Request for change?

[Beyond]

Originally Posted by iconized

It has become very silent here lately. Some other reasons why this project should be removed from the Vault IMO:
- They have a commercial solution for enhancing your own or your team's performance: http://mj12.rfcsrv.com/
- If you are a big contributor to this project you can request that the MJ-12-cluster will do some work on a certain other DC-project of your choice for a month.

Perhaps this topic can be changed to a poll?

Selling node use is troublesome in addition to this being a strictly commercial project. More important to me is that MJ12 does not distribute it's results freely. I don't think it should be in the Vault.

The minimum rules for inclusion are just that. It does NOT mean that every project that meets the minimum requirements should be included in the Vault. Most projects meet the minimum but are NOT included. I'd like to see a poll too.

[alexc]

Originally Posted by iconized

It has become very silent here lately. Some other reasons why this project should be removed from the Vault IMO:
- They have a commercial solution for enhancing your own or your team's performance: http://mj12.rfcsrv.com/
- If you are a big contributor to this project you can request that the MJ-12-cluster will do some work on a certain other DC-project of your choice for a month.

Perhaps this topic can be changed to a poll?

Hmm, suprised to read all this I think at the very least you need to get some facts right:

1) One of the project members who is experienced with optimising our crawler offers service to other willing members, this has got nothing to do with Majestic12 - we are not nunnies to watch what project members do so long as it's legal

2) We've donated processing power to a number of other distributed projects by joining teams of those volunteers who invited us - this was possible because we've got teraflop cluster which isn't used 24/7 and it was thought that donating back some CPU processing power would be good idea.

3) You probably won't like this too but very recently we've made donations ($1600 in total) to DC Vault and Free DC to help them maintain servers - we are giving back to distributed community in our own way, if you don't like it then just don't take part in the project - simples really.

[alexc]

Originally Posted by Rusty

Kinda expensive... $20 a month per node, for that extra I could upgrade my plan to completely unlimited and do it myself.

Let me just be clear here - Majestic12 does NOT charge anything to run nodes, quiet the opposite we've just nearly completed first ever payout to members who were running nodes: this is part of our strategy where by members of the project who made it happen benefit from any commercial success we may have. I have not looked into that stuff myself recently (busy working on some programming challenges) however in any case this in my view is internal matter for our project and if someone does not like being part of our project then nobody forces them to do so.

[alexc]

Originally Posted by Beyond (Ars)

More important to me is that MJ12 does not distribute it's results freely.

Yes we do here: http://www.majesticseo.com

Just in case you can't figure it out watch this video on what we provide for free: http://blog.majesticseo.com/general/...-you-for-free/

Here is what Microsoft says about us: "Whilst they do provide paid for services if you are interested in analysing data for other (i.e. competitor) sites, they provide FREE access to data about your own site if you validate yourself as an owner."
Source: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/searchblog/a...backlinks.aspx

We do not provide everything you might want for free, but then again we need to earn money to afford top notch hardware - instead of begging every year for donations and risking project closure because of lack of funds our model actually is sustainable and helped us survive over 7 years now.

[Razor_FX_II]

Originally Posted by Beyond (Ars)

Selling node use is troublesome in addition to this being a strictly commercial project. More important to me is that MJ12 does not distribute it's results freely. I don't think it should be in the Vault.

The minimum rules for inclusion are just that. It does NOT mean that every project that meets the minimum requirements should be included in the Vault. Most projects meet the minimum but are NOT included. I'd like to see a poll too.

It's so pathetic and transparent to see a team such as yours to use such tactics to have your lowest scoring project removed from the DC-Vault to regain your number one spot back.

[alexc]

Ars Technica is a commercial company: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ars_Technica

[iconized]

In defence of AT, their team consists of volunteers and in the past quite a few projects have been removed from DC Vault (Aqua, Ufluids) that lowered their lead a lot.

I appreciate the donations to DC Vault and Free DC very much. For the rest I guess we are hopelessly divided over this. I think Majestic-12 is a good project. It's commercially viable but not a project I want to spend my CPU cycles on. I prefer that DC projects publish their findings openly and that the results are scientifically significant or it must have some other human interest. Having said that, there are quite a few projects in DC Vault that I really can't judge on their merits.

