This is a great project, but others also are. If there are some chunchers that want more credit, give them. It's much easier than raising money thru donnations.

OK, I demand that you give me all YOUR credits! Does that help? Is that fair?

I don't mean this seriously - I just want to make a point.

(point... credit... it's a punn... get it?)

This is a great project, but others also are. If there are some chunchers that want more credit, give them. It's much easier than raising money thru donnations.

OK, I demand that you give me all YOUR credits! Does that help? Is that fair?

I don't mean this seriously - I just want to make a point.

(point... credit... it's a punn... get it?)

You can have all the credit for my 1700+ classic units, since they worth noting these days. ;) - just kidding.

The first time I realize the credits was a couple of months ago. Now I check them quite often, and it helps to create some will to crunch more. Someone brought the pinball machines point. I think he's right. Everyone likes to progress, if the RAC is cut by 2 or 3 with the new credit system, a pergentage of users will loose the motivation. Botton line: less science.

Let's use some psychology for some users, and let the science motivate to the others.

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I I even read someone calling users of optimized apps as "cheating". I hope this is not the official view of the project...

Well i dont think they consider it as cheating. As you can see on the third party download page.

Why would the put a link to TRUX boinc clients there with the comment:
"BOINC client (optimized; benchmarks more closely match optimized SETI@home clients)" ?

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Join BOINC United now!

...If you look at your own results, you can see that there was almost always a difference between claimed and granted credits, and now they are almost always the same.

That's better, even if some "win" and some "lose" as a result.

One way to stop the complaints would be to just raise the credits by 50% but that starts the whole credit inflation thing, and that's exactly what the project was trying to avoid.

Agreed Ned

understood that the faster, more powerful machines still would earn more credit than slower less powerful. People just want to see their machines earn the same overall credit.

Question is...is it unreasonable to ask to earn the same amount of total credit?

It is not unreasonable -- that is what Enhanced does.

Let's try an analogy.

Let's say we're giving out water, and we're passing it out in one pint containers. Water weighs 8.3 pounds per gallon, so 1 pint is about a pound.

If we instead switch to giving out one pound of water, it's still fair, each "work unit" is a little less than a pint, but it's about the same number.

If we then switch to gasoline (which is 6 pounds per gallon), each one pound work unit is about 1.2 pints (in round numbers).

Would it have been fairer to give out one pint "work units" of gasoline?

Now I don't much care if we pass out pints or pounds. I'd prefer gasoline at the current prices, but changing how you measure changes what you get.

We aren't looking at an intentional deflation of credits, we're looking at what happens when you change how you measure.

Enhanced counts work done. 4.18 counted some work, measured time, and estimated.

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I see S@H still thinking as the monopoly of science, with a motto "My way is the right way". I even read someone calling users of optimized apps as "cheating". I hope this is not the official view of the project...

Where did you see that? In this thread the only context where I’ve noticed “cheating” come up is concerning clients that inflate claims made under the time-&-benchmarks system, particularly those that go beyond “calibration” for parity with standard apps, but claim as much as a third more than the developers intended for cross-project parity. (That’s my understanding of the position, anyway; I’m not well enough informed on the issues to judge its merit.)

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Where did you see that? In this thread the only context where I’ve noticed “cheating” come up is concerning clients that inflate claims made under the time-&-benchmarks system, particularly those that go beyond “calibration” for parity with standard apps, but claim as much as a third more than the developers intended for cross-project parity. (That’s my understanding of the position, anyway; I’m not well enough informed on the issues to judge its merit.)

Down below Winterknight said "And like Tony I have not in the past accused people who use optimised clients of cheating, but do believe they are, especially those using them with other projects."

So he said he believes optimized clients are cheating.

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So he said he believes optimized clients are cheating.

Yes, CLIENTS. Thats the BOINC bit.

Not the Science app, which is what we're talking about in this thread.

But when each one of us looks at what they have accomplished here, then sees that accomplishment cut by a factor of THREE, then what do we have to look forward to?

The optimization programmers increasing the efficiency of the app, I should think, if history is anything to go by. Granted, due in part to the generosity of some of them in contributing ideas to the developers, the gains to be made over the standard 5.x app are unlikely to be as great as those that were achieved for 4.x. I was only around for the last couple of months of Enhanced beta-testing, and saw my cobblestones-per-hour production double during that period (WU times decreased eight- or ninefold, credit per WU quartered—based on a rather small sample of WUs with similar ARs). But no doubt various specific processor-tweaked (SSE, 3DNow, AltiVec, 64-bit, …) builds will be coming out over the next few months, so I doubt those users who work at maximizing their production will go unrewarded.

