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Revision as of 01:35, 10 March 2006

Template:Featured article is only for Misplaced Pages:Featured articles. Template:Mainpage date

Electoral system received a peer review by Misplaced Pages editors, which is now archived. It may contain ideas you can use to improve this article.

For discussion of which methods and should be included in the mainstream of the voting theory articles, see Talk:Voting system/Included methods and criteria

A WikiProject is being developed at Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Voting Systems for further work on this and other voting system related pages.

Archived discussion: /archive1

The path toward a featured article

We certainly have collected the sheer amount of information, by now, that it would take to make this article into a featured article. I'd like to fix the presentation of that information so that FA status is within reach.

I've just made a major revision of the article, which I've been working on over the last couple of weeks. The biggest changes involved turning lists into paragraphs wherever appropriate, rearranging sections, and providing a gentler introduction for non-theorists. For example, the article did not begin with an explanation of why we study this crazy morass of voting systems, but it did begin with a detailed discussion of write-in ballots, "none of the above" options, and proportional representation. In my edit, the first two are briefly mentioned with links to their own articles (which already existed), and proportional representation is now under the "Multiple-winner methods" section where it belongs.

In turning lists into paragraphs, I needed to briefly characterize every method mentioned on the page. This involved describing methods I'm not very familiar with, like highest averages methods and cumulative voting. Please check that my descriptions are accurate - I'm not trying to add misinformation to the article or anything. Be sure to keep descriptions brief if you modify them; after all, we're listing a lot of methods, and they all have their own page where they can be described more thoroughly.

There are more steps before we can propose this as a featured article. To begin with, there are more revisions to the article that I don't yet have the time or knowledge to write, so I would (of course) appreciate other people's contributions:

• Though I rewrote the "famous voting theoreticians" section slightly, I think what we really need is a "History of voting theory" section that would engulf that section, describing major works in voting theory (and their creators) in chronological order. This section should be in paragraphs of prose, not a list.
• We should have a table for multiple-winner criteria. It should leave out criteria that don't apply (like Condorcet and Majority, which assume a single winner), and include proportional representation (using a suitably strict definition of it).
• The "External links" section has grown too large. We should find a way to pare it down. For one thing, links that are about a specific aspect of voting theory, instead of covering voting theory as a whole, can be moved to other articles.

And then there are the actual requirements for featured article status:

1. We should find an appropriate, free (as opposed to fair-use) picture to go at the top of the article, and perhaps more for later sections of the article.
2. We should make a list of references for statements made in the article. This may be the hardest part; I imagine that most of us are writing based on received knowledge from discussions, classes, or mailing lists, and now we have to track down the original sources.
3. Then, we submit the article to Peer review and make revisions that they suggest.
4. Finally, we submit the article to Misplaced Pages:Featured article candidates.

Who wants to help? RSpeer 18:44, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

I can probably find a picture that's in the public domain. Unfortunately, from the source I'm thinking of (Spencer's American Ballot) the picture would likely be of an old ballot design (there's one with the socialist party, the repubs, dems and such that is particularly neat). Let me know if this would be appropriate. Joseph Lorenzo Hall 20:02, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

That sounds like a good picture - I don't see why it's unfortunate. Sure, it doesn't indicate anything about the mathematics going on, but I can't imagine any comprehensible picture would. And it's somewhat more specific to voting theory than the generic picture of people lining up at a voting booth that's on articles like Vote. RSpeer 21:43, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

OK. You're right, I can't think of a good image for this page and a neat ballot might do the trick in terms of making it more inviting. I'll scan it in... it might take me a week or so (I'm about to go on a short business trip). Joseph Lorenzo Hall 22:30, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

Have you got the picture yet? RSpeer 15:33, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Restructuring Voting System Articles

I'm an avid reader of the voting system articles, and I decided to join this discussion because I felt the voting system pages could be restructured for greater simplicity and clarity. First, I feel the pages as they are currently structured require too much information to be duplicated throughout. In particular, the comparisons between Voting System A and Voting System B need to appear in both article on A and the article on B. A three-way comparison of voting systems should appear on all three pages. This duplication means a lot of work for the maintainers of the pages, and inevitably results in asymmetric information because the duplication is hard to do perfectly. Also, the reader who would like to read about comparisons all single-winner voting systems, for instance, needs to visit every single-winner voting system page to get the full story. Lastly, the fact that the pages on the voting systems include assessments of them makes them susceptible to religious wars between voting system advocates and invite the "neutrality questioned" stamp.

