Noticed I moved up in Aqua, Iber and WUProp. Looked like a highly ranked team member detached from those three projects. By highly ranked I mean 3rd in Iber and I think top 5 in Aqua and top 10 in WUProp.
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Noticed I moved up in Aqua, Iber and WUProp. Looked like a highly ranked team member detached from those three projects. By highly ranked I mean 3rd in Iber and I think top 5 in Aqua and top 10 in WUProp.
Looks like he made himself a new team:Quote:
Originally Posted by Maxwell
http://milkyway.cs.rpi.edu/milkyway/...hp?teamid=3029
I hope WE did not scare him off..??
I cannot say I am surprised, but I am deeply unhappy about this. Enough so that I probably should not have read this thread on vacation, because now I'm going to be bummed out.
I had many PMs with him. A good man, and solid in his principles...but, on so many levels, this team is drifting away from his ideal.
I will let him speak for himself if he ever feels the need to do so. I tried in vain over the last month or so to see if there was anything I could do personally to help him stay. There was nothing...
There were several issues, but I believe the largest is / was the fact that so few care about being #1 overall here. I have to say I could agree with him a little there...we are now at position #3. That may have been the final straw for him, I don't know.
So he believes that he's going to achieve No.1 all on his own? If he wants to be No.1, maybe he should join the French team, if that's the thing most important to him.Quote:
Originally Posted by DrPop
I would think the team would do better with more members in regards to achieving No.1 overall whether that's their goal or not. Do we only want to accept new members if they can be assimilated to that goal? If not, then I guess we don't want new members. If that's not the case then we're going to have a lot of members who don't think it's the most important thing. You can't have it both ways. If you only want members that are devoted to being No.1 at all cost, maybe it should be displayed somewhere on the invitation to join the team.
Do you want more team members or do you want only team members devoted to No.1?
Maybe the motto should be changed to "Together we can accomplish Number 1".
Let's tell the truth. Who do you want to join the team?
PS. Is the motto even displayed anywhere on the board?
Dude! I just looked to see who it was. That is a huge loss. I'm not surprised either, though.
Crunch3r has been a dedicated team member for a few years now. His contribution to the team was not only the additional cobbles from his machines. He compiled many optimized project applications and BOINC clients for the team's use and has helped many with software & hardware problems.
I for one will miss him here but wish him the best of luck in his new endeavor and to his new team.
If you happen to read this thread Crunch3r, once again, thank you for all your efforts to help make SETI.USA one of the top teams in BOINC DC. :)
Bob
Well, about 5 years ago a cruncher by the nick of Project III had the very same idea. Granted that was earlier in the evolution of BOINC but don't ever rule anything out. ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by trigggl
I fear this is some of the "old" we have left behind in the reorganization of the team.Quote:
Originally Posted by trigggl
Very sad. :(
Well said, DrBob. Totally agree.Quote:
Originally Posted by DrBob
Just so it is clear, I was simply trying to explain some of Crunch3r's viewpoints in my earlier post.
I for one, wish EVERY member on this team well, regardless of his/her goals in BOINC DC and what is more, I would (and do) appreciate every single cruncher that adds their cobble stones to this team's output.
As I alluded to above, this is a huge loss for our team, one that almost warrants a moment of silence. Crunch3r is huge in BOINC, not just in crunching, but in project coding, etc. I tried my best to help him stay, but to no avail.
Crunch3r, we will miss you, my friend.
For those of us left...let us reflect a little on these events, and endeavor to make OUR TEAM the most friendly, encouraging, engaging place in BOINC Land, so that many more crunchers come our way.
My best wishes to all who have stuck with our team through thick and thin.
Well I did fly off the handle a bit and I wrote what I wrote before I knew who was the subject of the discussion. As was said, he's the one who knows why he left and I really shouldn't have commented on that without knowing all the facts. What I wrote, though is a valid feeling I have concerning the views of many who have left who were the founders.Quote:
Originally Posted by DrPop
I've heard more than once disappointment with the team because not enough people thought that being No.1 was important. When you accept a lot of team members telling them they can crunch whatever they want and that some projects are merely encouraged for those that didn't now what to crunch. Well you're going to get a lot of new teammates that have a different focus. How can you be angry at them for not having the same focus? You're going to leave because not enough teammates care about being No.1?
