DC - how would we like it?

[petrusbroder]

Dear TeAm Mates,

some weeks ago we had a thread in this forum about a project and "real world results". Some posters were critical to the project because it did not produce results which could be used for finding a cure for a disease. Unfortunately, although some of the questions asked were good ones, the tone of that thread soon deteriorated and the whole thread turned into a flame war. That made me sad and I found that a pity, because questions need to be asked and discussed.

I have communicated with the mods and 16 of the most frequent of posters here in this forum about a thread, where such issues could be discussed in a dispassionate way. Most of those whom I asked thought the idea was good. Almost all warned me that it would be hard to keep a polite and respectful tone in this thread, because - of course - these questions often are sensitive and because it is so easy to offend ones sensibility.

In this way I am opening a ethics thread. I would most respectfully ask all of those who want to contribute to read the following before posting:


1. Please read carefully and with an open mind. Not all contributors have english as their native language and we often do not know all the subtle meanings of all words, and may so write a word which may be misunderstood. Please take that into consideration and give us the benefit of the doubt.

2. Please post using a non-offensive language. That means: no four letter words, no sexual, racial, religous or otherwise offensive slurs. If you really want to make sombody know your personal opinion, please use PM.

3. If your feelings run hot (and I think they will some time or other) please allow your self to cool down.

4. Please love your enemies, because that will drive them crazy.

5. Only write about projects and issues and not about people. That alone may make a difference on how a post is understood.

6. If someone states something as a fact, he/she should be able to offer some proof or support. That will certainly make more impact and increase our collective understanding of the issue.

7. Assumtions, opinions and guesses should be clearly stated as such.

8. Jokes are good. They certainly make the posting more fun, and that is very important. However, would it be possible to keep this thread somewhat free from serious neffing? We have a very nice thread for that!

Since I kind of feel responsible for theis thread I will try to keep an eye on it although I am not a mod.

If we succeed, there is a chance that the mods will pin this thread and make it an ongoing discussion.

Edit: headline.

Edit: headline.

Edit: headline.

Edit: headline.

 

[petrusbroder]

Lets get the ball rolling:

1. Should DC projects go commercial? If so, how should the contributors be renumerated?


2. What do we - the crunchers - expect from the projects? Papers? Aknowledgments? Good information? Honor? Money? "Real-world"-results?


3. What makes a project meaningful to crunch?

I am asking these question just to start this off. They apply to all the projects we crunch.
If you have other questions, issues, ideas, please post them, and lets discuss!




I need a :beer:

 

[ProviaFan]

Originally posted by: petrusbroder
Lets get the ball rolling:

1. Should DC projects go commercial? If so, how should the contributors be renumerated?

If a DC project wants to go commercial and pay people to crunch it, it's up to them to pick a type and amount of payment, and users will decide if they're willing to participate under those conditions. I personally feel that if a project is going to go commercial in that way, that full disclosure of what is being done is extremely important.

I am wary of the situations where one company provides the framework and others "rent" time on the "supercomputer" - that would be much harder for me to accept, unless I have a very clear idea of what the companies will be doing on my PC, and the right to individually accept or reject various "subprojects" depending on my feelings about them.

Anyway, I'll probably stick with nonprofit medical projects, but I have no problems with this idea if someone wants to get it going and others want to participate. I also personally do not like projects where the users crunch for free for the commercial gain of the project coordinator, but that doesn't seem to bother everyone, and that's their choice; I won't belittle them for that even though I don't agree - just like I don't pick on people who run a certain encryption cracking project that probably will not be finished even 500 years from now, although my personal opinions of the usefulness of that project shall go unsaid in the interest of not starting a flamewar.

2. What do we - the crunchers - expect from the projects? Papers? Aknowledgments? Good information? Honor? Money? "Real-world"-results?

I expect them to treat the users well, and to keep the users properly informed and updated. If a project had no statistics, I probably wouldn't bother, because the team aspect is part of what keeps me going, though the goals of the project are more of what keeps me interested.

I can't say that I "have" to see a new cure for some disease every two weeks to keep me from posting an insulting flamewar in ATDC, but I do like to see that they're getting something done - even if it's in the form of scientific publications that I have no hope of understanding.

3. What makes a project meaningful to crunch?

I guess I should have read the whole post first...

My reasons have been stated already: the goals and desires of the project, and the team camaraderie are a big part.

