GridCoin team not participating in Pentathlon

pututu

pututu

[H]ard DC'er of the Year 2021
Joined
Dec 27, 2015
Messages
3,259
It appears that GC team registration for the Pentathlon was rejected by SG according to the latest shout box here or the GC team just pulled out from the registration. Appears to be conflicting.

I don't know the actual reasoning behind this yet.

Well at least one big boy is not participating.

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I think it is a terrible move. People may not like competing with those that cash in, but we have been fighting against businesses and universities for years. Never have they been banned. Plus some of our own run corporate hardware, so I don't see why the crypto kings should be excluded in any form or fashion. This is no different than anyone else whining because the event doesn't fit their own way of DC'ing. You cannot confine such things without being a hypocrite in some way. Just my $.02
 
I could not find any reasoning behind this but I'm guessing maybe it has to do with recent issue with Collatz cheating? I think one person spoils the reputation of that team.

GC were in previous pentathlon so this is a suprising move.
 
There is a ton of hostility in the BOINC community towards crypto or any other method of pay to play. Many see DC'ing as non-paid volunteering of time and resources rather than being a paid volunteer. And DC'ing includes crypto by definition. However, they fear that paying people to do the research taints the concept as a whole and fear that it brings the entire community down. Their is a lot of FUD out there. If the recent cheating issue with Collatz is the concern then the Polish National Team would have been banned numerous times due to their history. They are typically the ones that have someone cheating in a large way and punishes the teams reputation.
 
Isn't there also controversy about the Charity Engine / Pomegranate thing? As in people are getting their systems borged without fully understanding what's going on?
 
Charity Engine is a completely different beast. You are essentially donating your systems to run work that you don't always know what its doing. In exchange you get thrown into a lottery of sorts with entries equivalent to the points you earned during that round. There is a lucky winner for a payout with some of the funds generated. They guarantee a percentage of all processing power being donated to science but they will also donate more when there isn't paid work being divvied out. They don't in essence have a "team" that partakes in challenges. And the points you earn using their system does not go to your regular account rather it creates a generic Charity Engine naming scheme. I did a little bit of testing with it a few years back. With Gridcoin, you know what you are crunching just as any other user does. They just award the DC'ers with coins. They don't actually mine them. At least not the system that everyone is complaining about.
 
I guess the only rules that I can find from SG (organizer) website that is the closest explanation to why ejecting GC from the event is hilited below. I suppose the organizer considers the recent issue of cheating to be part of the requirement for participating in the Pentathlon.


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So if we wanted to disqualify SETI.Germany, then we could join them and then just cheat using temporarily made accounts and then they would have to abide by their own judgement.............. Sounds really stupid since there is no stopping people from joining teams.
 
For the record; I couldn't care any less either way.

However, that last post could easily be identified if new members join and suddenly just start cheating. While no way to actually ban them from the team the team could have a strong argument about not condoning such activity and that new accounts were created just to tarnish the teams reputation.

Also, GridCoin is not the same as a university/college or business hardware being used. Neither one is gaining direct profit from using them. Much like atp1916 isn't earning money using his mining hardware on the projects.

Gray area for sure.
 
I am getting SPARC tokens for running BOINC. Not worth anything yet but same ball park. Businesses and Universities can use it for free publicity if they wanted to. No not same ballpark but easily argued and has been for decades. Also, Gridcoin did come out in the Collatz forum pointing out it was a single member and they are trying to take corrective action as it was stealing from people within the team as well. So, clearly the team is being punished though they have been working with slicker and others to fix things. Again, I have no stake in Gridcoin. I just like rules to be fair and apply to everyone. There are some things that cannot be controlled and people need to get over that.
 
I don't mind if individuals in a team have access to hardware also in their companies or investing their own like hell; as [H] has its own history with F@H for example. Over all the teams it equals most likely out.

That is also one of the reason why I like a league-structure as in FB, when similar-sized teams can be grouped and compete each other. But if during competitions the winner is pre-defined its kind of boring ...
Sure we have IBM in WCG; where also no one can compete against; but they mainly working on the simple project only.

As SG don't have a league-structure I think they have not much of a chance as excluding GC to keep interest overall.
 
Our Gridcoin brothers are the nameless. Striving for excellence with in DC, yet abandoning all hope for being in a cool team like [H]

Overall i like to think the idea has likely increased DC numbers significantly and that should be encouraged. I try to pretend that silver is gold and that i'm not really competing with them, but i imagine if we got ahead we would shit talk them :D
I want to hate them... but they are useful
 
I personally believe that when H was #1 in FAH that other teams felt that way towards us. We should have been excluded and barred by your reasoning. We cannot beat SETI.USA, so why are we competing? My answer is because it shows everyone what a small team can absolutely do up against the large teams. It shows us that we can make a difference. So what if you know you cannot be first. I've had fun in every Pentathlon so far knowing we could not win the entire thing. Why do you compete knowing this?
 
From BOINC team USA forum site, explanation by SG (pschoefer) on why GC was banned. That sums it up.

01:28 pschoefer: we are deeply concerned about any problems that might effectively destroy the competition
01:28 pschoefer: in the last months, there was at least one rogue member of Gridcoin trying to receive Gridcoin rewards while doing no valid work at all
01:29 pschoefer: (in case you were wondering why Collatz Conjecture is not available for this years Pentathlon: it was temporarily shut down because of that)
01:29 pschoefer: this already happened at at least three projects, and while the Gridcoin community worked with the administrators of those projects to help stopping it, ...
01:29 pschoefer: ... they apparently have no good options to deter rogue members from abusing their system and don't exclude projects open to the same kind of exploit from their system
01:30 pschoefer: there already was a different kind of rogue Gridcoin member affecting last year's Pentathlon stats, which was not on our radar until after the Pentathlon...
01:30 pschoefer: ...while the Gridcoin community was fully aware of this
01:30 pschoefer: unfortunately, we also don't have many options below the nuclear one of not running the Pentathlon at all
01:31 pschoefer: we did invite those members of team Gridcoin who are interested in the Pentathlon to compete as a seperate team, but they declined
Click to expand...
 
01:30 pschoefer: there already was a different kind of rogue Gridcoin member affecting last year's Pentathlon stats, which was not on our radar until after the Pentathlon...
01:30 pschoefer: ...while the Gridcoin community was fully aware of this


That is jacked up.
 
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The Gridcoin community may well have been aware of the issue but that doesn't address the underlying problem. Not a single person has stood up and said how a team can prevent its own members from acting in a very negative way. This could have been a member from another team that hates crypto in the BOINC community and decided to piss in some Cheerios because most of the community are sheep that do not look at the bigger picture. The Polish National Team has a huge record of cheaters in the history of BOINC. However, it was typically individuals not the team. guess whom gets the blame. When H was working with POGS to get an optimized application, there were others out there that immediately ran to the cheaters card. People need to chill out. SETI.Germany can do what they want with their competition. However, I cannot agree with this kind of thinking. How do we stop someone from doing that to our team? Suggestions? I would love to hear them....
 
In spite of this, in 2016 and 2017, GC never finished in the top 3. They don't appear to have all the team skills as spelled out in the Pentathlon site except maybe for "tactics" in a broader sense. Back to [H], we need to work as a team on mobilization, communication, strategy, flexibility and tactics. That's why I like about [H]. ;)
 
Everyone got the login passwords for Skillz 's rigs? Remember, we all decided to take just one so that the loot is spread out. No cheating now. Pssst... don't forget that we aren't telling him until after the Pentathlon. lol
 
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