Clarify the voting process #60
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I very strongly disagree. I would argue instead that the current implementation of STV is incorrect because it violates this point in the Process Document. One might argue, I suppose, that the "single" in STV means that the AC's intent in approving STV voting implied that we were moving from "one vote per available seat to "one vote", but to my shame I didn't realize this until recently. But STV was sold to us as an alternative tabulation system using ranked rather than binary preferences, not an alternative voting system where we only got one vote no matter how many seats were open. I don't know enough about STV mechanics to suggest an alternative ranked preference tabulation system that allows one vote per available seat, but we should investigate. |
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I agree with both Jeff and Mike. We undoubtedly have an inconsistency. Mike, I cannot think of any STV system in which one gets one vote per seat; equal-rank voting sort of comes close, but isn't really this, and anyway, we can't implement it. We either delete this sentence, or we re-think STV. I fear the latter is too soon and too large. |
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My inclination is to take this to the AC. Clearly there is a logical inconsistency in the Process. I thought we were approving a one vote per seat ranked preference system, but apparently there is no such thing. It would be informative to know what other people on the AC expected... Other than an end to the debate few understood or cared about! I think the most responsible thing to do is tell the AC "we screwed up... help us figure out how to rectify our error." They'll hate us for making them think about voting systems yet again, I suppose, but the alternative of running elections that are in violation of the process is worse. |
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I think it's way too early to go back to the well... |
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It is clear that the intent of the pieces of the process document (the portion on STV and the last line of Section 7.3) are talking about different voting systems. There are four ways I can think of to deal with the situation.
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I agree #2 is absurd; we just multiply all the numbers by 4. Equally absurd would be asking people for 4 rankings, potentially different, for the 4 seats. "For the first seat I prefer Mike over Chris, for the second, Chris over Mike..." huh?. In the next process revision, we either need to do #4, or (as seems likely in the time available) #1. Leaving #3 is poor form, but I suppose... |
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I'm not sure #2 is so absurd if it is described as:
As best I can recollect, that's how I THOUGHT the new voting system worked when we voted to add STV to the Process. I admit to not thinking through exactly how I thought STV would work in a system where each voter gets multiple votes, but I sortof assumed that since we weren't talking about removing the "one vote per available seat" rule, I thought someone smarter than me had figured out how the two constraints would work in harmony. I suspect I'm not the only AC rep who was under that delusion. That's consistent with the current process document that specifies both an STV system and gives AC members one vote per open seat. That mitigates the concerns about one's 2nd thru n rankings being more or less meaningless. Once your top-ranked candidate wins a seat, your 2nd-ranked candidate "gets your vote". It may not meet the original goal of tilting the system toward diversity, I'm not sure. It adds some complexity for the team I suppose I think it would be more robust than the current STV system in the face of extremist candidates Am I missing some absurdity here? |
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Mike, I'm not sure I understand your proposal. As David said above, if we give each AC rep 4 opportunities to do an STV vote and then add up all of the results - presumably most AC reps fill out their 4 ballots identically. This has the effect that everyone gets 4x the number of votes, but does not change any of the outcomes compared to single vote STV. The fact that it does not change outcomes is the reason that David and I called it absurd. Is that indeed what you are proposing we should do, or did you have something else in mind? |
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OK, I think I get what Mike is proposing. Today, we tabulate the votes; imagine that the top vote-getter gets just the quota. The ballots that placed that candidate first are never considered again. In contrast, Mike is suggesting that after the first seat is filled, we re-run the tabulation using all the ballots, but marking the elected candidate as having withdrawn, so all votes cascade past that candidate. It's an interesting thought experiment, but I want someone who understands voting and tabulation to weigh in. |
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A very rough answer is no. In more detail, I think it is a terrible idea that makes bad outcomes very likely. Mike asserted that second preference votes didn't count but all the information I have seen suggests that is simply false. The people elected were preferred over those not elected by the tabulated rankings. Mike's proposal seems to be a return to the old system that tended to a winner takes all outcome. An example from us history is to assert that Walter Mondale had less than 2% support since he only won a single state - and then translate that into a Senate with 2 democrats.While this might make agreements easier to reach it seems unlikely to help ensure they reflect a real consensus. More when I'm back working. Cheers17:50, 28 July 2017, David Singer <[email protected]>:OK, I think I get what Mike is proposing. Today, we tabulate the votes; imagine that the top vote-getter gets just the quota. The ballots that placed that candidate first are never considered again. In contrast, Mike is suggesting that after the first seat is filled, we re-run the tabulation using all the ballots, but marking the elected candidate as having withdrawn, so all votes cascade past that candidate. It's an interesting thought experiment, but I want someone who understands voting and tabulation to weigh in. —You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread.Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or mute the thread. Private mail - Chaals is Charles McCathie Nevile - Standards Declaimer
