We are on strike this week because of some grievances that have recently upset a large number of participants. We have therefore either shut down our network access, or detached from Seti, to join other projects, or shut our computers off. The strike officially began at 00:00 UTC June 5th, 2006 and will end at 00:00 UTC June 12th, 2006. It should be pointed out that participation in this strike is entirely VOLUNTARY, and no one is being forced to participate, and we respect the opinion of those individuals who choose not to participate. We have tried to voice our concerns about these issues in the past, but we were flamed by some participants, and ignored by the project management. The intention of this strike is to show that there are more than just a select few who have issues with the direction our beloved project is being steered, and to gain the attention of the project management, who may not realize what has been transpiring, because they are busy with other matters. It is our love for this project that compels us to take action. Keep in mind that these are simply REQUESTS, and not DEMANDS, and that this action is intended solely to make the project management aware that these issues exist, and need to be addressed.

The grievances we would request to be addressed are as follows:

1.) Crunch3r, who has been instrumental in developing optimized applications for Seti and Seti Enhanced, was accused of cheating by some of the forum members, and had also sent Eric Korpela an email with a list of C++ errors in the standard Seti Enhanced application, that were eliminated when he built version of the Enhanced application WITHOUT optimization. Eric had denied receiving this email, and even went so far as to call Crunch3r a LIAR. Crunch3r sent this email to Eric TWICE, and has proof that Eric received the second email. Thus, Crunch3r has left the project, and is no longer working to develop Seti code any further. This alienation and vilification of this project's top contributors needs to stop. Eric has since made an apology, but it is buried deep in one of the threads. We request that Eric issue this apology in a new "Sticky" thread, and that the thread be reserved for a dialog between Eric and Crunch3r to work out their differences. Crunch3r has done SO MUCH for this project, and his loss hurts EVERYONE. All effort should be made to reenlist Crunch3r's help to get the Enhanced application working for EVERYONE.

2.) The application errors in the code are causing countless hours of wasted CPU cycles. The application crashes out or gets -9 overflow errors MANY hours into workunit processing. This results in no credit being granted at ALL for such workunits. Thus, we request an application that does not waste our CPU cycles by going into a seemingly endless loop.

3.) There have been many discussions on what is "Fair Credit" for the work we perform. Since credit IS important to a large number of participants, we request that this situation be investigated sooner, rather than later. Perhaps looking into a system that takes into consideration the TOTAL amount of work done, and not just the FPOPS.

4.) Being as that "some" of the forum moderators are doing more to feed the flames rather than to help extinguish them, we request perhaps a complete sweep of the forum mods with all mods elected by forum members.

These requests, along with the strike, are an attempt to elicit changes that will make Seti a fun project in which to participate once again. We have lost FAR too many valuable participants already. People such as Paul D. Buck, of BOINC Wiki fame, and now Crunch3r, a most valued application optimizer, as well as MANY regular project participants. If these points are not addressed, it could spell the end of the Flagship Distributed Computing project. Thank you for your time.

Regards, Daniel.

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I'm a cruncher and I approve this message.

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

I'm a cruncher and I approve this message.

Ditto.



QS

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How much credit do you need to give a possive? Thought i had enough.that might need thinking about whist there at it. Indicates that people that havent done as much work aren't alowed to have that voice. But then It is very open to abuse. still easy to get message around tho-->

I'll just have to agree that couple of those deserve getting noticed and thought about.

Very nicely worded, Daniel, and with reasonable requests, too. What is rather bothersome is the portrayal that a lot of people are on "strike" when in truth they have only suspended network and continue to crunch as usual from their cache. Like you, perhaps?

Indeed, most of the team members you crunch with are still fully online - like Jim Vennes, finrod, Dither, MJS and the other top SETI.USA members with "visible" computers - and it seems rather disingenuous to portray this activity as being a major service interruption.

Make no mistake, I agree there are issues that need to be resolved and your points are well made, but you speak for a very small (yet strident) minority rather than for the masses.


Respectfully,

Howard Clayton

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I'm behind you and these requests, Daniel.

Please, we just ask to truly be heard, understood and action taken. I'm tired of flame wars and words of ill will.

PS - As to credits, why can't we do as was done at the end of SETI Classic? Note our contributions on our stats page and start fresh with SETI Enhanced credits. Except for the zero credit problem, this might please most people.

