Updating the F@H guides

[codysluder]

the problem I see is that the work is to much for one person.

You suggest contacting Vince, now I knew that but who else? Did PanterX already know he could ask someone from the Pande Group for acces to the guides/faq's? I think he shown he would deserve it.

So this thread isn't so much about me saying we need to change this, that en then some, but more to bring it under the attention of the whole community that their contributions count. And I want to make a point with the thread I linked to, that even while the information is certainly there, it's not easy to navigate.

What I don't understand is why both 7im and PantherX (and anybody else who knows how to organze the information) don't just cooperate on a Wiki article. Both guides are one-person efforts, and a team approach would be much better. Both guides can be replaced by a link to the Wiki.

[7im]

So, I hope more people will share their thoughts here, especially those people who I mentioned before ( tear or hyperlife for instance ). Those are the people who I would expect to contribute, so those are the people who should think along when I question how the information should be structured and presented.

So you really want to give people who advocate hacking the client and circumventing Stanford policies access to the Stanford website?

And those people won't even update the WIKI which has free access, so you're barking up the wrong tree.


I AM NOT the only person with access to the FAQs and Install GUIDES. I just happen to be one of only a few people who actively updates those pages in the last few months.

The problem isn't access. The problem is participation. When I can't even get people to suggest updates in the Guides threads, do you really think people will jump in to help update the guides or FAQs? Give me a break.

[7im]

7im, take a look at this:



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Would you not agree that even while the content is searchable, that the method used is not helping much? I used your search phrase "-forcegpu", the amount of hits is overwhelming and I can't imagine it being usefull to search for something, then having to search a return query so large as this one

Searchable is only part of the question, if the search returns the information in a manner which is easy to navigate is the other part and there it fails in my opinion.

Now as I said, this is critisism but not towards you or your efforts, nor towards any person or his efforts. It's only critisism towards the functionality of the search function/layout.

Bad example. Search without the DASH in front of -forcegpu. You'll get much better results.


I didn't take this as an attack. And please don't take this as an attack. I'm simply pointing out that you don't know what you are talking about in many of the examples you are providing as your basis for this discussion. You say you can't search the guides and you can. You said the GPU download page was out of date because the v6.32 client was not available for the ATI cards, and that's not true either.

I'm not arguing against you either. The documentation could always be better, and we'll continue working to improve it. But over the long haul, most people aren't up to the task. They don't sick with it. Look at the original author of the GUIDES. I compliment him for his effort instarting the project, but there were several mistakes made in the original guides which took us a long time to correct. And he bailed on the project a long time ago, and he had plenty of access.

And when someone writes a better GPU install guide in the FAH WIKI that isn't overloaded with extra info, then you might have a valid argument. Until then, the problem is participation, not access, not format, not location, not searchability, none of that. Content rules, everything else is secondary.

I'll even lay down a simpler challenge, and we'll see how well this works. Instead of telling us what's wrong with the Guides, I'd like someone to step up and write a fix to the original problem that started this discussion. Take that 1 or 2 paragraphs from the GPU Guide that need updating in regards to -forcegpu, and then post the revised fix in this thread, or in the GPU Guides thread. And I'll fix GPU guide as soon as I see the post.

One condition, PantherX doesn't get to play in this challenge, because he is a ringer. As you said, MtM, we need more than just one active person to make this work.

[BikerBry]

It slays me that there is not more activity in this area from Stanford and/or Pande Group. I understand and salute their allowance of the community to be involved at this level, but at some point in time, their involvement needs to be more clear. The project, at it's very core is to benefit the research. Has anybody asked them for assistance? I can see this could benefit greatly from a Sixth Sigma Ninja group and/or an ISO standards group that has a great understanding of the project. I mean really? At the heart of a world distributed and important project like this? Maybe a little assistance is in order. Even though this is a self supporting project and community, it still should adhere to best practices to get the best results.

EDIT: Does Stanford or PG even have these resources and if so, would they ever consider being made available to the F@H community?

[MtM]

But then let's take this beyond the bickering, and therefore into something constructive. PanterX has deserved acces in my opinion, I am not sure if he would want to help but if he would, he should contact Vince.

As I treid to make clear, that's the intent of this thread, not to point out the flaws, but to try to make it better by getting the right people all facing the same way.

Your points regarding tear is valid, maybe even hyperlife for supporting a client running in a non recommended way. I will however not give you a break that easilly, as you do agree with me that there is room for improvement.

Now, why not just give me a bullet style list of things you would like to see happening, maybe by making it public and actually requesting it to the community, it has a higher probability of happening?

