Hey Hey, Model Gang, KaraWitch Here.
Have you, ever merged too deeply.
And found something 'they' don't want you to know?
"CavesOfQwen3", who is she? And why can't I reach her?

CavesOfQwen3-8b is a merge between the base model and the instruct model of Qwen3-8B (i.e. Qwen3-8B) and it's base model Qwen3-8B-base.

The idea for this merge is to remove the overbaked feeling that is in the instruct while retaining the instruct within the model.

This is a merge of pre-trained language models created using ~~mergekit.~~
This model is done with mergekitty. With a couple of code patch to add qwen3 and a o_proj into Qwen3 arch configuration (else vllm get's very grumpy over it.)

I used TIES. Not because I'm lazy but because it's what I had lying around that isn't SCE or something else.

Model Results (Thanks to @SmerkyG)

Tasks	Version	Filter	n-shot	Metric		Value		Stderr
mmlu	2	none		acc	↑	0.7478	±	0.0034

Tasks	Version	Filter	Metric		Value		Stderr
arc_challenge	1	none	acc	↑	0.5392	±	0.0146
		none	acc_norm	↑	0.5768	±	0.0144
arc_easy	1	none	acc	↑	0.8178	±	0.0079
		none	acc_norm	↑	0.7963	±	0.0083
hellaswag	1	none	acc	↑	0.5906	±	0.0049
		none	acc_norm	↑	0.7868	±	0.0041
lambada_openai	1	none	acc	↑	0.7357	±	0.0061
		none	perplexity	↓	3.3203	±	0.0674
piqa	1	none	acc	↑	0.7933	±	0.0094
		none	acc_norm	↑	0.7922	±	0.0095
sciq	1	none	acc	↑	0.9630	±	0.0060
		none	acc_norm	↑	0.9570	±	0.0064
winogrande	1	none	acc	↑	0.7182	±	0.0126

Merge Details

Merge Method

This model was merged using the TIES merge method using Qwen/Qwen3-8B as a base.

Models Merged

The following models were included in the merge:

Qwen/Qwen3-8B-Base

Configuration

The following YAML configuration was used to produce this model:

yaml

models:
  - model: Qwen/Qwen3-8B
    parameters:
      density: 0.4
      weight: 0.35
  - model: Qwen/Qwen3-8B-Base
    parameters:
      density: 0.7
      weight: 1

merge_method: ties
base_model: Qwen/Qwen3-8B
parameters:
  normalize: true
dtype: bfloat16

Disclaimer

CavesOfQwen3 and it's creator is not affiliated with Caves Of Qud or the creator of the video linked.
The reference is intentional, but it is supposed to be taken as a light hearted joke. There's not need to take it too deeply other than "Haha, funni name." This disclaimer is for those who think otherwise or are overthinkers.

KaraKaraWitch/CavesOfQwen3-8b

CavesOfQwen3-8b