I was just browsing the Q&A forum for my own edification. I'm seeing queries that are either going unanswered or (IMO) are being poorly answered (sometimes by people who don't have any more experience than the person asking the question). This certainly will frustrate newcomers.

Example: Shi-hua Xiang was asking how to download a protein sequence and wanted to know how to get RaH (which he installed) to predict the structure of his protein sequence. Judging from the answer there are people who do not yet understand the difference between Rosetta and RaH. One of the respondents did grasp what Shi-hua Xiang was asking for, but I'm not sure whether the answer given was adequate. There are other examples of this nature in the Q&A fora. There is one written in French, no reply.

I implore the forum moderators and resident Rosetta experts to spend a little time on the orphaned Q&A if you want to maintain good rapport and PR.

I was just browsing the Q&A forum for my own edification. I'm seeing queries that are either going unanswered or (IMO) are being poorly answered (sometimes by people who don't have any more experience than the person asking the question). This certainly will frustrate newcomers.

Example: Shi-hua Xiang was asking how to download a protein sequence and wanted to know how to get RaH (which he installed) to predict the structure of his protein sequence. Judging from the answer there are people who do not yet understand the difference between Rosetta and RaH. One of the respondents did grasp what Shi-hua Xiang was asking for, but I'm not sure whether the answer given was adequate. There are other examples of this nature in the Q&A fora. There is one written in French, no reply.

I implore the forum moderators and resident Rosetta experts to spend a little time on the orphaned Q&A if you want to maintain good rapport and PR.

Rosetta admins are VERY communicative, even on weekends. The crunchers get information what's happening, we see actual results, we're informed what's coming up next. Compare this to other projects! Of course they can't answer every question.

Orpahned posts in french? What do you expect? This is an english forum, should Rosetta admins learn a foreign language first to give answers?

If one will search the message boards you will find that David Baker is looking for volunteers to compile Faq's for this project. They are doing a great job IMMHO. They just can't do it all. This is a volunteer project afterall.

Happy crunching

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I was just browsing the Q&A forum for my own edification. I'm seeing queries that are either going unanswered or (IMO) are being poorly answered (sometimes by people who don't have any more experience than the person asking the question). This certainly will frustrate newcomers.

Example: Shi-hua Xiang was asking how to download a protein sequence and wanted to know how to get RaH (which he installed) to predict the structure of his protein sequence. Judging from the answer there are people who do not yet understand the difference between Rosetta and RaH. One of the respondents did grasp what Shi-hua Xiang was asking for, but I'm not sure whether the answer given was adequate. There are other examples of this nature in the Q&A fora. There is one written in French, no reply.

I implore the forum moderators and resident Rosetta experts to spend a little time on the orphaned Q&A if you want to maintain good rapport and PR.

I for one would like to see the Q&A forum dumped. I don't have time to check 500 different places for questions and I'm not really in love with the way it's set up anyway.

I'll learn French... right after I learn Korean (after all I'm living in S.Korea).

And as far as answers people are getting, I'm upfront when I respond to a person requesting help. I've only been doing this around 2 months (but long enough to form some opinions, tho) and I'm learning everyday. Trying to help someone out is a good way of furthering your knowledge. I don't pretend to be an expert. If my help is even not wanted, tell me to f-off, and I'll happily do that.

Just my 20 Won.

Kathryn

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Kathryn :o)
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if you're referring to this french post, He's saying he's leaving and that the project seems aimed at people who know lots about computers. He also expresses his frustration that he was told he didn't speak english very well (in his previous posts), and that we've lost him and all his friends.

The people who answered his question were (in my opinion) rude to him, so I'm not surprised he decided to leave.

It was posted 11 days ago. Is it REALLY appropriate for me (or anyone else) to reply to it NOW?

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Questions? Try the Wiki!
Take a look inside my brain

scsimodo:

Rosetta admins are VERY communicative...(snipped)...

I didn't suggest that admins were not communicative. You read that into my statement yourself.

Orpahned posts in french? What do you expect? This is an English forum?

RaH welcomes people from around the world. Is it a requirement that they only be able to read/write English to get help? There are contributors who speak languages other than english, French is NOT an obscure language.

KSMarksPsych:
I agree w/you. The QA format is "strange" at best and I don't feel comfortable with it; jumping to multiple places to get info is "work" and I believe it leads to some areas getting neglected... just my opinion.

eberndl:
Thanks for the translation; without it I couldn't have guessed that the oratory was a complaint instead of a question. Clearly it isn't worthy of a response; maybe RaH could have responded by saying "Sorry you feel that way". But don't beat me up because I don't read French.