I would like to see all the articles on individual voting systems be trimmed down to include the undisputed facts of the system: basically just who invented it, it's mechanics, and where it's used. Then the individual voting system articles can point to a separate article that offers the various arguments and assessments of all the voting systems. So for instance, the FPTP article, the Approval Voting article, an IRV article, etc, would no longer include assessments of their individual systems; instead they would all link to a single article called something like "Single Winner Reform" where all the comparisons, assessments, and arguments reside.

First, this would reduce the maintenance load of Misplaced Pages writers and maintainers and free them of the need to duplicate all the voting system comparisons and assessments. Second, it gives those interested in comparison voting systems a one-stop-shop for information. Third, it unclutters the individual voting systems pages for those looking for just a simple explanation of how the system works. Lastly, it takes the individual pages out of the contentious realm of assessment and gives us a central location for all the debates to go down.

I apologize if this seems presumptuous of me to not contribute and then all of a sudden suggest a substantial revision, but I do care about the quality of these Misplaced Pages pages. My desire to revise these articles is what prompted me to create a Misplaced Pages login. Boot1780 01:57, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree with you in many ways; most voting system articles are horrible messes of POV arguments, and badly need to be fixed.

I think each voting system article should include more than what you've listed, though; they should at least list criteria passed and failed, because criteria are the closest thing we have to objective comparisons of voting methods. I also think that the major arguments for and against the system should be included, because the article would be incomplete without them. But what should be left out is direct comparisons with particular other methods. So the IRV article should say why IRV is promoted and why it is criticized, but not, for instance, why Approval is better.

I don't think moving assessments of the systems to a merged page would help. It might prevent POV wars on the systems' own pages, but the merged page would consistently be an unreadable mess of POV. That's just moving the problem.

So, basically, I would propose a less drastic change, which is to standardize the discussion of criteria passed and failed for each method, and remove unnecessary comparisons to other methods. RSpeer 19:14, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Good comments, thanks. I am still doubtful of the ability to just include "why system X is promoted" and "why X is criticized" arguments for each article on voting system X without inviting endless comparisons to other systems. The reason these articles are cluttered with the "horrible messes of POV arguments" is that the arguments over voting systems don't fit nicely into "pro" and "con" categories. Other political topics are mostly binary choices, like abortion (pro-choice vs pro-life), war (pro-war vs anti-war), etc; for these it makes sense to include the pro- and con- arguments in the article itself. But with voting systems, there are many, many alternatives, and it is basically impossible to say why a particular system is good without saying why it's better than some alternative.

Just including which criteria are passed and failed is plausible. But then again, a few of the criteria themselves are debatable. Also, they are just mathematical criteria and don't address certain important social/political aspects. So including them runs the risk of implying that these are THE criteria. What if we moved the voting criteria matrix from this article to the voting system criterion article and point this article and all the voting system articles to the voting system criterion page.

Sure, it gets difficult to stick to just pro- and con- arguments, but what's the alternative? A page that does the ${\displaystyle n^{2}}$ comparisons that evaluate each system with regard to the others would be unmanageable.

Also, we kind of do need to decide on THE criteria, or else articles can be made POV by selectively including criteria. See the discussion at /Included methods and criteria, which unfortunately has had less effect on the actual content of voting system articles than I would have liked.

The idea of moving criteria and the table from voting system to voting system criterion (which is currently kind of redundant and neglected) does sound reasonable, though, and it would help cut down the length of this page. What do other people think? RSpeer 04:15, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

You're right, we should include the pro- and con- arguments for each system, but try not to make them comparative. As you agreed with, I would move the criteria matrix in to voting system criterion, and I would move (or copy) the introductory text to the matrix as well. Then I would link each individual voting system page to voting system criterion. However, I would have each link state that these are mathematical criteria. The voting system criterion page itself should especially make clear that they are criteria of quantifiable features of the voting system when it is treated purely as a mathematical algorithm. They criteria can't, for instance, measure the inherent simplicity, intuitiveness, or administrative cost of any system. Boot1780 04:48, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Voter Satisfaction

Explaining my revert: I'm not a voting theorist, but am a mathematician, and it is my understanding that the definition of the term "voting system" has nothing to do with voter satisfaction. The definition of what constitutes a voting system is given in the first sentence of the second paragraph of this fine article:

Specifically, a voting system is a well-defined method (an algorithm) that determines a winning result given a set of votes.

