Markus--
You say:
I proposed that heuristic for the Schulze method that uses Schwartz sets in 1998:
[...]
I reply:
Yes, Markus, you just finished posting those two links, and I just finished commenting on them. I guess it will be necessary for me to repeat what I said: You posted a definition of CSSD. SSD is not CSSD. Well, that isn't everything that I said, but I'm not willing to say it all over again just because you repeat what you said yesterday.
You say:
In Feb 2000, we discussed which Condorcet method should be proposed to the Debian project. See e.g. here:
I reply:
You weren't included in that discussion, because it was felt that you'd advocate one particular method without being willing to consider other proposals. Maybe there was also some discussion about that on EM.
You continue:
In your 15 Feb 2000 mail, you discussed 3 methods: "Drop Contradicted Defeats" (DCD), "Sequential Dropping" (SD), and Schulze:
I reply:
As I said yesterday, and as I said last month, in reply to the same repeated statement: At that time I thought that "Schulze's method" meant BeatpathWinner. But last month you clarified that "Schulze's method" does not mean BeatpathWinner, because BeatpathWinner is an instance of a larger class of methods that you call "Schulze's method".
You apparently have nothing to do but repeat the same statements that you made yesterday.
You continue:
Then in your 18 Feb 2000 mail, the term "Schwartz Sequential Dropping" (SSD) was used for the very first time. In that mail, you did not only admit that you knew my method, you also admitted that you were aware that SSD _is_ my method:
I reply:
At that time I thought that BeatpathWinner was your method, not realizing at that time what "Schulze's method" actually means. And, as I said yesterday, and as I said last month, in reply to the same repeated statement, I, at that earlier time, carelessly said that SSD is equivalent to BeatpathWinner, because it's equivalent to BeatpathWinner when there are no pairwise ties. When there are pairwise ties, SSD is not equivalent to BeatpathWinner. CSSD is equivalent to BeatpathWinner, but SSD is not. I've admitted that error last month, and yesterday, but you keep repeating that quote.
You continue:
Therefore, it is clear (1) that you knew my method when you "devised" SSD
I reply:
I knew of BeatpathWinner when I and Eppley devised SSD. I at that time thought that BeatpathWinner was you rmethod, because at that time I didn't realiize that, as you said last month, "Schulze's method" means something different.
I didn't know of your CSSD definition, because I hadn't read those postings, and didn't know what count rule they described. But that's irrelevant, because SSD is not CSSD.
You continue:
and (2) that it was clear to you from the very beginning that SSD _is_ my method.
I reply:
I and Steve had never heard of SSD or CSSD at the time when we devised SSD. But, in any case, SSD is not CSSD, and is not your method in any sense. Even if we had known about CSSD, SSD is not CSSD, and is not your method.
I'd said:
Where did SSD come from? In individual e-mail, Steve Eppley suggested a method that successively drops the weakest defeat among the smallest set of candidates that is unbeaten from without. SSD is an Eppley-Ossipoff method.
You say:
Please forward this communication between Steve Eppley and you.
I reply:
I don't save e-mail back to those days. But my mention of SSD on EM is in the EM archives. That's really all you need.
You continue:
I would like to know why (although you considered neither independence of clones nor reversal symmetry important and although Steve Eppley decided to promote Tideman's ranked pairs method) you decided to promote SSD.
I reply:
SSD is clone independent in public elections. Only in small commitee voting, where there can be pairwise ties, is SSD not clone-independent.
I advocate SSD for public elections. For small committees I recommend CSSD or Beatpathwinner.
So SSD is clone independent for the application for which I recommend it.
Reversal symmetry? You're right. I don't consider reversal symmetry important. Pretty much all criteria sound plausible and desirable, but that doesn't make them important. I'm not going to argue with you about whether reversal symmetry is important. You're welcome to believe that it's important.
You ask why I decided to promote SSD. Because it's clone-independent in public elections, and because it meets SFC, GSFC, WDSC, and SDSC. And because it doesn't require mention of cycles or beatpaths.
And you seem surprised that I'd promote SSD when Steve prefers MAM. Why do you expect me to copy Steve on that? Actually, Ranked-Pairs has a very brief definition, if we ignore the rules for equal defeats. But those equal defeat rules can't be completely left out. And RP's definition, directly or indirectly, mentions cycles. So I consider SSD to be a better public proposal.
In the matter of SSD vs RP, in terms of pure merit, in public elections, RP might very well be _very slightly_ more aesthetically appealing, because RP, unlike BeatpathWinner, CSSD, or SSD, never lets a nullilfied defeat participate in the nullification of other defeats.
But I consider the merit differences between RP and SSD completely negligible in public elections. That's where Steve and I disagree. What's wrong with disagreeing?
So I propose what, it seems to me, is more likely to be accepted.
I'd said:
We've recently been all over that. I won't repeat that argument, but, to summarize the conclusion that we reached recently, I admitted that I was mistaken when I thought that "Schulze's method" means the method that I call "BeatpathWinner". "Schulze's method" does not mean BeatpathWinner.
You say:
Your "reply" doesn't make any sense. In 2000, you _defined_ the term "beatpath winner" as a synonym for the Schulze method.
I reply:
At that time I mistakenly believed that 'Schulze's method" meant the count rule that I call "BeatpathWinner". I've only explained that about five times in the last 24 hours, and at least a dozen times last month.
You continue:
The term "beatpath winner" hadn't been used before.
I reply:
Correct. I coined that name for the method that I still call by that name. The method that I mistakenly thought that "Schulze's method" meant.
You continue:
Therefore, it doesn't make any sense when you now claim that you only mistakenly believed that "beatpath winner" was a synonym for the Schulze method.
I reply:
I coined "BeatpathWinner" as the name for the count rule that I still call by that name. Earlier, I mistakenly believed that "Schulze's method" meant that count rule.
You continue:
The terms "beatpath winner" and "Schulze method" are synonymous terms because you _defined_ them to be synonymous terms.
I reply:
I coined "BeatpathWinner" to refer to the count rule that I still call by that name. At the time you're referring to, I mistakenly believed that "Schulze's method" meant that count rule.
Now, if you have anything more to say, you might want to try to be sure that it's something new, something different from what you've already been saying. To most, that might be an obvious good idea, but it's something that you don't seem to understand.
If you post more repetition of those same statements that I've already answered many times, I won't reply. No one can stop you from posting the same statements again, and, knowing you, it's a safe bet that you will. But I'm not going to answer them again for you. I won't reply.
Mike Ossipoff
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