[EM] Re: Voting Matters 19: Five secret weighting numbers again!: fairness vs pairwis

[James Green-Armytage]

Craig quoted this from my paper:
>|  Pairwise comparison, pairwise defeat, pairwise tie: A pairwise
>|  comparison uses ranked ballots to simulate head-to-head contests
>|  between different candidates. Given two candidates A and B, there
>|  is a pairwise defeat of B by A if and only if A is ranked above B
>|  on more ballots than B is ranked above A. If the number of A>B
>|  ballots is equal to the number of B>A ballots, then there is a
>|  pairwise tie between A and B.

Craig wrote:
>
>We know that the author should have been defining 5 numbers. Here
>are the FIVE categories and Mr James Armitage-Green withheld the
>weighting numbers for each category
>      [1]:  (...A...B...)
>      [2]:  (...B...A...)
>      [3]:  (...A...)
>      [4]:  (...B...)
>      [5]:  (...)

	Actually, Craig, you're right; it might have been better if I had added
the following sentence at the end of the paragraph: 
"For the purpose of a pairwise tally, all candidates who are not ranked on
a given ballot are considered to be tied for last place on that ballot."
	Agreed?
	I think that most people will understand the definition as it was
written, but I suppose it might leave one or two people wondering how the
system handles ballots that don't list all candidates. So, I think that I
will include the additional sentence above in future versions of the paper.
	So, thanks for the editorial tip. However, I didn't understand much else
in your message; my guess is that much of it is nonsense. I do agree with
you that Jobst should write an article (about the River method, in
particular), even though you seem to have intended that suggestion
sarcastically. (It seems that you don't like any of us very much...)

my best,
James