This makes no restrictions on voter satisfaction, although I admit that real-world voting systems always try to satisfy voters. For instance, "Minority rule," where the candidate with the fewest number of votes wins, is a voting system. It is a voting system because it is an algorithm for compiling votes into a decision. Most people will intuitively judge that it is "not fair", and we can discuss its failure to satisfy many important criteria, but it's still a voting system. Please correct me if I'm wrong. --Staecker 21:48, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Actually, you're right. What I was trying to do was ensure that the article doesn't come across as just some inscrutable mathematical topic, but as something that relates to real voting and group decisions, to someone reading the lead of the article. But I suppose this needs to be done some other way, not in the definition. RSpeer 19:09, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Finally

After a good month and a half, I've made a pass through rewriting the article, including writing the new history section to replace the list of voting theorists. Any comments on style or content? Are we ready to send this article to peer review?

rspeer 23:48, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Link purge

We have too many links. I'm taking a hatchet to the external links section. Links that are too specific or too general for the topic of voting theory are going, and this includes advocacy articles with no particular significance. Here are the links I'm removing:

• Administration and Costs of Elections Project documents on electoral systems - too general; it's about electoral systems in the broader sense.
• Can Social Solidarity be Institutionally Engineered? The Case of Presidential Elections - advocates Approval voting, not significant
• Communication Complexity of Common Voting Rules - too obscurely mathematical, and the authors already have a link
• Deliberative Democracy and the Problem of Voting - broken link
• A different way to vote - site is incomplete
• Efficiency in Polling - broken link
• How Large a Coalitional Should Be to Manipulate an Election? - broken link
• The history of voting - already cited
• Intuitive Preference Aggregation: Tests of Independence and Consistency - broken link
• Is Majority Rule the Best Voting Method? - confuses the issue by using non-standard terminology
• Minimal Monotonic Extensions of Scoring Rules - "Very preliminary version. Not to be quoted without the permission of the authors." Wonderful. They can come back when they're more confident in their result.
• A New Approach to Aggregation of Individual Choice - incoherent
• On the Likelihood of Condorcet's Profiles I'm only keeping one of their articles, and the other one is more readable.
• Preferential Voting FAQ Promotes calling Condorcet "VOTE-123". Nobody does.
• President Perot or fundamentals of voting theory illustrated with the 1992 election (PDF) Bashes Approval, Saari-style. Referring to Saari's analysis as "fundamentals of voting theory" is also POV, so even including the article's title in this article would require a disclaimer.
• Stability Set as a Social Choice Correspondence Authors already have a link.
• A Statistical Investigation of Social Choice Rules - broken link
• Single winner page Non-notable advocacy.
• Utilitarian Collective Choice and Voting Non-notable advocacy for an unknown method.

Sorry if I've offended any contributors, but this needs to be done. rspeer 01:36, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Peer review

Okay, it looks like the article's stable and ready for peer review. Here goes! rspeer 22:42, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Tie-breaking votes

2.2 Voting Power: "Voting power can also be distributed unequally for other reasons, such as increasing the voting power of higher-ranked members of an organization. A special case of this is a tie-breaking vote, a privilege given to one voter to resolve what would otherwise be a tie."

How is it that a tie-breaking vote increases the voting power of a single member? A member who only votes to break a tie actually has less voting power than any other member as he does not have the power to make a tie by adding one vote to the negative side, causing a motion to fail (since it didn't achieve a majority). This is why Robert's Rules of Order specifies that a society's chair (if he is a member) may vote to either make or break a tie, giving him a vote equal to that of every other member. In other words, he can vote whenever his vote will affect the outcome.

Adam Konner 01:21, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

I didn't say that the tie-breaking vote had more power, actually. But I guess I'll go clarify that. rspeer 01:28, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Voting Power

First, in response to the previous comment, giving someone a tiebreaking vote does increase their voting power if they also have a normal vote.

In the voting power section, it only refers to weighted voting systems, not the actual concept of voting power. Essentially, voting power refers to the probability that one can have a decisive vote. That is, the probability that candidate A will win if one votes for candidate A minus the probability that candidate A will win if one votes for candidate B. May I suggest looking at the article "The Mathematics and Statistics of Voting Power" by Gelman, Katz, and Tuerlinckx for further analysis?

Also, overall, fantastic job with the article.

Hmm, you're right - the term I picked does clash with that existing use of "voting power", which incidentally should have a Misplaced Pages article if it doesn't already.

Is there a standard term for what I'm describing? Does "voting weight" work? rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 05:12, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, voting weight would work fine.

