Change in BA requirements

I do believe that particular moderator has earned said disrespect... at least now.
 
mdk777 said:
And banned from the forum.
Apparently speaking the truth is against the forum rules....

Well good luck guys...Sorry about the loss on your investment...

pity it came to this...so many times they could have salvaged donor relations by just doing the obvious right thing.

I guess ego and pride won out over what is best for the project.
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Ye "beast" ye...my hat is off to you for saying what several of us were thinking too. :cool:
 
I did take a moment and wrote to VJ just a few minutes ago (while I still have that ability within the FF). I wrote to him to express my concerns about how Sortofageek has acted today and about some other recurring issues that many of us have seen/experienced in their forum. I don't expect anything to really happen, but felt that at least I would lodge my thoughts with him.
 
I posted in the smp-bigadv section where this really belongs.
It lasted 5 minutes.

Sent: 5 minutes ago
From: sortofageek
To: Bill1024
The BA end announcement was some time ago. Discussion was allow for quite some time. It has now ended. When a topic is ended, it's done and we're moving on. :)

Bill1024 wrote:You may not have seen this on the folding blog, it has been announced that the SMP-BIGADV will come to an end one 1/31/2015
I am sorry to hear this.

Here is a link to the blog post if you care to read the whole thing.
http://folding.stanford.edu/home/revise ... xperiment/

2) The BA experiment will permanently end on January 31, 2015. On that date, the servers will be set to accept only and we will have no plans for future BA WUs. This would allow donors to continue to use their machines and recoup more of their investment than the previous plan. This decision would also work to avoid future issues and strife within the FAH community associated with BA. We understand that many donors will be very disappointed about this decision. This was a judgement call I had to make and this decision is, in my opinion, the right thing to do for the long term good of FAH, even though I know there will be many upset donors right now.

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sortofageek
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Just to add fuel to the fire Bill1024 posted VJ's comment in the BA subforum regarding VJ's blog entry and announcement about BA.

Censored... removed, shot down.

As I stated there is much fear now at FAH and they are reacting in a way that is normal for people afraid. Deny, remove all evidence, deny again and eliminate those that don't meet the criteria they believe is essential to good donors. In other words just shut up and fold... we know a lot better than you twerps.
 
fucks sake, ok, that's it, guess I will have to heat with gas the rest of this winter :(
 
jojo69...that is just silly. The Commandos will welcome you with open arms to a whole plethora of house warming projects. :D
 
Exactly... Crunching is the stress reliever! For [H] and EVGA. No sense in letting them kill our zeal...
 
hehehe .. I'm glad I moved to BOINC ... :D .. eventhough my goal was getting 1billion points (doable in few more months) .. but screw it .. as well as PG ;)
 
texinga said:
I did take a moment and wrote to VJ just a few minutes ago (while I still have that ability within the FF). I wrote to him to express my concerns about how Sortofageek has acted today and about some other recurring issues that many of us have seen/experienced in their forum. I don't expect anything to really happen, but felt that at least I would lodge my thoughts with him.
Click to expand...

Do you think VJ would care? If yes, what could he do? Does he owns that forums?
 
VJ is in touch with Tex... there is some concern but no documentation. If there is a censorship issue I would ask those who have been censored to file a complaint with VJ. As always scientists gather data before extrapolating a theory and possible treatment method.
 
sbinh said:
Do you think VJ would care? If yes, what could he do? Does he owns that forums?
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Yeah, I've heard somewhere before that he doesn't own the FF. But I really don't know who owns it or why he wouldn't have some ownership or control there. I had reached a saturation point with this stuff today, found a post from Vijay and clicked on his icon that put me into the ability to send him an email. I got a response very quickly from him asking me to share some details so that he could look things over.

To answer your thought about whether he even cares, and this may go against the grain of current belief. But, yes I did get the sense in his reply that he cared. It was a sincere reply and one that I would expect to receive from someone that wanted to hear more (including details).

I'm not defending any of the recent issues that have bugged us all or saying that I believe anything would come of my writing to him. I just believe in taking the time to write to someone in charge if I can get the opportunity to do so. Having that opportunity via the FF member sign-in, I decided to do it today. I'm no youngster and don't hop into the moonlight after fairy-tale endings. But sometimes I've had really good results from talking direct to those in charge. I knew not to waste anymore time in PMs with the FF Admin that seems to have gone on a tear today.

As Forest Gump would say "that's all I have to say about that". :D
 
I think that uncle_fungus or pythagoras owns the FF

The FF is a convenience for PG, they don't need to throw resources at maintaining a "help" forum.
 
orion said:
I think that uncle_fungus or pythagoras owns the FF

The FF is a convenience for PG, they don't need to throw resources at maintaining a "help" forum.
Click to expand...

