[EM] Condorcet should be called Instant Round Robin (IRR)

Jan Kok kok at surfbest.net
Sun Mar 13 13:13:18 PST 2005


I strongly urge everyone to get into the habit of calling Condorcet methods
Instand Round Robin (IRR) methods.  The Instant Round Robin name is far more
descriptive than "Condorcet".  I think the concept of a round robin
tournament is widely understood, even among people who are not sports fans.
The general public will feel a lot more comfortable with a voting method
that is tied to a familiar concept (round robin tournaments), than to a
method with an unfamiliar name that a lot of Americans don't even know how
to pronounce.

Instant Round Robin Voting (IRRV) is another possible name, almost equally
good.  I think IRR is slightly preferable to IRRV because 1) it's shorter 2)
IRRV might be mis-heard as IRV, and IRRV might be mistaken as a typo for
IRV.  IRR is a little less likely to be confused with IRV, I think.

Similarly, the Condorcet Winner could be called the Beats-All Winner.  It's
a lot easier for a newcomer to the subject of election methods to understand
and remember the idea of a Beats-All Winner than a Condorcet Winner.

- Jan




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