Take Cody's comment for example, his failure to understand why this is even a problem is characteristic of the real problem ( not enough communication towards the community, I still believe this community can self regulate and self educate if given the right input! ).

Remember me years back 'pestering' PG for more open communication because there were to many misunderstandings amongst the people who do not have moderators on im lists, or have had extensive pm debates with PG members ect ect. I will not take credit for any changes as I am sure lots of other people did the same, but I will say I see allot of improvement there. I think the same can happpen here, why not give it a try?

If you want my help, you know I will always give it, but you also know I'm not to be placed in a position of trust ( tbh, I had a long talk with my local psychiatric instution because I had to quit taking medication since I lost 6kg in two weeks and weigh 56kg with 1.80m.. I have to many personal issues to be able to give a steady contribution like you have been doing ( again: Kudo's! ).

But besides me, I do believe there are people willing to step up, and among those there must be people capable of actually doing what you would like. You see, I will stand behind any suggestions you have, I know you have the best intrest of this project at hearth and I will not argue about what is the better approach since I am aware of my own limitations. But let 'us' as community know what you would want to see from us.

Edit: nice edit 7im, you ninja'd me but we are 100% on the same path I believe! Only thing is, it's not only the content off one guide, it's how the information is presented as well.

[7im]

@ BikerBry - Stanford (PG) writes and updates the entire fah website, other than the Guides pages. They also update the Guides pages occasionally.

A for-profit corporation can afford dedicated document writers, Ninjas, and ISO groups. PG is primarily a research group, funding with donations and research grants. They don't have a lot of resources to spare. The science of the project is their top priority (looking for cures to diseases), and everything else is prioritized under that.

PG already gives us everthing they have.


@MtM - I thought I already told you want I wanted. More participation. We don't need 20 people edited web pages, even if we could find that many. But, even small suggestions can make big improvements. BikerBry made a good suggestion. The GPU install guide needs a better example of how to add the -forcegpu switch, which I am going to add.

And it doesn't take much to make a suggestion in the discussion thread for each of the Client GUIDES, Linux, SMP, MAC, etc. But we're not even getting that level of participation. So while you may be lobbying for a grand change, let's try to start with a little bit more reachable goal. (like the challenge I posted above)

And this is the first I have seen you mention "presentation" so maybe you could go in to more detail about that.

[MtM]

With presentation I mean the current seperation of information in guide/faq/wiki. I agree there is a seperation to be made, but what I think would benefit allot of people is an easier navigation through information which resides on the wiki, in a faq or in a guide.

And while I used the word presentation the first time in the last post, I been meaning this everytime I mention 'information tree' or 'better searchable index'.

I have one thing I might try myself, make a meta search engine which pulls info from all three sources and combines search results. However, this is a field on it's own, SEO is something coorporations struggle with, not sure I can do anything worthwhile but maybe someone else could help.

And can I make a small suggestion: if you want more participation, doesn't this forum support notifications? Maybe it would help to put up a notice about this, not a sticky but a notice visible in all subforums. I won't kid myself, this thread will not get the attention of enough people to reach the select few ready able and capable of helping. For that, we will need a better means of communication with the entire community.

Maybe Vijah could write something in his blog about this, about how the community driven guides and faq's are driving this project forward but will benefit from greater participation.

I have no other means then this thread, it won't help if I go to every team forum and ask for help here it might even be counterproductive I am just not sure. But there are means to this end, they are just not in my reach

[7im]

Okay, but the information isn't really separated. It's different information in different locations, prioritized, categorized. Form follows function, and vise versa.

Guides are supposed to give you the basic setup info, just enough to get the job done.

FAQs answer FAQs. They talk about history, go in to more details about certain features of the client, and help troubleshoot common problems.

WIKI is the community driven information resource, where people can get as detailed as they want, typically for IN-FAQs. A ton of low level information that most people don't care about. For example, 999 people out of 1000 don't care about how ghosting affects the System ID in Windows, so we don't include that answer in the FAQs. But that answer IS in the WIKI.


If you don't prioritize the data in this way, the Install Guides get too overloaded with info, and it takes too long to read through them. People get frustrated and don't finish the client install.

FAQs go in to more depth, but if you included all tons of data from the WIKI in the FAQs, then no one would read the FAQs either.

And the WIKI is what it is. Every fahcore and version ever released is there, but that's not helpful for an install guide. And if the install guide has everything it needs, you don't need to include the other documents.

And putting all three in to one searchable index doesn't help either. All three data sources do a different job. I don't want 1000 hits from the WIKI if I just want the install guide info. That's not helpful.

