Non active users let us thinking about potential users too ...
The E@H Team generally does not see "advertising" the crunching project as a desirable action nor do they like "praise and "reward". This is not a strong criticism in any way, it's only the way I understand the attitude of the involved actors. A message like 'come back to Einstein and help us find X' (proposed by mikey as an example) would probably regarded as a "Barker's posturing". I believe to understand this: scientist are neither sellers nor advertisers, they are ... scientists :-) But in one important case, they are forced to work in this direction: Apply for funding their project! Seen from my humble point of view next budget should have a point "Promotion and support of crunching enthusiasts". Perhaps I guess - as an outsider - the importance of our contribution, but this could only mean that the budgeted cost are less but not ignorable. And yes, not to forget, there should be found a suitable and thrilled project member for such a task ...
To hope most of the no more active users will come back is an illusion. But on the other hand, they also do not interfere so much. Probably it would be better to only "fade out" them like established at "Your Computers" (all / only active). It does really make no sense to speak (at boincssynergy) of "391,826 users" if only a small number are active! This is counterproductive indeed: "There is no need to help a community in case of such an incredible number of crunchers"! Turn the "lure" upside down highlighting the faithful crowd of helpers who volunteer their time and computer capacity enthusiastically for this project, not to forget the few "institutions" with enormous crunching power which will push from time to time. Say "Be a member of a group of nice people working on the future" is more effectively like "We just have hundred of thousands helping us". And let the interested ones know "targets" combined with "rewards" (from "thank you so much" over small gadgets to the "trophy"). BOINC was established by following the idea of using unused computing capacity, but for many of us (and future helpers) it is more than this, we will "participate" to this project in a manner we couldn't do that in another way. The commitment is in a certain sense also a game and a leisure activity, far more than just incidental supporting.
A lot of (actual and interested) volunteers are not involved in scientific "searching for gravitational waves", do not have the necessary background to the profound problems in full depth. The more important would be efforts to demonstrate the Volunteers interesting facts and problems, as well as the work of scientists a general understanding of. I know, not a simple thing, but absolutely necessary to trigger enthusiasm. The website of scientists usually is dry as a bone and full of jargon with little explanation. Why should it, scientists among themselves love this clearly. But not the most of Volunteers! Therefore, it requires two levels of communication - a scientifically oriented and a more popular - also an object of the above-mentioned person sought. Popular Science is a balancing act, I know. But success does not surrender, it wants to be worked out and unfortunately costs time and money. But if all this is "too much" let us join in the song of the Fab Four "Let it be":-)
I know I am a part of a story that starts long before I can remember and continues long beyond when anyone will remember me [Danny Hillis, Long Now]
My guess is that someone ( in the world ) will verify gravitational waves and there will be a stampede. The topic has the capacity to captivate even at a base/popular level of understanding - somewhat like the response when light deflection during a solar eclipse was first demonstrated. Notwithstanding that it would be easier for this project to find a wave if more crunchers arrived prior to that. So a wee bit chicken and eggy .... :-)
Cheers, Mike.
( edit ) FWIW : While science training likely doesn't include marketing/advocacy ( outside of grant acquisition ) it's probably more a case of draining swamps, alligators etc. Even the idea that a body like AEI has a public program at all is probably unusual. Mind you LIGO has/does outreach as a specific funded activity. As usual the devil is in the detail, publish or perish, in a perfect world .....
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal
My guess is that someone ( in the world ) will verify gravitational waves and there will be a stampede. The topic has the capacity to captivate even at a base/popular level of understanding - somewhat like the response when light deflection during a solar eclipse was first demonstrated. Notwithstanding that it would be easier for this project to find a wave if more crunchers arrived prior to that. So a wee bit chicken and eggy .... :-)
Cheers, Mike.
One way to get more people to come back would be to offer 'credit incentives' to those that do crunch the units in a more timely manner. GPUGrid does this, for example give people who run the Beta units more credit than those that don't, but to balance that out, as all units need to be run, give those that return the regular units within 24 hours a bonus of X amount of the credits they get for crunching that unit. This would reduce the cache sizes of most people as they want more credits for free if they can get them, this by itself could help offset the influx of people returning to Einstein. An example would be I am getting about 4400 credits per workunit now, give me an extra 10% credit for returning the units within 24 hours and 5% more if I return it within 48 hours. After that I would get normal credits. I think this would encourage some people to return to Einstein, and some new ones to join, making finding the Waves faster, thus encouraging even more people to join.
What you DON'T want to do though is give sooo many credits that everyone and his brother comes here, that would put a huge strain on the system and cause Server side costs to skyrocket to keep up. My above percentage numbers were easy numbers to illustrate my point, not actual suggestions of what to give. But you want to give enough to encourage smaller caches so the units with useful data in them can be utilized quicker.
I am satisfied with the way Einstein functions right now. Offering "extra credit" to entice people back to E@H or any other project for that matter is a waste of time and effort. I thought the whole idea behind distributed computing was to support a project you had an interest in without being rewarded. Heck, why not offer participants $1.00 for every credit earned?
