[EM] Call for Ideas on Automatic Approval Cutoff Finding

[Kevin Venzke]

Forest,

 --- Forest Simmons <fsimmons at pcc.edu> a écrit : 
> Suppose you were given a set of voted CR ballots, perhaps with
> supplemental information such as a tentative approval cutoff.  What rule
> would you use to adjust the approval cutoff by taking into account the
> popularity of the various candidates as manifested by the ballots
> themselves, as opposed to published opinion polls?

This isn't very creative, but my thought is that if we possess all the 
relative ranking information (we could have the absolute rating information,
as well, so long as we care about preserving majority rule more than maximum 
utility), and we let the voters use that information, we're going to come up with 
the CW.  What your Max Power method does in the three-candidate, weak centrist
scenario is a perfect example of this: The low-utility centrist will be embraced
as soon as a major faction "learns" they can't win.

(With "RWE," I found that if the voters rank down to and including the CW -or-
the candidate who would've won if the CW hadn't run, whichever of the two is
ranked higher, the CW still always wins.  Maybe that's a predictable result,
though?)

When there are cycles, I think there's necessarily a game of chicken going
on among the voters.  I think an approval measurement is the best way to
resolve the game, forcing voters to pick sides without "perfect" polling info.
A defect is that there's the possibility that not all voters give approval
votes with relevance to the cycle...  For instance, if someone disapproved
all cycle participants, or none of them, then he doesn't participate in
resolving the cycle.

Maybe CR is a good resolution to this defect?  Once we have a cycle, all
cycle participants have similar odds (don't they?), so it's a trivial task to 
convert a CR ballot to an approval ballot: Approve everyone preferred to the 
average CR score of cycle participants.


Kevin Venzke
stepjak at yahoo.fr


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