Rally Sept. 5th-7th

[gd_barnes]

Originally Posted by Mini-Geek

I think 72 hours or 1 week is a bit long for a rally, and might lose some people that don't want to delay their "main" prime-search work, whatever that may be. I'd probably still participate, but I'd prefer if it was 24 or 48 hours so it seems more like a special event for a short time and not be so common and long to where it seems...well...not special.

Good point on them seeming somewhat special. For that reason, we've generally been spacing them a month or so apart and kept them at 24 or 48 hours.

But there is some precendence on having some longer rallies. Carlos mentioned a week-long rally ~4-6 months ago and I think he's either been involved in one or seen one. Right now, base 5 is having a very long rally that is running thru Sept. 24th in an effort to find a prime on the Sierp server because they will be at one year since a prime on that server on Sept. 24th.

So if I use the reasoning of that one instance of a long rally, it appears that longer rallies are only done in special circumstances. Having all of these smaller k's to search would certainly qualify here for our project.

Any other opinions? Does 72 hrs. seem too long for a rally?


Gary

[Brucifer]

Originally Posted by gd_barnes

Any other opinions? Does 72 hrs. seem too long for a rally?

Gary

I think 72 is too long, better off keeping it at 48 over a weekend. Many people will stop their main effort for a weekend thing, but much more than that they aren't so ready to jump in. 72 would be cool over a 3-day weekend kind of thing like for a special holiday or something like that.

[Mini-Geek]

Originally Posted by gd_barnes

Right now, base 5 is having a very long rally that is running thru Sept. 24th in an effort to find a prime on the Sierp server because they will be at one year since a prime on that server on Sept. 24th.

Right, and you see what it's like with a long rally? See, if some other project (hosted at this forum so I know about it ) was having a 24 or 48 hour rally, especially if I could get a top-5000 prime out of it, I'd definitely consider running for it, but such a long rally, I'd never do. (Look at it from the other point of view, such as I am looking at this base 5 rally, and you'll see that short rallies would be far more effective.)
I think 72 is too long without any special occasion, but as Brucifer pointed out, it might be okay during 3 day weekends (although not everybody celebrates the same holidays, so our potential Euro contributors may not have a 3 day weekend when we do).

Originally Posted by gd_barnes

Having all of these smaller k's to search would certainly qualify here for our project.

Do you mean the smaller k's as they catch up to n=200K? That would be very bad for the server load, especially during a rally. We'd need a tremendous number of servers for them to be loaded below breaking points. I think the smaller k's should be manually LLRd until they get to a reasonable time (a server could be set up, but it shouldn't be the primary focus, e.g. shouldn't be rallied on, and should be carefully balanced). I can understand wanting to get them caught up as quickly as possible with a rally, but I think it's more important to keep rallies stable.

[mdettweiler]

Originally Posted by Mini-Geek

Do you mean the smaller k's as they catch up to n=200K? That would be very bad for the server load, especially during a rally. We'd need a tremendous number of servers for them to be loaded below breaking points. I think the smaller k's should be manually LLRd until they get to a reasonable time (a server could be set up, but it shouldn't be the primary focus, e.g. shouldn't be rallied on, and should be carefully balanced). I can understand wanting to get them caught up as quickly as possible with a rally, but I think it's more important to keep rallies stable.

Actually, I believe Gary meant the new k<300 drive--those are, literally, smaller k's (as distinguished from smaller n's). Due to the fact that these k's are so small, they will be slightly quicker to test than our original ranges--and hence more "attractive" to some.

[Mini-Geek]

Originally Posted by Anonymous

Actually, I believe Gary meant the new k<300 drive--those are, literally, smaller k's (as distinguished from smaller n's). Due to the fact that these k's are so small, they will be slightly quicker to test than our original ranges--and hence more "attractive" to some.

I knew he meant smaller k's, but I mistakenly thought they were also at smaller n values.

[mdettweiler]

Originally Posted by Mini-Geek

I think 72 hours or 1 week is a bit long for a rally, and might lose some people that don't want to delay their "main" prime-search work, whatever that may be. I'd probably still participate, but I'd prefer if it was 24 or 48 hours so it seems more like a special event for a short time and not be so common and long to where it seems...well...not special.

Originally Posted by Brucifer

I think 72 is too long, better off keeping it at 48 over a weekend. Many people will stop their main effort for a weekend thing, but much more than that they aren't so ready to jump in. 72 would be cool over a 3-day weekend kind of thing like for a special holiday or something like that.

