Increase the size of your work units ("WU's") cache. This will cause the WU's to age on your machine while waiting for processing, and when you finally do process them they will be reported closer to the two week deadline. The results for many of your WU's (probably the majority) from other participants will already be reported, so your results will be validated quickly, and your credits granted just as quickly. Even "late" results from other participants will be granted quicker since they will also be close to the two week deadline.

Just don't age them over two weeks or you'll be processing for nothing.

So this is a simple way to solve the "problem".

Now, my personal comments on the above. Doing something like that is silly, just as worrying so much about "credit" is silly. Perhaps giving out gold stars in grade school conditioned too many people to respond to cheap "recognition". The PROJECT is what's important, as so many have reminded us. Credits are fun - I like them too. But I don't lose sleep over it.

Another comment: manipulating the system (as above) or worrying about a few day's delay will eventually become "noise" as total credit scores build up. As a percentage, these minor (two weeks maximum) delays will be lost in the overall tallys.

So, TALLY HO! (Apologies -- couldn't resist. ;-) )


--Bill Z.

Now that is a waste of a post..

My name is Pascal and this message has my approval...

It is 10 oclock, do you know what your WUWUs are doing tonight...

Why bother? You don't get credits faster - you still have to wait the initial two weeks for your WU's to age, and once credit for them start coming in, subsequent credit is granted at the same pace as all other credits - all you've done is to impose a two week limit for nothing. Congratulations, you've actually slowed your own credits.


<a>

> Why bother? You don't get credits faster - you still have to wait the initial
> two weeks for your WU's to age, and once credit for them start coming in,
> subsequent credit is granted at the same pace as all other credits - all
> you've done is to impose a two week limit for nothing. Congratulations, you've
> actually slowed your own credits.
>
>
> <a>
>
Nope. Your machine won't be idle during this time, and you'll continue earning just as you have been. But there will be more WU's in your cache and the WU's you actually are processing will gradually become older and older as the larger number of them ages while waiting for you to get to them, until you reach your new equilibrium. You'll still have the same throughput and earn the same total credit, but you'll start getting your credits sooner.

Thanks for the congratulations! Hope you understand it now, and really mean the compliment!


--Bill Z.

> Now that is a waste of a post..
>
> My name is Pascal and this message has my approval...
>
> It is 10 oclock, do you know what your WUWUs are doing tonight...
>
>
>
Thanks, pal! Some of us are having FUN with this project - contributing, analyzing, sharing ideas.

Some, I guess, get their fun out of ridiculing others.

Please choose the former. There's been too much vitriol on these forums. Lighten up!


--Bill Z.

>
> Please choose the former. There's been too much vitriol on these forums.
> Lighten up!
>

Nope. Listen to sense. Your half baken plan to speed up credit deleivery by placing a two week slow down on your initial delivery has the very real chance of failing to return credits at all. Which means that at least two others aren't going to get credits either.

It's about now where people say " but realy credits don't matter - it's the PROJECT that is important" . Rubbish. Credits ARE important - it's the only way I know that the actual work is being *counted* by the project !! if you screw up the delivery time - by suggesting in all seriousness to hold onto the units for two weeks you might as well not participate.

>
> >
> > Please choose the former. There's been too much vitriol on these forums.
>
> > Lighten up!
> >
>
> Nope. Listen to sense. Your half baken plan to speed up credit deleivery by
> placing a two week slow down on your initial delivery has the very real chance
> of failing to return credits at all. Which means that at least two others
> aren't going to get credits either.
>
> It's about now where people say " but realy credits don't matter - it's the
> PROJECT that is important" . Rubbish. Credits ARE important - it's the only
> way I know that the actual work is being *counted* by the project !! if you
> screw up the delivery time - by suggesting in all seriousness to hold onto the
> units for two weeks you might as well not participate.
>
>
Well, you don't get any gold stars today either. The "two others" you mentioned will still get their credits, since the failed WU will be resent. They'll just have to wait a little longer. The person who will lose will be the jerk who missed the two week deadline by mishandling this strategy. Recall that I did say: "Just don't age them over two weeks or you'll be processing for nothing."

I posted this in response to all the complaints from some people about not getting their credits fast enough to satisfy them. This will overcome that concern. I also said it would be silly to do this. But it WILL speed up their credits if they want to do it this way (unless they miscalculate, which is their risk), and it will NOT hurt anyone else (except for the statistically insignificant few WU's that are slightly delayed this way). (And don't pick on this last assertion either until you assess the huge number of WU's actually out there being processed vs. the number that might be affected by this plan.)

