No - there is definitely something wrong here. I'm not being paid for any blocks anymore
17774 2013-04-30 20:25:35 2:03:23 14233698 132 0.00000000
17775 2013-04-30 23:59:52 3:34:17 24772020 145 0.00000000
17776 2013-05-01 02:25:35 2:25:43 16453036 13 0.00000000
I have moved over to another pool, and I'm not having problems there with zero returns per block, even if my share counts are low.
41 DGM 0 PPS 0.00108057
136 DGM 0 PPS 0.00110942
464 DGM 0 PPS 0.00132832
6 DGM 0 PPS 0.00068256
I also discovered some very low payout on long blocks, and I moved over to other pool
I'm also seeing on average between 5% and 8% lower payment than what it should be (and rarely a 1-2% more than that).
It appears that miners with high GH/s machines are at an advantage here as they always have the very latest shares (which are paid more) than average miners (with just a few hundred MH/s). The average low-MH/s miner probably sends a share every 5-10sec, so even in the ideal case he's always towards the losing end as shares decay exponentially. The only way to get a "fair share" is if YOU are the one that found the block, and then everyone else who sent shares before you is on the losing end.
The main issue is that there is no grace period - like let's say the last 5min where all shares are equal, and then older shares start to decay and be paid less.
I don't know if there is any point in proposing a change in the payout scheme, so here are my 2 cents just in case : (I'll put it in a more descriptive way and not necessarily as a formula)
- Shares in the last X minutes (5-10) are all equal and do not decay (get 100% share value)
- Shares older than that decay until they hit the lower-limit (let's say a share's value should never be less than 25%)
- Very old shares (let's say more than 30min or 1hr) still keep 25% of their value and get some (lower) payment. That way even if you had some connectivity issues or a power outage your effort doesn't go to a complete waste. And we don't have the situation with 0.000000000 being paid.