Kosmaj is a problematic guy but I understand him due to his background...lolQuote:
Originally Posted by paleseptember
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Kosmaj is a problematic guy but I understand him due to his background...lolQuote:
Originally Posted by paleseptember
As is Mr. Barnes, who has been stirring the pot since he first joined mersenneforum and RPS, and now is using NPLB to intrude on other project areas of searching.Quote:
Originally Posted by em99010pepe
Carlos, you have been around the prime searching projects long enough to know that poaching numbers is frowned upon.
James,
Please read back the 15k Search forum. I don't know which one is worst....
Carlos
I will re-read the forum in question .... later, but IIRC the blow-up there was primarily caused by Shane questioning/accusing George (amoungst others) motives, coding ability, integarity. Shane also was demanding people search only his approved K's, in the ranges he specified and with his approved software programs(?).
When the split came it was caused by Shane's actions that caused him to be censored on the forum and close to being banned from the forum. Most, if not all the k's in question were being searched or reserved by those that chose to move to the new RPS project/forum. It did not make much sense to leave them with a project that Shane was all but abandoning and would soon be shutdown and without a forum to coordinate the search.
Note that RPS was not formed until it became appearent that Shane would not reach an agreement to allow others to run the 15k project after he was banned from the forum.
The point being, 15k was all but dead when the k values were moved to RPS. The difference with NPLB is the RPS project is very much alive and well, therefore NPLB poached the numbers form RPS. Frankly I cannot see why mersenneforums admins allows NPLB to continue to exist on thier forum having banned those that were poaching numbers from GIMPS.
Beyond,
Frankly since you have searched for both projects, I'm a little disappointed that you only took the time to get RPS's side of the story. I've had several who have contacted me to get our side who could see where we are coming from. RPS has clearly poisoined many against NPLB by PM's and Emails due to our 4th drive. First let's get into a definition and then we'll get on to further explanations of the situation from our perspective.
Definitions of poaching from dictionary.com:
The illegal practice of trespassing on another's property to hunt or steal game without the landowner's permission.
Any encroachment on another's property, rights, ideas, or the like.
In order for one to poach something, one must be infringing upon someone's property or rights. So, if you say that NPLB has poached RPS's k's with our current drive, it implies that RPS owns or has the sole rights to such k's. NPLB begs to differ. RPS only coordinates efforts on those k's and rightfully expects people to coordinate with them. NPLB did such coordination by reserving k's that were not previously reserved, most that had not been touched in nearly TWO years! Hence our interest in them. One of our subprojects as stated in our 'come join us' thread is:
"Testing of other k-values outside the original scope of the project that are significantly behind their neighbors as to how far they have been searched. If necessary, coordination with existing reservations at other sites will be done ahead of time."
That is exactly what our 4th drive entailed.
In the math world, no one can claim that he owns or has rights to certain areas of math reasearch and that no one else can be involved in that area without letting him know. People would laugh at such an attempt at ownership. It's the same in the prime world, which by definition is a subset of the math world. No one person or project can claim that they own any k, group of k's, etc. Individuals within the projects can reserve k's and n-ranges and it would be considered by all a quasi-ownership but for entire projects to claim that they own ranges of k is nonsense. Let me give an example of how ridiculous this could become:
"I hereby claim from this point forward that NPLB has the rights to ALL Riesel k>300. I don't mean just k=300-1001, I mean ALL Riesel k's > 300. Therefore anyone who searches above k>300 must coordinate and state their intent through us or we will be highly offended and start flame wars and trashing the person or project who is doing such nefarious activities."
Doesn't that sound just a litte stupid? I think so.
Even k=1, 3, 27, and 121 are not owned by anyone. There are just projects that coordinate efforts on such k's. If I desired to search k=1 starting now for n>50M, then it is my peragotive to do so and GIMPS should not be offended. I would expect them to be annoyed if I did not state my intent ahead of time in order to avoid double-work so of course I would tell them what I am up to if I desired to do such a thing.
NPLB made sure the k's were not reserved by any individuals or drives, stated our intent in advance, and began our drive. Actually, it is RPS who poached us. We rightfully reserved the k's and then they came up behind us and reserved 9 of them themselves calling our reservation 'null and void'. They even found 2 reportable primes, essentially 'stealing' from our effort. If you look at it a different way, we should have said nothing in advance. We would have been better off not 'reserving' them at all. Pretty sad if you ask me.
We no more 'poached' the k's than if you came over to NPLB and said, I'm going to search k=300-1001 for n=1M-2M. Would we be offended if you made such a reservation, sieved them yourself, even coordinated them through RPS and even reported the primes as RPS? Not a chance! NPLB does not own k=300-1001 any more than PrimeSearch did nor any more than RPS owns k<300.
Can you understand where we are coming from now?
