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[chalsall]

Originally Posted by Madpoo

If I "pretended" everything was cat 1 and showed the expiration dates as if that were true, there'd be a heckuva lot of exponents with negative expiration dates, making it meaningless.

This wouldn't be a problem if you implemented the heuristical methodology I proposed above.

Separately, one thing I noticed in the report is candidates which are soon to be recycled because of no check-in recently doesn't seem to be incorporated in your formula.

I understand that someone who hasn't checked-in in a week or so shouldn't be listed as soon to expire. But perhaps after thirty days or so should start seeing a count-down.

[Madpoo]

Originally Posted by chalsall

This wouldn't be a problem if you implemented the heuristical methodology I proposed above.

Separately, one thing I noticed in the report is candidates which are soon to be recycled because of no check-in recently doesn't seem to be incorporated in your formula.

I understand that someone who hasn't checked-in in a week or so shouldn't be listed as soon to expire. But perhaps after thirty days or so should start seeing a count-down.

As far as I could tell (just from the language of the assignment rules page itself), as long as they report in sometime in the first however many days, even if it was the same day as the assignment, they have no obligation to check in ever again until it becomes cat 1 and crosses the #-of-days threshold.

There isn't a "must have checked in within the past XX days" rule, although it could be argued there should be something like that for cat 1 & 2, but that's a "whole nuther" topic.

I haven't checked to see how the expiration code actually works in practice, i.e. when that nightly task runs, what is it looking at... but for purposes of my little function, I assume an assignment has started if it's "stage" is not null. When an assignment is made, the percent done is set to 0 and the "stage" is null. It only updates that stage to TF, ECM, LL or whatever if it's actually started that stage, even if the percent is still zero.

I could have looked at the difference between when it was assigned and when it was last updated, but there's actually a slight difference in those times anyway, by a few milliseconds, as it sets the "last updated" time during the initial assignment process. Ideally it would have used the same timestamp if it did all that SQL stuff in one batch, but it's actually being done in different parts.

So then it became a comical thing of "well, let's say it won't be considered as checking in if there's less than 2 seconds difference"... agh. I have a feeling the expiration code does what I'm doing and just seeing if it's started work on any particular stage of an assignment.

That's how you can know from the assignment page if it's actually done anything... is the "stage, % done" column blank or not.

If it's blank, then it will follow the "must start within XX" days countdown, and it *should* be showing that info.

However, curiously, there's no requirement on cat 1 or cat 2 assignments that they have to start within X days. Of course if it was a cat 1 assignment to start with, they get however many days already. But cat 2 assignments don't have to start on it or do anything at all and nothing will happen until it's cat 1. Theoretically if progress halted for some reason, cat 2 assignments could live on indefinitely even if they're never heard from again after getting the assignment. But yeah, eventually they'll become cat 1 at which point those cat 2 assignments would expire in 100 or 150 days.

Personally I think cat 2 work should start within 30 days, or else why is that person saying they agree to get small exponents and have a work queue <= 30 days? 30 days means 30 days. Could even argue that cat 1 assignments should start in 10 days or they expire, for the same reason. If your "days of work" queue is <= 10 days, well, this new assignment you just got better have started in 10 days, or I'm calling you a big fat liar. LOL

(I say that jokingly, but... yeah... I know that Prime95's estimates can be wrong, but usually in the direction of thinking things will take longer than actual; it doesn't normally estimate times that are faster than actual).

And that's also the reason I'd exclude someone from getting cat 1 & 2 work if they've let 2+ assignments expire in the past few months. Clearly they missed the plain text: "Assigned to users that promise to complete assignments quickly." Letting exponents expire is a sign that their promise means nothing.

But maybe I'm being too harsh... all I know is, people wouldn't really even be tempted to poach those kinds of things if the assignments were going to reliable systems in the first place.

In the grander sense, who cares if exponents finish in any kind of order, as long as they all get done, but in a human sense, people like to see the mile markers zip past in their rear view mirror... gives a sense of accomplishment that you just wouldn't have if you took the shotgun approach and assigned stuff randomly and it finished "whenever".

[chalsall]

Originally Posted by Madpoo

As far as I could tell (just from the language of the assignment rules page itself), as long as they report in sometime in the first however many days, even if it was the same day as the assignment, they have no obligation to check in ever again until it becomes cat 1 and crosses the #-of-days threshold.

I believe the "must report at least every sixty days" clause was inherited from the previous recycling behaviour. This is with the exception of manually assigned candidates which get 180 days (unless they're extended).

Originally Posted by Madpoo

In the grander sense, who cares if exponents finish in any kind of order, as long as they all get done, but in a human sense, people like to see the mile markers zip past in their rear view mirror... gives a sense of accomplishment that you just wouldn't have if you took the shotgun approach and assigned stuff randomly and it finished "whenever".

