I for 1 don't care about points, credits, or badges. I am here to help find answers to the questions of cures and new places out far out in space maybe even some little green men lol Before coming here I was over at fah@folding and I left due to the focus on points and not the research. They were testing something new and wanted it back within 3 days but stressed about points. They had afew servers 16 cores that some made it and some didn't. When I asked about it they stressed again on points. If the top servers we have can't do it in 3 days what's wrong with 5 days. They said try telling someone that is dieing the research is taking 5 days which means 3 to 5 years for something to get done. My thoughts were and still are so what if it going to take longer atleast we can work on it until newer CPU's are out that can and will do it faster. Still yet they say no only 16 core's or higher with the 3 days deadline. I wish they would tell the dieing person sorry we are not really trying because the 16 core servers can barely do it in 3 days so we will not let the 8 cores and 16 cores work on it until there is faster CPU's so you have to wait until then but we are giving more points "bonus points at that" if you go spend $4000 or so and build atleast a 16 core computer.
I asked what good are the points. I can't eat them, spend them or anything else with them. The point is to do as much as can be done with what we have until better comes along. Points,badges anything else useless is not needed for me to give computer time so we can someday find the answers we are seeking. Just my point of view of points and badges and not everyone will feel the same way. I am willing to bet that about 98% will not agree with me...
PC setup MSI-970A-G46 AMD FX-8350 8 core OC'd 4.45GHz 16GB ram PC3-10700 Geforce GTX 650Ti Windows 7 x64 Einstein@Home
Perhaps there should be more intermediate badges, like those in the project Yoyo (50k, 100k, 2000k, 5000k) thus it would be easier to get, from time to time, a new badge. If You want to hook people here, the first 2 badges should be easier to get (100k and 50k points).
That would lead to an increase of names for each badge, but in Yoyo they've solved the problem with other names (master, grand-master and so on). In this project those names could be of the Einstein subject (e.g.: 2000k points --> the pulsar badge; 5000k points --> double pulsar badge or so).
There's people who don't colaborate for badges nor points. But never forget there're badge-hunters out there (even team badge-hunters).
Badges are, in the real world, useless but help some people to keep crunching just to get to the next badge (and so the project benefits of this "obsession").
It is interesting from a technical point, namely GPU and distributed computing supporting a wide range of platforms. I have learnt a lot about Linux, motherboards GPUs, CPUs and PSUs, and what makes a system run well.
The software is really stable, I can crunch and work on my pc.
It´s also interesting from a mathematics side, both theoretical and computational, and especially from the scientific astronomy side it is cool.
It feels very professional.
Finding a pulsar is good, but also not finding one in a particular place adds to the knowledge.
Maybe we could make comedy Non-discovery Pulsar Free Zone certificates, in black of course, for folks who have cleared say the equivalent of a million star neighbourhood of pulsars. The more you clear the bigger the black dot.
I find the credits RAC are useful to measure the efficiency of the number crunching, in that a certain tweak makes a difference.
Badges,
I´m not sure where the badges would appear - the forums I guess. I sort of left PrimeGrid because the science and project seemed to come second to badges and challenges. Perhaps we could trial something sig based like the DC stats and see if people opt in.
Badges are, in the real world, useless but help some people to keep crunching just to get to the next badge (and so the project benefits of this "obsession").
Could not agree more. But there is more. As a physician, who has much interest in neuroscience and cognitive psychology, I can without a doubt say (although, this is nothing new) that such kind of approach would be also a very 'powerful' conscious and also subconscious 'tool' for motivating more volunteers as one would expect.
We are all driven (more than we are usually aware of or willing to admit to ourselves) by motivation (and 'reward' - !) to pursue (and reach) our goals (whatever they may be).
Even many volunteers, who say, that they don't care about badges, credits or any other form of recognition are - and I say this with great confidence - to a LARGE degree motivated and stimulated by the potential 'reward', that participating in this project offers.
