Poll: Team Objective

VOTING RULES: vote YES if you agree these should be goals number 1 & 2 in the order that YOU prefer.
Vote NO to change a goal that you disagree with. If you vote NO, you MUST reply with an alternate solution, a goal you feel is better for the team. Those suggestions may be added to a future poll.

After 535 views and six pages of posts, I have yet to see a consensus from a large number of us, on what exact direction our team should go. We used to have certain goals, priorities, desires. Things change. The motive of the team can stay the same, but the actual direction and priorities of goals may change. The dawning of the GPU era is now past and the reality is smacking us like a 2x4 between the eyes. The makeup of the team is different, with a smaller core group that is really active on the boards. Those of us left are truly the dedicated ones, so anything is possible. No one give up hope for any goal you want to see our team achieve. They will come with hard work and perseverance, but the point is, they will come. Where there's a will, there's a way.
We have the will. We are looking for the way.

This poll will obviously not change any official policy of our team off the bat. It should give a good idea of what the active membership want, however, and could be a good springboard for any change that may need to take place.

Apparently, our problems begin on a more basic level than I thought. Some members can't even read! :D

On a more serious note, if you vote "no", please respect the process enough to state your preferred goal in a reply. Thank you.

I think a better ruler is team MMs.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by zombie67

I think a better ruler is team MMs.

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Plus 00001

Quote:

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I think a better ruler is team MMs.

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As I am to lazy to go look for it, where is the stats page for that? Do more MMs make us first?

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Originally Posted by joker

As I am to lazy to go look for it, where is the stats page for that? Do more MMs make us first?

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Look at the stop of our stats page on Free-DC: http://stats.free-dc.org/stats.php?p...&team=SETI.USA

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Maxwell

Look at the stop of our stats page on Free-DC: http://stats.free-dc.org/stats.php?p...&team=SETI.USA

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Is there a page that shows our overall rank compared to other teams?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Maxwell

Look at the stop of our stats page on Free-DC: http://stats.free-dc.org/stats.php?p...&team=SETI.USA

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Or look in my sig. :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Slicker

Is there a page that shows our overall rank compared to other teams?

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That's an interesting notion, not sure how we'd categorize an overall MM, perhaps lowest average projrank?

Code:

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mysql> select cpid,avg(projrank) as avpr from boinc_milestone_makers where mtype like 't%' group by cpid order by avpr asc limit 0,20;
+-------------------------+---------+
| cpid                    | avpr    |
+-------------------------+---------+
| L'Alliance Francophone  |  1.8182 |
| SETI.Germany            |  1.9091 |
| SETI.USA                |  2.0909 |
| Czech National Team    |  5.8000 |
| BOINC Synergy          |  7.2222 |
| Ars Technica            |  8.3000 |
| BOINC@Poland            |  8.3000 |
| BOINC@AUSTRALIA        |  8.3333 |
| Planet 3DNow!          |  8.3636 |
| BOINCstats              |  8.4000 |
| Team 2ch                | 11.3636 |
| The Knights Who Say Ni! | 12.6667 |
| Team Norway            | 13.5556 |
| Canada                  | 13.8750 |
| AMD Users              | 15.5556 |
| UK BOINC Team          | 16.8889 |
| Russia                  | 17.6667 |
| TeAm AnandTech          | 18.5000 |
| USA                    | 19.0000 |
| BOINC.Italy            | 19.1250 |
+-------------------------+---------+
20 rows in set (0.01 sec)

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So, perhaps your goal stated would be:
"To become the most project diverse team, with highest overall MM achievement"?

Is that somewhat correct? I'm just looking for proper wording so we can add it to an official poll someday. This thread is all about getting the ideas out there.

BOK, is there any easy way to do a sort by team MMs? I'm not saying I'd vote for this as my top goal, but I would be curious if we could even do it stats wise?
Thanks everyone who is participating, and keep it coming!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bok

That's an interesting notion, not sure how we'd categorize an overall MM, perhaps lowest average projrank?

