Predictor@home is censoring massively at their boards and is restricting the freedom of opinion of their registered users in an inappropriate manner.
After a discussion had started about the attitude of the project administration towards a big cheating issue in this thread that thread was closed immediately to avoid any different opinion.

After that any new discussion thread and any question concerning "censorship" were "answered" with the immediate deletion of the postings/threads. Even accounts were fully blocked for posting (in my case until the year 2038!!).
In between even account creation was disabled to prevent the "bad users" from posting further questions. After that didn't help meanwhile whole IP ranges are blocked from access to the complete Predictor homepage!

I think it is not acceptable that the freedom of opinion is restricted in that way and I want to ask the BOINC community members to form an opinion about this. Try for yourself and start asking about this all at the P@H message boards!



There's an ongoing discussion over at the BOINCstats forum, where also the beginning of this whole mess is to be found. See: Trojan boinc installation by rogue member
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Arrrrr! I'm a proud member o' the pirates' ship crew BOINC@Heidelberg

This David Braun isn't a scientist or anything. He isn't in the Molecular Biology faculty directory either. If you take a liberal read of his title he's basically in charge of their I/T dept. So he isn't gonna care about the "science" and loss of crunchers. Here he is!


"You are banned for life!"

But if people feel strongly enough about it they can take the issue to his boss.

"Thank you for pressing the self-destruct button..." -- Spaceballs
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Mo.v is the moderator at CPDN who initially posted information about the Wate issue. She has sent Mr. Braun an explanatory email which he's acknowledged. He says he'll be looking into the problem. I have taken the liberty to lock this thread posted by Cori, to give Mr. Braun plenty of time to check into this problem.

You may still discuss this topic on many other forums.
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Jord.

The BOINC FAQ Service.

I have taken the liberty to lock this thread posted by Cori, to give Mr. Braun plenty of time to check into this problem.

(Just don't say 'wench')

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This seems like the kind of thing which might lead to an interesting discussion, as long as it's a civilized exchange of ideas amongst pirates, not mere name calling. So I've unlocked the thread.

Thanks for leaving this one open Cap'n, as I have a question/concern that has been percolating for quite some time and which has become more pertinent having seen the issues at Predictor@Home. Put simply, there seems to be a very amibiguous status for participants in BOINC scientific projects, particularly those based at universities. Having a fair bit of experience with research using human participants, I could easily see users classified in a similar manner (particularly given the rather expanded research participant definitions now used by NSF and especially NIH, not to mention the considerably tighter definitions/restrictions regarding protected groups such as children). I could also see users being defined instead as volunteers (or more precisely as voluntary employees), which would accord them other protections outside the scope of research compliance offices.

In either case, it seems to me that far too little attention has been given to this issue by the developers of BOINC and by the admins of the various research projects (interestingly, the testing and educational goals of Pirates are exempt from the NIH research ethics issues, and I think for NSF as well?). This may be due to the background of many of the scientist involved who are in fields that rarely if ever deal with human participants (no offense intended to our friendly neighborhood physicists, mathematicians, computer scientists, etc.). Because of that, I worry that many projects may be unknowingly in violation of issues from their various grant funding agencies.

At the very least, I think that some definitive language should be made available at the BOINC website regarding the matter, if not also at various project websites. It seems clear from the actions and language of the project admin at Predictor (as well as statements made over the last year or so by the admin of SETI@Home) that some clarity on this matter is desparately needed in order to both establish the correct set of expected 'rights' among users as well as expected and acceptable behavior from project staff (e.g., if officially considered research participants, the 'banning' feature now implemented in the BOINC forum could be on shaky ground, etc.).

To me there does seem to be a trend with projects lately that do seem to miss the concept of what BOINC and really what the original Seti was based on, That which is simply to ask for the help/donations of users across the world to be willing to donate their cpu time in order to help them accomplish a goal that will either be of interest to the donator themselves (Such as Seti and the hopes of finding a signal), Or more lately by using the BOINC platform to help cure cancer and other diseases, To discovering Prime numbers and the likes.

But as it is becoming easier for schools, Or even individuals to start their own projects for various reasons (Some more personal than others), There also seems to be a more twisted view from some of these project adms who now think that it is the other way around, As if somehow they are doing the users a favor by allowing them to crunch for thier project. Thus comes this attitude that I have seen more and more of the individual users status to be not really appreciated as much as it once was.

I guess the saying "a victim of its own success" concerning BOINC comes to mind.

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5.10.21/Xp-Pro/6600gt/3800x2

... there seems to be a very amibiguous status for participants in BOINC scientific projects, particularly those based at universities. Having a fair bit of experience with research using human participants, I could easily see users classified in a similar manner...

As Ethics Panels Expand, No Research Field Is Exempt
February 28, 2007, Wednesday
By PATRICIA COHEN (NYT); National Desk
Late Edition - Final, Section A, Page 15, Column 1, 1436 words

DISPLAYING ABSTRACT - Ever since the gross mistreatment of poor black men in the Tuskegee Syphilis Study came to light three decades ago, the federal government has required ethics panels to protect people from being used as human lab rats in biomedical studies. Yet now, faculty and graduate students across the country ...

In either case, it seems to me that far too little attention has been given to this issue by the developers of BOINC and by the admins of the various research projects.

(interestingly, the testing and educational goals of Pirates are exempt from the NIH research ethics issues, and I think for NSF as well?).

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