Should the bitcoin community ban the Satoshi Dice filter patch?

[fancy_pants]

Someone has offered up a patch to kill the satoshidice transactions (and by extention bitcoin itself.)

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=150405.msg1598258#msg1598258

This poll is to determine whether or not the bitcoin community, specifically the bitcoin police in this forum, should enforce an outlaw of the patch.

There is still time to vote!!!

[Rodyland]

Isn't it up to the  miners what tx they  do and don'tinclude? How would you enforce    a ban?

[gonzoflip]

How do you suggest they implement a ban of the patch exactly?


Edit:So you are suggesting they ban a ban... Yo Dog I heard you like bans...

[misterbigg]

This patch is just a quick stop-gap hack to address the transaction spam. More robust solutions which are vendor-agnostic (i.e. not specific to SatoshiDICE) are being evaluated and refined. Why is the transaction spam a problem?

SatoshiDICE is taking advantage of the early stage of Bitcoin, at a time when transaction volume is too low to fill the blocks and bring fees up to a level that would make up for the drop in subsidy. If Bitcoin was fully mature, it will not be vulnerable to this type of transaction spam and no one would be talking about it let alone suggest patches, because fees would make the dust spam economically unviable.

The problem is that we do not have a mature network, and we're in the bootstrapping phase. SatoshiDICE is consuming the "startup capital" (current state of low fees, high subsidy, and lots of free space in blocks) to profit without bringing a corresponding increase in growth of Bitcoin adoption. The simple fact is that a relatively small handful of gambling addicts and bots are flooding the block chain with 70%+ of its transactions.

This is not good.

[fancy_pants]

How do you suggest they implement a ban of the patch exactly?


Edit:So you are suggesting they ban a ban... Yo Dog I heard you like bans...

Look,  other than being a satoshidice shareholder,  I'm completely neutral here.  I can't tell the bitcoin police how to do their job any more than they can tell me to shut my mouth.  I'm a citizen, I pay my taxes, and I deserve a little bit more respect than you are giving me.  I voted to outlaw the ban on satoshi dice. What's the problem?

[John (John K.)]

It is impossible and silly to 'outlaw' such a patch. Everyone has their own rights to do whatever modifications they like on the software they run. A better way of handling this would be to implement a better pruning system.

[gonzoflip]

Look,  other than being a satoshidice shareholder,  I'm completely neutral here.  I can't tell the bitcoin police how to do their job any more than they can tell me to shut my mouth.  I'm a citizen, I pay my taxes, and I deserve a little bit more respect than you are giving me.  I voted to outlaw the ban on satoshi dice. What's the problem?

WTF?

[misterbigg]

A better way of handling this would be to implement a better pruning system.

It is precisely because no solution to the pruning problem exists for this form of transaction spam that we need a way to address it.

[casascius]

I have never played Satoshi Dice, and view their transactions as spam, but I also view them as doing an VALUABLE SERVICE for Bitcoin and don't think it should be disrupted.  I would be happy that a patch exists, but would also leave it disabled myself.

Without Satoshi Dice, we are left to guesstimate what will happen when we start reaching limits.

With Satoshi Dice, we reach those limits in a non-committal way.  We get to find out how Bitcoin reacts under load, using a load that is for all intents and purposes optional.

If at some point Bitcoin becomes disrupted by transaction load (something I pretty much expect will happen eventually), we always have the option of throwing out the Satoshi Dice noise long enough to re-engineer Bitcoin to handle more activity.  This is far better than reaching those limits with brick-and-mortar business activity that will turn off the business community if they end up being the guinea pigs for Bitcoin's scalability.

Because of Satoshi Dice, people are considering how to prune the blockchain and how to make a client function with a UTXO set rather than mandating everyone be a historian - something I'm afraid would be nowhere as progressed were it not for this game.

[fancy_pants]

...
This is not good.

Mr. Bigg:
holding a rabbit hostage is way worse than what you just described :  http://www.nbcnews.com/id/7406483/#.UTlyQBnXG2w

Has anyone here even played satoshidice?  ITS AWESOME!!!

[pyra-proxy]

What SD is doing and what this patch is doing and what the OP is doing is akin to the following analogy....

Bully is punching another student in the face, that student is trying to cover their face with their hands to dampen the blow, all while a third student is asking everyone to get mad at and hold the seconds students hands down because he is hurting the bullies choice to punch people in the face....  

[fancy_pants]

What SD is doing and what this patch is doing and what the OP is doing is akin to the following analogy....

Bully is punching another student in the face, that student is trying to cover their face with their hands to dampen the blow, all while a third student is asking everyone to get mad at and hold the seconds students hands down because he is hurting the bullies choice to punch people in the face....  

I'm not sure I agree with the path of escalation,  but I've added your choice to the poll.  Your vote counts too!

[misterbigg]

I also view them as doing an VALUABLE SERVICE for Bitcoin and don't think it should be disrupted.

There is definitely a valuable aspect to SatoshiDICE but it also comes with a cost. If they simply stop sending spam transactions to inform players of a loss, the problem would go away. From what I understand, the attitude from the principals was "if you can't deal with it then Bitcoin doesn't deserve to exist."

Without Satoshi Dice, we are left to guesstimate what will happen when we start reaching limits.

