Happy 17th Birthday UBT !

[UBT - Timbo]

Hi all

Once again I missed the team forum birthday (on 13th March) when this very forum celebrated it's 17th Birthday.

Posts on the forum have fallen off a lot in the last 2-3 years, when to be honest I had expected an upsurge in interest, what with social distancing and people working from home more.

But the recent massive increase in energy costs have, I think, somewhat muted any continuing interest in crunching BOINC tasks - I've not crunched much at home recently, and I now put my home PC into "sleep mode" at night, just to save power (whereas previously it was crunching 24/7).

I will continue to monitor member "log ins" to the forum over the next year, as I'd like it to reach it's 18th birthday and become an "adult" forum (snigger !!) but if few people want to actively post here, then it might be best if it was shuttered and any member postings can instead be diverted to a UBT "area" on a social media platform, such as Facebook (*), Discord (*), or elsewhere that is easy for members to access .

regards and stay safe
Tim

(*) Note: We have a UBT presence on FB and Discord already so it is just a question of which one people prefer...as it seems futile to me to have TWO different 3rd party platforms on which to converse...but that's just IMHO.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2391147216

Discord: https://discord.com/channels/7109996890 ... 9465692202

[stephenhunter]

Happy Birthday

17 years, not bad going. Here's to many more.

[UBT - PennyQ]

Happy 17years-and-a-week birthday to this forum! I stay well clear of Facebook and wouldn't bother with Discord probably, so would be sad if the forum disappeared after all this time. It has got a bit quiet now though, compared to the mega amounts of posting that used to happen (I never did keep up with the 'picture showing the next number' thread!)
Penny

[UBT - Timbo]

Happy Birthday

17 years, not bad going. Here's to many more.

Thanks Stephen

regards
Tim

[UBT - Timbo]

Happy 17years-and-a-week birthday to this forum! I stay well clear of Facebook and wouldn't bother with Discord probably, so would be sad if the forum disappeared after all this time. It has got a bit quiet now though, compared to the mega amounts of posting that used to happen (I never did keep up with the 'picture showing the next number' thread!)
Penny

Thanks Penny

I think a forum solves a number of issues, but those issues are largely going away...

eg: Chatting about configuring BOINC Manager

Well, most projects work out of the box, without too much need for tweaking or having to install extras that ened further configuration. Some extras are needed such as MS Visual Studio extensions, for instance.

eg: Chatting about specific project challenges

Many people have their own goals now, and so few people want to volunteer computing resources to a project that some people do not care much for.

eg: Chatting about the teams pursuit to be the #1 team in the UK

Well, we saw off BOINC UK and Team England, but TSBT took the crown of "#1 UK team" a while ago, so, as we cannot compete with their daily RAC, so we'll just have to stay as #2 !!

eg: Other forum sections

There seems to be little or no interest in generating new posts...and most would search the internet for any entertainment purposes...

re: Third party websites

Most social media type websites are fairly easy to peruse and most are pretty safe...and you can get "ad blockers" to keep most of the annoying stuff from appearing in your browser. Of course this forum is (currently) ad-free and so it's a nice back-water on the internet, where one can come to for a bit of "relax" from the rest of the world, and just catch up on whatevers going on in the BOINC universe.

So, while we still have a few regular visitors here, it'll stay open...but even if it does shutter, I'll just leave it as read-only, so the forum sections can still be viewed, but there'll be less need to keep the forum software updated and no need to administer it.

regards
Tim

[Jeffers]

I, like many others, don't post as much as I used to. The games we used to play disappeared due to lack of participation, a sign of the times I suppose with so many other distractions taking peoples time.
I do try and pop in here at least once a week, and there are a few regular contributors.
So hopefully the forum will survive until its next (grown-up) birthday, I'll put a note on my calendar. We can all have a virtual drink to celebrate.