Member Allocation into Leagues

[Rhodan71]

Hi Tim,

thank you for your answer about Sprints points. It's crystal clear.
My concern is also about Marathon points: for instance, if I take ODLK project, at this time I get 348,557 points (user Rhodan71 in 4th position) https://formula-boinc.org/marathons.py? ... e=2&prj=15
But this is shown on League 3 rankings.
Now I am in League 2, but no ranking exists for ODLK project although I have been crunching on this project for a while and new points continue to accumulate on League 3 ranking, not League 2. I'm not visible on League 2 for this project.
So how can I compete against League 2 competitors while my points still accumulate on League 3 ranking? There's something I don't understand.

Thanks.

Alain

[UBT - Timbo]

Hi Tim,

thank you for your answer about Sprints points. It's crystal clear.
My concern is also about Marathon points: for instance, if I take ODLK project, at this time I get 348,557 points (user Rhodan71 in 4th position) https://formula-boinc.org/marathons.py? ... e=2&prj=15
But this is shown on League 3 rankings.
Now I am in League 2, but no ranking exists for ODLK project although I have been crunching on this project for a while and new points continue to accumulate on League 3 ranking, not League 2. I'm not visible on League 2 for this project.
So how can I compete against League 2 competitors while my points still accumulate on League 3 ranking? There's something I don't understand.

Thanks.

Alain

Hi Alain

As I mentioned before, I do not know the actual "mechanism" by which the League tables for Teams and Members is calculated.

Plus it will take a day or so, for the stats to be collected from each of the projects that FB supports, as some projects do not update the "export stats" XML file regularly, at the same time or even on the same day.

And as we've never done such a Promotion / Demotion process before, this is going to be something that everyone needs to be patient with, and as such it needs to be monitored over the next week or two and see if there are any issues that arise.

I've already found ONE issue here:

https://formula-boinc.org/index.py?stan ... n=2&race=2

So, there should be 12 Teams listed in the Teams League 2 Overall Standings table (on the left) - but only 4 are shown !!

But we'll see what happens over the next 24/48 hours and it should update itself. (fingers crossed !!)

regards
Tim

[UBT - Timbo]

As I mentioned before, I do not know the actual "mechanism" by which the League tables for Teams and Members is calculated.

Plus it will take a day or so, for the stats to be collected from each of the projects that FB supports, as some projects do not update the "export stats" XML file regularly, at the same time or even on the same day.

And as we've never done such a Promotion / Demotion process before, this is going to be something that everyone needs to be patient with, and as such it needs to be monitored over the next week or two and see if there are any issues that arise.

I've already found ONE issue here:

https://formula-boinc.org/index.py?stan ... n=2&race=2

So, there should be 12 Teams listed in the Teams League 2 Overall Standings table (on the left) - but only 4 are shown !!

But we'll see what happens over the next 24/48 hours and it should update itself. (fingers crossed !!)

regards
Tim

Hi all

I sent an email to Sebastien and although he is on holiday, he replied to me !

For the Team League table issue mentioned above, Sebastien is going to check this out at some point this weekend and hopefully it is an easy fix and ALL the teams should then be correctly listed in the Overall Standings table for each League.

regards
Tim

[UBT - Timbo]

Hi all

I sent an email to Sebastien and although he is on holiday, he replied to me !

For the Team League table issue mentioned above, Sebastien is going to check this out at some point this weekend and hopefully it is an easy fix and ALL the teams should then be correctly listed in the Overall Standings table for each League.

regards
Tim

Hi all

A quick follow up.

There was a minor issue with the coding when Teams were promoted/demoted but Sebastien has now made the change to correct the issue that they were not being listed over the last few days.

So, the Team Leagues now show the correct Teams in the Overall Standings table for all 3 Leagues.

FYI: FB points for the Marathon are calculated based on the CHANGE in BOINC credits since the beginning of the year when compared Team by Team in the SAME League. So Marathon points earned from a different League are NOT carried over as the FB points shown in the League tables are freshly calculated on a daily basis since the start of the year.

So if there is a change in the Leagues, then the Marathon FB points and the League position is based on the credits earned by everyone in the SAME League each day.

BUT Sprint FB points are awarded per Sprint and hence those points ARE carried over, as it would be unfair and difficult to re-calculate *all* the Sprint results and the FB points awarded.

regards
Tim

[JeromeC]

Hi Tim

So promotion / demotion is only based on the sprint effort and marathon contribution is just ignored ? isn't this a bit strange ?

[UBT - Timbo]

Hi Tim

So promotion / demotion is only based on the sprint effort and marathon contribution is just ignored ? isn't this a bit strange ?

Hi

Thanks for your feedback.

There are lots of ways in which I could have calculated the promotions and demotions.

One could just base it on the total number of COMBINED Marathon and Sprint FB points, or on BOINC credits.

