I'm going to raise a touchy subject, but it's very relevant.

Are people mad and leaving the project because a valued user has been slighted?

Or are people mad and leaving the project because they no longer can get faster-than-normal credits?

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I'm going to raise a touchy subject, but it's very relevant.

Are people mad and leaving the project because a valued user has been slighted?

Or are people mad and leaving the project because they no longer can get faster-than-normal credits?

I think there are several reasons, explained on different posts. I personally don't like to be accused of exploiting "faster-than-normal" credit. (does it mean cheating??)

The fact is credit production has dropped 30% (acconding to BoincStats). Here you can see that the number of active users and hosts has dropped 5% on the last month.

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Nobody said "exploiting" or "cheating" so don't start that crap here.

All I'm saying is what everyone knows - the Cruncher app. generates credit faster because it's more efficient.

Seeing as how he left and those apps will no longer be made available for the future, one must wonder if people are really mad only because of his leaving, and not because their credit generation will suffer.

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Nobody said "exploiting" or "cheating" so don't start that crap here.

All I'm saying is what everyone knows - the Cruncher app. generates credit faster because it's more efficient.

Seeing as how he left and those apps will no longer be made available for the future, one must wonder if people are really mad only because of his leaving, and not because their credit generation will suffer.

Hey Matt,

Well, I'm not leaving, yet. Here's my personal take:

I started with one PC and crunched for 4 projects.
I then built another PC and continued to crunch for 4 projects.
I decided to get into a *nix [unix/linux] OS and installed it on my older PC. It took a while but finally got it to crunch for SETI.
I decided to cut back on the projects when I started crunching SETI Beta. So I was crunching SETI and Beta on the new PC and SETI on the old one.
This year I built a third PC and put the latest version of my *nix OS on it. Within a couple days I got it crunching for SETI.
I went to crunch3r's opt app on my WinXP [second oldest] box. Crunched with it until SETI decided that the enhanced app and WUs were ready for prime time. My oldest PC quit crunching SETI, couldn't and still can't get any work. Hence, I shut it down. This *nix box hasn't been able to get any enhanced WUs either. It's still running because it's the one I use for updating my website and for Internet activity. My XP box cleared the cache of the old WUs with the opt app so I moved the opt app out and moved the standard SETI app back in. Couldn't get any work. For about a week it would not get any work. It was still crunching Beta though. So, I was down to crunching SETI on none of my boxes. Then, a few days ago, I started getting SETI enhanced WUs after restarting Einstein. So, all in all, I'm back down to 1 PC crunching for SETI.

From what I understand, crunch3r went to the admins with his opt app for the enhanced WUs and was shot down. His is, as I understand it, more efficient than SETI's app. The rest is, as they say, history.

I never considered crunch3r's app "cheating". My reason is because when I was running it, I was claiming about 1/4, or less, of the credits that I was claiming with the SETI standard app. Granted credit was still done by the quarum average.

crunch3r was a great contributor to the SETI community and his work sanctioned by SETI. His treatment has affected quite a number of users. But, that's not the only reason for the drop in participants.... (-:<

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CAPT Siran d'Vel'nahr - L L & P _\\//
Winders 11 OS? "What a piece of junk!" - L. Skywalker
"Logic is the cement of our civilization with which we ascend from chaos using reason as our guide." - T'Plana-hath

Credits; looking at the Einstein Server Status page in the past 24hrs, 160 users have joined but 1214 new hosts. On bare figures that would suggest the new users are farmers with an average of nearly 8 computers each.

Andy

I'm going to raise a touchy subject, but it's very relevant.

Are people mad and leaving the project because a valued user has been slighted?

Or are people mad and leaving the project because they no longer can get faster-than-normal credits?

Tomorrow it will be 6 years ago that I joined seti. It was the first distributed computing thing that I became aware of and the cause appealed to me. Crunching the first 20-30 WUs took forever until I discovered tools as setidriver and setispy to have get a more continuous operation and see what I was doing / had done etc. I switched to BOINC 2 (?) years ago and liked the fact that there were now other also interesting projects. Seti kept the biggest share, but along the way I installed Einstein and CPDN. Einstein proved to be too short in return times and too slow to be worthwhile, but CPDN stayed, mainly to always have work at hand. I wish some of the people complaining about long WU-times would try CPDN -- I spend 3 million CPU seconds without completing a single WU, but the science (and graphics) are interesting.

