[Planning] OCForums F@H Contest Thread

[Seven]

Hey guys,
Since the previous planning thread has dropped off the face of the earth and there has been some more talking about this, I decided to condense the other thread into this format and then allow you guys to comment on it.

What We Have So Far:

The Team:

David
I.M.O.G.
Veryhumid
Sewerbeing
MLMIB
Seven

The goals and objectives of this team are to:


Coordinate and organize all matters regarding the contest
Source sponsors, prize items, and the like to be given out as a reward for partaking in the contest
To clarify any questions about the contest or the way it works
To help promote and bring attention to the contest on the front page
To work out all details and guidelines regarding choosing a winner
Make members fully aware of the contest rules, guidelines, and progress


Contest Details So Far


Any contest prize will be held in the possesion of LutaWicasa, our forum admin
Only people folding for Team 32 are valid contestants
Stats will be sourced from Pandegroup and EOC stats
Comittee members are excluded from the contest (Ex. I cannot win anything, but I can still fold for 32.)
All decisions by the contest comittee are final, including but not limited to:
Excluding any person or persons or even groups of persons from the contest before, during, or after the contest for cheating, bringing disrespect to the team, or partaking in forum misconduct.
Formulation of contest rules and "ticket" method
Deciding winners of the contest

The "Ticket" Formula and You

David has come up with a great formula for this contest which doesn't weight heavy hitters over new users.

The formula is this:

# of tickets = ln ( (points this week) * ((change in rank + 1)/(total users)-(user rank)))

David has formulated this so at least 1 ticket is gained per WU completed. However, a multiplier of 2 could be added for some more beefy results.

Finding a winner? Simple.
The "Tickets" are put in a drawing, so the person with the most tickets theoretically has the best chance of winning.

Its a logarithmic scale so isnt weighted towards heavy producers in the top ranks. The best way to gain a lot of tickets is to have a low rank, have overtaken as many people as possible, and produce as many points per week as possible.

Possible Sponsors?

This is where we need the help of you guys. We want to know what YOU guys would want if you saw the front page and wanted to win. Remember, there are many possible sponsors out there, so if you even have a vague idea of something you think we could give away, let us know!

Sponsor Letter v.1.3

Dear Sir/Madam,

If possible, I would like to offer you a legitimate chance to gain some exposure and benefit a cause all at the same time. If you could spare a few moments to read this email it would be appreciated.

I am a Senior Member of an online Community known as "The Overclockers Forums" or "OC Forums". This forum is located at http://www.ocforums.com. Many of our members participate in a Distributed Computing program, which uses spare computer processor cycles to simulate protein folding mechanisms. This research may one day help us understand and then find cures for diseases and conditions such as cancer, alzheimers, parkinsons and other protein related conditions. This project is known as "Folding@Home" which is run by Stanford University. The home page for "Folding@Home" can be found at http://folding.stanford.edu. This project has recently release details of its research into a protien thought to be involved with cancer, and the research is promising.


We are currently one of the top three teams in the world in terms of CPU power we are contributing to the project.

In order to raise awareness of this project and to try and convince more people to join this project, run by a respected Educational Institution, we would like to run a contest.

However, we are in need of a prize to provide to the winner of this contest. We were hoping that perhaps you could donate an item, gift certificate or some other prize for us to use. In return, you would be mentioned as a sponsor on the forums which have 50,000+ members, and on the front page at http://www.overclockers.com which has many regular visitors. Statistics for Overclockers.com traffic can be seen here: http://www.alexa.com/data/details/t...verclockers.com


In particular we hope you would be able to supply something along the lines of <insert item here> although any contributions would be much appreciated.

On behalf of the OC Forums Folding team, I would like to thank you for any merchandise you may be able to provide. If you have any further questions or would like to contact me please feel free to email me at Davids@Email.Address

Yours Faithfully,

David Nelson
Forums Senior Member and Folding@Home participant.

So let's get this show on the road!

We could use your help too. Let us know if you have any ideas, suggestions, or comments about the contest! Feedback is crucial!

Sincerely,

Seven
OCForums F@H Contest Comittee

[Sentential]

Sounds like a good idea. Keep us posted on the details

[David]

Looks good to me.

