For many months the Rosetta forum seems to run without any admin awareness, or is it lack of interest?
This is often used by spammers posting links to gambling sites or (maybe) malware.

At the very end this destroys the reputation of all DC projects.

Does anybody here have contacts to a person at Rosetta who can be asked to take over responsibility?

Project forum moderators are normally volunteers, and as such there may be periods when there isn't one viewing the forum, but there is at least one on duty just now. (I too saw a number of gaming advert posts, but shortly after hitting the red-x the posts vanished en-mass)
Spammers are a grade one pain to many forum, some days it can be a near full time job to keep on top of them. One thing that a number of projects have adopted is that posters must meet certain levels of activity on that project such as completing a number of tasks. (Although this only really works when there is an open Q&A section for newcomers to request help in getting started.)

Project forum moderators are normally volunteers, and as such there may be periods when there isn't one viewing the forum, but there is at least one on duty just now. (I too saw a number of gaming advert posts, but shortly after hitting the red-x the posts vanished en-mass)

Have had that from time to time on CPDN. It would be nice if the forum software had a delete all posts by spammuser option.

Does anybody here have contacts to a person at Rosetta who can be asked to take over responsibility?

I have no contacts, and neither does anyone else (though sometimes they try emailing various people there).
However, I do have long years of experience. Things changed drastically last year, due to the advent of the AI/machine learning techniques.
They do most of their stuff in-house, and send only the 4.20 Rosettas that they receive from outside sources (Robetta I think) out to the crunchers.

The other work is the Pythons, which are from a single researcher. They are the ones that really need the support, and aren't getting it.
I think we can assume that it is not a widely-supported project within Rosetta now, and probably won't be.

You have made the best suggestions, if they will listen. But I don't think they have their skilled programmers on it anymore. They have other things to do no doubt.

It would be nice if the forum software had a delete all posts by spammuser option.

It does, but it's an administrator option because it writes (or in this case deletes) records directly from the database.

It does, but it's an administrator option because it writes (or in this case deletes) records directly from the database.

Thanks Jord,

Despite the convenience of having that, restricting it to administrators is probably wise.

I agree Dave. One forum I was a lurking member of gave the users the ability to delete other users. It very rapidly became a playground for a few who systematically deleted anyone who didn't agree with them, until they tried to get rid of the forum administrator who decided to simply close the forum.

I agree Dave. One forum I was a lurking member of gave the users the ability to delete other users. It very rapidly became a playground for a few who systematically deleted anyone who didn't agree with them, until they tried to get rid of the forum administrator who decided to simply close the forum.

Yes, though it would require a rogue moderator for that to happen with what I was envisioning but I am sure there have been forums with that! Unless a forum has far too few moderators, it isn't often going to be a major problem. It is less than once a year that I find myself deleting tens of spam posts. Not sure how often my fellow mods do it.

It is always useful if the moderators are fairly active on an active forum. I've found it most effective when a moderator jumps in with a "calm down" message when things get heated (although there are times when Thor's Hammer has to be applied).

It is always useful if the moderators are fairly active on an active forum.

It keeps the comments relevant too. They now wander all over the place on Rosetta.
New users keeps asking the same questions, probably because they can't find the answers that are already there.

There should be stickys too for the most often asked questions. The forum is a wasteland now.

Yes, though it would require a rogue moderator for that to happen

We had a moderator go haywire, banishing a project admin who posted on here because he didn't agree with what the project admin was telling him. That moderator then got a banish, of course. He wasn't to be reasoned with anymore. It took David to reset the project admin's account.

So yes, that admin role is only for that one trusted person behind BOINC Moderator. And David.

The post and thread delete option really deletes things, it's not possible to get what you delete back. The moderator option to hide posts merely hides them from view for non-moderators. The posts and threads are still there. They can be unhidden. But once deleted, they cannot be undeleted. Or there must've been a backup made of the database in between.

.... One thing that a number of projects have adopted is that posters must meet certain levels of activity on that project such as completing a number of tasks. ...

I always thought it would make sense to have a general BOINC forum, connected to a user account. Say, my name here is the same as my name on most projects.

If no automatic integration of user name, what prevents a user to post as one that doesn't have a forum profile, but has a high processed wu count?

The whole Boinc forums of each project should all come under 1 forum umbrella. Projects pay a small annual fee (like $100 or so) to keep the forum servers running, and in return users only need to make 1 user account for all past, current and future projects they may want to join.

However, I do have long years of experience. Things changed drastically last year, due to the advent of the AI/machine learning techniques.
They do most of their stuff in-house, and send only the 4.20 Rosettas that they receive from outside sources (Robetta I think) out to the crunchers.
The other work is the Pythons, which are from a single researcher. They are the ones that really need the support, and aren't getting it.
I think we can assume that it is not a widely-supported project within Rosetta now, and probably won't be.

That's strange.
David Baker continues to present Rosetta@Home as an active project to various conferences/seminars, like this

David Baker continues to present Rosetta@Home as an active project to various conferences/seminars, like this

He isn't presenting that. That blog is just commenting on the inspiration anyway.
I don't see any comments by him, or any of the Rosetta staff on the present status, let alone future direction, of Rosetta@Home.

Not that the project is distinct from the software they are using in-house.

He isn't presenting that. That blog is just commenting on the inspiration anyway.
I don't see any comments by him, or any of the Rosetta staff on the present status, let alone future direction, of Rosetta@Home.

Yep, you're right.
I don't know if, in this other event he spoke about Rosetta@Home, cause the presence of Foldit.

Not that the project is distinct from the software they are using in-house.

No. Rosettacommons team shares the code: Rosetta@Home. TrRosetta, RosettaFold and Foldit use it.

.... One thing that a number of projects have adopted is that posters must meet certain levels of activity on that project such as completing a number of tasks. ...

I always thought it would make sense to have a general BOINC forum, connected to a user account. Say, my name here is the same as my name on most projects.

If no automatic integration of user name, what prevents a user to post as one that doesn't have a forum profile, but has a high processed wu count?

The whole Boinc forums of each project should all come under 1 forum umbrella. Projects pay a small annual fee (like $100 or so) to keep the forum servers running, and in return users only need to make 1 user account for all past, current and future projects they may want to join.

A few of comments:
First I understand why you think that having all the BOINC projects should share a common sign-on and forum.
However this is based on a misunderstanding of how BOINC is setup:
BOINC (the project) is a software development project producing a set of "templates" for use by distributed computing science projects.
BOINC (the application) is a product of the development project and is made freely available, as open source, to anyone who wants to use it.
BOINC (this forum) is primarily about the use of the BOINC application and share news about the status of some of the projects using it.
BOINC (the project) has a very small human and physical resource base. It only has the physical resource it needs for its own purposes (including this forum).
BOINC (the project) has not got the human or physical resources to support the forum of the many projects that use BOINC (the application), nor does it have the technical understanding of the many, disparate projects. Nor does it want to expend the time and effort required to develop/acquire the required resources.