[QUOTE=cuBerBruce;427033]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.[/QUOTE]

That could be easy enough to add. I could get creative and color code them into cat 1-4 "colors" rather than add another column... oh, who knows, that might look messy.

[QUOTE=cuBerBruce]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.)[/QUOTE]

It's possible, but even if it was a cat 2 when assigned and moved into cat 1 the very next day, they still have a good amount of time to finish. If they got a cat 2 assignment and they already squandered 100+ days for DC or 150+ days for LL without completing it, it expires the moment it moves to cat 1. All I can say is, "oh well". That's the whole point of the expiration rules. For cat 2 they still promise to complete it in a timely fashion, same as cat 3.

You could make the argument that a cat 4 assignment, where no promise was made to complete it quickly, is the most unfortunate because they could get their cat 4 work and then fiddle away for a year, during which time it might move down to cat 1 and then expire. Is it unreasonable to expect a result for a cat 4 assignment to come in within 360 days? I don't think it's unreasonable. Of course they have more time than that if it's still not cat 1 yet.

Given that cat 4 first time tests are above 75.7 M right now, I'd guess it could be more than a year before those become cat 1, so they actually do have extra time.

The other side of it is for cat 3/4 where they at least need to start work on it (and report that fact in) within a certain time frame. Otherwise it sure looks like it's probably been abandoned if we haven't even got a "0.1% done" result within 6 months of assignment.

And it's not "in the past 6 months"... it's whether it reported any work at all within 6 months of being assigned (near as I can tell). It could report progress on day 2 and then not be heard from again for a year and it would still qualify as "having started", according to the language of the rules.

[QUOTE=cuBerBruce]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.[/QUOTE]

It does. In reference to my previous paragraph, if an exponent has checked in any progress at all, the clause that it must start within XX days of being assigned is taken care of.

My calculation of the days-til-expiration will take into account two different things:
1) assignments now in cat 1 that have a certain # of days to complete
2) assignments that were originally cat 3 or 4 that have not started at all, and will expire regardless of what category they're in now.

There is that fuzzy zone of originally cat 2 assignments that don't have a requirement to start in a certain # of days. I thought that was odd... an oversight perhaps, or maybe it just didn't matter since they'd be cat 1 sooner than a cat 3 or 4?

[QUOTE=cuBerBruce]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.[/QUOTE]

Maybe. In some of my testing, I experimented with including a "doomsday clock" showing how many exponents away any assignment was from slipping into category 1, but without a way of knowing the rate at which cat 1 exponents are clearing, it would be a wild guess on how far away anything is from becoming cat 1.

On the other hand, if you saw that there are only a dozen or so exponents before your elderly cat 4 becomes cat 1, you'd have an idea you were on the verge of losing it.

I was surprised to see some grandfathered assignments that still live on in the 68M and 69M ranges. They're cat 2 at the moment and so even though they *should* have expired about a year ago even under the grandfather rules, they'll be okay until they turn into cat 1. They won't finish... I ran the #'s... I estimate they'll finish in between 2017 and 2024 in different cases, so they'll definitely bump into cat 1 and vanish before then.

[QUOTE=Madpoo;427037]My calculation of the days-til-expiration will take into account two different things:
1) assignments now in cat 1 that have a certain # of days to complete
2) assignments that were originally cat 3 or 4 that have not started at all, and will expire regardless of what category they're in now.[/QUOTE]

Your point 2) is fine but imo it should always show the days remaining as if it was already moved to Cat 1, if it then happens to be outside Cat 1 when reaching 0 days that just an added bonus for the user.

[QUOTE=ATH;427050]Your point 2) is fine but imo it should always show the days remaining as if it was already moved to Cat 1, if it then happens to be outside Cat 1 when reaching 0 days that just an added bonus for the user.[/QUOTE]
+1. Better alert him earlier, than let it inadvertently expire!

[QUOTE=ATH;427050]Your point 2) is fine but imo it should always show the days remaining as if it was already moved to Cat 1, if it then happens to be outside Cat 1 when reaching 0 days that just an added bonus for the user.[/QUOTE]

I have a feeling that would be confusing, seeing exponents that expire in negative XX days, highlighted in a nasty red warning color. :smile:

The best near term solution I can think of is to do some kind of rule-of-thumb where it might look at the # of exponents left before this particular assignment becomes cat 1. If that # is below 100 or something, it's on the verge of moving to cat 1 very soon, and if it would expire when that happens, show something to generate a sense of urgency for anyone looking at the report to spur them to actually get that work done before then.

