> The typo explanation is acceptable when I just see some comment I posted being reordered after a page refresh. It's less so if I get locked out of my account

> The typo explanation is acceptable when I just see some comment I posted being reordered after a page refresh. It's less so if I get locked out of my account because my password change hasn't fully replicated to all servers (and even less so if my consistency model doesn't converge). The typo model is merely meant to explain why it happened. You'd be no more happy if you were locked out of a door because a locksmith fat-fingered the code on setting a pin. Not all typos are harmless, and that wasn't the point of my analogy. Helping people understand why these technology mistakes happen -- through intuitive models like typos -- helps us discuss when mistakes are and aren't acceptable, and how we're going to address the cases where they're not. It simply gives me a way to discuss it with non-technical people: under what situations would a person doing the computer's job making a typo be catastrophic instead of merely annoying? Most managers or clients can understand that question, at an intuitive level. > But in most cases, I think its advisable to start with stronger consistency semantics and only weaken them when a need presents itself. Completely agree! Unless you have a specific reason it's necessary for you, you likely don't have to actually address the inconsistency directly and are better off letting the database handle that for you.