Re: Maemo Community Council Elections
 

I'm following -community, and I'm not into voting theory or anything. It just seems logical that when you choose a board of 5 people, everyone will be allowed to choose his 5 preferred candidates.

Re: Maemo Community Council Elections
 

It's so logical that no-one thought to raise it in any of the opportunities they had to do so before now. Including yourself?

Complaining about a system when it's in play is the wrong time: instead, if people care so much, they should've got involved earlier. You can't change a system the day the election starts: software's been put in place, the rules have been thought out to be consistent (even if sub-optimal).

Obviously, whoever sits on the council once elected will look at the process, and put alternatives up for a referendum (as per the council rules)

Re: Maemo Community Council Elections
 

Even if not completely logical it is reality and happens all the time (somehow it reminded me this post I've seen in my inbox recently). People are lazy and do not think in advantage about every little detail. Even if I had time (~= was not lazy) I'm not sure I would spot it in advance. For me voting system was little detail I did not care about until I saw the names and started to think about how to give my vote.

it is not end of the world. Better late than never. Now is the best time to collect those 'complains of 25 hour hysterics' a.k.a. useful input ;-) and discuss it to make it better next time.

Re: Maemo Community Council Elections
 

Oh, indeed. Completely human; and I've been guilty of it myself. Did I mention I hate computers and people? ;-)

Re: Maemo Community Council Elections
 

Exactly the same for me.

Re: Maemo Community Council Elections
 

Yes, including myself - maybe i misread, but until i received the invitation i wasn't aware of this little detail.

Re: Maemo Community Council Elections
 

The first round was always going to be more bumpy. I can't imagine the council ignoring this feedback (no matter which of the 5 candidates are in it) for the next election in 6 months' time.

Re: Maemo Community Council Elections
 

If you are having an at large election (many winners as opposed to just 1) Score Voting (aka Range Voting) is actually still excellent, per massive Bayesian regret calculations.
=> http://rangevoting.org/UniqBest.html

If you would like results which more closely model the diversity of opinion among your community, however, you could use a proportional method like Proportional Score Voting (aka Reweighted Range Voting), or Asset Voting. Both of these systems are far superior to and simpler than methods like STV, MMP, etc.

http://rangevoting.org/RRVj.html
http://rangevoting.org/Asset.html

Asset Voting is really fascinating in how simple it is. It was originally invented by Lewis Carroll, who was an Oxford mathematician.

Please let us at Electopia know if you should decide to adopt one of these more modern voting methods.

clay@electopia.org

Regards,
Clay Shentrup
San Francisco, CA

Re: Maemo Community Council Elections
 

Well, the sum of all advantages and disadvantages is a scaler utility efficiency value, that you can compare. The best voting method is the one with the lowest Bayesian regret.

It's analogous to arguing about race cars. You may talk about the superior horsepower of car X, and I may talk about the superior aerodynamics of car Y, and some other guy may talk about the lightness of car Z. But talking about these advantages and disadvantages doesn't address the issue. What we should instead do, if we are rational economists, is put the cars through a zillion random trials, with random drivers and road conditions (modeling real life frequencies) and see which car gets the best average time.

That's what Bayesian regret does for voting methods.

You could argue that complexity of the voting method is also an issue, but it just so happens that Score Voting (aka Range Voting) is the second simplest alternative voting method, right after Approval Voting (which itself is actually just a limited form of Score Voting, with a 0-1 "score").

I would like to point out that the Gibbard-Satterthwaite theorem only applies to rank-order method, and does not apply to Score Voting or Approval Voting.
http://rangevoting.org/GibbSat.html

Not to say that Score Voting is immune from tactical voting of course. (Just reacts mildly to it.)

An excellent point. It's nice that Score Voting has this "pleasant surprise" theory, that if all voters give a maximum score to every candidate they like better than their expected outcome, the average voter will be happier than the expected outcome on which he based that vote.
http://rangevoting.org/PleasantSurprise.html

Re: Maemo Community Council Elections
 

I, like others, had not "thought in advance" about how the voting would actually work, and made do with the offered option (just like In real Life :-).

However, I'm actually glad it didn't turn out perfect at first try, because of this very interesting discussion it generated, in which I learned a lot... I love this "Bayesian regret" concept :-)