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Ah, one more myth dispelled.

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IIRC the min donation is $10.00, that is not setting the bar very high.

For a green star I thought it was $20

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Reality Internet Personality

IIRC the min donation is $10.00, that is not setting the bar very high.

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So what sort of levels? For number crunching I think one is about right. For the rest, I think one hundred is possibly a bit low, maybe 250 would be better, or even (radical I know) one thousand plus a green star...

We all know that a lot of people abuse the politics forum for their own political or religious agendas. So I would agree with Rob in principle that limits be set. I would vote for 250 and a green star to be allowed to post in politics. If you wish to "USE" the political forums, you "PAY" for it.

But, the biggest point is, can the projects current coding allow for that? If not what would it take to change it? Is it likely to happen? It all depends if enough people want it.

Well that's me out then. I can't afford to donate right now (too many kids to feed) and my crunching is dependent on old unreliable computers that get turned off randomly without me knowing. [edit: just checked and it seems the boys disabled BOINC the one they use back in July]

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Reality Internet Personality

Rob makes several good points concerning variable RACs for different forums.
As I originally posted, in the "add on" forums I still feel one should contribute to the project in order to post unfettered, either a certain min RAC or help pay, (donate), for the resources you use. I do not think these parasites should be totally silenced, just limit the postings until they contribute something of value to the project. I still like the idea of one post per day per thread, that way if they have something to say they can say it.

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Banning is an option, but it works for the whole of the forum, not just a section.
However that is not the point that is being made - the point is should there be an "entry grade" or not. These forum are NOT a "right", they are "privilege", one that is open to people who support and contribute to SETI@Home, they are thus not an open forum, but a controlled one - hence us mods who roam around and (try) to keep the peace. I ask myself would increasing the threshold have any significant impact on the views expressed, or the amount of work done by the project as a whole and in all reality I doubt it, even if a couple of the "grade one six inch nails protruding from life's merry bannister" might decided to move on to another stairwell, or they might not....

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

Yeah, but why not just ban them? Much more targeted and at least it doesn't cut out all the people who have a lower RAC but an acceptable opinion. Seems fairer than just blanket punish everyone just because there are a few annoying people.

Or get more people to use the ignore option or just ban people from certain sections if they misbehave in those sections.

Agree but disagree that both a high enough rac and green star to be required.

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Again, why would one not be allowed to proclaim their own political or religious agenda? The common goal here is to find evidence of alien intelligence. What does one's religious convictions or political agenda have to do with that?

Exactly everyone's point! There are people here that if they spouted their particular brands of politics or religion on street corners, they would either be moved on by the police, or given a punch in the mouth. They get away with it here, and it is high time it was curbed or stopped. We also have people here that quite frankly should be in residential care. SETI is a scientific project not a rest home for societies drop-outs.

I say SETI needs to toughen up, and Robs proposals are a way forward in that direction for further discussion.

Again, why would one not be allowed to proclaim their own political or religious agenda? The common goal here is to find evidence of alien intelligence. What does one's religious convictions or political agenda have to do with that? Why do you wish to impose restrictions on those people. Once they start breaking the rules you can simply ban them. Why bother with arbitrary restrictions that keep everyone except a few hardcore number cruchers out.

Totally disagree. One or the other, not both.

Crunching takes time and money. To have to pay further by having a green star will only cause other projects to implement the same.

Didn't a similar idea by Milkyway offering double credits cause a furore? What is the difference between the two if this gets implemented?

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So what sort of levels? For number crunching I think one is about right. For the rest, I think one hundred is possibly a bit low, maybe 250 would be better, or even (radical I know) one thousand plus a green star...

We all know that a lot of people abuse the politics forum for their own political or religious agendas. So I would agree with Rob in principle that limits be set. I would vote for 250 and a green star to be allowed to post in politics. If you wish to "USE" the political forums, you "PAY" for it.

But, the biggest point is, can the projects current coding allow for that? If not what would it take to change it? Is it likely to happen? It all depends if enough people want it.

Fair comment. however, setting the bar too high will hit those that crunch many projects with an equal amount of time.

Should Seti start on this road, who is to say that other projects won't follow suit.

If that happens, then ALL Projects lose out as those very crunchers will no longer be able to maintain equal crunching time as they will be too concerned with maintained rac on their favourites so that they will be entitled to post on the forums.

That'll be a sad day for all boinc projects and will end up defeating its basic premise.

Those with massive farms or authorised access to company systems will rub their hands with glee as it would mean more wu's for them.

Edited for grammer.....

damn that Ageless :)

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There is a lower RAC limit of 1 to contribute to the main boards, although you can still post in the Q&A section.
The reasoning behind the limit is to reduce the number of spam attacks - as a moderator I see them all too often in Q&A, we jump on them pretty rapidly so most of you will have never seen them. (Mods current and former will know the sort of things we are offered...)
There is a second debate, and probably a more important one - the level at which the fence is set. I guess one was set some years ago when the average cruncher was only running with a RAC of a few tens, so one didn't seem an unreasonable level. But today with the RAC being much higher (I'd guess we are now into the hundreds, if not thousands) I think that one is too low.
I would like to see (and these are my thoughts, not those of a moderator) two levels to gain access to different parts of the forum.
Let me expand on that a bit. The number crunching area is intended to be a help area so should have a low level of RAC to access - you need help, but don't want/need to climb a massive brick wall to get it), then there are places like Politics for which I feel you have to have earned the right to contribute to, and maintain that right (remember these forum are an add-on to the main project) for these I would like to see a significantly higher floor.
So what sort of levels? For number crunching I think one is about right. For the rest, I think one hundred is possibly a bit low, maybe 250 would be better, or even (radical I know) one thousand plus a green star...

Does this make these forum elitist? in one way yes, but then as I said earlier these forum are not part of the project, they do cost the project time and resource to host and administer.

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

Perhaps not everyone has either the time or capacity to crunch that amount of numbers. Why should you exclude them from being part of this community?

Also, why shouldn't people be allowed to blow hot air. I assume people here are smart enough to recognize it as such and ignore it or try to have a fun little discussion with them.

Ah sorry, my mistake. There's only one or two and when they are available they provide us all with some good humour. :)

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Sirius, you are missing my point. What I don't like is people using the project and not contributing something of value to the project. Those are the elitists, for they think they are worthy of a free ride.
It is not about my likes or dislikes of the postings.

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It still comes back to that old chestnut. If you don't like what you see in a particular forum, don't visit or read. Simple enough solution.

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It would stop right where I left them, anything else would not be my proposal.

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number two anonymous contributions can easily be tracked.

Yep, as already proven by the NSA and their actions, so where will it stop if your proposals were taken onboard?

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