Cool down, Eric. Its volunteerism...thou shall not expect anything in return. Just be happy that you made a difference, one that helped finish the project as quickly as it did.

Once the data are analyzed there will be findings to look at with the results of our contributions. It doesn't happen overnight.

In amongst, Thé Dashboard was off by about one week when the announcement of about 25 days remaining was made, a surprise [it was so close ;-].

@ Coleslaw and gb009761...I'm not yelling but I will state my points:

1)I should not have to come to forums/discussion groups all the time and sift through raw text postings to find updates. HCC should have been leveraging email every Quarter or so. I don't come to these forums a lot, because, well, there's really not much of a point for me...again, I shouldn't be the one checking up on the Project every few weeks. They should be pushing the News to me. Also, ever try reading this Forum on an iPhone?

2)Specifically, yes, there have been numerous threads about the end being near, yet no email notification. Thanks HCC.

3)The HCC Project has made no attempt to get me excited about the next project...I have no idea what it is/will be called, no idea when it will be available, no clue other than "at a later date" sometime will pop up. So I'm supposed to hang around and wait to be loyal to HCC's team while they take their time figuring out whatever they want to do. They can't even point me/us to other Projects to work on while they contemplate what's next. Again, thanks a lot, HCC.

4)When I received email alerts about HCC webinars (think I got 2 in the past few years), I attended. Nice to attend, but again, not for the laymen.



We're all here to help, and I feel like we're just being used like a rental truck. I don't think it's intentional...but at the end of the day, the feelings exist. HCC needs some basic Project Management...find a single person that will:

1)Give Quarterly Project updates (they relatively do this) or more often depending on goals and accomplishments.

2)Give the updates in laymen terms as well as mumbo jumbo

3)Utilize email alerts or other "push" technology rather than relying on me to sift through textual forums. I've been using forums since the BBS days of the early 80's...why am I doing so now in 2013?...or even 2002?

4)When the Project ends, let's have a thoroughly documented Project Results in both laymen terms and mumbo jumbo...what did it accomplish? what were the goals? how did the Project perform? where did it fail? where did it succeed? what's next? when? how can we retain our volunteers for the next round? are they going to email us every month or so to let us know how soon the next project is coming? etc.


Again...I'm really bummed the Project ended this way. My anger is from the love of this project. I'm not upset with the scientists or individual members of the HCC Project...I'm upset at how the Project communicates to its loyal volunteers. I've worked in the medical field for a non-profit...and their Projects always had a Project Manager whose duties were to give the timely, related updates I speak of. The PM was never a scientist.

Well, lets address what you are asking.

1)Give Quarterly Project updates (they relatively do this) or more often depending on goals and accomplishments.

Very few projects actually do this at any of the BOINC projects let alone here at WCG. So, this is a common problem. When I say problem I mean complaint by the volunteers. The scientists still get what they came for.

2)Give the updates in laymen terms as well as mumbo jumbo

So how dumbed down does it need to be to qualify as laymen terms? Very few really care how cancer is cured just as long as it is cured or at least better treated. Is this really worth wasting the scientists time when they should be working on the cure? I personally agree that it doesn't take that much time to post a little blurb, but others (especially in these forums) think more theoretical. And that theoretical 10 minutes spent blurbing (yes I made that up) might save a life.

3)Utilize email alerts or other "push" technology rather than relying on me to sift through textual forums. I've been using forums since the BBS days of the early 80's...why am I doing so now in 2013?...or even 2002?

This is a lot more simple to answer. Because most societies have become lazy and need it thrown in their lap doesn't mean that what worked in 2002 doesn't still do the job just fine. You want an email, that is sooooo 1996. I will take 2002 instead. You don't like sifting through many posts....you could have gotten the general idea just reading the thread titles. That was a pretty good indicator. I for one don't want spammed for every little change or update. I just want major issues like server down time or maybe an announcement like they found the cure for cancer. The forums do quite well at breaking the rest down. And, they already push some of the announcements within the newer BOINC manager news feeds.

4)When the Project ends, let's have a thoroughly documented Project Results in both laymen terms and mumbo jumbo...what did it accomplish? what were the goals? how did the Project perform? where did it fail? where did it succeed? what's next? when? how can we retain our volunteers for the next round? are they going to email us every month or so to let us know how soon the next project is coming? etc.

This one is not realistic at this time frame. Think about it. What did it accomplish? That could take decades to sort out and associate with this project. What was it trying to accomplish is already outlined in the project description. More details in the forums, but yes you would have to sift through way too much at this point to get all of it. Just look through the forums of finished projects to get an idea of how well details get reported back. You may never hear of the results. That just comes with the distributive computing environment. I agree that it would be nice to hear more details. Unfortunately that is one of the shortcomings you have to expect in the DC world.

I don't really understand all the "mumbo jumbo" either, but what I can do is (if I am really interested) is do some research - Wikipedia is pretty good - or go find someone who does understand what is being disseminated and ask them to explain it to me. I understand way more about this stuff now than when I started. Cancer research is a complex issue.
Cheers