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World Community Grid Forums
Category: Support
Forum: Website Support
Thread: Change to the Project Progress Bars |
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Thread Status: Active Total posts in this thread: 164
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cehunt
Senior Cruncher CANADA Joined: Oct 10, 2011 Post Count: 172 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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I would like to add my 2 cents to this debate.
Did management conduct a survey to see whether the proposed change would meet with a favourable reception among users? I have been donating CPU time since 2011 and I did not see any survey. The information that the research page now provides is akin to driving without a fuel gauge. You know you have gas in the tank but you are clueless as to how much there is left in the tank. There is an old saying, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." Please change it back to the % system. Clive |
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hchc
Veteran Cruncher USA Joined: Aug 15, 2006 Post Count: 798 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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cehunt said:
----------------------------------------There is an old saying, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." Please change it back to the % system. Clive It was broken, and it's weird how many folks aren't realizing that. The old percent calculation wasn't simply [work units done] / [known work units left to do] * 100%, it was a more complex calculation that took into account time such as rate of work done in the last 30 days or whatever. This explained why the percent output jumped up and down. Had nothing to do with new batches being loaded and everything to do with rate of speed. So yes, the old calculation was broken to the point of inaccuracy. I agree that the new bars do not give us any gauge for progress or where we are in the project or how much is left, hence the suggestion to include a simple % calculation based on work done / total known work with the understanding that as new batches come in from the research team that the denominator will increase and the percent output will decrease to reflect that. My beef with the old calculation was simply that it included rates/time to give a misleading result. We shouldn't be going back to what was broken, but we should -- time permitting -- bring back a more accurate and simpler % calculation. I'm totally content with waiting until the climate projects launch, and when that is off their plates, to come back to refine the Research page to add a basic percent. 
[Edit 2 times, last edit by hchc at May 16, 2019 6:09:53 AM] |
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[VENETO] boboviz
Senior Cruncher Joined: Aug 17, 2008 Post Count: 183 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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So yes, the old calculation was broken to the point of inaccuracy. Oh, well. I prefer inacurracy to nothing. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
The qualification 'Random' for anyone visiting that page was applicable. The 3rd step "Nearing Completion (project is within a few weeks of completion)" is pretty much wholly unacceptable. That particular one needs to be like 3 month ahead, with an anticipated date, for smaller crunchers especially, but equally the farmers can work with that to reach their next miles-stone.
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widdershins
Veteran Cruncher Scotland Joined: Apr 30, 2007 Post Count: 674 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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cehunt said: There is an old saying, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." Please change it back to the % system. Clive It was broken, and it's weird how many folks aren't realizing that. The old percent calculation wasn't simply [work units done] / [known work units left to do] * 100%, it was a more complex calculation that took into account time such as rate of work done in the last 30 days or whatever. This explained why the percent output jumped up and down. Had nothing to do with new batches being loaded and everything to do with rate of speed. So yes, the old calculation was broken to the point of inaccuracy. I agree that the new bars do not give us any gauge for progress or where we are in the project or how much is left, hence the suggestion to include a simple % calculation based on work done / total known work with the understanding that as new batches come in from the research team that the denominator will increase and the percent output will decrease to reflect that. My beef with the old calculation was simply that it included rates/time to give a misleading result. We shouldn't be going back to what was broken, but we should -- time permitting -- bring back a more accurate and simpler % calculation. I'm totally content with waiting until the climate projects launch, and when that is off their plates, to come back to refine the Research page to add a basic percent. I understood it was a bit broken, but it was still better than the on/off indicator that has replaced it. There is no difference in Just started and in progress it just means there are units available now. There is also no difference between ending soon and ended if there is only a week or two between them. We should be going back to the previous less inaccurate system immediately, not waiting on some resources to become available at some indeterminate point in the future (perhaps). Because a) There will always be something else that needs dev time to help make it worse and b) There is almost no chance of enough development resources being thrown at it to make it any better given the already alluded to technical issues with predicting 1 or more years in advance how much work a project will ultimately supply to WCG. |
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3rkko
Advanced Cruncher Finland Joined: Aug 2, 2008 Post Count: 105 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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I’ve been here for more than a decade, and I definitely preferred the old progress bars. Yes, they sometimes jumped up or down but at least they gave much more accurate info than this new invention! Many Projects have subsets of tests and they know how far within that set they have progressed. Sure you could go to each Projects pages and read more on what they are doing and how far they are, but if I got to choose, I’d go back to the old!
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hchc
Veteran Cruncher USA Joined: Aug 15, 2006 Post Count: 798 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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I'm seeing a false dichotomy being presented here; that is, to either:
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Why not a 3rd option: 3. Implement a system that more accurately and simply reflects progress based on work units/batches completed divided by total number of known work units/batches received thus far? At least the percent output will be 100% accurate based on current figures and doesn't extrapolate as far as projected time to project completion. (Estimated Completion Date can always be modeled by volunteers.)
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Mumak
Senior Cruncher Joined: Dec 7, 2012 Post Count: 477 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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Would it be possible to at least retain the estimated completion date in the API, i.e. here: https://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/api/project?shortName=zika ?
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Well, now it says it's open ended ;o)
What seems to have disappeared too from the detail research pages, but rare visiting makes memory hazy, is the achievements/events bar you could hover highlighting big steps like papers, milestones. |
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asdavid
Veteran Cruncher FRANCE Joined: Nov 18, 2004 Post Count: 521 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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I always believed the previous progress bars were great! At least they gave some sort of estimate if a project was likely to end in weeks, months or years. Of course you had to accept the fact that progress would sometimes stall, jump backward or forward, depending on new info from the researchers. I also believe there was too much complaining going on in these forums about the irregular behavior of the progress bars. So maybe we brought this change onto ourselves. The introduction of the previous progress bars was definitely a big step forward, now it feels like two steps back.  +1
Anne-Sophie
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