Markus says:
Dear participants,
Mike Ossipoff proposed the MinMax(wv) tie-breaking strategy. Now he claims that (by proposing this tie-breaking strategy) he proposed wv methods in general.
I reply:
Have I ever said that I proposed wv methods in general by proposing the MinMax tiebreaking strategy? For one thing, I've never proposed the MinMax tiebreaking strategy, though I have proposed PC, and still advocate PC.
For another thing, though PC and Smith//PC were the only Condorcet methods discussed on EM at the time when I introduced wv, my advocacy of wv based on completely general considerations, which I've described in recent postings, makes it impossible for Markus to convincingly argue that I only advocated wv by proposing a method that could use wv.
Completely different answer to Markus's claim:
But (and I haven't yet said this reply to Markus's many-times-repeated statement), quite aside from what I've said above in this message, what if I had only suggested wv for PC? If I had advocated wv only in connection with PC, for use with PC, that wouldn't mean that I didn't introduce wv. The fact that Markus got wv from me and incorporated it in a different method wouldn't mean that I didn't introduce wv, even if it were true that I'd only advocated wv for use with PC. Not that that's true anyway.
Say You invent the horsehoe, and advocate it for use with horses. Now, later, mules have been bread, and Markus puts a horseshoe on a mule, and says that you didn't introduce the horseshoe, not for general use, because no mules existed when you invented the horseshoe, and so you didn't invent the horseshow as a device for general use. Because you didn't advocate its use for mules, which didn't exist at the time when you invented the horseshoe.
Markus continues:
However, I argue that it cannot be said that Mike proposed wv methods in general because he didn't propose a general concept that could also be used for other methods than MinMax.
I reply:
wv is a general concept. It's a way of measuring pairwise defeats. That's what I introduced and proposed it as. That's what I advocated it as. I advocated it based on completely general considerations not dependent on any particular method.
Not only can wv be used for other methods than PC (if that's what Markus means, this time, by MinMax), but it _is_ used for methods other than MinMax. wv is currently being used with CSSD by the Debian organization. wv is used for BeatpathWinner and Ranked-Pairs by various websites that conduct and count polls.
Markus continues:
Mike proposed his concept of "majority-rejected" candidates; with this concept he proposed his "Generalized Majority Criterion" (GMC); and he used this criterion to motivate the MinMax(wv) tie-breaking strategy. However, GMC is satisfied by no other wv tie-breaking strategy than MinMax(wv). Therefore, Mike proposed only the MinMax(wv) tie-breaking strategy but not wv methods in general.
I reply:
I introduced and proposed wv years before I defined GMC. And so it's odd that Markus thinks that GMC is somehow relevant to what I meant when I introduced wv.
Yes, this discussion has taken place many times during the past week. That's typical of Markus. If you are tired of Markus's repetition, then I recommend that you e-mail Rob about it, and about Markus's consistent violation of EM's main guideline of conduct. There are things that Rob could do, if members ask him to do something.
Mike Ossipoff
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