[EM] "CDTT criterion" compliance desirable?

[Chris Benham]

Marcus,
You wrote (25 Dec. 2008):

"Dear Chris Benham,

you wrote (25 Dec 2008):

>"I had already proposed this criterion in 1997."
>Why then do you list it as "Woodall's CDTT criterion"
>instead of your own "Generalised Majority Criterion"?
>
>Did, as far as you know, Woodall ever actually propose>the "CDTT criterion" as something that is desirable for
>methods to meet (instead of just defining the CDTT set)?

Woodall's main aims are to describe and to investigate
the different election methods. Compared to the
participants of this mailing list, Woodall is very
reluctant to say that some election method was good/bad
or that some property was desirable/undesirable."
 
That is true, but nonetheless the short answer to my second question
is 'no'. To quote  Douglas Woodall (with his permission) from a recent
email (19 Dec 2008):
 
"I defined the CDTT set as a means towards constructing election methods 
with certain mathematical properties.  My memory for such things is not good, 
and I am open to correction, but as far as I recall I never suggested that for the 
winner to belong to the CDTT was particularly desirable, and I never suggested 
this as a criterion. So although calling it "Woodall's CDTT criterion" is an
understandable shorthand, it is somewhat misleading."

So can we agree that there isn't really such a thing as "Woodall's CDTT criterion"
and what you have  given that label to is your own Generalised Majority Criterion 
(GMC) that is equivalent to "the winner must come from the  defined-by-Woodall
CDTT set"?
 
I'm sorry if this seems excessively nitpicking, and I'm not suggesting you intended
to mislead with your "understandable shorthand".
 
In my soon-to-follow next post I will explain why I think the GMC is a mistaken
standard.

Chris Benham


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