It's a very sad day for the BOINC community. On the one hand we have projects like Rosetta@home, Einstein@home and ABC@home that are developed and run by skilled, community minded people who have a conscience. They make the effort to keep their science app, work units and policies efficient, thereby reducing wasted effort.

On the other hand we have bad apples like LHC@home that make the whole barrel stink and rot. The LHC@home project knowingly and purposefully tosses 25% of everyone's contribution of CPU time, hardware and electricity into the waste basket. They don't receive any benefit from that 25% waste that they cannot get from a 0 waste policy and practice. The 25% would be acceptable if it could not be avoided but it can be avoided. All the tools and technology exist to eliminate the waste but the project admins refuse to even admit the problem exists. What's even sadder is that they now censor posts in the LHC@home forums that even mention the issue and they promote lies that cover up the waste.

The 25% waste is a direct result of LHC@home's policy of issuing 5 initial replications for a quorum of 3, the 5/3 policy for short. The 5/3 policy was needed and justifiable years ago when BOINC server and client were both rather primitive. Today, however, new features and functionality in BOINC client and server allow a 3/3 policy (initial replication of 3 for a quorum of 3) that would give LHC@home everything they have now plus other benefits they don't have but need.

If you have computers attached to LHC@home, detach them and donate your precious CPU time, hardware and electricity instead to a project run by competent people who need your donation and do what they can to conserve the resources that ALL the BOINC projects need.

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The posts and threads were not censored because of an interest in a "Cover up" or that they are not telling the truth. The censorship came about because of Dagorath's manner and tone.

Heaping abuse on the project scientists, administrators, and other participants that disagree with his analysis is the reason that the threads and or posts were moderated.

Just as if you become abusive here in Rosetta, LHC took action to maintain a civil atmosphere in their project.

Contrary to the assertion, the project administrator did bring this up to the scientists and, yes, there has been no change to the policy.

What Dagorath refuses to acknowledge is that LHC, as all projects, has limitations within which they must operate ... and one of those is that there is no funding or personnel in paid positions in the project at all ... the project is actually run by volunteer effort. Another limitation is that the science cannot proceed if the batch is not complete... all of the mechanisms that Dagorath speaks of do indeed allow a change in the way that work is processed ... and all of them would increase the time it takes to process a batch ... and would take time, money, and effort to implement ... none of which the project has to spare ...

Lastly, the loss rate is not 25% ...

And, if you do believe it is a waste, then don't participate, by all means ... but there is also no need to rant on the forums of other projects ...

If reading the truth bothers you, Mr. Buck then by all means don't read it. But there is no need to stifle discussion here or in any other forum. The discussion is importyant to Rosetta and all BOINC projects because LHC@ home needlessly wastes CPU time that would other wise go to other projects.

LHC found $14 million to repair recent damage to the collider. There is money to spare. The only reason they don't repair their broken BOINC project is because users keep donating the CPU time for free. The reason they keep donating time for free is because they don't realize how much of their donation is wasted. They don't realize how much of their donation is wasted because each and every time the matter comers up for discussion LHC@home project admins delete all the embarassing info.

Paul D. Buck has never even read the proposals I have made because he thinks there is just one way... the old way. He is totally unaware of any of the new server side features and functions that exist today and are installed on LHC@home's servers. It's not rocket science. It's simple common sense...

1) shorten the deadline to 3 or 4 days (current deadline is 7)
2) restrict hosts to 2 tasks in progress per core to spread the work around to more hosts without restricting hosts that are willing to crunch many tasks per day (current policy restricts hosts to 16 tasks per day which is unnecessarily restrictive)
3) set initial replication to 3 and issue resends to fast reliable hosts with a deadline of 1 day

Paul D. Buck bases his assertion on old data which showed a task failure rate of about 30%. The current rate is less than 3% but he refuses to acknowledge that fact even though it come directly from the project's lead developer and can be confirmed simply by looking at a decent number of returned results in the web logs. Thaty's the task failure rate not the rate of waste.

Mr. Buck himself confirmed my own estimate of 25% waste which happens to agree with estimates by other project devs. Now he chooses to deny his own words. Fortunately for P.D. Buck, the LHC admins conveniently deleted all that embarassing info.

I started discussing the matter over a year ago in polite tones and was met with nothing but lies, insults and spin doctoring, ridicule and derision for even daring to question the scientists, as if they are infallible. Take, for example, Buck's use of the term rant in his last post here. The issue does affect Rosetta and needs to be discussed here because it's costing Rosetta too. And to apply Buck's own brand of logic to the situation... Buck, if you don't like my posts then don't read them. (You'll notice how Buck will get all PO'd when you expect him to actually apply his own logic, like he's above everything and everyone.)

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If this thread gets more posts where people place words in the mouths of others, and claim perfect knowledge of the beliefs and information used by others, it will be deleted here as well.

There is obviously some history behind all of this that originates from elsewhere. The moderation of posts of threads here will be based solely on the posts on Rosetta's boards. The tone, usefullness, and relevance of the original post already made me question if this should be hidden or moved to the Cafe.

Dagorath, if you wish to foster a constructive, number crunching discussion, please reference some sources or research that supports your assertions. I assume you yourself have indeed looked at "...a decent number of returned results". So, please publish your analysis. Without something tangible to discuss, dispute, or debate, this thread will surely degrade into something even more clearly worthy of removal from the boards.

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I did not stifle discussion, I simply made a rebuttal to your assertion. You assert that LHC "wastes" contributions. Fine. That is your opinion. BUt because you believe it, does not make it so ... some people believe that the Earth is flat too ... but their beliefs do not make it so either.

There are many reasons to contribute to a project, or to not contribute to a project. If you do not agree with a project, then by all means do not contribute to that project. When I had troubles running Rosetta I stopped contributing here ... when they fixed the problems I started contributing again ... but the net gain to the BOINC world if LHC changed their practices would be so insignificant that there would be no way to measure it.

