Poachers
 

Following this discussion:
[INDENT][QUOTE=ATH;367980]No need to make special arrangements for my 2 exponents. I won't complain if my poached exponents are taken :) I just started them to "clean up" because they were so very old without any chance of finishing any time soon.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Brian-E;367982]Not meaning to pester you, but I'm interested in your attitude here:

Suppose that no special arrangements were made for these two exponents and they were assigned to someone else at a point when your work on them was at an advanced stage? How quickly would you notice that this new assignment had occurred? And what would you then do?[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=chalsall;367989]I understand where you're coming from. But, at the same time, those who have invested a great deal of time, energy and money to complete assignments in a timely fashion grow impatient of those who "take the piss" (apparently an English term).

This is what the new assignment and retirement rules are supposed to solve. But since George is taking his sweet time implementing some of them, some others may take matters into their own hands, and accept being "poached" as "poachers".

I hope that's clear and logical.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=cuBerBruce;367996]I think Brian-E's point is that it doesn't make sense for George to recycle an exponent if he knows someone is already planning to poach it. Unless it is somehow arranged for the known poacher to grab the recycled assignment. There is no point in letting someone else start working on it (as a legitimate assignment) if it's going to get poached anyway.

It might be that ATH meant that he would stop working on it if it got reassigned, but I don't think that was totally clear, and why Brian-E asked the questions that he asked.

I believe there was at least one incident on the way to the M43 milestone where a rogue poacher poached a DC assignment a number of days after the exponent was recycled and assigned to somebody new. I suspect the rogue poacher never noticed that the exponent had been recycled and reassigned.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Brian-E;368000]Yes, this is indeed what I would like to know. I'm also trying to ask as neutrally as possible to seek understanding and common ground with ATH and others who are known, at least on occasion, to do unassigned work. I think that in this way progress can possibly be made towards understanding the different sides of the poaching argument.

Chris' comments were actually useful too, and I ought not to have dismissed them quite so rudely (sorry Chris). However, I still hope to hear from ATH and therefore wanted to make it clear that what Chris said did not settle the issues which you have just spelled out so clearly.[/QUOTE][/INDENT]
I think it might be valuable for anyone doing any poaching at the moment to declare themselves now.

The new assignment and recycling rules have been put into place to remove the incentive to poach (as well as speed up the overall progress and make everything look tidier) but it might be too late. I believe I speak for a good number of people when I say that while I think poaching shows a lack of respect for the project, there is a time where an assignment is clearly stuck and needs to be cleared out.

When the recycling rules come into play, anything that has been out for too long is going to get recycled immediately, which includes any assignment being illegitimately worked on. If you are poaching an assignment today and the recycling policies hit tomorrow, you and whoever grabs that assignment are going to be (unknowingly) racing to finish it and an entire assignment worth of work could be wasted.


On the other hand, if you are as open as ATH has been, an exception can be made to allow you to finish the assignment without risking anyone wasting time on it. I myself have been tempted to grab a stuck exponent or two but since this discussion began I decided it would be best to wait. Anyone who hasn't had the patience probably thinks similar to me: there is no intent to waste time, only to speed things up.

In that spirit, I propose that if anyone else reading this is poaching an assignment, then they should let it be known.

[QUOTE=TheMawn;368020]In that spirit, I propose that if anyone else reading this is poaching an assignment, then they should let it be known.[/QUOTE]

Excellent suggestion. :smile: For the record, I'm not poaching any assignments, although I've been often tempted.

And I'm very pleased that George is finally going to introduce some sanity to the current assignments, and recycle those that have been "out" for an unreasonable amount of time without much progress, or clearly "stuck" on P-1.

I agree with the general argument that "100.1 km/h is better than 100 km/h", but at some point a line has to be drawn, and the fire-power appropriately managed.

I am not poaching any assignment right now, just for record.

This is because I have already more work than I can handle. :sad: This may change in the (near? far?) future. :razz:

[QUOTE=LaurV;368040]I am not poaching any assignment right now, just for record.

This is because I have already more work than I can handle. :sad: This may change in the (near? far?) future. :razz:[/QUOTE]
I'm too dim to understand this and need some help here. You're not suggesting, are you, that when you do poach someone else's assignment, you do it because of a lack of sufficient work to be legitimately assigned to your machines?
:unsure:

Far from me! When I do poaching, I do it because something piss me off. But when I have so much work to do (like now), I don't get time to be pissed off... :razz:

Joking apart, anybody knows that I do, occasionally, poach. I am not the most honest guy in the world, and I don't claim to be. My last post was a kinda pamphlet, wanting to tell you (not you personally) that you can not set "rules" for poachers. Like you can not set rules for criminals when to commit a crime or not. Is the environment what makes them to want commit crimes. Set the good environment where everybody is happy doing his job and taking his money, and people won't poach. Of course, this is what people are trying to do here, and I understand, without being too much involved (beside the big mouth) personally into the process. But you also have to understand that you can not eliminate poaching completely. There will always be some bad-intentioned guy, or some curious, or some newcomer who doesn't know yet how the things go around here, who will poach. I am mostly from the middle category, mostly poached my old assignments (like first LLs which I did years ago, which were assigned for DC to some other user who didn't seem to hurry, and I was curious if I missed a prime or not :D). I didn't do it for long time (i.e. I stopped doing this long time ago, well, getting older, or mature, maybe, hehe), but I may "get tickles" in the future, no matter what "rules" people set. Generally, if you read my old posts, I don't encourage poaching, and I spoke against people doing "regular" poaching or asking others to poach.

:goodposting:

It's a very good point that you can't change people's behaviour by setting rules. You do indeed need to adapt the environment they operate in. Ideally, everyone needs to be happy with everything, but striving for that ideal is hopeless too, so adaptation and compromise are the keys.

Seeking this sort of optimal environment interests me and motivates the questions I've been asking several admitted poachers in the last few weeks.

[QUOTE=chalsall;368021]I agree with the general argument that "100.1 km/h is better than 100 km/h", but at some point a line has to be drawn, and the fire-power appropriately managed.[/QUOTE]

Don't drive too fast, or you may get a speeding ticket. :smile:

(retracted comment)

Poaching is so v5 pre enforced rules.

I am mostly doing P-1 in the 11M range now.

I have only taken exponents that was > 1.5 years old (most of the time >> 2 years) and progress < 75% done and most of the time only assignments by ANONYMOUS but not always.

I will stop now and let the new assignment rules work.

[QUOTE=tha;369185]

I am mostly doing P-1 in the 11M range now.[/QUOTE]

Just out of curiosity, what´s your motivation for those assignments in particular?