The "what we've learned" thread

[Piper67]

Not sure if we need one, but hell, if we don't at least get a good post-mortem out of this shit, then it was all for nothing. So here go a few of my own:

1) Perhaps in the future devs should abstain from using words like EMERGENCY... URGENT... and so on. This is one of those times when less is more. A simple message saying users don't move your coins for a little while, miners revert to 0.7 until the blockchain catches up would have been enough.

2) The chain can fork, by accident, and things can go back to normal in a matter of hours. I still think that's a win.

3) MtGox doesn't give a rat's ass about Bitcoin... or at least not as much as it does about its own fees. I won't touch them again with a ten foot pole.

4) The rolling out of new versions, in the future, should be done differently (but we knew that, didn't we?)

[elux]

1) Perhaps in the future devs should abstain from using words like EMERGENCY... URGENT... and so on. This is one of those times when less is more. A simple message saying users don't move your coins for a little while, miners revert to 0.7 until the blockchain catches up would have been enough.

The building was on fire, the house didn't burn down is thanks to "URGENT", "EMERGENCY" measures and prompt response by the firefighters. (Devs and pool ops).

[kerogre256]

1) Perhaps in the future devs should abstain from using words like EMERGENCY... URGENT... and so on. This is one of those times when less is more. A simple message saying users don't move your coins for a little while, miners revert to 0.7 until the blockchain catches up would have been enough.

LOL are you for real ? Do you think people who gamble, trade, buy with bitcoin check bitcoin dev forum just in case of fuck up ? How much money bitcoin bitpay, or ordinary peopol lost becouse of this ?

[John (John K.)]

1) Perhaps in the future devs should abstain from using words like EMERGENCY... URGENT... and so on. This is one of those times when less is more. A simple message saying users don't move your coins for a little while, miners revert to 0.7 until the blockchain catches up would have been enough.

LOL are you for real ? Do you think people who gamble, trade, buy with bitcoin check bitcoin dev forum just in case of fuck up ? How much money bitcoin bitpay, or ordinary peopol lost becouse of this ?

Uh, in case you didn't read, no transactions were lost at all during the fork.

[klaus]

3) MtGox doesn't give a rat's ass about Bitcoin... or at least not as much as it does about its own fees. I won't touch them again with a ten foot pole.

why that?

should he suspend trading?
why?

its a total free market. deal with it or move.

[Piper67]

1) Perhaps in the future devs should abstain from using words like EMERGENCY... URGENT... and so on. This is one of those times when less is more. A simple message saying users don't move your coins for a little while, miners revert to 0.7 until the blockchain catches up would have been enough.

The building was on fire, the house didn't burn down is thanks to "URGENT", "EMERGENCY" measures and prompt response by the firefighters. (Devs and pool ops).

Hmmm... there were a few flames gone rogue in the kitchen, maybe. The building itself never caught fire. But my point was more along the lines of the need for calm and level-headedness, as opposed to knee jerk reactions. The actions of the dev team were spectacular... the discourse was a bit hyped.

[Piper67]

3) MtGox doesn't give a rat's ass about Bitcoin... or at least not as much as it does about its own fees. I won't touch them again with a ten foot pole.

why that?

should he suspend trading?
why?

its a total free market. deal with it or move.

Agreed... I move.

[elux]

The building was on fire, the house didn't burn down is thanks to "URGENT", "EMERGENCY" measures and prompt response by the firefighters. (Devs and pool ops).

 The actions of the dev team were spectacular... the discourse was a bit hyped.

I hope it has not escaped your attention that Bitcointalk Forum is a wretched hive of scum and villainy.

[benjamindees]

Wait so you're mad at MtGox for not suspending trading?

[WinVery.com]

3) MtGox doesn't give a rat's ass about Bitcoin... or at least not as much as it does about its own fees. I won't touch them again with a ten foot pole.

Magic the gather online Xchange 

[DataPlumber]

I came to this thread to see what we learned.  And I guess the short answer is... nothing?  The only takeaway I got was, "be sure to unit test for cases you haven't yet imagined," which is a difficult takeaway to implement.

MtGox is neither a nanny nor a parent.  IMO MtGox does not have the authority to tell people that they can't make decisions based on fear, and as such a shutdown on trading was not only unwarranted, but probably unethical.  ("From a certain point of view."--B.Kenobi)  In completely unrelated news, I hear there's all kinds of money to be made standing as an intermediary between people and their irrational/emotional decision making.

[Spekulatius]

1) Perhaps in the future devs should abstain from using words like EMERGENCY... URGENT... and so on. This is one of those times when less is more. A simple message saying users don't move your coins for a little while, miners revert to 0.7 until the blockchain catches up would have been enough.

Lets use "Intermediate Panic Mode" instead, or "Glitch in the MAtrix" or somthg.

3) MtGox doesn't give a rat's ass about Bitcoin... or at least not as much as it does about its own fees. I won't touch them again with a ten foot pole.

I guess MtGox halting operations would have evoked suppressed memories of the big Gox hack of 2011, thus triggering an even more aggravated slide on the other exchanges, only to delay the crash.

[bullioner]

4) The rolling out of new versions, in the future, should be done differently (but we knew that, didn't we?)

New versions of what?  The protocol, or a particular implementation?  Very different things.  Oh no, whoops, they're not.  They're exactly the same thing because "the implementation is the protocol spec".

[solex]

50% of this thread is unlearning what we should already know!

1) Perhaps in the future devs should abstain from using words like EMERGENCY... URGENT... and so on. This is one of those times when less is more. A simple message saying users don't move your coins for a little while, miners revert to 0.7 until the blockchain catches up would have been enough.

Wrong. In Bitcoin we call it as it is! If there is an emergency then we want to quickly see notices from Pieter Wuille telling the truth. (Thanks Pieter!) Spin is for slimy politicians, big corporate apologists.

2) The chain can fork, by accident, and things can go back to normal in a matter of hours. I still think that's a win.

+1 Absolutely.

3) MtGox doesn't give a rat's ass about Bitcoin... or at least not as much as it does about its own fees. I won't touch them again with a ten foot pole.

Wrong.  Mt.Gox behaved exactly as it should have done. They deserve praise by keeping their internal market open and allowing the market to give a verdict during events. To argue otherwise is to join the stone-throwers here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/jul/17/pakistan.protest.shares

4) The rolling out of new versions, in the future, should be done differently (but we knew that, didn't we?)

+1. This is a priority. There needs to be a plan where discussions are held with pool operators to ask/negotiate an upgrade timetable for each new version. It seems too informal. Such plans could be posted on the forum so everyone knows what is expected.