I have noticed several times when I send a wu in I am given 0 credit when my pc claimed say 40.Other two people got credit so why do I not get any?Thanks

Rach

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......In Space No One Can Hear You Scream......

Hi Rachel
Its looks like on one, the first appearing, according to the result file it was not valid. While the work unit file claimed success. And it seems funny that credit would be given to two hosts???

> Hi Rachel
> Its looks like on one, the first appearing, according to the result file it
> was not valid. While the work unit file claimed success. And it seems funny
> that credit would be given to two hosts???
>

I have the same issue. From what I've read on these boards, all three claimed credits have to be close in order to be granted any credit at all. One of my pc's tends to claim very low credit (~22). In some cases, when it claims 19 I get 0.00 granted - while the other two are granted the least claimed between them. However, then you get some like this I found (http://setiweb.ssl.berkeley.edu/results.php?hostid=77902) who claim ~14 every time, but get granted the next highest claim.

However, there was one instance where I claimed 19.54, and the other two were 51.52 and 33.10 (all successful, in that order received by the server). I and the 51.52 were both granted 19.54, and the 33.10 was granted 0.00. Strange.

I looked at the owner's manual (http://homepage.mac.com/pauldbuck/index.html) and it really didn't specify the current policy for granting credits for SETI. It talked about using the least or median of claimed credits, but didn't specify which one is being used for SETI, and more importantly the issue of throwing out credits when results are not close together.

---

CREDITS by PAUL

---

Semper Eadem
So long Paul, it has been a hell of a ride.

Park your ego's, fire up the computers, Science YES, Credits No.

> I looked at the owner's manual (http://homepage.mac.com/pauldbuck/index.html)
> and it really didn't specify the current policy for granting credits for SETI.
> It talked about using the least or median of claimed credits, but didn't
> specify which one is being used for SETI, and more importantly the issue of
> throwing out credits when results are not close together.

The problem is that each project has established credit granting policies and have refined (changed) those policices as time as worn on. More details about the credit process are in the FAQ, both SETI@Home FAQ and the BOINC FAQ. Other parts of those are also contained within the definitions of the words in the Glossary.

Recent Average Credit,
Granted Credit,
Total Credit,
etc.

Are all defined under the applicable letter in the glossary.

Right now, to the best of my knowledge, SETI@Home is issuing 3 results with the intent to get back a minimum of two valid results with which it will create a quorum of results and will grant the lowest requested credit if there are only two results in the quorum, and the middle value when there are three results in the quorum of results.

---

I HAVE THE SAME PROBLEM NO CREDIT ON MORE THAN ONE OCATION. ONLY THREE RETURNS FOR W U ME BEING THE THIRD OTHERS GET CREDIT ME 0.
http://setiweb.ssl.berkeley.edu/workunit.php?wuid=3348708

HELP ANY ONE???? I DONT DO THIS FOR THE GLORY OF IT I JUST WANT CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE.

---

Seems Rachel is in the "Whine Whine Wine" mode a lot
about credits...puhhhhlease....and a lot of others
follow suit...

Remember you volunteered for this project, take what is
given and be satisfied....

Too much hand holding for "Rach"...

---

> I HAVE THE SAME PROBLEM NO CREDIT ON MORE THAN ONE OCATION. ONLY THREE RETURNS
> FOR W U ME BEING THE THIRD OTHERS GET CREDIT ME 0.
> http://setiweb.ssl.berkeley.edu/workunit.php?wuid=3348708
>
> HELP ANY ONE???? I DONT DO THIS FOR THE GLORY OF IT I JUST WANT CREDIT WHERE
> CREDIT IS DUE.
>

Credit is good, but the science is what we are in this for....

L8R....

---

---

CAPT Siran d'Vel'nahr - L L & P _\\//
Winders 11 OS? "What a piece of junk!" - L. Skywalker
"Logic is the cement of our civilization with which we ascend from chaos using reason as our guide." - T'Plana-hath

> Seems Rachel is in the "Whine Whine Wine" mode a lot
> about credits...puhhhhlease....and a lot of others
> follow suit...
>
> Remember you volunteered for this project, take what is
> given and be satisfied....
>
> Too much hand holding for "Rach"...
>

I am not whining.I am simply asking and trying to find out what is happening.That is what forums are for you know.I clearly had a problem and thought asking questions in the forum was a sensible way to find out what was happening etc with fellow users.If you do not ask you do not know.I wanted to ask people if they were having the same probs etc and if there was a way to sort things out.There is a diff between asking and whining thanks.

