ABSTRACT
Who are the rank and file volunteers, why do they do it, and how can a project continue to recruit and retain volunteers? To answer the last question, we need to pay close attention to the questions of who they are and why they do it. As we have seen already, there is a large diversity of motivations for volunteers, broadly falling into three categories: science, competition and community. These reflect age-old compulsions in human behaviour – the need to belong, and the need to play, and to feel one is contributing to one’s broader community. VDC provides a new opportunity for people to play out these needs, in a way that has a large impact not only on the individuals involved but on the field of computationally heavy scientific research.
