Situation:
I've founded a team for testing on that page, changed my email to some fake address, changed my name as well, it's just for testing, afaik it was never exported to any new project. I left this team, and now I'm still the founder, but have no access to it. I have no access to any team management pages any more, so I can't give the founder status to someone else. I can't even join my team back to change something. There is a "Change team founder" option in my account, but I get this message if I click it:
"There are no users to transfer team to."

I have just created another one with this account, here I have the management functions. Of course I can't change the founder as well, as nobody else is in it, but nobody has a chance to join to become founder.

I've made another account for myself wih my real data and tried to join my real team as well, joining a team is not implemented there, it's founder only, and only as long as s/he doesn't leave the team.

So:
Joining a team is impossible.
Leaving a team well.
Giving the founder status to anybody else is impossible.

Changing the founder to someone else has to be possible.
Leaving teams inaccessible should not be possible (or only if you loose the account data, and they are retrievable via the "Forgot password" function).

Here are my questions:

How is founder change supposed to work?
How are headless teams dealt with?
What teams are exported to the projects taking place in this scheme (mine are not up to now, but that's fine)?

BTW:
If any of the admins of that BOINC wide team list decides to delete this futile teams, feel free to do so, but please say it here in this thread that you've done so. The main problem with this feature is it's non-discussion in any proper place.

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Gruesse vom Saenger

For questions about Boinc look in the BOINC-Wiki

David has posted in this dubious Google group:

The email list for team founders is neither shady nor a back room:
http://groups.google.com/group/boinc-team-founders

If there are some missing features in the BOINC-wide team sites,
please say what they are and why, in a calm and even tone.

-- David

Why should anyone go to Google if this forum is just fine?
Why should anything about BOINC not be discussed on the proper BOINC servers?

I see not a single reason for going to some strange mailing systems, especially not anywhere where the main purpose of the owner is to grab as much information to build cashable profiles of the "users" like Google. Google is the very opposite of privacy, it even searches the intimate mails from the "users" for words to make cash with.

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Gruesse vom Saenger

For questions about Boinc look in the BOINC-Wiki

Hi Saenger

I think the boinc developers probably started the Google group because they found themselves in a difficult situation. They only post on this forum, or on any boinc project forum, in exceptional circumstances. I expect this is because posting on the forums can be time-consuming and also because they (rightly in my opinion) prefer to distance themselves from arguments. So they rely on go-betweens like Jorden and Kathryn who recognise what the boinc developers need to know or respond to and inform them about it.

But in the case of the boinc-wide team initiative, they probably knew in advance that they would need to communicate directly with potential users of this facility. So they created a different venue.

I agree that a proliferation of different forums is inconvenient. The more forums are created, the more crunchers will get lost on the way and never find some of them. But I'm sure the Google group was set up with every good intention.

Normally, Google groups aren't my preferred area of the web. But the existence of this discussion group has been clearly announced and linked to, and I believe that anyone is free to register.

This is just my personal interpretation of how the situation has arisen and why.

But in the case of the boinc-wide team initiative, they probably knew in advance that they would need to communicate directly with potential users of this facility. So they created a different venue.

I agree that a proliferation of different forums is inconvenient. The more forums are created, the more crunchers will get lost on the way and never find some of them. But I'm sure the Google group was set up with every good intention.

Normally, Google groups aren't my preferred area of the web. But the existence of this discussion group has been clearly announced and linked to, and I believe that anyone is free to register.

This is just my personal interpretation of how the situation has arisen and why.

Where and when was this group announced?
It only appeared yesterday in the list of mailing list, that's two month after the implementation, if it was really discussed probably half a year after the first brainstorming. AFAIK only some few handful of people knew of the existence of this group, probably not even the founders of the Top100 teams, and I see no reason why not invite at least the Top 10,000 founders in all projects, not only Seti. The announcement should have been made at least in all team recruitment threads in all projects.

Why was there a need for a different venue?
Why was the second biggest team in BOINC not invited?
Why was it not announced here and on the homepage in bold letters?
Where all web code developers part of the new invented group?
Why not simply set up a new mailing list and/or a posting restricted part in this forum here?
Was it tested in some beta environment before it was put in the open and new projects were "infected"?

The only reason that comes to my mind is, that he didn't want this discussed in the open. The loss of volunteers was intended, no more unwashed masses, fine atmosphere in the ivory tower.

Most of the defects were no surprise imho, but clearly to be seen before if it would have been discussed before implementation. Of course only if you don't do this discussion with some hand selected people who will show no dissent.

Edit:

I posted the first heavy bugs here in this forum on 15. September, same goes for trac.
The new feature was first announced on the BOINC homepage as a news on 24. September, about two weeks after it's implementation.
The Google group was never annonced in the news, let alone in any other project information area.

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Gruesse vom Saenger

For questions about Boinc look in the BOINC-Wiki

The announcement should have been made at least in all team recruitment threads in all projects.