And while I like your idea of giving the request for doc updates more visibility, right now is not the time to do that, IMO. My guess is that whomever is testing the V7 client is also busy with the documentation for V7.

[MtM]

Great points again, and if your assumption is correct this thread is void of anything usefull right now.

I did ask Vijah after my previous post to look at the thread again, hoping he might agree that a mention in his blog would spike intrest in participation but if v7 is close and the documentation for it is just as close that request will not accomplisch anything.

Now, back to your challenge then, are more people excluded other then PanterX Since I know my limitations I don't want to be put in a situation where things depend on me to get done, but as said I'm always willing to tackle a particular problem if i have the time and means to do so ( and while I been away for some time, meaning I still have allot of catching up to do, I could give it a try to formulate the existing guide abit better ). Still invalidates my reason for this thread abit, I wanted to exclude myself but alas that's not up the me

The community deserves people like you, who stick with it no matter what, and not someone who is expected/has proven to bail out frequently.

The only remark I have is about the meta search function, offcourse getting to many hits is bad, but as I said search engine optimalisation is something which is a buisiness on it's own, and there are certainly methods to limit the amount of results. The challenge would be coming up with an algorithm which gives the most relevant hits and leaves out the others. It might be over my head, but there are people who do this for a living. Maybe even f@h donors... maybe even donors who would be willing to put spare time into such a function if it would be usefull when it's capable of filtering the search results. Do you think it would be usefull that way?

[PantherX]

...You CAN search the guides, because the F@h web site is filled with content from a type of WIKI backend. Use the F@h web site SITE SEARCH link, listed on the left hand column of every F@h page. If the search finds the string you are looking for, it will display a link to the pages that contain it...

I seriously didn't come across it. I looked that the languages and guessed that it "continued". Whoever is in-charged of the layout may want to shift the Search from the last link to the second link after the Main Page.

Another suggestion, whoever is managing that guide, they can be mentioned at the bottom so that if there is any updating required, we know who to contact.

...however in the case of the gpu client i think it should be split - Nv cards need a lot less setup that AMD/ATI cards do at the moment and this should be reflected as such.

Can you please elaborate the difference in the setup when the using GPU3 BETA Client? The only difference that I have come across is that Driver requirement. ATI GPUs don't need any flags, just like Nvidia ones.

...What I don't understand is why both 7im and PantherX (and anybody else who knows how to organze the information) don't just cooperate on a Wiki article. Both guides are one-person efforts, and a team approach would be much better. Both guides can be replaced by a link to the Wiki.

The reason that it started out in the Forum is because that is where Dr.Vijay suggested I start when I asked (details) hence it's a forum post. Regarding the Wiki entry, only those that are linked to well-known guides have high hit rates. Others will be low. I wanted to ensure that my Guide has the best possible "publicity" for ease of understanding/access. Also there isn't any GPU Guide on the Wiki. Here is some numbers:
This page has been accessed 249 times. - That's the Windows 7 SMP Guide at Wiki (outdated with v6.30)
This page has been accessed 32,387 times. - That's the Windows Vista SMP Guide at Wiki (outdated with v6.30)
This page has been accessed 46,393 times. - Using flags in the shortcut.
This page has been accessed 7,706 times. - Listing of flags.
This page has been accessed 4,754 times. - CPU Classic Client.

Now I am not against Wiki or anything, I am merely suggesting that there be interlinked so the donor is a Click away from more information that increases in complexity with each click. That way, if you have sufficient information, you don't need to click anymore, you stop and run the client happily

...And can I make a small suggestion: if you want more participation, doesn't this forum support notifications? Maybe it would help to put up a notice about this, not a sticky but a notice visible in all subforums. I won't kid myself, this thread will not get the attention of enough people to reach the select few ready able and capable of helping. For that, we will need a better means of communication with the entire community...

I did suggest earlier that each Client has their own detailed guide in the sub-forum so if someone visits it, they can view it and add common information. Whoever manages that thread, they can update when necessary and 7im would have a visit a single post to see if the Official Guide needs updating. It would make his work a lot easier as he doesn't have to hunt the forum for possible details. The Official Guide, at the end, can have the link to that thread so it people interested in more additional information can view it. (just like the proposed information flow that I suggested earlier)

...Now, back to your challenge then, are more people excluded other then PanterX ...

I too am interested to see the result but as my guide is covering only GPU3 BETA Client, you don't need the -forcegpu flags for the current GPUs to be detected However, some exceptions are there and I have (hopefully) clearly mentioned it in my guide.

[MtM]

I want 7im to answer your post before I comment but I think it's not far fetched if people would assume I agree with your proposed information flow.

