FAQ

[Mike Ossipoff]

John De Lasaux writes:
> 
> Why is the title of this piece "FAQ" when all it is is a dissertation by
> someone named Mike?


Because it's about a FAQ. Sometimes the title of a message
tells what the message _is_, but sometimes it just tells
what the message is about. No misrepresentnation intended. True,

before displaying the message, the title could imply that it
_is_ a FAQ, and I certainly didn't intend to misrepresent my
letter as a FAQ. But surely, when that message started out by
agreeing that Arrow's theorem should be discussed in the FAQ,
and suggested what topic the FAQ should begin with, you must
have realized that that message didn't really claim to be
a FAQ, but, rather, was merely a letter a letter _about_ a
FAQ.

Alright--after sending the message, it did occur to me that
, from the title, it could sound as if the message itself
were a FAQ. But surely you didn't believe that the message
claimed to be a FAQ after you displayed the message. Sure,
it should have been entitled: Regarding FAQ Contents, to
avoid any ambiguity about what it was.
 
A "dissertation" is a treatise, especially one written as a
doctoral thesis. A "treatise" is a formal, systematic account
of a topic. My letter was actually intended to be more on
the informal side, and was only intended as a letter about
what should be in the FAQ, and what topics it should begin
with. 

> 
> Where is the FAQ?

It's still in the discussion stage.

> 
> John D
> =================

Unavoidably, I've included the message that was included
in the letter to which I'm replying. My apologies for the
extra bytes. This is the conclusion of this reply. Hopefully
the inclusion of the rest of the copied letter, below, is
forgivable, considering that it's just as easy to delete
a long letter as a short one.

> At 10:12 PM 1/3/97 PST, election-methods-list at eskimo.com wrote:
> >I agree that Arrow's criteria & his impossibility statement should
> >be n the FAQ, because there's always someone who will bring it up,
> >claiming that Arrow showed that it's completely hopeless. It never
> >fails. So certainly we must cover that in the FAQ.
> >
> >But I wouldn't put it first. Of course I'm partial to my pitch, but
> >it seems to me that we should start by asking what it is that we
> >want from a single-winner method.  Then we'd say "OK, & here's
> >how to do that." Don helped clarify the position when he pointed
> >out that Condorcet's method can almost be regarded as a thinly
> >disguised copying of the standards that we consider important.
> >
> >Of course a method can't really be the same thing as a standard,
> >because a method has to be a lot more specific than a standard.
> >But it's obvious when a method seems to written around or based
> >on certain standards, all but incorporating them in its 
> >definition.
> >
> >So, thanks to Don's suggestion, we could say "If you like those
> >standards, then why not write them into a method? Here's such
> >a method..."
> >
> >Maybe that sounds promotional, but I don't think an article
> >can really be objective & helpful at the same time. My www
> >article tried to be objective, but I wouldn't do it that way
> >now; I'd make it advocatory, because that's really the only
> >way to present the information directly, without lots of wasted
> >words.
> >
> >
> >Mike
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >-- 
> >
> >
> >
> John De Lasaux
> 
> Phoenix, AZ
> 
> .-
> 


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