So if I run the stock SETI app then I'll get the same credits/day here as on another project running their stock app (like MalariaControl.net)?

In theory. In practice, some projects do overpay (and a few underpay).

... but it's supposed to be one credit standard, so if you have 10,000 cobblestones on malariacontrol and 20,000 on SETI, you know you've done twice as much SETI.

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The stupidity lies in the volunteers adopting optimized code into the stock app... that's the cause why we all got cheated here again ...

I agree.....let's make sure this does not happen again.

Ditto, Give Seti some optimized code once and they reduce the credit Shame on them, Give It to Seti again Shame on US. Seti has a good enough app for themselves now, We have the AK app for US(And only US) and the Arms race is I feel now at parity. I crunch only for Seti, I've tried other projects and have found a lack of support for 64 bit Boinc and those projects that have tried to be compatible that I have tried produced nothing but errors and so I'd rather just do Seti and Seti only.

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The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's

So it's two reasons why people are leaving / have left SETI.

1. Poorer credit than 12 months ago.

2. Granted credit not equaling claimed credit due to old BOINC clients being allowed.

I see a theme here.....

Live long and BOINC!

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Paul
(S@H1 8888)
And proud of it!

There seems to be a lot of posts missing now............

No just mine.

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me@rescam.org

There seems to be a lot of posts missing now............

No just mine.

Hahahaha......

If the standard enhanced app from Seti had not been optimised by the gifts from the optimisers. How many people would have stayed when the crunch time per unit, with standard app, would have been 30+hrs on the fastest cpu's available at the time.

In any case, it is the intent of open source to have improvements incorporate back into the stock code, and I intend to keep that feedback working. The goal is to get the work done, and although credits can be fun I simply am unable to really understand why they become so important to some participants.

                                                              Joe

I have to agree that the primary goal is to get the work done. The reason credits have become so important is that there is NOTHING ELSE here to gauge your own work or the work of the entire project. NOTHING!!

Its understandable that some people are competitive, but given that, shouldn't devoting more power to the project be truly competitive and not simply using better code? It would almost seem like cheating to me, not that I'm against using such apps, but when using those apps and being competitive and then complaining when your advantage is taken away just seems wrong to me.

It would be like going to a paint ball tournament one year and bringing a fully automatic weapon while everyone else uses pistols. Then the next year they officially allow the automatics and you complain because everyone else is using them.

1. Poorer credit than 12 months ago.

Most people who use the stock app (the majority) would never even have noticed a drop in their credit. Actually, Eric stated the new stock app still claims about 15% too high, so if anything, they should see better credit than 12 months ago. Going from stock app to stock app with 15% more credit while getting more work done is progress. Its only the people who used the old optimized app and then went to stock that saw a credit drop.

Based on that, I cannot agree that this is a reason why people leave.

2. Granted credit not equaling claimed credit due to old BOINC clients being allowed.

So what you suggest is that the project drive off a bunch of BOINC clients that are producing valid scientific results just to save a few participants who are so credit crazy they get pissy and leave? There's no pleasing everyone in a project this big. Someone is going to be upset if they involve themselves more emotionally than they should.

I still say there's not as many people counting credits as everyone here suggests.

Geek@Play made a very senseful argument there...

Some oldschools surely remember the Classic days, long before the first cheating waves rolled in and there still was a nice central list of Top Spikes and Gaussians found.

Personally, being around the top of the foodchain in terms of Credits certainly adds some spice for a while, but only seeing actual Results makes me a wholesome happy meal.

That's something I sometimes darely miss, because when asked what my $$$$$ expensive Network does and especially what it has accomplished, there's frightingly little to tell :/

I hope NTPCKR will be able to bring back some of these Results, because I remember I always - when it was still easily possible - kept tracking Top Gauss/Pulse/Triplet stats in favor of WorkUnit count any day.

And that's what I'm hoping for and why I returned after long absence.
(Why did I leave back in time? The BOINC community, still in its early stages of evolution, became something I didn't recognize nor wanted to be part of anymore. If it ever falls back into that, I'd be outta here in no time again)

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The stupidity lies in the volunteers adopting optimized code into the stock app... that's the cause why we all got cheated here again ...

I agree.....let's make sure this does not happen again.

Ditto, Give Seti some optimized code once and they reduce the credit Shame on them, Give It to Seti again Shame on US. Seti has a good enough app for themselves now, We have the AK app for US(And only US) and the Arms race is I feel now at parity. I crunch only for Seti, I've tried other projects and have found a lack of support for 64 bit Boinc and those projects that have tried to be compatible that I have tried produced nothing but errors and so I'd rather just do Seti and Seti only.

