Irrelevant Vs. Clone (was RE: [EM] IRV in San Francisco)

[Bart Ingles]

bql at bolson.org wrote:

> On Tue, 16 Nov 2004, Paul Kislanko wrote:
> 
>> The original question was how to define the word "spoiler", and I've 
>> come to
>> the conclusion that it cannot be used at all without some 
>> qualification. An
>> "IRV-spoiler" might be a clone or it might be an IA, and it can be one
>> without being both.
> 
> 
> A "spoiler" is the guy we don't like. The guy we blame for our candidate 
> not winning when we skip over blaming our candidate for not winning. A 
> "spoiler" violates the principle of "should have been".

The only definition of "spoiler" I can think of at the moment who is not 
an irrelevant alternative (in terms of adding or removing) is a 
candidate whose removal doesn't affect the outcome, but for whom being 
moved up or down in the rankings does affect the outcome.  But for all I 
know that does reasonably constitute an IIA failure, at least by the 
literal definition.

Bart