anyone can change anything. the point is if the majority disagree, it gets ignored.

there is a very strong reason not to do this. so dont expect the cap to change. the majority have reasons not to do it.
its worse then shooting yourself in the foot and then your head if the majority were to do this.

although any rule can be changed certain rules are deemed golden rules that should never be changed and permission is given to slap anyone with a wet fish that wants to change the golden rules

now.. no change..
before christmas.. no change.
when finally active next year
people need to download yet another version
and
if EVERYONE moved their funds off of legacy keypairs and into new segwit compatible HD seed keypairs. and everyone sent segwit transactions to each other

1.8x capacity at best.

just to counter achow101

right now.
we could have 20 different implementations
a. baseblock 1mb max
b. baseblock 1mb weight 4mb max
c. baseblock 2mb max
d. baseblock 2mb weight 4mb max
e. baseblock 2.2mb max
f. baseblock 2.2mb weight 4mb max
g. baseblock 3mb max
h. baseblock 2.5mb weight 4mb max
i. baseblock 4mb max
j. baseblock 4mb weight 8mb max
k. baseblock 5mb max
l. baseblock 5mb weight 8mb max
m. baseblock 6mb max
n. baseblock 6mb weight 10mb max
o. baseblock 7mb max
p. baseblock 7mb weight 12mb max
q. baseblock 8mb max
r. baseblock 8mb weight 14mb max
s. baseblock 9mb max
t. baseblock 9mb weight 16mb max

and they can all run right now on bitcoin mainnet. fully accepting blocks because, guess what..
the rule is "anything below limit is acceptable"
the rule is not "block needs to be near limit to be acceptable"

that means a 250byte block is just as acceptable as a 990kb block to all them 20 implementations
miners will not risk making blocks at 2mb because there is a 10%(a)(b)(2 of 20 disagree) chance of getting orphaned so they will stay in the healthy area of under 1mb where the chances of orphaning wont happen. yet all 20 rules still allow those small blocks. and everyone is communicating to each other.

why avoid orphan risk you may ask.. well if it gets orphaned and the network settles for a competitors smaller block as the best new height to have.. the miner making the larger block loses the reward (no income essentially).
a flip side is that the 10% may not be objecting enough and the other 90% may stand their ground and keep the larger block meaning (a)(b) no longer sync to the latest block height. thus they either just become tx relay nodes or they change their setting to be able to sync blocks again

but as i said miners may not want to risk this even if it is just 10% of nodes getting affected

now if (a)(b) were to give in and move to 2mb.. this doesnt not mean the other 18 nodes have to change.
this is important.. so ill say it again
this doesnt not mean the other 18 nodes have to change.

it just means that now the threshold can move forward and miners see that 2mb is no longer going to get orphaned due to (a)(b) no longer protesting for small <1mb blocks.
so miners can now make any block between 250byte -1.99mb without orphan risk.
yes if miners tried to make blocks bigger than 2mb they would get some orphan risks from (a)(b)(c)(d) due to their opposition now set at 2mb.
with now a 20% risk...  miners will stay below 2mb to avoid such orphan risks.

why avoid orphan risk you may ask.. well if it gets orphaned and the network settles for a competitors smaller block as the best new height to have.. the miner making the larger block loses the reward (no income essentially).
also its a 20% risk so they definitely wont be stupid. at a 20% risk

but like i said.. it wont require all implementations to routinely ask devs to spoon feed them updated implementations. instead its a user setting.

as for how and when a miner decides/knows the risks.. well thats easy the rules can be transmitted as part of the handshake or even the useragent or rpc as part of the lets say an updated 'getaddr'

all without needing every implementation needing consent from devs every couple years. all done independently by nodes

the only risk i can see is the opposition will sybil attack the network by having several nodes setting it to 0.1mb limit. in which case there is always the ban IP which surprisingly i have seen core fanboys use, to not communicate with non core nodes for no other reason than not being a core node.

summary
nodes can have any rules they like. but miners will only produce a block that fits the majority and wont risk their income.
miners have a moral and economic incentive to not push the boundary, because the boundary may push back and lose them their reward.

satoshi was planning on 2mb blocks in 2011.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1347.msg15366#msg15366
he would have been happy with diverse nodes.

he would have also implemented 'patch' update mechanism so that it didnt require upgrading a whole implementation but just downloading an addon to expand functionality. and also users ability to change settings independently/manually.

thus there would not be bickering. but simple use of the consensus mechanism.

