Does SETI.USA need a committee?

[Dandasarge]

I think it’s pretty obvious what this is about. I can’t say I like the name "STEERING COMMITTEE" So I’m making a poll to see what the active form team thinks. Please just vote once and please no ongoing debates just a yes or no on if this should be formed.

[Slicker]

We had a Leadership Committee. Didn't work. They appointed themselves. When they made a decision, they got flamed by those who didn't agree. Discussions got heated, people left the team. Then we tried electing the LC which worked a little better, but no one could agreed on what the duties of the LC were. A few listen and follow, a few hear and ignore, and a large number aren't even paying attention. Our team reminds me of a church where the members want to show up an sit in the pews once a week and expect the pastor (the LC/Steering Committee) to do all the work. That just doesn't work. Those churches slowly die. Like our team has been doing for a couple years. Will a steering committee work? IMO, no.

Will a steering committee with multiple committees work? Maybe. What we need is involvement by all. We don't have the firepower to be #1 in everything. We are barely holding on to #1 in SETI and that's just because the other BOINC superpowers could care less because it the credits are really low. If they decided to take that away from us, they could. Easily. And there's nothing we could do to stop it. If we agree that we can't agree on what our secondary and tertiary goals are and to put them ahead of personal goals, then the only way to be #1 in all of them is with sheer numbers. That means recruitment effort and then follow-up efforts to get the new recruits involved in the team.

Summary: What we need is every member to recruit 2 more members in the next month. Think Mary Kay cosmetics. Each of those members recruits 2 more members the next month and so on. Within six months, we would be in a position to be #1 in every area of BOINC. Start with family, friends, and co-workers as they are your best bet. It is just like selling Mary Kay or Tupperware or any other pyramid scheme. Signing someone up is just a start. Getting them to sign someone else up and the continue that trend is where it really adds up.

[Mr. Hankey]

I voted we need xxx. For me this is people willing to step up and take on responsibility for things that need someone to own and drive. Like getting our newsletter up and running again. Or for example stepping up to be admin here on the boards when Teratoma and myself reach the end of or term (soon!). Making sure we have our latest and greatest team recruitment message posted on all the projects in the appropriate forums.

We have a small population here on the boards and there are opportunities for many things to be done that may grow our ranks or help the team in some way but if people aren't willing to do them, then we stay the way we are now. If only 5 people are willing how long till they get burned out?

[Aux10]

I can see the logic in having a committee but as history teaches us it won't really work. BTW if I vote for that XXX option does that mean we'll get porn in said?

[Fire$torm]

I believe the main problem with past "committees" was one of perception. Many team members regarded committee recommendations as mandatory which led to huge firefights.
Like I posted elsewhere I think the group idea has a much better chance of succeeding. There can be MM groups, Team focus Project groups, etc...

Summary: What we need is every member to recruit 2 more members in the next month. Think Mary Kay cosmetics. Each of those members recruits 2 more members the next month and so on. Within six months, we would be in a position to be #1 in every area of BOINC. Start with family, friends, and co-workers as they are your best bet. It is just like selling Mary Kay or Tupperware or any other pyramid scheme. Signing someone up is just a start. Getting them to sign someone else up and the continue that trend is where it really adds up.

Within my RL circle of influence, 99% of the people I know either do not own a computer, are still running Dell PIIIs with Win XP Home, or consider using their computers for things not related to surfing the net or getting their email a waste of their time The other 1% just don't give a damn about anything that requires any knowledge of technology. Period. However, I will make the effort regardless.

@Mr. Hankey: I'm not sure I would make a good fit for a board admin but if you need another moderator than you may lead this lame to the slaughter...

[Teratoma]

I voted we need xxx. For me this is people willing to step up and take on responsibility for things that need someone to own and drive. Like getting our newsletter up and running again. Or for example stepping up to be admin here on the boards when Teratoma and myself reach the end of or term (soon!). Making sure we have our latest and greatest team recruitment message posted on all the projects in the appropriate forums.

We have a small population here on the boards and there are opportunities for many things to be done that may grow our ranks or help the team in some way but if people aren't willing to do them, then we stay the way we are now. If only 5 people are willing how long till they get burned out?

Agreed.

Responsibilities do not have to be placed on individuals alone, tho. It is better to share the load. Committees/divisions/teams, whatever. Commitment. It's not easy at times. We are all volunteers with RL to deal with. Define the tasks that help fix the issues/fill the voids. Petition volunteers to handle those tasks. Then help them to stay the course.

[DrPop]

I put my vote in for XXX. Hey, it sells, and we need some income!

All kidding aside, I like the idea of a Steering Committee, but that will have to come in time. Maybe not yet; too much bad blood from past experiences. Plus, bureaucracies are very inefficient. After a full review, I've come to the conclusion that we don't have time for more bureaucracy right now; we need benevolent dictatorship to save this team from our own infighting.

What we do need, is to separate into divisions. Divide and conquer what each of us wants to conquer. AND don't ever put someone down because they decided to join a different division than you; don't ever stop someone from switching divisions either. We have to agree on that. Each division is just as important to its constituents as yours is to you.

