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<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Would we agree that voting methods do best when
voters give their sincere rankings to avoid GIGO distortion? Since all voting
methods can be subject to strategic voting strategies with incomplete,
exaggerated or insincere ballot information, might it not be a good idea to
select two or more voting methods with different (ideally contrary) inherent
strategy options, and then select the vote tabulation algorithm by lot AFTER the
ballots are cast? This might give all voters an incentive to give sincere ballot
information, since that would be the safest individual strategy. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Alternatively, the threat of assigning all offices
by lot might be used as a stick to prompt all voters to come to a unanimous
agreement using an iterative or "bidding" process.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Terry Bouricius</FONT></DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="FONT: 10pt arial; BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=juho4880@yahoo.co.uk href="mailto:juho4880@yahoo.co.uk">Juho</A>
</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A
title=election-methods@electorama.com
href="mailto:election-methods@electorama.com">election-methods Mailing
List</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Monday, January 25, 2010 5:59
AM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> Re: [EM] Professorial Office
Picking</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>Here's one simple approach.</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>- all voters rank all the rooms</DIV>
<DIV>- use Borda like personal utility values => last room = 0 points, one
but last = 1 point etc. (also other than this kind of linear scale could be
used)</DIV>
<DIV>- find the room allocation that gives the highest sum of utilities</DIV>
<DIV>- if there is a tie one can use seniority to break it</DIV>
<DIV> - the utility values of each voters are multiplied by
some seniority factor and then summed up again</DIV>
<DIV> - the factors could be quite small if one just wants
to break the ties (e.g. 1.0001, 1.0002)</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>This tie breaking approach is intended to work so that if there is for
example some room that all consider to be the best then that room would be
given to the most senior voter.</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>Any chances to work?</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>Juho</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV>P.S. There could be also preferences like "I want a room next to my
closest colleagues". If one wants to support also such preferences one could
allow the voters to rank all the possible room allocation scenarios and then
use some Condorcet method to pick the best allocation. Since the number of
different room allocations may often be too large for manual ranking one would
need some mechanism to derive the rankings from some simpler set of
parameters. One could e.g. use a fixed questionnaire with a list of questions
that the voters could answer and give different weights. These answers could
then be used to rate each room allocation scenario. In theory one could also
allow voters to give their own algorithm (this is however probably too
complex though for most use cases) that takes a room allocation scenario
as input and rates it (or gives directly a ranking of all the allocations (or
why not even pairwise preferences (that could lead to personal preference
cycles))).</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV>On Jan 23, 2010, at 5:37 PM, Michael Rouse wrote:</DIV><BR
class=Apple-interchange-newline>
<BLOCKQUOTE type="cite">
<DIV text="#000000" bgcolor="#ffffff">Steven E. Landsburg (author of The
Armchair Economist), had an interesting problem here: <A
class=moz-txt-link-freetext
href="http://www.thebigquestions.com/2010/01/21/office-politics/">http://www.thebigquestions.com/2010/01/21/office-politics/</A>
(in reference to an original question of the New York Times ethics column
here: <A class=moz-txt-link-freetext
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/magazine/03FOB-Ethicist-t.html">http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/magazine/03FOB-Ethicist-t.html</A>)<BR><BR>Basically,
you have a bunch of professors of different seniority wanting a bunch of
rooms of different desirability. The original article at the Times suggested
a lottery. Steven Landsburg suggested a market, where professors bid what
they wanted for a particular room.<BR><BR>Here's my
comment:<BR><BR>******<BR>
<P>Why not use a rank order ballot grid? Have room locations across the top
(x-axis) and people’s names down the left (y-axis). Each professor could
rank the rooms in order of their own preference, and rank the potential
occupant in each room in order of preference, all on one handy grid. People
could then trade their votes (or something more tangible for votes) in order
to get the room they want. On a certain date, finalize the votes, determine
the allocation of rooms to maximize overall satisfaction, and start moving
in.</P>
<P><BR>It might be difficult to find the peak utility order (probably
NP-hard), but it should be manageable — you probably don’t have to worry
about hundreds of professors, and that’s what computers are for. Plus, if a
professor leaves, you might be able to determine more easily who gets his or
her office.</P>
<P><BR>As an interesting extension, it may be possible to come up with a
similar way to match students, professors, periods, and classes, though that
would be even more complex. It would be kind of fun to watch a course
election, though, with groups lobbying for particular lectures at particular
times, or banding together to get the professor they
want.</P><BR>******<BR><BR>I was wondering if those on this list had other
suggestions. I make no claim as to the suitability of my suggestion, I
just thought it was an interesting problem.<BR><BR>Michael Rouse<BR><FONT
face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><SPAN
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