This 'reward' may (albeit rarely) be really based solely on intellectual satisfaction or the feeling, that they (we - myself included) participate and contribute in something that is very important for astrophysics, cosmology and science in general, but in vast majorities we ALL have additional 'agendas' (however 'harmless'), we are maybe not even fully aware of.
And there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING wrong with that. That is human nature in its core. And since we can not (assuming at least :) read other persons minds, we (not me - but the developers) can at least 'cover' as much as possible of the 'terrain', that attracts people to be part of this project. I see ABSOLUTELY no harm in such an approach, only benefits.
And believe me: This 'terrain' is very BIG and DIVERSE and more there will be 'rewards' (including badges - the principle behind them is of secondary importance), more people will be interested.
Denis
P.S.
I excuse myself for such a lengthy description, but finding the right words for explaining my point was not exactly an easy task for a NON-native English speaker (and in spite, that I gave my best, I'm sure, that there will be many, who will disagree on my views, but the irony is, that this aren't my personal views, but plain facts, expressed maybe in words, that were not necessarily the best choice).
I could give a GREAT example of such an approach pushed to the 'extremes' (realization of it took without a doubt hundreds of hours of work) in another BOINC project, but I have written too much already (without realizing it too late :).
“A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. So is a lot.” - Albert EINSTEIN
By the way, something more, I haven't mentioned in my previous post.
Badges, various statistics and most importantly: INDIVIDUAL discovery certificates.
If I'm not mistaken, E@H has been one of the LARGEST growing projects (regarding the 'influx' of new members) in the BOINC 'community' in (guessing) previous few months.
I'd bet, the Discovery certificates mentioned above had a VERY large influence on this fact.
So, without repeating myself too much, I'd just like some feedback on 'my' thoughts about motivation and 'rewards' - no matter in what form they come:
BADGES (whatever the system) or something more 'appealing' and serious as the Discovery certificates are.
Said otherwise, does the general idea, which I tried to present, makes ANY sense, do people agree with my thoughts on this subject?
D
P.S.
And to be clear - I'm not 'advocating' or being a big 'fan' of ANY PARTICULAR system - badges, certificates, more 'sophisticated' various forms of statistics, whatever... - just saying, the more 'appealing', unique and diverse the 'rewards' will be, more volunteers will participate and more 'work' will be done.
Anything else BEYOND that, is then a matter, that has to be carefully thought through, ask people, what else would THEY personally like to see implemented into the project and then try in the 'realms' of what is possible (and ALSO what is NOT!) to add such 'improvements'.
Why even bother?
Because there is ALWAYS a way, to make a great (existing) WORKING concept even better.
“A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. So is a lot.” - Albert EINSTEIN
If I'm not mistaken, E@H has been one of the LARGEST growing projects (regarding the 'influx' of new members) in the BOINC 'community' in (guessing) previous few months.
Actually according to BoincStats the number of active participants rather dropped in the past few months.
AFAIK all (BOINC) volunteer computing projects have been observing for years that the number of new participants almost equals the number of participants that lose interest and stop contributing, so the number of participants that are active remains almost constant.
However Einstein@Home has almost tripled its computing power over the past nine months, partially due to the availability of faster CPUs and especially GPUs; but you may also see this as a sign of the same participants becoming more dedicated to the project.
I'm not sure that a system of badges, especially when just expressing another value that already exists (credit), would help us to gain or keep more contributors. Word Community Grid reportedly had a bit of success with badges for things that express other things than credit (successfully attached to the project, completed first task, first forum post, possibly first discovery) etc.
Maybe we could make comedy Non-discovery Pulsar Free Zone certificates, in black of course, for folks who have cleared say the equivalent of a million star neighbourhood of pulsars. The more you clear the bigger the black dot.
I must admit that I somewhat like the idea, although feasibility is questionable.
