If you were here for the last 'round of this Bigadv drama or even past ones with other hardware, the same reaction of "boycott" was there too.  I completely understand the frustration of wanting to "get PG's attention" when they do things like this.  But, unless you could organize a "sit in" on a massive scale across several teams, it would have no effect.  That has not been historically something that could be achieved, and it has the same negative effect on the science that we as donors don't like done to us with changes like this one.
 
PG believes they are doing what is right for advancement of the science.  I believe that they do know best what that is since they are the ones developing it.  But, the way they go about getting there seems to take a negative route upon donors and that is what they need to reconsider.  Their intention with the science is likely spot on.  How they get there has always (in my mind) needed a lot more positive motivation in the tactical execution of same.

It's a research project and most likely funding comes from making goals.  That's the core issue they need to make the goals or the funding is cut.
 
Regardless if they are on the right track it's a time oriented need that FAH is focusing on... how do we achieve our goals?  By moving the bar higher and hoping we all play along.  Eventually that route becomes much like "the sky is falling" or "crying wolf" one to many times and people opt out in search of other ways to donate.
 
FAH is on the verge of a major PR bungle and the only hope is for them to keep bring in new blood when the old blood gets tired of the game.
 
There's an interesting post by Rattledagger here:
 
https://foldingforum.org/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=25411&start=30
 
We can already surmise from that bit of information FAH and Stanford have been consistent in shooting themselves in the foot.  It isn't going to get any better I'm afraid.
 

I don't recall sending you a t-shirt. 

Bill, I think that "horse has been dead" for years too.  Seems no matter how many ways that we try to wake it up (with no beating techniques), the stick always comes back out.  My feeling is that PG has not learned how to communicate with donors.  They give us occasional updates, even visit here at times, but what they rarely do is communicate changes like this way ahead of time, fully explain the reasoning and then allow for donors to respond before PG makes the change.  It is a recipe for upsetting donors and I wish they could learn some basics here about working with people.  I've been told they don't think that way and to expect it from them is a waste of energy.  That is probably true (or at least it feels like it is true).
 
We had the "DAB" (donor advisory board) thing, but most people across teams believe that was an exercise in futility.  Not because of lack of interest on the donors part, but because it felt like a one-way street of communication with PG.  Even if there was something for donors to hear from those talks, lots of time the DAB reps were precluded from sharing it with us (for fear of negative impact).  What PG never seemed to learn is that "no communications" is just as bad (or worse) than having to share news that isn't pleasant.
 
Now where is that horse...I thought I saw him move and may need to be whacked again. 

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank EVGA for supporting us supporting FAH with the EVGA bucks program.  I have earned alot of bucks over the years, but that's not the only reason I do this.
 
Although I would not ask EVGA to support both folding & crunching w/ bucks, I have read somewhere that EVGA will consider supporting crunching w/ bucks if they see more interest in crunching.  NOW, is the time to show EVGA that we as a team no longer wish to support FAH and would like them to incentivize Team EVGA crunching instead.  If enough of us folks make the switch, EVGA might just do it one day.
 
Again EVGA, thank you for the bucks program. It's been an honor to represent your hardware & Team in the FAH endevour.  However, all good things must come to an end, and sometimes change is good.  I ask that you consider switching your DC/EVGA Bucks program away from FAH as we team members (or more appropriately, I) no longer feel appreciated by Stanford and the FAH Community.
 
Think how much support FAH loses if EVGA switches the support with it bucks program.  I'd venture to say, all of it.  That will make a dent.  You want to strike!!  That's a strike!!  STRIKE HARD!!!!
 
See you folks on the crunching side.
 

texinga
They give us occasional updates, even visit here at times, but what they rarely do is communicate changes like this way ahead of time, fully explain the reasoning and then allow for donors to respond before PG makes the change.

 
I'm curious which changes you feel weren't given sufficient lead time.  If you're referring to this one, how much heads-up would you have wanted them to give?  It's already 4 months for the change that affects more people (it seems to me like cutting off 16c won't affect as many as cutting off 24c, but I may be wrong).  I agree that the reasoning behind this change is somewhat sparse and doesn't seem to match up with reality, as I doubt very many, if any, of the ankle-biters will be running regular SMP work.  And, they technically haven't made the change yet, but I'm guessing you mean that you'd like them to discuss these sorts of things with donors before they make the final decision.
 

zildjian75
Like i stated earlier...  All they had to do was "accidentally" run-out of bigadv work units and all of our rigs would have gone to SMP...  A week or 2 would pass and they would have been caught up on SMP's and could have resumed BA's.

