If it's not already clear from my posts, I second that!

That would be helpful at least in letting them know the debate is going on and that not everyone is happy about the likes of eternity. Then, whatever they decide, at least they've read the arguments made on both sides here.

Maybe I'm the last one to see it, but Willy made this week's poll question about eternity2. Be sure to vote (on the home page, bottom-right).

And if you haven't read the discussion here, regardless of which side you end up on, please take a few minutes - a lot may be at stake for the integrity of BOINC!

How does a user warning system sound? Similar to the project rating system, BAM! members can add a warning to a project when the member thinks there is something wrong with the project or it smells fishy.

The member would select the project and add a message to the warning so that others know why the project is flagged.

This way we can keep the stats included on BOINCstats. When people do decide to crunch for the project, even though they are warned not to, it's their choice.

Sounds very good !!

Sounds good to me too. The idea of adding a reason why is excellent. Dr Anderson's response to my email shows that he really does think boinc crunchers should be finding out about projects and making their own decisions, but if members who've been crunching for a while don't offer some easily accessible opinions and reasons, it can be difficult for newbies in particular to select projects. Particularly now that there are so many.

Did I miss something? Did you post Dr. Anderson's response and I missed it? If not, would you mind posting? I'd be really interested in reading.

No, I didn't post Dr Anderson's email because I didn't ask permission to copy it to a forum. But the basic message is that

*The cash prize is incidental and there's no ethical distinction between solving a puzzle, studying chess, rendering images and so on.

*It's the responsibility of computer owners to select projects according to their own criteria.

*If a project describes itself honestly and accurately, it can be mentioned on the boinc website.

*The criteria are stricter for the boinc 'recommended projects' webpage. To be included here, Dr Anderson needs to know the project admins and be confident about their server security practices. So Eternity2 could conceivably one day be added.

I hope I've paraphrased his arguments accurately. They are cogent arguments and I can see that Dr Anderson is doing all he can to implement his original vision of a neutral boinc platform freely available to all.

But I still feel real personal reservations about a project that could increase energy use and CO2 emissions for workunits of no public benefit, and take CPu cycles away from projects potentially useful to mankind. Eternity2 is not, of course, (as others have also pointed out in this thread) the first or only project to fall into this category. Unnecessary multiple repetitions of workunits within scientific projects could also fall into the same category.

We may have to consider more carefully in the future than in the past how we can limit inessential energy use. What was considered ethical in the past may not seem so in the future.

I still feel very unhappy about boinc actively publicizing Eternity2 instead of just tolerating it.

Whether we like it or not, we're going to have to accustom ourselves to a boinc world in which we as individuals approve of some projects but not others, and where some of us will want to crunch more selectively than in the past. Willy's project warning/rating system with comments should help potential crunchers select projects more knowledgeably.


By the way, the Boinc User Survey is still asking for responses.

Thanks for posting that. Interesting to hear his point of view.


Same here. I respectively disagree with Dr. Anderson, but then again, who the hell am I?


Yah, it's better than nothing, and should put a dent in projects with greedy or other foul intentions. I'm a little unclear though - where exactly would this warning show up, and in what form? If 100 or 1,000 members have submitted warnings for a project, how to display all of them without having the whole thing become too cumbersome? I guess I'm directing these questions at Willy since it was his idea. Just curious. Maybe we could also work negative scores into the project rating page?

I am glad to see Dr Anderson's opinions, as they align very closely with my own. I understand that doesn't make many people here happy. But it is what it is.

In any case, how about a rating system where each person can rate a project -5 to +5. Scores are averaged and listed next to the "sign up for projects" page, or where ever is appropriate. And clicking on the score takes you to a "comments" page. I think that, in order to vote, one should have a minimum quantity of credits for that project, or it could be abused.

Then I'd have to crunch for eternity to comment on it in principle? Sounds like a terrible idea to me. I and all others should have the same right to comment without wasting resources on a project. What is this...Predictor?

Plus, where's your openness policy now? You think eternity - or any other ill-conceived project - should be included regardless of what harm it may do, but I shouldn't be allowed to rate a project just because I don't crunch for it?! Seriously? That's one hell of a double-standard you have there. Openness for all - except for some.

