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World Community Grid Forums
Category: Support
Forum: Website Support
Thread: Invalid Results  |
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Thread Status: Active Total posts in this thread: 13
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petehardy
Senior Cruncher USA Joined: May 4, 2007 Post Count: 318 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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Why do invalid results earn half credit?
----------------------------------------erlc_ a110_ pqb001_ 3-- 616 Server Aborted 3/12/10 14:00:22 3/12/10 21:49:35 0.00 0.0 / 0.0 erlc_ a110_ pqb001_ 2-- 616 Invalid 3/12/10 14:00:21 3/12/10 17:14:51 1.22 24.6 / 4.8 erlc_ a110_ pqb001_ 1-- 616 Valid 3/11/10 22:17:41 3/12/10 13:55:55 0.50 9.5 / 9.5 erlc_ a110_ pqb001_ 0-- 616 Valid 3/11/10 22:17:39 3/12/10 14:00:08 0.56 16.0 / 9.5 Is it something I did? Perhaps I cheated!  "Patience is a virtue", I can't wait to learn it! |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Hello petehardy,
We give half credit to people who tried. They had their computer work on a problem for hours only to produce an invalid result. Many things can cause this. For example, a randomly chosen initial configuration may not converge to a single final value because of peculiarities in the algorithm. There are many different reasons for invalid results. We award half points for invalid results. Lawrence |
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Hypernova
Master Cruncher Audaces Fortuna Juvat ! Vaud - Switzerland Joined: Dec 16, 2008 Post Count: 1908 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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As said long time ago the Baron de Coubertin founder of the Olympic Games of the modern era:
----------------------------------------L'important dans la vie ce n'est point le triomphe, mais le combat, l'essentiel ce n'est pas d'avoir vaincu mais de s'être bien battu. Which in english means (surely better translations exist): The importance in life is not to be triumphant, but the fighting. The essence is not to win but to have a good fight. So those who fought crunching an invalid WU get half the points. This is very fair from WCG and in a purely Olympic spirit. P.S. Let me now make a proposal. We should organize every two years the Winter and Summer Olympics of crunching here at WCG. We will have categories where members can register. Categories would be according to number of threads. Then the competition would be to crunch over a two week period, and the first three on points for each category get a gold, silver or bronze WCG Olympic medal.   |
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sk..
Master Cruncher http://s17.rimg.info/ccb5d62bd3e856cc0d1df9b0ee2f7f6a.gif Joined: Mar 22, 2007 Post Count: 2324 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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I have been getting some invalids on the same machine, Q6600 (native) 4GB XP x86.
----------------------------------------nl263_ 00042_ 9-- four Invalid 04/06/10 18:53:31 06/06/10 20:49:40 4.35 64.9 / 32.5 nk970_ 00091_ 3-- four Invalid 01/06/10 19:04:39 03/06/10 17:29:09 4.50 67.4 / 33.7 nk910_ 00111_ 4-- four Invalid 01/06/10 04:28:19 02/06/10 22:53:54 4.74 71.0 / 38.5 nk851_ 00048_ 0-- four Invalid 31/05/10 15:31:46 02/06/10 16:53:03 5.43 82.1 / 45.9 nk554_ 00025_ 18-- four Invalid 28/05/10 16:42:07 29/05/10 04:54:29 4.45 67.1 / 33.5 Are these failures of any value? I have 3 HPF2 tasks in progress, 2 Pending Validation and I counted 18 Valids during the last week or so. It runs other tasks including HCC. No other failures. I think I will remove that project from that system, as that is a 20% failure rate, and do some HPF2 on another to compensate. [Edit 1 times, last edit by skgiven at Jun 7, 2010 10:30:42 PM] |
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petehardy
Senior Cruncher USA Joined: May 4, 2007 Post Count: 318 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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I would still like to know a good reason why "Invalid" results only get half credit!
----------------------------------------"Patience is a virtue", I can't wait to learn it! |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Well, let's start with BOINC worldwide standard: No credit at all for invalids! WCG gives 50% of quorum points that is granted to the valid results, and full CPU time for effort. Are you protesting any credit is given at all or do you want full credit [points], and then where does it end? Give a good reason why that would be.
------------------------------------------//-- edit: P.S. WCG [under circumstances] gives also credit for error results in lieu of time, where it assumes that the fault was in the code, and not in the host/client. As with the Invalid credit exception, this is unique to WCG. [Edit 2 times, last edit by Former Member at Apr 23, 2012 8:59:42 PM] |
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petehardy
Senior Cruncher USA Joined: May 4, 2007 Post Count: 318 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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Well, let's start with BOINC worldwide standard: No credit at all for invalids! WCG gives 50% of quorum points that is granted to the valid results, and full CPU time for effort. Are you protesting any credit is given at all or do you want full credit [points], and then where does it end? Give a good reason why that would be. --//-- edit: P.S. WCG [under circumstances] gives also credit for error results in lieu of time, where it assumes that the fault was in the code, and not in the host/client. As with the Invalid credit exception, this is unique to WCG. Can you explain to me how the host/client can be the cause of the invalid result? I can accept that the host/client can cause errors, but they are mostly caused by the application. I don't care about these. I only crunch for WCG and I don't care about the rest of Boinc. Invalid results should get quorum credit and CPU. Bottom Line: None of the host/client/application software is mine, therefore it is the responsibity of WCG to ensure that it works under all circumstances. "Patience is a virtue", I can't wait to learn it! |
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astrolabe.
Senior Cruncher Joined: May 9, 2011 Post Count: 496 Status: Offline |
I would still like to know a good reason why "Invalid" results only get half credit! You must have missed the answerWe give half credit to people who tried. |
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Bugg
Senior Cruncher USA Joined: Nov 19, 2006 Post Count: 271 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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Sounds like you're just assuming that there's no POSSIBLE way that your system or anything you've done on that machine could be the cause of it to be invalid. To be honest here, that sounds pretty selfish and egotistical.
----------------------------------------I'd say just chalk it up to being able to get more than anywhere else would give in this instance (more being more than NOTHING), and be happy. Perhaps I'm in the minority. If so, the rest of ya can correct me if I'm wrong here. :)  i5-12600K (3.7GHz), 32GB DDR5, Win11 64bit Home |
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KWSN - A Shrubbery
Master Cruncher Joined: Jan 8, 2006 Post Count: 1585 Status: Offline |
Invalid results don't necessarily mean a bad system. It does though almost always mean that the other results were closer to correct than yours were for whatever reason. Without this system there is no consistency in the results and the science becomes meaningless.
----------------------------------------I too think it's more than fair that you get credited for all of the run time and half of the awarded credits for work that the scientists will be unable to use.  Distributed computing volunteer since September 27, 2000 |
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