I need a :beer:

I'll go grab a root:beer: and stay around to see what some other more eloquent TeAm members come up with in response to these thought-provoking questions. :thumbsup:

 

[Assimilator1]

I think most people in TA won't have a problem having a respectful discussion or even arguement about various DC issues.
Lets not forget in that 'other' thread that the author started off with a rather rude & arrogant attitude right from his 1st post so hence any valid points he may of had were thus lost
Anyway ,about your questions ......

Re point 1.
Maybe a DC project could be commercial if their is an end product that can be sold ,e.g a medicine that is successful to market (but how long does it take to be approved??).
I can't see any practicle way of being paid other than cold hard cash?.....or is there?
Payments wouldn't be feasable for any DC that is purely for research (e.g S@H & E@H etc) or any other without a saleable product

Point 2
Yes to all (except the money re previous answer)

3.Progress ,even if that means eliminating negative results ,e.g little green man isn't at those co-ordinates & that frequency or that protien is useless or that accelerator design is ineffiecent

Well that's my splurge over

Ahhh:beer: time

 

[DanC]

1. Should DC projects go commercial? If so, how should the contributors be renumerated?

I have no fundamental problem with a "commercial" DC project, so long as there is full disclosure as to the purpose of the project, the participant(s) and precisely what my CPU cycles are being used for. Remuneration is a bit alien to me, as I've always done non-profits. I think it would be a logistical nightmare to pay people - on the order of magnitude that would make it unworkable in the real world.


2. What do we - the crunchers - expect from the projects? Papers? Aknowledgments? Good information? Honor? Money? "Real-world"-results?

STATS. Great Stats. A good number of us do this for the competition. Projects that recognize this fact, and allow multiple levels of competition are IMHO more interesting, and will be more successful. Certificates and such are all well and good, but STATS is where it's at. For all the things that Dnet is not, the stats were really good during the old RC5-72 days. Real-time stats in particular, or as near to it as practical.

I realize I speak only for myself, but for the most part, I couldn't care less about how altruistic a project may be, as long as I can crank out a lot of results, and see the results of my work posted quickly - and structured so that there can be meaningful competition.


3. What makes a project meaningful to crunch?
See #2 above.

Great thread Peter. Some thoughts that haven't necessarily been kicked around in any sort of coherent fashion in some time.

 

[kb3edk]

Originally posted by: petrusbroder
1. Should DC projects go commercial? If so, how should the contributors be renumerated?


2. What do we - the crunchers - expect from the projects? Papers? Aknowledgments? Good information? Honor? Money? "Real-world"-results?


3. What makes a project meaningful to crunch?
[/b]

1) I don't see any problem with commercial projects but if I was interested in rewards, cash is boring... if anyone is counting on making a DC farm for profit it's probably a losing proposition unless you're doing something sleazy like b0rging your workplace. I might consider doing something like a "points store" where you can cash in points for gift certificates from Amazon, etc. I might even consider a "points lottery" where chances to win a prize are allocated according to points earned.

2) What do I expect? Well, applying the "first do no harm" principle I expect the program to keep a low profile on my machine and not eat all my resources if I'm busy doing something else... also I expect it not to crash my system. Scientific papers and "honor" are also nice, but I really enjoy crunching for stats! The competition aspect is addictive.

3) What makes it meaningful? This might sound a bit cliche but as a hardware geek I like the idea of taking things to the limit... I may never be able to afford a Porsche and I'm not a talented musician, so if I'm going to buy some toys it's always going to be hardware. So the whole hobbyist aspect of hardware+DC is just an enjoyable pastime for me!

 

[Wolfsraider]

1. Should DC projects go commercial? If so, how should the contributors be renumerated?
2. What do we - the crunchers - expect from the projects? Papers? Aknowledgments? Good information? Honor? Money? "Real-world"-results?
3. What makes a project meaningful to crunch?

1.I hope not, it is research. DC started as a way for companies to save money, and the effort evolved into users and teams working toward that goal.As you can tell I am all for stats, don't get me wrong a little recognition would be nice, untill then we have stats

2.I am looking toward the day when we have results that show we helped, acknowlegements are nice, stats are great, but knowing we helped find a cure for cancer, or that E.T. does exist, or that elusive number that took 500 years was found, etc...

3.It must be "FUN"!!!!!!
a. Stats as close tio real time, a community that listens to the crunchers and works hard to fix things that go wrong as quickly as possible, Where the same researchers communicate with the crunchers (very lacking in dc in most cases "imho", more involvement to also include"
1.Better documentation such as minimum requirements, proper setup guides, more linux support (in most cases).
2. A forum that they are "available" on, and that address all issues, no matter how sensitive, from the crunchers.
3. I also believe that treating crunchers as "those who help the projects" would go along way, nothing major just a bit of respect, rather than waiting weeks for responses to questions etc.

