I am adding a lot of new categories to the BOINC FAQ Service. Have been doing that slowly for the past couple of months.

I could use links to project FAQs and tips and tricks pages. I've already got the CPDN ones, no need to point me to those. Although Mike or mo.v, if you read this, I could use them posts with the links already included. ;-)

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I think you mean the cpdn-BBC project READMEs? Here they are:

CPDN README - Climate Science

CPDN README - Running the model

CPDN README - Crashes and other problems

CPDN README - Backup and restore

CPDN README - Community

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Do you also want us to quote the whole editable posts for the 5 READMEs? I'm sure it will be OK, but before doing this I need to get permission from the cpdn mods. Most of them are probably not yet aware that this Documentation section exists.

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Do you also want us to quote the whole editable posts for the 5 READMEs? I'm sure it will be OK, but before doing this I need to get permission from the cpdn mods. Most of them are probably not yet aware that this Documentation section exists.

Well, no, not post them here. I don't mind putting them in the FAQs, but I have been busy with putting them over for a day or two now and it's getting tedious to add the url codes per link. ;-)

But I'll get it done in the end.

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For content of the FAQs; what are they based on?
My point being that an FAQ which has lots of infrequently asked questions is less useful than one which is strictly a true FAQ.

Also on what basis are the frequently asked questions based, that is, how do we know these are actually the quetions users most frequently ask?

I'm not saying the current FAQs are wrong or anyting, but simply questioning how useful/valid they are. If, in their current form, their appropriate, then I have no further queries, but I'd rather make sure :) - high-quality content is king.

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Hi Lee

I know that some questions are much more frequently asked than others, but boinc is a complex program with hundreds of potential problems, and the different project workunits run into different boinc problems. Some of the really frequent questions are easy to answer. But some relatively rare questions are tricky and time-consuming to answer, so it's better if the help compilations also contain explanations and fixes for these.

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Hi Lee

I know that some questions are much more frequently asked than others, but boinc is a complex program with hundreds of potential problems, and the different project workunits run into different boinc problems. Some of the really frequent questions are easy to answer. But some relatively rare questions are tricky and time-consuming to answer, so it's better if the help compilations also contain explanations and fixes for these.

I'm not saying that they shouldn't be included, I'm just posing the basic question of justification. If they're actually useful, then sure, leave them in, but on what basis do we know they're useful in an FAQ, rather than in their own article, with the through explanation they need?
A simple pointer would be to have the less frequently asked questions further down the list of questions, so the frequently asked ones are nearer the top.

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How about FAQ = "Facts And Questions" rather than the more conventional meaning?

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-- Eric Myers

"Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire." -- William Butler Yeats

F&Q :)

Users Manual - for the wiki?

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CIC1=CC=C(C2=N[C@@H](CC(OC(C)(C)C)=O)C3=NN=C(C)N3C4=C2C(C)=C(C)S4)C=C1

Highly likely to be confused with the original "FAQ" by users.
I suggest choosing a more distinct name. The idea is otherwise fine :)

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F&Q :)

Users Manual - for the wiki?

That or "Users' Guide". This is part of one of the arguments for having at least two separate sites for documentation.

Back when I got started in computing (I don't need to specify any dates) I used a lot of IBM software on mainframes. Each software system came with at least two manuals, the "Reference Manual" and the "User's Guide".

The Reference Manual was a complete and encyclopedic collection of information about the software, organized based on how the software worked, not how you used it. If you were already familiar with the system then this is where you looked for detailed answers or descriptions.

But if you were just getting started, or if you wanted to do general things most people did, then this was too technical and detailed. The User's Guide began with a section on how to get started, followed by common things most people would want to do. It was not a complete reference, it was just the easiest thing to use to do most general things.

So I would argue that we might want to have both of these for BOINC. So the Berkeley site could be viewed as the authoritative Reference Manual for BOINC, while the wiki could be the User's Guide. (And that still leaves room for the FAQ or F&Q as well).

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-- Eric Myers

"Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire." -- William Butler Yeats

Sounds good Eric. Wouldn't the FAQs then become part of or linked from the Users Guide - and the F&Qs (the not so frequently asked but still handy to have :) ) part of the Reference Manual.

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CIC1=CC=C(C2=N[C@@H](CC(OC(C)(C)C)=O)C3=NN=C(C)N3C4=C2C(C)=C(C)S4)C=C1

Sounds logical, Eric. It would require a lot of moving stuff round, writing and rewriting.

