I was trying to empathize with you branjo but obviously I was not successful.

You have all managed to convince yourselves that there is a problem, but I would like to know what it is. Is the computing power (GFLOPs or whatever) going down? I have not looked, but doubt it.

The reduction in the number of participants has one obvious explanation: as machines get older, they are retired because they can't compete with the new machines, which now typically have 8 cores, and so you get a much larger contribution with fewer machines. As for the world economy, the GNP of the world today is considerably greater than it was 10 years ago, so that is a non-explanation. However, the shift to hand-held devices by the newly-affluent populations probably has a lot to do with the drop. Being able to tap into that will make a greater difference than moaning about the loss of old machines.

It would be nice to see more projects, but as long as the ones we have are doing worthwhile work, then just having more is not particularly relevant, except as insurance that the well will not run dry. But with all the work left on the ones we have, that will not happen anytime soon.

Aren't users considered inactive after their RAC drops to 0? If many Ripple members joined, completed a few tasks and then stopped contributing, their RAC would take a while to drop to 0, and thus, to be considered inactive.

According to BOINCstats, users are considered active if they have granted credit in the last month, so I guess it would take for a user that returned 1 task in the last 30 days to considered inactive, even though he hasn't been active in a while.

I don't think that's how it works. If you look in the heading of the 4th chart here , it says "have granted credit in the last month." While RAC is based on granted credit, the chart doesn't appear to be using RAC as the criterion.

As for what 'month' means, I assume that it's using trailing 30 day period, otherwise you wouldn't be getting daily changes in the number - but I suppose there might be other ways of looking at that aspect. But I don't see any other way to interpret the title of the chart.

Thanks for the observation, and at the risk of rebutting what you're saying, I think we both know it doesn't matter if people listen to me or not since nothing is likely to change.

This is why I left these forums years ago and didn't return until the previous cancer project. I would have been happy to stay away but I needed information about running that project and so had no choice but to keep up with things here. And that has been my primary motivation ever since.

I probably would have been happy to remain just another cog in the machine until this episode with Ripple Labs made me remember just how recalcitrant and intransigent WCG really is - doing absolutely nothing they haven't been forced to do in terms of trying to improve WCG or the user experience.

So I'm perfectly aware of how I'm coming across and that I'm alienating people, but since it really doesn't seem to matter one way or the other, I don't have any incentive to suppress my emotions and try to be more diplomatic.

I do realize that I have gone overboard at times and have already stated that I'm making an effort to tone things down - but not in an effort to get the staff or anyone else to listen, but simply as a common courtesy.

However I fully intend to express how I feel and point out the things I think are wrong. That is naturally going to make some here uncomfortable. As I've said before, I'm not going to try to conceal how passionate I am about seeing WCG grow or suppress how I feel about the attitude I perceive on the part of the staff. But passion engenders both strong views and strong words. The only thing I'm willing to do is try to be as civil as possible without trying to gloss over or white wash all of the things I see that are wrong here.