Talk:Instant-runoff voting/Archive 10

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Lead

@Closed Limelike Curves, IRV is not my favorite form of voting either and is overhyped but I still think the article should not take such a strong stance against it when there are reliable sources that clearly dispute many of your points. This is not the first article where this has been an issue. Let me know if you have any questions on the flags that were added Superb Owl (talk) 05:16, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

Hi,

sadly have to agree. Statements like "The method has had little academic support in social choice theory since the field's inception" or "Modern research into voting systems has instead tended to focus on majority-choice and rated voting systems" just do not seem like correct statements about modern social choice theory. I decided to delete that paragraph for now, as I think it is too far removed from being neutral or even true. Jannikp97 (talk) 09:16, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

If you disagree, I'd be happy to see citations to sources showing strong support for IRV among social choice theorists. I've added the Laslier 2012 poll showing a majority of polled academics in the field disapproving of IRV.

I'm struggling to think of a single social choice theorist who considers IRV better than both Condorcet and cardinal methods. Sure, there's plenty of disagreement in the field about the relative value of these two classes, but I don't think I've ever seen someone with substantial experience in the field who thinks IRV is better than both sets of rules. – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 19:10, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

You consistently try to equate IRV with plurality and refuse to add any context that considers that IRV could be an improvement upon plurality (very well sourced). It is true that condorcet and cardinal methods probably are an improvement to IRV, but that does not justify scrubbing its advantages over plurality using imprecise language to inflate or distort conclusions from the articles you cite Superb Owl (talk) 19:12, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

I'm not particularly interested in trying to "equate" IRV with plurality or "scrubbing" anything off of any page. Describing two voting rules as being similar isn't violating NPOV if they're similar – both rules share a similar philosophy (based on counting how a single vote travels across candidates, with FPP being the case of a single round, 2RS two rounds, and IRV infinitely many). Both have similar end results (e.g. center squeeze). I'm still in the process of editing this and spoiler effect, which is why I'd agree with you that they're lacking some nuance right now. In particular, the similarity between FPP and IRV depends strongly on assumptions about voting behavior:

• If you have fully honest voting and a many-party system (like in the United Kingdom), the two rules behave very differently, and IRV substantially reduces the rate of spoiled elections and bias towards extreme candidates.
• If voters act strategically, or if you have a two-party system, IRV and FPP behave very similarly. This is because IRV simulates the effect of strategic voting on the outcome. A reasonable/basic model of FPP strategic voting would be "If I see a candidate in last place, I abandon them and support someone else to avoid wasting my vote." This produces the same end result as IRV.
• If there is already a first round of winnowing, e.g. by parties, the differences become substantially smaller, because the number of candidates shrinks so there's less opportunities for clones to crop up.

I think all of these details should be reflected in the article, and I'm in the process of trying to integrate these. You're completely right that these articles are imperfect and don't reflect every nuance I've laid out above the way I'd like them to.

If you have disagreements with the phrasing of this article or how precise it is, that's perfectly fine. I've leaned more towards WP:EVENTUALISM here, adding information I think is important and relevant before focusing on phrasing it perfectly.

On the other hand, I'm not happy with the way this thread has devolved into personal attacks and accusations of bias, on the basis of an edit I think is a reasonable summary of the sources. If you disagree, that's ok, but focus on these specific disagreements. – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 20:11, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

Now the elephant in the room becomes more visible. If you are viewing everything only in terms of how it relates to a British parliamentary system where every district elects one representative from one party, then any distortions caused by the choice of voting system are going to be dwarfed by the choice of that political system. All systems have distortions; I am not saying the British parliamentary system is a bad choice, only that it is a specific application of voting that leads to specific desiderata. If you are going to use IRV in a very different context, for instance to determine the winner of a major annual artistic award, then the desiderata are going to be different. For instance, for the artistic award, a polarizing candidate might be a better choice (as judged by later historians of the subject) than a safe choice that nobody is excited by. For political leadership, the opposite might be true. What our article needs to do is, neutrally and based on good sources, to describe how different systems affect the outcome in different ways, without interpolating our own value judgements or parochial political concerns about those effects.—David Eppstein (talk) 20:50, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

Not really interested into turning this into a "petty" fight :D Support for rules or "rankings" of rules is not really the output of research. While I agree that several people would probably prefer Condorcet rules to IRV, I know that this is (i) not true for all and (ii) not really something measurable or citeable one can or should put into the lead of this article. Further, in the paper you mentioned here, IRV is actually the second most approved rule, ahead of Copeland or range voting. (not that this is really relevant) Jannikp97 (talk) 19:39, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

I reverted another round of edits in the lead which do not seem to have been more objective than yesterday's. We might need to take this to arbitration Superb Owl (talk) 18:03, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

It is also my strong impression that CLC's edits on voting systems in general are in violation of WP:NPOV. See also Template:Did you know nominations/Highest averages method. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:08, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

David: If you think I was being biased in that thread, I'd like to know what apportionment rule I was showing bias in favor of. – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 19:14, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

If after that long discussion you still do not understand my repeated comments there about how you should not describe a rounding method as being a bad method because (like all rounding methods) it results in rounding inaccuracies, then there is no hope that saying the same thing here will lead to a constructive outcome. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:16, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

Where did I describe any rounding method as being a bad method? – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 19:18, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

We could start with the phrasing "failure to use the correct rounding procedure" in one of the initially proposed hooks. Note the loaded words "failure" and "correct". —David Eppstein (talk) 19:28, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

And as I repeatedly clarified, "correct" meant "the one enshrined into the law". I quickly edited it to remove that once you pointed out I'd made a mistake, and it was Hamilton's rule (rather than Webster's) that had been enshrined in law. – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 20:13, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

I have not seen an openness to learning and evolving Superb Owl (talk) 19:20, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

I continue to see sweeping edits that do not attempt to moderate language or address flags raised and no interest in working up from the body to the lead or in a more moderated or collaborative approach Superb Owl (talk) 17:08, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