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@jeffjaffe here's why I don't agree with your summary of my proposal on 7/27/2017
Consider the example I've used before:
In the old system, Granger and Weasley both get 65% of the votes, and Malfoy gets 35%, thus Granger and Weasley are elected. In my proposal, which as best I recall is how I thought this would work when I voted for the STV system, there are n STV elections for the n open seats. The threshold is 50% since each is a single-winner election. In the example first round of the election for the first seat, nobody meets the threshold. Weasley is eliminated, and his first place votes are given to his voters' second choice, Granger. Thus Granger is elected in the second round. In the STV election for the second seat, since Granger has already been elected, first place votes for her are allocated to her voters' second ranked candidate, Weasley in this contrived example. Weasley is over the threshold so gets elected in the first round. So this isn't just the current STV system multiplied by n; having n elections for the n open seats is different because the threshold is different with n elections for a single seat as opposed to 1 election for multiple seats. It is consistent with the current process document because it gives AC reps 1 vote per open seat and runs an STV election for each seat. It this a more desirable election system than the one we have used in practice (in violation of the literal wording of the process doc)? I'm pretty sure there will be much disagreement. I biased my contrived example by giving the 35% candidate the name of an evil character, what if it were "Lovegood" [1], i.e. someone with an outsiders perspective but with the best interests of all at heart? So, the real question is whether we -- as an organization that operates by consensus rather than voting -- should we fear the consequences of a non-mainstream "bad" candidate more or less than we hope for the benefits of a non-mainstream "good" candidate? Living in a kakistocracy created by the quirks in my country's election system :-) I'm feeling more paranoid than hopeful about voting systems at the moment myself. I do submit that if there is no agreement to change the process document to eliminate the sentence about 1 vote per open seat, the Team is obligated to implement the process as it stands, and my proposal provides one mechanism to do so. |
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@michaelchampion Thanks for providing a detailed example. Now I at least understand what you are proposing. Indeed, what you are proposing is an approach that one could use for elections and indeed it would give a different result that how we have implemented STV. I see your point how this can be viewed as both STV (since it has n instances of STV voting with one winner) and also has n votes per 7.3 in the Process Document. I don't personally agree with your conclusion, however, that this is the correct interpretation of the process document.
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@jeffjaffe writes
I doubt very many of the AC members voting understood that they would henceforth have only one vote no matter how many seats are open in AC and AB elections, and that the contradictory words to in the process were an obvious bug. I certainly didn't. And there was no example in the test runs that illustrated the anomalies found by analyzing the first really competitive election. My point is that having multiple votes is not logically incompatible with ranked preference voting, even if this is a "novel interpretation" or one believes that the term STV suggests a single vote. (I assumed it meant a single vote for each seat that could be transferred across candidates, not a single vote for all seats). It seems like the time has come to take this question to the AC: Given the incompatibility between the formal process and the actual procedure, do they want to make the process align with the procedure by eliminating the "one vote per open seat" language, or do they want the team to implement a ranked preference procedure that gives them one vote per open seat? |
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On Aug 20, 2017, at 10:48 , Michael Champion ***@***.***> wrote:
@jeffjaffe writes
(Most importantly): when we ran several trial elections and spent numerous hours discussing it - the method that we used in the trials was the method that we used in the actual election last spring. Not once did someone suggest the novel interpretation you have provided. Hence I believe the membership voted on that one when they made the change in Process 2017.
I doubt very many of the AC members voting understood that they would henceforth have only one vote no matter how many seats are open in AC and AB elections, and that the contradictory words to in the process were an obvious bug. I certainly didn't. And there was no example in the test runs that illustrated the anomalies found by analyzing the first really competitive election.
My point is that having multiple votes is not logically incompatible with ranked preference voting, even if this is a "novel interpretation" or one believes that the term STV suggests a single vote. (I assumed it meant a single vote for each seat that could be transferred across candidates, not a single vote for all seats).
It seems like the time has come to take this question to the AC: Given the incompatibility between the formal process and the actual procedure, do they want to make the process align with the procedure by eliminating the "one vote per open seat" language, or do they want the team to implement a ranked preference procedure that gives them one vote per open seat?
