Forks and alt blockchain etiquette

[Lolcust]

Hello!

I would like to bring up the following topic for discussion:

While there is certainly no way to force any rules upon people who feel like starting a little chain of their own, perhaps we, as a community, can come up with list of voluntary suggestions regarding things and behaviors we would rather have, as well as behaviors we would rather not have, if possible, as far as such innovation is concerned?

A kind of, I might say, "bitcoin fork etiquette"?

 

[Tx2000]

#1.   Don't bombard Freenode IRC

[hugolp]

#1.   Don't bombard Freenode IRC

#2. Dont spam the forums.

[Lolcust]

#1.   Don't bombard Freenode IRC

I believe this one deserves... elaboration. At least, as far as noobs like me are concerned

[Xephan]

#1.   Don't bombard Freenode IRC

I believe this one deserves... elaboration. At least, as far as noobs like me are concerned

The bitcoin client needs a way to find other peers on the network. So it connects to freenode IRC and uses it as the broadcast network, which essentially looks like a botnet crashing into it when we get a massively anticipated new fork starting up

[Explodicle]

I liked how I0coin had a countdown, that felt "fair" and probably helps smooth out the original distribution.

[Xephan]

I liked how I0coin had a countdown, that felt "fair" and probably helps smooth out the original distribution.

It does the opposite actually. By counting down, it enabled those with massive hashrate to take advantage of their hashing power to grab majority of those coins without leaving a small window for the smaller players to get some and therefore spread it out.

[ElectricMucus]

Well on the one hand you have people wo think bitcoin will be the first and the last successful crypto-currency. On the other hand you have people who are looking for profit.

I think it's a test of character on the meta-level.

[Man From The Future]

I liked how I0coin had a countdown, that felt "fair" and probably helps smooth out the original distribution.

It does the opposite actually. By counting down, it enabled those with massive hashrate to take advantage of their hashing power to grab majority of those coins without leaving a small window for the smaller players to get some and therefore spread it out.

Which is fair. they have hashing power, they get more coins...

[Xephan]

I liked how I0coin had a countdown, that felt "fair" and probably helps smooth out the original distribution.

It does the opposite actually. By counting down, it enabled those with massive hashrate to take advantage of their hashing power to grab majority of those coins without leaving a small window for the smaller players to get some and therefore spread it out.

Which is fair. they have hashing power, they get more coins...

But that contradicts his belief that it helps smooth out the original distribution

And while it might sound fair that more hash power = more coins, the way bitcoin works, at low difficulties it means just significantly more hash power = most if not all the coins. Not exactly fair

[ElectricMucus]

disinfo 

[Explodicle]

I liked how I0coin had a countdown, that felt "fair" and probably helps smooth out the original distribution.

It does the opposite actually. By counting down, it enabled those with massive hashrate to take advantage of their hashing power to grab majority of those coins without leaving a small window for the smaller players to get some and therefore spread it out.

Which is fair. they have hashing power, they get more coins...

But that contradicts his belief that it helps smooth out the original distribution

And while it might sound fair that more hash power = more coins, the way bitcoin works, at low difficulties it means just significantly more hash power = most if not all the coins. Not exactly fair

How can future cryptocurrencies avoid this problem? Either it's a secret like Ixcoin or public like I0coin, right? I'd rather professional miners get this advantage than whoever coded it and his buddies.

[Lolcust]

Well on the one hand you have people wo think bitcoin will be the first and the last successful crypto-currency. On the other hand you have people who are looking for profit.

I think it's a test of character on the meta-level.

Well, technically, X-coins can do something other than just provide "slightly flavored" bitcoin for pump-and-dump ops.
Namecoin, for one, does.

I believe one could come up with an X-coin that will be explicitly useful for something other than quick buck. In fact, I think I might have an idea (it's too premature to share, though)

#1.   Don't bombard Freenode IRC

I believe this one deserves... elaboration. At least, as far as noobs like me are concerned

The bitcoin client needs a way to find other peers on the network. So it connects to freenode IRC and uses it as the broadcast network, which essentially looks like a botnet crashing into it when we get a massively anticipated new fork starting up

But a fork has no choice but to start its  own channel on the IRC. How else would it work otherwise, indeed ?

[Littleshop]

But a fork has no choice but to start its  own channel on the IRC. How else would it work otherwise, indeed ?

Innovation?

[Littleshop]

I liked how I0coin had a countdown, that felt "fair" and probably helps smooth out the original distribution.

Yes, and how it made miners move to it even BEFORE IT OPENED! 

[wolftaur]

Don't start at difficulty 1. Holy hell that was one giant mess...

[Lolcust]

But a fork has no choice but to start its  own channel on the IRC. How else would it work otherwise, indeed ?

Innovation?

Um, even if it does something innovative, it would still likely use IRC rendevouz since implementing something different would be so much fuss for very little gain. Perhaps using non-freenode server for the channel would do the trick, though...

[EricJ2190]

Um, even if it does something innovative, it would still likely use IRC rendevouz since implementing something different would be so much fuss for very little gain. Perhaps using non-freenode server for the channel would do the trick, though...

Bitcoin uses irc.lfnet.org now, since it had problems with Freenode as well. I recommend asking lazlo before using it for your own fork, though.

[dayfall]

I liked how I0coin had a countdown, that felt "fair" and probably helps smooth out the original distribution.

It didn't seem fair to me.  It was (and is still) quite broken.  It was a countdown till most people could mine.  "Come back after we mine 5000 blocks."  Um, that is not exactly what I call fair.  I bet the first 40k coins went to one or two people.  Yeah, kinda like ixcoin.

Then again, I still sold my i0coins for BTC, so I am not complaining.

Oh, look.  i0coin.exe just crashed again.

[Explodicle]

I liked how I0coin had a countdown, that felt "fair" and probably helps smooth out the original distribution.

It didn't seem fair to me.  It was (and is still) quite broken.  It was a countdown till most people could mine.  "Come back after we mine 5000 blocks."  Um, that is not exactly what I call fair.  I bet the first 40k coins went to one or two people.  Yeah, kinda like ixcoin.

Then again, I still sold my i0coins for BTC, so I am not complaining.

Oh, look.  i0coin.exe just crashed again.

I stand corrected. I was under the mistaken impression that the countdown was for ALL mining, and that the starting difficulty would be close to the current Bitcoin difficulty.