Talk:Instant-runoff voting/Archive 2

message: FD:
Why isn't there a comparison between IRV and FPTP. Surely that is a more valuable comparison?
Thanks for adding the 'truncated' explanation. That makes more sense.
Contrary to the opening sentence, IRV can also be used for multi-member electorates - changed to normally.
That stuff about historical use in BC should be removed. It makes no sense to non-Canadians. This article is about a vote counting method, not Canadian politics.
Sorry I didn't realise this page was here before. I have removed the 'return of the third party spoiler effect' section because it made no sense. I think there is no spoiler effect - where people think there is it is actually failure to compromise. The difference between the two is that with failure to compromise, the candidate that gets unfairly eliminated has fewer primary votes than two other candidates, whereas for the spoiler effect the second candidate based on first rpeferences is unfairly eliminated because of a weaker candidate.
I like the Tenessee example because it is consistent through all the pages on voting systems.
We need to point out explicitly that all the 'relevant' criticisms of IRV also apply to first past the post as it reads like IRV might be worse than first past the post. They only make it 'worse' than condorcet methods.
What is NPOV?
re: condorcet vs IRV, the only advantage of condorcet is that it eliminates failure to compromise. However this never happens in real elections because IRV tends to drive the two major parties toward the political middle gorund anyway. Thus, condorcet methods give you added complexity (the vote counting would be horrendous and would probably need computerised voting) with no real benefit.
end FD
It is disingenuous to say that Condorcet provides "no real benefit" -- failing the participation criterion (which says, basically, that your own vote shouldn't hurt you) is seen by many people as a pretty big deal.  Some cases in which IRV would tend to suffer from the Center Squeeze effect are quite plausible.  See the French Presidential election of 2002, for example.  I'm not sure how to format Wikipedia tables, but I'd be happy to write in a few examples in text.  Additionally, Condorcet saves tremendously on the complexity of aggregating ballot information from polling stations into a central counting location.  IRV ballots either must be transmitted with full ranking information (complexity of N-factorial), or must be counted and recounted, at the polling stations, as individual candidates are eliminated.  Condorcet can be transmitted once, using the number of points to each candidate in each one-on-one match (complexity of N-squared).  Approval Voting is simpler still, and is considerably less controversial, in terms of its "failure modes".  And if you absolutely must have a run-off method, there's an inverted method of IRV (eliminating the candidate with the most "votes against", rather than the candidate with the fewest "votes for") that's equivalent to Condorcet with cycles resolved by by first-choice count. Rmharman 07:31, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Misc

message: I removed the following, as I don't see how it's relevant to the article on single-winner elections.  Perhaps some content should go in History and usage of the Single Transferable Vote or in the relevant articles on the Canadian referendum.  Scott Ritchie 09:20, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I can't speak for the BC-STV paragraph, although I did contribute some of the aftermath stuff; the connection between IRV and BC is 1952 and 1953, and that system's abandomment by undemocratic actions on the part of the Premier it selected.....There should be a history of IRV (by whatever name) in BC here; how it came in, what its effects were, and how it was disappeared....Skookum1 09:38, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: BC used single-winner IRV in 1952 and 1953?  Well, that's relevant to some extent (as much as any place using IRV is).  However multi-winner IRV isn't particularly relevant for this article, as the BC-STV stuff is.  Scott Ritchie 10:59, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Multi-winner IRV?  Did I say that?  There was only one winner and on elimination race for each seat, although it's true many ridings were multiple-member ridings (usually double, sometimes triple - but multi-member ridings were split into three ballots so the elimination process could work see e.g. Vancouver-Point Grey and look for the respective years, and then compare the poll results above and below (1949 and 1956).  1952 and '53 in BC were straightforward elimination ballots - lowest total on each count gets taken out, their second-choice ballots applied to remaining, until someone hits 50%.  The BC-STV stuff is not relevant to this article to the same degree IMO, since this article is about IRV, not STV.  The following passages were apparently excised from the main page, but the basics of them were already in THIS article before I added clarifying details (as the circumstances of the STV idea and the aftermath of the vote were referred to, but not really explained well).
There's a "neutrality dispute" posted on the other page; is the remaining paragraph about '52-'53 under neutrality dispute?  Everything there is factual, and I make an effort to not be partisan; the opinion of the electoral fall-out and Bennett's retrenchment after the second election are standards in history of the era, whether by conservative or liberal columnists.Skookum1 06:26, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed stuff on STV in Canada 

