improve documentation of F_method 4 (fleet-specific hybrid F)
iantaylor-NOAA opened this issue · 6 comments
@Rick-Methot-NOAA has noted that F_method 4 can replace options 2 and 3 entirely. The documentation says "A new fleet-specific parameter hybrid F approach was introduced in version 3.30.18 and is now the recommended approach for most models." However, there is confusion among users (myself included) on how it works and how to replicate the other methods.
@chantelwetzel-noaa please send me, or attach here, the example that did not perform well.
@iantaylor-NOAA When looking back through the issue that the F_method 4 was added, I saw that the test to use that method looked like this:
4 # F_Method: 1=Pope midseason rate; 2=F as parameter; 3=F as hybrid; 4=fleet-specific parm/hybrid (#4 is superset of #2 and #3 and is recommended)
3 # max F (methods 2-4) or harvest fraction (method 1)
# read list of fleets that do F as parameter; unlisted fleets stay hybrid, bycatch fleets must be included with start_PH=1, high F fleets should switch early
# (A) fleet, (B) F_initial_value (used if start_PH=1), (C) start_PH for parms (99 to stay in hybrid)
# (A) (B) (C) (terminate list with -9999 for fleet)
1 0.05 5 # CM_E
2 0.05 5 # CM_W
3 0.1 5 # REC
4 0.04 1 # SMP_BYC
-9999 1 1 # end of list
2 #_number of loops for hybrid tuning; 4 good; 3 faster; 2 enough if switching to parms is enabled
Is this test input helpful?
Looking through the user manual again, I think that the explanation at the top of the "Fishing Mortality Method" section and the existing example input is totally adequate to explain the new option. Sorry to waste folks time on this. I blame a busy assessment season leading me to not taking enough time on things.
My confusion was due to searching the manual for "F method 4" and seeing only the paragraph screenshot below, when if I had taken the time to look at the preceding page, I would have seen a lengthy explanation of option 4 that was added in 8e09c91
This gets at the general challenge of how to provide all the detail users need without overwhelming them with information so that they skip around and miss important stuff.
Maybe last bullet in the F method specification below could be expanded from "4 = Fleet-specific parameter/hybrid F (recommended)." to "4 = Fleet-specific parameter/hybrid F (recommended, see explanation above)." We could even have the "explanation above" linked to the appropriate section.
nice approach. revise to: high F fleets and bycatch only fleets
@iantaylor-NOAA are you good with me closing this issue?
Yes, go ahead and close.