Future of the Formula BOINC

[UBT - Timbo]

Of course the question should be asked: Do these teams actually know about each Sprint? Or are the credits shown, just based on a teams "regular" support for each project?

Maybe we need to send a request to each team BEFORE each Sprint to see if they WANT to be included?

Those teams that do NOT respond can then be excluded? And then we can have a "real" competition between fully active teams.

regards
Tim

It's an idea I've had before, and had posted about before, but I think it would be fairly difficult to contact most league 3 teams. I had looked into it before since I thought a grassroots effort to make sure teams were aware of what they're competing in(and maybe prompt them to actually compete) would be a good idea, but half the team websites listed for those teams go nowhere, and the ones that do go somewhere often have very limited or no information. Gay USA for example goes to a Facebook page where there hasn't been a post since SETI was cancelled, and the last post before that is somebody asking if it's even the correct team they thought they were crunching under.

"seti-teamartbell.com is parked free, courtesy of GoDaddy.com." etc. You could contact one of their top producers on a project website and hope to connect, I suppose, but it seemed pretty daunting to me.

Hi

Thanks for your input.

Firstly, there is nothing to stop FB creating a "team founders" section on this forum...to which any team founder could be admitted. Then it would be easy to get feedback and pass on messages to each active and inactive team.

Also, one can connect to team founders on each of the projects website, via PM...so that is also possible. And finally, if is also possible to request team founders to provide an email address that can be used....

So, making (and continuing) contact is easy. Just takes a week or two to set it up.

Trimming the leagues of teams that don't want to compete would be beneficial. No need to ban them, just trim them out, and if they want added in the following year add them back in. Even if you ended up with only 15 teams or something overall, the current standings are confusing because of how many teams that are just in there by default. Once you figure out what teams want to compete it would make the league reorganization make more sense. I don't think most league 2 and 3 teams are even trying to compete(though Crunching@EVGA and OCN are killing it in league 2 this year - shout out to them!), a single person with a couple 5950x machines each paired with a 3070 could probably win League 3 at this point. That seems against the spirit of the competition if a single person could win an entire league just by having a decent PC or two and running it all year?

I'm not sure if Aurum is still around these forums but his team In Science We Trust probably should have been added to this year's competition as well. Maybe it can be added next year if they're still interested in competing? The shortage in teams wanting to compete seems to be the biggest hurdle currently.

I would not consider banning any team - simply excluding them from specific Sprints, if they are not willing to be included...a bit like entering a horse or an F1 car in a race and then not starting it...you simply get NULL points !

And it would be nice to open up FB so that ANY team can join in, without registering at the beginning of the year, as I think that just stifles interest.

So, more rapid promotion and demotion and perhaps more teams joining throughout the year, would increase competition and generate more interest?

regards
Tim

[Icecold-TAAT]

Hi

Thanks for your input.

Firstly, there is nothing to stop FB creating a "team founders" section on this forum...to which any team founder could be admitted. Then it would be easy to get feedback and pass on messages to each active and inactive team.

Also, one can connect to team founders on each of the projects website, via PM...so that is also possible. And finally, if is also possible to request team founders to provide an email address that can be used....

So, making (and continuing) contact is easy. Just takes a week or two to set it up.

Hi Tim,

For new teams that sign up I definitely agree it would be easy enough to communicate. I think there are a bunch of barely operating teams that are currently listed in FB though that would be difficult to contact. Using Gay USA as an example again, this is the team founder on every project i checked - https://stats.free-dc.org/userbycpid/st ... 867ae048dc < 6 million points total, most from SETI which isn't an active project. I would be surprised if you can make contact with the team founder of a lot of the smaller teams in league 3 especially.

[marsinp]

Private message sent today 14/11/21 19:51 UTC
To TIM and Icecold.

[UBT - Timbo]

Hi Tim,

For new teams that sign up I definitely agree it would be easy enough to communicate. I think there are a bunch of barely operating teams that are currently listed in FB though that would be difficult to contact. Using Gay USA as an example again, this is the team founder on every project i checked - https://stats.free-dc.org/userbycpid/st ... 867ae048dc < 6 million points total, most from SETI which isn't an active project. I would be surprised if you can make contact with the team founder of a lot of the smaller teams in league 3 especially.

Hi

Thanks for your input (again )

I am pretty sure that if a little bit of effort is made that we can at least "try" to find the founders of each team, where the project is actually represented in the FB Marathon/Sprint. (Currently 28 teams in the Marathon and just 26 of these are in the Sprints).

So, that's just 28 "founders" (assuming the same person is the founder on every project...). But life is not going to be that simple as there could be multiple founders on different projects for the same team - so a little "digging" is required.

And for this little effort, we might find that some teams reignite their interest.

