Hi cRunchy, I had seen this thread not long after you posted this morning & I must admit, it is a very thought provoking one. I had to stop & think about it & it's bugged me all day.

I'm still not sure I can come close to answering the questions correctly. However, the closest I can get is this: -

I see the project like Parents & their Children. The children in their early days are constantly doing things wrong until the parents correct them, hoping that eventually they get it right more times than they get it wrong.

As in all relationships, history has proved that there are times when the children outdo the parents (Student/Master is a case in point)which makes the parents stop & think.

My personal take is that the more I get interested in a project, the more I want to learn & get frustrated when I have to go around in circles.

As Mark has stated, one has to perservere in the hope that the good ideas will eventually get taken on board, with the bad ones tried & discarded (if at all).

Unfortunately, with children, there are those who sulk when they cannot get their own way, this does make it hard for the parents, but good parents have patience & conviction. We should learn to have the same.

As for owning Seti, no we do not, but as for being part of the Seti family, yes we are.

I would still run BOINC even if there were no message boards for a sense of community.
(If you're going to consider RAC, you need to consider combined RAC, not just here at S@H.)

[

Belonging.. i may misunderstand the word.. but i really mean that it has to very different colors, depending on what way you turn it... ;-)

Seti is a family of people spread right across the globe. If Berkeley is some sort of parthenogenic parent and we are the resultant children, then yes, I belong to this great family and the family belongs to me.

I was inspired by the whole idea several years ago and joined in with it. For me it is Seti or nothing and this is one family whose home I have no desire to leave. Big or small, fast or slow, Seti "belongs" to all of us. Sometimes we squabble, sometimes we get told to shut up, sometimes we get grounded but most of us come back time and again.

I'm not terribly keen on the politics or opinions of other parts of this family but hey, we get along!

Just to put this 'forum issue' in perspective:

I've been crunching for seti for almost ten years, I've been posting on these boards for about five years... ;)

(Priorities people, priorities.)

I want an accounting for those missing 5 years

I do feel like I belong to Seti.

Aside from the forums and crunching themselves, meeting with corporations to get hardware and the multiple discussions/emails with Eric have a lot to do with it, I'm sure.

That's almost exactly what everyone else has said that has responded to this thread.

Strangely everyone that said that SETI does 'not belong to us also had an enourmous RAC?

[...]
Martin: You talk about SETI as if it was just something less than a tertiary activity. (You said: "We are merely a part of the experiment called "Boinc"."...)

Martin: Your RAC is 16 times mine.

There are people who also say there is no 'belonging' who's RACS are multiples of yours.

Such high investments yet such low expectations suggest non of you are being completely honest.

[...]

I would be interesting to hear from people with low average RACs (just 1 PC) to see whether they think SETI belongs to them?

...

I view your usage more in the terms of "ownership" that then gives you "rights" to "dictate" what happens next. I get quite annoyed when participants get the presumption that they are "owed" something from the project for whatever blinkered selfish or ignorant view that they might have.

I view my participation more as a helping hand for a very worthwhile project. This experiment and search is fully the project of the s@h group at Berkeley. They have done all the hard work of getting the system running and of making sense of the results. All hopefully for a useful result, or at the very least for a well researched negative.

We merely provide a platform to run their experiment, as willing donors.

Agreed, some people seem to make s@h their hobby and their life. That doesn't give them any more ownership than does any presence in any forum.

And all that says nothing about how potentially important a result (any result, positive or negative) might be...

You might say that I'm in this game for the Science, the Computer Science, and the fun! It's also a very good test of how well you can optimise and run your machines... ;-)


All good questions of yours there.

Happy crunchin',
Martin

"I'm trying to maintain a shred of dignity in this world." - Me

Anyone notice how fast my RAC has been climbing?

No I hadn't noticed.

Fuzzy you are making sense again. This habit is annoying. Please desist at once as it causes widespread stress to the masses.

---Thank you. Come again.