Quote from: comeonalready on February 07, 2014, 07:38:59 PM

Terk,

Whether you're aware of it or not, you show all the indicators of being someone who wishes to prey upon the innocence of your partners -- the very people who provide the mining hardware and electricity to create the hashpower upon which you take your cut. They are making a significant investment too; they are entitled to information which helps them to make good decisions as well. Your marketing skills and salesmanship are right up there with the very best of them, but unfortunately though, your unwillingness to provide any specifics about your fee schedule is major cause for concern, and the pool ends up looking very shady as a result.

Of course I believe that you should be able to fully cover your expenses (some of which are not yet even known), and also fairly compensated for your time and effort, including bonuses for exceptional results. Operating a multi-coin mining pool is most certainly not a turnkey operation, but you need to be clear about the fees you're taking if you want to earn any credibility and trust. (And taking is exactly the right verb there -- you are taking if you do not disclose.)

I am not even so concerned about the high end of the rate either. You can claim "as low as 1% on a bad day" if you've ever collected exactly 1% on any bad day ever in the entire history of your pool. And what exactly is your definition of a "bad day"? Is it one in which we earn the same as or less than litecoin? Or something else? On exceptionally lucky days, why should you take a much larger percentage if the proceeds if they are mostly a result of luck and not operational efficiencies? Do you deserve more of the good luck and less of the bad luck? How is that fair to your miners?

In consideration of the higher end range of your fees, a subject with you have completely avoided discussing, likely because you recognize how much easier it is to siphon off a much larger cut when everyone is feeling good about their earnings for the day and less motivated to look more closely than on a bad day, why don't you offer 0% fees for days in which we fall below that "bad day" standard -- such as the days on which your pool results fall below litecoin due to technical failures? Where is your skin in the game?

As for your opacity in choosing not to discuss which coins you choose to mine... Absolutely everyone mining can determine with near absolute certainty which coin they are currently mining by reading the Network "Diff" value from the Block line on their cgminer stats, divide it by 65536 (a scrypt constant), and match the result to the list of coin difficulties on coinwarz or coinchoose (without having to run all the various wallets themselves). THERE ARE NO SECRETS HERE! And it's hardly difficult to imagine efficient profitability optimizing coin switching algorithms. We simply don't want to do it ourselves, as it is more efficient to contract out to the best service provider. That is your opportunity. Don't squander it by being opaque and greedy.

So now one of your cats is out of the bag. How about you be upfront about your fees now too? No one here is saying they have to be set in stone, and you can change them as necessary going forward. And if any particular miners don't agree with them, they can vote with their feet and go to another multi-coin pool. (Of which there will soon be many!) Will your pool survive against the increased competition? Stop being clever and start being smart.

wow, i don't get this at all.

the guy is throwing out a pool and inviting people to participate. it couldn't be much easier to try it out, compare your results against other pools, and then decide whether it is better or worse for you to mine on his pool. there is nothing remotely opaque about your own results in your own wallet.

the way i look at the amount of investment of time in server admin, coding, design, troubleshooting, beta testing, responding to people here, etc. that @Terk has put into this, it makes me feel confident that he wants to create something that is worthwhile. As you say, there are no secrets here, and the specific "no secret" that will be plain and obvious to all is, entirely regardless of whatever fees he charges and whatever coins he mines and whatever else he might be doing that either directly or indirectly affects how the pool works, if you mine on his pool and are more profitable than you are with other pools, then it is rational for you to stay, and if less profitable, then it is rational for you to leave.

i guess i just don't see where / how in that equation it is possible for him to be ripping you off or in any way taking advantage of you. if it feels shady to you, probably a good idea not to mine there.