 |
| DanC 2004-03-20 15:32:44 | There has been quite a bit of "bad blood" generated by folks quitting one team, joining another - crunching away, and moving back... taking the points with them. This problem could obviously be solved by ending the practice of taking points from team to team. I'd propose for your consideration that all team changes be nullified, and those points earned with a particular team - stay there... and further - that the policy be retroactive in order to make it a fair one. |
| [TA]JonB 2004-03-20 17:09:56 | While I voted to keep points with the teams (this shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone), I am not so sure about the retroactive part. I'm more inclined to say "any moves after March 31, 2004" will not take accumulated points with you. There may have been (and may still be) some pretty good reasons why someone would want their points to move with them. One example - If I found that my team were somehow cheating and it was known by several members but covered up, I would not just leave, but demand my points go with me or just be erased from that team. JonB |
| Cowboy 2004-03-20 20:32:45 | I'll agree with JonB. After March 31st, this will give anyone who wants to make a move the chance to do so knowing the rules and when they will be in place. |
| Fritz313 2004-03-20 21:42:33 | Perhaps another way would be to rezero the stats AND amend the rules as Jon B suggested. This would erase any of the issues from transfers that happened in the past. |
| stanray 2004-03-20 23:54:43 | Gentlemen, I've edited this post to say that what was here does NOT reflect the general concensus. My actions were singular and un-warranted and for that I do apologize to DanC in particular and Team TA overall. Because of the early hour of the original post it could be said by others that it was just a weak moment. I don't accept the premise and feel that it was a knee-jerk reaction that I am not known for. I am terribly embarrassed by the whole thing. Thank You, Stan [This message was edited by stanray on 2004-Mar-21 at 07:50.] |
| [TA]BlackMountainCow 2004-03-21 01:20:04 | quote: And I say that dorks should stay in their cave and not venture into the outer world. |
| amdxborg 2004-03-21 01:32:19 | quote: There's words that describes scum like you...none of which is suitable for this forum...and just so you know...Dan propably knows more of computers than you do bud...cause during his days with (edit:Compaq I think...) he did his fair share of computer work! Loser... [This message was edited by amdxborg on 2004-Mar-21 at 07:06.] |
| [DPC]Stephan202 2004-03-21 02:06:44 | I feel some tension!  Anyway, about the teamhopping: I haven't voted yet, but I think it's going to be 'keep the point with the team'. What I would like to see, is that Stephen builds a stats system that's more pofessional, eg, with ID's for every person so that they can change their name as thay wish, and can only be in one team at a time, not depending on some tag in their name. |
| Stephen Brooks 2004-03-21 04:24:34 | The simplest thing I could do is just say I won't allow you to change team in a re-name. You see, you can rename yourself without asking me about it (by changing user.txt) and then your new points will start going into the new team's account, but the old ones won't move. |
| stanray 2004-03-21 07:53:53 | Sometimes the simplest things are the way to go. Why don't you just adopt the policy as moderator and leave it go at that? |
| edco 2004-03-21 08:49:42 | quote: I would agree with Fritz, perhaps a new policy and then just rezero the stats! a fresh start might just be the way to go. We're all working toward the same overall goal and this would settle the issue of team swapping. It won't really hurt the team standings, infact for [TA] it would be a plus as with there output they would be the top team from the get go  Rezeroing the stats would put all the teams on an equal playing field and then we can resume the task at hand which is helping work on the DPAD project.Stephen whatever you decide is fine with us, we support you 100% thanks again for such a great DC project Matt - edco [This message was edited by edco on 2004-Mar-21 at 08:56.] |
| [TA]BlackMountainCow 2004-03-21 09:34:11 | I think that if DPAD really resets score that LOTS of ppl will leave. Cause I'd hate to see all my CPU time being annihilated. And it wouldn't refelct anymore what ppl did for that project. Cause a guy like DanC, crunching for ages would jus drop down below ppl having joined lately but outproducing him right now ... |
