Removal of some projects from FB?

[Polaxis]

I would like to throw the following suggestion in the room:

Remove the following projects from FB:
- (DENIS@home)
- GPU Grid
- iThena.Computational
- The Ramanujan Machine
- TN-Grid

The projects either had no works for several months now or so very few work, that only some lucky 2-3 people got it. The later one creating a hefty points bias towards luck which does not seem to be fair to the other project's crunchers.

Additionally:
- Any update on when WCG points will get an update? There was plenty of work at the start of 2026 but still doesn't show up on FB (likely a WCG issue I guess?)

[Tamagoch]

Additionally:
- Any update on when WCG points will get an update? There was plenty of work at the start of 2026 but still doesn't show up on FB (likely a WCG issue I guess?)

WCG will continue to export stats after completing DB migration as a part of the move to a new infrastucture

that was planned to be finished in a couple of days lately but, as it usual for Krembil, could last a couple of weeks or months

[UBT - wbiz]

Part of the game is catching the rare points. There are many ways of supporting Boinc and we should encompass as many user traits as possible.

There are numerous items that some would call unfair eg

GPU only tasks
CPU only tasks
Long tasks
Low credit tasks
High credit tasks
Low cache tasks
High cache tasks
High memory tasks
Windows only tasks
linux only tasks
Sparse tasks
Not having projects from unfriendly countries
etc etc

Obviously the sprints have to more choosy about appropriate tasks but the marathon should be as wide as possible.

[UBT - Timbo]

I would like to throw the following suggestion in the room:

Remove the following projects from FB:
- (DENIS@home)
- GPU Grid
- iThena.Computational
- The Ramanujan Machine
- TN-Grid

The projects either had no works for several months now or so very few work, that only some lucky 2-3 people got it. The later one creating a hefty points bias towards luck which does not seem to be fair to the other project's crunchers.

Hi

Thanks for your post and apologies for the delay in replying.

I would offer the following view:
The listed BOINC projects *may* become active again at some point - and for now, if they are inactive and then have tasks available, then leaving them in the current Marathon list makes sense, as otherwise, I might not notice they are active and so I may be delayed in adding them back.

So, it costs nothing to leave them there and more of a problem if they are removed and have to be added back into the database later on.

Additionally:
- Any update on when WCG points will get an update? There was plenty of work at the start of 2026 but still doesn't show up on FB (likely a WCG issue I guess?)

This has been noted (and Sebastien has been advised some time ago), but as I am not involved in the programming of the "stats collection" process from the WCG website, then we need to wait until Sebastien has checked where the stats are collected from. And it could be that the WCG project is NOT exporting the relevant stats anymore as the BOINCstats website shows no credits are being earned each day:

https://www.boincstats.com/stats/15/team/list/

regards
Tim

[Antares2022]

World Community Grid has been active again since April 26, 2026.

Why isn't the marathon on Formula Boinc being updated?

[UBT - Timbo]

World Community Grid has been active again since April 26, 2026.

Why isn't the marathon on Formula Boinc being updated?

Hi

I think this is because there are some issues getting access to the export stats XML file from the WCG website.

I did check the FB website configuration, and the last time the WCG stats were successfully updated was: 2025-08-30 01:23:20 UTC !

I tried to "force" a stats update and the FB website reported:

2026-05-15 15:33:21 UTC : Need to update data
2026-05-15 15:33:21 UTC : Failed to get team statistics files names

I did notify Sebastien about the failure of the Marathon stats updating, some time ago, but if the project is now "active" again, then maybe he can ensure that the stats are collected, or to otherwise inform the WCG admins of the problem.

rgds
Tim

[Antares2022]

It would be suitable again as a marathon. But not for a sprint. The credits take too long for a sprint.

[UBT - Timbo]

It would be suitable again as a marathon. But not for a sprint. The credits take too long for a sprint.

Hi

Thanks for your input.

I think it is dependent on which WCG sub-projects are available, active and have shorter running times...in recent times, some of my WCG MCM tasks have taken about 3 hours to complete.

There was a time when there were many sub-projects that one could choose from

Now, there seems to be only 4 active (i.e. some or all of the time) projects:

Mapping Arthritis Markers
OpenPandemics - COVID-19
Africa Rainfall Project
Mapping Cancer Markers

https://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/ms/viewMyProjects.do

But otherwise, as a long-term Marathon project, it seems to be quite acceptable.

regards
Tim

[Tamagoch]

Hi Tim,

Before cleaning work starts I'd like to share my thoughts and observations on this topic.

WCG are still within a process of a major infrastructure upgrade and catching bugs and downtimes all over the time. Of course, normally it has quite short tasks, but pending validations surely can ruin every sprint. I believe they are still crunching a validation backlog from the start of this year. Hopefully they will become fully operational in 2026, but their normal downtimes estimates of couple of days usually could last for months

MilkyWay@home proved to be a very reliable project during ongoing Pentathlon but validation lag is also a key obstacle to be a good sprint. But if I compare it to Asteroids - it could be not so bad. I think the project is worth to try in an active sprint list for a second half of the year.

Another two projects I would like to mention as new marathon candidates - Gaia@home and SPACIOUS@home. They look like twins to me but currently seem to be working on a completely different task sets. They are both Linux only and are motivating Windows users like me to try virtualization (built-in Hyper-V feature for example). Availability of tasks in these projects are pretty consistent at least for a few months.

TN-Grid appears to load some test batches and is promising more stable workflow later this year. So this one is not to be excluded so far

I am still giving my vote to try yoyo and Moo! in sprints as they might produce theoretically infinite tasks and could bring some diversity to sprint strategies and results.

Thanks for reading this and for everything that helps running FB.

Regards,
Tamagoch

[UBT - Timbo]

Hi Tim,

Before cleaning work starts I'd like to share my thoughts and observations on this topic.

WCG are still within a process of a major infrastructure upgrade and catching bugs and downtimes all over the time. Of course, normally it has quite short tasks, but pending validations surely can ruin every sprint. I believe they are still crunching a validation backlog from the start of this year. Hopefully they will become fully operational in 2026, but their normal downtimes estimates of couple of days usually could last for months

MilkyWay@home proved to be a very reliable project during ongoing Pentathlon but validation lag is also a key obstacle to be a good sprint. But if I compare it to Asteroids - it could be not so bad. I think the project is worth to try in an active sprint list for a second half of the year.

Another two projects I would like to mention as new marathon candidates - Gaia@home and SPACIOUS@home. They look like twins to me but currently seem to be working on a completely different task sets. They are both Linux only and are motivating Windows users like me to try virtualization (built-in Hyper-V feature for example). Availability of tasks in these projects are pretty consistent at least for a few months.

TN-Grid appears to load some test batches and is promising more stable workflow later this year. So this one is not to be excluded so far

I am still giving my vote to try yoyo and Moo! in sprints as they might produce theoretically infinite tasks and could bring some diversity to sprint strategies and results.

Thanks for reading this and for everything that helps running FB.

Regards,
Tamagoch

Hi

Thanks for the extremely useful feedback.

Yes, there are many factors that need to be considered when selecting a project for inclusion in the Sprints and you've highlighted some of them !!

Ultimately, though, what is required is a project that has plenty of tasks, speedy validation processes and an infrastructure that can handle lots of task downloads and completed work unit uploads without causing issues with the server.

And an admin that actually monitors their inbox and replies to my advance notification messages !

regards
Tim