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[purelithium]

I agree with juhakall. You should really make it clear to people that this is a proxy pool, and explain what that is, in addition to being a little more transparent as to who you're sending our hashes to.

[BitcoinOxygen]

I'm interested in seeing how you proceed being the first "honest and open" proxy. If you can do this, It could benefit miners and pools alike. However given the recent history of proxy pools, i think you need to adhere to high standards of transparency before people will take you seriously. You'll need to completely differentiate yourself from previous proxy pools. Here's what I would do in terms of providing accountability to the community (rather than to specific miners):

1. Provide a summary of total shares submitted for a given number of network blocks (1008 blocks would be sufficient for weekly stats);
2. Break down this figure into the number of shares submitted to each pool you use;
3. Provide total earnings from each pool you use.

This data will be sufficient  for the community to ensure you aren't pool hopping,

I will need to work out how to provide the above data. Shortly, I will be putting up the pool average hashrate and shares submitted to the network (via pools or directly) on our website. We are not pool hopping and will consider to provide info that can assure people of that.

Also, we are not a pure proxy pool -- it is more like a hybrid pool as we are submitting shares to pools and also directly. We are not mining at other pools as PPS either as it will not be profitable for us -- we pay PPS and our fee is lower than most pools.

that you're only using your miner's hashes to solve blocks and also provide an indicator of how much you are either helping or hindering the stability of the pools you use.

I am not aware that the hashes be used for anything else. Is it even possible as the miners are using standard tools like cgminer to solve the work given to them?

I'm not implying you would be untrustworthy if you don't provide this data, just that it would helpful in allowing you to claim a level of trust that no other proxy pool can.

We do hope to earn the trust of the community. Being human mistakes and oversight can happen and we will appreciate feedback from the community to address them.

We are here in order to make a profit while helping the bitcoin network -- just like everyone else -- and we aspire to do it in an ethical and fair way.

[BitcoinOxygen]

At the very least, it should be mentioned in the first post(s) that BTC Oxygen is a proxy pool. I didn't know, since it's only mentioned in the second page of this thread. The first posts advertises that "even if a block is later marked as invalid/orphaned your earnings are not affected". That's a bit misleading too, since it gives the impression that you mine your own blocks. I was a bit curious about why there wasn't any kind of block history. Disclosing the pools you use would certainly be helpful in maintaining trust.

We are not a pure proxy pool -- it is more like a hybrid pool. We are submitting shares to pools and also mining directly. We do pay our miners even if the block gets marked as invalid; so that part is still true.

The reason we did not mention this in the first post was as we felt that it was not necessary. We certainly did not mean to hide it but did not think that we need to highlight that aspect.

[BitcoinOxygen]

I agree with juhakall. You should really make it clear to people that this is a proxy pool, and explain what that is,

We will be adding info about the nature of our pool to our FAQ section soon. We were waiting for some worthy questions to add to our FAQ and this certainly fits the bill.

in addition to being a little more transparent as to who you're sending our hashes to.

As a proxy pool, we need to study the trends at different pools and determine which can produce the best results in order to be able to pay our miners and also keep ourselves above water. Given that, we need to consider the benefit of making this information public as it can make miners go directly to those pools. It is good to be transparent but also it needs to add value to both sides. We need to think more about this and would appreciate feedback from the community about the pros and cons of doing this.

[Graet]

The reason we did not mention this in the first post was as we felt that it was not necessary.

Despite me repeatedly advising you otherwise?
And you asking me not to tell miners until someone asked you? (which made me very uncomfortable)
Please start being honest with your miners.

We certainly did not mean to hide it but did not think that we need to highlight that aspect.

yes you did.

Also poaching miners from other pools IRC chanels is bad form and I hear you have now been banned from at least 3 pools IRC chanels. Ban evasion in IRC is also seen as bad form.

Not a stellar start to  a new "pool".

[BitcoinOxygen]

The reason we did not mention this in the first post was as we felt that it was not necessary.

Despite me repeatedly advising you otherwise?
And you asking me not to tell miners until someone asked you? (which made me very uncomfortable)
Please start being honest with your miners.

It is correct that I asked you not to tell miners that we were a proxy pool. I did not feel that the timing was appropriate. I felt that I would like to reveal it myself when the time was right.