And for each of the above, it is a question of collating stats from the 26 projects in the Marathon, from 31 Teams and from 98 members spread across 3 Leagues. And the Marathon stats can change almost hourly, so to calculate such stats is quite hard as it will take a good hour or two to do this.

And of course, these would need to be combined with the Sprint stats somehow, if one is to try and gauge which League each member should be in so that a complete picture could be established.

But then I would also need to calculate which of the BOINC credits earned were on Sprints and which were on the Marathon so both Teams and Member stats would need to show non-Sprint credits (which make up one part of the Marathon credits) and credits earned on Sprints (which makes up the other half).

All of a sudden, this becomes a very much more difficult issue to resolve, using the stats.

And it leaves out ONE THING - which is how pro-active the Team or Member is, within the entire FB Challenge.

--------------------

Also, the FB Annual Challenge is spread over both Marathon and Sprint events and someone could just be crunching just a couple of Marathon projects to earn BOINC credits (and therefore FB points) but on less popular projects it is easy to earn lots of FB points but without earning many BOINC credits.

So, that would unbalance the calculations and of course it might mean that a Team or Member could just run ONE project all through the year and earn massive credits, but that wouldn't really mean they are here to support lots of projects (which is why the Sprints were held, so that lots of projects could benefit from the combined capability from every FB Team and Member).

--------------------

So, after much consideration, I thought that the best way would to be to only use the Sprint stats and specifically the BOINC credits earned (and not the FB points awarded), as this shows that these Teams and Members are being pro-active and they are checking in every few days on the website to see which project has been chosen and how best they can use their hosts to benefit the projects chosen.

And most of the FB Members are actually supporting lots of projects so, everyone has a chance to do well based on their BOINC credits.

And this is much simpler to calculate and so, that was how it was determined and each Team and each Member is in a League where their host capability (ie the number of CPUs/GPUs they have access to) is about the same (as far as I can tell from the BOINC credits stats)

So, those Teams and Members with larger "farms" and high BOINC credit earning potential are in a higher league (IMHO), compared to those who have fewer and/or older CPUs/GPUs.

And as a result, I think the new League composition is more balanced across each League which is then fairer to those taking part in the Sprints (as there are more possibilities to earn FB points).

Hope that helps?

regards
Tim

[JeromeC]

Answer validated

[UBT - Timbo]

Answer validated

Hi

Thank you.

I am sorry it was such a LOOOOONG answer, but I wanted to give my reasons so that *everyone* could read this as many might be interested (as you were) and I was trying to give some insight into how my thought processes worked.

And I was really thinking across multiple issues of both complexity of combining stats as well as human interaction with FB, which is very important and without "humans", of course, there would be NO FB, NO BOINC and NO RESEARCH by the projects !

regards
Tim

[JeromeC]

Again, I fully understand your explanation and I agree one need to find a pragmatical and feasible solution for the promotion/demotion topic, and I don't criticize your solution in any way, we are all more than happy for you to be there and make the FB alive !

Just one remark though (mainly for future generations) : the initial idea of Formula Boinc is to give an equivalent importance to small and big projects, regardless the number of boinc credits, and therefore to encourage crunchers to participate to small projects.

I honestly don't see how 3 days of intense crunch "once in a while" on a small project (that can stand it) could make a "big difference" for that small project production. IMHO what makes a difference for any project is the marathon.

I think Sprint were created to spice up the participation, because marathon can be so boring because they never end (one year), and sprint are funny, so to please the crunchers that participate to FB, not necessarily the projets.

So if we consider that "the fun part is the sprints", your solution is perfectly valid

[UBT - Timbo]

Again, I fully understand your explanation and I agree one need to find a pragmatical and feasible solution for the promotion/demotion topic, and I don't criticize your solution in any way, we are all more than happy for you to be there and make the FB alive !

Hi

Thanks for your kind appreciation

Just one remark though (mainly for future generations) : the initial idea of Formula Boinc is to give an equivalent importance to small and big projects, regardless the number of boinc credits, and therefore to encourage crunchers to participate to small projects.

I honestly don't see how 3 days of intense crunch "once in a while" on a small project (that can stand it) could make a "big difference" for that small project production. IMHO what makes a difference for any project is the marathon.

I think Sprint were created to spice up the participation, because marathon can be so boring because they never end (one year), and sprint are funny, so to please the crunchers that participate to FB, not necessarily the projects.

So if we consider that "the fun part is the sprints", your solution is perfectly valid

Agreed - and as I mentioned before, the Sprints are a perfect way for Teams and Members to show how "pro-active"" they are, in getting involved with FB.

And as a result this helps to build up interactivity between the FB members and the projects, so we all can contribute some processing power and help them find the results they need, quicker. So, all FB Teams and Members can feel that their contributions are worthwhile as we are all working together to generate significant assistance for projects, no matter how big or small the projects are.

And I know from the feedback I get from project admins (post-Sprint) that they all see an increase in demand for tasks and an increase in completed work being returned and validated, over the Sprint weekend.

regards
Tim