BOINC and projects are two separate entities. The BOINC developers don't need to go by on all project forums to check out bugs or give information; what's more normal and expected is that people using BOINC will pass by on the BOINC News page and see what changed.

As for the specifics and reporting done by you, what you've done all this time (as I read it, so my opinion) is demanding that things be done your way. You demanded in your original post that the feature be abolished, then you changed the attack pattern (but not the tone) into calling DA names, the Google group a shady back room and demanding further that the discussion be held here.

Now, who is discussing it here? None of the team founders. Either they only discuss it through 46 different project forums, which doesn't help things much, or they discuss it on the Google group, or they just don't discuss it. I don't know.

Why not tell them to get over to here then?
You say your team has 24 team founders, yet the only one posting here is you. Want to make an impact? Want the developers here for discussion? Then give them something more juicy than apparently one (angry) German only. ;-)

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The announcement should have been made at least in all team recruitment threads in all projects.

BOINC and projects are two separate entities. The BOINC developers don't need to go by on all project forums to check out bugs or give information; what's more normal and expected is that people using BOINC will pass by on the BOINC News page and see what changed.

This feature was nothing concerning the proper working of BOINC but about the changing of the social network aspects throughout the projects. Some few users (probably even some team founders) had an idea to change the behaviour of the project <-> user <-> team interactions, some not really core BOINC issue.

After some research I found that it was probably discussed first at the 3rd pan-galactic BOINC workshop and on the private forum www.boincteams.com. It was not even announced that some change is gonna come anywhere here in a place to look for information, like news, the mail lists or this forum.

The intention was to do something for "the teams", but as there is no natural place for "the teams" to meet, for such severe changes a maximum number of teams should have been involved, and quite a lot should have been done by those who wanted this changes to include as much teams (and their "leaders") in this discussion as possible. They, who wanted this changes had to be pro-active imho.

The teams were included in this feature without being asked first whether they wanted to participate or not, the profiles had simply been copied and pasted from one specific project (Seti, why not Einstein or CPDN?) without permission from the team admins.

It was implemented without any notice as well, all of a sudden teams were created automatically in the new project NQueens, most affected teams had never heard of this feature, with at least two teams the "founder" was someone not really in this position any longer. The affected teams were not quite amused by this of course and reacted perhaps a bit harsh, but we had enough reasons to be angry imho.

The feature was announced first 2 weeks after implementation, it was discussed in an unknown place at Google, trac tickets were not answered properly, questions here were not answered as well.

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Gruesse vom Saenger

For questions about Boinc look in the BOINC-Wiki

The teams were included in this feature without being asked first whether they wanted to participate or not, the profiles had simply been copied and pasted from one specific project (Seti, why not Einstein or CPDN?) without permission from the team admins.

This is the real problem, IMO. This would have gone much better, if they had

1) Announced the plan for this new functionality in advance, which would then

2) Allow each team to set up their BOINC-wide teams properly, or not at all, depending on each team's decision.

The copying of SETI teams, and implementation without any kind of notification is causing all kinds of garbage team info to get replicated all over the place. And best case, it will take 2 months to stop the replication, and up to another two months to correct all the replicated garbage at all the new projects.

---

Reno, NV
Team: SETI.USA

From Google, posted by Mr. Anderson:

The Google group is better publicized now.

For a low-traffic or sporadic group
(which boinc-team-founders has been)
I think an email list is better than a message board.

Let's return to the original issue: how to empower BOINC teams,
and make them into a more effective recruitment/retention/publicity
mechanism for volunteer computing.

We've added some new features recently.
I'm currently working on extending the BOINC message-board system
so that each team can have its own forum on the project's site.
Any other ideas/suggestions?

-- DPA

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Gruesse vom Saenger

For questions about Boinc look in the BOINC-Wiki

There are thousands and thousands of teams, some with only one or two members. Will boinc be creating, or enabling the creation of, thousands and thousands of forums for all these teams?

In principle the offer of forums on BoincWebSpace for teams without one looks attractive. But how would it work out in practice? What if a spammer/undesirable character creates a team and other undesirables, or the same undesirable in different guises, join it? Would this undesirable group be provided with a forum on which to post rubbish? Presumably the Uni of Cal in Berkeley as owner of the boinc website would then be responsible for the rubbish? Whose job would it be to check for rubbish? Would teams with obscene names get their very own obscenely-named forum hosted by boinc?

I must say I'm very confused about the whole boinc-wide teams issue which is being discussed in different places that I haven't got time to visit.

We've added some new features recently.
I'm currently working on extending the BOINC message-board system
so that each team can have its own forum on the project's site.

This sounds more like each team can have it's own forum on every project.
Lots more mod opportunities.


I find it very curious that the BOINC devs refuse to use their own forum product. A bit like Microsoft devs refusing to use Windows (although that is more understandable).