@Closed Limelike Curves I did an exhaustive cleanup of the body of the text - anything with a flag on it will be removed in a week if still there. If you want to help improve this article we really need consensus in the body before we touch the lead. I agree the lead needs to explain the downsides but also the upsides and we can't know how much weight to give each until the body has reliable sourcing and has been worked on by multiple editors Superb Owl (talk) 17:41, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

The material I've added to the lead is a summary of already-present material in the article's body. – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 17:41, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

Mention of mathematical properties in article

(cc @Jannikp97, @Jasavina, and @CRGreathouse for comment as regular electoral systems article contributors)

I understand there's some questions about the precise phrasing, but I think my most recent attempt at the lead provided a decent, well-sourced summary of mathematical properties and research covered in this article. There's certainly some room for improvement, but I doubt this merited a complete reversion. WP:SUMMARYSTYLE mandates a lead should cover all the major topics of the article, and a discussion of the mathematical properties of RCV-IRV is definitely a major part of this article and important enough to get coverage. The properties I discussed here are the same ones discussed in basically every Wiki article on voting systems. These include IIA, independence of clones, monotonicity, participation, and Condorcet.

@Superb Owl's most recent edit went substantially further:

1. In some cases, removing claims because one of several sources was less-than-perfect (e.g. newspaper articles or press releases by social choice theorists), despite the same claim also being sourced by stronger citations to scholarly journals. Citations that are not "load bearing" (i.e. included only for additional explanation or clarification) do not weaken the overall strength of sourcing for the claim. If a claim has multiple citations (some good and some bad), you can arguably remove the less-solid citations, but not the claim itself.
2. The summary of empirical research by political scientists, including the comprehensive report of the Electoral Reform Research Group that got no pushback when it was only in the body and not the lead, has been deleted.

The combined effect of these changes is to push any on the pros and cons of IRV deep into the bottom of the article, where readers won't find it. – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 17:40, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

My issues are 1) You do not write in a way that is easily understood by a lay reader. It is too technical and makes things more confusing. Maybe some other editors can help explain what you are trying to do in a more accessible way. You also have 25% authorship of this article and it could really use fresh eyes and perspectives to make it understandable to a wider audience. 2) You seem to be cherry-picking studies and conclusions by primary sources for the lead are also disputed by reliable secondary sources in the body. You also make claims that are not WP:Verifiable or are WP:Synthesis. There needs to be nuance even if your positions against IRV are most likely to be the most common among experts. 3) The body of the article was a complete disaster and I spent an hour or two cleaning it up just now. The best way to know what to put in the lead is to have a body that is well-developed with solid sourcing. Superb Owl (talk) 17:47, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

I'm not seeing any cases where the material in the lead is contradicted by a reliable secondary source in the body.

1. There seem to be a few situations where the material in the lead contradicts commentary by non-reliable or partisan sources in the body (e.g. FairVote), but in this case the body should be edited to remove material supported only by unreliable sources. Published scholarly articles are substantially more reliable than press releases put out by advocacy groups for a particular policy.
2. The lead relies heavily on secondary sources, including review articles (e.g. the ERRG report summarizing all the empirical research on this topic) and review/summary sections taken from papers in social choice.
3. In cases where individual studies are cited, I make sure to include multiple such studies to show I'm not cherry-picking. You can read the summary sections of these articles if you'd like, which include an overview of the whole topic; there's no substantial dispute about any of the mathematical or statistical properties I'm bringing up.
4. I'm happy to add any positive findings you can find by social choice theorists in peer-reviewed social choice journals. If you think there's positive aspects or studies on IRV that I'm not discussing, you're free to look those up and show it, but excluding all discussion of pros and cons simply because the majority of research has found isn't nuance, it's WP:FALSEBALANCE and failing to give WP:DUE weight. So far as I can tell, the properties I've surveyed are widely-studied, discussed in many papers, and are discussed in every Wikipedia article on voting systems (including this one).

– Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 18:24, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

Let's hear what others have to say. Your edits have been controversial to say the least on a number of related articles Superb Owl (talk) 18:43, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

A few thoughts, though admittedly I haven't done a close read of everything yet (and I'm just looking at the current state, not actually examining the changes). I also haven't evaluated what is sourced or evaluated whether the sources or adequate.

1. Language is too technical in some places. "Pathology" "Partial results exist" are a few that jumped out right away.
2. There seems to be a good bit of redundancy.
   • The "Comparison to other voting systems" section seems to be better placed on a different page, such as ranked voting since only one row is actually about IRV.
   • The information in the IRV row of "Comparisons to other voting systems" seems to be redundant with the "Voting Methods Criteria". Perhaps just keep the IRV row of the table, and get rid of the Criteria section? Anything from the criteria section that needs to stay could probably be folded into the Properties, Advantages, Disadvantages section.
   • It seemed weird to have a Criteria section separate from a Properties. It also seems weird to have a Comparison to other systems section and a Similar Methods section.
3. The last two paragraphs of the "Process" section seem to be criticisms and belong in a different section.

Hopefully this "drive by commentary" is more helpful than annoying. meamemg (talk) 19:47, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

RFC: Title Change

I feel like the title change from Instant-Runoff to Ranked-Choice is very US-centric. I propose we revert it and have a discussion about what the title should be.

How do you tag the request for comment thingy? I would imagine other people would want to have a say. Jasavina (talk) 19:46, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

you are correct. the title should not have been changed; this edit should certainly be reverted. Affinepplan (talk) 20:51, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Hi Jasavina—I recognize the issues, and I originally opposed switching the name. I only changed my mind very recently. There's three big reasons for this.

