[EM] ignoring "strength of opinion"

[Scott Ritchie]

On Sun, 2005-12-11 at 16:07 -0500, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:
> At 05:40 AM 12/11/2005, rob brown wrote:
> >On 12/10/05, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax 
> ><<mailto:abd at lomaxdesign.com>abd at lomaxdesign.com> wrote:
> > >Voting anything other than 1 or 10 (or whatever the range is) is
> > >downweighting.
> >
> >   "Give the candidates the scores you want them to receive" is 
> > simply bad strategy when you are using averages.
> 
> Only if you have a specific goal in mind, *and* you have good 
> information about the votes of others. If you don't know the votes of 
> others, then your optimum vote is precisely the rating that you think 
> the candidate deserves, in the context of the set of candidates in 
> the election.
> 
Yes, but in real elections voters do have that kind of information.  We
can't magically ban all forms of formal and informal polling.

> Mr. Brown continually asserts that this is "bad strategy," but he's 
> never shown it. It's the core of his assertion, perhaps he should try 
> to show it in a coherent way, stating assumptions and how he proceeds 
> from those assumptions to his conclusion. I don't think he's done it.
> 
It seems fairly obvious to me.  You can move the average to 50 better by
picking a number greater than 50 if the current average is below 50.
Since we want it to be 50, that means it's a better strategy.

> Consider this. I think the candidate should be rated at 50. Yes, if I 
> know that a majority of others will rate that candidate below 50, and 
> I care about the exact rating, I should increase my rating to offset 
> the others. However, there is a critical assumption here, and I've 
> never seen it stated before. I must assume that I am in the minority, 
> or, more precisely, that my views are not in the center. If I am 
> incorrect about this, then my vote of other than 50 will, in fact, 
> distort the outcome in the direction of my exaggeration.
> 
If you know that a majority of others will rate the candidate below a
50, then you know you're in the minority for wanting him to be a 50.
How hard is that?

Thanks,
Scott Ritchie