Extend grace period for full credit to 48hrs

[PCZ]

Currently after a changeover full credit is given for WU's returned within 24hrs and half credit for WU's returned in the following 24hr period.

Several dial up users have requested that all WU's returned during the 48hr grace period be given full credit.

Should the rules be changed ?

[HansArne]

No. I am on dial up myself.
They have ca a week to upload the units.
If we get 48 hours and half score the next 24, someone will ask for full credit 72 hours.
If they want full score they just have to start uploading sooner
When you sign up for DF you know the rules.

[pointwood]

This poll needs a "I don't give a damn" option :D

[tpdooley]

Who do you have to ask to be allowed to vote on the polls?

[gistech1978]

i am one of the 16 no votes at this time.
its been mentioned, someone will gripe cuz they dont have 72 hours.
protein changes are announced days before they happen.
sorry, you will not be receiving my sympathy.

say for instance, we are working on a very fast protein, the change happens and it updates to a very slow protein; then you get an inherent advantage, since you can run no-net and keep piling on the fast gens for 48 hours, while others who updated do not.

[bwkaz]

IIRC from the thread where Howard said to bring this up as a poll, we wouldn't get half credit ever. It'd be full credit for 48 hours, then nothing, so there'd really be no reason to ask for 72 at that point.

But I could be wrong...

[PCZ]

Sorry if I didn't make it clearer what the proposed change is:

Currently:
24hrs full credit, followed by 24hrs half credit.

To be replaced by:
48hrs at full credit with no half credit period.


I can understand that someone with a lot of PC's and a slow link to the web could struggle to upload all the cached WU's during the 24hr full credit grace period.

On the flipside I can see that increasing the full credit grace period to 48hrs gives people greater scope for 'stats enhancement'

For example:
If a fast protein changes to a slower one, then people could fold offline for the best part of 2 days and gain a large advantage points wise, over those who stayed online and changed automatically.


tpdooley
Everyone can vote.

[alpha]

I can't see why so many people are voting "no", unless they are misunderstanding the proposed change (which I guess PCZ also suspects based on the post above).

I'll just repeat PCZ's explanation for further clarity.

Currently we have a total of 48 hours after the changeover to return work from the previous protein. If you return work during the second half of the 48 hours, you are only given half-credit. Returning work in the first 24 hours gives you full credit like usual.

The proposed change is that you get full credit, no matter when you upload your work during the 48 hours after the changeover. This does not suggest any kind of time-extension, so there is no reason why people would then request more time to upload after the changeover.

Does this make sense, or am I getting it wrong? If people didn't understand when they were voting, I suggest we discard the results from this poll and start another.

[RandomCritterz]

I voted no. I know some people that have no run no-net at a change-over to extend their time with a faster protein. I don't want to encourage them to do it for another 24 hours.

Changes are announced well in advance, plenty of time to upload results before the servers get swamped passing out the updates. Why would anyone have more than a single day's results buffered on change-over day?

[alpha]

Originally posted by RandomCritterz
Why would anyone have more than a single day's results buffered on change-over day?

What if you have 50 boxen, and narrowband?

[junky]

short answer: sure give them a full credit.

long answer: they take their time, to setup boxes, they take their cpu time, they take time to check their stats (i hope) and they take their time to come on that forum (i hope too).

anyway, with their results, its helping the staff yes or no ? is it helping just a half ? i dont think so, its helping at 100% like any results, so based on this, i would give them a full credits FOR SURE.

later

[Fozzie]

but the vast majority are either US/Canada users or have a decent connection.

We poor sneaker netters with dial-up are a dying breed.

Why should they give a flying fig for other people if they are alright, it is the pervading ambivilence of the world we live in anyway.

Sure they can put forward the fast protein moving to slow protein scenario and then feel completely vindicated with their voting.

[GHOST]

C:\Documents and Settings\mike\My Documents\My Pictures\violinist.gif

[HansArne]

Originally posted by alpha
I can't see why so many people are voting "no", unless they are misunderstanding the proposed change (which I guess PCZ also suspects based on the post above).

I'll just repeat PCZ's explanation for further clarity.

Currently we have a total of 48 hours after the changeover to return work from the previous protein. If you return work during the second half of the 48 hours, you are only given half-credit. Returning work in the first 24 hours gives you full credit like usual.

The proposed change is that you get full credit, no matter when you upload your work during the 48 hours after the changeover. This does not suggest any kind of time-extension, so there is no reason why people would then request more time to upload after the changeover.

Does this make sense, or am I getting it wrong? If people didn't understand when they were voting, I suggest we discard the results from this poll and start another.

No. We did not misunderstand.
And if you have PC's to produce more in 24 hours than you can upload in 24 hours then you can afford a faster connection.

[tpdooley]

"Extend full credit grace period to 48hrs
You do not have permission to vote on this poll."

If everyone has permission to vote on this poll - then why am I special and locked out?