I asked David Baron, and he doesn’t feel enough of an expert.
As I understand it, we want to compare two ways of using STV; and I would need analysis on the second before going to the AC. Does it work? Has it been used? What consequences does it have?
1. Classic STV. One preference list, and so on, with votes cascading on a n-seat quota until all seats filled. What we did.
2. STV seat-by-seat. The first seat is filled as if it were a one-seat election (50% threshold?). Then that candidate is marked ‘withdrawn’ and the same set of ballots used to fill the second seat. And so on until all seats are filled.
I don’t see #2 as being any more or less “one vote per seat”. It might be different, but I do not wish to experiment on live elections, and I am unwilling to ask the AC until we have done or read some analysis.
David Singer
Manager, Software Standards, Apple Inc.
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+1 to Jeff's original proposal. -lots to Mike's suggestion, which would combine the complexity of STV ("You have to rank the candidates in your order of preference") with the unrepresentative outcomes of the old system ("the largest bloc can win everything, regardless of whether their support is 90%, or 19% with 75% preferring "anyone else or nobody at all"). I'm also not keen to replace the live elections with an apparently untried system. I can't find evidence of anyone using this approach anywhere, and it makes Schulze_STV seem tried and true by comparison. It also appears that the rationale for suggesting it is false. The election results are not an anomaly caused by strangeness in Meek vote tabulation, they are a result of people winning more votes at higher rankings than the other candidates. However surprising the outcome may be (and I have to confess I didn't find it very shocking, and even less so on reflection), it shows why we have secret ballots - because people may not be prepared to state their perceived interest publicly. I also find Jeff's third argument reasonably compelling: what we are using is what we trialled and the AC worked with. |
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I find myself between Mike and Chaals. Yes, STV will have the effect of (pick your euphemism here) [electing more diverse candidates | electing more fringe candidates]. Yes, STV also means that first preferences have more impact than second, they more than third, and so on (to the extent that I don't think any 4th preferences factored into the last election which was 4-seat), whereas in the past if we voted for N candidates, those N votes had equal impact. No, STV doesn't eliminate strategic voting, it just changes what that means (e.g. to try to get someone NOT elected, you vote strategically to raise the levels of those who might otherwise have trouble beating them). Yes, this is all a change, and yes, I am not sure we understood all this. But equally, treating an N-seat STV election as N one-seat elections is something I can (in a limited search) find no analysis, literature or usage information on. I am, with Chaals, completely unwilling to run a live experiment without at least some intellectual understanding of it in theory. I suppose the AB could request we run that tabulation on an election (possibly even the last one), but that doesn't substitute for analysis by voting-systems experts, IMHO. We could even re-tabulate, for AB and team eyes only, the last election. But I think I would only make that request if we understood an analysis. So at the moment, I support only removing the mis-leading "one vote per seat" sentence. |
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I'm going to oppose removing the "one vote per seat" sentence until we have a frank AC discussion along the lines "We messed up and need your guidance on how to fix it." I have no idea whether others on the AC supported the new system in the belief there was no contradiction between ranked preference voting and having one vote per open seat. Given that -- for practical purposes -- there is a contradiction, we should re-ask the AC whether they prefer the old one vote per open seat un-ranked selection system to the one vote per election STV system. Some reasons for preferring the old system include:
Of course, each has a flip side:
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@michaelchampion @dwsinger I think the best way to stimulate an AC discussion is to propose removing it and let the discussion take place. If we don't remove it, the AC won't notice anything and there will be no discussion. |
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we re-open this issue and re-insert this contradiction to give us an actionable issue as a hook for further debate |
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I saw comments on this issue, so I thought I'd have a look. This is a lot to read through and predates my time on the AB. There is far too much in this issue for it to be helpful. I recommend opening a new issue or PR to discuss the language of the Process and addressing the use of STV elsewhere. The 2 should not be discussed in the same issue. |
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I suppose it would make sense to open a new issue and close this one as unresolvable IF it is framed as "How can W3C select leadership bodies that can effectively work by consensus as a team, while ensuring that their members appropriately reflect the diversity of W3C's engaged members"? If that new issue MUST be solved before a mechanism to select the Board of Directors of W3C, Inc. is put in place, that would generate the pressure needed to find an AB/Process CG/ AC consensus on the voting question. |
