I believe the expected benefit of a hand folding round is to reduce false positives. A false positive is when the foldit score says a solution is good, but really it does not match the native well. One way to get a "positive" result (a good foldit score) is to match the native well; another way is to create any plausible protein (orange in, blue out, compact, etc.) and run powerful scripts against it for a long time– even if it doesn't match the native. This second way is (mostly) prevented in a hand folding round, so there is a better chance that the best scoring solutions actually resemble the native.
One down side of the hand folding rounds, for the players, is that the software still rewards the kind of repetitive actions that scripts do. So some of the top scores will go to players who have the time and inclination to manually imitate scripts (especially rebuild scripts) - in other words, to grind. Grinding is mindless and boring – that's why we prefer to let scripts do it. Sadly, rewarding grinding may be the necessary price of reducing false positives.
I had a respectful rank in 737 without many fuzing, walking rebuild, put many bands or gui scripts.
I just rebuild (heavily on some parts, shake, wiggle sidechains, tweak a little, flip a sheet always on part always at ci=1. I choose the parts to work on.
I stopped to work on it some days before the end because I have no idea for another fold.
The timespan could be shorter but it is good to have a week end in it.
I think no scripts should be allowed.
After 5 years here, I think that the real pleasure will be if my fold is close to the native when it will be released.
I think the hand folding should stay for the pleasure of the players who like them like me and do them without been bored a second.
I really like hand folding, even with just the few GUI scripts we have (thanks SP), a more level playing field for folders without powerful computers, great coding skills or as has been mentioned 'script game skills', also having a week to do them means you can take a break and try lots of versions.
I appreciate being able to take my time and learn how to hand fold, it was an opportunity many people asked for because those with good hand folding skills had developed certain advantages even against scripts. They all moaned about how hard it was though, so having GUI scripts is great.
well, this is an interesting topic. Anyway, how about an overlap? if a regular protein would normally run for 6 days, what if handfold runs for 5 days, but on day 3 the regular protein is released for 3 days. its a good compromise that stops hand folders from grinding away manually (which is a ridiculous waste of time) and it shortens the time that script users can run scripts, forcing them to load their handwork in for scripting, rather than running a script only protein (which i find ludicrous to do anyway). We might be better off with 50 points per puzzle, so those of us who score well on handwork aren't rewarded twice for the same pose. I had r2 for 738 (got tired of grinding so i quit), and now i have r1 for 743.
If the local wiggle worked like it used to, the handfolding rounds would be great. As it is, I find them tedious. The low backbone scores are hard to get rid of and take so much time to deal with.
The original topic: to run them concurrently? Better to ditch the hand-fold.
I definitely agree with shortening the duration for the hand folding round, though everything else (no LUA scripting nor sharing) are fine as they are.
agree with drjr about the local wiggle and low backbone scores - but if you really don't like hand folding don't do it. Releasing a sharing round with scripts at the same time defeats the purpose imo.
Actually why not run the second puzzles after the freehand, ie the one with sharing and scripts just for 3 or four days not six? Scripts should get you there faster.
Yes, that's what I was thinking spmm. If the second one ran for like three days.
But I was thinking It could be released with an overlap of two or three days with the handfold puzzle. Or maybe only release one puzzle, but with scripts locked out for a period of time? I don't know.
Let's be clear. "Hand folding" is only useful in setting up a pose for that protein. Most of us can set up several poses within a matter of an hour, or two. The rest of the time is spent "hand scripting" which is not the same as "hand folding". Hand scripting is an effort to condition the protein to accept the pose that you designed in that first hour, or two. The ulterior motive for those who prefer hand scripting is that they believe they can handicap other players with fast computers (which is highly over stated) and thus "even the playing field". This is silly because the scoring is in the pose, and the days given are plenty for even a slow pc to check their pose with scripts. The real reason for hand folding is two-fold. Cheat scripts are foreseen and the only way around that is hand folding at this time; and scripting allows people who don't understand folding to run dozens of random useless script only proteins where one or two somehow manage to score well even though they are no where near a native pose. The "false positives" are getting to be a pain in the neck, I suspect. This is why we need to figure out how to make this work without the opinions of the hand scriptors and the script-only people from muddying the waters. In my opinion, running the protein twice and having a hand only version is a very poor gaming solution. Those who can't sit at their computer 24/7 hand scripting (most humans) are going to see their global rank plummet. Crowd sourcing becomes a useless goal too, "hey, come tie yourself to a computer for hours of enedless repetition! yay!" get serious.
