Please write up a paper with Christioanchauvin to make sure his approach to ED puzzles is recorded and he is given credit for that.
This way knowledge is preserved for the rest of the community and can be improved upon for science. Credit where credit is due.
I didn't see any ED strategy published by Christioanchauvin. I don't know if he shared his strategy with players or researchers.
Some strategies from ED "top players" are available here:
https://journals.iucr.org/d/issues/2025/11/00/lie5003/lie5003sup1.pdf
One nice part of the game is it's "double blind" characteristics, which means that the players might decide if, when, using which media (recipes, group chat, forum …) and whom they share their winning strategies. The balance seems good for maintaining creativity.
Modesty is a virtue.
I asked for the one that manages to outperform most of us very quickly on ED, (not you in this case), to be given credit for his achievement and to have his strategy recorded. I read in his profile that he is 82 years old, presuming this is correct, his knowledge should not go wasted.
I appreciate you shared your strategy in the paper, it would be great if others could record theirs as well as it benefits science. You will notice I do not play for points.
@beta_helix for your attention.
Do you think the wiki would be a good venue for top ED folders to share their strategies?
Those are easier to find than the supplemental information of a paper.
A wiki in general is a good idea, but the incentive to share without receiving credit for the invention of an improvement may prevent some, including myself, from sharing discoveries. It is too easy for others who seek fame and attention (and profit) to then take it and shine with the idea then presented as their own. Who checks a wiki if someone yells it is their idea ? Crick, Watson and Rosalind Franklin come to mind. Hence the publication suggestion as an immutable reference in time.
I'd say let's ask @christioanchauvin for his opinion.
This concern is adressed in this paper: Getting it Right or Being Top Rank: Games in Citizen Science.
In a way, I think that a hard scientific publication (even in a supplementary material) remains the only way to openly and permanently recognise discoveries or inventors (outside of the commercial world with often "stolen" pattents).
This is a good question for citizen scientists however. Citizen scientists's contributions are standard recognised in "aknowledgments" in common scientific papers, often as a globality like "thanks to the numerous contributors …".
I think that Foldit does it well when including the actual foldit players in an authorship "consortium" "Foldit Players" with their real name in an annex, naming all contributors, with their aknowledgment, to a specific puzzle.
Other ways for co-authorship where tested in the past Foldit publications. One of them was to only name few players (the top scoring ones) as authors. But this proved to be unfair for all the players who did share recipes, functions of recipes, test solutions, discussions in the chat or in the wiki etc.
The authorship for the 100 000+ recipes is an interesting case: if one author invent a basic function (mainly when a new Lua Command appears), this function, or the idea of this function is then used by many chefs afterwards. Even the new command itself is often the response to a demand from the players in the forum. It's tricky to identify who actually participated to the idea of this improvement. Let'us give the authorship to the Foldit Researchers "with aknowledgment to the all Foldit Community".
Thus, "Foldit Players" is a minimum in order to aknowledge the all community of players. Then specificly aknowledging the players who actually participated in a specific puzzle is a good plus (this could be limited to those with more than one point per puzzle). Then, if relevant, specificly naming the players (or groups, then players of this group) who came with a specific solution that directly contributed to science is also nice, even if their results build on the all Foldit Community contributions, exactly like Scientists build not only on published papers but also on the all scientific community and other public facilities.
The way to aknowledge must however remain feasible at reasonable cost: for specific solutions, the Foldit Team has a track of the direct contributors, but no knowledge of the players who contributed with recipes or with ideas and shares in the group chat. Foldit team knows which players participated in a specific puzzle, but it would be almost impossible to trace the all real "coauthors" of the "winning" recipes used.
How to deal with the many many past players who some times added significant improvement in the game ? I still use strategies from pauldun, Mirp, tvdl, ravpnl, jean-bob, and I build on discussions with roukess in the chat during my first years playing.
Concerning strategies, I don't see other ways than supplementary materials (or real papers like I whrote with Marisa Ponti and collegues). The wiki is supposed to remain a free anonymous share to the World … and it can be used by AI which will steal his authorship …
This doensn't prevent us to specifically aknowledge here or in the wiki, famous contributors, like LociOiling, christoanchauvin, tvdl, rav_pnl (who whrote most of the functions we use in later recipes) or for exemple Auntdeen in the "memorials".
I apologize for not answering these messages, i did not consult the blog before BK awakened me.
my way of dealing with the big ed is the following.
I am afraid of bad folds which could be caused by wiggling all too soon in the game.
so i shake all then deal separately with every loop wiggle and rebuild under trim.
Then i reconstruct all backbone with loop rebuild/remix 12.6 then helix rebuild
and when i feel sure of the backbone structure i use sidechain flipper 2.4 to put the sidechains in place.then CW all
i wait for wiggle power to be high before using microdealize.
for the end game i use modified banded wormpairs and modified lsquake nc25
i also use acid tweaker in the end.
It has produced good results but not 100 percent sure.
i am at a loss to explain how from time to time i am so far away from the top scores.
i suppose it is what makes it fun.
I was honoured to be singled by BP. Thank you
Thank you for this, christioanchauvin!
I added the strategy from Christian in the wiki here: https://foldit.fandom.com/wiki/Electron_Density_Puzzles#Strategies
I forgot a little "secret" about ed puzzles with dna , i try early on to match correctly all pairs at gc then select only dna and run wiggle at high ci.
this freezes dna hopefully in the best position and allow the rest of the puzzle to evolve around a fixed objective.I dont know if it is smart
but it worked.