WU Dumping and You
Posted: Wed Jan 24, 2007 5:53 pm
Reposted with permission from the original poster at Folding-Community.org
We all hate the patty's but there is nothing we can do. Yeah they may be undervalued in most peoples opinion's but just deal people. This is a shady practice IMO, and I hope nobody here is doing it.This thread's intention is for members to post ideas to stop WU dumping.
There have been at least 2 threads discussing aspects of WU dumping by points cheaters.
http://forum.folding-community.org/ftopic17600.html
http://forum.folding-community.org/ftopic17450.html
The Gamer's habit of dumping WUs has been denounced by many forum members and the director of the project himself, yet the problems caused by cheaters persist.
There are currently over 1,333,000 p212X WUs which are waiting for return, the majority of which have been "dumped" by cheaters.
Since Dumpers are a shady bunch and practice their Cheating out of view of others, like thieves in the night, shining a light on them via a little peer pressure might be in order. Most cheaters want recognition and are members of a team. In many cases, that team will have it's own forum, with a forum owner, a leader, and an active dialogue between members.
Teams may also be sponsored by/for some business or other organizational entity, and will/should have a very strong motivation to maintain their reputation for honesty and integrity.
Here's one idea:
Team forum members could start anti-dumping threads in their forums, thus getting the word out to team members who may be unaware of the damage that they are doing to the FAH project.
There are probably some team members who are also unaware that the practice even exists who would be angered to learn that their teammates are cheating them, as well.
After a period of "educational" time, stiffer measures could be taken by forum members to stop the practice within their ranks. Such measures could include cease-and-desist emails to guilty members, followed by public exposure within the team's forum if cheating persists.
Cheaters leave tracks. An examination of certain stats pages will reveal that some team members have only crunched Bonus WUs and few or zilch p212X WUs (for example) in a very long time. There may be an explanation for such statistical anomalies, but who knows what that might be.
The stronger measures might be difficult for some teams to institute without hand-wringing, as there may be some "beloved" team members caught up in the cheating, but such measures must ultimately be taken in order to maintain the health and reputation of the team as well as the Folding@Home project.