Venetians

I'll leave it to someone more knowledgeable than I to integrate the information in this passage from Julian Norwich's book into this discussion:

On the day appointed for the election, the youngest member of the Signoria was to pray in St. Mark's; then, on leaving the Basilica, he was to stop the first boy he met and take him to the Doges' Palace, where the Great Council, minus those of its members who were under thirty, was to be in full session. This boy, known as the ballotino, would have the duty of picking the slips of paper from the urn during the drawing of lots. By the first of such lots, the Council chose thirty of their own number. The second was used to reduce the thirty to nine, and the nine would then vote for forty, each of whom was to receive at least seven nominations. The forty would then be reduced, again by lot, to twelve, whose task was to vote for twenty-five, of whom each this time required nine votes. The twenty-five were in turn reduced to another nine; the nine voted for forty-five, with a minimum of seven votes each, and from these the ballotino picked out the names of eleven. The eleven then voted for forty-one -- nine or more votes each -- and it was these forty-one who were to elect the Doge. They first attended Mass, and individually swore an oath that they would act honestly and uprightly, for the good of the Republic. They were then locked in secret conclave in the Palace, cut off from all contact or communication with the outside world and guarded by a special force of sailors, day and night, until their work was done.

So much for the preliminaries; now the election itself could begin. . . .

Norwich, A History of Venice at p. 166

--Italo Svevo

German election (2005)

The number of seats of the CDU is wrong (CDU is the first german party). 81.51.105.128 15:46, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

• You may be right. The image came from German federal election, 2005. Are the numbers in that article wrong? rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 23:06, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
  • CDU is technically not the largest party. The CDU + CSU (its Bavarian counterpart) combination (which is usually seen as 'one party') does have the largest number of seats, though. The numbers are likely correct. Junes 00:01, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Image Names

I suggest that the name below the checked box be changed to "Pat Buchanan." Jburt1 19:03, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Fred Rubble?!

That is much too close to being a Flintstones referance for comfort.

Nice job

Nice job, folks, this is a great article. --P3d0 21:32, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

The single-winner revival ??

Why was it then that only and mostly the anglo-american nations continued with maximum unproportional FPTP?? Seen from the PR and coalition-government point of view the late 1800s was when the "single-winner" system was abandoned(except for the presidential institution, although that too was suggested as 2-party, president and vice-president, plus tribunal, etc systems??)

Skipping the presidential institution (run-offs), the number of "single-winner" systems seem to diminish every year, these days?? Even UK is struggling to conform with EU?? Most (european) medieval systems also had something like 3-4 parties??

(single-winner) president, governing majority (or minority), representation, coalitions

I believe these actual outcomes of, the (constitutional) balance between them, of elections should be sorted out before (or at least mentioned when) one starts describing voting systems?? Single or double-houses, presidents or prime-ministers, veto-powers and the whole shabang.. (Note, the US and UK systems are anyway very "extreme" in the world??)

No, because voting systems are not necessarily used for any such purpose. The article already gives political elections as an example of their use. KVenzke 04:12, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Voting system criteria

The New Zealand Royal Commission on the Electoral System identified 10 criteria for judging an electoral system. I feel that they should be included in this article, as they are pretty good and have actually had relevance in changing an electoral system. They are

1. Fairness between political parties
2. Effective Representation on minority of special interest groups
3. Effective Maori representation (note, this could be changed into indigenous or regional representation, whatever needs to be highlighted in that country)
4. Political integration
5. Effective representation of constituents
6. Effective voter participation
7. Effective government
8. Effective Parliament
9. Effective parties
10. Legitimacy

I can expand on each of them as I have a copy of the Report, and they are a lot more self explanatory anyway. I want to know what others think of this though before I edit away though. --LeftyG 03:52, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

It's incorrect to call these things voting system criteria, at least as that term is used in the literature and on Misplaced Pages, since the things the commission presents aren't precisely defined. That presents inclusion with a potential POV problem - the royal commission's view on what constitutes "legitimacy" or "fairness", for instance, could be quite different from other notions. The current article does well at summarizing the objective mathematical voting system criteria (for which we have an article, and on each particular article the points of view about its relative importance are addressed), however mention is also given to less precisely defined things, which probably closely approximate what the New Zealand commission is getting at. Scott Ritchie 05:25, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

The Royal Commission refers to them as "Criteria for Judging Electoral Systems". While your criticism is fair, I would like to reaffirm that these were the criteria used to judge New Zealand's change of electoral system, and thus the POV problem is lessened/removed (as they have actually been used). Prehaps after/instead of/part of

In addition to the above criteria, voting systems are also judged with criteria that are not mathematically precise but are still important, such as simplicity, speed of vote-counting, the potential for fraud or disputed results, the opportunity for tactical voting or strategic nomination, and, for multiple-winner methods, the degree of proportionality produced.

