It appears Mr David Braun, admin at predictor, has become drunk on his own power, censoring posts almost faster than you can write them, handing out post bans at the drop of a hat. I , like others am now banned untill january 2038 because I had the temerity to complain about the level of censorship.
Allthough the the installation of trojan clients is no small matter I feel it is now
secondry to Mr Brauns attitude who seems hell bent on showing the unrully mob
who's boss.
Having contributed to what is a worthy project since 2004 it saddens me to see it brought into disrupute by the self rightous stubbaness of one person.

M4rtyn

I can only agree!!!!
What they do looks like the sowjets and the nazis did!

For geman speaking people you can also read more details here:
http://www.boinc-team.de/portal/showtopic.php?threadid=1237&pagenum=1

Now they even closed account creation to evade unpleasant questions!

I managed to get banned 7 times until the year 2038...

Now they are blocking the IPs of the evil dissenters.

This post (a starter for a new thread) lasted about 10 seconds:



Is it really that offensive to merit an IP-block?

They are even blocking whole ip ranges like 85.12x.xxx.xxx

They have blocked my home IP as well (the servers can still access their pages) even though I have not taken part in the discussion nor did I express my opinion anywhere (well, maybe in a chat session with someone).

I'd like to think of BOINCstats (and thus myself) as neutral ground and like to be treated as such (so David, if you read this, please unblock my IP 85.147.23.157).

To let things cool down a bit maybe everybody should take a rest a few hours (stop posting in Predictor forum) and rethink your strategies.

Feel free though to use this thread to ventilate your feelings, but keep it nice please.

Well, my ip on 82.77.96.* appears to have been banned for months, even though I have never contributed to their forums. I just thought the project had been suspended so I moved on. However I do need to change details sometimes so still need access.

I noticed sometime later that the project was actually still running, from the stats here, and wanted to use it as a backup project when my main ones are down.
I still wasn't able to access predictor.scripps.edu, but was able to use lynx to access it on one of my servers. So, I set up a proxy and was able to update my details on it at least.

I sent messages to them and their ISPs with traceroutes, informing them of a blockage, but received no response from them. Their ISP said they were looking into it, but a week later, still no result.

Everyone is entitled to ban ip addresses as they wish, as long as it doesn't conflict with downstream contracts, as indeed I am free to ban 150,000 offending spam source ips for me and my clients, but to use this as a blunt tool to ban free speech, and to impair crunching too? This is just childish.

We all have to right not to crunch for them, and lobby others. There are other projects working to similar aims as they are, so we can vote with our feet. If they don't want our processing power, and appear to be hiding something then only their research and reputation will suffer.

Andy.

We'll follow your instructions
I have a 85.xxx.xxx.xxx too. They blocked whole ranges.

I really would have expected harder words at the predictor forum, but people were only asking what's up and why there's no discussion allowed. No one really had hard words against David Brown.
Well after some time there was more sarkasm creating threads like "What about the censorship" and later also some like "Please delete this thread".

Heh, I am one of the lucky winners that got banned from the forum until 2038. Although I had made just one intial post where I stated that I agreed with Saenger's point of view. This is getting really silly. Everyone in my team is completely free in their choice of project, but in my own name I have advised all my team members to stop their support for Predictor until there is a change of policy.

EDIT: BTW, although I am banned, I can still rate posts <evil grin>. Maybe a way to express our disapproval in the one thread on censorship stil remaining?

I'm also banned until 2038 (I'll be at least grandpa at that time ) just because I dared asking him why he closed discussion on the "Wate" topic!

I can also say that there were no ugly posts whatsoever! He just overreacted, although I heard now a few times that this seems to be normal at Predictor Forums!

PS: After all those posts and even threads removed, I dont understand why he kept mine?!? ( http://predictor.scripps.edu/forum_thread.php?id=2530 )

Oh, and there is a new one: http://predictor.scripps.edu/forum_thread.php?id=2546

Btw, my IP isnt blocked... But if he wants to, it starts with 212.144.xxx.xx

The link on the Home page to the forums has been taken down, lol

From there Admin

"
Mr. Grundmann,

If you choose to disconnect from this project that is fine. P@H has brought out a lot of good in a lot of people. It has also brought out the bad in a small number of volunteers.

