The news is fresh. Everybody sees it right now and everybody has seen the post under "Number crunching".

But what about 1 or 2 months?

If somebody join the club, who will ever have a look at the news of 1 month ago or at the posts of 1 month ago to find that thread that was speaking about it?

Look at the number of posts in the S@H Science posts: a roughly guess is there are there some 40% of posts that have nothing to do with Science, although it is mentioned that that massage is board for use for Life in the universe, radio SETI, and SETI@home's search for ET. Imagine then when a new user is coming, has used Boinc for a couple of days and has problems related to the server. 95% of the people will not have seen the link of the status server on the Participate in Seti@Home. And there we go: posts and posts and posts again when the server is down…..

It is a dreamed occasion now to put this link at the frontpage. And the dreamed occasion to be sure everybody can see at directly without the need to search for it, at the "Home Page" (=frontpage).

One other example: who has, as a newcomer, ever used the sort function "Most recent answer first" in the help desk. Maybe 5%, maybe less? Who has, as a newcomer used the "Search" function?

Have a look at LHC@Home at Cern, the place where the WWW was born. They didn't put even a link to the status of the server, but the status itself is at the Home Page.

Berkeley, please, be logic and make the logic step to put this link where everybody can see it at a glance.

> Berkeley, please, be logic and make the logic step to put this link where
> everybody can see it at a glance.

I would love to see a quick status light on the main page, click it to get the details. If it is red, you know the project is having real problems.

Now with multiple projects we can see the good ideas and reccomend them for inclusion to the baseline. So this maybe an idea whose time has come.
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I think that it would also be good if the Status Page was in laymen terms or an explanation of the different items that are listed was linked to each item. Glossary of items could also just be at the bottom of the web page.

Example:
scheduler = ????
sah_validate = Is this the validator which compares results for credit?
splitter = software program to make small work units
etc, etc.
----------



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> The news is fresh. Everybody sees it right now and everybody has seen the post
> under "Number crunching".
>
> But what about 1 or 2 months?
>
> If somebody join the club, who will ever have a look at the news of 1 month
> ago or at the posts of 1 month ago to find that thread that was speaking about
> it?
>
> Look at the number of posts in the S@H Science posts: a roughly guess is there
> are there some 40% of posts that have nothing to do with Science, although it
> is mentioned that that massage is board for use for Life in the universe,
> radio SETI, and SETI@home's search for ET. Imagine then when a new user is
> coming, has used Boinc for a couple of days and has problems related to the
> server. 95% of the people will not have seen the link of the status server on
> the Participate in Seti@Home. And there we go: posts and posts and posts again
> when the server is down…..
>
> It is a dreamed occasion now to put this link at the frontpage. And the
> dreamed occasion to be sure everybody can see at directly without the need to
> search for it, at the "Home Page" (=frontpage).
>
> One other example: who has, as a newcomer, ever used the sort function "Most
> recent answer first" in the help desk. Maybe 5%, maybe less? Who has, as a
> newcomer used the "Search" function?
>
> Have a look at LHC@Home at Cern, the
> place where the WWW was born. They didn't put even a link to the status of the
> server, but the status itself is at the Home Page.
>
> Berkeley, please, be logic and make the logic step to put this link where
> everybody can see it at a glance.



Completely agreed. it's too "hidden" in it's current location. perhaps just eh same link under the news table, right beside or under "available as an RSS feed" would be perfect.


-Fox

[/url]

Good idea, just a one line notice saying server is up, is all we need... You need to be careful in the asking, cause you may not like the results, such as the forums slowing down and slowing down, each new feature has its effect, you have been warned lolololol
My name is Pascal and this message has my approval...

It is 10 oclock, do you know what your WUWUs are doing tonight...

> Good idea, just a one line notice saying server is up, is all we need... You
> need to be careful in the asking, cause you may not like the results, such as
> the forums slowing down and slowing down, each new feature has its effect, you
> have been warned lolololol

Your icon is strange.

But on topic: A one-line notice saying "server is up" isn't good enough, mainly because there is more than one server. Better, I think, would be a colored icon similar to what they're using now. A green icon means all servers/services up, a yellow one means some are down but the project is still running, red means everything is down, and so on. The icon could be made clickable so that users can see the details (the page we're looking at now)




------------------------------------


The game High/Low is played by tossing two nuclear warheads into the air. The one whose bomb explodes higher wins. This game is usually played by people of low intelligence, hence the name High/Low.