Code:

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mysql> select cpid,avg(projrank) as avpr from boinc_milestone_makers where mtype like 't%' group by cpid order by avpr asc limit 0,20;
+-------------------------+---------+
| cpid                    | avpr    |
+-------------------------+---------+
| L'Alliance Francophone  |  1.8182 |
| SETI.Germany            |  1.9091 |
| SETI.USA                |  2.0909 |
| Czech National Team    |  5.8000 |
| BOINC Synergy          |  7.2222 |
| Ars Technica            |  8.3000 |
| BOINC@Poland            |  8.3000 |
| BOINC@AUSTRALIA        |  8.3333 |
| Planet 3DNow!          |  8.3636 |
| BOINCstats              |  8.4000 |
| Team 2ch                | 11.3636 |
| The Knights Who Say Ni! | 12.6667 |
| Team Norway            | 13.5556 |
| Canada                  | 13.8750 |
| AMD Users              | 15.5556 |
| UK BOINC Team          | 16.8889 |
| Russia                  | 17.6667 |
| TeAm AnandTech          | 18.5000 |
| USA                    | 19.0000 |
| BOINC.Italy            | 19.1250 |
+-------------------------+---------+
20 rows in set (0.01 sec)

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I think you need to do an outer join against the milestones where a null equates to the max value so that it gives a truer picture. (e.g. Team USA is ranked #19 overall above when they only have 7 MM's. I'm not sure that holds up against other teams which have more MM's (11 or more?) but lower numbers.

For example, if team X has less than a billion credits, then the ranking for the 1B MM would be the count of teams that have 1B plus one (e.g. tied for last) rather than not counted in the stats at all.

Agreed, though I can't think of a simple way to do it with the data in it's form right now even with an outer join . Would be simplest if there were a row for every team regardless of whether they had a 'score' in the category.

Perhaps this is a little bit better in the interim.

Code:

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mysql> select cpid,avg(projrank) as avpr,count(*),(avg(projrank)/count(*)) as av2 from boinc_milestone_makers where mtype like 't%' group by cpid order by av2 asc limit 0,20;
+-------------------------+---------+----------+------------+
| cpid                    | avpr    | count(*) | av2        |
+-------------------------+---------+----------+------------+
| L'Alliance Francophone  |  1.8182 |      11 | 0.16528926 |
| SETI.Germany            |  1.9091 |      11 | 0.17355372 |
| SETI.USA                |  2.0909 |      11 | 0.19008264 |
| Czech National Team    |  5.8000 |      10 | 0.58000000 |
| Planet 3DNow!          |  8.3636 |      11 | 0.76033058 |
| BOINC Synergy          |  7.2222 |        9 | 0.80246914 |
| Ars Technica            |  8.3000 |      10 | 0.83000000 |
| BOINC@Poland            |  8.3000 |      10 | 0.83000000 |
| BOINCstats              |  8.4000 |      10 | 0.84000000 |
| BOINC@AUSTRALIA        |  8.3333 |        9 | 0.92592593 |
| Team 2ch                | 11.3636 |      11 | 1.03305785 |
| The Knights Who Say Ni! | 12.6667 |        9 | 1.40740741 |
| Team Norway            | 13.5556 |        9 | 1.50617284 |
| AMD Users              | 15.5556 |        9 | 1.72839506 |
| Canada                  | 13.8750 |        8 | 1.73437500 |
| Sicituradastra.        | 20.1818 |      11 | 1.83471074 |
| UK BOINC Team          | 16.8889 |        9 | 1.87654321 |
| Russia                  | 17.6667 |        9 | 1.96296296 |
| TeAm AnandTech          | 18.5000 |        8 | 2.31250000 |
| BOINC.Italy            | 19.1250 |        8 | 2.39062500 |
+-------------------------+---------+----------+------------+
20 rows in set (0.00 sec)

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I have not voted yet but agree the team’s goals need to be defined for those in need of an answer.

Sadly I lost the majority of my motivation last Spring during the “uprising of 2010”. However EVERY single cobblestone I have earned in the past 5 years since joining the team has gone into the team’s coffers, that will continue to be until there is a reason for me to move on.

Since you are looking for suggestions on the team’s goals here are a few off the top of my head. My personal preference would be #3 “Be the top ranked team in ranking averaged across all BOINC projects.” as it seems to be the most logical (to me) in showing the “best” team with the current state of how BOINC credits are earned.

Mix or match or come up with something altogether different, the team’s stated mission will not effect my participation here. Some may not agree with the projects I participate in but I have and always will crunch 100% for SETI.USA as long as I am a member.

Hold our #1 position on SETI@home.

Be the #1 team for credit in BOINC.

Be the top ranked team in ranking averaged across all BOINC projects.

Achieve the most #1 positions on all BOINC projects.

Achieve the most top 10 rankings on all BOINC projects.

Strive for #1 in Formula BOINC.

Strive to be the #1 team in all official project challenges for the year.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DrBob

Hold our #1 position on SETI@home.

Be the #1 team for credit in BOINC.

Be the top ranked team in ranking averaged across all BOINC projects.

Achieve the most #1 positions on all BOINC projects.

Achieve the most top 10 rankings on all BOINC projects.

