Kevin--
You quoted me:
What you need, then, is something quite different from WDSC. You need to define the No Silliness Criterion. Go for it. In the meantime, though, I'll settle for methods that don't require those voters to reverse a preference.
You say:
I don't need to define a criterion to explain why I don't like another criterion.
I reply:
Don't be so defensive.
I didn't say that you need to define a criterion to explain why you don't like another criterion. I said, however, that you need to define a criterion that protects us from methods that could require voting in a silly way. I said that because you keep lamenting that I haven't written that criterion, that my critera aren't that criterion that you want. Therefore, since you want such a criterion so badly, you need to write one.
As I said, though, that would require you to tell us a definition of voting in a silly way. So far you haven't done that. Kevin, you're not making much progress with your new criterion if you don't know how you want to define silly voting. Voting alternately ">" and "=" in your ranking? Just guessing.
You continued:
I'm surprised you don't know that I like SDSC. Only I use Steve Eppley's votes-only wording under the name "Minimal Defense" since he has offered such a wording.
I reply:
I don't criticize Steve's criteria. Of course they're different from mine. They aren't just re-statements of my criteria, equivalent but differing only in wording. They're different criteria. I've consistently said that I make no claim that my criteria are the only ones that could be written to measure for the goal of minimizing defensive strategy need.
You continued:
Why do I want a votes-only wording of this? Because it's very easy to use. Votes-only Minimal Defense says certain candidates can't win given some situation. I can program this into a computer. But I can't easily program a computer to search for how a majority "needs to vote."
I reply:
I have no idea what is easier for you to program, but whether or not they're what you most like to program, the majority defensive strategy criteria are unambiguous in all situations about whether a method passes them or fails them, and they apply uniformly to all methods.
Neither you, Markus, nor Paul has posted an example in which one of the majority defensive strategy criteria SFC, GSFC, WDSC, or SDSC, is ambiguous about whether a method passes or fails.
A need for certain wording improvements in FBC as pointed out, and the improvements were made. Such suggestions are always welcome.
For instance, in recent postings I've shown that Margins fails WDSC, Approval passes WDSC, and that BeatpathWinner passes WDSC and SFC.
More such demonstrations will be posted.
You said:
"The majority might need to vote in morse code" is not a very meaningful guarantee.
I reply:
It certainly is not a meaningful guarantee. In fact it isn't a guarantee at all. It's an expression of the non-offering of a guarantee that you want, and that must be very important to you.
Youir point, presumably, is that WDSC doesn't guarantee that a majority who prefer X to Y won't need to vote in Morse code in order to ensure that Y won't win.
No, but why should it? WDSC guarantees that those voters won't need to reverse a preference.
Perhaps you'd like my criteria to require that a method guarantee everything that you'd like in a method, but that's not how criteria work: Different criteria require different guarantees. That's why we have various criteria, instead of just one.
It works like this: If there's something that seems important to me, that a method should guarantee, then I write a criterion requiring that guarantee. Then, if there's something different that you want a method to guarantee, you (but not I) write a criterion to require that guarantee.
Millions of voters reverse their preferences in our elections, out of perceived strategic need, thereby concealing what they want. I suggest that that isn't good for democracy. You must not think that's important, because you say that it isn't useful to state conditions under which it can be guaranteed that it won't happen. To each their own; There's no reason why what I consider important should be important to you. But you must understand that the reverse is true also.
As I said, it's unreasonable to expect one criterion to guarantee everything. That's why we have more than one criterion.
To you it would be terrible if some as-yet unknown method required that majority to alternate ">" and "=", or to spell out "WDSC" in Morse code with ">" and "=". Maybe. I can't say that that is something that has worried anyone but you. I'm not denying that that is important to you. Your feelings about what is very important to you are valid, and they are _not_ wrong.
Maybe you, or some other relentless crusader-for-justice will write a criterion that requries that methods protect us against those serious dangers. Maybe you, or that other crusader, will even find a method that fails that criterion, or explain to us what you mean by a "silly way of voting".
You say that you don't have anything that you want me to do, and yet you're complaining because of something that I haven't done: I haven't written a criterion that says that a majority who prefer X to Y should have a way of voting that will ensure that Y won't win, without alternately voting ">" and ""=" or voting in Morse code.
And, it's at that point in this cyclic repetition that I again suggest that if you want such a criterion, then you need to write it yourself.
Mike Ossipoff
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