Website



Why does my country have so few members when I know there are more?

On the Statistics By Geography page you can see that there are tens of thousands of member who have decided not to identify their country. If you wish to identify yourself with a country, please update your profile.



Why am I periodically asked to log into World Community Grid again?

The World Community Grid grants you the ability to use the website for a specific length of time after you log into the website. Once that length of time has been reached, you will be asked log in again. This is done in order to ensure that the member using the website is the member who logged in.



How do I view the website in another language?

The World Community Grid web site will automatically display in the language to which your browser is set. If that language is not currently available on the site, the default language is English. To change to another language, simply use the drop-down menu on the main navigation bar to select the desired language. All of the areas of the site that are available in the selected language will be automatically translated.



Why are some areas of the site only available in English?

There are some areas of the site that are dynamic and change frequently. There is no effective way to have these areas constantly updated in more than one language. The dynamic portions of the site include: What's New (on the home page), Help, and the forums. While the forums are not translated, posting in languages other than English is allowed.



What happens if I check the box labeled 'Remember Me' when I sign into World Community Grid?

If you check the 'Remember Me' box when you sign into World Community Grid then you will be automatically signed into the website the next time that you visit from the same device. This means that you will not have to sign in again in order to access your My Contribution pages or post in the forums. You can have World Community Grid 'Remember' you on as many devices as you wish. If you wish World Community Grid to stop remembering you, then all you need to do is click on 'sign out' at the top right of our pages.

As a security precaution World Community Grid will not automatically sign you into the website if you have not accessed the website from a device for more than two weeks. Additionally, if you change your password, then World Community Grid will continue to remember you only on the device where you changed your password. However, next time you visit World Community Grid you can then check the 'Remember Me' box and World Community Grid will continue to remember you from that device.



I checked the 'Remember Me' box when I signed in, but now the site is asking me to log in again.

As a security precaution, you must verify your member name and password in order to view pages that contain private member information.

For example, if you signed in a few days ago and checked the 'Remember Me' box, you won't be asked to sign in to view your My Statistics page. If you go to My Profile, you may have to sign in again since this page allows you to change your member name and email address (among other things).



What are Project and Recruitment Badges?

Project badges recognize the contribution that a member has made to a research project running on World Community Grid, and recruitment badges recognize the member's contribution to introducing new volunteers to World Community Grid. All available project badges may be viewed here and all available recruitment badges may be viewed here.

Badges appear on a member's My Contribution page and next to their name in the forums.

Project Badges: There are 11 levels of badges awarded based upon how much computing time a member has contributed to each project:

  • Bronze - 14 days
  • Silver - 45 days
  • Gold - 90 days
  • Ruby - 180 days
  • Emerald - 1 year
  • Sapphire - 2 years
  • Diamond - recognizing higher levels of contribution of 5, 10, 20, 50 and up to 100 years of computing time
Recruitment Badges: There are 5 levels of badges awarded based on how many new people a member has recruited to World Community Grid:
  • Bronze - 1 new member
  • Silver - 5 new members
  • Gold - 10 new members
  • Ruby - 25 new members
  • Emerald - 50 new members
Members receive credit towards recruitment badges when someone signs up for World Community Grid using that member's unique recruitment URL and begins contributing computing power. You can get your recruitment URL and see which members you've recruited on your My Contribution page.

Recruitment badges are different from project badges in that they must be maintained. Recruited members must actively contribute computing power (return a result at least every 30 days) to count towards a member's recruitment badge. If an inactive recruited member becomes active again, they will once again count towards the recruitment total of the member who introduced them to World Community Grid.



I'd like to put something about World Community Grid on my website; is there something that I can use?

If you'd like to promote World Community Grid and/or use the World Community Grid logo image on your website, you can make use of the World Community Grid widget. Click here for an FAQ explaining more about the World Community Grid widget.



What is the World Community Grid widget?

The World Community Grid widget is a way for you to promote World Community Grid and show your team or personal contribution on your website or blog. It consists of a small piece of HTML code that you place on your website. This HTML code will display your custom widget with the most current statistics for you or your team.

Here is an example:


To get your custom widget, just log in to World Community Grid, go to the Settings page, and click on the Create a Widget link in the left hand navigation. This will take you to a form where you can customize a widget with the World Community Grid logo, and your personal (or your team's) statistics. When you're happy with your widget, just copy the code at the bottom of the form, and paste it into your website!
 