However, there is no point in doing anything until Sebastien decides if FB is continuing (in 2022) and if any changes will take place, based perhaps on suggestions made on this forum....

regards
Tim

[Icecold-TAAT]

However, there is no point in doing anything until Sebastien decides if FB is continuing (in 2022) and if any changes will take place, based perhaps on suggestions made on this forum....

regards
Tim

As an outside observer it kind of looks like it's dependent on whether you want to take the reigns and run the competition/decide the parameters, but it's always possible I'm misreading it

[UBT - Timbo]

As an outside observer it kind of looks like it's dependent on whether you want to take the reigns and run the competition/decide the parameters, but it's always possible I'm misreading it

Hi

I like to think I'm just acting as an instigator...trying to generate members "thought processes" about how FB can be improved...as without innovation and a desire to tweak things, then the entire Challenge will just stagnate if people lose interest.

And TBH, this forum has been pretty "quiet" for some time...as no-one was "involving" members in any of the processes.

It would be great though, if a number of members could get together to put forward a concise and thought-through plan to Sebastien about how FB could be "re-invigorated"...

regards
Tim

[Cougarpelardou]

To start ...

We can take the example of the Tour de France. Created in 1903 and still popular in 2021 despite the Covid19.

An individual and team yellow jersey classification. I would say a sort of marathon on all projects like today.
A green jersey classification, by team, because his teammates launch the sprinter who wins the stage, linked to the classification during sprints like today or For example, by limiting to GPU applications

A classification of the Mountain, White Jersey with red polka dots, individual, linked to the arrivals during the big passes. We would have to find what this classification could correspond to. For example, by limiting to CPU applications

And for beginner professional cyclists, the hopes, there is the classification of the white jersey.

My suggestion aims to diversify the podiums to avoid that it is always the same teams in the first 5 places ...
I agree with the idea that teams have to register once a year

PS I speak for myself, not for my team.

Sorry for my English.

[marsinp]

To start ...

We can take the example of the Tour de France. Created in 1903 and still popular in 2021 despite the Covid19.

An individual and team yellow jersey classification. I would say a sort of marathon on all projects like today.
A green jersey classification, by team, because his teammates launch the sprinter who wins the stage, linked to the classification during sprints like today or For example, by limiting to GPU applications

A classification of the Mountain, White Jersey with red polka dots, individual, linked to the arrivals during the big passes. We would have to find what this classification could correspond to. For example, by limiting to CPU applications

And for beginner professional cyclists, the hopes, there is the classification of the white jersey.

My suggestion aims to diversify the podiums to avoid that it is always the same teams in the first 5 places ...
I agree with the idea that teams have to register once a year

PS I speak for myself, not for my team.

Sorry for my English.

Hello, Cougar
I like your way of thinking. Also your comparaison with "Tour de France"
Very nice. I like it.
To come back on the subject, in fact, your proposal is not bad, but, I think very difficult to implemente.
Good idea, but it need a lot of work, and ressources. If SEB, agree, it will say , he will need to delegate a lot.
I know him and his "baby". Thank you for all the work he privided, But I am not sure he will so much delegate.
I understand it.
About your english, , I am also not EN, but french, like you !!!
Kind regards

[UBT - Timbo]

Hi both

I'm liking the ideas...

Maybe the "normal" FB continues, but maybe with some little (or big) changes...

And maybe a "Tour de BOINC" could take place, either during the "summer break" of F1, or maybe during one period of time (say over a week or two?).

It could be structured slightly differently...maybe with some adaptions...to make people happier?

And of course, next year, there is also Winter Olympics (4 Feb - 20 Feb 2022), and World Cup (21 Nov - 18 Dec 2022) - so maybe these dates could be used for mini-Challenges?

regards
Tim

[davidBAM1]

Personally, I think there is very little wrong with FB - it is a tremendous year-long challenge.

I assume the actual scoring is taken from Formula One and that, in my opinion, is the main problem where FB is concerned. I think any team scoring project points during a sprint should get a point so for a league with N teams, allocate N for first, N-1 for second ... down to 1pt for last place. Add to that extra points to reflect the percentage of the total points for sprint scored by each team - this should keep teams in the sprint until the end and will discourage team-swapping.

The same scoring could be used on Marathons, perhaps

If you want to minimise bunkering, why give 24hr notice of the project? Just announce it at the start time. Incidentally, each project would have to run the sprint if you wanted to count only work downloaded after the start so that is a non-starter. PrimeGrid can run a challenge on that basis only because they run the challenge themselves.

Ideally, different sprint projects should be chosen for each League to ease the 'hit' on the project

Lastly, forget the voting, make the Sprint project as random as possible (after the Committee has ruled out non-viable projects)