New milestone

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by NBtarheel_33

I've gone ahead and grabbed up this last exponent (it's assigned, but the assignment goes back to early 2009),

In other words, you're a poacher and unashamed to announce it.

Please note that I am not advocating wide-scale, smash and grab poaching here,

Of course not.

No poacher ever advocates indiscriminate poaching!

Every poacher thinks that his individual judgment is better than anyone else's on just certain exponents -- not many, just a few,

It doesn't hurt anyone to poach only a few selected exponents, does it? -- Is that your rationalizaton for stealing someone else's chance to discover whether that exponent denotes a new a Mersenne prime -- spoiling their fun -- just because they were stupid enough to play by the rules, whereas superior folks like you know when you're justified in breaking the rules?

but I do believe that an exponent under 30 million that is (1) holding up a milestone, and (2) has been assigned for *well over* a year, ought to be considered fair game.

Of course, you do! Those are oh, so reasonable criteria!

You just want to steal a little bit. You're soooooo discriminating in your superior-to-others' judgment!

- - -

This project runs on trust.

You're breaking that trust.

Have you any shame?

[lfm]

Originally Posted by henryzz

what about creating bad hardware?

I don't think running a machine without over-clocking at its full specified 100% productivity is "creating" any bad hardware even if it effects the life expectancy. Its supposed to be able to do it and if it can't Id just as soon it went bad so I can find it and replace it.

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by ATH

Anyway we really need a date when report was last sent to the server.

That would help.

When we have those 1.5+ year old exponents, there is no way to know if there is any progress at all, or if it has been abandoned.

Actually, we do know that the most recent report was within the default reporting interval, or else it would have been reassigned already.

Many of us, me included, get very impatient when they are holding up milestones, and I don't care about 101 mph vs 100 mph, and I don't care about credit either, so I wish I could "poach" them and give the credit to the person it was assigned to.

That last clause was nice of you, but here's something any poacher steals and cannot give back:

The opportunity, which the GIMPS project has pledged to try to preserve, to discover a Mersenne prime.

By poaching, you chip away at GIMPS's reputation and trustworthiness.

I have "poached" some exponents assigned to "Anonymous" which was over 1 year old. If people can't register properly, I consider it fair enough, and they don't get credit anyway, so I'm not stealing their credit.

So, like every other poacher, you have your own individual criteria for deciding when you think your judgment is superior to others'.

Gee, you're smart.

But there are those little matters of trust, integrity, opportunity, pledges, and so on ... how did you figure out when and why it's acceptable to throw those away? Please explain for the rest of us.

[ET_]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

But there are those little matters of trust, integrity, opportunity, pledges, and so on ... how did you figure out when and why it's acceptable to throw those away? Please explain for the rest of us.

While completely being on your side regarding poaching (I strongly believe in rules), I would like to remind you the fact that many (and I mean MANY) users have lost their (often borged) computers. Those machines still connect to the Internet from time to time, but are virtually lost.

I myself had a couple of slow computers that run Prime95 on a travel agency. The PCs have been donated to charity after a quick and not so smart wiping of the disks. Prime95 was kept inside, and runs for a couple of hours each day, connecting once a week (or more).

I feel somewhat guilty for stealing exponents to GIMPS that way, and in that particular case I'd be glad if someone "poached" these exponents.

What I am trying to say is that, while poaching is absolutely a bad action, sometimes it can amend small troubles. Maybe you could be a bit less harsh and "squared" in your messages, where you remind me of Bob SIlverman.

His argumentations are also always correct, like yours, but sometime directed to the wrong audience: he likes to teach people to learn how to proceed in Math fields, you try to explain how to behave in life. While we all are just playing in a forum.

I'm sure NBtarheel_33 will never steal in "real life". May I assume that you never downloaded any MP3 or PDF document or program, and never infringed any copyright?
Maybe I can, and that is a good evidence of your assertions, but sadly life brings many of us to seldom break some rules, as a matter of survival.

My 2 cents: keep advicing people on life values, but don't take it too personally...

Luigi

[NBtarheel_33]

I understand where Cheesehead is coming from, as for whatever reason, he was repeatedly a victim of poaching (because the poacher felt that Cheesehead was taking too long to finish his assignments, to boot), hence this issue is his hot-button as it hits closest to home.

