I can see a need at times for the ability to pass the foundership to another member, and on rare occasion the need to change the name of a team. (Does team name changing need to be an option?)

What I do not agree with is the ability for the founder to up and boot a member from the team. For whatever reason a founder might want to boot someone does not change the fact that that person has contributed to that team's score.
Their work is still part of the team's stats, but the name is gone.
Even if the contributor moves to another team, their contribution to the first team's stats remains there.

Would it be possible to leave the contributor's name on the list, but add a Retired or moved on flag. We can tell they are inactive by looking at their RAC (Maybe they just wondered off for a bit to work on another project)
But IMHO removing their name from the team list when they go somewhere else, Just seems to take away from the contribution they made while part of that team.

But again, the big thing is I don't believe the founder should be able to simply "click you're outta here" kick someone off the team.

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Crunching cause I can, with BitBenderTech
Feel free to join us both on the team and at the BitBenderForums

What I do not agree with is the ability for the founder to up and boot a member from the team. For whatever reason a founder might want to boot someone does not change the fact that that person has contributed to that team's score.
Their work is still part of the team's stats, but the name is gone.
Even if the contributor moves to another team, their contribution to the first team's stats remains there.

We (SETI.Germany) had a member once in our team, even a founder in one project, that we one day became aware of that he was a Nazi. Of course we wanted to get rid of him asap, and it was only possible via this feature. I really don't see the problem with this, you somehow have to get rid of spammers, nazis, racists and other scum once you know about them, or, for corporate teams, perhaps to get rid of crunchers from competitors.

As there is no entrance controll by the founder, everybody can join and leave as s/he pleases, at least this last resort has to possible.

To allow a name change only via admin would have brought some hassle to some admins of projects where I founded teams, as in the beginning I sometimes misspelled our team name, i.e. Seti.Germany instead of SETI.Germany. Such things can happen, especially in big, more decentralised teams like ours.

So imho the best bet is to disable the founder change automatism completely and inpose a bit more hassle on teams (and admins) in the few cases no friendly takeover is possible.

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Grüße vom Sänger

I didn'tfound translation of Barber reaction in this thread, so I decided to translate it.

see Original message:
Právě jsem s Merlinem připravoval vyjádření:

Žádost o získání founderství v Team Teddies jsem podal v době, kdy tento tým byl již neaktivní. Žádost byla učiněna zcela legitimním způsobem a pokud by founder tohoto týmu plnil své základní povinnosti, tak by převod founderství nepovolil. Žádost o změnu founderství jsem učinil v dobré víře, že je v zájmu Boinc obecně, aby bylo navázáno na výsledky týmu, který už se někam dostal a začal být neaktivní. Získání founderství v tomto neaktivním týmu tak pomohlo ke zviditelnění malého ale velmi aktivního týmu z malé země. Histerie kolem tohoto převodu je zarážející, když si uvědomíme, že Boinc je věcí dobrovolnou bez možnosti zisku. My se Boincem bavíme. Do světa Boinc přinášíme rozruch, k čemuž patří, že občas někoho vyvedeme z míry. V žádném případě ale nepostupujeme cestou nelegální, takže slovo „krádež“ v tomto příspěvku nás uráží. Přesto všechno jsme ochotni osobně Scribe předat zpět tento řádně opečovávaný tým, pokud se zaváže, že tým bude nadále aktivní a on jako founder si bude plnit své povinnosti, což zajisté vyzkoušíme. K převodu ale s ohledem na moji dovolenou nemůže dojít dříve, než na konci července 2008.

Po přetlumočení jej zašleme na fórum Rosetty. Byť již postrádá smysl, neboť administrátor Rosetty převod uskutečnil ze své vůle.

Prosím naše počtáře, aby se v projektu přesunuli do našeho aktuálního týmu s názvem Space Family.

traslation of the post (discalimer: I am no member of Space family, I translated the mesage as it is, so I in translation refers to Barbar and we to only god knows who)

9th July 2008 20:44 as reaction on Saenger post Barbar wrote on space family forums:

I have been preparing with Merlin communique:

I applied to become founder in Team Teadies at a time, when the team has been already inactive. The apply have been done in legal way and if a team founder have been fulfilling his basic responsibilities, he would not allow the transfer. I applied for founder right in good faith, that it is in interest of BOINC in general to pick up again on team, which came far and become inactive. Getting founders rights in this inactive team helped to make visible small but very active team from small country. Hysteria around this transfer is perplexing, when you realize, that BOINC is voluntary without possibility of profit. With BOINC we entertain ourselves. We bring stir into world of BOINC, hand to hand with it we sometimes put out of countenance somebody. We did nothing illegal, so the word “theft” in this contribution hurts us. Still we are willing to give the person Scribe back this with care maintained team, if he pledges himself to remain active (as founder and as team), and will fulfill his responsibilities (as founder), which we will without doubt test. As we are on holidays, the transfer can not be accomplished before the end of July 2008.

