[EM] Acronyms and threads

[Richard Fobes]

To Michael Ossipoff ~

On 1/21/2013 10:31 PM, Michael Ossipoff wrote:
>
> Richard says:
>
> This is related to the pattern I've seen repeatedly.  You ask for
> feedback, but then you dismiss that feedback
>
> [endquote]
>
> Whoa, Cowboy. What do you mean by "dismiss"?
>
> "to reject serious consideration of..."?
>
> So you want to say that, in that sense, I dismiss people's arguments
> or answers instead of answering them?

Yes.

But before we get to those, let's start with a simple, 
easy-to-understand request that you have repeatedly dismissed.  Here is 
the most recent case of this request:

Kathy Dopp (on Mon Jan 21 06:31:55 PST 2013) wrote:
 > Could posters to this list please make your emails comprehensible to
 > someone like myself by spelling out the words comprising the acronym
 > when it is first used in each and every email to the list?

In the past year, the equivalent request has been made by other 
participants here.  Yet you have not complied with the request, except 
in one recent message (see below), and then for just some of the 
acronyms you used.

Also I made a similar request regarding your Democracy Chronicles 
articles.  There too you dismissed the request by saying you had defined 
the acronyms in previous articles.

In spite of these repeated requests, here are recent messages in which 
you do not spell out what the acronyms stand for:

 
http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2013-January/031449.html

 
http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2013-January/031447.html

 
http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2013-January/031450.html

To your credit, you did name _some_ of the acronyms you used in this 
recent message:

 
http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2013-January/031452.html

Perhaps you think that your recent "Acronyms" message was an appropriate 
response to the request.  But that does not provide what we are requesting.

To be specific about the request, suppose you make a reference to IIA 
(Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives) and a CW (Condorcet Winner), 
then you should also indicate the spelled-out name, such as demonstrated 
in this sentence.

Kathy Dopp would like to see the full names in each message.  If that 
seems to be too much, here is another approach that I think would 
satisfy many of us ...

You could provide the full spelled-out name when it is first used in a 
thread.

But this brings up another issue.  Apparently you aren't aware of what a 
"thread" is.

So, to clarify, here is a link to the January threads in this 
Elections-Methods forum:

 
http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2013-January/thread.html

At last count you/Michael have started more than 30 threads.  During the 
same time, all the rest of us _combined_ started only 6 threads.

(FYI, Wikipedia explains threads here: 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threaded_discussion)

Each time you change the "subject" in a message, you are starting a new 
thread -- unless you use the "reply" button in your e-mail "client" 
software, which is what most of the rest of us do.

Repeatedly in the past you have been asked not to change the subject 
because it throws off this "thread" continuity.  Yet you continue to 
create a new thread nearly every time you post a message.

Notably, on a few occasions you have continued the thread instead of 
starting a new thread, so I know that you and your email software can do it.

Getting back to the acronym-naming request, normal forum etiquette would 
suggest that you specify the name of an acronym at least the first time 
it's used in a thread.  After that, later messages in the same thread 
can be expected to not necessarily include the spelled-out name of the 
acronym.

If you continue to not follow the "thread" conventions, then at least 
you need to include the spelled-out names of your acronyms in more than 
one or two of your messages.

Clarification: Of course there are a couple of well-established acronyms 
such as IRV (instant-runoff voting) and PR (proportional representation) 
that are so well-established that they do not need to be spelled out.

However, many of the acronyms you use are not well established.  And a 
number of them you have made up!  Yet it is rare that you bother to 
spell out what the acronym stands for -- beyond the first time you use 
it or introduce it.

Specifically, please "spell out" by name the acronyms you use, at least 
once per thread (or what would amount to a thread).

You have claimed that you do not dismiss feedback presented in this 
forum.  Now you have an opportunity, regarding this simple request, to 
prove me wrong.

If you demonstrate a willingness to comply with this request -- which 
has been made by several of us here over the past couple of years -- 
then we can move on to the more subtle voting-related issues that you 
have also previously dismissed.

Richard Fobes