Renaming Suggestions

[RoboticMind]

Various terminology in the wallet can be made better. Some of it is confusing, misleading, and or not correct anymore. Here are some suggestions of some renamings. Other names could be used instead of those suggested here

• "Mined - POR" -> Mined Research Rewards or Mined With Research Rewards or even Mined - RR
• "Proof of Research Difficulty" (in the debug console) -> Difficultly
• "Investor" -> Non-Cruncher
• "Beacon rain address" -> Beacon Associated Address or Beacon Address
• "Best answer" -> Top answer since best puts more of a value judgment there
  - [ ] "Export" (under the File tab) -> "Export Transaction Data"

[nathanielcwm]

The shutdown message on Windows could also use a rewrite.

[jamescowens]

I like MINED - POS+RR better, because that is actually what it is.

I think Investor should be changed to Non-Researcher or POS only. Comments?

Export is meant to work for the receive address list as well as the transaction data tab.

[RoboticMind]

I don't like Non-Researcher because I already see way too much confusion over the term researcher from people thinking it means researcher like the profession. POS only could maybe work, but Non-Cruncher fits with existing terminology. It's why Non-Cruncher is used on the gridcoin.us site and I think it may be used as well on gridcoinstats.eu

I wasn't aware of the export working on the receive address list. It probably should go in each tab individually then since that's confusing

[jamescowens]

We don’t call the rewards crunching rewards. We call them research rewards.

[RoboticMind]

I think that's somewhat confusing too, but think it's even more confusing to say researcher on the very early screens. Let's walk through what a user might think:

1. Sees Solo, Pool, Non-Researcher
2. Thinks: Well I run BOINC, but I don't do research myself, so I'm probably a Non-Researcher (not knowing what the other two mean)
3. Clicks it
4. Later on wonders why they aren't able to get rewards

[a123b]

I agree that the "researcher" term is a bit inaccurate. You can't really call yourself a researcher just because you let actual researchers use your hardware for doing their computations. "Cruncher" on the other hand is a very well-established term within the volunteer computing community for "using your CPU/GPU to help solve a huge computational problem", which describes exactly what we are rewarding, so I'd be very much in favor of renaming the Researcher role to Cruncher.

As for the Non-Cruncher, I don't really see why we even need a specific term for them? They are much too diverse to give them a specific label, they could be sending, receiving, holding, staking, trading coins and - whether we like it or not - some will even see it as an investment. So I would suggest just changing all occurrences of "Investor" to something like "None", "No" or "Disabled", whichever fits best in the context. Examples:

• Crunching mode: None / Pool / Solo
• Status: Disabled - Staking only
• No crunching / Pool crunching / Solo crunching

As a minor nitpick, abbreviating Proof-of-Stake as POS (with a capital O) seems pretty unusual to me, it might come off as sloppy, so I suggest changing it to PoS.

In summary, I would suggest the following changes:

• Overview page:
  • "Researcher" -> "Crunching"
  • Status: "Eligible for Research Rewards" -> "Eligible for Crunching Rewards"
  • Status: "Investor - Staking Only" -> "Disabled - Staking Only"
• Trasaction types:
  • "MINED - POS" -> "Mined - PoS"
  • "MINED - POR" -> "Mined - PoS+CR"
• Wizard:
  • "Solo" / "Pool" / "Investor" -> "Solo" / "Pool" / "No Crunching"
  • Make the name of these choices bold and add a small description below
    • Solo - Receive reward for your own BOINC account whenever you stake a block
    • Pool - Crunch with a pool's BOINC account and receive regular payouts without having to stake blocks
    • No Crunching - Just use Gridcoin for sending, receiving and holding coins, only receive rewards for staking

[jamescowens]

I think Disabled - Staking Only could be very confusing to a person new to Gridcoin.

[jamescowens]

The transaction type descriptions were in all caps. I am not opposed to making them normal case.

[ghost]

Boinc Task Reward and Non Boincer?

[RoboticMind]

I agree that disabled - staking only would also be confusing.

I also like the idea of making the types in normal case since it fits with the rest of the UI.

I'm not sure we want to tie these terms so much to BOINC. It's likely that folding@home gets added to the whitelist at some point and maybe other non-BOINC projects too

One thing we could also consider is maybe even using miner terminology something like "non-miner", but I'm mixed on that idea. It can sometimes give the false impression of PoW, but it also fits with terms people know outside Gridcoin and volunteer computing

[jamescowens]

crunching rewards and non-cruncher it is, then.

[jamescowens]

Changing research(er) to cruncher or crunching is an incredibly irritating change. I am leaving the class names alone in the code. That would be even more invasive. I WILL NOT CHANGE THIS AGAIN. You folks had better damn well be sure this is what you want.

[jamescowens]

I am going to pull the big VETO on this. I just got through the first pass on the researcher vs cruncher thing. I do not like it at all. Researcher stays researcher. We can put a tool tip explanation to indicate the terms are synonymous. We also should be judicious about overuse of the word cruncher in the documentation.

