What happened to the cash prizes? I was under the assumption that there would be a cash prize for the last prize draw but it just turned out to be a pc. If you don't want people to think that there will be a cash jackpot, I suggest you remove the "currently $?????!" from below the progress meter
At the moment the website says we are 65% on the current prize cycle, once at 100% a prize is handed out. Is the project progress measured in real time days or CPU days? And would you be able to publish how many units in the cycle?
It's always difficult to give prizes and incentives, especially when they are for a worldwide audience. There will be a variance in the value in each region and a question as to whether it is appropriate to send non-cash prizes around the world.
There is also the question of the variation in the prizes - cash ranging from $1,000 to $10,000 - and I feel sorry for the winner who saw the prize grow by so much but we should also remember why we are participating.
I'd love to win $1,000 and would prefer $10,000 but would still participate for less or nothing. Maybe there should be a number of smaller prizes?
I agree with the smaller prizes. While I'm not in it purely for the money I now feel duped, when where we not told that cash was no longer a prize ? thought it all sounded too good to be true. I'm being a bit bitter just to show how many users will feel and how much damage this trickery can do the project, either way I will contribute to grid computing and am sadended that so few and very niche alternative projects are supported in CE. I have a limited interest in malaria (to be honest it's not in my back yard) and I'd rather have more general medical options before putting the rest of my power into astronomical stuff (although I'm a fan of this field). I think the structure of charity engine needs beefing up. It all looks a bit feeble to me and the website is not impressive. Ultimately charityengine is detracting from other grid projects on what now seems to be a false promise but it has such limited scope of the non commercial side, I used to run various projects but switched mostly to CE, now I learn that what was stated in the objectives is not entirely true.......... either way someone will benefir from my redundant cpu cycles.
We couldn't pay a cash prize last time because the grid hadn't made any money, simple as that. No intention to change the model (and indeed, cash prizes will return). This is still very much the early days, so please bear with us.
We're not changing our support of malaria research, though. It kills a million kids a year.
I understand, your still trying to sell the services. But it would be nice to see a larger spread of projects associated, you used to have rosetta I understand, this is a nice project like many others with a wider field of application. best thing is only give cash prices as a consequence of the grid being hired out, that way it makes sense and other projects still benefit in the mean time.
That's the plan! We've been a bit set back by relying on Facebook as our marketing tool. We figured 500k likes would translate to at least 10k-20k users (ie. enough to make it useful to customers and therefore viable), but nope. Turned out we could only contact 1%-2% of the page to announce we'd even gone live... :/
I will send out a newsletter to explain all this. You're probably not the only one wondering, as you point out.
Rosetta is a great project, we did include it but it had issues with hogging RAM on some PCs (opening multiple instances and causing noticeable slowdown), so we had to pause it until that's sorted. Our users are not as techie as regular BOINC users, and they don't tolerate/fix problems as much. Has to be invisible and unobtrusive as possible.
I'd suggest you "inspect" the users pc and set projects accordingly. Yes rosetta is a big one, 512MB are a must for the application so some project management needs building in for balance. I don't know what sort of pc the average user has but I got 8GB of ram on a quad core to make sure I have room for boinc and me.
I don't see any reference to the "pc prize" on the website, only the cash prizes. This leads to confusion. I can only see te "front page" if i log out again. Why dosen't someone make the website a bit more consistent. It's like there is a back end and front end but you can only see one or the other.
We have had to wait for US customs allowing the PC prize to get to the winner - he only received it today (and will shortly be listed with the other winners). I see what you mean about the login-logout thing to see the front page, we'll take a look at how we can improve that.
What happened to the cash prizes? I was under the assumption that there would be a cash prize for the last prize draw but it just turned out to be a pc. If you don't want people to think that there will be a cash jackpot, I suggest you remove the "currently $?????!" from below the progress meter
Hi Jason,
We subsidised the first cash prizes / donations to show CE is genuine, but couldn't keep doing that indefinitely. Cash prizes will return, though...!
You're right about the message, we'll remove the dollar sign.
At the moment the website says we are 65% on the current prize cycle, once at 100% a prize is handed out. Is the project progress measured in real time days or CPU days? And would you be able to publish how many units in the cycle?
Thanks in advance
Zac
It's always difficult to give prizes and incentives, especially when they are for a worldwide audience. There will be a variance in the value in each region and a question as to whether it is appropriate to send non-cash prizes around the world.
There is also the question of the variation in the prizes - cash ranging from $1,000 to $10,000 - and I feel sorry for the winner who saw the prize grow by so much but we should also remember why we are participating.
I'd love to win $1,000 and would prefer $10,000 but would still participate for less or nothing. Maybe there should be a number of smaller prizes?
Rob
I agree with the smaller prizes. While I'm not in it purely for the money I now feel duped, when where we not told that cash was no longer a prize ? thought it all sounded too good to be true. I'm being a bit bitter just to show how many users will feel and how much damage this trickery can do the project, either way I will contribute to grid computing and am sadended that so few and very niche alternative projects are supported in CE. I have a limited interest in malaria (to be honest it's not in my back yard) and I'd rather have more general medical options before putting the rest of my power into astronomical stuff (although I'm a fan of this field). I think the structure of charity engine needs beefing up. It all looks a bit feeble to me and the website is not impressive. Ultimately charityengine is detracting from other grid projects on what now seems to be a false promise but it has such limited scope of the non commercial side, I used to run various projects but switched mostly to CE, now I learn that what was stated in the objectives is not entirely true.......... either way someone will benefir from my redundant cpu cycles.
Hi Simon,
We couldn't pay a cash prize last time because the grid hadn't made any money, simple as that. No intention to change the model (and indeed, cash prizes will return). This is still very much the early days, so please bear with us.
We're not changing our support of malaria research, though. It kills a million kids a year.
I understand, your still trying to sell the services. But it would be nice to see a larger spread of projects associated, you used to have rosetta I understand, this is a nice project like many others with a wider field of application. best thing is only give cash prices as a consequence of the grid being hired out, that way it makes sense and other projects still benefit in the mean time.
That's the plan! We've been a bit set back by relying on Facebook as our marketing tool. We figured 500k likes would translate to at least 10k-20k users (ie. enough to make it useful to customers and therefore viable), but nope. Turned out we could only contact 1%-2% of the page to announce we'd even gone live... :/
I will send out a newsletter to explain all this. You're probably not the only one wondering, as you point out.
Rosetta is a great project, we did include it but it had issues with hogging RAM on some PCs (opening multiple instances and causing noticeable slowdown), so we had to pause it until that's sorted. Our users are not as techie as regular BOINC users, and they don't tolerate/fix problems as much. Has to be invisible and unobtrusive as possible.
I'd suggest you "inspect" the users pc and set projects accordingly. Yes rosetta is a big one, 512MB are a must for the application so some project management needs building in for balance. I don't know what sort of pc the average user has but I got 8GB of ram on a quad core to make sure I have room for boinc and me.
I don't see any reference to the "pc prize" on the website, only the cash prizes. This leads to confusion. I can only see te "front page" if i log out again. Why dosen't someone make the website a bit more consistent. It's like there is a back end and front end but you can only see one or the other.
We have had to wait for US customs allowing the PC prize to get to the winner - he only received it today (and will shortly be listed with the other winners). I see what you mean about the login-logout thing to see the front page, we'll take a look at how we can improve that.
So..., we have reached 100% :-) When will the price draw take place?
Just collating the List of Entries, which will be posted within 24 hours.
List stays up for two days to allow everyone to check their entries are all present and correct, then we do the draw.
Great, cheers!