We certainly did not mean to hide it but did not think that we need to highlight that aspect.

yes you did.

We did not want to highlight the aspect of being a proxy pool. There was no reason to do so especially as we are not pure proxy.

Also poaching miners from other pools IRC chanels is bad form and I hear you have now been banned from at least 3 pools IRC chanels. Ban evasion in IRC is also seen as bad form.

I never approached other miners from any pool IRC channels. I did approach miners in the general #bitcoin and #bitcoin-mining channels which are not specific to any pool. I had a link to my website in my irc quit message but have since removed it after it was pointed out that it is not considered good form.

Not a stellar start to  a new "pool".

As a new pool, we cannot be perfect -- or even "stellar" -- right from the beginning. But we learn from our mistakes and hope to prove to be a useful resource for the bitcoin community.

[Graet]

The reason we did not mention this in the first post was as we felt that it was not necessary.

Despite me repeatedly advising you otherwise?
And you asking me not to tell miners until someone asked you? (which made me very uncomfortable)
Please start being honest with your miners.

It is correct that I asked you not to tell miners that we were a proxy pool. I did not feel that the timing was appropriate. I felt that I would like to reveal it myself when the time was right.

We certainly did not mean to hide it but did not think that we need to highlight that aspect.

yes you did.

We did not want to highlight the aspect of being a proxy pool. There was no reason to do so especially as we are not pure proxy.

Also poaching miners from other pools IRC chanels is bad form and I hear you have now been banned from at least 3 pools IRC chanels. Ban evasion in IRC is also seen as bad form.

I never approached other miners from any pool IRC channels. I did approach miners in the general #bitcoin and #bitcoin-mining channels which are not specific to any pool. I had a link to my website in my irc quit message but have since removed it after it was pointed out that it is not considered good form.

Not a stellar start to  a new "pool".

As a new pool, we cannot be perfect -- or even "stellar" -- right from the beginning. But we learn from our mistakes and hope to prove to be a useful resource for the bitcoin community.

sorry but being banned 7 times from 1 irc chanel shows you do not " learn from our mistakes"
you are not welcome in Ozcoin's IRC

anyway I have had enough of your rubbish
when you first asked for help you told me you wouldn't waste my time, you have

I choose to stop wasting my time now

Good luck with your venture

[BitcoinOxygen]

anyway I have had enough of your rubbish
when you first asked for help you told me you wouldn't waste my time, you have

I choose to stop wasting my time now

Good luck with your venture

I appreciate that you helped me. FWIW, BTCOxygen has submitted more than 13 million shares at your pool and also found two blocks for you. Not to mention the donations. I left your pool recently as there were too many long rounds. I hope that is not the reason why your tone has changed now.

Wish you all the best.

[organofcorti]

.......I left your pool recently as there were too many long rounds. .......

I really do hope that's not the reason you left. As a proxy you have to understand mining variance better than other pool ops. The variables you need to consider when selecting a pool to use for your proxy are:
1. fair reward method
2. pool reliability
3. fee

Unless my humour detector is malfunctioning, you seem to be saying that Ozcoin had a significant number of long rounds and that's why you left. I can assure you that Ozcoin's shares per round are well within a 95% confidence interval, so I'm guessing you didn't check? And what did you think was happening - that there was a block withholding attack happening?

You have to learn some basic analysis of negative binomially distributed random variables if you want to be able to make a statement such as "too many long rounds".

Or I can do the work for you: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=127260.0

It doesn't cost much if you want analysis done regularly.

[abracadabra]

.......I left your pool recently as there were too many long rounds. .......

I really do hope that's not the reason you left. As a proxy you have to understand mining variance better than other pool ops. The variables you need to consider when selecting a pool to use for your proxy are:
1. fair reward method
2. pool reliability
3. fee

Unless my humour detector is malfunctioning, you seem to be saying that Ozcoin had a significant number of long rounds and that's why you left. I can assure you that Ozcoin's shares per round are well within a 95% confidence interval, so I'm guessing you didn't check? And what did you think was happening - that there was a block withholding attack happening?

You have to learn some basic analysis of negative binomially distributed random variables if you want to be able to make a statement such as "too many long rounds".

