Hi Freestman,
computer merging is simply not possible since each computer receive a world wide unique system-ID within the boinc environment and the complete reporting of the host activities and contribution.
This unique system-ID is a "design principle" of the boinc environment.
Cheers,
Yves

Actually, being able to merge or delete hosts from the database is a standard "design principle" of the boinc environment, as implemented (with varying rules) at every single BOINC project but this one.

WCG uses a custom front-end, and they have not made much effort to implement that feature. Many have asked over the years, no progress has been made. I'm not holding my breath that they will do anything about it, though I am one of the many who would like to see that feature implemented.

'Merge' anywhere in BOINC is as we know, intended to have a newly installed client amalgamate with the previous contribution at a project for the SAME device (Hardware and OS). Whilst there's no function at WCG to push buttons to have 2 clients on the same host add into one, with a little preparation, any BOINC data dir backup, fresh or stale, the new install can be easily made to pick up where it left off under the previous, bar that any tasks that come with the backup will be aborted on first connect.

That said, the experts have succeeded to even port a client to a different device (idling the old hardware for instance), even a different OS, in a far removed from user friendly fashion. Other than some automated function that allows WCG to 'recognize' a new client as a continuation of an old client, rather feeble, once it's done it's done, no reversing at the project side. Of course with a backup, there's always the possibility to try an revive the old ID again and let the idle/redundant/lowest contributing IDs sink out of active view, which they do after about 1 - 2 weeks.

I've always been curious as to why WCG seems to want to distance themselves from other BOINC projects: different implementations, different front ends, etc. Seems like you would want to have your site (at least the volunteer portions where we can update our computing preferences and manage our hosts) be the same as other BOINC projects to make it easier to recruit from the other projects.

WCG say the need more volunteers, yet they don't make an effort to fully utilize the current BOINC volunteers.

Would love to see the ability to manage hosts similar to other projects--I wipe android devices when they come out of active use and go into 24/7 computing. Sometimes BOINC recognizes the new install and auto-merges, sometimes it doesn't. At all other projects, this isn't a problem because they allow the merging of hosts...but not here.

Thanks everyone for your comments.

When World Community Grid was launched, it ran on a different distributed computing platform, not BOINC. If we were to launch the program today, yes, we would likely adopt the standard BOINC website, rather than build our own. But while we do try to align as much as possible with the BOINC platform, there are situations where we have to diverge. For example, with each client release, we conduct a thorough security review and address any feedback from the IBM security consultants (a process which can take several months), before releasing a new version of the client. We also develop custom features that are more applicable to World Community Grid and not necessarily relevant to other BOINC projects.

I also want to point out that World Community Grid plays an active role in the BOINC community and we've been doing so even more vigorously in the last year. We've worked aggressively with other BOINC stakeholders to encourage developer (and other types of supporter) contributions to BOINC, review and revise the community governance structure, define and put in place a clear contribution process, etc.

And for last several weeks, one of the main priorities of the World Community Grid technical team has been to upgrade both the BOINC server and client code. This includes determining which of our custom features might be beneficial to other BOINC projects and therefore need to be contributed back to the community.

So while we are a small team and have a never-ending backlog of items to work on, we acknowledge the importance of BOINC and the BOINC community to World Community Grid and our sustainability as a program.