Hi All, Here are some thoughts for round 2. In the end, my team was not able to submit any prediction model as servers were inaccessible. Our recent submissions were on hold for 2-3 days, both on the regular lanes and the express lanes. While I believe the administrators had good intentions in providing additional 14 days of server time for all teams, **the end result was a huge bottleneck and was unfair to late-submitting teams**. My suggestion is as follows: To equate things, span the 14 additional server time to the next rounds, so each team may have up to a total of 14*3 days(of regular training time) + 14 bonus days, which will be accumulated during rounds. Additionally, set a priority for the server queues, so that teams which had not used their 14 days of server time (in a specific round) will get a priority over teams who already spent it, and are now using their bonus time (or other priority rule based on the current usage of resources). What do you think?

Created by Eli Meirom bloodymeli
I think what Eli is saying here makes sense regarding priority queues. Right now, the extremely limited challenge infrastructure is making it impossible for most to get a single slot in. Maybe a priority queue is a single answer.
>I don't see why prioritising team which haven't been able to spend 1 day of training over team which has already used 13 days is unfair. hello, Eli, according to this logic, there are 6 billion people who has spent zero hour on the challenge, we must prioritize them first. and this would **encourage people not submitting early**.   i really don't want to argue with you, and i can completely understand your frustration, really... but in all challenges 99% of the people will be frustrated in the end. nor do I know why i am defending the incoming decision of the organizers, as they don't like me at all. i think i just cannot help defending what is logical and right.   you can submit immediately in phase 2, there was no waiting time in the first half.
Hi, I guess I wasn't clear: Each round you are allotted 14 days, which are non-accumulated. Additionally, you get the 14 bonus days which you may spent however you wish. I don't think there is a problem is someone wants to keep it for the last round, especially is there some priority mechanism which prioritise teams that haven't spent their normal, non-accumulated server ration. >nor would there be a priority queue, because any scheme that prioritises some but not others cannot be justified and will receive numerous complaints. I think this is debate-able. I don't see why prioritising team which haven't been able to spend 1 day of training over team which has already used 13 days is unfair. As for comment 1-2, I don't have an opinion as we weren't even able to get a proper training slot (!), so we didn't get to the scoring phase. Comment 3 is reasonable, but can also monitored for each internally. I wouldn't suggest a timeline for the organisers, I'm sure they know more then us about the constraints and the system. My comment for the organisers should not be read as a criticism, but rather as an improvement suggestions, as my team were somewhat frustrated at the end of round 1 (spending all the time and not being able to even submit a prediction).
accumulation won't happen because then all teams would accumulate all hours to last round, just like there won't be accumulation on the number of submissions.   nor would there be a priority queue, because any scheme that prioritizes some but not others cannot be justified and will receive numerous complaints.   i think round 2 will look very different, as we all know that the last two week nothing will happen, so the queue will be busy at the beginning.   i suggest the following features, which are **essential** to move on.   1. add time limit to express lane for SC1 scoring and SC2 scoring. right now there is no time limit, that's why everyone was blocked in the last few days.   2. add 'cancel' option to SC1 scoring and SC2 scoring, SC1 express and SC2 express.   3. add a **time track**, so that we can plan on our time usage.   I suggest starting the 2nd round **on the 9th instead of 3rd**, which gives the organizers one week buffer to implement the above features.

Some thoughts for round 2 page is loading…