how has gavin and hearne tried to sabotage bitcoin.. all their implementations are actually running LIVE on the blockchain right now. their implementations were to use consensus. none of their efforts have been to intentionally split the network. however it has been core that has been telling other implementations to f**k off. and it is core devs that are funded by banks. yep gmaxwell pietre wuille are paid by R3 (the hypocrits that shamed hearne for working for R3).
it is gmaxwell that has told other implementations to avoid consensus and split off(his bilateral fork buzzword)

core have been the ones with the "competition" mindset rather than community mindset.
take newyork as a concept of community.. instead of everyone seeing all newyorkers. core fanboys and devs have been screaming that minorities should F**k off out of town. and then hate the chinatown district.
where as the minorities and china town actually have a place in the community.

but hey no point trying you wake you up seems your too deep in the dictatorship camp of wanting one dev group to dictate bitcoin

until i see some diverse nodes by other dev groups that are also implementing the features but coded their own way (im excluding knots because thats just a core devs fake attempt at diversity), then i see risks.

the funny thing is if core actually treated other devs as part of the community. rather then competition they could have helped each other out more and had lots of diverse nodes all with segwit features as a minimum.
and all properly independently tested

but core went the other route to push people out the way and made demands and told everyone else to f**k off..
we should have gone with the spring 2016 roundtable 2mb base 4mb weight. then everyone would have been happy

those saying 21btc is a large number. are usually those who only have a few satoshi's to their name(where $15k is more money then they ever seen in their life). but if you can afford 21btc easily. and if that 21btc is only going to amount to lets say 25% of your life savings then its not a biggy.

id suggest 5% cash, 25% gold, 25% bitcoin, 45% real estate.
also the way fiat is inflating think about decreasing the 'cash' hold if you want to put funds elsewhere

usually if your not super rich, then real estate ends up being a big chunk of life savings/investment
which in reality looks like
id suggest 1% cash, 5% gold, 5% bitcoin, 55% real estate. (imagining life savings was $200k and a house minimum price was $150k)



as for ethereum.. dont treat it as a permanent hold. jump in and out of it to increase your BTC holdings when the price is right

LOL.. guess what.. LN is flawed.. and wont be secure. i want you to really think about the 'address re-use' dilemma. i mean really research and think about it hard.
LN wont be the future of scalability.
at most it will be used as a novelty for small pocket money amounts like a walmart loyalty/gift card only trusted to hold very small amounts and throwing the addresses away once the funds have moved hands. not to be used as the main mechanism for everyones funds long term.

also locking funds and then using the banks hyperledger is not a solution either (the sidechains proposal)

the only true 100% bitcoin, 100% immutable, 100% secure method of BITCOIN SCALABILITY is via upgrades to BITCOINS blockchain.
why so afraid to upgrade BITCOIN with real capacity growth. why  are some people so adamant to push users away from the bitcoin network into dual managed contracts or banker owned sidechains??

wake up

as a hold. keep bitcoin.

only delve into altcoins if you are day trading and wanna play with penny stocks for a few hours.
dont hold altcoins. just trade in and out of them for small percentages as quick as you can to then get back to holding bitcoin

meandering away from the logical answer of cloudmining is very shady.
there is another point that should be raised.

imagine you did find a legit cloudmining business. (requires alot of imagination )

mining bitcoin
based on the last 6 months some maths has been done
based on a 13thash asic over 6 months, it returned 0.47btc mined over 6 months
converting it to fiat, thats about $340 for 6 months mining bitcoin

so easy maths. 0.47btc / 13thash = 0.03615385 per Thash return after 6 months ($26/Thash)
as for the next 6 months. unless you are getting a contracts for far less than $26/Thash dont expect to break even in 6 months

altcoin mining
however if you are altcoin mining.. well throw a dart at any number and treat that as expected returns.(meaning no guarantees/no predictions).

though cloudmining alone is very shady, even if you found a legit company.. the returns wont be as expected
your better off just buying bitcoin and holding.

why the rush
core said it requires 18 months for any other implementation to activate a rule due to security/bug concerns even when them implementations core are hostile to, have had live code on the network.