Once we have the Ok from Lyman we just need to:

- Distribute letters
- Sort out what prizes are for what
- Start the contest :)

[Xenocide]

what about sub teams..?

[David]

what about sub teams..?

Hmm... if subteams enter then they would have to nominate a "team leader" of sorts. Dont know what they would do with the hardware though.

[Leviathan41]

So if a person moves down in the ranks they are automatically disqualified regardless of how much they produce? That makes it hard for people toward the top to win, but afterall this is geared toward new members so I guess that is right.

If you are a new member, your ticket count will pretty much be the the natural log of the number of points you get in the week because this section [(change in rank + 1)/(total users)-(user rank)] of the equation is going to be about 1. Put up 2000 points in the week and you've got yourself a cool 8 tickets! Hopefully it will get some new members to join! :D

[David]

So if a person moves down in the ranks they are automatically disqualified regardless of how much they produce? That makes it hard for people toward the top to win, but afterall this is geared toward new members so I guess that is right.

If you are a new member, your ticket count will pretty much be the the natural log of the number of points you get in the week because this section [(change in rank + 1)/(total users)-(user rank)] of the equation is going to be about 1. Put up 2000 points in the week and you've got yourself a cool 8 tickets! Hopefully it will get some new members to join! :D


Aaah always a flaw dammit.

Ok, if rank change is negative we call it 0.

[Leviathan41]

Cool, I like the formula, it will make more people join because they will be the ones with the best chance, yet the veterans still have an outside shot, nice work, I knew natural log was good for something :D

[Xenocide]

I knew natural log was good for something :D

YEA! CONFUSION!http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v362/xenner/bigun2.gif

[Mr B]

David has contacted me about a front page article (www.overclockers.com) "pimping" (his word) this contest.

While I do not have the final say (this lies with Joe Ciarella and Ed Stroligo), I certainly see no reason why this isn't possible.

I guarrantee nothing, again, as it's not my final call, but I will certainly try my best to see it happens.

Get writing, David. :thup:

Good luck with this endeavour, and all those who enter. :beer:

[Arlo_]

Finding a winner? Simple.
Take the person with the most tickets.

Don't take this the wrong way, but should we just award Dark15 the prize now for most points? Assuming he doesn't stop folding of course. Granted he's definately deserving, it just takes the mystery out of the contest.

# of tickets = ln ( (points this week) * ((change in rank + 1)/(total users)-(user rank)))

winner = lots of points * passing lots of folks/ number of folders-ending rank

or am I wrong?

[Arlo_]

And by the way, I really appreciate all the effort that you guys have put into the contest. :)

Just to clarify, how does this sound?

- Have a 1 week sign up period and a front page article about the contest.
- Start the contest, allow folk to join after the contest has started but they would stand a reduced chance of winning the less time they were folding.
- Each week tickets are calculated. Then a random ticket is drawn and the winner gets the weekly prize. If no suitable prizes for the weekly draws are sourced then there will be no weekly draw.
- After 4 weeks members will have a number of tickets for the main draw equal to the cumulative tickets they have earned over the four weeks. The main draw winner wins the grand prize.


from the other thread, I thought the tickets would go into a pot and the winner would be by random drawing. Has that changed?

[Seven]

Well...Dark_15 is going to slow down as he gets closer to the top. Thus, it's not a constant rate.

He's still got a good chance though, but remember, new users have the "leaping over 1,000 members each update" advantage, while the top producers have well...raw numbers.

We're going to need a program to run this methinks...

7

[davekusa]

I'll keep folding, you let me know if i win.

[Seven]

Actually....that isn't such a bad idea.
To make it even MORE fair, the number of entries is proportional to the # of tickets. This way, even people with 1 rig folding and 1 ticket have a chance at winning.

Very, VERY good idea.

7

[Arlo_]

Yeah, thats what I thought.

It would give low power new folders a chance proportional to the amount of power they have available. It would also encourage them to Borg and expand.

[David]

Hi guys.

Just to clarify, each person gets X tickets but its done like a raffle.

So you can win with 1 ticket, although the more tickets you have the better your chances of course.

[Leviathan41]

Hi guys.

Just to clarify, each person gets X tickets but its done like a raffle.

