Re: Call for votes for the Condorcet/Clone proof SSD voting methods GR
On Tue, Jun 10, 2003 at 10:41:13PM -0700, John H. Robinson, IV wrote: Raul Miller wrote: On Tue, Jun 10, 2003 at 08:30:33PM -0700, John H. Robinson, IV wrote: case in point: as we add more voters that actively vote _against_ a proposal, we can cause an option to ``fail to meet quorum.'' This is completely false. Proposed change: A.6.3 Any (non-default) option which does not defeat the default option ...which doesn't talk about quorum at all. What was that about misleading at best, or outright false at face value ? Cheers, aj -- Anthony Towns [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/ I don't speak for anyone save myself. GPG signed mail preferred. ``Dear Anthony Towns: [...] Congratulations -- you are now certified as a Red Hat Certified Engineer!'' -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Call for votes for the Condorcet/Clone proof SSD voting methods GR
On Tue, Jun 10, 2003 at 08:30:33PM -0700, John H. Robinson, IV wrote: case in point: as we add more voters that actively vote _against_ a proposal, we can cause an option to ``fail to meet quorum.'' This is completely false. -- Raul
Re: Call for votes for the Condorcet/Clone proof SSD voting methods GR
On Tue, 10 Jun 2003 20:30:33 -0700, John H Robinson, IV [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: case in point: as we add more voters that actively vote _against_ a proposal, we can cause an option to ``fail to meet quorum.'' that goes against every applicable definition of quorum that i can come across. Can you demonstrate that with an example, please? As far as I can tell, this is very wrong, or at best shows a misunderstanding of the proposal. manoj -- There... I've run rings 'round you logically Monty Python's Flying Circus Manoj Srivastava [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.debian.org/%7Esrivasta/ 1024R/C7261095 print CB D9 F4 12 68 07 E4 05 CC 2D 27 12 1D F5 E8 6E 1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B 924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C
Re: Call for votes for the Condorcet/Clone proof SSD voting methods GR
On Tue, Jun 10, 2003 at 10:41:13PM -0700, John H. Robinson, IV wrote: Raul Miller wrote: On Tue, Jun 10, 2003 at 08:30:33PM -0700, John H. Robinson, IV wrote: case in point: as we add more voters that actively vote _against_ a proposal, we can cause an option to ``fail to meet quorum.'' This is completely false. Proposed change: A.6.3 Any (non-default) option which does not defeat the default option ...which doesn't talk about quorum at all. What was that about misleading at best, or outright false at face value ? Cheers, aj -- Anthony Towns [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/ I don't speak for anyone save myself. GPG signed mail preferred. ``Dear Anthony Towns: [...] Congratulations -- you are now certified as a Red Hat Certified Engineer!''
Re: Call for votes for the Condorcet/Clone proof SSD voting methods GR
On Tue, Jun 10, 2003 at 06:59:14PM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote: On Wed, Jun 11, 2003 at 01:03:39AM +1000, Hamish Moffatt wrote: As an aside, where is the constituition located on www.d.o, http://www.debian.org/devel/constitution and why doesn't the search engine find any references to it at all? ...can't help you with that one. I guess that'd be because I spelt it wrong :-| -- Hamish Moffatt VK3SB [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Call for votes for the Condorcet/Clone proof SSD voting methods GR
On Wed, Jun 11, 2003 at 01:03:39AM +1000, Hamish Moffatt wrote: why doesn't the search engine find any references to [the constitution] at all? Please file a bug... (Note that the first match on the site map for constitution works.) -- 2. That which causes joy or happiness.