While I can understand a dilemma caused by one project gaining more credit's than the rest from a BOINC standpoint, I cannot grasp onto the thought that credits would be reduced because of an optimized app. Many great minds have went into this new AK app. and on the others before, and also the hopeful Whaleport for SSE2, when optimizing appears to me to be encouraged and allowed by BOINC/SETI. This possibility has caused me to stop putting together my QX9770 rig, not as a hissy fit, but gains made with one hand can (may) be take away with another as appears to have happened in the past and that is completely illogical. There is never going to be parity unless optimized apps are banned and banning optimized apps. goes against logic, why do less when you can do more good science with the same equipment using an optimized app. I put in the effort to to build my rigs to accommodate the OC'ing and cooling and running the AK app., and for example only, Mslatter (Mark) puts in way more effort and talent than I am able to and gets more out of his rigs than I can/do. Where is the parity? There ain't none as we say in the south. Is that Mark's problem or mine? Simple answer here is there isn't a problem, so don't fix what isn't broken, and by the posted rules (see link above) it isn't broken. When any of the other BOINC programs gets their own opt.app. I will wish them well. Also another thought here, IMHO if the optimized application for SETI is such a threat to BOINC in the sense of parity, why even allow the PS3's to do folding@home when their output is so awesome and has SONY's direct support? I do not see the PS3 as a threat, I do not see hordes of people leaving SETI to do folding@home on a PS3.

While I can understand a dilemma caused by one project gaining more credit's than the rest from a BOINC standpoint, I cannot grasp onto the thought that credits would be reduced because of an optimized app. Many great minds have went into this new AK app. and on the others before, and also the hopeful Whaleport for SSE2, when optimizing appears to me to be encouraged and allowed by BOINC/SETI. This possibility has caused me to stop putting together my QX9770 rig, not as a hissy fit, but gains made with one hand can (may) be take away with another as appears to have happened in the past and that is completely illogical. There is never going to be parity unless optimized apps are banned and banning optimized apps. goes against logic, why do less when you can do more good science with the same equipment using an optimized app. I put in the effort to to build my rigs to accommodate the OC'ing and cooling and running the AK app., and for example only, Mslatter (Mark) puts in way more effort and talent than I am able to and gets more out of his rigs than I can/do. Where is the parity? There ain't none as we say in the south. Is that Mark's problem or mine? Simple answer here is there isn't a problem, so don't fix what isn't broken, and by the posted rules (see link above) it isn't broken. When any of the other BOINC programs gets their own opt.app. I will wish them well. Also another thought here, IMHO if the optimized application for SETI is such a threat to BOINC in the sense of parity, why even allow the PS3's to do folding@home when their output is so awesome and has SONY's direct support? I do not see the PS3 as a threat, I do not see hordes of people leaving SETI to do folding@home on a PS3.

The situation arises with the optimized app in the "anonymous platform" functionality that was built into BOINC so that projects, such as SETI@Home, who have very little in the way of resources can allow their code to be publicly ported to other platforms, such as OS/2 or BeOS. The "anonymous platform" found a new purpose for other coders to simply optimize the code to make it more efficient while using the existing rules for credit (thus giving more credit than should be allowed, but is technically allowable).

As Joe said earlier, the whole point to optimized code is to help make the original code better. As I understand it, this is one of the sole reasons behind the open source initiative (more brains = better code). Porting that code into the original code (i.e. the stock app) allows for more science to be done, but at the cost of having to keep the credit roughly the same.

I don't think the optimized code is such a threat, per se, in so much as people were upset when they had an advantage with the optimized code, then those advantages were given to everyone else, so those using the old optimized code were asked to return to stock code (until new optimized code could be provided), thus giving them a drop in credit.

In a competitive world, people will find any way to get an advantage, and when that advantage is taken away (either through outlawing the advantage or giving it to everyone), those people tend to get upset. Its their right to be upset, but I think their being irrational in doing so.

Geek@Play made a very senseful argument there...

I agree that his comments about wanting more news is what most everyone craves, and it would help keep the focus off the credits. But as Ned keeps saying, other than announcing that we've found E.T.I., there's not much that can really be said.

But if it would pacify the masses, then I think its worth putting some effort into. Otherwise, Geek@Play is right, its real easy to turn it into a point-based game and that's when people try to find advantages above everyone else (through competitive nature). If the focus was shifted from points to science/technical news, then perhaps people would stop being overly competitive (you'll never get everyone to stop being competitive, however).

So other words...The new app will be a waste of time as they will just lower the credits again?

No, the faster the default SETI-application gets updated to include the latest optimizations, the more science can be done with the same computers in the same amount of time. Remember, the reason that SETI@home is running at all, is to get the science done...


As for the, yet again, discussion of "lowering the credits", let's take a closer look on this, by making an easy example:
Computer A runs standard, unoptimized SETI-application, and manages 25 k/month.
Computer B runs optimized SETI-application and manages 100 k/month.