As Gary said, you guys definitely have a point. Hmm...anybody got any ideas as to which potential 3-day weekend time frames we could do a 72-hour rally in?

[Brucifer]

Originally Posted by Anonymous

Hmm...anybody got any ideas as to which potential 3-day weekend time frames we could do a 72-hour rally in?

For starters in the US you have Thanksgiving, or Christmas, or New Years. New Years is around the world so that one should have a good turnout. Christmas maybe, maybe not.

[gd_barnes]

Perhaps we will stick with 48 hours for now.

I would still like to see some input from Carlos on the matter. I think he's been involved with longer rallies. Carlos...any thoughts?

As for holidays, New Years is ALMOST international although I'm sure a small percentage of religions recognize their own new year. Thanksgiving is only a U.S. holiday as far as I know. I believe that 20-30% of the world's population is Christian and so celebrate Christmas. I know that many non-Christians (at least here in the U.S.) also celebrate it as a time to be together with friends/family regardless of the gift-giving or religious signifance of the occassion.

The only problem with Christmas and New Years is that those may not fall near a weekend and they aren't 'moved' as are some U.S. holidays. As for late 2008/early 2009, they fall on a Thursday as Thanksgiving always does so none of those will quite work until late 2009/early 2010.

There are several U.S. Monday holidays but most are only celebrated only in the U.S. and at least a couple of them are not recognized by many businesses:
President's Day
Memorial Day
Labor Day
Veterans Day

Carlos and Lennart, do your countries celebrate any of the above U.S. Monday holidays? (obviously not President's Day, lol)

Anyway, the point here is that trying to make a rally on a holiday weekend will rarely work for everyone. I think we have to decide the merit of a 72-hour (or 1 week) rally all on our own, irrespective of any holiday weekend.

Without more of a consensus on having a longer rally, it's probably better to keep them at the shorter length for now. With all of the input I've read, I'm now more undecided on the matter but if longer rallies might keep some people away, we should defer to that possibility and keep them no longer than 48 hours.


Gary

[em99010pepe]

Portugal only celebrates the Labor Day on the 1st of May. The rest is bull****...lol

If you guys have noticed we are already doing long rallies, we are the normal clients of the project. My target is people with a lot of cores who need at least 2-3 days to switch everything and so a 48 rally is a waste of time to them. I would like to see Bruce, Beyond, Lennart running NPLB for at least one week in a row.

[Mini-Geek]

Originally Posted by em99010pepe

Portugal only celebrates the Labor Day on the 1st of May. The rest is bull****...lol

Our Labor Day isn't the 1st of May. We have a holiday on May 1 called May Day, but I don't think we normally get vacation or anything like that.

Originally Posted by em99010pepe

If you guys have noticed we are already doing long rallies, we are the normal clients of the project. My target is people with a lot of cores who need at least 2-3 days to switch everything and so a 48 rally is a waste of time to them. I would like to see Bruce, Beyond, Lennart running NPLB for at least one week in a row.

Well, it'd be nice if those heavy hitters just came and ran NPLB all the time, but I see the use of a long rally now...I probably wouldn't run it, but if it can attract many cores for a week instead of all the normal cores for two days, hey, might as well.

[gd_barnes]

Carlos can be quite persuasive can't he? lol He has a way with words sometimes. We're running a long rally all the time because we're the constant clients of the project. Hah! I hadn't quite thought of it that way. lmao

To accomodate both camps, here is something unusual that I'll throw out but I definitely would want Karsten's and Anon's input on it because it would be more work for the admins:

How about a rally within a rally?!!

That is we run a shorter rally within a longer rally, perhaps a 2-day rally within a week-long rally with the 2 days being on the weekend and the beginning and ending of the week being Fridays.

Everyone chooses ahead of time whether they want to run the 2-day or week-long rally. It has to be one or the other but not both. Of course the rally never stops. For folks with smaller and medium resources or others who want to contribute to other projects after the 2 days, we have a cutoff of rally k/n pairs and prime totals at 2 days without stopping the longer rally. We just simply display those totals on the same or a separate page as the week-long k/n pairs and prime totals. The heavier hitters or others who want to contribute for longer could compete for the week-long totals while others can compete for the shorter totals.

It would be kind of like having 2 different sections of a chess tournament or the minor and major leagues in baseball. That way, everyone can choose how they want to run the rally.

Crazy, sure! But no crazier than many other new ideas that get floated around.


Gary