I know some of these have been covered before (in a post from 6 months ago), but in summary (coming from the perspective of a WCG contributor), here's what I'd like to see added:
- leaderboard
- teams
- daily/weekly/yearly stats
- badges
- more financial accountability (how much has been donated to each charity, maybe as a graph over time)
- the ability to change the work share so that you can prioritise your favourite tasks. Maybe with the "paying tasks" having a minimum work share of, say, 50%
Couldn't agree more. The only thing holding us back from incorporating all these things right now is manpower/cashflow. We're still very much in 'startup' mode and burning through our own funding.
The leaderboard and teams - we'll show it in terms of money, not points, so everyone can see exactly what they've raised for the charities.
Yes re. accountability, that's hugely important. As it happens, we just filed our 2011-2012 accounts. I'll publish the summary on site.
Yes, the most important thing is definitely to stay solvent!
I have been contributing to WCG for 4 years (and will continue to have at least one of my machines crunching Clean Energy Project units for at least the next year, until I get my sapphire badge), but it has always been a nagging concern that the research assisted by WCG will probably end up being exploited by some big corporate. In other words, I may well be doing good for mankind as a whole, but I am also helping to finance universities and potentially exploitative commercial organisations. So the idea of Charity Engine, which directly funds charities, gives some additional incentives to the contributors, and uses spare cycles to run worthwhile background projects really appeals to me.
You've hit on one of the key points - the reason we donate any surplus computing to existing volunteer projects (and a minimum amount too, if the grid is fully booked) is because we don't want CE to cannibalize them, but rather to help them.
Same reason we haven't really reached out to the BOINC community for volunteers - their PCs are already doing some good. We want to motivate the rest - the vast and silent majority of PC owners who, sadly, would never use BOINC just to support science projects.
And then we use the grid to support science projects anyway...!
With enough new users, the net effect will be positive. So far it has been; 81% of our users are indeed BOINC newbies (that will rise) and we've donated nearly all the computing to malaria, etc. anyway. Only just bringing paying customers online now.
Plus, because the CE model allows scientists to simply buy the donated computing, it means more BOINC projects. There's no longer that risk of not finding enough volunteers, which puts many researchers off.
With CE, any task is a worthwhile task and the volunteers are guaranteed.
>(how much has been donated to each charity, maybe as a graph over time)
not so much beacuse of accountability, but to motivate people to sign up. It's easier to get volunteers if they can see tangibly how their efforts translate into help for good causes, particularly if they're not clear on how the cpu cycles help!
you said that cash flow was a issue for some of this. I remember when you had the kick starter going and I put some money into this to help this project get going but unfortunately you didn't reach your goal.Instead why not setup a chip in on the website, so people can donate any time they feel like, with any amount they really feel like, there doesn't have to be a set goal just something like "help run charity engine" if you placed it on the homepage for both users and non-users you may be able to get some funding that way. its only idea just thought it might help.
We're kinda through the 'Valley of Death' now, having just gained a lot of corporate office PCs for the grid (ie. enough computing power to be commercially viable) and also some paying customers lined up to actually use it.
I'm sure I'm not the only one that would like to see a few more, but smaller prizes. Say if there's $1000 up for grabs, then split it up and give out one $500, several $100 and a bunch of $10 prizes.
Not sure about a $10 prize - make then too small and the admin costs of sending them out across the world go up (and if you don't have a $ bank account, currency commissions eat a fair proportion of your $10 prize), and $10 will barely buy you a coffee in some places - but I'd certainly rather see $1000 prizes more often than larger ones. It's an amount which is large enough to do something really memorable with.
Good points, I'm just brainstorming since only having one prize available makes me sad.
Maybe if offering several different prizes/amounts, let each user allocate their points towards the one they want (with a default selection of the largest prize).