message: Well, I've worked through most of this article this evening and changed everything I can think of.  What still needs to be done?  I suppose We could add some more pictures, but they are unlikely to be of central importance to the topic - they'll be illustrating things like the Fijian parliament building or portraits of the Wade, etc.  
Also, does anyone still think the intro is poor?  I don't think it needs any more work - I suspect it's been fine for a while, but no-one has thought to change the to-do list!
Happy-melon 20:00, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: What now?

message: Happy-melon,
First of all thanks for getting involved in the article (and in Wikipedia if you're new). You wrote:
:I rewrote the first example into a form which (IMHO) is easier to understand, as well as being a more complete description of the voting process. If you disagree, speak up.
Clearly the two examples that were there before your changes to Example I were inadequate, but I still don't think we have it quite right so I've now made further changes, by simplifying Example I and completely replacing Example II. I've done this because I think it's best to have a very, very simple first example, followed by a more complicated second example that gives a more complete description. In the process I've done away with the Tennesse example. There have already been concerns expressed about it on this page and I agree with them. Although there are advantages in using a single example across various voting system articles I think the Tennesse example gives an inadequate account of IRV and really seems to have been designed as a way of showing certain differences between IRV and Condorcet more than anything else.
I'd like to keep Example I very simple so that readers can get a quick grasp of the basic principle, as well as because it's reused in the "majoritarianism and consensus" section and that section becomes pretty incomprehensible unless a very simple example is used. However I agree that at least one of the examples needs to be more comprehensive. In particular in the new Example II I've tried to show:
#What happens when voters with the same first preference have different lower preferences
#How IRV operates across a few rounds rather than just two
#The procedure for transfering a vote to the next 'live' preference when other preferences have already been eliminated
However while doing this I've tried to keep Example II relatively simple. In particular to illustrate (1) I don't think it's necessary to have examples of every single possible combination of preferences on a ballot paper. I think one example of split lower preferences is sufficient to explain the process without losing the reader. Another minor alteration is I've changed the format of the tables back to putting the number of voters for each ballot paper at the top rather than the bottom. This is the format used on other preferential system articles and IMHO it's much clearer. Others may disagree though.
Anyway if the two examples in the article still aren't satisfactory lets discuss the matter further.
Iota 18:52, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: More changes to examples

message: I've just removed the following text:
:IRV also has the problem that it will, undoubtedly, lead to a two-party system. Very rarely are the results changed from the plurality winner (under 5% of the time in Australia), and it is not known how much of this is due to the non-monotonic properties of IRV. Australia's house of representatives, which uses IRV, only has 3 members who are not part of the two-party structure. This is certainly more than the US, which has 1, but definitely not a multi-party system. IRV suffers from the same vote-splitting effects of plurality; they are merely dampened. This is because IRV does not solve the main problem that causes vote-splitting and the two-party system under plurality: the voter has 1 vote for 2 candidates, and the same amount of power to decide between 10. IRV merely transfers this vote, and it is still very, very simialar to the plurality system in affect. Obviously this is going to lead to strategic two-party voting.
This was in the wrong section, is not NPOV, and, in fact, just reproduces information already given in various parts of the article. The essential point, that in Australia IRV produces a two party system very similar to plurality, I've added to the "effect on parties and candidates section". The claim that the results differ by "under 5%" is interesting. Can anyone provide a source though? 
Iota 01:47, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: More NPOVing

message: If there are any examples of Instant runoff voting systems from the corporate world then it would be great to see them included. For instance in the election of company board members. Also examples from civil society (eg trade unions, positions in religious bodies etc) would be of interest. Terjepetersen 13:19, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Corporate Governance & Civil Society 

