[EM] Re: a name for random ballot from P

[Jobst Heitzig]

Hi Forest!

> Before I read your post I proposed a Madison Avenue style name of
> "Majority Fair Chance."

That's OK but only when we use majority-strength defeats!

> It's not very scientific.  

No problem, as long as we know what it is and can justify the name.

> Perhaps, "Fair Chance Democratic Choice"
> would be better, though still not taxonomically descriptive.

That's better I think, since it indicates that the method is more
democratic than "majority rule".

> I don't think it has quite enough randomness in it for the tough examples.

Hm, which examples do you have in mind? Of course, since there might be
losers not defeated by any possible winner, it cannot resolve the fake
CW problem completely. But I'm not sure how probable that is, I would
guess that only in pathological examples with many candidates it will
happen that such a loser exists.

However, one could make a minor modification which would only seldom be
used: Determine P, and as long as all of P is beaten by a candidate
outside P, add the most approved such candidate to P. I will try to
prove its monotonicity...

> Here's how we might change it:
> 
> Use a random approval ballot order in place of the approval order.

Also a good idea, but it requires to let go of the nice interpretation
of strong defeat...

> We choose from P either by (ordinary) random ballot or by (another) set
> of random approval ballots, how ever many it takes to determine a winner.

I think that it is better to use ordinary random ballot since then all
three major kinds of preference information (approval, pairwise
preferences, direct support) are used to determine the winner, and that
is a very good marketing argument!

By the way, here's a simple "procedural" version of the method, to be
used in meetings:
	First, options may be suggested, and for every option it is asked who
approves of it. They are written onto blackboard in order of approval.
Then some member of the group is picked at random. S/he proposes some of
the options, and then this option is subjected to pairwise contests with
the more approved ones, beginning with the most approved one. If none of
them wins with majority strength, the proposed option wins. Otherwise,
the next person is chosen at random and proposes an option, until the
proposed option survives all pairwise contests with more approved ones.
	This will hopefully lead to people proposing very good compromises,
since otherwise they will experience to have their proposal defeated by
a more approved option, which would make their proposal look somewhat
ridiculous.

I'd like to ask you to test this procedure with your favourite group!

Yours, Jobst