On the other hand, there are more than a few (just judging from participation in this thread alone) participants in GIMPS who are interested in a steady progression of milestones and wavefronts, in both first LLs and double-checks (there is a level of concern about the time between the discovery of Mxx and proof of numerical order of Mxx that is so strong that there is a thread rallying support for GIMPS farmers to switch their cores to DCs). I bet that there are one or two people who might even feel as strongly in this direction as Cheesehead feels in the other direction, but simply do not wish to be as vocal about their feelings. Moreover, while we understand that poaching may drive participants away from GIMPS, it is important that we also note that sluggish progression of milestones/wavefronts/etc. may do just the same.

Therefore, it seems as though we need to strike a compromise between the anti-poaching side of the aisle and the milestone-mowing side of the aisle.

With regard to the present PrimeNet assignment system, it is my understanding that an assignment (of "typical" size, as opposed to a 100Md assignment) remains "checked out" to an assignee for a maximum of one year, before being subject to reassignment. I may be misunderstanding the way the system works, but it seems to me that I've read where this reassignment may happen *despite* the assignee's checking in with the PrimeNet server (someone please correct me on this if I am wrong). In any case, it seems reasonable to assume that the exponents that are holding up the next few milestones are all of a size that should be able to be completed within a year on any modern PC that has any business running LLs (note that this is not my opinion; George instituted thresholds based on clock speed for receiving certain assignments for this very reason). I understand that we do not want to discourage users with slow systems, 101 mph is faster than 100 mph, etc. etc., but one might also argue that these systems' being assigned an LL test, when such will take over a year, and in some cases over 18 months, is actually hurting GIMPS throughput, as such a machine would be better suited to increasing the throughput of TFing, DCing, or even P-1.

In other words, we may not be looking at 101 mph vs. 100 mph, we may be looking at 100.0000000001 mph vs. 100 mph. And so my question is, at what point is the work from such a slow system no longer worth waiting on, when it can be done by a modern system in mere days *and* facilitate the passage of a milestone, which (1) appeases the hardcore milestone fanatics, and (2) may in fact generate new interest in the GIMPS project (in how many math classes, for instance, do you think that it was mentioned this week that M40 has been proven to really be M40? How many students will hence go home and give GIMPS a try?)

With respect to potential loss of discovery of a prime, yes, this is a possibility albeit a very rare one. Remember that the poacher has the same chance of hitting a prime as the original assignee - basically on the order of a few hundred thousand to 1. In the case of a poached doublecheck, it's even rarer that the poacher will hit a prime. On the other hand, one must ask the question of whether it is fair to allow an exponent to be held up for over a year when (1) a year is on the order of 6-12 times the time required for modern hardware to complete a first LL, and (2) George has set the maximum assignment age to a year. As an example, albeit a facetious one, why couldn't I simply reserve tens or hundreds of thousands of exponents (all it takes is a little patience and enough HD space for the worktodo file) and tie them up indefinitely, reporting mere hundreds of iterations per day, essentially locking out any discoverers of potential Mersenne primes in my cache?

Again, I know that the poaching issue looms larger for Cheesehead than it perhaps does for others here, but I would hope that he would agree that there needs to be some sort of consensus on how to handle exponents that are (1) aging well beyond what would be considered reasonable, and (2) directly hindering GIMPS from achieving new milestones. After all, as I mentioned above, there may be a participant who feels just as strongly as Cheesehead about reaching new milestones, but simply doesn't vocalize it.

[lycorn]

Originally Posted by NBtarheel_33

Moreover, while we understand that poaching may drive participants away from GIMPS, it is important that we also note that sluggish progression of milestones/wavefronts/etc. may do just the same.

Therefore, it seems as though we need to strike a compromise between the anti-poaching side of the aisle and the milestone-mowing side of the aisle.

I totally agree. Having exponents dragging their feet for ages makes many of us feel really unconfortable. Participating in the project is a voluntary choice, of course, and every small contribution is welcome, but there are some minimal etiquette standards that should be adhered to. The rule of 1 year, particularly for DCs, sounds quite reasonable and I advocate it should be enforced by the server. In the Assignment Rules page it is stated that exponents that are out for more than a year may be reassigned by the server. It would be a matter of changing it to will.
But the final word is to be said by the project leaders, and once they take a decision and communicate it to the community at large I consider we shall abide by it, and refrain from taking direct action.
George, any thoughts?

[Uncwilly]

Originally Posted by ET_

While completely being on your side regarding poaching (I strongly believe in rules), I would like to remind you the fact that many (and I mean MANY) users have lost their (often borged) computers. Those machines still connect to the Internet from time to time, but are virtually lost.

