Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!uwm.edu!wuarchive!kuhub.cc.ukans.edu!sloane From: sloane@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu Newsgroups: news.groups Subject: Re: Proposal for changes to the newsgroup creation guidlines. Message-ID: <15235.253ef5a7@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> Date: 20 Oct 89 15:38:31 GMT References: <14718.2538b6f4@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> <14980.253c557f@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> <15094@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> Distribution: na Organization: University of Kansas Academic Computing Services Lines: 80 In article , bbc@titan.rice.edu (Benjamin Chase) writes: >[Excelent example of how STV works deleted...] Thanks for taking the time to explain. I think I understand it now. I still don't quite understand "none of the below." Is it some sort of NO vote? > My example shows that the vote taker has no influence on the outcome, > _once the votes are received_. However, if the vote taker is allowed > to prepare the ballot, the results can be influenced. In particular, > lazy voters (or voters that have no preference!), such as voter A, may > not modify the list substantially, thus supporting the vote taker's > preferences. The problem I have with STV is that I suspect that the vast majority of the voters just don't care what the name is, and just want to vote YES. How can they do that without allowing the vote taker to bias the vote by pre-ordering the list? STV was developed to elect political candidates, and sort of assumes that people have a preference between the possible choices. I don't believe that is the case in newsgroup votes, at least for most people. > Actually, I don't give a rat's ass whether or not this proposal is > accepted as the new voting procedure or not. I bothered to generate > this overly long example in the hopes that it would help people > understand this method of voting. Thanks. Your example helped me a lot. > 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. I feel like > I'm being sold a used car. For instance, was it mentioned that people > using wildcard votes might be unwittingly voting for write-in > candidates? But that is the whole point of having wildcard votes, so people CAN vote for write-in names. I am really not trying to fool anyone here. Do you somehow think that someone who votes "Anything in rec would be fine with me" would somehow now know that they were voting for rec.pets.aquaria? I assume the voters are smarter than that. > Are there ways to make the ballot simpler for the voter > to understand? Have you considered using "all" or "any" instead of > "*" to signify a lack of preference? I've seen "all" used on the net > with that meaning. Surely you've thought of some of these points? I will say this again, because it doens't seem to be getting across. PEOPLE DON'T HAVE TO USE * OR ANYTHING ELSE!!!! They can send any anything that they think the vote counter will understand. "Sci.ALL" would be a perfectly legitimate vote. "I vote for anything in the REC hierarchy" would be great. I DON'T CARE HOW PEOPLE EXPRESS THEMSELVES, I just want write-in votes allowed. (Sorry about shouting, but people seem to have focussed on the idea that voters need a degree in math to send in votes. That isn't at all what I meant.) Let me say this one more time and then I will give up. I think the voters should choose the name of the group, not the proposer, not a cabal, the voters. Now there are two basic groups of people that vote. The first group just wants the group created, and doesn't care what the name is. This group would vote yes for misc.einiac.tcp-ip.guppies for the aquaria group, because they just want to discuss the topic. The second group of people care about the name and would rather not have the group created if the the name is not appropiate. I think both of these groups have valid concerns. I am trying to figure out a way that both groups can be heard from in a vote. I would like to allow people to write in the name of the group. I assume that the people that don't care about the name will far outnumber the group that cares about the name, so I am trying to simplify their voting by allowing them to just vote YES to any group that discusses the topic. This means that those people are casting a YES vote for ALL of the names mentioned. This means that the group that cares about the name must be able to vote against classes of names, rather than just being able to vote against specific ones. That is why I suggested wildcards. I think all of these problems are caused by my poor expression of my idea. No, I don't expect people to be able to parse BNF regular expressions, I just expect them to state what they want clearly. -- USmail: Bob Sloane, University of Kansas Computer Center, Lawrence, KS, 66045 E-mail: sloane@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu, sloane@ukanvax.bitnet, AT&T: (913)864-0444 "The scientific theory I like best is that the rings of Saturn are composed entirely of lost airline luggage." -- Mark Russell