[EM] Criteria reply

[Markus Schulze]

Dear Mike,

I wrote (22 May 2005):

> It makes a big difference whether someone (1) made an
> error, was pointed to this error, and then stopped making
> this error or (2) made an error very many times, was
> pointed to this error several times, wrote each time
> "Thank you for pointing me to this error. I made this
> error because I mistakenly believed that ..." and then
> each time continued making this error.
>
> You are the latter case. That's why I say that you use
> your claim, that you hadn't understood the Schulze method,
> as an "argument" for claiming that you "devised" the same
> method ("SSD", "CSSD", "BeatpathWinner") independently
> of me.
>
> By the way: You had understood the Schulze method
> sufficiently to observe that "SSD is equivalent to
> Schulze's method" when you proposed SSD. I don't know
> what you claim to have not understood about the Schulze
> method. But it is obvious that this has nothing to do
> with the question whether you "devised" SSD independently
> of me.

In your last mail, you used your claim, that you hadn't
fully understood the Schulze method, 5 times as an argument
for claiming credit for this method.

#1
> I said that I didn't know (and still don't know or care)
> what Schulze's method is, and that I used to mistakenly
> believe that it was BeatpathWinner.

#2
> At that time I mistakenly believed that "Schulze's method"
> meant BeatpathWinner.

#3
> I thought that it meant BeatpathWinner. Now I don't know
> or care what Schulze's method means.

#4
> At that time I mistakenly believed that "Schulze"s method"
> meant BeatpathWinner.

#5
> At that time, I mistakenly believed that "Schulze method"
> meant BeatpathWinner.

So you say that you believed that the term "Schulze method"
referred only to a _heuristic_ for the Schulze method and
not to this method itself? Since when do we consider the
underlying heuristic to be a part of a given method?
I guess that you invented the theory, that the underlying
heuristic is a part of a method, for the sole purpose of
claiming that you "devised" a new method. However, you have
been pointed several times to the fact that the term "Schulze
method" refers to a _method_ and not to a _heuristic_ and that,
already in 1998, I had proposed that heuristic for the Schulze
method that uses Schwartz sets. Nevertheless, you continue
spamming this mailing list with mails in which you only write
(1) that you mistakenly believed that the term "Schulze method"
referred only to that heuristic for the Schulze method that
uses paths and (2) that, therefore (and although I have already
proposed that heuristic for the Schulze method that uses
Schwartz sets before), you claim credit for that heuristic
for the Schulze method that uses Schwartz sets. That's
why I say that you use your claim, that you hadn't fully
understood the Schulze method, as an "argument" for
claiming credit for this method.

***************************************************************

You wrote (23 May 2005):
> If you want his exact words, I no longer have e-mail from
> that year. You ask for a copy of Norm's e-mail objecting that
> SSD isn't clone-independent in small committees. I'd be glad
> to post it if I still had e-mail back that far.

I guess that the fact that you don't save mails (even when they
contain interesting stuff) is one of those reasons why you are
doomed to make the same errors again and again.

***************************************************************

I wrote (22 May 2005):

> Already in another mail, I pointed to the fact that the set
> of candidates who can be elected according to Steve Eppley's
> beatpath criterion is _not_ the same as the "set of
> BeatpathWinner winners". Therefore, I would be very happy
> if Mike Ossipoff stopped using these two terms as if they
> were synonymous terms.

You wrote (23 May 2005):

> What two terms?

Well, in your 19 May 2005 mail and in your 22 May 2005 mail,
you referred to the "BeatpathWinner Criterion". But nobody has
ever proposed a "BeatpathWinner Criterion". Therefore, it
isn't quite clear whether "BeatpathWinner Criterion" refers to
"Beatpath Criterion" or to "BeatpathWinner winners" (= to the
"Schulze Criterion").

Markus Schulze