| Index | Recent Threads | Unanswered Threads | Who's Active | Guidelines | Search |
 |
World Community Grid Forums
Category: Support
Forum: Suggestions / Feedback
Thread: Why are badges based on time rather than work done? |
| No member browsing this thread |
|
Thread Status: Active Total posts in this thread: 37
|
|
| Author |
|
|
Michael Goetz
Cruncher United States Joined: Dec 11, 2017 Post Count: 35 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
|
Hi everyone!
----------------------------------------I'm one of the administrators of another BOINC project, which I won't mention because I don't feel it's appropriate to "advertise the competition", so to speak. While the purist in me would like to believe that everyone running my project is doing it purely for the science, in reality a very large percentage of participants do so for other reasons: for credit, for badges, to participate in challenges, etc., all of which have nothing to do with the science I'm doing. And that's fine with me; what's important is that the work gets done. Why people choose to participate is secondary. We do lots of things to make participation more enjoyable, and that, in turn, entices people to participate more. We benefit, and the participants are happy and get a sense of accomplishment. Like WCG, we have badges too. Lots of them. Badges by themselves are a large incentive for many people. Which brings me to my question: Why base the badges on computation time? Doing this is an incentive for people to run their slowest, least power efficient devices at WCG instead of their new fast, state of the art computers. It seems to me that's the exact opposite of what the administrators would want. Assume, for example, I want to get badges at two different projects: WCG and project X. Project X bases its badges on credit. WCG bases its badges on time. Further assume I have two devices: A state of the art desktop monster, and a $50 Android tablet. The most efficient way to get badges from both projects is to run the tablet on WCG and the desktop on Project X. I'll get the WCG badge after 14 core-days, no matter how fast the CPU is. But on Project X, I'll get the badge several times faster on the Coffee Lake than on the Armv7. So WCG runs on the tablet, while Project X runs on the big desktop. That's great for Project X. Not so much for WCG. Furthermore, a certain number of participants will regularly upgrade their computers so they have the fastest CPUs and GPUs just so they can get credits faster, get badges faster, and do better in the challenges. My project benefits greatly from this behavior. I've got lots of Kaby Lake systems and loads of GTX 1080 GPUs participating -- many bought specifically for computing at my project. There isn't as much of an incentive at WCG to go to those extreme lengths, because you're effective rewarding participation rather than productivity. Every other BOINC project that I'm aware of bases their badges on work done, i.e., BOINC credit or Cobblestones. (Some projects also have "member since" badges which are based on calendar time, but that's not relevant to this question.) Using time as the basis for your badge system appears to put WCG at a competitive disadvantage. Is there some advantage of using time that I'm overlooking? P.S. I'm sure none of this is news to the WCG administrators. I'm simply curious what the reasoning is for basing the badges on time. I suspect I'm overlooking something significant. [Edit 1 times, last edit by Michael Goetz at Dec 15, 2017 5:13:06 PM] |
||
|
|
PecosRiverM
Veteran Cruncher The Great State of Texas Joined: Apr 27, 2007 Post Count: 1052 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
|
I would think it's to allow even the smallest to get badges. No matter how much you have to donate be it 1 system (dual core 1.5 ghz) or a whole server room from a Fortune 500 company. Granted the more systems the faster your badges.
----------------------------------------   |
||
|
|
adriverhoef
Master Cruncher The Netherlands Joined: Apr 3, 2009 Post Count: 1985 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
|
Trying to bring some aspects out into the open …
----------------------------------------Why base the badges on computation time? Doing this is an incentive for people to run their slowest, least power efficient devices at WCG instead of their new fast, state of the art computers. It seems to me that's the exact opposite of what the administrators would want. Slow devices come with less cores nowadays, generally speaking, so in the end they don't count for much time. Slow devices also often don't have the best of cooling, so you can't let them blast away at 100% when you compare them to fast computers with better cooling support which you can easily have running at 100% 24/7.(At WCG) you're effective rewarding participation rather than productivity. Nothing wrong with that, isn't it?Is there some advantage of using time that I'm overlooking? If you don't care about badges, there are also points awarded at WCG that are put into a ranking. If you're more interested in the number of results that you return, at WCG there's a ranking for that, too. If you don't care at all about badges, results nor points, that's also accepted at WCG, nobody is discriminated.[Edit 1 times, last edit by adriverhoef at Dec 15, 2017 8:05:08 PM] |
||
|
|
Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Welcome to the WCG Forums, Michael Goetz
 We hope you will like it here and contribute to our pleasant atmosphere Even the slow ones think they can make a difference making friends and communicating along the way - while striving for high post counts   |
||
|
|
Michael Goetz
Cruncher United States Joined: Dec 11, 2017 Post Count: 35 Status: Offline Project Badges:
|
(At WCG) you're effective rewarding participation rather than productivity. Nothing wrong with that, isn't it?Yeah, there is something wrong with that. It gives participants an incentive to put their slow hardware on WCG and their fast hardware elsewhere. I struggle to imagine a business plan where that would be considered a "goal". Don't get me wrong -- I'm all for "everyone gets something". You certainly want the most participation possible, including low power, old, and slow devices. Every bit helps! But you probably don't want an incentive structure that makes it desirable to put your fastest computers someplace other than here. And that is exactly what's happening here: Real life: Mostly, my computers are 24/7 on my BOINC project, ("Project X"). However, in a brief moment of insanity, I decided to get as many badges as possible across as many projects as possible. Being the crazy competitive analytical type that I am, I created a spreadsheet of all the BOINC projects where I could get more badges, what types of apps they could run, and prioritized them as to how to best go about earning those badges. WCG is running on my $50 2 year old Amazon Fire tablet. It's got 4 cores, so it can do 96 core-hours of crunching each day. The three WCG projects that can run on Android will be completely done on that tablet, because it doesn't matter how slow it is as long as it puts in the hours. The two desktops and three laptops (a Kaby Lake, two Haswells, and two first-gen i3's) will do everything else. There can be no denying that this reward system is hurting WCG in this example. If the badges were not based on time, I'd be running those three WCG apps on the big computers instead of the tablet. [Edit 1 times, last edit by Michael Goetz at Dec 15, 2017 8:49:50 PM] |
||
|
|
Michael Goetz
Cruncher United States Joined: Dec 11, 2017 Post Count: 35 Status: Offline Project Badges:
|
- while striving for high post counts I agree completely. I'm up to 9711 on my forums.  (I've got a long ways to go here!) |
|||
|
||||
|
Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Whauw!
