Hi Michael,<div><br></div><div>just a clarification:</div><div><div><br></div><div>I wrote:</div><div>> By the way (probably an other topic), one way to allow cycles in<br>> delegated votes and still being able to calculate the number of<br>
> votes of each person is to use the page rank algorithm which google<br>> uses:<br>> <a href="http://chato.cl/papers/boldi_bonchi_castillo_vigna_2011_viscous_democracy_social_networks.pdf" target="_blank">http://chato.cl/papers/boldi_bonchi_castillo_vigna_2011_viscous_democracy_social_networks.pdf</a><br>
<br>You answered:<br>Boldi et al. use something similar to Brin and Page's "dampening".<br>The vote loses strength as it goes from delegate to delegate. We have<br>a different aproach where the vote is stopped and "held" before it</div>
<div>can cycle: <a href="http://zelea.com/project/votorola/d/theory.xht#cycle" target="_blank">http://zelea.com/project/votorola/d/theory.xht#cycle</a> <br><br>My comment:</div><div>You don't necessarily need to use "dampering".</div>
<div>In theory you can use the stationary distribution of the Markov chain (which is equivalent to setting the dampering constant to one), see</div><div><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markov_chain#Steady-state_analysis_and_limiting_distributions" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markov_chain#Steady-state_analysis_and_limiting_distributions</a>
</div><div>and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markov_chain#Internet_applications" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markov_chain#Internet_applications</a> .</div><div><br></div><div>Basically each row of the transition matrix contains the shares of all the votes of a specific voter that he/she gives to each of the other voters (including him/herself).</div>
<div>From the transition matrix you get the stationary distribution by finding its eigenvalues and those eigenvalues are the final distribution of the votes.</div><div>I guess the stationary distribution might be thought of as the average share of all votes that a voter receives in each turn when the votes are delegated.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Best regards</div><div>Peter Zbotník</div><div><br></div><div><div class="gmail_quote">2012/7/9 Michael Allan <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:mike@zelea.com" target="_blank">mike@zelea.com</a>></span><br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">Hi Peter,<br>
<br>
Thank you for sharing these papers. I post to the list in case others<br>
are interested.<br>
<br>
Peter Zbornik said:<br>
> Votorola got good scores in the review in the attachment - except<br>
> from the development side (not being ready yet).<br>
<br>
Andrea Cangialosi. 2011. Delegative democracy: is the<br>
PiratenPartei liquid democracy proposal fit for Germany?<br>
<a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/83203862" target="_blank">http://www.scribd.com/doc/83203862</a><br>
<br>
Cangialosi uses Thomas's comparison. He adds, "The objectivity of<br>
this comparison might be argued since the author is also involved in<br>
Votorola's project [!]... I'll suggest considering also a deeper<br>
technical analysis in the working paper [below]."<br>
<br>
David Horbank. 2011. Liquid Democracy: Neue Formen direkter<br>
Demokratie im Internetzeitalter.<br>
<a href="http://www.informatik.uni-leipzig.de/~graebe/Texte/Horbank-11.pdf" target="_blank">http://www.informatik.uni-leipzig.de/~graebe/Texte/Horbank-11.pdf</a><br>
<br>
I discovered a couple of other interesting papers in Cangialosi's<br>
references. I don't know how I missed these before:<br>
<br>
Bryan Ford. 2002. Delegative democracy.<br>
<a href="http://www.brynosaurus.com/deleg/deleg.pdf" target="_blank">http://www.brynosaurus.com/deleg/deleg.pdf</a><br>
<br>
James Green-Armytage. 2010. Voluntary delegation as the basis for<br>
a future political system.<br>
<a href="http://www.econ.ucsb.edu/~armytage/proxy2010.pdf" target="_blank">http://www.econ.ucsb.edu/~armytage/proxy2010.pdf</a><br>
