I think the greater underlying issue here, is that while the project does give us updates now and then, there are other basic things that would be nice to be able to see at a glance. I would strongly disagree however, that World Community Grid is the only project to keep people informed with what is going on with such detail, and honestly, after a couple weeks of looking at other projects and seeing how they operate (Einstein@Home, Rosetta@Home, Yoyo@Home, PrimeGrid, LHC@Home, etc), World Community Grid to me ranks dead last.

There is no reason that World Community Grid couldn't give us a view of how many workunits are in progress, how many are waiting, etc. Almost every other BOINC project besides World Community Grid does this. Other projects ARE able to provide statistics of how much work there is left to be done in a batch.

Of course, as all of the projects at World Community Grid are ongoing, there's always going to be new workunits generated and sent out for processing, so naturally progress is going to be fluid. The fact is though, the old progress bars gave us something, some indicator of progress, and now we really don't have anything. And lets be honest, even the past progress bars weren't great, but they were better than what we have now.

The main reason a bunch of us are upset is because we truly care about the work being done here, we believe that at the end of the day the work we're doing will lead to future discoveries that will accelerate science. But I'm not the only one whose noticed, that over time, there seems to be less and less communication.

Don't get me wrong, the monthly call with the researchers for each project is nice to have, and I appreciate it, but it's also often vague and just itching for more detail. Even the beta testing, where it was once stated by an admin that "they couldn't confirm or deny that it was a climate project". Why the secrecy, why not just say "hey, we're running some beta workunits for one of the upcoming climate projects". It's not like it's a big mystery, later on in the post the admin talks details about what the test is looking for, and just peaking at the work files and result data tells you clearly that it's a climate project.

I say what I said with all the respect as well.

One thing you notice looking over the comments of some of the people who say the new system is ok, very few of them have 10 year or even 5 year badges. Not that that is bad in itself - every contribution is a step closer to solving WCG problems - but it does indicate they probably haven't been bitten by badge fever nor ever been hooked on progress bar watching, which was such a great allocation planning tool. Maybe they only have a single device, or devices that do not crunch 24/7 like some of ours do. And maybe they dont have clusters of dedicated Linux, Windows and Android devices churning away like some of us do. Maybe thats why they just dont understand us and why we are upset. I myself have set up a charging system on my motorbike so I can continue to crunch on my Android tablets while I am riding around South America. Checking the progress bars was a daily ritual! A weird one, maybe, but an obsession that many of us share. We are a strange breed! But collectively, we do good and add a lot to the total.
BTW I would not class myself as a died-in-the-wool, win-at-all-costs badge hunter. All of my 30 years' crunching has been done on laptops, phones and tablets, never crunched via desktop. I originally joined in 2008 because I heard about the old Help Conquer Cancer WCG project. Because I have lost many friends and relatives to cancer, including my own mother when she was only 45, most of my allocation is to cancer-related projects. I think I will continue to contribute to anti-cancer distributed computing projects for the rest of my life, in memory of my late mother, progress bars or no progress bars. BUT... that does not mean I should remain silent while this worthy project shoots itself in the foot by killing motivation. And I must say Im finding it hard now to fight off a certain amount of apathy, where before it was enthusiasm, now that the progress bars are so primitive.
Less than a week ago (16 June 19) I wrote in this same thread that there were 44,000 active WCG users according to the official BOINCstats website . Well, actually 44k wasn't the exact figure, I cant remember, but it was something like 44,600 or roundabouts.
Today (20 June 19)it says 43,819 .
So WCG active user numbers are dropping.
Several hundred gone in just 4 days.
Maybe it is a just a blip. I hope it is!
Churn is normal. But we need to put a brake on it.
WCG needs to INCREASE participation rates and retention rates simultaneously.
For me and so many others here (but not all, obviously) watching the old progress bars was a great motivational tool.
Badges and guesstimate progress bars might be seen as gimmicks to scientists and statisticians, but to the masses - we volunteers who do most of the work - it gives us motivation.
Like someone else said, the most popular video games have badges and rankings and so forth to keep people hooked. Competitiveness and accepting personal challenges (like... "I wonder if I can earn 5 year badge in the remaining time?") is a basic human characteristic, one that was served well by the old progress bars.
It may not be in any statistics rule book, but "popular appeal" and "fun factor" are driving attendance and participation rates in the real world. Its one reason actors and sports stars earn more than scientists, and why mobile device games have billions of active users while WCG has only 43,819... and dropping.
I hope WCG are not having a "let them eat cake" moment.
Again, I would like to say I wish no disrespect to the people behind the scenes. We know they are working hard and are stressed out with all sorts of tech problems. I would even go so far as to say, maybe they had no option other than to drop the old progress bars because they are so shorthanded with all these new projects and other problems.
But I would keep an eye on the number of active WCG users over the next few months, and if they continue to fall, then obviously something is wrong, and the first thing I would look at is re-introducing better progress bars, which would entice both new and former members back into the fold.

Some projects have experiment progress tracking like mumak posts on at times for I think FAHB. Think this should be mandatory for all projects owners, not WCG who's the middle man. There's no excuse they don't for getting the data processing all for free. WCG on their part could collate this with a 'warning', links to the project progress pages.

As promised before, from tomorrow 1st of Jul I'm signing of. Decided to sign of from this forum, as whatever we post here or any idea that we put - comes to desert soil.

So this posting here is just waste of time, as WCG admins & techs are not listening (or doesn't want to hear, which is pretty much the same thing).

As for how much more I'll be running WCG?
That has not been decided yet. But will decide that in the near future, probably something will open my eyes & et me interested in till the end of the summer.

If anyone needs me, they can get to me directly on:
- facebook: https://www.facebook.com/luka.marinovic
- instagram: https://www.instagram.com/klikzg/
or
- STEAM: https://steamcommunity.com/id/KLiKzg/

Farewell & godspeed.

Sorry to see you guys go, I as well have stopped crunching for the last couple of weeks, but I'll stay on the forums to check everyday to see if IBM changes their stride.

For now, I'll be jumping around projects, TN-Grid has my focus right now.

Edit (July 14th, 2018): After watching the BOINC Workshop and jhindo's talk about how World Community Grid functions, I understand a bit more now about how things work internally, and how it's hard for IBM to calculate the work being done.

That being said, I still think researchers should put up pages like FightAids@Home does, showing batch status and other things of that nature.

Regardless, I have put all my machines back onto World Community Grid.