Miners don't even know they can vote on P2SH

[ripper234]

http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/2682/why-are-the-majority-of-miners-not-voting-on-on-p2sh

[Brunic]

Hey guys,

Your work is really crucial, and this modification seems really important. But saying that I understood at least half of it is a lie. At the moment, understanding girls seems easier than what you're talking about.   If you want to have at least 55% of the miners to understand this, explain it clearly and simply.

My grandmother also want to understand. Please, explain to us the big picture if you want the modification to happen. And if you're against, what do you suggest instead (again, in a simple way)?

Thanks!

At this stage in the proceedings, with the resources out there to educate yourself, if you don't understand what's being discussed, your opinion is not relevant.

ByteCoin

That's the answer I've received when I've asked for a simple explanation of what this is all about. P2SH is for the great developer, us, low-life miners, are not worthy of understanding what this is all about.

I know I can vote for that, and I'm voting against.

[ripper234]

That's the answer I've received when I've asked for a simple explanation of what this is all about. P2SH is for the great developer, us, low-life miners, are not worthy of understanding what this is all about.

I know I can vote for that, and I'm voting against.

Going forward with the Bitcoin protocol is essential for wider adoption ... and ultimately, for the value of your coins.

If you don't understand something about Bitcoin, P2SH, or anything else ... feel free to ask on http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/Stack Exchange - I guarantee you'll get serious answers.

See also What are the implications of BIP 12 vs BIP 16 and OP_CODEHASHCHECK?

[Brunic]

Going forward with the Bitcoin protocol is essential for wider adoption ... and ultimately, for the value of your coins.

If you don't understand something about Bitcoin, P2SH, or anything else ... feel free to ask on http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/Stack Exchange - I guarantee you'll get serious answers.

See also What are the implications of BIP 12 vs BIP 16 and OP_CODEHASHCHECK?

Ahhhh, thanks ripper234! That was the type of answer I was looking for. 

Maybe I'll rethink my position, now that I have informations.

Does it really matter if the miners vote or not? Do you think they will leave their pools if they don't agree?

Answer to both is unfortunately: NO.

Until we see a movement away from traditional pools, the pool operators steer this ship.

Not necessarily. Pools can use this opportunity to get new miners to their pool. Before ripper234 came to inform me, I was looking for a pool that was against the proposition on February. A pool that announce it will reject P2SH will attract the miners who wants to vote against, miners like me. And believe me, I was ready to make the move. 

[Internet151]

I don't spend my whole day on these forums, can you please explain what P2SH is and what this voting is about?

[Costia]

there is no real voting.
there is a proposed improvement to bitcoin known as p2sh or BIP16 - it is an implementation of multi signature transactions
There is a patch on GIT that makes your client to be able to accept and create such transactions. a patched miner marks its blocks with P2SH
until well above 50% of the miners do not apply this patch the improvement will not be used since there are a few risks if a lot of the miners reject\misinterpret the new transactions and blocks.

So if you are a miner (solo or p2pool) you can apply the patch to show that you will be able to support the feature when it is fully deployed (present in the default downloadable client). If you mine in a pool, the pool owner decides if his pool will support the feature or not.

So basically deepbit's pool owner decides whats going to happen.

The reason it is debated is because there is an alternative implementation - BIP17.

[[Tycho]]

So basically deepbit's pool owner decides whats going to happen.

Please don't spread FUD about this.
There are about 60% to 70% of miners who are not voting, excluding DeepBit. According to blockchaininfo's pie chart, currently only 2% of miners are voting for /P2SH/.
Of course I won't put my vote against the majority of other miners.

And I'm not "stopping the addition of new good features", I'm just being careful and care about the network. I'll accept any good solution for this problem.
Actually I proposed two-stage upgrade process since there are obviously no consensus between devs or miners, but no one cared to check the issue.

