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SUSA has issued a Team Challenge starting 0000 UTC March 1.

Unfortunately, there was a bug in the challenge sign up SW that wouldn't allow the name Amicable Numbers to be shown in the project field. The bug was reported and has been corrected by Willy @ Bstats but he said it would take a while for project name to show up.

You can sign up your team HERE

Moved it to News forum to improve visibility.

Team Challenge starts in 2 days!

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Note that challenge begins at 00:00 UTC on 3/1 and ends at 00:00 UTC on 3/6. Still trying to get Team USA signed up...

Bummer you are allowing bunkering

A matter of opinion and you are certainly entitled to yours :)

Yes Indeed, that was why I only said Bummer.
SETI.USA is a large bunkering Team and that is ok if you want to Bunker.

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Crunching@EVGA The Number One Team in the BOINC Community.
Folding@EVGA The Number One Team in the Folding@Home Community.

Since I think my naive question started this... I've been crunching since before BOINC, active (very at times) on the boards off and on ever since. Supported a lot of projects, or what seems like a lot to me (25ish). However, other than a couple of PrimeGrid challenges, this is my first "Team Challenge" and I'd never heard of "bunkering" before. So maybe I can see both sides of the argument without having a preconceived notion.

At first glance it seemed "unfair" that someone could do work "before the start time" and then get the credits after the start. Being a programmer, my first thought was "how do you stop that". My second thought, after some consideration, was "oh, $^!#! You DON'T stop that!" Unless you go the whole PrimeGrid routine with counting only tasks _issued_ after the start (talk about server load!) and then _returned_ (even though not validated... which you have to count 'later' - head slap) before the end. Maybe PrimeGrid can handle that load. I can't imagine that any smaller projects can. (I wouldn't even want to write the SQL necessary, even discounting the server load...)

So then my thought turned to "what is fair?" - and the answer of course is that it is fair if everyone has to play by the same rules. So on at least some challenges, "bunkering" is allowed, everyone has the same opportunity to do work and hold it until the start time. It's sort of (vaguely) like running Bitcoin Utopia. You can get a ton of credits, but some call it "unfair". But they COULD do the same thing, so... (Of course, my personal choice is to limit my BU credits to 50% of my total credits. I have 3 ASICs - I could have a few billion BU credits if I wanted them, without impacting any other project. My choice not to, but also my choice to "allow" myself to get up to 50% in BU.)

Fairness as always is in the eye of the beholder. But given my knowledge of server programming, etc., I just see no practical way to do anything other than what we are seeing here, so even if some call it "unfair", it's just the way it has to be. Shrug.

It appears the BoincStats challenge SW has a bug that isn't allowing it to grab data from the project. Both FreeDC and Bstats did grab data for their general stats listing after the start of the challenge. It may have something to do with the Challenge not listing the project name ... Willy supposedly fixed that bug but it looks like he has more work to do. A real shame!

@Bill, unless someone wants to take the time to setup a full database and control the stats like PG has done then there is no way to stop it. If a project were to limit the number of WU given to a particular computer you can always launch a bunch of VMs to overcome that. Those that are inclined to bunker will do it and those that aren't won't. Everyone has the same opportunity so it is a choice each individual makes ... there is no right and no wrong (IMHO).

The only real benefit of the challenges is that it usually gives a big boost to the chosen project. There were 18 teams entered in this challenge. There are something like 8 teams that automatically sign up for every challenge. That means that an additional 10 teams chose to run this project for 5 days and participate. That would have introduced quite a few new people to AN (it probably still did) and it helps the project.

Hopefully the 2nd challenge will run smoother :)

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I have no problems with counting results sent after the start of the challenge. Since the project is new and database is still small, it won't even take much time to run such query. If Willy needs it, I can provide it.

+ 1 by this Challenge


Greetz SEARCHER

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Member of Team BOINC@Pfalz
Member of CHARITY TEAM

Update on the challenge: I see no requests for team stats in server's log, so it's not working as it should. I've set up db export to run every hour as a workaround, so when Willy needs this data, I can provide it.

Challenge standings are here: https://sech.me/boinc/Amicable/challenge1.php

@Sergei Chernykh
Why was this Thread Locked TEAM CHALLENGE starts soon!

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Crunching@EVGA The Number One Team in the BOINC Community.
Folding@EVGA The Number One Team in the Folding@Home Community.

Because it's already started. Discussion can be continued here.

P.S. I've moved posts from that thread to this thread.

+ 1 by this Challenge


Greetz desktop64

Member of Team desktop64@home

Nice Run.

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Crunching@EVGA The Number One Team in the BOINC Community.
Folding@EVGA The Number One Team in the Folding@Home Community.

A very great and very nice Challenge.

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Member of Team BOINC@Pfalz
Member of CHARITY TEAM

Thank you for the help with the challenge Sergei. Without you adding the stats I'm afraid it would have been a total disaster. With your help it was a success!

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