When one states a reservation of a k-value or n-range of a group of k-values, then one could be said to 'temporarily' "own" such k's or ranges, but only to the extent that such individual or drive posts regular statuses. Such reservations should always be respected. NPLB has never intentionally searched k's reserved by anyone else.
THAT is why the super-mods at Mersenneforum have not taken action against NPLB. It has done nothing wrong. I will say this: They were considering action against Kosmaj for his continual deletion of reasonable and non-combative posts. Such actions are uncalled for. A complete thread of reasonable posts that he deleted is at http://www.mersenneforum.org/showthread.php?t=10594. Thankfully he appears to have since stopped doing any such deletion.
But enough of the defense. People here and everywhere in the prime search world are sick of RPS and NPLB bickering over such petty issues. I have decided that this is the last post that I will make in our defense. I only offer such defense because our project is still in its infancy.
NPLB has 3 great "non-controversial" drives. :) Despite the controversy, I would like people to take a look at our 1st and 3rd drives, both for k=300-1001. Our come join us page is at http://www.mersenneforum.org/showthread.php?t=9887. Our goal is to get those drives up to n=600K by year end. We also have individual-k reservations available for k=300-400 for n=600K-1M.
NPLB has a great vision for the future of primes. It can be found at http://www.mersenneforum.org/showthread.php?t=10654 but I'll post it here because it is my hope that people can finally get past this petty in-project fighting and help us realize this great vision:
I've read that if people are talking about you, whether it be good or bad, you must be accomplishing something or they would just ignore you. So controversy or not, NPLB must be doing something! lolQuote:
I have a vision for the future of primes. My vision is similar to that of the great famed mathematian, Carl Friedrich Gauss, who painstakingly manually calculated all primes < 300 million in his lifetime in order to come up with some of the greatest theories and proofs in the history of mathematics. That vision is to find and publish full, complete, and accurate lists of all Riesel and Proth primes within specific ranges. But it goes much further than that, I also hope to advance mathematics for all future generations.
NPLB is about that vision. Our aim for this project is to find all Riesel and Proth primes within a large swath of area bounded by relatively low values of k and relatively high values of n. By doing this, it is our hope that not only will future generations of mathematicians be able to predict quite accurately where a prime is most likely to occur, they will be able to predict EXACTLY where a prime is going to occur.
It is a grand effort and we must not forget the vision. In order for the vision to be realized, we must be diligent. There will be others who will try to throw us off of the vision. There will be projects and individuals who will attempt to thwart our efforts by claiming that certain areas of primes are theirs despite no recent efforts in those areas. There will be those that say they will search ranges and then never report where they are at on them and hence leave holes of apparently unsearched ranges behind. There will be those that will attempt to find big primes before us. There will be others who will become upset when we try to push them towards this greater vision.
Despite what others will do, I believe that projects can work together to accomplish the greater good for the future by working together in harmony to accomplish something great for the betterment of primes and math in general. Therefore, I ask that those who will attempt to undermine our efforts to come forth and work with us instead of against us. We claim no more ownership of this quest than anyone else. We only aim to set goals to accomplish this vision and nothing more.
Please join us. It is a noble quest for the future of primes, mathematicians, and non-mathematically minded hobbyists alike.
That is all for now. I hope that more Free-DC people will join us in the future now that OGR is winding down (or done; haven't heard in the last couple of days). We have plenty of non-controversial efforts to go around. :)
Gary Barnes
NPLB project admin
For as long as I have been searching for primes (since 1999) and probably much longer there has always been a "Gentlemens's Agreement" to not intrude into other projects/peoples searches. But there has always been a few outcasts/interlopers that refuse to recognize this agreement, Benson comes to mind.
By your definition/thinking all k's are up for grabs and it becomes a free for all, which opens up some interesting prospects. :)
Maybe asking for permission rather than just saying "we are reserving" , or "reserving" a smaller amount of k's would have made a difference in RPS's response, who knows. As is, it puts both projects in a bad light and may effect participation down the road.
* special note to all Free-DC'ers, sorry for hijacking the thread .... and this is my last post on the subject.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Beyond
Yes, you are correct. It put both projects in a bad light. We have no intention of doing it on such a large scale again. Perhaps as you said, 1-2 k's, which we have done with little problem in the past, but that's all. I suppose it has been a bad learning experience.
It doesn't become a free for all if people announce their intentions ahead of time and don't search k's that are specifically reserved. That is what Benson has done. I hope people can tell the difference.
The k>300 part of our project has great merit in its own right and doesn't create controversy. I hope others here can see that.
Thanks to all Free-DC'ers who have previously helped us with the non-controversial part of our project! :)
Gary
I may continue to support NPLB, RPS, 15k but not any efforts that intrude on others. Most of my efforts will go toward my own side projects for now.
you are both right.
:stupid: (Since we don't seem to have a "good post" avatar. And since Death is from the Ukraine, and probably not a native English speaker, I'd like to say that the smiley is NOT meant to be insulting, just humorous.)Quote:
Originally Posted by Death