OK Binary walk explaination. I think better here than Natter - keep bureucracy stuff from spreading there. But skip this post if you are not interested; it is not a choice for us; most of us don't want it.

OK - for the sake of an example suppose we were voting on mvt and only five choices got votes two, ten, fifteen twenty and fifty. That does not mean that one of these numbers will be our choice, only that they happened to get all the votes.

Halfway between two and fifty is around 24. (We don't need exact medians for this, though it would go faster with them.) So we count how many voted for values at or below 24, and how many voted for items above that.

Let's say that more than half of the voters voted for 24 or below. OK, so now we make an assumption. Anyone who voted for a number above 24 will prefer the highest number they can get.

So we divide the range from two to 24 in half, picking (say) 11.

Suppose more than half the votes pick 12 to 24 (counting all those who voted for above 24 as favoring 24 - because 24 is the highest option left). So now we have a range from 12-24. 18 is around halfway along the range between 18 to 24. Counting all those who voted for numbers above 24 as favoring 24, and all those favoring numbers below 12 as favoring 12 (because these are the highest and lowest options remaining), We might end up with 12 to 24. Ok you see where this is going. You keep dividing the number of options in half. At eachs step count anyone who voted for a number above the highest remaining option as favoring the highest remaining option. At each step count thos favoring choices below the lowest remaining option as favoring the lowest remaining option. Eventually you end up with only one option which becomes the winner.

Note that choosing number halfway only speeds up the process. As long as you keep dividing the voters into unequal sets you will eventually narrow it to the same choice.

This is almost exactly like the simplest algorithm for programming a binary search. Maya I think suggested this upthread. Note that if we did this (which of course we won't) someone voting for eighty quadrillion would not bias the choice in any way. It would count exactly the same as any other for a number larger than the majority wants.

Just as a sanity check, I will do this based on the published vote counts when the vote is complete. It will be interesting to see how the results vary from the average. (I'm presuming here, that all unique numbers picked, and the number of votes for each will be published - or just a list of votes stripped of the voters could be e-mailed to me, and I could then publish statistics.)

Yeah, I think that's probably overkill for our purposes. I don't mind the concept of explaining the whole rank-the-options thing to newbies, but having to break out Binary Walk every time seems like a bit much. It's seriously geekily fun, though. (Um, not meant as an insult.) I'll be interested to see what the results are.

I've been trying to stay away from the mieskie business, but I think I should say, any back-channel-ness that I contributed to, I'm sorry.

I think the admins handled it well. I'm very relieved it's all over.

I've got some other stuff to say, of course, but maybe I'll wait a week or something. See if it still needs saying.

It came up privately. It was addressed privately. Anathema requested his ID suspended and it was.

Straightforward enough.

I think the admins handled it well. I'm very relieved it's all over.

Agreed.

I am able to do the vote count, but timing might be a little tight for me because I am going out of town Wednesday morning. I don't think this should be an issue since most votes will probably be cast within the first day or two. Let me know what is needed.

I didn't edit because I couldn't resist the number.

My profile address is fine to use for the voting forward. Did Jon make a new form?

I'm working on it as we speak...

I'm sorry Anathema is gone, but I can't say I'm surprised. I think the Stompies handled it as well as they could.

Here is a preliminary ballot. Comments welcome. IT DOESN'T WORK YET SO DON'T SUBMIT IT!

I'll be home until about 7:45pm EST, at which point I'm out for the evening. I'll put a working ballot up before I go. Others will have to post in Press with the relevent info.

Jon, the main comment I'd have about the last ballot is that it didn't look substantially different, after it was submitted, from the way it looked before.

Can we have this one be a form before submission, and then just a big-ass "your vote has been submitted" message after?

I'll try, John. Unfortunately, my time is limited, but that hopefully won't be too difficult.