I've even been told that I'll probably get sick of this team and leave eventually because of the lack of dedication to it. What?! Count me among those that don't think I should give up my life's savings and crunch what I don't want to crunch to accomplish it. I'm not going to avoid high paying projects, but I'm not going to be a slave to them either.
Anyways, I meant no disrespect to Chrunch3r in particular, and despite his bluntness I respect him as a team member. I definitely wouldn't have made the "join the French team" comment if I'd known who it was when I wrote it.
I was going to post a response to this yesterday but it would not have been politically correct.
Anyhow, for anyone that is interested read his post on the TSP - MW thread old forum here.
From what I gather, he was mad/upset/angry about the teams recruiting efforts or lack there of. His post also refers to his disenchantment with the this MB.
But I do not understand his reasoning on either point. Effective recruiting takes talent, time and effort. Just ask any military recruiting office. I for one, do not recruit simply because I am not good at it and I cannot commit the additional time and effort to do it justice anyway.
The message board is just a message board and in the tactile sense it isn't even real as it only exists as ones and zeros in some database.
As to being #1 BOINC overall in the world, it is NOT achievable alone unless you have Warren Buffet's kind of money.
Oh well, whatever. It is what it is.
Cheers Crunch3r. Best wishes on your new venture and I hope you can find what you lost with Team SETI.USA.
Change always causes friction. New software is something you have to deal with no matter where you go or how long you've been at your job. And, yes, it's usually forced on you, but you still have to learn it and eventually you're able to use it as well as or better than the old. The old board just looks old to me now.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fire$torm
There is one thing from the old board that I would want to be available here and easy to find. I'd like to have a link here, like the link there that you can view active topics. The "New Posts" link here isn't as useful as it should be.
Crunch3r will be missed and I am sorry to see him go. I wish him well and hope he returns one day. He has put a whole lot of time and effort into this team it did not go unnoticed. A Personal thank you for all your hard work on the opti-apps that I use daily. Take care Crunch3r. *Salutes*
So long Crunch3r. :(
Team goal #1 is to be 1st in SETI. From what I've seen, most cruncher's with large farms could care less about SETI as a project. They spent a lot of money on their systems and spend a lot every month on electricity and want to get the most out of them. SETI keeps lowering the credit. Not a great incentive to stay. Of the couple dozen heavy hitters we have lost in the last two years, the only die-hard SETI advocate I knew of was literally paid to crunch for our team for a year. As a team, we outproduce LA'F 2 to 1 on SETI. Great. Goal #1 accomplished.
So... what is the #2 team goal? No one really agrees as far as I know. I don't think the 20-30 people that visit the boards speak for everyone. Maybe we really only have the one goal.
We have one goal which many who we with to retain as members don't really care about and no firmly established secondary goals.
...and we wonder why so many people come and go.
Slicker you are correct. The regular board members do not speak for the whole team. With that in mind, why have so many of the big guns left? Mainly because of disputes among the board regulars. This is our (as in team) quandary.Quote:
Originally Posted by Slicker
In regards to team goals here is the "Official" team statement (for those who have never seen it or who cannot fully recall its details):
"welcome to team seti.usa!
our motto:together we will accomplish something amazing!
on march 24, 2005 team seti.usa was created to consolidate united states users and become the #1 seti team in the world.
this goal was achieved within 24 months of inception thanks to the extraordinary efforts of our dedicated membership.
to parlay that effort, and for the benefit of all boinc distributed computing projects, team seti.usa�s commitment to extend beyond a single project has begun.
seti.usa is now boincing the world! join with us as we boldly go where no team has gone before!"
So in a literal sense no specific secondary or tertiary goals are stated. From the above quote, one can infer the teams goal to be #1 in the world. This is my take on it.
Maybe BJ and/or any other team member who was part of the formation of this team could shed some light on this topic?
Pause (to search the old forum).......
OK, I found something interesting. It is a thread discussion about the "Team Motto" and here is a quote from BJ:
"Since we are talking about the motto..I'll pitch in my 2 cents.
First I want to say that i DO like the motto..give us something to fight for, and it is what first attracted me to the team. There is however something bothersome about it though. If our goal is to attract as many members as possible..it may be better to tweak it just a lil.
Rather than saying that we are trying to catch...and ultimately beat Germany..maybe it would be better to say something like:
The USA has always been known for overcomming adversity. We have historcially always risen from a challenge to accomplish some amazing things. Our goal is to consolidate as many Americans as we can..to be one of the top teams in the world.
(it is a little more benign..than trying to attack Germany...)
