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World Community Grid Forums
Category: Support
Forum: Website Support
Thread: Change to the Project Progress Bars |
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Thread Status: Active Total posts in this thread: 164
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PecosRiverM
Veteran Cruncher The Great State of Texas Joined: Apr 27, 2007 Post Count: 1054 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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So sad to see nothing has changed in over 2 months.
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Glen David Short
Senior Cruncher Joined: Nov 6, 2008 Post Count: 185 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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So sad to see nothing has changed in over 2 months. Sadly something has changed, but not for the better. On 20 June 2019 WCG had 43,819 active users. Today, 25 July 2019, it has 41,978. A drop of around 5% in the last 5 weeks, according to the official BOINCstats webpage.  |
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hchc
Veteran Cruncher USA Joined: Aug 15, 2006 Post Count: 812 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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It could simply be people dropping off or reducing their contributions for the summer heat. You'd have to compare it to the same time period in 2018, 2017, etc. to see if it's an anomaly.
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gb009761
Master Cruncher Scotland Joined: Apr 6, 2005 Post Count: 2987 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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Well, due to the current pause of the Zika project*, one of my machines is slowly creaping up to my 5 yr Diamond badge for MCM - after that, I'm not going to be pursing that particular project any further (as I simply have not got a clue as to how long/how much work is left on it). A five year gap between the 5 & 10 yr Diamond badge is HUGE for a small cruncher such as myself.
----------------------------------------* I'm even having second thoughts as to whether to press ahead with Zika upon its recommencement - as I'm a long, long way off from reaching the 5 yr badge for this particular project. My other computer meanwhile, is slowly on the brink of converting my Emerald MIP badge into Sapphire. I'll more than likely continue with that project to try and get the 5 yr badge (3 yrs CPU effort, isn't quite that bad), but after that - again, that's as far as I'll go with that particular project (despite me recalling that it looked as though it had plenty of work left for several more years - now that we're totally in the dark I haven't got a clue). When (if) the new projects come onboard, I'll more than likely just set myself a goal of Sapphire - that is, unless there's some clear guidance as to how much work theire is and the progress we're making (perhaps, the scientists behind the project(s) can be convinced of setting up a decent measuring tool - like we've seen in the past with FA@H).  |
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Glen David Short
Senior Cruncher Joined: Nov 6, 2008 Post Count: 185 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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reducing their contributions for the summer heat. It's winter in the southern hemisphere. And it's always hot in the tropics, and always cold in extreme latitudes. And SCC restarted last week, taking up any slack from formerly idle Android Zika contributors.. And a quick read of the comments here shows a number of longtime contributors have quit, or thinking of quitting.( I am not one of them BTW). But shouldn't WCG numbers be increasing regardless? A pitiful, tiny fraction of 1% of potential devices are contributing, which in itself is a fraction of those who load the software and try it, but do not continue. It's been said many times already, WCG needs to increase its recruitment and retention rate. Knowing if you can reach a badge is (er... sorry, was) one of the great fun things about WCG. [Edit 2 times, last edit by Glen David Short at Jul 27, 2019 7:36:56 AM] |
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giba
Veteran Cruncher Brazil Joined: Dec 2, 2004 Post Count: 846 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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There are Zika tasks away to be downloaded and processed ! I got many. Keep crunching. Good luck !
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Glen David Short
Senior Cruncher Joined: Nov 6, 2008 Post Count: 185 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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From a paper I found on the internet:
----------------------------------------Volunteer computing: the ultimate cloud David P. Anderson Space Sciences Laboratory University of California, Berkeley Under the paragraph entitled "Human factors in volunteer computing" he writes:(emphasis mine) All HPC paradigms involve human factors, but in volunteer computing these factors are particularly crucial and complex...Evidence suggests that there are several motivational factors... Community: some volunteers enjoy participating in the on-line communities and social networks that form, through message boards and other web features, around volunteer computing projects. Then he says: "To attract and retain volunteers, a project must perform a variety of human functions. It must develop web content describing its research goals, methods, and credentials; it must provide volunteers with periodic updates (via web or email) on its scientific progress; it must manage the moderation of its website’s message boards to ensure that they remain positive and useful; it must publicize itself by whatever media are available (mass media, alumni magazines, blogs, social networking sites)." I am not sure when it was written, but its was prior to 2015. Even at that early date, he mentions: "the volunteer population has remained around 500,000 for several years.". ie, stagnating in the face of massive explosion in numbers of potential devices at everyone's disposal. Yet another voice in the wilderness? Very prescient in view of the current challenges WCG is facing. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
I would suggest that WCG is meeting the goal you highlighted by the periodic updates from the researchers on the project's progress and the mini-updates on the monthly calls. WCG is somewhat unique in the fact that they are not the researchers but only provide the compute resources for the researchers unlike some other projects where the admin is also the researcher. David Anderson also started Science United as an alternative to the stand-alone BOINC project. How successful has he been in retaining contributors to Science United?
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bluestang
Senior Cruncher USA Joined: Oct 1, 2010 Post Count: 272 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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Well, they're going to be losing a lot more "volunteers" by the next thing they are doing too. By purging/removing WGC members who have not participated in recent years. I understand what they are trying to do, but it just plain old looks bad. It will look like their participant numbers are dropping.
----------------------------------------Now, whether someone hasn't returned work in a few years, is not that part that bugs me and I understand (to a point) why they are doing it. Some people have life issues that get in the way for a few years before they can come back to contributing when things get back to normal for them. But, that will also remove some "Legends" in the WCG community who have unfortunately succumb to some of these diseases they fought to contributed to. Really? That's just stupid to think that some teams will have some of their role models that participants look up to deleted from their teams and stats. WTF is going on WCG??? ---------------------------------------- [Edit 1 times, last edit by bluestang at Aug 5, 2019 2:51:16 PM] |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
bluestang,
This is off-topic, but I can close the aside in one go by stating the simple fact: it's European law. Don't knock WCG/IBM -- they're simply doing what the law says they must do if they want people in Europe to participate. |
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