Re: Call for votes for the Condorcet/Clone proof SSD voting methods GR
Hamish Moffatt wrote: For the benefit of the average non-voting-geek Debian developer, could the proponents of this amendment please explain what problem it attempts to solve, with real life examples? The main problem is that the existing voting system as described in the Debian Constitution is poorly defined, with some inherent contradictions. It wasn't looked at too closely when the Constitution was first developed. Among other problems: It tries to implement a Condorcet-based voting system, but calls it Concorde instead; it has the property that if there is no clear winner (what Condorcet proponents would call an ideal democratic winner or a Condorcet winner, then all the options are rejected before a winner is chosen from the remaining options, etc. There were also severe questions as to how the supermajority requirements should be implemented. These issues came to a head when a GR was proposed a modification to the Social Contract that would eliminate the commitment by Debian to support the non-free section. It became clear that any ballot would contain an amendment to the SC (viewed as requiring a supermajority to change), a proposed policy statement (viewed as requiring only a simple majority), and the default option. A review of the constitution to figure out how to conduct such a vote provided more confusion than answers. So the secretary decided to shelve the non-free GR until the voting issues were cleared up. It's been a while, however. An explanation of why we need such a complicated system at all would be interesting too. Simple reason: When you get more than two choices to vote for, all election methods suck (lookup Arrow's Theorem for a proof of this), but some suck more than others. We want to find an election method that has a minimal amount of suckiness for our goals. More complicated reason: While normal voting methods and procedures are sufficient for deliberation in person, where everything can be settled by multiple procedural votes, online deliberations have more complicated requirements, requiring more complicated voting procedures. We have the following complications: 1) We want to have as few votes as possible to settle an issue, since each vote requires two weeks to run in order to get the most input. This means that we can't follow a traditional procedural amendment process -- each vote has to have all proposed (and seconded) amendments on it, and the procedure has to select from among them. 2) We want to be conservative, and err towards continuing discussion, if we can't achieve some sense of consensus on an issue. As such, we want to require continuing discussion to always be a ballot option 3) Very often more than a yes/no or either/or choice -- 3+-way decisions are the norm and possibly required. This is because of the multiple variant issue mentioned in (1) above, and because of the continue discussion option mentioned in (2). 4) Some options must be approved by a supermajority. Other options don't. So some votes will be a mixture of supermajority requirements. 5) And we want some justifiable semblance of majoritarian rule. The most common method, where everyone gets to vote for one (and only one) option, and the option with the most votes wins suck big-time, because in the presence of lots of options, the vote tends to get split to the point where it's hard to justify saying any particular option has a majority. The methods chosen by Debian, both in the current constitution and in the proposed constitutional amendment, are variants on a method developed by a scientist named Condorcet over 200 years ago in France. Condorcet was trying to answer the question what does majoritarian rule mean when there are three or more candidates in an election?. In a two-way election, it's easy to see what majority rule was -- whoever got the most votes would win. But in a three-way race, it's possible for no candidate to get the majority of votes. He proposed the principle that if there was a single candidate who, when pitted against all others in two-candidate, one-on-one races, would win all those other races, then that single candidate should be the winner. Both the current and proposed election methods are at least supposed to have that property. But Condorcet's principle doesn't say anything about what to do when there is no single candidate that would be undefeated against all other candidates one-on-one. Some evidence (via simulated elections) seems to show that in 95% of elections there will be a Condorcet winner, but in 5% there won't. Hence any election method has to be enhanced to deal with that issue. The particular technique proposed here is called Cloneproof Schwartz Sequential Dropping (cSSD), which refers to some specific properties of the technique -- it is impervious to certain types of election strategy. Standard cSSD solves many problems; it allows for as many ballot options as we choose, including a default keep talking
