How about the admins create a sticky post in the New Members Forum with some of their accumulated knowledge that would help explain a few of the intricacies of the WCG.

We must keep in mind that as the number of members increases we reach deeper into the population of non-computer literate users, but who are still anxious to help the worthy cause. My wife would probably not use a computer except it is required for her work, and so continues to harp that the computer should be as easy to use as a toaster. :)

Anyway, the sticky should contain info concerning the 3 week clock limit and 2 week CPU limit per WU. I think this is important for newbies to understand because many may come onboard thinking any 5 minute interval they can contribute per day (week? month?) is useful. When in reality they are only wasting their time, and the WCG's time, unless they can contribute an hour or more a day. Nothing in my 82 year old dad's life has led him to have an inherent understanding of the WCG project's need to complete a "work unit". Ideally this would be on the WCG's home web page itself, but I don't see that happening, regretfully.

It should explain how the WU's are assigned and reassigned.

It should explain the clients commit technique that allows the client to easily restart where it left off.

It should also explain how to cancel a WU.

It should explain how often the client communicates to the grid server.

An explanation for how a WU's percent completion can seemingly speed up or slow down.

Maybe a quick glossary for terms and abbreviations used (ie WU=work unit).

Maybe a few links to important threads about point calculations, etc.

An answer to what the different color envelops (orange/blue) in the forums mean. I don't know that myself ... what do they mean?

Plus whatever else they see as helping reduce the forums duplicate questions.

Finally ... have I overlooked the fact there is already a sticky post like what I'm suggesting? If so ... it would only prove my point that newbies would have a hard time finding answers.

John