| Stephen Brooks 2004-03-21 09:55:19 | I won't rezero the existing stats - not _that_ many people have swapped teams so far and you can probably make up the difference (also more practically it's hard to go back and figure out what date the people swapped, then cut the file in two fairly). Also when there is a new optimisation, it will have a separate count in rawstats.txt, although the overall stats that most people look at will be the sum. Not sure if this is a 100% satisfactory answer... 85%?  Sorry I've not been able to put a lot of attention in the user side of the project recently - I have a paper deadline for a conference (EPAC'04) this summer and have spent the last couple of weeks trying to get a magnet-design routine working for inclusion in Muon1 to get more realistic fields. I suppose I could get the current linac optimisation out of the door now so we can have some "quite-accurate" results and then add the improved magnetic fields (which are mainly to do with the target region) later on. [edit] EDCO if those are all yours, you have way too many computers [This message was edited by Stephen Brooks on 2004-Mar-21 at 10:15.] |
| stanray 2004-03-21 10:01:49 | BlackMountainCow, this is somewhat off topic but since it showed up in here hopefully this will put the thread back on topic. I tried to delete the post this AM before it got out but found it to be too late. I edited the original to offer my apologies in here and tried to in your forum as well. I can't log onto your site from home to accomplish that and would like to ask you to quote my edited post on your site. Thanks for understanding the rantings of a madman. Stan |
| Stephen Brooks 2004-03-21 10:05:23 | I thought it was quite funny actually. |
| edco 2004-03-21 10:35:06 | Hello Stephen, I agree I don't see it as a major problem but when two members from [TA] left to rejoin our team all hell broke loose. It was taken as a personal matter and a few "From Both Sides" have decided to lower it to name calling and just bad sportsmanship. [TA] is the powerhouse in this project and we wish them well, the setback's they have had in passing us while frustrating are short term . I think if a member want's to change teams especially seeing the flame and nasty posts he should be able to remove his work and take it with him. If your not happy or embarrassed by the actions of your team members it makes sense to go elsewhere. I would not want my name or work staying with a team that lowers itself to childish tantrums because someone decided to leave one team and join another.Thanks for addressing the matter so quickly Matt HeHe Stephen , Makes us look like a Hot Shot Data Center!... which we're not, or are we? Well back to formatting hard drives and replacing old fan's - on my home system's of course  [This message was edited by edco on 2004-Mar-21 at 10:41.] |
| Stephen Brooks 2004-03-26 01:27:37 | Well I'm still not sure about this and haven't made a final decision. I can see the points both ways: 1. If I let people change teams, that will mean the teams will have to 'compete' for the high-scoring crunchers, if you see what I mean, and that could actually be beneficial since they would have to avoid flame wars and other nastiness to keep the more moderate members of their team from going independent or elsewhere. On the downside, the possibility of large frequent moves between teams would mean the stats wouldn't work the way you are used to. Instead of gradually accumulating, they'd behave a bit more like symbols on the stock market Also, there was an instance when a member of one of {TA,US-d} decided to post some points to the other team and then take them back as a form of "revenge", and the reason for my preliminary decision was that I didn't want that kind of silliness getting out of hand, as it wastes my time as well as annoying the members of both teams involved.2. If I don't let people change teams (this was the way the system was originally designed - you submit points to an account and they stay there), then your team stats would be safe and only increase smoothly. Of course any member is able to change teams and start submitting points to another at any point in time (that doesn't involve me) and that would have an immediate effect in daily totals but you'd have to wait a while for the cumulative effect to make one team overtake. On the downside, I can see how it would be annoying for a member to see their points sitting with a team they didn't like any more, and they'd be counted as a 'member' of both, even though they're not. A lot of people also don't like the idea they no longer 'own' their stats after being submitted. If you think of stats as a 'savings plan', you'd expect the bank to let you move it to another bank if you wanted to. Probably another reason I provisionally decided to stop team transfers was that to poll at the top here seemed to indicate it was 3:1 in favour of stopping the inter-team transfers. But on the other hand, that could mean anything, as the site could have been 'bombed' by a particular team, etc. 3. In fact, what I'm really doing is a bit more complicated than either of the above situations: if someone requests for their points to be moved out of a team to an individual account, that's fine, and they can transfer them back to the same team too if they want, but never another one. I'm not currently happy with points being switched directly or indirectly from one team to another, though someone who was previously an individual (and never in another team) can join a team. If you really want to switch, you can pull points from the other team into your _individual_ account and then start from 0 on