Also, restricting comments to project users would seriously tilt reviews to the positive. As part of any real warning system, as Willy has proposed, there needs to be a way for any user to comment on a project on principle. To expect users to join a project and crunch for it just to review it is a seriously flawed system, and wouldn't work for any project whose very reason for being - like eternity's - is grounds for criticism.

P.S. Last time I checked the poll on eternity, more than 62% of voters favored not including eternity in BS. I know it's not scientific, but it's all we've got right now, so I'd like to renew my call for eternity to be removed. Just because Dr. Anderson and apparently a small minority of BS users think it's acceptable doesn't necessarily make it so. Nor does a 62% majority necessarily make it grounds for removal. Still, if the numbers played out like this for all who use the site, then I think it speaks pretty loudly. There are certainly plenty of other stats sites where admins can include it if they want. Of course, it's Willy's call.

@zombie67: I'm sorry - I'm finding this incredibly ironic, the more I think about it. You just spent numerous posts over several days defending the right of ANY project to participate and be considered among the others, in response to my (and others') assertions that there should be a set of minimum standards a project must meet to be exposed/sanctioned/advertised (however you want to put it) by BOINC, to prevent such projects from corrupting (read: abusing) the system. And now that your policy of openness doesn't suit you as regards the warning system Willy has proposed, you come right back and say users should be required to meet a minimum standard to participate in the warning system re: any specific project, to prevent its abuse? OMFG. I'm literally in disbelief. Do you not realize you just made my previous argument to suit your newly found needs? The irony is unmistakable, and I just can't believe that you've completely changed your stance re: openness to suit new circumstances. How's that fence feeling about now, because WOW are you on it! Listen, you should've stuck to your original openness stance, because at least then it sounded like you were defending a hard-and-fast principle. But to go back on it now just belittles your original position and empowers the points I've been making. You can agree or not - it doesn't matter at all. I'm sorry, but the irony and borderline hypocrisy are plain as day.

I don't want to add to the controversy, but it seems to me the outcome of the poll is pretty clear. Will this outcome have an influence?

I think Willy would be justified in requiring registration on this BoincStats site before letting people vote or add comments. He and his moderators already keep this whole site very clean and free of abuse.

(The boinc Trac bug reporting system started off as open to everyone to send error and bug tickets to Berkeley. But some people apparently abused the system so compulsory registration had to be added later. Zombie may really have been thinking about this sort of situation.)

Right, but what zombie was saying was that "in order to vote, one should have a minimum quantity of credits for that project, or it could be abused," which is totally a different issue.

Wow. picantecomputing, take a breath. It was just a suggestion, to try to prevent abuse.

I can picture a situation happening where a person, or group of people have a personal issue with a project, or (say) moderator at a project. Then they enlist 10 of their friends to come here and vote negatively, even though those friends have never crunched for the project, and are only voting because their friend asked them to. Thereby creating an artificially bad score. If only that one person really had a complaint, then there should be only the one negative vote, not 10.

There needs to be some way to prevent people from "playing" the system.

I am completely open to other methods, so long as it does the job. Make some suggestions if you don't like mine.

Here is another: people have to be registered here for a minimum period of time (say a month), before they can vote on projects. Sort of like a mandatory cooling-off period before people can buy guns. The delay will weed out many people like in my example above, and people who are just in the heat of the moment.

Also, perhaps the scores can have a "decay" feature. Constantly, gradually, resetting back to "0". I can see a situation where situations are bad at a project today, but get better over time. People may put in a bad score today, and never revisit the project or their score. But the projects should be rewarded for making changes for the better, or at least not penalized by old, out of date scores.

Yes, I think we all need to chill and think about what's going on.

1) There are already projects out there that don't benefit humanity. In this sense, it can be wasteful of CPU cycles. This can be said for any project based on games, rendering, etc.

2) Eternity is not a project for the average cruncher. It is a project for the occasional person who was already going to buy the puzzle in the first place. I believe the project admin has already made it clear why you need to purchase the puzzle to participate. This is fairly obvious from the business standpoint: the puzzle makers (not affiliated with the project) don't make any money if one person buys the puzzle then distributes it widely for everyone to solve.

My opinion: if you want to purchase the puzzle anyway, participate in this project, otherwise, don't. I'm under the impression that the majority of people here would end up buying the puzzle just to crunch and this is partially why it is unpopular.

