Yes, I've sometimes rubbed people's nose in it, but only as a last resort. I try to make a "measured response", starting out very polite, and then, after a certain amount of arrogant, ill-mannered repetition, I mildly rebuke the person. Have you heard about those alarm-clocks that get louder gradually when you don't wake up?
I do that because, as Russ says, EM is apparently "The Wild West". (Russ then proves it by postsing messages consisting of nothing but personal attack, and always getting away with it). In the Old West, you had to take the law into your own hands. If you want the guideliness enforced, you enforce them yourself. That's what I try to do when I start rubbing someone's nose in it. It's done with a positive intention, a good purpose. Don't interpret it negatively.
That's completely different from someone who posts long messages entirely devoted to expressing that person's opinion of someone else, filled with false statements* intended to support that opinioin. _That's_ what is really off-topic. I've never done that.
*such as Russ's several false statements about the Python BeatpathWinner program that I'd sent to him.
Now, back on topic:
Summary--Unstated CC assumptions:
Russ says that the academic voting system authors intend something that they don't say--that they aren't saying what they intend. Russ says that as if he thinks that it contradicts something that I've said. Actually it's something that I've been saying for years, and have said a few times since Russ has been on the list: Most voting system academics do a very poor job of saying what they mean. That isn't a new discovery of yours, Russ.
But Russ has appointed himself to speak for those who don't say what they mean, by reading into what they say things that the rest of us don't find. Presumably by using ESP to determine what an author means when he defines a votes-only CC.
I'll get to that in a minute, but, first, contrary to what Russ seems to think, not all academic authors write definitions votes-only. Some have defined CC in terms of preference, but without stipulating how preference constrains voting, resulting in unmeetable criteria. My preference criteria differ from those in having that stipulation. So, before anyone says there's no precedent for preference criteria, I remind them that there are such criteria, poorly and sloppily defined though they are. So preference criteria aren't really a new and heretical thing. It's just that mine don't share the ridiculous fault of previous ones.
My point in starting that paragraph was that Russ mis-spoke when he told us that the academics only write votes-only CC.
Now, about the ESP. If someone writes a votes-only CC, having an unstated intention that will keep nonrank methods from passing, here are two completely different possibilities:
1. He intends, but doesn't state, that the criterion doesn't apply to nonrank methods.
2. He intends, but doesn't state, that nonrank methods fail the criterion by fiat.
This is where Russ's ESP comes in, because he thereby has determined that it's always #2.
But is it? One way we can judge that is by counting the voCC definitions that explicitlylsay which their intention is.
Well, Russ recently posted Blake's voCC (votes-only CC) definition. Why, I don't know, because it doesn't support his claim. Blake said "Application: Rank-Balloting".
Now, "Application: Rank Balloting" isn't the same as "Requirement: Rank-balloting". Russ, you won't understand that, so just take my word for it. If Blake had said that rank balloting was a requirement of his voCC, that would mean that nonrank methods fail. But when Blake says that rank balloting is the application of his voCC, that means that his voCC doesn't apply to nonrank methods. This will be obvious to most of you, but Russ can take my word for it.
So Russ's own criterion example that he posted, Blake's voCC, contradicts Russ's claim. If the people who don't state their intention share Blake's intention, then their intention is that voCC doesn't apply to rank methods. Russ, that is _not_ the same as saying that nonrank methods fail the criterion. I spell that out like that because you've previously indicated that you don't understand that distinction.
Do some authors intend, without stating it, that nonrank methods by fiat fail their voCC? Probably some do. Many or most, in fact. But we can't tell that from what they say. Unless we have ESP as Russ does. If we go by what some voCC definers actually say, then we have Blake's definition, whose stated intention is that his voCC doesn't apply to nonrank methods.
Anyway, as I said, probably many authors intend for nonrank methods to fail their voCC. But the evidence that I showed indicates that there's no reason to be so sure that all of them do.
Apparently ESP can be fallible.
Russ again thinks that he's contradicting me when he says that the usual intent of CC is that nonrank methods fail it. And again, that's something that I've been saying for a long time. I've said it long before Russ joined EM, and I've said it since Russ joined EM. I said it a few days ago when tellling James that I defined my preference CC (pCC) as I do so that it will comply with what I consider to be the intent of CC.
So though I question Russ's way of arguing for his claim, by finding what isn't there, it's a claim that I've been making all along.
But, somewhere along the line, somehow, in Russ's mind, the intent that nonrank methods fail CC became the intent that nonrank methods fail CC for no reason other than by definition (whether stated or not).
So, by Russ's reasoning then, my pCC violates Russ's supposed intention for CC, because, instead of saying that nonrank methods fail by fiat, those nonrank methods fail _on their own_, because of being nonrank methods. They do that without my mentioning nonrank methods or rank methods.
The kind of criteria that Russ advocates say "Nonrank methods fail because I say so." Somehow that isn't as convincing as having a _uniform_ test for all methods, which methods pass or fail, on their own, not because Russ says so. Rank methods fail because of their resulting deficiencies, not just because Russ says rank methods fail.
With a pairwise-count method, if everyone does nothing other than vote all of their preferences, requiring no strategic decisions, the CW wins. But with a method that doesn't let you vote all of your preferences, it isn't so easy. Not being able to vote all of your preferences, you have know which ones to vote at the expense of the others. That's the problem with Approval and Plurality, and that's exactly why Approval and Plurality fail pCC. You can vote your preferences to the extent allowed by the method, but that isn't enough to elect the CW, even if everyone does that. That's the problem with Plurality and Approval, and that's why they fail pCC.
Russ said:
If a particular method is not ordinal, it fails the Condorcet Criterion by definition. It's a no-brainer.
I reply:
Have people noticed that very often the conclusions that someone like Russ refers to as a no-brainer are actually particularly stupid conclusions?
Mike Ossipoff
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