On 12/4/2011 3:30 PM, brian d foy wrote:
... The following module was proposed for inclusion in the Module List:
   modid:       Voting::VoteFairRanking
   DSLIP:       Mdpf2
   description: Calculates VoteFair Ranking election results
   userid:      FOBES (Richard Fobes)
How about Voting::Ranking::VoteFair? That allows other algorithms to
live under the same namespace.
I understand your thinking, but that would not work well because this would be the only module within such a "Ranking" sub-category.

Note that "VoteFair ranking" is the name of the method. (For this CPAN module I've capitalized "ranking" to avoid punctuation, and because italics is not available.)

Other voting methods typically have the words "method" or "voting" in their names -- such as "Instant Runoff Voting", the "Condorcet-Shulze method", the "Ranked Pairs method" (which does not do ranking), etc. No other method (that I know of) includes the word "ranking" in its name.

For perspective, other voting methods only calculate the winner, or in some cases multiple winners. They are not designed to rank the "losers". In contrast, VoteFair popularity ranking -- which is the core part (but not the only part) of VoteFair ranking -- "only" calculates a full ranking, and then the top-ranked choice is identified as the winner.

As you realize, the "Voting" category will grow. However, it would be difficult to create meaningful sub-categories. Furthermore, VoteFair ranking does not fit within the traditional categories (for example because it has both "single-winner" and "proportional" components, and because the VoteFair party ranking component does not fit within any existing category). Also, some software (that exists elsewhere) calculates multiple methods to allow comparing different methods.

Soapbox: It turns out that the mathematics behind voting is complex. That's why so few people have "done the math" to realize why money can so easily be used to manipulate election results. Now, with software, the math can be done at the click of a mouse!

Brian, thanks for your valuable contributions to the Perl community!

Richard Fobes
Author of "The Creative Problem Solver's Toolbox" and "Ending The Hidden Unfairness In U.S. Elections"

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