your new team username. Sound sensible? Basically this is based on the principle that a point can never have been in more than one team. I am logging who moves where so I can check this - it's not too much trouble. So I'm still in need of 100% convincing arguments in either direction before I set this in stone. It would be interesting to see how many people agree with option (3) now that it's there. For those of you who think that "build a better stats system where each user has a password" is the solution, remember that would still allow people to jump teams and also allow "revenge" attacks just as easily. The only advantages would be that it could be automatic and that I could be a bit more sure that someone asking for the request was genuinely the person who earned the points. |
| Ripper 2004-03-26 10:02:42 | While I am certainly not entertaining leaving USD for any other team, and I happily crunch for USD, I am opposed to any team taking my points and making them theirs. As I have developed my own computers or purchased them, and so they do not belong to the team. The team, regardless of what team, also does not send members a check for the electricity expended to compute these projects. Since the TEAM does not reimburse any member for their processing power, I don't see where a team could legally state that the points belong to them. On the other hand, as the owner of the computer and the payer of the bills, I definitely see where I OWN the points as it was MY MONEY that made it all possible. I DO SEE the problem with the team swapping though. I don't have a resolution for this. This is quite sticky. I think that I agree with the resolution that if you are an individual, then the points are yours. If you join a team, then you have the OPTION to share those points with the team. If you elect this option, if you switch teams, then you cannot transfer the points to the new team. The points become yours and yours alone. If you don't like that, create a new user account and accumulate under that name. That username could be associated with another team with the same option. The total points are still yours under the various accounts, but the points you accumulated that you wanted to SHARE remain with the team as well, they cannot be transferred to another team. My two cents. Ripper |
| [TA]z 2004-03-26 10:14:19 | This is where the glory of having both individual and group stats comes in Ideally a participant ought to be able to retain their statistics regardless of team switching. And under a system such as below, I believe a fair resolution is achieved. Accounts must be handled with a somewhat stricter setup (login/password) You can do this over the web, or build a simple program for it… The method for this does not really matter much. Upon logging in, users would have a short list of options they can change. For example: e-mail address, active team, change password (i.e. something very simple and not overkill) Any account will _always_ hold on to its given individual statistics. But should this participant choose to join a team, whether for the first time or leaving a team to join another, their results will be counted for their selected “active team,†and only during the period that it is their chosen team. An account’s individual stats will always remain whole and team swapping as many times as one pleases will have no bearing on a participant’s individual statistics. Their individual stats will continue to accumulate as they are crunching away. However, those results are only tallied for a team if that participant has selected an active team. Once points are tallied for a team, they remain there _permanently_. This doesn’t hurt the contributor, because their stats are unchanged regardless of a decision to leave a team. I like to look at it this way: Currently I do work for a company that I love working for. Chances are I won’t be here forever though. So when I leave do I take everything I have done under this company and for this company? I don’t think so… What I have done for this company, was done for this company and should remain with this company. On the other hand, I do have the personal experience and accomplishments (here’s your individual stats *wink* *wink*) that I have achieved while working here. I will always have those, and there is no way to take that away. Just some thoughts… -z |
| Ripper 2004-03-26 10:27:43 | I agree with all of that. The question, can someone automate this for Stephen so that he doesn't have to track all of this manually? If so, then I think this is a great idea and it leaves everything intact. |
| Cowboy 2004-03-26 11:03:04 | If a team starts attacking members on a personal basis as I've seen then why would that team member want to contributate anything at all to that team? A friend left a team and suffered personal attacks for doing so and when I couldn't get those attacks toned down or removed I decided to take my points and leave the offending team knowing full well that I would suffer the same personal attacks as my friend. What kind of team does that? Not one that I want my points credited to or one that I would remain a member of. |
