[jp57]

This is interesting, though I'd point out that "consensus" actually means something different than a simple majority agreement. It means "broad agreement". Almost nobody would consider a 51/49 vote split among a large group as consensus; and even 3/2 in a committee of five would be a stretch, especially if the two in the minority are united on an opposing alternative proposal.

I'm not sure that invalidates the core of the post, though, since I think a different consensus criterion could be substituted without losing the substance of the game.

[curtisf]

"Consensus" in this post refers to the "consensus problem", which is a fundamental and well-known problem in distributed systems.

It's not about political consensus.

However, the paper that introduced it and proved it possible, Lamport's "The Part Time Parliament", used an involved (and often cited as confusing) "Parliament" metaphor for computers in a distributed system

"Consensus" in distributed systems need not be limited to majorities; it really just requires no "split brain" is possible. For example, "consensus" is achieved by making one server the leader, and giving other servers no say. A majority is just the 'quorum' which remains available with that largest number of unavailable peers possible.

[jerf]

As feedback to the author, I made the same mistake initially. It was only around halfway through when I realized the voters in question didn't necessarily care what they were voting for in the usual preferential or political sense, only that they were trying to have any consensus at all.

Looking back at the page again from the top, I see the first paragraph references Paxos, which is a clue to those who know what that is, but I think using "There’s a committee of five members that tries to choose a color for a bike shed" as the example, which is the canonical case for people arguing personal preferences and going to the wall for them at the expense of every other rational consideration, threw me back off the trail. I'd suggest perhaps the sample problem being something as trivial as that in reality, but less pre-loaded with the exact opposite connotation.

[hammock]

> it really just requires no "split brain" is possible. For example, "consensus" is achieved by making one server the leader, and giving other servers no say.

Which is funny, because that actually describes political consensus as well, functionally, even if it’s not what people typically think of as the definition.

If you can effect enough of the right censorship or silencing or cancelling, you can achieve consensus (aka no split brain, at least no split with agency)

[stoneman24]

And that’s before we look at whether the participants form a quorate group (sufficient people are present to make a valid choice).

Then we could consider whether all participants have the same voting power. My son has a strong vote on what to paint his room but much less on where to go on holiday.

Need to consider whether the votes could be hidden and revealed at the end to avoid intimidation.