[QUOTE=Prime95;426988]If you enter 72M to 72.1M you'll get several undefined variables.[/QUOTE]

Whoops. Fixed. Still learning about PHP and its differences between isset and empty. I saw that "empty()" also includes variables where the value is zero, not just null.

Anyway, I set a default font color up front, hope that takes care of it.

[URL="http://www.mersenne.org/assignments/default.mock.php?exp_lo=72000000&exp_hi=72100000&execm=1&exdchk=1&exp1=1&extf=1"]Example 72M - 72.1M[/URL]

[QUOTE=cuBerBruce]I would say it's the Account Assignment Details page where changes such as this are really needed.[/QUOTE]

Could be... if this other page works out okay and I can work out any bugs, there are definitely other places this could be useful.

I'd like to think someone who actually bothers to check on their assignments on the website is going to be on top of things and finish their assignments before expiration, but that's a guess.

[QUOTE=Madpoo;427001]I'd like to think someone who actually bothers to check on their assignments on the website is going to be on top of things and finish their assignments before expiration, but that's a guess.[/QUOTE]

If the page gave better information, maybe...

[QUOTE=cuBerBruce;427002]If the page gave better information, maybe...[/QUOTE]

Besides the estimated days 'til expiration, what else did you have in mind for that page (I assume you're talking about this one: [URL="http://www.mersenne.org/workload/"]http://www.mersenne.org/workload/[/URL] )

Outstanding work on the site ! Thanks to Chris and George and... !
[QUOTE=Madpoo;426987]...
The way it seems to work out, it seems like cat 3/4 assignments that haven't started at all will expire once they reach their designated "you better at least start in XX days".
Cat 2 assignments don't have anything like that... they don't have to start in a certain time frame, they only expire once the exponent becomes cat 1.
Once any assignments become cat 1, they obey the rules of how many days they should have finished in, according to what category they were in at the time of assignment.
...
You'll notice, if you try different ranges, that some exponents don't have a value, and that's because they're not cat 1 yet but they've started work, so they can take as long as they want until it becomes cat 1, and there's no way to predict when that would be.
...[/QUOTE]I think this explanation vindicates the necessity of modifying the assignment rules.
The type of assignments one gets is determined by the the fact that one activates "get the smallest exponents", the "days of work to queue up" settings for each CPU, the reliability of the CPU and a vague promise.

For the categories 1, 2 and 3 assignments there should also be conditions on the timely updates of the server.

Another thing is that expiration should occur not only "when the exponent moves into the first category [b][size=+1]and[/size][/b] the assignment is more than xxx days old" but "when the exponent moves into the first category [b][size=+1]or[/size][/b] the assignment is more than xxx days old". Whether the age should be determined by the category the assignment was in when delivered or by its current category is food for discussion.

Finally shouldn't the category of the assignments a CPU get also depend on it's confidence score and shouldn't the confidence diminish when it does not finish assignments timely ?

Jacob

All categories now have a max amount of days before they expire: [url]http://www.mersenne.org/thresholds/[/url]

DC Cat 1-4: 60days, 100days, 240days, 360days
LL Cat 1-4: 90days, 150days, 270days, 360days

[QUOTE=ATH;427010]All categories now have a max amount of days before they expire[/QUOTE]Not quite true : for the condition on age leading to expiration the exponent must also move to Cat 1.

For instance for category 2 DC assignments "Assignments are recycled when the exponent moves into the first category and the assignment is more than 100 days old." There is an AND between the conditions !

I would like to see "Assignments are recycled when the exponent moves into the first category OR WHEN the assignment is more than 100 days old."

Jacob

[QUOTE=S485122;427007]Outstanding work on the site ! Thanks to Chris and George and... ![/QUOTE]

Indeed, great work! However, for the record, I'm not involved. All the credit should go to Aaron, George and James.

[QUOTE=S485122;427012]I would like to see "Assignments are recycled when the exponent moves into the first category OR WHEN the assignment is more than 100 days old.[/QUOTE]

Why should I be penalized because someone somewhere completed an assignment that has nothing to do with mine? Or be shown leniency because someone somewhere didn't complete an assignment?

Simpler: "Assignments are recycled when the assignment is more than n days old".

This is a more predictable policy.

[QUOTE=chalsall;427013]Indeed, great work! However, for the record, I'm not involved. All the credit should go to Aaron, George and James.[/QUOTE]Indeed I meant Aaron and forgot James (I was too lazy to look up the right names :-(

So, many thanks to Aaron, George and James !

Jacob

Almost all of the site credit goes to Aaron. He is becoming a PHP wizard :)

The reasoning behind the "AND" between "completes in N days" and "moves to category 1" was to give a grace period to users that are checking in regularly (thus presumably making progress) as long as the exponent was no where near the critical milestones. The grace period is beneficial to GIMPS in that even if only a few percent are completed before becoming category 1, then that's a few less DCs the remaining users need to do.

The only downside to the "AND" clause that I can see is that if there were a large number of such cases, cat 2/3/4 users would be getting assigned somewhat larger exponents than they otherwise would be.

To S485122: There is no chance I will change the "AND" to an "OR". If we have cat 2 drifting deep into cat 1 territory before the 100 day deadline, or cat 3/4 assignments drifting down to cat 1 territory before their 240/360 day deadlines, then we need to increase the number of exponents in various categories to make that not happen in the future. Please keep an eye out for such cases. This occurred recently and the number of cat 1 exponents was increased.

Would it be helpful is the assignments page also listed each exponent's category on the day it was assigned?

[QUOTE=Madpoo;427005]Besides the estimated days 'til expiration, what else did you have in mind for that page (I assume you're talking about this one: [URL="http://www.mersenne.org/workload/"]http://www.mersenne.org/workload/[/URL] )[/QUOTE]

Yes, that's the page,

Since the new assignment rules went into effect, I've always felt the the assignment's category number (meaning the range its in when it was assigned) is something thought should appear in this page.

The proposed calculated expiration date would also be nice. The issue with the expiration date as MadPoo described is that it can mislead the user into thinking an assignment has lots of time, but it could move into the cat 1 range the next day and then immediately expire. (I agree that we should not really expect the server to try to predict this date, but I think we can still try to warn the user about this possibility.)

Also, I believe MadPoo's expiration calculation doesn't take into account expiring due to not updating status for 60 days, but taking that into consideration would seem to involve making some assumptions. Maybe that should only be considered if the "next update" date is missed by at least a day, or possibly some number of days (45?) passing since the last update. Or just have a separate way of warning about this case.

Some information might be reflected through highlighting (as in special text or background colors) rather than extra columns:
1) some kind of warning for an assignment that has exceeded its "limit" but hasn't moved into cat 1 yet. Such an assignment could be in danger of expiring "without warning" when it moves into cat 1.

2) some kind of indication if an assignment is nearing cat 1, or maybe displaying what category it would be in if it were just assigned now. Maybe if an exponent is currently in the top 10% (or some other appropriate percentage) of the cat 2 range, some sort of highlighting could warn the user that its nearing the cat 1 range.

3) some indication if the assignment is nearing 60 days without updating (maybe the server already does this and I haven't noticed since I don't tend have assignments in this situation).

One other thought: instead of simply getting rid of the "Age" column, have the ability to toggle the assigned date column to display either the assigned date or the age. These are in some sense just different ways displaying the same information.