| [TA]BlackMountainCow 2004-03-26 11:59:58 | Well, but what about a guy joining a team and making himself a friend to the team, chatting with them and emailing around and beginning to "pretend" to be a friend. And then he leaves as all this was just a freaking show in oder to foll the team he joined and he takes all his points back to the team he originally came from?? Cowboy?? |
| Cowboy 2004-03-26 12:03:58 | Read the above about the personal attacks then maybe you'll understand but I doubt it. |
| Stephen Brooks 2004-03-26 12:14:30 | On the last page... Ripper seems to basically have my option (3) in mind. [TA]z's scenario seems odd - if I kept swapping teams, would my 10 billion particles be added to _every_ team I was ever a member of? That sounds a bit unrealistic. If you wanted to just put the points you made _during_ your stay at a team in there, that would be the same as leaving the [OldTeam]username where it was and not moving it, starting to accumulate elsewhere. In fact if you ended up with some members submitting work under [TeamA]user [TeamB]user [TeamC]user in the current system, searching for team "user" would show these together... though that is also strange. |
| Ripper 2004-03-26 12:50:13 | After reading all the posts, I can only say this. Anything done in DC should be FUN. It isn't like you are going to get a MILLION DOLLAR bonus cause you crunched the most or half-a-mill if you come in second. When I say YOU, I mean you (the individual) or a team. The stats are what keeps the interest going on a project. Call it a reward if you will, but the main motivation is to keep someone interested in the project and to benefit the PROJECT. In the end, the ONLY WINNER is the person running the project. If the DC project is CANCER RESEARCH and as a matter of running that project a cure is found for that strain of cancer, then the person running the project, the person who gets the cure and YOU get the satisafaction of knowing that you contributed to the cure, even if it wasn't YOUR machine that stumbled on the actual cure. The problems within DC right now extend MUCH FARTHER than DPAD. It is everywhere. Without attacking a person, team, or project, I think it is best if everyone just sat back, relaxed, thought about what is really important, and GROW UP (me included). If you are having FUN and into crunching, I, personally, welcome the competition. If you aren't having fun and the only thing you can do is gripe cause you can't win despite your best efforts, then it is time to find something else that you can do and do well. In this case, the only LOSER is the project and whatever cause it is working for. LET'S HAVE FUN and drop all the rhetoric. |
| [DPC]Stephan202 2004-03-27 05:14:53 | [TA]z, that's exactly what we need.  |
| [TA]z 2004-03-27 06:53:24 | quote: I think I may not have explained my view properly, otherwise you wouldn't find it so odd Your individual total is not contributed to your chosen team. Just like you said, only those points made during your stay at a team would be counted for that team. This is different from the current system because you will not show as an active member on each of the prior teams per your chosen "active team" option. Additionally, making that team selection once, as opposed to having to manually update the user.txt on multiple machines seems to be the better option to me... Let me see if this cheap example better portraits what I meant:  The point of the system is simple: To allow the participant a running total of all of their points. Nothing is ever taken away from them. And to handle teamplay in a fair manner. Points contributed to a team will stay with that team. Hope this helps clear up any confusion -z |
| amdxborg 2004-03-27 10:50:27 | Sounds good z! |
| [TA]BlackMountainCow 2004-03-27 14:15:38 | Very good one Z!! That's exactly what we need! |
| DanC 2004-03-27 22:59:28 | "If a team starts attacking members on a personal basis as I've seen then why would that team member want to contributate anything at all to that team?" It's a pretty tired argument Cow-poke. Why don't you get over it? Perhaps I should post what you said about US-D? Sour grapes are sour grapes... and you're behind... and that's all there is to that. I didn't "fix" the results - I just raised the question. Trust me. If you think what you've seen thus far is "flaming" - you're a real nubie to forums... Get over it and move on. This is getting ridiculous. Even with the points stolen - you're behind. Recruit - assimilate - or get over it. |
| Cowboy 2004-03-28 05:26:54 | Danny Boy, Post what you will, anyone knows how easy it is to modify documents and I also have the emails saved. I'm "over it" and out of the project over the likes of you. Too bad we're not close enough to see how loud you really are when not hidden behind a PC. Post what you want, no further response will be made as you're not worth it, especially when hidden behind a keyboard. Would really love to meet you in person |
| [TA]z 2004-03-28 23:30:15 | the pipes, the pipes are calling |
| DanC 2004-03-30 18:31:13 | Yawn. |
