I am on a campaign to improve the efficiency in which we provide users choices what project to crunch. As I am still awaiting an answer to my question regarding Official Policy which we could follow, I started this thread as it is related to the problem users are experiencing and highlights the problem, yet keep the debate open regarding the Policy in the original thread titled: Project Retirement Policy.

The BOINC Manager under "Add Projects > Projects choices" lists a number of projects from which users may choose a project of their choice. The problem is that the list is not being kept up to date leading New Users in particular confused for it is advertised by the Official BOINC Manager.

I pointed out in another thread that for example ABC@Home has not exported their stats for 231 days, it has not issued any Work Units since April 2014 and there is no mention in their News Section why this is so. Three moths ago the Admin indicated in an obscure thread in the Message Board that not many users have time to read that she HOPES to reactivate the project soon. There are a number of listed projects are in a similar situation and I am concerned that by following that list it confuses everybody for it is not updated and there is no clear policy to say when is a project Active, Inactive or Retired. How long are you going to say that this project is Active? Surely 11 Months of Inactivity with no News on their website is long enough to say that it is NOT ACTIVE, INACTIVE or RETIRED or any other Terminology than Active. It is not inconceivable that as a New User who is directed to this list chooses ABC at Home, finds that he can either not join it or will not receive any Work Units and after trying DistRTgen and other projects in similar situation he will give up on BOINC thinking that it is no longer alive and give up trying to help Scientists in their research and switch off. The question was in fact been asked of me by a New User of my Team some time ago why is such and such a program listed as active when they can not get any work or in deed can't even access their site. I am not a New User and have been around long enough to know what upsets users. To brag I am world number two in the combined list of projects and as such indicates that I have spent a lot of time on reading what annoying problems users experiencing that no body seems to care for when they voice their opinion they are disregarded.

Another way of looking at this list is to try to join an Active BOINC Project but you can not do so easily without research for it is not listed as a BOINC Project. I found 16 of those projects and I see no reason why they should not be listed unless whoever is responsible to keep this list up to date has no time to police it. I will not list the 16 projects at this stage to conserve space but would like to know and I am asking this question: why projects like WUProp, Yafu, Citizen Science Grid, BOINC Utopia just to name a few are not eligible to be listed?.

In summary, I would like a list of projects listed in BOINC Manager Add Project Choices that gives a true indication what choices we have to crunch. As Volunteers who spend a lot of their time and money deserve to have an up to date list of available projects to choose from. Create a reasonable Policy to follow and keep the list up to date. If whoever is responsible to date to do this is unable to do so because of other duties etc, than ask for Volunteers to administer it. I have indicated that may be many willing users who could do so including me who have the time to research and edit the list as required provided a policy is created.

Keep on crunching and have a nice day...