What the hell is the big deal about credits. There�re Monopoly Money. They buy nothing. In fact they are worth less than Monopoly Money, you can�t even use credits to buy little plastic hotels.

The Admins will get it fixed eventually. In the mean time we should remember that it is the work that counts, not a bunch of useless credits.

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The credits are an acknowledgement by the project to the volunteers that they have contributed to the scientific research. It�s like the project scientists clicking the �like� button to show that you have done a good job.

This project has been a black hole for over a month now! If you don't get your act together soon, I'll switch to other projects.

[...] we should remember that it is the work that counts, not a bunch of useless credits.

Is it, though? We don't know what the work does, because the scientists never engage with the community. What are those 50,000 HadCM3Ns in the latest batch actually for? Does anyone know?

No funds for hardware or systems admin, no communication about purposes or timetables, no proper validation of models before releasing them: whatever it was before, the project is starting to look more and more like a public relations exercise, being given all the priority and attention that scientists usually give public relations. That is, none.

Credits are a substitute for a purpose: a substitute that is acceptable to a lot of us because we're trained up from birth to be good consumers, to want to acquire lots of 'stuff', no matter what the 'stuff' is. But with neither meaning nor credits, why should anyone bother?

... The project admins/developers have been aware of this for several weeks.

So far, the answer is that they simply don't know the cause of the problem.

Frankly this extended unresolved issue suggests to me that the people who need to research and resolve the issue either are not available to do this, or have other higher priority tasks which they are focused on. ...

Richard's post in another thread reminded me that one of the things that the admins are working on is replacing the CPDN back end with an up-to-date version of the Boinc server (the installed version is both ancient & highly customised, therefore it is a big job).

Among other things, it would require that the CPDN credit system be either rewritten or migrated.

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What does that mean exactly?

There is now Credit for the work done or not?
Are the project operators to repair or unable mean?
Otherwise I can also cancel the rest of my work on another system.

To me it means that while at some point the credit will be recalculated and appear in the tables allowing crunchers to compare how they are doing with others, it isn't going to happen quickly.

Or as someone I knew in the forces used to say, "Hurry up and wait."

Distributed-computing projects take different approaches to credits in part based on the size and number of tasks issued. For projects with small tasks and colossal numbers of tasks, those tasks are not in themselves interesting: they may not, for example, have graphics that could provide some satisfaction or even education for the person who completed the task. On completion these small tasks are sometimes removed from public view and credits allocated.

The climate models, even the small ones, are relatively large. So CPDN has added graphics both to running models and server-side models. Except for infrequent bulk archives, the models are retained. Consequently the credit calculation process can use the database of tasks to allocate credits (plus a correction for archived tasks).

This design is both good and bad. It is good because it means that the credits will be allocated at some point, so long as the database continues to exist. Were the project one in which the tasks are deleted then there really would be a problem. It is bad because the database keeps getting bigger and that is part of the current problem. It is also bad because there is extra task graphics code to maintain, which is not currently working.

So it seems to me that the project's early design decisions reflected the nature of the project's tasks. The failure to sustain that vision and the implied relationship with the volunteers therefore extends beyond mere credits. The attempt to modernise the server code is an attempt to regain control of a project that was unusual when first created. I hope that some way can be found to continue to reflect the project's special nature and the unusual level of commitment required of its volunteers.

To say that credit is not important is just silly

To say that credit is not important is just silly

There are lots of other worthwhile projects. There credit awarding scripts work perfectly. You are perfectly free to run any of them until CPDN sorts out this problem. What�s silly is this obsession with credits. It�s the work than important.

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Go tell the people that make the top 500 list for the worlds most powerful computers their list is stupid, it's the same for everyone on teams. They fiercely compete against each other and that's impossible without points. Why is it a dirty word to some? Because they have a cheap store bought machine and a only a $100.00 a month electric bill? I've got 4 machines I built that cost as much as a car and a $500.00 a month electric bill and now some think they should take away my credits?

We always want a way to measure how well were doing, our machines, our energy bill, our time and if credits our taken away, then what? We all know were going to hell on a greased rail, don't you think all our problems would be better served by cutting the worlds population rather than burning up terawatts of electricity trying to fix one problem at a time?

The project is not going to take anyone's credits away, nor has anyone from the project said that credits are silly. Credits are useful in all sorts of ways and they will be sorted out at some point.

But, having said that, credit discussions always seem to end up in the same unhappy place, so I'm entirely content to say that getting worked up about credits is profoundly silly. It's not clear to me by what mechanism anyone should suppose that the probability of a fix is related to the volubility of the request. The project has been informed via multiple channels. Everything else is just noise.

Credits delay has already been seen in this project, as soon as they have their scripts working again, they will be able to rollup all informations either from start or from the point where the delay started. It always worked like that and I'm optimistic that this time will not be different.

I highly doubt that anything will get lost.

p.s.: If my information is still valid, credits calculation in this project is a full run over all models and all trickles ever crunched anyway, so a normal standard call will collect everything from the beginning of (CPDN) time up to now. This is why (unlike in other projects) team member movements always moves all member credits to the new team btw.

... p.s.: If my information is still valid, credits calculation in this project is a full run over all models and all trickles ever crunched anyway, so a normal standard call will collect everything from the beginning of (CPDN) time up to now. This is why (unlike in other projects) team member movements always moves all member credits to the new team btw.

Yes, it still works like that, once the correct part of the credit generation process is fixed, then everyone will get all outstanding credit.

One of the moderators (mo.v) met up with Andy & some of the senior researchers on Friday to discuss several issues including credits, and it looks like there is progress. Among other things we are hoping that a science update can be published showing what the current projects are.

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Thanks moderators all. Now all I have to do for my netbook is get the vrystal ball out to time project update with a re-issue of a regional task or preferably two!

Its looking promising ... the trickles are now being converted to credits from what I can see. It will still take a day or two for the external credit statistics sites to pick up the new numbers.

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Credits up on my box too. I probably wouldn't even have looked if it hadn't been for your post lol.

I've received the credits today. It seems to work again.

I got some as well, but I didn't miss that much. Or was I really that far behind? Or was there some recalculation of older stuff involved as well?

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Grüße vom Sänger

I got some as well, but I didn't miss that much. Or was I really that far behind? Or was there some recalculation of older stuff involved as well?

OK, too late to edit my previous post, so a new one.

My BOINC still shows 1,511,801 credits, but my account is down to more believable 1,221,873. Did you perhaps ad my beta-credits twice?

But thanks anyway for setting it right!

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Grüße vom Sänger