[Costia]

whats FUD?
I proposed a 2 stage update as well (first for validation only, second for creation)
I am not blaming you for anything, you didnt force anyone to use your pool.
It's the miners fault they are still using your pool if they want to vote for themselves.
You are not stopping anything, they miners are.
I am just stating the current situation. which is that you hold a disproportional amount of votes. you are just 1 guy holding 40% of the votes.
if you want to be somewhat more fair about this , start a vote on your pool's site, and let your miners decide how your pool should vote.
But IMHO the people who need to act here are the miners and not you.

[[Tycho]]

whats FUD?

FUD is something like this: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3889.msg713766#msg713766

I proposed a 2 stage update as well (first for validation only, second for creation)

I proposed implementation of plain miltisigs and long addresses first, and then working on a better solution for pay-to-script, while already having 2-factor auth and escrow services support.

if you want to be somewhat more fair about this , start a vote on your pool's site, and let your miners decide how your pool should vote.
But IMHO the people who need to act here are the miners and not you.

Yes, I was thinking about this option too. But sadly most of my users don't have a clue about what P2SH is and what's the difference between those competing proposals. And their voting will be affected not by real properties of those solutions, but by PR on this forum.

P.S.: Remember that Deepbit was the first one to vote for OP_EVAL, which later turned out to be exploitable, buggy and not what devs wanted at all. Luckily no harm was done, but lesson learned. Thinking twice now.

[Costia]

Yes, I was thinking about this option too. But sadly most of my users don't have a clue about what P2SH is and what's the difference between those competing proposals. And their voting will be affected not by real properties of those solutions, but by PR on this forum.

sadly, its their god given right to be stupid. so this is a bad excuse for not doing a vote. you can claim the same thing about voting for presidents.

EDIT:
BTW you are the enemy of bitcoin and its underlying idea of decentralization and "trust no one". but it's the miners problem that they let you do that.

[[Tycho]]

I am just stating the current situation. which is that you hold a disproportional amount of votes. you are just 1 guy holding 40% of the votes.

Slush and BTCguild are 2 guys holding 40+% of the votes. Not so much of a difference.

BTW you are the enemy of bitcoin and its underlying idea of decentralization and "trust no one". but it's the miners problem that they let you do that.

I have some different opinion on this matter :)

[Costia]

Slush and BTCguild are 2 guys holding 40+% of the votes. Not so much of a difference.

yep. this is also a problem. but you are #1 on the list

[Matthew N. Wright]

I don't spend my whole day on these forums,

Why not? I can..

[slush]

Slush and BTCguild are 2 guys holding 40+% of the votes. Not so much of a difference.

yep. this is also a problem. but you are #1 on the list

I'm supporting the p2sh, why do you think I'm not?

[Costia]

Slush and BTCguild are 2 guys holding 40+% of the votes. Not so much of a difference.

yep. this is also a problem. but you are #1 on the list

I'm supporting the p2sh, why do you think I'm not?

it doesn't matter if you support or don't, what matters is that you vote in the name of all of your miners.
I would expect that you would at least do a poll on your site, or announce on the front page that anyone in tour pool who doesn't support bip16 - should leave , since his hashing power is now used to show support.
but as I explained earlier, I blame the miners for not caring rather than the pool managers.
those are 2 separate issues:
1) agreeing on a "checking multi sig when redeeming a transaction" implementation
2) centralization of Bitcoin that is caused by the miners

[disclaimer201]

Slush and BTCguild are 2 guys holding 40+% of the votes. Not so much of a difference.

yep. this is also a problem. but you are #1 on the list

I'm supporting the p2sh, why do you think I'm not?

it doesn't matter if you support or don't, what matters is that you vote in the name of all of your miners.
I would expect that you would at least do a poll on your site, or announce on the front page that anyone in tour pool who doesn't support bip16 - should leave , since his hashing power is now used to show support.
but as I explained earlier, I blame the miners for not caring rather than the pool managers.
those are 2 separate issues:
1) agreeing on a "checking multi sig when redeeming a transaction" implementation
2) centralization of Bitcoin that is caused by the miners

This entire discussion sounds like spam to me. What shall we do now? hmm, switch to P2Pool! It's so democratic! NOT - Don't bother users with technical details of the protocol. Let experts (yes, pool owners are among that) and programmers make such decisions. People who are given the power to make decisions about things they understand little about -> tyranny of the masses. This comparison may be a bit much but in its extremity, if people may/have to vote on things they know little about you risk ending up in totalitarian society. Say, the majority of the people dislikes 'jews'...let's do what the majority wants?