Would that be better? --LeftyG 06:40, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

That was more or less what I had in mind. Something like "The New Zealand Royal Commission on the Electoral System, for instance, listed ten criteria for judging potential voting systems, including (a few examples from the list.)" Scott Ritchie 07:33, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

I'll work on it tomorrow. --LeftyG 08:25, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

If you want to write more than a sentence about electoral system criteria (as opposed to voting system criteria) you could create Electoral system, which currently just redirects to Election. Judging from the number of inbound links it could become a useful article. Pm67nz 11:31, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

I concur. Write that article. ;) —Nightstallion (?) 12:16, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Wouldn't it actually make more sense for Electoral system to redirect to Voting system than Election in the first place? I'll add a sentence here, as currently I'm trying to bulk up the Royal Commission on the Electoral System page. But maybe in the future... --LeftyG 22:15, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Re redirecting here, please no, that is precisely my point, that "electoral system" is not synonymous with "voting system". An electoral system is a description of how an election is to be conducted, and is generally implemented as a set of laws, while a voting system is an algorithm and thus implementable as a computer program. The choice of voting system(s) to be used is only one aspect of an electoral system. Most of the links to electoral system are from "Elections in X" articles. In that context messy real world election issues like electorate size, party list thresholds and parallel voting are of more direct interest than the subject matter of this page, which (rightly) includes some mathematically elegant methods which never been used in any election. Pm67nz 09:32, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Social Choice Function also goes straight here, which is strange since this is an example of one but not the only possible one, and there isn't a single mention of what one is in the article.

It's a great article, but it only begins to explain why any of these alternate voting systems should even be considered for use.

I am restating the last (reverted) edit. Some towns and other small governments are introducing IRV and, even with that, people ask routinely, "why bother?" In the Intro to the article there needs to have some conceptual justification as to why, in plain language, a voting system like IPV or Condorcet would be desirable and that language is not there. It's a great article (I first noticed it when it was featured) and it appears to me to be very scholarly and well researched. But, for an encyclopedia, it misses the point if anyone reading it sees it as just a bunch of academic fancy. There are important practical and idealistic reasons for governments to be considering different alternative voting systems. And this article says nothing clear about those reasons. r b-j 17:43, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

It sounds like you intend to modify this article so that it advocates electoral reform. Don't do that; it's a POV. We might all like electoral reform, but we can't let that show through in the article.

So I'm reverting your edit now. I don't think there's much to "give a try" there; the section you added interferes with the flow of the article, and it's US-centric, somewhat off-topic, and verging on POV. It definitely doesn't belong in a featured article. You could add something similar as a "United States" section under Electoral reform instead. Let this page just describe the systems, and not advocate any. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 21:47, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Or a section on Electoral reform in the United States might be an idea to create. --GeLuxe 22:50, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

You guys don't get it. If there was election reform somewhere (and making election reform is a whole different topic), can you give your readers a hint as to why they would consider "reforming" their election rules to use IRV or Condorset (also known as "True Majority" in some other articles)? What do you say to the person who says (ignorantly), "We don't need any reform, we have a fair system, we have majority rule, the candidate with the most votes wins, what does this 'new fangled' system do other than confuse us?" The only statement made in motivation or justification to any of these voting systems is "The goal of most voting systems is to give a sufficiently fair way to choose the winner in such a situation. Different voting systems arise from different approaches to this goal and their behaviour can vary wildly." That is practically a tautology. It says practically nothing. You offer very little, in accessable language, to clue in a reader why there is even a problem with the basic "majority rule" systems in use nearly everywhere.

