I would like to suggest that we create a policy as to when to retire a project.

It seems to me that more and more projects just kind of disappear without any explanation from the Admins of the project and remain in limbo for months to years before we Retire them. Personally I am disappointed in those projects that use the volunteer base without any thank you or information as to what is going on in their projects. Some even ask/demand for donations to keep the project going otherwise they will close. There does not seem to be a care or recognition that it costs a lot of money on the volunteers side to purchase, maintain equipment, pay for electricity as well as spend time to find out if the project is still alive.

I like to hear what others think, but I would like to suggest that if a project does not issue a Work Unit without explanation or becomes inaccessible on the web for more than a month that they be Retired permanently. A Month should be sufficient time to either fix the problem or send us a message what is the plan for the future. No message than they should be retired.

Keep on crunching and have a nice day...

AGREE 100%: 1 MONTH IS ** MORE THAN ENOUGH TIME ** to communicate! That is how the WuProp project displays active/inactive apps in it's tracking.

1 month might be cutting it a little close, but agree that there should be a time threshold for marking as retired; if they come back after that time they can be reactivated. Renderfarm is a big one that comes to mind from my project list, QMC could also be there but at least it has a functioning hosts page.

Excellent idea, I completely agree. Not sure about the 30 days (I think it should be 60 or better 90 days) and also if Willy can implement some retirement automation function, but in general I think that would be of great help, especially for new crunchers to select appropriate and good supported projects.

Interesting. One user replied that one month is more than enough before we declare them retired. One user said one month is cutting it fine and one said we should allow 60 to 90 days. Just wondering why such a long time is necessary to visit the forum or send an email and tell us what is the plan assuming that they can not say so on their website due to technical difficulty. Surely, these Admins have a computer or smart phone of their own apart from the server. It takes a lot of time to search a number of websites to see if they are still alive. After all we are paying for the equipment and Power to do their job for them at no cost to them. (Correction, at least one project stated that unless we donate money to pay the wages of the students who run the site they will close. That leaves a question mark as to what some sites think of us).

free computing power and that we owe them and it's a privileged
to be running "THEIR" project

yep, that is how I feel....

Yes, projects with no work available is very big problem for all community of BOINC.

But my offer is to separate BAM! and BoincStats statistic. Strict Retirement Policy can be used for BAM! and must ensure, that all project are alive.

Dead projects in statistic are not very big problem for me and, I think, for most users. Most crunchers calculating total points and respect history, so for total statistic it is not big difference points are from retired project or alive.

Anyway, BoincStats is only a drop in the bucket. Main problem is in BOINC Manager software. Suppose, I am a new user without any knowledge. When I see "Add Project" window, here ABC@Home, with no work for more as year or two, standing in first place. And in total, maybe 1/3 projects in this list have no work available.

Even big and old projects, like SETI not always have enough work for all users... Or about GPU computing: how many of these projects have enough work available? This is material, which new users are reading..

Sorry Aurimas Rapecka even though I agree with your statement, you are off topic. We are discussing "BOINCStats Retirement Policy" in this thread. BOINCStats is a statistical site only run by Willy. He is a volunteer and has nothing to do with the BOINC Programm or the BOINC Manager Software. BOINC Wickypaedia will direct you to a site where the Developers of BOINC discuss their software. That is where your topic should be voiced. If we digress from the topic, others will reply to your statement, effectively hijacking the original topic and none of us will get a satisfactory result.

Keep on crunching and have a nice day...

@Willy. Please explain for I do not understand. (Whine button pressed). You have Retired Beal@Home following suggestion from one user. I was crunching WU's of this project in just over a month ago and it has been reported (see shout box) that Beal@Home has been hacked. On the other hand ABC@Home has not exported stats for over 266 days and have not heard anything of its future since April last year. (whine button off).

In good faith, In my earlier post I have suggested that we create a policy that will be fair to all projects as I do not see fairness in those two examples unless you have other information that we do not have access to. Please explain why the apparent difference in declaring projects Retired and tell us when can we see an advertised policy of yours when a projects is deemed retired or when we should notify you that it should be retired for I do not expect that you would have time to research every project every day.

Keep on crunching and have a nice day...

I retired Beal because there is obviously something wrong with their website and active projects are linked to from all over BOINCstats.

If Beal comes back it can easily be resurrected.

It's probably time to retire Renderfarm.fi as well, the website is still down and the admins were AFK for many months before that.

Once again, I would like to know the following:

1. What is the policy of accepting a project as a legitimate BOINC project.? Can I just create a project using the BOINC software, with no particular reason accept to collect and maintain a database of users emails which I might sell to outside sources?

2. When is a project considered to be an Active Project and when will it be removed from that category?

3. When will a project be considered "Dead", Inactive or Retired.? Is there a time period before a project is Inactive and Retired? If it is up to us individual users to declare that a project is no longer Active and should be removed and no longer supported in our own database. Is there a way in which we can choose to see only projects in the list that are ACTIVE.? I am aware that Project status information kind of addresses that issue but it means we still have to waste a lot of time researching the Active list of projects which is misleading for some of them are not active and have not been so for months..

An example to support the above questions is Pirates@Home. The website states: "Pirates@Home is an ongoing test for BOINC. At present Pirates@Home is not doing any real Scientific Calculations, we are just having fun testing BOINC." Note the following:

a. The project is not recognized as a valid project and as such it is not listed.

b. The last official NEWS on the website was issued in Sep 2010, nearly five years ago.

c. The Home page although states that it is a BOINC test project, it does not clarify what they are testing.

d. The Detailed Stats have not changed for over 40 days, in fact their best 10 days was in 2013."

4. Why is Pirates@Home listed as a BOINC Project and why is it still in the Active list?

I like to add a remark to my previous post. It is known and appreciated that Willy the project Admin and Founder needs to have a Real Life and work for his bread to maintain his home. As a result time to which he can spare to maintain this site is restricted and any changes likely to occur in the weekend only.

I submit that some of you who visit this site have the necessary Development Skills and time to help him out which should make you an Admin, a trusted person that have access to the database and the ability to manage it. Some simple questions from New users could be answered by any experienced users thereby taking away the time needed to answer that from Willy's time.

Please consider making this site the best BOINC support Stats site by offering yourself to help out. We need each others support and listen to criticism in order to make this the best site. Surely, this can not be done with just one person with limited time. Together we stand, divided we fall.

I'll bring the list of active projects in line with the BOINC Project list. Pirates will be retired.

I retired Pirates and NRG and a couple of projects which never made it out of the hidden stage.

RALPH@Home and Mindmodeling@home are not on the official list yet they generate credit and have attached hosts via BAM!. Why are these not on the list?

My turn to say, my bad...According to my Master List, I have ticked them as eligible to be listed, it sees that both were down at the time and although I was to check later, I missed them. Will attend to that straight away.

Regarding the current discussion about Pirates and the overall question if a project is considered dead or alive would it make sense to establish a kind of a group here at Boincstats who discusses a project first and then give a recommendation to Willy? I would gladly be a part of such a group as I use to check the projects quite frequently and because I´m also not a fan of wasted energy.

That group could have a hidden forum to discuss things and then a "spokesman" gives a recommendation.

I understand that this would maybe require first of all to set up the rules anr requirements for an active project as asked here, this could be discussed as well in the group and we could come up with e.g. a top 5 rules for an active project or something.

I guess this would cover the Boincstats site, regarding the official Boinc project list I don´t know to proceed or if it has to match with the BS list.

Anyway, just my thoughts. We all crunch for fun (at least I hope we all do ) so it should not be too regulated but a bit of structure would be nice.