Ok I'm going to say it out loud. design puzzle play

[tyler0911]

I don't think you've picked it up the entire conversation, but we're not evolving in tiny incremental improvements. Sometimes when we evolve, we acquire huge gains (50, 60 points) before sharing it with the rest of the group. Going back to aunty's example, on puzzle 420, Anthropic Dreams managed to get second place overall, even though our top soloist was only in 10th place. This is not, by any means, the result of "tiny incremental improvement"- no amount of LWSing could ever get that kind of result. Evolver is an important part of Foldit because it shows the overall skill of the team. The power of the team's soloists, and the knowledge and skill of the people who improve the solos.

If you look at the top 30 evolvers, you'll notice that a lot of these people are also high-ranked or high-scoring soloists. This is because they are excellent folders in general. Those high-ranked evolvers that AREN'T high-ranking soloists (myself included) are people that are using evolver as an area to learn- we learn to work with proteins that are close to being optimized and eventually apply that to our solos.

And in response to what you said earlier about people being in Foldit just for the points, and not for the science, speak for youself- a lot of us ARE either in Foldit for the science (I eventually intend to go to college for molecular biology and biochem) or just for fun. The competitive aspect of Foldit is the reason that Foldit is presented as a game and not an experiment. So for the people that are in it for the points (I think it's fair to assume that you are), you've done just what University of Washington wanted you to. (:

[Rav3n_pl]

Concept on change calculating personal evo score.

I`m not very good in making this percentage maths but my idea is:
player evo score should be calculated based on team score and evo place in team.

• base evo score is team score
• top team player gets same evo points as team
• rest of evo players get smaller amount of evo points basing on place and/or score
• last team player gets same evo points as top player in next team

It would be more "fair"? S1 can calculate it?

[B_2]

That's nonsense. What if the 2nd place evolver score belonged to a different team? All the other evolver from the first team get more points?

[B_2]

And the pile-on practice continues in 447 (but they don't do that, do they?)

[spmm]

Whilst the competition is critical (IMHO) to drive us towards better solutions I find the group thing a bit high school some times.

IMHO an evo is a group solution, so the group should get the points, no individual player would get points (well maybe a few like getting one point for doing dev puzzles), as you can't evo without being in a group there is no disadvantage to solo players.

Everything else remains the same, except that you would only have one personal soloist ranking.

The group scores would reflect the work done on evolving by the groups concerned, there would also be a group soloist score.

So:
In puzzle - no change, evo comp and scores the same as now. All the benefits of possibly beter solutions, sharing and learning remain.

On the active puzzle page same as now:

Top group (based on top evolver score)

Top player (evolver)
Top player (soloist)

But once it has closed no individual points for the evo comp (perhaps one point for the effort and 1 point each for top 20?)

At the moment there is a group table, no idea how that is calculated, but there could be two, one top solo group, one top evolver group. This would perhaps increase the effort players put into group evos.

I would also like the top 5 or ten solutions to be available for everyone after the puzzle closes for a few days so that everyone can get the beneifts of interacting with top solutions. We may be missing good possible solutions from smaller teams because they have less compute power, time, or scripts. A final all hands evo at that point would be great, so the whole foldit group can work together.

spmm

[spmm]

Just for the record 447 3 days before close:
447: De-novo Freestyle 12
Status: Active

Evolvers
Rank Player Group Score Points
1 barbaranne 2 116 Anthropic Dreams 10,869 2 tyler0911 11 51 Anthropic Dreams 10,858 3 auntdeen 8 10 Anthropic Dreams 10,857 4 Rav3n_pl 28 14 Anthropic Dreams 10,844 5 harvardman 31 123 Anthropic Dreams 10,774 6 phi16 6 88 Anthropic Dreams 10,765 7 Tyggy Too 62 99 Anthropic Dreams 10,758 8 gdnskye 4 13 Anthropic Dreams 10,716
9 CharlieFortsCon… 7 18 Contenders 10,664
10 Bletchley Park 1 15 Contenders 10,663
11 svenmh 18 81 foldeRNA 10,618
12 bertro 34 59 foldeRNA 10,591
13 hansvandenhof 18 23 foldeRNA 10,590
14 B_2 15 39 Go Science 10,587
15 Roseanna 47 91 Go Science 10,569
16 infjamc 36 9 Contenders 10,566
17 justjustin 49 73 Anthropic Dreams 10,559
18 itskimo 10 58 foldeRNA 10,545
19 firejuggler 70 258 Void Crushers 10,542
20 cbwest 29 25 foldeRNA 10,540
21 micheldeweerd 37 122 foldeRNA 10,470

[auntdeen]

For the record - at this time, all 8 of the evo players listed above (with the exception of one at #5) - have done independent evos from Pletsch's solo uploaded at 10732.

There are 2 uploaded evos from that score that no one has touched.

Each of the seven have arrived at their evo scores using different hand work, scripts & techniques.

What some are just not getting is that we enjoy evos - finding something that a great soloist may have overlooked or not yet done - whether it be hand work (which many of us do in evos) or scripts.

So if it's the will of the devs to discourage this in some way - then fine. They have access to the logs, so whether Brick thinks it's nonsense or not, they can confirm this for themselves - and quite frankly, their opinions are really the only ones that count.

If the devs wish to limit the size of teams, how evos are scored or worked on - whatever they want is fine by me. But I am more than a little tired of foldit's least favorite concern troll curmudgeon taking potshots at our team, and stirring up storms. Maybe if he turned his efforts to becoming a better folder, we'd all have some peace.

I appreciate the thoughts of inflamc, rav & spmm for coming up with reasonable thoughts on evo scoring. But quite frankly, it would seem that the only one who is so very unhappy is Brick, who either wants a better number after his name, or failing that, wants no one else to have it.

When I took a good look at the top evolvers list today, I saw a healthy mix of folders from all the top teams. That isn't surprising - the top teams either have the top soloists and/or the energy & dedication to work very hard on their evos.

I am so done with this conversation. I am very done with trying to reason with a brick wall.

[spmm]

Making this discussion an emotional personal argument between two people and 'being upset' doesn't make it go away and should not be an excuse for others to stop the conversation.

Others are also on record as saying they can't see the point of the evo points system for individuals, it is a group solution.

You haven't commented on my suggestions, which is your option of course.

I certainly 'get' that some people in AD enjoy evos, on puzzle #446 there were five AD evolvers, on #447 there are nine; and they don't share their much vaunted evo techniques with the rest of foldit, and as I said earlier, to me the group competition seems quite childish, and I would like everyone that folds to have an opportunity to improve their game.

I agree that it is up to fold central to make any decisions but we can discuss things as rational adults if we choose, hopefully informing their decisions.

If we humans are entered into CASP again; is it going to be a divisive battle between individuals and groups, (I missed the last one) or is there going to be an opportunity for everyone to work together? If the latter then perhaps some practice may be of benefit.

[Rav3n_pl]

I we agree that best evo is team effort then yes.
But you have right, minimum should be calculated in different way…

[Rav3n_pl]

During next CASP we should have all-hands puzzle ability, cross-group sharing. We all be visible as one team - Foldit team.