Oh go on then, I've updated my sig. Don't be like me - get your contributions renewed!

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flaming balloons

Whoa.... Been reading the thread. I wasn't aware that Seti was in such dire straits. I guess I assumed that most of Seti was backed by Universities and grants. I was under the assumption that it was managed by people skilled in the area of management. I have to admit, after reading below, Seti is in real trouble. My sincerest best wishes to Pappa and his wife. I hope all turns out well for her.
I can see where Enigma is comming from and I can also see where the Seti people are comming from as well. Why donate to a project when the core business or mission isn't being looked after. On the other hand, there is a need to introduce something new to entice more funding which in turn will provide the needs to return to the original mission.
Am I seeing this correctly so far in basic terms?

---

Mrs. Miggins: The Scarlet Pimpernel, Mr. Blackadder! He's so exciting, don't you think?
Blackadder: Actually, I think he's the most over-rated human being since Judas Iscariot won the AD31 Best Disciple Competition.

Well, I was hoping to get a response to my question. I was hoping to help with some suggestions and experiences working with NGO's in the past but I am starting to see Enigma's point a little more clearly now. I may be wrong but it seems that some of the people at Seti are so busy running around trying to stop little leaks that are springing up in the ship instead of looking at what is causing the leaks to begin with....
I'll be shifting most of my crunching to other more worthwhile projects.
Cheers

---

Mrs. Miggins: The Scarlet Pimpernel, Mr. Blackadder! He's so exciting, don't you think?
Blackadder: Actually, I think he's the most over-rated human being since Judas Iscariot won the AD31 Best Disciple Competition.

Whoa.... Been reading the thread. I wasn't aware that Seti was in such dire straits. I guess I assumed that most of Seti was backed by Universities and grants. I was under the assumption that it was managed by people skilled in the area of management. I have to admit, after reading below, Seti is in real trouble. My sincerest best wishes to Pappa and his wife. I hope all turns out well for her.
I can see where Enigma is comming from and I can also see where the Seti people are comming from as well. Why donate to a project when the core business or mission isn't being looked after. On the other hand, there is a need to introduce something new to entice more funding which in turn will provide the needs to return to the original mission.
Am I seeing this correctly so far in basic terms?

From what I have been reading; the only answer I have for you is "yes", you are seeing this correctly. I saw this post last night before I went to bed, I figured that either Eric or Enigma would have chimed in; however, with the time difference for Enigma, and the weekend now for both Enigma and Eric, they may not respond before Monday, (the day/date, not the SETI Member), rolls around... ;-D

---

TimeLord04
Have TARDIS, will travel...
Come along K-9!
Join Calm Chaos

Well, I was hoping to get a response to my question. I was hoping to help with some suggestions and experiences working with NGO's in the past but I am starting to see Enigma's point a little more clearly now. I may be wrong but it seems that some of the people at Seti are so busy running around trying to stop little leaks that are springing up in the ship instead of looking at what is causing the leaks to begin with....
I'll be shifting most of my crunching to other more worthwhile projects.
Cheers

Brian, I understand the frustration. I too would like to see a clear and sincere answer to your original question. As I put in my answer; from what I have read thus far, "yes" you are seeing this correctly so far. Don't leave this project just yet, wait to see if Enigma and/or Eric respond on or after Monday. (Patience, Grasshopper...) ;-D

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TimeLord04
Have TARDIS, will travel...
Come along K-9!
Join Calm Chaos

I will heed you advice TL Oh wise one. Please don't make me take the pebble from you hand again.. lol

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Mrs. Miggins: The Scarlet Pimpernel, Mr. Blackadder! He's so exciting, don't you think?
Blackadder: Actually, I think he's the most over-rated human being since Judas Iscariot won the AD31 Best Disciple Competition.

Whoa.... Been reading the thread. I wasn't aware that Seti was in such dire straits. I guess I assumed that most of Seti was backed by Universities and grants.

First we need to make the distinction between SETI@home and SETI. SETI is not an organization, SETI is a field of study. There is no centralized organization running SETI efforts. You may have heard of the SETI Institute. They are not SETI. In fact, most of the people working there have never done any SETI related work.

SETI@home is one SETI project run by the UC Berkeley SETI group. In terms of scientific staff, the Berkeley SETI group is me and Dan Werthimer. Matt Lebofsky and Jeff Cobb form the remainder of the staff. David Anderson is running the BOINC program and advises SETI@home. We have a systems adminsitrator that that is leaving on tuesday because (even if we had ample money) the pay rates for systems administrators at the University don't come close to matching private industry. And we aren't allowed to pay more than the University will let us. (Actually is the state that prevents us from giving raises. Even though we aren't funded through taxes, the University considers us to be part of the overall budget)


That's it, really. 5 people. Less than 3 FTEs.

