Re: Hybrid Theory

[Sven Luther <luther@dpt-info.u-strasbg.fr>]

On Sun, Dec 08, 2002 at 03:18:16PM -0500, Raul Miller wrote:
> On Sun, Dec 08, 2002 at 09:03:22PM +0100, Jochen Voss wrote:
> > Can you give reasons for (1a) and (1b)?  As far as I understood the
> > debate, the reason for a quorum is to avoid "stealth-decision-making",
> > i.e. to assert that enough developers notice the election and take part
> > in it.  Because of this for me the concept of a per-option quorum does
> > not make much sense.  What do you think?
> 
> Ballot contains A and D, A has 1:1 majority, D is default option.
> Quorum is 45.
> 
> 23 people vote for A.
> 
> A defeats D, but A doesn't meet quorum, default option wins.
> 
> 23 people vote for A.
> 22 people vote for D.
> 
> A defeats D, A meets quorum, A wins.
> 
> Or: the addition of 22 people voting against A caused A to win.  In my
> opinion, this is very wrong.

Why ?

You are trying to use the quorum for something it is not for.

A quorum (in traditional elections) is just a mean of ensuring that
enough people are present so that the election is meaningfull.

Also, there is no way you are going to be able to explicitly exploit
this weakness you pointed out, unless you are the project voting
secretary (or whatever it is called) or you did manage to get access to
the already voted ballot.

Let's say you are against option A, and you have two choices :

  o not vote, in hope the quorum will not be met.

  o vote against A (or DA in this case).

if you do not vote, like you suppose, you can only do this in a
meaningfull way if you are sure that the quorum will not be met, which
should not be possible. And if you don't vote and the quorum is met,
then you have one less vote against A, and if A wins, you deserve it.

Friendly,

Sven Luther