Or I can do the work for you: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=127260.0

It doesn't cost much if you want analysis done regularly.

organofcorti, based on some questions he makes on irc i'm pretty sure he doesn't understand mining variance.  Or maybe he feels that oz was on a streak of long rounds that would continue in the future 

[Graet]

you are welcome to mine where you please

If you did not notice my "tone of voice " changed when you started avoiding IRC bans and would not leave Ozcoin IRC chanel when asked. I do not have time or interest in playing "whack-a-mole" with someone using tor and proxies to get around bans (a favourite ploy of spammers and scammers on Bitcoin IRC BTW).

You also did not listen to the bit about: in our 18 months of operating that IRC chanel we have banned 3 people, you being the 3rd - it takes quite a bit to get banned.... deliberately avoiding that ban was the last straw.

[purelithium]

The low fee definitely drew me to this pool, but with the controversy surrounding it is making me wary... I'm sure I'm not alone.

[organofcorti]

organofcorti, based on some questions he makes on irc i'm pretty sure he doesn't understand mining variance.  Or maybe he feels that oz was on a streak of long rounds that would continue in the future 

For just one moment I had a blood pressure rise inducing "wtf?" moment before I realised you were joking. Nicely done, sir.

[BitcoinOxygen]

.......I left your pool recently as there were too many long rounds. .......

I really do hope that's not the reason you left. As a proxy you have to understand mining variance better than other pool ops. The variables you need to consider when selecting a pool to use for your proxy are:
1. fair reward method
2. pool reliability
3. fee

Unless my humour detector is malfunctioning, you seem to be saying that Ozcoin had a significant number of long rounds and that's why you left. I can assure you that Ozcoin's shares per round are well within a 95% confidence interval, so I'm guessing you didn't check? And what did you think was happening - that there was a block withholding attack happening?

You have to learn some basic analysis of negative binomially distributed random variables if you want to be able to make a statement such as "too many long rounds".

Or I can do the work for you: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=127260.0

It doesn't cost much if you want analysis done regularly.

I do have a good understanding of mining variance. Perhaps not as well as you, I may concur. I understand that Ozcoin has a good confidence interval -- which is why we stayed with them for a quite long time. We left them after a number of long rounds but that was not the determining factor. We have loads of spreadsheets for doing various analyses needed; notwithstanding certain mudslingers. I also visit your site regularly as I find your insights useful.

[BitcoinOxygen]

you started avoiding IRC bans and would not leave Ozcoin IRC chanel when asked.

I don't recall being asked to leave the Ozcoin irc channel. If I missed your message, I am sorry. If there was anything that merited a ban, at least a warning would have been fair. But there wasn't any. But a certain person has been going around to various irc channels even those where I don't post much and convincing those operators to get me banned. Which is very unfortunate. I guess he succeeded in achieving that.

it takes quite a bit to get banned.... deliberately avoiding that ban was the last straw.

I got banned because I was avoiding a ban?? Circular logic detected.

[BitcoinOxygen]

The low fee definitely drew me to this pool, but with the controversy surrounding it is making me wary... I'm sure I'm not alone.

BTCOxygen has been operating for about over one month now. In this period, we have paid well over 100 BTC to our miners. And found three blocks for the network so far. I feel that our track record is good.

Hopefully over time, the stigma attached to proxy pools will fade away.

[purelithium]

Fair enough. I'll stick around, see how it goes. I'll be adding another 1.6gh sometime this week.

[Fjordbit]

The low fee definitely drew me to this pool, but with the controversy surrounding it is making me wary... I'm sure I'm not alone.

IME, you have to learn to ignore bitcointalk drama. I moved over a little at first just to make sure that the payouts came as expected and did analysis to make sure the numbers on my side matched the numbers on their side. It all came up fine, so really I don't care if it's a pass through or it finds its own blocks.

That said, it is a new pool, so make sure your mining config has a backup pool so if this one becomes unresponsive, you are mining elsewhere.

[purelithium]

Oh yeah I know. It's tough to ignore though.

I think anyone who doesn't have a backup isn't serious about mining. Haha

[BitcoinOxygen]

Fair enough. I'll stick around, see how it goes. I'll be adding another 1.6gh sometime this week.

Thanks.

I appreciate your support.