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Hazode

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Message 842108 - Posted: 19 Dec 2008, 17:59:01 UTC

What are points? How are they used? What do they do? And how do you get them?

Those are the questions I would like to be answered. Thanks in advance.
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Profile Jord
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Message 842117 - Posted: 19 Dec 2008, 18:10:28 UTC - in response to Message 842108.  

You must mean credits. Points are gained on Folding@home, not here at BOINC.

Credits is a way for the project to pay you for the time your computer took to calculate the data they sent you.

You can get them by letting your computer crunch for Seti (or any other project under the BOINC umbrella) and have it return the result files.

You can't do anything with them, but for brag to others how good your computer is. They won't buy you a pack of milk in the store.
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Message 842453 - Posted: 20 Dec 2008, 9:15:31 UTC - in response to Message 842117.  


You can't do anything with them, but for brag to others how good your computer is. They won't buy you a pack of milk in the store.


It would be nice, if for example, you could trade in 100k points for a raffle ticket. Grand prize - $100

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Message 842508 - Posted: 20 Dec 2008, 12:50:40 UTC - in response to Message 842453.  


You can't do anything with them, but for brag to others how good your computer is. They won't buy you a pack of milk in the store.


It would be nice, if for example, you could trade in 100k points for a raffle ticket. Grand prize - $100

Where would the money come from. The Seti project, like most Boinc based projects exists on a shoestring budget. It survive on monetary donation from participants. Some hardware was purchased and donated by volunteers, most of it is Beta equipment provided at a discount by a couple of companies.

Astropulse has received a small grant that probably only covered a portion of the cost of its development.

The CUDA port (reading between the lines) appears to have been done with good engineering support from Nvidia.

Boinc V7.2.42
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Message 842743 - Posted: 20 Dec 2008, 21:51:28 UTC - in response to Message 842508.  


You can't do anything with them, but for brag to others how good your computer is. They won't buy you a pack of milk in the store.


It would be nice, if for example, you could trade in 100k points for a raffle ticket. Grand prize - $100

Where would the money come from. The Seti project, like most Boinc based projects exists on a shoestring budget. It survive on monetary donation from participants. Some hardware was purchased and donated by volunteers, most of it is Beta equipment provided at a discount by a couple of companies.

Astropulse has received a small grant that probably only covered a portion of the cost of its development.

The CUDA port (reading between the lines) appears to have been done with good engineering support from Nvidia.


Aurora, chill, it was just wishful thinking. I know that S@H does not pay out, but there are still people who are willing to participate, for free
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OzzFan Crowdfunding Project Donor*Special Project $75 donorSpecial Project $250 donor
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Message 842896 - Posted: 21 Dec 2008, 5:33:51 UTC - in response to Message 842743.  


You can't do anything with them, but for brag to others how good your computer is. They won't buy you a pack of milk in the store.


It would be nice, if for example, you could trade in 100k points for a raffle ticket. Grand prize - $100

Where would the money come from. The Seti project, like most Boinc based projects exists on a shoestring budget. It survive on monetary donation from participants. Some hardware was purchased and donated by volunteers, most of it is Beta equipment provided at a discount by a couple of companies.

Astropulse has received a small grant that probably only covered a portion of the cost of its development.

The CUDA port (reading between the lines) appears to have been done with good engineering support from Nvidia.


Aurora, chill, it was just wishful thinking. I know that S@H does not pay out, but there are still people who are willing to participate, for free


He was just responding to the idea before we get 100 posts all saying they want stuff for their points, which won't happen. Better to nip it in the bud now than after everyone starts an uproar over it.
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Microbe

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Message 865760 - Posted: 15 Feb 2009, 15:04:48 UTC - in response to Message 842896.  

The "What's In It For Me" principle is very powerful. If you don't intent on awarding prizes for points, then there should be a ranking system where you can compare your points with other users. The competition drive in humans shouldn't be ignored but used for good.
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Message 865768 - Posted: 15 Feb 2009, 15:40:13 UTC - in response to Message 865760.  
Last modified: 15 Feb 2009, 15:48:37 UTC

The "What's In It For Me" principle is very powerful. If you don't intent on awarding prizes for points, then there should be a ranking system where you can compare your points with other users. The competition drive in humans shouldn't be ignored but used for good.


...and that would be what the Statistics link at the top of every page is for. Its complete with Top Participants, Top Computers and Top Teams. [edit] There are also various third-party sites such as BOINCStats.com which offer more features for comparing one's status to another's.


...though I've argued that the "what's in it for me" crowd ruin the scientific effort in their quest to turn it into an aggressive competition. Friendly fun is one thing, but people have become irate over certain things which should be taken in stride.

In the end, credits are a fun game, but they shouldn't be taken too seriously.
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Profile Pooh Bear 27
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Message 865800 - Posted: 15 Feb 2009, 17:28:58 UTC - in response to Message 865760.  

The "What's In It For Me" principle is very powerful. If you don't intent on awarding prizes for points, then there should be a ranking system where you can compare your points with other users. The competition drive in humans shouldn't be ignored but used for good.

As OzzFan already put it, there is ranking and competition. In individuals, teams etc. There are several awesome 3rd party and team sites that do some neat stats, forums, bragging, competitions, taunting, etc.

The award for points thing has to be understood. Many projects are run on a shoestring or less budget. SETI has in fact stated that if they do not make a certain amount of donations each year, the project could be in jeopardy. CPDN is currently mostly a one man show, who has to do it all, with very little funding, etc.

So, there are many factors to remember. One major one is most projects do not have funds to even think about prizes.


My movie https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/502242
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Questions and Answers : Getting started : Points


 
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