Very nicely worded, Daniel, and with reasonable requests, too. What is rather bothersome is the portrayal that a lot of people are on "strike" when in truth they have only suspended network and continue to crunch as usual from their cache. Like you, perhaps?

Indeed, most of the team members you crunch with are still fully online - like Jim Vennes, finrod, Dither, MJS and the other top SETI.USA members with "visible" computers - and it seems rather disingenuous to portray this activity as being a major service interruption.

Make no mistake, I agree there are issues that need to be resolved and your points are well made, but you speak for a very small (yet strident) minority rather than for the masses.


Respectfully,

Howard Clayton

As I saw things during talks of a strike, people were being encourage to participate in whatever way they saw fit. As Daniel said, some people stopped crunching SETI altogether by either shutting down their systems or by attaching to other projects. Some are even still crunching but with their network access turned off (me for instance). "In whatever way a person sees fit". Very key. To know who supports the strike and who does not and to know in what way they express their support would require talking to every member.

I do believe that no one on strike wants to hurt this project. However, some attention needs to be paid to project contributors and the problems they perceive.

Very nicely worded, Daniel, and with reasonable requests, too. What is rather bothersome is the portrayal that a lot of people are on "strike" when in truth they have only suspended network and continue to crunch as usual from their cache. Like you, perhaps?

Indeed, most of the team members you crunch with are still fully online - like Jim Vennes, finrod, Dither, MJS and the other top SETI.USA members with "visible" computers - and it seems rather disingenuous to portray this activity as being a major service interruption.

Make no mistake, I agree there are issues that need to be resolved and your points are well made, but you speak for a very small (yet strident) minority rather than for the masses.


Respectfully,

Howard Clayton

As I saw things during talks of a strike, people were being encourage to participate in whatever way they saw fit. As Daniel said, some people stopped crunching SETI altogether by either shutting down their systems or by attaching to other projects. Some are even still crunching but with their network access turned off (me for instance). "In whatever way a person sees fit". Very key. To know who supports the strike and who does not and to know in what way they express their support would require talking to every member.

I do believe that no one on strike wants to hurt this project. However, some attention needs to be paid to project contributors and the problems they perceive.

Also Jim Vennes just converted 100 machines off of SETI and on to Rosetta, many of us such as my self are crunching the thru the rest of our caches and have already attached to other projects and set SETI to 'No New Work'

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

Very well said - Daniel. I'm behind your request ;-)

As to your point #2: It has become a huge problem with "client errors". Look here:
http://setiweb.ssl.berkeley.edu/results.php?userid=13917&offset=60

I'm not at strike thou - yet ;-)

Kiva

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Greetings from Norway

Crunch3er & AK-V8 Inside

Very nicely worded, Daniel, and with reasonable requests, too. What is rather bothersome is the portrayal that a lot of people are on "strike" when in truth they have only suspended network and continue to crunch as usual from their cache. Like you, perhaps?

Indeed, most of the team members you crunch with are still fully online - like Jim Vennes, finrod, Dither, MJS and the other top SETI.USA members with "visible" computers - and it seems rather disingenuous to portray this activity as being a major service interruption.

Make no mistake, I agree there are issues that need to be resolved and your points are well made, but you speak for a very small (yet strident) minority rather than for the masses.


Respectfully,

Howard Clayton

Howard,

Thank you for helping to keep this discussion civil. It is greatly appreciated. The intention of the strike was to get the attention of the project management to address the above issues. Participation was ALWAYS intended to be strictly VOLUNTARY. There are a number of people who agree with our issues, but have decided not to participate in the strike. This is perfectly fine. The strike has already accomplished its goal of getting the attention of the developers. We tried to voice our concerns in these forums, but we were flamed and ignored, but the strike has accomplished the goal we intended. To bring some of these issues to the attention of those in power to correct them. Also, even though I had shut down network access, I still had almost 8,000 pending credits for work already reported, as do all the other participants. But you will be able to see within the next couple of days, just how much the granted credits are falling, even if the strike does not have a large turnout. More people may even decide to participate. If not, then so be it. It is a personal choice whether or not to participate, and I respect their choice not to participate, and all I ask is that the others will respect our choice to be heard. I just ask that any responces in this thread be kept in a civil tone. Free discussion is welcome. Just PLEASE keep the flaming out of the thread. We should be able to discuss these issues without a heated arguement. Thank you.

Regards, Daniel.