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Daniel:

Sounds like extortion to me. I don't think that's in the spirit of a community dedicated to a grand search for ET. I think you might need to reconsider your motivation to participate in this project.

Thank you. I have reconsidered my motivations, and decided to shut down my entire fleet once the transition is complete. 23 machines will be going on sale soon. But not here.

Regards, Daniel.

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Daniel:

Sounds like extortion to me. I don't think that's in the spirit of a community dedicated to a grand search for ET. I think you might need to reconsider your motivation to participate in this project.

Thank you. I have reconsidered my motivations, and decided to shut down my entire fleet once the transition is complete. 23 machines will be going on sale soon. But not here.

Regards, Daniel.

Daniel,

You have the "volunteer tester" tag -- did you not help with the Beta? Did you not comment on the crunching time or granted credit?

Did you think it'd somehow be different when Enhanced went live?

It is of course your decision: no one asked you to build 23 machines just for SETI (or any other BOINC project).

Ultimately, you have to decide what you will, or won't, crunch.

It just seems silly to get so upset over credits with effectively zero value.

-- Ned

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Daniel:

Sounds like extortion to me. I don't think that's in the spirit of a community dedicated to a grand search for ET. I think you might need to reconsider your motivation to participate in this project.

Thank you. I have reconsidered my motivations, and decided to shut down my entire fleet once the transition is complete. 23 machines will be going on sale soon. But not here.

Regards, Daniel.

Yikes!!!

Don't leave, Daniel!

I have drawn my own conclusions out of the chaos we have right now -
an outrageous discrepance in claimed credit between the optimized standard and enhanced apps:

I threw out the standard seti app from my app_info files.

My RAC will take a dive, but fsck that, I'll be waiting there for you when the transition is done :o)

Regards Hans

P.S: I woudn't give much about anything being posted here, as many of the posts lack significance....

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Daniel,

You have the "volunteer tester" tag -- did you not help with the Beta? Did you not comment on the crunching time or granted credit?

Did you think it'd somehow be different when Enhanced went live?

It is of course your decision: no one asked you to build 23 machines just for SETI (or any other BOINC project).

Ultimately, you have to decide what you will, or won't, crunch.

It just seems silly to get so upset over credits with effectively zero value.

-- Ned

Exactly my point. The credits DO have value. Not only to me, but to thousands of other volunteers. It is a measure of our own personal accomplishment within each project we decide to participate in. Since my accomplishment, and the accomplishment of others who feel as I do, is apparently no longer wanted or needed, it shouldn't make any difference if all those of us who also crunch for competition leave the project.

Regards, Daniel.

Daniel,

You have the "volunteer tester" tag -- did you not help with the Beta? Did you not comment on the crunching time or granted credit?

Obviously the whole relase of 5.12 came out of nowhere. It was a surprise to me and i think to Daniel too that while knowning this app is to buggy to be released.

It is of course your decision: no one asked you to build 23 machines just for SETI (or any other BOINC project).

And noone asked for fpop counting...

It just seems silly to get so upset over credits with effectively zero value.

Well if i look at your RAC or one of the other guys who only ... and look at Daniels RAC then ...

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Join BOINC United now!

So he said he believes optimized clients are cheating.

Yes, CLIENTS. Thats the BOINC bit.

Not the Science app, which is what we're talking about in this thread.

I beg to differ. The BOINC piece is the manager. The client is the science app run under the manager. The Boinc program manages multiple clients or science apps.

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Yikes!!!

Don't leave, Daniel!

I have drawn my own conclusions out of the chaos we have right now -
an outrageous discrepance in claimed credit between the optimized standard and enhanced apps:

I threw out the standard seti app from my app_info files.

My RAC will take a dive, but fsck that, I'll be waiting there for you when the transition is done :o)

Regards Hans

P.S: I woudn't give much about anything being posted here, as many of the posts lack significance....

But, you see, it won't make any difference if I leave. It won't make any difference if ALL of us who crunch with competition in mind leave. Our accomplishments mean NOTHING, because we also think about "credits". Don't worry, because even if ALL of us competetors leave, there will still be at least 100 or so hosts left crunching by people who crunch only for SCIENCE. That should be enough.

Regards, Daniel.

