These are good points. Most of the pioneering work for distributed computing has been done at the start of this RC5 project and the RC5 project before. My point was just that this project as a whole has had some value. It is true that its speculative if it will have this kind of impact in the future.
On the second point, a result from Seti is not quaranteed. For Moo! there is a clear goal, which will ultimately end the project, and possibly bring some publicity.
Of course since the topic is up to vote now, I want to bring out some points to influence it. My main question here is, should whitelisting just be a matter of individual votings, or should there be a semi-automic system where if a project passes certain rules, it should be accepted?.
The reason for mentioning my academic career is to tell that I have a good knowledge of the scientific process and academic research. I mention that cryptography is not my field, so I'm not trying to step in with my topic knowledge. On my bio you can find that I'm a PhD researcher in Space Physics. My PhD topic is about the Sun's Heliosphere and cosmic ray modulation. I'm working at University of Oulu, Finland, but I want to stress that I'm not officially representing my institute in any way here.
i don't think the moo project has enough in common with the scientific process. that was actually how this whole discussion started:
i agree with you that an automatic system would be better, but then you should elaborate more on the objective rules governing this system.
I think the black/graylisting presented in the post I linked has good ideas, but many aspects like scientificity is hard to automatize.
As I've said, the results of moo wont be scientific, but the process can (and has) be studied.