 
That seems like an even worse idea than what they're doing.  A couple weeks with no one getting bigadv, and you start having many donors angry at them for seemingly shutting down bigadv with no notice.  If the truth had ever come out, I'm sure many of those people would leave for being lied to, if they hadn't already left due to the perceived sudden and unexplained bigadv termination.
 
 
I don't particularly like this move, and from the response it seems like they didn't handle it well (of course, people indifferent about the move are going to be a silent majority).  But it seems like there was some awareness in the community that it was going to happen eventually.  Maybe I'm getting my forums mixed up, but I know I've seen people advising prospective 4P Socket F purchasers that their build would have no upgrade path and that PG could change the requirements at any time.  It had been 2 years since the last bigadv core count change (though that one seemed more imperative given anyone with an i7 could join in), and that had occurred about 2.5 years after the introduction of bigadv.  As asked above, how much of a heads-up do people think they should give on something like this, if 2 or 4 months isn't sufficient?
 
I recognize that I have a different opinion on things since I am not affected by this.  I'd be pretty annoyed if bigadv ended completely and the Intel 4P I built last April was suddenly less productive PPD-wise than a decently OC'ed 780 Ti or 290X (the couple of regular SMP WUs I've gotten on it have been around 200k PPD) while drawing over three times the power and costing several times more.
 
I do think that they need to reconsider the points spread.  Regular SMP is just so lousy points-wise compared to either bigadv or core 17 GPU that it really isn't worth it on any hardware.  If the current SMP/GPU points spread is truly accurate, then I think they need to start converting most of their new projects to core 17, as it'll get the work done faster and at a much better power efficiency. If they really need to clear a regular SMP backlog, giving a temporary incentive for regular SMP work would work a lot better than this method.  I'm not sure how big of a boost would convince people, but if they said they really needed help on that front and were offering a 200% bonus?  I would seriously consider switching my rig over.  They've done something similar before, with the 10% bonus on core a4 work to encourage people to upgrade client 6.34 or newer.  I don't know how well that worked, but if it didn't work well, perhaps the bonus simply wasn't high enough.

texinga
If you were here for the last 'round of this Bigadv drama or even past ones with other hardware, the same reaction of "boycott" was there too.  I completely understand the frustration of wanting to "get PG's attention" when they do things like this.  But, unless you could organize a "sit in" on a massive scale across several teams, it would have no effect.  That has not been historically something that could be achieved, and it has the same negative effect on the science that we as donors don't like done to us with changes like this one.
 
PG believes they are doing what is right for advancement of the science.  I believe that they do know best what that is since they are the ones developing it.  But, the way they go about getting there seems to take a negative route upon donors and that is what they need to reconsider.  Their intention with the science is likely spot on.  How they get there has always (in my mind) needed a lot more positive motivation in the tactical execution of same.

my thinking is that with the new CPU coming next year - ie 15core v2 Xeons and beyond- 120 thread machines and with Haswell-E coming next year(even more cores) which will offer more that stanford has changed the Bigadv line for a reason
 
imagine a 200 core 4P.(24 core cpu -48 thread - or 192 threaded machine)..this could be a reality in a few years
 
As I remarked GPU Bigadv is suppose to come into play - if that happened many GPU users would jump on that bandwagon with titans and 780's and Maxwell next year
heck with regular core 15's or core17 WU's - that will be left for smaller older cards
expect possible tight deadines on Bigadv - hence increasing CPU count
 
for many with rigs that can't do bigadv may switch out sr-2's or sr-x's out to do GPU folding and a little smp on the side or crunch SMP
the main thing is that if fewer people do SMP - it will be moved to GPU's and it will delay new GPU WU's or even delay GPU Bigadv WU's
 
stanford is working to have the WU's work on either CPU or GPU (And GPU out performs CPU) 
 
All I see is either people will switch to high end GPU's (rather than CPU route for 4P) for the big points - a few will stay and a few may even go bigger
people with smaller or older cards will be force to SMP work or low point GPU WU's
CPU work is inefficient compared to GPU's so the task is to switch work to GPU where they can (SMP will be first to be done)
which will make folding on smaller CPU's pointless - look at P4 or unicore as a baseline (worthless) but still need to be done
 
many cannot change rapidly like this - many will leave - some will jump on the new Bandwangon
 