SETI@home is entirely funded by donations. Most of these donations come from people who also run SETI@home. Universities don't really "back" anybody. Faculty at Univerisities and expected to bring in their own funding. If Dan and I don't bring in money, we don't get paid, but we still keep our jobs (without pay). Matt and Jeff get a pink slip. In exchange for a cut of that funding, the universities provide offices and keep the lights on.

The NSF and NASA currently do not fund any SETI observing programs. At least none that I am aware of. Nor does any other government agency. We submit grant applications to the NSF Galactic Astronomy program, but we are unlikely to get funding. The sorry truth is that the $500,000 per year needed to keep SETI@home running is very large fraction the entire annual NSF Galactic Astronomy budget. The proposals are reviewed by other Astronomers, none of whom work on SETI. They naturally would prefer that the funding remain in the areas of astronomy in which they work. These are also predominantly astronomers who are Professors who get paid by the University for "teaching" in during the school year. (Even though the bulk of astronomy professors rarely teach). Therefore they frown upon paying "senior personnel" with the money they control. And because of earmarks that happened last year, the NSF Astronomy budget is getting squeezed.

Previously SETI@home was funded by corporate donations and matching funds a state program run by the UC Office of the President. SETI@home does not currently have any corporate donors that provide financial donations. Therefore we are entirely dependent on donation which predominantly come from people who run SETI@home.

Regarding to potential of finding wealthy sponsors. We, unfortunately, are forbidden from contacting most wealthy individuals directly unless we have a current relationship with them (i.e. they run SETI@home) or if they contact us. This policy is set by the U.C. Office of the President because the U.C. President prefers to direct such funding toward projects he wants funded. (i.e. a new business school, a new building for biological sciences, whatever else the president wants as his legacy). Funding SETI@home won't get the U.C. President a statue on Sproul plaza. Many wealthy donors to the University also want a lasting (concrete) legacy. Funding projects rather than buildings doesn't really cause letters to appear in granite cornerstones.

I was under the assumption that it was managed by people skilled in the area of management.

Dan and I have many, many years of experience in project management. The other half of my time, I'm an ultraviolet astronomer that manages the development of instruments for space missions. Being a skilled project manager doesn't help when you can't afford to pay people. You can't hire people until you have enough money to pay then. The University is pretty strict about that.

Why donate to a project when the core business or mission isn't being looked after. On the other hand, there is a need to introduce something new to entice more funding which in turn will provide the needs to return to the original mission.
Am I seeing this correctly so far in basic terms?

I think you are seeing it pretty well. Unfortunately with a staff of 3 FTEs we end up chasing fires a lot of the time rather than doing new things, and without money we can't hire more staff. Server outages are bad press, so keeping them running is high on the priority list (and is certainly part of the core mission). We will have some new things to announce this year, but how many and when is a question I can't yet answer.
--
Eric

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@SETIEric@qoto.org (Mastodon)

Thanks for all that info Eric, please don't take the remark about management too seriously. As I can see your pretty busy as I am. I guess if I had the time I could have research that statement a little better. I was just wondering that if it was possible or allowed for you guy's to put out a notice for volunteers that might live in the berkley area that might have some expertise in IT. My thoughts were that you have so many people crunching all this great data and there might be some brilliant person out there that is maybe in between jobs or is looking for something to do for a thesis.. you know where I am going with this. By the way, I am not a candidate, I am gainfully employed. I may not have the experience but there must be people out there who are just as passionate about SETI and who might be able to help. Maybe there is a few IT contractors out there who could donate there time in exchange for some recognition. What about aproaching celebrities to donate some PR time to the issues. Maybe there is a great PR person who is crunching and can offer some great Ideas.
What I am trying to show you is that there is a giant pool of talent out there that you have direct access to, that may not cost the project so much. I am concerned that all this great data will fall by the wayside as I am sure all of you are. I mean you wouldn't be doing this in the first place if you weren't passionate about it.
If you say to me, Brian, we have some things in the fire that might keep this going, then hey, no problem. I will keep on donating and telling everyone I know to sign up and start crunching.
Believe me, that is what I want.
Thanks for taking the time to answer my inquiry and I hope to hear back when you have time from your schedule. :-)

---

Mrs. Miggins: The Scarlet Pimpernel, Mr. Blackadder! He's so exciting, don't you think?
Blackadder: Actually, I think he's the most over-rated human being since Judas Iscariot won the AD31 Best Disciple Competition.