And for someone that argues that LHC is your dream project, well, when are you going to contribute?

The damage to the collider did cost money and it is one of the canards that you continue to tout that because there was money to do this for the LHC itself that there is money to do something for the LHC@Home project. Again, nothing could be further from the truth, and you have been told this and, refuse to accept this fact. The money to build, operate, and maintain the LHC does not support the LHC@Home project which gets exactly zero funding from the LHC project ... it is a purely back door project that does do useful work, but is neither indespensable to the LHC project itself nor integral to the success of LHC ...

Actually I have read *ALL* of your proposals. And, in the LHC@Home forums discussed them and pointed out the logic flaws in them and the points you keep ignoring. Facts are inconvenient things ... you can pretend they don't exist, but that does not make them go away.

Changing the issue and quorum may do what you say. It may not. We don't know. What we do know, and *I* know from personal experience (because I was there) we did try quite a few different mechanisms to obtain the results that the project desired.

So, yes the new server software has new features...

The project LHC@Home has no staff ... no money ...

To change the server software would take time and effort ... then that install has to be tested and proved... then the new plan has to be tried to see if it works ... which it may do what you say it will ... then again ... it may not ... which is one of those inconvenient facts that you love to ignore. If it does not work that investment of time and effort is all pure waste.

The adage "If it is not broken, don't fix it comes to mind."

The only person that seems to think that there is a world ending crisis is you sir. Face it, if they changed the issue and quorum at LHC the world's energy crisis would neither end tomorrow nor would the price of electricity drop ...

Another issue is that by changing the deadlines to a shorter span means that more people that want to contribute to LHC@Home would be forced out of the project because they could not meet the shorter deadlines. Personnally it is not an issue for me as my machines are fast enough that it would not matter. But it would matter to many ...

Then you argue that the the current policy to spread the work around is too restrictive but that you have a better way ... well ... so what ... the whole point of your policy change is not to save energy or anything else ... it is to make it so those that have faster systems can, ahem, "hog" the available work ...

Actually to quote my analysis, there is one task per result on average that is, as you assert "wasted" ... one per set of five is 20%, not 25% ...

And the "old" data was from December 2008 ...

And that analysis had nothing to do with the "failure" of tasks, it was how many tasks on average were made part of the quorum. And, that analysis of several hundred tasks showed that the average quorum was 4 ...

Which is another one of those inconvienient facts. The definition of the quorum is a lower bound. As it is stated a "minimum quorum of 3" that does not preclude as you assert that a higher quorum is not desirable or actually the target. In that we do not have definitive word from the scientists we can only speculate. But I hardly see them as chortling over wasting computing resources needlessly.

Again, we don't know everything that is part of the behind the scenes science or the imperitives that drive it. I, for one, may ask questions about the logic but do not then assert that there must be something nefarious to the replies if they do not suit my desires.

As far as deleting the information ... we, no, not really ... if you are interested you can find it if you like ... yes the thread was hidden ... just like the ones where you were abusive to the project administrator ... yes I found those as well ...

And here we have the key... if you don't get agreement, then the person that does not agree with you is lying and insulting and spinning ... but you never see the alternative, which is that you might be wrong ... and yes I used the word rant, because you present an extreme opinion of another project and claim the mantle of knowing how to solve a non-issue and then, well, I will let other decide ...

And the only reason I made the first, and now the second rebuttal is that you present your opinion as fact and the truth is that it is not as simple as you say it is ... and people should know that ... virtually all BOINC projects are underfunded and undermanned, and LHC@Home is actually more strapped than most ...

I did not stifle discussion, I simply made a rebuttal to your assertion.

Whatever. I won't nit pick the small stuff because in the end you'll attempt to stifle the discussion again anyway and prove that point for me.

You assert that LHC "wastes" contributions. Fine. That is your opinion. BUt because you believe it, does not make it so ... some people believe that the Earth is flat too ... but their beliefs do not make it so either.

It is not only my opinion it is fact. Anybody can test my opinion and see that it is fact by looking through the results on LHC@home's website and counting all the results that get crunched after the quorum of 3 has been met. You have done exactly that yourself and in a thread on LHC you stated in plain English that roughly 25% of the returned results are redundant results that did not need to be crunched.

There are many reasons to contribute to a project, or to not contribute to a project. If you do not agree with a project, then by all means do not contribute to that project. When I had troubles running Rosetta I stopped contributing here ... when they fixed the problems I started contributing again ... but the net gain to the BOINC world if LHC changed their practices would be so insignificant that there would be no way to measure it.

25% of results is 25% of results no matter how much you try to downplay it. Whatever amount of CPU time that translates into is debatable but the users themselves should decide whether it's insgnificant. One thing is for sure... the size of LHC's batches are growing and if the batches continue to grow the waste will become significant in the future, if it isn't already.

And for someone that argues that LHC is your dream project, well, when are you going to contribute?

When they stop wasting 25% of my donation I'll contribute some CPU cycles. For now I will contribute by lobbying them to end the waste and telling them how they can do it. If you don't like my contribution then at least admit that it isn't hurting you and just ignore my posts because a lot of other people need to hear the facts regarding how much of their donation is being wasted.

The damage to the collider did cost money and it is one of the canards that you continue to tout that because there was money to do this for the LHC itself that there is money to do something for the LHC@Home project. Again, nothing could be further from the truth, and you have been told this and, refuse to accept this fact.

