The principal designer of BOINC has come up with an idea that would ENFORCE cross project parity, but would also cause long term DEFLATION in credit grants. I would really hate for him to get tired of the cross project credit parity debates and actually implement his idea. The problem is that a CPU that is granted 100 CS / day NOW would be granted about 50 CS / day 18 months from now when CPU speeds double - this is not my idea of how to fix the problem, but I believe that the cross project parity problem will be fixed somehow. I would much rather have a political solution that involves telling projects that are way out of line with credit grants than a draconian measure that keeps reducing credit grants into the future.

Well that is one way to do it, but isn't the more correct way to have those new faster processors get 200 CS/day and keep the current processor getting 100 CS /day? In any case there is nothing else that is fair. Unless he wants to grant CS based on the number of KWH that the machine uses!

Now for people who re-compile the app to run faster than stock on their machine, what to do is another issue. They do less work so they should get less credit per work unit.

Gary

I did not say it was a particularly good way. As a mater of fact I argued against it when it came up.

Well you better argue harder John because if thats implemented I think you would see a mass Exodus to the DC Projects were there each Project give whatever it chooses ... :)

There is currently a move to undo the damage done by the Space Families team. They like to take over teams where the founder did not for some reason get the transfer email. I am hoping that they lose all credits across BOINC.

Yes, they took over a Team I had originally Founded & then Transfered the Foundership to another Person. Apparently he never responded or just plain quit the BOINC Projects so they took over the Team

But the Project did some back tracking and my User Name came up as being the original Founder and Ageless contacted me about it & with Eric's help @ the Project I got the Team back & was restored as the Founder once again ... :)

Congratulations on getting your team back. Do you have any ideas on how to prevent this from happening in the future?

Not really, all you can do is hope to get the Founder Transfer Request & reply one way or the other to it. If you don't get the request then after a certain period of time I think the Team can be Transferred to whomever's requesting it.

Thats the way it's set up now so you have to live with it or die by it ...

There is currently a move to undo the damage done by the Space Families team. They like to take over teams where the founder did not for some reason get the transfer email. I am hoping that they lose all credits across BOINC.

Yes, they took over a Team I had originally Founded & then Transfered the Foundership to another Person. Apparently he never responded or just plain quit the BOINC Projects so they took over the Team

But the Project did some back tracking and my User Name came up as being the original Founder and Ageless contacted me about it & with Eric's help @ the Project I got the Team back & was restored as the Founder once again ... :)

The BOINC developers do care about credit cheats, but even more about those that cheat on the science. Cheating on the science is one reason for having 2 tasks / WU and making certain that they match. This also blocks the credit cheats.

I believe that nano took 3 results to validate, threw the odd one out and averaged the other 2.

Actually, that applies whenever the quorum is three or more. With a quorum of two the lower is what's granted.

In the early days SAH and EAH required at least three tasks returned as well to validate and grant credit on, but that was to accomodate the peculiarities of the BM-T credit system as much as anything else.

When they switched to other scoring methodologies, they went to two tasks for verifying the science.

In fact, if you have followed along at SAH, BOINC still will grant the lower of the two task claims. This is what happens if you get paired up with a host running a non-FLOP counting aware CC, since they typically come in with a low claim.

Also, don't forget that in multi-task validation scenarios, the science is verified first, and then the decision is made about credit. IOW's the host which sets the credit granted for the WU doesn't necessarily have to be the host which produces the canonical result. It can just as easily be the canonical task is thrown out for credit purposes.

Alinator

I can only figure if that is the case that they can't force you to update to it or force the project to upgrade the server edition to force ver 6 as the minimum client....I may be wrong.

I don't think Berkeley & Dr. A can really force any Project to do anything, if they could he would have had his way a long time ago on the Issue of Credit Parity. They can Prod & Plead & Cajole them into Upgrading their Server Edition to the new v6.?.? but thats going to take quite awhile to get all the projects in line to do that.

Personally I think it will be a good thing, as Keck said it would stop all the Credit Flame Wars, at least I would hope it would. But does it stop the Cheating that seems to go on at every new Project when they first start out ... ???

No, unfortunately, it wouldn't. Unless someone can think of a way to prevent that as well (I would love to hear some suggestions).

The only way to stop the Cheating is to make an example out of some of them, if somebody's Account with Millions of Credits were deleted across the Projects that might get their attention. It's the same people at every new Project that do the Cheating & it doesn't take a Rocket Scientist to figure out who they are.

But that will never happen because most if not all Project Dev's don't really care about it. They have other things to be worried about besides who's cheating and who's not cheating ...