yet segwit been live for a few days and people think christmas is a logical activation date? (facepalm to hypocritical lack of security/bug concern)

sorry but it takes time for people to move funds from legacy keypairs over to segwit enabled HD seed keypairs
EG exchanges need to swap all their customers deposit addresses and move the exchanges reserves, then re-audit the funds

it takes time for people to ensure the RPC calls are compatible with their systems and tweak their systems to handle the replies of such
EG some RPC calls do different things now so the exchanges need to rewrite the front end to interpret the new calls

it takes time to then make transactions and other things.
testing the minimum fee thresholds are not going to cause transactions to spam/drop off the relay network before it even gets to a mining pool

im thinking 99% of people screaming for activation before christmas are not actually running a node themselves, nor intend to. because there screams for rush rush rush are proof of not having experience of running, testing, setting up a node.

the even funnier part is core have not even been bothered to update the notes about things like segwit and rpc calls
https://bitcoin.org/en/developer-reference#rpcs

even funnier is that people running 0.13.1 think they are fully segwit ready.
https://bitcoincore.org/en/2016/10/27/segwit-upgrade-guide/

so guys goodluck thinking that just running 0.13.1 is all you need for the future and dont need to upgrade again just to use segwit

lol so funny.
oh by the way i know your making crap up. because your using my numbers.
i made them numbers up based on a few assertions.. bu funny how you immediately grabbed them numbers to pretend you "negotiated" them numbers..

the fishermans paradise is STILL listed at $25m
MY numbers was by taking YOUR $15 and then working out that it requires $5m to maintain and upgrade. meaning you somehow would need to buy it for $10m(which was my point based on arbitrary numbers)

yep you got caught in a lie.. (another bubble bursts)

but it was funny that you pretend that my arbitrary numbers, is the deal you are actually getting.
im laughing.
here is some info..

the reason the Caribbean islands are uninhabited is due to nature reserves and laws that protect that area.
meaning you are not going to get a permit to build in that area.(sorry for the bubble bursts)
secondly you have not thought about basic infrastructure like electric, or even more concerning sewerage.

yes thats right sewerage alone will kill any plans you have for that area. even if you can bribe officials.. (bubble burst again)

but anyway lets get back to the barge.. that barge is not designed to just stay in the middle of the ocean for decades. it needs to be docked and repaired every year/couple years taking a few months.

as the fishermans paradise this was easy, they done scheduled repairs during 'off season' meaning its only in the water and useful 9-11 months of the year. no problem for the fishing community.

but for a 'independent nation' your reliance on a neighbouring country and being tied to that nations laws is a waste of $15m to do what..
oh thats right have a meeting room for 9-11months of the year just to talk about how to grab more funds.

the funny thing is that while your concentrating on fund raising. you have shown no clue about real costs. no understanding about how those funds will be spent to actually achieve something.
again permits, sewerage, electric.. you have shown no calculations. and only "give us money coz utopian dream"

i used to respect your other bitcoin businesses. but this fundraising campaign your trying .. epic fail on many fronts.

there are other ways (which you have not even hinted at knowing) that would actually create an independent nation, for far less then you are wasting on the barge "just for research".

oh and if you pretend to be the only scheme advertising the barge as phase one.. then um.. after 4 years of rebranding your project to reinvent and rejuvenate the project. im still stunned you are actually trying to flip flop around the $15m waste of money for "research"
i found out more then you have in less time .. at no cost.

i am even more shocked that in the 4 years of seeing different brand names try pushing the barge as a phase one "research vessel" that the guys behind it have not even found out why no one is buying into their schemes after 4 years of trying and why it always falls flat.

the short answer is that it seems you have not done any research and are just pushing out utopian dreams that are backed by nothing. surprisingly you feel this lack of knowledge still values yourselves at deserving $15m. when actual costs are more just to 'own' a research boat, let alone paying wages for the researchers..

i think you should go back to the drawing board and learn the basics or go back and concentrate on your other bitcoin businesses.
because a viable independent nation can be achieved without all the money grabbing your requesting just to research how.

i would give you hints.. but i know (as evident of my arbitrary $10boat $5m repair) you will twist it to try making it look like it was the schemes initial plan all along. purely to falsely attempt to make the project look more legit purely to grab $15m that will still get wasted and not achieve anything

there is a part of speculation called a resistance point. this is the lowest point the price can get to before the majority of people refuse to sell any cheaper.
though people in general buy and sell at different prices (speculative area) there is always a bottom line where the majority resist selling.
after looking at the charts and doing some other maths based on known manufacturing costs(not retail) of asics, electric etc, and putting those numbers against the hashrate. and also doing this for the historic data.

right now the resistance point is over $480
EG
in 2011, speculation went up to over $32 but the resistance point was about $2
in 2013/14, speculation went up to over $1000 but the resistance point was about $200

this year speculation is at over $700, but resistance is about $480.
prior to the halving, it was around $600 speculative high, and $300 resistance point.

