On 14 November 2013 23:01, Luke-Jr <luke@dashjr.org> wrote:

I wonder if it might make sense to bundle some other terminology fixups at the
same time.

A very good idea.

Right now, Bitcoin-Qt has been using the term "confirmations" (plural) to
refer to how many blocks deep a transaction is buried. We also use the term
"confirmation" to refer to the point where a transaction is accepted as paid.
IMO, the latter use makes sense, but the former leads to confusion especially
in light of scamcoins which abuse this confusion to claim they have "faster
confirmations", implying that the actual confirmation occurs faster when it
really doesn't. "5 blocks deep" may not be more clear to laymen, but at least
it makes it harder for people to confuse with actual confirmation.

I think people are more familiar with check clearance - "the payment/check has cleared".

If "confirmation" and "n confirmations" together are problematic, I'd talk about "cleared payments" and "n confirmations"

So "a payment clears after one confirmation, but you might want to wait until the payment has been confirmed n times".

Then at least you are not using the same word for two different meanings and you're using stuff more familiar in popular lexicon.

I dont think it's helpful for users if we use the word "blocks".

Without the technical details, I just explain to normal bitcoin users that the Bitcoin network checks and confirms the payment is valid (multiple times).

I think we all know the problems with the term "address". People naturally
compare it to postal addresses, email addresses, etc, which operate
fundamentally different. I suggest that we switch to using "invoice id" to
refer to what is now known as addresses, as that seems to get the more natural
understanding to people. On the other hand, with the advent of the payment
protocol, perhaps address/invoice id use will die out soon?

I think "key id" is a bit alien at user level - it's not something they are used to.

For years, people had a problem with "email address", instead using "email number" but they got there eventually. Most people nowadays use "email address"

So "payment address" or "bitcoin address" make better sense here when qualified as a "<foo> address" and not just an "address"

You could also call it "payment id", but I dont think "invoice id" since no-one pays to an invoice id that's just a reference for a payment, not the destination.

People are very familiar with Paypal these days, and are familiar with "paypal address" or their "paypal id" so again I think valid contenders are "bitcoin address" or "bitcoin id".

Regards,

Drak