[alexc]

I don't know the motives of people who seem to persistently want Majestic 12 project removed from DC Vault, but IF (big IF here) it is indeed related in lowering their team's lead then it's the most pathetic selfish motive there can be. I can only hope that's not real motive here, though in all honesty I fail to see any good explainable rationale behind it.

For the record I don't have any problems with anybody deciding not to join Majestic 12 project for whatever reason. The truth is that we are very unique project in a sense of a scale of the challenge: it's not just CPU work which is easy to program, but we also have bandwidth situation, lots of storage necessary to store crawled data, even more server capacity to process it and a lot of work required to try to deal with all these challenges without going bust.

That said we are doing well commercially and we are giving back to distributed community - the most important part for us is that we have sustainable revenues that help us continue to go forward rather than close down the project due to lack of finance. We are also providing a lot of free services to tens of thousands of webmasters which is fine by me - it's common for "freemium" models like ours to have 95% of users use free stuff.

So to sum up - if you don't like Majestic 12 project then don't join it - very simple really, you don't have to like us but at the very least please do your research if you want to badmouth us making claims like that we boost other people with our teraflop cluster only because they are high contributors: I would have gladly boosted Ars Technica if they bothered to ask in our public thread here: http://www.majestic12.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4485

Alex

[iconized]

I think the motive is pretty clear, the MJ-12 project is a strange duck and not everyone wants to spend resources on it for the team. This sentiment, in some teams, is stronger than in others.

[alexc]

Well, don't spend resources then and focus on something else!

Anybody who is asking to remove us on those grounds ought to be ashamed of themselves especially given that plenty of our project members come from other well known teams, this isn't even cheating but much worse like asking to remove hard question that was already answered by other teams in order to gain advantage, I really hope this isn't motivation behind yet another attempt to remove us.

What's worse in my view is that this is an attack on a very unique and successful project that can become model project for self-sustained distributed computing that involves volunteers: removal from DC Vault won't hurt us but it will certainly be a very stupid move because it would just undermine future DC projects that would seek to replicate our model, they won't have a chance of being included here and possibly that would doom them, and all for what?!?!

This really needs to be settled once and for all - I am calling on those members of Ars Technica who seem to be hell bent on getting us removed to give very clear statement about their motives. Frankly if those alleged motives are true then I think Ars Technica should really look into this because in my view it just puts Ars Technica itself into bad light for no good reason.

[iconized]

I think you should reread the whole thread. I hate repeating myself. Let's start with the OP:

Originally Posted by runesk

As the discussion regarding commercial projects once more has arisen, I thinks it is about time to thoroughly finalize the rules regarding the commercial issue.

As far as I can recall, the claim is that commercial projects should not be allowed on the Vault.

As many have pointed out, most projects have some kind of commercial aspect, be it funded by the government or others or selling results of the distributed computing.

Where to draw the line might be the really difficult.

I do not know if the community wants such change, and I hope both those for and those against such change could raise their voices here.

Be objective and try to have in mind what is best for the Vault.

.R

This issue started way before Ars Technica lost their number 1 place to Team Norway.

The whole discussion is not about whether MJ-12 should be included, but it's about: "Should we change the rules of inclusion?"

[alexc]

Originally Posted by iconized

The whole discussion is not about whether MJ-12 should be included, but it's about: "Should we change the rules of inclusion?"

Motivation in my view is very important because if it is what you implied it is then the question should really be this:

"Why should rules change to benefit some people who don't like a particular project for petty selfish reasons?"

Majestic 12 is a very successful project - not only we survived for over 7 years now but we've also launched actual product that is used by a lot of people and our success is used to make distributed computing communities stronger rather than weaker.

This really prompts another very reasonable question - "Why even suggest removing such a successful project?"

Now I don't know for certain what your motivation is but I know for fact that you made wrong claims in your post here:

http://www.team-ninja.com/vbulletin/...1&postcount=13

I've explained above what actually happened, but so far I have not seen you apologies or even admit you were factually wrong in your assertions, why is that? I guess telling the truth or even bothering to research properly is optional for you.

[Razor_FX_II]

Originally Posted by iconized

The whole discussion is not about whether MJ-12 should be included, but it's about: "Should we change the rules of inclusion?"

Actually your misrepresenting the facts. If you actually read the "Should we change the rules of inclusion?" thread you will find that Majestic-12 was not even part of that discussion.

