Yet Another Formula BOINC Sprint Voting Thread

[Ken g6]

Well, we got our wish and Rosetta@Home is in a sprint. Which goes to show, you should be careful what you wish for! Seriously, because it's wishing time again:

Amicable Numbers
Cosmology@home
Einstein@home
Gerasim@home
LHC@home 1.0
Moo! Wrapper
NFS@home
NumberFields@home
ODLK
ODLK1
PrimeGrid
QuChemPedIA@home
Rakesearch*
SRBase
T.Brada Experiment Grid
Yafu
Yoyo@home

List out any projects you want, and I'll vote for the one(s) with the most votes.

*Edit: Added Rakesearch 8/19

 

[Howdy]

NFS
PG?

 

[Ken g6]

Bump! Voting ends tomorrow! (I haven't decided what time yet.)

 

[Fardringle]

NFS or Yafu for CPU.
Or SRBase for GPU.

 

[biodoc]

NFS

 

[Markfw]

well, since we are doing Rosetta, my only other possibility is WCG

 

[TennesseeTony]

QuChemPedIA@home

 

[Ken g6]

With three votes for NFS and no more than one vote for any other project, I voted NFS@Home.

 

[StefanR5R]

You guys can vote for NFS all the time you want. I am still not buying more RAM for my memory-starved, yet old and energy-wasting Xeons. ;-P

 

[Ken g6]

You guys can vote for NFS all the time you want. I am still not buying more RAM for my memory-starved, yet old and energy-wasting Xeons. ;-P

I agree, I have the same problem with my memory-starved, yet old and energy-wasting Xeon. But if you felt that way you should have voted.

 

[StefanR5R]

I am not against NFS, just against tooling up for it. ;-)

 

[Ken g6]

Bump! I'll soon vote for NFS again unless you all want something else.

 

[TennesseeTony]

QuChemPedia is still my choice...my bunker times out August 11.

 

[Fardringle]

I like the idea behind QuChemPedia, but I REALLY don't like the way the tasks run on my Windows computers (never stops running in the VM even when BOINC is manually suspended), making them totally unusable when the kids or I need them, so my vote stays with NFS for now.

 

[Ken g6]

Another sprint is coming soon. Anybody want to change their vote? @TennesseeTony, since your bunker timed out?

 

[TennesseeTony]

This time I vote Rakesearch.

 

[StefanR5R]

So, what did Sébastien have in mind when he invented team voting for sprint projects?

That the teams do the research and vote for projects which are able to support a sprint?

Or simply that the ability to vote silences all the perpetual complaints about Formula Boinc's troubles?

 

[Fardringle]

I'm not opposed to the voting itself, but projects shouldn't even be on the list if they are unable to handle the increased traffic from a sprint.

 

[StefanR5R]

Server performance is just one point among several.

A project may be able to host a sprint during the year in general, but it may have

• periods during which scientists don't submit work,
• times when one experiment ends and a new one has yet to be launched,
• transitions to a new application version when new bugs may need to be ironed out,
• periods when they run into trouble with their hardware or with their hosting location, and they need a little time to get back to normal,
• staff on vacation or other business, so that nobody is around for quick intervention when unforeseen issues arise.

Some of these can be determined by outside observation. But most of it can be learned only from communication. Some projects initiate such communication by themselves; they post announcements in their forum or as boinc notice. But in other projects you'd have to ask the admin (and will possibly be unable to reach them).

So, was there a hope that teams research these things and use their vote to weed out projects which cannot support the next scheduled sprint? — After typing all this, I no longer think that Sébastien had this in mind (it's just too far out); his intention must have been another one.

Personally, my opinion remains that per-sprint voting is bogus. It supports speculative bunkering (which some may like, others not). Secondly there is the (unintended or intended) effect that teams are, and shall feel, responsible for each sprint project selection, which somewhat shifts blame. So far I can't see any other effect [edit: let alone, any actual improvement of the FB sprint modus].

Don't get me wrong: IMO teams should support Sébastien in this (that is: should be enabled to do so), such as being able to inform Sébastien about developments at projects which move them off or back on the list of sprint candidates. There is the FB forum, but it doesn't seem to be put to as good a use as it could be.

/ rant off. ;-)