Ripcat,

Thanks for your suggestion... However, we decided to show the rank based on points because this is the measure that most people use when comparing their rankings. For example, the MyOnlineTeam page shows its team members by how many points they have (total, and for a given day).

You're right that the results returned is more important from a scientific perspective, but it is fairly well correlated with the number of points you have earned (these two rankings are usually fairly close). In addition, the points system was developed because it is a more clear demonstration of how much time members have actually spent working for WCG. For example, one member might be crunching a WU for 5 days and return one result, while another member would return one result a day for each of those 5 days. (We're assuming they're both crunching 24 hours/day ). The member who returned the 5 results would appear to be 5 times more important to the project, even though the first guy would have put in just as much time (and presumably, effort as well).

In this manner, the points system balanced things out, and measures members contributions, and takes into account that crunching a WU is a non-deterministic process (ie: there is no set amount of time to successfully crunch one WU).

I hope that you understand why we chose this rank. You can still check your results returned rank on the My Grid page any time you want.

Nels

Ripcat,

I'm afraid that's not really an option. It would probably be technically possible... but it wouldn't make a lot of sense. I think it would confuse a lot of members to have people displaying whatever rank they like better.

Just because someone gets smaller Work Units and is able to process those quickly doesn't mean they're more important (or deserve a higher rank) thank someone who gets large work units, since they could be processing just as quickly, but have bad luck in the WU draw. You've been around long enough to know that the time it takes is not determined by how many MB the Work Unit is, and also that Work Units are randomly distributed.

The current ranking system is the simplest and most fair method for everyone.

Keep it up with your suggestions, though, Ripcat. As they say in the venture capital business, it takes 100 ideas to find one that works.

Nels