Whilst we, all theCPChimps have enjoyed this years challenge I have never seen the forum buzzing so much for a long time. We need to be prepared better for next years. Perhaps hot on the tail of completing the task some thoughts action can be laid down for next Year. Thoughts / suggestions?
If we get a couple of months warning next year, we should be able to beat some of the slower teams and not have to rely on a team inploding to avoid the monky paw last place award. Some of the slower teams found the race too long and want next year to be haw many points a team can get in a time limit, instead of a race to a certain number of points. I think we can all agree with that on this team. Since the statistics at the start line are recorded, we could do with starting a few hours early. I have not paid such close attention to the stats before, but it seems points get stuck in there and can appear several hours after you finish a unit. Please note that stopping units just before they complete and then restarting them as the challenge starts in banned, as it would place a strain on the Stanford servers. I am proud of the way we got on with it. We could have quit when we realised the lack of notice had put us in a bad position. When we overtook [H]ardApes, we could have mostly stopped and just left a few processors to keep us ahead of them. We kept on going at about 400k ppd for 50 days and finished the challenge. Great work everyone.
Early start Vince, or did you sit up all night with a beer watching the stats? I agree that we should plan and have a calendar for next year, otherwise we'll forget and be late to the party again (well, I was anyway)! So, is there a planned date for next year (is it always early May?), so we can at least put calendar entries in to remind us to start thinking about client management in advance? Secondly, if we know the rough date, then we need a more dedicated section in the magazine the month before it starts to encourage a) existing folders to swap over (as they don't all surf the forums), and b) new folders to have (more of) a reason to start, even if only for the duration of the challenge. I was disappointed about the lack of column inches given to the Chimps in the last mag, and maybe we should look at some way of identifying/recognise those chimping - something similar to the countdown's for CPU and GPUs - a self-subscription thread/sticky, or is that too hard to manage? Some of our addicts have sacrificed hundreds of thousands, if not millions of points to do this and other than kudos from fellow chimps, there isn't much recognition - giving them a printed kudos in the mag will help - look at how hard people try to get 20,000 points just to see their names in print, even once. For these stalwarts to drop out of the top 20s and not hit any milestones because they are chimping seems a shame. We all know they are doing it for a higher moral/personal cause, but it's always nice to be recognised for your contribution to anything in life, isn't it? Anyways, good job well done to all those who joined in - it was a gas
More notice and a piece in the magazine. Also use the bit-net forums some more to persuade people to join (not sure how though). Controversial - some way of splitting between corporate folders and ordinary people, no ringers, and no bribery. Is it time for the captains to draft some rules, so we can start arguing now and have them settled before next year.
I'll chat to the other captains to set firm rules for next year. No bribery for a start. I'll also start to plan a way get people to register they're in the challenge (even if it's just emailing me). That way we can give cridit to all those that took part (maybe even a mag feature). I'll find dates etc as well for next year. Anyway thanks to all who took part, it was a blast. Time to plan our next bit of fun.
Agreed! - Two solutions: 1) Get a headline on the home page of the bit-tech website - it will be seen by non-folders and may attract attention - use the CPChimp logo/avatar many of the chimps used!!. Maybe a countdown to the start of the challenge? 2) Similarly, a headline item on the top line of the main forum page - don't assume people will drop down into the CPC folding forum to find out what chimping is about. This will mean all of the hardware, software, modders etc who navigate into the forums will see it at the top of the page and may be persuaded to pay a visit. There is plenty of 'blank' real-estate on the webpages to the left and right hand side of the main adverts - could we hijack some of that dead space without impacting on pay per click revenues for the website? If we can get these two things going, we get the best publicity within the bit-tech site that is possible IMHO. Couple this with a leader in the mag the month before and we have covered both bases as best we can, no? Craig...
I'll just jot down a few quick points, most of which has actually been covered already. - More time to prepare next year, meaning more warning that the CC is coming up. More coverage both in the mag and on the forum/ website will help us get even more of our team involved next year. The mag is the most important aspect of this I feel. - Less corporate users. I think I speak for us all when I say that OCN would have been pretty much as productive as us if not less than both this year and towards the end of last without barnettworks. It's great that he can produce so many points for the project and all, but in something like the CC, corporate folding on such a large scal is very unfair and we all knew what was going to happen from the beginning. - Prizes/ bribery. It's a sore topic, and one that I am sure Clive will be discussing in great detail with both us and the other team captains now that the challenge is over. Personally I think that OCN's tactic of offering cash and hardware prizes to people who agreed to fold for their chimp was a bit of a spoiler for this years challenge. This is supposed to be a friendly, fun challenge where some of the best folding teams in the world go head to head to see who's got the minerals and who hasn't. I think I'm right in saying that this year was the first time that money or prizes came into it, and it put a wet blanket on the whole event IMO. Rules need to be set on this matter. Not every team can afford to shell out thousands of £ or $ in prizes to it's members for folding for the chimp. - MOAR people. Mainly, we need to promote the CC about 2 months in advance next year and get more people involved in it, be it for folding, helping people get kit set up for the challenge or just giving a helping hand getting stuff written for the forum/ site about it. - More hardware! Clive's idea this year was a true stroke of genius, and a very kind gesture might I add. He bought and distributed Geforce 8800GS's to chimping members so that we could up our production for the CC. I'm not sure how many in total were bought, but I know that I got two and it helped my production a lot for the challenge. Maybe some money could be set aside from now until next year (like a sponsor a card paypal or something - people could put a fiver a month in it) and when the CC comes around next year, we can spend whatever money is in the "purse" in buying cards for people to run for the CPChimp.
Meh, they're all suggestions only. If the team captain doesn't agree with it, then it doesn't happen. All I'm suggesting is that we save money for next years challenge, be it in a team purse or in our own piggy banks so that when the challnege comes around next year the sting is taken out of what we buy just for the challenge (I know lots of us this year splashed out on new hardware just for the CC!). As far as I'm concerned, I will be saving as much as I can to put towards folding because I have the rack to build, which will be running for net years challenge and should put a good number of PPD on the board for our chimp.
Correct The way I see it, we start folding on the morning of the 2nd May next year (3 days before to allow for SMP units), that way CPChimps definately hits the ground running at full speed. We should also start the discussion of the challenge on the forums about a month before it starts, and get coverage in the Mag the issue before it starts and the issue that comes out during it. We take those steps, and I reckon we can give the other apes a run for their money next year
We also need a 2010 CPChimp avatar that we can use did Arthur design the last one? Can I have sleeping one to put in my signature no good at that stuff myself
"New guys" on the forum obviously don't know just yet - No pics in sigs. Profile pics, yes. Avatars, yes, but no sig pics. Makes the whole forum a lot more readable and keeps it looking tidier
Thanks for the effort it seems we have to be content with text only But we will need an Avatar for the next challenge!
Resize that and use it as an avatar for now If you look at OCN's forum and try to read a long thread on it you'll see where the Bit-Tech mods are coming from, it's a mess and a shambles compared to our clean, tidy, VB powered board. I didn't understand it at first but after reading a picture-rich project log or a long text based thread, and after seeing what a mess OCN is because of so many sig images, it made perfect sense. Boring, but sensible at the same time
