved leaving no forwarding address. The charity group finds that the keys to the car are missing, and spend A YEAR trying to track the person with the keys down. We then ask for help getting into the car and find that they can't do it because the car was mis-registered at the start.

The hypothetical question is not comparable to the question at hand.

I disagree, but...

The creation of a team should not be undertaken lightly. Letting "some random individual" create the team was not well thought out. The original registrant retains all ownership rights. Regardless of the team name, the team owner is the person who registered the team with the folding project.

How were we to know that? We were busy actually doing the folding with our clients on the PS3. The person never said that he registered it under his name, and the website never said who it was registered either. We all assumed that it was registered to the person that actually runs the site that it was tied to. Azz is a very busy web designer, so getting anything done outside of the website itself is left to whoever volunteers to do it...

It does not matter where that person works, or what they do, or even for what team they fold. When that person created the team, that person took on the sole responsibility for the whole team. And when people joined that team, they accepted the consequence that another individual held their team's fate.

But how were they to know? It didn't say anywhere who registered it, so we went with what was displayed right on the team screen.

And debating all this in the forum is not helpful to your cause. We are all volunteers here, and base our responses on past history. We are not part of Stanford, but we've seen how their policies have played out in the past. Accept our well seasoned advice or don't, your choice.

If dlucent isn't answering PMs on this forum, then I suggest trying to email del lucent directly at Stanford. An industrious individual and a little googling will track down that address. And if that fails to get a response, take it to Dr. Pande. Every member of the Pande Group should have the minimum courtesy to at least answer your request, even if the answer is no.

I've contacted several others, at least one never responded even though the system shows that he has picked the message up. I've already been told above that talking to Pande would be a waste of time, and had reserved that as a last resort anyway. Another person I talked to said that dlucent has graduated and is no longer a part of the pande group, so tracking him down would be utterly useless. Posting in the forum and searching for a way to state my case is the only option left open to me. I would have given up long ago if I wasn't so stubborn whenever I see injustice.

Another way to do it would be if they could try and find Sean1504. As I said before, he disappeared without leaving a phone number, and the email address he left with us isn't valid anymore. Maybe the email address he gave you would still be valid and you could help resolve the whole thing by just asking him. If he says no, we'll give up. We've completely run out of resources to try and find him.

Taking ownership, however, involves transferring all previously recorded stats to a new name, and for that you need the permission of the owner. It's essentially taking credit for stats. As kiore said, why not make a new team and set a goal of dwarfing the previous team. Trust me, it won't take as many computer-hours.

What would take far fewer computer hours is to set all of my computers to -oneunit then deleting the client when they finish. If Azz and the others at gameslurp want to form another team, then I leave it up to them, but I won't be a party to it, and most of them had quit doing folding. They were only doing it when I reminded them of it, pretty much. I might start it up if we do get the team transferred to Azz. Otherwise, I'll bask in the glow of having about 6 gigabytes more ram across my 5 computers and not having a room that heats up to sauna temperatures because of all of the computers and video cards sitting at 80C+, and hopefully a lower electric bill as well. Along with the fact that I won't need to send my PS3's in for repair, and I can buy new hardware at a slower rate because I'm not trying to keep ahead of vksnr. Before all this nonsense I was even looking at buying one of the slimline PS3's to boost my score. I think I'm too fed up at this point.

[ChelseaOilman]

See, this is why I didn't answer your hypothetical question!

Anyways, I'm working on a solution. Hang tight.

[Wrish]

What would take far fewer computer hours is to set all of my computers to -oneunit then deleting the client when they finish.... I'll bask in the glow of having about 6 gigabytes more ram across my 5 computers and not having a room that heats up to sauna temperatures because of all of the computers and video cards sitting at 80C+, and hopefully a lower electric bill as well... and I can buy new hardware at a slower rate because I'm not trying to keep ahead of vksnr.

Ha! But your stats only have you running one budget quad and gpu for the past year, yet you have almost half the points of the whole team. A single dedicated i7 for about $700 today can finish those points in 3 months give or take, if you know how to handle it.

Your folding contributions are to Stanford's project to further a biophysical science; it's only by their grace that you have a rudimentary team structure and stats to identify with. For other distributed projects, I see people start over with new names just to change their team tag. Me, I fold under team Default because there's no intrinsic teamwork in processing work units.

I also don't get the convoluted hypotheticals being delivered to an audience that's neither judge nor jury. Scientific contributions are a bit selfless, ya know. As much as people try to patent them.

Oh, and let me tell you about that i7. It draws 300-370W depending on the OC, cooling, and luck on the chip - so about 2 PS3's. It puts out 29,000 PPD, or 32 PS3s' worth. Folding stats have been like that over the years - inflating with Moore's Law.