[EMAIL PROTECTED]">If we want a businessThis has nothing to do with the product that I promote, which is
analogy, then what I meant is that your product is inadequate.
No amount of marketing will improve an inadequate product. So it
isn't just that you aren't in the marketing department; it's that
you don't have anything any good to market, in your rank-balloting
catalog... (ellipsis is trendy here, so I wanted to copy the fad).
So, because you aren't in the marketing department, you don't care
if your product meets people's expressed concerns. Fine, that's your
business. I just wanted to let you know.
Approval. To continue the business metaphor, my post was a quality
assurance report. My analysis may not be the sort that is appropriate
for public consumption, but for those who are in marketing to ignore the
QA report just because it is too mathematical to catch the public's
attention doesn't make sense.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]">I'm "picking on" your arguments for Margins over wv. Let me explain this:I don't believe you've shown the irrelevance of the argument at all. You've
We're doing a poll. Some are arguing for Margins. I'm arging for wv.
Part of such a discussion is to question arguments that we don't
think are important. I'm saying that your mathematical concerns aren't
important. I'm not saying all mathematics is unimportant. But mathematical pursuit can be as important or unimportant as one wants
it to be, and I'm saying that you're pursuing something that's of
no importance to voters' concerns. I'm "picking on" your arguments
because they aren't important and you're using them to promote
a worthless voting system.
demonstrated that you believe it's irrelevant, but that doesn't make it so.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]">Ok, I should have said that Richard likes the way Margins makesThis diagram is nothing but a visual aid. It helped me to visualize the effects
for a diagram that Richard likes better. Isn't that a fair assessment?
of various defeat dropping schemes, and helped me to see that the winning
votes approach is equivalent to moving the points that represent the
discarded contests to one region of the graph, and margins is equivalent
to moving the discarded points to a different region. Each is a measure
of the cost of dropping the defeat to deciding the election. It seems to
me that the cost of parking defeats on the tie line is a more relevant
measure of actual social costs than is the cost of parking defeats on the
no-winning votes line. You may question that assumption if you like,
but you've been questioning something entirely different.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]">I didn't say that your discussion doesn't have a place on this list.If you care about the strategy problems, then the graph is an equally
I only said that about Blakes long postings that were all about me.
Any argument about voting system issues has a place, especially
during a poll--in fact I wish this discussion had all taken place
before the poll. But though your discussion has a place, that doesn't
mean that your reasons for liking Margins are any good. I mean,
sure they're good for you, but your diagram doesn't show that
they'd solve the existing strategy problems. But maybe you don't
care about that, and that's fine too. I'm suggesting that if others
care about those concerns, then your arguments shouldn't mean much
to them.
good tool for visualizing these as well. Reversing a preference
pushes a defeat to the left on the graph, and collapsing preferences
pushes a defeat up and to the left. If enough persons do this, as in
your examples from yesterday, the point hits the tie line and bounces
off of it with opposite polarity. Cycles are created or destroyed
when this happens.
It is the underlying assumptions about which cost is more important,
the strategic costs or the defeat-dropping costs, that need to be
examined, not the method of visualizing them. You seem to be
questioning a particular representation, not realizing that the
representation is also relevant to your strategy concerns.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]"> Yes, that's something that we're familiar with here: The newcomerIsn't that an ad hominem argument?
who knows better.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]">Sorry--I guess I missed the part of your demonstration where youNo, I just neglected to elaborate on those. Like I said, I'm not in marketing.
related your arguments to actual consequences or voter concerns.
Actually, Rob has already done so better than I could have. To quote Rob,
"I also disagree with Mike's philosophical justification for
winning-votes. He says that if A pairwise beats B, the strength of the
defeat should measured only by the support for A because the B voters
have already been overruled. But shouldn't each side be ignored
equally? If A beats B 50:49, A's victory is 50 strong. But if there's
just one more B>A voter, it's a tie, and two more B>A voters give B a
victory 51 strong. Doesn't that seem ridiculous? It makes more sense
to me for the votes on the losing side to annihilate an equal number of
votes on the winning side, giving the margin (which is what I've always
understood the word "majority" to mean anyway). Otherwise what good are
they? Shouldn't a 48:30 victory be stronger than a 51:46? I would feel
cheated if I were a voter among that 46. Winning-votes seems very
peculiar and counterintuitive to me."
Rob's quote would make a good executive! summary of my QA report.
You didn't make the connection between this social argument and my
graphical representation, but they are both different ways of saying
the same thing. I am a visually oriented person who will at times choose
this method of expression; unfortunately it loses its impact when I have
to substitute a text description for the actual graphic. I don't like
drawing ASCII graphics and don't intend to do so in this case. I suppose
I can be faulted for not providing additional commentary to help readers
make this connection.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]">No, that isn't why. It's because your justifications for MarginsThere are social costs other than your concerns for the sincere Condorcet
don't relate in any way to the concerns of voters or to doing something
about the avoidable dilemmas that they have to deal with, and which
make them afraid to express their preference for their favorite.
winner. Ignoring defeats is a necessity for breaking cycles in a Condorcet
election, and ignoring defeats has a social cost as well, because it means
ignoring votes. Shouldn't those costs be considered, too?
Richard