According to our data and experience, people rarely drop off Einstein@Home deliberately. It's more like they buy a new computer and forget that they once installed BOINC/Einstein@Home and thus don't install it on the new one. They don't care about credit and probably never did, and you don't reach them via project news or BOINC Manager notices. The average time people contribute to Einstein@Home is about 2.5y, which happens to match the average lifespan of a computer nowadays. The only time (after the very beginning) Einstein@Home had more than 20% active participants was after the "mass mailing" announcing the first Einstein@Home Radio Pulsar discovery five years ago.
So I definitely think eMail is the way to go. Give us some time to sort out the administrative details once. It will happen eventually.
I am satisfied with the way Einstein functions right now. Offering "extra credit" to entice people back to E@H or any other project for that matter is a waste of time and effort. I thought the whole idea behind distributed computing was to support a project you had an interest in without being rewarded. Heck, why not offer participants $1.00 for every credit earned?
Team Gridcoin purports to pay Gridcoins while at the same time giving standard Boinc credits, not all projects are supported though and I have no idea how much they pay. A Gridcoin is only worth a small fraction of a Bitcoin though whose price fluctuates regularly. I have heard that only those using asic miners can make any real money and that even at the current Bitcoin prices you won't cover the electricity costs. Team Gidcoins interface and setup though is not point and click, it requires some research to get it working.
Totally agree with Robl. Credit incentives misses the point, people caring about credits probably crunch more "profitable" projects.
No, E@H should push it's strength, the science done and possible future scientific benefits. Who wouldn't want to get in on that?
I think the outreach of E@H is pretty good (information about discovered pulsars in the web page, etc.). Other projects publish much less information or less frequently, and admins don't show too often in the forum. Indeed, I think E@H has the better forum support of all projects I participated in.
As for old users, I, for one, have some old users that I don't use anymore. When I moved to a new house, or didn't computed for some months (for example, in summer), or my computers crashed and I got new ones, ... in these cases it happens that I forget the email I used, or it doesn't exist anymore, so I create a new user and don't use the old one anymore. Maybe it happens to other people too. I probably used at least 4 users for BOINC.
I am satisfied with the way Einstein functions right now. Offering "extra credit" to entice people back to E@H or any other project for that matter is a waste of time and effort. I thought the whole idea behind distributed computing was to support a project you had an interest in without being rewarded. Heck, why not offer participants $1.00 for every credit earned?
I was thinking about an "BOINC-Coin", an crypto-coin like Bitcoin for each unit.
The amount must be fair, which is an small problem. Coints/score works fine, but if you add GPU-Computing you will get problems. (Anybody will GPU-work...)
If you will pay users you will need money...useless.
You will need v-money to get an "paying"-system running.
I was talking about this in november 2015 in the projects mail list.
Non active users let us
)
Non active users let us thinking about potential users too ...
The E@H Team generally does not see "advertising" the crunching project as a desirable action nor do they like "praise and "reward". This is not a strong criticism in any way, it's only the way I understand the attitude of the involved actors. A message like 'come back to Einstein and help us find X' (proposed by mikey as an example) would probably regarded as a "Barker's posturing". I believe to understand this: scientist are neither sellers nor advertisers, they are ... scientists :-) But in one important case, they are forced to work in this direction: Apply for funding their project! Seen from my humble point of view next budget should have a point "Promotion and support of crunching enthusiasts". Perhaps I guess - as an outsider - the importance of our contribution, but this could only mean that the budgeted cost are less but not ignorable. And yes, not to forget, there should be found a suitable and thrilled project member for such a task ...
To hope most of the no more active users will come back is an illusion. But on the other hand, they also do not interfere so much. Probably it would be better to only "fade out" them like established at "Your Computers" (all / only active). It does really make no sense to speak (at boincssynergy) of "391,826 users" if only a small number are active! This is counterproductive indeed: "There is no need to help a community in case of such an incredible number of crunchers"! Turn the "lure" upside down highlighting the faithful crowd of helpers who volunteer their time and computer capacity enthusiastically for this project, not to forget the few "institutions" with enormous crunching power which will push from time to time. Say "Be a member of a group of nice people working on the future" is more effectively like "We just have hundred of thousands helping us". And let the interested ones know "targets" combined with "rewards" (from "thank you so much" over small gadgets to the "trophy"). BOINC was established by following the idea of using unused computing capacity, but for many of us (and future helpers) it is more than this, we will "participate" to this project in a manner we couldn't do that in another way. The commitment is in a certain sense also a game and a leisure activity, far more than just incidental supporting.