Lastly, opinions on my position is welcome from anyone, but I really was directing this thread to forum moderators and experts (Bill Michael comes to mind). I'm only suggesting that if a QA forum is present, then it shouldn't be neglected when questions are posted. I for one prefer to go where the action is -- Number Crunching -- and neglect to read QA myself.

Lastly, opinions on my position is welcome from anyone, but I really was directing this thread to forum moderators and experts (Bill Michael comes to mind). I'm only suggesting that if a QA forum is present, then it shouldn't be neglected when questions are posted. I for one prefer to go where the action is -- Number Crunching -- and neglect to read QA myself.

Since my name was mentioned, I'll jump in... I _HATE_ the QA structure. You can't tell if you've read a posting or not, the sort-by-times flat is wrong in some cases, you can't tell without reading every single thread, _every_ time you go to check, if they've been _answered_ or not, unless you just happen to remember what x thread said from last time you looked... I'm already on record suggesting Rosetta should do away with the QA section "as provided" by BOINC, and do what Einstein did - just add more regular forums in a "help desk" area. It works a LOT better.

Under "normal" conditions, I don't even go to any project's QA area. Takes too much time, to help too few people. This last couple of weeks, I have been checking the Macintosh sections on SETI and (less often, because less traffic) Rosetta. In order to keep track of what I've already looked at, I have to leave a window open, 24/7, on those pages. Then I can see what's changed when I do a "refresh". I for one simply can't pick up any more QA sections to monitor right now. I believe Tony is trying to monitor something like seven of them, no idea if that includes any here.

Other than begging more of the "regulars", who are capable of assisting, to please spend some time over there, it's going to require someone on "staff", who can make server-side code changes, to really accomplish anything. If it would help to put up a "sticky" that says "Read Before Posting", and directs people to NC for most things instead of QA, _that_ I could do, but I hesitate to do that without directions from staff. Lacking that, I may do it _anyway_, under the "better to ask forgiveness" rule, once I have time to go look and see just how bad it is... what can they do, dock my pay? :-)

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Lastly, opinions on my position is welcome from anyone, but I really was directing this thread to forum moderators and experts (Bill Michael comes to mind). I'm only suggesting that if a QA forum is present, then it shouldn't be neglected when questions are posted. I for one prefer to go where the action is -- Number Crunching -- and neglect to read QA myself.

Since my name was mentioned, I'll jump in... I _HATE_ the QA structure. You can't tell if you've read a posting or not, the sort-by-times flat is wrong in some cases, you can't tell without reading every single thread, _every_ time you go to check, if they've been _answered_ or not, unless you just happen to remember what x thread said from last time you looked... I'm already on record suggesting Rosetta should do away with the QA section "as provided" by BOINC, and do what Einstein did - just add more regular forums in a "help desk" area. It works a LOT better.

Under "normal" conditions, I don't even go to any project's QA area. Takes too much time, to help too few people. This last couple of weeks, I have been checking the Macintosh sections on SETI and (less often, because less traffic) Rosetta. In order to keep track of what I've already looked at, I have to leave a window open, 24/7, on those pages. Then I can see what's changed when I do a "refresh". I for one simply can't pick up any more QA sections to monitor right now. I believe Tony is trying to monitor something like seven of them, no idea if that includes any here.

Other than begging more of the "regulars", who are capable of assisting, to please spend some time over there, it's going to require someone on "staff", who can make server-side code changes, to really accomplish anything. If it would help to put up a "sticky" that says "Read Before Posting", and directs people to NC for most things instead of QA, _that_ I could do, but I hesitate to do that without directions from staff. Lacking that, I may do it _anyway_, under the "better to ask forgiveness" rule, once I have time to go look and see just how bad it is... what can they do, dock my pay? :-)

I think this is a good idea--I just don't have time to check the QA section. the Rosetta FAQ thread is looking great (thanks everybody!)--maybe a slightly edited version could be posted at the top of the QA section?

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I think this is a good idea--I just don't have time to check the QA section. the Rosetta FAQ thread is looking great (thanks everybody!)--maybe a slightly edited version could be posted at the top of the QA section?

I made the FAQ thread sticky, and as soon as a "more edited" version is available, I'll replace it with that. Once there is a "final" version, we can put it wherever seems appropriate.

I went in to each of the QA areas (except Wish List, that seems to be better left alone) and put the following "PLEASE READ BEFORE POSTING" as a sticky on all:

While Rosetta's intent is to be the "best" of the BOINC projects, we're still one of the smaller ones in terms of number of participants. As a result, the number of volunteers available to answer questions in the "Questions and Problems" area is limited.

Your question will be seen by more people if you can use the "Number Crunching" forum in the Message Boards instead - indeed, your question may have already been answered in a thread over there.