Rach

---

......In Space No One Can Hear You Scream......

> > I HAVE THE SAME PROBLEM NO CREDIT ON MORE THAN ONE OCATION. ONLY THREE
> RETURNS
> > FOR W U ME BEING THE THIRD OTHERS GET CREDIT ME 0.
> > http://setiweb.ssl.berkeley.edu/workunit.php?wuid=3348708
> >
> > HELP ANY ONE???? I DONT DO THIS FOR THE GLORY OF IT I JUST WANT CREDIT
> WHERE
> > CREDIT IS DUE.
> >
>
> Credit is good, but the science is what we are in this for....
>
> L8R....
>
---yes but when there are problems people simply want to try and sort them out.Many people come on forums asking questions about slow downs and errors and I am simply trying to find out what was going on with the credits by asking in the forum.I enjoy seti and know its for the science but credits etc do matter too.

---

......In Space No One Can Hear You Scream......

> > > I HAVE THE SAME PROBLEM NO CREDIT ON MORE THAN ONE OCATION. ONLY
> THREE
> > RETURNS
> > > FOR W U ME BEING THE THIRD OTHERS GET CREDIT ME 0.
> > > http://setiweb.ssl.berkeley.edu/workunit.php?wuid=3348708
> > >
> > > HELP ANY ONE???? I DONT DO THIS FOR THE GLORY OF IT I JUST WANT
> CREDIT
> > WHERE
> > > CREDIT IS DUE.
> > >
> >
> > Credit is good, but the science is what we are in this for....
> >
> > L8R....
> >
> ---yes but when there are problems people simply want to try and sort them
> out.Many people come on forums asking questions about slow downs and errors
> and I am simply trying to find out what was going on with the credits by
> asking in the forum.I enjoy seti and know its for the science but credits etc
> do matter too.The forums are good too with good helpful feedback.
>
>

---

......In Space No One Can Hear You Scream......

I see two types of failure to give proper credit.

1) My machine reports a much lower # of CPU seconds (even though the credit claimed is similar):

http://setiweb.ssl.berkeley.edu/workunit.php?wuid=3259337
http://setiweb.ssl.berkeley.edu/workunit.php?wuid=3139283
http://setiweb.ssl.berkeley.edu/workunit.php?wuid=2922146

Being penalized for having a really fast machine seems terribly unfair.
This is going to be even more pronounced as the worker gets further tuned for G5 Altivec. My current worker is compiled with gcc 3.3 and will soon be compiled with gcc 3.5 (once a bug with templates gets fixed) which should boost speed quite a bit more (it doubled the dhrystone benchmark).

2) A validation problem by one host seems to caused the 3 good results to get no credit:

http://setiweb.ssl.berkeley.edu/workunit.php?wuid=2105721
http://setiweb.ssl.berkeley.edu/workunit.php?wuid=1630625
http://setiweb.ssl.berkeley.edu/workunit.php?wuid=1755886
http://setiweb.ssl.berkeley.edu/workunit.php?wuid=1996638

The last two seem to combine the problem of having a # CPU Seconds out of whack causing trouble.

Jim

---

I hear you Rachel and others regarding the credit issue. To the people like Vulcan yes we are in it for the science but if your handing out credit (like our dear Mr Anderson espouses in his speel about getting people wanting to crunch distributed computing projects) then it may as well be dished out fairly! That's all we ask. Make it right and make it consistent. That's something I've been asking since the days of BOINC 2.xx (yes I still have V2.12 hanging around on my system somewhere)!

Happy crunching,

---

Paul
(S@H1 8888)
And proud of it!