The prize fund is a great incentive but, for me, most of the OPs suggestions wouldn't make much difference. Looking at them individually: - leaderboard. Apart from hoping my name comes up in the prize draw I'm not in it to 'win' any sort of race or competition. I leave my PCs running and they clock up whatever they clock up. I tune them as well as I can to work well for me when I'm using them. - teams. Everyone is already working as one big team. We, genuinely, are all in this together! Suits me. - daily/weekly/yearly stats. Perhaps interesting to compare year-on-year but probably something I wouldn't bother doing. I just start up the PC on a morning and leave it running when I'm not using it. I rarely give CE a second thought. It just does what it does. - badges. Shades of Muttley muttering "medal, medal, medal" in 'Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines', or some new salesman being awarded his first corporate Biro. - more financial accountability (how much has been donated to each charity, maybe as a graph over time). This is absolutely essential. Accountability, in a charity, is extremely important. Beware, though, the Law of Unintended Consequences. Everyone has their own point of view about what constitutes a 'worthy' or 'unworthy' project. Being seen to give more to a project perceived to be 'unworthy' may drive CE contributors away. - the ability to change the work share so that you can prioritise your favourite tasks. Maybe with the "paying tasks" having a minimum work share of, say, 50%. This is, possibly, necessary to mitigate the risk of losing contributors who perceive some project as 'unworthy'. However, it could also cause too much loss of control for projects which have a deadline. I'm guessing, of course, as I don't have access to the internal workings of CE, but I imagine that significant project tuning goes on to ensure that they progress at a reasonable rate depending on deadlines and available hardware. In a much simplified example taking away up to, say, 50% of the computing power (in the worst case) would extend the estimated time to finish a project by 100%. A scheduling nightmare! My preference would be to leave the scheduling to the CE managers and not interfere with it by making too many, too frequent adjustments to the hardware I'm contributing. I know that some tuning, by contributors, is already possible via preferences. In general, though, I prefer not to make adjustments at program or, by extension project, level unless something goes wrong. The suggestion which, I think, will be the most important - in terms of retaining current and attracting new contributors - is to keep the odds of winning a tangible prize realistic. Even if it's a small monetary value it'll put a smile on the winner's face and he'll tell his friends!
I know some of these have been covered before (in a post from 6 months ago), but in summary (coming from the perspective of a WCG contributor), here's what I'd like to see added:
- leaderboard
- teams
- daily/weekly/yearly stats
- badges
- more financial accountability (how much has been donated to each charity, maybe as a graph over time)
- the ability to change the work share so that you can prioritise your favourite tasks. Maybe with the "paying tasks" having a minimum work share of, say, 50%
What do others think?
Hi Dave,
Couldn't agree more. The only thing holding us back from incorporating all these things right now is manpower/cashflow. We're still very much in 'startup' mode and burning through our own funding.
The leaderboard and teams - we'll show it in terms of money, not points, so everyone can see exactly what they've raised for the charities.
Yes re. accountability, that's hugely important. As it happens, we just filed our 2011-2012 accounts. I'll publish the summary on site.
Cheers,
Mark
Yes, the most important thing is definitely to stay solvent!
I have been contributing to WCG for 4 years (and will continue to have at least one of my machines crunching Clean Energy Project units for at least the next year, until I get my sapphire badge), but it has always been a nagging concern that the research assisted by WCG will probably end up being exploited by some big corporate. In other words, I may well be doing good for mankind as a whole, but I am also helping to finance universities and potentially exploitative commercial organisations. So the idea of Charity Engine, which directly funds charities, gives some additional incentives to the contributors, and uses spare cycles to run worthwhile background projects really appeals to me.
You've hit on one of the key points - the reason we donate any surplus computing to existing volunteer projects (and a minimum amount too, if the grid is fully booked) is because we don't want CE to cannibalize them, but rather to help them.
Same reason we haven't really reached out to the BOINC community for volunteers - their PCs are already doing some good. We want to motivate the rest - the vast and silent majority of PC owners who, sadly, would never use BOINC just to support science projects.
And then we use the grid to support science projects anyway...!
With enough new users, the net effect will be positive. So far it has been; 81% of our users are indeed BOINC newbies (that will rise) and we've donated nearly all the computing to malaria, etc. anyway. Only just bringing paying customers online now.
Plus, because the CE model allows scientists to simply buy the donated computing, it means more BOINC projects. There's no longer that risk of not finding enough volunteers, which puts many researchers off.
With CE, any task is a worthwhile task and the volunteers are guaranteed.
