[EM] Why Not Condorcet?

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 09:23 PM 5/19/2010, robert bristow-johnson wrote:
>increasing the signal-to-noise ratio can be done two ways:
>
>    1.  increasing the signal content (only the sender can do that).
>
>    2.  decreasing the noise content (both sender and receiver can
>        do that, but for the receiver to do it without effort might
>        be like performing surgery with an chain saw)

Nah. I write a lot, and someone who finds my writing a waste of time 
can simply elect to not read it, quite simple, which can be done 
easily with a filter, as Mr. Bristow-Johson has noisily informed us 
many times. I use Mailwasher as a spam filter that deletes mail on 
the server so that all that is left of it is a record that rotates 
out over time of the mail and the first N lines, configurable.

If it's like performing surgery with a chain saw, it must be that 
what is being cut off is (at least partly) valuable in some way. What 
Mr. Bristow-Johnson appears to want is for me to do the work so that 
he can read more easily. Sure. Excapt that what he's effectively 
asking me to do is perform surgery with a chain-saw, to excise 
material that I think *he* won't be interested in. But others might, 
plus I do learn by writing.

And many kindly read it and correct my errors, it's a major reason I 
write for these lists.

It's not true that the signal content can be increased easily, except 
by proportionally more work. Only noise can be decreased, and noise, 
in this case, is in the mind of the reader, not necessarily in the 
original content I write. It's all there for a reason. I'm often 
writing for readers who will come along later.