[EM] Re: Markus, criteria

[MIKE OSSIPOFF]

Markus:

You said:

Dear Mike,

I wrote (25 Feb 2005):
>You were asked several times to define WDSC, SDSC,
>and FBC in terms of cast preferences. You always
>refused to do so.
>
>And whenever someone submitted a definition for WDSC,
>SDSC or FBC in terms of cast preferences and asked you
>whether his definition corresponds with your intention
>of this criterion, you always refused to answer.

You wrote (26 Feb 2005):
>It isn't that I refused to define WDSC, SDSC & FBC
>without mentioning preferences. It's just that a
>criterion defined in that way would be a different
>criterion. It wouldn't be WDSC, SDSC, or FBC.

You now reply:

So you say that it is impossible to define WDSC, SDSC,
and FBC in terms of cast preferences?

I reply:

Either it´s impossible, or else no one has yet succeeded. Does it matter 
which it is? By all means define one if you want to. As I said, I´d be glad 
to have such a definitions of my criteria.

You continued:

Then I doubt that
WDSC, SDSC, and FBC are well defined.

I reply:

Obviously that would depend on how you define well-defined. But I didn´t ask 
you whether you like the way that my criteria are defined. I asked you 
whether or not you can tell the people of an instance of their meaning being 
unclear, or an instance of their being ambiguous about whether a method 
passes them.

To me, but maybe not to you, a criterion is well-defined if you can´t find 
more than one thing that it could mean, and there is something that it 
means, and if it isn´t ambiguous about whether a method passes it. Can you 
show that one of my criteria is not well-defined by that standard?

You continued:

You wrote (26 Feb 2005):
>However, I graciously and generously invited you to
>define such a criterion if you want to. At no time
>did I say that such a criterion couldn't or shouldn't
>be defined. I just assigned the task to you, since
>you're the one who wants such a criterion.

You reply:

However, whenever someone submitted a definition for
WDSC, SDSC or FBC in terms of cast preferences and
asked you whether his definition corresponds with
your intention of this criterion, you always refused
to answer. So your "invitation" is a fake.

I reply:

You´re beginning to repeat yourself again, Markus. That´s what you always 
resort to. Repetition of statements that have already been answered, without 
any comment on why you think the answer is wrong.

When someone has submitted a definition of WDSC, SDSC, FBC, SFC or GSFC, in 
terms of"cast preferences" (votes as opposed to preferences), and asked me 
whether his definition is equivalent with my criteria, I have never refused 
to answer. I´ve always answered, and the answer was always "No", except for 
one instance in which I said that I didn´t know.

In that instance where I didn´t know if someone´s criteion was equivalent to 
FBC, I pointed out, however, that due to non-equivalence of other attempts, 
there was no reason to believe that that one particular criterion was 
equivalent to mine either. In any case, that criterion whose equivalence to 
FBC wasn´t know, was written so as to be entirely unusable with the public, 
or with most people anywhere.

Discussing with you is like this:

A: "I spent my vacations in Washington."
B: "Do you mean 'Washington state' or 'Washington, DC'?"
A: "Call it as you want to call it. I call it 'Washington'.
   I could say 'Washington state' or 'Washington, DC';
   but this wouldn't be the same as saying 'Washington'.
   Are you trying to say that 'Washington' is unclear?
   If that's what you mean, then you should say it. And then,
   when saying it, you should demonstrate what is unclear
   about 'Washington'.

I reply:

But I could demonstrate what´s unclear about "Washington": It has 2 
meanings, a state and a capitol city. But you never did say what is unclear 
about the definitions of my criteria.

Showing that there are ambiguous statements doesn´t answer my question about 
how you believe that my criteria are unclear.

I could reply to the rest of your washington analogy in similar fashion, but 
I´ve made my point about it.

Talking to you is talking to someone who generalizes, but refuses to answer 
a simple specific question.


If you believe that it isn't clear
   whether 'Washington' means 'Washington state' or
   'Washington, DC' then I invite you to ask me whether I
   mean 'Washington state' or 'Washington, DC'; but I won't
   answer to your question.

I reply:

In your analogy, you´ve told me of a particular instance of ambiguity and I 
refuse to answer which I mean. In this discussion, I´ve been asking you for 
a specific instance of ambiguity, but you won´t supply one, preferring 
instead to generalize and repeat your general claim.

You continued:

I just assign this task to you,
   since you're the one who wants to know

I reply:

No, actually the task that I assigned to you was to write a definition 
that´s equivalent to mine but which doesn´t mention preference. Can you or 
can you not do that?



whether 'Washington'
   is 'Washington state' or 'Washington, DC'. When you ask me
   whether I mean 'Washington state' or 'Washington, DC' then
   my answer is no.

I reply:

But the question to which I answered "No" was the question of whether or not 
a certain particular definition was equivalent to mine.

You continued:

Saying that I was in 'Washington' is
   not the same as saying that I was in 'Washington state'.
   Saying that I was in 'Washington' is not the same as
   saying that I was in 'Washington, DC'.

I reply:

A safe claim to make, but I don´t know what statement of mine it´s intended 
to correspond to.



You wrote (26 Feb 2005):
>Steve Eppley and I devised SSD and posted about it here.
>You probably had already posted a definition of CSSD, or
>something at least resembling a definition of CSSD, but
>neither of us had paid attention to it or knew about it
>at that time.

The very first time that the term "Schwartz sequential
dropping" (SSD) was being used was on 18 Feb 2000 in
a mail by you. Already in this mail, you wrote that
"SSD is equivalent to Schulze's method". Therefore, it
can hardly be said that you "devised" SSD. You only
introduced a new name for an already known method.

I reply:

In a sense a method that gives the same result is the same method, but in 
another sense it can be said to not be the same method, if it´s a completely 
different implementation.  In any case, however, when I said that SSD is 
equivalent to Schulze´s method, that statement wasn´t entirely correct. When 
all situations are taken into account, those methods aren´t equivalent.

Mike Ossipoff

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