[QUOTE=Prime95;424500]There is a SQL view that has that info. It shouldn't be hard to add it to the active assignments report.[/QUOTE]

Unless the fact is recorded at the time of assignment creation, this will not help.

I am not necessarily advocating that this information be made public (though that could be helpful as well). I am essentially proposing a design whereby Aaron or yourself can accurately figure the actual expiration policy applicable for any given assignment (instead of guessing/back calculating).

If the information is available, but Aaron merely overlooked it, then I misunderstood the situation.

[QUOTE=Prime95;424499]Let's say we tried an unofficial DC cat 0 that required a queue depth under 3 days and say 6 LL results per worker in the last 90 days. In other words, serious machines.

Would that really solve the angst exhibited by folks here? When they look at the lowest 100 assignments they will still see it littered with cat 1 assignments waiting for the 90 days to expire. Several will look obviously abandoned as the computer is 10-30 days overdue on a check in -- people will grumble. They will see dozens of exponents where the computer is highly-unlikely / unlikely / possibly-will / should-but-will-be-close chance to get to 100% before the deadline -- people will grumble.

Yes, once the 90-day expiration hits they know that it will be completed by the serious machines in just 10-15 days. But if we start the test without waiting for the 90 day expiration we won't even need to wait those 10-15 days......more grumbling.

The "Cat project" goal was to have steady progression on milestones and reduced incentive for poaching. In my opinion it is a success on the first goal and a failure in the second.

Thoughts? Should we go ahead with cat 0 anyway?[/QUOTE]

I think it's a success on the first and largely a success on the second. Despite all the grumbling we're doing, I'm pretty certain that poaching is at least an order of magnitude less than it was 3 years ago, not to mention far more cautious to boot (meaning most recent poachings have been proven "justified" after the fact).

[quote]Yes, once the 90-day expiration hits they know that it will be completed by the serious machines in just 10-15 days. But if we start the test without waiting for the 90 day expiration we won't even need to wait those 10-15 days......more grumbling.[/quote]
I disagree about this last grumbling. If the hypothetical Cat 0 was sufficiently stringent, I believe most poachers would realize that they would, at best, be competing with the Cat 0s, rather than the Cat 1s as currently (or worse, as previously). In fact, I bet nearly all poachers would be qualified for Cat 0 -- so in a sense, it would provide the exponents most likely to be poached to those most likely to poach them.

Basically, poaching has been nearly wiped out, and I do believe that a far more stringent last category (whether it be 0 or a retooling of the existing 1-4) would get the job done, more or less. (Say if 90% of poaching from three years ago is now gone, then I expect that Cat 0 would be another figurative 90% of what's left.) At any rate, a new Cat 0 certainly wouldn't hurt.

And the more I think about it, the more I concur with madpoo that limiting the number of recent expiries is also a good thing, say Cat 0 has 4 tests in 60 days and no expiries in the last 60, and maybe Cat 1 or 2 could have a maximum number of recent expiries as well.

[QUOTE=Prime95;424499]...
Thoughts? Should we go ahead with cat 0 anyway?[/QUOTE]If a category 0 is created, how will a user or a CPU qualify ? Couldn't we use the response to that question as an indication on how to adjust the current system ?

In my opinion :

- cat 1 or cat 2 assignments should be checked for regular progress, say at least once a week, there could be different thresholds for cat 1 and cat 2.

- the preferred assignments setting should be by CPU and not by user, another way of achieving this would be to have more stringent rules for computing the reliability of a CPU.

- cat 3 and cat 4 recycling rules should be more stringent. For Cat 3 I would propose removing the possibility of manual extension and recycling when the exponent moves in cat 2 : "Assignments are recycled if they are not started within 180 days or when the exponent moves into the second or first category and the assignment is more than 240 days old." If the number of cat 2 exponents is big enough (about a year of work in double checking and first time testing respectively) cat 3 and cat 4 assignments should not become cat 1 assignments.

I think that multiplying categories will not solve the problems.

Jacob

[QUOTE=S485122;424523]I think that multiplying categories will not solve the problems[/QUOTE]
:tu: I think Aaron has things under control.

A thing I forgot : whatever the system used, there will always be a moment when only a few assignments remain to attain a milestone, some people just cannot stand this state of affairs lasting for more than a few hours...

It is true that the trailing edge for first time assignments takes longer to to resorb than that for the second time checks. But in a few month this should be done.

Jacob

[QUOTE=S485122;424544]...some people just cannot stand this state of affairs lasting for more than a few hours...[/QUOTE]

I think this is more likely a "race condition" between the original assignee (which got recycled) and the new assignee, rather than an unassigned "poaching".

Looking at the cat 1 first time tests there are 48 assignments older than 90 days that have not been recycled. 31 assignments have not been updated in the last 30 days.