[Costia]

I think that your assumption that the pool mangers are necessarily experts in Bitcoin is wrong.
I didnt say you have to mine solo or at p2pool. Another alternative I offered is that the pool managers let their miners vote/discuss it on their site.
Given that the pool managers want to keep all the votes to themselves - exactly for the reason you stated, miners who want to vote should leave.
Your argument fits not only the voting on BIP but for any other vote as well. why let the stupid masses decide the fate of a country? let a smart tyrant do that - he will make much better decisions than the public.
The only ones that should have a veto in this case are the developers - since at the end of this mess- they have to write the code, and if they don't want to do that - you cant force them, you will have to start your own bitcoin fork.
edit;
But if you don't want to vote - you dont have to. you still should be given the option.
There shouldn't be just "for" and "against" but also "i dont know/care"

[disclaimer201]

I think that your assumption that the pool mangers are necessarily experts in Bitcoin is wrong.
I didnt say you have to mine solo or at p2pool. Another alternative I offered is that the pool managers let their miners vote/discuss it on their site.
Given that the pool managers want to keep all the votes to themselves - exactly for the reason you stated, miners who want to vote should leave.
Your argument fits not only the voting on BIP but for any other vote as well. why let the stupid masses decide the fate of a country? let a smart tyrant do that - he will make much better decisions than the public.
The only ones that should have a veto in this case are the developers - since at the end of this mess- they have to write the code, and if they don't want to do that - you cant force them, you will have to start your own bitcoin fork.
edit;
But if you don't want to vote - you dont have to. you still should be given the option.
There shouldn't be just "for" and "against" but also "i dont know/care"

I think we are in general agreement. Interesting how bitcoin will now even make us think about basic political decision making processes!!! Wow! That's good. However, in democracies the sovereign elects representatives to make decisions which the average person doesn't know much about. Just because we don't have direct decision making power in everything automatically means that we are ruled by tyrants. In fact, I'm glad I don't have to make ANY decision in future Bitcoin implementations at this point because I know next to nothing about them and feel this is someone else's job to break their heads about it or discuss whether it's right or wrong. Honestly, only if something goes wrong that I feel to be deeply unjust, I'd get my ass up and do something about it. I don't want to be bothered ever single mondane detail of the protocol. But yes, good that this option exists.

[casascius]

I believe P2SH is a good thing.  This isn't one of those "republican vs democrat" things where people with different values want different things.  We all want the benefits of P2SH.

P2SH is meant to give average users the means to stop hackers from stealing their bitcoins.

In a nutshell, it allows somebody to choose to have a normal Bitcoin address that requires multiple private keys to spend the funds.  So, for example, any time you receive bitcoins, if you created your Bitcoin address with two private keys (this requires p2sh), they will go onto your normal PC wallet, but requires your PC plus your mobile phone to spend.  Or your PC plus a wallet security service.  For example, that service might send you an SMS and confirm you really want to spend your funds before allowing them to go through.

It is meant to address one of the scariest security concerns with Bitcoin - that anyone who hacks your computer has full control of your bitcoins - a sort of attack that is only going to increase.

There isn't any advantage to NOT supporting this, other than the simple fact that miners will have to agree to it, and that some can be expected to drag their feet for no reason.

[Costia]

its not about having or not having multi sig. everyone agrees it is needed.
the argument is about how to implement it...