Talk:Cardinal Ratings

move to "range voting"
Hi there. I hope that I won't offend anyone by this move. I just don't think that it makes any sense to call this method "cardinal ratings". My main reason is that "cardinal ratings" describes a ballot type rather than a tally method. A secondary reason is that the term "cardinal ratings" is somewhat redundant in itself.

If people really don't like the name "range voting", I'd suggest "ratings summation", or "ratings sum".

I suppose that "average rating" works as well, but it raises a question: what is the impact of a ballot that doesn't rank a particular candidate? If the ballot counts as the lowest possible score (e.g. 0 on a 0-100 scale), then "ratings summation" is the most appropriate name. If the ballot doesn't affect the candidate's score at all, then "average rating" is the most appropriate name. For political election purposes, I think that a candidate not ranked on a given ballot should be assigned the lowest score, so that candidates who are unknown to most voters are unlikely to win. Hence, I favor the term "ratings summation" rather than "average rating".

Am I making any sense?

My best, James Green-Armytage 04:39, 19 May 2005 (PDT)