[Nathan_P]

...You CAN search the guides, because the F@h web site is filled with content from a type of WIKI backend. Use the F@h web site SITE SEARCH link, listed on the left hand column of every F@h page. If the search finds the string you are looking for, it will display a link to the pages that contain it...

I seriously didn't come across it. I looked that the languages and guessed that it "continued". Whoever is in-charged of the layout may want to shift the Search from the last link to the second link after the Main Page.

Another suggestion, whoever is managing that guide, they can be mentioned at the bottom so that if there is any updating required, we know who to contact.

...however in the case of the gpu client i think it should be split - Nv cards need a lot less setup that AMD/ATI cards do at the moment and this should be reflected as such.

Can you please elaborate the difference in the setup when the using GPU3 BETA Client? The only difference that I have come across is that Driver requirement. ATI GPUs don't need any flags, just like Nvidia ones.

...What I don't understand is why both 7im and PantherX (and anybody else who knows how to organze the information) don't just cooperate on a Wiki article. Both guides are one-person efforts, and a team approach would be much better. Both guides can be replaced by a link to the Wiki.

The reason that it started out in the Forum is because that is where Dr.Vijay suggested I start when I asked (details) hence it's a forum post. Regarding the Wiki entry, only those that are linked to well-known guides have high hit rates. Others will be low. I wanted to ensure that my Guide has the best possible "publicity" for ease of understanding/access. Also there isn't any GPU Guide on the Wiki. Here is some numbers:
This page has been accessed 249 times. - That's the Windows 7 SMP Guide at Wiki (outdated with v6.30)
This page has been accessed 32,387 times. - That's the Windows Vista SMP Guide at Wiki (outdated with v6.30)
This page has been accessed 46,393 times. - Using flags in the shortcut.
This page has been accessed 7,706 times. - Listing of flags.
This page has been accessed 4,754 times. - CPU Classic Client.

Now I am not against Wiki or anything, I am merely suggesting that there be interlinked so the donor is a Click away from more information that increases in complexity with each click. That way, if you have sufficient information, you don't need to click anymore, you stop and run the client happily

...And can I make a small suggestion: if you want more participation, doesn't this forum support notifications? Maybe it would help to put up a notice about this, not a sticky but a notice visible in all subforums. I won't kid myself, this thread will not get the attention of enough people to reach the select few ready able and capable of helping. For that, we will need a better means of communication with the entire community...

I did suggest earlier that each Client has their own detailed guide in the sub-forum so if someone visits it, they can view it and add common information. Whoever manages that thread, they can update when necessary and 7im would have a visit a single post to see if the Official Guide needs updating. It would make his work a lot easier as he doesn't have to hunt the forum for possible details. The Official Guide, at the end, can have the link to that thread so it people interested in more additional information can view it. (just like the proposed information flow that I suggested earlier)

...Now, back to your challenge then, are more people excluded other then PanterX ...

I too am interested to see the result but as my guide is covering only GPU3 BETA Client, you don't need the -forcegpu flags for the current GPUs to be detected However, some exceptions are there and I have (hopefully) clearly mentioned it in my guide.

As we both experienced recently in another thread - a person trying to get his ATI 5xxx series card to work was going through hoops on both gpu2 and gpu3, i know that switches are not strictly necessary for gpu3 but there seems to be a lot of issues getting ati cards to fold and using the -forcegpu flag is usually the first answer given. It may also be worth adding the environment variables to any ati guide so that donor machines are still usuable whilst folding with ati clients.

[7im]

@ PantherX - If the Site Search needs to be at the top of the page for people to find things on the F@h website, then we have already failed. If the section titles at the top of the fah home page are not enough to lead people in the right direction, and then each section page after that, then we'll lose 98% of users after 1 or 2 clicks. Very few will use the site search even when at the top of the page, and even less even know about it now, including many old timers.

And everyone else needs to leave me and my name out of any discussions about managing or updating anything. I could get hit by a bus tomorrow, and then where would your shiny new doc update process be? If the process can't survive without 1 individual, then you need to find other ways to make it work. You should have lots of options when updates are suggested. PM a Mod. PM an Admin. PM a researcher. Post in one of the Guides Update threads, and let whomever has access jump in to help. Write a WIKI entry instead. Maintain a personal guide thread like PantherX. Email Vince Voelz at PG, whatever. Get the new info in to writing, and then start forwarding the new info up the pipe.

When someone other than PX meets my challenge, I'll start reading your debate again. Or let me know when you have fixed the problem, and then I'll help contribute to your new grand plan. Until then, I'm otherwise occupied.