A lot of (actual and interested) volunteers are not involved in scientific "searching for gravitational waves", do not have the necessary background to the profound problems in full depth. The more important would be efforts to demonstrate the Volunteers interesting facts and problems, as well as the work of scientists a general understanding of. I know, not a simple thing, but absolutely necessary to trigger enthusiasm. The website of scientists usually is dry as a bone and full of jargon with little explanation. Why should it, scientists among themselves love this clearly. But not the most of Volunteers! Therefore, it requires two levels of communication - a scientifically oriented and a more popular - also an object of the above-mentioned person sought. Popular Science is a balancing act, I know. But success does not surrender, it wants to be worked out and unfortunately costs time and money. But if all this is "too much" let us join in the song of the Fab Four "Let it be":-)
I know I am a part of a story that starts long before I can remember and continues long beyond when anyone will remember me [Danny Hillis, Long Now]
My guess is that someone ( in
)
My guess is that someone ( in the world ) will verify gravitational waves and there will be a stampede. The topic has the capacity to captivate even at a base/popular level of understanding - somewhat like the response when light deflection during a solar eclipse was first demonstrated. Notwithstanding that it would be easier for this project to find a wave if more crunchers arrived prior to that. So a wee bit chicken and eggy .... :-)
Cheers, Mike.
( edit ) FWIW : While science training likely doesn't include marketing/advocacy ( outside of grant acquisition ) it's probably more a case of draining swamps, alligators etc. Even the idea that a body like AEI has a public program at all is probably unusual. Mind you LIGO has/does outreach as a specific funded activity. As usual the devil is in the detail, publish or perish, in a perfect world .....
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal
RE: My guess is that
)
One way to get more people to come back would be to offer 'credit incentives' to those that do crunch the units in a more timely manner. GPUGrid does this, for example give people who run the Beta units more credit than those that don't, but to balance that out, as all units need to be run, give those that return the regular units within 24 hours a bonus of X amount of the credits they get for crunching that unit. This would reduce the cache sizes of most people as they want more credits for free if they can get them, this by itself could help offset the influx of people returning to Einstein. An example would be I am getting about 4400 credits per workunit now, give me an extra 10% credit for returning the units within 24 hours and 5% more if I return it within 48 hours. After that I would get normal credits. I think this would encourage some people to return to Einstein, and some new ones to join, making finding the Waves faster, thus encouraging even more people to join.
What you DON'T want to do though is give sooo many credits that everyone and his brother comes here, that would put a huge strain on the system and cause Server side costs to skyrocket to keep up. My above percentage numbers were easy numbers to illustrate my point, not actual suggestions of what to give. But you want to give enough to encourage smaller caches so the units with useful data in them can be utilized quicker.
+100500 Mikey! Your idea is
)
+100500 Mikey! Your idea is simple and that's why it's simply great.
I am satisfied with the way
)
I am satisfied with the way Einstein functions right now. Offering "extra credit" to entice people back to E@H or any other project for that matter is a waste of time and effort. I thought the whole idea behind distributed computing was to support a project you had an interest in without being rewarded. Heck, why not offer participants $1.00 for every credit earned?
According to our data and
)
According to our data and experience, people rarely drop off Einstein@Home deliberately. It's more like they buy a new computer and forget that they once installed BOINC/Einstein@Home and thus don't install it on the new one. They don't care about credit and probably never did, and you don't reach them via project news or BOINC Manager notices. The average time people contribute to Einstein@Home is about 2.5y, which happens to match the average lifespan of a computer nowadays. The only time (after the very beginning) Einstein@Home had more than 20% active participants was after the "mass mailing" announcing the first Einstein@Home Radio Pulsar discovery five years ago.
So I definitely think eMail is the way to go. Give us some time to sort out the administrative details once. It will happen eventually.
BM
BM
RE: I am satisfied with the
)
Team Gridcoin purports to pay Gridcoins while at the same time giving standard Boinc credits, not all projects are supported though and I have no idea how much they pay. A Gridcoin is only worth a small fraction of a Bitcoin though whose price fluctuates regularly. I have heard that only those using asic miners can make any real money and that even at the current Bitcoin prices you won't cover the electricity costs. Team Gidcoins interface and setup though is not point and click, it requires some research to get it working.
Totally agree with Robl.
)
Totally agree with Robl. Credit incentives misses the point, people caring about credits probably crunch more "profitable" projects.
No, E@H should push it's strength, the science done and possible future scientific benefits. Who wouldn't want to get in on that?
I think the outreach of E@H
)
I think the outreach of E@H is pretty good (information about discovered pulsars in the web page, etc.). Other projects publish much less information or less frequently, and admins don't show too often in the forum. Indeed, I think E@H has the better forum support of all projects I participated in.
As for old users, I, for one, have some old users that I don't use anymore. When I moved to a new house, or didn't computed for some months (for example, in summer), or my computers crashed and I got new ones, ... in these cases it happens that I forget the email I used, or it doesn't exist anymore, so I create a new user and don't use the old one anymore. Maybe it happens to other people too. I probably used at least 4 users for BOINC.
RE: I am satisfied with the
)
I was thinking about an "BOINC-Coin", an crypto-coin like Bitcoin for each unit.
The amount must be fair, which is an small problem. Coints/score works fine, but if you add GPU-Computing you will get problems. (Anybody will GPU-work...)
If you will pay users you will need money...useless.
You will need v-money to get an "paying"-system running.
I was talking about this in november 2015 in the projects mail list.