> > Good idea, just a one line notice saying server is up, is all we need...
> You
> > need to be careful in the asking, cause you may not like the results,
> such as
> > the forums slowing down and slowing down, each new feature has its
> effect, you
> > have been warned lolololol
>
> Your icon is strange.
>
> But on topic: A one-line notice saying "server is up" isn't good enough,
> mainly because there is more than one server. Better, I think, would be a
> colored icon similar to what they're using now. A green icon means all
> servers/services up, a yellow one means some are down but the project is still
> running, red means everything is down, and so on. The icon could be made
> clickable so that users can see the details (the page we're looking at now)
>

>

> ------------------------------------
>

> The game High/Low is played by tossing two nuclear warheads into the air. The
> one whose bomb explodes higher wins. This game is usually played by people of
> low intelligence, hence the name High/Low.
>

You call my Icon strange hehehehehe it is just my Brain wave preventer it keeps them out and in, if you get my drift, I am not paranoid I am schizophrenic......."o}

My name is Pascal and this message has my approval...

It is 10 oclock, do you know what your WUWUs are doing tonight...

Congrats for a good idea...

But put an attractive link on the frontpage with a kind of a traffic light (green = all systems go / orange = most or vital systems operational / red = everything down, this is merely a suggestion). And please make it GOOD VISIBLE.

Further give some info on what is doing what in this setup when the lights are clicked upon...
For the moment this is not clear for every common user.

Greetings from Belgium ;-))

> I think that it would also be good if the Status Page was in laymen terms or
> an explanation of the different items that are listed was linked to each item.
> Glossery of items could also just be at the bottom of the web page.

I agree that an explanation of the processes would be nice. For example, I'm assuming that the assimilator has nothing to do with the Borg, but I don't know what it does.

> I think that it would also be good if the Status Page was in laymen terms or
> an explanation of the different items that are listed was linked to each item.
> Glossery of items could also just be at the bottom of the web page.
>
> Example:
> scheduler = ????
> sah_validate = Is this the validator which compares results for credit?
> splitter = software program to make small work units
> etc, etc.

Well, though there is not a link, I do have definitions for those words. You have to send me a note if they don't make sense. Otherwise I assume (and you know what that means!) that they are fine.

If I have missed one, that is also a time to jack me up.

So, you have only yourself to blame is the glossary is not good enough...
<p>
For BOINC Documentaion: Click Me!

I shurely would like something very visualy pleasing and eye-catching on the home-page,... clickable by mousing over and giving in this way more detailed information like the most of you are suggesting.

Greetings from Belgium ;-))

> Well, though there is not a link, I do have definitions for those words. You
> have to send me a note if they don't make sense. Otherwise I assume
> (and you know what that means!) that they are fine.
>
> If I have missed one, that is also a time to jack me up.
>
> So, you have only yourself to blame is the glossary is not good enough...
> <p>
>
>

Hi Paul,

I was actually thinking of the definition being on the Status Page or a link to the definition of each item. I am sure that there are hundreds which may not understand some of the program items and this would make it very simple.

I checked your glossary and was only able to find the splitter. Did not see the assimilator or transitioner in the glossary. They may be somewhere else in the documentation. The other program on the status page shows sah_validate which I would think would be the validator but apparently not since we are still getting credits.
----------



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Well, appart for the database must be up & the upload/download-directories being accessible, the rest can be grouped like this:

Critical services: Scheduler & feeder:
Scheduler is responsible for handing out new work & reporting results.
Feeder is filling the "queue" with work ready to send out by the scheduler.

Important services: Transitioner & splitter:
Splitter takes the tapes with raw data and "splits" into wu.
Transitioner is responsible of making more "results" for every wu, either for newly splitted wu, if error, or passed deadline.

"Unimportant" (lol) services: the rest...
Validator, responsible for validating wu, and granting credit. A quick look on "classic" shows the validator can be severely backlogged. ;)
Web-pages, ok it's critical if you haven't got an account-key, but the rest is preferences, forums, team-tables, and isn't so important for the actual crunching...
Assimilator, is run exactly once for a wu, is responsible for that happens with a finished wu, either errored-out or if got canonical result. In seti this is AFAIK to copy the canonical result to the science-database, but other projects can example use the result as input for next wu...
File_deleter; deletes files that isn't needed any longer, example is wu that is assimilated and haven't any outstanding results to wait for.


My suggestion if should place one colour-code on the main page for the different states is, red if scheduler/feeder down, yellow if transitioner/splitter down, blue or something if validator down, green even then assimilator/file_deleter down.
Since the assimilator is project-specific, if a project uses result-files for new work-generating it's of course more important and should be yellow.

Of course some will say the validator being down is much more important since this means no crediting, but seti for BOINC will never have real-time-crediting so having to wait a couple days more for crediting isn't a big issue.

> I was actually thinking of the definition being on the Status Page or a link
> to the definition of each item. I am sure that there are hundreds which may
> not understand some of the program items and this would make it very simple.
>
> I checked your glossary and was only able to find the splitter. Did not see
> the assimilator or transitioner in the glossary. They may be somewhere else
> in the documentation. The other program on the status page shows sah_validate
> which I would think would be the validator but apparently not since we are
> still getting credits.
> ----------


Well, see, I missed! :)

If they were not in the glossary where you should have found them, well... shame on me.. I knew I had put the splitter in there and thought I did the rest too ...
<p>
For BOINC Documentaion: Click Me!