> I am not whining.I am simply asking and trying to find out what is
> happening.That is what forums are for you know.I clearly had a problem and
> thought asking questions in the forum was a sensible way to find out what was
> happening etc with fellow users.If you do not ask you do not know.I wanted to
> ask people if they were having the same probs etc and if there was a way to
> sort things out.There is a diff between asking and whining thanks.

Rach,

There is no better place to go in that situation. So, you did exactly right. This is the sensible place to get answers, and you can only get answers by asking.

However, Rachel, just for the record; there are some that get exasperated with the same questions being asked. So we have to be patient with them also. :)

Smile, and ask away ...

---

Hi

Paul, i totally agree.

greetz Mike

---

With each crime and every kindness we birth our future.

> Hi
>
> Paul, i totally agree.
>
> greetz Mike
>
>

Thanks for your replies.

Rach

---

......In Space No One Can Hear You Scream......

> > > > I HAVE THE SAME PROBLEM NO CREDIT ON MORE THAN ONE OCATION.
> ONLY
> > THREE
> > > RETURNS
> > > > FOR W U ME BEING THE THIRD OTHERS GET CREDIT ME 0.
> > > > http://setiweb.ssl.berkeley.edu/workunit.php?wuid=3348708
> > > >
> > > > HELP ANY ONE???? I DONT DO THIS FOR THE GLORY OF IT I JUST
> WANT
> > CREDIT
> > > WHERE
> > > > CREDIT IS DUE.
> > > >
> > >
> > > Credit is good, but the science is what we are in this for....
> > >
> > > L8R....
> > >
> > ---yes but when there are problems people simply want to try and sort
> them
> > out.Many people come on forums asking questions about slow downs and
> errors
> > and I am simply trying to find out what was going on with the credits by
> > asking in the forum.I enjoy seti and know its for the science but credits
> etc
> > do matter too.The forums are good too with good helpful feedback.
> >
> >
>

I'm not faulting you for asking "why?", Rachel. On the contrary, I'm wondering too. Last night I counted my 0.00 credit WUs back to mid August, I think it was, and counted at least 67. Quite a number of those where during the times that SETI@Home was having server/software problems. There's nothing anyone can do about that unless SETI can somehow re-work the WU and re-send them for processing.

Then there are those random WUs that you, I and many others are getting 0.00 credit for. I was reading another thread and someone there made a pretty good explanation for it that sounds quite logical to me. Since I'm already here, I can't copy and paste from it, so I will try the explaination myself.
--- For whatever reason, SETI@Home decided to send a WU out to 3 different PCs. Once the results are returned they are analized. If all 3 result are close in comparison, all 3 get credit. If, however, 1 does not come close to the other 2, credit is not granted for that one. Reasons for the 0.00 granted credit could be overclocking, bugs in the client software, bugs in the server software doing the analysis, etc., etc.

In other words, no one knows for sure why we get 0.00 granted credit for the WUs we so painstakingly work on. If, however, the dev team would read more of these threads, then they could let us know. Until then, we are left to wonder "why?".

L8R....

---

---

CAPT Siran d'Vel'nahr - L L & P _\\//
Winders 11 OS? "What a piece of junk!" - L. Skywalker
"Logic is the cement of our civilization with which we ascend from chaos using reason as our guide." - T'Plana-hath

> --- For whatever reason, SETI@Home decided to send a WU out to 3 different
> PCs. Once the results are returned they are analized. If all 3 result are
> close in comparison, all 3 get credit. If, however, 1 does not come close to
> the other 2, credit is not granted for that one. Reasons for the 0.00 granted
> credit could be overclocking, bugs in the client software, bugs in the server
> software doing the analysis, etc., etc.

... or differences in the CPUs themselves. Two identical (manufacturer/type/speed) processors should give absolutely identical answers.

I'd expect a small difference between the result from a Pentium II and a Pentium 4 (or a K6 and an Athlon XP)

I'd expect a slightly larger (but still small) difference between an Athlon XP and a Pentium 4.

... and a little bit more when we leave the Intel architectures (Sun, Apple, etc.)

In theory, the validator has a little bit of a "fuzz factor" in the comparison to allow reasonable differences between a K6 and a Sun workstation. This might need a little tuning, or it may be working just fine and the results really are a little too far apart.

