I had an accidental meltdown with my main machine a few months ago so not posted for a while. now when i post i get the message not enough credit to post, yet my account show well over 1,000,000 credits , whats up?

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You need a Recent Average Credit of greater than 1 to be able to resume posting. That should happen as soon as a couple of tasks have been completed and verified.

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

Hi Rob,

So, let's see if I've got this right?...I stopped crunching SETI because it does not support the GPU's or multi-threading on either my iMac or MBP, and then you folks announce that OpenCL is now supported, so I go to post an inquiry and request about support on older (both Sandy Bridge) non-OpenCL computers on your News Page Announcement, and despite my years of crunching support for the project, I am now presented with a message which basically tells me that I've lost my board posting rights and privileges since I haven't crunched anything for you lately?

So, I, um, have two questions for you folks..."what is the definition of "lately"?"...allow SETI to crunch on my machine, load a boatload of units, allow only one (1) to process, then ditch/bounce the rest?,

and,

"does the SETI team honestly feel that this, um, new "no-posting-allowed policy" in anyway encourages further and/or return participation?"

Sounds like another classic case of "unintended consequences"...an attempt to "quell board spam" turns into "a silencing of non-active-user questions, opinions and feedback." Well, IMHO.

Signed, "Not feelin' the love in Putnam County", :)
Jimmy G

The Seti team is attempting to limit abuse by bots and other tards that flood forums with ads and other garbage. Limiting users with no RAC to the Q&A is one way to limit access to the main forums from nefarious individuals. It also encourages users of the forum to remain ever so slightly active so they can have the privilege to post on the main forums.

That's right it is a privilege to first post here and second to do the work and be allowed to chat about other topics on the other forum.

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

so I go to post an inquiry and request about support on older (both Sandy Bridge) non-OpenCL computers

The Intel GPUs in the Sandy Bridge style CPUs don't support OpenCL. Only the GPUs in Ivy Bridge and above do.

Intel HD2000 and HD3000 do not support OpenCL.
Intel HD2500, HD4000, HD4200, HD4400, HD4600, HD5000, Iris 5100 and Iris 5200 all do support OpenCL.

See this list for which CPUs have those GPUs.

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... and despite my years of crunching support for the project, I am now presented with a message which basically tells me that I've lost my board posting rights and privileges since I haven't crunched anything for you lately?

Correct. To cut down on the number of spambots auto-creating accounts and posting all over the forums like what happened around 2004, a minimum RAC (Recent Average Credit) of merely 1 was instituted to prevent this kind of abuse.

As you can see, the RAC requirement does not exist for the Q&A board so that people with questions can still post.

So, I, um, have two questions for you folks..."what is the definition of "lately"?"...allow SETI to crunch on my machine, load a boatload of units, allow only one (1) to process, then ditch/bounce the rest?,

The definition of lately is precisely a RAC of 1. You can do whatever you want to achieve that RAC if it helps. [b]Or[/], you can simply post your question here in Q&A without having to download any works.

"does the SETI team honestly feel that this, um, new "no-posting-allowed policy" in anyway encourages further and/or return participation?"

I honestly think you're making a bigger deal out of the issue than necessary. Again, people with less than a RAC of 1 can still post here, so they can still participate and ask questions. This policy was put in place to avoid abuses of the forums.

Sounds like another classic case of "unintended consequences"...an attempt to "quell board spam" turns into "a silencing of non-active-user questions, opinions and feedback." Well, IMHO.

On the contrary, no attempt has been made to silence any non-active user questions, opinions or feedback. All of that can be posted right here in Q&A. There is nothing preventing people from posting their questions, opinions or feedback in this sub-section of the forums.

Trying to spread some love back to Putnam county by showing the bright-side of the equation. :-)

Approximate calculation of RAC:

Today's credit + 1/2 of the credit 2 weeks ago + 1/4 of the credit 4 weeks ago + ...

The actual calculation is a bit different, but the calculation would only mean something to a mathematician.

So one task every couple of weeks would keep your RAC in shape enough to post.

