+1

Agreed.

When I was mining last year, BTCGuild was my choice.

And I have the deepest respect for Eleuthria / BTCGuild for the initiatives they did when the pool reached ~40% in spring 2013.

[/quote]

It's reassuring that btcguild has supporters. ghash.io seems to be lacking same.
If btcguild makes a good primary pool, any suggestions for backup pools. I haven't really experienced any significant downtime.

You will be hard pressed to find a more reputable and responsive pool operator then Eleuthria at BTC Guild.  I have NEVER heard of BTC Guild "stealing" from miners.  Whoever told you that either knows something I don't or is a bald faced liar!

Haven't figured out how to insert quotes yet.
Answer to above:
I googled "btcguild bad luck" today after no blocks were found for about 7 hours. Accusations showed up. Noticed ghash.io considered evil by many as well. Not sure what to think about this.

I'm new and have been using btcguild and ghash.io. I am seeing accusations of stealing from miners being aimed at both pools. I have been trying to keep track of both by using the formula below to come up with $ per day per miner on average. Using S1s overclocked to 200.

(total mined) / (number hours) * 24 / (all miners hashrate) * (individual miner hashrate)

Then I add the results for each day and divide by the number of days.

For the last 10 days
btcguild = 2.32
ghash.io = 2.35

Not much difference.

btcguild seems to be having some very bad luck yesterday and today. ghash.io seemed to be having very bad luck a few weeks ago.

Are there any pools that come with verifiable honest dealings with miners?
Any good ideas on how to monitor things that aren't to intensive?

:-P

I've read the phrase throttled pool or heavily throttled for 12 hours in pool descriptions. What does this mean?