Post by Judge Sam on Sept 12, 2009 3:10:57 GMT -5
The design for Borda Count isn't all that intriguing but I'll write up something short for completeness' sake.
Borda Count was always one of the systems. It's simple to learn, interesting to see, and can fit anywhere. Though I guess having to fill out an excel sheet of lists for 25 player Borda Count would have taken me awhile!
If you read that Wikipedia page you'll see there are a few ways to do Borda counts that are popular:
[examples include 5 voters]
1) 5 4 3 2 1
2) 4 3 2 1 0
3) 1 .5 .33 .25 .2
And my way:
4) 1 3 4 5 7
Another consideration was how many people should be ranked? All of them, your choice on how many, or a specified set?
At the start it was actually you rank all of them. But when Borda was fit at the end I decided that that's too much voting information to publicly reveal. Maybe having two or three votes like IRV was fine, but this was like 7 votes. Possibly it being at the end where everyone's opinions were fully known might have been less of an impact though.
So then it was going to be vote for 3 people with 3 points, 2 points, and 1 point. But asking y'all to vote for 3 people when there were 2 Spies at the Final Seven seemed a bit fishy. It was changed to 2 to reflect this. Then, much like the point system on Stockholders, I decided 2 points for your first vote and 1 point for your second vote was too weird. Having double points for one really weighs it towards that one and to 'catch up' from 1 pointers it takes a lot. Plus it's easier to tie this way with like 7 voters and 14 sets of voting points.
Changing it to 3 points for 1st, 2 points for 2nd was a million times easier than figuring out that other point thing haha. Mostly because it was just two. While it could have been any ratio between 2 and 1, 1.5 seemed simple and like a good number. Plus it was kinda like 3/2/1 with the 3rd # chopped off. So that worked well.
One thing I was surprised no one (at least telling me) noticed was with the future vision:
The bottom quote: "My scheme is intended only for honest men."
Just google it and Borda (the guy who made Borda Count) pops up. I thought that would be quickly noticed, maybe you did. But the quote was too cool not to include haha. Borda said that in response to others saying you could 'rig' his voting system. And that's where all the fun is!
Unfortunately, some of the rig potential was lost when I changed the system. I knew it would be but still felt it was the right way to go. For example, the main strategy (simple as well!) for borda count is burying and compromising. That just means if you want your 1st choice to matter more you should put your 2nd 'real choice' at last. That way your 2nd choice doesn't overcome your first choice.
Another cool thing about Borda was that you got to vote for two different people for the first time simultaneously. I'm not sure how that affected how you guys discussed things with each other, or if you changed your 3 or 2 point vote accordingly when discussing things with others. You'd have to tell me about it!
The vote turned out like:
GRETCHEN (12): 3 points from Jason, 3 points from Levi, 3 points from Kirsten, 3 points from Pete
KIRSTEN (8): 3 points from Jenya, 3 points from Mirela, 2 points from Jason
LEVI (6): 2 points from Jenya, 2 points from Gretchen, 2 points from Mirela
MIRELA (4): 2 points from Levi, 2 points from Pete
JASON (3): 3 points from Gretchen
PETE (2): 2 points from KirstenGretchen got 4 out of 7 main votes so she would have gone in a normal system. It was close though with Kirsten... had Gretchen voted Kirsten for 3 points she would have been one point less. But then she wouldn't have been the only one to vote for Spy Jason ever!
Kirsten also second-voted Pete. I'm not sure if this is true at this point, but Kirsten said she ended up on Pete mostly or partially because she had ruled out everyone else as a Citizen. That's actually what I suspected would happen to the Spies when they were markedly less active than all the Citizens. (Frequently I would see all or most of the Citizens on AIM and none of the Spies.) Usually when that happens the Cits come together to 'confirm' each other and vote for the people who aren't around but that didn't happen this time, I wonder why.
And that's the six voting systems! Shame all that went into what was like two or three days of strategy talk haha, maybe I'll have to bring them back someday.
But it was super-tons of fun to design and then again to talk about and everything went extremely swimmingly so can't be too disappointed on that part. 
I think I might have even been working with that system that day or week lol. Ellis had some interesting thoughts on how repeating that system worked in his game I think he might have posted them already.
