Position: Someone that loads shared protein shouldn't get that score as their own unless they improve upon it. Even if they improve upon it I don't think they should get the full scoring during the puzzle close tally for their global rank, but they should get something possibly even the full scoring if they improved the protein significantly. I also think that attribution should be given to the source of the shared protein (as I mentioned in the other thread) because not giving such attribution is plagiarism. The assumption made by teams would be made up of multiple people from the same lab was flawed. Teams are made up of people with varied backgrounds from geographically disperse locations. Welcome to the Internet dev team.
I think the client needs to have the feature to overlay the shared protein in the same manner that the tutorial had for guides. I think that's how people would want it for just viewing someone else's shared folds. Good luck aligning the proteins.
Back to the main topic -
Scenario: Someone shares an early fold for 8960 points. Another group member uses this fold and pushes on to 11020. I don't think anybody can complain that the second folder shouldn't get the rank for the 11020 fold because that's a substantial improvement and could likely be 100-200 rank difference. Anjen's "thou shalt get nothing if you used a shared fold" proposal is extremely harsh for this scenario. So how much of an improvement over the shared fold before people agree that the rank is deserved?
more scenarios to follow later.
…we all go back to the way it was before group sharing was turned on. We just forget that the last few days even happened.
It was more fun the old way for everyone, because everyone got to make some discoveries on their own. This meant more people would play, and they would play more often, too, which means better folding.
I suspect it's better science for two other reasons: It means that everyone must learn how to fold by themselves if they want to advance in rank, and this builds the pool of human skill. Also, it minimizes the path-dependence that comes with 170 people on a team all sharing a solution.
Now, I can't prove that it's better science – I'm not a scientist, and I can't really evaluate the data. But it seems there's at least two or three good arguments for why it might be. I'd like to see team sharing abolished. If you want to show someone your protein, take a screenshot and send it!
While I think everyone agrees that the most fair way for scoring and ranking is to not allow sharing, but this is not the best solution for the science and discovery the game is based on. The sharing of ideas and discovery is integral to science. Someone might get stuck on an initial fold and give up, but they share that fold and someone uses that starting point to create a groundbreaking protein structure. Without sharing that scenario would never happen.
Removing sharing will severely hinder the potential of the foldit experiment. We all have to remember that this is a science experiment first, fun game second. They will find a compromise somewhere along the lines.
The first time I loaded another person's solution, I didn't really like the ranks I gained… I immediately thought that it would make the individual ranking meaningless (I have to say however that I also improved those scores afterward).
Maybe it would be better to have two distinct puzzle competitions (with 2 different proteins), one for the groups, one for the individual.
Or we could have 2 parts for each puzzle (with separate rankings and time): the first where sharing isn't allowed, and the second part where it is allowed : this way everyone can search for it's best individual structure at first, and in a second time all the members of the groups share their structures and try to improve them, this time as a group.
It seems like a logical solution for this is having group scores and individual scores separate. That should not be too hard, and if you post it on the suggestions board, the developers will try to address it as soon as possible.
The only problem would be group scoring, would you get more points for improving a group score, or would it all go to the group points?
Well, Benj… I actually laughed aloud with genuine delight when I read your most recent post. Thank you for saying in one short paragraph what I evidently could not seem to make clear in my previous (and much longer) oratory or in my original message.
My whole point from the beginning was to SEPARATE the scores so that groups can do what they were created to do (work together on solutions) and individual players can continue making their equally valuable contributions to this project. I am certain that, if given a chance, both playing processes will produce wonderful and unexpected data.
In an odd and ironic way, this has suddenly become hugely funny to me (humor… go figure… ). Your "it seems logical" post is, if I am interpreting it correctly, exactly what I have been asking for from the moment I was accidently ranked up with the first shared solution. Thank you for finally understanding that and stating it clearly.
Thank you all for your feedback. we've been thinking about this for a while. It appears that there are two problems with group sharing: non-group members get a massive rank-down by virtue of many group members uploading a good score, the contributor of best score gets equalized to his group members and gets discouraged from further sharing.