I agree, it doesn't really matter /that/ much. But, the new assignment rules were initially created to try to lessen the temptation to "poach". Before there were some assignments in lower ranges with ridiculous assignment age!

[TObject]

Originally Posted by retina

http://www.mersenne.org/assignments/...xtf=1&exdchk=1

Is this a security breach that we can see the user id?

There got to be a reason why we have both user id and display name.

Edit: never mind, it is Display Name, the column is just labeled Userid. LOL

[Madpoo]

Originally Posted by chalsall

You would probably want to take into consideration the production rate of the different categories. Cat 1 has only completed ~30 candidates a day for the last 30 days, for example, while Cat 3 has completed ~171 a day. There is almost no Cat 2 work being assigned (as far as I can tell).

Thus, the transition from Cat 2 to Cat 1 is going to be a lot slower than what might be expected.

The assignment rules show how many exponents are expected to be in each category... for first time checks, for example, there should always be 4000 exponents in cat 1, and then I can't tell if it's 6000 in cat 2, or if it's the next 10,000 in cat 2? Hmm... cat 3 has the next 100K (either 100K itself, or 100K minus the 10K of cat 1 and 2?)

The fact that a small 4000 cat 1 assignments is being cleared at a snails pace tells me too many are taking too long, or not enough people signed up to do them?

If I look at the current crop of exponents that are *now* cat 1, here's how their *original* categories break down:
cat 1 = 797
cat 2 = 55
cat 3 = 23

Apparently there are a bunch of cat 1 assignments that are up for grabs but not assigned... hmm... all in the 67M - 68M range. I guess there aren't that many people signed up to do first time cat 1 work after all? ~3100 available LL cat 1 exponents...

Well, I guess that's fine because the cat 1 workers who really are doing them in a timely fashion will have a steady pool of them.

[Madpoo]

Originally Posted by TObject

Is this a security breach that we can see the user id?

There got to be a reason why we have both user id and display name.

Edit: never mind, it is Display Name, the column is just labeled Userid. LOL

Yeah, it's display name... I could change the column header to just "user" or something.

[Madpoo]

Originally Posted by chalsall

I believe the "must report at least every sixty days" clause was inherited from the previous recycling behaviour. This is with the exception of manually assigned candidates which get 180 days (unless they're extended).

It would behoove me to look at how the nightly task *actually* expires things, rather than base my assumptions on the descriptions... I looked at the code once and at the time it was so full of "if this then that or else if that then this except this or that until that or this"...

I kind of shied away from it. :) Now that I have a little better base understanding of the rules it might not be as intimidating and I could see if it's doing anything else in there that's not described in the assignment rule page.

[chalsall]

Originally Posted by Madpoo

The fact that a small 4000 cat 1 assignments is being cleared at a snails pace tells me too many are taking too long, or not enough people signed up to do them?

I suspect it's the latter; almost by definition it can't be the former...

This brings up a thought... What about the system giving out cat 1s or 2s automatically (read: even when the user hasn't promised) if the requesting machine's history is both good (as in it reports regularly) and candidate turn-around is relatively quick?

I know Aaron, easier said than done, but it would "make sense"....

[kladner]

Apparently there are a bunch of cat 1 assignments that are up for grabs but not assigned... hmm... all in the 67M - 68M range. I guess there aren't that many people signed up to do first time cat 1 work after all? ~3100 available LL cat 1 exponents...

I am signed up for cat 1, but I have been doing only DC for some time.

[Madpoo]

Originally Posted by kladner

I am signed up for cat 1, but I have been doing only DC for some time.

There's lots of cat 1 DC work as well, so you're good.

[axn]

Originally Posted by Madpoo

Apparently there are a bunch of cat 1 assignments that are up for grabs but not assigned... hmm... all in the 67M - 68M range. I guess there aren't that many people signed up to do first time cat 1 work after all? ~3100 available LL cat 1 exponents...

By definition, there will always be 4000 available LL cat 1 exponents. If I get a cat 1 exponent, then #4001 will become #4000 and move from cat 2 to cat 1. Doesn't matter if there are infinity people crunching cat 1. (It would matter how/when the server performs the readjustment of category definition - i.e. instantly, once a day, once a week, etc.)

You need to look at how many active assignments are there that we assigned _as_ cat 1 (and get distinct users and distinct computers for those assignments).

Also,you can't sign up for cat 1 or cat 2 or cat 3, specifically. You sign up for "smallest exponents", and then based on the individual computer performance, the computer will receive 1 or 2 or 3 appropriately. So you should be able to count the users who have this flag turned on, directly from the database without looking at the assignments.