I for 1 don't care about
)
I for 1 don't care about points, credits, or badges. I am here to help find answers to the questions of cures and new places out far out in space maybe even some little green men lol Before coming here I was over at fah@folding and I left due to the focus on points and not the research. They were testing something new and wanted it back within 3 days but stressed about points. They had afew servers 16 cores that some made it and some didn't. When I asked about it they stressed again on points. If the top servers we have can't do it in 3 days what's wrong with 5 days. They said try telling someone that is dieing the research is taking 5 days which means 3 to 5 years for something to get done. My thoughts were and still are so what if it going to take longer atleast we can work on it until newer CPU's are out that can and will do it faster. Still yet they say no only 16 core's or higher with the 3 days deadline. I wish they would tell the dieing person sorry we are not really trying because the 16 core servers can barely do it in 3 days so we will not let the 8 cores and 16 cores work on it until there is faster CPU's so you have to wait until then but we are giving more points "bonus points at that" if you go spend $4000 or so and build atleast a 16 core computer.
I asked what good are the points. I can't eat them, spend them or anything else with them. The point is to do as much as can be done with what we have until better comes along. Points,badges anything else useless is not needed for me to give computer time so we can someday find the answers we are seeking. Just my point of view of points and badges and not everyone will feel the same way. I am willing to bet that about 98% will not agree with me...
PC setup MSI-970A-G46 AMD FX-8350 8 core OC'd 4.45GHz 16GB ram PC3-10700 Geforce GTX 650Ti Windows 7 x64 Einstein@Home
Discovery Certificates
)
Discovery Certificates <---
One or two of these is all I need
RE: Discovery
)
Not needed but would really be nice and worth it to me....
PC setup MSI-970A-G46 AMD FX-8350 8 core OC'd 4.45GHz 16GB ram PC3-10700 Geforce GTX 650Ti Windows 7 x64 Einstein@Home
+1 badges. Absolutely agree
)
+1 badges.
Absolutely agree with Nico8313.
Perhaps there should be more intermediate badges, like those in the project Yoyo (50k, 100k, 2000k, 5000k) thus it would be easier to get, from time to time, a new badge. If You want to hook people here, the first 2 badges should be easier to get (100k and 50k points).
That would lead to an increase of names for each badge, but in Yoyo they've solved the problem with other names (master, grand-master and so on). In this project those names could be of the Einstein subject (e.g.: 2000k points --> the pulsar badge; 5000k points --> double pulsar badge or so).
There's people who don't colaborate for badges nor points. But never forget there're badge-hunters out there (even team badge-hunters).
Badges are, in the real world, useless but help some people to keep crunching just to get to the next badge (and so the project benefits of this "obsession").
@Magic: lol, I agree with U. I want my pulsar!!!
See You all
Some nice things I like about
)
Some nice things I like about E@H.
It is interesting from a technical point, namely GPU and distributed computing supporting a wide range of platforms. I have learnt a lot about Linux, motherboards GPUs, CPUs and PSUs, and what makes a system run well.
The software is really stable, I can crunch and work on my pc.
It´s also interesting from a mathematics side, both theoretical and computational, and especially from the scientific astronomy side it is cool.
It feels very professional.
Finding a pulsar is good, but also not finding one in a particular place adds to the knowledge.
Maybe we could make comedy Non-discovery Pulsar Free Zone certificates, in black of course, for folks who have cleared say the equivalent of a million star neighbourhood of pulsars. The more you clear the bigger the black dot.
I find the credits RAC are useful to measure the efficiency of the number crunching, in that a certain tweak makes a difference.
Badges,
I´m not sure where the badges would appear - the forums I guess. I sort of left PrimeGrid because the science and project seemed to come second to badges and challenges. Perhaps we could trial something sig based like the DC stats and see if people opt in.
RE: Badges are, in the real
)
Could not agree more. But there is more. As a physician, who has much interest in neuroscience and cognitive psychology, I can without a doubt say (although, this is nothing new) that such kind of approach would be also a very 'powerful' conscious and also subconscious 'tool' for motivating more volunteers as one would expect.
We are all driven (more than we are usually aware of or willing to admit to ourselves) by motivation (and 'reward' - !) to pursue (and reach) our goals (whatever they may be).
