At 04:27 PM 1/24/03 +0000, Gordon Spence wrote:
Of course, as this is a *public* volunteer project, there are a lot of us, who have been in the project for a long-time (6+ years) who regularly look through these for no other reason than we *want* to.Aye, I like having as detailed an access as possible. All of these discussions about strategies couldn't be taking place unless we could see and analyze these trends and problems.
No. If I was setting out to "poach" numbers - which in itself is a moot point. You don't *own* an exponent, they are after all simply numbers. However, I digress. If I was setting out to "poach" numbers, then I would simply setup a few 3.06 Ghz P4's and just start at the bottom of the list (smallest exponents) and let rip. Complete an exponent every day or so. So some of them might be completed before me, so what, we then have a "triple" check. If someone wants to do it, you won't stop them.While participants don't "own" exponents, there are rules for using Prime95, and participating using Primenet that one has to agree to in order to use them. The rules are explicit about agreeing to how credit is given and prizes awarded. It should be a rule that if one uses Prime95 or Primenet or any of its reports, that one does not use it or the information in the reports to target exponents assigned to others. If one wants the benefits that arise from this cooperative scheme, one needs to agree to participate in a cooperative manner.
You are missing the point about it being useful to have "triple" checks. Nothing is redundant.There are plenty of triple checks that happen accidentally. There is no GIMPS need to do some on purpose, especially to the detriment of a participant that is following the rules. If someone feels a personal need to do triple checks, they should do them on exponents that are already double checked.
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