Topic: Experiment - Achieving consensus where there is disagreement - page 2. (Read 3216 times)

say there is a new BIP,
3 BIPs
dev say hey lets ask the miners again
everyone votes,
votes are: 31% 31% 32%
devs say "fuck it lets go with BIP100"
they all agree " fine lets go with it"
the change is implemented
price goes up
miners are happy.
everyone is happy!

so it really depends

75% is wonderful.

if your vote is not 75% you answered the question incorrectly, please try again. 

The BIP66 soft-fork recently passed the 75% support threshold. This
means that 75% of the hashing power has upgraded to support BIP66; 25%
of the hashing power has not. Once 95% of the hashing power has
upgraded, blocks created by the 5% who have not upgraded will be
rejected.

If you operate a pool, solo-mine, or mine on p2pool you'll very likely
need to upgrade your Bitcoin Core node to support the BIP66 soft-fork,
or your blocks will be rejected. If you only sell your hashing power to
a centralized pool you do not need to do anything.


How does the Bitcoin protocol measure BIP66 support?
----------------------------------------------------

Miners that have upgraded to support BIP66 create blocks with the
version field set to 3; non-upgraded miners set the version to 2.
Bitcoin Core measures BIP66 support by counting how many blocks with
version >= 3 exist in the blockchain within the last 1000 blocks.

If 750 out of the last 1000 blocks support BIP66, blocks with the
version set to >= 3 that do not follow the BIP66 rules are rejected; if
950 out of the last 1000 blocks support BIP66, blocks with version < 3
are rejected.


When will the 95% threshold be reached?
---------------------------------------

It's unknown exactly when the 95% threshold will be reached. The BIP34
soft-fork went from 75% to 95% support in a about two weeks, however
more or less time is possible; it's possible that the 95% threshold will
be reached in just a few days.

if the BIP creates a fork, then you need much more than 75% to be on the safe side

If a BIP is going to create a fork, then you need much more than 75% to be on the safe side, since those who commands 25% of the hash power might control much more resources than those who have 75% of hash power

IMO, hash power is just a too simplified indicator, the weight of the vote should be based on a weighted index of many different aspects of the whole ecosystem

There are many important actors in bitcoin ecosystem: devs, full nodes, miners, pools, exchanges, payment processor, wallet providers, and many companies trying to build service upon bitcoins, and investors who have bought lots of coins. Many of them don't have hash power thus can not vote in a hash power way, but they will all be affected by the change in the protocol

By default the current situation is always 100% consensus, because every participant are using it right now. If you want to move away from it, you really need strong motivations from every one. Only when majority of people think that current situation is unbearable, a change will become consensus

consider this, if you set the bar for minimal hashing at 95% a large miner or pool can single handedly veto the change and ruin it for everyone else, in which case it's likely that the network would simply go ahead with the change anyway. 95% is ideal but not a good minimal limit.

75% is best because:

1) winning all the votes isnt easy.
2) 75% indicates that the BIP is somehow superior, to the other perfectly valid BIPs.
3) what individual miners want doesn't matter. in the end miners will mine the most popular chain, because $_$
4) 25% wouldn't be able to do any serious damage to new chain even if they ALL worked together to try and break BTC ( this highly unlikely, most will just accept the new chain and be thankful they got a chance to vote )
5) 75% is high enough to make sure the BIP by and large addresses most people's concerns, it wouldn't be easy to get 75%, its likely the BIP would have the make some changes along the way to TRY and accommodate everyone.
6) Assuming the other BIPs have merit too, and it's not that the other miners necessarily disagree with that BIP but would rather another BIP win all the votes. >75% all agreeing to one thing is hard! and its unlikely all losing miners would turn on the network in anger... I don't go causing a riot when a gov election wins with a minority vote.
if all BIPs were all equally good you'd expect the voting to reflect that.
having 75% pretty much guarantees that that BIP is some how superior

that's why everyone needs to agree, 75% is pretty damn good. 80% is good, 90%+ is a no brainer implement the change right away! 100% = the change has been fully accepted by the network.

could take a while to convince everyone to change their vote to 75%.. 75-85% is a thoughtfully answers... it's a tough question.

Voted 75% because:

1) The children
2) I have no objections to 75%
3) I have no horse in the race.
4) To show how easy votes can be manipulated

So basicly... I voted for a small chance of someone else donating a bit to a good cause. Now I can feel so good about myself.

Could someone with a few dozen sock puppets join in on the vote? Think about the children!

I would be interested to see if after any given option reaches the 75% threshold if that option could reaching 90% or even 95% within the 12 hour period following. This is to test to see if 75% supermajorities really do lead to consensus or if there is large group of unhappy "losers" left over.

what this Experiment is all about:
the poor kids in africa getting a break represents the small reward of actually getting some progress BIP implemented. that is the common goal which makes people want to reach consensus. This Experiment is to test the theory that, if the incentive to reach consensus is strong enough, even a big group can be made to agree; at the same time we answer the question what % agreement can we reasonably expect.

So a consensus is reached by poor kids in africa? 

What would happen if the 25% side continues on using their version of the fork? Do you think 25% of the current Bitcoin community (yes, this statement assumes the percentage of miners is proportional to the Bitcoin community) could still thrive on their own? Do you think this would negatively affect the other 75%?

I am not expecting answers to those questions, but they are things I consider when thinking about a 75% consensus threshold.

I tend to agree that my 95% vote is ideal and probably not realistic. Is 75% the best, most realistic option? I don't know, but my current opinion is that it should probably be somewhere between the two options.

1) what individual miners want doesn't matter. in the end miners will mine the most popular chain, because $_$
2) 25% of miners saying "no" means they wouldn't be able to do any serious damage to new chain even if they ALL worked together to try and break BTC ( again highly unlikely, most will just accept the new chain and be thankful they got a chance to vote )
3) 75% is high enough to make sure the BIP by and large addresses most people's concerns, it wouldn't be easy to get 75%, its likly the BIP would have the make some changes along the way to TRY and accommodate everyone.

assuming the other BIPs have merit too, and it's not that the other miners necessarily disagree with that BIP but would rather another BIP. >75% all agreeing to one thing is hard! and its unlikely all losing miners would turn on the network in anger... I don't go causing a riot when a gov election wins with a minority vote.

having 75% pretty much guarantees that that BIP is some how superior

Ok, assuming 95% is not a good threshold, why is 75% the best option?