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This issue is not unsolvable; it is precisely about deleting a line in the process left as an oversight. As long as the line remains, this issue should be here to remind us to make consistent documents. |
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Please. I made an editorial mistake a few years ago in failing to delete a line of the document when I thought I had done it. I am appalled that neither this group nor the Advisory Board has worked out how to solve that problem for such a long time. If anyone wants to open an issue regarding the mechanism for voting, go ahead, but please can we stop holding simple editorial fixes hostage for years over far more complex issues? (The underlying issue was resolved. The fact that people don't like the resolution is a reasonable basis for re-examining it at some point, e.g. after some experience - the same as it was only settled the first time after more people had gained some experience with the proposal. But as @michaelchampion suggests, that is a different issue). |
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we intend to fix this in 2021 in the absence of a reason not to (and wanting a different voting process is a separate issue) |
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The Revising W3C Process CG just discussed The full IRC log of that discussion<fantasai> Topic: Clarify the Voting Process<fantasai> github: https://github.com//issues/60 <plh> jeff: we're missing the folks who were objecting to discuss this <tantek> issue 60 has better chance of being resolved in the AB than in ProcessCG <plh> ... this issue is getting hidden greater issues. <jrosewell> q+ <plh> ... we have layers of confusion. would be good to find out if the AC supports the council <plh> ... and then comes back to this issue <plh> ack j <chaals> q+ <dsinger_> ack jrose <plh> james: council is meant to replace the Director? <plh> david: for the formal objection only <plh> florian: only one role of the Director <chaals> q- <plh> plh: and the AB is conducting an experiment with the council <plh> david: I'll propose to close this issue at the next meeting <dsinger_> q? <dsinger_> https://github.com/w3c/w3process/milestone/6 <dsinger_> q? <jrosewell> q+ <plh> david: we have over 35 issues on P2021.... <plh> florian: not all of them are priorities. if we don't get to the others, we'll push them along to the next version <plh> david: looking for specific proposals <plh> david: for wide reviews, we need to progress <plh> plh: I'll take #130 <dsinger_> q? <dsinger_> ack jrose <plh> james: for my part, I expect to make proposals/issues at the beginning of November <plh> s/beginning/middle/ <chaals> [Thank you James for planning that effort] <dsinger_> q? <plh> david: ok, so post-TPAC we should look back the progress <plh> https://github.com//issues/167 <plh> florian: it overlaps with the Director free process <jeff> q+ <plh> ... not sure if it will solve it however <dsinger_> ack jeff <plh> jeff: good chance that things will get worst giving the number of engines <plh> ... but, in the absence of a proposal, I'm not sure how to solve it <plh> .... something vague to give the Director flexibility to use their judgement <plh> ... maybe we close the issue and re-open if things change or we get a proposal <plh> ... it pushes us to make more definition where it doesn't seem necessary <dsinger_> q? <plh> florian: maybe a guideline? <jeff> q+ <dsinger_> q? <dsinger_> ack jeff <plh> jeff: maybe we should push the work on guidelines to somewhere else <plh> ... as a way to avoid cluttering our agenda <chaals> [I think there would be a need to think about how you are going to run such a group. There is already an open github repo that can be used for the work, but it isn't clear how changes get taken in…] <plh> florian: it will clear the agenda but won't reduce the work <jeff> [Good point Chaals. I was thinking of proposing PLH to chair the guidelines group and have them meet at the frequency that he thought would make sense.] <plh> https://github.com//issues/236 <plh> fantasai: "Draft Notes" ? <plh> https://www.w3.org/TR/?status=ret <plh> florian: concerned about the mixing of documents on the REC track and those that are not <plh> david: we can go some clean-ups <florian> s/are not/are not, due to patent policy implications/ <plh> s/go/do/ |
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This is not an “editorial mistake” from the perspective of those that carefully reviewed the Process document with the voting changes and in particular interpreted the only logical way that the election could be implemented given the text of the document (literally STV per seat for the number of seats in an election), and only approved the process accordingly. Several AC reps would have filed formal objections to the process had this been dropped before the Process went to review, and before that, in the AB. The Process also doesn’t say, implement whatever voting experiments were run, so the excuses that have been made to justify running the subsequent elections as they have been run (“but the experiments!”) also hold no justification in the Process document. Both of those are deemed objectionable enough to not remove this text from the Process and yes that leaves us at an impasse that the AB must take-up to resolve, especially towards a future where we may/will be relying even more on elected bodies to resolve conflicts rather than a BDFL “Director”. I do not expect to see this resolved for 2021. (Originally published at: https://tantek.com/2020/281/t1/) |
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If that was the way that they interpreted the process document, I fail to understand how they were silent when we ran multiple experiments, and we explicitly decided that what we had experimented with was what we would adopt. The process was written, with a bug, as a consequence of that decision. The decision was clear: implement what chaals proposed and what we trialed. |
