I’ve just never personally voted using RCV on a ballot that requires you to rank that many candidates for a valid ballot. That seems unnecessary.
Several implementations of it in Australia are full preferential, and require ranking all candidates (and there’s a kind of hybrid optional implementation in the federal senate where there is a minimum but you can rank as many as you want). The NYC one is still optional preferential actually, which is in my view a bad system because people get tricked into “just voting 1” and their vote consequently has less power to influence the result.
Several implementations of it in Australia are full preferential, and require ranking all candidates (and there’s a kind of hybrid optional implementation in the federal senate where there is a minimum but you can rank as many as you want). The NYC one is still optional preferential actually, which is in my view a bad system because people get tricked into “just voting 1” and their vote consequently has less power to influence the result.