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Article removal on Foldit and Eterna
Liam Dawe Apr 6, 2020
Today we had an article submission, that was approved by me, for Foldit and Eterna.

It was pointed out that neither is open source (which isn't usually a problem), but it appears in some cases they may even use data from users for profit and not people. They appear to go for security through obscurity, which for people giving over their time and CPU/GPU power - just doesn't sit right.

Compared to Folding@Home who release data and have a lot of their stuff out in the open and they give back to the open source community, the refusal to be open from Foldit and Eterna causes a lot of trust issues. I also heavily dislike the idea of "big pharma" profiting from any of our readers being directed to solve problems in these science "games".

After some thinking, and initially not wanting to remove the article, I decided it was in the best interest of our readers to do so and prefer to direct you to the much praised Folding@Home instead.

Entirely my fault for approving it in the first place, and the article from Sunburst was 100% entirely well-meaning. I really thought they were nice helpful projects but reading up on them a lot more they just don't deserve a spot in our news.

Last edited by Liam Dawe on 6 April 2020 at 9:35 pm UTC
Salvatos Apr 6, 2020
Well, not going to complain about Liam’s decision, but I’ll say thanks anyway to Sunburst because I intend to use Eterna anyway as I think it’s worth it and the possibility of an earlier vaccine or treatment is reward enough for me. I’ve volunteered for companies before when I supported their endeavours and I expect to keep doing so. I’m glad to have been introduced to it and be able to make my own choice.
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