Discussion about the future of the [H] DC team

Pocatello

DC Moderator and [H]ard DCOTM x6
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This thread started as the nomination thread for August of 2015, but we had zero nominations. See below for a discussion about our [H] team and an official project to support.
 
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19 days without a nomination.

I declare this month's nomination process DEAD. Finito.

Please feel free to discuss the future of the DC'er of the Month / Year process. Will it last?
 
I know there was a mention / brief discussion last month about this.....

I believe it's time to go ahead and bury the axe. The glory days have long since left the site, the fragmentation of the F@H project and the various other projects has not been healthy or good for the [H]orde. It's sad to see it diminish into what it has become today. While I still contribute in some small way, the excitement, drive, competition and togetherness just doesn't exist anymore.
 
I know there was a mention / brief discussion last month about this.....

I believe it's time to go ahead and bury the axe. The glory days have long since left the site, the fragmentation of the F@H project and the various other projects has not been healthy or good for the [H]orde. It's sad to see it diminish into what it has become today. While I still contribute in some small way, the excitement, drive, competition and togetherness just doesn't exist anymore.

It is difficult for me to argue with what you said above.

Fragmentation has killed the excitement around here. I blame the Panda group for their poor management practices.

Any ideas on how to chart a new course? A new direction? How do we unite our group into one project? I know there are great projects out there in need of our resources.
 
In the past and somewhat present, the alternative and close second was WCG. I would argue that by switching our focus to WCG would still allow for those that like variety to still utilize the same client for multiple projects and easily switch back and forth. We will always have members that get bored with one project and will float to others, but by declaring a stomping ground gives direction to those that desire a single goal. The only downside is that they currently don't have any GPU apps. But with the power of variety, people can still support their favorite sciences elsewhere while running WCG.

I will also point out that unlike most DC projects, WCG has actually started seeing some real world results of the research ran through them. Not just another grant proposal paper that gets published somewhere.

Edit: I will also point out that by having a single "official" project, it makes it easier for the point whores to be consistent on their bragging so that there is little bickering about how points compare between projects and the fairness of such.
 
I don't think we will ever reunite the [H]orde, people pursue too many different projects, Kyle made it clear last time the subject came up what his thoughts were and too many people don't even visit the forum anymore.
 
I don't think we will ever reunite the [H]orde, people pursue too many different projects, Kyle made it clear last time the subject came up what his thoughts were and too many people don't even visit the forum anymore.

Especially if we keep thinking like this... :confused:
 
I'm only stating a fact, there's only ever about 20-30 people post on here. I want the old [H]orde back, I'd love to be able to stick it to EVGA in F@H and all the other teams across boinc but at the present time I just don't see it.
 
Well, my take on it is this. We need positive ideas and thoughts/discussions to get us where we need to go. I have fallen victim to the negativity a few times myself and it only adds to the problem. If you want it to change, you have to make it do so. Unfortunately, to change the problem the team had with FAH would be to change FAH. That won't happen. However, taking the team in a different direction may be what it needs. Hopefully we can get more people willing to chip in some positive well thought out ideas...
 
I've been inactive for a couple of years.
I'd be happy to bring some stuff back online but without a clear 'main project' I can't see much happening.
Besides my 4P is probably useless and most of my GPU rigs are in storage.
 
Good to hear WOLF_TEAM_LEADER. It would be nice to get some more comments and ideas from others going. Such as...
1. Do we need to ask for a new vote on official team project? (It has been years since the last one.) I know Kyle will have to sign off on it, but this is more of a question of getting the active voters to sign off on the idea.
2. For those that did not leave, pause, or drift away, how do you feel about the potential of switching?
3. If there is a switch, (our team is typically CPU heavey/GPU light) does the new project have to currently have work for both? Ex.: WCG is capable of GPU, but has no subprojects currently supporting them.
4. Will changing the official project cause you to leave? Will you switch or stay? Do you think it even matters if there is an "official project".

Oh and Pocatello, could we get a thread name change so others are aware that the discussion topic has changed? Or possibly make a new sticky thread to easily identify the topic?
 
glad to see this thread, I too feel a great sense of loss and feel a lot of anger toward PG

not sure how to move past it though
 
I'm in a minority of a minority here as I'm one of the few non US/Canadian people on the team and one of the even fewer active members of the forum.

Why don't we go with 2 official projects, F@H and say WCG?

edit: - side note, I find it very sad that what was once the most powerful DC team in the world has fallen to this:(
 
glad to see this thread, I too feel a great sense of loss and feel a lot of anger toward PG

not sure how to move past it though

Do what I did, I said sod PG and carried on folding regardless - what they did was ill thought out but one day I or another family member might need a cure from the research that is currently being done
 
I would echo the attempt to have two or three official projects; with focus on healthcare: F@H, GPUgrid and WCG. This gives our efforts a great meaning.
 
I would echo the attempt to have two or three official projects; with focus on healthcare: F@H, GPUgrid and WCG. This gives our efforts a great meaning.

I would suggest humanities rather than health care as that is typically the goal of WCG. For example, Crunching for Clean Water was about water filtration. Crunching for Sustainable Water and Nutritious Rice for the World were more towards healthy consumables. Etc...