message: I see from reading this article that the candidate with the lowest first preference votes is eliminated immediately, not given the chance to gather second and third preference votes.
What is a system where no-one is eliminated, and keep gathering votes until someone has an overall majority? So that in example 1, Brian would collect the 42 second preference votes from Catherine and 39 from Andrew? BillMasen 18:30, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: BillMasen: I believe you're describing Bucklin voting. Rmharman 18:55, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  elimination in IRV 

message: Hmmmmm... I'm curious by the inclusion of a blog entry in the references. If random blogs are "sources", I'm sure you can find ennumerable such sources. How does Wikipedia judge validity of such web sources? 
It would seem to me that if something would be considered original research to be included in Wikipedia, then linking to a blog or individual website ought to fit in the same category. So the only reason for linking to an external source is if it is a web copy of a published resource (or if it is a summary of such a resource).
Thoughts anyone? I accept it is nearly hopeless, except brutally stripping out probably 90% of the external links found. Tom Ruen 04:15, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  blog references? 

message: Another alternative that has been called "Progressive Advancement" is for the candidate with the most first preferences to advance to the next round of voting.  The ballots are then recounted and the next remaining candidate with the most first preferences advances to the next round of voting.  This process continues until all candidates but one have advanced to the next round, at which point the last unadvanced candidate is eliminated.  The counting then resumes to determine if there is a winner based on a majority of first preferences.  If not, another round of progressive advancement occurs until either a winner is found, or until all candidates except one have been eliminated. 
Tom Ruen 23:13, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  undocumented paragraph removed here 

message: I should have been more careful before I started, but an anonymous user (139.62.107.233) took out four significant sections completely, so I went back and pasted the below, if anyone wants to decide what to do. Tom Ruen 05:45, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed text restored here 

message: The following sentence (from Majoritarianism and Consensus) doesn't make much sense:
"In fact, when IRV elects a candidate other than the Condorcet winner it will always be that the majority of voters prefer the Condorcet winner to the IRV winner (the only system that always elects the Condorcet winner is Condorcet's method)."
First of all, the main part of the sentence seems to be a tautology with no information about IRV, since by definition, the Condorcet winner is preferred by a majority of voters over any given opponent.  In other words, the sentence would be true if IRV was replaced with anything.
Second of all, there is no method called "Condorcet's method".  Any method satisfying the condorcet criterion is a Condorcet method, but there are several different ones, so it doesn't make sense to say that only Condorcet's method always elects the Condorcet winner (since this implies that there is only one voting system that elects the Condorcet winner). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 12.72.242.244 (talk) 00:15, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Condorcet vs. IRV 

message: A couple of issues with this article.
# There is frequent mention of something called "runoff voting", but there is neither an explanation of what it is nor a link to a page that explains it.
# The example section refers to a previous example that doesn't exist
Hope this helps. JulesH 19:34, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I linked refernces to Two-round system. Tom Ruen 22:10, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

text: I agree the example back references makes no sense. Article history needs looking into to sort it out. Tom Ruen 22:13, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Problems 

message: I removed this by an anonymous edit:
: Eliminating all other candidates and seeing who would win in a pairwise comparisson, and the candidate that loses the pairwise comparrison is eliminated.
Bad spelling, and unclear procedure but seems to imply a Condorect-style elimination on the bottom which would be unacceptable in IRV with keeping only one active vote at a time. Tom Ruen 23:38, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tie breaking rule 

message: This page is hereby protected due to edit warring. Please discuss the problem in the below section and contact me here when the issue is resolved. --Deskana (talk) (review me please) 23:33, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  This page is now protected 

message: "Ask 10 Questions" put a series of negative information in this article without discussion. These items reflect political bias and seem to come directly from someone associated with http://www.ncvoter.net/  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.75.8.161 (talk) 02:11, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Discussion 

