[crossfire] crossfire source code control systems

[Lalo Martins]

A few days ago a friend was describing the Australian system to me.  He
(she?) probably didn't describe it very precisely, and I probably didn't
understand it perfectly, but it goes more or less like this:

You vote for a number of options in order: your favourite, your second
choice, and so on.  I think you're supposed to cast 5 votes and you're
allowed to cast less.

Then we count only first choices.  We remove some candidates -- maybe the
one with less votes, maybe half of them, maybe all candidates that didn't
achieve a minimum of votes, maybe leave only X candidates.

Next we "revise" the votes, by popping choices out of the top of each
ballot that aren't running anymore.  So if your first choice was GNU Arch
and on the second count GNU Arch isn't running anymore, we "pop that off",
pretending your second choice was your first and so on.

Then we count only first choices and eliminate from the bottom again, and
repeat these two steps a number of times until there's only one left.

Sounds complicated, but it's rather trivial to write a script to do that. 
And if you try to understand why it's designed this way, you'll concede
it's probably the fairest systems you can think of.  (Is "fairest" even a
word?  Can we vote on that?)

best,
                                               Lalo Martins
--
      So many of our dreams at first seem impossible,
       then they seem improbable, and then, when we
       summon the will, they soon become inevitable.
--
personal:                              http://www.laranja.org/
technical:                    http://lalo.revisioncontrol.net/
GNU: never give up freedom                 http://www.gnu.org/