joancoja wrote:
It's the first job sent with the user name in question, yet my stats in the group only show 243 points (like 10% of the points indicated in the log?)
Yes, that's normal; you need to get to 10 WUs under some given (and verified, i.e., passkeyed) identity to in fact qualify for the so-called QRB, Quick Return Bonus, but the client does not check your total number of WUs before giving you that estimate in the logs; assumes that you qualify if you have a passkey set in the first place. Before that you get only to the so-called base-credit for any give WU. You can see both the base and estimated credits for a running job through Advanced Control -> Status -> <specific slot>.
Note; I should really say "... need to get 10 for the QRB eligible WUs" but I believe that at this point most/any WUs
are eligible; more detail and including as to "why" at
https://foldingathome.org/support/faq/points/
I'm one of the currently many beginning participants as well and to me, calling it "a bonus" seems somewhat besides the point (-s, pun intended) if said bonus is literally 10 times the base-credit; that's not "a bonus" but a completely different tier and that confused me a bit early on. Also, if as per this thread the system's not keeping up with the statistics it can actually make for a somewhat frustrating experience. I.e., I was stat-wise stuck on exactly 9 WUs for a long time while the F@H stats-infrastructure was scrambling.
Although I'm always really bad at coming up with ways in which people would "game the system" (which the 10 WU requirement is assumedly in place to protect against?) what I believe would at least in theory make for a nicer system is:
1. Have a base-credit that is basically the base-credit + full QRB of now.
2. Assign 10% of final credit (which is still base-credit minus time-penalty, same as currently) before the 10 Total WU marker but keep the other 90% reserved for the passkeyed user.
3a. Assign all the reserved credit at the 10 WUs marker.
3b. Or, actually, I'd in that case quickly suggest assigning 20% of the original final credit at 20 WUs, 30% at 30 WUs and so on (or whatever other percentage/total-wus scale of course)
As to 3b it would need to be capped at a level where new/individual users can also semi-easily get to, say, 100 WU = 100%, but it would seem to make for a more newbie-friendly yet otherwise basically same incentive system as now, or if indeed going with 3b, a basically same yet longer lasting one as now.
Clearly that calls for additional server-side statistics keeping and said servers are in a project like this supposedly fairly explicitly geared towards doing science rather than enabling semi-silly interweb-competitions. Hey. There's some form of it in place with the current QRB; would need someone with a clue about the current technical infra-structure of the stats-system to comment on it being a good, bad or lousy idea...