Hey! Have a little fun with this thing! Would you really want ET to see your post?


--Bill Z.

Can't we just all get along?
L24

Hey lobstah24
let em get on with it.
These posts give me a good laugth.

> Increase the size of your work units ("WU's") cache. This will cause the WU's
> to age on your machine while waiting for processing, and when you finally do
> process them they will be reported closer to the two week deadline. The
> results for many of your WU's (probably the majority) from other participants
> will already be reported, so your results will be validated quickly, and your
> credits granted just as quickly. Even "late" results from other participants
> will be granted quicker since they will also be close to the two week
> deadline.
>
> Just don't age them over two weeks or you'll be processing for nothing.
>
> So this is a simple way to solve the "problem".
>
> --Bill Z.
>
The problem with this stragety is when the sytem needs to be updated and you have 2 weeks of units in your cache, or almost 2 weeks worth, and they ALL get dumped because of hte upgrade! You have just ruined other peoples credit for your personal reasons. Why do you want 10 days or so of units in your cache? Just so you can actually get credits when you return them? You are still waiting 2 weeks for your credits, you are just letting them sit in your cache for a couple of weeks. You also take the risk of something going wrong and your units expiring and you AND EVERYONE ELSE getting NO credit for them! Your SYSTEM may work in the very short term but in the long run it makes no sense!

> The problem with this stragety is when the sytem needs to be updated and you
> have 2 weeks of units in your cache, or almost 2 weeks worth, and they ALL get
> dumped because of hte upgrade! You have just ruined other peoples credit for
> your personal reasons. Why do you want 10 days or so of units in your cache?
> Just so you can actually get credits when you return them? You are still
> waiting 2 weeks for your credits, you are just letting them sit in your cache
> for a couple of weeks. You also take the risk of something going wrong and
> your units expiring and you AND EVERYONE ELSE getting NO credit for them! Your
> SYSTEM may work in the very short term but in the long run it makes no sense!
>
>
>
Tsk! Tsk! Mikey. You don't understand, and you shouldn't be posting misinformation since it could mislead others as to how the system works.

To wit: a failed result does NOT invalidate other successfully returned results for that WU. The successful results will eventually receive credit. What happens is that the failed result is resent (as often as necessary) until eventually successfully returned. Then credit for all three results for the WU is granted.

And I wish you wouldn't say "you". I made it very clear that I consider this system silly. I wouldn't use it myself. But it is theoretically sound and won't cost anyone any credits except possibly the person who misuses it. I simply presented it as a logical solution for the whiners who want their credit faster.

As for the user of this system possibly losing credits during an upgrade, or delaying recognition of his/her own credits, that's a good point. Thanks for pointing it out. It's easy to overcome, however, by simply forcing early updates, which will immediately report all completed WU's. I would imagine that anyone so impatient for credits is probably already doing frequent forced updates anyway...

***

As a general comment, it's been enlightening to see the highly charged emotional response to this suggestion, and the ignorance concerning how the system works. It's refreshing to see how deeply people care about the project. I'm rather astonished, however, to see how easily threatened some of them are! Or maybe not so astonished, considering the much nastier insults that have been hurled at the very dedicated and hard-working folks actually building the project.

People, let's be more gentle with one another. Please?


--Bill Z.

> The successful results will eventually receive credit.

Unless the validator goes down again and stays down for a couple of more weeks, after which they find it was something else that was bothering them, they put back a backup of several days before and you and the other people have crunched for nothing. ;)

Then again, that will hit on all of us. :P

*you* being used in general sense.
----------------------
Jordâ„¢

I'm sorry, I thought that the FIRST to return the WU that found E.T would be the one getting the credit. If you wait two weeks, won't you be denying yourself the "Glory"?.

just a thought

> As a general comment, it's been enlightening to see the highly charged
> emotional response to this suggestion,

It's hilarious, isn't it?




------------------------------------


The game High/Low is played by tossing two nuclear warheads into the air. The one whose bomb explodes higher wins. This game is usually played by people of low intelligence, hence the name High/Low.

