Call non-pool miners 'block submitters' instead of 'miners'

[Rarrikins]

I'd like to propose saying 'block submitter' to refer specifically to a miner that actually submits new blocks. This is better than 'miner', since that also alludes to people who mine through pools and don't submit any blocks themselves.

This would avoid some of the potential confusion I noticed in a message about the recent unanticipated hardfork:

The original post lacked info for "regular users".  Here it is:
...
Only miners have an incentive to do anything.

If you're talking to regular users, it doesn't make sense to talk about 'miners' in a way that implicitly doesn't include people who mine through pools, who obviously don't need to do anything since the pool operator will handle that.

The use of the same term for hashers and people who actually validate and prepare blocks for hashing has been causing confusion all over the place for a while now.

Maybe clearer terminology is called for?

-MarkM-

[Peter Todd]

I like the term "hashers" myself, short and simple.

[crazyates]

I'm confused. I've been involved in Bitcoin for about a year and a half. Over that time, I've found 5 blocks (I think) through 2 different pools. Would I be a "miner" or a "hasher" or a "block submitter" ?

Would that change if I:

A) Had been mining for that year and a half but never found a block?
B) Solo mined those 5 blocks?
C) Solo mined for 1.5 years, and never found a block?

[justusranvier]

I'm confused. I've been involved in Bitcoin for about a year and a half. Over that time, I've found 5 blocks (I think) through 2 different pools. Would I be a "miner" or a "hasher" or a "block submitter" ?

I think the distinction is between people who assemble new blocks from transactions vs people who only calculate hashes for blocks that someone else gives them.

"Miner" is a good term for the former, and "hasher" is a good term for the latter.

[crazyates]

I think the distinction is between people who assemble new blocks from transactions vs people who only calculate hashes for blocks that someone else gives them.

Sooo... it's basically a pool operator, and a miner connected to that pool?

[crazyates]

Sooo... it's basically a pool operator, and a miner connected to that pool?

Better question: Why do we need a distinction? Pooled mining has been around for years, and it's never really been an issue.

[MysteryMiner]

And call spoon eating shovel 

Solo miners and polled miners are called so from beginning of mining. The change is unnecessary and will not stick.

[John Tobey]

A half hour spent clarifying the distinction on the Wiki might go a long way.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Miner

[jgarzik]

Transaction validators.

[markm]

Is a solo miner pretty much just a pool operator who has no users (other than himself / his botnet / his corporation / his CPU / his GPU / etc), or is there some further distinction between them that impacts such things as which version they "should" upgrade or downgrade to, or "would" tend to favour or risk favouring in the event of a fork?

(A pool operator might have more vested interest in not rocking some boat or other, maybe?)

-MarkM-

[os2sam]

How about Fred for short.

[dscotese]

Is a solo miner pretty much just a pool operator who has no users (other than himself / his botnet / his corporation / his CPU / his GPU / etc), or is there some further distinction between them that impacts such things as which version they "should" upgrade or downgrade to, or "would" tend to favour or risk favouring in the event of a fork?

(A pool operator might have more vested interest in not rocking some boat or other, maybe?)

-MarkM-

The way people are using "pool operator", I think so.

I like Hashers and Blockers.  "Miners" refers to both already, but a Hasher never assembles a block, and a Blocker rarely finds the solution, except in the case of solo miners, which have to be both.