The principal designer of BOINC has come up with an idea that would ENFORCE cross project parity, but would also cause long term DEFLATION in credit grants. I would really hate for him to get tired of the cross project credit parity debates and actually implement his idea. The problem is that a CPU that is granted 100 CS / day NOW would be granted about 50 CS / day 18 months from now when CPU speeds double - this is not my idea of how to fix the problem, but I believe that the cross project parity problem will be fixed somehow. I would much rather have a political solution that involves telling projects that are way out of line with credit grants than a draconian measure that keeps reducing credit grants into the future.

Well that is one way to do it, but isn't the more correct way to have those new faster processors get 200 CS/day and keep the current processor getting 100 CS /day? In any case there is nothing else that is fair. Unless he wants to grant CS based on the number of KWH that the machine uses!

Now for people who re-compile the app to run faster than stock on their machine, what to do is another issue. They do less work so they should get less credit per work unit.

Gary

I can only figure if that is the case that they can't force you to update to it or force the project to upgrade the server edition to force ver 6 as the minimum client....I may be wrong.

I don't think Berkeley & Dr. A can really force any Project to do anything, if they could he would have had his way a long time ago on the Issue of Credit Parity. They can Prod & Plead & Cajole them into Upgrading their Server Edition to the new v6.?.? but thats going to take quite awhile to get all the projects in line to do that.

Personally I think it will be a good thing, as Keck said it would stop all the Credit Flame Wars, at least I would hope it would. But does it stop the Cheating that seems to go on at every new Project when they first start out ... ???

There was an OR clause that is missing from the first quote. The rest of the statement is missing. Sometimes a partial statement taken out of context is much more inflammatory than the whole statement.

In trying to format the quotes I think I got things a bit messed up - I was trying to get it done before going off to work. The parts quoted were meant to point out how you pay so much attention to the way things are said, that you do not address what's actually being said. And this response was another example of that. Specifically then: He asked if you had read the post (all other wording removed) - you did not answer that question.

No, I am not a developer for SETI. I have done a bit of development on the BOINC platrform.

Ok, I was wrong here and apologize for reacting on someone else's post without confirming facts.

There are a few reasons that SETI is considered the standard for the moment. SETI is the first BOINC project. SETI is also just about the middle of the pack for credit allocation. SETI also uses FLOPS counting which is the most reliable method for determining credit with their stock application.

Thanks for that explaination. Despite my postings 'against' you, I actually would like to see a reliable and fair method for credit calculation.

John, you could achieve a lot more in this quest if you could also address the issues or questions that are posted, and not just the personal remarks.

To those who get insulting - you would also achieve a lot more if you didn't.

Rod

No, I am not a developer for SETI. I have done a bit of development on the BOINC platrform.

Ok, I was wrong here and apologize for reacting on someone else's post without confirming facts.

I just based that on the fact that this is how his message board profile reads at SETI:

John McLeod VII
Volunteer developer
Volunteer tester

<shrug> I guess they're wrong then.

I'll take a wild stab @ why JMV has the Developers Title @ SETI. He has been with the BOINC SETI Project since its Inception as have a lot of people including myself. But he also has had a lot of input into the Development of the BOINC Clients & many BOINC Projects. So even though he isn't a Developer Per Se the the Title may have been bestowed upon him much like a Honorary Title for the big help he has been to the Development of the BOINC Projects & Client.

I may be all wet on that but thats how I view it anyway ... :) ... I've known John for close to 6 years and have had casual post with him on different matters. Thats why it's kinda perplexing to me to see him act this way, usually he's above the Fray of this sort of stuff.

Maybe from his being around all the raving Lunatics over in the SETI Project Forums some of that Lunacy has rubbed off on him ... ;)

No, I am not a developer for SETI. I have done a bit of development on the BOINC platrform.

Ok, I was wrong here and apologize for reacting on someone else's post without confirming facts.

I just based that on the fact that this is how his message board profile reads at SETI:

John McLeod VII
Volunteer developer
Volunteer tester

<shrug> I guess they're wrong then.

I've stayed out of this till now, but I will comment on a few things here (and whenever I say 'you' here I mean John):

like sooooo many others have mentioned you believe that anything repeated enough becomes the truth. "he is not releasing the code to all"? Did you even read the post or only the bits that agree with your twisted little viewpoint? He shared it with the freakin' project developers!!

The worst part is that you ignore any information that doesn't fit your self-serving lunacy

Here you've chosen to ignore a direct question. As insulting as the way the question is asked may be, the question still has merit.

You're a developer for SETI, right? That's enough to convince me to drop it. I never particularly cared what credit they ever "gave" me and I know my contribution was growing ever smaller, but if "voting with my feet" is the only power I have, then I plan to exercise it.

Wow, if SETI was a company and you worked for me, and I heard something like this, I would take disciplinary action against you.

