Post
Topic
Board Hardware
Re: [Guide] Dogie's Comprehensive Manufacturer Trustworthiness Guide [Relaunched]
by
aerobatic
on 27/07/2014, 12:33:54 UTC
Dogie -

i do appreciate you doing your ratings system, and its explained quite well...  

your ratings methodology is very good.  but the way you've applied it seems 'hit and miss' and open to interpretation and emotional bias.

here's a few anomalies for you to consider...


bitfury - mostly makes chips, not systems.   Yes, they make systems for their own private mine but they have hardly sold any of those to the public.  probably 90%+ of the systems that have been 'sold' containing bitfury chips were made by unconnected third parties utilising bitfury's chips.  yet you have them classified as a manufacturer of systems and have given them the benefit of not pre-selling, whereas the third parties who make the systems using bitfury chips, often do pre-orders right up until the chips arrive in stock.  i myself bought bitburner boards from cryptx via pre-order., months in advance of their delivery. Most people bought bitfury boards from someone else and not direct from bitfury.  now, of course, these companies are selling from stock because they've got plenty of chips, but in advance of the chips arriving in volume they were taking pre-orders.   And what about your ethics score?  You've got BitFury marked as an 'F' for a private mine, yet you've got KnCMiner scored as Ethics FF, which means 'HUGE private Mine' .  Thats a purely emotional response, and isn't borne by the facts.    Do you really think KnCMiner's private mine is bigger than BitFury's private mine?

cointerra - doesn't seem well classified according to your rating methodologies.  for instance, you scored them 1/10 for 'uses pre-orders' whereas they've been selling from stock ever since their systems arrived (months ago).  you can buy one from stock today, or any time in the last few months.  yet again, thats an emotional bias and isn't factual.   they did do pre-orders (like most companies out there) before their stock arrived.  You also rated them 1/10 for 'on time'.  Why, if you're scoring out of 10, do you only have 3 options, Yes, No and Mixed.  Why not have a linear (or log) score out of 10 for how 'on time' each company is?   This particular company delivered their systems in batches according to month and the customers orders were delivered in that specific month.   They shipped thousands of systems, and the vast majority were delivered in the month they were due (or a week or two late)  the earlier batches were a few weeks late but not 'months late'.  apart from the 1st batch (december), which was delayed a whole month and the customers who bought that batch were given compensation in the form of double the number systems.   there's no way this company could be judged 1/10 for 'on time' if you're trying to compare relative timeliness to the others.  Many of the asic companies on your list are ones that have never shipped (hashfast, blackarrow, bfl, vmc etc ) are are those infinitely late.   Your ratings are scored out of 10, so you could easily differentiate those that shipped a little late versus those that shipped very very very late (or, Never) using the entire scoring range.

Size of companies.  how do you rate that?  it seems like pure fiction.   You have AsicMiner, BitMain and BitFury rated as 'Huge' (i agree with the latter two but i think asicminer is probably not so huge any longer).  You have Spondoolies and RockMiner as 'Large', but how do you even classify those?  RockMiner as small and i think even Spondoolies would admit they're not 'large'.  How are you going to measure it?  Is this just pure guesswork?   Why not based it on a measurable or determinable statistic like Revenue, or Petahashes shipped?

Bitmine - You have them rated as Large...  How was that measured?   you ALSO have them listed as having made their own chip.  Did they really make their own chip or do they just buy it from innosilicon like so many chinese companies?    Innosilicon says they made the chip and that bitmine is 'a reseller', like everyone else.

In order of size of company, i suspect a more realistic list would be:   BitFury is 1st, KnCMiner 2nd, Bitmain 3rd, Cointerra 4th, etc..    this size rating probably works regardless of whether you measure by petahash or revenue.  I doubt asicminer is even relevant at this time.  They're no longer Huge.  They were HUGE when the network was less than 1 Petahash - now they're a minnow - and got left behind when the others designed better chips.