2011/7/13 <[email protected]> > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Kristofer Munsterhjelm > > [email protected] wrote: > ... > > There may also be another scenario where Majority Judgement (or > > median > > ratings, for that matter) would do better than ranked methods. > > If it's > > possible for the voters to agree on what, say, "Good" means > > (comparability of utilities), then MJ might extract usable > > cardinal > > information from the voters, while the strategy resistance makes > > the > > cardinal information much less prone to the sort of Approval- > > reduction > > that you would see in Range. If one holds certain assumptions > > that make > > cardinal methods useful at all, then MJ could well be strategy > > resistant > > enough that it would do better than Range*. > > > > B&L spends quite a bit of their paper on the claim that the > > voters *do* > > agree on what the different categories mean, and so that there > > is > > comparability so that the cardinal information can be used. > > Instead of asking voters for "utility" values, ask them to rate the > candidates on a scale of zero to 100%, > where rating candidate X at 37% means that you think that 37% of the time > candidate X would vote the > same way that you would vote if you were there representing yourself. >
I'd certainly be able to understand and use that system "honestly" if I wanted, and for well-informed voters it seems reasonable. But I doubt that your average "independent" voter, who looks on voting as a chore, would like such a system. I think B+L's method of using a commonly-understood grading method of a society would be better for most people. In France, that means 0-20 or "reject" to "excellent"; in the US, that would be the letter grades A-F (without the "E" unless you went to Harvard) or their commonly-understood corresponding numbers (90-100 = A, 80-89=B, etc). (If you use letters, the MJ tiebreaker system assigns a + or - by itself, although A+ and F- would be impossible. In AT-TV, this +/- would correspond to order of election at a given rank.) 0-5 stars is also commonly used on the web, but it doesn't have any anchoring meaning like the letter grades. JQ ps. Looking at current US politicians, I can well imagine that my "honest" letter grades for both frontrunners would frequently be below the winning median, which I imagine would be a C+ or B- in most cases, although B+L's poll during the presidential primaries found that Obama would have actually made it to the equivalent of B+. In some cases, I would "strategically" inflate my preferred viable candidate to a B. But on certain issues, I would be happy for the opportunity to say to my preferred viable candidate: if you betray my ideals on this important issue, I will in good conscience simply vote honestly. I will still prefer you to your principal opponent, but this preference will do you no good, as it will still be pulling down your median score.
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