Edit: And there used to be a logo on Hardfolding that said [H]ard for [H]umanities
 
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I would echo the attempt to have two or three official projects; with focus on healthcare: F@H, GPUgrid and WCG. This gives our efforts a great meaning.

Yeah, I like this idea too. As we all know, F@H is all about the GPU now, so that's all I've got folding. My 4P is quiet and cold, and again we know it isn't worth the electric cost to fold on it, so I would like to find a medical project where it can be valuable again.
 
This is a good topic so I'll weigh in: It's obvious that FAH is heavily weighted towards GPUs now and during the hot summer that's all I had folding but even a lowly GTX750 blows away my OC'd i3770K's for PPD and for a lot less wattage from the wall. I'd like to see the return of the [H]orde as well but it won't happen without a good plan to generate some enthusiasm again. I'd prefer to keep folding on my GPU's but if a second "official" project is selected which is better suited to CPU crunching I would steer some resources that way as well. I agree with ChristianVirtual about giving meaning and with Gilthanis about the point whores and consistency too. If we're gonna do it let's get it right.
 
Edit: I will also point out that by having a single "official" project, it makes it easier for the point whores to be consistent on their bragging so that there is little bickering about how points compare between projects and the fairness of such.

Hmmph that was not nice :eek:
 
Why don't we go with 2 official projects, F@H and say WCG?

I agree with you going with fah and WCG.

Even though I got burned with the whole bigadv debacle I just don't see a better use for GPU computing for medical research than fah unless someone can prove to me that something like GPUGRID is a viable alternative.
 
I would like to propose something new. Feel free to challenge but keep an open mind :)

Goals :
- balancing the CPU/GPU unfairness
- balancing the complete inconsistency of points systems across projects
- rewarding the work done based on [H] opinion on the value of the work carried out, based on [H] benchmarks

Assumptions :
- we go for FAH + WCG + GPUGRID
- we do only CPU at WCG, and GPU at FAH and GPUGRID
- we have the technical skills to extract points from the 3 projects for each [H] user (all cryptocurrency teams are able to do it)

Key principles :
- we convert project (FAH, WCG, GPUGRID) points to [H] points and make available all the required stats
- the [H] points value is fixed once per year, following a one month discussion, in which we toss benchmarks values and trash talk at each other. Following the discussion, all the proposal of rates (in the form x [H] points = y FAH GPU points = z WCG CPU points = a GPUGRID points) are submitted to a vote, from which the official value for the next year is fixed. The rates will be unperfect by nature, but will be the closest thing to an acceptable common base, based on a democratic process.
- in order to make it competitive, if we start this thing, we all start at ZERO points
- other teams can register and be included in the stats (let's say EVGA would be in, it would be a good start)
- once a year we change rate for future year production, previously earned points do not change

Overall, just getting this thing started could be fun...

Let me know what you think...
 
Sounds like a lot of work for someone to design and may be a good use for the now unused Hardfolding website. Good suggeston Nicola_orleans. I will say I know little about webpage design, so that would need to fall on other people's shoulders.
 
Sounds promising but I foresee a couple of small issues - you can't realistically limit WCG to CPU and FAH to GPU, People will sometimes run with what they have, I for 1 run gpu and cpu on FAH and don't believe in the other projects enough to switch.

Core updates - I'm not sure how they work in other DC projects but FAH have an AVX core in the works - that would then pull some focus back to CPU work for newer cpu's
 
Other projects don't have what is known as "Core" updates. They just have their apps and an app version as it gets updated. At times the project will add more platforms which have their own apps but the concept is pretty much the same. Adding things like AVX/AVX2/AVX3 is typically a recompiling of the app for optimizing newer platforms. This happens at various projects from time to time and some never seem to update. WCG doesn't do the code themselves. The scientists that bring their work to WCG does. That is why their apps don't change much once implemented. Most scientists aren't computer programmers. It is another reason why we have only ever seen one GPU app at WCG. And that completed like 2 years of work in ~6 months time.
 
Interesting concept with the [H]Points from Nicolas_orleans... Sounds like a bazaar with negotiation on prices. But could be fun.

Q: would that require new and unified registration on the respective DC projects ? Or a mechanism is needed to map potentially different user IDs into one [H]Account.

Maybe a registration here on the forum could be made mandatory and used as "primary key". I still dislike those unhandy long names from one of the coins where they add their BC-key in the name. Understand they need but still ugly ...

Q: restart with zero points is good; achieved by a cutoff day from the official stats or reregister new names (which might be difficult) ?

If required I can help with the technical part and data processing; suggest to have the required scripts on github for easy collaboration between involved members and transparency I'm not so much a web designer. But implement a given design I can help.,

As for projects I'm with Nathan_P: just let each member decide with what hardware they want to join different DC programs:

WCG for CPU (and if a GPU comes around also ok)
FAH for both CPU and GPU
GPUgrid for GPU
 
A real challange will really be the point-mapping: with non-linear QRB formula at FAH one assumption would need to be: most member run similar class hardware (I don't say: benchmark machine)

How are the other point systems ? Linear or non-linear ?
 
