[EM] SARC definition improvement

[MIKE OSSIPOFF]

>to my opinion, you should drop SFC, GSFC, WDSC, SDSC, FBC and SARC.


First, I appreciate opinions being expressed, including yours. I
mean that, because it's valuable to find out what others believe.

Markus probably didn't mean that I should drop those criteria. What
he must have meant is that Markus, personally, doesn't use those
criteria, and that he, personally, doesn't consider them important.
I'm certain that Markus doesn't imply that what isn't important to
him is, in some absolute sense, not important or useful.

>
>(1) You should drop FBC and SARC. Condorcet methods don't meet FBC
>or SARC. But in the website at http://home.pacbell.net/paielli/voting
>you promote Condorcet methods and not Approval Voting. Therefore
>there is no real reason to introduce FBC and SARC.

That doesn't make any sense, unless you think I should choose criteria
based on whether they're met by my favorite method. Blake has claimed
that I do that. You claim that, if I don't, I should. I don't & I
won't. I choose criteria & methods on their own merits.

Condorcet has exclusive criteria compliances, and so does Approval.
Both methods, overall, do well by criteria important to me, and I
consider Condorcet & Approval to be the best methods, by the standards
important to me, standards that are about things that a great many
voters are concerned about.

Russ owns the website you named. Because it's Russ's website, because
Russ likes Condorcet best, and because Condorcet is my favorite method
too, the website is a Condorcet website. If it were my website, it would
emphasize Approval too. But the website does mention Approval. In
the criteria complaince table, it indicates Approval's criteria
compliances. Maybe you don't call that "promoting" Approval, but the
website does tell some of Approval's advantages over IRV & Plurality,
and some of its exclusive advantages.

At the uk website, I say more about Approval. I recommend for you to
check that out.

>
>(2) You should drop SFC, GSFC, WDSC and SDSC.
>
>Consider the following two criteria:
>
>Criterion X: If a given candidate has the property Z, then he must
>be elected.
>
>Criterion Y: If a given candidate has the property Z, then there is
>a way of voting that ensures that this candidate wins.
>
>On the one side, if a given reader considers criterion X to be
>important then criterion Y is superfluous. On the other side, if
>this reader doesn't consider criterion X to be important, then he
>will also not consider criterion Y to be important.

Wrong. If you want to claim that if you believe that it should be
possible for a certain group to make a certain candidate win,
then that candidate should win automatically, you need to justify
your claim. I don't agree with it. Sometimes it's possible to guarantee
the former, but not the latter. That's true of the situation we're
talking about, as I'll show later.

By the way, the 4 criteria you listed are about someone _not_ winning,
and weren't about someone winning. My statements in the paragraph before
this one, however, apply when what we want is to make a certain
candidate lose.

>
>In short: If a given person doesn't consider it to be important that
>if a majority of the voters strictly prefers candidate A to candidate
>B then rather candidate A than candidate B should be elected, then he
>will also not consider it to be important that if a majority of the
>voters strictly prefers candidate A to candidate B then this majority
>should have a way of voting that ensures that rather candidate A than
>candidate B wins.

This is a restatement of your previous claim, and my reply to that
claim applies here too. Aside from that, what you're saying in the
above quote has little resemblence to my or Steve's criteria. No
one's saying, in those criteria, that a certain candidate should win,
unlike what you say above. And we're not saying that that majority
should have a way of making that happen--we're saying that that majority
should have a way of making that happen without a certain degree of
drastic insincerity.

Now, suppose that there are 3 candidates, and a majority prefer A to
B, and a majority prefer B to C, and a majority prefer C to A.

You want me to rewrite SDSC to say that A, B, & C should all lose.
Suit yourself. I invite you to write such a criterion. I merely say
that the majority who prefer A to B should have the power to make B
lose without the degrees of insincerity named in WDSC & SDSC. And
likewise for the other 2 majorities that I named. Obviously those
majorities have overlapping membership--they aren't disjoint. It
would be impossible for all 3 to use the power that WDSC & SDSC want
them to have, but it is perfectly possible for one of them to do so.


>
>(3) You should drop WDSC, SDSC and SARC. These criteria say that under
>certain conditions there must be a safe way of voting strategically
>resp. that those who use a certain strategy must not be punished.
>
>It makes sense to say that those who act sincerely should not be
>punished. It makes sense to say that those who act insincerely
>should not be rewarded. But there is absolutely no theoretical
>justification for criteria that protect insincere voters.

Markus means that, according to his theory, there's no theoretical
justification. If Markus could get past his theory, maybe he'd be
more in touch with what's important to voters.

Markus says that sincere voting should be rewarded. Regrettably
Plurality doesn't reward sincere voting, and neither does IRV. Most
methods don't. But, there's something that we can do: We can minimize
the degree of insincere voting that voters need under certain
circumstances. By Markus's theory, whatever it is, there's no
theoretical justification for minimizing the degree of insincerity
that voters need when trying to enforce majority wishes. Markus is
welcome to his theory, but hopefully it's ok with Markus if not
everyone considers Markus's theory their theory.

Markus says that I want to protect insincere voters. Markus didn't
read the criteria. The majority defensive strategy criteria minimize
the degree of insincerity that is needed. SARC doesn't specifically
protect insincere voters. It protects all voters who don't vote
dominated strategies--in other words, for practical purposes, it
protects all voters from defeating their favorite or electing their
last choice.  Markus says that there's no theoretical
justification for that protection. Whatever. But it sounds to me like
a good thing. You'll like it too when that favorite is your favorite
too.

Markus, are you trying to prove the accuracy of my more impolite
statements about academics?

>
>(4) You should drop WDSC, SDSC and SARC. These criteria are not
>intuitive. Even Steve Eppley who usually claims that he agrees
>with you doesn't use these criteria. Even Steve Eppley prefers
>Blake Cretney's terminology ("burying," "compromising," ...).

What's intuitive to one person apparently isn't intuitive to someone
else. We can't justifiably say that a criterion should be dropped
because there's someone to whom it isn't intuitive.

To me, it's intuitive that it's nice to not force people to
dump their favorite, under circumstances where it's feasible to
offer such a guarantee. I doubt that many people would agree with
you that that isn't intuitive.


>
>For example, independence from clones says that it should not be
>possible to manipulate the result of the elections by spaming the
>voters with a large number of identical candidates. As soon as a
>given reader has understood the intention of independence from
>clones, the exact mathematical definition of this criterion is
>rather obvious. On the other side, a reader has to agree to too
>many details before he can consider the exact definitions of WDSC,
>SDSC or SARC to be intuitive.
>

You neglected to say exactly what assumptions a reader has to agree
to before he can consider WDSC, SDSD or SARC to be intuitive. It
would be difficult to discuss your claim if you don't specify what
assumptions you mean. Minimizing the degree of insincerity needed
when it's feasible to do so, and desirable to a majority to do so
seems intuitive to me.

Mike Ossipoff

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