Experiment - Achieving consensus where there is disagreement

[adamstgBit]

if the poll shows 90%+ votes for one option for over 12hours, a donation will be made to https://worldaid.org/donate-bitcoin-for-charity/.

if you care about the poor kids in africa you'll change your vote.

[BitProdigy]

Just so everyone is aware, a modification of this experiment is going on here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1162199.20

In which the incentive to reach consensus is a chance to win free bitcoins!  The contest ends tonight at 3 AM so make sure change your vote to 90% before then so we all have a chance of winning!


For this experiment it may be the case that people do not care about poor kids in africa  perhaps it is not enough incentive… And also perhaps a time limit is required to reach a conclusions. Either way I like that there are two versions of the experiment so we can see which works best, participate in both!

[adamstgBit]

75% is at 51.1%

please change your votes to 75%, do it for the kids.

[BitProdigy]

[turvarya]

I guess, the only thing, this experiment will prove, is that there are always enough people on a forum to troll an experiment.
I don't think, you can apply that to Bitcoin.

[coins101]

75% is at 51.1%

please change your votes to 75%, do it for the kids.

Just be the benevolent dictator and drop the hammer on what you prefer. People can deal with it or go play with the traffic.

[Mickeyb]

I guess, the only thing, this experiment will prove, is that there are always enough people on a forum to troll an experiment.
I don't think, you can apply that to Bitcoin.

Well at least around here we have enough of these famous trolls. I mean this must be the forum with the most trolls out on the Internet. If we would be able to pay them for their trolling, they would be already rich.

[adamstgBit]

did anyone vote anything other then 75% and isn't trolling?

why? please lets hear your thoughts.

[BitProdigy]

did anyone vote anything other then 75% and isn't trolling?

why? please lets hear your thoughts.

I changed my vote to 75% because I think it has the best chance at gaining 90%  (ironically 90% is well in the lead on the modified experiment poll)

[Za1n]

did anyone vote anything other then 75% and isn't trolling?

why? please lets hear your thoughts.

I voted higher than 75% as I was thinking about bitcoin and think majority consent should be set to a higher standard for more serious discussions. While 75% may seem like a good majority I think too many people go with the crowd, so it might not represent their true feelings.

I know plenty of people even in real life elections are influenced by polls and vote for the candidate in the lead as they "Don't want to waste their vote on a losing candidate" which if they would step back they would realize their vote is wasted by not voting for who they feel would do the best job, regardless of outcome. Since so many people do this, their beliefs become a self-fulfilling prophesy. Thus why I think 75% is too low to represent a true consensus, as at least a third of that 75% are too easily influenced in their views. In other words I believe only a fraction of the majority really understand and have a deep commitment to their view, or a follow the herd mentality.

As far as to the accuracy of this poll, I feel along with the above statements, that there will simply be people to try and disrupt your poll for the fun of it (trolling).

[Keyser Soze]

did anyone vote anything other then 75% and isn't trolling?

why? please lets hear your thoughts.

I voted 95% and am not trolling. This thread has not given a compelling argument to change my mind, my opinion cannot be bought out so easily.

[adamstgBit]

did anyone vote anything other then 75% and isn't trolling?

why? please lets hear your thoughts.

I voted 95% and am not trolling. This thread has not given a compelling argument to change my mind, my opinion cannot be bought out so easily.

well 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 simple go ahead with the change anyway. 95% is ideal but not a good minimal limit.

[Keyser Soze]

well 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 simple go ahead with the change anyway. 95% is ideal but not a good minimal limit.

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

[adamstgBit]

well 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 simple go ahead with the change anyway. 95% is ideal but not a good minimal limit.

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

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.

[coins101]

Consider it from an average user point of view, which would likely be: wtf? Just get the lowest possible robust threshold (75%) to win in order to get things moving.

If you have invested in mining, you don't ever want to find yourself out in the cold mining a useless chain. As soon as most people agree on something, you would want to switch over and follow the crowd.

Keeping the vote open for a near 100% majority just extends the voting time, which users might view as a risk to their 'store of value'.

What's the worst that could happen? Bad fork? Revert. DDoS attacks? Revert.

[rebuilder]

The miner support level needs to be such that it's extremely unlikely the fork could turn out to be the weaker of the two. 75% with two weeks lead time seems reasonable assuming honest miners.

However, a miner with more than 25% of total hashrate could cause the fork pretty serious damage by mining bigger blocks (in the current case) just long enough to trigger the fork, and then reverting back to the old software. This would leave the "new" fork weaker than the "old" one. Granted, it'd also be quite expensive and the results for miners needing to sell their coins would be unpredictable. But it's an attack within the realm of possibility given a determined, large miner.

To avoid the latter attack, the required miner support level needs to be something like 50% + % of hashrate held by the largest single or colluding mining operation(s).

[adamstgBit]

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

if all BIPs were all equally good you'd expect the voting to reflect that.

[rebuilder]

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

I meant more of a scenario where the BIP has support in the range of 50% and a large miner on the opposing side gets worried. With sufficient hashrate, they have the option to force the fork and then destroy the fork. I'm not sure the financial incentives would ever really be there, but looking at the debate, it seems more like a blue vs. red battle than a rational discussion, so you have to assume stupid things can get done.

edit: of course, currently there's no single pool that could do this. I guess I just like poking at obscure scenarios...

[Keyser Soze]

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

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.

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.

[BitProdigy]

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.

I agree, Andreas Antonopoulos suggests that 75% is a trigger for a signal to the network that consensus is about to be reached and everyone should at that point change to the proposal that has reached that point. There is then a "grace period" I don't know if it's two weeks or what time frame it is but the goal at that point is to then hit the threshold of 95% before making the actual transition.

This suggests that 75% supermajority is different than the 95% consensus, which of course in the end 100% is the real goal.