Growing the Team...

I know that I posted this over in Dr. Pop’s SETI.USA Bash Brothers Group in response to a post about our losing ground. This was off topic for the thread so I thought that I would pick it back up here. It started with upgrading and recruiting and I had thrown in a few thought of my own and I would like to see what your thoughts are. Think of this as brainstorming.

Upgrading: Won’t exactly grow the team but it will enhance our position. This one obviously takes money for the most part except for making sure all of the software and drivers are updated.

Are there any ideas where we can get cheap or free equipment?

Are there any speed tweaks that can be made to any of our current equipment?

Recruiting: Frankly, I have no idea on this one. I’ve posted and talked with family & friends about BOINC and what it’s about and the consensus so far is they all think I’m out of my mind and it’s a complete waste of time and money.

Retention: I know that people will come and go but on the other board I saw a few join for awhile and then just disappear. I don’t know if this just wasn’t for them or if we had personality conflicts.

Any ideas how to keep people interested in coming back?

Reacquisition: Also I think we need to make an effort towards reacquisition of old members; we should try and contact them. I know this would be a painstaking task but I believe that it would be worth the effort, so much in fact that I am willing to work on this myself.

I PM’ed Mr. Hankey and got his blessing on this one already; he said that I should get a hold of Crazy Bob’s Son to coordinate our efforts since he was working on this already. Last night I started collecting email addresses from the old system and sent a bunch of email. I started at Z, Y and X for user names; there were 111 users only 69 of those have email. Out of 69 I sent, 4 came back as undeliverable and I already got 1 response this morning from Wendy1847 so I am optimistic.

Assimilation: You’re probably going to think I’m crazy for this one but like I said there are many smaller teams out there, how about we open dialogue with them and see if they would be willing to be incorporated into SETI.USA.

Any ideas?

In our previous discussion on this topic, I really liked Crunch3rs idea about using google adds to promote the team. I think once our site move is complete we should seriously look in to that.

For those interested... Here is my progress so far. The members are the ones I've gone through from the other board; unfortunately, not all of them have email addresses listed. The emailed number is the ones that actually have email addresses and how many I have sent. The rest is self explanatory.

As of Date 11/11/2010

Members 190
Emailed 121
Undeliverable 10
Responses 1

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Originally Posted by STMahlberg

Assimilation: You’re probably going to think I’m crazy for this one

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Actually, no. I quite like this idea. JerWA and I had discussed this at some length over on the other board by PM. The idea would be to let smaller "USA" teams still keep their identity in a sub-forum here, and he has said that if we tell the stat makers (Free-DC, BOINC Stats, etc) about it, they could list those folks' totals under our banner, but also as a separate group as well.

Definitely something to consider. The USA is clobbering every other country in BOINC output - I mean handing them their rear; it's not even close. The problem is, OUR total score is only a mere 9.4% of USA output.
Compare this with LAF: their output would be 65% of all France! S.G. would equal 28% of all Germany.
Anyone else see a MAJOR problem here? Our recruitment of USA BOINC members sucks compared to any other major team's recruitment in their own country.

Now...this could be due to the fact that the individualism that makes this country so cool, also means we'd rather each be a part of "OUR OWN" little BOINC team, as compared to other countries who are more conformist, and will just join the "country team".
Interpret the stats any way you want, but bottom line is we need MORE of the USA folks to come aboard. There would be NO STOPPING US if that happened.

LAF figured it out. No reason to reinvent the wheel.

Do you have some inside information on how they went to a "one of 3" best teams for several years to "undisputed #1" in a VERY short time?
I would like to hear it, myself.

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Originally Posted by DrPop

Do you have some inside information on how they went to a "one of 3" best teams for several years to "undisputed #1" in a VERY short time?
I would like to hear it, myself.

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No inside info. Just what I observed. There is no way to merge teams with BOINC. One team has to give up their team scores and start all over. That is generally a non-starter. But they did it somehow. The only thing I can see, is that each member has their old team/region/whatever still in their name. I guess it helps get them over the hump.

Interesting. I wondered if that was part of the deal. Well, wouldn't be too hard to have that here - like JohnDoe.USANavy [SETI.USA]. For one sub team's example.

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Originally Posted by DrPop

Interesting. I wondered if that was part of the deal. Well, wouldn't be too hard to have that here - like JohnDoe.USANavy [SETI.USA]. For one sub team's example.

