taniquetil

Since I was really scrambling to get to 1 million points I noticed something interesting (and slightly disappointing).

On the road to 1 Million, gaining places was really slow work. I would gain very few places per day and sometimes even drop back.

Now that I've hit a million, I've jumped 30 places on the team in the last 2 days.

Which is, really disappointing, I guess, since it shows most people just folding to 1 million then dropping out. That doesn't make much sense either since the power bill you rack up will probably exceed $100.

Just sayin', if EVGA wants to run a similar promo next year, they should extend it to well past 1 million points. The data is pretty clear on this.

I agree with you on this, since it appears with new hardware 1 mil can be attained fairly quick.

This is to be expected I guess by EVGA and by pretty much everyone who understands human psychology... Those people who stopped at 1M well know that the power bill is not worth it but they still did what they did: humans act irrationally :)
Whatever EVGA does with the promotion, the outcome won't change. Add another $100 for 2M, then you'll see piles of people at 2M, lol... Decrease the awards, you'll see less people doing that but that'd also mean less folding points for EVGA.

But a little different scheme may hep increase folding points and get rid of piling up at certain points. Consider a continuous but diminishing awards scheme:

Total Annual Award in EVGA Bucks = Base 10 Logarithm of (Annual Points / 200000) * 100

This way,

1) Nobody less than 200K points would get any EVGA Bucks
2) You wouldn't see any pile-ups at any level
3) Would encourage people to fold more and more even though with less and less incentive
4) Wouldn't cost EVGA more than it does with the current scheme

Let me give you some example points / awards according to above formula:

200K -> zero
210K -> $2.12
250K -> $9.69
300K -> $17.61
400K -> $30.10
500K -> $39.79
1M    -> $69.90
2M    -> $100.00
3M    -> $117.61
5M    -> $139.79
10M  -> $169.90
20M  -> $200.00

What do you think, EVGA and guys?

HAHA, I wouldn't care either way!! or I am going to hit 20 mills anyway ( unless MAJOR hardware Failure )

But that formula is not a bad idea. Just it is going to hard for some people to hit 20 mills in a year, not alone 10 mills

I like your idea of splitting it up more, but keep the mass of bucks towards the lower end. These are the ones who need them more than somebody who´s able to fold 20 million a year.
 So keep the rewards fairly low after the 2 or 5 million mark and regard them "just" as bonus in recognition for keeping going

I will make 4 mill by year end with 3 mechines ( started a little late, and anticipate 6 million Next year, would take almost 2 additional years to make 20 million, I am going to fold anyway, but dont think the anual goal should be set above 5 million, or that it should go up 5 times the presant goal in 1 year, perhaps double it every year for 5 years, would be OK, that way you would be up to 31 million in 5 years, by doing a 1,2,4,8,16 Million gaol, this would also give people a incentive, and chance, to invest in newer faster equipment.
just my 2 cents ( or  20,000 PPD )

Barbarossa

Oh yeah, now I see it
So do you want all uf us to request our bucks on Feb 15th 2011?
Poor Shane

Why not? I don't think $200 or even $300 EVGA Bucks is too much to reward to a person who contributes 20 freakin' million points. There are only 10 people with 20M or more points in total now. How many people can reach that point you think? Maybe 15 next year... EVGA is already awarding $100 to tons of people with the current scheme which doesn't encourage people to fold more...
I think the first table above is a better one, with the multiplier at 100, and $200 for 20M. Btw, it's open ended so, it'd be $300 for 200 (two hundred) million points in a year...

I really think it's a good idea that EVGA should consider if they intend to encourage folding and reward people to that end...
I don't know what Shane or Kyle would think though, as they are the ones who backed up the whole "folding@evga" idea in the first place, right?

^ Exactly! If there are continuous (even though diminishing) returns, more people would be compelled to FOLD ON!

Just to add to your initial observation. http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/user_list.php?s=&t=111065&p=5 The biggest solid chunk seems to be from ranks 437-456 (at post time). Like the one guy who got 1,000,009 points and then quit. 
And the rank gaining is interesting too, I've gone up 49 ranks this week, and 36 of those were within the last 24 hours.

I've dropped out of folding pretty hard, sure the EVGA bucks was a nice incentive and my goal was to get enough to buy more equipment to fold with...but my GX2 skyrockets to 110C if I try and fold on it and my PS3 has a bad hard drive so it'll complete a WU or two and then be locked for a few days.

Being broke sucks.

@94_xj
 
For my 9800gx2, I folded on the second core, and gamed on the first.

I disabled SLI, and used the DVI-VGA adaptor plugged into my monitor's secondary input (you'll know why this is much easier than dummy plugs, once you try it).

The 9800GX2 has a top exhaust, so I had a fan directly pulling air out of that area (well... at an angle), so my case temps never exceded some 30C - and I have a rather cramped SG02-F.

I cranked the fan to 75% (past 76%, and it would start this "buzzing" noise, and since I have OCD, I like the fan speed to be in multiples of 5), and I never got above 80C, even with dual-core folding.
 
*edit* I should note, I used the other "top" fan location on this case to put a low-CFM (20cfm?) fan to push cool air into the 9800GX2's intake.

tomslick

I don't care why people fold, I only care why I fold.  If they fold for EVGA Bucks, then they fold, and that is all that matters.
If EVGA doesn't have a problem with the incentive program then why should we.  It's getting a lot of people folding that would not have folded before,  it's brought some customers to EVGA, some hardware to some people and some points to the EVGA folding at home team.

Well... you're right... I guess  I got carried away... It's just me though, I owned it as if it was my problem (as if there was a problem in the first place) and offered a "solution", lol...

I started out with only a 1MIL goal.  Some just fold based on season and others just are not comfortable leaving the machines running 24x7.  I just caught the bug and figured what the heck since my machines stay on 24x7 anyway.  If I have a 30A circuit in my study, I would have 2 more rigs going.  So far with only 5 GPUs folding, I have not seen my electric bill increase very much.

DutchForce
 
I like your idea Gryphon, but you could set a max ... say 10 million?
 

Thanks! How about $200 @ 20M, to make it a "round" ending?

Umm Lets See, the problem is ?? Oh , There really isnt a problem So Lets Talk algorithms that will predict ways to force non productive members to get productive without being offensive. I got it!! Sneak up on them and put the boot in their rear end before they know what happened, yeah thats it .. all in favor say aye

Aye!