As some of you point out, our goal is both to provide the engaging game play experience, and to eventually enable everyone to advance science. Groups serve a purpose for both goals. We suspect that there a number of skills involved in the protein folding process, and groups would enable us to discover much better solutions by teaming up folks that are very good at finding initial good scores, and folks that have a knack for improving such solutions further. This is why the groups are important. Keeping the group and individual competition separate is not only logistically complicated with respect to the game, but more importantly it will tend to split the game community into two parts, something we would really like to avoid. So, we really need a better game structure.
Here is the mechanism that we are currently considering:
<ul><li>Every time a player A saves a solution to share with others, together with the protein we also keep the highest current score of player A, say X.</li></ul><ul><li>A member of A's group, player B can download the solution, but will only be able to officially improve the individual score if they manage to attain a score greater than X by some amount. that is you to claim this solution as your own only if you notably improve it.</li><li>player B's own solution (that was created from scratch) will of course have update the individual score any time it is improved. So player B can eventually chose to go back to their own solution and work on it instead.</li></ul>This framework encourages both individual and group game play – it allows everyone to take part in both improving other people's scores as well as working on your own . We believe these things are important to allow the game to produce best possible solutions. the massive collective rank-ups will be very unlikely (after all, getting extra points on a very good solution is very hard), and group members will not shy away from sharing their solutions (they will effectively issue a challenge: "here's my solution, try to best it if you can and you will be rewarded!").
we are also considering a scoreboard that can show best overall solutions, best solutions from scratch, and best shared solution refiners. So if you're only interested in individual from scratch play, just set your scoreboard to only show "from scratch" scores. At the end of each puzzle we will announce winners in each category, as well as the path of shared solution that lead to the best score. Sort of like Tour d'France race, where we have multiple stages, and different jerseys for best climbers, best sprinters etc.
Anyone see significant problems with this approach?
This sounds like a great solution. (Take this with a grain of salt, however. I'm the bonehead who thought group sharing would work out just fine, too…)
Zoran - as all the folks who know me in chat can testify, I readily (and frequently) admit that I am not computer savvy in any way and do not understand any of the intricacies of the foldit program. So… I do not know enough to say, "Yes, you're idea sounds like the perfect solution," OR "No, that's not exactly what I was looking for." (I must admit, I am sitting here laughing aloud at how incredibly dimwitted I must sound to all of you.)
Although I do not feel qualified to comment on the technical aspect of your note, I do want to say this: I appreciate - more than I can tell you - y'all's willingness to listen to the concerns that have been expressed on both sides of this issue and the work you have done to address them. My feelings about group folding are absolutely in agreement with what you stated, i.e. this project lends itself perfectly to group research and results and group play should be strongly encouraged. Group solution-sharing is an essential tool for that process. Additonally, individual players have made large and solid contributions to this process that were both unexpected and important to your stated goals. Again, the best of both worlds!
If your suggestions make the playing field fair for all - both groups and individuals - then I applaud them whole-heartedly. If it turns out that it's still not "quite on the mark", then I want to state very clearly that I fully believe we are now moving in a direction that will bring both sides of this issue to a common ground from which we can all continue to move forward on this incredible project.
To all of the developers, programmers, administrators, and various other foldit "magical beings"(-g-), thank y'all for all of your hard work on our behalf and thank you for showing that you are, in fact, listening. For all of the players who have put a lot of thought into the problem and written in with suggestions on how to solve it, thank you for your continued attitudes of community cooperation and support. This is how problems, differing opinions, varied solutions, and compromises are supposed to work. It is very refreshing and speaks well of all who are involved in this process (and bodes well for tremendous success of the project!).
Thank you. Happy Folding!
champuli
Well champuli, I realized you had already said what I was saying, but I thought that the solution was really a lot more simple then all these people are talking about, and I was just trying to tell people that your solution was very simple, and could be easily put. The only thing I feel we should be talking about on here about that fix, is the technicalities of scoring (like I mentioned in my previous post, whether or not individual team members get credited with their discoveries for the team).