I myself had a couple of slow computers that run Prime95 on a travel agency. The PCs have been donated to charity after a quick and not so smart wiping of the disks. Prime95 was kept inside, and runs for a couple of hours each day, connecting once a week (or more).

I have had similar situations, losing a borg.

[chalsall]

Being somewhat Machiavellian here...

Why on gods green earth would the server hand out low DCs to slow machines?

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by ET_

While completely being on your side regarding poaching (I strongly believe in rules), I would like to remind you the fact that many (and I mean MANY) users have lost their (often borged) computers. Those machines still connect to the Internet from time to time, but are virtually lost.

So what?

PrimeNet has procedures to take care of those cases automatically! Once a machine fails to report within the time limit, PrimeNet reassigns the exponent.

So, there's no justification for poaching because a machine is "virtually lost".

Just like every other excuse I've seen, the "lost computer" excuse for poaching falls apart upon scrutiny.

I myself had a couple of slow computers that run Prime95 on a travel agency. The PCs have been donated to charity after a quick and not so smart wiping of the disks. Prime95 was kept inside, and runs for a couple of hours each day, connecting once a week (or more).

I feel somewhat guilty for stealing exponents to GIMPS that way, and in that particular case I'd be glad if someone "poached" these exponents.

You can unreserve any of your assignments any time you wish. Why not do that?

Again, this is no excuse for poaching.

What I am trying to say is that, while poaching is absolutely a bad action, sometimes it can amend small troubles.

No one has _ever_ described a situation in which poaching was justified, and you haven't either.

PrimeNet has had procedures for dealing with the situation you describe, for years.

Maybe you could be a bit less harsh and "squared" in your messages, where you remind me of Bob SIlverman.

Maybe you could stop squirming, in your messages, to try to justify poaching. You remind me of a kid who knows he's doing the wrong thing.

His argumentations are also always correct, like yours, but sometime directed to the wrong audience: he likes to teach people to learn how to proceed in Math fields, you try to explain how to behave in life.

You can't refute what I say about poaching without resorting to distortion of my words, can you? What I've said here was about poaching, not the other 99.99% of life. Your "how to behave in life" is a straw-man exaggeration of what I actually said.

I'm sure NBtarheel_33 will never steal in "real life".

Then why do it here in "non-real life"?

May I assume that you never downloaded any MP3 or PDF document or program, and never infringed any copyright?

See?

You can't refute what I say about poaching, so you resort to rhetorical trickery to try to expand the discussion beyond that subject.

Maybe I can, and that is a good evidence of your assertions, but sadly life brings many of us to seldom break some rules, as a matter of survival.

Notice how much of your argument would disappear if you erased all non-poaching-related content.

[NBtarheel_33]

Originally Posted by lycorn

there are some minimal etiquette standards that should be adhered to.

Exactly. Holding up choice exponents, or worse, delaying milestones is no worse or no better than poaching.

The rule of 1 year, particularly for DCs, sounds quite reasonable and I advocate it should be enforced by the server. In the Assignment Rules page it is stated that exponents that are out for more than a year may be reassigned by the server. It would be a matter of changing it to will.

OK, so it's different from what I thought. I was assuming that exponents expired on their own, automatically after one year (other than the special case of a 100Md test). Changing this to a hard limit, IMHO, is the key compromise that will end poaching as well as set an upper bound to the expected length of time for a given milestone. Note that if this limit were in place, my poaches would no longer be poaches, and in fact, would have been reassigned months ago and probably completed by now.

I also wonder if it would be worthwhile to change the preferred exponent thresholds whenever we get close (e.g. within 100 or even 1000) to a milestone, so that only reliable, confirmed, modern machines are given the potential stragglers. Keep in mind that even with the one year limit in place by itself, an exponent could go into a loop of year after year being assigned to a woefully slow user/machine...and we get the same problem we have now. So I feel we definitely need a combination of a hard upper limit on assignment age *and* dynamically adjusted preferred exponent thresholds as we pass near milestones.

But the final word is to be said by the project leaders, and once they take a decision and communicate it to the community at large I consider we shall abide by it, and refrain from taking direct action.
George, any thoughts?

One of the wonderful things about GIMPS is that George actively considers (and even solicits) ideas and opinions from the participants. Just as we all worked together in reaching a consensus on trying to increase the pace of DCs, I'm sure we will be able to figure something out here that once and for all ends the tug-of-war between the anti-poachers and the milestone fans.

[chalsall]

@cheesehead...

With all due respect, it appears you have issues that perhaps you should deal with outside of GIMPS....