[EM] (no subject)

[MIKE OSSIPOFF]

James--

You said:

	Mike, here is my proposed definition of strong majority rule. Your
feedback is welcome, as is all other feedback.

Definition of strong majority rule criterion: If voters cast ballots
sincerely, and the voting method in question always chooses a member of
the sincere Smith set, the method passes the strong majority rule
criterion. Otherwise, the method fails the strong majority rule criterion.

I reply:

That's my Smith Criterion definition. For a long time it was at a (now 
defunct)
website. That criterion, there, was listed under the name "Generalized 
Condorcet
Criterion".

It's the obvious generalization of my Condorcet Criterion to the Smith set. 
And
it was posted at a website for a long time.

Again: Your Strong Majority Rule Criterion isn't new, because it's my
long-posted version of the Smith Criterion.

You continue:

Definition of casting ballots sincerely: (1) Not voting a more-preferred
candidate below a less-preferred candidate. (2) Not voting candidates
equally when I prefer one over the other, and when the number of available
preference levels on the ballot does not prevent me from indicating my
preference. (Note: if I leave more than one candidate off a ranked ballot,
I consider this to be equivalent to ranking those candidates equally in
last place.)

I reply:

That sounds suspiciously like my definition of sincere voting, except that 
it
has some ambiguity of meaning.

Does "my preference" mean "all my preferences", or does it mean  the 
particular preference that you aren't voting when you vote two candidates 
equal? If so, then you're saying that
that definition's part about equal ranking explicitly applies only to rank
methods or CR ballots with at least as many levels as you have preferences.

If so, then,when borrowing my definition, you've changed it so that it
explicitly refers to kinds of methods, something that I avoided with my
definition.

For the purpose of this brief reply, there isn't time to find out if your
definition has ambiguity problems, or applicability problems due to that 
change.

Voting someone below someone else needs a definition, and you haven't 
supplied one.

I appreciate that you're being original by speaking of voting someone below 
someone instead of voting someone over someone, but, as I said, it needs a 
definition.

You continue:

Definition of Smith set, aka minimal dominant set or GeTChA set: The
smallest set of candidates such that every candidate within the set
pairwise beats every candidate outside the set.

I reply:

You're repeating word-for-word the Smith set definition that I just told to 
you in the posting to which you're replying.

I'd said:

>
>Maybe you want "majority" to mean a majority of those voting a preference
between X and Y. But then "majority defeat" justs becomes another word
>for "pairwise defeat".

	Yes, exactly; that's what I intend.

I reply:

Fine. From now on, whenever you say "majorilty", you mean a pairwise defeat, 
and, for you, any and every pairwise defeat is a majority.

I'd continued:

>In other words, majority loses its meaning, the "more than half of the 
>voters"
meaning that it has in its accepted use.

You say:

	Another accepted use is "more than half of the voters who express a
preference between two options/candidates".

I reply:

That accepted use only applies as a sometime replacement  for "a pairwise 
defeat". No one ever says, "Candidate Smith has a majority defeat, because 
more people vote Jones over Smith than Smith over Jones." No one would call 
that a majority defeat for that reason. No one would call it a majority 
defeat unless more than half of the voters vote Jones over Smith.

You can say that, to you, majority never means anything but a pairwise 
defeat, but the fact remains that majority means a set of voters consisting 
of more than half of the voters. Whether you recognize that meaning or not, 
it's the main use of "majority".

You're confusing two different usages, intended for two entirely different 
contexts.

A majority, by that main usage, a set of voters consisting of more than half 
of the voters, is a group of voters for whom certain strategy guarantees can 
be made. That's why I mention majority in the majority defensive strategy 
criteria. And of course that's why I call them that.

You continue:

That's the definition I
choose. I realize that you don't agree with it

I reply:

People don't agree, disagree, or not agree with your choices. Widespread 
usage disagrees with your usage, however, now that you've said that, to you, 
"a majority" mean only "a pairwise defeat".

Or, if you're saying that you don't refuse to recognize the other, more 
widely used, definition, and are only saying that you will use "a majority" 
to mean "a pairwise defeat", then that means and accomplishes nothing. I 
mean, thanks for telling us, but you've merely substituted one word for 
another.

You continue:

, but at least my reasoning
is made clear to you.

I reply:

Not really. It isn't clear whether you're 1) Saying that, for you, "a 
majority" means nothing other than "a pairwise defeat"; or whether you're 
only 2) Saying that, while accepting and recognizing, but never using, any 
other definition, you're also going to be using "majority" as a substitute 
for "pairwise defeat; or whether you're 3) Saying that not only do you 
accept and recognize "majority" to mean a group consisting of more than half 
of the voters, but you would also use it with that meaning, though you also 
sometimes use "a majority" as a substitute for "a pairwise defeat".

The question of whether you mean 1, 2, or 3 doesn't even get to the question 
of your reasoning behind that announcement. If you mean 3, then will you 
state, when you say "majority", which meaning you're using, or will you 
depend on that being deduced from the context?

