Quote from: firefop on May 12, 2013, 08:33:01 AM

Quote from: eleuthria on May 11, 2013, 09:47:03 PM

FTFY? Do you understand PPLNS at all? You get paid for each share based on blocks solved after it's submitted. The value of the share has NOTHING to do with timing/consistency of share submissions. It is entirely based on how many blocks the pool solves after the share is submitted. There is no exponential/DGM scoring involved that makes shares worth less when you stop or when you start.

Reading comprehension is your friend.

PPLNS (while better than DGM) still punishes inconsistent miners on long rounds. It only counts the last N shares. You can claim it isn't related to timing or consistency of submitted shares... but anyone who understands how the payout method works knows you're incorrect. The saving grace on PPLNS is on short rounds you effectively get paid the same as an average round... But how often does a pool have multiple short block finds in a row?

Your terminology is flawed. Punish implies the method actively discriminates/penalizes the miner. You're simply giving an example where a miner submits shares during bad luck then isn't mining during good luck. That's variance, and is present under EVERY system except for PPS. They could have the exact opposite, and only mine during good luck. That's not rewarding them for inconsistency, that's just being on the positive side of variance.

PPLNS with bad settings could make it so they get -no- payment during bad luck, which could be considered punishing. With proper settings, they will get some payment. BTC Guild's setting for 'N' is ~25x difficulty. There will never be a time where a share is not paid something. The higher the N value, the less variance for inconsistent miners.