Fuzzy Hollynoodles, moderator, said;

...

If I can't display a green star without University of Berkeley California honoring my anonymity request, can I have my money back?

Of course you can. You can contact Berkeley, I don't have the mail address present, but I'm sure you can find it yourself by searching on the Berkeley donation site. Good luck.

This is the technical reason why I cannot donate. If this is the best advice I can get here, I will be taking the moderators advice to pursue a refund. I don't think the issue of anonymity should be taken lightly.

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flaming balloons

iX

Eric's response in this thread
I donated to this wonderfull project but i cannot see a green star?

If you chose your donation to be anonymous when you gave it, the University will honor that. The SETI@home web site anonymity settings only control whether you have a green star or not.

So Eric did answer

Fuzzy Hollynoodles, moderator, said;

...

If I can't display a green star without University of Berkeley California honoring my anonymity request, can I have my money back?

Of course you can. You can contact Berkeley, I don't have the mail address present, but I'm sure you can find it yourself by searching on the Berkeley donation site. Good luck.

This is the technical reason why I cannot donate. If this is the best advice I can get here, I will be taking the moderators advice to pursue a refund. I don't think the issue of anonymity should be taken lightly.

---

Please consider a Donation to the Seti Project.

OK, I responded to Eric;

I am still concerned that you are asking me to change a setting which clearly contradicts my request for anonymity.

It may be better to change the label to say "Green star yes/no", if this is the only effect that this setting has.

I am also curious as to why last year I was displaying a green star with my profile setting of "Are all your donations anonymous? yes", but am unable to do so now.

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

iX

Eric's response in this thread
I donated to this wonderfull project but i cannot see a green star?

If you chose your donation to be anonymous when you gave it, the University will honor that. The SETI@home web site anonymity settings only control whether you have a green star or not.

So Eric did answer

Fuzzy Hollynoodles, moderator, said;

...

If I can't display a green star without University of Berkeley California honoring my anonymity request, can I have my money back?

Of course you can. You can contact Berkeley, I don't have the mail address present, but I'm sure you can find it yourself by searching on the Berkeley donation site. Good luck.

This is the technical reason why I cannot donate. If this is the best advice I can get here, I will be taking the moderators advice to pursue a refund. I don't think the issue of anonymity should be taken lightly.

---

flaming balloons

I am still concerned that you are asking me to change a setting which clearly contradicts my request for anonymity.

It may be better to change the label to say "Green star yes/no", if this is the only effect that this setting has.

I am also curious as to why last year I was displaying a green star with my profile setting of "Are all your donations anonymous? yes", but am unable to do so now.

I agree with your suggestion to have the name changed to "Green star yes/no" or some other more obvious message. The other setting is indeed confusing. I don't know why a green star would have appeared last year, but not this year. There must have been a problem with the code that handles the appearance of the green stars.

Eric

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@SETIEric@qoto.org (Mastodon)

I am still concerned that you are asking me to change a setting which clearly contradicts my request for anonymity.

It may be better to change the label to say "Green star yes/no", if this is the only effect that this setting has.

I am also curious as to why last year I was displaying a green star with my profile setting of "Are all your donations anonymous? yes", but am unable to do so now.

I agree with your suggestion to have the name changed to "Green star yes/no" or some other more obvious message. The other setting is indeed confusing. I don't know why a green star would have appeared last year, but not this year. There must have been a problem with the code that handles the appearance of the green stars.

Eric

I would suspect that it is because last year I had only made one (my first) donation. Now there are two options relating to two payments - this may have invoked the code differently as to how the green star was displayed.

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flaming balloons

Eric and/or Pappa...

Can one of you start a new thread that is titled similar to "Why I do not donate to SAH (non-technical reasons"?

I think a whole new thread will actually generate some very valuable input. I can start it, but I'd rather see it started by a Moderator so more people will actually read it to begin with.

-Eric

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Eric

You have your wish Why I cannot Donate - Non Technical

Pappa

Eric and/or Pappa...

Can one of you start a new thread that is titled similar to "Why I do not donate to SAH (non-technical reasons"?

I think a whole new thread will actually generate some very valuable input. I can start it, but I'd rather see it started by a Moderator so more people will actually read it to begin with.

-Eric

---

Please consider a Donation to the Seti Project.

