UBB.Developers Forums Announcements Announcements U-Zine Interviews April 2002: Haxxor-of-the-Month: Inside the UD Forum

Haxxor-of-the-Month: Inside the UD Forum
By: tackaberry

Each month we feature one of our Haxxor All-Stars as the Haxxor-of-the-Month. This month, we're doing something a little different, as we go deep inside the United Devices Support forum with Graham Eames and caffeineyellow5. Both have been crunching conformers for quite some time, and even though they both visit UBBDev, neither is a member of our team. For those of you who have not visited the UD Support Forums , it is an excellent place to go when you have questions. If you ask a question, it is likely that either Graham or caffeineyellow5 will answer it.

UBBDev: Thanks for taking some time to speak with us. What is your involvement with the United Devices Cancer Project and with the UD Member Forums.

Graham Eames: Just like you, I'm a user who downloaded the UD Agent to run the Cancer project back in April last year. Since then I have become more involved with the forums, initially as a normal member taking part in the general discussions, and helping out where I could. In the past six months or so after UD starting using the forums for more of the support activity, I have taken on a much more active role in the support of other users, and I'm now a Moderator on the forums, and one of a small group responsible for maintaining the unofficial member support documents.

caffeineyellow5:

quote:

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by CY5
A new job? What is my old job?
I just live here. I don't have a job.

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quote:

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by Nscafe (UD Moderator)
CY5, yeah... your job is currently reading the forums and helping out.

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That sums it up really.

UBBDev: Which of the UD forums to you moderate or help out at the most?

caffeineyellow5: I currently don't have moderation functions on any of the forums. I do have write access to the Community-maintained FAQs forum and full private member access to the Community Development forum.
As far as help, I think that my help is more descibed as informational and directive, rather than techical and exploritory. For example, if someone needs help on a technical issue that I know the answer to, I would usually find that answer and then copy and paste it. If someone needed a tool, trick or tip, I would point them to the page they could find it on. My help also includes things in the area of creating and maintaining a family environment within the forums. There is not a UD forum (aside from Alpha and Beta tester forums) untouched by my keeboard, but many of my posts are conversational, word game, site/quote/pic/word/etc of the day type things, or words of encouragement. My additional help includes, clearing up misconceptions and concerns over the UD agent and what it does.

Graham Eames: Officially I'm the moderator of the Community FAQ forum , which is the repository for various useful documents which have been written by the members to answer a number of question. Beyond that, I take part in most of the forums to some degreee, spending most of my time in the support or "chat" forums.

UBBDev: It sounds like the users do a great job in running the support community. How many of the UD Forum "staff" are actually affiliated with United Devices, Oxford or any of the other project partners?

caffeineyellow5: All UD employees have the UD - before their screen name. The Oxford people have the same type of designations. Also, UD employees have UD Employee after their names when they post. No one without these designations work in affiliation with UD or project partners.

Graham Eames: [/b]Among the regular forum users, there are 5 or 6 who are directly employed by UD, about 8 who have no affiliation with UD (and act as moderators or otherwise help with support), and a further 3 who have links with the University of Oxford. Those who have official connections with UD or one of the partners are usually quite easy to identify, having their affiliation either in the Username, or as their rank text.

UBBDev: How many members are there on the UD Forums, how busy is the board?

Graham Eames: The current membership of the forums is somewhere just over 25,000 with more joining each day, of which there is a regular membership of up to 500 people, with the rest of the members only dropping in occasionally to ask questions or raise issues they feel strongly about. We also have a fairly large guest community who use the forums for checking up on the news, but who have never joined. The forums are what I would class as quite busy. Taking a few averages from last months usage, we averaged out at around 25,000 page views per day, with several hundred posts each day as well.

caffeineyellow5: As of this moment, there are 25,364 members. We usually hold up at least 15 at all times. I have seen us as high as 181. Our average is around 35 on a ten minute count.

UBBDev: What are the most common questions you deal with at the UD Forums

Graham Eames: In recent weeks, the two most common questions have related to the length of this project, and people's concerns over their connections to the UD servers. Then of course there is the ongoing issue familiar to many who run the project of Long Running Molecules, and the size of workunits. In general, the most common questions relate to how the software works, and the scoring system used by UD to record your contribution to the project.

caffeineyellow5: Don't you ever sleep?
No really, most of the questions asked are about the THINK project. About LRM's(long running molecules), proteins, points/ratings/ranking issues and recently, connectivity speed and project length.

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