After translation we will post this on Rosetta forum, though it has no meaning as Rosetta administrator performed transfer on his own.

We ask crunchers to move into our actual team under name of Space Family.

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Short summary from remainder of the thread:

vkliber is waiting for more info from team leaders. Forester (founder of Czech National Team - largest team in Czech Republic) expresses his shock of the whole thing.

The only member of Star Family reacting on the event is MIZ , who in general does not believe, and says his points are all earned (from boincstats it seems to me, that he is right).

I didn't translate the posts as they contain no new information for this case.

EDIT: corrected one non functional link

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To Barbar...

Illegal? is a matter of opinion. Theft is right on the mark.
What you did was, instead of taking the few second it would have taken to create a team and then show the world what your group is capable of, You went on a hunt, Found a team with a sizable contribution that seemed not to have any active members, taken the time required, and STOLE it for the sole purpose of getting a substantial instant boost in the stats. You then compounded this by kicking all the original team members from what you now claimed as "Yours" in an attempt to hide your actions.

You have simply taken a system designed to make life easier on team founders and members and perverted it to your own benefit. Just because you can do a ting does not make it right.

You have brought discredit to yourself, your team members AND your entire country. I truly hope you are proud of yourself cause I don't think ANYONE else will be.

FYI, Just because a team has decided to go work another project doesn't mean they wont come back at some point or would appreciate their contribution be taken away and hidden as you've found out with your theft of the Teddies team.

Good day to you and I hope that other projects where you have performed this type of theft are as quick to take it away from you as the crew here at Rosetta was.

Thanks for the staff here for restoring the Teddie team. Also thanks to those that are translating posts.

I think Barbar & company should be banned from crunching. Their tactics have tainted everything they touch. And don't want to see this happen to others. I think too many teams have already been taken across various projects. 99% of the folks that are crunching are good folks and are here for a reason. Really have never seen anything like this happen before. Actually is quite sad especially when those that are guilty still see no wrong in their actions.

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I applied to become founder in Team Teadies at a time, when the team has been already inactive. The apply have been done in legal way and if a team founder have been fulfilling his basic responsibilities, he would not allow the transfer. I applied for founder right in good faith, that it is in interest of BOINC in general to pick up again on team, which came far and become inactive. Getting founders rights in this inactive team helped to make visible small but very active team from small country. Hysteria around this transfer is perplexing, when you realize, that BOINC is voluntary without possibility of profit. With BOINC we entertain ourselves. We bring stir into world of BOINC, hand to hand with it we sometimes put out of countenance somebody. We did nothing illegal, so the word “theft” in this contribution hurts us. Still we are willing to give the person Scribe back this with care maintained team, if he pledges himself to remain active (as founder and as team), and will fulfill his responsibilities (as founder), which we will without doubt test. As we are on holidays, the transfer can not be accomplished before the end of July 2008.

If he pledges himself??
I want some of the stuff this guy is smoking!
He's either delusional or outright nutso...

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Join the Teddies@WCG

Yes, I'd like to add my as well...

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Join the Teddies@WCG

I wonder how funny Free-DC will find their new team name at Nano-Hive :-/

Do you eventually mean this one, with former members like cwhyl, Fozzie, n7vxj, Bok, Helix Von Smelix etc.? Many of them are still pretty actively crunching, except on Nano-Hive.

Peter

yes our team has been hijacked. Nano has not been issuing work for a long time. It is one of my primary projects, so when it comes back up i would switch over to it. This is a BOINC wide problem. Our Ralph has been hijacked too!!

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Team Alienware has been destroyed at Pirates and PrimeGrid.

The liar who claims to rescue dead teams has not crunched for those teams at all, he just stole and destroyed them.

p.s.: At VTU the victim used to be Team MacNN

At µFluids : LeFreenaute

At Spinhenge : Old Soldiers

At SETI : SNG Austria & members

At Predictor : Meisterkuehler.de Team

At Malaria : Düsseldorf-Team

I can't seem to get into my Ralph account at the moment so I'll have to post this here..

To the admins: Can you restore the Free-DC team in Ralph@Home like you have done with the Teddies team here ?

