Choice making outside yes or no

May 22, 2016 3:40 PM

I'm trying to find the idea for choice resolution where a couple wanted to pick something, whether it was a TV show out dinner, and instead of just a binary yes-no, it was more like testing how much you cared about X, to allow for more nuanced choice making. But I have had no luck googling or searching on it. Can anyone help?
posted by canine epigram to MetaFilter-Related at 3:40 PM (11 comments total)

Convening the electoral college?
posted by clavicle at 3:52 PM on May 22, 2016 [18 favorites]

Thank you! No wonder I couldn't find it
posted by canine epigram at 4:20 PM on May 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

Awesome!
posted by anotherpanacea at 6:31 PM on May 22, 2016

Wow, I missed that one, what a fantastic answer! I will so remember it for the future.
posted by Melismata at 7:25 AM on May 23, 2016

My husband and I have been using yankeefog's method ever since we read it - it's really, really effective.
posted by VioletU at 8:10 AM on May 23, 2016

You can also use the electoral college to support a variety of options, with more nuance of the 5-3-1 method, where neither Player A nor Player B feel strongly about some activity with a variety of options. Player A lists 5 options, Player B narrows it down to 3, and Player A makes the final pick.
posted by filthy light thief at 12:18 PM on May 23, 2016 [4 favorites]

This is like the best of the fastest examples of AskMe, but in MetaTalk.
posted by SpacemanStix at 3:31 PM on May 23, 2016 [2 favorites]

The 5-3-1 idea was the first one I thought of as well.

(Link may or may not be first time the idea was suggested.)
posted by gadge emeritus at 6:51 PM on May 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

So glad people find that technique helpful! We've been using it since the 2000 election, making it one of the few good things to come out of that particular mess.

The 2016 election has given me some new ideas. Next time my wife tells me that 63% of her delegates vote for pizza, I'm going to order 63% of my delegates to vote for Chinese food, at which point, we'll have a contested convention. Then I'll reveal that my delegates have infiltrated her slate, and now that they're unbound on the second ballot, they're all voting for an option that barely registered in the primaries: Yankeefog Gets To Finish All The Chocolate In The House Even If He's Already Had More Than His Share.
posted by yankeefog at 3:13 AM on May 25, 2016 [12 favorites]

we love 5-3-1 and will totally be adding the electoral college to it
posted by nadawi at 9:21 AM on May 25, 2016

Part of my job includes managing a grant program. Each year, the program awards a single grant in each of three categories, and one applicant's project is declared an overall national winner, and gets some extra cash on top of the category-specific award. So, our judges convened earlier this month to select the winners, and we got through the categories easily enough, but were deadlocked when it came to choosing the national winner. I introduced them to the electoral college method, quickly set up an online survey where they could anonymously allocate their delegates, and it TOTALLY WORKED. The decision was made in 15 minutes, and the judges declared that they were stealing this method for all of their future committee meetings.

Seriously, it's magic. The debate was pretty heated before that, and the delegate system both diffused a kind of intense situation and reassured everyone that their preferences -- and the degree of their preferences -- were being clearly understood. Yay.
posted by ella_minnow at 7:15 PM on May 26, 2016 [1 favorite]