3) I agree with zombie that it would be better if BOINCStats remained neutral among projects and keep tracking stats for this project. It should only have to take action if a project is mislabeling itself or has some malicious intent. I don't see either of these with eternity. Regardless of whether most people disagree with the project, let the participants have the stats they want. If the stats for eternity are not here, people will just go to another stats site to get what they want.

4) I don't see why eternity should be approached with so much hostility. Again, I think all these decisions should be based on personal choice. I think majority of crunchers participate for reasons including benefiting humanity. Why do we need alienate those who might crunch for other reasons? BOINC participants should have the freedom to run whatever projects they choose for their own reasons. If the rest of us believe its wasteful, generates CO2, promotes gambling, doesn't help anybody, whatever, then so be it.

I think everyone's voiced their opinions in this thread and in the polls but now we just need to let it go. I would hate to see BOINCStats drop projects just due to unpopularity, rather than remaining neutral and let everyone have the ability to get the stats they want. BOINCStats should be in the business of providing stats, not deciding whats appropriate for everyone.

I'd much rather see a system for ratings, reviews, so people can make more informed decisions for themselves over what to participate in, as opposed to dropping the project from stats entirely. Criteria for dropping the project have to be way more stringent than just whether money is involved.

Some sort of decay feature sounds a good idea, with votes being eliminated after a particular time, or for example only the most recent 50 or 100 votes counting. As you say, this would be more motivating for projects that had problems in the past but have improved.

This might require some ingenuity on Willy's part. Willy, BoincStats members never underestimate your skills!

I really don't want the debate to go on forever either. This isn't my idea of a good time. But I do think it's a significant issue. And since you're in favor of keeping eternity on BS, I can see very well why you'd want to "let it go." Again, I know the polls are unofficial, but at least in this one, 62.1% voted against including eternity, while just 23.3% voted in favor of it. That's more than a 5:2 ratio. I'm sorry if those numbers don't support your position, but they do say that most would probably disagree with you. So I think saying we just need to let the issue go is to completely disregard the votes members have cast.

That being said, Willy's going to do what he thinks should be done. If it's a warning system of some sort, then so be it. It'd be a buffer against the kinds of projects we've been talking about, and perhaps in the end even more effective at preventing wasted credits than just shutting out projects altogether. Providing feedback could actually be a great thing. It'll be interesting to see whether more projects like eternity follow in any significant numbers, and hopefully this sort of review/warning system will help separate (as the community sees fit) the wheat from the chaff. That's part of the vision for web 2.0...so, wonderful! I agree that it's a fine alternative.

As a side note to all, I do see your points. Really. I get amped about certain issues, but it doesn't mean I'm not thinking about your arguments and seriously considering them. Apologies if my tone seemed less than ideal in that last batch of posts. No offense intended whatsoever.

I'm also sorry, but I could care less about volunteer-based popularity contests that are run about projects. Have we run polls against other projects which may be questionable to some people? We have projects run by people other than universities and others that aim to reduce the effectiveness or find weaknesses in cryptography algorithms that are still widely in use. There are projects for solving games or breaking prime records, but people have a hard enough time justifying the energy usage from running climateprediction.net. What about the projects with poor administration who decides to arbitrarily ban people? No polls have been run against those, and this shouldn't have really been an exception. Your concerns about this project are completely understandable and legit, but should that be an impediment for a project participant wanting some stats? Not in my opinion. Do we really want a situation where every project that gets started has to justify itself to over 50% of people before BOINCStats will bother with it? I don't.

I'll reiterate, it'd be much better if BOINCStats was neutral to all projects and offered the ability to rate, review, and/or give warnings to potential participants. Then the participants themselves get to decide what to do. Put info and/or links to this on project-specific stats pages and whenever they get their stats they can also easily get to the participant opinions about that project.



I agree, alternatively the votes only from the last N weeks can be counted? Then when votes are expired you can re-cast your vote in case your position changes. There will need to be some sort of defense against sockpuppets. Requiring a certain account age should be sufficient against people who will try to make accounts just to rate projects up/down.

Point conceded. That all makes sense.

Sorry for not reading the whole thread, but what happens with the poll about eternity not being listed at BoincStats?

All polls on BOINCStats last for only a week, so it's closed now. here are the results.