Like many I am in it for science and credit. Seeing your RAC going up and you rank getting higher gives a good feel. Seeing stuff moving the opposite way feels bad and the knowledge that you still contributed science doesn't help. I seldom let my PCs run 24 hours and mostly switch them off at end of day; I never switch them on simply to crunch. I liked the optimised apps and think back with an especially good feel of the rapid innovation done with the caching app co-developed by Naparst, Crunch3r, TMR and Hans v Dorn, Ned etc. There was a general feel of excitement on what the next client would do. Some people complained about the optimisation, even called it cheating but the positive feel was stronger in the fora.

I disliked the interruptions most with seti-boinc (but having CPDN always kept me going). What I found more annoying was the lack of documentation on things like app_info. Paul Buck addressed this, but I never had the impression that the seti project appreciated this. The fact that Paul Buck left does not give me a better opinion on seti.

Off late this forum has become more and more negative with some times rather acrimonious exchanges. Not good. The CPDN-forum is much lower traffic, but there is much less whining.
I do not like the increased and variable CPU-times, mainly because the risk of crunching and going over deadline with slower hosts (or ones being offline). The drop in RAC does not give a good feel, but I do not mind too much. I do crunch optimised using crunchr3r's 5.12 app so I guess I am doing the best I can.

All in all I have taken one (slow) host out and switched it to Einstein because completion times with akosf's optimised app much shorter than SETI. The fact that this mostly gives me more credit/cpu second (I do track that) is a bonus.
On the faster hosts I have changed the ratio between CPDN and SETI, mainly because climate now interests me more than ET. Don't know whether or how long I can keep up with CPDN's rather stiff resource requirements, but the science is nice and no flame wars.

So in short, my commitment to seti will reduce and possibly ultimately go to zero. I think the main reason is not the current flame wars (even though these left a very bad feeling with me), but a shift in interests. But, yesterday's post on crunch3r's leaving was the proverbial straw that made me re-asses my CPU alotments. Six years ago there was little choice, now there is plenty...

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I have suspended Seti because of:

The way Crunch3r has been treated. He who gave so much is now given so little in return.

Also I am sick and fed up with fights that go on.

Finally I think some of the difficult moderation that has had to go on has, on reflection, been out of balance and we lose valid content because its baby and bath water and not selective.

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I have suspended Seti because of:

The way Crunch3r has been treated. He who gave so much is now given so little in return.

Intersting. I would ask, treated by whom? Who are you punishing by quitting?

For example, I'm a nobody. What if I insulted Crunch3r? Then you leave SETI? I'm not SETI. I could run around insulting everyone, and get a bunch of them to leave the project because of me. Doesn't make sense.

Also I am sick and fed up with fights that go on.

This is actually one of the reasons I'm considering ramping up SETI again. Everyone who's whining and fighting, is leaving. Everyone who fights over credit changes and demands their RAC never decrease.. they're all getting mad and leaving! It's awesome! Good riddance.

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I won't leave SETI.

There has also some outstanding volunteers left seti, because there are very frustrated of the RAC/credits/optimizing and other whiners.
Let us hope, that they come back, when all the whiners will be reduced...

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I won't leave SETI.

Agreed, I came in 1999 and have been here ever since. I am in it for the Science!! I even did some Boinc Beta testing before it went live. I do computer upgrades for friends and have around 20 or so boxes that are crunching for the cause. I also now am back to work after a VERY welcome reitrement, not my choice of going back to work but that is for another thread, and some of that "new" money is being used to upgrade some older machines to the newer hardware. I don't usually buy the case I just buy a new motherbaord and cpu and sometimes memory and put them in the old case. Cost is around $200.00 to $250.00 or so each, I have been dumping AMD Duron 1400 setups, and other "slower" machines, in favor of AMD 64 3000 units. I do have one old slow Intel Xeon quad 550mhz server running, but again it was free.
As for the credits...it would be okay with me if the RAC was dumped and only the total number of credits was shown. I am NOT here for the credits, but they do look nice on the stats sheet. I DID run Crunch3rs apps for as long as the non enhanced units were available! I do NOT feel bad, I was able to crunch more units, and that is the whole point of me being here. Now that the enhanced units are here I am using the non optimized version. If after things settle down someone comes out with another optimized version, AND it is okay with Berkeley, I will use it too.
I have attached to Einstein and Rosetta in the past but use them only when Berkeley is out of units. I have one laptop crunching for D2OL because my wife thinks it interfers less with her surfing. If not D2OL then it would be Boincing too.

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I'm going to raise a touchy subject, but it's very relevant.

Are people mad and leaving the project because a valued user has been slighted?

Or are people mad and leaving the project because they no longer can get faster-than-normal credits?

