cellarnoise2 wrote: ↑Thu Nov 19, 2020 9:05 pm
Well I like the hidden factor for competitions.
I don't like that there are not more controls in competitions.
What kind of control do you want?
cellarnoise2 wrote: ↑Thu Nov 19, 2020 9:05 pmIt should not be that hard to make sure that new participants can't jump into new teams at the last minute? Well maybe it is.
I disagree with this. These competitions between teams are supposed to help raise awareness on the Scientific work we are doing. By doing these it gives us someone to post on forums, message boards, social media, etc.. to show the teams battling it out and recruit new members. I can't count on both of my hands the number of people I've recruited to different BOINC projects just by posting/talking about these competitions on forums and getting them interested. Would be unfair to block new users (even if they're established users who may be MIA or whatever for a period of time) from joining in on the fun.
cellarnoise2 wrote: ↑Thu Nov 19, 2020 9:05 pmI don't know how to prevent individuals from buying commercial cloud work units either.
What is wrong with this? My money. I can spend it however I want. What's different than someone buying $10k worth of hardware they run 24/7 at home/work vs me buying $1000 worth of spot instances on GCP for a week? The science is getting done. Results are being processed. I can spend my money how I wish. Right? Not saying I am buying any cloud instances right now though.
cellarnoise2 wrote: ↑Thu Nov 19, 2020 9:05 pmThese kinds of items make spending time on sprints or other competitions less enjoyable. Though like I said I don't have solutions.
The enjoyable part is watching how teams react during the competition. New users recruited? Someone sneakily drop a huge bunker on the last day? So much work getting done during the competition the
project admins find out they've completed the work ahead of schedule
cellarnoise2 wrote: ↑Thu Nov 19, 2020 9:05 pmI have read that some complain about bunkering, but I don't mind that within reason. I don't think you should be able to buy commercial bunkering though.
Same as reply above. My money, I can spend it how I wish. You want to buy hardware to run it 24/7, I can buy it to run during competitions.
cellarnoise2 wrote: ↑Thu Nov 19, 2020 9:05 pmIn the end I guess I don't care that much as I do enjoy contributing to causes that I think are worthy. I was starting to get into the competition side, but it is not as interesting now knowing that there are so many ways to game the system.
Not really "gaming" the system if the work is legit. Confusing your opponent and keeping them guessing our next move (or them doing it to us) can be fun. At the same time, you don't need to worry about that per se. Just configure your client(s) to run whatever project the competition is and let it run.