so now you know the area of speculation vs resistance (profitable area). you then have to look at the mining specifically.

some farms like antpool have no upfront costs. yes thats right zero.
this is because the manufacturing costs of an asic(bitmain) is far lower then the retail price they sell to competition.

its been worked out bitmain for every asic they sell retail, can actually produce 4-5 rigs for that single unit retail price.
they can either
hand one to the customer and keep 3-4 to themselves to run.. and then use the reward for paying bills
or
hand one to the customer produce 2-3 for themselves to run and then put ~$400 towards electric (2 rigs electric over 6 months ~$400)

basically it boils down to electric cost.


which i done the maths ages ago in regards to the bitmain S9 (13thash, 1.3kw/h) unit

anyway, im now going to use round numbers just to get the point across ASAP. (someone else can be more refined if they want)

so knowing asia is about the 5c/kwh and antpool costs $0 for the asic. makes the 'cost' of mining by bitmain/antpool $225 per asic required ATMOST over an expected 6 month period. (i say atmost due them able to repay the electric at no cost thanks to retail income. but lets stick with $225 costs)

at 125,000 asics antpool have. and a ~18%(over 6 months) of blocks solved by antpool = 4700 blocks =~59000btc
which makes 0.471744btc per asic
which at current price value is an ROI of over $330 per rig right now.(based on a $700/btc valuation)
which is profitable compared to their $225 'cost'(electric explained earlier)

but say an american miner buying a $1600(retail price) and then paying average american electric for 6 months $450(10c/kwh) totals $2050 upfront.
but as i have just worked out the average btc earned over 6 months per rig is  0.471744btc ($330 per rig right now, based on a $700/btc)

so americans are not profiting. infact they are at a 83% loss right now.

summary.
throwing all the numbers together..
for antpool (lowest cost) to remain in profit btc has to be 1btc=$476 (where the mining income of 0.471744=$225 cost)
but as i say the costs can be lower if they prepay the electric via the competition buying the rigs

americans(retail purchase priced rigs) will only break even if bitcoin was $4345.

so asia can sell right down to $476 and break even
america wont sell and wait for speculation to jump to well over $4000 before selling. or be dumb and sell at a loss.

hope this helps

i have seen many of these schemes. the funny thing is several of them are based on the same premiss of initially buying up a barge and use the barge as a HQ to then discuss what to do.
even funnier is these several schemes all seem to laughably want to buy up the same barge.

"fishermans paradise"

so even before seeing the holes of 'after initial investment we discuss legal/politics' it falls flat with the idea of buying up the fishermans paradise vessel. which in it of itself is no difference then having a mobile/porta cabin in a field to use as a conference room.

i see no legal, political, rational, logistical reason to spend over $25m on a vessel. just to then and only then use as a small conference space of at most 40 people.

these seasteading concepts always fail at trying to sell the utopian dream before/without understanding the initial logistics, politics, laws.

ill give you a hint on why it will fail in this latest re-incarnation in the Caribbean,, using just 1 word that will explain why it wont be allowed to happen both politically, economically and ecologically:
sewerage

i have looked into this seasteading over and over for a couple years.

all phases you speak of actually do involve needing a host nation. meaning you are not in international waters.
even your scheme has said that
its been said many many times that the choice to anchor down near a host nation is to allow for easy resupply and also not have to deal with the expense of deep anchoring to make platforms and not be hit by the wild tides.

so sorry to burst the propaganda of forming your own country scheme when that was already questioned and ripped apart months ago.

lastly the vessel your scheme is desiring for phase one is actually $25mill valuation. not a $10mill valuation and then $5m for maintenance/repairs and upgrades.

so this $15m magic number the scheme has conjured up, just wont cut it.

im surprised after the community ripped the scheme apart months ago, that those involved are trying to re-invent it again.
seems to be script taken out of the Scientology funding play book. entry fee super low to free your mind and spirit. but then get those invested to pay in more and more and more just to stay part of it, offering ittle to nothing but promising everything if the person just pays a little more

it has been ripped apart before and has proven to not even have understanding of setting up an independent nation.
all that is ever said is that they are not at that phase yet to make a comment.

in short "gimme money first and dont ask questions".

