Punchy
Option 3 sounds ideal since crunchers could use all their hardware yet still keep points separate (assuming it is feasible to pull all the stats you need to make that possible).  Sadly I will be on vacation until the 30th so I won't be able to join, but I'll try to help you with stats in advance if you like.
 
One other thing - are you going to add a prize donation form?  I will be back at the end of the contest so I could set up the prize picker tool to handle prize distribution. 

I would see what drougnor would like to do with the stats first. But I will certainly need some help with the crunching stats. I have yet to find a place to pull the stats other than manually from free-dc. Any way we do it, I think we should be able to keep the points separate from all the divisions. We have to pull the stats from all the projects we include anyways, it just means potentially finding more names for each project.
 
I added a dummy page for prize donations. I wasn't sure if people were going to be interested in donating prizes this time around, but I can add a donation form. I believe the form just needs to include the item, the donor and the shipping to location, correct?

I'll get a sample of stats going a little later today for the Folding side - I don't know if I'd be able to provide anything for the Crunching side unless someone knows of a site that provides access to raw flat files in the way that Stanford does with Folding.
 
As soon as I get my hourly update .xml going and published, I'll let you know where to pull it from.
 
d

sajinor - PM me your gmail details so I can share you editor access to a functioning 'hourly history' for so you can see how I massage my numbers. The sample is going to be running 10 people for now.
 
I have a meeting at work for the next hour or so, so I'll drop another message once I get the sheet up and running.
 
d

Sorry for taking awhile to respond to these. I am of the Pacific Time Zone team, so just now waking up 
 

Xavier Zepherious
 
 
if you are doing that then extend the start date - no good having signup if things get erased and no time left for signups
 

The sign-ups were only going have the potential to be erased while I was updating the site. I just wanted to put that warning there in case anyone decided to sign up before I open it officially. I should get an official thread and open sign-ups up today when I get some time to work on it. I am sorry if this time does not work for everyone, but we don't have much wiggle room at this point.
 

BadBertie
Woohoo, competition time! I'm up for some BigAdv 4P melting craziness! Dust off your ankle-biters chaps
Nice site Sajinor. Being a person of international persuasion, do we get our own team page too!
 
Just one question, what do we fling during the time zone challenge? Clocks? Meridians?
 

Clocks are a great thing to fling, especially if you have grandfather clocks. Those can do some damage. You can also fling insults about people living in the past.
 
International will get a team page if we get enough international entrants to have a balanced team. Otherwise you get put in teams for balancing purposes. Can 20 time zones beat 1? 
 

drougnor
sajinor - PM me your gmail details so I can share you editor access to a functioning 'hourly history' for so you can see how I massage my numbers. The sample is going to be running 10 people for now.
 
I have a meeting at work for the next hour or so, so I'll drop another message once I get the sheet up and running.
 
d

YGPM. Thank you so much for your help on this one.
 
Anyone can keep asking questions and pointing out concerns as you think of them. I will try to answer them as quickly as possible. An official contest thread will be set up today, as well as opening the sign-ups officially.
 
 

Whatever you can do will be great. I am okay with any amount of manual work, it just may slow down the flow of stats to the site.

that will work, as long as we have everyone's CPID.  But how do we handle those projects with a delayed task validation?

I have a question about the prize page. The way it is worded it seems to indicate that only Paypal, Amazon or Newegg can be given. "The Pool Prize is limited to PayPal or Amazon and Newegg gift cards" . Surely it is not limited to those only, some may not have money to give at this time instead of being hardware related.
I always try to donate prizes, but most of the time it is a hardware item. I am also confused about "individual or pool prize". Is individual intended for one like only folding ,or only crunching?
 
I also want to thank everyone that is helping to get this contest going. Thank you!
 
{going to post this in both threads we have going}
 
Edit: and found answer with another click.

Punchy

RHMash
that will work, as long as we have everyone's CPID.  But how do we handle those projects with a delayed task validation?

CPIDs are public so that should not be a big deal.  People with multiple CPIDs may present a special case.
 
I don't think we have much choice but to count the points that are awarded during the contest.  Are you concerned about people queueing up completed work before the contest?  That can be prohibited in the rules if necessary.

Something like that.  But it can be done inadvertently....  I'm still getting points in PrimeGrid from the last challenge....  And there are other projects I'll randomly get points on from older tasks turned in....

sajinor
 
In my view, there is only so much we can enforce. If credit comes in from earlier completions, it happens. If it looks like someone is abusing it, such as dumping a week's worth of points in a day, we may ask for an explanation.

+1
I think the basic idea here is to just keep doing what you would be doing even if the TZC wasn't happening (although increasing production wouldn't hurt) and if you happen to get some old tasks validated during the contest, bonus!

Moving developer discussion back to the proper thread (where I should have asked the original question that got this side discussion started).

drougnor
Punchy, any chance you can send me a copy of the script you wrote up for the Crunching side of the stats? Very curious as to how it was done and if I can integrate it into my existing system.

Sure, although it's not very well commented so may not be too understandable; I whipped this up in a few hours for the contest and didn't spend a lot of time on documentation or readability.  I can certainly make changes to fit your usage; for example, you might not want to be storing everyone's daily points on 140+ different BOINC projects.
You might also be interested in the code I wrote to update Google spreadsheet cells directly using the Zend gdata API.  It makes updates nearly instantaneous.  If someone gave you write access to a worksheet, you could update the numbers in that worksheet directly after your stats update.

drougnor
As long as it's syntax I can break down and track, I should be good

Um... <clears throat> .... well... who knows if anyone can follow my twisted logic...
PM me your email address and I'll send it to you after I do a little "cleanup" that might make it more self-explanatory.

Team stats are up and running! The baseline is clearly wrong, but that will be set when we start. Also, not everyone has been included in either. That will not happen until sign-ups close. The crunching ones aren't scheduled yet, as I am waiting to change it over to a 24/7 build.
 
Looking over the numbers, Mountain may not get all of the International entrants as balancing. At this point, it appears Pacific will need more assistance. Central also only has one member in the bigadv division. I will have to make the determination once sign-ups close.
 
Next up, individual stats and some charts and graphs!
 
Edit: Google also decided to change their sheets ("New" Sheets are now what I have to use) So things look a bit different with the sheets I have been making. It is a little annoying, but it doesn't really change the function. Also, Punchy, that is why our keys were looking different. Yours were from a "New" sheet and mine were from the old.

It looked like the crunching stats only got partially uploaded because there were a bunch of empty cells in the input table.  It looks like you might have figured out the rest because the published sheet looks fine now.