[EM] Meaning of preference, four approaches

[Markus Schulze]

Dear Mike,

you wrote (27 Feb 2005):
> Markus doesn't like the mention of preference
> in a criterion, and implies that it's somehow
> necessarily imprecise. (...) Markus, you might
> not like it when criteria mention that voters
> prefer one candidate to another, and maybe the
> journal authors don't write such criteria. But
> those things don't mean that it's unclear for
> a criterion to mention preference.

I said that criteria should be defined on the
_cast_ preferences and not on the _sincere_
preferences. I didn't say that criteria shouldn't
be defined on preferences at all.

You wrote (27 Feb 2005):
> You still haven't said why you think that my
> criteria are unclear.

I would say that WDSC, SDSC, and FBC are rather
_undefined_ than _unclear_.

You wrote (27 Feb 2005):
> For instance, I demonstrated why Approval passes
> WDSC, and why margins Condorcet fails WDSC. When
> compliances and noncompliances can be clearly and
> undeniably demonstrated, then that's the only kind
> of clarity that a criterion really needs. Can you
> name a plausible situation in which it would be
> difficult to say whether or not a method meets
> one of my criteria.

Then please demonstrate whether my method (aka
Schwartz sequential dropping, cloneproof Schwartz
sequential dropping, beatpath method, beatpath
winner, Schulze method) satisfies FBC.

Markus Schulze