Managing the community...

[rpmouton]

snip..
I've reminded the scientists running the projects to post more info in the forum to make it more clear what's going on and for them to increase the posts so it's more clear what we're doing and why.

This is certainly a good idea.

It is clear that many people are emotionally and physically invested in the project. I am one of them.

I don't know what the management structure is within the Pande Group, and while I am familiar with the management structure of forums, it is not clear how representative we (the forum users/administrators) are of the total donor base and even what percentage of donors we represent. Obviously, in terms of WUs we may be much more significant and when you add team members who spread information from here via different venues even more so.

Are we a significant percentage of the total science contribution base?

If we are, then PG should consider formalizing their management techniques, I would suggest a donor ombudsman (a role I believe that Vijay strives to fill as evidenced by his regular Sunday contributions).

In any case, I believe that more regular information from the Pande Group should reach all donors, possibly via a pop-up start screen like Steam uses.

We also need to remember that this is a project that is breaking new ground in many areas including the social component and how you interact with/manage donors as well as their resources.

As such it seems imperative to figure out just who we are and what happens when we post something here versus on the "news" blog.

If we matter, we are worth managing well. Even if (or especially if) we don't, then PG should figure out how to manage us better without using the forum as the rest of the donors deserve good management as well.

Regards,

[VijayPande]

There are several people in the forum who serve the role as ombuds people, in particular the Mods for the forum (as well as a few other people). They are in direct contact with me and other members of the Pande Group. In the case of NV core v1.19, we vetted it pretty extensively in several threads, with overwhelmingly positive results. It was clear in our mind (and was mentioned in those threads) that this would become the next main core. In hindsight, it's clear that we should have mentioned that more explicitly. I've emailed the scientists in charge of the projects involved to be more explicit in these steps in the forum. I think that will be a big help.

[VijayPande]

PS I wanted to stress one more point. Note that we did poll for people's responses:

viewtopic.php?f=52&t=6690&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=40

In particular I asked:

Based on the responses, it sounds like v1.19 solves a lot of problems and so it's likely a good idea to roll it out more broadly. Any concerns with us making it the main download for core_11 now?

The response was pretty overwhelmingly positive, so this looked like clearly the way to go. I guess I should have made it clear that it would be the main download for both cores, but in the future, something like that is a safe assumption (if we make core_11 up to date, core_13 will at least be requiring that version, since core_13 is usually ahead of core_11).

I know there's a lot of threads to keep an eye on, but my main point is that we do try to ask donors their opinion and then go from there based on what seems to be best for everyone, based on donor feedback in the forum as well as what we see statistically on our end.

We'll look and see what we can do Monday to make another optional core for the (seeming) minority of people for whom 1.19 is a stability problem and 1.18 worked well. I have some ideas on how to do that for now, although I worry that carrying two cores is a recipe for a lot more problems down the line. It's Sunday in California, so this will have to wait until Monday, but we can go from there.

[7im]

...
Are we a significant percentage of the total science contribution base?

Unfortunately, no. The majority of users are "set and forget" type users. Yes, there are some very large contributors that visit this forum, and a good number of enthusiast users, and some occasional visitors, so over all this forum is representative of the user base, but the majority still only visit their own team forums, or don't visit at all.

If we are, then PG should consider formalizing their management techniques, I would suggest a donor ombudsman (a role I believe that Vijay strives to fill as evidenced by his regular Sunday contributions).

As Vijay mentioned, there is already some formal structures, though they may not be clearly visible at first glance.

In any case, I believe that more regular information from the Pande Group should reach all donors, possibly via a pop-up start screen like Steam uses.

Interesting suggestion, but most don't want any more spam than they already get, hence the "set and forget" mode. Most people know they can check the this forum and check Vijay's (blog) News page for updates, as well as the FAQs and FAH WIKI for indepth information.

As such it seems imperative to figure out just who we are and what happens when we post something here versus on the "news" blog.

I think that is already known by Stanford. They've been posting on both for many years now. Pande Group manages most things as well as can be expected from a small group of scientists, and a forum full of volunteers. There is always room for improvement.

[Insidious]

I notice my fahlog.txt file shows an entry of:

[20:40:36] + News From Folding@Home: GPU folding beta

every time a WU finishes.

If this slot was given meaningful information, then users who wished to stay abreast of "the news" could simply look in their logs. Users that would prefer not to have pop-up etc... could just not worry about it.

It seems like a pathway to 'spread the word' is available...... Why has Dr. Pande and the project team not utilized the method of news broadcast they already have designed into the client?

-Sid

[divery4eyes]

If this slot was given meaningful information, then users who wished to stay abreast of "the news" could simply look in their logs.

uhh no, the log files are already complex as is. If the news is added to the logfile, it will incomprehensible.
Not to mention how large it would be.

ooh i just used a big word

[Insidious]

If this slot was given meaningful information, then users who wished to stay abreast of "the news" could simply look in their logs.

uhh no, the log files are already complex as is. If the news is added to the logfile, it will incomprehensible.
Not to mention how large it would be.

ooh i just used a big word

Yeah, that 2 or 3 sentences would be a major load.... could get as big as 100 bytes or so. What was I thinking?

English is my first language, so I think I could probably digest..... "We have released a new core executable." Didn't realize that would require you to go grab your thesaurus.

-Sid