Thanks for the posts, Matt.

Now, some points are clearer than before.
My objection to "going public prematurely" is loosing point if it was deliberate act of CNET editor. (we've been through similar on CPDN when "smart" editor *knows* and write about BBC/CPDN bug in a code - it was actually wrong input file(s) provided by science team so no error of programmers or application).

It is up to you when to set up the GR forum. Usually, it gives some credit to the site (projects without fora hence limited feedback can be considered suspicious), it may help you in development as well. Generally, having a forum up is considered as plus (or even a must) to any project.

So, it's fine with me now, keep up the job.

re: install procedure, sorry for a bit off-topic.
Having an option to choose nor having standard installation folder doesn't answer my question: why already used folder is not taken into account and why users needs to manually choose one every time there is a new build. (there are ~ 100 windows builds of 5.x and 4.x version, not counting earlier versions). It is at least irritating; imagine having more testing boxes when install folder is \\BOINC_machinename
To put it another way - once you install to a desired folder (i.e. non-OS/swap partition), you are at risk of installing to wrong folder every time update takes place.
This apply to standard UCB and GR BOINC as well, not only BBC one.

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now before moving on, i want to know if anyone has any problems with gridrepublic or with me which is not addressed by the above or in previous comments-- other than the issues relating to attribution to boinc and stats, which i'll take up when all else is cleared.

Matthew, I think the attribution to Boinc can be considered OK, the rest being bugs among work-in-progress. My only objective was the claim that everyone is a citizen of your Grid Republic. You should probably rethink this idiom ASAP, beecause many consider this offensive, as you could see.

Otherwise - keep going on. These are only teething problems. I hope.

[edit]Concerning the update istallation dir, this was already noted at the development mailing lists.[/edit]

Peter

I think the overall "feel" is very off-putting - nothing to do with the operation of the software.

Words like "Republic", "Revolution", "Citizens", the red flag color scheme with the worker staring resolutely forward, is all very reminiscent of a Communist Party organization.

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nem·e·sis (nĕm'ĭ-sĭs) pronunciation
n., pl. -ses (-sēz').

1. An opponent that cannot be beaten or overcome.

2. One that inflicts retribution or vengeance.

I think the overall "feel" is very off-putting - nothing to do with the operation of the software.

Words like "Republic", "Revolution", "Citizens", the red flag color scheme with the worker staring resolutely forward, is all very reminiscent of a Communist Party organization.

I find the "feel" quite welcoming.

I imagine GR is trying to impart a sense of solidarity or community-spirit, quite positive imho, given that the whole point of GR (as I see it) is to encourage people to participate in BOINC projects and crunch together for science.

I think the overall "feel" is very off-putting - nothing to do with the operation of the software.

Words like "Republic", "Revolution", "Citizens", the red flag color scheme with the worker staring resolutely forward, is all very reminiscent of a Communist Party organization.

I find the "feel" quite welcoming.

I imagine GR is trying to impart a sense of solidarity or community-spirit, quite positive imho, given that the whole point of GR (as I see it) is to encourage people to participate in BOINC projects and crunch together for science.

I guess that just shows how differently people can perceive things.

---

nem·e·sis (nĕm'ĭ-sĭs) pronunciation
n., pl. -ses (-sēz').

1. An opponent that cannot be beaten or overcome.

2. One that inflicts retribution or vengeance.

I think the overall "feel" is very off-putting - nothing to do with the operation of the software.

Words like "Republic", "Revolution", "Citizens", the red flag color scheme with the worker staring resolutely forward, is all very reminiscent of a Communist Party organization.

I think the feel is very catchy and fine, and if it's proper made, without those bad blunders about the stats and more honesty about it's origins and capabilities, it will be a good thing.

I posted a much longer article in my blog about the topic of this thread.

Everything will sort itself out.

---

----- Rom
BOINC Development Team, U.C. Berkeley
My Blog

Thanks for the article, Rom - good reading.

I think major points were made so the wish - hopefully not speaking for myself only - is that GR fix some issues soon. Like remove those first-sight false numbers in a minute by putting a remark in code or whatever quick-n-dirty will do until correct functionality is implemented.

I'm sure the progress on a more complex issue will be made, the GR forum will be eventually up etc. so that "Everything will sort itself out."

It is good to read some visions on heading of BOINC and where it/we are going.

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I posted a much longer article in my blog about the topic of this thread.

Everything will sort itself out.

Thanks, Rom, that sorted it.

And with the words from Matt, that he did not intended to go that public now with the faulty data on his page, my blood pressure is back to normal.
I've got nothing against branding as such, and I even like the view of GR on first sight, only the false numbers and imho meager mentioning of BOINC on the still quite limited number of pages made me cry out. Edit them out, quick'n'dirty should be possible in some minutes, and go on with the real work.

Yup good article there, now if only we could have communication like that more often it would put BOINC into a good light rather than people thinking there is never any news about it

Communication is the key to everything BOINC based

---

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I posted a much longer article in my blog about the topic of this thread.

Everything will sort itself out.

Rom

thanks Rom

Your __ article __ in your blog is __ a great read __

I would encourage everyone who has questions about __ Account managers __ and __ Grid Republic __ to please take a few minuets to read your __ article __

and special thanks to __ Matt Blumberg __ for all his long hours and hard work on __ Grid Republic __

Best Wishes
Byron
Greetings from the Pacific West Coast of Canada

Post to change the title of the thread.
Forgot last time, waited too long, and as it's no longer appropriate I had to post again;)

thanks saenger, for the change in title. i appreciate that.

