So it seems clear that there’s some substantive discomfort with IRV. I’m uncomfortable, Tal is uncomfortable, the best thing that Tim has to say about IRV is that it’s not plurality, and the most passionate arguments in favor of IRV seem to be from people who don’t care and just want to get things resolved.
It sounds to me like we don’t have consensus here, and the timeline for the vote is going to slip. I’ve therefore moved PEP 8001 back to “Draft” status.
I’m not happy about doing this – I totally hear the arguments that we want to get this done ASAP. But the frustrating reality of dealing with groups of humans is that getting to agreement always takes an unreasonable amount of time and effort, and there are no magical shortcuts. When you have a BDFL you have the option to sometimes skip that, but IME these kinds of frustrating discussions are an inevitable component of every other form of governance, so we might as well start practicing now.
I’m particularly concerned by all this rhetoric about how the deadline is fixed and everyone has to get in line. I want to be done soon too! But trying to steamroller other core devs like this, and acting like some core devs get to resolve disagreements like this by pure fiat, is a really unhealthy precedent. I feel like some of us are so concerned about making sure it looks like we can work together, make decisions, and hold a legitimate vote, that they’re undermining our ability to actually work together, make decisions, or hold a legitimate vote.
Let’s try another poll here, just to gather some information. For each of the following options, imagine that PEP 8001 ended up using it. Would you feel comfortable filling out your ballot, and would you feel comfortable that the final result would be legitimate? If the answer to both questions is “yes”, please tick the corresponding box:
[EDIT: I screwed up the poll, but discourse doesn’t let me delete or edit it. So I’ve marked it read-only, and the real poll is DOWN HERE]
- Pure Condorcet, with ties or “pathological cycles” thrown to the PSF board to resolve
- Schulze, with ties thrown to the PSF board to resolve
- Approval voting, with ties thrown to the PSF board to resolve
- 1-2-3, with ties thrown to the PSF board to resolve
- IRV, with ties thrown to the PSF board to resolve
0 voters