message: I started a tiny effort at pruning this too-long article by removing an incomprehensible section called Sample procedure with complexities. Look at a history page if anyone disagrees by this removal. Even if it has value (which I don't think it does), even if it had some sort of sources listed, which it doesn't, it is too long here and ought to be in a sub-article. Tom Ruen 15:22, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That looked like sample statute language. The thought of having it on Wikipedia is terrifying.  I can imagine a legislative staffer copy-paste, and then all of the sudden officials are breaking ties with their P3N1Ses.  Good riddance! ←BenB4 00:16, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article pruning 

message: Curious about this edit:   
(Any system which allows equal ranking is not covered by Arrow's theorem, but IRV is generally implemented with prohibition of equal ranking, and so Arrow's theorem applies to IRV.)
:I don't know why allowing equal-ranking isn't covered by Arrow's theorem. A ballot with a tied ranking can be theoretically replaced by a weighted set of ballots with all combinations of the tie. So a ballot 1:[A=1, B=1, C=2], can be replaced by two purely ranked ballots: 1/2:[A=1, B=2, C=3], and 1/2:[B=1, A=2, C=3]. (A 3-way equal ranking divides into 6 combinations of rankings, etc.) Tom Ruen 01:44, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't like conflict here much at all, and my thoughts are just mathematical logic. I think I read somewhere (in relation to STV) that STV equal-rankings can be done with weighted rank-combination adjusted ballots, but could be from some email list from someone no more qualified than me. Anyway, I'd definitely support removing an unnecessary claim (that I don't believe is true.) BUT I'll let you do it (or not) as you like. Tom Ruen 03:53, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

text: P.S. The equal-rank combination substitution equivalence only applies to IRV/STV, not any other rank method, or definitely wouldn't work for multivote systems like Borda count and Bucklin voting anyway. I only mentioned this equivalence since it allowed me to contradict the claim in relation to Arrow's theorem for IRV. Tom Ruen 03:58, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Arrow's theorem and equal rankings 

message: Previously, I took out "overall" from "overall majority," as it is redundant at best and seriously incorrect at worst. This is among what was put back in by a sock puppet or anonymous user, I think, I forget which.... It's important. An "overall" majority would refer to a majority of ballots, period. Or, following Robert's Rules practice or the like, a majority of ballots containing a valid vote. There is, however, no clear meaning to "overall majority." Just plain "majority" works.
The issue was important for propagandists, because a major pro argument for IRV has been "guarantees a majority winner." But, of course, no election method can do that except by excluding people who disagree! If I am willing to vote for, say, A or B for an office, and would prefer the office to remain vacant (or continue with a caretaker) if C or D are the only possible winners, I can be said to have "no preference between C and D" but the fact is that I am unwilling to contribute to their election, either one of them. Robert's Rules is clear: all decisions are to be made by majority vote, if possible, and repeated balloting is recommended if there is no majority winner in an election. Could be dozens of ballots. Accepting a plurality winner may indeed be necessary, but Robert's Rules require that this be explicit in the bylaws, and it is considered undesirable. This is why the "IRV"-like method described in Robert's Rules defines "majority" as "a majority of all ballots with a valid vote for an eligible candidate," not by the device of excluding ballots with only votes for dropped candidates, because the "majority" of the latter is really only a plurality. It is entirely possible that if presented with a ratification vote for the IRV plurality winner, a majority of voters would vote No.
IRV does not guarantee majority winners, period. No method does! At least, no method that does not involve actually convincing a majority that they should accept the result by voting for it! So the coercive methods used in some places do generate a majority result, of a kind, but it is not an unconstrained and free choice; clearly the freedom of the voter is subordinated to the desire to complete the election with an appearance of a majority result. (The issue is, of course, more complex than that, but, hey, this is a Talk page....) Abd 05:22, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Counting the Votes 

