I'm changing my post.

You rank in terms of what you like.

If you like Monkey, Cheese, Kafka you rank it like that.

If Monkey looks like it might win and it's a tie and then Cheese pulls ahead that means more people who ranked Kafka first ranked Cheese second. So Monkey wasn't their first OR second choice.

(Did I get that right again?)

So it really is the majority winning because it's based on preference. First, second, third.

Voting preferentially is easy. Scoring preferentially is easy for those as does it. Explaining the scoring before and afterwards is not. So I dislike it.

Also because I just don't understand what we're voting on that needs to be this granular. Not with all the time I fear will be lost to education.

Speaking just for myself, I am strongly against using any system here where the math can't be easily explained. I'm gonna want to know how the votes are counted.

I will post a detailed round-by-round summary of the balloting.

Honestly, I thought we were only going to use this voting system thing for pro/anti type issues, not things where we'd need to rank multiple optons. I thought that we explicitly excluded thread-naming for that very reason.

But we've got two questions proposed on this next ballot that lend themselves to multiple options. That's all I've proposed. Let's do it for this next ballot.

I'm surprised, though, that a vote with 49%, 10%, 10%, 10%, 11% doesn't pass muster for option #1 to win.

In all likelyhood, it would win, since it's unlikely that 2% of the other choices wouldn't pick #1 in subsequent rounds. But we didn't know that #1 would get 49% going in.

Remember: For questions where there are only two choices, this entire discussion is irrelevent.

This whole discussion comes down to how much you try to get everyone what they want, doesn't it?

The preferences thing is a very fine-grained way of getting most people what they mostly want.

If you accept that votes can be won on one vote, and if you accept that 35 votes beats 34 votes and it's over, then yeah, that's a very simple system that everyone can use without hesitation or explanation.

But that system leaves you with 69 people, 34 of whom are unhappy with the outcome.

I've come to see the Preferential thing, ironically, as like achieving consensus. A kind of mathematically-arrived-at consensus.

But that way you may end up with a whole lot of people getting not what they want, but what they begrudgingly accept as the lesser of two evils; most people mostly happy, considering the alternatives. It's not sexy, is it?

[And sorry if anyone thought the tables were patronising. I like stuff like that myself.]

I have to say, I just scolled the last 200 posts or so, and I don't know whether to laugh or cry. I do know that I have a headache.

When I voted for simple majority, I assumed I was voting for "most votes wins." Preferential voting confuses me. I understand it, but it somehow still confuses me. And it makes things much more complicated than they need to be.

Simple solution. Take one vote right now. Should simple majority be most votes wins, or does the winning option have to have a higher percentage of votes than the losing options combined.

One more catch-up post

Okay, wait a minute - aren't we already using a most-votes-takes-all system with Mr. Poll when we choose thread names? Has that bothered people? (The answer may well be yes - I'm just asking.)

We've almost always had to have a run-off. Again Preferential Voting = Instant Runoff.

What I keep hearing is--but people will get upset because they aren't getting what they want. But that happens already.

This system isn't the same as a run off because the deciding factor are the votes from the losing choice, but I think this is faster and easier than having a vote, and then a run off.

we've got two questions proposed on this next ballot that lend themselves to multiple options. That's all I've proposed. Let's do it for this next ballot.

Heartly seconded.

I'd like to see it happen just the once, even if just as an example.

/me notes x-posty use of "grain" metaphors in ita's post and mine...

I liked your table John.

What I keep hearing is--but people will get upset because they aren't getting what they want.

This isn't about giving people what they want. It's about giving people what they NEED!!!