1. Unfortunately, the old name (instant-runoff voting) is even more US-centric (which is also why this page is tagged as using American English, despite the mishmash of US+Commonwealth English in the text). Close to 100% of all searches for IRV come from the United States. In other countries, the rule is called STV (Ireland and India), preferential voting (Australia), or the alternative vote (UK), but it's never been called IRV. IRV has only ever been a popular term in the United States, where FairVote pushed the term up to 2015, but it hasn't stuck. IRV is therefore doubly-limited—it's specifically American, but it's also only used by a very small group of highly-educated millennials. RCV is more popular than IRV outside the US as well; it's now the dominant term in Canada and is occasionally used in Australia. In Commonwealth English overall, it's preferred over instant-runoff voting by a factor of 2:1.
2. WP:COMMONNAME demands it, because the term IRV is essentially as dead as "majority preferential voting" (old term from the US prior to the 1970s). Until very recently, I didn't realize just how much RCV outstrips IRV in terms of popularity, but Google says searches for RCV are >100× more common than searches for IRV worldwide. (Actually, IRV doesn't even show up on trends. It just gets rounded to 0.)
3. Many people conflate or confuse RCV with ranked voting, which is bad. I used to think we should "hold the line" on the name IRV because it's more descriptive and less confusing, and that the best way to do that would be to keep the title IRV. However, I've since changed my mind on this. I think the kind of people who are Googling or searching for "ranked-choice voting" are exactly the kind of people who need to read a Wikipedia article like this, which can explain the difference between RCV and ranked voting in general. I want people who look up RCV to land here, where it explains why RCV is better-called IRV and how there are ranked rules besides RCV; I don't want them to end up on lower-quality pages or advocacy groups that conflate the two. (Right now, the top results for RCV for me are from FairVote and RepresentUS. The Wikipedia article about ranked voting doesn't even appear on the first page of the results.)

– Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 22:17, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

An article with a title suggesting that it is about the many different ranked-choice voting systems should be about the many different ranked-choice voting systems. An article about a single system, instant-runoff voting, should have a title unambiguously specifying that it is about that single system. The recent move confuses this issue and should be reverted. The fact that many non-specialists are already confused about this issue should not be used as an excuse to make our articles and their titles equally confused. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:52, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

100% agree with reverting this move. One user who has a history of making controversial edits and ignoring any attempt to garner consensus doesn't get to decide on their own what this article is called. We don't name articles based on how they may or may not be ranked in search engines—that is clearly the cart before the horse. —Joeyconnick (talk) 00:38, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Hi Dr. Eppstein—even specialists (political scientists, legal scholars, and social choice theorists) use the same terminology. When I check the first two pages of search results for "ranked choice voting" on Google Scholar, all 20 results use the term to refer specifically to Hare's method. That's not to say nobody ever interprets the term literally, or that I don't dislike it as a misnomer (which is why I've retained the term IRV throughout the article). But I think the vast majority of users interpret the phrase "ranked choice voting" to mean something entirely different from the phrase "ranked voting", just like how Australians use the term "preferential voting" to specifically mean Hare's method. – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 03:18, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

The google trends results look very, very different the acronyms RCV, STV and IRV are actually included in the search. Doesn't seem like that is a solid basis. 180 Degree Open Angedre (talk) 02:40, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

The acronyms "RCV", "STV", and "IRV" are all highly ambiguous because of how short they are. – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 03:05, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

I support reverting it back to instant run-off. The recent change in title just makes things more confusing. 180 Degree Open Angedre (talk) 02:27, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Support reverting to instant runoff. RCV article should be created, clarifying the term as a) ranked voting and why it is conflated b) explain that RCV became known primarily for IRV but also STV, an why, and that the reason that it is applied most commonly as single winner in the US. Similar problem to preferential voting and STV in Australia. I support creating more articles, I think the regional differences can warrant it as well as that it's sometimes just and overlap, not equivalence. Please ignore my username here, anyone from my edit history can see I am not biased in favour for RCV/IRV.

IRV is not a perfect term (after all it can be confused with contingent voting), but more accurate than PV, RCV, AV and maybe even STV. I think if it is not the main term in any country, that is an advantage of neutrality. Unless we go for "Single winner repeated first-preference plurality loser elimination" or something, it is not going to be perfectly distinguishable. Rankedchoicevoter (talk) 08:14, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

I support reverting the title back to instant-runoff voting. If "the kind of people who are Googling or searching for 'ranked-choice voting' are exactly the kind of people who need to read a Wikipedia article ... which can explain the difference between RCV and ranked voting in general", then that difference could be explained in the ranked voting article like David Eppstein suggests. Wotwotwoot (talk) 12:02, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

I have reverted the undiscussed move, since it's been at the old title for Quite Some Time. If you want to start a WP:Requested move discussion, go right ahead. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 18:58, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Draft:Instant-runoff voting

I'm not entirely sure what the procedure is for Draft pages, especially when the Draft is of an article that already exists, but I just found out that there is already an ongoing Draft:Instant-runoff voting page, and I could see the usefulness of doing the edits over there before adding them onto the main article here. Should we move over the active editing to over there or no?

Pinging the following users for their input because they have made significant (not minor) edits to the main instant runoff article over the past couple of months, but not to the Draft:Instant-runoff voting page:

@Ehrenkater @McYeee @David Eppstein @Omegatron @SarekOfVulcan @Wotwotwoot @A. Randomdude0000 @Onetwothreeip @VoltechScarlittle @Joeyconnick @Superb Owl @Jannikp97 180 Degree Open Angedre (talk) 15:32, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm not aware of Wikipedia practices around using Draft articles instead of main articles for editing when the main article already exists. A user I asked said that doing mass edits to an article is frowned upon because it hides the history of the edits, which sounds right, but I wouldn't know for sure. Wotwotwoot (talk) 21:16, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Drafts are for creation of new articles. Nothing in WP:DRAFT supports copying articles into drafts. It is a bad idea because either you are going to copy and paste the draft onto the article, hiding all the edit history when it was a draft, or you are going to try to move the draft onto the article, removing all of the past edit history. And the longer a draft fork exists, the more likely it is to get out of sync with improvements made to the article itself. In this case, it appears to be a way for CLC to continue their idiosyncratic edits, which have been repeatedly disputed here, with less interference, basically as a WP:POVFORK, something that is strongly discouraged. In general when I see a draft that duplicates an existing article my usual reaction is to just redirect it to the article so that we do not have a fork and I think that's what should happen here. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:41, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