Thanks

Bok

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Free-DC

Stats for all projects

Custom Stats

...

At Einstein : Western Michigan University Physics Club


Sorry, I couldn't find out all original team names, the web looses some things over the time. Maybe BOINCstats Willy could help.

I've just read that this Barbar thief has taken another team after having it "parked" with the username "ABC" and that his croney "MIZ" has joined it in the last 24 hrs after leaving the restored Teddies team.

Apparently it is extraordinarily difficult for him to do the honest thing and just start his own team like everybody else. This effort shows a consistent pattern of behaviour on his part. If he's not stopped this will repeat over and over both here and elsewhere.

Out of interest, I've compiled an itinerary, how Barbar has been travelling between Rosetta's teams -, Czech National Team, boinc.cz, BOINC.SK, xxx, xx, Space Family a.k.a. Czech Boinc Team a.k.a. (possibly) XM Satellite Radio and Teddies. To clean up traces? (He jumped more often than Star Gate people did ;-)

Someone interested in other projects? If, then please let's post it on BOINC dev boards.

David, what about setting also the hi-jacked Czech Boinc Team a.k.a. Space Family a.k.a. (possibly) XM Satellite Radio team and (dag's?) xx team free?

And finally renaming MrPetan's xxx to Space Family?

Peter

okay, I knew this was going to happen.

please compile a list of teams with ids along with the original teams and founders (with ids) along with proof of the takeover and removal of team members. It will make it easier for me. I'm quite busy right now with other things so this will help and make it possible. Also, please list the founders that took over and did this, just in case we decide to take some sort of action like removal, banning, etc.

The feature is disabled now as I mentioned below so it should not happen again.

thanks

You can all read what is happening at Boinc developement on this subject Here just scroll down about halfway...and I posted this to them -

As the 'starter' of this whole problem, I am the original founder of the Teddies Team at Rosetta, I think I have an input for you.
I have been reading all these e-mails and in my opinion you are overcomplicating the solution.

What was this guy after? He wanted 'fame' by being the founder of a team, spread across BOINC that had lots of credits, note it was HIS team, first thing he did when he hijacked us was change the name!

It is the name that is important. What is the point of hijacking a team and not being able to change the name - NONE. Teams like Teddies are small but strong, we have only about a max of 25 ish members, but very powerful, in one place. We are number 35 at the moment at WCG.

We move from project to project, usually as a bunch, and sometimes return to an old 'inactive' project. These old ones are like money in a 'dead' account at a bank...it is all there waiting for us to get back to it. As a founder I would have no objection to anyone joining the team and contributing points, all adds to the total. Barbar could do all he wanted at Rosetta, no problem...it was the changing the name that he wanted.

If a hijacker cannot change the name, then there is no point in him joining and the problem would disappear.

As for a legitimate change request, for legal or other reasons, do how WCG does it and UD used to, only by application with a VERY good reason to the Admins. It was never done for trivial reasons and as far as I can recollect only happened two or three times.

Found one more that had been missing in my list above :

At Leiden Classical he stole Czech Boinc Team

Found one more that had been missing in my list above :

At Leiden Classical he stole Czech Boinc Team

You can consider Czech Boinc Team being his property: I think he was at least one of its key members. CBT + a bunch of other smaller teams and individuals agreed to join Space Family.

But I believe this was one of the key steps to keep the transactions hiden from new members' eyes: as the Space Family's project got renamed from Czech Boinc Team, noone objected that the combined credit sum is jumping up in rather large steps. And I believe that the hi-jacked teams were renamed to CBT first. (But I can't confirm it, unless someone would grab older statistics export files from that time period.)

Peter

So that's why our Team "Meisterkuehler.de" disappeared from Predictor (rang 10 before the new credits were avaiable few month before).

Great thanks to Barbar, you've just hit the sense of DC with this action...

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If you look HEREand click on "Space Family" on the left for each project, then have a look at the team movements in each project on the next page, you can see where team members have been kicked out by Barbar and his cronies on each project and which teams "Barbar" "MIZ" "Roman" etc have been jumping back and forth between. If you hold your mouse over those members names their team ID numbers become visible.

These are not the only teams though that they have hijacked on all of the projects. These are only the ones that they have currently renamed to "Space Family". There are more that have been "parked" with a temporary user name with no registered computers on each project,(in other words , he has hijacked more than one on the same project), so that if they are discovered and the team given back to its original members, he just restarts a second stolen team that was "parked" before like the one that they have here at Rosetta at the moment.

Edit: There are a few of those "Space family" teams that are legit too BTW, but some are stolen.

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