On Tue, Nov 04, 2003 at 03:42:22PM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote: > On Mon, Nov 03, 2003 at 01:58:25PM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote: > > Why do you think that voting for "Remove non-free" means that we wouldn't > > continue to produce a distribution? Why do you think that ballot would be > > treated differently to: > > > > [ ] Remove non-free? > > [ ] Don't change > > [ ] Further discussion > > > > ? > How are the last two not effectively clones of each other? (Let's > recall that there's no practical way "Don't change" can mean "stop > discussion". People will either shut up of their own accord or they > won't.) One option says something about the views of the developership on the ballot issue; the other does not. Ratification of "Don't change" is much stronger than a failure of any of the available options to beat the default option; and while it doesn't mean "stop discussion" (neither does option #1 -- in fact, we could expect quite the opposite), it does send a clear message that developers are quite unlikely to ratify the converse without a *lot* of further discussion. > If they are clones of each other, does the Cloneproof technique perceive > that? As above, they're not clones. If they were (i.e., if there were two "Further discussion" options on the ballot, only one of which was the default option), it still should be a no-op; the default option is *the* option to beat, so I don't see how having more non-default options expressing the same thing helps you change any other option's ranking wrt the default. I'll leave the proof for someone else, though. > And if all GR ballots automatically have a "do nothing" default option, > which they do, should clones of the "do nothing" option be permitted > onto the ballot by the Project Secretary? One interesting question that arises is whether it would make sense to eliminate some of the complexity of the SRP in the case of a two-valued ballot (ratify this? [Y/N]). If there are no competing amendments, there really is no need for the default option, the Condorcet algorithm, or any of the other trappings; and it would not have any of the same worries with supermajority/quorum. But yes/no votes may not be common enough in practice to justify the added complexity in the constitution itself. -- Steve Langasek postmodern programmer
Attachment:
signature.asc
Description: Digital signature