In terms of "POV", forgive the US-centricism but I am not familiar with elections in other countries where it was as clear of what a 3 candidate can do to swing an election. (I'm aware that some European countries have had many competive parties and sometime had trouble forming a government as a result.) But the historical cases of Ross Perot in 1992 and Ralph Nader in 2000 are two well known examples, affecting different major parties adversely (that should even out the POV a little), for what can happen when a clone candidate gets in, doesn't get any farther than 3 place, but manages to change the outcome of the close election from the candidate more like the clone (who was ahead without the clone) and toward the candidate that would have otherwise come in 2. That is the whole motivation for why these guys like Condorcet and Shultze are thinking about these vote counting algorithms in the first place. r b-j 01:01, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

"can you give your readers a hint as to why they would consider "reforming" their election rules to use IRV or Condorset" No, that is putting across a point of view that that system is "better". Having rational arguments for and against each system is acceptable, as long it is balanced. And this should occur at the systems page, not on the general page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gregstephens (talk • contribs)

It is putting forth a plausible reason for why anyone is spending time thinking about and designing such voting systems. If there is no context where something else might be "better", it is inexplicable as to why bother with this "academic crap" (not really my words) in the first place. r b-j 04:43, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

rbj: Your use of "majority rule" is strange; you're using it to mean "plurality". Are you confusing the terms, or are you attributing it to the average ignorant person? It may be reasonable to express more specifically that "majority rule" does not imply the plurality system. And I concur with Gregstephens: there should not be an argument against plurality on this page. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 03:35, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I am attributing that to what might be the "average ignorant person". You wouldn't believe people's opposition to considering these solutions. It's almost as if these people think that forcing voters into tactical voting is a good thing. In the U.S., both of the major parties can look to examples where their own candidate had votes "stolen" by another candidate farther out on the fringe of the dominant axis of the political spectrum than their more centrist candidate. Forcing voters to consider voting for their 2 favorite choice instead of the candidate they most support, out of fear of giving the election to their least favored candidate is the whole reason that systems like IRV and True Majority (what the article calls "Condorcet") have something to offer. That basic and salient fact is barely touched in the article. You guys go into all this nice detail (it reallly is a good article) about these methods without ever clearly telling your reader why bother thinking about such methods. That gap I want to see filled, even if it isn't with my words.

You barely touch it with the paragraph beginning "If every election had only two choices,...", but you don't make it clear. For an encyclopedia that is not desireable. Perhaps for a graduate school text, but not an encyclopedia. I realize that I was elaborating on the last two of the "criteria that are accepted and considered to be desirable by many voting theorists" that are listed and then put across a table for the different methods. Now, do you honestly believe that for the "average ignorant" reader, that they understand Independence of irrelevant alternatives and Independence of clone candidates to be the reasons they were thinking of switching their vote from Ralph Nader to Al Gore? That impetus, the desirability "by many voting theorists" of these criteria is not at all clear to the "average ignorant" reader. You need to state clearly what possible problem might be dealt with in the promise of IRV or Condorcet or Shultz or whomever/whatever method. r b-j 04:43, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I'll agree to clarifying the difference between majority and plurality, as you said, and I suppose also to clarifying that IIA and ICC deal with the "spoiler effect". This could even be done with the Gore/Nader/Bush example. But it is not the job of this article to dispel opposition to electoral reform or to discuss the "promise" of IRV or Condorcet. That's a POV, and that you feel strongly that it's the right POV doesn't make it acceptable. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 05:19, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

It is not the issue to clarify the difference between majority and plurality. It is not POV. You keep saying that without any justification. It is explanation. You fail to clue your clueless reader in as to why are we even talking about all these complicated voting methods when our ostensible "majority rule" system is the fair system. Some people do not realize that they are not getting their majority rule, and this article should give them a hint as to what circumstances have "deprived" them of that. Take a look at this section: Instant-runoff_voting#Adoption_in_the_United_States. That has some explanation as to what motivates IRV. What is your objection to including a similar explanation to what motivates the consideration of different voting systems? It is incomprehesible to me what this objection is about. I didn't write any of Instant-runoff_voting but the article would certainly be less explanatory if that historical example regarding the 2000 presidential election was left out. All's they're doing is explaining why anybody would bother considering IRV. They're not plugging IRV, just saying what has happened in some cases when IRV was not available (that voters were forced to consider insincere selections for fear of electing someone even worse than their 2 choice). This article needs an explanation of that clarity. r b-j 05:35, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

And that's a great place for such a statement to be. It's relevant to compare IRV to Plurality there because "adoption of IRV in the United States" is about IRV versus plurality. This article, though, should not stop to point out why each method avoids pitfalls of plurality. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 23:48, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