I've been folding for the [H]orde since 2008, and I really hope we can get our team back together, and refocus our energy toward a common goal.
We really should bury the hatchet with F@H, imo, since time does heal all wounds.

I do think what they did was lousy, but they did give people a bit of warning, and those 2P and 4P systems can always be put to a good use. ;)
However, calling people "point whores" is not going to bring us all together.

We're the [H]orde, we come for the science, stay for the points, and settle for nothing less than victory! :cool:
I think if we all start to repurpose our systems with GPUs, since that appears to be the primary focus of many DC projects, including F@H, that it would be our best bet to make the biggest difference and earn the most points.

The issue with BOINC, much like our team right now, is that the projects under its umbrella are vast, but each one with varying, if not questionable, success, not to mention limited work units like with GPUGrid (which I am also a part of).
The BOINC projects are great, but I've yet to see one, other than WCG and GPUGrid, with which we can all come together on, not to mention, when someone does reach a milestone with these, it is sometimes hard for others to understand or appreciate the milestone, especially if they have never heard of the project, let alone be a part of it.

Gilthanis, I think it is time we regroup to spearhead into F@H and rebuild, not just the former glory of team 33, but also to bring together the great and helpful community that we used to be, and still can be once again.
I'm already starting to ramp up my GTX770 for F@H now that the weather is cooling down, and can't wait to invest in a pair of GTX980 GPUs for this.

It seems like a lot of us on here have been wondering what is going on, and waiting for an announcement to be made before making a choice.
I myself have been waiting for a definite announcement on our new direction, an hope one will be made.

It doesn't matter if we fold for the science, the points, or the people... as long as our hearts and our passion is in the right place, then the goals that we have so longed to strive for can be achieved!
Not just as individuals, but as a team.

Team 33, for the [H]orde and for [H]umanity!!!
 
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it's not that simple

and it really isn't even about the demise of bigadv

it is about censorship, disrespect and nepotism
 
I still stand by what I said in the other thread, I will quote it here:

Once long ago, the team was being pulled between multiple projects. At the time Kyle was more involved in the idea of DC and he picked two and that was what we did. One of the projects shutdown, and then there was only one. I do not recall reading anything else from Kyle, so in my eyes, there still is only one project.

I have said that I might shut down running FAH, due to some of the crap that project management has done, but in the end, I have just scaled back up as the project stabilized again.

Think on this. The owner of the web site still has policies in place that his employees still advertise FAH every Monday and Friday. That is either completely out dated, or we have completely lost our way. It is Kyle's site, we should at least listen to his guidance.

I am open to ideas, but this is my $0.02.

That said, I will not split my efforts GPU and CPU. For now, both and all will go to FAH. Really [H]ard points or what ever would seem like a waste of my time. I have over 200,000,000 points on FAH, and I have 11 years invested in folding. I will stick to those points.

John
 
That said, I will not split my efforts GPU and CPU. For now, both and all will go to FAH. Really [H]ard points or what ever would seem like a waste of my time. I have over 200,000,000 points on FAH, and I have 11 years invested in folding. I will stick to those points.

I agree, after just seven years of folding, I wouldn't want to make a new account and lose them all.
[H]ard points do seem a bit redundant, and while they might be fun for new folders, no veteran here would even consider them for obvious reasons.

All of my resources have gone to F@H and GPUGrid, but with the limited output of projects from GPUGrid, not to mention its complete inconsistency with workloads, it pushed me to drop out for a bit.

I always loved it when GPUGrid would run out of work units, and my system would sit idle for days on end until new ones would arrive; granted I could have added more projects, but I wanted GPUGrid to have full run of the system.
If anything, F@H has consistent work, so our systems won't be sitting idle.
 
it's not that simple

and it really isn't even about the demise of bigadv

it is about censorship, disrespect and nepotism

I agree to a point, but I ignore all the crap over at FF and have come to accept that a bunch of really clever scientists will never engage with the donors on a sensible level so I just said Bollocks, ignore them and fold on.
 
But 7im is such a nice guy. :p
You know, it would be nice (wishful thinking) if 7im ignored everyone and we got to engage with the scientists over at Stanford.

You could try reddit for that purpose ;) https://www.reddit.com/r/foldingathome/

Since most of the [H]orde wouldn't need much technical support via FF then reddit should give you (conceptually) connection to the scientists and developer more directly.
 
jfb9301, We all hear what you are saying about what happened several years ago. That was a much different time and many of the team members have either retired, moved on, or don't visit much. Nobody is saying to do it without Kyle being involved. However, it does no good to present any of this to him without a plan. That plan needs to include the masses or it will be pointless. And to add to your story, there was also a vote that was given to the team endorsed by Kyle to decide what the team wanted to do. So before anyone misunderstands history, Kyle's decision was made with the TEAM's interest in mind. That is what we intend to do again if the team truly feels that kind of change is needed. This is why we keep pushing for people to actually name their project(s) of choice instead of just saying "someone needs to do this or that". If you don't have a preference, then fine. Say that and wait for the next step.
 
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