Dear Members,
Lately, we have received expressions of concern from various members regarding a perceived lack of communication from grid.org administrators about project status, grid operations, old workunit data, etc.
Please accept this message as an official reply...
Grid.org continues to be an excellent tool used to process the intensive calculations inherent to new drug discovery, human protein mapping, and other such projects, which require vast amounts of compute power.
We, at Grid.org, certainly never wish to lessen the value of our public grid by offending our dear members. And we would never naively assume that our dear members would simply continue volunteering their computer idle time just because of their altruistic nature. Rather, we understand clearly that our members want to see first-hand the results of their efforts. Rest assured, we appreciate the concerns that have been expressed regarding communications and updates and/or the lack thereof.
Here's what we are doing to address these concerns:
1) Project Status
Currently on grid.org we have two projects underway: Ligandfit Cancer Project, and Human Protein Folding. To keep members apprised of the status of these two projects, as well as any other future projects, we propose adding a "status" sidebar on the main page of Grid.org. This status sidebar would be used as the official communication mechanism from grid.org to members relating to project status, system availability, breaking news, etc. Up until now, we've relied primarily on the forums to disseminate this type of information, but it's become obvious that a more central method of communication is necessary, and we believe that a status sidebar on the main grid.org page may be a good solution for this.
2) Grid Operations
The proposed status sidebar on the main grid.org page would also be used to provide status updates on grid.org availability and core operations.
3) Old Workunit Data
We are waiting on *new* data for the cancer project. Once this data becomes available, we will ensure that it is loaded onto the grid. The human protein folding project, as well, is in need of new data. However, the process for retrieving new data/splitting/creating jobs for the human protein folding project is quite different from the cancer project. As such, we are working diligently to update this process and make it more efficient.
I hope this communication has addressed, at least in part, some of the concerns recently expressed by our members.
Thanks for your patience,
jonathon
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Jonathon
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