That's not true. First of all we have the soft limit, which we are consistently hitting. Second, we already have a pretty good understanding of what will happen when we reach limits. The fees will go up. Which is exactly what is happening now. Ordinary users have to pay higher fees just because SD is spewing 80% of all tx on the entire Bitcoin network. 10 years from now that's no big deal, since blocks will be full all the time.

But to have the higher fees now, much sooner than needed, can only choke adoption not spur it. And we need that adoption rate now a hell of a lot more than we need a gambling site that consumes many times more resources than normal.

With Satoshi Dice, we reach those limits in a non-committal way.

If by non-committal you mean "forced to store every losing transaction notification with unspendable and unprunable outputs from now until the end of time" then yeah I guess...I prefer the dictionary definition of non-committal.

We get to find out how Bitcoin reacts under load, using a load that is for all intents and purposes optional.

An artificial load of transactions with unspendable and unprunable outputs that compete with legitimate transactions and drive fees up without a corresponding increase in the size of the user base. Judging from the rate of some of the transactions and the wallet they came from, it is very likely that bots are doing much of the betting.

One could argue that implementing the patch lets us "get to find out how the development community reacts to economic attacks on Bitcoin's finite resources."

we always have the option of throwing out the Satoshi Dice noise long enough to re-engineer Bitcoin to handle more activity.

This is not an activity problem. Once Bitcoin reaches a critical mass (when the blocks are always full) this problem will solve itself and we wouldn't need the "ban" or any sort of client fix. It's only a problem NOW in the early adoption phase because it drives up fees for no good reason.

Eventually fees will go up no matter what, because blocks will be full and transaction space will always be a limited resource (even if we increase the limit). But having fees go up now only hurts the adoption rate, which we need more than we need to support the handling of every gambling addicts manual or automated pull of the slot machine arm or roulette wheel.

[gweedo]

I never played Satoshi Dice, don't care for it. I think of it as another bitcoin business, but the funny thing is if you ban Satoshi Dice, what stops other similar services from just doing the same thing. This is just the silliest thing, yet this what makes bitcoin great. You don't want Satoshi Dice transaction apply the patch, voting with your software. So I am kinda indifferent it shows the power of bitcoin but yet Satoshi Dice is another bitcoin business, who now have investors so this is really bad for them.

[misterbigg]

if you ban Satoshi Dice, what stops other similar services from just doing the same thing.

The solution is not to "ban SatoshiDICE" but rather, to implement technical measures to make the economical unviable transactions it produces more expensive. It's not just SatoshiDICE that creates unspendable outputs, other things produce them as well. We need to address all of it. It's just that SatoshiDICE is responsible for more than 80% of all traffic on the Bitcoin network.

Satoshi Dice is another bitcoin business, who now have investors so this is really bad for them.

It's not "really bad", they can easily fix the problem but just not sending single-satoshi transactions for every losing bet. The problem is that the people running SatoshiDICE are...let's use the phrase "not nice." When they were confronted about it the answer was along the lines of "so what? If Bitcoin can't handle it then it deserves to die."

[fancy_pants]

I never played Satoshi Dice, don't care for it. I think of it as another bitcoin business, but the funny thing is if you ban Satoshi Dice, what stops other similar services from just doing the same thing. This is just the silliest thing, yet this what makes bitcoin great. You don't want Satoshi Dice transaction apply the patch, voting with your software. So I am kinda indifferent it shows the power of bitcoin but yet Satoshi Dice is another bitcoin business, who now have investors so this is really bad for them.

Hey whoa!,  nobody's talking about banning Satoshi Dice here.  That's the other thread.  This thread is about banning the ban.  In fact I think someone even suggested we ban all bans ( I dont know if the bitcoin police could handle the workload on that one.)  The reason is that most bans are harmful to what is being banned.  I'm sure Mr. Bigg scores chicks right and left with his huge paragraphs, but who ever reads to the end anyway?  Just vote then go kick some ass at satoshi dice.  I suggest you start out small with .003 bets at 75% then move up the foodchain if you get lucky.  Also, there's diceoncrack which is an epic martingale system automatic satoshi dice bet launcher.   Seriously, diceoncrack fires off about a thousand bets against the blockchain in seconds where it would take hours using the manual old school way on satoshi dice.  Both are great fun though!   diceoncrack makes bets so small and so fast it makes Satoshi Dice look like it just got punched in the face by that guy in the post above.

[Monster Tent]

5. Buy litecoin

[fancy_pants]

5. Buy litecoin

I just used the last spot to pump your dumbass litecoin.  Now, hows about a little something, you know, for the effort?  1co1eX56s2cGBSpL6EoymdYhqWLnCWFn1

[lassdas]

How about banning SatoshiDice from Bitcoin and let them move to litecoin?
I'd vote for that.

[fancy_pants]

How about banning SatoshiDice from Bitcoin and let them move to litecoin?
I'd vote for that.

amscray dude!  this thread is for pumping satoshidice, not some bullshit litecoin.  I only put option #5 up because I thought I could vote "no".  I only just now realized it doesnt work that way.

Oh, I almost forgot! The ticker for Satoshi Dice if you think it's a great investment is s.dice on the mpex exchange.