It is just an idea..but I am behind the majority..I am willing to go either way..leave it or change it."
And there you have it, "To be one of the TOP TEAMS in the world".
So where do we go from here?
Both LAF and SG are outperforming us by 10M a day. Sounds like we should all be on higher paying CPU projects and also buy more GPUs. Since SETI is down 3-4 days a week, has anyone considered asking our SETI members to add AQUA as a backup project for when it is down? We could probably make up a couple million with just those CPUs alone being focused on higher paying projects.Quote:
And there you have it, "To be one of the TOP TEAMS in the world".
So where do we go from here?
That and recruit.
Speaking of high paying, I just returned a PPS(sieve) task from my P4 HT 3.0 GHz. It took 30 hours to do the task, but received 1800 credits. I could have done 2 at once and received 3600 in a little over a day. That's great for a P4.Quote:
Originally Posted by Slicker
I can't worry about being #1 overall, I'm too busy crunching QMC. Go Bash Brothers!
Not a bad idea here. Say something like, "Hey, remember to set Aqua as a back up to your favorite project".Quote:
Originally Posted by Slicker
"#1 in the world" is ambiguous. Measured how? It doesn't say. I can think of three or four different ways to measure "#1".
If it is total credits, then we should be crunching only the following three projects:
CPU: AQUA
ATI: DNETC
CUDA: PG
And never run anything else. EVER.
That sounds like fun to me. :-L
You're just not a team player. You need to get with the program. No more MM's for you. [-XQuote:
Originally Posted by zombie67
Well, there are those among us who do just that and I see nothing wrong with it? Its their hardware, their money and their time. Who among us has the right to say they are wrong? As a percentage, how many team members are even aware that this debate exists?Quote:
Originally Posted by zombie67
How about instead of needlessly placing team members on the defensive, we try something different?
zombie, you stated above that you can think of at least 4 different ways to measure #1 in the world. Well, why not make all four part of the overall team objective. Say something like:
"Team SETI.USA's goal is to be #1 in the world! So here are some of the possible ways you can to contribute and measure your success along with the Teams:
Strategy #1:____________________
Strategy #2:____________________
Strategy #3:____________________
Strategy #4:____________________
Please help Team SETI.USA accomplish something amazing!"
I'm pretty sure zombie67 is not saying there is anything wrong with the DNETC/Aqua/PG strategy. Just that it doesn't particularly intrigue him (a sentiment I happen to agree with). No judgments, just an opinion on an interest factor.
Off the top of my head, here are the ways I can think of to measure "Being #1" as a team:
1. #1 in overall credits
2. #1 in [insert project]
3. #1 in the most projects
4. Having the most Team MMs in a particular category.
5. #1 in Formula BOINC
6. #1 in BOINCStats World Cup
7. #1 in DC-Vault
I'm sure I'm missing some, but that's what I can remember right now...
My point is that our goals are not clear and so long as that is the case, we'll attract people who think they know what our goals are and later wander away when they realize they really don't match up with what they had in mind.
So, what does being "#1 in BOINC" mean? To me it means #1 in total credit. To some it may mean #1 in CPU projects or #1 in UOTD awards or whatever. Right now, we are like Charlie Brown -- wishy washy, and if SETI.USA is a BOINC leader, I don't think that is what we want. Right now I think we are like a little kid who, after the bully took away his ball, tries convincing himself he really didn't want that anyway. That's how I see us with the total credits issue. We had it for a long time. We felt so good about having it that we decided to go for other additional #1's in specific projects or groups of projects. But, now that we've had a bunch of those taken away and also lost our overall #1 in total credits, we are pretending like we never really wanted that anyway.
Or, maybe those members who believe the goal should be #1 in overall BOINC have all left and it no longer matters. If that's the case, then the current members need to set forth the new team goals.
Define and post our specific, achievable goals. Each goal must have a measurement, so #1 in BOINC is not a goal. #1 in FB or #1 in Free-DC Team MM or #1 in total boinc credit as measured on the xxxx stats site would be. Then, if Joe Blow is a die-hard widget cruncher and will only ever crunch widgets, he knows in advance that joining our team will mean his goals and the team goals are not in sync assuming our #1 goal is not to be #1 in widget crunching.
For me, #1 in BOINC should be re-worded as "#1 in BOINC Combined credit across all projects" and that will be measured using BOINCStats and Free-DC. We have to be #1 on both to be considered #1.
