To be honest, I don't even recall what I may have said in the past regarding poaching of exponents. I think it was me that applied the word to the actual practice of nabbing exponents that were still assigned. :)
If I recall correctly, the topic came up at a time when PrimeNet did not expire exponents or require check ins every 60 days. Used to be that if you were assigned an exponent, basically you had it for a very very long time and no check-ins were required. I think Scott may have gone through manually and reallocated exponents that he deemed were abandoned, but I'm not sure of the actual process. All I know is, the only reason I ever poached exponents in the past was when I saw one that had been checked out for over a year and had never been checked in or updated. And yes, there were quite a few of those at the time. It was that previous thread about poaching that led to the changes in Primenet with expirations, requiring checkins every 60 days or your exponent would expire, etc. The way it is now, an exponent that's never been updated will expire in roughly 120 days which isn't bad. Compare that to before those changes when there were exponents out there that hadn't been checked in for 2 years and were still showing 3 or even 4 years to go. If those weren't poached and finished, there would have been significant gaps in the database. And while Scott would have gone through and cleaned such things out eventually, heaven knows he had better things to be doing. I think Mary's objection now is that poaching is not necessary, and she's right. Another objection is that if someone were going to poach exponents, this one person in particular was doing a lousy job at selecting which ones. I suppose that by selecting exponents that were on the verge of expiring, they would be reassigned to someone else in very short order anyway, meaning he would finish them off just days before the new owner finishes them which yeah, is frustrating. Where I part company with yours and others opinion is what to do about it. In my mind, tracking down the guys name and address for whatever reason seems to go beyond what I would consider necessary diligence. I think that in the future, simply mentioning this person's primenet ID to the folks at Entropia should suffice since they could then send an email explaining why it's bad form to nab exponents prior to their expiration. Aaron PS - Mentions of my past on here can get confusing because, besides the poaching threads of the past, there's also another matter from my past which someone else posted a Google thread to (not Mary... I think it was Nathan something-or-other). I'm not at all embarrassed about that incident, but it just bothers me when someone decides to do Google searches in some sort of attempt to find information on someone in particular. That's the sort of thing that borders on stalking, and it wouldn't be the first time someone's done a Google search and then "rejoiced" that they found such a juicy tidbit of information from my past. :) That's okay, because in so doing they've just proved themselves to be a kook and there's no longer any doubt as to whether I should ignore them. :) > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:mersenne-invalid- > [EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Steve Elias > Sent: Monday, February 04, 2002 5:44 AM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: Mersenne: Work being wasted > > > Aaron, > > i really know nothing about your past except what i've read here. > > it's your current comments re poaching which i have found > objectionable. as you can see, i do feel free to comment regardless > of your possible lack of appreciation for my comments. if you repented > & apologized for your alleged-previous-poaching-transgressions i might > think differently, but you appear to be unapologetic. > (but i don't really expect you to care what *i* think!!!) > > really - to each his own. i do recognize your right to think that > your current pro-poaching comments are moral even if > actually they are not, just as i recognize a moral-relativist's right > to so delude themselves on whatever matter of immorality they like. > while these folks may be deluding themselves they aren't fooling me - > and i'm plenty foolish on my own accord! _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.ndatech.com/mersenne/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