[edit]Adding to what others have said... don't bother replying, because I'm done feeding you as well. That's definitely the last post I'll make acknowledging your existance as well[/edit]

Down to name calling. Pathetic.

'Pathetic' is also name calling. And you've used it as a way to ignore the issues in the posting. Unfortunately many people rise to the bait instead of trying to be rational about it, which is what I have attempted here - don't know how well I've succeeded.

Good luck with trying to get everybody to like Boinc the way is supposed to be.

Just a last thought I suddenly had. Why should SETI be the standard by which other projects are judged? That's not an attack, it's a genuine question.
Ok, I'm off to work now, will look for responses this evening. (I'm GMT+2)

Rod

If you don't like the credit here, there are other projects that would enjoy your computer time. Stop the complaining about credit. The amount of credit assigned was voted upon by the users just after the project started up. He got rid of the highs and the lows and settled upon one about in the middle. The current credits are a reflection of that. Stop the crying and crunch along.

If you don't like the way BOINC is supposed to work, you can go do some non-BOINC project. Same argument reversed.

Oh for Pete's Sake, this is all getting so real Boring & Passe, John your starting to sound like a little kid out on the Playground with some of your childish responses. I always thought better of you & respected you, but after seeing your in action the last few days & reading your childish "na na na na na same back you" replies that respect has slipped downwards quite a few notch's.

You've had your say about the Credit's here so why don't you take it up with the Dev's of the Project Privately because you can argue about it in the Forum until everybody's blue in the face but in the end the Dev's of the Project are the only ones that can do anything about it if they choose to do so.

Your continually na na na na na replies do nothing but keep the Participants stirred up, but then thats probably what you want isn't it. By doing that you can get back up on your Soap Opera Box & spew more na na na na na's back at the Participants.

If you don't like the credit here, there are other projects that would enjoy your computer time. Stop the complaining about credit. The amount of credit assigned was voted upon by the users just after the project started up. He got rid of the highs and the lows and settled upon one about in the middle. The current credits are a reflection of that. Stop the crying and crunch along.

John,

Since this subject has been so hotly debated for so long, I doubt you would have recieved a reasonable response here no matter how you phrased your inital post, but it doesn't help that you made a completely outlandish claim concerning appropriate credit for MW tasks.

You stated, "The long tasks really should be granting about 50 CS per task."

If you really believe that, then you understand that you're stating that MilkyWay should grant approximately 30% the amount of credit per unit of time vs SETI. (I'm assuming that MW is currently granting at a rate of 1.64 v SETI which seems to be a good average of the cross project comparisons that I could find) A 260 cs (long) task here would therefore grant around 159 on your hallowed SETI. (But should only grant "about 50" here)

Seems either quite spiteful or quite ignorant to tell the system administrators here that they're being "anti-social" if they don't value their project at 1/3rd the value of SETI.

I wanted to make sure that this comparison made some sense, so I looked at the computer I'm working from now and discovered that an Einstein task that takes me around 9 hours grants me ~240 cs. A MilkyWay task that takes 8 hours grants me 260. So that 260 cs task here would grant me 213 at Einstein.

Just so I'm clear, let me confirm. In your way of thinking it's 3 times more valuable to look for signals from extraterrestrials than it is to map the structure of our galaxy and over 4 times more important to look for gravity waves than to map the structure of our galaxy, yes?

I already replied to this and admitted an error in calculation or input. Why are you bringing it up again?

http://milkyway.cs.rpi.edu/milkyway/forum_thread.php?id=368&nowrap=true#4367

See This thread for an example of either unfair (he is not releasing the code to all) or inflationary (If it gets released and the credits here are NOT reduced).

Good GOD man, will you please just shut up and go away?!?! I would have enjoyed having a discussion with Crunch3r about potential gains in the science of this project, but you have to stick your annoying, asinine nose into the conversation and make it all about your pet peeve of CREDIT!

Guess what? It's not the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Credit , but that seems to be all you care about.

The worst part is that you ignore any information that doesn't fit your self-serving lunacy, practically nothing that you type is even accurate, but like sooooo many others have mentioned you believe that anything repeated enough becomes the truth. "he is not releasing the code to all"? Did you even read the post or only the bits that agree with your twisted little viewpoint? He shared it with the freakin' project developers!!

I can thank you for one thing only. I had actually been limiting my resource share on these projects that I also felt were giving too much credit, but all it took was 2 days of your whining drivel and I'm just going to set an equal share at all the projects where I want to support the science. You're a developer for SETI, right? That's enough to convince me to drop it. I never particularly cared what credit they ever "gave" me and I know my contribution was growing ever smaller, but if "voting with my feet" is the only power I have, then I plan to exercise it.