[div72]

+1 for researcher. I highly doubt a lot users would be confused by "researcher" and even then we could make a glossary or clarification in the guides. Cruncher is also a term that's hard to translate to other languages.

[RoboticMind]

I get that it's a lot of work to change research everywhere, so I really mainly was thinking that non-cruncher would be the main change. Non-researcher would be where it would likely lead to the most confusion.

Hadn't thought about the translation aspect, however.

@div72 I already see people confused about it. As the term is used currently in the wallet, I don't think it's too bad, but I have little doubt that a fair number of people will be confused with a change to non-researcher. Especially since it's really early on in the process of getting setup. Can maybe try to help make it better with putting text below non-researcher, but some will miss that.

This is related to one of the main things I see people confused about when I'm explaining Gridcoin and BOINC - that it's not about rewarding the people directly doing the research themselves

[jamescowens]

The problem is that “cruncher” is actually a very generic term and doesn’t imply that the person is doing work towards science or math. WE are making it specific in a closed community,

[KeithMyers]

I have absolutely no issues with the term "non-researcher"
I don't think it confusing at all.
I provide my computing power to enable scientific research via the BOINC infrastructure. Therefore I am a "researcher"
I know exactly why I am running BOINC or not. Run BOINC and provide research or do not run BOINC and only secure the blockchain with wallet stakes.

[jamescowens]

I am going to let this soak for a day or two. Changing out investor is a pretty big change, so I want us to settle on a final choice before I make the change.

[RoboticMind]

Thinking about it some more, I think I might be fine with Non-Researcher if we change up the wizard to do something like this:

1. Do you want to earn rewards for using your computer to help science (shortened version of that)
   yes/ no
2. If yes then go to a pool/solo option thing. If no, show them info about being a Non-Researcher
3. Rest as usual

Could do other different thing too. I think something like that would remove my main concerns

[jamescowens]

Why do we have to do that? There is a button "help me choose" that explains the differences.

[RoboticMind]

Because if you think "I'm not a scientist therefore non-researcher", you likely don't think you need any help to choose. You've already "found" the one to pick

I'm open to other alternative ideas too, so it doesn't have to be just like that

[a123b]

Wow, this kind of blew up...
I have to clarify that I don't even dislike the Researcher terminology! I merely read @RoboticMind's comment, tried to think about it objectively and concluded that "Cruncher" actually is slightly more accurate. Then I made some suggestions based on that to see what others think about them. It was never my intention to say that the existing terminology is so bad that is absolutely has to be replaced right away, sorry if it came off like that!

Personally, I would prefer calling the Non-Researcher option either "No Research" or "Staking Only". I wouldn't recommend "PoS Only" - if the first thing newcomers see is an abbreviation and they have no idea what it even stands for, that's not very user friendly. Non-Researcher is fine too at the end of the day, but I really think it's a bit inelegant.

I still think that putting small descriptive sentences below the wizard choices would clean up most confusion that might arise for newcomers, but it shouldn't mention BOINC of course. Updated proposal:

• Solo - Run computation under your own name, receive rewards whenever you stake a block
• Pool - Run computation under a pool's name, receive regular payouts without having to stake blocks
• No Research - Use Gridcoin just for sending, receiving and holding coins, only receive rewards for staking

When you said "Disabled - Staking Only" is too confusing, did you mean that newcomers could confuse staking and research rewards? In this case, a more descriptive "Research Rewards Disabled" might be a better choice.

[jamescowens]

I like "Staking Only" just like in #2117.

[jamescowens]

We can use snake-case "staking_only" in place of investor in the config file.

[RoboticMind]

I think I would be okay with staking only too. Better for some new users to have no association with a term than an incorrect association

[jamescowens]

4 of the 5 are done. I am going to move the other one to Janice.

[jamescowens]

I am going to move this to Kermit's Mom. We need to coordinate whatever we do here with documentation changes, etc. This requires a decent lead time.

[jring-o]

Thoughts on "block producer" "block producing" etc. instead of stake-based terminology?

[denravonska]

The concept of "stake" really confused me in the beginning. For the longest time I though it was someone that created blocks, but with something extra added on top.

[jring-o]

The concept of "stake" really confused me in the beginning. For the longest time I though it was someone that created blocks, but with something extra added on top.

A1 Sauce

[div72]

Thoughts on "block producer" "block producing" etc. instead of stake-based terminology?

+1, It's really cumbersome to translate staking in a correct and easily-understandable way.

[nethershaw]

There is nothing at all confusing about the concept of "stake," and if it isn't clear what stake means to everyone in a proof-of-stake system, you have a problem.

The word "stake" in this context is chosen to represent the quantifiable investment made in the generation of a block. It is the same as saying you have a stake in the generation of that block and how large that stake is; it is, in effect, a deposit on that block's generation, for which the wallet placing the coins at stake is awarded a return, where larger deposits are potentially more effective.

[jamescowens]

I actually agree with you on that. staking stays. This whole issue is filled with suggestions that don't help in the end and arguably make things worse. We should pick a term to get rid of "investor", because we do not want to be classified as a security. Gridcoin has a goal of being a usable currency, not a speculative investment tool.