What Im PO'd about is lack of transparency - PR (press release)
They need to talk openly about why(details) and what further planes are(details) - timelines and stick to them - even bringing in extra people to meet deadlines and goals
 
just saying "they be doing away with lower counts" with no reason and no direction on whats coming down the line for the next year is BAD
Information is everything to us -placating fears while salivating us with future WU's and changes would be GOOD
 

bill1024
These 24 core 48 thread intel chips will be 2000$ each or more I am willing to bet.
Times 4 and I will bet the MB will be near 1000$ and will need reg eec memory...................
200 core 4P will cost tens of thousands to build. Not me, I will not even buy a 500$ GTX 780 now even if it gets 500k PPD nope.
PGs main goal was to get 1,000,000 people folding. They are at what 250k and going down. I am sure this will not help.
They created v7 to make it easier for noobs to fold, then tear into Tear over v6.34 and the H folding image.
Did you all happen to see that thread in the bigadv section FF forum?
Someone had a Q about H install and their answer was they strongly suggested to install v7.
Then they argued over it, then argued over v4 and v5.. Really?  How dare you tell us we are wrong..
They can't put the SMP into gpu, if they could of they would of by now.
 
All they had to do is ask for help. Just ask, The folding community would step up and
Get er done!!!!

That mess and the Musky install gave me a whole new respect for those at H and what they have done and continue to do for folding. Grampa got so upset he had enough and Tear has the patience to put up with nonsense. It is that type of attitude that makes me appreciate this forum and its members more. In a nutshell there is a lack of respect to donors and they make that very clear. I enjoy being educated, and like to learn, but do not like being talked down to, especially by those that are just wrong. For those that missed it https://foldingforum.org/viewtopic.php?f=55&p=253705#p253705  
It is worth the reading.

You folks are all correct.  All of your reasons are valid and true. But I feel that some are missing the big picture.  Maybe I look at this from a different perspective.
 
I have been folding 24/7 in some way shape or form since 2009.  I chugged away for years on gpu's that got 5-15000 pts a day.  Blowing through probably 800-1000w of power continuously over the years. And that's just machine power...  My AC in my condo probably blew threw the equivalent in power.  I have seen this same lack of consideration of donors before.  They have done this same thing in the past in the same inconsiderate & ungrateful way.  Am I missing something?  Don't they need donors like us or not.  Do they understand what a donor is.
 
The donor community was vary unhappy the last time.  It was the same complaints.  Not enough notice? Lack of communication not only with the research itself but of future hardware requirements.  Then one day....  BOOM!!!  It was pretty ugly.  The same as it is today. Because they did it the exact same way!!! Many adjusted. I wasn't really opinionated about it at the time b/c I wasn't a bigadv folder at the time, but I know the donor community wasn't happy about it.  Now I am a BA folder.  And I'm mad.
 
Since we are donors, and not employees, and they rely (supposedly) on folks like us for their research/job, you would think we would be more involved and informed. As well, you would "think" they would walk on egg shells not to piss donors off.  But they don't.  They do the opposite.  Then they repeat the opposite.  Again... and Again.  Someone doing something to help you for free, I consider to be a favor. But that's not how they see it.  It's like they think they are doing us a favor by "letting" us fold their wu's.
 
I just got into the bigadv realm about 8 months ago. Now in a few months, I'll be back out.  Am I supposed to re-tool?  A lot of folks did that last time, and now 2 years later they will have to do it again.  BigAdv is my standard now.  Any less, and my 4p rig will be better off with a different project. Re-tooling at this point will cost $1000's of dollars to build a rig for BA's. And what should I build? A 32 core or 48 core system. Well if I look at the recent past I already know that that's not going to be good enough in a year or two and we will go through this again in the exact same way.  No thanks.
 
All this leads to 2 conclusions:
#1 They don't give a dang about the donors. If they did, they would keep us continuously in the loop of current/future problems/requirements.  They do not.  They would figure out a way to use the donors effectively when they run into dumb issues like... A backlog of SMP units...  Give me a break.  That could have been solved easily by other means like putting the word out or offering more points to said wu's.  Heck just ask. The solution is not to shut folks out who have gone the extra mile to build rigs for the specific purpose of helping them with their research.
 
