F@h Wikipedia article [Achieved Good Article status!]

[7im]

One sentence. I'm underwhelmed.

They did stick with a uniprocessor client for all OSes. But they ADDED much more powerful options if you wanted to go off the easy path.

Now the V7 client's primary goal is to become much easier to install and run the client, of any and all types, SMP, GPU, etc. Dr. Pande has made that clear in several forum posts, and probably his blog.

Here is a good PS3 link... F@h was first, and came preinstalled on the PS3.

http://www.scei.co.jp/folding/en/index.html
The Role of Sony Computer Entertainment
Starting with the Folding@home™ project, Sony Computer Entertainment will continue to offer an environment for distributed computing applications.

Yes, I suppose at first glance, any reliance on a non-PG member for a forum quote could be questioned, but then they should question the authors, and they would pass muster. Emw makes a bad assumption in that regard specifically to F@h. It may be true for other projects, but not here. And you posted a great response, and I doubt Emw will try to refute it.

I'll try to dig up some of the old knowledge for you in regards to SMP and GPUs and fah being first.

EDIT: This one is well seasoned. The only group with enough development power to rival FAH 5 years ago was BOINC. FAH published a paper with SMP client results in 2007 (Paper #53). And in the BOINC FAQ, in 2007, they were still saying that trying to use multiple processors on one work unit was wasteful, and that it was more productive to run one work unit on each processor. Can I have multiple CPUs work on the same task (workunit)?

FAH was clearly first to release a true SMP DC client in 2006, and the High Performance Client FAQ documents this early software progression well. Same for GPU and PS3.

[Jesse_V]

I did a lot of rearrangements, and pulled in that statement like you said. The lead should be better now, yes?

[codysluder]

Perhaps, until a reference for the statement about being the first to use the PS3, you can (temporarily) replace it with a date and let the reader figure out how to compare it. (It doesn't actually say when the PS3 client was released, though.)

Starting in 2006, we began looking forward to another major advance in capabilities. This advance utilizes the new Cell processor in Sony's PLAYSTATION 3 (PS3) to achieve performance previously only possible on supercomputers.

http://folding.stanford.edu/English/FAQ-PS3

[7im]

I did a lot of rearrangements, and pulled in that statement like you said. The lead should be better now, yes?

A step in the right direction. But I'm too crispy to give a good read. Later...

[Jesse_V]

Perhaps, until a reference for the statement about being the first to use the PS3, you can (temporarily) replace it with a date and let the reader figure out how to compare it. (It doesn't actually say when the PS3 client was released, though.)

Starting in 2006, we began looking forward to another major advance in capabilities. This advance utilizes the new Cell processor in Sony's PLAYSTATION 3 (PS3) to achieve performance previously only possible on supercomputers.

http://folding.stanford.edu/English/FAQ-PS3

That sounds good. I'll add in the 2006 thing, but probably into the PS3 subsection. There's probably a lot more in that page that I could add. We'll see.

I don't think I should remove the statement about the SMP/PS3 thing though. With 8,783 posts I'm pretty certain 7im knows what he's talking about, so its a valid citation in my mind. I'm hoping for one of two things: 1) 7im puts up some sort of title that makes it obvious that he is more than just a super-active forum user, and that this will then convince Wikipedians that its a valid reference 2) that we find another source that backs up 7im's statements.

[Jesse_V]

I also can't stand that Ginormous contents table and huge white space that it causes. Shorten that damn thing, right justify it, or remove it completely.

All right. I may have a solution here. In my opinion, 2000-2011 subsections under Results can go. When I start summarizing papers I may just dump everything under a few sections or so. That will shorten the Table of Contents. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R@H has a bunch of whitespace as well and its even worse for http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virus

[7im]

I also can't stand that Ginormous contents table and huge white space that it causes. Shorten that damn thing, right justify it, or remove it completely.

I'm not sure what can be done here. I have to keep it, for its a required component of the article. I'll check other Good and Featured article and see what they do. I never really noticed it before but there is a lot of whitespace now that you mention it.

There are other ways... try each of these, and see what you think.
{{TOCright}}
{{TOCleft}}

[Jesse_V]

I'm not sure what can be done here. I have to keep it, for its a required component of the article. I'll check other Good and Featured article and see what they do. I never really noticed it before but there is a lot of whitespace now that you mention it.

There are other ways... try each of these, and see what you think.
{{TOCright}}
{{TOCleft}}

Those have some interesting effects. I do like putting it on the right hand side. The problem with that is that its not standard, and as I've pointed out several Featured articles who have that big whitespace area, so clearly it doesn't stop an article from being honored. If the whitespace still bothers you, there is a little "hide/show" button on the top of the TOC. Click that and it should stay collapsed until you press it again.

[7im]

Not standard? By what measure? Simply because people don't know they can move the contents section around so they just leave it at the default? Few people look for the nonobvious, even fewer see it.

Wouldn't using a TOC option make the F@h page look even better than those "featured" pages with all that wasted whitespace?

