[Icehouse] CRP Ranking: Can It Skip Ranks?

[Doug Orleans]

David Artman writes:
 > > From: "Doug Orleans" <dougorleans at gmail.com>
 > > Wait, I take that back, we are not allowing ballots with ties (though
 > > I think the script can handle that).  Or are we?  This is the only
 > > instruction:
 > > 
 > >   Anyone may judge games for the competition by e-mailing the
 > > Coordinator with a partial or complete list of competing games, ranked
 > > from "best" to "worst" (or "least best").
 > 
 > Nope, that's not the only instruction, viz:
 > "5. You may rank games as tied for a particular rank, in which case the
 > next rank is lowered for each extra game in the tie (e.g. if you rank
 > three games as tied for 1st Place, the next game that you list is ranked
 > in 4th Place)."
 > 
 > So, yes, we take ties and, yes, the script can handle them, else I
 > wouldn't have suggested my "padded 3rd place" solution.

Oh, sorry, I didn't notice that the rules appear in two places on that
page.  That whole business about 1st Place/4th Place is irrelevant, as
far as I can tell; it makes no difference if you call the game after
the first-place tie 2nd place, 4th place, 8th place, or 69,105th
place.  A ballot is just an ordered list of sets of labels
(mathematically speaking).

 > > From: Dale Newfield <Dale at Newfield.org>
 > > That appears to be precisely what they tried to express (unless the 8 
 > > was really a typo for 3).
 > 
 > It was not--I put it there. The ballot said:
 >    "Best:
 >     AAA
 >     BBB
 >     Absolute worst:
 >     CCC"
 > I am trying to figure out how to capture that "absolute" statement.
 > Leaving CCC at 3 doesn't seem "absolute" so I put it at 8. Now, I am
 > just trying to figure out how that will be fed to the script, to
 > preserve the "absoluteness".

I read that as "absolute worst of the three games on the ballot", and
the ballot is equivalent to AAA > BBB > CCC.

 > > From: Doug Orleans <dougorleans at gmail.com>
 > > My preference would be to keep it simple.  Also, I think if someone is
 > > convinced that CCC is worse than DDD without having played DDD, then
 > > he should be able to decide if DDD is worse than BBB too.
 > 
 > I concur, but I don't want to dump a ballot (or an opinion, like
 > "absolute"). Thus, I am will to make it a tad more complex, to capture
 > the full opinion.

I don't think it's a good idea to change the rules after a bunch of
people have voted.  But if so, you should announce that and let people
re-vote with the new rules if they want to.  Otherwise, just ask the
voter to clarify whether he meant AAA > BBB > CCC or 
AAA > BBB > (other 5) > CCC, which are the two options allowed under
the current rules.

--dougorleans at gmail.com