[PCZ]

tpdooley

Did you try and vote without being logged in ?

That's the only reason I can think off that would result in a message saying you didn't have permission to vote on the poll.

[alpha]

Originally posted by HansArne
And if you have PC's to produce more in 24 hours than you can upload in 24 hours then you can afford a faster connection.

It isn't always about cost. In my case, it is availability that prevents me from having broadband.

[bwkaz]

Originally posted by junky
anyway, with their results, its helping the staff yes or no ? is it helping just a half ? i dont think so, its helping at 100% like any results, Well, not really. After the changeover, you get stats (the stats server counts your uploads), but the data server throws your data away (it can only store results for one protein at a time or something like that).

IOW, after the changeover, results sent in on the old protein help at 0%. ;)

[Anteraan]

Originally posted by HansArne
No. We did not misunderstand.

It sure looks like you did, from your earlier post:


If we get 48 hours and half score the next 24, someone will ask for full credit 72 hours.

There was never a "half score the next 24" option. That was the point of PCZ's post.

For the record, I'm abstaining on this vote.

[HansArne]

It's the law of nature.
Some one will always ask for more.
If we are given 48 hours, I can guarantee that someone else will ask for 72 hours in a few months.

[tpdooley]

I've never tried to vote on this poll; nor have I voted in previous polls that also stated that I didn't have permission to vote in since I first stopped by here around Aug 2002. Logging out and logging back in does not solve the problem.

I use winxp sp1 and IE 6sp1. nav 2003. black ice. On the main screen I right click on threads with unread messages and open them in new windows. (passed on for troubleshooting purposes).

I'd vote for allowing the 48 hours of full credit only as a temporary step. We need a way of distributing the new client updates that doesn't overload the bandwidth available from the df servers and mirrors the instant the client update is released.

[PCZ]

tpdooley
What privacy setting in IE6 are you using ?

Setting high or block all cookies will prevent you from being able to vote.

[Fozzie]

I use work boxen to crunch DF onffline due to the firewall.

I sneaker net the results to my home to upload. In the UK many areas still do not have broadband and can therefore only connect to the 'Net via dial-up.

I commute to work, like may people.

The default time for updates is just on 5PM local time and therefore I cannot change over the work boxen to the new protein until the next working day. This means at minumum I have 20+ P4 2.8 GHZ running overnight.

As you can imagine I am frustrated that by the time I get these WUs home to upload it is already 24 hrs or more after the change so that all these WUs are at 0.5 credit.

Hence I asked for 48 hours full and then nothing.

If you don't ask you don't get.

For the last 2 changeovers I have been switching all clinets off 2 days before to upload all my WUs.

I just wanted a level playing field for all crunchers all over the globe irrespective of their connection.

I know i am in the majority, but in a democratic world even the small guy should be able to have their say.

[HansArne]

I can understand that.
The time for changeover here are 6PM.
But, we started with 24 hours, then 24 hours full credit and 24 hours half.
Now we want 48 hours full. It have to stop sometime.
The units we return after the changeover are worthless.
I will never vote for something that allow people to run a worthless protein longer than necessary. If we have a fast protein and then a slow one, some people will run the old one longer to get more points.

[jaydee116]

I say give 24hrs and cut it off period. Can't upload by then then it is your problem and a loss you have to deal with. We all have our handy caps, some more than others.

[tpdooley]

Originally posted by PCZ
tpdooley
What privacy setting in IE6 are you using ?

Setting high or block all cookies will prevent you from being able to vote.

I'm using ie6 sp1 with default settings.. and now with www.free-dc.org set to accept cookies on the winxp system.
I get the same results from default security settings on ie6 sp1 on win98se systems as well; and since I don't have to log in to post from either machine, I'd assume that I'm able to accept cookies from the free-dc site from either system (home or work).

I've always assumed that since I couldn't vote on any polls - nor send PMs, that I'd only been given posting rights to this forum. It seemed like an awfully small group of voters, so I mentioned my non-voting status, in case others are in the same boat and wanted to vote.

[Xelas]

Originally posted by jaydee116
I say give 24hrs and cut it off period. Can't upload by then then it is your problem and a loss you have to deal with. We all have our handy caps, some more than others.

Yep, some people sure do. "Handy caps.":bs:

This means that the playing field is tilted toward those that have broadband, and are located in the US or canada.

For the record, broadband doesn't even exist in St. Petersburg, Russia :shocked: .

And dial-up costs about $2 per hour. At about 28kbps - line quality is atrocious. And it drops every 15 minutes.

So fine. It's easy to say "we all have our handy caps (sic)" and sit smugly in front of your computer, hooked up to a nice, fat, broadband connection.

Xelas

[AZ Lynx]

Just because you live in the US doesn't mean there is affordable broadband. I live in South Carolina where any kind of broadband is $35 to $70 a month. I can't afford any of it. I pay $10 a month for dial-up. That is all I can afford since I make only about $15K a year before paying any taxes.

Just my $.02