How do I find out the meaning of the messages on the Results Status Page?

A discussion of the results status page may be found here.



What are the RSS, XML and atom buttons I see on certain World Community Grid web pages?

World Community Grid offers news feeds for News & Update articles published on the website and forum threads. If you don't know what a news feed is or how to use one, this video tutorial will be of assistance.



How do I sign up for World Community Grid's feeds?

Click the RSS, XML or atom button on the page that contains the information you want to get feeds from. Then, select which Reader you would like to use to get the feeds and hit the 'Subscribe Now' button.



Why do some work units remain on the Results Status page for a long period of time after they have been validated?

When more than one work unit for a particular research project shares the same input files, they are removed from the database in a different way than normal work units. All the work units that share the common input are left in the database until all work units that share the input files have completed successfully. If there a few work units in that group that error out, we then discuss with the research scientists how they would like the work units handled. In those cases, the work units will not be cleared from the database until we have agreement with the research scientists on how to proceed. This can cause some work units to stay in the database for an extended length of time.



Forum Policy for Members

The Forum Policy for Members can be found here.



Please remember our collective goal.

World Community Grid brings together people from across the globe to benefit humanity by creating the world's largest non-profit computing grid. We do this by pooling surplus processing power from volunteers' devices. We encourage your participation on the forums and provide information on team development and progress to make it easier for individuals to participate, to recruit new members and generally increase the amount of computing run time available for the humanitarian research projects we run. This web site is not a place to promote any other cause or issue.



What do the Member Titles, underneath the Member Name, in the forums mean?

The following Member Titles are displayed based upon the number of posts a member makes:
0 - 49: Cruncher
50 - 149: Advanced Cruncher
150 - 499: Senior Cruncher
500 - 1499: Veteran Cruncher
1500 - 3999: Master Cruncher
4000+: Ace Cruncher



How many characters may I use in a forum post?

The database limit is 32,700 characters. If special characters are used, the character count is decreased due to how special characters are stored in the database. If you have more than 32,700 characters, or utilize special characters, you will need to create 2 or more posts.



What do the progress bars for each active project on the Research Page mean?

Every project on World Community Grid is at one of the following four stages:

  • Just Launched - The project was launched on World Community Grid within the last few weeks.
  • In Progress - The project is running regularly on World Community Grid and is not close to completion.
  • Nearly Completed - The project is within a few weeks of finishing its work on World Community Grid.
  • Completed - The project has completed its work on World Community Grid.



Is there any way to estimate an end date for projects running on World Community Grid?

There are many variables with each project that determine how long it will last and how much work it will run on World Community Grid. These include:

  • Change in research direction or project scope (e.g., results from work on World Community Grid that takes the project in a new direction)
  • Increase or decrease in lab resources such as funding, staffing, etc
  • New research findings from collaborators or other scientists in the same field 
  • The pace at which computational work is being performed on World Community Grid

Researchers rarely know if or when these variables will come into play during their projects, which makes it challenging to estimate a project end date with any level of accuracy.



Is there any way to express how close a project is to completion as a percentage? Can the progress bars show that a project is X% complete?

Over the years, we've found that most research teams don't load a certain number of work units into World Community Grid, let them run, and then declare the project complete. Rather, they create work units based on their initial research questions, then make adjustments to future work units based on their findings on World Community Grid and on outside research findings. This makes it impossible to accurately express project completion as a percentage.



How often do research projects provide updates for volunteers?

Active projects: We ask the research team for each project to provide at least two formal updates per year. We also try to provide short monthly updates in the forum thread for each project.

Completed projects: We provide updates when completed projects publish papers, start or finish major experiments, or have other big news.



Why hasn't my favorite project provided an update recently?

Active projects: Check your favorite project’s forum. If there has not been a formal update in over six months or a short monthly update in a couple of months, then post a question in the forum.

Completed projects: Your favorite completed project probably doesn’t have any news to report at this time. Keep an eye on the forum for the project.



How are project updates created?

We work closely with each research team to create project updates. Since the scientists are detail-oriented and want to provide good updates for the volunteers, they often take a few weeks to create just the first draft of updates.

World Community Grid generally adds any explanation or background to the updates to make them easier for the general public to understand, which can take additional time. Also, we often work with the scientists to create graphics, videos, presentations, or to find photos for the updates.