New milestone

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by ET_

I am against poaching as you are.
I strongly believe in respecting laws and rules.
I believe that anyone, anytime, is free to reserve exponents and complete in the time they like, as long as they make slow progress on them.

So far, we have the same ideas, do you agree?

Yes.

In fact, I wanted to say that my PCs were still working and connecting to GIMPS, although with a very slow pace.

Okay.

You also said:

I don't follow you... :surprised

You are against poaching (and I repeat it's fine), then you ask users to keep their assignment clean from lost assignments.

I proposed that as a satisfactory (to me) alternative to poaching.

I ask whether there's a reason for not having done that.

Someone pointed out that V4 assignments can't be unreserved. Okay, that's a good-enough reason.

You blindly believe in the perfection of GIMPS system,

No, I don't.

I do see some people proposing unnecessary actions because they seem not to understood all about GIMPS/PrimeNet. (In other words, they believe the GIMPS system is more imperfect than it really is!) In such cases, I advocate using the available GIMPS/PrimeNet features.

That's not at all the same as claiming or "blindly" believing in the existing system's perfection. When I point out that there already exists a way to accomplish something within the GIMPS/PrimeNet, that's not at all the same as saying GIMPS/PrimeNet has no flaws.

It's just that it has fewer flaws than many people think, because they don't understand all of how it works.

and do not accept glitches that happen from time to time on its platform.

Of course I accept that there are glitches!

But when someone claims a glitch that's actually only a flaw in understanding, I'll deny that particular accusation pf glitchiness and try to extend understanding. (I'm not claiming I always do so in the best possible wording!)

That's why I said you'd like to live a perfect [GIMPS] life in a perfect [GIMPS] universe, and keep pushing people to keep that universe ordered, tense and tidy (see, my words don't lose meaning if I put them into GIMPS environment).

Describing high standards as perfection is an exaggeration. I have high standards in some matters. I point out how some standards that may seem too high (mistakenly perceived as "perfect") are actually achievable.

I objected that your ideas, although correct, may not find their place in our human [GIMPS] reality, because of fallacies of man and nature.

No, I'm pointing out how people can do things that some folks erroneously consider undoable.

I try to communicate with him/her, as long as there is a communication link, stopping when I see that the link is broken.

So do I. We may differ on our evaluations of "broken".

[chalsall]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

(Your #352 got a response already only because it was simple.)

You know cheesehead, this is a bit like watching a train wreck in slow motion...

At the end of the day, GIMPS doesn't actually matter that much. It's a pedantic exercise which some (like me) use for their own purposes, which sometimes differs from the project's stated goals.

Some of us (including me) try to "follow the rules" and "be polite" while we leverage Prime95's behaviour for our own benefit.

And, I note, you have yet to answer my direct question to you at the end of my post in this thread; post #365.

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by ATH

Yes, that is my own criteria, but who's trust am I breaking?

Those who follow the rules and trust that other participants will do the same.

they didn't bother to register properly for >1.5 year since the v4 server was closed.

There was no advance notice to assignees of the v4 -> v5 change, because it was done as an emergency measure. It's incorrect and unfair to ascribe willfulness to those who haven't reregistered since then.

I understand that there are abandonments out there, but you are unfairly depicting some other users as willfully not cooperating.

If the exponents turned out to be prime, they wouldn't get credit for the discovery, they won't get credit for the work, so what exactly am I stealing?

Why wouldn't a v4 assignee be credited for a discovery or get credit for their work? AFAIK many v4 assignees have received v5 credit once they reregistered, and there's no reason why others can't.

So, you're setting up a false straw-man description of the situation. If you were to restrict yourself to making a fair and accurate description, you wouldn't be able to justify poaching.

It's like when you find cash in the street, there is no way to know who dropped it, so most people keep it, and it's not considered stealing.

No, it's not like that. That's not a correct analogy, and does not support your position.

Btw, who made you the GIMPS chief of police or maybe the GIMPS conscience?

Another straw-man -- I'm neither of those.

(Can't give up the strawmanning and just post straight truth, can you?)

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by chalsall

You know cheesehead, this is a bit like watching a train wreck in slow motion...

An impatient person shouldn't have trainwatching as a way to pass the time. :-)

And, I note, you have yet to answer my direct question to you at the end of my post in this thread; post #365.

Talk about impatience: I, processing my queue, just posted my response to post #364.

You posted your impatient #376 while I was in the midst of composing my #377 response to #364.

You're next in line. Quit pretending that your impatience is justified.

Oh, look at the time! TGIF dinner's about to be served (at Jalapeno Loco this month). Your #365 looks too complicated for a quick dash-off response while I'm getting hungry, so -- see you later.

[chalsall]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

Oh, look at the time! TGIF dinner's about to be served. Your #365 looks too complicated for a quick dash-off response while I'm getting hungry, so -- see you later.

A ten word question is "too complicated"?

Enjoy your supper....

[Uncwilly]

How does this idea grab folks?

When a milestone approaches, (proving a number to be the 'n'th MP or having all expos below an MP tested once), we all will monitor the progress. When the number remaining drops to 3 we wait 6 months to see if it drops to 0.

If it does, great.

If not:
A goodbody Mersennary(s) will be premitted to take the remaining numbers. With the following provisos: they are a known person of good and of trustworthy reputation (and it shall be run on a known good machine), they post their info (GIMPS Username and Machine ID) to an appropriate thread, they agree ahead of time to disclaim all 'rights' to a new prime (in favor of the currently assigned person), they understand that they must manually turn in the result to George (to enforce the above), and that they get no GHz/days credit. Further they agree to buy Cheesehead a small gift ($25-$50) and send it to him or contribute $50 to a charity of his choosing. (This is per person per exponent.) And they agree that if they don't normally do DC's, they must do 5 extra DC's.

