Monte on Origins awards and ENnies

[fusangite]

I agree with Crothian. If you don't try to break the voting system, it won't break. Sure, somebody will try some kind of crazy vote to favor one product or another, but for the most part, I think this method will reflect actual voter opinion a bit better then the old way and make strategic voting harder to do (though not imposible).

AV/IRV should be essentially unbreakable. Conaill is making it appear breakable by the way he is describing people's voting objectives.

 

[Conaill]

The voting system you are proposing is a modified variant of STV, a form of proportional representation (basically, you're proposing running it without fractional or random transfers).

I was merely pointing out that IRV is specifically intended for single-winner elections, and there are various ways you can turn it into a multiple-winner election. Depending on how you implement it, you can get very different outcomes.

The two options I was discussing above are the ones most often suggested for extending IRV - by far. Anything more complicated, and people do indeed start calling it by different names - like STV, where you have various forms of transfer of votes to get a proportional outcome.

I am NOT proposing we switch to using STV at the last minute! Duh. But i am suggesting we at least use the multiple-winner version of IRV that was written up in the voting specs. Is that too much to ask? Heck, it would even be easier to implement too...

 

[Conaill]

Because, I should explain, your current version basically over-counts the votes of supporters of popular candidates by transferring them in such a way that the supporters of a winning candidate are, in most cases, voting more than once.

I get the impression we may be fighting on the same side here. Just to make it clear: I am proposing we use the method that does *NOT* let the supporters of the winning candiate vote more than once.

Removing the #1 winner and re-running the IRV essentially transfers *all* the votes for the #1 candidate over to their second choice. That is what the current launch screen seems to suggest, and which I am *opposing*.

Instead, I support running the IRV until there are only two candidates remaining, and calling those #1 and #2 - as described in the voting specs:

Although AV/IRV is typically used in elections with a single victor, it is pretty easy to see how a runner-up and even a second runner-up can be declared. The runner-up in an AV/IRV system is the losing candidate in the final round; and the third-place finisher in the penultimate round.

 

[fusangite]

I was merely pointing out that IRV is only designed for single-winner elections, and there are various ways you can turn it into a multiple-winner election. Depending on how you implement it, you can get very different outcomes.

The two options I was discussing above are the ones most often suggested for extending IRV - by far. Any more complicated, and people do indeed start calling it by different names - like STV, where you have various forms of transfer of votes to get a proportional outcome.

I am NOT proposing we switch to using STV at the last minute! Duh. But i am suggesting we at least use the multiple-winner version of IRV that was written up in the voting specs. Is that too much to ask? Heck, it would even be easier to implement too...

My point is that the "multiple winner" version of AV/IRV that you propose oppose is a type of STV. Your use of the term "multiple winner" indicates that STV is what you are actually shooting for. These second place products are not other winners; they are runners-up. Transfering first preference votes is fundamentally a feature of STV. If you do it, you don't have AV/IRV anymore; you have a kind of STV, but a strange one that over-weights popular choices, similar, in outcome at least, to the French municipal system and Greek national system, providing a degree of proportionality while still magnifying the majority (France) or modal (Greece) choice

So, although you describe your proposal the problematic counting procedure here as a twist on IRV, it is actually a twist on STV. That's the point I'm trying to make: eliminating the first choice and running the process again is not AV/IRV. It is something else. If we really have decided that we're going for AV/IRV; your the proposed tweak is not an option.

EDIT: Noticed I was completely missing Conaill's point. Corrections left in.

 

[fusangite]

Sorry Conaill. I sincerely apologize. I did read you backwards. I'm so embarassed.



I must have gotten too used to disagreeing with you in the last round.

 

[Michael Morris]

80 hours and counting...

I couldn't decipher a bug so had to start all over again.

 

[Clueless]

Oh *ugh*. I hate when that happens. I'd help if I could but I don't think that'd be right to do (and the learning curve for the code would probably be harsh)...

*offers virtual coffee and chocolate to make up for it*

 

[Erik Mona]

But saying that you'll gladly join the Academy AFTER they fix all of their problems doesn't help either.

1) I never offered to join the Academy, even if they do get their act together.

2) I don't ask that they fix _all_ their problems, just that they prove that the awards are worth saving. This year's ceremony was an embarrassment, and previous years have been tainted by controversy and what appears to be obvious vote-rigging. Until that perception is fixed, I have no interest in spending what little free time I have working to fix something that might not be worth fixing.

3) The ENnies serve the segment of the industry I'm interested in just fine, and are already more prestigious than the Origins awards, so I'd much rather help there. Even then, I simply don't have the time.

--Erik Mona

 

[Christoph the Magus]

1) I never offered to join the Academy, even if they do get their act together.

2) I don't ask that they fix _all_ their problems, just that they prove that the awards are worth saving. This year's ceremony was an embarrassment, and previous years have been tainted by controversy and what appears to be obvious vote-rigging. Until that perception is fixed, I have no interest in spending what little free time I have working to fix something that might not be worth fixing.

3) The ENnies serve the segment of the industry I'm interested in just fine, and are already more prestigious than the Origins awards, so I'd much rather help there. Even then, I simply don't have the time.

--Erik Mona

OK.

#1: Rasyr said, "...You can join the Academy and help too!!"

To which you replied, "Prove to me that the Origins Awards are worth saving, and I'll be happy to help."

Since the offer was for you to join to help fix things, and you're saying that you'd be happy to help once he proves the awards are worth saving (and the only way he can do that is to fix them, I'd imagine), it doesn't seem like much of a stretch to say that you're offering to join once the dirty work is done. But now you're saying that you might not join anyway, which baffles me. Why wouldn't you join a professional group that was taking steps in the right direction and cleaning up their act? (I'm not saying that they are taking the right steps at the moment. For all I know, they're planning on hosting next year's awards at the local Hooters.)

#2: Can't really comment on the vote-rigging, etc. It hasn't been mentioned in this thread and I don't follow industry gossip enough to know. I do know that a LOT of people/companies seem to be upset with the awards, which indicates that there are serious problems. Which means that serious changes need to be made to fix them. But if everyone takes the attitude of, "prove to me they're worth saving", then there are going to be a lot of people sitting around watching and not too many people helping to turn the awards into something good.

#3: So you like the Ennies better. Good for you. There's nothing wrong with that. But why do you have to pee in the Cheerios of a guy whose trying to make the Origins Awards better? Doesn't it benefit everyone to have the Origins Awards actually mean something? And what do you mean that "the ENnies serve the segment of the industry I'm interested in just fine." Are you saying that you only care about the small segment of consumers that frequent EnWorld?

 

[Teflon Billy]

...And what do you mean that "the ENnies serve the segment of the industry I'm interested in just fine." Are you saying that you only care about the small segment of consumers that frequent EnWorld?

Well, to be fair, for the last few years we (meaning the ENnies) have been GenCon's official awards...so we are at the very least as valid as the Origins Awards

...and while I think it's fair to say we still draw a lot of our interest from EN World, it's at least as fair to also say that interest from other sources has grown exponentially with every passing year.

I still recall how chuffed I was when Ken Hite and Bruce Baugh both saw fit to send us kind words last year...neither of them exactly being "Big Figures" here at EN World.

There's a lot of work still left to do to increase the ENnies profile, but at least we seem ascendant at the moment, rather than wallowing in year five of a continuing fall from grace.