Talk:Later-no-harm criterion

"Later-no-harm" may seem desireable to an individual voter considering his/her own favorite extreme candidate. However, the same voter would probably want the converse for one's polar opposition. Therefore, "later-no-harm" may be a two edged sword. Whether one values it depends on whether one wants divergeance toward polarization or convergence toward compromise.

As an alternative to satisfying "later-no-harm", a method may level the field for all voters by disallowing ties and truncation (demanding a complete or whole ranking). Jrfisher 12:40, 17 Aug 2005 (PDT)

I'm afraid I don't understand your argument about polarization as opposed to convergence. The point of LNHarm, in my opinion, is that voters may feel free to offer their compromise choices without having to worry that this will cause a preferred choice to lose.

In my opinion, disallowing truncation doesn't eliminate the problem that Later-no-harm addresses. It's just that now you don't rank a candidate instead of not ranking him, you rank a candidate higher as opposed to randomly. Kevin Venzke 15:03, 17 Aug 2005 (PDT)

By the way, there are three main reasons why I stopped worrying about Later-no-harm:
1. It seems to be incompatible with the Minimal Defense criterion.
2. Even MMPO retains some approval elements. You may be able to rank A as well as A>B, but it could well be that the only way to elect one of these candidates is to vote A=B.
3. Although MMPO satisfies LNHarm, it is still strategically unwise to vote for the worse frontrunner, since if it's expected that you'll do this, the worse frontrunner's supporters can use burying strategy against you to steal the win.

Also, as a note: If you bar ties in the ranking, you can't satisfy the Favorite Betrayal criterion. Kevin Venzke 15:12, 17 Aug 2005 (PDT)