Strive for #1 in Formula BOINC.

Strive to be the #1 team in all official project challenges for the year.

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Dr.Bob, well said as usual. I do not see anything to change in your list, really, except maybe order of them if we want to number them according to team preference?
EDIT: For the MM enthusiasts, wouldn't "most MMs" come along naturally with everything Doc has listed out here for us? Just a thought...
Also, sorry to hear how much steam was lost this spring; I think it affected more than we will ever know. I am glad you are here with us still, and hope the contagious crunching bug will bite you again soon, my friend! :D

@ Bok--Go 'Canes :) You lost me when you started talking facts & figures :P

My 2¢ says only one objective--#1 in whatever's out there, no matter how that pie is sliced. Short & sweet. The hard part is making that happen. As we've always said, crunch what you want, and we need that as well as power crunch for short term things that may come along--ie challenges or we've dropped in a certain project & are in jeopardy of losing standing. Has this really changed? IDK because I've missed so much of the struggle of the last year or so.


Ditto DrBob--I'll always be here. This is my team and that won't change. My crunch bug has relapsed, so I have no other choice! lol MORE MORE MORE

P.S. I didn't vote yet either so as not to screw up the numbers

OK...this is real encouraging. So, it appears there are about 16 of us on this team that check the boards somewhat regularly? (The 14 that voted plus two who abstained.) Anyone else see a bit of a dilemma here about us setting some goals that will affect a few thousand people on our team?

Then again, I suppose we could look at it this way: if they don't care to show up, maybe it won't affect them after all. ;):cool:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DrPop

OK...this is real encouraging. So, it appears there are about 16 of us on this team that check the boards somewhat regularly? (The 14 that voted plus two who abstained.) Anyone else see a bit of a dilemma here about us setting some goals that will affect a few thousand people on our team?

Then again, I suppose we could look at it this way: if they don't care to show up, maybe it won't affect them after all. ;):cool:

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Yeah, pretty much the way it's always been as far as trying poll members on the boards. Besides the two groups you mentioned there is a third, those that visit the boards but don't care one way or another in regard to what is being polled.

We also have "active" members that only check the boards once a week or so, the poll has only been up a couple days. Even with the fact we have moved the fora I think you may see a few more pop in here but anything close to a quorum for our total membership will never happen.

I haven't voted yet because I didn't like the options. I don't have anything better, so I just decided to abstain and see where it went.

With a few mediocre computers, I decided a while back to go with MM's because that's where I feel I can accomplish more and get higher team rankings.

I think one of the best things we've done recently is help each other get more crunchers going and more GPUs crunching. That, to me, is what being a team is all about. I'm sure everyone wants to be No.1 overall. All we can do is help everyone on the team be the best that they can be with the resources they have and just keep people educated on how they can be more productive without getting on peoples cases.

If you educate people and it's their focus, then they'll do it. We don't need to hammer (no offense Maxwell) people over the head about not crunching the right projects and whining about L'AF and SG pulling away or complaining that not enough people are buying GPUs instead of buying the groceries or making the car payment on time.

If we do make some goals, they should be suggestions and not demands. If we do want the majority to see it, the best way to do that is the team page on each project. Any cruncher that joins the team is going to see that.

Having said all that. Here are some things that make sense to me whether we can reach them at the moment or not. (ex. The Rams goal is to make the Super Bowl. It may take a couple of years.) It's becoming clear to me that we should not reject the original purpose of the team and I guess it's ok to have a goal that we can't reach right now. The goal could be a positive message to someone joining the team if presented correctly.

1. No.1 in SETI@HOME.
It's the foundation of the team whether the forum dwellers (including myself) care about it or not.

2. No.1 overall.
Just because we can't do it right now doesn't mean it shouldn't be a goal.

3. MM's
As many as you can get with the resources you have.

4. Active in major Challenges
See forum for details. Follow on Twitter.

Anything beyond this is probably information overload.

Good post trigggl, well said. :)

Trigggl, I do agree with most of what you said, but I also hope you and everyone else realize why I even made this poll. This team is re-emerging, reinventing itself. If it weren't for some very lofty goals the first time around, this team would't even be in existence.

I mean, sure, we could all just throw our points together haphazardly, while sitting around the camp fire holding hands and singing Kumbaya together...but I'm not so sure that would get us to where want to be...any time soon, at least. ;):cool:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DrPop

Trigggl, I do agree with most of what you said, but I also hope you and everyone else realize why I even made this poll. This team is re-emerging, reinventing itself. If it weren't for some very lofty goals the first time around, this team would't even be in existence.