Both runs for 10 month, and the standard is (finally) upgraded to include some of the optimizations, and becomes 2x faster than before. The fully optimized is unchanged. That happens now?

B has only 2x the advantage, but he's still got this advantage. This is true regardless of any change to credit or not.

Does "decreasing" the credit have any effect? Let's see that has happened after another 10 months:

Scenario 1, no change to credit, both keeps running:
A; 250 k for initial 10 months, 500 k for next 10 months, total 750 k.
B; 1 M for initial 10 months, 1 M for next 10 months, total 2 M.
B has 2.667x more credit than A.

Scenario 2, credit is changed so A gets same credit before and after, both keeps running:
A; 250 k for initial 10 months, 250 k for next 10 months, total 500 k.
B; 1 M for initial 10 months, 500 k for next 10 months, total 1.5 M.
B has 3x more credit than A.

Scenario 3, no change to credit, B stops running:
A; 250 k for initial 10 months, 500 k for next 10 months, total 750 k.
B; 1 M for initial 10 months, 0 for next 10 months since no crunching, total 1 M.
B has 1.333x more credit than A.

Scenario 4, credit is changed so A gets same credit before and after, B stops running:
A; 250 k for initial 10 months, 250 k for next 10 months, total 500 k.
B; 1 M for initial 10 months, 0 for next 10 months since no crunching, total 1 M.
B has 2x more credit than A.


Hmm, what if instead the default had become 4x faster after 10 months, while optimized had been even more optimized so 2x faster after 10 months? This would give:
Scenario 1; A 1.25 M, B 3 M. Advantage, 2.4x.
Scenario 2; A 500 k, B 1.5 M. Advantage, 3x.
Scenario 3; A 1.25 M, B 1 M. Disadvantage, B has now 20% less credit than A.
Scenario 4; A 500 k, B 1 M. Advantage, 2x.


Now, some will probably be surprised by this result, but the fact as my example shows is, if looks only on SETI@home, it's better for B running optimized that the credit is "decreased" so A running unoptimized gets constant credit. By not "decreasing" credit, the optimizers earlier earned credits would be worth less than it is now.


Cross-project it's possible this can have an effect, but since most projects isn't open-source, in most projects you'll still have an advantage by running optimized SETI@home, even if it's not a "4x-advantage" any longer...

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"I make so many mistakes. But then just think of all the mistakes I don't make, although I might."

In any case, it is the intent of open source to have improvements incorporate back into the stock code, and I intend to keep that feedback working. The goal is to get the work done, and although credits can be fun I simply am unable to really understand why they become so important to some participants.

                                                              Joe

I have to agree that the primary goal is to get the work done. The reason credits have become so important is that there is NOTHING ELSE here to gauge your own work or the work of the entire project. NOTHING!!

Its understandable that some people are competitive, but given that, shouldn't devoting more power to the project be truly competitive and not simply using better code? It would almost seem like cheating to me, not that I'm against using such apps, but when using those apps and being competitive and then complaining when your advantage is taken away just seems wrong to me.

It would be like going to a paint ball tournament one year and bringing a fully automatic weapon while everyone else uses pistols. Then the next year they officially allow the automatics and you complain because everyone else is using them.

So you think it is just fine that other projects give more credit for the same time...Hmmm I will run seti only either way but totally disagree with you. If other projects are open source thier people could do the same thing with optimizations and if not then too bad.

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Official Abuser of Boinc Buttons...
And no good credit hound!

I don't think the problem is the inclusion in the main app, it's the reduction in credit. Personally I couldn't care less.

Having credits adds a little fun but no more.

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I really cannot understand all these debates regarding credits. I originally started with the original Seti using a Compaq Deskpro 386S with 2mb ram, 40mb hd Win3.11wfg & a 56k modem. It was crunching all week but only contacted at the weekend to take advantage of the cheap rates at weekends.

Now to the present. Found DC to be in a better position for non-corporate users to aid science. So much so, that by using Boinc, many users can now participate in projects that take their interest.

From what I can see, many users are part of a team & aid their teams & science by taking part in POTM's. I don't think that makes them credit hounds.

My personal take on it is that many users join a project, experience problems, ask for help & join in on the forums. They then see, flaming, insults, etc & decide that it is not for them & either stop using the forums or worse, look at the project, "think" this is not worth my time & leave.

There's a good example out there already: - A particular project is supposed to be up & running by this summer, yet if one goes to the boards which is already running, you will see abuse, insults etc already started. Unfortunately, they are coming from users who regularly run Seti. What an advertisement for that project.

As for parity, there is 2 sides to every coin. Look at my sig for an example. Have just finished running ABC for my teams POTM which has increased my credits no end, yet on my current project, I am "losing" credits compared to ABC - So what?

