RE: Comments on the text for STV voting in the draft Process 2016 doc dated 18 July 2016

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Chaals McCathie Nevile [mailto:chaals@yandex-team.ru]
> Sent: Monday, July 25, 2016 1:23 AM
> To: Stephen Zilles <steve@zilles.org>; L. David Baron <dbaron@dbaron.org>
> Cc: public-w3process@w3.org; ij@w3.org
> Subject: Re: Comments on the text for STV voting in the draft Process 2016
> doc dated 18 July 2016
> 
> On Mon, 25 Jul 2016 04:40:38 +0200, L. David Baron <dbaron@dbaron.org>
> wrote:
> 
> > On Sunday 2016-07-24 11:17 -0700, Stephen Zilles wrote:
> >> The fifth paragraph of 2.5.2 begins,
> >>
> >> "The shortest term is assigned to the elected candidate who received
> >> the least support,"
> >>
> >> In this, the term "least support" is undefined and, as far as I can
> >> tell, it is not a term used in describing STV tabulation. If there is
> >> a referenceable source for the term, then that should be linked to.
> >> The approved text began, "If the tabulation system ranks candidates
> >> according to their level of support, the shortest term .". Thus,
> >> tying "level of support" to the ranking. Without this, I do not think
> >> the term, "least support" has much meaning.
> 
> I suggest going with "lowest-ranked".

I am OK with "lowest-ranked" as long as there is a requirement that the "vote tabulation system" details specify how the ranking is done. I agree that we should leave the system choice up to the Team and (at this point) not further restrict the choice other than to an STV system.

Steve Z
> 
> ...
> > Generally these systems maintain the invariant that if you run the
> > algorithm with a set of votes and the constraint that there are 3
> > seats available, and then run the algorithm with the same votes and
> > the constraint that there are 4 seats available, the 3 people elected
> > are a subset of the 4 people elected.  This allows assigning the short
> > term to the person in the second set but not in the first set.  I
> > think this is generally how short-term assignment works with such
> > systems.  (I think it's how it's done in Australian Senate elections
> > in a double-dissolution election like the one that just
> > happened.)
> >
> > It's worth double-checking that this is true of the system that we're
> > using.
> 
> The W3C Team are left to determine the precise choice of system, which
> provides operational flexibility within the constraint that it's an STV system and
> not something else.
> 
> There are in fact systems that don't match the constraint you mention - I think
> the standard d'Hont method is one.
> 
> > It might be worth skewing the wording a little bit towards that
> > concept, although it may well also be fine as-is.
> 
> I'd rather leave it as-is. I don't think systems which fail to enforce the
> constraint are as good as systems that do, but I do think they are still way
> better than what we have now. So I'm happy to leave the content to match the
> original decision which is that W3C Team should choose the operational
> aspects, and just tell us.
> 
> cheers
> 
> --
> Charles McCathie Nevile - web standards - CTO Office, Yandex
>   chaals@yandex-team.ru - - - Find more at http://yandex.com

Received on Monday, 25 July 2016 15:06:13 UTC