Re: RFD: informal proposal

[Raul Miller <moth@debian.org>]

On Mon, Nov 18, 2002 at 03:56:45AM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote:
> > Does anyone see any significant strategies for inconsistency with this
> > kind of mechanism?
> 
> It has the problem that it's much easier for a non-supermajority option to
> win.

As opposed to the 17 Nov draft which in some cases allows a supermajority
option to win if it defeats the default option by 1 vote?

> If you have:
> 
> 	A - remove non-free (2:1 supermajority required, say)
> 	B - handwave about the issue, don't really do anything
> 	D - further discussion
> 
> you might get results something like:
> 
> 	60 A B D
> 	30 B A D
> 	10 D B A
> 
> with the groups being {A} and {B,D}. B defeats D by 90:10, so next we
> work with {A,B} scaling A down, ending up with B defeats A 40:30, in
> spite of a majority of developers wanting to remove non-free entirely.

Sure -- in that context you're proposing that we have a supermajority
requirement, and a majority is not necessarily a supermajority.

> Of course, that result's probably _stable_ -- the next vote would probably
> result in D defeats A 40:30, but I don't know that it's entirely fair
> to have B work as a "spoiler" option -- if B hadn't been an option,
> A would have passed it's supermajority requirement easily.

Yes.

> Alternatively you could possibly end up with something like:
> 
> 	60 S T D 
> 	50 T D S
> 
> where S and T both have a 2:1 supermajority requirement, and D
> doesn't. The result is S beats T, 60:50, and D beats S 50:30, and
> D wins. Given T was unanimously preferred to D, that seems like a
> significant loss.

I'm not sure I agree.  In this case, D would have been the default option:
further discussion.  I imagine that, if this situation were to arise,
further discussion would be a good idea.  [Why do so many people prefer
who prefer T over D also prefer D over S when so many other people prefer
S over T?]

However, it might be that there are related examples which have analogous
but more serious flaws.  Can you come up with any?

It might also be worth considering derivative methodologies.  For example:
add to the Nov 16 draft "if a ballot has options with supermajority
requirements, once a winner is picked repeat the vote counting procedure
with supermajority and the default option redefined for the new winner
until we stop picking a new winner".

Thanks,

-- 
Raul