It is not a fact. It is simply an arbitrary budget forecast decision based on the fact that with the aid of spin doctors and censoring of contrary opinions and embarassing facts, they've been able fool enough suckers into donating precious resources that they in turn throw away. I intend to enlighten the public as to what's really going on at LHC@home. When the public stops contributing CPU cycles, CERN and the LHC will scoop money out of whatever slush fund they find convenient and they'll rub that money on the problem and make it go away. If tyhey don't dig up the money (and it's only a few thousand dollars according to the LHC admins) they'll have to mothball the collider. They won't mothball it, they'll fork over the money or else provide manpower in lieu of money. Simple as that.

The money to build, operate, and maintain the LHC does not support the LHC@Home project which gets exactly zero funding from the LHC project ... it is a purely back door project that does do useful work, but is neither indespensable to the LHC project itself nor integral to the success of LHC ...

Sounds like you're saying none of the work LHC@home does is necessary to the collider, just "useful". But to whom is it useful? What purpose does it serve? Is it there just so some IT guy can state on his resume that he ran a BOINC project? Then why not just shut it down completely?

Actually I have read *ALL* of your proposals. And, in the LHC@Home forums discussed them and pointed out the logic flaws in them and the points you keep ignoring. Facts are inconvenient things ... you can pretend they don't exist, but that does not make them go away.

You're absolutely right so why don't you start telling us WHY my proposal won't work instead of just telling us it won't.

Changing the issue and quorum may do what you say. It may not. We don't know. What we do know, and *I* know from personal experience (because I was there) we did try quite a few different mechanisms to obtain the results that the project desired.

But they have never tried my proposals and I know because I've been there for the past 2 years and the server software required to implement my proposals didn't get installed until very recently. Ergo they could not have tried my proposals.

So, yes the new server software has new features...

The project LHC@Home has no staff ... no money ...

To change the server software would take time and effort ... then that install has to be tested and proved... then the new plan has to be tried to see if it works ... which it may do what you say it will ... then again ... it may not ... which is one of those inconvenient facts that you love to ignore.

I've never ignored that and you saying I have is just further proof that you have never bothered to read what I've said. I have stated, on more than 1 occassion and in direct response to your posts, that my proposals need to be tested, debugged and tweaked. I have also stated that there is no better time to do that than now when the collider itself is offline for repairs.

As far as the "no money" spin, that's been debunked already, several times.

If it does not work that investment of time and effort is all pure waste.

It will work and we know it will work because so many other projects have made it work and simple logic and common sense tells us it will work.

The adage "If it is not broken, don't fix it comes to mind."

But it is broke and it does need fixing :)

The only person that seems to think that there is a world ending crisis is you sir. Face it, if they changed the issue and quorum at LHC the world's energy crisis would neither end tomorrow nor would the price of electricity drop ...

That is very obvious and very lame distortion of what I've said. But that's the only recourse you have... to put words in my mouth. I have said it would conserve electricity and put more CPU cycles to good use rather than wasting them on tasks that don't need to be crunched. You seem to have something against conservation and efficiency but I don't know why.

Another issue is that by changing the deadlines to a shorter span means that more people that want to contribute to LHC@Home would be forced out of the project because they could not meet the shorter deadlines. Personnally it is not an issue for me as my machines are fast enough that it would not matter. But it would matter to many ...

Well, what is LHC@home's purpose anyway? Are they there to do some science efficiently or to make work for computers? Do they owe work to crunchers? If a cruncher can't work with a shorter deadline then he can easily find a project with deadlines he CAN work with.

Then you argue that the the current policy to spread the work around is too restrictive but that you have a better way ... well ... so what ... the whole point of your policy change is not to save energy or anything else ... it is to make it so those that have faster systems can, ahem, "hog" the available work ...

Nope you really don't underestand what I've been saying. Or else you're just spinning the facts again on purpose. By restricting hosts to 2 tasks in progress per core and configuring a 15 minute callback deferral, anybody and everybody will get as much work as they can handle and nobody will be able to cache a huge number of tasks that they won't be able to crunch for a several days. More hosts will be applied to the job and the results will be returned faster. With the current restrictions, a host who can crunch 100 tasks in a day isn't allowed to which retards completion of the batch.

Actually to quote my analysis, there is one task per result on average that is, as you assert "wasted" ... one per set of five is 20%, not 25% ...

That's also 1 task in 4 returned which is 25% of returned tasks. Anyway, 20% is still far too much.

And the "old" data was from December 2008 ...

And that analysis had nothing to do with the "failure" of tasks, it was how many tasks on average were made part of the quorum. And, that analysis of several hundred tasks showed that the average quorum was 4 ...

Which is another one of those inconvienient facts.

That much is fact and I won't deny it but the nonsense in your next paragraph below is just nonsense you are attempting to spin into fact. It doesn't fly.

The definition of the quorum is a lower bound. As it is stated a "minimum quorum of 3" that does not preclude as you assert that a higher quorum is not desirable or actually the target. In that we do not have definitive word from the scientists we can only speculate. But I hardly see them as chortling over wasting computing resources needlessly.

Well if they want a quorum of 4 then why don't they just set a quorum of 4? Hmmm? Why do they rely on chance to give them an average of 4? Again your "argument" crumbles. No, Mr. Buck, they need only 3 but they replicate 5 because that was the only way to get the results back quickly years ago and they see no need to change that wasteful policy as long as suckers like you keep ignoring the waste.

Again, we don't know everything that is part of the behind the scenes science or the imperitives that drive it. I, for one, may ask questions about the logic but do not then assert that there must be something nefarious to the replies if they do not suit my desires.

As far as deleting the information ... we, no, not really ... if you are interested you can find it if you like ... yes the thread was hidden ... just like the ones where you were abusive to the project administrator ... yes I found those as well ...

And here we have the key... if you don't get agreement, then the person that does not agree with you is lying and insulting and spinning ... but you never see the alternative, which is that you might be wrong ... and yes I used the word rant, because you present an extreme opinion of another project and claim the mantle of knowing how to solve a non-issue and then, well, I will let other decide ...