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BOINC WIKI

Hi All,

I do appreciate all the responses to my post, thank you all. A few further comments, feedbacks and observations...

Discovering one's ability to post to this particular "SETI > Community > Message Boards > Questions and Answers > Website" sub-forum was a happenstance matter for me. Upon discovering my inability to post to the "News" page, it was only through frustration and persistence and, well, stubbornness that I finally found this particular thread (the one we are all currently participating in) where I finally, out of exasperation, decided to try (for the last time) hitting the "Post to thread" button, fully expecting to be met with, once again, a denial of service...which, to my surprise, led me here today speaking with you all.

Now, for those who think me too critical (or my comments too harsh) I can only offer up my early-internet-years Bulletin Board experiences (where I learned the art of, um, reporting bugs) in hopes that my commentary will be better understood. The shorthand of the day was that in the act of "exposing obvious holes" (in this case, um, forum critique) one was "exposing their obvious solutions". E.G. "dead-end link" meant "put a return to previous-page/home link"..."memory leak" meant "plug the memory leak"..."orphaned page" meant "provide link(s) to this page".

So, (to truncate my own verbosity), "user has no obvious way of knowing they can post to this side forum" should (I would think) be interpreted as "provide users with clear path for feedback". "Users have no easily locatable "Park Rules"" would mean "provide obvious link to forum rules and its caveats". "User only discovers rules changes and caveats in obscure board post" hopefully should mean "create obvious "Read Before Posting! Forum Rules and Caveats!(Last Updated...)" header post or header link."

Well, that's what I thought I was saying.


As an aside, while some of the rules are posted to the left of the user input dialog window (where I am currently typing), one would need to know that they could, in fact, post to the board before being able to read them! And, fwiw, those side-bar rules do not mention the "RAC of 1" caveat rule. Also, there are redundant "here" and "More info" links in that side-bar rules section to the "Moderation" page which, to my powers and abilities, appears to be an otherwise orphaned page from the broader forum. Aaand, as mentioned, does there exist and, if so, just where is, the "master forum rules and caveats" page located for this board which mentions all said rules and caveats?!

...I ask of you, please don't ask that I type out all the "should read as's" and/or "be interpreted as's" for these feedbacks!


In my experiences, constructive criticisms (read: critiques) should educe their own solutions. Well, that's how it used to be.

Anyhoo, thanks, again, for all the comments and replies. :) My apologies for any confusions caused by lack of clarity on my part.

Best to you all, :)
Jimmy G

So, (to truncate my own verbosity), "user has no obvious way of knowing they can post to this side forum" should (I would think) be interpreted as "provide users with clear path for feedback". "Users have no easily locatable "Park Rules"" would mean "provide obvious link to forum rules and its caveats". "User only discovers rules changes and caveats in obscure board post" hopefully should mean "create obvious "Read Before Posting! Forum Rules and Caveats!(Last Updated...)" header post or header link."

Well, that's what I thought I was saying.

So, what you're really trying to ask is "How would a user know that they need a RAC of 1 to post if it isn't made obvious before posting? And why isn't this fact made more prominent before you attempt to post?"

I can only answer with: "For the same reason why if another user has you on ignore and you attempt to send them a Private Message, you don't know you can't send it until after you hit the send button".

Realistically, it's because these "features" were added to the forums as an afterthought. The forums are custom-designed to integrate with a project's database so it can display stuff like number of posts, total credit and RAC. It wasn't until after the forums were put in place that they started getting abused by spambots. So the easiest band-aid fix was to institute a minimum RAC requirement to post. An alternative would have been to require email authentication before creating an account, something that isn't done right now.

So yes, to answer your initial observation, your scenario is an unintended consequence to the solution put in place to prevent abuses of the forums by spammers. As to why it isn't more prominent; I can only imagine that it had to do with a lack of time on the Project Administrator's behalf. How long does it really take to add a few lines to HTML or PHP? Not much, but that should go to show you how little time they have available. If there's a problem, quickly put out the fire and move on to the next one.