Big University Competition Next Month

[zoran]

there would be many opportunities for collusion between the two competitions. however, we will have an open competition for all those who could not participate, and report on the comparative performance.

[infjamc]

One potential problem I see with this competition is that Foldit veterans who happen to be current students are also eligible (all it takes is creating another account, perhaps using their .edu address). While this is not necessarily unfair or "wrong," this does mean that there's a good chance that all three prizes could be easily earned by Foldit veterans (since they'll be facing "easier" competition). Should this be the case, my concern is that people who are attracted to Foldit by the competition could be too discouraged to keep playing afterward… which would somewhat detract from the purpose of the competition.

==> So, do you have any thoughts on how to minimize this possibility (other than discouraging current Foldit players from participating)? After all, there is no way for any participant of the competition to prove that they have never played Foldit before.
.

[***Full disclosure: I happen to be a current graduate student in the US. Being currently in the Top 25 Soloist ranking, I will voluntarily sit out of this competition due to conflict of interest concerns.]

[beta_helix]

Perhaps all the veteran student Foldit players could join the same team for this contest? That way there would be no chance that all 3 prizes went to veterans.

[Bletchley Park]

I thought we were folding for the good of humanity, rather than for a patentable shape so a company can make more profit. Do not fold for profit, instead publicize the results, make them non-patentable through prior art. What the people come up with should benefit the people, not some corporation.

[CharlieFortsConscience]

Shame on you Renton/Aotearoa/Mathew

You used to recruit, applaud and celebrate Foldit as a means to defeat disease, fight cancers, and further the path of humanity. You recruited AD in this way, brother, and the group you belonged to before, and the group you belonged to before that as well.

But now you're offering to fold for money.

It places every one of your future comments in global, feedback or forum into a very mercenary context. And that makes me sad.

As a folderer, not a Contender - just be careful what you wish for :)
CFC

[infjamc]

Point taken. Still, the main problem with this idea is that it relies entirely on the honor system, which doesn't work unless followed perfectly by everyone. After all, it only takes is 3 profit-maximizing Foldit veterans playing as teams of one to break the system.

==> See… this is exactly why paying people to fold proteins could open such a can of worms. If anything, there is ample potential for collusion (e.g. "Give us your username and password so that we can win the competition for you; all we ask is X% of the prize money as 'commission'")… which is a real concern given the size of the prize. (This is not to mention that fraud can be difficult to prove without intrusive tracking.)

[zoran]

Believe me, we thought of all these contingencies as distinct possibilities when we were thinking about trying this. But to really know the right way to approach it we need to try it and see what happens. That's the way Foldit project was started as well. Afterwards we will determine what did and what did not work, and move on from there. if we conclude that money is bad that idea will be shelved unless a viable alternative is proposed. Of course, if everyone was allowed to participate some of these issues might not be there. We are primarily interested in hearing everyone's feedback at the end, as well as measuring the effect of substantial prizes (good or bad) on the process of gameplay: we will have the same puzzle open to all as soon as the university competition finishes and then we will analyze the differences.

Using someone else's userid can be detected. we know IP addresses for each login to Foldit. if someone from University of Kansas ends up logging in from New Zealand, we will immediately contact the captain of that team, and figure out if there was userid sharing.

There are possibly other ways to cheat that we may not be able to detect, but that probably goes with every competitive situation in life, and in the end a personal moral compass is the ultimate deterrent for most. This game is about doing science for the good of humanity. we as developers as well as thousands of Foldit players are not in it for money.

[zoran]

As i mentioned in the original post, we picked the protein for this puzzle, and the outcome of this puzzle will not benefit any corporation as all foldit outcomes are in public domain.

The question at hand is whether using monetary incentive is beneficial for public-domain folding and if so in what form? We don't know the answer to that.

[CharlieFortsConscience]

There's a difference between me sending you money to buy a mouse, so you can fold, and you hawking your team to the highest bidder.

On the one hand, a few community members reached out to help.
On the other, as I said - be careful what you wish for.

Charlie

[Deleted user]

Maybe you can get people to pay you to stay away from their teams.

Just a thought …