I can move it into my namespace if that's an issue—drafts aren't in mainspace, so I didn't expect it to matter. I created this draft several months ago as a way to try and workshop different changes. – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 00:04, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Yeah a draft of an existing article shouldn't exist. Instead, editors (by which I mean mainly CLC) should focus on making small changes (at most one section at a time if making extensive edits to a section) with clear edit summaries so other editors can track what's been added, deleted, and transformed and get a good overview of what's changed. Instead, certain editors (by which I again mean CLC) seems to prefer to make repeated multi-thousand-word edits with little to no edit summaries across multiple sections, including putting back changes where they've been clearly reverted based on detailed rationales. That style of editing is not in good faith. —Joeyconnick (talk) 05:10, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Comparing to FPP

@David Eppstein Could you clarify what you mean by "Comparing to FPP"? You raised some objection to this, but I'm not sure what, specifically, you disliked here. Do you think there's no value in offering pros and cons of IRV relative to other voting rules? – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 00:16, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Your preferred lead sentence describes it by saying that "the loser of each round is determined by first-past-the-post voting". First, "first past the post" is extremely Anglo-centric; US readers will have no idea what it means (see both MOS:COMMONALITY and the tag at the top of this talk page saying to use American English). Second, first past the post makes no sense as a way of describing the loser, who is the opposite of first. And third, this system is not primarily a variation of FPTP; it is primarily a system of ranked voting, and among many such systems is based on a principle of repeated elimination. That is what should be emphasized, not the comparison to FPTP. The variations that everyone else but you have been preferring do not use the first-past-the-post. Instead, they use the more neutral, and more universally understandable phrasing "the last-place finisher according to a plurality vote is eliminated in each round", and they place that description where it belongs, later in the lead, rather than trying to shoehorn a misleading comparison into the first sentence. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:27, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

the last-place finisher according to a plurality vote is eliminated in each round

I think that's a great description, and I have no objections to using it.

and they place that description where it belongs, later in the lead

I'm not strongly wedded to this, but I feel like a description of the method should fit into the first sentence—it seems unusual to talk about RCV before discussing what it is.

rather than trying to shoehorn a misleading comparison into the first sentence.

I'm not sure what comparison you think is misleading here, could you elaborate? – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 00:49, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

By the way, I've never heard of "first-past-the-post" being an exclusively Commonwealth term. Would it be correct to say FPTP and plurality are both the same thing, with FPTP being Commonwealth English while plurality is American English? If so, do you have any sources for that? Thanks! – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 21:04, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Improvements from 180

@180 Degree Open Angedre happy to see lots of these edits, and thanks for the help improving the article! It's good getting more eyes on these topics, since I've had to do most of this by myself the past 6ish months. I think a lot of these changes are already leaving some sections looking a lot better than they did just a few weeks ago. I do think some information on A) criteria and B) empirical research has to go into the lead, both because of our policy on leads and because of the WP:DUE policy, which requires us to give coverage on a topic if there's a lot of criticism of something in the academic literature (which for RCV/IRV there definitely is).

I tried adding some of my earlier summary back into the lead but condensed and rewritten. Still, I think we could make some more improvements; I agree it's still going a bit too far in the opposite direction (too long/too much focus on criticism). Do you have any suggestions? – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 04:07, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

On some terminology questions: I think it's very reasonable to include some terms that are more explicit, like Condorcet winner. However, lots of people don't click through links, or if they do they may not read or understand them thoroughly, so I think it makes sense to put them side-by-side with terms that use little words everyone can understand, instead of unusual French names. (Probably like 95% of our readers will see the term "Condorcet" and read it "Khan-dork-ket" :p). Terms like "Majority-preferred candidate" have some use in social choice, and everyone knows what all of those words mean. Do you think the current compromise I've made of putting them side-by-side is reasonable? Thanks! – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 04:12, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Is that actually more intuitive? Before becoming interested in voting theory, I would have assumed that a majority preferred candidate was a defined to be ranked first (how I read preferred) by a majority. In other words, I would have put the quantifiers in the wrong order. I would rather the reader come away confused than confidently wrong. McYeee (talk) 04:20, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Hmm, that's possible. There might be a tradeoff (more people understand the term, but more people misunderstand it too). I think anyone who misunderstands it will have that corrected pretty quickly, though. (Since in this context, we're describing how the majority-preferred candidate can be eliminated, which obviously can't be the case for a majority-favorite candidate.) It's also a very natural formalization of what the words "Majority-preferred" mean. (After all, if most people prefer someone else, this person's clearly not a majority-preferred candidate!)

Alternatively, there might be some other term we can use. I know someone has used the phrase "consistent majority candidate" in an unpublished paper. I quite like that phrase, but using it would be OR of course. "Majority-preferred candidate" is fairly common, by contrast—I've seen it cropping up from people like Ned Foley and Eric Maskin.