Most of us are involved in the dc community, and the projects lack this "community feeling" for lack of a better term.


Mike

 

[GLeeM]

"1. Should DC projects go commercial? If so, how should the contributors be renumerated?"

I'd hate to see this, but it is going to happen sooner or later. CPU processing power will probably become a utility: You can feed cycles into an account and use it later - for a big job, or from a hand held/mobile/new gadget, or from a client without much processing power. If you use more than you put in, you will pay for it just like electricity.

"2. What do we - the crunchers - expect from the projects? Papers? Aknowledgments? Good information? Honor? Money? "Real-world"-results?"

That they seriously do the best they can with our donations.
That there is a steady supply of work.
Communication (that I can understand) on how the project is progressing would be nice.

"3. What makes a project meaningful to crunch?"
Something useful to humanity.
I crunch for a cure.
But I play at other things too, for the TeAm!

 

[networkman]

1. Should DC projects go commercial? If so, how should the contributors be renumerated?

Not trying to be critical, it's just the "spelling bee" in me - the word you're looking for is:
remunerated

Personally, I'd prefer that public DC projects not be commercial. From my point of view, distributed computing is about gathering together the computing resources from the people(ie, the community) at large and focusing it toward an end that benefits the whole. To commercialize a project brings(to my mind) the aspect of some people benefiting from the results while others may not be able to. Note that I did say public DC projects in addressing this point.

I think it is only a matter of time before some companies/corporations recognize the value of DC and then offer some similar type of private DC project to their employees with the benefits perhaps being some kind of value of corporate stock or other perk for using home PC resources toward the company's project goals.

2. What do we - the crunchers - expect from the projects? Papers? Aknowledgments? Good information? Honor? Money? "Real-world"-results?

Assuming again that we're addressing public DC projects, I believe it is the responsibility of the project organizers to keep the users aware of what has been accomplished. For instance, some DC project's client software has allowed for News-type headlines to be sent to the client's machines advising of updates, bugs, or perhaps a link to discoveries made. Another point that needs to be seriously addressed to ensure the integrity of a project is to weed out and punish those individuals who attempt to cheat in a project. Whether it be simply to return false data because they can, or attempts to cheat the ranking system by submitting hacked stats. I don't need to give examples here - most people can pick one or two obvious projects where little or no attempt has been made by the organizers of a project to address this issue.

3. What makes a project meaningful to crunch?

For those of us addicted to the "stats" see #2 above. Even those who aren't in it for the stats need to know the integrity of the project is intact. People aren't going to continue to work for and promote a project that can't stand up to scrutiny. As mentioned above, an effort needs to be made to keep the DC participants informed of discoveries, even those not immediately on target with the project's stated goals. For instance, using Seti@Home as an example since I have a good deal of experience with it, they should let the users know if someone's returned WUs resulted in the discovery of a new previously unknown binary pulsar system. Granted, it's not the same as finding E.T., but I think the participants would like to know that their processing time is being used in other related ways.

 

[Pokey]

Originally posted by: petrusbroder
Lets get the ball rolling:

Well, if I could quote all the above....................I would. A lot of good points.
But here is my two cents:

1. Should DC projects go commercial? If so, how should the contributors be remunerated?

Short Answer:
It's OK to go commercial. If someone wants to rent my computer(s) for a fee, hey, I'm all ears. After all, they would have to pay for time on a super computer...............

Long Answer:
I got involved originally because of Seti at Home. But my "unused" cycles were not enough to keep me going. The competition and need to increase output (that "need for speed") soon addicted me to buying and building. The point is, real money was laid out to further their cause (the project) and mine (the stats). So I put a lot of emphasis on looking at whether or not the project was public and "not for profit" I don't want to spend or donate my money so someone else can privately profit. I do not mind if a university makes a basic science discovery and profits, but I have an aversion to private enterprise doing it (on my nickel) without compensation.

My branching out and dispersing resources into Folding was personal and somewhat altruistic. Again I was looking for that "public" "not for profit" sponsor though and decided against a couple of projects that appeared to be taking advantage of "free" cycles.

2. What do we - the crunchers - expect from the projects? Papers? Acknowledgments? Good information? Honor? Money? "Real-world"-results?

See 3. below.


3. What makes a project meaningful to crunch?

I would love to be party to finding something unknown whether in space or in science.