It's obvious you cannot separate the issues in your mind and know what is provable through simple logic and deduction and what is just conjecture. Therefore you throw everything out and stick with the status quo because it's safe. That's a classic symptom of someone suffering from depression, a disease you admit you have.

And the only reason I made the first, and now the second rebuttal is that you present your opinion as fact and the truth is that it is not as simple as you say it is

Some parts are EXACTLY as factual as I say they are. And many other experienced and knowledgeable people agree. Other parts are not so simple. But if people learn what's happening and what the alternatives are they might just say "enough is enough" and force LHC to do the right thing and eliminate the waste. And if they don't then oh well at least I tried to do what is right.

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Since I cannot moderate the posts I do not see how I can "stifle" any discussion. as far as small stuff, that is essentially what your are arguing about. At best the so called waste is so insignificant that making any change will not alter the course of the universe one iota.

I made no such conclusion. I stated that the actual quorum size of my sample was roughly 4. You interpret that as "waste" because the minimum quorum is 3 ... what you consistently fail to recognize is that the word minimum is there for a purpose. It does not mean that a higher number in the quorum is not desired, just that the lowest possible acceptable value is 3 ... and I also pointed out that if the scientists were looking for an actual average quorum of 4 they have achieved this goal by using settings that you posit "waste" effort.

Actually the batches are small ... and rare compared to the work load in the early days. There is a u-tube presentation where the consumers of our work were pleased by the speed and quality of the work ... but to this point have not come up with more for us to do via the LUC@Home project.

As to them wasting 25% of your contribution ... well 25% of zero is zero, so I would feel safe to say that they have wasted none of your effort. And I, for one, don't think that they have wasted mine either. Yes you can raise the point that there may be an inefficiency in the way that the project is applying BOINC, and you have done so. Everyone can make a choice. But, you go beyond that in stating that LHC@Home is giving BOINC a bad name. I can point to other projects that are far worse and they are indeed giving BOINC a bad name, but, LHC@Home on its worst days is not a project that would be on that list.

As far as finding money... nope. If LHC@Home goes away it goes away ... potentially if you make enough of ruckus it is possible though not likely that all you will accomplish is the death of the project. What money the LHC project has for computing they have put into their internal supercomputer systems. And there is no budget ... a point that has been made to you several times but you seem to think that by making noise money will magically appear. Again, not going to happen. Of the BOINC project LHC@Home, though associated with one of the largest projects in the world has zero, zip, nada for funding. And won't get any either ...

I don't say that the work is not useful, only that if the project evaporates it will not change the LHC project itself at all. The studies we do are useful but are not essential.

I have never said that your proposals won't work. I have simply pointed out other constraints that you consistently ignore. Like the fact that there is no paid project staff, no money, no time, and no need. And just because you insist that your proposal will work does not make that true either. Which is the other point I try to make. What we have now works for the project. Maybe it is inefficient, maybe it isn't ... the points is, it works. If you don't like it, don't participate. There are costs to making changes in time, and effort, and there is the possibility that the change won't work ... When you add it all up, there is no pressing need to make a change.

Actually the money issue is not debunked. You simply pretend that the LHC project has plenty of money and that it can be spent as you desire. I can only assume that you have never worked directly for the government or on a government funded project. Money is strictly allocated and spending it on things other than what it was allocate for is a crime with real punishments attached. The project admins told you that they are not funded and simply stating that there is a pile of money somewhere that they can dip into is what has been debunked.

As to it working or not, or being able to be made to work ... well, what they have now works so there is no need for changes or tests ... and chanting "it will work" several times does not make it so ...

The only one that thinks that LHC@Home is broken is you.

Again, you assert that there is waste with no proof that the additional quorum results are not useful. We do not know if they are or aren't because the project scientists have not conveyed that information to us. If your assertion is true that there is waste, well, then there is waste. I only stated that even if we eliminated the supposed waste that it changes nothing to the point where it will make a detectable difference. The way you pose the issue is that there is so much waste that if only the LHC@Home project would listen to you and make a change that something substantial would happen. I am simply stating that this is not true.

Ah, here we come to the crux. Your whole "efficiency" argument is shown to be the sham that it is... what you want is to change the issue rules so that your rigs can process LHC work the way that you want to ... why I have no idea ... but again, if the project is getting the work back the way it needs, then there is no need for them to change the rules so that you can build up a large queue of work ...

If they set a minimum quorum of 4 they would have to send out or wait for more results. So, it is not nonsense but statistics. But using the rules as they are, they get an average quorum of 4 without having to set the quorum to 4 which would actually require more "waste" as you define it. Again, you confuse a minimum requirement rule with a desired quota rule.

Actually I can keep things in my mind ... and my illnesses do not affect my ability to use logic or to draw a conclusion to make deductions. The only thing you don't like is that I do not reach the same conclusions that you do.

An engineering decision to stick with what works is not a result of my depression, but yes, it is the safe choice ... the low cost choice, and probably in this case the right choice ... it is just not the choice you like...

And the last point, well, quite a few experienced and knowledgeable people also disagreed with you on the LHC@Home boards ... and yet you still have never proven your case. You simply look at two rules and decide that you know better how to run the project and then proceed to assert that changes must be made. But the truth is that you are making a conjecture that is just as unprovable as mine... I assert that the scientists have a target quorum of 4 which I arrive at through deduction and logic and you assert that the project is bent on wasting contributions based on the same numbers ... both are conjecture ...

This discussion is NOT a Rosetta number crunching topic.
Rather it has turned into a finger pointing, bash each other over the head discussion about a project that has nothing to do with Rosetta.

Mod. I would suggest you move this over to the cafe boards as you suggested earlier and they can bash each others heads out over there.

