On Fri, Nov 22, 2002 at 02:23:43PM -0500, Raul Miller wrote: > Branden Robinson wrote: > > > Supermajority requirements don't retard mistakes, just change. > > On Wed, Nov 20, 2002 at 11:04:10PM -0800, John H. Robinson, IV wrote: > > i tend to agree with the philosophy that you need to convince at least > > half of the voting populous. > > [1] Who is the voting populous? > > [2] Why are they the voting populous? By the way, guys, it's spelled "populace". "Populous" is an adjective meaning "highly populated". > [3] Is competence an issue? Why or why not? I'd say this is addressed by our NM system. > [4] Is involvement an issue? Why or why not? I'd say this is addressed either by quorum requirements, or by the simple self-selection process that compels people to vote at all. Is it your suggestion that Debian should limit voting rights even further than we already have? If not, I don't understand the point you are making. > > Condorecet seems pretty resilient to insincere voting. for each method > > of counting Supermajorities, it has been shown to where it possible, in > > some cases almost trivial, for an insincere vote to change the result of > > an election. that appears to defeat the whole purpose of using Condorcet > > to begin with. > > For some methods, this is true. > > You seem to be assuming this is true for all methods, but you offer > no proof. If we're adopting the Condorcet method without being confident in its properties, then I suggest we hold our horses and not vote on adopting it without proper understanding. This is quite apart from the supermajority/quorum business. What I'm asking is whether or not we agree that pure Condorcet with Cloneproof Schwartz Sequential Dropping is resistant to strategic voting. If so, why does John in particular need to offer proof of that which we're already taking for granted? > > just out of idle curiosity, has anyone asked the electionmethods people > > about Condorcet+Supermajority? > > Yes. > > Unfortunately, most of them seemed to lose interest in the discussion > before we had much discussed the underlying issues. <grumble> > Before our constitution, Debian required near unanimous agreement > on all issues. The constitution was introduced as a somewhat > formalized relaxation of that principle. > > Tyranny \Tyr"an*ny\ (?), n. [OE. tirannye, OF. tirannie, F. > tyrannie; cf. It. tirannia; Gr. &?;, &?;, L. tyrannis. See > Tyrant.] > 1. The government or authority of a tyrant; a country > governed by an absolute ruler; hence, arbitrary or > despotic exercise of power; exercise of power over > subjects and others with a rigor not authorized by law or > justice, or not requisite for the purposes of government. > "Sir," would he [Seneca] say, "an emperor mote need Be > virtuous and hate tyranny." --Chaucer. > > 2. Cruel government or discipline; as, the tyranny of a > schoolmaster. > > 3. Severity; rigor; inclemency. The tyranny of the open > night's too rough For nature to endure. --Shak. > > None of the definitions of "tyranny" don't really make sense in our > context. You mean none of them *do* make sense? If so, I'd agree, and argue that "tyranny of the majority"-style rhetoric should be treated as illogical. > That said: Debian 3:1 supermajority is LESS OF A CONSTRAINT than a > requirement that a majority of the voting population agree. I don't follow. It's either equivalently constraining, in the sense that it can be expressed as a simple statement, or it's more constraining, in that the Project cannot take action on a proposal without a greater number of people being in agreement. Would a 1:3 minority requirement also be "LESS OF A CONSTRAINT"? If not, why not? -- G. Branden Robinson | "There is no gravity in space." Debian GNU/Linux | "Then how could astronauts walk branden@debian.org | around on the Moon?" http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | "Because they wore heavy boots."
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