I am asking these question just to start this off. They apply to all the projects we crunch.
If you have other questions, issues, ideas, please post them, and lets discuss!




I need a :beer:

Have one on me................ :beer: .........or two :beer:

forgot to spellcheck....................

 

[flyted]

Having looked at and done DC projects 24/7 for years, I see a "commercial" interest in almost all projects. With very few exceptions, you have no idea what non-profit means for these projects. The majority have financial interests of questionable ethics and should something useful ever be found, was it really worth it to only have the results sold to a drug company who will get rich off it and the drug only make it to the rich who can afford it? Most DC'ers don't want to or can't look at what most DC projects are. They want to help and simply choose to believe that their efforts are helping and that everything is on the up and up. How many people really check out the charity's that they give to? Its simpler to just believe that they are not pating executives millions of dollars and wasting their donation. There are now ratings for charities. There are no ratings for DC projects, just believers. Should 60 minutes, 20/20 or someone take a good look at DC projects, I'm confident that most closely parallel the problems with charities. We are already commercial and just don't know it. Most posts I've seen on this subject are by those who can't simply even consider that any DC project may not be what it seems, and even a national report would never change their minds.

Sticking with the issue and not making personal remarks as some have already done on this thread, part of the problem is following instead of leading this new frontier. A lot of research needs to go into investigating the DC projects themselves to see which ones have ethics and results will really benefit those who need it. Anything less than that risks wasting a lot of time and resources by people who have agreed to take no pay to help. We need to be sure our resources are being used as we think they are. Any researcher who wants to get free computing power can get it via a DC project and they get the results. The believer assumes that there can be no intent other than good by those who run the projects, they chose to believe that all results will solve world problems and that no one will get rich off the end result. Not real. Who pays for the most drug research in this country? The government. Who benefits and make billions off it? The drug companies. Because the government paid for all this research, do the drug companies really try to pay back all the tax payers money via low cost drugs? And neither will most of the DC projects I've looked at contribute much either. It would be nice if they did, but not likely for most.

I think what DC'ers want is a project who makes the same sacrafices that we are making in order to find a better way of life, and be willing to prove it. If we can find programs like that we'll never need to be paid for our efforts.

 

[petrusbroder]

Wow, this is great! Thanks for all the posts - I did not expect that!

I am just now rereading this thread - and will do a summary of it before the day is over today. My thought is to do that every second or - if there is time - every day, so that we can keep the issues hot. If some one finds himself or herself misquoted please let me know and I will correct the quote.

 

[Freewolf]

Here's another question


What's more important to you
#1 The success of the Project overall
#2 The sucess of the team overall
#3 your personal success

 

[flyted]

Project, Project, Project.

 

[Uppsala9496]

Originally posted by: Freewolf
Here's another question


What's more important to you
#1 The success of the Project overall
#2 The sucess of the team overall
#3 your personal success

Team success
Individual success

As for the project.......sure if would be great if it resulted in something tangible right away, but with the nature of some of the projects, it takes a lot of time.
F@H for example is one that will take years and years to potentially see any results. I have no problems in the long lag time. My computers are on all the time, so I might as well put them to use.

 

[petrusbroder]

Well mates the first three questions were the following:

1. Should DC projects go commercial? If so, how should the contributors be remunerated?
2. What do we - the crunchers - expect from the projects? Papers? Aknowledgments? Good information? Honor? Money? "Real-world"-results?
3. What makes a project meaningful to crunch?

I wanted to summarize the different author's posts, but instead - while reading - I realized that most of know how to read. Your posts are interesting (to say the least) and several other questions come up:

1. Do we really know what we are crunching? I mean, think of the following scenario: We are crunching for the (hypthetical) ABL-project, which claims to work for the development of a new drug against AIDS. The client is nice, shows graphics depicting some kind of process, and we get some nice real time stats, results, the client is unobtrusive, there is a nice forum, the project is fun, the mates in the teams are great, and so on. But: do we know what we are crunchig? How do we know that the CPU-cycles are not in reallity crunching some kind of weapons project (which for myself would be totally horrible) or if the client crunches a code breaking program for a small nation who can not afford a computing power of e.g. Sweden or USA?
As far as I know we have no control at all of what is going on. We rely on the reps of the project coordinators, of universities or the schools which are behind the project. Is that acceptable? (see below!)
In science there is peer review of a paper before it is published. Do we have such a thing, i.e. that somebody not connected to that particular project, looks into it and gives a review of how good the project is? Not as far as I know. Has anybody dissected the seti-client and seen what it is doing? or the different crunching programs working under BOINC? If so, where is that info?