Originally the FF was paid for and hosted somewhere else by Weibo Westerhoff from England. I'm sure I spelled his name wrong, sorry. Around the time when the old FF crashed and burned when a forum backup procedure went bad VJ decided to host it at Stanford because Weibo was having difficulty affording the costs himself. Although it's hosted at Stanford, VJ lets the mods run the show. You see how well that has worked out. :rolleyes:
 
ChelseaOilman said:
Originally the FF was paid for and hosted somewhere else by Weibo Westerhoff from England. I'm sure I spelled his name wrong, sorry. Around the time when the old FF crashed and burned when a forum backup procedure went bad VJ decided to host it at Stanford because Weibo was having difficulty affording the costs himself. Although it's hosted at Stanford, VJ lets the mods run the show. You see how well that has worked out. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Thanks for straitening me out on that:cool:

So tell me...do you miss the drama ;)
 
texinga said:
To answer your thought about whether he even cares, and this may go against the grain of current belief. But, yes I did get the sense in his reply that he cared. It was a sincere reply and one that I would expect to receive from someone that wanted to hear more (including details).
..
Click to expand...

Good to hear that he cares. He seems to be a reasonable guy. But like I said, if he doesn't own FF, it's pretty much nothing he can do.
 
ChelseaOilman said:
BOINCing is where it's at. All the cool kids do it. :)
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Indeed

cpidtagb.php
 
Hey, I'll see your:

cpidtagb.php


And raise you a:

badgesbanner.php


:D Now, if only I could get all my WCG badges to show up...
 
sbinh said:
Good to hear that he cares. He seems to be a reasonable guy. But like I said, if he doesn't own FF, it's pretty much nothing he can do.
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Few of us have been down the "tell me more" road. It's not really what Pande says, as much
as what Pande does (and you know what his record of the latter is).

Lack of ownership (true or not) isn't much of plausible explanation either. Don't like the shop?
All it takes is stopping endorsing it. Announce departure, stop posting, remove content (if
necessary). Seriously, his hands are _not_ tied.
 
I posted this rant over on my forum... I think it says all I needed to say and what many have already said.

The presence of two people from FF indicates that we've stirred the pot and there is an attempt to reach out to the team. In other words we've upset the status quo which is a good thing.

There can be no more lies, no more misleading of donors and no more editing of posts to delete unwanted content. No more banning of the 'radicals' from the forum. All this speaks of FF being much like Pravada is to the Russian government. Given what I've seen and what I've heard of in the past I would fully suspect the secret police to arrive any day now at a dissident's home and be carted away. Providing of course they had secret police.

What they do have is the ability to censure and remove that dissent. That has been exercised. Bruce you wanted proof from me in a PM you sent in regards to my post. You now have it. There wasn't any need for me to reply simply because FF has not learned and history not learned is repeated.

Sorto****eek by her actions has done more to destroy, alienate and marginalize the community than any thread complaining about points/treatment has done in the past and the present. For every donor/member she has banned she has caused X number of donors to reconsider and abandon their goal of aiding FAH. No one donor could have caused as much damage to FAH than she has.

Overzealous and short sighted actions by her have proven that donors are cattle and to be treated as such. That donors should not have an opinion and when they are told to shut up they should go back and continue to fold and be happy we are allowed to do so. I and others have said it... I'll repeat it again for the record, there are other ways to donate, PG and FAH are not the only game in town.

Whether or not FF is an officially sanctioned mouth piece or not FF acts like it is and by FAH not disassociating itself from the FF FAH is implying and condoning the actions of FF.

It doesn't get simpler than that. It is said you are known by the company you keep. I would bear that in mind in dealing with donors.
 
Wonder where the FF mods go to get such good training to be ass-holes?
And do they get a certificate or a trophy of a hand with the middle finger flipping us off?
 
My experience is similar to tear.
Reading VJ responses to my email, he may well have requested my ban. (I had posted directly after him in the thread)
In case you don't read at EVGA, this is my conclusion from our exchanges:

He is polite and has responded. However, it is clear that he supports the mod. and thinks the time had come to squash debate. I think there is a fiction that he is so far removed from the FF.
We agree to disagree. As a Mod., When I saw many lifetime/legacy members continuing to post in an articulate manner (granpa01 and others)... I would have taken this as an obvious sign that issues were not yet resolved. I would have seen it as my mission to facilitate the discussion. I would have perhaps closed the BA thread, but opened other new ones at the same time to continue dialogue on unresolved issues.
The problem is of course that VJ does not intend to follow-up on theses issues mentioned in his two posts(at least not in any near term)
Consequently, doing the obvious customer service, damage control remediation would be counter-productive. Allowing the discussion to continue(in any form) would only serve as a continual reminder that the promises he made were not yet being implemented. I see the conflict. Will he get around to making changes eventually? One can hope. In the short term, does he support and condone the FF attempting to expunge rather than resolve...unfortunately the answer is Yes.