#2 I said it in an earlier post.  Leadership.  Whoever is in charge of the decisions and roll-outs of the crap news needs to be un-in-charge...  Demoted, Fired... whatever.  He clearly doesn't have a grasp on the fact that he relies on donors for the research.  They have now done this stupidity the same way a couple of times.  They didn't learn their lesson, or they don't care.  So why should we care?
 
That's why I said earlier... point the finger at the top!  The "leader" is responsible for the mistakes and to make them over and over just cries out, "You are the wrong person for that position". I will not invest in your company (research) again.  That is how this works. I don't have to put up with it and either does anyone else.  Whenever this conversation is brought up on forum, everyone's response should be the same.  Example.
 
Person #1  Hey man... Did you hear latest news about the new FAH BigAdv server requirements?
Person #2  Yup, I sure did.  Whoever is running the show over there is clueless.  It's like he doesn't even know those folks are donating their time, money, power & resources to fund and support his project.  But what do you expect? He's done it before in the past.  What a moron! He should be canned.
 
That's it! The way I see it, that's all that needs to be said because its the bottom line...  Period.  I don't care about their backlog, b/c I know nothing of the backlog...b/c they don't include us in the research, they just "use" us for the research. And then screw us when they need to update requirements to fix their backlog!  We don't know of future requirements, b/c they don't say where those requirements are headed.
 
If this were my show, whoever is in-charge....  YOU'RE FIRED!

Then if nothing is resolved I suggest we team up with [H] and instead of March Madness how about a March Sit-out?  We contact every team we can and explain what we are doing and we just shut down for a month. 
 
[H] is trying to figure out if FAH is going to respond (doubtful given past answers) and perhaps the two biggest teams can send a message and we can get the say 10 biggest folding teams to send that message maybe they might take notice.
 
We'd need a representative to put this out there. 

Viper, unfortunately it may have to get a lot worse than this before you could amass enough Folders to make a collective statement like that to PG.  Even [H] is not ready to embrace such an idea and I expect they will be cautious about it rather than do anything overt. 
 
This will likely go the way the last one did two years ago.  People will air their grievances (both to PG and within Folding Forums) and then nothing will change (other than losing some Folders to other DC projects).  HardOCP will still be Folding, EVGA will too and this whole thing will dissipate (eventually). 
 
It seems to come down to a "like it or lump it" scenario with Folding changes like this one every time.  I have little to no emotion about this 2nd iteration at all, but do clearly know that I won't invest more in Folding going forward.  PG got me twice with this stuff (2yrs ago and now this one) and I won't allow the same to happen a 3rd time.

Viper97
We'd need a representative to put this out there. 

Pretty sure the biggest representative that exists is the active folding count.
 

Today we are 240,759 computers strong and growing fast. Share. Tweet. Email your friends and let them know.

 
What happens when the two biggest computer banks just drop off the grid for this number?

When I read those threads......  The lack of respect is waaaay worse than I thought.  Honestly, why is it any of us work on this project. 
 
 

Drazhar
Soooo what I'm reading here is that "it's all about the points for us."
 
"OH NOES OUR POINTS ARE BEING TAKEN AWAY I QUIT."
 
Wow.

Its not about the points even though there nice. It is about spending real money for something that you really do not need to fold with.I got 2 4p's both 16 core costs around $60 to $70 a month to run each.Yet my i7 costs me $20 or less a month to power and will do the same smp in less time then the 4p.On top of that I got a use the i7 but with out bigadv the 4p's are dead.What PG just told me is take your money and flush it down the toilet.Lets see what could I have done with the $800 or so the 4p's cost me ONE HELL OF A LOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

the solution is a fix to the point system - for once sit down and fix it all
make SMP worthwhile to fold - PPD/Watt  
if the drop isn't to much people won't complain too much 
the idea is to make people think "so Im relegated to SMP - Im making slightly less - but hey it's not bad I can live with it"
 
in fact you may get people back into using older CPU's again and bring hardware back
 
it might mean bringing GPU PPD up and cause people to consider going back to GPU farms 
but hey isn't GPU more efficient - faster on all Work than a CPU
you may see a few people drop 4P's because a GPU does more - but I suspect you may see people have both systems
we had a few years where GPU were dropped because CPU had more PPD/WATT
if you go equal work= equal pay then GPU's farms would be the thing - because why use CPU when GPU does it faster
that would leave 4p for specialized work that can't be done on normal SMP or GPU
or at least until they get that figured out to do bigger stuff on GPU