2. Also, do we know how the results are used? In some projects yes - the papers are published and we can ask somebody we know to read them and explain them for us (if we do not understand them ourselves). But: shouldnt we require, that the results are published in a way that an average person with a reasonable college education could understand them? And to give references into the deeper science so that those, who are interested, can delve deeper?
In other projects we just know what is published on their web. Is that satisfying?

3. Also a question about the people behind the projects arises: who are these people? Some of them are really famous, some are well known, but most of them are not. There are not many CV's around, where we can verfy what the coordinators have done, what they have published and so on. We crunch for them, donate thousands of dollars - euros - kroner - in their projects and for what? just their word? Their reputation?

4. What info about the projects should we require? Is there any web which is good at this kind of info? Is there any way we can get some kind of peer review to see if it is worth our effort?

I am asking these question not because I am paranoid and do not trust people. I ask them because for most of the authors the aim of the projects are important. Even if most of the authors really like the stats, the competion, the camaraderie and - most importantly - the FUN! But what happens if we find out that there has been some false info around and that we have been cheated? There is no way we can get our CPU-cycles back. And if somebodey cheats us all the fun we had will turn sour and many of us will be very angry. Of course we can allways sue them, but what about costs, getting something unmeasurable back, winning in court, etc?

I really like DC and that has some great future. But lets get together and find out what we need before we commit ourselves, what is the critical information we want to have and what kind of standard should be used to compare projects. - Some kind of quality control ...

What about some body looking at their project of choice - the one most important - and reporting back what they have found out:

 

[petrusbroder]

Originally posted by: Freewolf
Here's another question


What's more important to you
#1 The success of the Project overall
#2 The sucess of the team overall
#3 your personal success

For me it is #1, #2 and last #3.
But - since it takes quite some time to see the results, #2 is more important. However, more and more the importance has shifted to other points:
1. Does the project have any chance of success? (i.e.in the long run ... such as folding@home, find-a-drug, etc)
2. Does the project stimulate my sense of the fantastic? (like seti@home, einstein@home)
3. Does the projects really need DC or can it be done in an other way? (e.g. super computer)

 

[Insidious]

What a cool thread! Apologies for not taking time to participate sooner.

petrusbroder has a great summary for those first 3 questions and I hope you don't mind a couple late opinions that I don't think I saw mentioned above:

The question of payment for participation:

An issue might be that many fantastic contributors have received permission to use 'corporate' resources for this effort. Do we begin to raise some ethical (and perhaps even legal) issues if a payment was received for this use. who gets the money? The owner of the hardware or the operator? I know if I used GM hardware to make a personal profit, it could cost my job.... or worse!

for the present questions up for discussion:

I would rate it as:

1. TeAm success. I crunch DC to support a great bunch of people and socialize.

2. Project success. How good would it feel to be able to say "I helped" after reading a headline to the effect of......... Cancer Cure Found through Distributed Computing

3. I don't have access to the resources to make a noteworthy contribution... How long I've done it is my personal reward.

I would like to offer up another point of discussion (for later when the current ones have aired)

-------------

Should there be a way to verify my cycles are really working on the project I believe them to be?

With so much greed and corruption in our world today I wonder....
Would I ever know if my cycles were helping to crack a system, create a bad weapon, plan an attack by analyzing all the variiables. etc.

Should international regulations force disclosure? A tool to monitor code execution? How can we prevent the unthinkable?

----------------

-Sid

 

[petrusbroder]

Sid (and others):
every opinion, every thought is very welcome.
How else can we get a good, many sided illumination of the questions which need to be asked?
Please, lets be very open and kind to the people who post, and above all lets think critically about projects, issues, questions and answers.

 

[Wolfsraider]

Originally posted by: Freewolf
Here's another question


What's more important to you
#1 The success of the Project overall
#2 The sucess of the team overall
#3 your personal success

The TeAm overall, whether on a mini team or crunching under my own name, It all goes toward TeAm Anandtech, and that is what matters to me.

The projects may or may not succeed.
My personal success is limited to my machines. and matters the least to me, I would rather serve the team, than earn rewards.


As far as Non profits go, I have a lot of time with these, I have worked for quite a few, and I know that they are required to contribute 51% to the reciever, most go way beyond that. Some give the minimum, true, but then they are within the limits of the law. Most have their books checked quarterly. All are required to have yearly audits (in everystate I have lived in).

