Massman

The subtest scores are missing

Correct, our mistake! I verified the score.

After a few hours on page 2 (!), we're back in the top20

Are you overclocking using the FSB or Multiplier?

The points of John should be back very soon, but in the meantime, we'll be benching low-end hardware for some extra points

One guy left the team, he was worth 550 points or so. He said he'd be back in a few week/months. And Jmke tested the 'no boints' functionality RB implented a few days ago, but turns out the feature has some bugs and now he can't return to the original stage and that's another 100+ points gone

Prohibited, yes. Any form of software ramdisk is not allowed.

How much time was in between you submitting the result and checking if it recieved points? Normally it takes about 1h, 1h30m to update a score with points

It's very relevant as the only issue with the PCMark05 benchmark is IN FACT related to the definition of harddisk drive. I believe 388k was not the value the AM3 team had in mind when designing the benchmark. I believe Madonion was not at all thinking about 130k scores in 3DM01, let alone 170k in 3dm03. Skip them as well, then? PCMark04 was dropped from the hwboints because one had to manipulate the program using external programs to make it work correctly. As far as I know, Pcmark05 does not need that. In your analogy, you should use software ramdisk instead of 'type of hardware'. PhysX is a part of the software that can be enabled/disabled; a harddisk isn't. Even less people are supporting ditching PCMark05 from the hwboints ranking. Most people don't care what decision we take, they'll just follow our decision no matter what.

The new results are reliable, the only thing we need is a cap limit set to new heights.

I'll skip the emo-comments and go right to the issue . Basicly, we are left in the unknown by FM. They've promised to raise the cap (new technology, of course), but sadly enough they still haven't raised OR informed us about the new limit. Yes, vague comments in mail, but other than that we have no precise information. As far as I know, the limit would be raised to 300, but don't pin me down on that one. If turns out that your score falls within the new restrictions, your score will be restored, of course.

It's not 'still' allowed as it has never been allowed before .

The BenchTec Group login was an extra account. The people who submitted to that account also had their own, individual account, which is a critical point in this discussion. Like I said, there's no point in not accepting benchbros or Leghorn/giorgio. First of all, the impact on the members and teams ranking is close to nothing and second, they'd just rename the account. Would you like it if Benchbros was renamed to Benchbro? Then it's just one person who benches along with his two friends who have no account on hwbot. I'd be an individual who only has joined bench sessions. Same goes for Leghorn/giorgio: would it make you feel better if they changed the name to 'Leghorn'? The end result will still be the same: they bench together. We can make a bunch of new rules, but the effect will be non-existing. If you only want better regulations, the easiest solution for us is to see these accounts as special accounts. We wouldn't allow people to just form subteams, but it can be allowed in special circumstances (we'd ask for a reason). I know the reasons for the few team accounts and they are all completely valid. 'To get more points' would not be a valid reason ;-).

Time to bring out the quotes: This comment obliges us to design regulations for something that wasn't a problem to begin with .

Bugged runs are not accepted at the bot

I'm sorry that I don't invest time in figuring out specific regulations for non-existing issues. Up untill this thread, there were absolutely no problems: no one complained about Benchbros or L-G other than the 'they have two accounts' issue, which was resolved almost instantly. We are not talking about non-sense rules, we are just talking about no rules. You know what the problem is? Both L-G and Benchbros were completely honest with us. They could've just created an account with one of the names and always just bench together ... same points, same ranks, only the name differs. No one would've noticed that and we wouldn't have any issues. If you create subteams, will the people who are in one team always bench together? Or is it only about sharing the hardware. It's unfair because I don't like the fact that you want to find a loophole just to gain more points? You're not yet abusing the system ... yet. From what I'm hearing here it's not about the clarification or just to have regulations, it's about actually abandoning personal accounts and forming subteams to gain just a few extra points. Maybe I should add a little line in the ethics section of the rules that says: "Hwbot holds every right to prevent people taking advantage of loopholes only to get more points"? Would that make more sense? Anyway, I'm back from CeBit, so I'll have some time figuring out the benefits of joined accounts.

It's open for abuse, but this hasn't been the case before benchtec openly announced they would do anything to benefit. To be precise: the people of benchbros have contacted me in the past to inform us that they have NO interest in finding a backdoor to more points. In fact, when I explained what the issues where with a joined account, they agreed instantly on having all scores merged to the single account and have their own deleted. The accounts were deleted after they explicitly asked us to do so because there where complaints from people accusing them from cheating with global points (multiple accounts - multiple globals). Same goes for Giorgio and Leghorn, by the way . That's why it comes as such surprise that there are suddenly that many people so 'furious' about this.

Yes, that's incorrect, so please report :-)

More globals for one account, but losing the globals for the two other accounts. This method seems only interesting when you form a team with one good bencher (not having lots of cash) and one less good bencher (with a lot of cash). If you form groups of multiple good benchers who can only get up to 15-20 points (top100) due to time/fund restrictions, you will be losing a lot of global points because you lose two teams. Group: 1 x 50 points Individual: 3 x 20 points I have very little time these next few days due to CeBit, so please have a little patience for the final verdict. That's indeed an issue that has to be addressed; up untill this discussions, I had no issues with people who share one account because they only bench together. I know that Giorgio and Leghorn are only benching on saturdays (or free days), so them having a single account is no issue. After all, it's not because of the points, it's because the just always bench together. Same goes for the Benchbros, btw. However, since this has become an issue and people are explicitly talking about merging accounts in the hope for higher points, it's become a more delicate issue. Whereas I don't have problems with shared accounts because of personal reasons, I actually DO have a problem with sharing accounts in an attempt to increase points.

It shouldn't be

Manufacturers don't start giving hardware JUST because people have a high individual hwbot ranking .

That should not really a problem, but know that none of the people who are in a subteam is allowed to have another account on hwbot OR is allowed to be in two subteams. Hardware cannot be shared between teams, so one cannot give his hardware to another team. Creating a personal account next to the subteam's account will be considered as hardware sharing. Sharing hardware between subteams will also be considered hardware sharing. !! Before I explicitly say YES or NO, I'd like to have a look at the implications of the concept points-wise. !! Money - yes: you can split the costs of hardware Points - no: as I demonstrated by calculating the points if the top4 members of BenchTec shared an account. No violation of these rules. The three people who form the BenchBros team upload scores to the account they own. First of all: RB is the only one who's able to merge accounts of members (requires action in the database itself). Since we have time restrictions, I insist that you take the time to think things through. There's no way that we'll merge everything first and then split it up if turns out your team plummets in the team rankings ... that would take too much time. Points-wise, I can onlys see one benefit which is that you will have less low-point members in your team; your team's total will drop significantly and you won't suddenly have top5 members. Oh, and people will lose their personal accounts.

I calculated the points of this hypothetical account: 858.5 (incl. 300 hw points). I think a lot of you underestimate the effects of joined accounts. It's not a win-win situation. The team would lose a lot of points too

Okay, so it's a money issue? Please confirm or tell me otherwise so that we're all on the same level

No, you can't. If you want to bench like they did, there's only one way: -Create new account -Move all scores into new account -Delete older accounts The only advantage is indeed the money factor: if they buy hw, they can split the price in three. However, that has nothing to do with having 1000 points in the hwbot rankings; after all: it's not because they each have to pay less that their scores are higher. None of the hardware they buy overclocks themselves because they have a three person team.