On Sun, 09 Oct 2005 00:07:55 -0700 Rob Lanphier wrote:
On Sat, 2005-10-08 at 21:30 -0500, Paul Kislanko wrote:
All of the gobblydegoog aside, to Rob - we don't care what you want, us
voters want to NOT have to rank all altertantives. I want to list only the
ones I find acceptable in the order I prefer them. Any method that
"encourages" me to rank all alterntatives whether I know anything about them
or care about them will just encourage me to not vote.
Perhaps, while understanding the frustration Paul is expressing, I can
phrase it so others can understand. Trying for three groups:
Hopefuls - We need to invest as much time as we can find on these,
to try to identify the best and get them elected.
Hopeless - because of the above need, we cannot afford more time on
these than it takes to decide they are hopeless. Note that voting these
other than equal we would be helping/hurting their chances - and even that
is destructive if we have found no reason for such.
Lemons - we want to be actively negative on these, for that is what
our analysis directs (these are logically unranked - if none of these,
hopeless can reasonably be unranked).
Paul,
Here's the problem with that philosophy. Let's say there are three
credible front-runners: "mediocre", "bad" and "worse". I would hope
many voters would like to be able to express both that "bad" and "worse"
are unacceptable, while also expressing their preference of "bad" to
"worse".
And we certainly should rank these three according to what we see. The
argument is what to do with the hopeless, which we see as deserving equal
ranking.
The sad fact of the matter is that when there's genuine disagreement
about candidates, we have to compromise. The only way to accurately
find the compromise is if voters are actually encouraged to state what
they'd settle for to avoid their worst outcome.
Nothing wrong with your words, PROVIDED you accept our ranking the
hopeless as equally undesirable.
As to whether "we don't care what you want", who is the "we" you think
you are speaking for?
We the potential voters, to whoever is demanding that we rank the
hopeless as other than having the equal undesirability we see there.
Rob
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
] On Behalf Of MIKE OSSIPOFF
Sent: Saturday, October 08, 2005 8:50 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [EM] Re: Rob: MDDA vs BeatpathWinner
Rob--
You wrote:
The one major objection I have [to MDDA] is the lack of
truncation resistance - I really hope we can find a system that
encourages a full ranking. It seems that MDDA would tend to
discourage
ranking anyone below a plausible frontrunner, if I understand it
correctly.
I reply:
Not necessarily. For the person who needs and wants to make
use of FBC
compliance, then yes, that person will equal-top-rank the
acceptables, and
power truncate the unacceptables. If power truncation isn't
available, then
s/he will truncate them or rank them in reverse order of winnability.
Likewise, s/he'd sometimes rank the unacceptables in reverse order of
winnability in BeatpathWinner, if offensive-order-reversal
deterrence isn't
the primary consideration. S/he must judge if offensive
order-reversal is a
threat, and, based on that, whether to truncate or
strategically rank. With
MDDA there similarly would be a choice between truncation and
strategic
ranking. Truncate if you think you can best beat all the
unacceptables in
the Approval count. Strategically rank if you think you can
best beat them
all by making majority defeats against eachother. With power
truncation you
don't have that concern: Just power truncate them. Much simpler than
BeatpathWinner or unenhanced MDDA).
But I'm saying that SFC compliance is for the person who
doesn't need FBC,
for the sincere voter. If you believe you're in a
sincere-voting majority,
then you can freely rank all the candidates, and you're
assured that no one
that your majority like less than the CW will win. That
doesn't require any
truncation, or any kind of strategy.
So it isn't that MDDA forces you to truncate. It depends on which
criterion-compliance you want to use, which kind of strategy
you want to
use, what kind of a voter you are. The two kinds of strategy,
the mix of
criterion-compliances, makes MDDA more versatile than BeatpathWinner.
You continued:
I'd also really like to rename SFC to something that is more
descriptive
of what's measured. If a system encourages truncation, it can't
truthfully be called "strategy free".
I reply:
I haven't named MDDA "Strategy-Free". When Kevin devised and
introduced
MDDA, we agreed on the name MDDA.
But MDDA is indeed strategy-free for a majority with the
conditions and goal
described in SFC. SFC describes condidtions under which a
majority can
ensure that no one worse than the CW wins, without using any
strategy, with
complying methods. So yes, SFC is about strategy-freeness, where it's
possible.
Such subjective titles don't
serve us well anyway. "Majority Pairwise Winner" would be an accurate
and suitable name, but certainly not the only one.
I reply:
The words strategy-free describe SFC's guarantee.
Strategy-freeness where
it's possible.
You continued:
I've contemplated
"Majority Condorcet Winner", but using "Condorcet" in the name isn't
helpful, since I don't think Condorcet ever proposed anything
like that.
I reply:
That Condorcet didn't propose SFC, or a name for it, doesn't
mean that it
wouldn't be appropriate to name SFC for its protection of CWs, or its
relation to the Condorcet Criterion.
I sometimes refer to SFC as Condorcet's Criterion for
majorities. And I
sometimes refer to GSFC as the Smith Criterion for majorities.
I have no objection to those names in the paragraph before
this one. If
others prefer them, I'd be glad to use them. Then, I'd capitalize
"Majorities", so the criteria would be "Condorcet's Criterion for
Majorities" and "The Smith Criterion for Majorities".
But I feel that "Strategy-Free Criterion" describes what
makes them the
pinnacle of the promise of rank-balloting.
Mike Ossipoff
--
[EMAIL PROTECTED] people.clarityconnect.com/webpages3/davek
Dave Ketchum 108 Halstead Ave, Owego, NY 13827-1708 607-687-5026
Do to no one what you would not want done to you.
If you want peace, work for justice.
----
Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info