[EM] EM's Jargon dictionary

[MIKE OSSIPOFF]

Dave--

The EM homepage has a place to click on "Jargon", which I assume links to a 
jargon dictionary.

I don't know who maintains it or how often it's updated. Of course ideally 
it should be updated often, with all the terms, abbreviations, and acronyms 
that are introduced on EM. That's easy for me to say, though, because I'm 
not the one who has the task of maintaining the jargon dictionary.

I've always promptly answered questions about the meaning of a term that I 
use, and have always promptly re-posted definitions upon request.

Ideally, the terms, abbreviations and acronyms should be in alphabetical 
order, so that it would be easy to look one up.

Of course newly-posted terms and abbreviations won't be in the jargon 
dictionary immediately, but will only appear there the next time that the 
dictionary is updated.

When I define a method, enhancement, or criterion, I usually make sure to 
give it its own posting and subject line, a subject line that clearly names 
it. That makes it relatively easy to find my definitions in the archives.

Voting systems is an under-discussed topic, with no official academic 
consensus. In fact the academics are mostly of no help at all. So, 
especially for that reason, it's important that the jargon dictionary not 
discriminate. It should list every term  and abbreviation that is defined on 
EM.

It's easy to look up a term or abbreviation even in a very long list, if 
they're in alphabetical order. If the list ran into the thousands of terms, 
then the procedure for looking one up could include specifying the 1st 
letter.  Of course another possibility would be an automatic search for a 
term specified by the user.

To whoever maintains the jargon dictionary: E-mail me, or post a message to 
EM, and I'll e-mail to you a collection of my terms, definitions and 
abbreviations.

Mike Ossipoff

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