Quote Originally Posted by pinhodecarlos View Post
Can I ask you litehouse43 if you have a math degree? Before being a volunteer admin of any kind of project I think we must study (read articles, papers, etc) the matter to see if real science/math is made and not be a volunteer admin to gain new members, to be visible, etc...

When I look to run a project I only do the math ones and the reasonable ones. I read papers, master thesis on the subject, I try to understand the algorithm behind the application and try ways to tweak it. For me this is what makes a real cruncher, the one who knows the state-of-art in all aspects.

I don't care if project is domestic or international, I don't care about badges, I don't care about website layout, I care about the subject we are testing it, the rest is secondary. I don't care if the project only has 100 members, these ones at the end of the run have the grant of having done something special, something that is publishable. I'm on math projects to have my name on papers as I have on a few from OddPerfect project and others math related.

Sorry for my post but that is what I think.

Carlos
I actually do not have a degree in math; my formal education is in computer science and aerospace engineering. With that being said I am passionate about math however.

Quote Originally Posted by Fire$torm View Post
Hello litehouse43,

Apologies for not posting sooner...

Although I am competitive by nature and gravitate to project challenges and raids, I've always been very interested in technology. Most any kind of tech, which is one of the reasons I took up computers as a hobby. So I like projects (in general terms) that advance man's pool of knowledge. But I prefer projects that give good credit and scale credit according to the method of processing, CPU vs. GPU, and the amount of time it take to complete a task. The concept of "Normalizing" credit across all BOINC projects is in my opinion not a good thing. Others may fell differently.

Anyhow, thank you for taking the time to ask. It is a rare thing to see a project admin taking interest in the personal side of volunteer computing, at least in this manner.

Happy Holidays,
Fire$torm
I think that hits the nail on the head for my motivations. I wish more projects would take the time to see why people contribute and make the experience more mutually beneficial. I got involved in volunteer computing, like everyone else, to contribute to science and building the knowledge base of humanity.

I think sometimes projects are so concerned about the scientific output that they forget about the human side of volunteer computing. People want to get something out of these projects; they want to know their resources are being used efficiently. Volunteer computing is also a way to introduce other aspects of society, like marketing, into scientific exploration to help make science more mainstream.
From an administrative perspective there are two main issues. The first is getting volunteers already involved in BOINC to participate in your project while the second is getting people outside the BOINC community to come on in and check it out. These challenges are accomplished in different ways but I feel like it is something we all should always be thinking about. I know I am.

I was hoping some of the more competitive minded SETI.USA members could point me in the right direction for how to start project challenges. There is very little documentation provided on this topic from either BOINC or any supporting applications. I think starting some challenges may be a way to help grow our project internally, test our servers and hopefully gain more volunteers. Overall it seems to be something volunteers like to do. I personally have never really done any so I am at a loss for how to proceed on this end.

Thanks for the input everyone, I was hoping to get a little discussion going on the topic and am glad everyone seemed to be interested.