message: I have again removed the reference to the alleged recommendation of IRV by Robert's rules from the introduction to the interior of the article. I have explained the reasons for this in detail previously, but it began an edit war, the upshot of which was that the other editors active on it were blocked by Wikipedia admin; not at my request. (The sock puppet lacky of the cabal attempted to get me banned. Admin looked at the request and the data and banned *him*, and also, to prevent what had been repeated entries into the editing process from sock puppets and a newly registered user with a blatant conflict of interest who dove into essentially reverting my edits, blocked him and all newly registered users temporarily.) I have had no contact with this administrator who did this and it was not based on any request from me, and I regret the inconvenience to Mr. Bouricius, but would also recommend to him that in the future he refrain from acting as if he and his friends own the article. Further, he remains free to contribute to Talk and I intend to assist him in editing the article, though not at the expense of removing POV material. He is an editor with a blatant Conflict of Interest, and should have taken a more conservative approach from the beginning. Nevertheless, I had welcomed him to Wikipedia and hope that he can participate in the constructive improvement of this article. There is much work to do.
(And, of course, Tom Ruen remains unaffected by all this, though he has clearly revealed himself to be what his user page shows: an editor with a Conflict of Interest, so I'd suggest he treat lightly. I personally welcome his participation and he did not participate in any clear way in the abuses that took place here, but neither did he intervene to stop them when he had the opportunity. I'd suggest that it may be because the sock puppet and the "anonymous" editor were serving his purposes, so he did not have to take the risks himself. But I would think it a loss if he were to be excluded.
The reason for moving the reference to Robert's Rules is two-fold: first, it is not essential to a summary understanding of Robert's Rules and thus does not belong in the Introduction, and only an advocate for IRV would stubbornly insist upon that position as was done in this edit war. They know that much of the public will only read the introduction, and obviously considered the reference there as essential. This is an entirely separate issue from whether or not the claim is true. It is not appropriate that Wikipedia articles be crafted for political effect.
And then I also restored my previously reverted edits that made the mention, as far as I can tell, more accurate. No objection was made, during the edit war, that what I had put in was incorrect or wrong; rather the claim was that it was unnecessary, and that I was attempting to maintain a distinction without a difference. However, from my point of view, the reference to Robert's Rules was incorrect or deceptive without specifying what is in Robert's Rules more precisely. Again, what is proper here if I have erred in that language is to correct it, not to simply delete it and restore what was less specific. Again, to me, the goal of the edits by the COI editors and the sock puppet was quite apparent: a desire to maintain the impression of a clear recommendation by Robert's Rules, which is certainly prestigious, when, in fact, the opinion of Robert's Rules about what it describes is mixed, and, further, the method uses a different definition of "majority" than is used in what the article describes for "IRV." Robert's Rules is not recommending "IRV," but, rather, "preference voting," a class of methods, and the method they describe is *close* to IRV. And I think my wording is correct on that. That, again, all this became the subject of an edit war showed how important was the FairVote cabal thought the Robert's Rules mention, as they had enjoyed it for a long time, to their agenda. And they have an agenda that is not encyclopedic, but the encyclopedia can benefit from their expertise, and we may wish them well in what is good about their political efforts. Wikipedia, however, cannot support those efforts beyond helping with neutral education of the public.
I also removed the direct link to the Robert's Rules excerpt on the FairVote site. That excerpt is prefaced with an "explanation" that was so effective at leading to the desired conclusion that I was myself deceived by it, for a long time, reading the excerpt after having read their introduction. There is no need for that link to be here, since it is linked from the article which is linked in this paragraph. Then, with the other article, we, or other editors, can address the possible abuse involved in how the excerpt is quoted. One day at a time.
Ah, yes, Arrow's Theorem. Arrows Theorem is, again, referenced and explained in the linked article on Voting Systems Criteria. Other election method articles do not make this comment about Arrow's Theorem, and the link that is there will lead the reader to it. Why did they want this so badly? Well, again, to anyone familiar with the field and the politics of it, the mention of Arrow's Theorem is used to discount the impact of information that IRV fails certain election criteria. It's an attempt to frame and spin the criteria information. Again, this spin is inappropriate. It's not a matter of whether or not the claim about Arrow's theorem that was being made here is true. Once again, I attempted to edit it to make the claim here true; that was not enough for the cabal, they wanted to keep the clearly controversial -- or just plain incorrect -- claim. As with the Robert's Rules mention, the presence of the material, clearly not essential to the article, was desired for its political effect. One could expect those who are (1) employed in the promotion of IRV, or (2) consultants for the advoccy organization, or (3) explicitly affiliated with an affiliated local advocacy organization, would think that this belongs in the article. This is precisely why special restraint is expected of editors with a Conflict of Interest. Such editors can still participate, in my opinion, but for them to presume a kind of ownership over this article was beyond the pale, and that is what they did, and they had been doing it for a long time, see History, where a common reason for reverting changes was that the editor reverted was a critic of IRV. Which is *never* a legitimate reason for reverting an edit, in itself. One might note that I refrained from reverting harmless or helpful changes even by sock puppets; similar restraint was not observed by Rob Richie, who was so eager to take out everything I had done that he even took out an edit by his meat puppet, the sock Acct4, now indefinitely banned. What goes around comes around.
Abd 01:48, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  edit, again, Robert's Rules mention and remove Arrow's theorem mention. 

