Please somebody!

[yochanon]

You're all hearing it in this post from the lowly, non-scientist-type, ADD-riddled moron - myself…this 'game' is not meant for folk as simple as me. Period.

I think I got to the test/practice(?) fold thing of hydrogen bonds and a score of 6500 was all I could ever get out of the 9000 needed to move on to the next beginner/practice/whatever it was.

This 'game' needs to be relabeled somehow so that this site will stop or at least severely slow down the amount of people popping in, trying it, and, like me, finding it making absolutely no sense and just plain difficult for non-sciences types of folks and just leaving with unfinished 'games', or saves or anything at all other than a try or two and logging out forever after.

Money being thrown at people isn't going to do any good. Believe me, I'm barely able to keep the crappy trailer roof over my head and food enough to eat on a monthly basis with my disability check. Sure, I'd break down and cry like a skinned-knee little school girl if I won a hundred grand somewhere somehow, but since I'm also the too-honest-for-my-own-good type, I'd rather let you people know that the money will make no difference if people like me in those masses you think a 'reward' like this will attract and actually make a difference in how difficult it is to play for most of them who no matter how hard they try if they can't get through even the first level of practice stuff will just quit anyway and it'll still be a slough of leftover, unfinished junk piling up on the servers.

I don't have an answer to fix this problem of not enough people coming to try the game and actually sticking with it, but I do believe being a little more honest or correct with the kind of 'game' it is will slow down a lot of those who try for 10 minutes and give up. Put it in the title or whatever, that this 'game', though it is a game, is meant more for (leans more toward) those who are studying in the sciences.

Ask too that if they're honest with themselves, that if they're not really very serious with their studies in the sciences (and preferably bilogy?), to not play the game and to preferably tell others they may know who may be more interested in it than they are.

I don't know, that's just my thoughts on it and I wish I could help more, and I really wish I could concentrate better so that I could stick with it longer to try and actually be of help, but it is what it is and I'm just not one of the good ones who will be able to play.

Also, for what it's worth, S0ckrates is right on the money with his thoughts on it too.

[DoctorSockrates]

Foldit's "game" aspect is being worked on hard right now thanks to Josh's efforts, so after 2 years of playing this protein-sandbox-puzzle engine I'm happy to report that at least. It'll take time though. I still maintain that you don't need to know the science to start, but this is a great way to assist learning the science since "the science is the metagame", as I always say.
There's always watching others play to learn, if that's up your alley.

Else fails, you can still lend your computer power to Rosetta@Home or Folding@Home. Those don't require human input once you set those up!

[donuts554]

If you have the strong interest and the motivation to beat this game, then you can do it. If you do not, then you can't.

So what if it is not for people like you? I have a strong interest and motivation to beat this game, and so I keep on contributing to it, so is it for people like me? I am not a science type of folk either! I like to cook and draw and exercise in my free-time, not be busy sitting and reading science textbooks!

What Zionram was saying is that this corona-virus advertisement was supposed to hook people who have a strong interest and motivation in the game, and who would be comfortable with playing it. Since I fulfill all of those criteria, I am happy to be playing it.

I agree with that the game needs to be relabeled a bit. I also agree that the game may be a little obtuse. But for people who have a strong interest and motivation, they do not need that. They have a growth mindset , and will do anything to fix their errors, and not give up. Winners never quit, and quitters never win. .

So it isn't for people in the masses, then maybe its for people who are more motivated than you are. That does not necessarily mean to have a higher wealth, but the higher the wealth relative to your current situation in my opinion the more motivated and interested you will be.

OK, I do agree that the tutorials need some working on. But for the people who have a growth mindset, and try to strive, they will get it. Folding a corona-virus binder protein is not meant to be that e-z, even if its 2020. What did you expect?

Yes, it will slow down those who can't understand. They don't have a growth mindset so they quit quickly. I must admit it does lean more toward those who are studying in the sciences, and was that what you expected? The Fold players are citizen scientists! Of course the game leads toward the sciences.

If they aren't interested, then they won't play. It is simple. There is a path that you can take in Foldit to pass all of the tutorials, and that is a growth mindset.

In reality, you do not need to be in the sciences to do this. You need a growth mindset. If it is too confusing, you must have the mindset to go into the FAQs and Foldit Fandom Wiki to learn more. People who are truly driven to what they want to do will do it, if there is a conceivable path to do so. And there is a conceivable path, because I have trudged every single step on that path and here I am, already finished with all of the tutorials.

I was not intending to boast, and I was intending to say that as long as you have a true growth mindset and are truly driven to what you want to do, if there is a probable way, then you WILL do it. Not might, not can, not maybe, not in-between, but you will .

As long as you have the true will do to so, and you are willing to do it, then you will do it.

If your problem is concentrating better, than learn more and more from the simple points. Sounds tiring, but if you are truly willing, then you can do it.

And it's money. Money will make a difference, even for those poor people/immigrants who are truly willing to work in the sciences, through helping their familes get food, a house, water, going to school, etc. Or if you need to pay off debt as a willing scientist? Who knows?

You can be one of the good ones if you are motivated, as that the reward is that this will make a cure and save hundreds of lives and prevent dark futures from happening plus the satisfaction plus the money rewards plus everyone honoring you as the one who made the cure because he was so willing to do it.

If that was the reward, would you be willing to do it? It depends. You can take the red pill, or the blue pill.

If you are willing enough, you will replace everyone else as the one who made the cure.
(Btw you don't have to credit me if you actually do so :D)

Also I disagree with S0ckrates, and rebutted all of his points and counterpoints.

Hope you stay well anyways!
donuts554.

[jawz101]

As a non-scientist I got 12th on one of the competitions over the past few months.

My steps:
use the design thingy
Move my shapes around to make the yellow thingies disappear as much as possible before wiggling & shaking
Wiggle & shake
Learn how to use recipes and use them a bunch
mutate, wiggle, & shake and keep using recipes, wiggles & shakes and mutates until the score stops changing.

It's a game to me and I feel like I'm doing something randomly, maybe beneficial to humanity.

I shy away from notoriety and if my ignorance made something special I think the majority of the credit goes to the people who made this program and the collective creativity and efforts of everyone.

If people are doing this for money… well… I guess you'll make that in your own way based on the outcomes of the game. The person who invented the wheel didn't get rich off of the first Model T Ford. We're all just doing some altruistic step in a complicated end goal. I listened to a show that mentioned that no one person knows how to make a pencil. The raw materials up through the fabrication takes so many steps and manpower to get through.

I don't see the point in this particular thing needing a prize. Just more publicity with regular people. The more the gamification is abstracted away from the real goal, the more entertaining and intuitive it is to more people.

[jawz101]

I've been curious to find a puzzle where the concept was abstracted and broken into smaller bits in a way that a 100,000 5 year olds could sit with a tablet and twist shapes for points. You're doing something completely different that solves a real world problem. To me, that would be real innovation.

Google did something similar with Captchas where they would present you with garbled text to use your brain to prove that you were human. They had 2 words that were presented to the user. One was the control and the other was the challenge (though you didn't know which.) You would type in what you think the words are and a correct response to the challenge word was already known based on previous users' answers. Doing this challenge and control word challenge, Google had a different agenda. What we were doing, in fact, was digitizing text from old works of literature and the archive of the New York Times.

en.wikipedia.org

reCAPTCHA

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I look at Fold.it in the same way. Take 1000 monkeys on typewriters to form the works of Shakespeare. Or make a fun game that millions of kids could play- which they would do anyways- and have them solve a real world problem with kid brainpower.