____________
"in a world with so much meaningless evil, why not a little meaningless good?"
- my friend mier

first a comment on a minor point:

Words like "Republic", "Revolution", "Citizens", the red flag color scheme with the worker staring resolutely forward, is all very reminiscent of a Communist Party organization.

well there are of course democratic revolutions, and we live in a republic. (i think.) the first draft of our logo had a red flag but we changed it quickly to orange to make it seem less communist-- for instance, orange was the color used in the democracy movement in the ukraine recently. that said, the logo does have a bit of the style of propaganda art. this was all meant to be somewhat tongue-in-cheek. "join the revolution" we'll probably replace at some point, it's too generic. elsewhere i've started using "be the revolution", which i think imparts a more individualist feel, countering some of the other allusions. plus we might rotate other sayings like "impossible is possible" etc.


____________
"in a world with so much meaningless evil, why not a little meaningless good?"
- my friend mier

now, onto other issues...

apologies in advance for the long post, but let me start with a bit of background, which will provide some useful context, i think...

the initial motivation behind gridrepublic was (and remains) to get as many people participating in volunteer distributed computing as possible. in my view, these are the key obstacles:

(1) most people have never heard of the concept, nor of any projects
(2) most don't know where to go to find projects
(3) most don't know how to participate, or participation seems too complicated
(4) fear of adware/spyware/malware/viruses [security]

GridRepublic (and AMS generically) was an attempt to address the first three issues above. the overarching principle of the visual design is to make things as simple and nontechnical as possible. as ML1 points out above, we didn't want people to have to know about BOINC, or about the difference between an account at an AMS server vs an account at a project server, etc.; it should just be as simple as browse the list, click the ones you like, download and install, and that's it. This is why we try to credit BOINC but not feature BOINC, and this was an approach developed in consultation with the BOINC team.

in my view, this is not really substantially different what is done elsewhere in the BOINC world... for instance, the einstein homepage says this:

Einstein@Home is a program that uses your computer's idle time to search for spinning neutron stars (also called pulsars) using data from the LIGO and GEO gravitational wave detectors. Einstein@Home is a World Year of Physics 2005 project supported by the American Physical Society (APS) and by a number of international organizations.
If you would like to take part, please follow the "Join Einstein@Home" instructions to the left. Einstein@Home is available for Windows, Linux and Macintosh OS X computers.

the rosetta home page says this:

Rosetta@home needs your help to determine the 3-dimensional shapes of proteins in research that may ultimately lead to finding cures for some major human diseases. By running the Rosetta program on your computer while you don't need it you will help us speed up and extend our research in ways we couldn't possibly attempt without your help.

[edit] Q@H doesn't even mention the word "BOINC" on their homepage (except in a link to "BOINC Wiki")

that is: these sites really do not make boinc a central organizing principle in their presentation. so i believe our approach to attribution of boinc is consistent with the norm, and with our objectives, and in any case it was not developed in isolation nor sprung upon the boinc team as a fait accompli.

so before we move on to talk about stats, let's see if we can get any consensus around whether you (collectively or individually) think there are significant problems with crediting of BOINC on GridRepublic. any comments appreciated.


____________
"in a world with so much meaningless evil, why not a little meaningless good?"
- my friend mier

Einstein and Rosetta both have the obvious "Powered by " logo on the home page.

---

nem·e·sis (nĕm'ĭ-sĭs) pronunciation
n., pl. -ses (-sēz').

1. An opponent that cannot be beaten or overcome.

2. One that inflicts retribution or vengeance.

I'm using it and works well for me. Only for a coule of days, used the boinc from the seti site and set gridrepublic up to manage my projects.

Have to take bonic off the servers when we need them for something as clients pay for a server and don't want other stuff running on there, so end up installing and deinstalling when required.

Will save me hours. If the stats are wrong, who cares, its a great help to me anyway, and helping projects crunch.

Take it or leave it. If it helps you take it, if not leave it.

Anyways, thats my ten penneth! Keep up the good work I say.

Ian

---

http://brainfade.net

Einstein and Rosetta both have the obvious "Powered by " logo on the home page.

but just as a general notion, it is not really featured in the presentation. and this logo is used only on the homepage.

also, on both these sites it is not insignificant that "powered by boinc" is "below the fold": that is, it is not in view unless you scroll downwards... in both these cases, it is not in view even if you have a 1280x1024 display and the browser full-screen. in the vast majority of site interactions, scrolling down that far is not required, and so in the vast majority of cases, "powered by boinc" is invisible for all practical purposes. i've been using these sites for a long time and i never noticed the statement. you kind of have to look for it.

all i am really tying to establish is that when we put "powered by boinc" in the footer of every page (in most pages, including the home page, this places the text in plain sight "above the fold"), and when we also put information about and links to boinc in the "about us" pages, i think we are "in the mainstream" or at least not scandalously far from it. compared to QMC, we're spammers-for-boinc, and i don't think anyone was ever too bent out of shape over the QMC site.

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Really, what is Grid Republic? Just another Boinc? Isn't Boinc OK? I think I'd prefer to let well enough alone and not fix it if it aint broke.

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and i don't think anyone was ever too bent out of shape over the QMC site.

I don't get what your saying there? QMC is just anothe BOINC project what would be there that could have bent people out of shape?

---

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