<html><head></head><body>MIKE OSSIPOFF wrote:<br>
<blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:F75jYKtWfN3vSAMfKQu0000370a@hotmail.com">If we want a business
<br>
analogy, then what I meant is that your product is inadequate.
<br>
No amount of marketing will improve an inadequate product. So it
<br>
isn't just that you aren't in the marketing department; it's that
<br>
you don't have anything any good to market, in your rank-balloting
<br>
catalog... (ellipsis is trendy here, so I wanted to copy the fad).
<br>
<br>
So, because you aren't in the marketing department, you don't care
<br>
if your product meets people's expressed concerns. Fine, that's your
<br>
business. I just wanted to let you know.
</blockquote>
This has nothing to do with the product that I promote, which is<br>
Approval. To continue the business metaphor, my post was a quality<br>
assurance report. My analysis may not be the sort that is appropriate<br>
for public consumption, but for those who are in marketing to ignore the <br>
QA report just because it is too mathematical to catch the public's<br>
attention doesn't make sense.<br>
<blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:F75jYKtWfN3vSAMfKQu0000370a@hotmail.com">I'm "picking on" your arguments for Margins over wv. Let me explain this:
<br>
We're doing a poll. Some are arguing for Margins. I'm arging for wv.
<br>
Part of such a discussion is to question arguments that we don't
<br>
think are important. I'm saying that your mathematical concerns aren't
<br>
important. I'm not saying all mathematics is unimportant. But mathematical
pursuit can be as important or unimportant as one wants <br>
it to be, and I'm saying that you're pursuing something that's of
<br>
no importance to voters' concerns. I'm "picking on" your arguments
<br>
because they aren't important and you're using them to promote
<br>
a worthless voting system.
</blockquote>
I don't believe you've shown the irrelevance of the argument at all. You've<br>
demonstrated that you believe it's irrelevant, but that doesn't make it so.<br>
<blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:F75jYKtWfN3vSAMfKQu0000370a@hotmail.com">Ok, I should have said that Richard likes the way Margins makes
<br>
for a diagram that Richard likes better. Isn't that a fair assessment?
</blockquote>
This diagram is nothing but a visual aid. It helped me to visualize the effects<br>
of various defeat dropping schemes, and helped me to see that the winning<br>
votes approach is equivalent to moving the points that represent the<br>
discarded contests to one region of the graph, and margins is equivalent<br>
to moving the discarded points to a different region. Each is a measure<br>
of the cost of dropping the defeat to deciding the election. It seems to<br>
me that the cost of parking defeats on the tie line is a more relevant<br>
measure of actual social costs than is the cost of parking defeats on the<br>
no-winning votes line. You may question that assumption if you like,<br>
but you've been questioning something entirely different.<br>
<blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:F75jYKtWfN3vSAMfKQu0000370a@hotmail.com">I didn't say that your discussion doesn't have a place on this list.
<br>
I only said that about Blakes long postings that were all about me.
<br>
Any argument about voting system issues has a place, especially
<br>
during a poll--in fact I wish this discussion had all taken place
<br>
before the poll. But though your discussion has a place, that doesn't
<br>
mean that your reasons for liking Margins are any good. I mean,
<br>
sure they're good for you, but your diagram doesn't show that
<br>
they'd solve the existing strategy problems. But maybe you don't
<br>
care about that, and that's fine too. I'm suggesting that if others
<br>
care about those concerns, then your arguments shouldn't mean much
<br>
to them.
</blockquote>
If you care about the strategy problems, then the graph is an equally<br>
good tool for visualizing these as well. Reversing a preference<br>
pushes a defeat to the left on the graph, and collapsing preferences<br>
pushes a defeat up and to the left. If enough persons do this, as in<br>
your examples from yesterday, the point hits the tie line and bounces<br>
off of it with opposite polarity. Cycles are created or destroyed<br>
when this happens.<br>
<br>
It is the underlying assumptions about which cost is more important,<br>
the strategic costs or the defeat-dropping costs, that need to be<br>
examined, not the method of visualizing them. You seem to be<br>
questioning a particular representation, not realizing that the<br>
representation is also relevant to your strategy concerns.<br>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:F75jYKtWfN3vSAMfKQu0000370a@hotmail.com">
Yes, that's something that we're familiar with here: The newcomer
<br>
who knows better.</blockquote>
Isn't that an ad hominem argument?
<blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:F75jYKtWfN3vSAMfKQu0000370a@hotmail.com">Sorry--I guess I missed the part of your demonstration where you
<br>
related your arguments to actual consequences or voter concerns.
</blockquote>
No, I just neglected to elaborate on those. Like I said, I'm not in marketing.<br>
Actually, Rob has already done so better than I could have. To quote Rob,<br>
<pre wrap="">"I also disagree with Mike's philosophical justification for<br>winning-votes. He says that if A pairwise beats B, the strength of the<br>defeat should measured only by the support for A because the B voters<br>have already been overruled. But shouldn't each side be ignored<br>equally? If A beats B 50:49, A's victory is 50 strong. But if there's<br>just one more B>A voter, it's a tie, and two more B>A voters give B a<br>victory 51 strong. Doesn't that seem ridiculous? It makes more sense<br>to me for the votes on the losing side to annihilate an equal number of<br>votes on the winning side, giving the margin (which is what I've always<br>understood the word "majority" to mean anyway). Otherwise what good are<br>they? Shouldn't a 48:30 victory be stronger than a 51:46? I would feel<br>cheated if I were a voter among that 46. Winning-votes seems very<br>peculiar and counterintuitive to me."<br><br>Rob's quote would make a good executive summary of my QA report.<br>You didn't make the connection between this social argument and my<br>graphical representation, but they are both different ways of saying<br>the same thing. I am a visually oriented person who will at times choose<br>this method of expression; unfortunately it loses its impact when I have<br>to substitute a text description for the actual graphic. I don't like<br>drawing ASCII graphics and don't intend to do so in this case. I suppose<br>I can be faulted for not providing additional commentary to help readers<br>make this connection.<br></pre>
<blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:F75jYKtWfN3vSAMfKQu0000370a@hotmail.com">No, that isn't why. It's because your justifications for Margins
<br>
don't relate in any way to the concerns of voters or to doing something
<br>
about the avoidable dilemmas that they have to deal with, and which
<br>
make them afraid to express their preference for their favorite.
<br>
</blockquote>
There are social costs other than your concerns for the sincere Condorcet<br>
winner. Ignoring defeats is a necessity for breaking cycles in a Condorcet<br>
election, and ignoring defeats has a social cost as well, because it means<br>
ignoring votes. Shouldn't those costs be considered, too?<br>
<br>
Richard<br>
<br>
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