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A Name For Single Solution Evangelists
Jan. 22nd, 2007 11:02 pmNo, no, not the christian sort looking for more people to be saved in Jesus's name by government action, though the impulse is obviously similar. It is that sort of people who have wonderful utterly brilliant ideas that will solve all problems and are so obviously correct that they'll solve all problems if we just trust that it works like they say it will.
Such as the advocates currently trying to convince a few big name fans to support Range Voting. Over on![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kevin_standlee's journal he wrote about them their efforts to convince him to change the WSFS Constitution. As usual with such advocates they are single minded in their support for their system they have not bothered to understand anything about how the WSFS works or why they do the things the way they do. Instead they just repeat their 'evidence' that Instant Runoff Voting is flawed and their system isn't. Never mind niggling little problems like cost to implement, the need to convince people who actually go to the Worldcon business meetings to vote for this, and that being a volunteer organization it isn't like there is a huge surplus of labor available to work on this.
If they were actually fans, rather than a sort of political consultant, they would ask to be included in a program item at Worldcon or NASFiC, throw some room parties, or whatever. No, they just want to come in tell the leaders how to fix things, fire off a few email messages, and then sit back and watch everything fall into place for them. Just as with business consultants (and other vermin) they're quite eager to tell other people how to do things but only when they don't have to take any of the risks. All he wants is for everyone to agree he is right and do lots of work to implement his system so he can proudly use that as more 'evidence' that his system is best.
Now here is what is wrong with Range Voting. First off it assume the main problem with voting is not having enough choices rather than voters not knowing what the hell they are voting for or against and how their vote works. Any type of voting only works if the people being polled know what the hell they are talking about, if you poll average people you get answers like "McDonalds is the best restaurant in the city". Just look at the internet movie database's top 250 movies sometime to see this sort of system in action in real life. It certainly is a very interesting mix, but it doesn't seem to be good at grouping movies that are objectively of the same quality, just popularity.
Secondly how is the system going to magically come up with the best candidate for a job or the best book if everyone isn't using the system the same way? When judges at sporting events come up with scores they have criteria for judging things, if everyone was using wildly varying criteria how does it work to come up with the consensus answer of the best? I doubt the Hugos would be any more respected/accepted if Range Voting were used instead. Rather than a new voting system some sort of Hugo nomination and voting forum would be better to build actual consensus and maybe (only maybe) a system that requires more of a majority than 50%+1. And when voting for site selection the criteria for selecting the best bid are wildly divergent.
Most importantly is the lack of simplicity and transparency. The reason that his (and I do mean his, the center seems to consist of "Dr" Smith and a few bottle washers, and I use scare quotes because I mock his credentialism) system seems to reduce strategic voting is that no one understands what their vote will do. Indeed for most people it would be probably wise to reduce it to approval voting by giving the highest possible marks to any acceptable candidate and nothing to any others. And it also becomes impossible to tally the votes in any simple way so the people running the election, who are already understaffed and overworked, will have to invest in various electronic systems. I'm no luddite, but I'm reluctant to support moving to a system without any actual real world evidence that it works that will require a much higher level of technical sophistication and support as long as it is in place.
And it is instructive to also look at what this Smith fellow does to promote his system. He slags Instant Runoff Voting, making it sound like the work of the devil, rather than an improvement over plurality voting. And he blatantly makes up scenarios that have NEVER HAPPENED in real life IRV. Not even in close/hotly contested three way races like the Denver/Chicago/Columbus race of last year, much less actual polical elections. There have been years of use of Instant Runoff Voting in lots of different locals, where is the real world evidence of the problem "Dr" Smith? And when will you answer actual question rather than replying with boilerplate rattling off of your same rhetoric?
In short he should no more be trusted than the know it alls coming around to tell you how to better run your business for a case full of cash and who'll won't suffer one whit if anything goes wrong.
Such as the advocates currently trying to convince a few big name fans to support Range Voting. Over on
kevin_standlee's journal he wrote about them their efforts to convince him to change the WSFS Constitution. As usual with such advocates they are single minded in their support for their system they have not bothered to understand anything about how the WSFS works or why they do the things the way they do. Instead they just repeat their 'evidence' that Instant Runoff Voting is flawed and their system isn't. Never mind niggling little problems like cost to implement, the need to convince people who actually go to the Worldcon business meetings to vote for this, and that being a volunteer organization it isn't like there is a huge surplus of labor available to work on this. If they were actually fans, rather than a sort of political consultant, they would ask to be included in a program item at Worldcon or NASFiC, throw some room parties, or whatever. No, they just want to come in tell the leaders how to fix things, fire off a few email messages, and then sit back and watch everything fall into place for them. Just as with business consultants (and other vermin) they're quite eager to tell other people how to do things but only when they don't have to take any of the risks. All he wants is for everyone to agree he is right and do lots of work to implement his system so he can proudly use that as more 'evidence' that his system is best.
Now here is what is wrong with Range Voting. First off it assume the main problem with voting is not having enough choices rather than voters not knowing what the hell they are voting for or against and how their vote works. Any type of voting only works if the people being polled know what the hell they are talking about, if you poll average people you get answers like "McDonalds is the best restaurant in the city". Just look at the internet movie database's top 250 movies sometime to see this sort of system in action in real life. It certainly is a very interesting mix, but it doesn't seem to be good at grouping movies that are objectively of the same quality, just popularity.
Secondly how is the system going to magically come up with the best candidate for a job or the best book if everyone isn't using the system the same way? When judges at sporting events come up with scores they have criteria for judging things, if everyone was using wildly varying criteria how does it work to come up with the consensus answer of the best? I doubt the Hugos would be any more respected/accepted if Range Voting were used instead. Rather than a new voting system some sort of Hugo nomination and voting forum would be better to build actual consensus and maybe (only maybe) a system that requires more of a majority than 50%+1. And when voting for site selection the criteria for selecting the best bid are wildly divergent.
Most importantly is the lack of simplicity and transparency. The reason that his (and I do mean his, the center seems to consist of "Dr" Smith and a few bottle washers, and I use scare quotes because I mock his credentialism) system seems to reduce strategic voting is that no one understands what their vote will do. Indeed for most people it would be probably wise to reduce it to approval voting by giving the highest possible marks to any acceptable candidate and nothing to any others. And it also becomes impossible to tally the votes in any simple way so the people running the election, who are already understaffed and overworked, will have to invest in various electronic systems. I'm no luddite, but I'm reluctant to support moving to a system without any actual real world evidence that it works that will require a much higher level of technical sophistication and support as long as it is in place.
And it is instructive to also look at what this Smith fellow does to promote his system. He slags Instant Runoff Voting, making it sound like the work of the devil, rather than an improvement over plurality voting. And he blatantly makes up scenarios that have NEVER HAPPENED in real life IRV. Not even in close/hotly contested three way races like the Denver/Chicago/Columbus race of last year, much less actual polical elections. There have been years of use of Instant Runoff Voting in lots of different locals, where is the real world evidence of the problem "Dr" Smith? And when will you answer actual question rather than replying with boilerplate rattling off of your same rhetoric?
In short he should no more be trusted than the know it alls coming around to tell you how to better run your business for a case full of cash and who'll won't suffer one whit if anything goes wrong.