[MtM]

I went back to look at the text to propose an edit then myself but you already changed it.

Note: GPU manufacturers often release new video card types faster than the GPU client can be updated to automatically recognize that hardware. A GPU not supported message is a common indicator. The solution is to add a client switch to bypass the hardware detection. Please use the switch appropriate for your hardware, and add it to the Additional Client Parameters field on the Advanced tab. Do not use a switch unless it's needed to solve the GPU not supported error.

•ATI 3xxx series: -forcegpu ati_r600
•ATI 4xxx series: -forcegpu ati_r700
•ATI 5xxx series: -forcegpu ati_r800
•nVidia 8x, 9x series: -forcegpu nvidia_g80
•nVidia GTX 2xx, 4xx series: -forcegpu nvidia_fermi

Can't recall that being there in this format before, but still, maybe the this text which is located above should have a small change ->

3.5xxx series GPUs are supported starting in the v6.23 FAH client, and requires the 9.10 Catalyst driver or newer. Also use the -forcegpu ati_r700 switch until 5xxx hardware is auto-detected in later FAH clients. Fixed in v6.30 and above.

to

3.5xxx series GPUs are supported starting in the v6.23 FAH client, and requires the 9.10 Catalyst driver or newer. Also use the -forcegpu ati_r700 switch until 5xxx hardware is auto-detected in later FAH clients ( how to use this switch is explained here. Fixed in v6.30 and above.

Linkey here should point to an html anchor element, I think the portal will support those? If not, replace 'here' with 'in the systray section below'.

Which leads to this point: shouldn't the forcegpu switch explanation be offerd outside a specific client guide? It should be above the systray info, as it might now look like it doesn't apply to the console version unless you double the information which is how the situation is now? That means that any update means more work.

Also:

Normally, if everything is done correctly, the client will be folding along fine. To verify the client is progressing, open the task manager and make sure there is a process called FahCore_xx.exe in the list. Or you can open the fahlog.txt file to see the client's progress.

Normally, if everything is done correctly, the client will be folding along fine. To verify the client is progressing, open the task manager and make sure there is a process called FahCore_xx.exe in the list or open the fahlog.txt file to see the client's progress. Optionally use a 3rd party monitoring application from the list here which will give you even more information about your folding.

If you can tell me if I can use full html I will rewrite everything as I proposed to show you what I mean. BBcode doesn't really do justice to my edit's

Edit:

7im I could go on and on I guess for awhile but I actually really wanted to exclude myself

Why is there an exclamation mark after FAH here? And shouldn't 'Vista' be 'Vista/Windows 7'?

Installation (Console version)

First, download the console client from the Download page (There is 2 distinct packages, one for Windows XP and 2003 and one for Vista so make sure to pick the correct one for your OS). If you wanted to use a installer, the Console client doesn't come with one so it's suggested to use the Systray client instead. After you are done downloading the package, unzip the package in any place except the Program Files folder (due to potential permissions issues). A good suggestion is to create a new folder on C:\Users\[username]\FAH! for Vista or C:\Documents and Settings\[username]\FAH for XP. You can also place it on the desktop or on a custom folder like C:\FAH\. After you are done unzipping, it's suggested you rename the executable file name to fah6.exe to make the following steps easier to do.

[MtM]

Sorry for a double post but this feels like it deserves a seperate ( and public as well in the pm I sent ) reply.

And everyone else needs to leave me and my name out of any discussions about managing or updating anything. I could get hit by a bus tomorrow, and then where would your shiny new doc update process be? If the process can't survive without 1 individual, then you need to find other ways to make it work. You should have lots of options when updates are suggested. PM a Mod. PM an Admin. PM a researcher. Post in one of the Guides Update threads, and let whomever has access jump in to help. Write a WIKI entry instead. Maintain a personal guide thread like PantherX. Email Vince Voelz at PG, whatever. Get the new info in to writing, and then start forwarding the new info up the pipe.

The important part is bolded and italic. Is this really known, do people know these options? Besides the Guides Updates threads which are exactly the setup as I would propose as well. But as you said they are not used enough or at all, and you seem to blame it on the community for not caring. I blame it on the publicity it has gotten, and on the feeling of being able to help and participate. Allot of people still feel a distance between PG/Mods/Admins and themself ( which is maybe a good thing, but I think the distance percieved is larger then it should be and that I think is the reason you don't see more people actively participating ).

This is an opinion not a fact, and again this thread will not get the attention it might deserve and not the replies from other people needed to determine if this opinion is shared by other people. For that, the thread starter should be someone else then 'mtm'.