On Sun, May 25, 2003 at 03:34:32PM +0200, Markus Schulze wrote: > here is a simpler example. > > 8 ABC > 7 BCA > 5 CAB > > A:B=13:07 > A:C=08:12 > B:C=15:05 > > Suppose, that the quorum is 10 and the default > option is A. Then the winner according to > Manoj's May 15 proposal is C.
Ok, so we've got about 45 developers (been a long time since we were that small), and a bit less than half of them are participating in this vote. Since you're talking about a second election, presumably you're talking about a GR rather than a leader vote. 8 people thought both B and C were bad options. 7 people thought both B and C were good options. Both these groups agree that B is better than C. 5 people thought C was a good option and that B was a bad option. > If there was a second election and the voters don't > change their minds, then the winner (according to > Manoj's May 15 proposal) of this second election > would be B. It's a bit more complicated than that. Since this is a GR, to "redo" this election, none of the options on the second ballot could be the same as on the first ballot. In other words, the new GR isn't going to overturn the old GR unless it's got a specific ballot option "undo the old GR". And, that is neither A, B, nor C from the first ballot. Ok, it is theoretically possible to contrive a new GR which accomplishes nothing more than the old GR, and corresponds to your specification: A': "undo the old GR" B': "undo the old GR and then do option B from the old GR" C': default Let's assume that you're proposing this as the new ballot. In other words you've proposed that, although people perceive a new problem [different from the original problem], they don't see any solution to it which doesn't involve reversing the old GR. This means that everyone -- including the people who voted for C on the first GR, and all the people who voted against B on the first GR -- sees no other approaches to this new problem. Do you agree that this is what you're proposing? Why would people perceive a new problem and not be able to come up with any solutions to this new problem? Why is it that even though a majority of the participating voters could agree that doing C was better than doing nothing, the only solution(s) proposed for this new problem involves undoing C? And, why would people who were uninterested in the first problem remain uninterested in this new problem? I suspect, at the very minimum, that the options on the new ballot would include ideas which weren't present on the first ballot. [By the way, when Debian was only 45 people, it was pretty easy to achieve near-unanimous agreement on most topics. And, where we couldn't achieve that kind of agreement, we'd basically go along with whatever the leader choose.] -- Raul