[jamescowens]

I prefer "staking only" which actually agrees with the tag line at the top for non-cruncher wallets.

[nethershaw]

Incidentally: applying your own nomenclature to something that has a well-established term in the community you rely on is a very good way to place yourselves at odds with that community. If you prefer to think of the Gridcoin community as closed, then you may not be (seen as) receptive to what such a difference might project to potential users you must win over.

No one in the BOINC user or project administration communities refers to the operators of BOINC clients as "researchers." It is not considered to be appropriate. We serve the researchers. Those justifications entirely aside, it is not in your interest to apply labels inconsistent with preexisting and superseding concepts. The Gridcoin community is not in fact an island, and neither is the way language evolves on the Internet likely to receive a minority clade's replacement for one term with anything but dissonance.

Therefore, advise caution in underestimating the confusion poor naming can cause, even and especially in the presence of any number of small descriptive sentences. The mind of the reader moves faster than the eye.

Though certainly not an urgent correction, eventually removing references to "Research" is probably the right one -- up to and including the word in the name of the project. As a person personally obsessed with names in my projects, I certainly appreciate the mountainous irritation (at least) that might easily be associated with a string replacement operation so broad as to amount to rebranding.

I would absolutely hate that despite feeling compelled to do so -- and I am definitely not equipped to make the decision for you, but if it were me, I would find and remove rather than find and replace, then backfill with something better only where absolutely necessary. That makes it only marginally less gnarly.

Additional justifications:

There is a sense in which "Gridcoin Research" rather than simply "Gridcoin" dilutes the brand, and perhaps it does better without than with any replacement, but to speak further on that point would be speculation on my part. Perhaps "Gridcoin for Research" is a subtler relationship to the concept.

If "crunching" is too colloquial, any reference to computation (researchers need computers) and/or volunteerism (volunteers still need things that aren't free) is vastly preferable to one that implies direct participation in -- or profit from -- the academic community. There be bristles.

Researchers are sometimes nice enough to put crunchers' names in lists on their papers, but we (mostly) didn't dedicate our lives to their research the way they have. I've unfortunately noticed, in project forums, misapprehensions that Gridcoin is just a means to make money off of the work of others. I understand it isn't merely a reaction to the name, but the name could be a component of that perception.

There may be more salient symbols to use in the branding goal of making a positive association with supporting research, but applying the label of "research" or "researcher" to Gridcoin or Gridcoiners may work against the platform.

These are just thoughts. I don't have a perfect solution for you, but I would caution against dismissing the motion entirely.

[jamescowens]

You make some good points, but this issue has many considerations:

1. The general definition of a cruncher is "a computer, system, or person able to perform operations of great complexity or to process large amounts of information." This is too vague for what we are doing. Gridcoin does not whitelist arbitrary projects. Projects have to go through a qualification process and be approved by the community, which generally implies they have scientific or mathematical merit. I will refer to folks with CPID's as crunchers in this response. We are straddling two worlds, that of the BOINC world but also of cryptocurrency, with different perceptions and definitions.
2. I agree a user that contributes their computing power is not on the same level as the "researcher" themselves (meaning the professional scientist or mathematician).
3. I bristle at the perception that Gridcoin people are "profiting" from the academic community. If anything, projects that are whitelisted on Gridcoin get access to significant, supercomputer level computing power, and the subsidy that is paid to the crunchers does not even cover their electricity costs. The projects do not normally compensate crunchers at all, and in fact sometimes get monetary donations from them. The only cost to projects is their own infrastructure, which we are going to solve with Microgrid/BOINC Central for the smaller projects. This doesn't take into account all of the volunteer development work that has occurred from the Gridcoin core team, which has been largely uncompensated.
4. We are working on a new incentive layer that will scale appropriately and allow benefactors to fund crunching on whitelisted projects. You can read about this in the #future-development channel on Discord. This new layer will have controls to essentially make Gridcoin a stablecoin with a stable exchange ratio to fiat. The leaders of the Gridcoin community, and that certainly includes me, are NOT interested in speculation in Gridcoin or an artificial runup in value of Gridcoin which would be antithetical to its utility.
5. I think you have a misperception of Gridcoin as being "outside" of the BOINC community, when crunchers in the Gridcoin network contribute 20% of the total processing power of BOINC.
6. I am a long time BOINC contributor, but you probably already know that. I have been at this since July 1999. Long before Gridcoin ever came on the scene. https://stats.free-dc.org/stats.php?page=userbycpid&cpid=bc0621a4ac4610ffa400a0d298c02e23
7. The code has a class called Researcher that means something specific. So that would have to be replaced across the board with some other term, and it would be very ugly. Maybe we just leave it as is internally.
8. I agree with removing the term Research from Gridcoin Research in the executable name and other places where it is used. We do not use the term "Gridcoin Research" on the main website.

Finally... lots of people happy to take pot-shots and make work inducing suggestions, but no-one volunteering to actually put time in to do it.

I appreciate your feedback. :)

[jring-o]

Investor -> PoS Only

PoS is no longer confusing to the vast majority of participants. Safe change.