[EM] James: Of course there's defensive truncation incentive

[MIKE OSSIPOFF]

I'd said:

>Amazingly, MMPO gives protection at both ends, so that you don't need to 
>rank someone over your favorite, but, in the other direction, you also
>have no dis-incentive to extend your ranking as low as you want to.

	I have recently discussed this with Kevin.
	I argue that voters will have an indirect but strong incentive to
truncate, in order to deter what you call "offensive order reversal".
	Mike, you and I have agreed in previous postings that the ability to
deter by truncation may be important to the strategic stability of WV
methods. (Indeed, you have used this as a primary argument for WV over
margins.)
	If this counterstrategy is important to the stability of WV, it will be
equally important to the stability of MMPO. Thus, I argue that
counterstrategic truncation would probably be common in MMPO.

I reply:

Quite so. I should have clarified that I was talking about a non-devious 
electorate.. Of course in MMPO, as in wv, in a devious electorate, we'd have 
good reason to do deterrent truncation. Of course we'd announce that we're 
doing so.

If you don't expect offensive order-reversal, if it isn't a devious 
electorate, then MMPO would give you no reason to truncate. In wv, you 
conceivably could still benefit from truncating, in rare circumstances.

When you don't expect offensive order-reversal, in MMPO, one's best strategy 
is to rank everyone, even if randomly. And no, as problems go, that 
incentive is not a problem.

That's probably so in wv too, since wv's non-retaliatory truncation 
incentive is rare.

You continued:

If so,
MMPO's LNHarm compliance may be an empty victory in practice.

I reply:

Probably so., in a devious electorate. But LNH was never important to me.

Mike Ossipoff

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