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I did try to lobby the BOINC devs to include a new free format field (subteam) which could be exported and picked up in the xml to allow a much better aggregation of subteams, but it got turned down. I have put some thought into doing it semi-manually using a pre-set string within the username much like LAF do, but there are some fairly major obstacles to doing it. Not impossible though.

I took the liberty of posting a link to our new MB on the SETI.USA facebook page....Lastest news on that front where posted in 2008...

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Originally Posted by Beerdrinker

I took the liberty of posting a link to our new MB on the SETI.USA facebook page....Lastest news on that front where posted in 2008...

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I'm holding off from announcing until we get the domain transferred over...

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Originally Posted by Bok

I did try to lobby the BOINC devs to include a new free format field (subteam) which could be exported and picked up in the xml to allow a much better aggregation of subteams, but it got turned down. I have put some thought into doing it semi-manually using a pre-set string within the username much like LAF do, but there are some fairly major obstacles to doing it. Not impossible though.

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Maybe you should try the political method of lobbying...... A big fat check!

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Originally Posted by Fire$torm

Maybe you should try the political method of lobbying...... A big fat check!

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If I had a big fat check...I think I would go a different route.....THE UPGRADE ROUTE! :cool:

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Originally Posted by STMahlberg

For those interested... Here is my progress so far. The members are the ones I've gone through from the other board; unfortunately, not all of them have email addresses listed. The emailed number is the ones that actually have email addresses and how many I have sent. The rest is self explanatory.

As of Date 11/11/2010

Members 190
Emailed 121
Undeliverable 10
Responses 1

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Wow--deja vu all over again lol

Kudos to you!!!! I know it's labor intensive. This is what SargeD & I used to do. We got quite a few, but not sure how many lasted for the long haul. Heck, I kept crunching but didn't participate on the boards for a long time-well until now. Am clueless though as to how to get people interested in catching the crunch bug on a major scale again. If I had more time, I'd spend it looking for that clue.;;)

And assimilating ( resistance IS futile) that has always been the stumbling block for others teams who've been approached--losing their identity AND all their hard earned stats. I'm lost as to what Bok & DrPop said about fields and all that and LAF's work around for gaining other teams but keeping their old team names in their usernames so they keep all their goodies. Probably out of the question to just ask them huh?

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Originally Posted by thepossum1

Wow--deja vu all Iover again lol

Kudos to you!!!!

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Trying to do what I can... I'm not being selective; I'm just going down the list and emailing everyone that has an email address so eventually you're probably going to get an email.

One thing that did catch my eye was the email for Top Viking no longer works. :(

I'm looking forward to getting my email from you, STM!;)

Some good news: my brother just came for a visit and said he's cool with leaving his dual core on for us - he doesn't have a real GPU (we should say "yet"!) but he is crunching the PG challenges under my user name, then will leave the computer on to crunch whatever we need after December - I'm thinking one more dually crunching AQUA 24/7 can't hurt!

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Originally Posted by DrPop

I'm looking forward to getting my email from you, STM!;)

Some good news: my brother just came for a visit and said he's cool with leaving his dual core on for us - he doesn't have a real GPU (we should say "yet"!) but he is crunching the PG challenges under my user name, then will leave the computer on to crunch whatever we need after December - I'm thinking one more dually crunching AQUA 24/7 can't hurt!

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It will probably be awhile DrPop, since I started at Z and am working backwards.

It's always great to have one more system online.

As of 11/15/2010

Members: 739
Emailed: 505
Undeliverable: 39
Responses: 3

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Originally Posted by STMahlberg

As of 11/15/2010

Members: 739
Emailed: 505
Undeliverable: 39
Responses: 3

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....and what have the responses been?

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Originally Posted by Mr. Hankey

....and what have the responses been?

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Wendy1847 told me that she want's to come back but she doesn't have a computer that can run Bonic.

And, the other 2, well...

Were Possum and Triggl:

thepossum1 - told me my email went to her junk mailbox... which now makes me wonder if that's going to happen to most of them. I am sending each one individually, since I figured that if I had multiple recipients that it would trigger a spam filter.

And... Triggl - Told me I was using the wrong link. Sorry; that has been corrected.

I'm hoping even if they don't reply that perhaps they will check out the link and sign up.

Edit:

Apparently GMail has a daily sending limit and I just hit it; I'll have to continue tomorrow.

I use Gmail, and received my email today. Went to the inbox...So thats fine!

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Originally Posted by Beerdrinker

I use Gmail, and received my email today. Went to the inbox...So thats fine!

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Good to know. :)

So I've been working on emailing old members as you know; this morning I sent out about 700 emails. Today S, R, Q, P, A & B usernames were all done (I got bored so I changes directions in the alphabet).

