And you promptly found it.

See this thread for a partial discussion ... search on my name ...

One problem is that people read what I write fast and sadly usually miss the point ...

You say BOINC has come a long way? Well, I came back after 2 years ... and I see virtually no difference ... the only differences are those that might matter to a geek ... or add more bells and whistles ... but none that make the program attractive to, ahem, "real" people ...

It got wildly out of date because there was only one person updating it ... me ...

Everyone else, including people like you that should have been adding and updating material ... didn't ...

And so, now, no one has anything ...

And yes, I am sure that it is dated, only rare updates in two year ... but, you see ... here is one of those issues that is nagging at me ...

And, those were not rants, at least not in my opinion. YMMV I guess, and it was long because, well, if the problems with BOINC were simple, we would all be happy and all would be well with the world.

And so, tell me, what is so wildly out of date. The information on the project tab of the BOINC GUI? Aside from a couple status messages, I see no big differences in the GUI I used two years ago and this ...

And this is the point. We are a communnity, or we should be ... and as my health failed, I begged people to help me update that wiki ... everyone had an excuse ... an now, you have a new one ... so where to you send people? Or do you repeatedly answer the same question over and over?

and I don't think I need bother reading your other thread and trying to give you my thoughts, I already laid them out as clearly as I can in the thread I referenced and you have already dismissed them as a) Rant and b) Long winded.

Each project stands alone and pretends that what they do, or don't do, had no effect on any other project. Yet it is a rare participant indeed that only does one project. And if they are, or feel they are mistreated by a project, it is far more likely that they will abandon BOINC in its entirety rather than just one project.

Perhaps you are correct that I am only a long-winded malcontented so-and-so that can and should be ignored.

And all of those are minor additions to the Wiki... I don't know when You first became aware of the wiki, but, I don't recall it being locked for edits during very much of my tenure, I may have that wrong as memory is fallible. I do know that anyone from a project on during the period it was locked was ALWAYS given access and there was contact information and I always responded.

And, you missed the parts where I had explained that my failing health was one of the reasons I could not continue the lone ranger maintanace of the wiki ... and furthermore, unless UCB has added substantial material, ALL of the official site was cross-loaded and, in my opinion, made more useful and readable. For one thing, cross-indexing was improved. And when I proposed, since I DID have all the material in a Wiki, and that the UCB site was not at that time in Wiki format, that we make the swap, the answer was no ... what makes you think it would be yes this week? And if past is prologue, I will wager that I can find just as much out of date information on the "official" site...

As far as me doing the merge, I feel lucky that I can get out of bed most days. No, the days where the documentation lone ranger can ride to the rescue are long gone. And I can also see that you too did not read carefully what I wrote. The problems are not with BOINC the program so much as with BOINC the SYSTEM.

Changes to the internal scheduler that some requested in that other thread, I got news for you ... those changes were proposed, developed, tested and rejected at least three years ago ... maybe as long as 4 ... I know, I proposed some things very much like that back then ... and some of the oddities of the current scheduler, John did make fixes to some of them... I helped test them ... and, though I am not sure if he got all of those changes in or not ... I do know that there was GREAT resistance to making the changes. From a comment I saw elsewhere, it is not likely that needful changes will be made ...

BOINC the program and its oddities is the least of the issues. BOINC the SYSTEM of which you are a part is the problem. And though I used the term Project Manager, you fall into that category I was attempting to describe. The problems I refer to are systemic and the fact that you cannot see them, well, that is the problem.

I joined to the wrong account which is what started this whole thread ... with 1,100 dome CS I jumped up the [iurl=http://boincstats.com/search/all_projects.php?cpid=a6477942e70ed39f669d1ff2ede05be8]list[/url] over 13,000 people. Well, that tells *ME* one thing ... that the appalling loss rate of new participants continues. People try BOINC and then quit. The last time, I think 4 years ago that a stat guy ran the numbers the loss rate was above 50%.

And what you want me to tell you is that if you only change this one thing, add this one button, this one feature it will make it all better. If only it were that easy.

If every guy and girl that helps people spent just 30 minutes updating the Wiki, whichever one you choose, it would not take long to make a much improved product. Yes, I would pick the unofficial one because I think it is still more complete and comprehensive. Look up the description of one of the tabs on the UCB site, then look up the same tab in the Unoffical Wiki ... which is likely to be more helpful to the average user.

Yes RTFM is not popular, but, we found it helpful to tell people the answer, in many cases by providing them a link to the specific page like or this and if and when they found it unhelpful, well, we found out why and then changed the page.

But, when you helped that person on WCG, that answer only helped that one person ... by creating, adding to, and expanding common answers in a community resource you could be helping people in all BOINC projects ...

But, you see, that is not your problem, is it ... you only have to help WCG people ... so when a person on SAH has a problem ... well, let them figure it out ...

And this is the problem that I tried so desperately to explain in those posts you found non-specific and long-winded rants. When someone points a finger at you and says that you are the problem, it is easier to dismiss them rather than to correct yourself. When I was the author of the Wiki, and while I was doing daily updates, WHENEVER someone said that is had a problem, that it sucked, that this was wrong, or that was missing ... they were never considered by me to be ranting.

I left BOINC in part because of mistreatment by a project. Because there is no appeal. Tomorrow you could change my account as they did so I just "disappear" and the one thing that I get as a reward disappears as well ... and I could and can do nothing to change that ...

But you did not read what I posted in that other thread closely and carefully ... I say this because I have not yet had a private or public posting by another participant that takes or makes significant dispute with what I said. Yes I point the finger at the generic "you" but I do it without anger, with out rancour, without hate ... but as calmly and as precicely as I can say it. And the easy response is to shoot, or ignore, the messenger.

The problem is that the project all act as independent bastions, operating isolated and secure in the knowledge that nothing you are doing could possibly be of consequence to other projects. And that blindness, that insularity, that refusal to admit that each and every project owes a commitment to the community is the problem.

But of course, I am just a long-winded ranter ... safe to ignore ...

You see.. you did not read carefully those long-winded posts ...

It is no longer my Wiki ....

I gave it up because I could not do the work ...

See about, Rytis is at PrimeGrind and Christopher Matton was at CPDN ...

Rytis was the only person that was willing to take over the Wiki database I had built ...

And if the UCB wiki is what you are updating, I think you are going in the wrong direction ... but, that is just me ... To present that table of contents to a new user? I shudder to think ... but again, that is just me ...