As posted here http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,16652138 at BBR Team Starfire,   this is an offical invite to our former teammates to discuss what really went on before, during, and after the split.

Please, I know emotions are high, things are bound to be said, but if we could just stick to the facts, we can be very civil.


 
Said by Paul-

 I have to ask this team's pardon. I've left, and joined http://tswb.org with many old friends that have all had the same vision of a unified BOINC team. I feel I no longer have the right to post here on team issues. As has been said many times before, once a member, always a member (perhaps that should be re-thought, in this ever-changing DC world we've been a part of all these years), so I'd like to beg pardon of this team to post this in order to correct some common misconceptions.

Flea, we started the push for a unified BOINC team many moons ago. I see here that many people say that this wasn't a team decision. I'd like to refer back to this most recent thread, http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,15886692 which was another thread by Kinguni to gauge interest in such an idea. The second part of that thread is here- http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,15894710 Also continuing here- http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,15900539 . There was talk even earlier than that, when Kinguni first tried to gauge interest, somewhere around the holidays last year, but the grandkids are coming soon, so I'm running out of time. Perhaps later I can find them and post links.

I see in those threads the very people who expressed positive interest in the idea now feel like they were not truly represented by our DCS reps. In my view, we were doing the wishes of the majority of the team that spoke up. True enough, it was still a very small minority of the whole team.

I am the first to admit that many, many things went wrong during this push. We were aggressive in DCS for this, and alienated the medical teams. One thing stood true, all of our current and past DCS members stood firm behind our founder and leader for the past 6 years in his resolve to bring the team firmly into the BOINC arena. I've known Ron all these years, and as was mentioned by Camelot One a few weeks ago, Ron always had the team's best interest at heart. In hindsight, bringing the matter of a split with DCS with the team would have been the better choice. At the time, we were under the assumption that membership in DCS was optional. We were wrong there....

The very heart of of our split with the DCS was our desire to have a site wide unified BOINC presence. We couldn't get it, and felt strongly enough about it to leave and create our own, once an ultimatum was handed down.. Many members here feel very strongly about supporting DSLR, feel a need to stay. Make no mistake, every one I've talked to at http://tswb.org has those same feelings, and the transition has been very hard to do. We have felt so strongly and committed so much time into the BOINC effort, that we had no choice but to follow our resolve on the matter.

It wasn't easy. Virtually all of us who left had to do some soul searching. Myself, I lost my job as moderator of this very forum over it. It wasn't an easy thing to do.

On the topic of our sigs, someone here commented that they didn't like the idea of a group of ten people in IRC could make policy for the team. As you can see from the links from months ago, the team made the policy, we fought our tails off for it, lost, and left our home of many years over it. The suggestion of the "group of ten" sounded so ridiculous, we thought it was great to make a sig about it.....  :p

On the topic of hidden agendas, I would hazard a guess conspiracy theories abound by those who have a distaste for being left out of the loop. I can assure I have been in the middle of most discussions on this matter, and if there were any hidden agendas, they certainly were not stated in our private discussions.

So in the end, the people who really wanted a unified BOINC team got it, the science is being done, we're enjoying a freedom we haven't had in many a moon, and life is good.

Again, apologies if I've overstepped my bounds here, this should be my last team issues post. Instead of causing more strife here, I'd like to invite each and every one of you to discuss or get answers on this topic on our forum in this thread- http://www.tswb.org/Forums/tabid/173/mid/504/threadid/1111/scope/posts/Default.aspx#1111

Paul

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Co-owner, the Group of 10 100 200 300

They know where we are if they're interested in discussing it.  But I doubt that fits some people's agendas.

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Gary
You can't fix dead.

Another good reason to be here!

We are a #1 Team - in all projects - and we now have the freedom to make it so!

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I have purposely avoided posting at BroadbandReports other than Birthday or Milestone threads so as not to look like I'm stirring the pot.

Having said that, I was sorely tempted to respond since for one thing, my name was brought up in a post and secondly because I don't like it when people try to revise history, and I'm glad Paul stated the facts he did. The old threads speak for themselves.

I wish nothing but the best for BBR Starfire and I hope they eventually achieve what we've got here, as unlikely as it seems. I'm just glad I don't have to deal with management over there any more and  feel awful that the ones we left behind still do.

So I raise my glass to my former comrades and wish them happiness.

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I can only please one person a day. Today is not your day... tomorrow isn't looking too good either.

First, there probably won't be a unified anything over on BBR.  They're stuck on the mentality that there are separate teams, and each team has it's well defined (myopic?) scope.  And they're too interested in protecting that turf to see any beneifit having a unified DC presence for BBR.  And that's unfortunate for the people who are still crunching for BBR teams who hold that as a goal.

Second, there are two people putting on a show over on BBR.  A show for management.  A show for the other DCS reps.  But are they representing the Seti team over there?  Those two will likely decide the direction of the team, regardless of who the other reps are.  If they side with the other teams on the DCS, as they're positioning themselves to do right now, there's no hope for the seti team, and the DC community over there.

Troublemakers are exactly how they'd like to portray all of us.  We dared to have ideas and convictions, and we dared to fight for those ideas, and we dared to defy management, and we tore the team apart by leaving to create our own DC community that fit our vision of what DC should be like.  I'd say that they're in denial, and need to look long and hard at their own roles in what came down.  We didn't set an ultimatum, we didn't fire Paul (and do so in a manner that completely lacked class) because he didn't toe the management line .  We didn't push for a vote to take the team way from BBR, and we didn't shop around for someone willing to call for that vote.

It would do Managment and the DCS over there well to realize that the DC community over on BBR is made up of their customers (or clients if you prefer).  Most members are paid premium, and the Seti team drove alot of traffic to BBR.  But they're instead treated as peons who should be subservient and grateful for the forum that, by the grace of Justin, has been granted to them.

Let them continue to call us troublemakers.  They can demonize me as much as they want to.  Let them contine to mischaracterize and speculate about what we did, why we did it and how we did it.  They'll just continue to drive members our way.

The best thing we can do now is to continue to show BBR what DC computing should be.  Members Crunching and having Fun.  Members deciding their own course in the Open, not behind secret committees.  One Unified Team part of One Community with many Different Interests, where those differences are Embraced, not supressed.

We are:

Team Starfire World BOINC  

Distributed Computing the way it was meant to be^TM

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Gary
You can't fix dead.

Right here. [EMO]Grins Gallery/grinning-smiley-003.gif[/EMO]

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I am here.I did some flip flopping as I soul searched but Im here to stay. I only have 1.5 crunchers as my daughters runs hot and is only on part of the time and E@H is on both. :)

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Who's a troublemaker?? 

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Troublemaker

Well Said. Lucid and succinct. And the exact problem that will spell doom for BBr if management over there continues to misapprehend which is more important. They continually put the chicken before the egg, ie The {insert team/clan/project here} benefits more from being hosted on BBr than BBr benefits from he membership traffic generated by said team/clan/project. BBr starfire runs the risk of marginalzing itself in the SETI universe, as their membership will be made up almost exclusively of casual crunchers who crunch for a week or a month an then stop. My prediction. I'd like to commend you gentlemen for sticking to your principles, and showing class and restraint throughout the entire miserable public shit flinging contest. I'd like to leave you with this...

"With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plea; but to tyrants I will give no quarter, nor waste arguments where they will certainly be lost." William Lloyd Garrison

edited for spelling

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Proud Member:

IAFF, TSWB
"With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plea;
but to tyrants I will give no quarter, nor waste arguments where they will certainly be lost."