It's much quicker, isn't it? I'm computing on both sides, but most here, to help a small team.

Very good post, thom217!

Distributed Computing is a public service web site that tries to keep track of ALL the distributed computer projects. Any time anyone feels dissatisfied with a project, all they have to do is go to http://www.distributedcomputing.info/projects.html to check out the alternatives. See who is doing what and then go to a project's bulletin board to find the latest news.

Speaking from my personal view point as a volunteer Community Admin, the whole idea of going onto another project's bulletin board and trying to recruit their most vocally dissatisfied members seems - - - - short-sighted. More professionally, it seems unethical. [So that settles it. ]

mycrofth

Edit: When I first posted this, I congratulated myself upon my mature restraint in not listing any names of those whom I hope will show fortitude and perseverance in the face of temporary, transient difficulties. But after re-reading my post, I have decided to make my general description more concise.

Interesting reply mycroth!!!!!!!

In the boinc world it is common practice to go on the forums of other projects and annonce the start of new projects or projects coming out of beta etc.

In fact back in 2001 the UD project was annoced on the seti forums and actually ran there own thread there awhile.

The worldcomunity grid was also annoced briefly by some fellow named moose on grid.org and invited people from grid.org to go there and check it out.
That is how I wound up here. But also crunched both grids untill I realized grid.org was wasting resources and just crunched here.

So that may be why people think its okay to go on forums and try to cannablize other grids etc.

I think I am going to use some 'buzz' words here as I fumble with an explanation. I have acquired a set of rules on what is fair conduct and what is unfair as I have moved from one situation to another. But I have seldom had to write them down explicitly. The buzz words are 'internalized' rules versus 'externalized' rules. I am going to try to translate feelings into sentences, and I am sure that I am not going to be very coherent.

The whole world is our playground. There is nothing at all wrong in telling a group of kids trying to get up a ball game that another group of kids are competing with each other on a gymn set over in another part of the playground. Any hard rule that you cannot mention other games to them is obviously wrong. If some kids then decide that they would like to change games, fine. But hanging around the ball players, heckling their every play, exclaiming that they must be dweebs because they aren't swinging on the gymn set and trying to make them unhappy at playing ball is equally wrong. It is a matter of taste and proportion. I don't know just how to draw a line. Every specific action that people have talked about and called 'recruiting' seems just fine to me. But I would not call the actions mentioned a 'recruiting campaign'. I think that such a campaign, waged against other projects, would inevitably grow to include many actions that I WOULD call unfair.

Well, I still have not managed to come up with any explicit rules. But I hope that I have managed to explain my feelings on the topic a bit more fully.

mycrofth

IMO - good move Azura