Agreed on
>(how much has been donated to each charity, maybe as a graph over time)
not so much beacuse of accountability, but to motivate people to sign up. It's easier to get volunteers if they can see tangibly how their efforts translate into help for good causes, particularly if they're not clear on how the cpu cycles help!
you said that cash flow was a issue for some of this. I remember when you had the kick starter going and I put some money into this to help this project get going but unfortunately you didn't reach your goal.Instead why not setup a chip in on the website, so people can donate any time they feel like, with any amount they really feel like, there doesn't have to be a set goal just something like "help run charity engine" if you placed it on the homepage for both users and non-users you may be able to get some funding that way. its only idea just thought it might help.
Much appreciated Andrew, thank you.
We're kinda through the 'Valley of Death' now, having just gained a lot of corporate office PCs for the grid (ie. enough computing power to be commercially viable) and also some paying customers lined up to actually use it.
Looks like we'll be okay... :)
So does more crunchers mean less chance of winning? That is, will it mean shorter draw periods, or bigger prizes, or reduced odds etc etc?
The office PCs are not in the prize draws, they just get paid a flat rate.
(One PC can't earn enough to be of interest to home users - hence the prize draw - but organisations with hundreds of PCs prefer it like that.)
As membership grows then we'll make the prizes larger, the draws more frequent and start doing random giveaways too.
I'm sure I'm not the only one that would like to see a few more, but smaller prizes. Say if there's $1000 up for grabs, then split it up and give out one $500, several $100 and a bunch of $10 prizes.
Not sure about a $10 prize - make then too small and the admin costs of sending them out across the world go up (and if you don't have a $ bank account, currency commissions eat a fair proportion of your $10 prize), and $10 will barely buy you a coffee in some places - but I'd certainly rather see $1000 prizes more often than larger ones. It's an amount which is large enough to do something really memorable with.
Good points, I'm just brainstorming since only having one prize available makes me sad.
Maybe if offering several different prizes/amounts, let each user allocate their points towards the one they want (with a default selection of the largest prize).
The prize fund is a great incentive but, for me, most of the OPs suggestions wouldn't make much difference. Looking at them individually: - leaderboard. Apart from hoping my name comes up in the prize draw I'm not in it to 'win' any sort of race or competition. I leave my PCs running and they clock up whatever they clock up. I tune them as well as I can to work well for me when I'm using them. - teams. Everyone is already working as one big team. We, genuinely, are all in this together! Suits me. - daily/weekly/yearly stats. Perhaps interesting to compare year-on-year but probably something I wouldn't bother doing. I just start up the PC on a morning and leave it running when I'm not using it. I rarely give CE a second thought. It just does what it does. - badges. Shades of Muttley muttering "medal, medal, medal" in 'Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines', or some new salesman being awarded his first corporate Biro. - more financial accountability (how much has been donated to each charity, maybe as a graph over time). This is absolutely essential. Accountability, in a charity, is extremely important. Beware, though, the Law of Unintended Consequences. Everyone has their own point of view about what constitutes a 'worthy' or 'unworthy' project. Being seen to give more to a project perceived to be 'unworthy' may drive CE contributors away. - the ability to change the work share so that you can prioritise your favourite tasks. Maybe with the "paying tasks" having a minimum work share of, say, 50%. This is, possibly, necessary to mitigate the risk of losing contributors who perceive some project as 'unworthy'. However, it could also cause too much loss of control for projects which have a deadline. I'm guessing, of course, as I don't have access to the internal workings of CE, but I imagine that significant project tuning goes on to ensure that they progress at a reasonable rate depending on deadlines and available hardware. In a much simplified example taking away up to, say, 50% of the computing power (in the worst case) would extend the estimated time to finish a project by 100%. A scheduling nightmare! My preference would be to leave the scheduling to the CE managers and not interfere with it by making too many, too frequent adjustments to the hardware I'm contributing. I know that some tuning, by contributors, is already possible via preferences. In general, though, I prefer not to make adjustments at program or, by extension project, level unless something goes wrong. The suggestion which, I think, will be the most important - in terms of retaining current and attracting new contributors - is to keep the odds of winning a tangible prize realistic. Even if it's a small monetary value it'll put a smile on the winner's face and he'll tell his friends!
Ah. Apologies. I edited my post, to correct some poor grammar, and it removed all the paragraph breaks!
Suggestion: Fix the editor!
Sorry about that, Derek! That behavior should be correct, now.
If only it would go back and reformat your post after the fact...