You call that logic and deduction? That's just pulling numbers out of a hat until you get the ones that multiply/divide in a way that makes some nonsense appear to be true. Really, Buck, if the scientists wanted 4 results they would just specify a quorum of 4 instead of relying on chance to give an average of 4. If there is some reason they can't have precisely 4 and need the number to vary above and below an aaverage of 4 then do tell us why. Or convince the scientists to drop by and tell us your theory is true.

I'm not going to go through the verbal exercise of explaining how shortening the deadline achieves quorum faster. Everyone else understands and accepts it and for you to challenge that basic concept just proves you're grabbing desperately at straws.

Anyway, if whatever they're crunching is not essential, your words not mine, then there is no need to waste precious resources getting results back quickly. Which means they don't need to go the extra distance of incorporating the proposal to issue resends to fast reliable hosts. In other words they could have everything they have now simply by shortening the deadline, configuring as proposed to spread the work around more and reducing the initial replication which ensures that EVERY host is working on a task that is needed instead of tasks that are not needed. Without the issue resends to fast reliable hosts policy, it doesn't take a lot of time to configure.

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This discussion is NOT a Rosetta number crunching topic.
Rather it has turned into a finger pointing, bash each other over the head discussion about a project that has nothing to do with Rosetta.

Mod. I would suggest you move this over to the cafe boards as you suggested earlier and they can bash each others heads out over there.

Then Dagorath will scream censorship ... :)

I like spirited debate if it concentrates on persuading someone to accept another's POV, not involving debater's personality or mental state.

Since the topic IMO centers around persuading people to contribute to project A vs project B, why not have this discussion on the BOINC fora under the "Project" category. This "debate" does seem out of place here; I do look forward to followup disussion if anything further is to be derived from it.

Side note: I contributed greatly to Cosmology project in it's early stages, but the staff proved to my satisfaction they were incapable of running a project to my satisfaction. I left and haven't returned, though I still have hopes that things will turn around some day.

Then Dagorath will scream censorship ... :)

...that is pretty much true any time you touch anyone's posts. But I believe he's trying to make a point for number crunchers and about some factors they might want to take in to consideration. But it has definitly been difficult to pick that out from his comments. I guess I'm still trying to follow how 2 out of 5 is 25%. But math wasn't my strongest subject. And if a person does not follow that most basic discussion element, they're not going down the rest of the stream with you.

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Rosetta Moderator: Mod.Sense

I guess I'm still trying to follow how 2 out of 5 is 25%. But math wasn't my strongest subject. And if a person does not follow that most basic discussion element, they're not going down the rest of the stream with you.

Good point mod.sense. The numbers don't appear to add up to folks who are not familiar with LHC@home so it deserves some explanation.

LHC@home work units have an initial replication of 5 for a quorum of 3 (IR 5 for Q 3). That leaves 2 potentially redundant tasks. LHC@home attempts to cancel redundant tasks if they can but they get canceled if and only if they have not started crunching when the host contacts LHC@home server. It turns out that in practice, 1 of the 2 potentially redundant tasks almost always gets canceled but the other one gets crunched in spite of the fact that the work unit has already achieved the quorum of 3. So you have, on average, 1 task out of 4 that is wasted effort, 1 in 4 = 25%.

Paul D. Buck prefers to downplay the waste by saying that 1 of the 5 initial replicas is waste so the number is actually 20%. I prefer to calculate the percentage based on the actual number of tasks that get crunched which is 4 in most cases. Paul can say only 20% of intially replicated tasks is waste. I can say 25% of crunched results is waste. Even 20% is far too much in my opinion.

BTW, it won't bother me if you choose to move this thread to a different group. I put it in number crunching because it does pertain to number crunching but it fits equally well in the cafe too. If you choose to delete/hide the thread I will respect that decision too. I think that if people want to voice their dislike for this subject or the content of the thread then they should express that concern in a private message to you or in a separate thread rather than clutter this thread with well intentioned but off-topic remarks.

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Actually, I don't think that there is any waste at all. I merely pointed out that there is a different way to look at the numbers.

Which is the whole point of the difference of opinion. Dagorath is convinced that there is huge waste and that the project should be boycotted. Which I still find interesting because he has never contributed to the project at all. Never, not even one cobblestone of effort ... yet he is running around and raising a ruckus about all the supposed "waste" ... what does he care ... he is not contributing there at all ...

So, his defense is that he won't contribute until the project conforms to his way of conducting operations. To which the consensus reply is, then don't ... go support projects that you think are doing the right things and leave us in peace to contribute to the LHC effort.

We had this debate in the LHC forums which was moderated and from that action he concludes censorship ... and plots and what ever else ...

There are many reasons to use an issue rate that is higher than the quorum, WCG has two sub-projects that do something similar for reasons of their own and I have only tried to present the case that there are both historical and logical reasons for the issue model used at LHC.

Anyway, in my opinion this debate does not belong on Rosetta at all. It is an issue that is about the LHC@Home project and what they do, or don't do, in this instance has no effect on RaH at all. And it has no effect on Dagorath because he is not attached to the LHC project and performing work for them.

As far as his assertion that he will respect your moderation decisions, well, how has he reacted to the moderation actions of LHC@Home? Reflect on this from his very first post here:

All the tools and technology exist to eliminate the waste but the project admins refuse to even admit the problem exists. What's even sadder is that they now censor posts in the LHC@home forums that even mention the issue and they promote lies that cover up the waste.

To my mind that does not reflect someone that respects decisions of a project or a moderator.

Anyway, I thought that someone should present the rebuttal point to his assertion that there seems to be an evil nefarious plot by LHC@Home to deprive Rosetta@Home of computing resources ...

Actually, I don't think that there is any waste at all. I merely pointed out that there is a different way to look at the numbers.