I mean, sure, we could all just throw our points together haphazardly, while sitting around the camp fire holding hands and singing Kumbaya together...but I'm not so sure that would get us to where want to be...any time soon, at least. ;):cool:

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We're in a rebuilding year (NFL reference again). It's going to get ugly, but you always have hope and believe you can do better next year. I'm confident we'll get back in it as long as we keep a positive atmosphere. The bad atmosphere is what's been killing us. I think we're moving in the right direction. Believe it or not, I feel good about where we are right now. I think we're getting a good foundation again.

If we sing Kumbaya can we has cookies?

Hey Shadow - if you bring the milk, I'll bring the cookies. :D You know, that would actually be a lot of fun to have a SETI.USA convention someday. ;)

That's great. At least we're all on the same page. I'm pretty happy we've come this far myself! We even stand to win the 2010 PG Crown at this point! I think it's a good idea to do these every once in a while and just get a feel for what the membership is angling for. As I mentioned in the first post, it's like having a "staff meeting" type poll, not an official change of direction or anything. It's a litmus test to see how we're doing.
So, a big thank you to all who participated in the poll. Shows us where we're at internally.

We have a pretty good group of guys/gals (now that Possum's back! ;) ) for a solid foundation. We will all help to build the walls up from here, and I know in time we'll be rocking the BOINC world again. Shoot...our daily output is looking very nice these days. Way to go team!

I’m glad that DrPop has brought this subject up again and in a poll to see who is even voting; I am with Trigggl with not liking my options, so I voted NO and here is my reply.

I know that is was said about maintaining a positive atmosphere so I will apologize to all of you in advance that this response is probably not going to go along those lines. My intention is not to ruffle feathers but to simply make points that I have tried to make before in other posts; however, they seemed to have fallen on deaf ears.

I posted before in Growing the Team some of my thoughts and actions, I took it upon myself to start emailing members while the old board was still up, in hopes that we could get some of the old members to become active on the new board. I had hoped that it would start conversation and that we could have ideas about how to grow this team. That thread died on November 17th.

I have also posted more of my thoughts about not having enough people here to be able to do much of anything.

DrPop had brought up a topic about emailing people. From what I saw, three of us pretty much volunteered to take on that task despite the issues. The resolve, nothing as far as I’ve seen… I know that I’m not exactly in-the-know but it would be nice to know if someone was picked to take this on, if not, then what I have to say to the administration here is if you are going to be in command… then command!

I see a lot of talk from everyone but I see no action. As of this posting we have 18 people who have bothered to even vote on the Team Objectives and only 180 people on this board. Frankly, I don’t think we have the ability to be #1 in anything.

There has been talk about changing the Team’s name, which I think is a mistake for what my opinion is worth, about keeping up with the times. The Team was founded on being #1 on SETI and that this should be our core purpose, the problem that I see from what others have posted is that SETI keeps reducing their credits in a system whose projects seem to have little rhyme or reason for the credits they give in the first place. And then top that off with SETI@Home doesn’t seem to run efficiently from what I have experienced.

The big question is what if SETI@Home decides to fold-up shop or discontinue credits completely… then what is SETI.USA’s core purpose going to be?

I know the Team was founded on that project but I don’t think we should continue to try and be defined by that project.

I do agree that Team objectives are important but I think growing the size of this Team is more important at the moment and I haven’t heard of any ideas of how to accomplish this task. But if all we’re going to do is talk about it in the forums instead of someone making a decision and taking action, none of this is going to matter.

Some good thoughts there. Some of which are exactly why I was advocating our main goal be #1 in BOINC and not #1 in SETI any longer, because for starters, SETI@Home doesn't care about "us" or points, or BOINC score, or MMs, or anything. The administration there just doesn't. Let's be grown ups about this and face that. The face of BOINC DC has changed. We can't win anything doing "it" how we used to do it. Secondly, the project is hardly the largest any more, and third, all the "growth" in BOINC teams is happening due to high paying GPU projects, and will continue to do so. Technology is not going to march backward, folks.

I think the name change is moot. We can't do it if we want to keep our 10bil points. Furthermore, I don't see us giving up 3rd place world-wide just to change our name. Not going to happen. Apparently, with the way BOINC stats are structured, we're SETI.USA forever, whether we like it or not, whether SETI@Home even exists or not.
Kind of strange if you ask me...but whatever. I'm just here to help rally this team onward and upward! I don't really care what the name is, I just care about the cool guys and gals that are the team! :cool:

As far as recruiting - well, we're adding new members daily. We do need to increase that rate, though. The hard part for me, is that I really can't see how to do what Crunch3r was so good at - going to various project forums and get people to join. I don't have that kind of IT / computer programming knowledge, to "Wow" someone into joining my team because of "help" I gave them. Heck...I don't even know what half of the BOINC projects are even about, let alone how to run them more efficiently! Anyone else have this dilemma? ;)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Shadowlurker

If we sing Kumbaya can we has cookies?