> I'm sorry, I thought that the FIRST to return the WU that found E.T would be
> the one getting the credit. If you wait two weeks, won't you be denying
> yourself the "Glory"?.
>
> just a thought
> src="http://boinc.mundayweb.com/lhc/stats.php?userID=62&trans=off">
>
Well, I don't know if the rules have changed with SETI_Boinc, but I suspect they're the same as with SETI_Classic. In SETI_Classic, my understanding is that ALL the people who worked on E.T.'s WU will be recognized.


--Bill Z.

> Well, I don't know if the rules have changed with SETI_Boinc, but I suspect
> they're the same as with SETI_Classic. In SETI_Classic, my understanding is
> that ALL the people who worked on E.T.'s WU will be recognized.

Once the Quorum of Results has been established those that have reported and "match" the canonical result will get credit. So, if there are 4 responses (for whatever reason) all four should be granted credit. Once the results have assimulated, late reports will not recieve credit.

Also, the Work Unit will only be re-issued a certain number of times before it is tagged as being a "problem" at which point it will no longer be issued, even if there were some successful results.
<p>
For BOINC Documentaion: Click Me!

> > The problem with this stragety is when the sytem needs to be updated and
> you
> > have 2 weeks of units in your cache, or almost 2 weeks worth, and they
> ALL get
> > dumped because of hte upgrade! You have just ruined other peoples credit
> for
> > your personal reasons. Why do you want 10 days or so of units in your
> cache?
> > Just so you can actually get credits when you return them? You are still
> > waiting 2 weeks for your credits, you are just letting them sit in your
> cache
> > for a couple of weeks. You also take the risk of something going wrong
> and
> > your units expiring and you AND EVERYONE ELSE getting NO credit for them!
> Your
> > SYSTEM may work in the very short term but in the long run it makes no
> sense!
> >
> Tsk! Tsk! Mikey. You don't understand, and you shouldn't be posting
> misinformation since it could mislead others as to how the system works.
>
> To wit: a failed result does NOT invalidate other successfully returned
> results for that WU. The successful results will eventually receive credit.
> What happens is that the failed result is resent (as often as necessary) until
> eventually successfully returned. Then credit for all three results for the
> WU is granted.
>
I think you failed to understand what I said. I did not say anything about others results being invalidated, I said "You also take the risk of something going wrong and your units expiring and you AND EVERYONE ELSE getting NO credit for them!"
That is TRUE, I can see where you thought that I meant forever but what I meant was that they will not receive credits until the units are sent back out and your system can prolong that process.

> And I wish you wouldn't say "you".
YOU are the one that posted this scheme, why shouldn't I see you?
Yes you did post a disclaimer, but you have very adamantly defended your scheme and have in effect promoted it. Mayeb if you hadn't posted itin the beginning or so adamantly defeended it I would say "someone" but YOU are the one who started this thread.

I guess that the reason that i get only a small portion of the credits that i expect is that maybe i'm sharing my WU's with guys like you. Just go over there and update your results.

Bill, I'm guessing you're aware that this strategy has a buildt in risk of slowing the progress of the project down if too many did what you suggest, right?


S@h Berkeley's Staff Friends Club ©

Bruno,

In the grand scheme of things it should not have a significant impact. depending on the project's policies they can issue more initial results to fill the quorum faster. So if the quorum is 3, they could issue 5 and the first 3 win.

The real issue here is are you here to assist in resaeach and also have a metric indicating the quantity? Or are you here for the metric and all else is unimportant?

Our worth is measured by how many "x's" I have in comparison to how many you have. It is in what have you done to promote the project's research.

The idea here is that after you have primed the pump you should feel better because you appear to be getting the gratification faster. However, it is an illusion.

A Cray could pump out a result in a vector every clock cycle. But first the vector had to be loaded into the vector processor and all the stages filled. So the first answer took, say, 42 clock cycles to produce, but guess what, so did all the rest.

And this scheme also, like the instruction queue in you processor only work as advertised if the queue does not "stall". If the quorum is not filled because of you, and then you do not produce a quorum with your result, well, all the results are still stalled and no one get credit until the work is re-issued and then a new result (or results) are produced.

In Beta we saw some horrendous pending credit queues because of this (along with a small group size).

This is just another one of those schemes, like the guy weaving in and out during rush hour, he saves 15 seconds on his trip at the expense of everyone else on the highway...
<p>
For BOINC Documentaion: Click Me!