You continued:

One benefit of this kind of definition is that it
assures that a batch of spoiled ballots cannot rob a defeat of "majority"
status.

I reply:

:-)  Oh that's really good! You've made every defeat into a majority defeat. 
And you've completely confused those two "majority" definitions that I 
mentioned. By merely calling every pairwise defeat a majority, you seem to 
think that that has increased their status. Now you can say that  if 2/3 of 
the voters vote X over Y, and 21 percent of the voters vote Y over Z, and 20 
percent of the voters vote Z over Y, the 2/3 defeat has no status that the 
21% defeat doesn't have. Congratulations.

Right before my most recent quote of you, I'd said that, no one would call a 
defeat a majorilty defeat by virtue of the fact that he calls all pairiwise 
defeats majorities. But you've proved me wrong :-)

>
>James:
>If you pick a non-Smith candidate, you are needlessly ignoring a
>majority preference.
>
Mike:
>Not at all. Maybe, due to truncation, someone is out of the Smith set 
>because
of a sub-majority defeat.

You say:

	Okay. I meant that you are needlessly ignoring an expressed majority
preference. That is, "expressed" meaning in terms of cast ballots, and
"majority" meaning more than half of those who expressed a preference
between the candidates in question. Again, you don't have to agree, but
you need to know that what I'm saying makes sense within the context of my
own definitions.


I reply:

Thank you for specifying the area of applicability within which what you say 
makes sense.

Of course that can be said for any unusual or otherwise un-useful 
definition. I define "cat" as "dog".
A Saint Bernard is a cat. Amazing, that makes sense in the context of my 
definition.

>
Mike:
>James, I don't criticize you because you're new to this subject.

James says:

	I've been studying voting methods for approximately 5 years, and I've
been studying them seriously for over 4 years. Not as long as you, but
long enough to develop opinions that are as valid as yours. Your
condescension is out of place.

Mike replies:

No it isn't. Look at the things you've said in the message that I'm replying 
to. There's a sense in which everyone's opiniions are valid. Certainly a 
person's opinions are valid for that person.

But, for one thing, it isn't "valid" to say that a 21% to 20% defeat has the 
same status as a 2/3 to 1/3 defeat because you choose to call all pairwise 
defeats majorities. No matter what words you substitute for other words, the 
2/3 defeat has a meaninful and politically very important attribute that the 
21% to 20% defeat doesn't have.

Look, if you're willing to, at all the things that I've corrected in this 
posting of yours and the others that I've recently replied to. No one is 
saying that you aren't valid, but only that you need to be a lot more 
tentative with your statements. And you need to stand back and go over what 
you intend to post, to be sure that it's really what you want to say. That 
isn't condescending; it's just helpful advice. Avoid making assertions 
unless you're really sure that they'll hold up.

I'd said:

>CP is a perfectly good idea, a good Condorcet enhancement, and probably 
>meets
the criteria that I judge methods by. But, for some reason, in voting system
discussion, some people new to the subject arrive with some degree of
arrogance--the notion that they have it right, and that someone else has 
been
wrong all this time.

You reply:

	Of course, you're never guilty of arrogance

I reply:

Well, feel free to describe an instance.

You continue:

, or of the above notion...[the notion that someone else is wrong].

I reply:

In the message that you're replying to I admitted that I sometimes do say 
that others are wrong, and I back up what I say.

For instance, I said, and contnue to say that emphasis on methods' 
"vulnerability" to strategy completely misses the point.

So does the treatment of what you call "burying strategy" as a separate 
method problem from the strategy problems of Plurality and IRV.

Though this is obvious when you look at defensive strategy need,  it's also 
otherwise clear that the kind of wrongs, the kind of violations, that can 
result from what you call "burying strategy" in Condorcet wv will also 
happen in Plurality and IRV, even without anyone doing what you call 
"burying strategy" or any strategy at all.

But you misidentify the result of what you call "burying strategy" as 
something different and unique to Condorcet, you tell us that Condorcet adds 
a new problem, a new fault.

And, by the way, what do you call offensive truncation? "Compression"? If 
you move Kerry up to 1st place with Nader, is that compression, or 
compromising, or raising, or all of those?

>
Mike:
>Do you see that your definition of the Smith set suggests that you're a 
>little
premature with your statements about who is wrong?

	My wording may have been imprecise, but that doesn't mean that my general
idea was wrong

I reply:

Oh it most surely does. Because your general idea was that you were tellling 
someone else where they were mistaken. And you can't do that with imprecise 
wording and mis-defined terms, and expect it to hold up. That's one reason 
why I suggest that you speak more tentatively and avoid assertions, 
especially about things said by others. Just a helpful suggestion.


You continued:

Some people are more
capable than others of appreciating ideas independently from the way that
they are expressed

I reply:

If you're going to be incorrect a lot, and careless with definitions, and 
imprecise, then you need to completely hold off on contradicting anyone or 
in any finding of fault with what someone else has said.

Mike Ossipoff

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