Let's rename Smith-Condorcet

[Steve Eppley]

It's been awhile since anyone proposed any new choices for our
Smith-Condorcet renaming poll.  I've collated the proposals below,
and added a few more.

It's not too late to propose names.  Maybe the list below, or 
the passage of a few weeks since you last considered the question, 
will stimulate a few more suggestions.  But in a few days I'll ask
subscribers of EM to respond to the poll by ranking the choices in
order of preference.

Mike Ossipoff suggested that only advocates of Smith-Condorcet be
entitled to vote.  But since this won't be a secret ballot, it 
will be possible to tally subsets of the responses.  It would
probably be appropriate for respondents to specify whether they
advocate use of Smith-Condorcet (and/or plain Condorcet) in 
public elections.  (Respondents may wish to submit a response 
to the EM single-winner method preference poll, or amend an
old response.)

Some of the people often cc:ed by Tom Round may be interested in
participating too.  Tom would be a better judge of that, so I
haven't yet addressed this to anyone but the EM list.


The proposals received so far:

   Smith-Condorcet
   Instant Majority   (and Instant Supermajority when some choices--
                       like Keep Status Quo--are privileged)
   Instant Runoffs
   Instant Runoffs (but only if CV&D agrees to drop Instant Runoff)
   Complete Instant Runoffs (but only if CV&D agrees to drop...)
   Complete Runoff
   Simultaneous Simulated Runoffs
   Simultaneous Runoffs
   Simulated Runoffs
   All Pairs
   Head to Head
   True Majority
   Complete Voting
   Complete Vote
   Near Perfect
   True Vote
   True Preference Vote
   Spoiler-Free Vote
   No Lesser Evil Vote  (this sounds horrible, but "lesser of evils"
                         is a widely known problem)
   Dilemma-Free Vote
   Voters' Choice
   Pairwise Majority Rule
   Majority Rule
   RBTP (Ranked Ballots Tallied Pairwise)
   ULTRA (Undefeated or Lowest Total Reached by Adversary)
   BALLOT (Beats All or Least Loss by Opponent's Total)
   RIPE (Ranked Instant Primary Elections)
   RIM (Ranked Instant Majority)

(No good poll would be complete without some special meta-choices.)
   Continue searching for a better name.
   Continue searching, aiming for a supermajority (near-consensus).
   Quit searching for a better name.  (Keep the status quo)


We might also poll about which attributes we think are important in
a name, in case "Continue Searching" wins (or is ranked ahead of the 
winner in some responses; we might aim for a supermajority winner).  
(This would not be a single-winner poll.  But some of the attributes
may conflict with each other.)  Here are some possible attributes,
including what I've gleaned from the replies:

   Distinctive/Unique (to avoid confusion)
   Short
   Easy to pronounce
   No proper nouns included
   No foreign names included
   Technically accurate specification of voter's procedure
   Technically accurate spec of tally algorithm
   Technically accurate spec of results
   Attractive
   Memorable
   Pithy
   Simple
   Need to append a suffix someday to specify the variant of Condorcet
   Doesn't oversimplify or mislead re: algorithm
   Doesn't oversimplify or mislead re: results
   Should connote that "beats-all" choice, if there is one, will win
   Should avoid the word "instant" (smacks of commercial hype)
      [Maybe that's a sign that "instant" is an effective term?]
   Should not suggest "majority" (since majority can't be guaranteed 
      by any method; IRO advocates might offer examples with no
      majority for anyone.)
      [IRO won't look any better in those examples, and may look 
      worse.]
   If an acronym, the expanded version shouldn't be a turn-off
   Should avoid acronyms
   Should avoid acronyms pronouncable only by individual letters
   Should avoid acronym: Complete
   Should avoid acronym: Ranked 
   Should avoid acronym: Primaryless
   If name includes a version number, nothing less than 3.0   :-)
   None (of the Above)


---Steve     (Steve Eppley    seppley at alumni.caltech.edu)