RE: Gridcoin Community Hangout #050
I think we should talk about the recent removal of Moo! from the BOINC whitelist, commercial BOINC projects, DrugDiscovery@home, and whether or not we run the risk of becoming the deciding factor of what research is crunched for.
A strict set of whitelist guidelines is being developed, see: https://github.com/gridcoin-community/Gridcoin-Tasks/issues/201
The whitelisting of projects should be a given; a courtesy to our commitment to transparency. As it is now, polls are subject to popularity contests, smear campaigns, poll manipulation through large stakes, etc. These things must be avoided at all costs, as I feel it reflects poorly on our community. Another example was how contentious the ODLK/ODLK1 polls were... subject of unsavory xenophobic comments, social politics, and general FUD.
Regardless of what people feel about Moo and ODLK/1, I think it's a little uncool to claim there were xenophobic comments and FUD regarding ODLK. I monitor pretty much all avenues of Gridcoin, and I personally never saw anything xenophobic, nor was anything xenophobic ever reported to me. The few times I saw anything mentioning xenophobia were when people were claiming that as the reason for people voting against the project; that's an entirely baseless accusation with no proof. The ODLK polls were contentious for various other reasons in my opinion.
One just needs to look at our current whitelist; close to half are "foreign" projects. In fact, DD@H is based in the same country as ODLK.
If there's evidence to the contrary, I will gladly apologize and retract what I've said. Otherwise, claiming there's xenophobia in the community without there actually being any, in my opinion, is almost as bad as it actually existing; people sometimes believe what they read.
Regardless, congrats on the 50th hangout. Good job keeping it going after all this time; always interesting to listen to.
It's too bad Slack retention is nil. I distinctly remember people saying they wouldn't vote for the project because the main page was in cyrillic alone. I also remember some people gloating to me that "my" poll was failing after spreading said xenophobia and voting against ODLK. It was most likely personal, and not professional opinion.
I might have picture evidence somewhere... but I'm pretty sure everybody knew this was the reason ODLK1 was whitelisted in favour of ODLK. There is record of this on CCtalk. You don't have to apologize for something you didn't say... Don't worry about it, bud. Let the fools that cast stones stick up for themselves. <3
And thank you for the congratulations... but more importantly, I hope to see you there! :D