(But in any case, just being able to pronounce the term feels like a huge improvement.) – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 04:54, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

In this context, you're right. Sorry, I should have read more carefully. McYeee (talk) 04:57, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

No worries, and I think the point you raise is an important one, and one I hadn't considered before. Thanks! – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 19:41, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

cherry picked and politically-motivated source in lede

@Closed Limelike Curves

in your most recent edit you use the phrase

"s a single-winner, multi-round elimination rule that uses ranked voting to simulate a series of primary and runoff elections."

ok, sure. this looks clear and accurate enough.

but the citation provided for this is https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3272186 ```What is Wrong with IRV?```

I can't possibly imagine why such a neutral sentence which basically amounts to a broad overview of what the term even means should be cited with a discussion paper (aka not a research paper) criticizing empirical outcomes of IRV; this paper is also very insignificant and has been cited by zero academic articles in the 6 years since it has been published. this seems like a clear violation of https://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view#Due_and_undue_weight

I am going to revert this edit as well. But I have no interest in getting into another back-and-forth edit revert war, so I am making this topic here and suggest you try to reach consensus here as to a more proper lede Affinepplan (talk) 18:11, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

"s a single-winner, multi-round elimination rule that uses ranked voting to simulate a series of primary and runoff elections." ok, sure. this looks clear and accurate enough.

Then what are you complaining about? It's a citation to a scholarly article that happens to include a definition of instant-runoff voting, not part of the text. You're free to replace it with another citation. – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 19:05, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

this is the equivalent of saying "The United States of America (USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America." and then linking a citation to an opinion column `Why the USA is Doomed` or something

do you get what I'm saying? just because the statement is bland enough to be accurate, and the linked citation technically is talking about IRV, doesn't mean it is appropriate here. Also "scholarly," sure, but it's literally not even a research paper or survey paper. it's a discussion paper. surely you can find a more appropriate source.

> You're free to replace it with another citation

I could, yes. but the burden is on you as the author trying to add this diff. Affinepplan (talk) 19:18, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Is that your only objection to the edit? If so, I'll reinstate the edit but without the citation you objected to removed. LEADCITE lets us leave it out, right? McYeee (talk) 19:26, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

yes the wording was fine. the citation chosen was a ridiculous display of POV pushing. Affinepplan (talk) 19:32, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

I think I picked it because it was a broad review article, rather than a primary article. WP:Secondary sources are generally preferred because they're harder to cherry-pick: they reflect an expert's overview of a topic as a whole, rather than just one aspect or study. I actually couldn't find any mostly-positive review articles on IRV from social choice theorists. – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 20:38, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

How about looking for review articles that are reliably published rather than looking for review articles that are opinionated? —David Eppstein (talk) 20:44, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

That's what I did: I selected a discussion paper by a previously-published expert in the field. If I was citing it for an extremely controversial question or , there's , but for something basic like "what's the definition of IRV" I just picked something random lying around in the pile of review articles I found. – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 03:34, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

but it is not a review article. it is clearly labeled "discussion paper"

for example https://www.newamerica.org/political-reform/reports/what-we-know-about-ranked-choice-voting/ would have been much more appropriate, despite the fact that this originated outside academia.

it's not about "favorable" or "unfavorable" viewpoints. if you're asking me, personally, I don't particularly like IRV that much. but the point is to be objective and technical, and not let politically-motivated POV get in the way of writing a good article. Affinepplan (talk) 20:45, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

A review paper can indeed be a discussion paper as well. I don't particularly care whether a paper has "favorable" or "unfavorable" views towards anything, and I refuse to exclude either positive or negative articles about IRV on the basis that they have a particular viewpoint. If it's a high-quality paper published by a subject-matter expert or in a peer-reviewed journal, I try to include it. In this case, it's a discussion paper by a PhD economist, so I think it's a valid source for a definition of IRV, even though the author has a negative view of IRV. – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 03:33, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

I believe you that you think you're being neutral. But I am telling you that this is a clear example of selection bias.

> If it's a high-quality paper published by a subject-matter expert or in a peer-reviewed journal,

No disrespect to Prof. Stensholt, but 0 citations in NHH Dept. of Business and Management Science Discussion Paper is not exactly a high-quality research paper in a relevant journal. Affinepplan (talk) 12:29, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

Criticism should be objective and well-sourced

@ILoveHirasawaYui I've un-done your edit. Please let's coordinate on this talk page for an appropriate framing of the content before re-adding. In particular, I am pretty concerned about

1. the language "favoring extremists" when it is not well defined (at least certainly not within the context of this article) what it even means for a candidate to be an "extremist" nor should the voting rule be anthropomorphized to "favor" something

2. the citations link to Monte Carlo methods on statistical models but the claims imply behavior about real-world political elections. given the long history of IRV's use around the world, it shouldn't be difficult to provide more appropriate citations looking at actual empirical data rather than relying on what is essentially guesswork

3. the criticisms as phrased imply that the only values by which IRV, as an algorithm, should be normatively judged are related to political elections. however obviously a choice function could be applied in literally any context for preference aggregation and it need not be political (e.g. facility location, artistic award competitions, etc. etc.) Affinepplan (talk) 00:47, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

The rankings being aggregated need not even be preferences. For instance, rank aggregation algorithms can be an answer to the question: how do we give an overall rank to athletes whose performance is ranked in multiple ways (for instance, decathletes)? —David Eppstein (talk) 01:13, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

I think that she just copy and pasted directly from the Negative responsiveness paradox#By method article (formerly known as the monotonicity criterion until someone changed the name earlier this month). That page could probably use some work. 180 Degree Open Angedre (talk) 04:11, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Yeah I copy pasted from there I💖平沢唯 (talk) 05:26, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

oof yeah that page needs plenty of work too. also it should not have been renamed either...

monotonicity can encompass a lot of things, and positive responsiveness isn't identical Affinepplan (talk) 14:43, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

I do question whether there should be a criticism section at all (WP:CRITS), may be better to title it "Academic views" or similar. Alpha3031 (t • c) 23:32, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

I would tend to agree, but that's going to be more of an uphill battle than I'm prepared to join in on right now.

