Guardian 100 Best Novels
Ross Hyman via Election-Methods <[email protected]> Mon, 18 May 2026 11:50:43 -0500
| Newsgroups | gmane.politics.election-methods |
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| Message-ID | <CAOqnLe7+d2Js=1VLCxkh+Y6CTpxyZzHdsN8FHNOZ2YDUVUbK2w@mail.gmail.com> |
The Guardian's 100 Best Novels https://www.theguardian.com/books/ng-interactive/2026/may/12/the-100-best-novels-of-all-time inlcudes 172 ballots ranking voters' 10 favorite novels. I think it would be interesting to use different voting methods on this ballot set.. The method the Guardian used to determine their l00 novel list from the ballots is very mysterious to me. They state "We scored the titles according to how often they were voted for, and then added a weighting based on individual rankings to produce the overall list of 100 greatest books." I played around and could not find anything that fit this vague description and would produce the presented list. For example, My Antonia in 100th place is ranked on 4 ballots while 99, The Go-Between is ranked on 3. So rankings are not just being used to break approval ties. Then look at 89 The Left Hand of Darkness, also ranked on 4 ballots. But Antonia at 100 is higher ranked on its four ballots than Darkness is on its four. What is their formula? Best, Ross ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em for list info