Even many volunteers, who say, that they don't care about badges, credits or any other form of recognition are - and I say this with great confidence - to a LARGE degree motivated and stimulated by the potential 'reward', that participating in this project offers.
This 'reward' may (albeit rarely) be really based solely on intellectual satisfaction or the feeling, that they (we - myself included) participate and contribute in something that is very important for astrophysics, cosmology and science in general, but in vast majorities we ALL have additional 'agendas' (however 'harmless'), we are maybe not even fully aware of.
And there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING wrong with that. That is human nature in its core. And since we can not (assuming at least :) read other persons minds, we (not me - but the developers) can at least 'cover' as much as possible of the 'terrain', that attracts people to be part of this project. I see ABSOLUTELY no harm in such an approach, only benefits.
And believe me: This 'terrain' is very BIG and DIVERSE and more there will be 'rewards' (including badges - the principle behind them is of secondary importance), more people will be interested.
Denis
P.S.
I excuse myself for such a lengthy description, but finding the right words for explaining my point was not exactly an easy task for a NON-native English speaker (and in spite, that I gave my best, I'm sure, that there will be many, who will disagree on my views, but the irony is, that this aren't my personal views, but plain facts, expressed maybe in words, that were not necessarily the best choice).
I could give a GREAT example of such an approach pushed to the 'extremes' (realization of it took without a doubt hundreds of hours of work) in another BOINC project, but I have written too much already (without realizing it too late :).
“A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. So is a lot.” - Albert EINSTEIN
If badges are added I would
)
If badges are added I would really like the option to opt out of it. Not needed or wanted by me so atleast give the option to not deal with it.
PC setup MSI-970A-G46 AMD FX-8350 8 core OC'd 4.45GHz 16GB ram PC3-10700 Geforce GTX 650Ti Windows 7 x64 Einstein@Home
By the way, something more, I
)
By the way, something more, I haven't mentioned in my previous post.
Badges, various statistics and most importantly: INDIVIDUAL discovery certificates.
If I'm not mistaken, E@H has been one of the LARGEST growing projects (regarding the 'influx' of new members) in the BOINC 'community' in (guessing) previous few months.
I'd bet, the Discovery certificates mentioned above had a VERY large influence on this fact.
So, without repeating myself too much, I'd just like some feedback on 'my' thoughts about motivation and 'rewards' - no matter in what form they come:
BADGES (whatever the system) or something more 'appealing' and serious as the Discovery certificates are.
Said otherwise, does the general idea, which I tried to present, makes ANY sense, do people agree with my thoughts on this subject?
D
P.S.
And to be clear - I'm not 'advocating' or being a big 'fan' of ANY PARTICULAR system - badges, certificates, more 'sophisticated' various forms of statistics, whatever... - just saying, the more 'appealing', unique and diverse the 'rewards' will be, more volunteers will participate and more 'work' will be done.
Anything else BEYOND that, is then a matter, that has to be carefully thought through, ask people, what else would THEY personally like to see implemented into the project and then try in the 'realms' of what is possible (and ALSO what is NOT!) to add such 'improvements'.
Why even bother?
Because there is ALWAYS a way, to make a great (existing) WORKING concept even better.
“A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. So is a lot.” - Albert EINSTEIN
RE: If I'm not mistaken,
)
Actually according to BoincStats the number of active participants rather dropped in the past few months.
AFAIK all (BOINC) volunteer computing projects have been observing for years that the number of new participants almost equals the number of participants that lose interest and stop contributing, so the number of participants that are active remains almost constant.
However Einstein@Home has almost tripled its computing power over the past nine months, partially due to the availability of faster CPUs and especially GPUs; but you may also see this as a sign of the same participants becoming more dedicated to the project.
I'm not sure that a system of badges, especially when just expressing another value that already exists (credit), would help us to gain or keep more contributors. Word Community Grid reportedly had a bit of success with badges for things that express other things than credit (successfully attached to the project, completed first task, first forum post, possibly first discovery) etc.
BM
BM
RE: Maybe we could make
)
I must admit that I somewhat like the idea, although feasibility is questionable.
BM
BM