user1760: I am developing a Bitcoin application, so I am sending a lot of "toy" transactions for testing, with 0 fees.
But it seems that those take forever to get confirmed. (Right now I am waiting 45 minutes for one transaction to get confirmed. Previously it was about 30 minutes.)
Is my suspicion right, or am I doing something wrong? How important is the fee for miners? Do they preferentiate? 
Or am I doing something wrong (not broadcasting to enough nodes, maybe?)?
And do nodes, that aren't miners (with official client I presume), preferentiate to send around transactions with fees?
(edit: note that the question was written in 2012, when the blocks were still empty.)

user888: Similar to you, I send a lot of small transactions to test my code. I find if I add a fee of a milli (0.001 BTC) they normally get in the next block but any less than that and you start having to wait. 

user516: The relationship between fee and confirmation time will change over time. 
This chart provides a view of confirmation time for "fee" and "no fee": http://bitcoinstats.org/
However, the chart gives no information on the size of the fee paid. I'd like to see charts of:

Fee Paid vs Confirmation Time
(Transaction Size divided by Fee Paid) vs Confirmation Time.

Both these, especially the latter, are likely to show a stronger trend than the link I provided above, if/when we start hitting the size limit for blocks.
If anyone finds a site generating one of these, I'd appreciate it if you could provide a link!

user1760: It seems like there is some policy against free transactions in official client.
There are some anti-spam protections, which my toy transactions exactly meet (low transactions, recently accepted coins, etc)
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=63553.0
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Free_transaction_relay_policy

1760: <p>I am developing a Bitcoin application, so I am sending a lot of "toy" transactions for testing, with 0 fees.</p>

<p>But it seems that those take <em>forever</em> to get confirmed. (Right now I am waiting 45 minutes for one transaction to get confirmed. Previously it was about 30 minutes.)</p>

<p>Is my suspicion right, or am I doing something wrong? How important is the fee for miners? Do they preferentiate? </p>

<p>Or am I doing something wrong (not broadcasting to enough nodes, maybe?)?</p>

<p>And do <em>nodes</em>, that aren't miners (with official client I presume), preferentiate to send around transactions with fees?</p>

<p>(edit: note that the question was written in 2012, when the blocks were still empty.)</p>
 888: <p>Similar to you, I send a lot of small transactions to test my code. I find if I add a fee of a milli (0.001 BTC) they normally get in the next block but any less than that and you start having to wait. </p>
 516: <p>The relationship between fee and confirmation time will change over time. </p>

<p>This chart provides a view of confirmation time for "fee" and "no fee": <a href="http://bitcoinstats.org/" rel="nofollow">http://bitcoinstats.org/</a></p>

<p>However, the chart gives no information on the size of the fee paid. I'd like to see charts of:</p>

<ol>
<li>Fee Paid vs Confirmation Time</li>
<li>(Transaction Size divided by Fee Paid) vs Confirmation Time.</li>
</ol>

<p>Both these, especially the latter, are likely to show a stronger trend than the link I provided above, if/when we start hitting the size limit for blocks.</p>

<p>If anyone finds a site generating one of these, I'd appreciate it if you could provide a link!</p>
 1760: <p>It seems like there is some policy against free transactions in official client.</p>

<p>There are some anti-spam protections, which my toy transactions <em>exactly</em> meet (low transactions, recently accepted coins, etc)</p>

<p><a href="https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=63553.0">https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=63553.0</a></p>

<p><a href="https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Free_transaction_relay_policy">https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Free_transaction_relay_policy</a></p>
