so ethereum was an intentional split. rather then changing the rules for everyone to head in a single direction and let orphans take care of the minorty.
That doesn't mean it was intended to split the network. They intended for everyone to update to the fork. That code was included in case not enough hashpower updated before the DAO attacker could move his funds. This is similar to Mike Hearn's "checkpointing" in XT -- in case XT became the minority chain, keep the rules intact.
Are you saying consensus rule changes should be decided by "orphaning"? How would that even work? The reason a network split occurs in a hard fork is because
users haven't updated, and so some miners return to that chain.
Those users won't even see the rule-breaking chain no matter how long it is. "Those users won't even see the rule-breaking chain no matter how long it is. "
because they blacklist the nodes transmitting the changed rule.. to not even get that changed rule block
without blacklisting rule changed nodes. then "those users" will see the rule changed block but will orphan off the rule changed blocks, because that is how the consensus mechanism works. if a block is seen that doesnt match the rules, its orphaned.
separately if a node blacklists rule changed nodes.. then they wont even talk to each other to use the orphan consensus mechanism.. meaning that both sides are not orphaning each other and instead working as independent chains.
again it requires blacklisting opposing nodes to avoid the consensus mechanism to keep a minority chain alive. other wise orphaning will take care of the "battle" in a thunderdome scenario(2 enter 1 leave). which is exactly how the consensus mechanism works.
its been working every day, an average of 2 blocks a day occur due to them not fitting the rules of the majority