if u want more points, then u can just use MCM or CEP2...that way u get more points per h of crunching!

if u want to participate only in MCM or CEP2 or FAIDS,,u can do that! the choice is ur's...as r ur motivations to stick around or go somewhere else...

but my voice & voice equals the same...no mater what salary you make in the World...or the data u crunches! Democracy!


so NO...I'm against ur idea of some people getting more points per sticking around...that brings us to be unequal! and that will make segregated society on WCG...

Strange.....you get Badges for sticking around and crunching longer, I cannot seem to remember that you were against that! They are unequal too, a Blue is much better than a Bronze!

Whilst many of the previous posts have picked holes in Scribe's OP suggestion (as I will later) no one has taken issue with his assertion in the thread title that Retention of 'Long-Term' Crunchers is a problem!

The top 5,000 ranked members have contributed 48.2% of WCG's total RunTime of 962,970 years. But 700 of the 5,000 have been InActive for the last 11 months with a further 330 InActive for at least the last 4 months. In summary 7.8% of WCG's total output has been contributed by 1,030 members who have now been InActive for at least the last 4 months.

Since inception SNURK has generated 1,066 Globe sigs but 181 have been retired for InActivity >365 days and a further 237 have been InActive for 30+days.

These two illustrations IMO support Scribe's contention that there is a problem with retention!

Last year's Member Survey (the first and only) was a valuable attempt to understand member attitudes, why and how they crunch etc etc. but it was only a snapshot. It should be repeated NOW and regularly in the future.

Members, particularly at the high end detailed above, should be targeted in an attempt to undrstand why they have ceased crunching and what, if anything can be done to bring them back.

A significant development since last year has been the appearance of Ripple Labs, and more recently Research Support Coin, and the opportinity should be taken to explore issues in this respect.

The previous Survey was by no means perfect and a new survey should be framed taking account of both last year's responses and critcisms that have emerged subsequently e.g. no questions about forum use or forum software.

A new Survey would also enable WCG to assess how well the changes made in response to last year's data, in particular Communications Policy, have been received. Another 9 years should not pass before consulting again with the members.

Jonnie, it's refreshing to see your and Scribe's concern for this issue and it is especially useful to have the starkness of what can only be called a crisis in long term retention be laid out so clearly in the statistics.

However you should be under no misapprehensions about the genesis of the survey that was conducted last year. There was a change in management of WCG at IBM last year if memory serves and I believe that was the only reason for the survey. IOW, the staff was FORCED to do it. I seriously doubt it was something they would ever opt to do on their own and certainly they would never have undertaken the various site upgrades on their own.

The fact that the community here was never consulted in terms of composing the element of the survey makes it clear that this was completely an internal matter to WCG and IBM and if this is ever done again in the future, it will be the same thing.

WCG is a drain on IBM resources and even though it is a negligible drain, the fact of the matter is that IBM is not the earnings powerhouse that they used to be. Their earnings have been stagnant for the past six years. They have boosted their earnings per share by borrowing money at historically low interest rates and doing stock buy backs and the market has been catching on to this which partly explains some of the recent volatility in their price.

So IBM is not looking to spend more money on WCG and as long as that is the case, what you can expect from WCG is a whole lot of nothing.

They've also boosted their earnings, by shedding loads of staff and, on top of that, attempting to cheat people out of their rightfully earned pension (a fact that was borne out by the UK staff taking IBM to court - AND WINNING!!!!).