<br>
(more: <a href="http://www.econ.ucsb.edu/~armytage/voting/" target="_blank">http://www.econ.ucsb.edu/~armytage/voting/</a>)<br>
<br>
Green-Armytage's history of the ideas is the best I ever saw. I was<br>
unaware of Miller's paper, for example.<br>
<br>
James Miller. 1969. A Program for Direct and Proxy Voting in the<br>
Legislative Process. Public Choice 7: 107-113.<br>
<br>
> By the way (probably an other topic), one way to allow cycles in<br>
> delegated votes and still being able to calculate the number of<br>
> votes of each person is to use the page rank algorithm which google<br>
> uses:<br>
> <a href="http://chato.cl/papers/boldi_bonchi_castillo_vigna_2011_viscous_democracy_social_networks.pdf" target="_blank">http://chato.cl/papers/boldi_bonchi_castillo_vigna_2011_viscous_democracy_social_networks.pdf</a><br>
<br>
Boldi et al. use something similar to Brin and Page's "dampening".<br>
The vote loses strength as it goes from delegate to delegate. We have<br>
a different approach where the vote is stopped and "held" before it<br>
can cycle: <a href="http://zelea.com/project/votorola/d/theory.xht#cycle" target="_blank">http://zelea.com/project/votorola/d/theory.xht#cycle</a><br>
<br>
We've been counting cycles for a while, but we never had a good way of<br>
viewing them. The latest code has a slight improvement. I posted a<br>
demo here: <a href="http://mail.zelea.com/list/votorola/2012-July/001392.html" target="_blank">http://mail.zelea.com/list/votorola/2012-July/001392.html</a><br>
The section about cycles refers to the "vote track" at the top of this<br>
page: <a href="http://zelea.com/w/G/p/sandbox" target="_blank">http://zelea.com/w/G/p/sandbox</a><br>
<br>
You need Firefox, Chrome or something similar to see it. Please let<br>
me know if it doesn't work for you.<br>
<br>
Very best,<br>
--<br>
Michael Allan<br>
<br>
Toronto, <a href="tel:%2B1%20416-699-9528" value="+14166999528" target="_blank">+1 416-699-9528</a><br>
<a href="http://zelea.com/" target="_blank">http://zelea.com/</a><br>
<br>
<br>
Peter Zbornik said:<br>
> Hi Michael,<br>
><br>
> thanks for the short overview.<br>
> The German pirate party is using LiquidFeedback a lot:<br>
> <a href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/germany-s-pirate-party-seek-to-reinvent-politics-a-829451-2.htm" target="_blank">http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/germany-s-pirate-party-seek-to-reinvent-politics-a-829451-2.htm</a><<a href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/germany-s-pirate-party-seek-to-reinvent-politics-a-829451-2.html" target="_blank">http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/germany-s-pirate-party-seek-to-reinvent-politics-a-829451-2.html</a>><br>
> There will be a beta-release of v 2.0 soon (end of June).<br>
> More info on the pirate party and LiquidFeedback:<br>
> <a href="http://techpresident.com/news/wegov/22154/how-german-pirate-partys-liquid-democracy-works" target="_blank">http://techpresident.com/news/wegov/22154/how-german-pirate-partys-liquid-democracy-works</a><br>
> List of users of Liquid Democracy:<br>
> <a href="http://liqd.net/en/schwerpunkte/anwendung/" target="_blank">http://liqd.net/en/schwerpunkte/anwendung/</a><br>
> Votorola got good scores in the review in the attachment - except from the<br>
> development side (not being ready yet).<br>
><br>
> By the way (probably an other topic), one way to allow cycles in delegated<br>
> votes and still being able to calculate the number of votes of each person<br>
> is to use the page rank algorithm which google uses:<br>
> <a href="http://chato.cl/papers/boldi_bonchi_castillo_vigna_2011_viscous_democracy_social_networks.pdf" target="_blank">http://chato.cl/papers/boldi_bonchi_castillo_vigna_2011_viscous_democracy_social_networks.pdf</a><br>
> .<br>
><br>
> I just subscribed to the votorola mailing list, so you can post this<br>
> message there if you want.<br>
><br>
> Best regards<br>
> Peter Zborník<br>
</blockquote></div><br></div></div>