Which is the whole point of the difference of opinion. Dagorath is convinced that there is huge waste and that the project should be boycotted. Which I still find interesting because he has never contributed to the project at all. Never, not even one cobblestone of effort ... yet he is running around and raising a ruckus about all the supposed "waste" ... what does he care ... he is not contributing there at all ...

I have only one problem with your comments:

LHC@home 4,798 0 15 Feb 2007

The above is what I see under Dagorath's name and scroll to the bottom. The first part is the Project name, the 2nd is the total credits earned on that Project, the 3rd part is the recent credits and the last is the join date. My question to you then is how does someone who never crunched a single unit, as you stated, still have a total number of credits(cobblestones) above zero?
I think you misstated what you meant to say, but will not be bold enough to put words in your mouth.

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@Mikey,

You are correct and I was wrong. My apologies to all for my error. The problem arose because, well, no matter ...

@Mikey,

You are correct and I was wrong. My apologies to all for my error. The problem arose because, well, no matter ...

Huh? You swagger in here full of bluster about how I am rude and insulting and my tone is unacceptable. You insult us all with your lies and spin and refuse to engage in honest debate and answer questions then you say it doesn't matter? Doesn't matter because you're His Majesty and we're just trash?

The problem arose because you don't do your homework and you are confused. Let me point out all the other issues on which you are confused.

1) I have never implied that LHC@home is deliberately hurting other BOINC projects. They ARE hurting all the other BOINC projects due to the waste inherent in their IR 5 for Q 3 policy but the hurt is an unintentional side effect and not one of LHC@home's goals. And I have never said otherwise. Where you are confused is where you think readers are stupid enough to believe you when you twist my words around to make it appear that I said hurting the other projects is one of LHC@home's goals. You have no respect for the reades here, absolutely no desire to search for facts and present them to your fellow crunchers. On top of your lack of respect and deliberate lies you moan continually about how you get no respect. How confused can you be?

2) You still haven't explained how shortening the deadline on a project's tasks makes the work units achieve quorum slower.

3) You have claimed that LHC@home uses the IR 5 for Q 3 policy because they actually want a quorum of 4 instead of 3. The easy and efficient way to get a quorum of 4 is to just set the quorum at 4 instead of 3. Why wouldn't LHC@home just do it that way? Especially since your way doesn't guarantee them a quorum of 4 anyway? That is your last remaining defense of the 5/3 policy. If you can't provide a reasonable answer to the question then you have lost the debate.

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@Mikey,

You are correct and I was wrong. My apologies to all for my error. The problem arose because, well, no matter ...

Huh? You swagger in here full of bluster about how I am rude and insulting and my tone is unacceptable. You insult us all with your lies and spin and refuse to engage in honest debate and answer questions then you say it doesn't matter? Doesn't matter because you're His Majesty and we're just trash?

Well, I was not going to mention this, but it was your use of two accounts on LHC that confused me. In the one account you did not have any work completed. As to the account referenced, well, 5K some is more than zero, but for a project that you profess to be so enamored of, well, to my mind that is hardly impressive compared to the numbers you have made on other projects like ABC.

It is not clear to me if there are three of you:
Dagorath
Dagorath
Dagorath

or just one with three identities ... so, perhaps my confusion is not all that misplaced. Two of the Dagorath identities have no LHC@Home work, one does. In that I cannot access the thread in LHC@Home I cannot prove one way or the other which Dagorath identity was the one posting in the threads there. Was it the one banned with 4K, or one of the other ones that has no LHC@Home credit. My memory says it was one of those with no credit at all ... but I cannot prove it.

But, because I cannot prove it, and based on the information publicly available, well, I apologized.

The problem arose because you don't do your homework and you are confused. Let me point out all the other issues on which you are confused.

1) I have never implied that LHC@home is deliberately hurting other BOINC projects. They ARE hurting all the other BOINC projects due to the waste inherent in their IR 5 for Q 3 policy but the hurt is an unintentional side effect and not one of LHC@home's goals. And I have never said otherwise. Where you are confused is where you think readers are stupid enough to believe you when you twist my words around to make it appear that I said hurting the other projects is one of LHC@home's goals. You have no respect for the reades here, absolutely no desire to search for facts and present them to your fellow crunchers. On top of your lack of respect and deliberate lies you moan continually about how you get no respect. How confused can you be?

Well, I do find it interesting that for someone you have no respect for their research ability, you quote my numbers below ... if my research is that suspect, they why did you rely on it to make one of your points?

Next, I never accused you of accusing LHC@Home of a deliberate policy to impact other projects. I simply point out that you claim that there is waste, and that were LHC@Home to change their policy it would benefit other projects.

From your first post:

On the other hand we have bad apples like LHC@home that make the whole barrel stink and rot. The LHC@home project knowingly and purposefully tosses 25% of everyone's contribution of CPU time, hardware and electricity into the waste basket.

From your second:

... because it's costing Rosetta too.

Which I simply point out were they to change their policy, that the impact would be negligible on other projects ...

As to insulting the readers here. I have only posted a rebuttal to your proposal to inform the readers that there are other considerations. As there always are. The fact that you personally do not want to recognize that LHC@Home has operational and funding constraints does not mean they do not exist. So, I have tried to point out that these issues are there and that can explain why no change has happened.

Did you make the proposal? Yes.
Did the administrator take it up with the scientists? Yes.
Did they allow a change? No
Were you satisfied? No

And here we are. You got your account banned in LHC@Home not because they are covering up anything ... but because you do not seem to want to be reasonable. You say that you want a debate of the issue, yet, I think, that most readers of this thread might come to the conclusion that a fair debate of the issue is not what you are interested in.

When funding is raised you simply say that the LHC project has lots of money so that some could surely be spent on the LHC@Home project. Well, it could, if the grants were made that way. They weren't ... and no one with experience with grants or government spending would have problems understanding that you cannot simply spend money anyway you want. Saying otherwise is nonsense.

