Foldit wants YOU... to be on the cover of Nature

Started by Adrien Treuille

Adrien Treuille Lv 1

Now that Foldit was accepted into Nature, we want to get on the cover! Dear players, we turn again to your collective help: click here to allow us to use your image in a photomosaic of a protein made out of Foldit player profiles.

Thank you all for making this possible.

Madde Lv 1

It seems you won't get enough images for the mosaic. So, how about contacting some of the inactive players via email? Maybe a few of them would even continue to fold.

BootsMcGraw Lv 1

If you look at the subset of folderers "Players with Pictures", you will see only about nine hundred in the list. That includes everyone who has ever played who has kept a profile. This would allow only a grid of about 36 x 25 photos, nowhere near enough to make a mosaic like the sample shown in the blog, which could need tens of thousands of pictures.

Duplicating the nine hundred photos as necessary to make the mosaic wouldn't be fair to the thousands of players who didn't or chose not to upload a profile pic. Perhaps a generic profile photo could be used to represent the faceless players (Yahoo uses a stylized smiley face); but considering that players with profile pics make up only a very small percentage of the total, the overall mosaic might look very bland.

An excellent idea; but where will the majority of the photos come from?

Crashguard303 Lv 1

Maybe combining a generic profile photo AND the player's name would be useful.
You could use a silhouette and then binary XOR the player's name into it, as one example.
This would vary the genric shape a bit, depending on the font.

Susanne Lv 1

I have a picture but seem to be unable to upload it, same size as the present one. I've tried everything but only get the telescope back every time, I'll post it in feedback, otherwise you'll have to do without me :(