Re: Robonson wins; Debian v monotonicity (was Re: Some analysis of DPL 2003 results
On Mon, Apr 21, 2003 at 09:46:06PM +1200, Craig Carey wrote: This is a lengthy argument against the current Debian problem of wrongly rejecting Mr Branden Robinson who would almost certainly be the winner if the method of the last election was maximally proportional (and passing P2) and monotonic. I.e. the method then is almost the smallest adjustment that 'debugs' the unfair Alternative Vote method. argument against .. Debian problem. By your argument Debian has no problem? I'm still trying to decide whether the first two lines above can be read two ways or not. I'll tentatively congratulate you on a well constructed troll, but rise to the bait anyway. :) This DPL election will probably make an interesting case for the election reform movement: where a strict IRV vote (discarding some valid Condorcet votes in favor of only linearly-ranked votes) would have selected one candidate (B) when the majority would have preferred another (M). Having three strong candidates, and no clear linear relation between them all is very real-world, reflecting candidates and an electorate who have more than a single issue in mind. The first time IRV selects a candidate who does not have popular (if not extreme) support will probably also be it's last time, and probably be such an ugly mess that election reform in the U.S. will be set back a generation or two, and (if not already at rock bottom) further erode the public's faith in the electoral system. In the case of a volunteer association, it would probably have a negative impact on the membership rolls. Those who argue that IRV encourages voter turnout in Australia may be unaware that election officials go door to door after major elections handing out $100 citations unless you can come up with a really good reason. Not Australian works. Turnout under duress isn't all that interesting a figure on the merit of an election system. More than half of the Australians I knew were pretty unhappy with their elected representatives. I'm not sure that's even better than plurality. None were suspicious of their electoral system, but I suspect that's more a difference between Australians and Americans rather than a difference between IRV and plurality voting systems. smudging the weight of the paper. This is like the essay grading technique - throwing them down a staircase and grading based on how far they go? I really like the arguments like the bad election method is bad. If this was a real post and not a troll ... you need to be a *bit* less emphatic with your opinions and more clear with your justifications. The modification of IRV to handle equally ranked ballots was clear, but pretty irrelevant with respect to the validity of Debian's Condorcet method. -Drake [just a Debian voter who was satisfied with the results and saw no problem]
Re: Election status
On Tue, Apr 02, 2002 at 06:11:41PM -0600, Manoj Srivastava wrote: And what does that buy us over md5sum(loginid + vote + token)? Easier for the voter to verify that it's the right md5sum for the loginid+vote+token? Otherwise only those intimately familiar with the vote encoding are at all likely to verify their votes - the author alone most likely. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Election status
On Tue, Apr 02, 2002 at 06:11:41PM -0600, Manoj Srivastava wrote: And what does that buy us over md5sum(loginid + vote + token)? Easier for the voter to verify that it's the right md5sum for the loginid+vote+token? Otherwise only those intimately familiar with the vote encoding are at all likely to verify their votes - the author alone most likely. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: PROPOSED: [CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT] Alternate disambiguation of 4.1.5
On Tue, Oct 10, 2000 at 12:32:00PM -0500, John Goerzen wrote: It seems to me that a 3:1 majority is exceedingly excessive; requiring 75% of people to agree seems to me to be an unreasonably high limit. -- John The other viewpoint: one "simple" vote and 25% of Developers have the Constitution yanked from under them. Seems like a classic Tyranny of the Majority illustrated so well by the way bannana republics like the U.S. and Australia treat their minority populations. On a related issue, supermajorities aren't quite this simple though. I cannot quite fathom how supermajorities and Condorcet counting work together, and this bothers me. Hopefully the Secretary will present us with very simple supermajority ballots so that the working is more obvious than the general case. I think I would encourage people to rank whatever they wish 1st, and Further Discussion 2nd on supermajority ballots so that options not supported by 75% of the membership as their first preference cannot pass. A.6. Concorde Vote Counting 7. If a supermajority is required the number of Yes votes in the final ballot is reduced by an appropriate factor. Strictly speaking, for a supermajority of F:A, the number of ballots which prefer Yes to X (when considering whether Yes Dominates X or X Dominates Yes) or the number of ballots whose first (remaining) preference is Yes (when doing STV comparisons for winner and elimination purposes) is multiplied by a factor A/F before the comparison is done. This means that a 2:1 vote, for example, means twice as many people voted for as against; abstentions are not counted. 8. If a quorum is required, there must be at least that many votes which prefer the winning option to the default option. If there are not then the default option wins after all. For votes requiring a supermajority, the actual number of Yes votes is used when checking whether the quorum has been reached. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Non-Constitutional Voting Procedure
