Topic: Bitminter bitcoin mining pool - shutdown mining 2020-07-01 website 2021-06-01 - page 78. (Read 324945 times)

Doc I might be the only one here but can we have FUTURE say TOTAL instead as that is what it is.  It is the confirmed and the unconfirmed added together.  I just think people would easily look at that and think that is what they are going to be paid in the future when it is a total of what they have mined and will be paid.

If i'm wrong then leave it.

Also if we can still see how much we earn/block somewhere that would be good.  Seeings we hit 2 blocks in such a short time I can't see what I earned for each.  I also rented a bunch of miners to help me and I use these payouts to justify what I put back in.

again this might be just me...

Fahlcor

I'm considering replacing the text on the 10 latest shifts with one of these:

    searching for blocks
    still eligible for pay
    (your idea here)       "Still Open"
    (For the paid shifts)  "Closed: 0.00118732"

The problem is users seem to think there is "real time status".  Shifts update when blocks are found, or a new shift completes.  Those are the ONLY times anything changes for a shift.  There is absolutely no way to know what the outcome of a shift will be until it is no longer receiving payments (meaning 10 newer shifts have completed).

In BTC Guild's case, you can see the current rewards paid to open shifts.  I have a warning that says the number aren't final.  That doesn't stop a significant number of people from complaining to me about shifts not getting paid, and that "something must be broken, there's 7 0s in a row!".  DrHaribo got the same comments, and changed it to simply not show the 10 open shifts.

I think not showing the current rewards of the 10 open shifts by default is a good change, and I may end up implementing a similar change on my pool.  Though I think an option to enable the stats on open shifts should be provided for those who actively want it.

Doc (and eleuthria) ...

Real time figures would surely give people reassurance that 'payment things' are happening in the background, to give them reassurance.

Newbies and some others need to understand/learn the way shifts work. The suggestion is people need to see the shifts column populated with some kind of dynamic data to help them out/understand.

I'm not a programmer, but I know I like straight facts. Is it possible to show 'shifts' in progress' as they slowly crystallize into fact?



Really? LOL

And yes, today has been a good day to have your miners pointed at BitMinter. A 50 minute block was  ... well ... so welcome!

Yeah, I was just thinking it would be cool to have an animation of coins flying from the new block and landing on the 10 shifts.

PPLNS in general (shifts actually simplify it for reporting) is hard to explain in a table.  If I were a graphics designer it would take me no time at all.  I think the key to explaining PPLNS relies in either a real-time conversation, a LOT of images, or the best way: an animation.

A simple GIF could probably clear up PPLNS misunderstandings in under 15 seconds :/.

I'm a programmer, not an interaction designer. But I'm trying. The feedback is a great help.

We'll get there.

Thanks for the explanation above.  Not trying to be a whiner, just frustrated by how un-intuitive things seem to me now, especially the shifts page.

If you are looking for votes on the replacement text, I like "still eligible for pay" (which might keep people from running off).  "Your idea here" is also just as good for me, because I still have no idea what the 10 mystery shifts are telling me.

A big thanks to everyone who posted their thoughts on page contents! If you have any more, keep them coming.

I wasn't sure if there would be much response, so this was totally awesome to see. It's a big motivation to keep improving the pool.

That's a lot of useful feedback. I'll be re-reading it and thinking about it for a bit.

The critical issue I need to fix first is the shifts page. A question mark lead some miners to believe the pool was broken. "Being paid now" had a lot of people believing payouts were taken place at that moment. And I still have to explain to two people (on average) per day that coins come in when we find blocks, and the latest 10 shifts are special because that's where those coins land.

I'm considering replacing the text on the 10 latest shifts with one of these:

• searching for blocks
• still eligible for pay
• (your idea here)

I think maybe "searching for blocks" could convey both that blocks are where coins come from and that this shift could still earn more coins.

Any thoughts?

We've been lucky for a while now and having higher than average expected payouts. Everyone can afford that. You're complaining while you're winning. Stop it.

Shorter shifts: For 24/7 miners there is no change. You get the same amount of coins. At the same time. It's exactly the same. If you mine for two hours, it does not matter whether you are paid 0.2 BTC for the first hour and 0 for the second, or if you are paid 0.1 BTC for each hour. It's the same 0.2 BTC being paid out to you. Don't get emotional about that one hour with no pay (even if you did put your back into it). It's the number on your balance that matters.