If you disagree. That is OK. I agree we can disagree. But a team can't have 10 different plans or we won't be successful at any of them. So, post your specific measurable goal and let's have a team vote and then put the goal(s) on the front page for the world to see.
Crunch3r obviously felt that #1 in BOINC means total credits. He never hid his opinion. I'm guessing that right now, only one or two of the team's top crunchers agree. So, if 70-80% of the team disagrees, maybe it isn't a good fit. All I'm saying is that right now, no one knows for sure because we yet to clearly define our secondary and tertiary goals. Or, maybe we really can't and our only team goal is #1 in SETI.
Yep. Exactly what I meant, if I was not clear.Quote:
Originally Posted by Maxwell
Doggonit! The most important discussion happens while I'm away!
In 100% agreement with Slicker. This is why we are losing people and not attracting new blood. Any good marketing firm or business coach would tell us the same thing. Slicker has spelled it out for free.
I'll go with his quote above as my vote for our secondary goal (since first goal is #1 at SETI).Quote:
For me, #1 in BOINC should be re-worded as "#1 in BOINC Combined credit across all projects" and that will be measured using BOINCStats and Free-DC.
Thank you Maxwell and Slicker for your valuable input. Much Appreciated. And BTW, I agree with you Slicker on all the points you mentioned.
Of course most of us active on the old and new forums have been through this debate at least once before...
Some facts:
According to BoincStats
Number of members: 12,840
Number of active members: 2,791 (Which equals 21.7% of team membership)
According to the Forum member list
Number of members with accounts on this forum: 156 (Which equals 5.6% of active team membership and 1.2% of total team membership)
I realize I am just a guppy in the pond, but the squeakiest wheel...
Here's my definition of #1.
Crunch what you want when you want without pressure from team mates. It should be enjoyable for all.
Heavy hitters are pressured most of all. Just because they are the majority of credits on any given projects, doesn't oblige them to be the team saviors. They don't owe me anything or anyone else.
That's the kind of team I want to be on. I suspect that's the kind of team the majority of team mates that never visit the board want to be on.
Make it enjoyable for enough people and maybe we'll have the retention of members that we need to be No.1 overall. I mean that as a bonus not an objective.
Agreed. My statements were never meant to be a "Most Do or Leave" thing. The intent is only to make friendly suggestions. And no, IMHO, we do not require saviors. Hence my suggestion of creating a series of objectives (or guidelines if you prefer) for the team. These could be added to "Welcome aboard" emails (preferably in the form of links) to new members and the challenge alerts sent to all members before an event.Quote:
Originally Posted by trigggl
It may not be the intent, but I think that's the overall impression that's being put out by the invitations and discussions. Appearances are more important than intent when it comes to attracting new members and keeping them.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fire$torm
That's not directed at you though it may appear that way. Pun intended.
That is precisely why I worded my statements as I did. And this needs to be projected clearly in public team announcements, emails, greetings of welcome and team motto.Quote:
Originally Posted by trigggl
So does this require a committee, a MB poll, a survey by email or some combination of these?
P.S. I love puns (Which is why Piers Anthony is one of my fav. authors). And the sharper the pun, the better :P
Sad to see a solid member go.
My philosophy is. "crunch your own crunch"
its your computers, its your electric bill.. Crunch what perks your interest.
is it nice to have everyone on the same project/pages for team goals? Absolutely.. but at the same time, every credit crunched is still under the flag of Seti USA
Hopefully he will return if something we do perks his interest again.
Apparently SG and LAF have outspent us in regards to the newer GPU cards. I guess that's why their economy looks the way it does. We as Americans are a little bit cheap when it comes to investing in things in a down economy and that's why were on a slow uptrend. When we used to have some more big guns here, it made it easy to turn resources to other projects and blow the competition away. We don't have as much resources now compared to the competition. For now we are going to have to survive with IMHO, recruiting. One of the reasons I joined this team was to defend our countries honor by being the best. I've seen us be the best and for some reason this isn't everyone's goal. To each their own I guess, we all have different reasons for doing what we do. I would be willing to purchase more rigs if I knew that by retiring some of the older ones, would not make me pay any more for the electric. I have 6 boxes here at home, 4 of which are P4's without GPU's. I would by 2 more rigs with 5000 series cards if they could be switched with the older boxes without costing me more in electric. Any suggestions to this would be appreciated. This could be done in a new thread.
