For quite a while I haven't had an opportunity to check the EM archives, but this message was forwarded to my mailbox:
Steph wrote: I still find Mr. Ossipoff analysis not objective I reply: I've always said that standards are entirely subjective. Your standards are different from mine, and may your methods have great success with people who share your standards. The only way to be wrong about standards is to say that your standards are best, or that someone else's standards are wrong, ot that your standards are more objective than someone else's. Steph continued: ...in the sense he claims margins and relative margins can sometimes produce equilibria only when defensive order-reversal is used. I reply: "Claims"? Do you claim otherwise? I've supported those claims with posted examples. Margins methods and relative margins methods have situations in which the only Nash equilibria are ones in which some voters use defensive order-reversal. Steph continued: Winning votes methods can sometimes produce different result the same way depending on the fact voters decided to express their full preferences or not. I reply: Yes, truncation can change the outcome with wv. Truncation can also change the outcome with margins methods, relative margins methods, and with any rank balloting method. The difference is that with wv, truncation won't steal the election from a majority-supported CW, as it will with margins and relative margins. Steph continued: In the same way truncating your preferences can harm your favorite using margins, giving your full preferences could harm your favorite using winning votes. I reply: We've really got to have a FAQ about this. Gibbard & Satterthwaite have shown that, in every nonprobabilistic method, there can be incentive for strategy. No one ever claimed that that doesn't apply to wv methods. But we can choose what kinds of strategy we'll have incentive for, and how badly we'll need them, and under what conditions, and whether or not all the Nash equilibria involve those strategies. Steph continued: Thus I see no relevance in verifying those "defensive strategies" criterias, when in the same time a method would not satisfy an "offensive strategy" I reply: If you'd like to propose new criteria, I suggest you define them, and then we can judge their importance. What I and many other consider important is the need for defensive strategies. If you believe that something else is more important, and have written criteria about it, please clarify your different standard and post your offensve strategy criteria. Steph continued: Matching the pair ranking to the highest probability then seems the fairest objective, so it leads to relative margins. I reply: Ok, here you're telling a standard that is more important to you. You aren't wrong. To you, your standard may well be more important. But you're wrong, as I said, when you say that your standard is more objective. You're also wrong when you say that your standard is more fair. Fairness is judged in terms of some particular fairness standard. Mike Ossipoff _________________________________________________________________ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com ---- For more information about this list (subscribe, unsubscribe, FAQ, etc), please see http://www.eskimo.com/~robla/em