There are a few highly motivated POV editors of this page and related pages. Affinepplan (talk) 23:38, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and changed it to Reception and moved it up a level since half of the content there doesn't even seem to be criticisms in the first place? (just to be clear, I hope all of the editors here can agree that a criticism is when a source says something is bad or otherwise indicates negative views. Emphasis on says. Something that we think is bad happening without a source commenting on it is not a criticism except by original research) Alpha3031 (t • c) 23:48, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

and I certainly hope it's not controversial to say that may increase turnout by attracting more and more diverse candidates is also not a criticism. Alpha3031 (t • c) 23:49, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

seems reasonable Affinepplan (talk) 23:55, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Why do you object to anthropomorphism here? I think of it as being pretty normal in this context, not unlike the truism that "the Senate favors small states". Saying that it favors extreme candidates is also just as true for facility locations as for people, although I admit we can't say extremists in this context because we're not talking about views. McYeee (talk) 06:30, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

I would also not say "the Senate favors small states" rather I would say matter-of-factly "the Senate holds two seats for each State regardless of population" and let the reader draw their own conclusions. Affinepplan (talk) 12:32, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

IIA does not imply "vulnerability to strategic nomination / withdrawal"

@180 Degree Open Angedre wrote

> As instant runoff fails independence of irrelevant alternatives, it is vulnerable to some extent of both strategic nomination and strategic withdrawal

I would just say more plainly "Instant runoff voting may be manipulable to some extent via strategic candidate entry and exit." it is not really true IMO that IIA failure implies that strategy is necessarily possible. for example imagine a rule that just picks randomly between every pair of candidates based on some seed that depends on the size of the candidate sets. obviously this is both a failure of IIA and impossible to take advantage of for profitable manipulation via candidate entry/exit Affinepplan (talk) 17:29, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the correction. I'll change it to that if you haven't already 180 Degree Open Angedre (talk) 17:47, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

Can you define what you mean strategic nomination? I would have thought that the strategy of nominating a large number of clones of a Condorcet loser would be a profitable strategic manipulation by candidate entry and that nominating or withdrawing candidates to change the seed would be profitable by entry or exit respectively. See also the definition of strategic nomination given here which I think matches my intuition. McYeee (talk) 18:32, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

this is exactly my point. a statement like "IIA implies vulnerability to [...]" requires significantly more context and conditions and definitions and mathematically proofs etc. than is appropriate for just saying it in passing. Affinepplan (talk) 18:45, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

Does it actually require that context? I can say that given any polynomial f, the integral $\textstyle \int _{0}^{1}f(x)dx$ is well defined without saying whether I mean the complex-valued Riemann integral or the real-valued Lebesgue integral. I wouldn't be opposed to more context in this article, but the lack of context doesn't seem like a reason for removal. More explicitly, I'm not aware of any reasonable set of definitions of those terms that makes the statement false. McYeee (talk) 19:29, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

`A => B` is equivalent to `B or not A`

in this case, `B` is pretty much always true that in some sense every voting rule under most reasonable models of voter behavior admits some opportunities for profitable manipulation via candidate entry/exit.

so `B or not A` is just `B` here. that is to say, "IIA implies vulnerability to strategic manipulation" is only as true in the way that "the sky is blue implies vulnerability to strategic manipulation" is true. Affinepplan (talk) 19:42, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

Every voting rule under most reasonable models of voter behavior admits some opportunities for profitable manipulation via candidate entry/exit

I get it now. To quote Thomas Henry Huxley, "How extremely stupid of me not to have thought of that"! McYeee (talk) 19:56, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

You wouldn't be stupid not to have thought of that, because it's not correct. IIA is very explicitly defined as "the results not changing when a candidate enters/leaves the race". There are a wide variety of voter models where there is no strategic nomination incentive. The article on Arrow's impossibility theorem details these cases, e.g. rated voting rules and the left-right voter ideology model, where Condorcet methods pass thanks to the median voter theorem). (cc @RobLa.) – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 20:20, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

yes clearly I'm aware of the definition of IIA.

but my statements remain true.

Approval is IIA yet under many "reasonable" models of behavior there are incentives for strategic entry / exit. the randomized rule I gave above is not IIA yet there are not such incentives in expectation.

@Closed Limelike Curves I am trying to be empathetic to the fact that it seems you have zero formal education in this domain, but it's hard to remain empathetic when you come into every discussion with such arrogant-yet-sophomoric statements. Please read beyond Electowiki and a few Tideman papers before declaring that you know everything. Affinepplan (talk) 20:28, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

That's a bit harsh. I'm the one who made the edit this time, in any case. 180 Degree Open Angedre (talk) 20:37, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

to be clear, I'm referring to his reply here. not the original edit. yes, it is harsh, but I'm a bit exasperated with the constant POV pushing and lack of technical expertise. Affinepplan (talk) 20:41, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

Is it a correct summary of your point to say that approval only passes IIA because IIA is defined in terms of fixed ballots rather than fixed reasonable voters? McYeee (talk) 21:01, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

I guess, sure. IIA is a mathematical property of a function. "vulnerable to strategic nomination" is vague & normative statement that relies on a lot of assumptions about the model and context, so I think the two are not very comparable. Affinepplan (talk) 21:08, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

Approval is IIA

Whether or not approval is IIA depends strongly on your model of voter behavior and the precise definition of approval voting. In models where it does satisfy IIA (i.e. the dichotomous preference model or a fixed absolute threshold) there is no incentive for a losing candidate to enter or exit, by the definition of IIA. – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 21:08, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

it depends on nothing. Approval is IIA full stop. it has a mathematical definition that is satisfied by Approval.

please stop spreading misinformation about technical subjects you do not understand. This idea that IIA somehow depends on voter behavior, beliefs, and strategy is just a common misconception among the amateur election reform community. Affinepplan (talk) 21:12, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

In this I actually agree with CLC. Approval voting with voters who express their honest preferences is IIA. But approval voting, as it is generally defined, has no mechanism to force honest preferences. In the presence of strategic voters (which is to say, always), the relative performance of two candidates in approval voting will depend on the presence or absence of third candidates, so approval voting does not obey IIA. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:30, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

Approval with voters who express any preferences, honest, strategic, whatever is still IIA if we're just considering the typical definition for choice functions.

if we want to use the term IIA more loosely to refer to the principle "A > B should not depend on C" then yes I think we are all in agreement that individuals may alter their response depending on the available alternatives.

this is a case of the codification from loose principle --> formalism being a bit underspecified I suppose? in any case even if using the looser formulation I would not recommend the original wording of the edit, as the technically accurate statement would be that IIA failures mean there exist *any* profiles on which profitable manipulations can occur, but I imagine most readers will interpret "vulnerability to strategy" to at the very least be, say, an efficiently computable strategy that doesn't rely on perfect information. Affinepplan (talk) 21:39, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

Approval only satisfies IIA if the voters are forced to express their preference for each candidate without any knowledge of which other candidates are present. Such a system is impossible: after you have asked the voter's preference for one candidate, that voter will remember that the candidate is present and will be unable to formulate an independent preference for other candidates.