I’ve probably made all these points before, but for the historical record:
For all those reasons, I opposed simply removing the one vote per open seat language when I had a vote on the AB and AC.The AB in particular seems much more contentious and less consensus-driven than it was before the new election system was implemented. I won’t claim the election system caused the decline in consensus seeking, but it’s something to think about before sweeping my concerns under the rug. |
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I fully acknowledge that the election system, now we have experienced it, may need re-inspection. This sentence is not the place to have that discussion. |
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Everything that Mike said, strong +1. My continued objection here is that the process and its side effects were not, in fact, made clear to the AC prior to this vote. Most of the AC, I would postulate, did not understand it, and IIRC, the elections we ran the experiments on were much less contentious than those that immediate came after. I fully admit, I did not grasp STV prior to us accepting it. (I wasn't AC rep at the time, so couldn't have voted anyway.). I certainly had no way to evaluate potential effects, as Mike said, since votes are confidential. Even as a member of the AB, I did not deeply understand the side effects of how STV would impact the gestalt of the W3C until I spent hours afterward trying to walk through scenarios, and understanding how STV devalues centrism in favor of independent interest, and then watching how it affected subsequent elections (in particular, seeing core contributors to the platform - myself included, but also long time significant contributors from Mozilla and Microsoft. If I had been an AC rep at the time, and seen the diff to the Process that included removing the whole concept that I had, in fact, one vote per seat, I would have objected; this is a loss to everyone. I see how that would benefit, say, county representation in a state governance; I do not think it is the best approach for a global governing body. That said, I will make a point of underscoring this line of diff in the process when it goes out, as the core of my objection to STV. |
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@cwilso wrote:
This gets to to the heart of the issue here. Many of us support STV as a way to ensure that people can vote for their most-preferred candidate without worrying that they are enabling their least-preferred candidate to win. This may have happened in the 2016 and 2000 US elections (c.f. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/green-party-votes-made-the-difference-in-the-presidential-election/2016/12/05/68899908-ba38-11e6-ae79-bec72d34f8c9_story.html ) but this is disputed. Likewise many of us support STV as a way of ensuring more proportional representation of various constituencies and less-popular viewpoints in parliamentary bodies. The problem is The AB and TAG are not parliamentary bodies. They, like W3C as a whole, work by CONSENSUS, with voting as fallback when consensus fails. A voting system that works well for electoral politics where simple majorities make binding decisions doesn't necessarily work well for consensus building. As an AC Rep during the STV experiment and formal ballot for Process 2017, my thinking was:
Obviously, and to my eternal shame, I didn't follow the discussion of Meek STV in enough detail to realize that it implicitly negates the "one vote per open seat" provision. .Neither did the overwhelming majority of the AC, I'm pretty sure. I guess this was obvious to the Meek STV proponents and Team, so I'll take them at their word that it was an editorial oversight to leave in the "one vote per open seat" language in the document submitted to the AC for approval. But if that had shown up in the diff of Process 2017, I would certainly have formally objected and I'm pretty sure some others would have as well. What's the way forward? I don't know; I find the various options -- re-open the AC debate on election systems, quietly delete the "one vote per open seat" language since the AC should have realized it's an editorial bug, keep inconsistent language in the process document -- all somewhat distasteful. I like the idea of actually running an STV election for each seat individually, but that has gotten little support so I'll not push it. But I keep recalling the Dutch proverb that begins The Mythical Man-Month : "een schip op het strand is een baken in zee" (A ship on the beach is a lighthouse to the sea). Maybe the best way to deal with this issue is to keep it open so our future selves and successors see this shipwreck and learn from it:
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The S in STV stands for Single. As in one. and all the experiments clearly ran a single cascade. And all the literature we studied documented a single cascade. I simply do not believe that anyone could think we were adopting something other than what was proposed, studied, and trialed. It's either a post-facto invention, or an admission of not paying attention. If you want to change the election system for TAG and AB, do what chaals did. Make a proposal, do the trials, write the text, persuade people. That's all it takes, and it's the only way. Get support, make friends. Leaving an editing bug in the process helps no-one. |
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On Tue, Oct 13, 2020 at 1:30 PM David Singer ***@***.***> wrote:
The S in STV stands for Single. As in one.
and all the experiments clearly ran a single cascade.
And all the literature we studied documented a single cascade.
