Looney Labs Icehouse Mailing list Archive

[David Artman <david.artman@xxxxxxxxx>]

OK, I think I see the arguments, now; and I have a happy solution, based on some of my own (little bit of) research:

Give a game a rating, from 1 to 10, per Board Game Geek guidelines on your enjoyment, likely replayability, and desire to promote the game to others (which is what I read between the lines of their preference rating system). Half-points are allowed if they simply MUST be used to give a marginal nudge for a preferential game. An "X" vote for "No Opinion" is permitted, as it doesn't affect the game's average. Note that a game's total score (sum, not average) must be at least 50% of the sum received by any game, to win.

The highest average rating wins, with ties broken by the votes exceeding arithmetic mean:  Each tied candidate receives one point for each voter who rates him above the voter's arithmetic mean score for all the tied candidates. Ratings at or below the arithmetic mean receive zero points. The candidate with the most points wins. VEAM has the advantage over random ballot in that it will make more voters happy.  In fact, if a "happy" voter is one who feels that candidate X was better than a random choice among the tied-candidates, then this method to choose X maximizes the number of happy voters. (from RangeVoting.org)

Sounds complex, but it's really just this for judges: "Give a game a rating on a scale of 1 to 10, or put No Opinion. There are no 0 ratings; they will be treated as No Opinion."

Then, fanatic victories are culled (e.g. one vote for Game A is a 10; all other games have at least a 21 sum, though average about 4; Game A can't win).

Then, tie breaks consider all voters who ranked the tied games, using a form of approval voting (i.e. 1 or 0, based on whether a game rated above the mean of tied games for that voter's ballot). Instant run-off, so to speak.

This keeps my math trivial (I can spreadsheet that in no time) and tries to ensure maximum number of happy voters, while keeping the process as transparent as possible (i.e. easy to verify my math from published ballots).

Now go make games, not math proofs!
(Read As: Future scoring debate--other than to correct my verbiage above--should go to the Geek List, please.)
David Artman
Spring 2009 IGDC Coordinator