A new measure of greatness ;-)
OK so I'm winding down with Boinc after 10 years, after much thought, debate and putting it off, and basically finding one excuse after another to keep going that overrides the fact that everything tells me that lack of work since Covid has meant I can not justify the cost of the electricity. Roll on Quantum computers - I think I have plenty of quantums going spare that I am not using ;-)
I love the concept behind Boinc, I love doing tiny bits of science to help science, but I also love that I can 'massage' my stats by picking and choosing projects and subprojects to maximise my various rankings. It just adds to the experience in my view. Some out there are aware that I am a bit of a spreadsheet nerd with regard to Boinc, and have persuaded Bok to introduce a couple of Milestones in the past. Anyway it's been interesting to watch my various Free-DC stats change as I gradually focus on fewer and fewer milestones that I want to achieve.
So it set me thinking. I have always maintained in my spreadsheets two numbers in particular that are not available in Free-DCs excellent summaries. The first is the "best count I have ever achieved for each MegaMilestone", and the second is the total of all of these best counts. Now I am not suggesting that these be stored, however as my Squarepants dwindles, primarily due to a lack of Clanks and SubClanks, which in turn lead to less MiRBs, SubMiRBs and Maxwells, I realised that an ex-Clank (and related) total could in fact be a universally rankable measure of any Boincer. With this number you could compare yourself in Free-DC terms with anyone and everyone that has ever Boinced, whether or not you were actively Boincing. It would be a good measure of just how big a contributor you have been over the years and it would live on, in that even if you have long stopped Boincing, for whatever reasons, you could pop back into Free-DC and have a quick look and be able to say "Ooh! I am still in the top 10000!" or whatever.
So here's what I am suggesting. A new ranked MegaMilestone, which is essentially Squarepants assuming both Clanks and SubClanks were 0, and taking into account the effects of them being 0. Simple! ;-)
In short this number is the number of Squarepants any Boincer would have in a month's time if she/he stopped Boincing today1 (obviously you can't allow for the likes of Ralph sitting on work that's been done for a couple of months ;-)
This number puts everyone past and present on a more or less level playing field. and could (I would argue should) be Ranked to make it significantly more meaningful. It should not itself be added to Squarepants, nor should it contribute in any way to MiRBs, TeraMiRBs and Maxwells in my opinion
I can hear some of you saying that Total Credits is as good a Rankable indicator of everyone's contribution and is all we need, and it is already there. To a large extent - that is of course, true. However, there have been the odd times where a Project has 'skewed' the entirety of stats with its 'generosity' and it is possible this could happen again, but this is to some extent, smoothed by this new suggested MM and more importantly by its Ranking.
As for a name for it, as I wrote this I thought how it Levels, Smooths, hints towards historic ranking, and how slightly odd it would be, sat there enigmatically changing relatively little compared to Squarepants, and it seems to me I would called it Enigma.
So what do you think?
Notes
1 In theory the number should take into account the effect of removing Clanks and SubClanks on other MMs (effectively taking off zero, one or two off each of MiRBs, TeraMiRBs and Maxwells as appropriate), and then taking into account if that decrease in MiRBs, TeraMiRBs and Maxwells would in itself further affect the levels of MiRBs, TeraMiRBs and Maxwells! This just seems to be going too far. I would happily accept the argument that the total possible effect of removing them and their effect on each other could only ever affect the score by between 0 and 12 so if it couldn't be readily done, it wouldn't be the end of the world - the most dramatic effect would be that your score in fact dropped by a very few, a month after finally stopping Boincing.
A True Measure of Greatness ;-)
So, after a couple of months away, after the worst of the withdrawal symptoms have dissipated, I just want to thank Bok for sorting out Legacy and it's associated Rank. I love this because since I last looked all of my activity-dependant MegaMilestones have fallen away, and I have plummeted in many of the rankings, including 289 places in the good old total Cobblestones rank! I know! That's a shedload! :( There was a time when this would have upset me greatly, but now, thanks to Bok, I have my Legacy, which has held fast at 3007 despite doing virtually no Boincing and while everything else slipped away. I have dropped one place from 40th to 41st in the Legacy Ranking which i like to think of as the "Greatest Ever Boincers in History" Ranking :D. Yes I know there might just be one or two out there who might disagree with that - but that will not stop me liking to think it! ;-)
The funny thing is, that when I originally came up with the Legacy idea, I really wanted Bok to allow us all to see the Legacy Ranking table, so we could see who was ahead of us, who had just overtaken us, or is about to overtake us, or who we could overtake if we put our mind and a little bit more effort into it, all of which would be another incentive to keep on Boincing for "just another week or two". So I need to thank him yet again for not doing this, and allowing me to go through withdrawal without too much difficulty.
Some of you might just read this and think "That fonker is just trying to use reverse psychology on Bok to get what he wants!". We may never know for sure, but I don't think that's the case. :D