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From: alien@cpoint.UUCP (Alien Wells)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Voting, single transferrable vote, etc
Message-ID: <2673@cpoint.UUCP>
Date: 11 Oct 89 18:49:47 GMT
References: <8910081919.AA15665@helios.enea.se> <3315@watale.waterloo.edu>
Reply-To: alien@cpoint.UUCP (Alien Wells)
Organization: Clearpoint Research Corp., Hopkinton Mass.
Lines: 79

In article <3315@watale.waterloo.edu> tom@mims-iris.waterloo.edu (Tom Haapanen) writes:
>Erland Sommarskog <sommar@enea.se> writes:
>> ... etc ... etc ... etc ... writes:
Various talk about voting systems for multiple names ...

There is a much easier way to solve all this, simply, understandably, and 
without all the mess that I've seen proposed.

When a call for votes is proposed, include ALL proposed names.  Each person
voting votes yes/no on EACH name.  A voter simply votes YES on all the names
he would find acceptable, and NO on all the names he does not.

You then apply your acceptance criteria (which right now seems to be simply
delta between YES and NO votes) to each.  The best one wins, and if the best
one has a high enough threshold the group becomes reality.

Let's see how this could be used to cut through the alt.aquaria mess.  The
proposal goes out:

:	Vote among the following:
:sci.aquaria		- 
:rec.aquaria		- 
:rec.aquarium		- 
:rec.fish		-
:rec.pets.aquaria	- 
:rec.pets.aquarium	- 
:rec.pets.fish		- 

Some valid votes would be:

:sci.aquaria		- YES
:rec.aquaria		- YES
:rec.aquarium		- NO
:rec.fish		- NO
:rec.pets.aquaria	- NO
:rec.pets.aquarium	- NO
:rec.pets.fish		- NO

:sci.aquaria		- NO
:rec.aquaria		- NO
:rec.aquarium		- NO
:rec.fish		- NO
:rec.pets.aquaria	- NO
:rec.pets.aquarium	- NO
:rec.pets.fish		- NO

:sci.aquaria		- NO
:rec.aquaria		- YES
:rec.aquarium		- YES
:rec.fish		- NO
:rec.pets.aquaria	- YES
:rec.pets.aquarium	- YES
:rec.pets.fish		- YES

This is the sort of thing that anyone could understand.  If the voting 
ended up coming out:

	NAME				YES	 NO
	sci.aquaria		- 	 84	116
	rec.aquaria		- 	164	 36
	rec.aquarium		- 	 44	156
	rec.fish		- 	  2	198
	rec.pets.aquaria	- 	146	 54
	rec.pets.aquarium	- 	 32	168
	rec.pets.fish		- 	 11	189

Then rec.aquaria would be the winning name, and the difference of 164-36=128
means the group goes through.

Please consider this.  And please, don't get this confused with the debate on
whether to use absolute difference, 100 NOs, ratios, or whatever.  This
multiple vote system allows any kind of acceptance criteria to be used.
The nice thing is that it provides total flexibility and keeps the influence
of power plays to a minimum.
-- 
--------|	Sometimes I feel like a ball
Alien   |		in the great pinball game of life.
--------|   					- Steve Steir
     decvax!frog!cpoint!alien      bu-cs!mirror!frog!cpoint!alien