2) You still haven't explained how shortening the deadline on a project's tasks makes the work units achieve quorum slower.

I never said that lowering the deadline achieved quorum slower. I did say that it would disenfranchise many participants that want to contribute to LHC@Home any may not have computers that are as fast as mine. So, as a compromise to allow the broadest participation the project came up with this formulation that is working for them and for most participants.

Your change would benefit people like me, and apparently you, who have fast computers with high speed connections and so forth to be able to grab more work. Which is the real motivation here (IMO).

3) You have claimed that LHC@home uses the IR 5 for Q 3 policy because they actually want a quorum of 4 instead of 3. The easy and efficient way to get a quorum of 4 is to just set the quorum at 4 instead of 3. Why wouldn't LHC@home just do it that way? Especially since your way doesn't guarantee them a quorum of 4 anyway? That is your last remaining defense of the 5/3 policy. If you can't provide a reasonable answer to the question then you have lost the debate.

Because, as I have also stated, if they changed to a 4 quorum issue 5, then the quorum would be over 4. It would be a number between 4 and 5 ... If they changed it to issue 3, then for every instance where there was a miss in the initial set you have to re-issue the work and wait another deadline period. Again, cutting the deadline in half and an issue of 3, quorum of 3 might get the project back to the point where they already are ...

So, by investing time and effort and money, and staff, it is entirely possible that they would achieve the goal of getting the minimum quorum of 3 in roughly the same time they are now ... then again, they might not ... which is another point you refuse to accept. There is a non-zero possibility that after the investment of resources that the project does not have, that the new "Dagorath Plan" does not work. Which is perhaps the most important point you refuse to accept ... yet how many projects have made a change to achieve a particular end, that the change did not accomplish that end.

The last point is from the first part, but it is more appropriate to close on this note I think, to quote myself:

The posts and threads were not censored because of an interest in a "Cover up" or that they are not telling the truth. The censorship came about because of Dagorath's manner and tone.

Heaping abuse on the project scientists, administrators, and other participants that disagree with his analysis is the reason that the threads and or posts were moderated.

Just as if you become abusive here in Rosetta, LHC took action to maintain a civil atmosphere in their project.

This was in reply to:

...the project admins refuse to even admit the problem exists. What's even sadder is that they now censor posts in the LHC@home forums that even mention the issue and they promote lies that cover up the waste.

To my mind,, accusing project administrators of lying is, well, uncalled for.

Especially in that I did do the searches and found the threads where you first brought this issue up. As I have stated several times, the PA did raise the issue but was not granted permission to change things. From that a reasonable person would conclude that the problem you identify is recognized at the project level at least. The issue here is that we do not know what is the reason that the scientists elected to not make the change. I speculate that they have a logical reason and suggest that it is because they actually desire an average quorum of 4 which is achieved nicely by the current system.

Again, only others can judge for themselves which of us is reasonable, and which of us is not. Perhaps the conclusion is that neither of us is ... all I know is that *I* have not called you a liar ... I have attempted to only present the other side of the story without confrontation as LHC@Home is not likely to defend themselves.

Oh, and where do I moan about getting no respect?

The discussion is importyant to Rosetta and all BOINC projects because LHC@ home needlessly wastes CPU time that would other wise go to other projects.

If the CPU time is wasted, why do you think it would go to other projects?

Yesterday you apologized. Today you carry on with more confused nonsense. One doesn't need to have credits at LHC@home to see that there is 25% waste there and to understand why it occurs. That's all plain as day, in the same sense that one doesn't need to actually leap from a high bridge to know what the consequences are. Anyway, I have only 1 account at LHC@home and that account has credits, a fact which was obvious to you from my posts to you there, obvious because my credits and RAC appear just below my name to the left of all my posts there. There is not 1 post from a Dagorath in that thread that shows a 0 credit tally. Not 1 shred of evidence at LHC@home to support your claim, all the evidence at LHC@home refutes your claim, yet you argue your point for 2 days. Amazing.

The problem arose because you don't do your homework and you are confused. Let me point out all the other issues on which you are confused.

1) I have never implied that LHC@home is deliberately hurting other BOINC projects. They ARE hurting all the other BOINC projects due to the waste inherent in their IR 5 for Q 3 policy but the hurt is an unintentional side effect and not one of LHC@home's goals. And I have never said otherwise. Where you are confused is where you think readers are stupid enough to believe you when you twist my words around to make it appear that I said hurting the other projects is one of LHC@home's goals. You have no respect for the reades here, absolutely no desire to search for facts and present them to your fellow crunchers. On top of your lack of respect and deliberate lies you moan continually about how you get no respect. How confused can you be?

Well, I do find it interesting that for someone you have no respect for their research ability, you quote my numbers below ... if my research is that suspect, they why did you rely on it to make one of your points?

How quickly and conveniently you forget. I didn't, as you claim, rely on you. As I stated in an earlier post, Ingleside and I did the research first or at least reported it first, back at LHC@home. The survey you did later, or at least reported later, merely agreed with what Ingleside and I had already found and reported. You say you've found all the posts, well, go ahead and read it for yourself and post the evidence that proves otherwise. Right, the evidence in the written record once again refutes your nonsense.

Next, I never accused you of accusing LHC@Home of a deliberate policy to impact other projects.

Taken to task again, you're forced to change your story yet again. At the end of your message 59353 in this thread you state (bolding added by me):

Anyway, I thought that someone should present the rebuttal point to his assertion that there seems to be an evil nefarious plot by LHC@Home to deprive Rosetta@Home of computing resources ...

So what's your story today? If the "his" in "his assertion" doesn't refer to me then who does it refer to? Bugs Bunny?

As to insulting the readers here. I have only posted a rebuttal to your proposal to inform the readers that there are other considerations. As there always are.

