Folding Forum

A while ago I noticed something strange occur with my team stats info - a new user!!!

What appears to be just a mistake configuring their client, this person put in my team number and completed a single WU.

I am guessing there is no way to block a team number from being entered into the client to avoid a wrong configuration. What I'd like is for the team stats to show this user was never on there, not just "inactive"

Is there a member who I can PM with the specific info?

No. Standard PG policy has been that once earned for a specific user and/or team, points credited for a WU will not be changed or altered.

The only exception I know of is in cases where points were connected to installations that violated the terms of use for the client software. For instance, years ago someone embedded the installer in a software download and it would install F@H on an unsuspecting persons computer. The client was pre-configured with a username and team set. After this was reported and confirmed, all points were cancelled for that username.

Joe_H wrote:No. Standard PG policy has been that once earned for a specific user and/or team, points credited for a WU will not be changed or altered.

The only exception I know of is in cases where points were connected to installations that violated the terms of use for the client software. For instance, years ago someone embedded the installer in a software download and it would install F@H on an unsuspecting persons computer. The client was pre-configured with a username and team set. After this was reported and confirmed, all points were cancelled for that username.

If that's the case then I believe PG should update it's policy concerning BOT users with random hash strings as usernames. I don't want them associated with my team! This "person" in particular has been dormant/inactive for probably weeks, and is listed with over 500 other similar dormant/inactive BOT usernames connected to another team.

I also don't want my team to be the "sandbox" for any coin mining experiment or money laundering account for some unscrupulous user. That's not my business.

I feel that ever since the monetary aspect has become involved the competitive spirit of F@H has fallen. I truly hope I am wrong, because for me this is not about the money. But I am out of here if that competitive spirit dies along with the groups integrity.

Let's consider what might happen if FAH's management were to consider changing their policy. They'd have to hire a person to administer the policy. OK, maybe it's just half a person, but somebody would have to administer the revised policy and, rightfully so, they'd expect to be paid for their efforts.

How would that contribute to Science? Since FAH is funded mostly by government grants which are granted with research proposals, FAH can't spend research funds on team housekeeping so somebody would need to donate half a person's salary for that purpose. Ugh. Who wants to pay for that? Well, that's one problem, but there would be others.
Luscious
Donor names are selected by the Donor and being an international project, names can be in any language, including languages which don't use the European alphabet. Now maybe "luscious" spelled in English, looks like a random string of Chinese characters for a team that spells things with a Chinese character set so a Chinese teams decides to ban banish you and suddenly ho have zero points. Who is going to arbitrate such a conflict -- and how does that contribute to Science? The same might be true for an English speaking team who happens to be in direct competition with your team and some unscrupulous person decided to attack your team by zeroing out your points. Who would arbitrate and how does that contribute to Science?

While you have every right to suggest that cleaning up the points database, the fundamental purpose of FAH is scientific research, and it's reasonable for them to define the points system a non-essential to that research -- and therefore unworthy of being their responsibility. It would be a lot like my asking you to contribute to a particular political candidate because they happen to support anti-fraud actions against BOTs that use random strings of characters to earn e-coins -- too far from reality for my candidate's desire tp generate votes.

Bottom line: it makes sense for FAH to stick to science and for my candidate to stick to his political agenda.

Isn't there a team leader? Could a team leader remove users from his team? The user would keep his points but user and points don't show in the team page anymore.

A team will have a designated team creator in the records that PG has, referred to as the "founder". A team creator can modify things like the team name, logo and homepage. But beyond that there is no mechanism in place for a "leader" to designate who is and is not on a team.

When 46% of the entire project's current output is being done by aggressive crypto-currency speculators playing in a highly volatile market... the science becomes SECONDARY

Donor names are exclusive - don't sidetrack the issue here. I fold for my own team and my own team ONLY. But a random bot tagging onto a team they have no connection with and attempting to make financial gains is no different than that same random bot tagging onto a computer they have no connection with and acquiring points. Just because it's not an acknowledged violation of the terms of use doesn't mean that it ISN'T a violation of the terms of some sort.

As for the housekeeping part, you include a switch in the client configuration to LOCK the team number from being used with new usernames, greyed out when the Identity doesn't match the founder, and authenticated by the founder's passkey.

The lack of control over who can and can't fold for a team is just one of things, and most teams have at some point had a misconfigured client donate points to them. There's nothing malicious or deliberate about it. You can just chose to ignore the inactive users.

However, one solution to control a close team is to share a passkey amongst the trusted members - all points are then tied to that passkey - but you need to trust the members not to share or abuse it.

Also, it's not money laundering bots doing the mining, just regular users, and this one obviously made a mistake (quickly corrected because it won't earn coins).

With regards to the competition vs money aspect, I was on the fence for a long time, but ultimately the money leads to more science being performed. I deserted my team for the 'dark side' 2 years ago and that's enabled me to expand my folding farm from a mix of 10 980/970 to over 20 1080/Ti, and cover my electricity. Plus, my GF is a lot more accepting of the heat and noise knowing that it's funded the house deposit too... The prevalent negative attitude towards the coins on here benefit me, but are a disservice to other folders who would like to contribute more, but are financially restrained in what they can donate to the science.

I agree with rwh202. If a bot happens to enter your team number (accidentally or on purpose) they gain zero benefit -- toward e-coins or toward anything else. It costs your team exactly zero, also.

FAH is purely about SCIENCE, not about crypto-currency. The crypto-currency sites have zero connection to FAH. Decisions made by FAH management are 100% about science.

If some folks decide it's in their interest to participate in both, that's their decision. Anybody can contribute to FAH whether they choose to generate crypto-currency concurrently or not. Moreover, FAH cannot prevent them from doing so -- and in the same way, FAH does FAH nothing to encourage anyone to join or to drop out of participating in crypto-currency mining.