I trust that, others may not. But I do know money allocation is a very strictly governed part of non profit orginizations

As to international companies I don't know if they follow these guidelines, but I believe in folks first, you know that "innocent till proven guilty" thing.

I guess thats why I will try any project, reguardless of its ranked worth in the community.
They all deserve a chance to prove themselves and make strides in all areas.

Sure I think cancer is important, but then I think math is important too.I would hate to see those cancer results stored on a somewhat secure server , stolen because we didn't make it as secure as we could.

Ok Next lol

 

[Insidious]

Originally posted by: Wolfsraider
Sure I think cancer is important, but then I think math is important too.I would hate to see those cancer results stored on a somewhat secure server , stolen because we didn't make it as secure as we could.

So true. I have not seen many DCs that didn't have merrits like this. Easy to overlook at a glance, but very significant goals (and progress towards meeting them).

-Sid

 

[flyted]

There are no standards for DC projects, no authority that certifies any minimum compliance of anything. What we do is no different than giving to a charity. Would someone give to a non-profit called Better world organization just because it was non-profit? Some may. Most would like to know more and the long term survivability depends on repeat donations and results. I'm familiar with non-profits also as I was a board member on one. Checks and balances, yes, not an assurance of no abuse. Red Cross is a perfect example of a well known charity who met all the rules yet had major abuses going on. DC projects are too young to have these problems if the expect to be part of our culture. I was interested in Find-a-drug, dug deeper, found reference to "Treweren Consultants", found reference to pay and performance bonuses, but could not get one bit of it in writing from anyone. Interesting. I dug deep into WCG and the trail led to companies with lots of incentives to have us do the work for them. Main incentive, profit for them. If they ever did find a cure, who cares, let them get rich. But if its not as it seems and a lot of people did not much more than make others rich or sell us as a commodity of the research that pads their pockets, I think a lot would care. The same way they would care if a charity they gave to for years turned out to not be what they thought.

We need some type of organization to certified ethical DC projects , preferrably one that already has a good reputation certifying charities or something. That would also be a good entry point for new DC'ers and add validity to our quest.

 

[Wolfsraider]

I understand flyted,

The red cross helps thousands of victims every year. If they helped you, would you still look at how the money was spent? or would you be grateful that they helped and donate so they could help others?

non profit means that they can still be paid from the donations, to do a job most refuse to.
non profit doesn't mean no profit. Sure there are different levels of abuse in all professions, but the greater good these folks do on a daily basis blah blah blah.

Point is we can all see different aspects, find different views, see things from opposite sides.

All too often we find ourselves giving others 1 chance to prove themselves, and if they fail we no longer find intrest in the pursuit we once started on.

I hear you man , I really do, but even a convicted felon gets a second and sometimes a third chance to do it right.

I'll bet if you asked folks that lived through hurricanes, floods, tornados, and earthquakes, they will remember that the rad cross was there to lend support.

But can they (the red cross) say without a doubt that they did everything they could, maybe if they cut down on the salaries, or slimmed the fat by cutting their workforce, or even ponied up a bit more money, more folks would get help. True. But in these times, where many thousands of folks are getting laid off, businesses are folding, I am glad that they are still around to be there when needed.

Please understand I am one that finds good in the red cross, and non profits, yes I know there are some out there that abuse the system, but I won't hold those that are helping accountable for the actions of those few.

I don't mean that you are wrong, you see things different from me and I really respect that.I mean there are always 2 sides and I am voicing one of them.

As I have voiced it, I will move on to the next discussion

Mike

 

[flyted]

Wolfsraider,

It appears we have more in common than not. I am very pro charity and would venture to say that I give more than most, both in time and in cash. I also don't itemize my tax return so there is no financial incentive for me to give other than its the right thing to do. In my retirement a few years from now, more than half my time will be dedicated to a non paying charity organization(s). The problem with abuse or inefficiency in any charity is that, when publicized, the good get taken down with the bad. Thats why we need controls to allow people to pick charities that responsibly do charity work and allow donors to feel good about it. DC projects are the same way. Accountability only helps those organizations that do what they say they're doing.

 

[Wolfsraider]

The problem with abuse or inefficiency in any charity is that, when publicized, the good get taken down with the bad. Thats why we need controls to allow people to pick charities that responsibly do charity work and allow donors to feel good about it. DC projects are the same way. Accountability only helps those organizations that do what they say they're doing.

True I can agree with that.I guess I was missing the point. (happens a lot to me lately_ thank you for making me understand the whole point

It is a shame that all good things get overshadowed by bad ones.

:beer::beer: