Talk:Mining hardware comparison

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Achilles Labs line-up

I have removed the Achilles Labs line-up of miners. This was previously also done by Jimmothy, resulting in a minor revert edit war with Vip3r. Currently their website still displays little more than a render, little details on what's supposedly inside, and only accepts payment in Bitcoin.

While Vip3r claims that the units are actually shipping, no evidence thereof has been presented or even found. The only semi-reference I have found is at: https://2ch.hk/cc/res/84695.html Supposedly that page shows Achilles Labs units in a mine, but that mine itself has none of the hallmarks of an actual mine, and more of warehousing - which may very well be empty cases.

Until such a time as that more information is presented or found in the wild, I recommend that the Achilles Labs line-up of products remains removed from the listing.

BitcoinTalk Forum discussion: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=855856

TheRealSteve (talk) 14:13, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

This wiki editing war seems a bit silly so let's resolve this. Please contact us at sales@achilleslabs.com stating what information you wish to obtain. I believe we'll work something out.

Vip3r — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vip3r (talk • contribs)

I have no interest in an edit war. On the other hand I also have little interest in contacting you directly, thus eschewing the public image. I have added a topic to this Talk page that serves as general information, which you can read over: Talk:Mining_hardware_comparison#Why_was_my_hardware_removed.3F

Just to touch on some specific parts:

Back in November of 2014, somebody named "Tony T." supposedly was to send actual pictures of the miners to a BitcoinTalk Forum (BCT) member (see thread link above) - nothing appears to have come of that. A notable other BCT member, Dogie, was unable to get a response. As it stands, your website still shows nothing more than renders and only Bitcoin as a payment option.

In one of the edit summaries you noted that "If [your] business was not honest, [you] think the word would have spread by now." - which is exactly what has happened via BCT and earlier wiki edits. Corollary to that - if your business is honest, I would think that word thereof would have spread by now. Existing customers praising the machine somewhere, anywhere - I searched, to no avail. TheRealSteve (talk) 03:18, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Pre-orders

Listing of hardware that can only be pre-ordered should be discouraged. Listing of vaporware should be disallowed. In either of these cases, if you have editing capabilities, consider removing the listing. While everyone should do their due diligence before making a purchase - especially in pre-order cases - we can all help to keep things a bit more tidy by only having a comparison of actual, existing hardware that ships now or has shipped in the past.

If there is disagreement on the above, perhaps we can agree to have a separate section for pre-orders and vaporware, which could then carry an additional warning. Open for discussion :) TheRealSteve (talk) 14:33, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Why was my hardware removed?

If your hardware was removed from the mining hardware comparison list, this section will attempt to explain the possible reason why - though always check the edit summary (see "View history") for pointers.

Although there is no set policy for allowing or disallowing hardware to be listed in the hardware comparison at this time, it is generally frowned upon to list hardware that doesn't exist (yet) - which may subsequently be deleted by anybody with editing rights to this wiki.

The "innocent until proven guilty" approach does not work in this field, due to the many bad actors that will take advantage of such an approach. As a result, the approach is that any listing is treated at first as benign and discussed (here or in online forums) until an apparent consensus is reached. At that point, your listing may have been relegated to a "guilty until proven innocent" status.

The community cannot always prove a bad actor. For example, if you have renders of miners on your website/in your store, but no actual photos, you can always claim that the images you use are just stand-ins and that you can't release any actual photographs yet because the hardware is being finalized and so forth and so on. At that point, however, it is essentially non-existent hardware that should not be listed. If, on the other hand, there is actual hardware on hand, there's little reason to be using renders.

The onus is thus on you you to attempt to prove that you are not a bad actor. There's plenty of ways in which you can do so:

• If you are taking pre-orders: don't - a comparison between existing hardware and hardware that effectively doesn't exist, is no comparison at all.
• Rather than providing renders or photoshopped images, provide actual photography of your hardware. The more photos, the better.
• If you are integrating a 3rd party's chip, specify which chip. If you are integrating your own chip design, try to provide details on its design.
• If challenged in online discussion platforms to show it hashing, provide a video of the hardware mining with a verifiable (public) pool statistics page.
• If currently only accepting Bitcoin payments, consider adding other payment options - PayPal, credit card, etc. If these are not an option, or not desirable, consider adding a trusted escrow agent option.

These are options that range from simple to more involved in terms of effort, while each significantly raises the bar for still being called a bad actor.

Ultimately, you may have to have a third party review one of your miners in order to build your credibility. This could be one of your customers, or it could be a trusted member of online discussion forums, or popular hardware review websites. This does not necessarily require you to send hardware for free - making it available 'on loan' is also perfectly acceptable, as would be demonstrating in person. While certainly the option that requires the most effort (and possibly expenses), this does increase your reputation as being a good actor not just for that particular hardware, but any other hardware you may be selling, which may make this option a good step as a business going forward.

If at any point you dispute a removal, your first step should be to simply add your hardware back to the list, and the second step should be to open up dialog through this talk page, by using the "Add topic" link at the top to start a new discussion, or simply reply to an existing discussion that pertains to your case. If you provide good arguments as to why your listing should remain, it is unlikely to be removed again. TheRealSteve (talk) 03:15, 28 February 2015 (UTC)