 Nice to meet you Michael Goetz - I realize I have a head start, but your other forums post count sounds promising  When I joined UD Grid some 13 years ago, the idea was to contribute with the idle processing power of your 'device(s)'. Now it has developed somewhat, and I see what you mean. I note with pleasure that you yourself have been (are?) bit by the badge bug, too. There are so many motivations for doing this, and I enjoy to read the very knowledgeable posts from the specialist crunchers, those who really are absorbed in their machinery. And, yes, badges are part of the game for many of us, too. I'm somewhat illiterate. I passed 2,000,000 mio points today, but the globe on my SNURK sign has been copper for about ½ year. My keyboard, though is a shining, bright RUBY |
||
|
|
adriverhoef
Master Cruncher The Netherlands Joined: Apr 3, 2009 Post Count: 1985 Status: Offline Project Badges:
|
(At WCG) you're effective rewarding participation rather than productivity. Nothing wrong with that, isn't it?Yeah, there is something wrong with that. It gives participants an incentive to put their slow hardware on WCG and their fast hardware elsewhere. It's not only that. There are people hunting for badges, there are people who put points at the peak of their interest and there are the ones who are racing with the number of results they return. There is also an active community: teams, forums, people helping each other. People may run off to other sites, but there are also people who stay true to WCG, sticking like glue. Put it this way: There is nobody who says that badges are generally the most important thing at WCG. In the end you decide — personally — what is important for yourself and what isn't (if anything) at WCG. If you're thinking like me, the most important thing at WCG would be to (try to) get work done in a decent fashion. Maybe get some badges, points, results, maybe more. I won't deny I'm also in it for the 'adventure' of gaining something, although I don't know what. I'm sure there are many aspects.  Adri |
||
|
|
Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
What percentage of the people contributing to WCG (and probably the other BOINC projects) also contribute to the forum(s)? It's very easy for those of us who do post here to forget about the great majority. They just install BOINC "to help humanity" and then prefer to pretty much forget about it. Maybe, just maybe, they set their favourite sub-project up to get work, but they'll have soon learnt to also tick "If there is no work available for the [sub-]project(s) I have selected above, please send me work from another [sub-]project." and after a while they will forget about it completely. They might see a pop-up one day saying that there are BOINC notices, and , if they click, they might see a message to say that they've got a badge, and that might incent them to keep going with it, but that's about as much as we can hope for. Badges for time spent is, in my opinion, the right way to "reward" these people. They don't spend time thinking about what computer to buy next -- they buy another if the previous one breaks or if it gets too slow for the latest new game. They might be persuaded to leave the machine on a bit longer sometimes so more work gets done and, again, time spent is the right incentive for that, not points.
Just my two penn'th. |
||
|
|
gb009761
Master Cruncher Scotland Joined: Apr 6, 2005 Post Count: 2955 Status: Offline Project Badges:
|
What percentage of the people contributing to WCG (and probably the other BOINC projects) also contribute to the forum(s)? It's very easy for those of us who do post here to forget about the great majority. They just install BOINC "to help humanity" and then prefer to pretty much forget about it. Maybe, just maybe, they set their favourite sub-project up to get work, but they'll have soon learnt to also tick "If there is no work available for the [sub-]project(s) I have selected above, please send me work from another [sub-]project." and after a while they will forget about it completely. They might see a pop-up one day saying that there are BOINC notices, and , if they click, they might see a message to say that they've got a badge, and that might incent them to keep going with it, but that's about as much as we can hope for. Badges for time spent is, in my opinion, the right way to "reward" these people. They don't spend time thinking about what computer to buy next -- they buy another if the previous one breaks or if it gets too slow for the latest new game. They might be persuaded to leave the machine on a bit longer sometimes so more work gets done and, again, time spent is the right incentive for that, not points. Yes, I'm totally with you Apis - it's so easy for us 'forum posters' to forget about the vast majority of contributers to WCG (and all the numerous other DC projects out there), who just set their machines up and forget about them. They're not "in it for the recognition", just for helping humanity - be it, assisting in finding a cure for cancer, zica, clean energy etc., and thus, they just run their machines on a "when-ever" basis and let WCG use their spare CPU cycles. If they've seen that they've reached 14 days, 180 days etc., it's nice and simple for them - as opposed to x BOINC points (they won't have a clue as to what they are). As to number of results returned - due to WCG having such a varied number of sub-projects, some run quicker than others, and thus, those who want to "work the system", would only crunch the shortest WU's.Just my two penn'th. What really counts for me, is that they're contributing - whether to WCG or "project X". It's the number of computers/devices "out there" in the world that AREN'T contributing, where we should be trying to attract and utilise those wasted CPU cycles.  |
||
|
|
|