[EM] Condorcet cyclic drop rule

[Markus Schulze]

Dear Mike,

you wrote (7 Apr 2001):
> You're sure that was posted to EM?

I am sure not only that this mail was posted to EM on 15 Jan 1997
but also that you read this mail and that you replied to it.
You replied in your well-known sympathetic manner:

> Correction: It appears _to you_ to be different from what has
> been written here. Actually it's the same. When you "delete the
> proposition with the smallest 'plurality'" that means that
> the alternative beaten in that "proposition" (pairing) is
> no longer beaten and is now the winner. Had there been
> a more complex situation, with more alternatives, it's
> still true that when you keep deleting "propositions" as
> described in translations of Condorcet, you're finally going
> to make something unbeaten. When you do that, you've
> "deleted the proposition" that represents' the minimax
> defeat: The proposition you've just deleted is obviously
> that alternative's biggest defeat, since you've been
> sequentially eliminating the smallest ones. And it's 
> smaller than anything else's biggest--that's why your
> sequential procedure is deleting it before theirs.
>
> Nope, the wording you've described is the same as
> "The winner is the alternative whose biggest defeat
> is the smallest".
>
> [snip]
>
> Nonsense. There's an "opinion", a winner, if when you 
> deleted B>A, A was no longer beaten. The fact that a cycle
> remains among the others is irrelevant. Read Young's
> translation again. It says to stop when you no longer have
> a paradoxical situation with everyone beaten.
>
> [snip]
>
> I suggest that you pay some attention to what you're
> quoting before you post it. You're spamming us with
> quotations. At least check out what they mean before
> you post them. Obviously you didn't.
>
> [snip]
>
> I suggest that you check out the meaning of quotations that you
> post before you post them, with erroneous commentary. And I
> suggest that if you're going to take part in this discussion,
> it's necessary for you to pay some attention to what others have
> said.
>
> [snip]
>
> Condorcet's tie-breaker is the same as saying to pick the
> alternative whose greatest defeat is the least. Doing
> that is Condorcet's method. The magnitude of a defeat can
> be measured in various ways. Condorcet(EM) measures it by
> votes-against. Young's translation, and Duncan Black's
> translation of Condorcet is not different from how I've
> been defining Condorcet's method. Condorcet(EM) is one of
> the several ways of implementing Condorcet's method. It
> isn't different from Condorcet's method any more than
> a Hershey Bar is different from a candy bar.
>
> And if all you're trying to say is that Condorcet(EM)
> is "different from" Condorcet's method because it's
> one of the ways of doing Condorcet's method, then
> you're wasting our time. You are anyway.
>
> [snip]
>
> This list has become a babysitting service, in which we
> indulge people who engage in sloppy disorderly discussion.

Markus Schulze