It all follows from this simple question:
What is the mission of the FF?

If you answer, "To help donors"; then you proceed with a certain tact, a certain core belief structure.

however, if you answer, "To serve the Folding institution" well, then you have set up the adversarial dynamic we have all experienced.

The difference between these two answers might be subtle or semantic in some peoples' view. I think the difference is critical.

I don't think anything I have said over the many years has convinced VJ that the first answer is perquisite for success and the second is guaranteed recipe for failure. Hence, since we cannot agree on this first principle, we really have no basis for future communication. Should I be banned? If you are tired of hearing about how you should treat donors with respect and consideration...It was a pretty logical move.
 
I've PM'd Bruce to delete my FF account. No sense in being counted as an active supporter when in reality I cannot support them anymore.
 
It's hard to believe how far and hard VJ and his project have fallen. He's forgotten the reason he's even doing the research he's doing it seems.

But I suppose this means that real science can now be done over at BOINC! ;)
 
sbinh said:
Good to hear that he cares. He seems to be a reasonable guy. But like I said, if he doesn't own FF, it's pretty much nothing he can do.
Click to expand...

If he is running in on Stanford servers there is something he can do, Everything has an off switch somewhere........
 
From what i read Texinga's and MKD's posts, PG owns FF and VJ supports FF's staffs.
To me, fah is DONE!
 
My take on the ownership is that Vijay is (in theory) the ultimate owner/decision maker for the FF. But he is a running it via proxy with the FF Mods and Admins. They then give the impression that he is not really in charge and that they are ruling. From a day-to-day perspective, I think you could safely say that Vijay is not in charge of the FF.

But, the FF is an absolute resource mechanism, communication vehicle, beta test program, etc that operates directly in PG's interest. So, in my mind the buck ultimately stops at Dr. Pande, but it will rarely ever get there. Even when it does get there, as their own TOS says, it is more likely that he will side with the Mods than you when a Mod issue surfaces. That is pretty well what those of us that have been in contact with him the past day or so are learning.

Mods win, donors lose (mostly)...
 
Yeah Sbinh, my feeling is that those of us that have reached a tipping point with FAH will most likely just be a greasy-spot on the FAH highway. People will clearly move on and drive right over that spot without thinking about those of us who have been helping pave the way before them. I actually feel that we are (for lack of a better word) expendable. We are the square pegs that just don't seem to fit into the round holes. What to do about that? If the square edges can't be rounded off, discard those ill-fitting objects (us) and get new ones (the latest new person to join FAH).
 
texinga said:
Mods win, donors lose (mostly)...
Click to expand...

Mods Win, donors lose - the project loses more, its long term technical donors who act as 1st line tech support for the new guys. That's before we start on the utilities and guides that lots of people have provided over the years.

Someone needs to realise this before too much longer
 
texinga said:
My take on the ownership is that Vijay is (in theory) the ultimate owner/decision maker for the FF. But he is a running it via proxy with the FF Mods and Admins. They then give the impression that he is not really in charge and that they are ruling. From a day-to-day perspective, I think you could safely say that Vijay is not in charge of the FF.

But, the FF is an absolute resource mechanism, communication vehicle, beta test program, etc that operates directly in PG's interest. So, in my mind the buck ultimately stops at Dr. Pande, but it will rarely ever get there. Even when it does get there, as their own TOS says, it is more likely that he will side with the Mods than you when a Mod issue surfaces. That is pretty well what those of us that have been in contact with him the past day or so are learning.

Mods win, they lose donors (mostly)...
Click to expand...

Fixed that for you! No extra charge!
 
Good points Nathan and Viper. I was just sharing with Vijay today in my last email to him about losing (in my view) a significant amount of long-term dedicated Folders. I told him that those hard-core long-term Folders have also been the cheerleaders back in our own Team forums. We have actually been part of what makes their future recruitment a success. But now, with these issues we are seeing with PG's decisions, FF, etc, losing those same Folders also means losing some of your recruiters for FAH.
 
I foresee the activity here in [H] dropping to virtually nothing on the folding front, most of the active posters, who are also the really heavy hitters, are either already gone or in the process of moving to BOINC
 
how do I "finish" in linux again? I ran -configonly and set the -oneunit flag but picked up a new unit anyway
 
just a thought, PG has managed something that I thought would never happen, [H] & EVGA are united - in their disgust at the treatment of donors over the changes:D
 
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