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Forget the cookies. I want smores. Camp fire and smores.... Kumbaya!

Thank you for your response DrPop. You and Maxwell seem to have a knack for calming me down when I'm hopping mad.

I don't know how to do all of that stuff that Crunch3r is able to do either... hell, I needed your help to just get attached to WCG. :)

With recruiting, I don't know how to do that either. :( It's a shame that we can't get into contact with everyone that's obviously still crunching for SETI.USA; to be able to have everyone in a unified push would be awesome.

As far as the emailing thing, perhaps instead of saying I'm willing, I should say, I'm going to do that; unless of course someone has a problem with that stance.

Big smooch and a hug for you STMahlberg!! Thank you for taking the initiative to do what you've done so far--that is a HUGE help. Frustrating for you though also I'm sure. I know you've gotten few responses compared to the amount of time you've expended--but, as in crunching--every little bit helps! :)

As DrBob pointed out--we had the same problems before--a portion of the team cares to do nothing other than crunch in anonymity & will never become active here. But again--if we make up in quantity of members, maybe that percentage of active will increase. SO we're still in the same boat but need bigger oars. Perhaps all we can hope for is to keep this core group active & engaged and come together on specific projects from time to time like the challenges to get an extra burst of power when we can. Posting in the fora of projects we DO know and crunch can never hurt us.
Once RL settles down for me, I'll have some time to do that. hahahah I can't help anyone like Crunch3r did either, but I can trawl the fora looking for people to throw an invite to :P

And Oh Heck Yeah a convention would be cool--we tried to work that out once before too.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by thepossum1

Big smooch and a hug for you STMahlberg!! Thank you for taking the initiative to do what you've done so far--that is a HUGE help. Frustrating for you though also I'm sure. I know you've gotten few responses compared to the amount of time you've expended--but, as in crunching--every little bit helps! :)

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Thank you so much for your kind words, they are a big help. :)

On a side note that every little bit helps, I will have 3 more systems online sometime this weekend; 2 of which I should be able to add a GPU too. I am very excited about that.

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Originally Posted by Shadowlurker

If we sing Kumbaya can we has cookies?

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http://images.icanhascheezburger.com...7281248552.jpg

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Originally Posted by STMahlberg

DrPop had brought up a topic about emailing people. From what I saw, three of us pretty much volunteered to take on that task despite the issues. The resolve, nothing as far as I’ve seen… I know that I’m not exactly in-the-know but it would be nice to know if someone was picked to take this on, if not, then what I have to say to the administration here is if you are going to be in command… then command!

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I was planning to work on this last weekend, but I didn't get to it (researching our new bulk email capabilities). But we have in the recent past emailed challenge info, newsletters etc to the entire email list. So we do communicate with the largest possible list of team members. There are 15k email addresses in the list and about 12k that have not opted out (so far) after being emailed. We get anywhere from 10-100 opt out requests or bounces from each mailing.

The email list has always been a sensitive topic and restricted to the admins, and the team has to also be wary about becoming annoying (spam) with their email communications. We are due for an email blast soon to promote the final PG challenge.

I love your passion and willingness to help both publicly and privately, please don't hesitate to raise questions you or the rest of the team want answered, we will do our best to be responsive but sometimes we miss things.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mr. Hankey

... The email list has always been a sensitive topic and restricted to the admins, and the team has to also be wary about becoming annoying (spam) with their email communications. We are due for an email blast soon to promote the final PG challenge.

I love your passion and willingness to help both publicly and privately, please don't hesitate to raise questions you or the rest of the team want answered, we will do our best to be responsive but sometimes we miss things.

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I apologize to you Mr. Hankey and to Teratoma for my implication in my post, I was rather insolent. I do understand that there is a lot going on behind the scenes that I don't see; I must admit that I get frustrated at times and that frustration came out in my post.

Update:

I tried a couple of test messages... there are some server side configuration issues that need to be worked out as the tests were unsuccessful. I will try and work through those and post an update once things are either working or have failed irrecoverably.

Thanks for all the work you guys are doing to get the "back office" up and running again for the team! This is also the daily bump I will give this poll so that, as DrBob pointed out, folks coming in to check this board once every week or so, will see it.

The usual courtesy "bump" so any stragglers see the poll...