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Out of curiosity, how many of the four demands/requests need to be acceded to in order to end the strike. All four, three out of the four...?

Is there any single issue that if not addressed would supercede the others?

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Proud member of Team Starfire World BOINC

Very well stated Daniel!

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http://www.setiusa.net

Very well said - Daniel. I'm behind your request ;-)

As to your point #2: It has become a huge problem with "client errors". Look here:
http://setiweb.ssl.berkeley.edu/results.php?userid=13917&offset=60

I'm not at strike thou - yet ;-)

Kiva

Thank you, Kiva. I fully respect your choice not to participate. And thank you for helping keep this discussion civil.

Regards, Daniel.

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Out of curiosity, how many of the four demands/requests need to be acceded to in order to end the strike. All four, three out of the four...?

Is there any single issue that if not addressed would supercede the others?

Mookie, as I stated, these are simply REQUESTS, not demands. This action is the only way I could think of to get our issues to the attention of project management. In that capacity, it has already served it's intended purpose, and the strike will officially end on schedule. I cannot, however, guarantee that all those who joined the strike will return. It is a personal choice. Perhaps "Strike" was a misnomer. "Demonstration" would, in retrospect, be a better term for what we are doing. Thank you, as well, for keeping this discussion civil. I would ask that my team mates NOT respond to any flaming that may arise, but to totally ignore it, no matter how bad it gets. It is my hope though, that we can have a free discussion without personal attacks or heated arguements.

Regards, Daniel.

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Out of curiosity, how many of the four demands/requests need to be acceded to in order to end the strike. All four, three out of the four...?

Is there any single issue that if not addressed would supercede the others?

Mookie, as I stated, these are simply REQUESTS, not demands. This action is the only way I could think of to get our issues to the attention of project management. In that capacity, it has already served it's intended purpose, and the strike will officially end on schedule. I cannot, however, guarantee that all those who joined the strike will return. It is a personal choice. Perhaps "Strike" was a misnomer. "Demonstration" would, in retrospect, be a better term for what we are doing. Thank you, as well, for keeping this discussion civil. I would ask that my team mates NOT respond to any flaming that may arise, but to totally ignore it, no matter how bad it gets. It is my hope though, that we can have a free discussion without personal attacks or heated arguements.

Regards, Daniel.

Thank you for the clarification, Daniel

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Proud member of Team Starfire World BOINC

... and the strike will officially end on schedule. ...

When is the official end set for?

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Fixed Quote
[EDIT]

Well said on your first post Daniel.

I hope all this gets sorted soon. Even if two or three get sorted (especially this business with crunch3r) i'd be willing to come back.

I hope they sit back and discuss with us the way we see the project going. (One of the reaseons i stopped crunching.)

TBH i think its a shame that a demonstration was needed to get the attention of the project developers, but at least they are listening now.

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When is the official end set for?

@Pepperammi...it's in the third sentence of Daniel's initial posting:

The strike officially began at 00:00 UTC June 5th, 2006 and will end at 00:00 UTC June 12th, 2006.

QS

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When is the official end set for?

@Pepperammi...it's in the third sentence of Daniel's initial posting:

The strike officially began at 00:00 UTC June 5th, 2006 and will end at 00:00 UTC June 12th, 2006.

QS

Oh yea. Thank you don't know how i missed it. Scim reading too fast i suppose

3.) There have been many discussions on what is "Fair Credit" for the work we perform. Since credit IS important to a large number of participants, we request that this situation be investigated sooner, rather than later. Perhaps looking into a system that takes into consideration the TOTAL amount of work done, and not just the FPOPS.

Please take this in the spirit of discussion, and not being critical. I am interested in the answer.

I want to start by setting aside bugs. There is a bug that causes long work units with -9 errors to end with very little credit, and Eric thinks he's found it. I'd take that to mean that he'll keep working on it if that is not the case.

I'm interested in the term "fair" -- here is what Mirriam-Webster says:

6 a : marked by impartiality and honesty : free from self-interest, prejudice, or favoritism <a very fair person to do business with>

BOINC does this a couple of ways, such as granting the same credit to everyone who does the same work unit.

If by "fair credit" you mean "more credit" as in "it isn't fair for me to get 10 credits an hour when I used to get 30" then that is what you should be asking.

Back to bugs: no programmer wants to produce buggy code. It isn't "fair" in the sense of lost credit, but as long as everyone has the same chance of hitting the bug, it is "fair" according to the definition.

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