[EM] For Marku: dropping & "not there"

[MIKE OSSIPOFF]

Mike Ossipoff wrote (4 July 2001):
>Eliminating a pairwise defeat is the same as dropping it.

Markus said:

And what does "dropping" mean? Already Blake Cretney criticized that
the meaning of "dropping" is unclear "to someone who doesn't know
how you [= Mike] have used the term in the past" (16 April 2001).

I reply:

No, it's not just I, but it's been general usage here that to drop a
pairwise defeat means to delete it from the table of pairwise defeats.
In fact, in general, to everyone, when we drop an entry from a table,
that means that we cease to have that entry in that table.

I hope I've helped Markus & Blake by explaining that.

Mike Ossipoff wrote (4 July 2001):
>When you eliminate something, it's no longer there.

Markus continues:

It doesn't make much sense to say that "when you eliminate something
then it's no longer there" as long as one doesn't say what it means
when although the candidate X and the candidate Y are still there the
pairwise comparison X:Y "is not longer there".

I reply:

Markus is right: It doesn't make much sense to say that the defeat
is no longer there unless we know what it means for something to be
no longer there. Markus, I suggest that avail yourself of the services
of a translator, to facilitate your participation in this list.

I'm curious what you, Markus, think that "not there" could mean.
If X pairwise beats Y, meaning that X has a pairwise defeat against
Y, and now we say that that defeat is no longer there, what do you
think that could mean. I suggest to you that it means that we no longer
record a defeat by X against Y. What else did you think it could mean?

Please get the help of a translator, or have some friend help you
understand what you read here.

And the fact that X & Y are still there doesn't, or shouldn't,
make it more difficult for you to understand what it means for the
defeat to not be there. It's possible for 2 candidates to be there
(in the election, in the defeats table), without there being a
pairwise defeat among those 2 candidates.

Mike Ossipoff




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