Why can't they have their bug, feature and upgrade discussions right here? Why the need for the mail lists or Goofle Gropes?

There are thousands and thousands of teams, some with only one or two members. Will boinc be creating, or enabling the creation of, thousands and thousands of forums for all these teams? ...

I guess they will just exist out of nowhere ;-)

Multiply the TeamID with -1 and you'll have a really nice unique ForumID.

As all forum posts end up in the same table anyway, the plain possibility for the existance will not increase the database overhead.

If they are used a lot, the database space might be the limiting factor, same for the database incremental logs (if MySQL has such a thing).


@Pooter : As long as posting and reading of a team forum is restricted to team members, there will not be a problem with responsibility and moderation. The team founder (and his helpers as soon as that's implemented) could be moderators.

Same for teams names. If everyone can see just his own team's forum (in addition to the project given fora), there will never be a problem.

As long as posting and reading of a team forum is restricted to team members, there will not be a problem with responsibility and moderation. The team founder (and his helpers as soon as that's implemented) could be moderators.

Same for teams names. Then, if everyone can see just his own team's forum (in addition to the project given fora), there will never be a problem.

All what mo.v said can happen. If anyone will be then free to join (as it is now) e.g. CPDN's team Rubbish@home and subsequently as a team member to visit their private forum, AND the creators of this forum will actually have no need to moderate it, because the contents fully reflects their will, AND if mo.v and the other mods will never notice what's going on inside (because they do not regularly check the few thousands private forums and noone else incidentally looks in), can the CPDN admins simply say "it does not matter, it is out of our responsibility"?

Peter

Sorry for the overlong sentence.

... can the CPDN admins simply say "it does not matter, it is out of our responsibility"? ...

Imo. they can.

The team is a closed group. If someone joins such a group, he does this on his own free will.

Search engines and "innocent" users will never be bothered by the things happening in that team's forum.

I'm not a lawyer though, it is only my understanding of those things.


p.s.: Do moderators or admins really read all forum threads - like "the last one to post here wins"? I haven't looked into any of those bloated threads for a long time and my guess would be that most moderators ignore them as well.

On the 5 climate forums (which are not the most heavily-used forums in BoincWorld) everything is read, usually by more than one mod.

If Google and the other search engines can see a forum, the owners of the website it's hosted on are as far as I know responsible for all its content.

Even if team forums were totally hidden from the view of everyone except team members, I can't imagine that all project admins would be happy about hosting essentially unmoderated content. If a team member complained to a project moderator or admin about hidden content, the project admins would be obliged to investigate. I'm not sure that all project admins would feel they have time for this sort of potential problem.

Even if team forums were totally hidden from the view of everyone except team members, I can't imagine that all project admins would be happy about hosting essentially unmoderated content. If a team member complained to a project moderator or admin about hidden content, the project admins would be obliged to investigate. I'm not sure that all project admins would feel they have time for this sort of potential problem.

Exactly that was my point.

Peter

There are thousands and thousands of teams, some with only one or two members. Will boinc be creating, or enabling the creation of, thousands and thousands of forums for all these teams?

And it's done, ladies and gentleman. [trac]changeset:14218[/trac].

---

There are thousands and thousands of teams, some with only one or two members. Will boinc be creating, or enabling the creation of, thousands and thousands of forums for all these teams?

And it's done, ladies and gentleman. [trac]changeset:14218[/trac].

When will this madness end?

What an absolutely dumb feature, futile and will only bring new stress and flames to the fora.

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Gruesse vom Saenger

For questions about Boinc look in the BOINC-Wiki

And it's done, ladies and gentleman. [trac]changeset:14218[/trac].

When will this madness end?

What an absolutely dumb feature, futile and will only bring new stress and flames to the fora.

What I said on a previous post seems to fit perfectly here.

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And it's done, ladies and gentleman. [trac]changeset:14218[/trac].

When will this madness end?

What an absolutely dumb feature, futile and will only bring new stress and flames to the fora.

What I said on a previous post seems to fit perfectly here.

I have a question in regard of the proliferation of this "feature" (in the Billy Gates sense of this word):

Will projects, who like to keep their server up to date have an option to include this or will it be an inherent part of any newer BOINC server software?

As I a) don't run a project and b) am not even a software dev, I'd like to know how easy it will be for the projects to avoid this mess.

Edit:

And where's the best place to warn them about this?

Edit 2:

I've created my first team thread in my first team forum @ BOINC Alpha:
http://isaac.ssl.berkeley.edu/alpha/forum_forum.php?id=13

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Gruesse vom Saenger

For questions about Boinc look in the BOINC-Wiki

...
And it's done, ladies and gentleman. [trac]changeset:14218[/trac].

Ouch ! Anyone can view a team message board

In this case, the concerns of mo.v and Pepo are rectified of course.