Take a look at https://bitminter.com/stats/rewards - at the bottom graph you can see the expected line flattening out at the point we changed to shorter shifts. That's because the earnings per shift are lower now that there are more shifts per day. See how the actual rewards graph at this point started below the expected, but kept moving higher and higher. That's you being paid better than the average expected pay that mining calculators give you.


You can never assume anything about the 10 latest shifts. Those are the ones that will be paid if we find a block in the next moment. And you don't know whether we will or not. Some people think they do. But they don't.

The eleventh shift was showing zero pay though. That can happen if it takes a while to find the next block. But overall today is a great day. We are having good luck and getting high payouts. Most miners today are counting their coins with a big smile. Do you really want to focus only on that one shift that didn't get any pay?

Would it help if the shifts were a little longer so instead of 10 shifts with big pay and one with zero, we would have 10 shifts with slightly smaller pay (and no zero pay shifts). We'd get the same coins. Your share of the coins would be the same. Your balance would show the same number. Your pay would be exactly the same. But we wouldn't have a zero showing on the shifts page.

Here's the thing: almost all the work we do is for nothing. Out of 35 billion proofs of work only a single one is useful, because it produces a block. Mining seen from a different angle: if you're not finding any blocks then you are getting paid for doing nothing. Only skysmichaels and 2doo did something useful today. All the others got paid over 2x regular mining pay for nothing. That's not bad.

It's just a matter of shorter shifts. We went from 12 hours to 3 hours so that's pretty much normal. We got a bunch of new Hashrate with the shorter shift but we are more sensitive to the hashrate rollercoster now. Meaning that during our luck a huge jump in hastrate will cut our BTC payment way much faster then before (12 hours to erase a shift vs 3 hours). More hashrate means more blocks too tho

It's just that before a 5 days block will pretty much got paid for all the 12 hours shifts which is it not the case anymore.

I'm fine with Doc decision but I also understand your point of view.

FWIW, I'm leaving the pool.  I can't afford to do all those shifts with no payout.  Not sure why it had to change, but if I see:

being paid now
being paid now
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
being paid now
0.00000000

I can assume the last 11 shifts were for nothing.

Really liked the old pool better...

I think this would be a delightful addition. 




Me too!  I plan to mention this anywhere that I can.  I'm still quite surprised that Bitminter isn't a bigger pool.  A stat like this, though no indication of future earnings, might be enough to get some people to bring their hash here.

When I log on the first thing I do is jump to the full stats page.  I look to see that all of my miners are up and running both by my personal hash rate and at the number of workers that I have active.

But not very secure

Yes, having a balance of over 21 Bitcoins would be nice 

This would be nice:



P.S Recent Pool Upgrades....NICE WORK DOC!

When I log into bitminter, I want to see two main things, how much currency I have waiting and what I should probably expect from the next block found if nothing changes.

I check the shifts page and I really don't understand "being paid now". Nothing is being paid as no block has been found in a while.

The information I look at is, Current Hash Rate (I use this to see if the miners are running as I do not watch them any other way - and to see if I need to power cycle one etc.).
Since the current HR varies, I also go look at the last shifts to see what the average rate has been.   I also like to know about how much per block the account will receive but I am fine that it is just an estimate.

The pool is Pay Per Last 10 Shifts.  Each time we find a block, you get paid your portion of the reward, based on your work over the last 10 shifts.  As a result, the most recent 10 shifts are still open for payment - when we find the next block (hopefully really soon - as I write this, we last found one 2d and 20h ago), you get paid your share based on your work over the last 10 shifts.

If we find more blocks in that 10-shift period than average, you make out like a bandit.  If we have a really long block, you will have some shifts that have 0 pay.  In the end, if your mining is constant, the luck averages out.  

If you're (like me) mining at an inconsistent rate (I rent out my miners to others and use payments in altcoins to fund buying mining power from others), you may miss out on some runs of good luck putting in a large amount of work during a shift that ultimately doesn't make anything, or you might hit a run of good luck and do really well.