So the system you are calling IIA is a system that does not exist. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:43, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

There's practicalities and menu effects in real life for sure. However, @Affinepplan is talking from a social choice perspective, which abstracts away these kind of details.

In its most highly-generalized sense, a social welfare function is a multivariate function that takes a bunch of k-dimensional, real-number vectors as inputs. Then, it outputs another k-dimensional vector representing each candidate's "final score" or "quality". For example, FPP gives candidate i one point for each voter who gives them the highest rating.

With this formal definition, we can give a formal definition of IIA: it says that if any of the input vectors changes in the i-th place, the output only changes in the i-th place. – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 22:13, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

this is not how I would define it formally. see the below comment. Affinepplan (talk) 22:20, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

You can give different definitions; I selected this one as the most general possible definition. A somewhat more common definition is given in the article on Arrow's theorem. – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 22:28, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

Approval voting with voters who express their honest preferences is IIA. But approval voting, as it is generally defined, has no mechanism to force honest preferences.

More than that, the issue is approval voting has no unique definition of "honest voting". Here are at least 5 different ways you could reasonably formalize "honest" approval voting:

1. FPP, but with a tied-at-the-top rule (if two candidates are equal-ranked first, both get a point). In that case, honest approval behaves like FPP.
2. The opposite of that (anti-plurality with a tied-at-the-bottom rule).
3. Anything in-between (there's nothing special about either first or second ranks, we can pick a different cutoff).
4. All candidates with a rating above 50% are given one point.
5. Voters choose some approval threshold at random.

These rules are all the same from the standpoint of mechanism design, because the available strategy profiles are the same. However, they're not equivalent from the standpoint of social choice, so we have to specify which of these 5 "different" rules we're discussing. The last 2 satisfy IIA, the first 3 don't. – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 21:55, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

Does anyone have a good citation for the formal definition of IIA in this context? It would save us a lot of arguing. McYeee (talk) 21:37, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

see above comment. I think the very crux of the disagreement is the conflation of the formal definition and the broader principle behind that definition. Affinepplan (talk) 21:39, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

I get that, but what is the formal definition of IIA? If you point to a WP:RS that shows that gives the definition you mention, that'll save us a lot of time. McYeee (talk) 21:43, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

Let's take a step back and ask for a formal definition of a voting system. Affinepplan seems to imagine a system that goes from the utilities hidden in voters' heads directly to an outcome via a mathematical function, without the intermediate step of actually voting. I don't think that can be called a voting system. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:50, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

I like the definitions here https://arxiv.org/abs/2008.08451 which includes a discussion on the many forms of IIA

I do not mean to suggest that these are the only axioms reasonable to take. but formalism has been requested and I will provide.

tl;dr

• there exists some infinite set C and X of candidates and voters
• a profile P is a map P: C --> L(X) for C, X finite nonempty subsets of C, X
• L is a linear order
• a voting method is a map F from a profile P to a subset F(P) < P
• f satisfies Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives (IIA) if for any (V, X)-profiles P and P′ and x, y ∈ X, if P|{x,y} = P′|{x,y}, then x defeats y in P according to f if and only if x defeats y in P′ according to f

to your credit, the authors here do specify that L is a strict linear order, whereas I was implicitly assuming an extension to a weak order (and in fact for approval it must be dichotomous); I apologize for making that assumption without clarifying. however, the authors also state that these definitions are straightforward to apply when L must be dichotomous. so after doing so, it is clear that Approval is IIA.

What I am hearing from your argument, please tell me if this is wrong, that Approval cannot be IIA because it is simply not possible to generate dichotomous preferences over a finite set of candidates without knowing the membership of that set. I would agree with that, but I would also not say that makes Approval "fail" IIA I would say that makes IIA "not applicable without further clarification" Affinepplan (talk) 22:19, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

> the authors also state that these definitions are straightforward to apply when L must be dichotomous

correction: they state this about weak orders, not specifically dichotomous Affinepplan (talk) 22:20, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

The article on Arrow's theorem should contain references to Arrow's paper, which includes the original definition of these terms. The definition I gave, which is more general, can be found in Balinski and Laraki's 2011 book on Majority Judgment. – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 22:25, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

Lede once again has turned into a soapbox

@Closed Limelike Curves please, stop vandalizing social choice articles with your agenda. it's really exhausting to have the same battle over and over again across dozens of articles.

I really don't have the energy to go through a DRN. but I'm going to tag @David Eppstein @180 Degree Open Angedre @Mcyeee @Sarek Of Vulcan @Wotwotwoot for visibility Affinepplan (talk) 18:16, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

They are arguing with me that somehow a majority of editors agree with all the changes made in their 12000+ character dump in the lede, under the "problems with IRV article" talk section, but I find that hard to believe. Quite a bit of what they are trying to add back in bulk has already been either moved around to other parts of the article, reworded or removed, by other editors. In any case, I don't think this is appropriate editing etiquette, especially for an editor already facing an WP:AN/I for this repeated behavioral pattern. 180 Degree Open Angedre (talk) 18:30, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

> majority of editors

is there even one? lol Affinepplan (talk) 18:37, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

The ANI thread is for the unrelated question of whether I made too many page moves. (And I would have started with a talk page discussion, to be honest.)

