[FFmpeg-devel] [ANNOUNCE] upcoming vote: TC/CC elections

[Michael Niedermayer]

On Thu, Nov 30, 2023 at 12:01:25AM +0000, Cosmin Stejerean via ffmpeg-devel wrote:
> 
> 
> > On Nov 29, 2023, at 3:14 PM, Michael Niedermayer <michael at niedermayer.cc> wrote:
> > 
> > If you give Jerry a weight of 10 and give Tom a weight of 9, that means
> > you prefer Jerry over Tom because 10 > 9
> > If you give Spike a weight of 20 that would mean you not only prefer Spike
> > over Tom OR Jerry but also over Tom AND Jerry. Because 20 > 10 + 9
> > 
> > OTOH if you give Spike a weight of 18 that would mean you prefer Spike over
> > Tom OR Jerry but you prefer Tom AND Jerry over Spike.
> > Because: 9   < 10    < 18     < 9 + 10
> >         Tom < Jerry < Spike  < Tom and Jerry
> 
> Is this last example the kind of preference that people are likely to want to express in practice? It seems much harder to reason about and much more likely to lead to mistakes. 
> 
> Given a list of say 7 candidates running for 5 positions that's 21 possible combinations and in theory weights would have to be assigned such that the sum for each one of those 21 combinations is correctly ranked by order of preference.
> 
> I think the simplicity of the simpler ranked choice voting might outweigh the benefit of expressing complex preferences with the sum of weights.

There are two things here

assigning purely order vs assigning weights by the voter

and one winner vs multi winners which represent the electorate proportionally

You cannot simply use a one winner system and pull more winners
out of it. That doesnt result in a group that proportionally
represents teh electorate

To see this, consider a simple 2 party world (which seems oddly common)
one party we call the blue and one the yellow party
Candidates now could be blue, yellow or maybe gray for the middle ground

now if you have 51% blue voters your commitee will have 5 blue candidates
most likely because 51% of voters prefer the blue over gray and yellow
OTOH with 51% yellow voters your commitee will have 5 yellow candidates

You get the same effect with simpler vote systems

ask a room if they want a blue or yellow candidate.
They say "blue" and so the most popular blue candidate is added.
Now you ask the room again, what will they say ? obviously the same
as its the same people still and so whoever has 51% controlls 100% of
the seats in the commitee

Proportional voting systems avoid this by trying to select a committee
that is representative for more than just the majority


If the weights are too complex, just use something simpler
just make a scale from 0 to 5, from hate to love
give every candidate you love a 5 and everyone you hate a 0
and if you want use the numbers between for intermediates

thx

[...]
-- 
Michael     GnuPG fingerprint: 9FF2128B147EF6730BADF133611EC787040B0FAB

The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny 
individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities. - Ayn Rand
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