comp.unix.* results

[Jim Balter]

In article <11409 at pt.cs.cmu.edu> jgm at fed.expres.cs.cmu.edu (John G. Myers) writes:
>I fail to understand Laird's math.  According to his post, the votes
>were: 
>
>The voting tallies for the respective categories were:
>
>comp.unix.esoterica		61
>comp.unix.esoterica only	16
>comp.unix.internals		61
>comp.unix.wizards	       144
>comp.unix.wizards only 		19
>
>That makes 144+19= 163 votes for wizards and 16+61=77 against, making
>the proposal fail the 100-vote margin by 14 votes.

If you spend no time trying to understand his explanation of the meaning of
the categories, then you can come to this conclusion.  Just what do you think
the distinction between the only and non-only categories is?  Your arithmetic
lumps them together, and only deals with 4 of the 5 values.  On the other hand,
a less lazy analysis would lead you to realize that the categories imply
different orderings.

comp.unix.esoterica		esoterica > wizards > internals     61
comp.unix.esoterica only	esoterica > internals > wizards     16
comp.unix.internals		internals > (esoterica or wizards)  61
comp.unix.wizards	        wizards > esoterica > internals    144
comp.unix.wizards only 		wizards > internals > esoterica     19

where ">" means "is preferred to".  This gives us

esoterica > internals	61+16+144 = 221
internals > esoterica	61+19	  = 80

wizards > internals	61+144+19 = 224
internals > wizards	16+61	  = 77

wizards > esoterica	144+19    = 163
esoterica > wizards	61+16     = 77


Disclaimer:  I didn't vote, have no preference, and find the whole exercise
pointless and immature.