Of course there are always other considerations but unfortunately for you none of your considerations concerning the 5/3 policy at LHC@home has held any water. The quotes above prove you've tried to put words in my mouth and then deny it. You've also asserted I am not qualified to comment but that's all been exposed for the lies and nonsense that it is. The fact that you obviously believed readers here would buy it proves you have no respect and think the rest of us are all dumber than dirt. It didn't work for Nixon, it ain't gonna work for you. No matter how politely you word your nonsense, your lies and your insults, they are still just lies, insults and nonsense.

The fact that you personally do not want to recognize that LHC@Home has operational and funding constraints does not mean they do not exist.

I confess that I was unaware of the fact that LHC@home is no longer doing work that is essential to design or operation of the collider and that they never will be again in the future (I believe you made that point, correct me if I am wrong). If that is true then I agree, there is certainly no hope for funding from CERN or LHC. I have always admitted that configuring the LHC@home server to issue resends to fast reliable hosts would take some time and tweaking (probably 100 man-hours or more, for new scripts and database mods) and perhaps some money. Since the money isn't going to happen and the only programmer at LHC@home appears to be old, frail and retired, I'll do the sensible thing and drop the proposal to turn on and configure the "issue resends to fast reliable hosts" function and just go with the other part of the proposal which is to shorten the deadline and replace the number of tasks per day limit with a per core limit on results in progress. Those changes would take less than 5 minutes.

So, I have tried to point out that these issues are there and that can explain why no change has happened.

Did you make the proposal? Yes.
Did the administrator take it up with the scientists? Yes.
Did they allow a change? No
Were you satisfied? No

And here we are. You got your account banned in LHC@Home not because they are covering up anything ... but because you do not seem to want to be reasonable. You say that you want a debate of the issue, yet, I think, that most readers of this thread might come to the conclusion that a fair debate of the issue is not what you are interested in.

Quite the other way around. The LHC@home admins did not take it up with the scientists. They took it up with the programmer. That's why I continue to press the issue. The thread at LHC@home was censored because I brought up facts and issues that embarass LHC@home because they point to incompetence, sloth and a cover up of the fact that they aren't doing anything vital to construction or operation of the collider yet continue to claim they absolutely MUST have fast turn arounds and therefore MUST have the 5/3 policy. They don't need fast turn arounds and even if they did they can have that with near 0 waste. That's the lies they've told and there is no disrespect in calling a liar a liar because liars deserve no respect.

2) You still haven't explained how shortening the deadline on a project's tasks makes the work units achieve quorum slower.

I never said that lowering the deadline achieved quorum slower. I did say that it would disenfranchise many participants that want to contribute to LHC@Home any may not have computers that are as fast as mine. So, as a compromise to allow the broadest participation the project came up with this formulation that is working for them and for most participants.

Your change would benefit people like me, and apparently you, who have fast computers with high speed connections and so forth to be able to grab more work. Which is the real motivation here (IMO).

Why would I want more LHC@home work? Hmmm?

And for Pete's sake... the fastest computers I have are old Athlon 64+ and P4, as you can see in the public records if you would just do your homework for a change. Please tell us exactly how the changes I propose would give me an advantage.

3) You have claimed that LHC@home uses the IR 5 for Q 3 policy because they actually want a quorum of 4 instead of 3. The easy and efficient way to get a quorum of 4 is to just set the quorum at 4 instead of 3. Why wouldn't LHC@home just do it that way? Especially since your way doesn't guarantee them a quorum of 4 anyway? That is your last remaining defense of the 5/3 policy. If you can't provide a reasonable answer to the question then you have lost the debate.

Because, as I have also stated, if they changed to a 4 quorum issue 5, then the quorum would be over 4. It would be a number between 4 and 5 ...

Not if they used initial replication 4 for quorum of 4.

If they changed it to issue 3, then for every instance where there was a miss in the initial set you have to re-issue the work and wait another deadline period. Again, cutting the deadline in half and an issue of 3, quorum of 3 might get the project back to the point where they already are ...

Wrong. No might about it. In fact they would be ahead of where they are now because now they have to wait for up to 14 days for quorum if 1 result needs a do-over. With a 3 day deadline they would have to wait a maximum of only 6 days, assuming in both cases the miss is made up on the first re-send. If the re-send also misses then the advantage to the 3 day deadline is even more pronounced.

So, by investing time and effort and money, and staff,

Setting the deadline to 3 days takes less than 5 minutes.

it is entirely possible that they would achieve the goal of getting the minimum quorum of 3 in roughly the same time they are now ... then again, they might not ... which is another point you refuse to accept.

I refuse to accept it because the "logic" which leads you to that erroneous conclusion is as absurd as the "logic" that says there are no bones in ice cream therefore the moon might be made of Swiss cheese.

There is a non-zero possibility that after the investment of resources that the project does not have, that the new "Dagorath Plan" does not work. Which is perhaps the most important point you refuse to accept... yet how many projects have made a change to achieve a particular end, that the change did not accomplish that end.

Keep in mind that the "Dagorath Plan" no longer includes the "issue resends to fast reliable hosts" item. Now tell us the names of the projects that shortened the deadline only to find that the quorums/batches took longer rather than shorter.

The last point is from the first part, but it is more appropriate to close on this note I think, to quote myself:

[quote]The posts and threads were not censored because of an interest in a "Cover up" or that they are not telling the truth. The censorship came about because of Dagorath's manner and tone.

Heaping abuse on the project scientists, administrators, and other participants that disagree with his analysis is the reason that the threads and or posts were moderated.

Just as if you become abusive here in Rosetta, LHC took action to maintain a civil atmosphere in their project.

Well, if you don't want to be called a piece of cheese then don't act like a piece of cheese. Or else just get used to people calling you cheese.

Oh, and where do I moan about getting no respect?

Where do you not?

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