Perhaps it's my imagination but it seems like I was seeing a lot of guests on when you check who's online; a further check shows that today, so far, 14 members have registered. I also noticed the first letter in their username coincides with the emails that I have sent out.

I would certainly like to think that perhaps my efforts emailing is starting to pay off but frankly, I don't care how they got here; the important thing is that they are here.

I feel motivated now. :)

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Originally Posted by STMahlberg

I would certainly like to think that perhaps my efforts emailing is starting to pay off but frankly, I don't care how they got here; the important thing is that they are here.

I feel motivated now. :)

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Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night..........

Most excellent work. Tally-Ho.

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Originally Posted by Fire$torm

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night..........

Most excellent work. Tally-Ho.

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Thank you Fire$torm. :) Can hardly wait till midnight, then I can send another 700 or so emails.

You say you worry about the email being bounced by too many people on the "To:" line. How about sending it to yourself, and then Bcc: a bunch of them. Maybe 20 per message.

As of 11/16/2010 02:30

Members: 1646
Emailed: 1145
Undeliverable: 91

It appears that people are using the link to register. I am very pleased.

I still have approximately 600 members to try and email.

I think that once we go live and send an email blast to everyone we should be prepared to assist new and returning members in getting the most out of their boxes. We have a lot of good information on the other site spread around that should be consolidated here. I know this is being worked on in the FAQ.

I think an article on GPU crunching should be on the protal page with details on which cards can crunch. I bet there are a lot of members that have capable cards and don't even know about GPU projects. A list (or link) of all known cards would be really helpful.

STM, just got my email, thanks! Wonderful work. It went to my inbox just fine and I'm using gmail as well. Keep at her, you're making headway!

Tera, is anyone working on a GPU crunching FAQ right now? I would actually enjoy working on that, or spearheading an effort if no one else is doing it yet. I would like to include a section on O/Cing and use data from Bryan's ATI thread on the old board before we lose that great info.
Someone please let me know whether to start this or where I can jump on board with one already started.

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Originally Posted by DrPop

STM, just got my email, thanks! Wonderful work. It went to my inbox just fine and I'm using gmail as well. Keep at her, you're making headway!

Tera, is anyone working on a GPU crunching FAQ right now? I would actually enjoy working on that, or spearheading an effort if no one else is doing it yet. I would like to include a section on O/Cing and use data from Bryan's ATI thread on the old board before we lose that great info.
Someone please let me know whether to start this or where I can jump on board with one already started.

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Go check out the FAQ building group. As well as the FAQs. Those are the status of what's been done so far...

Nice work. Looks like you have most of the FAQs flushed out pretty good.

However: Being an O/C dude by nature...that FAQ point is looking a little sparse! :D
I think I will try to spruce up the CPU & GPU O/C part of the FAQ for you. Other than that, looks like there's not much for me to add.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DrPop

Nice work. Looks like you have most of the FAQs flushed out pretty good.

However: Being an O/C dude by nature...that FAQ point is looking a little sparse! :D
I think I will try to spruce up the CPU & GPU O/C part of the FAQ for you. Other than that, looks like there's not much for me to add.

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Actually, that is entirely not true (IMHO). The only FAQ section that I actually think is complete is the PS3 section. The other sections, I'm just adding points as they occur to me, I have time to, and/or people provide questions/answers. I'd like to build them out a LOT more...

Update: As of 11/16/2010 @ 15:15

Members: 2318
Emailed: 1613
Undeliverable: 115

Got tired of the 500 email limit on GMail, so I just used my main Embarq account to finish. I do need to resend 276 emails that had the wrong link in it which was brought to my attention by Trigggl. Thank you Trigggl; I don't know how I managed that one but nevertheless, I will take care of that tomorrow.

Once that is done all members that were on the old SETI.USA board will have received and email; at least the ones that had a email address.

EDIT:

Just noticed the math seems to be off... The member list shows 2326, I show 2318 that I have accounted for so it looks like I'm short 8 members. :-??

Nice Work STMahlberg. Totally impressed by the persistence and dedication.

A lot can be accomplished by people with OCD type behaviors. :D

If we had a SEIT Team member of the month page I'd nominate you for this month. Along with Hankey and Tera and others working to build up the new site.

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Originally Posted by NJCaNS

Nice Work STMahlberg. Totally impressed by the persistence and dedication.

A lot can be accomplished by people with OCD type behaviors. :D

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LOL Thanks... I think. ;)