And there's the rub... for any of these stats to make sense on the individual account assignment page, there would need to be an assumption that some user has this work assigned to them, they've let it go far too long, and they actually logon to the website and check and this would be their only way of knowing they have assignments in danger of expiring.

I think it's a stretch to assume that any users at all in that predicament would actually be checking the website for their assignments. Because in my utopian brain, people who check that stuff on the website don't let their assignments lapse in the first place.

Call it wishful thinking on my part... I kind of feel like putting that info on the account assignment page wouldn't really benefit anyone, at least in the sense that they'd see an assignment expiring in 7 days and think "oh noes, I better start that!" or whatever. LOL

Not to say I won't add it anyway... I don't think it'll have the outcome you might expect from it. :smile:

You can check out my progress on the /workload/ page here:
[URL="http://www.mersenne.org/workload/default.mock.php"]http://www.mersenne.org/workload/default.mock.php[/URL]

Just added the "expires" column instead of the "age". No color coding in there... it just is what it is. I realized I never added the sorting on this table either so I might slip that in later.

[QUOTE=Madpoo;427090]Just added the "expires" column instead of the "age". No color coding in there... it just is what it is. I realized I never added the sorting on this table either so I might slip that in later.[/QUOTE]

I like it!!! Thanks! :tu:

Edit: I just thought of something which might be worth considering: move the "Expires" column over to be immediately to the left of "Days to go", and colour code one or the other (or both) of the cells if the former is less than the latter.

[QUOTE=Madpoo;427090]The best near term solution I can think of is to do some kind of rule-of-thumb where it might look at the # of exponents left before this particular assignment becomes cat 1. If that # is below 100 or something, it's on the verge of moving to cat 1 very soon...[/QUOTE]

One thing you might consider would be something like what I do for the [URL="https://www.gpu72.com/reports/estimated_completion/primenet/"]Estimated Completion[/URL] report. This was created to make sure GPU72 wasn't biting off more than it could chew.

Basically it calculates how long the work would take assuming all the firepower was being concentrated on a particular 1M range. The firepower available is calculated based on the past 30 days of production.

You would probably want to take into consideration the production rate of the different categories. Cat 1 has only completed ~30 candidates a day for the last 30 days, for example, while Cat 3 has completed ~171 a day. There is almost no Cat 2 work being assigned (as far as I can tell).

Thus, the transition from Cat 2 to Cat 1 is going to be a lot slower than what might be expected.

What happens to a CPU that has a cat 1 assignment expire? Can it still get cat 1 assignments? Surely if CPUs expire exponents they shouldn't be able to get that cat anymore.

[QUOTE=henryzz;427095]What happens to a CPU that has a cat 1 assignment expire? Can it still get cat 1 assignments? Surely if CPUs expire exponents they shouldn't be able to get that cat anymore.[/QUOTE]

[URL="http://www.mersenneforum.org/showpost.php?p=424582&postcount=2222"]http://www.mersenneforum.org/showpost.php?p=424582&postcount=2222[/URL]

Yeah...
[QUOTE]...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...[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Madpoo;426987]I think I've worked out a little "something something" to show expiration dates. On the assignments page for now, and it's showing that instead of the (mostly) useless "Age" column.[/QUOTE]

I've just made this new page "live". I had to fix one other minor display bug... if the ETA days was zero, it was blank on the report. Just had to jujitsu some PHP and now it shows zero correctly.

[QUOTE=Madpoo;427230]I've just made this new page "live". I had to fix one other minor display bug... if the ETA days was zero, it was blank on the report. Just had to jujitsu some PHP and now it shows zero correctly.[/QUOTE]Is that the same for blank expiry dates?

e.g. [url]http://www.mersenne.org/assignments/?exp_lo=67914299&exp_hi=67914299&execm=1&exp1=1&extf=1&exdchk=1[/url]
Expires in <blank> days.

Many more like that also.

[QUOTE=retina;427232]Is that the same for blank expiry dates?

e.g. [url]http://www.mersenne.org/assignments/?exp_lo=67914299&exp_hi=67914299&execm=1&exp1=1&extf=1&exdchk=1[/url]
Expires in <blank> days.

Many more like that also.[/QUOTE]

Blank days-to-expire means it's not cat 1 yet and it's started (even if it's only like 0.1%). So it won't expire unless it's cat 1 *and* hasn't finished in the time specified.

If I "pretended" everything was cat 1 and showed the expiration dates as if that were true, there'd be a heckuva lot of exponents with negative expiration dates, making it meaningless. Or you wouldn't be able to tell which exponents will *really* expire compared to ones that would expire "if they were cat 1". :smile: