I appreciate everyone's input (and your frustrations). I'd like to respond to your comments..

There are no sinister forces behind the scenes, or some lack of interest from IBM or the World Community Grid team in supporting this program. Put simply, having as many projects as we did last year slowed down our ability to work on many other things. Supporting as many as 12 research projects was a significant amount of work and meant we couldn't spend as much as time on onboarding new projects, for example.

Also, each research team comes to us with their own application to run on the Grid, which means different levels of effort in onboarding each project. For MCM, this was an application custom built by the research team specifically for this project. It had never run in a Grid environment and therefore presented us with a few challenges that we couldn't have anticipated and (I admit) made our estimates for launch somewhat inaccurate. While the effort to onboard MCM was significant, our priority is for the researchers to run the tools most suitable to *their* work, so they get the high quality data and results most valuable to them. i.e. we focus on what's the best tool to accomplish the research objectives, rather than what's the easiest tool for us to onboard.

As to the lack of beta work units - as stated in my previous post, we're in the very early stages of onboarding the next project. Beta testing happens towards the end of that process, so we're not there yet and we won't be for some time.

I do agree with the comments that we need to do more to engage our members and keep them participating. The purpose of the volunteer study was to get a representative picture of how we might accomplish this. The findings continue to help us prioritize our work. For example, this week's release of improvements to our communications capabilities is a direct result of what we heard from our members - that we need to step up our communications!

We also recognize that it'll take more than a single change to accomplish this. And we won't always get it right. But I completely reject the notion that we don't care or aren't trying.

jhindo
Thankyou for the post which is both helpful and informative. Suggestions of not caring or not trying whilst they maybe wrong and frustrating to you, and the team, arise because, as you acknowledge, we need to step up our communications!. All too often legitimate questions of interest to the wider community are met with a resounding silence. We know that new projects take an inordinate length of time to bring on board (though you'll probably have to keep reminding us). In the case of MCM when the promised "late summer" deadline passed without BETAs being released it wasn't the fact that you got the estimates wrong or that it was taking more time and effort than anticipated that caused upset, it was that you weren't talking to us and keeping us informed.

Two further examples of lack of information or communication:

In the last couple of days a member has posted requests for updates om the 3 projects cirrently suspended. Good for him, but WCG should be providing this information as a matter of course on a regular basis even if, as in the case of HfCC, it merely reiterates the project scientist's update of Sep 2013.

In June 2013 knreed replied to my query about Community Advisors
If action was over due 8 months ago it is more so now particularly in the ongoing absence of the inestimable SekeRob but once again SILENCE!

I commented following the News release earlier in the week
All the above concerns could be addressed by effective and timely use of this tool. Can we expect at least monthly reports?

[ecit] knreed highlights the recent web lectures with Q&A sessions following for completed projects. These were well received by the community. I'm sure a web lecture with Q&A to follow staged by the WCG tech team would be received with almost universal approval. Time and effort would be required to put it all together but I'm sure it would be a sound investment. Afterall time was found to fly to France and present a lecture to the BOINC workshop.

You started out by making some valid points, but that's now being lost in this vitriol. I'd like the WCG staff know that I am grateful for their efforts and for having these three wonderful projects to work on.

Ok I might not be the sharpest knife, with that said. Why do you need all this info? What good will come of it? I would bet, if they gave you that info (which I don'€™t think they need to), you would find something wrong with their response, for example if they said 3 new people were added to the project, you would comeback with why only 3 why not 4. And at the same time ask to see there resume. their back ground check, past work history and 10 more things, you and I don’t need access to. Again what is that going to gain the project.

Why not contact WCG and let them know you have a skill set they could use, and work it from that angle, I bet they would take you up on the offer.

What skill set do you have that could help WCG?

In closing WGC..... keep fighting the good fight.

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