I'll take a case in point - a cpdn reference + fix document I recently helped to write about the 'Max CPU time exceeded' error, which has also occurred on other projects.

http://www.climateprediction.net/board/viewtopic.php?t=7215

At the moment on the Boinc Wiki there's a short explanation by Eric Korpela of what the error means. According to your division into Reference Manual and User Guide, Eric Korpela's explanation (possibly supplemented by extra details from the first paragraph of the cpdn document) would be moved to the Reference Manual.

In the Ref Manual there'd be a link to the fix (ie the rest of the document) which would be put in the User Guide. The User Guide would include a link back to the explanation in the Ref Manual.

Is this how you see things working out in practice?

(I realise some editing would be required to avoid cpdn-specific terminology.)

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Eric Myers wrote:

Trog Dog wrote:

F&Q :)

Users Manual - for the wiki?

That or "Users' Guide". This is part of one of the arguments for having at least two separate sites for documentation.

Agree, excellent idea. One as a guide and one as a "find the specific thing you're looking for" type resource.
I vote for "user guide" rather than "user manual" to make the point that it's designed to be a tutorial style thing rather than just odd How-To's

Eric Myers wrote:

(snipped detailed explanation, which was rather good actually, for breivety)

So I would argue that we might want to have both of these for BOINC. So the Berkeley site could be viewed as the authoritative Reference Manual for BOINC, while the wiki could be the User's Guide. (And that still leaves room for the FAQ or F&Q as well).

I'm not against the idea of having the BOINC site as the reference manual, but the content of the boinc site would need to be vastly improved with a major overhaul, and use a system which allowed continued maintainence which didn't have to go through Rom (so he's not the bottleneck as it were).
Although my main thought is that the roles should be reversed, new users are more likely to want the guide, so that should be on the boinc site and the reference manual (which more experienced users will want) should be on the different/seperate/indepentant site if that's the desired organisation (2 seperate sites).

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mo.v wrote:

Sounds logical, Eric. It would require a lot of moving stuff round, writing and rewriting.

So would any overhaul

mo.v wrote:

I'll take a case in point - a CPDN reference + fix document I recently helped to write about the 'Max CPU time exceeded' error, which has also occurred on other projects.

At the moment on the Boinc Wiki there's a short explanation by Eric Korpela of what the error means. According to your division into Reference Manual and User Guide, Eric Korpela's explanation (possibly supplemented by extra details from the first paragraph of the cpdn document) would be moved to the Reference Manual.

In the Ref Manual there'd be a link to the fix (ie the rest of the document) which would be put in the User Guide. The User Guide would include a link back to the explanation in the Ref Manual.

lots of (appropriate) interlinking will be needed to tie related things together.

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Trog Dog wrote:

Eric Myers wrote:

...(And that still leaves room for the FAQ or F&Q as well).

Wouldn't the FAQs then become part of or linked from the Users Guide - and the F&Qs (the not so frequently asked but still handy to have :) ) part of the Reference Manual.

Again, i strongly recommend that a more distinctive name be given to what's currently called "F&Q" - it's too similar to FAQ (which most people are already familiar with) and "F&Q" isn't very descriptive, it gives no indication of what "F" and "Q" mean in this context.

How about "common problems" ? It depends on it's purpose.
If "Facts & Questions" is what people really want (regardless of usability) then use the full name for the actual page/document so it's more distinctive.
The problem with "Facts & Questions" is that if it contains questions, how are they different to "Frequently Asked Questions" ?

If the answers to the questions are valuable as people say, then why not write some proper articles to address them?

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I knocked up a sticky post about the Darwin shared memory problems, this is mainly just a large quote from the SpyHill article. The shared memory issue is common to all Boinc projects, not just CPDN.

http://climateapps2.oucs.ox.ac.uk/cpdnboinc/forum_thread.php?id=5605

It might be an idea to trim down the quote if you want to put it into the FAQ, since there might be copyright issues otherwise.

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I am running 3 applications on BOINC, shared equally. When I initially set this up I wanted all 3 apps to equally share my computing time; now I'd like apportion it differently. But I can't seem to make this happen.

Can this be done?
If so, how?

I'm also a bit overwhelmed by this FAQ function, so I'm sure this post is not in the right place; so I'd be pleased to re-post if someone can help guide me there . . .

Thanks,
Jack
Colorado Springs
jackaavi@gmail.com

Hi Jack,

Let me start with asking if you please edit your post and take out your email address. You have an hour to do so before you lose the chance to edit your post. These forums are read by spam bots as well... (I can't edit your post and take out anything)

Then going on, what do you want to do?
Set up your resource share between projects differently? You set the resource share through the project's web sites, your account, project preferences.
When you've changed that per project, open BOINC Manager, Advanced view, Projects tab, select the projects one at a time and click Update. That picks up their new preferences.

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