[petrw1]

Originally Posted by chalsall

This statement confuses me a bit.

I have two "borged" machines which are still running V4 (doing DC work), and yet I can unassign their assignments through the V5 web interface just like I can for any other machine running V5.

I could try again but if I remember correctly when I tried this a while back (15 months ago) the assignments disappeared from my assignment workload but a few days later when the PC checked in again it re-checked in the same assignments --- even though someone in the meantime likely grabbed them and if my PC ever finished them they will once again be "not needed".

[cheesehead]

Temporarily waiting for the dessert course ...

Originally Posted by chalsall

A ten word question is "too complicated"?

One of the ten, the pronoun "this", implicitly incorporates the entire rest of the post that preceded the direct address to me. :-)

Enjoy your supper....

Back after dessert ...

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by chalsall

@cheesehead -- what do you think of this as a compromise position?

Here's my answer:

I have two "borged" machines which are still running V4 (doing DC work),

I presume you mean that the borged machines are processing assignments they got from the v4 PrimeNet server.

and yet I can unassign their assignments through the V5 web interface

So, I presume you've registered a v5 PrimeNet ID and then gone through the procedure for transferring your v4 assignments to v5 -- right? Or do you mean something else?

just like I can for any other machine running V5.

... by which I presume you mean any other machine running a v25 client (prime95, mprime, ...) to process assignments gotten from the v5 PrimeNet server -- right?

Another suggestion made by someone else here on the Forum some time ago (I don't remember who or where) which I think would work better -- accept the result, but credit the original assignee.

(I presume you mean a result reported by someone who's poached an assignment.)

That's not an excuse or justification for poaching, though.

That proposal tries to make a partial offset to the wrongs done to the original assignee, by giving what would ordinarily be the poacher's credit to the assignee (so that the assignee may wind up with credit for two runs if he completes and reports his own run), but does nothing about the other negative aspects of poaching.

Furthermore, I haven't seen any advocate of poaching claim that the credit is an incentive to poach, so denying credit to the poacher is not any deterrent.

If the original assignee does finally submit a result, credit them again as a "triple check" (in the case of LL/DC), since it would have been done by a different machine.

I'm not sure exactly what you mean there.

- -

So, overall, as a "compromise", it stinks -- providing no deterrent to poaching.

[cheesehead]

As I just said,

Originally Posted by cheesehead

denying credit to the poacher is not any deterrent.

First, I think the best solution will be to eliminate the perception some folks have that the current set of "milestones" (exponents yet to test to prove ... or to test all exponents once below ...) is a proper measure of GIMPS progress. It's not, because it's a "jumpy" measure and fails to show how GIMPS is accumulating results even when one particular assignment (supposedly "holding up a milestone") is incomplete.

For instance, a better measure of GIMPS progress could be derived from the totals of LL tests and so forth at the bottom of the old V4 status table -- the one with rows of exponent ranges (corresponding to FFT sizes) and columns for 1 ll test, 2 LL tests, factored, status unknown, P-90 CPU years yet to complete, and so on. (Where's the link to that?)

As long as that faulty perception of GIMPS progress exists, there will be an incentive to poach.

What we need to do is to eliminate, or at least reduce, the incentive to poach. That would involve creating a new status display highlighting overall result report progress, not focusing on any one particular assignment.

So removal of incentives would be better than deterrents, but let's take a look anyway at what might serve as a better deterrent as long as the current status display is unchanged:

Disconnecting "milestones" from poached results -- that's what.

IOW, tweak PrimeNet so that it ignores poached results when calculating how many exponents remain to be tested before a given "milestone".

That way, poaching a "slow" system's assignment and reporting the result would do nothing toward achieving a "milestone"!!

[chalsall]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

... by which I presume you mean any other machine running a v25 client (prime95, mprime, ...) to process assignments gotten from the v5 PrimeNet server -- right?

Yes to this, and all your other questions with regards to my post speaking to petrw1

Originally Posted by cheesehead

(I presume you mean a result reported by someone who's poached an assignment.)

Yes.

Originally Posted by cheesehead

That's not an excuse or justification for poaching, though.

Perhaps not, from your perspective.

But you yourself have argued in the past that those "poached" might be discouraged from continuing to contribute because their efforts are not credited.

Please keep in mind cheesehead that different people have different objectives. Some want to find a big prime number. Others want to find a prime number so big they win money (they would actually do better financially by playing the lottery). Others want to determine the exact order of the MPs. Lastly, others (like me) simply use GIMPS for infrastructure quality control.

I would argue that each individual should be allowed to do whatever they want so long as it doesn't negatively impact the project.

Originally Posted by cheesehead

That proposal tries to make a partial offset to the wrongs done to the original assignee, by giving what would ordinarily be the poacher's credit to the assignee (so that the assignee may wind up with credit for two runs if he completes and reports his own run), but does nothing about the other negative aspects of poaching.

I disagree. What, exactly, is the real negative impact of poaching beyond possible (not certain) duplicated effort (possibly slightly delaying a future milestone) and possibly discouraging another participant?

Let me please further argue that the proposal above just might mitigate any negative impact of discouragement of those "poached", since they would get credit (if that's what they're after). Please do also consider that the "poacher" is donating the work -- they don't have to contribute to GIMPS.

Originally Posted by cheesehead

Furthermore, I haven't seen any advocate of poaching claim that the credit is an incentive to poach, so denying credit to the poacher is not any deterrent.

No, it isn't a deterrent to the poacher. But it might just prevent discouragement of the poachee.

Originally Posted by cheesehead

So, overall, as a "compromise", it stinks -- providing no deterrent to poaching.

cheesehead, I do truly respect your position and arguments.

It would be appreciated if you could at least try to consider that not everyone have the exact same objectives and POV as you do....