I've only partially followed this debate, but I'm somewhat curious... Was Mike the first person to suggest that defeat strength in a pairwise comparison should be defined by the number of winning votes, rather than the number of winning votes minus the number of losing votes? If so, when was this suggestion made, exactly? If not, then who made the suggestion previously? I don't know much of the background here, but it seems that if Mike was the first to propose this definition of defeat strength for use with minimax, he should at least receive partial credit for the application of the same definition to other base methods (e.g. ranked pairs, beatpath). Just my two cents about a debate that I don't claim to fully understand.
my best, James ---- Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info