All involve randomness (was RE: [EM] river, ROACC (terminolgy, again))

[Paul Kislanko]

Steve Eppley wrote:

 

Paul K wrote:

> Steve Eppley wrote:

-snip-

>> Aren't all the voting methods we've been promoting 

>> both anonymous and neutral?  Doesn't that mean

>> none of them are entirely non-random?

> 

> No. 

> 

> If "none of them are non-random" then all of them are random.

> That's definitely not true. And the there is no connection 

> between "anonymous" and "neutral" (whatever that means). 

 

Anonymity means each voter is treated alike.  Neutrality means each
candidate is treated alike

 

 

Just to set the record straight - all "Paul K" meant was that the statement
"none are non-random" is the same the as the statement "all are random."
That is not an opinion, or something subject to refutation by counterexample
- it is a provable theorem from the axioms of logic. 

 

I don't give a hoot about formal definitions of "anonymity" and "neutrality"
since those were not what I was talking about (but thanks for clarifying
that they were being used in a standard way). I objected to the statement
that all of the methods discussed on this list are "random."  

 

As to my original point, I objected to the use of the term
"non-deterministic" as a synonym for a method that has a random component.
Many of the methods ARE non-deterministic, but not "random."

 

As was pointed out earlier, the proper term for an algorithm that requires a
random input is "stochastic", not "not-deterministic".

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