message: Three-revert rule violation on . : Time reported: 14:21, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Article semi-protected and reporter (and others) blocked for being sockpuppets. Abd was protecting the article from sockpuppets. -- tariqabjotu 18:24, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

text: By allowing Abd, a vocal opponent of IRV who is completely and transparently off-base in some of his edits like the one Robert's Rules, Wikipedia administrators are making a remarkable error in judgment. Why give a zealous advocate of range voting and approval voting (although the listserv of the latter has banned him due to his conduct on their listsrv) a free rein in changing an article that would have held up well in some traditional Encyclopedia? This is bizarre.   - Rob Richie, FairVote  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.7.37.54 (talk) 16:37, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: [[User:Abd]] reported by [[User:P-j-t-a]] (Result: Semi-prot., indef blocked P-j-t-a (and others))

message: /* United States */ I started this section to allow me to elaborate as to why the edit was necessary.  I am correcting part of the reference to North Carolina to match what the ratified law actually says. The following is incorrect and must be removed: "certain judicial vacancies and municipal pilot programs starting in 2007." The version of the law, H1024 that referred to judicial elections is not the version that passed. I have edited the wikipedia article to cite the ratified version of NC's H1024:  
* North Carolina adopted a pilot program for instant runoff voting for up to 10 cities in 2007 and up to 10 counties for 2008.  "The State Board of Elections shall closely monitor the pilot program established in this section and report its findings and recommendations to the 2007 General Assembly." 
Note:  In actual practice, for 2007, two cities volunteered to participate in the IRV pilot program. They will use IRV for their municipal elections. There will be no IRV/judicial elections.  In 2008, 10 counties would be eligible to participate in the IRV pilot, for their local elections (county commissioners race). 
Any edits relating to North Carolina should be referenced to the ratified version of the law, which is "version 7" as listed in the link.
Also, I have noticed that many of the citations under "United States" either do not have links or the links are not to any independent citations, such as the actual laws or news articles.  It would be helpful if this was improved.  
--Ask10questions 05:14, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  United States 

message: I'm not sure that there is anything particularly wrong with the lead, or that we need to improve the pictures. Could this article be ripe for peer review, in preparation for a featured article nomination? Captain Zyrain 17:43, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: One thing I do notice is that we need some more references. Captain Zyrain 17:44, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

text: I think it would be good to start a separate article about student governments that use IRV and/or STV and other voting systems. There is enough material out there to write a fairly lengthy and well-sourced article about it. That could be my next project... Captain Zyrain 20:45, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

text: You can remove it if you want, although my philosophy about such matters is that if I know the information is correct, even if I don't have the exact details at my fingertips, I leave it there. Accordingly, I would leave the first half of that statement for now. I don't know anything about the part that says "...including as of November 2006 more than half of the 30 universities rated most highly by U. S. News and World Report"; that's the first I've ever heard about that. Captain Zyrain 21:14, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

