WCG - I quit

[Markfw]

OK, its been over 28 days since the stats do not work, due to IBM and their lawyers. The thread at WCG has no date to resolve this. There is no way anyone will do a race with no stats. There are other medical research projects, F@H, which I already do, and Rosetta. So, I set my WCG clients to "no new tasks", and as those finish, Rosetta is now active and will take over at that time.

Here is my post at WCG where I announced I am quitting.
https://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/forums/wcg/viewthread_thread,40876_offset,30#586045

Where it is now, there will never be another Formula BOINC sprint or marathon for this project, with no stats.

 

[crashtech]

I am a believer in voting with one's feet, so to speak. I think some of the projects underestimate the value of points and stats to contributors, climateprediction.net comes to mind, and now WCG.

 

[Markfw]

Exactly. Now think of how much research will be lost when every one on every team that does formula BOINC quits. They don't get stats ? No races, no participation, NO RESEARCH. If IBM does not care enough to do this simple thing for their CONTRIBUTORS, they will loose them. I did not just quit, since any tasks already downloaded I should finish first. But with "no new tasks" in a few days, it will die as a project for me.

 

[lane42]

If my project did that i'd do the same. Good for you Mark

 

[IEC]

Ah, GDPR strikes again.

As many of you are aware, we've been working with lawyers to come up with an agreement that will serve the wishes of volunteers who use the data exports, while ensuring that we are GDPR-compliant, as defined by IBM. We did receive the agreement drafted by lawyers specifically for World Community Grid. But since IBM is a commercial entity that focuses on selling technology solutions, we felt that the agreement drafted for World Community Grid wasn't sufficiently geared towards volunteers. The World Community Grid team feels strongly that, in the long run, it's better for us to continue to work with the legal team to push for an agreement that we believe will meet volunteers' needs as well as IBM's needs, rather than give volunteers an agreement that is more geared towards commercial engagements and is not as relevant to a philanthropic initiative.

A month late and a Euro short.

 

[zzuupp]

Somewhere else in BOINC-land, Bok over at Free-DC has mused about giving up the site. Whether because of his own compliance, or export stopping of some of the biggies.

The "Law of Unfortunate Consequences" seems to be happening.

 

[StefanR5R]

Ah, GDPR strikes again.
A month late and a Euro short.

GDPR went into effect May 25th, 2018, but it was ratified, with all parts known, April 14th, 2016...

(from WCG's thread)

It's about getting lawyers employed, but management is easier to convince after the fact, hence the delay.

 

[[H]Coleslaw]

I don't think you will find the masses at WCG exiting because of the exports. Most of the people contributing don't even look at the forums, stats pages, etc... Then you have those that do and among them are many that care more about the science and will continue contributing. I'm not about to leave because of it. WCG is one of the few projects that have actually tied real life results to the science the crunchers did. To me, that puts them way above the other projects still exporting. I've never heard of FAH doing more than put out papers for recognition. Papers realistically are a justification for salary funding for career researchers. (That is my opinion and I know what the researchers claim it is.) I personally want my results to truly matter.

 

[biodoc]

WCG is one of the few projects that have actually tied real life results to the science the crunchers did.

Would you provide a link for me?

I wouldn't discount the importance of basic research. It's the foundation upon which future discoveries are made.

 

[[H]Coleslaw]

I'm at work but just a quick search through WCG news - https://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/about_us/viewNewsArticle.do?articleId=390 IIRC some of the candidates they found also had other benefits outside of cancer as well. However, it would take a lot more digging for me to find where I saw that. Their news section is pretty good at giving some updates on completed sub projects.

edit: better link on same science https://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/about_us/viewNewsArticle.do?articleId=413

"

• 
  The primary short-term challenge for this aspect of our research is finding a pharmaceutical company that can collaborate with us in turning these promising compounds into a medication. This has been difficult because although neuroblastoma is terrible, in absolute terms it is still a very small market, and few companies are interested in devoting development resources to it."

