Dimes

[Beyond]

Thanks Rusty!

[Qazwaplol]

I have a objection to this project, the stats are screwed up.
Dimes stats have always been weird where you suddenly get 10 times as much points on a random day, but this is really bothering me.

Dimes scoring is as follows (correct me if I'm wrong): 1 measurement = 1 point, simple enough.
The agent is rigged so it will do at maximum 1 measurement per 15 seconds. This means you can get 5760 points per day per agent.

Normally my agents get around 5500 points so no problem there. But then comes October:

5th: 261.348 points a day with 1 agent.
6th: 1.071.472 points a day with 1 agent.
7th: 343.771 points a day with 1 agent.
http://stats.free-dc.org/stats.php?p...name=Qazwaplol

But how the hell can 1 agent generate 1 million measurements a day? thats 12 measurements a second.

This is true for alot of users,
http://stats.free-dc.org/stats.php?p...me=CanoeBeyond
http://stats.free-dc.org/stats.php?p...s&name=amberjr

[Qazwaplol]

Sure they all seem to not produce any points on October 3th and 4th but the sudden increase in points is way more than the production of 2 days.

And other users don't see this boost,
http://stats.free-dc.org/stats.php?p...name=EekTheMan
http://stats.free-dc.org/stats.php?p...s&name=Calphor

This example is in October, but it happens frequently.
How can you have an honest competition when on random days Santa-clause visits some users and gives them a massive boost but others get left out.

Can't post it @ dimes since their forum doesn't allow new registrations and email bounces back with a SMTP error.


I should be crazy for making this point since I seem to get an even higher boost than most, but come on, get rid of this buggy project.



(sorry for the double post, but it kept getting an error when posting it as one)

[Beyond]

I e-mailed them about team stats problems a few days ago and they're looking into it. Haven't seen anything at all unusual in the individual stats. I run a lot of machines on Dimes and monitor the individual machine stats daily to make sure the client hasn't crashed.

Looking at your stats they do look a bit odd for a single box, but seem to have leveled out to the correct output per day for the last week or so. Hopefully they'll find any glitches now that they're looking...

[planetclown]

Anyone else seeing client connection issues with the DIMES servers lately? I don't see any recent stats on free-dc.org, and can't even bring up the project web site this time.

[Rusty]

I dont know how to see if the client is working when a service has been installed.

Website up and running here

[cswchan]

There have been no stats updates since 10 April 2013

[Rusty]

Does anyone have any more update..

It's almost time to remove this project for good.

[planetclown]

I emailed the project, and their server admin verified the project server and website are both up.

I tried some additional debugging and can only bring up the netdimes.org website if I go thru a proxy. I wonder if my ISP is blocking that domain due to my taking measurements?

Also, I don't know why free-dc doesn't have any updates for this project since April 10th.

[Beyond]

I run a lot of machines on Dimes and for the most part it's been up. It was down for a few days a week or two ago though. For some reason Free-DC has trouble getting the stats updates, not sure why. However, the stats ARE updated today on Free-DC and look accurate. I'd say relax, the stats updates always get there in the end and always reflect all the work done as far as I can tell. Personally I think there are some other projects that are better candidates for removal than Dimes...

[DigiK-oz]

Can't reach netdimes.org from home either, and clients fail to connect to the server as well. Looks like some screwed up routing maybe? Bottom line, Dimes is currently not available for everyone.

Anyway, Dimes has a history of failures (read through this thread, enormous stats discrepancies, long outages, unresponsive admins...). That, plus the doubt about usefullness of the project in its current state, make that I am fed up with it and in favor of removal.

@Beyond : it will always be a problem to get projects removed, because people/teams have their favorites amongst the projects, and therefore will be against removing them. Threads on this forum including threats and name-calling prove that I have done a suggestion in the past to mitigate the impact on vault-score from projects that some teams find should not be in the vault. As it is, we will always be fighting over removals, I'm afraid.

[Beyond]

Originally Posted by DigiK-oz

Can't reach netdimes.org from home either, and clients fail to connect to the server as well. Looks like some screwed up routing maybe? Bottom line, Dimes is currently not available for everyone.

There was a relatively brief period when it was down and then Free-DC seemed to be having a problem getting stats, not sure why because they were being updated on the DIMES site. The issue, whatever it was seems to have been resolved for a while now and the stats at Free-DC match those on the DIMES site.:

http://stats.free-dc.org/stats.php?p...ams&proj=dimes

I've run DIMES for years and when there has been a stats outage there has always been a complete and apparently accurate update. Nome of my machines are having any problems communicating with the site either:

http://www.netdimes.org/new/

Nine DPC crunchers have returned results this week (6 in the last day) so it can't be a problem accessing DIMES from the Netherlands. You can also see the number of active DIMES agents for each country at the above link (and also the ~ 9 day down period in late March)

That, plus the doubt about usefullness of the project in its current state, make that I am fed up with it and in favor of removal.

Think we could all name projects that REALLY aren't useful and are essentially dead (one antiquated project has had only 5 users in the last month), and others, but we might not want to go there...

Threads on this forum including threats and name-calling prove that

Don't like bullies, internet or otherwise.

Personally like the DIMES project and overall it's been pretty trouble free for me at least. Like you say though, there's always going to be differences of opinion.

[planetclown]

Originally Posted by Beyond

There was a relatively brief period when it was down and then Free-DC seemed to be having a problem getting stats, not sure why because they were being updated on the DIMES site. The issue, whatever it was seems to have been resolved for a while now and the stats at Free-DC match those on the DIMES site.....

Yes, stats updates at free-dc have been fixed. However, I believe digikoz is saying he cannot access the site nor can his clients. I continue to have the same issue as well. I found at least one free proxy that exhibits the same behavior too.

Try going to globalhide.com and surf to something popular like google.com (actually this looks like a proxy based in Netherlands). Then try going to netdimes.org, you'll see the connection times out. Hence digikoz's guess that there's a routing problem somewhere which only affects some people.

[Beyond]

Originally Posted by planetclown

Yes, stats updates at free-dc have been fixed. However, I believe digikoz is saying he cannot access the site nor can his clients. I continue to have the same issue as well. I found at least one free proxy that exhibits the same behavior too.

Try going to globalhide.com and surf to something popular like google.com (actually this looks like a proxy based in Netherlands). Then try going to netdimes.org, you'll see the connection times out. Hence digikoz's guess that there's a routing problem somewhere which only affects some people.

Ah, that explains a lot. I used to use a proxy server and there were ALWAYS sites that didn't work. Various workplaces and internet providers also ban certain sites when they see a lot of traffic. When I was running MJ-12 (at a low level BTW) my ISP twice blocked my internet connection and threatened to terminate my account permanently. The next strike and I would have been without internet as CenturyLink is sadly the only provider in this area.

[planetclown]

I emailed the project and it turns out my IP had been banned for whatever reason. They removed the ban and I'm now able to access the server and website.

This issue just started at the same time as free-dc stats was having issues, but they turned out to be unrelated.