Exactly my point. The credits DO have value. Not only to me, but to thousands of other volunteers. It is a measure of our own personal accomplishment within each project we decide to participate in. Since my accomplishment, and the accomplishment of others who feel as I do, is apparently no longer wanted or needed, it shouldn't make any difference if all those of us who also crunch for competition leave the project.

Regards, Daniel.

And there will probably be many more to follow. Those of us who are in this for the science AND competition make up a large majority of the crunching power on this project. Those of you who seem not to care, crunch with what, 1, 2, maybe 3 machines? I like Daniel have over 20 machines at my disposal. Some of my team mates have many more than that. When the last of the non-enhanced WUs run out, I will look for another project or failing to find one that feeds my competitive nature, sell off my excess machines. And so the exodus begins.....

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But, you see, it won't make any difference if I leave. It won't make any difference if ALL of us who crunch with competition in mind leave. Our accomplishments mean NOTHING, because we also think about "credits". Don't worry, because even if ALL of us competetors leave, there will still be at least 100 or so hosts left crunching by people who crunch only for SCIENCE. That should be enough.

Regards, Daniel.

I'll notice if you leave, that's for sure :o)

I don't see competition stopping after the transition is complete, as everybody's RAC will drop by the same percentage.

At the moment, the easiest way to stay "on top" would be avoiding enhanced completely, but that's not my piece of cake.
So I took the other option and sort of quit the competition for a while.

Running enhanced and standard at the same time is more like a lottery, and pretty much invalidates any credits gained.

Regards Hans

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I'll notice if you leave, that's for sure :o)

I don't see competition stopping after the transition is complete, as everybody's RAC will drop by the same percentage.

At the moment, the easiest way to stay "on top" would be avoiding enhanced completely, but that's not my piece of cake.
So I took the other option and sort of quit the competition for a while.

Running enhanced and standard at the same time is more like a lottery, and pretty much invalidates any credits gained.

Regards Hans

Thanks, Hans. But after the complete rollout of enhanced is complete, with the lower credits, there will never be any more competition. SETI.USA once had a chance to compete directly with Seti.Germany, and a chance at becoming the #1 team. Now, with only 1/3 of the credits, this overtake cannot possibly happen within MY lifetime. And that is just in TEAM competition. As for one on one competition, I won't be able to move any higher in THAT respect either, in MY lifetime, unless I end up hitting the lotto. So, remove competition, and you remove most volunteer's reason for being here. Compound that with those telling me and the other competitors that we don't matter, because we also think of credits, and the choice is clear. Why bother crunching for a project that considers it's top participants to be pariahs.

Regards, Daniel.

Thanks, Hans. But after the complete rollout of enhanced is complete, with the lower credits, there will never be any more competition. SETI.USA once had a chance to compete directly with Seti.Germany, and a chance at becoming the #1 team. Now, with only 1/3 of the credits, this overtake cannot possibly happen within MY lifetime. And that is just in TEAM competition. As for one on one competition, I won't be able to move any higher in THAT respect either, in MY lifetime, unless I end up hitting the lotto. So, remove competition, and you remove most volunteer's reason for being here. Compound that with those telling me and the other competitors that we don't matter, because we also think of credits, and the choice is clear. Why bother crunching for a project that considers it's top participants to be pariahs.

Regards, Daniel.

You have a point there.



There might be some things in the future that will make this whole mess just look like a bump in the road, though.

- further optimizations (I'm not sure about the possible speedup, though)

- faster crunching hardware (intel conroe et al, the "cell" cpu of the PS3)


Regards Hans

P.S:

I'll be selling part of my setup, also. These boxes become obsolete at an alarming rate :o)

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So he said he believes optimized clients are cheating.

Yes, CLIENTS. Thats the BOINC bit.

Not the Science app, which is what we're talking about in this thread.

I beg to differ. The BOINC piece is the manager. The client is the science app run under the manager. The Boinc program manages multiple clients or science apps.

You’re free to use terminology peculiar to yourself, but don’t be surprised if others don’t understand you—or vice versa—in consequence. Unlike S@h Classic, the apps that do the scientific processing under BOINC aren’t normally referred to as “clients” because they don’t perform any of the functions required for communication with the servers. That aspect of the system is handled by the BOINC “core client”, which is usually—but not necessarily—bundled with a manager that provides a GUI for interacting with it.

Separation of the client functions from the scientific work was a major raison d’être for BOINC, as it allows the various projects’ development teams to concentrate on the high-level coding that does their specific kind of processing, without having to deal with all the ‘nuts and bolts’ of communication protocols, server configuration, and so on.

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