Topic: Tired of stale shares? - page 2. (Read 7118 times)

This is completely false. If you don't see why, consider this argument:

A pool uses proportional rewards. 1% of all shares are stale. The owner decides to change the algorithm and no longer consider any shares stale. 0% of all shares are stale. What happens to the rewards per day/hour/whatever?

Answer: They are exactly the same.

What you're missing is that different pools use different algorithms to determine when they consider a share stale. They do this specifically so they can advertise fewer stale shares just like is happening here. But it's a form of scam or at the very least misrepresentation because it has no effect on proportional payouts.

Yes, there is. And different pools use different algorithms.

For example, some pools consider a share stale if the share was reported to the pool after a new block was found. Some pools don't consider a block stale even if it doesn't extend the currently longest hash chain if it would have extended the previously-longest hash chain. Pools do this specifically so they can advertise a lower number of stale shares, even though it has no effect on returns.

You are assuming that every pool uses precisely the same algorithm to determine whether to consider a share stale or not. I know for a fact that this is not true.

If JoelKatz is talking about the "reward per block", he is right. Stales don't change it if the stales happen to everyone on the pool.

Who cares about reward per block though? It's all about the reward per day/hour/whatever. And less stale shares means more blocks found by the pool because less proof-of-works have to be discarded, thus  higher reward per day. lebuen is correct.

Well, I'm sorry to say and I know you'll refuse to admit that you were wrong. But you are.

There is no "algorithm" to determine whether a share is stale or not. Either a share has the chance to find a block (it's valid), or it's duplicate/wrong and thus doesn't have a chance to find a block (it's stale). Every valid share has the same chance to find a block.

So in your scenario where a pool "doesn't even check if shares are stall at all and so reports all shares are valid (no stale shares)" this will happen: a miner submits 100 stales and 1000 valid shares, but he will be displayed 1100 valid shares. Let's say there are 10 more miners with the same numbers. The pool then has 11000 shares in total and every miner get's 1/10 of the total revenue. BUT: the pool only has 10000 valid shares so far and thus has a lower probability of finding a block than another pool, which in the same time had 11000 valid shares (and really NO stales). So the members of the pool with no stales also get 1/10 of the total revenue, but total revenue is more (on average).

My english is a little limited, so I don't know how to explain this any further. But it's simple math: your hashrate is limited. the more valid shares you get out of the total amount of shares you compute, the better is your chance of finding a block.

No, not at all. Consider two mining pools. One reports 2% stale shares. The other doesn't even check if shares are stall at all and so reports all shares are valid (no stale shares). Assuming a proportional payment scheme, your returns will be (on average) precisely the same with both pools. To conclude that a proportional pay pool with fewer stale shares will pay more than one with more stale shares requires that you closely scrutinize the algorithm used by both pools to determine whether a share is stale.

you don't think this through to the end. less valid shares means you'll need more time (on average) to find a block. so of course it's important to reduce stale shares. reducing stale shares is the same as increasing your hashrate.

Not in a proportional scheme. 100 shares out of 100,000 will give you the same reward as 98 shares out of 98,000.

You are correct. That is why I quoted "artificial fee", because it doesn't strictly effect you payout. However, what it does do is make a certain percentage of your efforts worthless.

Put another way;

If you receive a 2% stale rate, over the course of 100 shares only 98 will be accepted by the pool. However, if your stale rate is 0.02% there is an extremely high chance that all 100 of your shares will be accepted.

Given that information, 100 shares in any reward scheme will net you more reward than 98 shares would.

With pay per share, that's true. With proportional, the stale rate has no effect the BTC you earn. (The pool will still earn the same amount and you'll still be the same fraction of the pool.)

question. what do stale shares have to do with pushpool?

Agreed, we are ~40 GH/s and are offering a bounty of 5 BTC to someone who can find our currently long overdue block.

Nows the perfect time to join in, and earn more!

Bump! We just got to 21 GHash now! Join before it's too late

It seems you are lucky 
The maximum I got in bit pit of stales is 0.2%

I don't know if I should consider myself lucky, but I have very low Stales ratio:

That's the thing at this point - if you don't have a decent userbase, the variance in block times is HUGE.

I only have 1 5850 so I'm a small fry and I prefer the consistency the larger pools give. If I had 10 rigs, I could afford to throw one at a low ghash pool and play roulette.

Not like you have to point all your cards towards it all the time. 440Mhash/s from a 5870 has generated 2500+ shares without a single stale.

That does raise a paradox of how one gets to 300+ GH/s 

I'd mine in the pool if it had like 300ghash+. But at ~13ghash, it could take a month to get one payout if you're really unlucky...

Aha, had a feeling it wasn't a score-based pool.

nvm, above answers it.