Re: Call for votes for the Condorcet/Clone proof SSD voting methods GR
On Sat, Jun 07, 2003 at 09:37:22PM -0500, Manoj Srivastava wrote: Hi,, This is the second call for votes for the Condorcet/Clone proof SSD voting methods GR. Apparently, the first call did not make it to d-d-a. For the benefit of the average non-voting-geek Debian developer, could the proponents of this amendment please explain what problem it attempts to solve, with real life examples? An explanation of why we need such a complicated system at all would be interesting too. Follow-ups to debian-vote, please. As an aside, where is the constituition located on www.d.o, and why doesn't the search engine find any references to it at all? Hamish -- Hamish Moffatt VK3SB [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Call for votes for the Condorcet/Clone proof SSD voting methods GR
Hello, On Wed, Jun 11, 2003 at 01:03:39AM +1000, Hamish Moffatt wrote: For the benefit of the average non-voting-geek Debian developer, could the proponents of this amendment please explain what problem it attempts to solve, with real life examples? An explanation of why we need such a complicated system at all would be interesting too. I'm no real proponent of Manoj's amendment, but maybe you will find my debian voting system information page at http://www.mathematik.uni-kl.de/~wwwstoch/voss/comp/vote.html useful. It answers some of your questions and contains pointers to further information. As an aside, where is the constituition located on www.d.o, and why doesn't the search engine find any references to it at all? My page contains a link to the constitution :-) I hope this helps, Jochen -- Omm (0)-(0) http://www.mathematik.uni-kl.de/~wwwstoch/voss/index.html pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Call for votes for the Condorcet/Clone proof SSD voting methods GR
On Wed, Jun 11, 2003 at 01:03:39AM +1000, Hamish Moffatt wrote: As an aside, where is the constituition located on www.d.o, http://www.debian.org/devel/constitution and why doesn't the search engine find any references to it at all? ...can't help you with that one. -- G. Branden Robinson|America is at that awkward stage. Debian GNU/Linux |It's too late to work within the [EMAIL PROTECTED] |system, but too early to shoot the http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |bastards. -- Claire Wolfe pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Call for votes for the Condorcet/Clone proof SSD voting methods GR
Raul Miller wrote: And, finally, the new voting system is (for the most part) compatible with the intent of the existing voting system. It supports supermajority (which makes changing the constitution hard), and it supports quorum (which means very low participation can invalidate the vote). the use of the word Quorum with respect to either the current or proposed Constituction is misleading at best, and outrightly false at face value. case in point: as we add more voters that actively vote _against_ a proposal, we can cause an option to ``fail to meet quorum.'' that goes against every applicable definition of quorum that i can come across. a more accurate way to say it is that the Constitution and it's proposed replacement support an approval margin. -john -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Call for votes for the Condorcet/Clone proof SSD voting methods GR
On Sat, Jun 07, 2003 at 09:37:22PM -0500, Manoj Srivastava wrote: Hi,, This is the second call for votes for the Condorcet/Clone proof SSD voting methods GR. Apparently, the first call did not make it to d-d-a. For the benefit of the average non-voting-geek Debian developer, could the proponents of this amendment please explain what problem it attempts to solve, with real life examples? An explanation of why we need such a complicated system at all would be interesting too. Follow-ups to debian-vote, please. As an aside, where is the constituition located on www.d.o, and why doesn't the search engine find any references to it at all? Hamish -- Hamish Moffatt VK3SB [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] pgpijo74QZIfv.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Call for votes for the Condorcet/Clone proof SSD voting methods GR
Hello, On Wed, Jun 11, 2003 at 01:03:39AM +1000, Hamish Moffatt wrote: For the benefit of the average non-voting-geek Debian developer, could the proponents of this amendment please explain what problem it attempts to solve, with real life examples? An explanation of why we need such a complicated system at all would be interesting too. I'm no real proponent of Manoj's amendment, but maybe you will find my debian voting system information page at http://www.mathematik.uni-kl.de/~wwwstoch/voss/comp/vote.html useful. It answers some of your questions and contains pointers to further information. As an aside, where is the constituition located on www.d.o, and why doesn't the search engine find any references to it at all? My page contains a link to the constitution :-) I hope this helps, Jochen -- Omm (0)-(0) http://www.mathematik.uni-kl.de/~wwwstoch/voss/index.html pgpM61xhWu1Wh.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Call for votes for the Condorcet/Clone proof SSD voting methods GR