Looking at exponents assigned for double checks in the same range, some exponents are clearly lost by their owner but have not been recycled : 60589631 and 60971909 are obvious examples. Then 115 have not been updated in 180 days.

I would propose the following recycling rule for cat 4 :
"Assignments are recycled if
- they are not started within 180 days
- they are not manually extended or updated for 180 days
- they are more than 360 days old and the exponent has moved in cat 2 or cat 1."

Jacob

Countdown to double-checking all exponents below 35M: [color=red][size=7][b]0[/b][/size][/color]

:party: :party: :party:

A poacher using user name proxy2222 just couldn't seem to wait one more day for Greg to finish the assignment. (Well, I suppose it wasn't exactly smart for Greg to not start that assignment for about six days, either.)

[QUOTE=S485122;424523]In my opinion :

- cat 1 or cat 2 assignments should be checked for regular progress, say at least once a week, there could be different thresholds for cat 1 and cat 2.

- the preferred assignments setting should be by CPU and not by user, another way of achieving this would be to have more stringent rules for computing the reliability of a CPU.[/QUOTE]

I agree. And further I would argue that the new assignment rules have generally worked out really well. It has made us look a lot more organized; when M48 was found the assignments were all over the map!

I find it interesting that the recycling rules have worked _really_ well for the low DC'ing range. The low LL'ing range seems to be a bit more problematic. I suspect this is because most people want to become famous by finding a very large prime number, without really realizing just how much commitment is involved.

I would like to support the idea that regular check-ins are an additional requirement for Cat 1 and Cat 2 assignments. Most check in once a day, so perhaps a clause such as "Assignment is recycled if not checked in for seven (7) days". Currently it takes sixty days without a check-in before a candidate is recycled (in all categories).

At the end of the day, we're not going to be able to eliminate "toes being stepped on" if assignments are recycled. The best we can do is try to set things up such that such cases are minimized. It is very difficult (impossible?) to perfectly manage disparate independent "actors".

Lastly, a personal bug-a-boo of mine... I find it a bit ridiculous that even anonymous users can come in and get unlimited numbers of assignments via the Manual Assignment page which are almost never worked, but take 180 days to expire. This has caused (and is causing) headaches trying to appropriately feed the P-1'ers.

[QUOTE=axn;424508]Unless the fact is recorded at the time of assignment creation, this will not help.

I am not necessarily advocating that this information be made public (though that could be helpful as well). I am essentially proposing a design whereby Aaron or yourself can accurately figure the actual expiration policy applicable for any given assignment (instead of guessing/back calculating).

If the information is available, but Aaron merely overlooked it, then I misunderstood the situation.[/QUOTE]

That's basically the case. Well, I knew there was a table in the database that records the threshold/category data going all the way back to Feb 2014 when the new assignment rules first kicked in, so using that data and the date an assignment was created it's possible to figure out what category it was in when assigned. And you're correct, that info is not publicly available anywhere, although I think there may be people who save that info from the /thresholds/ page for later reference.

Anyway, my mistake was not understanding that when an exponent moves from one category to a lower one, it didn't have to follow the rules of it's current category, but rather it would keep the expiration rule according to the category it was in when assigned.

Maybe now that I understand that, I can see if there's a way to include some kind of 'expiration date' in the assignment report which would clarify things.

[QUOTE=S485122;424544]A thing I forgot : whatever the system used, there will always be a moment when only a few assignments remain to attain a milestone, some people just cannot stand this state of affairs lasting for more than a few hours...

It is true that the trailing edge for first time assignments takes longer to to resorb than that for the second time checks. But in a few month this should be done.
[/QUOTE]

I'm probably as guilty of that as anyone. That said, I'm happy to let things work their natural course as long as it looks like any remaining assignments are on track to finish in due course.

Where I (and others) get antsy (and perhaps I need to take a chill pill) is when it's obvious there's an assignment or two that simply aren't being done. If they're expiring soon that's fine, but where the trouble comes in is that there are simply people out there who opt to get preferred assignments who really shouldn't be.

That means that when these few remaining exponents expire, they may be picked up by one of them... so it stands a fair chance of taking another 60 / 90 days of sitting and wondering and baiting the poachers. :smile:

Odds are the work would be reassigned to someone who completes it quickly, but it's not certain, and I think it should be a bit more certain that it'll go to someone who really truly means it when they say they'll complete the work in a timely fashion.

To me that means weeding out the folks who tick that box but let exponents expire anyway. That *should* be part of the criteria in getting these cat 1 (or even cat 2) assignments... people with a proven track record (over the course of the past few months) of not letting things slip.

And if it only looks at the past couple months, then people can rehabilitate their trustworthiness to get preferred work by simply doing the work assigned to them without letting them dry on the vine for a couple months.

I don't even know that the idea of a "category 0" is needed as long as we'd be reasonably certain that whoever picked up the work next would actually follow through. I'd be happy, at any rate.