More people should be doing this...

[rensign]

i am surprised at few numbers of individuals participating in this project, myself a little ashamed that i only now started using it. in my defense, my first build was 2 years ago, and recently upgrading, i now feel comfortable stressing my system. the fact that after not even a week of folding, i am 8k away from a sub 150k rank, made me start to think. its just sad to see that the most people logged on to the forum has been 662 in 2008...

- how many individual people out there are hard core folders?

- are there any stats on inactive accounts? and/or are they deleted after so long?

- is there any sort of public funding/company funding for marketing? ...is there any form of marketing on a large scale?

i am by no means an expert in such matters, just bored, drinking the morning coffee...

[Zagen30]

Your first question is a bit tricky to answer because of varying definitions of hardcore. Would you just judge based on raw PPD? I know there are some people who contribute a lot to the discussions here on the forum but can't afford to upgrade to/run high-end hardware, and I'd consider them at least somewhat hardcore because of their dedication. Yet I'm sure there are people who happened to buy a computer with relatively powerful hardware, contribute part-time, and outperform those first guys I mentioned- I'm not sure I'd consider them to be hardcore, though of course their contribution is welcomed.

Accounts are never deleted unless clear evidence of cheating has been found, and that's only happened once or twice to my knowledge. There are a lot of inactive accounts, and though some of them are accounts of people who switched usernames or teams, I'm sure a good portion of them are from people who gave up entirely. Looking at the EOC stats, it's currently tracking 21940 active contributors (at least 1 PPD in the last 7 days) out of 512681 total accounts, or around 4%. Of course, EOC only tracks people on teams that are ranked high enough because of limited resources, so that number may be slightly off, but there's still a relatively low retention rate.

I don't believe there's any large-scale marketing. Someone else could answer the whys of that question better than I.

A number of the large teams have their own forums for discussing folding, and since people generally join a team because they like the group, I imagine a lot of discussion stays on those forums.

I agree that more people should contribute, but a lot of people just don't seem to have the passion to keep them committed. I got a couple of my friends to fold in college, but one of them I basically guilted into continuing senior year, and he outright said he probably wouldn't continue after graduation because he just didn't care that much. The lack of major feedback may be a part of that - while we know science is getting done, for some people the fact that a peer-reviewed paper is published every few months isn't exciting, and if they're not hooked by points, it basically comes down to how excited you can get about the vague notion that you're contributing to science.

[rensign]

hey, thanks for responding Zagen, you make some good points.

i guess that first one would be tricky, i suppose when im saying "hard core", im thinking of people with custom build <multiple, even?> 24/7 folding machines. its not the amount of ppd, but the effort invested. if that makes sense...

i would consider myself a casual folder, as in now, rather than running a bot that farms isk in EvE online <best PvP game ever, imho> i am now folding, while gone or asleep, etc... my pc is for games and homework, unfortunately mostly homework these days...

i also agree on the points system, people will do most anything if there is a point attached

i just see big companies/sponsors, prizes for different categories, competitions, maybe team vs team 24/48 hr folding things... i dunno, people need so get stuff, makes them happy, <looks at all my stuff> mmmmm...

it basically comes down to how excited you can get about the vague notion that you're contributing to science.

hah, that pretty much sums it up there

[Nathan_P]

A couple of points i'd like to add:-

Hard core folder has many definitions. There are those with multiple 24/7 rigs, some of them with 4 cpus and 12cores each, then you have those that run massive GPU farms, then there are those that run old hardware as hard as they can to plough through classic uniproc WU. Then there are what i would call the true hardcore folders, these are largely retired now, people that used to run massive farms running the early WU that gave a few points apiece.

For a lot of people real life gets in the way in the worst way possible, a member of out team, FLECOM, restarted folding with us in may last year but had to sell off his whole farm earlier this year because he lost his job and couldn't afford to run it anymore, other shutdown because of summer heat, others give up for a while and then come back.

