[QUOTE=cuBerBruce;388523]Under 50 to go![/QUOTE]
And about 3 months to go. Have patience grasshopper.

[QUOTE=Madpoo;388257]...I found 3 more of those false positives earlier today when looking at some #'s so I'm re-running those just to cross the t's and dot the i's. They're older ones too and I'm sure George already checked into them but I didn't see any verification results..[/QUOTE]

Finished checking all 3... none were prime (of course), but now I feel better. :smile:

So it appears that the most impatient one is "For Research" currently clearing all the low exponents.

It is also of note is that GrunwalderGIMP, who had many of their exponent "poached", eventually did check in good results a few days later; which are listed as a triple check. So all those impatient people are doing a lot of duplicate work. Cheesehead's 100.1 mph is now more like 99.9 mph.

Yes, I think that listing these more minor steps on the Milestones page does motivate certain poachers. I would prefer to either not list them at all, or else in a less prominent place. Maybe after 10M double-checks are done and all exponents below 56M are first-time checked would be a good time to drop it. Sure, I expect a few poachers when we get close to first time checks below M57885161 being done, but at least that sort of a milestone doesn't come up very often.

You fail to mention if GrunwalderGIMP submitted these assignments within the year he was generously given. Chris went to great lengths to first check that there were only slight chances that the assignments were to be finished on time. You can't possibly deny that fact that 5% progress in 11 months (or whatever it was) looks less-than-promising.

An even bigger failure is your lack of protest when he publicly declared that he was going to poach these specific ones because they met his criteria for marooned assignments (EDIT: I should emphasize he did ask for objections). Hindsight is 20/20, but what about your foresight? Clearly not great as you would have said something otherwise, one would hope.


For each assignment that would have finished, there many more which would still be sitting at less than 10%. Besides, for anyone actually following the fairly lengthy discussions we've had on trying to increase productivity at the low end, it should be clear that this won't be an issue much longer.

[QUOTE=TheMawn;390241]You fail to mention if GrunwalderGIMP submitted these assignments within the year he was generously given. [/QUOTE]


These were new assignments that were recycled; they failed to communicate with the server for 60 days.

The ForResearch account doesn't poach anything or the relevant exponents would not show up as assigned.

[QUOTE=philmoore;390235]Yes, I think that listing these more minor steps on the Milestones page does motivate certain poachers. I would prefer to either not list them at all, or else in a less prominent place. Maybe after 10M double-checks are done and all exponents below 56M are first-time checked would be a good time to drop it. Sure, I expect a few poachers when we get close to first time checks below M57885161 being done, but at least that sort of a milestone doesn't come up very often.[/QUOTE]

Maybe when the 10M double-checks are done, I won't bother putting up another double-check milestone unless George sees some value.

For the first time LL checks, I'm not personally concerned about poaching... if the original assignment eventually checks in, then it's still a good double-check and that's cool too. I guess there's still that one in a bazigagillion chance that someone poaches an assignment and it turns out to be prime... the person who poached it would rightly get the credit for discovery, I guess, but the original assignment, assuming they were actively working on it and it wasn't just abandoned, could be miffed about that.

I'd compare it to some supermarket chain giving a prize to the 1 millionth customer. You're in line with your stuff and some guy cuts in front of you and he wins. Yeah, you'd be miffed. It'd be different if you were in line and then left to go do whatever else, and the guy who took your place in line won. You'd probably still be miffed but it's different since it was your fault for leaving. :smile:

Anyway, long story short, I won't plan on adding another double-check milestone after this one. :)

[QUOTE=Madpoo;390350][...]Anyway, long story short, I won't plan on adding another double-check milestone after this one. :)[/QUOTE]
Your distinction between poaching of first time tests and poaching of double-checks is valid from the point of view of wasted computation (provided that only one impatient person poaches the first-time test!), but it is by no means always true that someone who has their first time test poached and has the status of their work changed to a double check will feel fine with that. As a tiny contributor with a single-core, very slow, and part-time running machine, I have done just four first-time tests in my time here, and they each took about six months to complete. All four gave me the satisfaction of having my machine perform a calculation for the project which had never been done before. I would have been very annoyed and quite upset if they had been poached. That could easily have demotivated me to the extent that I stopped participating.

Do you and George see any possible merit in an idea suggested a while back that poached results should be stored on PrimeNet when they are turned in but not made public until the assignee completes the test or the assignment expires, and in the case of first time tests the original assignee being recorded as the first-time tester and the poacher as the double checker? Milestones, too, could be published as if the poached results had not been received (again until the assignment gets completed or expires). I think this might demotivate poachers after a while when they see that their impatient stealing of other people's work has no effect on the milestones.

<5,000
 

Countdown to testing all exponents below M(57885161) once: 4,994

I stiill defend the idea that poached results should be simply refused by the server, with an error code stating something like: "Number currently assigned to other user. Result not accepted", or whatever seen fit by the project leaders. There should be a warning somewhere in the Primenet pages about this, to deter people from crrunching exponents assigned to others.
My point is that now we have an agreed (and implemented) criterion for recycling exponents, so if we have recognized its merit, we should now stick to it. This includes not accepting the impatience of some members, as the duration of the assignments is now perfectly established and limited.
Having a result refused is in my opinion much more demotivating for a poacher than having it changed from 1st time to DC (or even from DC to TC).
I understand GW´s idea of accepting any result that may be of value for the project, but let´s not forget that, in the long run, accepting poached results may do more harm than good, by driving away some regular participants.

My 2 cents... :smile:

[QUOTE=lycorn;390371]My point is that now we have an agreed (and implemented) criterion for recycling exponents, so if we have recognized its merit, we should now stick to it. This includes not accepting the impatience of some members, as the duration of the assignments is now perfectly established and limited.[/QUOTE]

+1