[edit]Adding to what others have said... don't bother replying, because I'm done feeding you as well. That's definitely the last post I'll make acknowledging your existance as well[/edit]

See This thread for an example of either unfair (he is not releasing the code to all)

you know what ? life isn't fair at all and the World is full of things you can not have.

or inflationary (If it gets released and the credits here are NOT reduced).

that's not going to happen... could you now go away please and stalk some other people on other boards ? I think we all here would appreciate that.
Thank you.

This is getting seriously funny John

The fact that projects grant credit at seriously different rates is a problem in the perceived fairness of the system.

Seti grants 30% more credit to the same machine only based on whether it has an optimized app or not that the project refuses to deliver to all its users as 20 other projects do!...unfair! Solaris and osx my foot, these are mainstream hosts that get optimized.

By your own ommision,although you felt the need to edit your little factoid out but I quoted you! ;)

The stock applications at S@H are currently much better optimized than they were, and even the best optimized applications do not grant at 2 to one, but if I recall, only around 1.3 to one at the moment. Trust me on this. S@H and BOINC are being re-worked to make it much easier for projects to have optimized applicatons delivered to clients

30% more credit and you have the gall to intimidate other projects and participants.

Trust me on this.

I THINK NOT!

If Seti wants the rest of BOINC to change then it needs to change its own culture 1st to start leveling the playing field.

I am sorry that I really don't understand your insinuation. S@H grants the same credit for a single task to all that crunched that task. Some computers go through tasks more quickly. Some people have better computers. That still has no bearing at all on cross project parity.

You certaily are dense John...If I have 2 identical computers and optimize 1 that runs 30% faster than the other 1, are you not showing favoritism rather than leveling the playing field making available to ALL rather than to just the big crunchers that you wish to keep because Seti will have the highest credit!Other projects optimize so all get the benefit....now I have said this at least 5 TIMES in this thread and you have yet to acknowledge this as being an issue! I am joining Bill & Voltron and am done feeding the troll!

John,

Since this subject has been so hotly debated for so long, I doubt you would have recieved a reasonable response here no matter how you phrased your inital post, but it doesn't help that you made a completely outlandish claim concerning appropriate credit for MW tasks.

You stated, "The long tasks really should be granting about 50 CS per task."

If you really believe that, then you understand that you're stating that MilkyWay should grant approximately 30% the amount of credit per unit of time vs SETI. (I'm assuming that MW is currently granting at a rate of 1.64 v SETI which seems to be a good average of the cross project comparisons that I could find) A 260 cs (long) task here would therefore grant around 159 on your hallowed SETI. (But should only grant "about 50" here)

Seems either quite spiteful or quite ignorant to tell the system administrators here that they're being "anti-social" if they don't value their project at 1/3rd the value of SETI.

I wanted to make sure that this comparison made some sense, so I looked at the computer I'm working from now and discovered that an Einstein task that takes me around 9 hours grants me ~240 cs. A MilkyWay task that takes 8 hours grants me 260. So that 260 cs task here would grant me 213 at Einstein.

Just so I'm clear, let me confirm. In your way of thinking it's 3 times more valuable to look for signals from extraterrestrials than it is to map the structure of our galaxy and over 4 times more important to look for gravity waves than to map the structure of our galaxy, yes?

This is getting seriously funny John

The fact that projects grant credit at seriously different rates is a problem in the perceived fairness of the system.

Seti grants 30% more credit to the same machine only based on whether it has an optimized app or not that the project refuses to deliver to all its users as 20 other projects do!...unfair! Solaris and osx my foot, these are mainstream hosts that get optimized.

By your own ommision,although you felt the need to edit your little factoid out but I quoted you! ;)

The stock applications at S@H are currently much better optimized than they were, and even the best optimized applications do not grant at 2 to one, but if I recall, only around 1.3 to one at the moment. Trust me on this. S@H and BOINC are being re-worked to make it much easier for projects to have optimized applicatons delivered to clients

30% more credit and you have the gall to intimidate other projects and participants.

Trust me on this.

I THINK NOT!

If Seti wants the rest of BOINC to change then it needs to change its own culture 1st to start leveling the playing field.

I am sorry that I really don't understand your insinuation. S@H grants the same credit for a single task to all that crunched that task. Some computers go through tasks more quickly. Some people have better computers. That still has no bearing at all on cross project parity.

You certaily are dense John...If I have 2 identical computers and optimize 1 that runs 30% faster than the other 1, are you not showing favoritism rather than leveling the playing field making available to ALL rather than to just the big crunchers that you wish to keep because Seti will have the highest credit!Other projects optimize so all get the benefit....now I have said this at least 5 TIMES in this thread and you have yet to acknowledge this as being an issue! I am joining Bill & Voltron and am done feeding the troll!