I think that users have to put Distributed Computing back into perspective!
Order of Business:
1st Life
2nd Family
3rd Work
4th Hobbies

I personally see that a lot of crunchers have 1st & 4th the other way around & that is totally sad!

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I love this project and only crunch for this project by choice. I search through the other projects from time to time looking for any another project that will "float my boat". Seti is the only one that I find challenging primarily because it is such a long shot to find ET. I will continue to crunch for Seti even if the credits are devalued again but.............

I am hoping that the bulk of the work done in the AKV8 port cannot be moved into the stock Seti application. The rewards of the AKV8 porting are here for anyone who wants to use them and if a person does not have enough interest in the project to visit the boards once in a while then they can crunch slowly in my view.

Again my congratulations to everyone who had a hand in enhancing the code for us. Well done!

I miss the sky maps that were in classic. I miss the listing of tapes that have been crunched vs those waiting to be crunched. ANYTHING here on the Seti web site to show that progress is being made would be useful, however simple!

In any case, it is the intent of open source to have improvements incorporate back into the stock code, and I intend to keep that feedback working. The goal is to get the work done, and although credits can be fun I simply am unable to really understand why they become so important to some participants.

                                                              Joe

I have to agree that the primary goal is to get the work done. The reason credits have become so important is that there is NOTHING ELSE here to gauge your own work or the work of the entire project. NOTHING!!

Its understandable that some people are competitive, but given that, shouldn't devoting more power to the project be truly competitive and not simply using better code? It would almost seem like cheating to me, not that I'm against using such apps, but when using those apps and being competitive and then complaining when your advantage is taken away just seems wrong to me.

It would be like going to a paint ball tournament one year and bringing a fully automatic weapon while everyone else uses pistols. Then the next year they officially allow the automatics and you complain because everyone else is using them.

So you think it is just fine that other projects give more credit for the same time...Hmmm I will run seti only either way but totally disagree with you. If other projects are open source thier people could do the same thing with optimizations and if not then too bad.

No, my comment was about optimized apps vs. stock apps, not about different projects. I do not think its OK for other projects to give more credit than others. I agree with the cross project parity (CPP) concept in that all projects should offer the same amount of credit in their stock apps. Optimized apps (regardless of project) are usually considered unofficial and are therefore out of the realm of control of CPP. If other projects open their code to receive the same benefits that SETI@Home currently enjoys in the open source community, then they can get more science done too. And if they decide to make some of those improvements official, then they would have to reduce their multiplier too so as to remain constant with CPP.

Geek@Play made a very senseful argument there...

I agree that his comments about wanting more news is what most everyone craves, and it would help keep the focus off the credits. But as Ned keeps saying, other than announcing that we've found E.T.I., there's not much that can really be said.

But if it would pacify the masses, then I think its worth putting some effort into. Otherwise, Geek@Play is right, its real easy to turn it into a point-based game and that's when people try to find advantages above everyone else (through competitive nature). If the focus was shifted from points to science/technical news, then perhaps people would stop being overly competitive (you'll never get everyone to stop being competitive, however).

... and if you've visited the science status page recently, you're seeing some tangible progress toward that.

Signals Already Found at Current Telescope Sky Position***
Type		#	Multiplets****
Spikes		120 	27
Gaussians	307 	27
Pulses		74 	7
Triplets	129 	18

This isn't scientific progress because there is no way to "half-find" ET, but it tells us interesting things about the sky in a given spot.

... and it shows progress toward a running NTPCKR.

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I am hoping that the bulk of the work done in the AKV8 port cannot be moved into the stock Seti application. The rewards of the AKV8 porting are here for anyone who wants to use them....

Actually, they aren't.

If I want to run the newest optimized code, I have to buy new computers, and I don't need new computers.

... but here is my take on the whole thing.

IIRC, one of the optimizations found long ago had to do with making up a table of SIN() or COS() values and caching them instead of calculating them over and over.

These particular FLOPS are expensive.

... and this will speed up any platform, any compiler, any processor (Intel/AMD, PowerPC, Motorola 68000, whatever). Belongs in the standard app.

The standard app. uses FFTW, which is a good library. IPP could very well be faster, but it only applies to x86.

So if someone wants to use IPP, there is a way to optimize.

If someone (Who?) wants to optimize only for the latest CPU, then he is welcome to do so, and those running that chip can benefit.

I've been running "stock" for quite a while because on my machines, 2.4 really isn't faster. If my daily-driver was a C2D, it'd be different.

There are opportunities where optimizations help everyone, and those should go in the standard application. If your "optimization" is to compile the stock code on a different compiler, then short of buying a compiler for SETI you have no worries.

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