Re: [bitcoin-dev] Speedy Trial

From: Billy Tetrud <billy.tetrud@gmail•com>
To: pushd <pushd@protonmail•com>
Cc: Bitcoin Protocol Discussion
	<bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org>,
	Anthony Towns <aj@erisian•com.au>
Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] Speedy Trial
Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2022 10:34:26 -0500	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <CAGpPWDZEAWX5LXzvmNfgPJJP5qYE=wJAUavSPyDt7mOMqJjfTg@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <ewwe4V1o9Vhw3O3L6h8Eolcr16ilAewpxRsHEMC_VNllnfut7uHeQgSjA4ghapjo6QbBO9fDk8dk16w3FBfGI3ds7Y3J-38mZ4ydKg9T7Oo=@protonmail.com>

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 8920 bytes --]

> I am not trying to convince you

 If that's really true then you're wasting my and everyone's time here.

> Signaling period is a waste of time if mining pools that agreed on a soft
fork earlier do politics

They can and will do politics regardless of why misunderstandings about
signaling. This is not a relevant point.

> It is considered as voting not just by people outside Bitcoin but the
participants itself

This is not a concrete downside. You are simply restating the premise.

> It gives miners an edge over economic nodes that enforce consensus rules

This is completely false. I have to assume you don't include yourself in
the list of users who think a passing vote of miners is required to upgrade
Bitcoin. Am I wrong? If not, then you should know that this
misunderstanding gives no one an edge.

So I'm counting 0 concrete downsides of this misunderstanding of how
signaling works that are both relevant and true. I'm going to stick with my
conclusion that this is a pointless dead end argument to make about soft
fork deployment in particular, and literally any technical design in
general.

You will be able to find 3 people who misunderstand BIP8, or literally any
other thing you come up with. You could probably find thousands. Or
millions if you ask people who've never heard of it. The argument that
changing the design will somehow improve that situation is perplexing, but
the argument that changing the idea might be a good idea on that basis is
completely unconscionable.

On Thu, Mar 31, 2022, 09:19 pushd <pushd@protonmail•com> wrote:

> > Why do you care what they think? Why does it matter if they
> misunderstand?
>
> I care about improving soft fork activation mechanism and shared one of
> the advantages that helps avoid misleading things. It matters because they
> are participants in this process.
>
>
> > If the people aren't imaginary, then its their importance that's
> imaginary.
>
> Neither the people nor their importance is imaginary. They are a part of
> Bitcoin and as important as our opinion about soft forks on this mailing
> list.
>
>
> > This isn't even sufficient evidence that they don't understand.
>
> One example of an exchange: https://i.postimg.cc/zv4M6MSp/2KM5tcE.png
>
> One example of a user:
> https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/97043/is-there-an-active-list-of-bips-currently-open-for-voting/
>
> 3 examples for each (user, mining pool and exchange) are enough to discuss
> a problem or list advantages of BIP 8/LOT=TRUE. I can create an archive
> with more if it helps during next soft fork.
>
>
> > You haven't convinced me this is a significant problem. What are the
> concrete downsides? Why do you think this can't be fixed by simple
> persistent explaining?
>
> I am not trying to convince you and we can have different opinions.
>
> Downsides:
>
> - Signaling period is a waste of time if mining pools that agreed on a
> soft fork earlier do politics or influenced by councils such as BMC or
> governments during signaling
>
> - It is considered as voting not just by people outside Bitcoin but the
> participants itself
>
> - It gives miners an edge over economic nodes that enforce consensus rules
>
> Simple persistent explaining has not helped in last few years. I don't see
> anything wrong in listing this as one of the advantages for BIP8/LOT=TRUE.
>
>
> pushd
> ---
>
> parallel lines meet at infinity?
>
> ------- Original Message -------
> On Thursday, March 31st, 2022 at 10:01 AM, Billy Tetrud <
> billy.tetrud@gmail•com> wrote:
>
> > Many users, miners and exchanges still think its voting
>
> Why do you care what they think? Why does it matter if they misunderstand?
>
> > it is not an imaginary group of people
>
> If the people aren't imaginary, then its their importance that's imaginary.
>
> > One example of a mining pool
>
> This isn't even sufficient evidence that they don't understand. Its quite
> possible they're using the word "voting" loosely or that they don't
> understand english very well. And again, so what if they tweet things that
> are not correctly worded? This is not a reason to change how we design
> bitcoin soft forks.
>
> Its not even wrong to say that a particular signaling round is very much
> like voting. What's wrong is saying that bitcoin upgrades are made if and
> only if miners vote to approve those changes.
>
> > I see a problem that exists
>
> You haven't convinced me this is a significant problem. What are the
> concrete downsides? Why do you think this can't be fixed by simple
> persistent explaining? You can find groups of people who misunderstand
> basically any aspect of bitcoin. The solution to people misunderstanding
> the design is never to change how bitcoin is designed.
>
>
> On Wed, Mar 30, 2022 at 4:14 PM pushd <pushd@protonmail•com> wrote:
>
>> > No it does not. This narrative is the worst. A bad explanation of
>> speedy trial can mislead people into thinking miner signalling is how
>> Bitcoin upgrades are voted in. But a bad explanation can explain anything
>> badly.
>>
>> I agree it is worst but why do you think this narrative exists? People
>> have tried explaining it. Many users, miners and exchanges still think its
>> voting. I think the problem is with activation method so BIP 8/LOT=TRUE is
>> a solution.
>>
>>
>> > The solution is not to change how we engineer soft forks, it's to
>> explain speedy trial better to this imaginary group of important people
>> that think miner signaling is voting.
>>
>> We can suggest different solutions but the problem exists and it is not
>> an imaginary group of people.
>>
>> One example of a mining pool: https://archive.ph/oyH04
>>
>>
>> > We shouldn't change how we engineer Bitcoin because of optics. I
>> completely object to that point continuing to be used.
>>
>> Voting as described on wiki is quite similar to what happens during
>> miners signaling followed by activation if a certain threshold is reached.
>> If some participants in this process consider it voting instead of
>> signaling for readiness then listing advantages of a better activation
>> method should help everyone reading this thread/email.
>>
>> Sorry, I don't understand your objection. I see a problem that exists
>> since years and a better activation method fixes it. There are other
>> positives for using BIP 8/LOT=TRUE which I shared in
>> https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2022-March/020178.html
>>
>> I will continue to discuss this problem with solutions until we use
>> better activation methods for future soft forks in any discussion about
>> activation methods.
>>
>>
>> pushd
>> ---
>>
>> parallel lines meet at infinity?
>>
>> ------- Original Message -------
>> On Thursday, March 31st, 2022 at 1:40 AM, Billy Tetrud <
>> billy.tetrud@gmail•com> wrote:
>>
>> @Pushd
>>
>> > Speedy trial makes it worse by misleading lot of bitcoin users
>> including miners to consider signaling as voting and majority votes decide
>> if a soft fork gets activated
>>
>> No it does not. This narrative is the worst. A bad explanation of speedy
>> trial can mislead people into thinking miner signalling is how Bitcoin
>> upgrades are voted in. But a bad explanation can explain anything badly.
>> The solution is not to change how we engineer soft forks, it's to explain
>> speedy trial better to this imaginary group of important people that think
>> miner signaling is voting.
>>
>> We shouldn't change how we engineer Bitcoin because of optics. I
>> completely object to that point continuing to be used.
>>
>> On Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 05:36 pushd via bitcoin-dev <
>> bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org> wrote:
>>
>>> > Any case where a flawed proposal makes it through getting activation
>>> parameters set and released, but doesn't achieve supermajority hashpower
>>> support is made worse by bip8/lot=true in comparison to speedy trial.
>>>
>>> - Flawed proposal making it through activation is a failure of review
>>> process
>>>
>>> - Supermajority hashpower percentage decided by bitcoin core developers
>>> can choose to not follow old or new consensus rules at any point
>>>
>>> - Speedy trial makes it worse by misleading lot of bitcoin users
>>> including miners to consider signaling as voting and majority votes decide
>>> if a soft fork gets activated
>>>
>>> - BIP 8/LOT=TRUE keeps things simple. Miners need to follow consensus
>>> rules as they do right now if they wish to mine blocks for subsidy and fees.
>>>
>>>
>>> Note: Mining pools or individual miners can participate in soft fork
>>> discussions regardless of activation method and share their concern which
>>> can be evaluated based on technical merits.
>>>
>>>
>>> pushd
>>> ---
>>>
>>> parallel lines meet at infinity?
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> bitcoin-dev mailing list
>>> bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org
>>> https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev
>>>
>>
>>
>

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 17565 bytes --]