The only part I was directing to you was the last sentence of my post. I made no indication that I "thought" you were answering anyone. To me you made a statement, that, while it may be accurate, is definitely no indication of whether a pool is "good" or "not good".

So what you are actually saying is that there should be no small pools, they should all shut down.
Interesting that you have that opinion ...

Con shut down his pool coz he lost interest in Bitcoin years ago and spends most of his time producing animated child porn.
This was obvious with his most recent lost block caused by him due to ignoring his pool server - purely due to negligence.

Clearly you have no idea about the statistics of mining.
That was clearly the case in Dec 2015 when slush pool allowed a miner to withhold about 28 blocks and didn't even notice it happen.
Scroll back in this thread and read all about it ...
An interesting comment quoted from slush about it, saying there was no problem
https://bt.irlbtc.com/view/1976.msg13418823#msg13418823
Have a read through Dec 2015 here in your thread, saying there's no problem with the pool ... ... ... even though it lost about 28 blocks in that month due to problems ...

Slush made all the miners pay for those lost blocks, rather than just the company that did it.
https://bt.irlbtc.com/view/1672571.msg17144781#msg17144781
https://bt.irlbtc.com/view/77000.msg13482822#msg13482822

The fact that my pool is currently over 300% is nothing to be unexpected.
CDF states clearly that greater than 300% blocks are expected, on average, once every 20.1 blocks ... on every pool.
Yep even slush has it happen that often.
Have a read and learn a little about Bitcoin mining statistics: https://kano.is/index.php?k=poisson

Nowhere in my post did I say the bolded, underlined parts that you have implied I said.

Indeed small pools are higher risk due to much higher variance.
Variance also means up and down, not just down.
Even long term there is the potential risk of a lower reward due to difficulty rises.

Seriously, your post basically says two opposite things, either you are saying there should be no small pools, like you are directly implying in the first paragraph, or you are saying they shouldn't shut down as in the 2nd paragraph.
Pick one.

Meanwhile, still no change on the slush web site, it still lies about being the first pool.

Well a certain person above - Artemis3 - seems to reply 'for' slush pool and bos (which is part of slush pool) regularly on the forum and here in this thread.
He posts release notes for bos - which is pretty damning evidence saying he is involved with slush.

He's the one ignoring it, so I guess he should get the bad rep?

Who accepted it except themselves?
The details are all above in the post I did - even slush knew it - as I've shown.

The first mining pool is simply ... the first mining pool ... no excuses ... it's very simple english, but I guess it would appear to be difficult to understand for those who may not be very good at english.

Slush was at least the second pool, since there was a pool before them, even as slush stated: "another".
Again a simple english term, when you state you are opening 'another' pool, it means there's already one before you ...
and in his case he said that in the thread where the 'other' pool before him was announced.

No hornets nest involved, it's simple english and some seem to not understand english ...

If the guy who made the first car crashed and killed himself and destroyed it ... he still made the first car ...

Though, that is somewhat of a joke also.

The problem that occurred in Dec 2015 was due to the fact that for the first 5 years that slush ran, they didn't have any proper statistical analysis of their mining.
So when something bad happened with a miner running their own untested software on the pool, it meant that slush just continued to lose blocks and pretend there was no problem, since they didn't even understand how to identify the problem, until Organofcorti told them there was something wrong - after I pointed out the excessive statistical improbability of what happened:
https://bt.irlbtc.com/view/77000.msg13482822#msg13482822

He also helped them do their current 'proof' they have, but alas people still don't understand that it's not a proof of hash rate, it's a proof of minimum hash rate.

So while you can correctly say they are the 'longest running' pool, they ran blind for the first 5 years and had no idea what was going on.
In that scenario, my pool is possibly the longest running pool with a proper statistical analysis of the mining, since I've been doing it from the start in 2014 Though I've no idea if any of the large pools understand how to do useful statistical analysis of the mining, or if they do, how long they have been doing it. They certainly don't claim to do it or supply any such information.

But anyway, who cares if slush didn't know what they were doing for the first 5 years

... and in case it wasn't obvious, while they let it go on for at least 28 blocks, they should have known 100% that the problem existed at 14 blocks.
Also, Organofcorti pointed out an interesting test that would have picked the particular problem up at around 0.42 of a single block (that I added to my testing from then on)

that logic is flawed - To apply it would mean that since the first person to have flown around the world died - they now no longer the first person to have done so.

The "first" pool simply means they were the first functioning pool. However long they lasted is irrelevant if they were the actual "first" pool.

Slush is not the "first" pool - they may be the "oldest" or the "longest running" but that does not make them "first"

I’m aware. That’s why I was pointing it out for people who might not be aware of the type of person Kano is. He thinks tearing down others elevates himself. It’s a pretty typical attitude for someone with self esteem issues. I just hate seeing him target a legend like slush who is a Bitcoin mining pioneer.

Someone once said, “You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.”

You seem to be all over the place now. I guess I’m curious what you want to achieve here. Just tarnish slush’s reputation or are you seeking some sort of justice or a pat on the back for being better than everyone else? I’ll help. Good job Kano. You’ve run a pool for a long time and still take time to come here and participate at bitcointalk even though it likely isn’t worth your time to do so.

Still no blocks. Congratulations in operating the fastest and better connected pool that nobody uses. Its not 2015 anymore...

Small pools can exist all they want, but who is going to wait a year for a block? That is why ckpool stopped. Funny how you keep bad mouthing CK instead of delivering actual code, i guess its more fun criticize others than working yourself.

When mining shrinks back down in the future, who knows. You are welcome to operate the last pplns pool forever.