And the last posting on WCG about it here - https://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/about_us/viewNewsArticle.do?articleId=537

"
Our research team conducted in-silico (computer simulation-based) drug discovery screening using World Community Grid to search through a library of three million small molecular compounds. We discovered a small molecule compound which competitively binds to the TrkB protein pocket to which BDNF (a specific growth factor) binds. The discovered molecule can thus prevent BDNF from binding to the TrkB protein and diminish cancer cell growth. This could lead to a new and improved treatment for neuroblastoma.

Subsequently, the anti-tumor effect of the compound was examined using cultured cancer cells, or human neuroblastoma transplanted into mice, and this laboratory research confirmed that this small molecular compound and possibly some others could be candidates for anticancer drugs targeting TrkB. We announced this breakthrough and published our findings in the peer-reviewed, English language journal, Cancer Medicine, in 2014."

 

[[H]Coleslaw]

Computing for Sustainable Water showed results though they weren't necessarily finding better ways - https://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/about_us/viewNewsArticle.do?articleId=547

"Through the work of the World Community Grid volunteers, we determined that many of the commonly used practices have little effect on water quality. It is not that these practices do not have intrinsic value; rather, it is a matter of the degree of their effect. As a result, we have made these results known to policy-makers at the US Federal level, as well as at state and local levels.

It is difficult to tell whether our findings will have effect on future policy, especially as we now have a different, less proactive, approach to environmental protection in the United States. Regardless, we are proud of our accomplishment through World Community Grid."

 

[[H]Coleslaw]

Discovering Dengue Drugs project - https://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/about_us/viewNewsArticle.do?articleId=439
"The World Community Grid phase of the Discovering Dengue Drugs – Togetherproject completed its computations a while ago. We have spent the interim period analyzing the results, retesting some of the calculations, modifying the underlying assumptions for the calculations, and testing compounds in the laboratory using in vitro and in vivo systems. We have recently made an exciting discovery using insights from the Discovering Dengue Drugs – Together project and additional calculations on our web portal for advanced computer-based drug discovery, DrugDiscovery@TACC. A small molecule has demonstrated high affinity at binding to and disabling the targeted dengue virus protease. A full description of this work is available online (see: U. Viswanathan, S. M. Tomlinson, J. M. Fonner, S. A. Mock, and S. J. Watowich, "Identification of a Novel Inhibitor of Dengue Virus Protease through Use of a Virtual Screening Drug Discovery Web Portal," J. Chemical Info. Mod, 54, 2816-2825, 2014). Furthermore, this compound shows signs of being able to effectively disable related flaviviruses, such as the West Nile virus. Importantly, our newly discovered drug lead also demonstrates no negative side effects such as adverse toxicity, carcinogenicity or mutagenicity risks, making it a promising antiviral drug candidate for dengue and potentially other flavivirues. We are working with medicinal chemists to synthesize variants of this exciting candidate molecule with the goal of improving its activity for planned pre-clinical and clinical trials.

The advances we are making, and our improved understanding of drug discovery software and its current limitations, would not have been possible without the members of World Community Grid and their donated computing power."

 

[[H]Coleslaw]

I'm not gonna keep listing them, but you can see that the results taken directly from what we crunched has not just been put in a theoretical paper but are actually being put into real testing. The results are getting used and pushed for advancement. Possibly even changing policies and politics. Most other projects post a paper on what was found and it goes nowhere. Or at least cannot be linked back to the users contributions.

 

[GLeeM]

I wouldn't discount the importance of basic research. It's the foundation upon which future discoveries are made.

Yup.
Along the same line of reasoning: F@H is all about teaching future researchers. Which is the reason for the large bonus on quick return - the students in the program need results in time to finish their paper to graduate. Your work allows them to go on to get a research or other job that pays better.

