[EM] Criteria reply

[Markus Schulze]

Dear Mike,

I proposed that heuristic for the Schulze method that uses Schwartz sets
in 1998:

http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/1998-August/001958.html
http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/1998-November/002771.html

In Feb 2000, we discussed which Condorcet method should be proposed to
the Debian project. See e.g. here:

http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2000-February/003555.html
http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2000-February/003558.html
http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2000-February/003559.html
http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2000-February/003560.html

In your 15 Feb 2000 mail, you discussed 3 methods: "Drop Contradicted
Defeats" (DCD), "Sequential Dropping" (SD), and Schulze:

http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2000-February/003576.html

Then in your 18 Feb 2000 mail, the term "Schwartz Sequential Dropping" (SSD)
was used for the very first time. In that mail, you did not only admit that
you knew my method, you also admitted that you were aware that SSD _is_ my
method:

http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2000-February/003577.html

Therefore, it is clear (1) that you knew my method when you "devised" SSD
and (2) that it was clear to you from the very beginning that SSD _is_ my
method.

************

You wrote (17 May 2005):
> Where did SSD come from? In individual e-mail, Steve Eppley suggested a
> method that successively drops the weakest defeat among the smallest set
> of candidates that is unbeaten from without. SSD is an Eppley-Ossipoff
> method.

Please forward this communication between Steve Eppley and you. I would
like to know why (although you considered neither independence of clones
nor reversal symmetry important and although Steve Eppley decided to
promote Tideman's ranked pairs method) you decided to promote SSD.

************

I wrote (15 May 2005):
> The term "beatpath winner" has been introduced by you in 2000 as a
> synonym for the Schulze method. You wrote:
>
> > I refer to the method that's been known as "Schulze's method",
> > and which I'll sometimes call "Beatpath Winner".
>
> http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2000-May/003955.html
>
> Therefore, your claim that "'Schulze's method' doesn't mean
> BeatpathWinner" is false by your own definition.

You wrote (17 May 2005):
> We've recently been all over that. I won't repeat that argument, but, to
> summarize the conclusion that we reached recently,  I admitted that I was
> mistaken when I thought that "Schulze's method" means the method that I
> call "BeatpathWinner". "Schulze's method" does not mean BeatpathWinner.

Your "reply" doesn't make any sense. In 2000, you _defined_ the
term "beatpath winner" as a synonym for the Schulze method. The
term "beatpath winner" hadn't been used before. Therefore, it
doesn't make any sense when you now claim that you only mistakenly
believed that "beatpath winner" was a synonym for the Schulze
method. The terms "beatpath winner" and "Schulze method" are
synonymous terms because you _defined_ them to be synonymous
terms.

Markus Schulze