well i have this to say. since it has been many months since that rhetoric was used. im guessing that has been plenty of time to research how you would set up an independent nation (hint: im not talking about a boat or platform structure, im talking about law and politics)

so before money grabbing. explain the process (law and politics) of becoming a independent nation.. lets see if this scheme has learned anything since being ripped apart last time.
oh and here is a hint, dont use comments such as:
"only investors get privy to that info" or "just give us the funding so we can later investigate how".

also. im not sure what you are a co-owner of. can you explain what you specifically co-own as part of this scheme.

not sure why dannyhamilton wants to knit pick an arbitrary number..

i think the OP was thinking of THE FUTURE.. not today and came up with that number maybe because in
2012: 50btc at $6 was only $300 a reward
2012: 25btc at $20 was only $500 a reward
2013: 25btc at $120 was only $3,000 a reward
2014: 25btc at $240 was only $6,000 a reward
2015: 25btc at $360 was only $9,000 a reward
2016: 25btc at $480 was only $12,000 a reward
2017: 12.5btc at $1200 <-maybe which will amount to $15,000 a reward
future: as danny hamilton meant to have said.. stagnates or doesnt rise as much (not sure why he thinks it will drop)

the reward due to deflationary would either be stagnant or rise. so $15k is an acceptable number.
i see no issue with using $15,000 as a base arbitrary number.
although i see it being higher. definitely not lower

i see more of a knit pick of why argue about an arbitrary number by countering it based on a single point of data.. but thats just me

anyway for the OP
try not to base a future of a couple decades->century on numbers of a single valuation today.. look to the past and then speculate the future based on multiple data points/possibilities

so as time goes bitcoins deflationary fiat valuation goes up and the btc amount goes down so that over time the total reward changes.
eg
when the reward is 6.25 the valuation maybe $2,000/btc = $12,500 reward - add on some fee's to get to $15k
when the reward is 3.125 the valuation maybe $4,000/btc = $12,500 reward - add on some fee's to get to $15k
when the reward is 1.5625 the valuation maybe $8,000/btc = $12,500 reward - add on some fee's to get to $15k
when the reward is 0.78125 the valuation maybe $16,000/btc = $12,500 reward - add on some fee's to get to $15k
then we may see the valuation slow down and/or stagnate
when the reward is 0.390625 the valuation maybe $25,600/btc = $10,000 reward - add on some more fee's to get to $15k
when the reward is 0.1953125 the valuation maybe $38,400/btc = $7,500 reward - add on some more fee's to get to $15k
at which point the reward:txfee are 1:1 with an arbitrary $15k the OP picked

which in 24 years time, its possible bitcoin can be worth near $40k each and possible for transaction capacity to cover the other $7,500 without issues due to only needing 80,000 tx (32mb blocks). which personally i can see possible in 16 years, so 24 years is no problem

where miners then concentrate on fee's as the main income after that point. where the reward is then and only then thought of as the subsidy(bonus)
until 2140 when the tx fee becomes the only income.

of course no one can truly estimate when the flip of income:subsidy goes from reward:txfee  to   txfee:reward. but 16-30 years is a good safe timeframe to concern ourselves with.
as oppose to now now now or 75-120 years

yes and no

average transactions per block is more so 2500 at the moment
over the next few decades (and the last decade) technology changes and we should be able to expand transactions allowed per block that way cost per transaction is less. while also opening up more utility of bitcoin.

so far that has been delayed by alot of hostility and people thinking fee's need to go into panic mode rather then natural growth of transaction capacity.

say we did in 2013 move to 2mb..
say we will in 2017 move to 4mb..

thats obviously 2013=5000tx, 2017=10,000tx
then 2021=20,000tx, 2025=40,000tx, 2029=80,000tx
2032=160,000tx..

so in 16 years a tx would cost 10cents.

i know your thinking OMG 160,000tx bad bad bad..

but look just 16 years ago.
a hard drive was just 4gb MAX
internet was 56k MAX

today people can get harddrives 1000x bigger(4TB)
people can get internet 1000x bigger(56mb fibre)

so its safe to assume that over the next 16 years things will get bigger again.
imagine it complaining about the 2016 Call of Duty game needing 100gb of storage... but from the prospective of the year 2000
"WTF 100gb, its impossible, no one will ever play that game. its too big. it will only work on some data server"

yet millions of people are playing it.