 

[biodoc]

Thanks for the links [H]Coleslaw. These are very early preclinical studies that show some promise for a few compounds. Time will tell if they are developed into a therapeutically useful drug. The attrition rate going from preclinical compounds to a developable drug that makes it through clinical trials and approval by the agencies is very high >95%.

I would like to make a plug for Rosetta though. Before I retired, our group found Rosetta extremely useful for engineering antibodies as potential therapeutics. The Baker lab doesn't do as good a job as WCG in the "marketing" department though.

WCG has a lot of good projects but I find FAH, Rosetta, and GPUGrid just as good IMHO.

I support MarkFW on his decision to stop participating in WCG projects because they refuse to export stats. If WCG stopped providing their own stats to users and stopped internal races and eliminated badges, how many people would participate?

 

[[H]Coleslaw]

At least one.

 

[[H]Coleslaw]

My issue with Rosetta is that they don't do a very good job with testing their code before advancing it from Alpha (RALPH) to production/BETA (main site). Rarely do they chime in or check issues in the Alpha project and a lot of the problems carry over. I think the project runs really good for the amount of staff they have supporting it, but that isn't saying a lot. When you only have a few people supporting it ("scientists"), keeping the home page up could very well be an accomplishment. I actually dislike running their project even though I think their mission is a positive one.

 

[ZipSpeed]

I can understand where Mark is coming from. Humans, as a species, inherently love collecting. Whether it's cars, toys, digital points, PlayStation Trophies, or blowup dolls. It's fun to see progress even if there is no tangible value. I would be lying if I didn't love seeing all those colorful badges, but in the end, I'm in for the science. The fact that the WCG team has found possible drugs for childhood cancer treatments, is well, utterly fantastic! As a dad of two little ones, I would do anything to protect my kids. If my donation of electricity and computer parts means that all kids will have a better tomorrow, I'll keep on crunching.

 

[biodoc]

WCG has been greylisted by Gridcoin.

 

[StefanR5R]

Necessarily, and fully automatically.

 

[TennesseeTony]

I'm with George Takei, errrrrrrrr, I mean ZipSpeed on this one. I do LOVE points, but the amazing science is still being done at WCG, and the points will eventually get sorted.

 

[ericlp]

I'm with everyone else here... Not only is this a way for the average Joe to contribute to some sort of (science) than watching some political person come in and shut everything down. To to icing on the cake, I also get to mess around with high end CPUs/GPUs and feel good about putting them to work.

One thing I feel weird about it, what if the a company sold the data that you crunched for to make a profit and they made a drug to get it FDA approved just to make a killing so they could resell it back to us (the people that ran the crunchers) for super expensive experimental drugs that could save your life....that is, if you could afford it!

Hmmmm... It's a slippery slope and one that I always wondered about as I crunched for F@H. (when I did). But this scenario could play out as well in seti, for example, all that data could be sold to X company for other uses years later for finding things that we didn't know about till later. I highly doubt anyone is going to credit a bunch of crunchers in some medical journal, or if a ton of cash was made, don't expect any check to be in your mailbox.

About the best to come out of it, is good karma in the hopes that you are somehow making a difference.

 

[Ken g6]

I highly doubt anyone is going to credit a bunch of crunchers in some medical journal

I suppose not. I just checked a paper linked from my GPUGrid account, and there aren't a ton of names there. But I at least get credited with my prime finds.

or if a ton of cash was made, don't expect any check to be in your mailbox.

You could always look into cryptocoins.

 

[ericlp]

You could always look into cryptocoins.

Yeah, but I don't feel like joining cure coin, if only someone setup such a coinbase here we could all join in on as a team... possibly. Even if it was only .0000000000001 cent per real cent it would still be fun to do just hoping one day all your coins would be worth a bit more than they were when you earned them. I'm a bit surprised that there aren't more coinbase projects with DC. Maybe one day Boinc in of itself will have a coinbase option. I think I could deal with that.

 

[Ken g6]

If you want to stay on the TeAm, there's FoldingCoin. Unfortunately, my coins have lost value.