What you will find though is that once a person folds and has a family member affected by one of the diseases that we are trying to cure, they won't stop

[kiore]

I have people on my team I consider 'hard core' as they are using all their resources and spending time promoting the project, assisting others with technical issues and giving it their best with the hard ware they have.. Points? one in particular is yet to break 100k, but a real hardcore folder IMO.
Far more valuable in the long run than someone who turns up, blasts off a stack of points and disappears..
Yes more people should be doing this and one of the most powerful structures for this in distributed computing is donors, not just hardware donors but knowledge donors, people who take the time to assist others, answer the 'stupid' questions and make this whole thing accessible.
Take a bow, those who answer questions here and in other places, those who write guides and give advice and work on 3rd party applications, the staff and beta testers here .. those who recruit and encourage and assist other to do this stuff. This is perhaps one failing of the points system in that these people are not recognized on the stats..
I am not going to get all soppy but really, some of the 30million or so points I have credited are down to these people..I have tried to 'repay' them by passing on the things I have learned here.
This is the power of distributed computing and F@H particularly.
So foldon, build, buy, recruit and encourage...

[VijayPande]

Thanks for your help with FAH. I have one point to add: we have been working on ways to make it easier for people to contribute to FAH. The latest (v7) of the client is a ground-up re-write with non-expert usability in mind. We also have another project in mind which could make it even easier, although it's a bit early to announce details (sorry to be so coy, but I mainly wanted to stress that usability is a big push for us right now). In conjunction with an easier client, we will be making a big PR push based on recent results which we've recently submitted for publication.

[izaguirr]

What about a conference or meeting of
donors and scientists using the project? Has that
ever happened?

[GreyWhiskers]

What about a conference or meeting of donors and scientists using the project? Has that ever happened?

That would certainly interest me - and would be easy for me if it were at Stanford.

[Jonathan]

Hell, I'd take a trip to Stanford!

[PantherX]

...its just sad to see that the most people logged on to the forum has been 662 in 2008...

While that is true, you have to understand that the function of this Forum is informative. Majority of information is available even if you aren't a member. Thus, a lot of donors might be reading the topics and spreading the word. Moreover, usually, we have a members here who are present at other teams or representing them. This way, a single active member here will will updating their teams site with information so judging by the members here isn't an accurate way. IMHO, a simplier way would be to check out the team forums of the top 5 teams to see how active they are:
Team list from EOC (This is not the complete list of team) -> http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/team_list.php?s=
http://www.evga.com/forums/tt.aspx?forumid=70
http://hardforum.com/forumdisplay.php?f=32
http://www.overclock.net/overclock-net- ... home-team/
http://www.overclockers.com/forums/foru ... y.php?f=21
http://www.maximumpc.com/forums/viewfor ... b777299e4c

[barebear]

I've just been cruising the whole of the forum tonight , found this post, and for openers fully agree

More people should be doing this...

Human nature is fascinating as re the concept of contributing -- a friend of mine who is computer literate to the point of considering doing Disk Cleanup in XP as serious work ( yes, that's the truth, not a joke), can't be persuaded to run FAH despite seeing me run it on 4 rigs at my house. He is convinced .... " I don't want those people looking into my computer " and no amount of explaining will change his mind, despite his seeing the very extensive computer privacy and protections I utilize. A classic modern Luddite if you will.

Hardcore

? I've been muddling along at this since joining 6/1/06 after finding out the project had nothing to do with an envelope stuffing scheme, and after starting with one, now run 4 machines 24/7. One is a donated laptop so old that it was built w/o a network card ( again, not a joke), takes 3 minutes to boot, and intermittently gives me insufficient virtual memory messages ----It does absolutely nothing but run V6.23. Another is a donated Dell 8100 which also is agonizingly slow. They'd both be gone if it weren't for the fact that they can run 6.23.
I guess that makes me hardcore

Plain and simple,I'm into the Folding scene because I think it's one of the most socially responsible things that a person can do

[bdwilson]

I have one point to add: we have been working on ways to make it easier for people to contribute to FAH. The latest (v7) of the client is a ground-up re-write with non-expert usability in mind. We also have another project in mind which could make it even easier, although it's a bit early to announce details (sorry to be so coy, but I mainly wanted to stress that usability is a big push for us right now).