But it should finish the thought in that paragraph starting with "If every election had only two choices,..." and it does not. Not clearly, anyway. It should point out, whether this is good or bad, that election systems that are common (either plurality or majority without any ranking) what consequences are possible without ranking, which is what motivates researching systems using ranking. That is clear statement of motivation is not there and it needs to be plainly there. Otherwise there is an assumption of motivation that was not yet established with the reader. r b-j 04:07, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

no, no Scott. what got truncated was far worse . the extra "see" line was due to Rspeer's last revert. r b-j 05:49, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I noticed this. Not sure when it happened in the edit history though, but I think I fixed it with my last edit (which for some reason doesn't seem to be showing up in history) Scott Ritchie 08:22, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

No mention of the Web

This article makes no mention of voting systems as implemented on the World Wide Web. The Web offers unique opportunities. For example, the vote options can be suggested by the community rather than be imposed by the elite. Once everyone is happy with the various options, they can vote. There are many examples around the world of referenda skewed to avoid a particular outcome. By involving the voters in canvassing the vote options, that level of manipulation disappears. --JG Estiot 23:43, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

• Interesting, but that's part of the larger election, not the voting system. A voting system doesn't specify where the ballot options come from. It may be something that could be said at the Voting or Election article. Do you have a source showing that voting online has notably different effects than voting offline? rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 15:07, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Without time no morality

Will add my analysis and suggestion of the Borda fixed point method. Colignatus 16:19, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

• Moved to the bottom. And I think that article should be deleted, as it is clearly your original research. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 16:38, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
• Thanks for helping to find the right place for this. Well, it is my research, but it has been published, first as a working paper on EconWPA, then in a book at Dutch University Press, and now also at Project Gutenberg, so it is not 'original' in the somewhat unfortunate use of terms at the page that you referred to. Please note that I have hesitated to include my own work, since I feel that I should not advertise my work (though I make it available on my website), but I was encouraged by the fact that another user of wikipedia originated the page on the Borda fixed point (referring to my work). Colignatus 16:59, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

• OK, what will happen now ? I noted that someone has suggested to delete the page on Borda fixed point. I removed that again since I suspect that it is you while I consider your reaction premature. Would it be possible for you (a) to read the text, (b) study the references when in doubt, (c) ask me questions if still in doubt, (d) only take any action after this, (e) and can you explain to me what is going in the mean time now that someone put that message there ? Please note that I wrote a book on voting theory so that I know what you have done, writing these pages. It is just that it is unsettling for a scientist like me to be suddenly confronted with 'deletion signs' that are wholly irrational. Colignatus 17:23, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I was hasty about that. I hadn't checked your credentials; the fact that the article referred to you by your Misplaced Pages username was a red flag for me, as it sounded like the usual case of some random person thinking their random ideas deserve an article.

The current version of Borda fixed point shows the problem with writing about your own work on Misplaced Pages - it is not at all written from the neutral point of view, as it simply advocates the method. I'll discuss more on Talk:Borda fixed point. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 16:06, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

That the article only advocates the method is not true. See the talk page, where the criticism that Rspeer gave is shown to be false. Now, it may be that someone else would reformulate the explanation in a different way, such that such criticism and its refutation is included in the article. That is fine. Go ahead. I don't mind such a re-edit. But the fact that you don't understand the method does not mean that you can imply that the text is a mere advocacy.

Also, Rspeer included a request for mediation, see http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Requests_for_mediation#Parties.27_agreement_to_mediate. See my explanation why this is too early.

Now, I will restore the paragraph on the list of candidates, the budget set, and the need for temporal consistency. For Rspeer's piece of mind I will not mention the solution of the Borda Fixed Point, and leave it up to you to figure out whether that method should be mentioned and, if so, where. As I said: Have fun. If you are interested in voting systems, you should have that. Colignatus 02:34, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

I was being generous by offering mediation when you are clearly making personal attacks on me on the page Talk:Borda fixed point. This will have to go elsewhere, then. Meanwhile, I would encourage others who care about maintaining this featured article to deal with Colignatus's contributions and whether they belong in this article. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 02:53, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

(1) Perhaps you intended to offer it, but you didn't. You put a sign that mediation is requested on the page, also stipulating that there was a threat. Proper decency is: If you contact that person with the offer and explain the offer. If both parties agree to mediation, they jointly request it. You only request mediation one-sidedly if this and other venues don't result into a solution. (2) You wrongly accuse me of making personal attacks See my comments on the Talk:Borda fixed point page.

(3) Your reference to "generous" and to "this featured article" imply that you assume a special position for yourself. Please be less assuming. Modesty really helps. I repeat my question to give me the name and email address of your professor at MIT.

