[QUOTE=Mark Rose;424426]Why not simply adjust Cat 1 and Cat 2? I remember reading somewhere that there aren't many Cat 3 machines, so it would be okay to put more machines in that category.[/QUOTE]

Cat 3 is already the most served.

Cat 1 and 2 require a promise from the user to complete quickly.

Please see [URL="http://www.mersenne.org/thresholds/"]this link[/URL] for details.

[QUOTE=chalsall;424432]Cat 3 is already the most served.

Cat 1 and 2 require a promise from the user to complete quickly.

Please see [URL="http://www.mersenne.org/thresholds/"]this link[/URL] for details.[/QUOTE]

As far as I can tell, Cat 3 also requires that promise.

[QUOTE=Dubslow;424433]As far as I can tell, Cat 3 also requires that promise.[/QUOTE]

Nope. Please read the language carefully.

The promise is only required for those requesting manual assignments. Otherwise they will get Cat 4.

[QUOTE=chalsall;424435]Nope. Please read the language carefully.

The promise is only required for those requesting manual assignments. Otherwise they will get Cat 4.[/QUOTE]

Ahh, I see, yet another case in which I had parentheses to help me figure out which clauses go with which conjunctions.

[QUOTE=chalsall;424423]Looking at [URL="http://www.mersenne.org/assignments/?exp_lo=60000000&exp_hi=65000000&execm=1&exdchk=1&exp1=1&extf=1"]this report[/URL] there are many candidates which should have already been recycled.[/QUOTE]

I didn't see any problems here. You need to look at the category threshold at the time the exponent was assigned. For example, the oldest from that list:

[CODE]63362797 LL LL, 78.80% 132 -3 2015-09-19 2015-12-01 2015-12-02 2016-01-26 Mark Hoeting[/CODE]

was a cat 2 assignment. See [url]http://www.mersenne.org/thresholds/?dt=2015-09-19[/url]


Now does the fact that cat 2 assignments are becoming "cat 0" assignments within 150 days mean that we should adjust the definition of cat 1 or cat 2??? May well be. Perhaps we should change cat 1 to first 5000 LL tests. Comments?

[QUOTE=Madpoo;424421]Those last 4, I went ahead and started testing them since they really should have expired anyway. The 61M, I'll wait until it actually expires before doing a test.

As we go, I think this is a safe way to make sure exponents like these are handled and not reassigned to another slowpoke. I'm not saying *I* have to be the one to test them, but it'll reserve them in case we get another volunteer who will get it done promptly.[/QUOTE]

No they should not have expired.

I'm somewhat distressed. The whole point of the "Cat 1/2/3/4" overhaul was to eliminate or at least greatly reduce poaching because milestones would be making steady progress. Instead, it seems to have made people even more impatient.

Let's tweak the "cat" system, rather than embark on more poaching. To that end, I'm studying the cat 0 suggestions and using the number of recently expired assignments to improve our assignment strategy.

[QUOTE=Prime95;424448]I didn't see any problems here. You need to look at the category threshold at the time the exponent was assigned. For example, the oldest from that list:

[CODE]63362797 LL LL, 78.80% 132 -3 2015-09-19 2015-12-01 2015-12-02 2016-01-26 Mark Hoeting[/CODE]

was a cat 2 assignment. See [url]http://www.mersenne.org/thresholds/?dt=2015-09-19[/url]


Now does the fact that cat 2 assignments are becoming "cat 0" assignments within 150 days mean that we should adjust the definition of cat 1 or cat 2??? May well be. Perhaps we should change cat 1 to first 5000 LL tests. Comments?[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Prime95;424449]No they should not have expired.

I'm somewhat distressed. The whole point of the "Cat 1/2/3/4" overhaul was to eliminate or at least greatly reduce poaching because milestones would be making steady progress. Instead, it seems to have made people even more impatient.

Let's tweak the "cat" system, rather than embark on more poaching. To that end, I'm studying the cat 0 suggestions and using the number of recently expired assignments to improve our assignment strategy.[/QUOTE]

I agree that some tweaking is in order, and your statements seem to be the right approach.

I will comment that, generally speaking, predicting when previously-solid contributors will go offline is next to impossible. The best we can do is tighten up our definitions of "solid contributors" -- either directly modifying the current criteria, or as madpoo suggested, we could perhaps see if they have any recent assignment expirations. Ideally the criterion for "solid" is one such that when a system goes bad, it ceases to be eligible as quickly as possible.

I think the "x results in the last y days" is the best criterion to tighten up in the various categories.

It certainly seems that adjusting the size of the categories is also in order, for the reasons you state. A few too many assignments from each category are moving down one or two categories before the original assignment time is up. It may be worth setting the deadlines for each category based on how long it takes the size of the next smaller categories to completely change. That is, if the first 10,000 (or however many) assignments in Cat 2 takes 6 months to clear through at current GIMPS pace, then the Cat 3 deadline should be no more than 6 months (or the Cat 2 size should be increased, one or the other). madpoo is of course best able to acquire the various data needed for this particular kind of decision.

[QUOTE=Madpoo;424428]
One more example:
[URL="http://www.mersenne.org/M35049253"]M35049253[/URL]

Pretty sure this would have been cat 1 when assigned... user has 8 expired assignments in the last 60 days.[/QUOTE]

I looked at this one. It was borderline cat 1 / cat 2 at time of assignment -- not sure which it is. The user now has 8 expired assignments, but they happened after the initial assignment.

[QUOTE=Madpoo;424428]
Here's another example:
[URL="http://www.mersenne.org/M36542903"]M36542903[/URL]

It was probably cat 2 when assigned, but even then, a user with 10 expired assignments in the last 2 months shouldn't be getting preferred stuff, even cat 2.

[/QUOTE]

This one had 7 expired assignments in the previous 11 months at the time of assignment.

[QUOTE=Madpoo;424428]

Well, this one is *almost* cat 1... it was assigned back in April 2014 (not grandfathered) so I have no idea why it's not expired already... at least we can say that it wasn't cat 1 (or even cat 3) when it was assigned nearly 2 years ago.
[URL="http://www.mersenne.org/M67729117"]M67729117[/URL][/QUOTE]

Grandfathered assignments are given an infinite amount of time as long as both
a) They report in at least every 60 days
b) The exponent does not become cat 1.

This exponent will fail soon on condition (b).

[QUOTE=Mark Rose;424426]Why not simply adjust Cat 1 and Cat 2?[/QUOTE]

On 3/1/14:
Cat 1 started with first 5000, Cat 2 first 15000.

On 3/2/15, based on a year of data and discussed somewhere in this forum:
Cat changed to 3000, Cat 2 dropped to first 10000.

Today we are not happy with slower cat 2 assignments dropping well down into the cat 1 area before the 150 day rule expires them. So, I guess we dropped the cat 1 number too much. I'll adjust upward to 4000.