Subcycle Rule: Sorry About That!

[Mike Ositoff]

I must retract my proposal for the subcycle rule. Before
I get to that, though, I must mention that, because of
a freqent keyboard lockup, I must keep my messages short,
which means, to say the same amount, I must divide it into
more shorter messages. That may seem more nuisance-like, but
it's no more lines of writing. Also, I'll usually send them
on different days, which should be better than 1 big 
message. There are just a few things I want to say, & they're
mostly fairly brief.

About the subcycle rule, I realized, after proposing it, that
it causes a worse problem than it solves: If, in a 3-candidate
election, all 3 are in a cycle, & candidate A is the least beaten,
very lightly beaten, and then we add 2 more candidates similar
to A, who form, with him, a 3-candidate subcycle as an element of
the original main cycle, and if A doesn't win in that subcycle,
and if the other 2 members of the subcycle (the new candidates)
are very badly beaten be someone outside the subcycle, then
the addition of those new candidates can deny A's election
without themselves getting elected. 

And if the defeats within the subcycle are light compared to
the othe defeats, then A would still win without the subcycle
rule, whereas someone outside the subcycle would win with
the subcycle rule.

But, though I apologize for the subcycle rule, I very much
stand by Smith//Condorcet. It's relatively simple, which is
a must for public proposal in the U.S. Though Tideman's &
Scultze's methods are indeed fine methods, and may be 
more fratricide-resistant than SC in some situations, isn't
their fratricide-proofness limited to clone-sets? And aren't
clone sets going to be extremely rare in public political
elections?

This mustn't be interpreted as rivalry or method-partisanship.
As I said, Schultze's & Tideman's are excellent methods, and
I'm interested in the pursuit of relatively ideal refinements
even if they're more complicated. But which would you rather
explain to Joe Sixpack on the streetcorner?

I intend to reply to other objections to Smith//Condorcet
in subsequent postings, but I'll only send one per day.

Mike Ossipoff