The Mac client claims the exact same credit as the Windows client - but is 4 times slower in calculating the same WU on comparable Windows-computers! The old client was badly optimized already but the optimized clients were able to partly compensate that. The Enhanced client is even worse! Have a look at my profile here and you will understand what I mean. I did not change anything in the priorities of the projects: Martin's SETI profile

If they continue to treat optimizers, Mac-users and others the way they do now they will remain with just their own computers after a very short time. Sad how quickly ignorance and arrogance can kill a wonderfull idea...

P.S. I am not angry because of the credit-situation, but I AM angry because of the ignorance and bad work (the optimized Mac science app was 4 times quicker in crunching the same WU on the same computer then the stock app) they show towards users who use other than Windows computers and their arrogance against those few who try to compensate SETI-staff's bad work by optimizing the science apps.

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Well - I'll stick to SETI - and why so?

First: After 3 weeks crunching Enh 5.12 - it looks like my 6 "stoneage" PC's has been revived!
Specially my 3 Dual Pentium3's has gained some 30 RAC/day each - and still climbing. Thats very good ;-)
What's not so good is: that I always thought that the 'World of Science' had access to and the abbility to use (and take advantage of) 'state of the art' computer tecnology.
Well it doesn't seem to be the case here with SETI. SETI certainly has access to the newest CPU technology (through BOINC), but doesn't seem to advantage of this - nor do they want to.
My "out of date" Pentium 4's HT (socket478) seems to beat the h*ll out of any Pentium EE or AMD X2 when it comes to work per hour per CPU. This doesn't match 'Real Life' bechmarking at all = not good!

Second: Without looking too deep into the other projects available - there are no other projects that interrest me - mainly because some people (like the Pharmacy industries) will earn big money (in the end) on peoples effort to help out. Climate Prediction is only for people with 'dobbelt-moral' ;-)

PS. Hats off for Crunch3r - he is/was really contributing to science :thumbsup:

Kiva

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Greetings from Norway

Crunch3er & AK-V8 Inside

The Mac client claims the exact same credit as the Windows client - but is 4 times slower in calculating the same WU on comparable Windows-computers! The old client was badly optimized already but the optimized clients were able to partly compensate that. The Enhanced client is even worse! Have a look at my profile here and you will understand what I mean. I did not change anything in the priorities of the projects: Martin's SETI profile

Sorry, your are totaly wrong about the credits. I have pointed you several times to the FAQs, in which the FLOPS counting was explained. Please read this, before you stamp everything as bad and worse.

If you had readen the FAQ, you would know, that the FLOPS counted not the time, in which the WU was completed, to calculate the credits. In summary the FLOPS (and the credits) are the same on the same WU, but the crunching times could depend.
But the needed FLOPS depends from the angle rate of the WUs. So you can only compare WUs with the same AR on the different systems.

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I won't leave SETI.

Me either...

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you should at least READ my messages - or learn a little english so that you can understand them: I am fully aware that a certain number of calculations gives a certain number of credits. But it DOES make a difference how long it takes to do this number of calculations! When a Windows computer needs e.g. 10,000 seconds for n calculations and a comparable Macintosh needs 40,000 seconds for the same number of calculations there is something wrong with the code. AND THAT'S ALL I TALKED ABOUT!

Have you compared the WUs with the same ARs ?
Also computing time depends on CPU, size and bandwith of the cache, and the speed to the memory.

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I'm here to stay, all I have done is laughed this afternoon at all the sulking posts it made interesting reading.

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I'm here to stay, all I have done is laughed this afternoon at all the sulking posts it made interesting reading.

That might be true for you, but imagine that Seti@Home was a business. To thumb your nose at customers leaving to do business with another company is just simply suicidal; you'd be bankrupt in no time, and your business reputation would be shot. Instead of making derisive comments at your customers that are leaving, you should be listening to them and making some urgent changes immediatley. This project is hemmoraging, more so now that Classic has merged. However, I notice that your investment into the project is minimal a best...you own very few shares of stock.

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Account frozen...

Have you compared the WUs with the same ARs ?
Also computing time depends on CPU, size and bandwith of the cache, and the speed to the memory.

In my original post I wrote: " ...but is 4 times slower in calculating the same WU on comparable Windows-computers..."

Sometimes reading can be helpfull...

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I'm here to stay, all I have done is laughed this afternoon at all the sulking posts it made interesting reading.

you and the rest of the zero crew
you're the type of person who he wrote the application for.

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I'm not in it for the science...only the competition.