At 03:59 AM 7/23/2008, Michael Allan wrote:
Juho wrote:
>
> What is btw the reason that there were no arrows forward from the two
> leading candidates in the election snapshot picture in the
references page?
> Did they abstain or were their votes (not even their own vote)
not cascaded
> forward for some other reason?
http://zelea.com/project/votorola/d/outline.xht#delegate-cascade
They abstained.
I have not examined this diagram specifically. But I'm getting a
feeling that there is a conceptual problem here. I'm guessing that an
election is taking place. So what is being collected is votes in the
election. Votes are assigned through a cascading process. But that a
vote is assigned isn't automatically an election or casting of the
vote. If a candidate has collected votes, those votes are either
exercised or not. If not exercised, they would be moot, of no effect.
Rather, I suggest, the system is assuming that collected votes are
exercised for the one they settle upon. So those candidates are
considered as having voted for themselves, automatically, without any action.
I think that's an error. Consider, instead, the situation if the
candidate casts a vote for one of his or her clients. I.e., the
candidate is saying, "If it's not me, it's X." Which is the same as
all other voters are saying, effectively, though possibly without
volunteering for the position, i.e., some may be saying "It's X or
who X chooses, directly or indirectly, not me, I'm not available."
What if the candidate isn't available? (Does the system require
candidacy? Mistake, I'd say. Rather, if everybody trusts X, but X is
not available to serve, let X choose who serves. Simple.)
If X casts a vote for one of his or her clients, then X's vote total
remains the same as if X had voted for himself, unless that client
gets more votes.
It is really quite simple. It's proxy voting, delegable, and the
*action* of assigning a proxy is different from the *action* of
voting. Proxies are assigned as standing assignments, presumably. (In
Asset Voting with secret ballot input, they stand until the next
election, the base-level votes. Higher levels would be standing
proxies, if the electors use DP for efficiency). You can combine the
two, i.e., voting for an office with the creation of a proxy
structure from the voting process, but I think it is messier, and
less efficient. Rather, create the proxy structure, and you can use
it for *many* decisions; and with each decision, every member can
vote, now for the decision, not for proxies.
Thus it functions like the candidate proxy method being described,
but the proxy assignments are set up for general purposes, then
simply used for a specific decision. This, then, allows large virtual
participation when only a relatively small number of trusted members
participate; these members will contact their clients if some outside
action is needed, of if the proxy thinks that a member's direct
participation would be desired by the member or useful to the organization.
> The behaviour of voter A in the example above may be quite "sincere". He
> likes B. If B forwards his votes to some candidate that A considers to be
> worse than C then A may vote for C directly.
So A has good reason to vote for C, even though C (suppose) is a star
having many times - thousands of times - more votes. The reason might
be:
i) A knows C personally or professionally
ii) C is recommended by A's favourite talk-show host
Yep. Any of these reasons, we don't know if they are good or bad.
However, give people a chance to function intelligently, with a
system that respects and uses their decisions, they will do much
better than some of us might expect. Town Meeting government works
quite well, as long as the scale is relatively small, it is scale
that kills it, not citizen inability to make good choices.
(i) If communication channels (personal or professional) give A
influence over C, and not just knowledge (in other words, if the
channels are 2-way) then A may be voting rationally, in the sense of
effectively.
But A will generally be better advised to get the vote to C through
an intermediary, someone who will listen to and address A's personal
situation and concerns.
(ii) Otherwise, A is a mosquito voting for an elephant! It's probably
not rational. It would be better to vote for a mouse (the talk-show
host, M), assuming that M *is* actually voting (directly or
indirectly) for C. Then the direct effect on C would be the same -
she'd still be receiving A's vote. But now A would have gained an
open, 2-way communication channel to C, via M.
Right. You got it. Congratulations, this is actually rare. Took me
several years of repeating this stuff over and over in these fora, to
find *one* person who actually got it well enough to explain it. It
seems that you found this all independently. It's not surprising, to
be sure, this isn't rocket science, all it takes is some
out-of-the-box thinking; the elements are all actually pretty
well-known, it is only putting them together in this way that is new.
And I've seen on the order of a half-dozen independent inventions
over the last decade or so. I'd say that's a clue: the time has come.
Until now, I was the first independent inventor to combine DP with
the Free Association concept, but Michael, you seem to have
recognized, at least, parts of this. Are you aware of how
phenomenally successful the rather counter-intuitive FA concepts were
when applied by Alcoholics Anonymous? They became a world-wide
movement practically overnight, as such things go. What? Don't
collect a lot of money for the cause? Don't make controversial
decisions as an organization? Don't have strong, famous leaders? How
in the world can you get anything done? Aren't those things necessary?