I'm envisioning an MM division, a BlackOps Task Force, a BOINC #1 Overall group, etc...even to the point of assimilating other teams, as a DIVISION of our larger bannerhead, SETI.USA. For example, we could have a TM division , a US NAVY division, a Team USA division, etc. All current BOINC teams based mainly in USA could be given their own sub-forum here, their own naming design, their own goals, etc. would remain. Overall, the points would go into one giant USA team, the inertia of which, other teams would find profoundly hard to stop.

I did the math a while back. SETI.USA currently stacks up at ~9.x% of USA output. LAF garners ~70% of France's daily points. You know what our overall team would look like with 70% of USA daily output? Unstoppable, that's what.
In the USA we need to learn the value of being an individual within a larger group. That larger group should, logically, be SETI.USA, not because "it's US", but because it's the largest USA group already, currently 3rd in the world standings, and by a considerable margin if we act soon enough. If we would simply add others as divisions, and create our own internal divisions (to drop our current defection rate), we would dramatically change the BOINC landscape.

LAF figured this out first - go look at their usernames. They are JohnDoe.blahteam.blahdivision.LAF, etc. Then, S.G. figured it out over a year ago; go to a stats graph and plot their "revenge march" they've been on. Totally blind-sided us and everyone else. They have "waves" of crunchers that do their thing within their own division, but are willing to be called upon at a moment's notice and suspend their current activity for the much larger good of the team during any given challenge.

Now, as Hankey pointed out, this takes time and dedication by all, not to mention clear channels of communication. It takes a willingness to not blow-up at anyone who is an "admin" that asks you to suspend your current activity for a short time to help for the greater team good on a challenge or whatever.

I have the feeling this may be my last big effort in getting this team to soar in the world standings again. There really are no other options. As Slicker said above, we need recruitment. As Fire$torm pointed out, most folks interested in BOINC are already doing it, or trickling in day by day.
I would like to re-cap that we need to approach other teams for assimilation purposes, and there needs to be an equality about the approach - we are all doing it for the Good Name of our country.

As Mr. Hankey proposed, everyone who actually cares, (might only be a few of us, really - some people just crunch to crunch, and we need to remember that), needs to volunteer for a position or position(s) they are willing and happy to work at.

I am willing to be in on contacting other team administrations, wording such joint proposals, creating divisions, etc. In other words, I would put in some serious hours with others who care to create a blue-print for consolidation and eventual success. It will not be easy, and there will be a lot of give-and-take that must accompany our proposals to other teams and individuals.
I am also willing to be an editor of a newsletter if there are authors willing to write. I can be quite a grammar Nazi and layout editor when I'm in the mood for it...and provided I'm not typing on an iPhone, which gives me myriad typos from my stocky fingers.

[STMahlberg]

I think we should start with the divisions as well, i.e. the MM, BlackOps and other as mentioned. I think the sub forums are a great idea to get other teams to combine forces with us.

Undoubtedly, these groups would probably want some privacy as well with their team forums. I understand that Mr. Hankey and Teratoma are busy with things as well and that this would require tweaking the configurations of those forums which will require time.

@ Mr. Hankey & Teratoma - I volunteer to do such a task. I purchased vBulletin a while ago for my own project so setting up such a configuration is not completely unfamiliar to me.

In my opinion the groups on vBulletin as far as operating like a forum and usefulness have a lot to be desired. Additional Forums can be added easily enough under new categories with appropriate permissions. I understand this will take time and dedication which I am willing to give.

In addition, something that I was thinking about this morning was the possibility of enticing new comers as well as current members could be holding some form of raffle. People could donate $1 per ticket for the raffle payable to paypal(back to this in a moment) then on what ever date we come up with, a procedure can be crated to pick the winner, and the winner gets, say a ATI 5850 or a Nvidia 570 or some memory or a MOBO or CPU or something. We may need to "prime the pump" at the moment for this... I am willing to throw in my own cash to purchase something to get this going. Back to the paypal account, whoever runs the account say, Mr.Hankey or some other soul that we trust can use they funds if enough to perhaps keep the raffles going and purchase things needed for the S.USA Team like more relays per day so we can send email to our members.

[Bok]

Would it be helpful if I produced some basic subteam stats based on a partial regexp of your <name> within BOINC?

I can only do so much without the data coming from the BOINC projects themselves ( which I've lobbied for for years btw )

But I could store a basic list with Team,Subteam,proj,score,rac,rank and then populate this based on the sum of the user rows where the regexp of the subteam matches. I think L'AF do something like this.

So, if there was a subteam named BLACKOPS, you would have your name at each boinc project as Bok[BLACKOPS] or something similar.

Something I've thought about quite a bit, just can't think of a GOOD way to implement it but if it's only for a few teams it should be easy enough. Might only update the data once per day if it's intensive though.

Bok

[yoyo]

I like Boks idea to automatic create subteam stats based on some static rules. So if I name me yoyo[Berlin] than [Berlin] is used as subteam indicator and all user of my team with this token are grouped into this subteam and they can run competitions against other subteams. This is also a long lasting idea of mine, but we do not have the power to implement it yet.
yoyo