[EM] Re: "Be careful what you wish for"

[Araucaria Araucana]

On 22 Apr 2005 at 19:46 UTC-0700, Russ Paielli wrote:
Araucaria Araucana araucaria.araucana-at-gmail.com |EMlist| wrote:
>> Well, that has a kernel of truth to it -- candidates are going to
>> try to game the system, whatever it is.  So whatever method you set
>> up, it needs to have a certain unpredictable aspect to it, even (or
>> especially) if it is deterministic, so voters will give up and
>> simply state their true preferences.
>
> I don't think I can go along with that. If a little bit of
> randomness helps discourage strategy, then a lot of randomness will
> help even more.  Why not just toss dice? The only effective strategy
> is to somehow load the dice.

You're missing the point -- Consider a contentious election with no
CW:

  1) If winning votes are crucial in resolving cycles, it can lead to
     burying and compromise strategies.

  2) If approval is the sole winning criterion (or there is a
     too-strong bias toward approval), it can lead to bullet approval.

etc.

I'm trying to warn about the law of unintended consequences.

IMO, DMC does a good (maybe not the best) job of promoting generous
approval cutoff and sincere ranked preferences.

-- 
araucaria dot araucana at gmail dot com