Well, they've certainly been common! Bill W., the theoretician behind
AA for the most part, though not without quite a bit of assistance,
studied what had caused prior movements to eventually fail even
though they may have been very successful in the beginning. He did
his work well. In some cases, he was pushed into his eventual
positions; for example, he *did* try to raise a lot of money, but
Rockefeller, I think it was, basically said that a lot of money would
ruin the thing, and gave only enough to help Bill W. survive
financially while he was working on the book. Wilson was
disappointed, but later said that this had been the best thing that
could have happened, the money would, indeed, have ruined it.
Or A could band together with other, like-minded mosquitoes (perhaps
by soliciting their votes) and vote en-masse for C. Then C would be
more likely to pay attention to their demands etc.
Except that this isn't how A would do it if A wants influence with C.
A and the cohort would choose a common proxy who would choose C.
Without this, A and other mosquitos would only be heard as an
incoherent buzz and maybe a few annoying bits.
"Demands" though, is a poor description of what would happen in an
FA/DP organization. If you don't trust someone to the extent that you
have to "demand" something, you don't trust the person, period, I'd
say, and you should simply choose someone you trust to, perhaps,
sometimes, know better than you do!
And if a client made demands of me, I'd withdraw acceptance of the
proxy, almost certainly. By the way, that should be part of any proxy
structure in an FA, acceptance. And I'd consider acceptance as being
equivalent to permission to contact. If I accept 1000 direct proxies,
I'm inviting each and every one of them to communicate personally
with me about their concerns. Do I want to do this? It would depend
on the nature of the organization, so I would set no rules. But, no,
generally, I wouldn't want that. I'd rather have, say, twenty clients
who, on average, each represent twenty directly, with some of their
clients representing the difference, to make up a thousand total.
Much easier to handle, much more efficient.
The votes flow individually. Although received votes (black inbound)
are normally carried back out along with the delegate's own vote
(black outbound), there is one exception: if carriage of a vote would
result in a cycle (the vote being received a second time), then that
vote stops. The stopped vote is held where it is (red), and the other
votes continue on their way. That's why the held votes deposit
themselves evenly around the ring. (The exception in the figure is
the one vote injected from outside of the ring.)
I haven't examined this. What a proxy structure sets up is possible
vote flow. Actual vote flow in an election or choice, then, is
determined by the structure plus the actual votes in that election.
Whenever someone votes directly, all proxy assignments from that
person are moot, not considered further.
Imagine the proxy structure, and then mark all those who directly
vote. Then look at all those who did not vote. Look up the structure
to proxy assignments until (1) a member who has voted is found, or
(2) no proxy assignment exists for a member who has voted and who
holds a proxy, directly or indirectly.
If (1) the voter's vote is assigned as found and, since this voter
voted, the member's vote is added to the total.
If (2) the member has abstained. In some organizations, this would be
reported; DP could make it possible and practical to require an
absolute majority for some decisions (even in an FA, some decisions
must be made, about the FA itself.)
If a member has abstained, this will be public record, and anyone
could choose to notify the member (subject to some restrictions
because of privacy and traffic considerations). The system might
automatically notify, and I'd make this a configurable option,
publicly known. Someone on automatic notification could be considered
to be more highly participatory than one who has set their options as
"Don't bother me."
As a consequence, casting a vote has no effect on votes received. If
any one of the voters in figure 9 withdraws her vote (black out), it
will not affect her received votes (black in). And since electoral
standing is determined by votes received, and not by votes held (red),
the casting of a vote can never increase ones standing.
Yes, standing is a characteristic of the proxy structure, not of
actual votes. The problem here is that "votes" are being confused
with "proxy assignments." I'd suggest that they be rigorously
discriminated, except for special purposes. Proxy assignments *can*
be used to assign some participation rights; for example the right to
post to a high-level mailing list might be automatically restricted
to those with a certain proxy standing, though I'm inclined to avoid
such complications as part of the software. Let every "meeting"
define its own participatory rules, it is much better and far more in
accord with long-standing tradition. The software would provide proxy
standing information, it's a mere calculation, resulting from
analysis of the proxy table.
I doubt Figure 9 will ever occur in a real election - it's very much
an edge case - but if it does, it shouldn't cause any instability.
Unless I've overlooked something...
We don't really know much about what will actually happen, beyond
theoretical speculation. I predict that "superstar" voting, though,
will become less common as the structures mature and people come to
understand what they can expect from a proxy. And that's what is
important: to develop the proxy relationships, which build
persistence and stability in the structure; and this is why it is so
important to separate the identification and documentation of those
relationships independently from the problem of each decision being
made. The proxy structure will become, I predict, quite stable.
Decisions are content, transient, chaotic, depending on many
variables. Whom you trust most, though, of those who participate,
shouldn't be, for most people, a rapidly changing thing. Proxy
relationships, if they were not initially, will become friendships,
relationships between people who communicate directly, outside the
formal structure.
It's been that with me!
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