(4)The concept that still looks for a place is, originally phrased as: "The Dutch economist Colignatus developted the Borda fixed point system for this, see his discussion Without time, no morality."

Enjoy the reading, Colignatus 17:02, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

While my opinion remains that your contributions do not fit Misplaced Pages's policies, I recognize that last night I escalated the issue needlessly. Mediation might have been appropriate if you were a long-time contributor, but as a newbie you can be forgiven for personal attacks. (Please don't make any more.)

Your repeated request for the name and e-mail address of "my professor at MIT" is both bizarre (professor of what? Why would any of them care?) and is exactly what I was describing as a threat. I'll let this pass now, too, but please don't bring it up again.

In short, I was trying to deal with this issue too quickly, and I complicated it by bringing unnecessary processes into it. Let's back up now. I hope to continue the discussion of notability on Talk:Borda fixed point from where it was before last night's escalation. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 19:41, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Rob, you said you would take a rest, and let others think: and you don't. You deleted a passage, and I reverted it.

You are right that the order of topics there is a bit random, and that the argument on the Status Quo can be stronger. But note that the strength comes from the addition that I proposed. This is not too technical, at least, I tried to explain it in lay person's words. If it is too complex, let someone else than Rspeer propose a new text (and order of topics).

As a newbie I have not made a mistake. Your overreaction cannot be attributed to me being a newbie. Saying that you overreacted but putting the cause with me is not an apology.

As an afterthought: you called me a 'newbie' while I am only new to the syntax of wikipedia, but of course not new to reviewing stuff.

You still have about 19 hours before I contact the dean. I presume I can write an email text so that he or she will take notice. And you haven't explained why you consider this a threat. If the dean reacts as I hope, you will benefit from it.

OK, while you first gave comments on content, now you switch to the other line of reasoning, notability. So, you hold that this page is based about notability ONLY, and that logic and reasoning are not important ? In that case, I can propose to delete this page.

Leave this page for a while as it is, let others decide.

See further the BordaFP talk page. Colignatus 23:13, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

What's this about talking to Rspeer's professor or dean? Why do you want to do that? What are you hoping to accomplish? I must tell you that it does sound like a threat, and like completely innapropriate behavior within the Misplaced Pages culture. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 23:36, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

What I try to accomplish: see that email. Don't judge before you read it. And if culture is baked in stone, would you really like that ? Did you ever hear about the world wide web so that different cultures meet ? Colignatus 01:35, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

That is definitely a threat and ultimatum and completely and totally inappropriate. What's next short of arbitration? Colignatus, Rspeer has given a bit, it's your turn. -- Joseph Lorenzo Hall 03:54, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

(a) Explain why this is a threat. (b) It is not so, that you can hold that Rspeer gives some and then the other person must too. If Rspeer was out of order, this needs correction. (c) I noticed that you are at SIMS, so now I have to write to Hal Varian, if he's still there. Why don't you behave decently, it would have saved us all a great deal ? Colignatus 01:35, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

I noticed that Bunchofgrapes deleted the passage that I introduced. I'll copy it here so that other readers know what the discussion is about.

Quote

The candidates' - With only two candidates (the Status Quo and a single alternative), the discussion could concentrate on rules about when the Status Quo is to be replaced. The decision problem becomes much more complex when more alternatives are added since the preferences disperse over the candidates. The list of candidates can be seen as the budget set, and the most important voting paradoxes arise when that budget set changes over time. Admittedly, there are also paradoxes when voting districts are rearranged, but assuming that the constituency is given at the time of the vote, then the crucial paradoxes concern the list of candidates, changes therein, and the consistency of the moral choice over time.

Unquote

Bunchofgrapes thinks this "(It is too technical for this overview article; plus it introduces "morality" without supporting what that means in this context -- and the assertions do appear controversial and unsourced)

(a) It is not too technical. It is a key notion. (b) If the use of "morality" is not understood then this can be explained. The constitution defines what voting system is used, and morality guides our choice of the constitution. (c) It is too early to say that the assertions are controversial, since the people on the voting system page did not even know about this, haven't studied it yet. (d) The source has been indicated, but deleted by Rspeer: "The Dutch economist Colignatus developted the Borda fixed point system for this, see his discussion Without time, no morality." Why does Bunchofgrapes lie that there is no source as he knows from the talk page that there is a source ?

Please be aware that I will be busy now writing the emails to the professors, so give me some time of on this convoluted reasoning of yours. Colignatus 01:30, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

• Old requests for peer review