As we grow, this Q&P section will be more useful, and we'll try to answer your question no matter where you post it, but some questions here are going too long without an answer, and we'd like to remedy that.

Any other suggestions, etc., welcome!

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eberndl:
Thanks for the translation; without it I couldn't have guessed that the oratory was a complaint instead of a question. Clearly it isn't worthy of a response; maybe RaH could have responded by saying "Sorry you feel that way". But don't beat me up because I don't read French.

I didn't mean to "beat you up", I'm sorry if you read it that way.

If it's this easy for there to be miscommunication when we DO speak the same language, it must be te for peoplerrible for those who don't.

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Questions? Try the Wiki!
Take a look inside my brain

Hi,

I have downloaded and installed the Boinc client software on my PC. How do I enter my protein sequence so that I can use the Rosetta software to predict the structure of my protein sequence?

Sincerely,
Shi-Hua_Xiang@dfci.harvard.edu

Hi Shi-hau Xiang

Your e-mail name suggests that you don't want the Rosetta@home programme but the Rosetta application here

Down at the Academic License is where you need to be, happy protein bending :)

You me and this one?

When I saw the harvard [dot] edu in the email address I looked here before I answered :)

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I would of edited my last post but was too late.

The smiley face was meant to mean no hard feelings.

I don't think I was wrong with this post, though I am dyslexic and sometimes as they say get the bull by the tit and of course I am human, so pick me up when ever I stay please.

You bring up a very nasty feature of the site, the dreaded Q&A forum it's not sooo bad with Mozilla, where I can keep opening tabs, but with IE it must be shocking. The time feature (pick a post) is downright awful, I hope the admin's nuke it.

Catch ya later Hugo.

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Hi,

I have downloaded and installed the Boinc client software on my PC. How do I enter my protein sequence so that I can use the Rosetta software to predict the structure of my protein sequence?

Sincerely,
Shi-Hua_Xiang@dfci.harvard.edu

Hi Shi-hau Xiang

Your e-mail name suggests that you don't want the Rosetta@home programme but the Rosetta application here

Down at the Academic License is where you need to be, happy protein bending :)

You me and this one?

When I saw the harvard [dot] edu in the email address I looked here before I answered :)

That's the one. I do not know whether your response to this gentlemean was right or not but my first thought was "Gee, if he's this confused between RaH and Rosetta, then maybe your response needed a little more "meat" in it than just a link to another website. That's when I concluded that one of the project team members should/could have replied and provided more detailed instructions on how to get started in the quest. No matter now.

Bill Michael:

At the top of the Message Board page is an instruction to post questions in the Q&P area, NOT the message boards. This contradicts your sticky post.

At the top of the Message Board page

I know... that's one of those "staff must change code" things. I _really_ hope they just "nuke" the Q&A section altogether though, I agree with Hugo about that totally. Having more forums is a MUCH better approach.

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That's the one. I do not know whether your response to this gentlemean was right or not but my first thought was "Gee, if he's this confused between RaH and Rosetta, then maybe your response needed a little more "meat" in it than just a link to another website. That's when I concluded that one of the project team members should/could have replied and provided more detailed instructions on how to get started in the quest. No matter now.

That's a fair comment, there is so few of us that frequent the Q&A that I tend to be quite terse, I havn't been for a few day as I'm helping to put together the FAQ.
I also noticed the French post and put it into Babel fish and got the general gist of the thing, I wasn't sure weather to post a sorry to hear that, good luck type thing or not.

RaH welcomes people from around the world. Is it a requirement that they only be able to read/write English to get help? There are contributors who speak languages other than english, French is NOT an obscure language.

I have been thinking the same thing, I was going to attempt to put up an Esperanto thread, but I'm still learning the language so I don't really think I'm qualified. [aside] I have learnt more about the Engilsh language from learning Esperanto than Esperanto (and yes it was to try to help with my dyslexia that I started learning Esperanto) [/aside]

Edit spelling

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Orpahned posts in french? What do you expect? This is an english forum, should Rosetta admins learn a foreign language first to give answers?

That post was a salutaion from me (a forum moderator) to the user of that day, a French speaker, in order to broaden the appeal of the message boards - an effort that apparently missed the mark...

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Once we get the FAQ page up, we can remove the Q & A and add more message board topics.
Any message board topic suggestions?

Once we get the FAQ page up, we can remove the Q & A and add more message board topics.
Any message board topic suggestions?

Discussion:
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Cruncher's Corner
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Science
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Help Desk:
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Wish List
Make suggestions on how Rosetta@Home or BOINC can be improved

(I took this model from the Einstein@Home message boards... Six fora seem to cover just about everything and they all get traffic.)

Kathryn

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Kathryn :o)
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I second the motion - Kathryn's got it just right.

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