[EM] repetition

[James Green-Armytage]

James replying to Mike...

James:
>	Anyway, for the record, I think that you're totally wrong when you assert
>that my e-mails to you on the topic of voter strategy are nothing but
>mindless repetition of points that you have long ago defeated.
>
Mike:
>Fine, you of course can assert whatever you want to. But, whether or not
>I 
>defeated the "points", I answered them, and, since you'd said what you'd 
>wanted to say, and I'd said what I wanted to say about it, you've no need
>to 
>keep on repeating it. Of course if you feel that something in my answer
>was 
>incorrect, you should specifically refer to that and tell why you think
>it's 
>wrong. But that wouldn't be repetition, it would be replying to something 
>that I'd just said. That would be different from merely endlessly
>repeating 
>the same answered statements, which is what you were doing.
>
	There are plenty of valid reasons to repeat a statement on EM more than
once. For example: to provide context and support for new statements, to
communicate them to someone who doesn't seem to be aware of them or
understand them yet, to rephrase or modify them as a response to an
argument, to rephrase them in an attempt to clarify, etc. 
	If my messages strike you as tediously long, that is unfortunate, but I
am doing the best that I can to communicate my ideas in an approachable
way. Sometimes I may err on the side of over-explaining things, but if so,
it is because I am making a special effort to avoid misunderstanding. 
	My suggestion to you is the following: If you feel that any part of a
message from me to you is a repetition of something that you have nothing
further to say about, then *don't reply to that part of the message*.
Focus on the new parts of the message that you have something new to say
about. And yes, there is new information in all of my messages to you. For
example, in my last strategy message to you, I replied directly to your
argument that the burying strategy is not a "new problem" in
Condorcet-efficient because it only causes the same "undesirable results"
that exist in non-Condorcet-efficient methods without the use of strategy.
It is a multi-part counterargument that focuses on differing kinds of
undesirable results, and on differing ranges of situations where different
kinds of undesirable results are possible. I also reply directly to a
number of smaller related points.

Sincerely,
James