Election Data

[CLAY S]

On Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 12:40, seth vidal <skvidal at fedoraproject.org> wrote:

> okay, then I'll state it differently.
>
> I do not care about the state of voting on the planet.
>
> Nor do I believe that voting in fedora will positively or negatively
> impact the planet.


What is your expertise in the field of social choice theory?

Do you know the history of how Australia got improved election systems?  It
has begins as humble as being used in organizations.

Are you also aware that approval voting opponents often cite the fact that
the IEEE dropped it as evidence that it didn't work well?  This is
completely illogical and unfounded, but because the information from those
elections they did hold is not available, this charge is hard to combat, and
is accepted by a lot of people who really should know better.

I appreciate your natural skepticism.  But I implore you to go beyond your
gut instinct and research this issue for a few years (like I and others in
my group have) before you feel much certainty in your views.  Much of what I
have learned in the course of studying social choice theory has completely
turned many of my old ideas on their heads.  I began thinking I really had a
clue, and I didn't.  And I'm still surprised by new discoveries all the
time.

We recently had a huge insight that was borne by IMDB.com's use of
weightings in their scoring system.  But who would have thought that gifted
mathematicians who've been studying this topic for years would gain valuable
new insights from a movie rating web site?

Clay
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