[python-committers] If you care about the voting method, please vote ; -)

[Tim Peters]

[Chris Jerdonek <chris.jerdonek at gmail.com>]
> My reply was to Brett and not to you.

So it was!  I missed that - I just noticed that the vast bulk of the
text I was replying to was a quote of my message here about the poll.
I should have checked.


> If I had known the poll was going to be binding,

As before, I had - and have - no reason to believe the poll was
binding.  It did, however, fairly reflect the sentiments expressed in
the long thread of which it was a part - except for not recording your
opinion, but because you didn't vote.


> I could have made an effort to participate in the
> discussion and try to sway people. As it was, the discussion was
> started and dominated by people who were against IRV. They are the
> most motivated to change things, and they're also the ones most
> motivated to participate in the poll. I couldn't afford to participate
> in such a discussion otherwise, as I said in the discussion. There are
> already 98 messages -- many of which are lengthy -- not to mention
> messages in other threads. It would take a lot of time and emotional
> energy to engage in such a discussion.

Decisions are often driven by people who do give the time and
emotional energy to discussing the issues at length.  It's not like
there was universal agreement in the thread - there was lots of give &
take.  IRV "lost" because _nobody_ spoke for it.  About 40% of the
core developers who have an account on discuss.python.org did vote in
the poll, so it's not like it was just a tiny percentage of developers
who made their opinion known.  And we know some didn't vote because
they couldn't care less how the vote is run (e.g., Guido appears to be
in that category).

I'd be concerned it there were evidence that there _might_ be
widespread support for the PEP as it was originally written - but I
just don't see any.  Now that Brett announced the change, you're - so
far - the only one objecting to the change.

I'm not a fan of Condorcet methods myself (but because of their
conceptual complexity - their results are fine), but even I'm not
complaining ;-)