---

> > > > > I HAVE THE SAME PROBLEM NO CREDIT ON MORE THAN ONE
> OCATION.
> > ONLY
> > > THREE
> > > > RETURNS
> > > > > FOR W U ME BEING THE THIRD OTHERS GET CREDIT ME 0.
> > > > > http://setiweb.ssl.berkeley.edu/workunit.php?wuid=3348708
> > > > >
> > > > > HELP ANY ONE???? I DONT DO THIS FOR THE GLORY OF IT I
> JUST
> > WANT
> > > CREDIT
> > > > WHERE
> > > > > CREDIT IS DUE.
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > > Credit is good, but the science is what we are in this for....
> > > >
> > > > L8R....
> > > >
> > > ---yes but when there are problems people simply want to try and
> sort
> > them
> > > out.Many people come on forums asking questions about slow downs
> and
> > errors
> > > and I am simply trying to find out what was going on with the
> credits by
> > > asking in the forum.I enjoy seti and know its for the science but
> credits
> > etc
> > > do matter too.The forums are good too with good helpful feedback.
> > >
> > >
> >
>
> I'm not faulting you for asking "why?", Rachel. On the contrary, I'm
> wondering too. Last night I counted my 0.00 credit WUs back to mid August, I
> think it was, and counted at least 67. Quite a number of those where during
> the times that SETI@Home was having server/software problems. There's nothing
> anyone can do about that unless SETI can somehow re-work the WU and re-send
> them for processing.
>
> Then there are those random WUs that you, I and many others are getting 0.00
> credit for. I was reading another thread and someone there made a pretty good
> explanation for it that sounds quite logical to me. Since I'm already here, I
> can't copy and paste from it, so I will try the explaination myself.
> --- For whatever reason, SETI@Home decided to send a WU out to 3 different
> PCs. Once the results are returned they are analized. If all 3 result are
> close in comparison, all 3 get credit. If, however, 1 does not come close to
> the other 2, credit is not granted for that one. Reasons for the 0.00 granted
> credit could be overclocking, bugs in the client software, bugs in the server
> software doing the analysis, etc., etc.
>
> In other words, no one knows for sure why we get 0.00 granted credit for the
> WUs we so painstakingly work on. If, however, the dev team would read more of
> these threads, then they could let us know. Until then, we are left to wonder
> "why?".
>
> L8R....
>
> ---
> Thanks for explaining.I understand it all now.Thanks.My pc is working again ok now.Must of been a bad batch of wu's.

Rach

---

......In Space No One Can Hear You Scream......

> ... or differences in the CPUs themselves. Two identical
> (manufacturer/type/speed) processors should give absolutely identical
> answers.
>
> I'd expect a small difference between the result from a Pentium II and a
> Pentium 4 (or a K6 and an Athlon XP)
>
> I'd expect a slightly larger (but still small) difference between an Athlon XP
> and a Pentium 4.
>
> ... and a little bit more when we leave the Intel architectures (Sun, Apple,
> etc.)

Well actually there can be a large difference in architectures as in the case of Apple G5 Altivec.
If you look at the WU I listed showing problems with credit the disparity is as large as 20 : 1.
With the next round tuning I anticipate doubling the speed, but there would be no point to
do that if I'm gonna wind up losing even more credits.

> In theory, the validator has a little bit of a "fuzz factor" in the comparison
> to allow reasonable differences between a K6 and a Sun workstation. This
> might need a little tuning, or it may be working just fine and the results
> really are a little too far apart.

Given the wide disparity in CPU speeds I don't see how the "fuzz factor" can possibly work
in comparing # CPU Seconds. Unless that factor is removed from determining whether to
give credit then it becomes pointless for those of us who are driven by the glory of credit
to push thruput ever higher.
The Claimed Credit apparently already factors in the differences based on the benchmark.
I see no good reason to void credit based on CPU seconds - especially if you're gonna accept
the results as valid (which you do).

And I believe the 2nd case I showed a flat out bug causing all 3 valid results to get no credit,
rather than just the 1 (of 4) that was invalid.

Jim

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