Chris described a kind of voting and asked me...what I would call it.
I said "offensive order-reversal", but that was a hasty incorrect answer, based on how I've defined offensive strategy.
I've defined offensive strategy as strategy intended to take victory from a CW or to elect someone in violation of majority rule. So then the voting that Chris described might or might not be offensive order-reversal, by that definition.
But, if it isn't, I'd call it order-reversal anyway.
If I don't have a more detailed name for it, that's because it isn't something that I talk about. Remember the eskimos with 1000 words for different kinds of snow? (even if that story isn't true)
But this does suggest that maybe my definition of offensive strategy might be overly narrow. Maybe offensive strategy should be defined more broadly than defensive strategy. That's something to consider for possible future changes in that definition.
If you vote someone lower, reversing a preference to do so, in order to help someone you like more, that certainly has an offensive character.
I define defensive strategy as narrowly as I do because it doesn't make much sense to call strategy defensive unless there's something significant to defend. I might or might not later adopt a broader definition of offensive strategy.
Anyway, so far, at this time, I don't call the strategy that Chris described anything other than order-reversal, if it involves reversing a preference. I don't call it anything simply because it isn't something that I talk about, because it isn't part of an issue that is important to me, as Chris described it.
How about this as a possible future definition for offensive strategy?: Strategy intended to improve your outcome, in a way that could create a defensive strategy need for someone else.
Just speculating about a possible future definition change.
Mike Ossipoff
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