So you can win with 1 ticket, although the more tickets you have the better your chances of course.
That's what I thought. Like I said earlier, it is tilted toward new members (to recruit new members), yet veterans still have a shot at it.

[David]

According to MLMIB Gab from iNet has approved this. Mr B is satisfied with the contest as well, so lets get this rolling.

We now need to get the letters distributed.

To save confusion, could people not on the committee please NOT email vendors and manufacturers. We dont want each vendor getting 3479374387438 emails about this.

To comittee members: if you are going to email a certain company please post here that you are going to/have emailed a company. This will help avoid confusion.

Vendors:
Newegg :: David has sent email
OCZ :: David has sent email
FrozenCPU :: To be emailed
Jabtech :: To be emailed


Any more suggestions?

[I.M.O.G.]

Jabtech needs contacted.

[David]

Newegg and OCZ emailed

[Cjwinnit]

It depends on what you want to reward.

Eg, ln (PPW*rank)

[In other words, ln (ppw) + ln (rank)].

works but people at the bottom of the list doing nothing get off lightly.

[Cjwinnit]

We're going to need a program to run this methinks...

7

Back in the dark ages last year when we discussed re-doing the folding frontpage for the team I aquried and considerably modified some PHP coding for our stats site. It works but it's a bit eccentric and uses some weird methods :D

[RoadWarrior]

Hmmm you might try hitting up Computer Geeks www.computergeeks.com www.geeks.com I bet they don't get asked so often as Newegg et al, and might have one or two pieces of neat kit, they got as single items hanging round the warehouse that they'd be happy to write off for promo.

Plans sound good so far, however, what's to prevent "false n00bism" since it would seem that one could change one's rigs into a new name and get more chance of winning that way? There should be some prohibition in the rules about that or something.

regards,

Road Warrior

[Cjwinnit]

Plans sound good so far, however, what's to prevent "false n00bism" since it would seem that one could change one's rigs into a new name and get more chance of winning that way? There should be some prohibition in the rules about that or something.

Tricky.

If a high-producing person was to make multiple new ID's and fold a bit on each, then they get lots of points, but only looking at PPW gives the high producers a big chance when we really want to be encouraging new people..

[David]

Hmmm you might try hitting up Computer Geeks www.computergeeks.com www.geeks.com I bet they don't get asked so often as Newegg et al, and might have one or two pieces of neat kit, they got as single items hanging round the warehouse that they'd be happy to write off for promo.

Plans sound good so far, however, what's to prevent "false n00bism" since it would seem that one could change one's rigs into a new name and get more chance of winning that way? There should be some prohibition in the rules about that or something.

regards,

Road Warrior


There is a catchall clause in there so we can kick out any member suspected of cheating.

If a top producer takes a huge hit during the contest we will be watching.

Also I will get a mod or admin to check the IPs for each member posting with their folding name to enter the contest. Duplicates or dodgy goings on - no contest for you.

[obsolete]

I win, I win!! Start this in a week or two when my duallie is up to full speed, kk. Sounds like a good idea though. :D

[David]

TTT


Still needing replies from OCZ and the Egg, any other suggestions for people to contact?

[RoadWarrior]

Directron? ZipZoomFly? ExcaliberPC?

[Leviathan41]

Monarch PC? Heatsink Factory? SVC.com?

[MLMIB]

how is it that I am always out of the loop on this...... *grumble grumble*

aka if we're going to organize this, e-mail, HECK a pm would be nice. I've been IMing with david daily for the past week but frankly havn't heard a word from anyone else.

this is your fair warning, if your going to come and make threads over this(let it also be known, date the threads, this was my idea back in september, took us 1 month than to get the OK) than at least make an attempt. I have yet to get an PM from anyone and my IM is listed.

that said if I don't get a PM or IM, I'm considering you dead and null on this, david and I have been back 'n forth on this with each other and the mods(I've called inet 'n e-mailed joe myself).

/end vent

[Seven]

MLMIB,

I understand your concern, etc. I'm awaiting your sign on to AIM so I can contact you.

Stuff We Need

-Program or Perl App for downloading stats, parsing them, and assigning tickets, then printing out winners. Somewhat complicated, but this MUST be COMPLETELY accurate.

