Raul Miller wrote:
On Thu, Dec 12, 2002 at 04:29:49AM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote:
Sorry, I don't buy this.
Ok.
I'm wondering if other people agree. [I wish Buddha wasn't
on vacation, this was his example.]
Sorry... I'm back, but my computer at home is having some problems (old
power supply was advertised at 300W, but rated for 160W continuous; new
power supply (installed last night) is rated at 350W continuous, but now
I need to rebuild my system), so I've been limited to reading from work
-- where I should be working rather than arguing debian politics.
My argument was in support of late-dropping of unwinnable supermajority
options. I felt that we should leave the mechanics of CpSSD alone, and
decide after a winner had been chosen if the winner has supermajority
support. If not, punt, in some way. Most likely by eliminating that
supermajority candidate and running CpSSD again.
THe other option to modifying the mechanics of CpSSD is to early-drop
unwinnable supermajority options. This leaves the behavior of CpSSD,
and its properties, intact for the possible winning options.
The case where the two would give different results is when there is no
Condorcet winner, and a supermajority option is in the Schwartz set in a
loop with the potential winners, yet CpSSD does not select either the
supermajority option or the option it defeats. The example I gave led
to the following loop:
A->b->c->A
where A is a supermajority option, and b, c are normal options and the
b->c defeat was the weakest.
With late-dropping, the CpSSD procedure would have declared c the
winner. With early-dropping, the CpSSD procedure would have declared b
the winner.
To decide which of these two procedures makes the most sense, compare
these two statements:
(late-dropping): c won, because we discounted the votes of the people
that preferred b over c, but counted the votes of the people that
preferred A over b, even though B couldn't have won. This is unfair and
counterintutive.
(early-dropping): b won, but only because A was a supermajority option.
If A had been a normal option, c would have won. Why is it that
making A harder to win shifted the result from one winner to another?
This is unfair and counterintuitive.
Which of those two statements is the most convincing?
Define "like Condorcet".
Same outcome as Condorcet for the same votes.
Heh. Condorcet doesn't produce a winner for the case you give;
Sorry, I should have been saying CpSSD.
Thanks,
