Trial Factor assignments squatting in Cat 0 and Cat 1 DC range

[piforbreakfast]

My second computer is now logged in and working on an assignment. Can admins tell if I correctly added manual assignments to my queue? I inadvertently started work on a PRP file before I figured out how to add a DC file manually. Did I do everything correctly?

[Uncwilly]

Looking at the assignments in the trailing edge of the DC range:
https://www.mersenne.org/assignments...cm=1&exfirst=1
Over 280 of them have no expiry date.
Of those 1 is from >2 years ago.
20 are from 2019
34 are from the first half of 2020.
And of those the average ETA is 103 days. (1 is 1473 days and another is 1605 days)
88 are assigned to Anon in some form.

What good are assignment rules if they are not applied?

[Syntony]

Originally Posted by Uncwilly

<SNIP>
What good are assignment rules if they are not applied?

I'd suspect they're all Cat 2-4 assignments. Cat 2-4 assignment recycling isn't forced until the exponent is half-way into the Cat 1 range - it looks to me as if that probably explains most or all of these exceptions? I think they will all be forcibly released in due course. Maybe that's a bit lenient, but I think it probably works.
Tony

[Uncwilly]

Originally Posted by Syntony

I'd suspect they're all Cat 2-4 assignments.

They are all Cat 0-1.

[ATH]

He means the category they were at assignment, which is what determines when they expire, not the category they have now:

54854537 Cat 4 https://www.mersenne.org/thresholds/?dt=2018-11-23
54745991 Cat 4 https://www.mersenne.org/thresholds/?dt=2019-01-29
etc.

The lowest 54M exponents entered Cat 3 on Oct 28th 2019: https://www.mersenne.org/thresholds/?dt=2019-10-28


So Cat3+4 will expire after 240/360 days but not before halfway through Cat1 which is around: https://www.mersenne.org/thresholds/
(54276248+55157660)/2 = 54716954
which agrees with the fact that the lowest old exponent is 54745991.

Maybe it should be changed to when they enter Cat 1 (if above 240/360 days).

[Flaukrotist]

Originally Posted by ATH

...
So Cat3+4 will expire after 240/360 days but not before halfway through Cat1 which is around: https://www.mersenne.org/thresholds/
(54276248+55157660)/2 = 54716954
...

Now, when I read those rules on the page in greater detail and try to think how they are implemented, I have problems understanding what they exactly mean. Maybe it is due to me not being a native speaker.

from https://www.mersenne.org/thresholds/

Double Checking, Category 4

Assigned to anyone.
Must be completed in as little as 360 days
Assignments are recycled if assignment is not started within 180 (unless manual testing) days or when the exponent moves midway into the first category and the assignment is more than 360 days old.

1) What exactly is the "first category"? Is it Category 0 or 1?

2) What is meant by "midway into"? I always understood it like "while still in the ongoing computation from this assignment it reaches the 'first category'" which would mean the upper edge of that. But from ATH's answer, I see an argument for the exponent at the halfway point in that cat.

3) Is there any meaning in "as little as"? This wording is not contained in the Cats 0 and 1. Is there any difference?


Can someone elaborate or push me to a thread where this was discussed? TIA

[S485122]

Originally Posted by Flaukrotist

1) What exactly is the "first category"? Is it Category 0 or 1?

Where you read first category, it should have been worded as Category 1.

Originally Posted by Flaukrotist

2) What is meant by "midway into"? I always understood it like "while still in the ongoing computation from this assignment it reaches the 'first category'" which would mean the upper edge of that. But from ATH's answer, I see an argument for the exponent at the halfway point in that cat.

I agree with you, I think Ath 's explanation is not correct.

Originally Posted by Flaukrotist

3) Is there any meaning in "as little as"? This wording is not contained in the Cats 0 and 1. Is there any difference?

I understand this to be the within.

At the moment there is a problem with the rules : the rule "must be completed in as little (within) 360 days" is not enforced, assignments are only recycled when they are older than 360 days and the exponent enters CAT 1. Another thing wrong with the rules is that they are only applied to LL/DC/PRP/PRP_CERT assignments. Which means TF or PM-1 can squat in the lower categories.

A better wording of the rule as implemented could be :

Double Checking, Category 4
Assigned to anyone.
Assignments are recycled if they are not started within 180 days (unless manual testing) or when they are more than 360 days old and the exponent enters the first category.

I fully agree with Uncwilly about the fact that rules that are not enforced are useless.

Jacob

[Flaukrotist]

Originally Posted by S485122

Where you read first category, it should have been worded as Category 1.
...
At the moment there is a problem with the rules : the rule "must be completed in as little (within) 360 days" is not enforced, assignments are only recycled when they are older than 360 days and the exponent enters CAT 1. Another thing wrong with the rules is that they are only applied to LL/DC/PRP/PRP_CERT assignments. Which means TF or PM-1 can squat in the lower categories.

A better wording of the rule as implemented could be :

Double Checking, Category 4
Assigned to anyone.
Assignments are recycled if they are not started within 180 days (unless manual testing) or when they are more than 360 days old and the exponent enters the first category.

From my perspective, there is still ambiguity in your proposal which is never good for rules:

Double Checking, Category 4
Assigned to anyone.
Assignments are recycled if they are not started within 180 days (unless manual testing) or when they are more than 360 days old and the exponent enters Category 1.

And judging by the headline of the second table, the rules are only valid for "Lucas-Lehmer tests" and not PRP, even though I'm pretty sure that just the headline was not updated accordingly and the rules are valid for PRP, too.

Maybe this page needs some updates and concretization.

[S485122]

Originally Posted by Flaukrotist

...
Maybe this page needs some updates and concretization.

I fully agree and even started a sentence about that, but abstained, my answer was already long :-)

Jacob

[Prime95]

Originally Posted by Flaukrotist

1) What exactly is the "first category"? Is it Category 0 or 1?

2) What is meant by "midway into"? I always understood it like "while still in the ongoing computation from this assignment it reaches the 'first category'" which would mean the upper edge of that. But from ATH's answer, I see an argument for the exponent at the halfway point in that cat.

3) Is there any meaning in "as little as"? This wording is not contained in the Cats 0 and 1. Is there any difference?

1) First category is cat 1.
2) Midway into means halfway between cat 1 and cat 2.
3) As little as means you'll always get a minimum of 240/360 days for cat 3/4. You might get more time if it takes more than 240/360 days for your exponent to reach the "halfway between cat 1 and 2" boundary.

Assignment rules are a balancing act between timely progression of milestones and not wasting work when a slow user could have returned a result if given more time. The readers of this thread are strongly weighted to seeing milestones progress as quickly as possible whereas GIMPS throughput is maximized when as little work as possible is wasted by exponent recycling.

That said, I do not monitor this balancing act. Perhaps some minor tweaking of the rules is warranted.

[S485122]

Originally Posted by Prime95

...
3) As little as means you'll always get a minimum of 240/360 days for cat 3/4. You might get more time if it takes more than 240/360 days for your exponent to reach the "halfway between cat 1 and 2" boundary.
...

Thanks for that explanation. As said earleir the wording of the rules could be clearer.

A question how come M54113743 hasn't been recycled. It was assigned on 2020-11-03, it was category 0 at assignment time, it hasn't been reported reported about since 20 days, is more than 30 days old... In my understanding it should have been recycled on 2020-12-03.

Jacob