On Wed, Jun 11, 2003 at 01:03:39AM +1000, Hamish Moffatt wrote: As an aside, where is the constituition located on www.d.o, http://www.debian.org/devel/constitution and why doesn't the search engine find any references to it at all? ...can't help you with that one. -- G. Branden Robinson|America is at that awkward stage. Debian GNU/Linux |It's too late to work within the [EMAIL PROTECTED] |system, but too early to shoot the http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |bastards. -- Claire Wolfe pgp7Ek30EJYd2.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Call for votes for the Condorcet/Clone proof SSD voting methods GR
On Wed, Jun 11, 2003 at 01:03:39AM +1000, Hamish Moffatt wrote: For the benefit of the average non-voting-geek Debian developer, could the proponents of this amendment please explain what problem it attempts to solve, with real life examples? An explanation of why we need such a complicated system at all would be interesting too. Follow-ups to debian-vote, please. The biggest issue is that the current constitution is somewhat somewhat ambiguous about how votes are to be conducted. Fortunately, we're not at an impasse, because the constitution also declares that the project secretary has complete control over the interpretation -- however, it would probably be a good thing if other people could have a good chance of agreeing with the secretary when reading the constitution. One of the larger areas of ambiguity has to do with how votes are conducted which involve options with supemajority and options which don't have supermajority. Basically, the voting mechanism doesn't say who wins for some sets of ballots in that case. As an illustration of the above two points, consider: http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2003/debian-vote-200306/msg7.html Here, we have a reasonable person thinking that the constitution *requires* that we use a ballot for this vote which quite possibly the constitution's voting mechanism won't pick a winner for. And, yes, the secretary probably does have the power to pick the winner if that happens -- but I imagine some people (the secretary included) would be reasonably upset if that's how things played out. Beyond that, the voting system has pretty good properties, as voting systems go: It's reasonably strategy free (which means that your best bet is to vote what you really want, as opposed to voting something else because the likely outcome is a lesser evil). It lets people pick from all the possible options, rather than forcing mini-contests or some other such contortion. And, finally, the new voting system is (for the most part) compatible with the intent of the existing voting system. It supports supermajority (which makes changing the constitution hard), and it supports quorum (which means very low participation can invalidate the vote). Thanks, -- Raul
Re: Call for votes for the Condorcet/Clone proof SSD voting methods GR
Raul Miller wrote: And, finally, the new voting system is (for the most part) compatible with the intent of the existing voting system. It supports supermajority (which makes changing the constitution hard), and it supports quorum (which means very low participation can invalidate the vote). the use of the word Quorum with respect to either the current or proposed Constituction is misleading at best, and outrightly false at face value. case in point: as we add more voters that actively vote _against_ a proposal, we can cause an option to ``fail to meet quorum.'' that goes against every applicable definition of quorum that i can come across. a more accurate way to say it is that the Constitution and it's proposed replacement support an approval margin. -john
Re: Call for votes for the Condorcet/Clone proof SSD voting methods GR
Hello Manoj, On Sat, Jun 07, 2003 at 09:37:22PM -0500, Manoj Srivastava wrote: To vote no, no matter what rank None Of The Above as more ^^ desirable than the unacceptable choices, ... [ ] Choice 1: Clone Proof SSD Condorcet Amendment [ ] Choice 2: Further Discussion ^^ Still not perfect, but much better :-) Thank you, Jochen -- Omm (0)-(0) http://www.mathematik.uni-kl.de/~wwwstoch/voss/index.html pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Call for votes for the Condorcet/Clone proof SSD voting methods GR
Hello Manoj, On Sat, Jun 07, 2003 at 09:37:22PM -0500, Manoj Srivastava wrote: To vote no, no matter what rank None Of The Above as more ^^ desirable than the unacceptable choices, ... [ ] Choice 1: Clone Proof SSD Condorcet Amendment [ ] Choice 2: Further Discussion ^^ Still not perfect, but much better :-) Thank you, Jochen -- Omm (0)-(0) http://www.mathematik.uni-kl.de/~wwwstoch/voss/index.html pgpQuvwpAm7sI.pgp Description: PGP signature