Sadly, Wikipedia has no TOC formatting documentation in their many help pages that I looked at for confirmation. I found one help page that had a right justified TOC, but the page was about a completely different topic, and never mentioned {{TOCright}}. I had to view the source of that locked help page to confirm the toc formats they used. Hard to find info is rarely used. I'd hate to think that thousands of wiki pages have tons of wasted whitespace because no one ever updated the help pages with info about how to move the TOC around.

[Jesse_V]

Not standard? By what measure? Simply because people don't know they can move the contents section around so they just leave it at the default? Few people look for the nonobvious, even fewer see it.

Wouldn't using a TOC option make the F@h page look even better than those "featured" pages with all that wasted whitespace?

Sadly, Wikipedia has no TOC formatting documentation in their many help pages that I looked at for confirmation. I found one help page that had a right justified TOC, but the page was about a completely different topic, and never mentioned {{TOCright}}. I had to view the source of that locked help page to confirm the toc formats they used. Hard to find info is rarely used. I'd hate to think that thousands of wiki pages have tons of wasted whitespace because no one ever updated the help pages with info about how to move the TOC around.

Here's a page I found that talks all about Wikipedia's guidelines regarding TOCs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia: ... _.28TOC.29
I found this by doing a Wikipedia search for "Table of Contents" and then clicking the "WP:TOC" link at the top of the page.
I am particularly interested in the feature to hid subsections, I think that would be neat. This may be a low priority, but I'll look into it. Moving it over to the right hand side still seems a bit extreme though, and its look pretty unusual (I've done this only on Edit Preview of course). But that page I found will really help with some thoughts towards this issue. Of course I'm trying to concentrate more on textual content, but getting the TOC straightened out would be nice.

[7im]

Of course, search...

Seems like TOC is such a large element, it should have it's own page, and not be buried under the sections page. Or the link should be titled "Sections and TOC"

[Jesse_V]

Of course, search...

Seems like TOC is such a large element, it should have it's own page, and not be buried under the sections page. Or the link should be titled "Sections and TOC"

Man your just never satisfied are you? Well if you'd like we can put something on the Talk page to suggest that it be moved off. That's an idea.

In any case, I've just finished revamping the article's lead. Just some rearrangements and added a few details in. Hopefully its very clear and powerful now. Also, I tried a few things on the Table of Contents. Specificically, the {{TOC limit}} flag had the most interesting effect, although overall I don't like it. If you'd like to see it yourself open the edit window and then put {{TOC limit|2}} right before the Function section. In your edit screen it should look like:

Code: Select all

{{TOC limit|2}}
==Function==
Essentially, Folding@home attempts to answer two questions: ...

And then hit "Preview" to see it yourself. Although it got rid of much of the whitespace and fixed that up, it seemed to make the TOC too short. Plus its nice to see the subsections, especially when it reads "Alzheimer's", "Huntington's", "Cancer", "Parkinson's", ... its like "we study cures for THIS and THIS and THIS and THIS. How more legit can we get?"

[7im]

I see possible improvements everywhere. Some people like to follow links from Help to Sections, to TOC instead of jumping right to it in a search. You might miss an important detail stepping over those pages.

And if people didn't like stepping through, or jumping around manually instead of searching directly to everything, we wouldn't need any TOCs at all.

[Jesse_V]

I've been working away on the article. The lead was improved, and the v7 section is now in its proper place. Some of the publications are summarized, and I've got some others on my to-do list. You should be able to see where I'm going there, let me know if I'm on the wrong track or something. So if you can, please reevaluate the article.

The first section, "Function" is a little weird. It seems a compilation of various explanations about the project. Its disorganization is partly my fault, but I'm wondering what should be done with it. Should I: 1) move all the bits and pieces to "Biomedical Significance" and "Software", thus removing the section entirely, or 2) rework the section to provide some more info as to WHAT F@h is instead of having the reader just get to the WHY F@h is important in the Biomedical Significance section. Please let me know what you think.

Also, there should be better pictures IMO, unless you think their OK. The PS3 Viewer screenshot is a bit blurry, and doesn't really say much. The image of F@h using 99% CPU can be said entirely in words IMO, and it doesn't convey the right message even though it's true. I do however like the colorful FLOPS image that shows how the PS3 really helped out F@h when it launched. I'm not sure if I can take a screenshot of v7 and just upload that, or if Wikipedia will rain down fire and brimestone for violations of licenses or something. Rosetta@home has nice images http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R@H and I think we should make sure ours are even better.

[7im]

RAH has nice pictures? I see one plain looking screen shot, and a couple of computer generated protein shapes, and a bar graph.

It shouldn't be hard to do better. You can use any of the images on the F@h website in the WIKI (start with something from the results page, then look around the web for a good screen shot, or make your own). I'd also like to see V7 being promoted as a new client standard by which other projects can be measured.

As for the intro, start over from scratch, on your own computer. Draw a quick outline of what you want to say. They you can either copy in existing text to say it, or rewrite it in your own words. The later would probably flow better.

It should introduce you to F@h, like you would introduce a friend. Hopefully it sparks a little interest, and people then read the rest of the page.