Quote:
Originally Posted by trigggl
I guess I've been negligent in keeping up with what has been going on with the team for a while. I had noticed that there was some disagreements but I fall into the category of only checking the boards occasionally. When the newsletters or emails came asking for help on the project of the month, I tried to run that for a while. I started with the original SETI and still like to put at least some resources with them, though not as much as before. My impression of the team was a way to combine credit on any or all of the projects on Boinc to get as high a total as possible, hopefully ahead of all of the other teams. I never realized that we were supposed to only crunch the projects that someone else dictated. I never felt pressured, but I never have had a large number of systems to put me in the top numbers of workunits. I think the above quotes sum up how I feel. Crunch whatever you want under the banner of the SETI.USA team. Every unit of credit helps.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dorsilfin
Richard
Ok. I'm (obviously) on the crunch what you want bandwagon. I'm deliberately not saying what I'd like the team goals to be because I largely don't care. I'm going to do my own thing regardless. My credits can go to the team, or they can not.
I'm active on the forums because I like the social aspect to it, finding people with common interests, and people to just shoot the breeze with. If I didn't enjoy being on the boards, I wouldn't be here. My two cents.
OK, maybe its the beer but I'm a little miffed. Nowhere did I state a "must do this or must do that". How does one miss terms like "friendly suggestion" or "here are some of the possible ways"? I have reread this thread and not a single post by anyone says anything like "do this or else." The whole point of my posts at least, has been to generate discussion for a revised set of "SUGGESTIONS" for those who would be "WILLING". Nothing more. No Commandments. No Kamikaze death orders. No pack of lemmings driven over the cliff. (Or is that pigs over the cliff? I get those confused...)
When this team first came into being crunching on a video card was pure science fiction or nearly so. And since its formation some projects have gone bye bye and new ones have taken up residence. There are more teams and a hell of a lot more participants. It would be good for this team to reconcile the past and align itself to the future.
Please lets do "Something"!!! Change is inevitable.
So RL has turned our rose bush into a lemon tree. Great! Time to make lemonade. If all we do is bicker, then this team will fail, utterly.
Hi Guys,
Just some food for thought about the good old days, and today..:D
I have seen many come and go from team to team looking for many different things in a team.
What your team had offered me for a good long time was the fun of doing a stomp. Several of us would do strategies on how to out smart the other teams and push them where we wanted them.
It also gave me the option to sit a stomp out and just crunch what I wanted to crunch.
We had folks who would go to each project and talk to many folks and advertise our team.
We went to different teams and talked to there folks and some would follow us to our home team.
As some of you have stated you want to crunch what you like and when you like. That's cool and as it should be, but one thing is really apparent to me right now is that you are lacking the aggressive side of this team. The folks like Kevin and myself who just love to be very aggressive in our directions.
As I see it from an outsiders view point, is you need to internally divide the team up into 6 parts in your thinking.
1. An area on the team for the aggressive.
2. An area for those who love to follow some ones lead.
3. An area for those who are not so aggressive who just want to be a part of this team and just crunch their own projects.
4. Folks who will go to other teams and talk to them and see who they are and strike up a relationship of gabbing.
5. Some folks who will go out and pick fights with other teams to get the juices going.
6. Folks who will keep posting the team info in the project team recruit areas.
This all may seem crazy but it worked before why not now?
The only thing that I see going on from my view point is item number 3. Its a good item but the rest is also important.
Well have a great weekend and see you guys soon.
DD,
Fire$torm, I'm not directing anything toward you or what you said. The original topic was Crunch3r leaving. From what I can tell, first, he really hates this new board, and second, he doesn't feel there's enough people here who care whether we are first overall in the world.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fire$torm
I get the impression and not necessarily from this thread, that there are too many people who are unhappy with us crunching anything but AQUA, DNETC and other highest paying projects. For instance when a lot of the team were doing the 2 week long Primegrid challenge there was some of that.
When I say crunch what you want when you want, that includes all the things that DD listed. Maybe someone wants to follow what the team is doing all the time or maybe they want to do it half the time. Maybe someone cares about nothing but all out credits. There might even be people out there who wonder why we even have credits and just care about the science.
If we are going to have a discussion about team objectives, it should probably be in its own thread and not this one. :-$
Fair enough. I will start a team objective thread since no one else has yet. Please join in. I am on vacation so I don't know how timely my responses will be, but I cannot miss this discussion. It is the most important one we have or will have had for the future of this team.