--SNIP--
My thoughts were that you have so many people crunching all this great data and there might be some brilliant person out there that is maybe in between jobs or is looking for something to do for a thesis.. you know where I am going with this. By the way, I am not a candidate, I am gainfully employed. I may not have the experience but there must be people out there who are just as passionate about SETI and who might be able to help. Maybe there is a few IT contractors out there who could donate there time in exchange for some recognition.

What I am trying to show you is that there is a giant pool of talent out there that you have direct access to, that may not cost the project so much. I am concerned that all this great data will fall by the wayside as I am sure all of you are.
--SNIP--

Brian, i am in total agreement with you here. Out of some 500,000 people there is no one that can donate time and skills to help improve the website and help build a candidate analysis engine??

Perhaps SETI@HOME just has to ask for help (non monetary) to build these software modules?

It's funny because the United Nations outsource a significant amount of I.T. systems management and development in exactly this way 'volunteer projects'.

So Eric, how about outsourcing the candidate analysis module? Build a virtual project team, publish the database schemas and data structures and ask for some support from the crunchers or the SETI community at large. I am nothing short of stunned that people have the time and capabilities to write 'optimised BOINC CLIENTS' for several platforms but not a 'candidate analysis engine'.

Enigma.

Brian, i am in total agreement with you here. Out of some 500,000 people there is no one that can donate time and skills to help improve the website and help build a candidate analysis engine??

Perhaps SETI@HOME just has to ask for help (non monetary) to build these software modules?

It's funny because the United Nations outsource a significant amount of I.T. systems management and development in exactly this way 'volunteer projects'.

So Eric, how about outsourcing the candidate analysis module? Build a virtual project team, publish the database schemas and data structures and ask for some support from the crunchers or the SETI community at large. I am nothing short of stunned that people have the time and capabilities to write 'optimised BOINC CLIENTS' for several platforms but not a 'candidate analysis engine'.

Enigma.

I hear ya Enigma. Just check my profile...yup, done the UN volunteer thing also for various "things" they got going on, plus volunteer my services to charities who also need some high end unix administration work done.

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And by the way I would gladly admin for them if I lived there. I would do it on the weekends.

I live for that stuff.

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Brian, i am in total agreement with you here. Out of some 500,000 people there is no one that can donate time and skills to help improve the website and help build a candidate analysis engine??
Perhaps SETI@HOME just has to ask for help (non monetary) to build these software modules?
It's funny because the United Nations outsource a significant amount of I.T. systems management and development in exactly this way 'volunteer projects'.
So Eric, how about outsourcing the candidate analysis module? Build a virtual project team, publish the database schemas and data structures and ask for some support from the crunchers or the SETI community at large. I am nothing short of stunned that people have the time and capabilities to write 'optimised BOINC CLIENTS' for several platforms but not a 'candidate analysis engine'.
Enigma.

I think you forget that you are talking to someone that has put their life and soul into this Project. That means that this is their 'baby'. To ask them to give up some control of the data is akin to me asking you to let me drive your Porsche or Ferrari, and you not knowing if I even have a valid drivers license. I am not saying it can't/won't/shouldn't happen. I think the right person needs to ask if they can help, while providing their resume to suggest that they can.
Then Eric/Matt/David/? will make the decision to let them help or not.
Sometimes telling someone to ask for help is not enough, the help must be offerred for them to consider.

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Well, there are for sure a lot of people who could help and do some work. But I have to agree with mikey that thinking about and doing it in reality are two different ballgames. Who takes over responsibility if something goes wrong? What will be the criteria who to accept and who not? How reliable are they? Will they support the project in the long term? - In the end it might cause more work then it saves, not even to speak about letting someone you don't really know handle your "baby".

Solution I could think about could be a kind of open source project where skilled and interested users could interact and help the SAH-Team, but the team would keep full control, just that they would maybe be able to solve some problems faster that way. And I am sure there might even grow trust and knowledge about some of the most active users in such a project which could result in even more intense cooperation.


About the donations / finance issue:
I was quite surprised to hear that the situation is so dramatic. Wondering if there is no way to get SAH into press / TV. They have to fill their magazines / program with some reports anyways and what is more interesting then hundreds of thousands of users all over the world working together. Plus you could inform the SAH-Community about their achievements that way (at least an overview) even without the web infrastructure running yet. And I would not be surprised if they'd donate a few thousand bucks in return and also inform people that this project is fully donation based. Just a thought, though - but with so many users are there not quite some who have some contacts to the press / editors?
There are some science magazines on TV - in Germany for example "Nano" and others - and I would be surprised if they would not take the time for some news about SAH struggling for survival...

So what does the rest think - anyone with contacts to the press / editors? Or would a "mail your favourite science-mag"-action do it?