[EM] Ossipoff's Weighted Webster...

[Michael Ossipoff]

Warren says:

Far as I can see, the simple method that starts out 
http://rangevoting.org/NewAppo.html is identical with the method for 
apportionment that Ossipoff now proposes ("What I mean by Weighed Webster")

I reply:

I guess it’s necessary to take your word for that, because  didn’t try to 
decypher the method and derivation at your website. If you had briefly and 
concisely stated your method and its derivation, as I had requested, then 
I’d have acknowledged it, assuming that it was really up at your website at 
that time.

Warren continues:

glad to see Ossipoff has now come around to my point of view

I reply:

Warren must be referring to the point of view that unbias is best achieved 
by making each cycle’s s/q = 1. But wait, Warren only expressed disagreement 
with that approach.

But did Warren post Weighted Webster at his website, while expressing 
disagreement with the unbias approach on which it is based? Who knows.

Warren continues:

Note, the parameters Ossipoff is calling A and B can be deduced from the 
number of states and total country population

I reply:

Yesterday I told how to do that. And I told why least squares would almost 
surely be more accurate.

Warren continues:

in which case his formula should simplify to become my formula. Warren D 
Smith http://rangevoting.org

Some details:

>Ossipoff: R = (-1/A)*ln[(-1/A)*{exp(-A*b)-exp(-A*a)}] R is the rounding 
>point between consecutive integers a & b. I hope that that expression can 
>be simplified. --

response, use b=a+1

I reply:

Of course that should be done.


, then {exp(-A*b)-exp(-A*a)} becomes exp(-A*a) * {exp(-A) - 1} now note R-a 
is going to come out depending only on A, B and not on a,b just as in 
http://rangevoting.org/NewAppo.html ----

I reply:

So it does. A fixed rounding point (the same in all the cycles). I couldn’t 
ask for more simplification than that.

By the way, I would propose that A be determined, for and from each census, 
by the most accurate method available, which is probably least-squares.

Mike Ossipoff