so although blocksize needs to only double 6x.. and technology has been known to grow 1000 times.. there is no actual issue.
but hey. instead some cave dwellers want to hinder transaction utility/growth and cause a fee war now for payments that is not even an issue for DECADES

ask yourself. which is better
160,000 people paying 10cents each ($16,000)
4500 people paying $3.55 each ($16,000)

what if i told you that yes one black-market wont sell weed for bitcoin..
but due to the banking issues of federal regulations..
http://uk.businessinsider.com/americas-marijuana-companies-cant-put-money-in-banks-2015-11

THOUSANDS of white-markets will sell weed legally and allow it to be paid for using bitcoin LEGALLY

full answer
blocks occur on average 2016 blocks over 2 weeks.. meaning 1000 blocks in 2days and 1000blocks over 12 days is just as acceptable as the 2016 blocks evenly spread.
evenly spread it would work out as a block every 10 minutes. but bitcoin block confirmation are not that predictable/evenly spread.
its not coded as 10 minutes, but instead a human perception of average expectation

so even with a large fee, it does not magically get a block confirmed in 10 minutes because as i said blocks are not strict about the 10 minute rule.
its only an average human mind expectation.

however by not having an adequate fee, it probably wont get accepted into the next block, which adds more time waiting
in short
it could be a combination of both inadequate fee and also a longer than expected block confirmation.

al you can do is add an adequate fee to be acceptable in the next block.. and then hope the network doesnt take too long with the next block.
you may be lucky. some blocks happen in just 2 minutes.

questions.
1.
is the physical coin just a piece of metal with engravings on. or does it actually have a security seal on one side hiding a private key underneath and displaying a public key on the visible side of the seal to actually fund the physical coin.

2. giftset.. hmm i dont see more then a couple items. maybe worth also having a second option that includes a hardware wallet for a little extra in price. thus making it more of a set rather then a scrap of paper and a piece of metal

sorry to be harsh but seems more like a gimmick/novelty. rather than a real "starter set"
EG include a ledger nano hw.1 and sell it as a set for $50.. (but ensure the physical bitcoin can be funded, otherwise its not a physical bitcoin. and instead a bitcoin novelty paperweight)

'2mb blocksize' is less storage and bandwidth than '1mb base 4mb weight'
its literally simple maths: upto 2mb or upto 4mb..

thats the hypocritical thing.. core are actually the big blockers.. they want 4mb of data.. the strange thing is. by limiting the base to 1mb the total growth of serialised (complete) transactions is only 1.8mb capacity. but that then lets them fill the remaining 2.2mb of buffer space with non tx data. such as arbitrary codes for other features. EG you can fill that space with an invoice or write a book, or a reference to some mundane data..

meaning lets say 1mb block ~2500tx
1mb base 4mb weight ~4500tx (1.8mb bloat)
1mb base 4mb weight ~4500tx + arbitrary bloat code data (4mb bloat)

meaning core wants 4mb of data but still only ~4500 transactions (not legacy transaction, it has to be new segwit tx's to get that level)
yet nearly everyone else sees the logic of 2mb ~5000tx.. and later 4mb ~10000tx  of legacy transactions

but hey seems segwit it being ploughed through anyway. so the next logical consensus is
2mb base 4mb weight
so that segwit still functions but we can then presume to have ~9000tx ... but im sorry core, no spare space for them non essential codes to bloat up. thus keeping the blockchain lean and clean and used for transactions (which they wont agree to(facepalm))

as for the question of BU.
BU has been ACTIVELY running since last year. so has bitcoinj, xt, classic and many others.. these have not demanded a 14 day flag and 14 day grace to be active by christmas.
BU has just been open for anyone to use and if at some point 95% of nodes have a similar open consensus of dynamic blocksize increase and it reaches 95% agreement.. then it triggers the miners to also do a 95% flagging event. (giving more time for nodes to get more then 95%)
and then a grace period (giving even more time for nodes to get more than 95%). so by the time it actually activates the percentage of nodes already upgraded will be well over 95%.

unlike core, change rules first then get nodes to upgrade second. thus rendering the nodes not full nodes without choice, and then rush to regain their full node status and have to move funds from legacy keypairs to segwits HD seeds, auditing funds and merchants changing their customers deposit addresses and double checking it all worked out fine (facepalm)

im not even sure why 15th november was even picked.. most people know it would/should have been a block number.. however by using a date instead, highlights a rush schedule based on human concepts of a calendar/deadline. rather than a natural flow based on technicals

again for the last year anyone can run BU, classic, xt, bitcoinj etc etc, test it, review it, play around or just run it..
but core.. hmm.. only a few days old and they are begging for christmas activation, requiring trusting the devs