Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!texbell!sugar!ficc!peter From: peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) Newsgroups: news.groups Subject: Re: Proposal for changes to the newsgroup creation guidlines. Message-ID: <6610@ficc.uu.net> Date: 20 Oct 89 16:49:22 GMT References: <14718.2538b6f4@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> <14980.253c557f@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> <15094@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> Reply-To: peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) Distribution: na Organization: Xenix Support, FICC Lines: 50 I would now prefer that this scheme not be selected, since it's a lot more complex than Alien Wells' scheme (what's a good name for it? Veto voting? Vote Often? Multiple Ballot Voting?), but let's answer a few questions. It's been said that one mark of an expert in a subject is that they tend to say "I don't know" when they don't know. This, as you will see, makes me something of a world authority (:->): In article Benjamin Chase writes: > First things first. I don't know what is the right thing to do when > two candidates tie for last place in a given round. Perhaps Peter can > supply the correct Australian behaviour when this happens? I don't know. I'd say any deterministic technique would be useful. Giving each 1/2 vote for each second-round ballot they have would be fairer than alphabetical order or something. [ vating paradoxes ] > Does it occur in his STV scheme also? Every voting scheme can produce what are called "voting paradoxes". Godel's theorem rules, as usual. See old "Mathematical Games" columns for more details. > Perhaps point values could be assigned to each rank, and the points > for all the occurrences of all the candidates are totalled and the > highest wins. This scheme is more prone to voting paradoxes than the STV system. > But I think that while I've been > frank about the pitfalls of preferential voting, Bob Sloane has failed > to mention any detriments that his proposal might have. It's even more complex than STV, which is already overkill. Finally, the donkey vote is a problem with all voting systems. In Australia, the order of candidates is chosen by lot. I believe a similar system is used in the U.S. In Australia, each political party figures out the best voting strategy for their candidates, and hands out sample ballots to people encouraging to vote the party line. This is usually ineffective, though, and it's sometimes possible to split the vote by bringing in a candidate you know is going to lose but will draw votes from your opponent. -- Peter da Silva, *NIX support guy @ Ferranti International Controls Corporation. Biz: peter@ficc.uu.net, +1 713 274 5180. Fun: peter@sugar.hackercorp.com. `-_-' "You can tell when a USENET discussion is getting old when one of the 'U` participants drags out Hitler and the Nazis" -- Richard Sexton