I simply do not believe that anyone could think we were adopting something
other than what was proposed, studied, and trialed. It's either a
post-facto invention, or an admission of not paying attention.
Who is the anyone in "I don't think anyone could think we were..."? People
who were on the AB at the time? People who participated in some of the
discussions? The AC? Membership generally?
I have to admit that your phrasing of this caused me to personally reflect
in a way that makes me feel a little bad, so I'd like to share how I wound
up being surprised myself. I wasn't an AC at the time, nor on the AB so I'm
not sure how valuable this will be, but I'm happy to admit the maybe
embarrassing details of how this went wrong for me, in case it's helpful to
us to better understand, because it strikes me that the general why is not
unique to here.
Like everyone else I have a limited amount of time and energy, as well a
limited background in all of this. Like everyone else, I dedicated the time
I felt was appropriate to discussions and research based on a judgement of
how important I felt it was in the first place and my limited
understanding.
This all began with someone calling out "there is a problem and should we
try to do something to change the system". This discussion alone went on
for a long time. It was sustained. I burned kind of a lot of my time and
energy on those discussions for two reasons: First, because I was mentioned
- and second because I really disagreed that the problem that was being
described was actually "the problem" or even "a real problem in practice"
at all.
But, ultimately it seemed like there wasn't a point in continuing to
debate. I knew that there are a large number of more expressive systems,
and a bit about some of them. My estimation was "giving people some kind
of more _expressive_ vote doesn't actually hurt. IANAE and also not
interested in understanding and debating particular minor details".
Well, that's where it falls apart, I guess. At no point did I latch onto
the key aspect: it isn't just "more expressive", it's fundamentally
changing what you are expressing. Now, I understand how you can say "but...
'single', it's right there on the tin". Yes, sure, that feels pretty bad
in retrospect, - but that is not actually self-evident if you aren't
starting from an understanding of what that means (if you even looked up
STV). It seems this is especially true in a long conversation that you
think is solving mostly a non-problem where there are probably multiple
acceptable answers. You're only going to chase so many rabbits trying to
understand details of several systems which you (incorrectly) understand
are ultimately just methods of weighting the same preferences. When the
trail results don't really raise some flags either - it just kind of skates
through with no objections.
…--
Brian Kardell :: @briankardell :: bkardell.com
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sorry, anyone on the AB. The amount of time we studied this, and discussed it, became almost a meme. We explicitly discussed the application of STV to multi-seat elections, and how the transfer of votes happened, for example; if we had ever thought we were implementing multiple single-seat elections, we would have studied that. We didn't. Nonetheless, I also find that despite all that study, I wasn't fully aware of all the implications of what we did, or at least the ones subsequent elections have exposed. I don't need to be persuaded that some of those implications are causing some people to re-think whether STV was a good idea. I'm completely unsurprised that some want to change again. Go for it; find a better idea that either retains the goal (better to reflect diversity) or argues why that goal is the wrong one. What I don't believe is that we need to leave an editor's mistake in the process document. That does no-one any good, and introduces heat without light into the discussion. And it makes me suspect that if the strongest argument is a one-line editor's mistake, then we won't be changing anything any time soon. Those who want a change, find a better peg to hang your argument from, please. |
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Look at the analysis provided in 2015. It clearly describes Meek rounds with transferring votes electing the seats in cascades. Look at the resulting AB email thread. At no point did anyone say "hang on, we're supposed to be using multiple transferable votes" or anything vaguely like. |
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Now that the AB has taken up the baton of exploring improved voting, we intend to remove this sentence as it's not needed to remind us to consider the issue. Decision expected 26/05/2021, which will be to clean up this sentence unless convincing reason to keep it is presented. |
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@michaelchampion and I discussed our former objections offline. Although our original complaint stands - this sentence made it seem like adopting STV did not remove a Member's ability to vote for more than one seat - neither of us will object to removing this sentence at this point, given that we are exploring voting more deeply. |
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During the previous call, we had consensus for merging this change, provided that @michaelchampion was ok with it. Given that we now have this confirmed, in the interest of time, I'm doing the change without waiting for the next call. |
frivoal
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Closed: Accepted
The last line in Section 7.3 (about votes) says
'In the case of Advisory Board and TAG elections, "one vote" means "one vote per available seat".'
I think this line is a holdover from previous voting procedures. We now use STV. A literal interpretation of this line is that (e.g.) in an AB election with 4 open seats, each AC rep would have 4 votes: i.e. 4 opportunities to use STV. This is absurd.
I recommend dropping this line.
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