text: It's a judgment call. See Wikipedia:Cite_sources#Unsourced_material. Captain Zyrain 12:00, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Getting this to featured status

message: In reference to this edit, I would recommend putting a reference to support your statement. See Wikipedia:Avoid weasel words. Captain Zyrain 02:38, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Avoiding getting accused of a plug

message: I find the language on lines 11 and 29 of this diff to be confusing (and this is coming from the guy with the high score in the 1996 Virginia FBLA parliamentary procedure event, who used to read RONR for fun). The whole plurality/majority distinction gets confusing when mixed with IRV because most people view plurality as an alternative system to IRV. So there are some jurisdictions that actually use that example provided in RONR, in which re-balloting is required if there are enough exhausted ballots to prevent anyone from getting a majority? I was going to say, If not, then the details of that example are not particularly relevant or important. It is just provided by way of example, and that example is not binding on an organization unless someone copies that language into their bylaws. I would hope that any good parliamentarian helping their client write bylaws would advise them to steer clear of setting up a situation where re-balloting could potentially be required for IRV. It wouldn't be so "instant" in that case, would it? Captain Zyrain 04:36, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Difficult to understand

message: :IRV, it is argued:
:    * reduces the spoiler effect of plurality voting;
:    * .....
:    * Can help third parties gain traction with the electorate by eliminating vote splitting.
Don't these two arguments go hand-in-hand? Should we combine them into one? Captain Zyrain 06:26, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Spoiler/vote splitting

message: I have asked for some more GFDL-compatible images from FairVote, so hopefully those are coming soon. If anyone else has good and pertinent images, please feel free to contribute them. Thanks, Captain Zyrain 07:43, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: More images

message: I'm using a Palm to write this, and if I attempt to edit the article, large chunks of text could disappear. But I can add new sections like this.  The POV tag should remain. POV and political purpose are woven through the article in sometimes subtle ways. The very name IRV was a political device. By labelling a series of methods (forms of preferential voting with sometimes very substantial and significant differences in details), it can be claimed that, say, Robert's Rules describes "IRV" when, in fact, what is being proposed in many places is importantly different from what RR describes. *If* bylaws permit plurality victories -- which RR dislikes -- then, yes, what is described is "IRV," as it was described in the article.
The "Con" argument about negative campaigning has been put in this article -- with source! -- and deleted many times, by Rob Richie and by the sock puppets. We should, indeed, review the whole procedure for dealing with arguments, but the section is worded such that the needed  level of proof is low, and, I would argue that the testimony of any editor that an argument is actually being made is prima facie evidence that it's being made, unless this is controverted. This, in fact, could be established as a general principle for "arguments." Yes, it is better if there are references. Similarly, the Pro argument about campaign expenses, I think I have seen. I think it's false and even silly, but ... if it is being made, it should be there. So it would reduce, in this case, to "who says so?" For simplicity, in this section, we are, I suggest, allowing arguments any of us recognize as actually being made to remain.
I'd recommend that Captain Zyrain study the history of this article and Talk on it to see what has been discussed. There has been specific discussion of the Con argument negating the "negative campaign" Pro argument.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Abd (talk • contribs) 14:32, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikipedia:Verifiability says that unsourced information can be dealt with by deleting it or by adding the "fact" template. I probably am a little too impatient about giving people time to find sources for information they add. On the other hand, I think that this article is so susceptible to edit wars and challenges of the veracity of information that we should pretty much cite sources for everything at this point, preferably using the ref template, and using hidden comments if nothing else. (Hidden comments are the icon fourth from the right on that little toolbar that shows up when you're editing a page.) Plus I have nominated this article for peer review, as a prelude to a featured article nomination, and since we are entering that process I think we should raise the bar a bit, relative to how we would treat other articles. Once it gets posted to Wikipedia:Featured article candidates, reviewers will start nailing us on verifiability if that's a weak point. See Wikipedia:Featured article criteria. Captain Zyrain 16:04, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Comment on POV tag removal