Post
Topic
Board Hardware
Re: [Guide] Dogie's Comprehensive Manufacturer Trustworthiness Guide
by
jjdub7
on 21/10/2014, 07:24:05 UTC
Woof!


Ethics?
All companies start with 10 points, and lose points for various infractions. The key is as follows:   
   F     = Operates own mining farm = -2
   FF   = Operates own large mining farm = -4
   P     = Evidence of premining on preordered equipment = -2
   BFL = BFL'ing = -9
   B    = Bankrupt = -9
   O    = Other generic unethical behaviour = -5


(included to echo other sentiments)

This scale looks good for a constantly-evolving/improving draft.  Consider another data point re: mining for profit...

Its to represent that what they pulled with the 65nm delays, mis-selling, making potentially false/misleading claims, potentially misleading statements about tapeout etc, targeting new buyers with insanely old hardware and the repeated 'tradeups' with the second generation delays. Simply put, no other company has come close to what BFL did over the last 18-24 months - as highlighted by the FTC taking over the company. Blackarrow is getting close, but they're not at that level yet and still have an opportunity to fix it.

Blackarrow

- Repeatedly lied about shipping dates.
- Only 30% of hardware shipped 6 months late.
- Promised to be the best $/gh but decided screw it that would cost money.
- Several customers blackmailed/doxed by the company
- Shipping hardware to resellers before customers who ordered earlier
- Denied refunds even though they were promised after they began shipping.
- Compensation completely garbage for the huge delays.
- Heavy censorship of their thread/forum.
- Nearly every customer left feeling ripped off.

Ethics: 5/10

BTCGarden

- No delays
- No problem with RMAs/partial refunds.
- Great customer support which makes sure customers do not feel ripped off.
- MAY have told a lie about their DOA %.

Ethics: 5/10

You're right in some respects, the ethics category doesn't have much depth. The problem is the more criteria / sub-criteria I add, the more I'll be accused of being biased or gaming the system somehow. By leaving it more rigid it removes that ability for any one person [me] to have too much control - the criteria is the criteria and everything has to fit into them.

The way you're wrong though is BTCGarden: 73, Black Arrow: 35. Not everything fits into the ethics category.

With regard to ASICMINER, consider that the company is publicly traded and that current operations related to mining power are at the very least dispersed and therefore beneficial to all miners on public pools.

This company's rating has been updated in the Manufacturer Trustworthiness thread.

[This message won't be monitored, discuss your concerns in the thread.]

Dogie, I see that you won't be monitoring this, but I'll ask anyway in case you check back and deem it worth a response.  What would AM have to do in the coming rating cycle to improve back into the 90-95 ratings?  Where were the ratings points lost, and why does AM have a 4/10 for ethics?

Just scroll down and read the change log...

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=456691.msg5035170#msg5035170


Thanks.  Must've just scrolled right over it without seeing.  The ethics ratings make sense, I guess...no way to know if they're mining with customers' hardware.  No such thing as being too careful after BFL.

... ->


Dogie - However, shouldn't there be a distinction between manufacturers who mine on their own private pools (e.g. KNCminer or BFL with Eclipse MC) and those who distribute their hashrate among the public pools?  Mining in the public pools creates a (perhaps unintentional but still significant) positive externality to benefit all miners by lowering the variance of payouts and reducing their risk.  Can you refine the ethics rubric on your rating scale to reflect this distinction (something like a -1)?  Or do you not consider it to be a differentiating factor?  It would help get the rubric more granular...

thx.  good guide.  should help newbs feel a little safer jumping into mining.  I don't think you can ever really "get" bitcoin without at least trying to mine it and understand the processes behind the blockchain.  keep up the good work man.

-dub

(P.S. still got my r-boxes running)