On Thu, Sep 28, 2000 at 01:12:42AM -0500, Joseph Carter wrote: I would reasonably assume (obviously a mistake when dealing with bureacracies) that if the secretary needs to make a decision, they should interpret the constitution, not throw it out and do whatever the hell they want. The secretary could (no obligation) appoint (7.1.4) another person to decide whether the secretary's decision was constitutional. [I doubt anyone viewed as impartial by all sides would be willing to make this decision] The controversial GR could be dropped and restarted including a constitutional amendment clearly allowing the modification of the social contract. Alternatively you could appeal the Secretary's decision by calling for a General Rsolution to overturn this decision (4.1.3), and then using section 4.2.2.3 (interpretted broadly by the Secretary ) call for an immediate vote (carried out by the Secretary) on whether to block the other GR's until the appeal on overruling the Secretary could be taken to a full vote (again carried out by the Secretary) before demanding the Secretary conduct a vote that he believes is unconstitutional. Or the Secretary could quit, which would have to be an appealing alternative to the mind numbing scenario painted above. I don't really know whether he made the right decision. He may have interpretted the original GR as unconstitutional, and recast it as a one-time amendment allowing the necesary capability in order to bring this to vote in two ballots rather than three. Or he may have interpretted the Social Contract as part of the constitution, making John's GR an amendment directly. Having read his powers, maybe he can do these things. The constitution is a bit vague on how proposals and amendments are to be bundled into ballots, and it's the Secretary's job to resolve these amiguities and post a ballot. Perhaps the constitution should be made more concrete in this area, and simplify the task of both the Secretary and the proponents of amendments. When Ian J wrote the first draft of this constitution I asked him a few questions about this Secretary post, which I described to him as a single point of failure. In response Ian J mentioned that GR's could overrule Secretarial decisions, and added the bit about the Secretary appointing a deputy to take over when they weren't able to respond. I then missed the final draft and vote due to personal reasons. :/ Our first GR, and it looks like we've found several unexpected bugs in the constitution, in addition to the Concorde [sic] vote counting issue. We probably better straighten these all out before the next controversial general resolution, but it's far too late for this one.
Re: Non-Constitutional Voting Procedure
On Thu, Sep 28, 2000 at 06:08:37PM -0500, Ean R . Schuessler wrote: I was not saying that FTP would become obsolete, I was saying that CDs will become obsolete. debian-manifesto It is also an attempt to create a non-commercial distribution that will be able to effectively compete in the commercial market. It will eventually be distributed by The Free Software Foundation on CD-ROM, and The Debian Linux Association will offer the distribution on floppy disk and tape along with printed manuals, technical support and other end-user essentials. All of the above will be available at little more than cost, and the excess will be put toward further development of free software for all users. Such distribution is essential to the success of the Linux operating system in the commercial market, and it must be done by organizations in a position to successfully advance and advocate free software without the pressure of profits or returns. Note that a great many of the packages in non-free are also anti-commercial. These packages *won't* be distributed by commercial distributors as that is specifically banned in their licenses. If you reply that That's not Debian's problem I'll counter by saying it is very clearly a problem for some members of Debian, else those packages would not exist. non-free was defined later for the specific technical purpose of creating a CDROM that could be duplicated by commercial outfits without seeking special license exemptions. And don't you just live the mention of distribution by floppy. How many would that be now? :) Tape.. how many Debian users have ever even used a tape drive? The manifesto hardly needs editting, it's an entertaining historical document. Too bad it hasn't aged as well as the early U.S. political documents or the GNU documents.
