<div dir="ltr">On Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 12:40, seth vidal <<a href="mailto:skvidal@fedoraproject.org">skvidal@fedoraproject.org</a>> wrote:<br><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
okay, then I'll state it differently.<br>
<br>
I do not care about the state of voting on the planet.<br>
<br>
Nor do I believe that voting in fedora will positively or negatively<br>
impact the planet.</blockquote><div><br>What is your expertise in the field of social choice theory?<br><br>Do you know the history of how Australia got improved election systems? It has begins as humble as being used in organizations.<br>
<br>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.<br>
<br>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.<br>
<br>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?<br>
<br>Clay<br></div></div></div>