The "Remove Majestic-12?" thread was started by Beyond from Team Ars at about the time that [H]ard|OCP was adding bandwidth to the Majestic-12 project and was on course to pass Team Ars and put them in further jeopardy of loosing there #1 DC-Vault position to Team Norway (which both inevitably happened). Team Ars was trying to find enough users to compete in Majestic-12 so they wouldn't be passed and didn't succeed.
As Team Ars was about to be passed, Beyond started a discussion to put Majestic-12 into controversy and push to have it removed from the DC-Vault.

I really respect the accomplishments of Team Ars but I am very sorry for the members that have worked so hard and dedicated so much to be embarrassed with this competitiveness approach.

[Beyond]

Originally Posted by Razor_FX_II

It's so pathetic and transparent to see a team such as yours to use such tactics to have your lowest scoring project removed from the DC-Vault to regain your number one spot back.

As one of the most active members at MJ-12 I would expect you to be supportive of it, but LYING IS REALLY PATHETIC. I and others from other teams have brought up the issue of MJ-12 for years, and you know it. Now that you're getting paid it seems to have become an emotional issue. Simply, I don't think projects that do not freely distribute the data that we in the Vault crunch for them should be in the Vault. The biggest reason that our team hasn't been doing well is that it became clear that mj12 was not going to freely distribute it's data. That fact was hidden for a long time. Almost all the Ars members dropped the project. A very few of us kept running it only because it was in the Vault.

The reason I personally had to quit all mj12: 1st I was flagged for overusage by my isp even though I wasn't using much. I cut back severely. Even at a tiny comparative trickle Qwest (now Centurylink) has been flagging my account for "suspicious activity" which after a HUGE amount of time on the phone turned out to be mj12. They don't care that it's not a worm or a trojan, they just don't want it running on their bandwidth, period. Running it means termination.

As far as TN goes, they've been single mindedly pursuing the Vault lead for a long time. They've worked hard at it. They deserve a LOT of credit. Highest congrats to them for their accomplishment. They've earned it.


Edit: BTW, as you know I did not bring up the issue this time either. Iconized from DPC did. I agree with him. If we can't state our opinions then it's a sorry place to be. Iconized asked for a poll. I agree. For some reason that's a problem. Why, I can only guess.

[alexc]

Not everyone has got bandwidth to run our software - sadly that's the case, not much I can do about it: it is however way too low to attempt to remove the project from DC Vault on the basis you can't run it.

Originally Posted by Beyond (Ars)

Now that you're getting paid it seems to have become an emotional issue.

Razor_FX_II is NOT on Majestic 12 payroll, however since we've had this idea of sharing commercial success with project members it meant that he was one of the many who were paid (details on our forum).

There is nothing wrong with it, quiet the opposite - we've established a model where actual contributors of the project share its commercial success which came after 7 very long years. Now you might not like this but then again how much exactly did you contribute to the overall project effort?

Simply, I don't think projects that do not freely distribute the data that we in the Vault crunch for them should be in the Vault. The biggest reason that our team hasn't been doing well is that it became clear that mj12 was not going to freely distribute it's data.

That's not true - we provide data openly at http://www.majesticseo.com - every day a lot of webmasters use this data for free: it was already explained to you that we simply can't distribute everything for free because it would require bandwidth that we don't have and we'd have to shut down project because we'll have zero revenues meaning that nobody would get any free data at all. I guess that's perfectly fine for you but it's not fine for me.

I mean, do you even realise that we get 300 GB of heavily compressed data every day, would you like to download all of it daily, is that what you want? When we copy it to local disks at 100 MB/sec (1 Gb/sec) it takes forever to copy just last few weeks worth of data, we have to deal with crazy data volumes now and this ain't free.

Maybe you'd prefer complete dataset we crawled today, Sir? Well, that would be 26 TBs today so far, that's around 10 x3TB disks just for today, would you like that free data posted to you? It would only take around $2000 worth of HDDs to be posted to you and that's only data that was processed today: you don't really have a clue about actual scale we have despite all the numbers available publicly.

At some point in the past I considered creating special option to leave crawled data on computer that runs our software, there wasn't much demand for it though for a good reason - the costs of storing all this data are very very high.