I'm looking forward to hearing what this is about. If there were a simple standalone uniprocessor client, something that could be installed and start folding without any configuration at all (messing around with core numbers, "slots", changing SMP to uniprocessor, etc), that would make F@H much more appealing to laymen. The SMP/GPU integration in V7 is of course essential for dedicated folders, but it would be much easier to recruit new people and to get the masses involved if there were a separate small and simple folding client, just a .exe they could open, hit "next" a couple times, then be done, and have the basic uniprocessor client folding permanently in the background for the life of their machine.

I know the uniprocessor client doesn't get nearly as many points as the others, but given that it can run on virtually any machine without causing hiccups, the sheer number of people who might install something like this will more than make up for it.

[MtM]

What about a conference or meeting of
donors and scientists using the project? Has that
ever happened?

There been seminars/readings of people involved with f@h which we ( joe public ) could attend afaik. Though, never in my country ( The Netherlands ). Some of these ( or at least one, I'm thinking there have been more but not sure ) have been publicly accessible through a lifestream ( video feed ).

Which might be the 'next best thing'. Organize more web seminars, where interested people can ask live questions to the scientists. That would be something I would watch, and something which I would point out to others who are interested but not convinced by my own explanations that they should participate.

Maybe those people who I failed to interest ( and I sadly have to concede there are allot of them ) can be persuaded by direct explanations by the scientists in this way. A two way conversation is much easier for lots of folks to get motivated compared to the web pages explaining the science done and the reasons f@h's DC model enables more/better research then a supercomputer ( I mention this explicitly because this is the comment I get back from most people: if the research is so important and can lead to such advancements as I describe, why hasn't anyone donated a multi million dollar supercomputer to f@h? ). I'm assuming my explanation is correct ( as it's a straight copy from the site, info on the forum ect ) and the reason the explanation fails to convince people is because they don't take my word for it, so I'm counting on them to believe it when it's being told ( in a more personal matter then through the site ) by a member of the Pande Group or affiliates.

Thanks for your help with FAH. I have one point to add: we have been working on ways to make it easier for people to contribute to FAH. The latest (v7) of the client is a ground-up re-write with non-expert usability in mind. We also have another project in mind which could make it even easier, although it's a bit early to announce details (sorry to be so coy, but I mainly wanted to stress that usability is a big push for us right now). In conjunction with an easier client, we will be making a big PR push based on recent results which we've recently submitted for publication.

You're certainly excused for being coy I'm very interested in all things which will enhance usability and awareness!

I been trying to interest people who have a personal interest with Alzheimer, but I fail to interpret and explain the public summary of the recent paper being published on it ( am I wrong with thinking this is the paper you're alluding to... probably won't get that answer until you're making the pr push ). I know allot of people who got more interested based on what I told, but are reluctant to put enough weight on my words/interpretations to get involved. As I said above, I'm counting on them to loose their doubts when such a result was put into laymans terms by a PG member/affiliate indicating how f@h is making a difference.

[k1wi]

I'd love for there to be donor/scientist meet-ups (even just a meeting between folders, who one could say are like minded people) - obviously being normally based in New Zealand I'd imagine any local meet ups there would be few and far between, but perhaps if a researcher is heading to an academic conference somewhere, something open to the public could be stitched up? Even if it was something as simple, cost-minimal and ad-hoc as meeting in an appropriately styled coffee shop or perhaps in an adjacent, open to the public, room at a conference.

[MtM]

@K1wi, donor meetings could be set up by donors alone, nothing stopping you from organizing one in New Zealand ( and if I were a local there, I would come ). Though I assume you mean organizing a donor meeting with the help of this forum/social media linked to from the official Stanford pages? That wouldn't be a bad idea, it would ensure awareness among a large group of people, and you could extend that with asking local media to put the meeting under greater attention which is allot easier to accomplish I think when you can tell them it's an item which is linked to from the official pages?

If this would be supported by Stanford ( maybe it's already possible, I haven't paid that much attention to the facebook ect links/frame's below the official pages ) I might try and organize one in my province ( country wide, idk even for a small country as mine I think organizing such a meeting will go beyond my organisational skills ). Though I'm wondering how to set it up so it attracts new people as well as people already involved, that would be the greatest challenge