[atlas] Credits accounting

Dear RIPE Atlas community,

As we previously announced, we have now enabled tighter accounting of
the credits that you earn and spend.

This is part of the process to get rid of limits that are imposed on the
number of probes you can use or number of measurements you can do. We
are planning to make those limits more relaxed next month, but in order
to do so we had to make the accounting more strict.

 From now on, if you are approaching zero credits, you will get a
warning email; if you go on spending credits at the same rate, we will
stop some of your measurements.

You can find out more about earning and spending credits here:
https://atlas.ripe.net/doc/credits

You can see your own credit amount and history under "My Atlas"
then "My Measurements".

Background about the credit system:

The credit system and all limitations were put in place to protect the
system from overload, and to ensure fairness.

Normally, you earn credits by hosting a probe. RIPE NCC members (LIRs)
can also ask for 1,000,000 extra credits. Additionally, you can earn
more credits by hosting a RIPE Atlas anchor, or by sponsoring multiple
probes. If you have unused credits, you can transfer them from your
account to a friend or colleague or, similarly, receive extra credits
from them.

However, if you have a particular measurement idea that would require
more credits than you have available, and your measurements will
contribute to the Internet community when the results are analysed and
published, then we are more than happy to give you enough credits.
Please get in touch with us for more details.

Regards,

Vesna

--
Vesna Manojlovic                                 BECHA at ripe.net
Senior Community Builder                       @Ms_Measurements
for Measurements Tools          RIPE NCC        http://ripe.net