-More sponsors. Try E-mailing DangerDen, Xoxide, Performance-PCs, Cooltechnica, D-TEK, etc. Also, try some giveaway-friendly manufacturers. Antec, Coolermaster, Altec Lansing, etc. for some ideas. If 50% of our current prospective sponsors reply, that's 2 products. Not enough for a contest of this size methinks.

-A CLEAR timetable for updates and postings on the front page. We should say like

Date1: Update of tickets on frontpage
Date2: Encouragement of folding/plug for contest
Date3: Update of tickets 2
Date4: Winners announcement

Something like that. We need to give Ed or whoever else a clear timetable so they know what is going on when.

7

[I.M.O.G.]

IM works both ways, if you have any questions or need any advice, feel free to AIM. I expected to take part in no more than an advisory, guidance, or organizational role. I talk to David on a daily basis also as I'm available, and would be happy to help you out with something you needed. I'm pretty darn busy with work full time, and finishing up my undergrad - the free time I do get, I like to try to be a regular member of the forum. I'm always available for guidance though, feel free to IM - I'm on AIM about 15 hrs every weekday, and basically totally absent on weekends.

Right now I would say that I think this is being made far more complicated than it needs to be. If we can simply procure one decent donation per contest, that would be a good showing. Tickets and such do not need to be complicated - I think it should just be kept to new members. The HL2 contest went great, and we should follow its example. The members who are dedicated to F@H are going to be dedicated regardless - we should reward the new members as those are the ones who are difficult to get to join at a high rate. The majority of folders stay in the fold, as is reflected by stats - if we can continue bringing a high volume in, our team will continue being more and more successful.

[Seven]

I have to say, tru.dat to I.M.O.G.'s comment.

I still think that some people already producing on the lower end might want in, plus they might borg more, who knows?

I still think K.I.S.S. is the best way to do this, but we also make sure it's comprehensive enough that it's not just an easy win for some people.

7

[MLMIB]

im work both ways? I didn't know this many ppl jumped on. I'm sorry, I was off getting permission 'n all that stuff. I don't stalk the forums, I don't have the time anymore, but frankly if someone wants to get involved I think it's their job to make contact, it's not my job to welcome new people in. so far I see what, 6 people on that list? I've heard from david, thats it. as far as work goes I've done a bit, david's done quite a bit, but other than interest the others?

I'm not against new people helping, I hope it dosn't come out that way, but I'm not for making a larger group because people want to be "involved" while not helping progress it. more people adds to complexity, and if it dosn't result in a greater work distribution, it's not worth it. because now when it comes to decideing the prize, rather than bein david, imog luta 'n me in an IRC room(rather easy to coordinate, all of 4 ppl) it's gunna be 10. makes meetings a bit harder

[I.M.O.G.]

On alternatives: If that is the way you feel, since you see the problem, it would be wise to just send a PM to the people who you think are not contributing and ask if you can remove their names from the list. Turning on "Rant Mode" in an open forum is not the way to accomplish anything. It slightly aggravates some *IMOG raises hand* (not really, just rubs me the wrong way a little bit). If you got up in a classroom and said what you are saying, you could easily expect the uneasiness that this would cause others.

On Group work: There is no reason to get angry because your doing a lot of work and others aren't. You should just work smarter, not harder - contact the people on that list, ask that they do "X" by "date", if they do not, remove their names from the list. Successful group work always benefits from a strong coordinator at the helm. Many people like to contribute, few are independently driven. This does not mean you should expect everyone to come to you, it means that you need to go to people and make sure they know what their duty is. Dissatisfaction over doing more work than others active is only your own fault - either fill the role of distributing the work then, or don't complain about it.

On contact: If your going to say that they need to contact you before you bother contacting them (this is trivial), then you have no business complaining about doing more work than anyone else.

As far as your comment about IRC: The only people who need to be there are you, David, and Luta - regular member, senior member, and forum management. Regardless of anyone else's participation in this project, there is no reason to overcomplicate this step.

That said... Have you heard back from the frontpage? I can try resending if not. I can also do the JabTech email.

[MLMIB]

it's all taken care of, catch me on aim and we'll sort any discrepencies as far as information flow go.

with that I end my apperance in this thread