I'm not going to try to address each and every point in your long message (or Yves's) because we are still on completely different wavelengths and I suspect it would be an exercise in frustration.<br><br>Still, I think there is hope. You seem to understand why median
works in the case of voting for a number. If you can extend that....but NOT by simply tacking median onto Range voting, but by fully understanding *why* median works so well in voting for a number and applying the same concept to voting on candidates.....maybe you'll see where I am coming from.
<br><br>Consider the following:<br><br>In my example where people
are voting on the amount of monthly dues ( <a href="http://karmatics.com/voting/moose-example.html" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
http://karmatics.com/voting/moose-example.html</a>
), median works because people have no incentive to exaggerate. If the
amount that others want is less than a voter's preferred amount, their
vote raises the amount (if the granularity of nominations is enough, or
if it does the sort of interpolation you suggest), if greater, their vote lowers
it. As you'd hope.
<br><br>Exaggerating to try to "swing it as far their way as possible"
doesn't help, and knowledge of how others might vote doesn't give them
an advantage.<br><br>Now, imagine that instead of voting directly on
the dues value, they instead have several "candidate values" to vote
on. Say the nominated candidates are:
<br>$7, $8, $9......$25, $26<br><br>Now with a Condorcet method (or a
DSV method where they rank the candidates and the system then places an
"optimally strategic" approval vote), what do you know, you'll
basically get the same (IMO "correct") result as if people voted on a
number and it did the median thing. Assuming people were rational
(which, in this case would be both strategic and sincere, since there would be no conflict), the system would work beautifully and it would be
pretty much identical to the median method.
<br><br>With your method, even using median on the Range values, not the case at all. Anyone who
wanted their vote to have the desired effect (as in, move the result as
much closer to their preferred amount as possible) would be in a
position of trying to guess what others were going to vote, and give
Range values appropriately to each "candidate value" so that their vote
doesn't inadvertently move the resulting value in the wrong direction. (again, remember that I am talking about the values being voted on, not the Range values assigned to each nominated value)<br><br>BTW, if you want a better means of interpolating for purposes of picking a median with high granulariy, I can give one to you. I've done something similar before.
<br><br>-r<br>