I have not deleted any threads because they are of a different opinon than mine. I have deleted threads because I said that we are not going to submit to the mob mentality. Then immediately an angry mob with demands rears its ugly head in the forums.

dlb



____________
David Lee Braun
Predictor@Home
Manager of Computational Facilities
for Dr Charles L. Brooks, III
Department of Molecular Biology, TPC6
The Scripps Research Institute
La Jolla, CA 92037
(858) 784-7427
dbraun@scripps.edu
"

just stopped crunching for them...


see>http://predictor.scripps.edu/view_profile.php?userid=28098

Account creation is open again...

Spontainious Post Deletions and bans seem to have stopped for now, maybe Mr Braun is on his tea break.

M4rtyn

*LOL* Good one... Or he is too exhausted from blocking all those users and ip's.

I’m just a little 2 project cruncher but for what it’s worth I’d like to add my two cents worth to the conversation. I’ve never claimed to be the brightest crayon in the box, but to my way of thinking P@H needs Crunchers way more than Crunchers need P@H. Mr. Braun happens to be the King of that particular little Kingdom, and as King he has the right to take actions within it as he seem fit including banishment and censorship, all tyrants have that right. However I think he has forgotten two things that I hope you my fellow crunchers will consider. First, while King Braun may be able to banish or censor, he cannot close his borders and enslave your machines to compute for him (which, by the way, I find extremely ironic as that is precisely what precipitated all this) you can leave him high and dry in no time for computing power by using your feet. (Feel free to join my team at NanoHive if you’d like I could use the help) secondly Mr. Braun might could think himself the King but the man in charge of that whole thing is a Dr. Charles Brooks III is the real head honcho for that project, and while I did not find an email addy for him specifically I did find several for Scripps. Perhaps those affected should use the freedom of speech they have here in the U.S. to contact this U.S. institution and inform them of what ILLEGAL methods this projects computational director is willing to accept from rogue crunchers, and how HONEST crunchers are treated when they get upset at the actions of King Braun. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, King Braun squeaks a bit loudly for my tastes.

The Address says it all. La Jolla, CA 92037

The Terminator has his hands full with many who live in CA as they mainly want to allow only their "Freedom of Speech" not yours.


Glad I live on the other side of the country

I've sent a long email to both Dr. David Anderson (Director of BOINC) and to Prof. Brooks ( brooks@scripps.edu ) to complain about Mr. David Brauns behaviour.

It looks like Mr. Braun is not even a scientist regadring the Predictor Project or am I wrong? He's the Manager of Computational Facilities (A "Computer Fuzzie", as we say in german). I think he doesnt know how badly he damaged the project he works for!

Cheers, Shaihuld aka Mr. Grundmann (banned until 2038)

PS: Since I cant post at Predictor anymore (and I wont open a new account): There is a misunderstanding: Posts with negative credits arent filtered by default, you can change this setting manually. I set it to Filter only if less than minus 50, cause i want to see these posts (especially these posts!!! )

Its pointless sending an email to D. Anderson, he has no control on other projects, staff or anything related to them

But he has influence on the whole BOINC community and his statement has probably more weight than ours have.

I'm quite aware of that, i know that the projects are run independently. Its just that he as the "director of BOINC" might have an interest in knowing that a boinc project admin badly damages the image of a BOINC project and therefore (could) damage(s) BOINC itself (IMHO!)

Shai

Haha, found this at the Predictor Forums:

That's you, Cori, isnt it?

Sure, the Bad Cat is back!

Looking for bright sides in all that mess, aren't we?

How about creating 'Top Banned Users' list?


Getting back to subject: I suggested my team members, they should not crunch for Predictor@home until a reasonable explanation is given by the project's staff.
Oh yes. And to vote for Cori's profile as well