They are arguing with me that somehow a majority of editors agree with all the changes made in their 12000+ character dump in the lede,

First: calling a revert a "12,000+ character dump in the lede" is extremely misleading.

Second: I said that a majority of editors were in favor of the first paragraph, which places IRV in the context of other plurality-with-elimination rules. If you have disputes with the first paragraph, you can make an RfC to get more external opinions—my impression of the thread at § Problems with the IRV article is that most participants agreed the article should discuss the similarities of IRV with other families in the plurality family (including @Rankedchoicevoter and at least one IP). If you have disputes with the 3rd-5th paragraphs, you can create a new talk page section to discuss these changes. If this doesn't yield a new consensus, you can open a dispute resolution (like I previously attempted) at WP:DRN. – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 20:36, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

> If you have disputes with the 3rd-5th paragraphs, you can create a new talk page section to discuss these changes.

as you are the one trying to add these, you bear the burden of reaching consensus. feel free to create a talk page section if you like. in the meantime I've removed at least the most egregious POV. Affinepplan (talk) 20:38, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

If you have disputes with the 3rd-5th paragraphs, you can create a new talk page section to discuss these changes.

In the spirit of WP:AGF, I will assume that you simply forgot your initial message pinging me to that problems with IRV article thread and will share it with you here:

@180 Degree Open Angedre: I'm restoring the prior version for now; if you disagree, you can discuss this here.

And I'm sorry, but no, this [1] is not just a minor reversion. At first I tried to discuss some of the things that I disagreed with there, as you had asked me to. But first you fell back on "a majority of editors" siding with your opinion, and now you say that, no, I was just supposed to respond to only your first paragraph and none of the other many, many additions that you've made in this. I don't even disagree with using the description of plurality with eliminations, so that's not even one of my problems here. Now it feels like I have just wasted my time. 180 Degree Open Angedre (talk) 21:11, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

Hi 180, I totally understand why you might be feeling confused or exhausted, and I'm very sorry about that. I think I was unclear about what specifically I was asking for. Communication can be difficult. Right now, the first thing I'm trying to do is break the dispute down into single issues or disagreements, so we can discuss each one separately in its own section. If we jumble everything together, we're probably going to end up arguing in circles.

So far, I've seen you raise objections to describing IRV as belonging to the plurality-rule family, so I directed you to the section where we discussed. I think the talk page section where I pinged you is an appropriate place for discussing that specific question—"Can we describe IRV as falling into a plurality-like family of rules"? The consensus there seems to be yes. That consensus can change, however; particularly if you provide enough reliable sources to convince most other editors this is wrong, or if you suggest some alternate wording that both sides can agree on.

If you have objections to other parts of the article, those should probably go in their own separate sections, so we can keep everything focused on answering a single well-defined question. For example, "How should we describe the rate of spoiled ballots?" or "Should this sentence be removed from the lead and placed in section X"?

On the revert: I've tried restoring Sarek's last version, then breaking my changes down into two disjoint sections. This should make them smaller and easier to read. (Keep in mind that Wikipedia's character counts include citations, and it looks like some of the citations were duplicated when I did this, so the character counts are probably off.)– Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 23:46, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

There's an active ANI at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Bold,_or_disruptive? if you'd like to leave a comment there. It might be more of a conduct thing than a content thing anyway. Wotwotwoot (talk) 18:38, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

At the very minimum, Closed Limelike Curves, I'd like you to consider reducing or bundling (WP:CITEBUNDLE) any instances where you have added more than one inline citation to any statement in the lead. mixed reception among political scientists and social choice theorists. has 4 footnotes each, whereas the same text in the body only has two. There is absolutely no reason to do that unless the citations used are terrible (in which case the text probably should not be in the lead in the first place). Also, I see you've pointed it out yourself, but at least try to deduplicate your references before you hit the publish button? Finally, I will be removing the reference to The Hill and rewriting that sentence unless you do so first, no comment yet on any of the other additions. Alpha3031 (t • c) 23:52, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

At the very minimum, Closed Limelike Curves, I'd like you to consider reducing or bundling (WP:CITEBUNDLE) any instances where you have added more than one inline citation to any statement in the lead.

Got it, will do. Are two side-by-side citations OK? Sometimes I give them in pairs of closely-related sources, in which case I think bundling the pairs could work nicely. (e.g. there's a case where I cite the New America Foundation report and then a blog post by one of the authors, Lee Drutman, where he gives his takeaways from writing the report more simply.)

Also, I see you've pointed it out yourself, but at least try to deduplicate your references before you hit the publish button?

Yep, sorry, didn't notice until after I did that—I should've been more careful. (I'm in visual editor, where the only indication of references being duplicated is some tiny numbers changing slightly, and which IME has an annoying tendency to duplicate references at the drop of a hat.)

Finally, I will be removing the reference to The Hill and rewriting that sentence unless you do so first, no comment yet on any of the other additions.

No objections to removing if you want. Another option is bundling it with Atkinson & Ganz 2023, like I'm thinking of doing with Drutman's report (the "fully" reliable source) and blog post. It's basically the same situation (Atkinson & Ganz wrote a paper, then an op-ed describing the key takeaways from their research). – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 00:27, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

request for page protection

since CLC is seemingly unable or unwilling to stop POV pushing and edit warring, I've filed a request for page protection here Wikipedia:Requests for page protection/Increase#Instant-runoff voting Affinepplan (talk) 00:24, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

Hi, left a comment saying I'd be cool with page protection, especially if we can open a dispute resolution process at the same time. You mentioned not feeling up for starting the procedure right now, so I'm open to postponing the DRN for a week or two in case you're busy. Thanks! – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 19:23, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

Center Squeeze

There seems to be some controversy about whether an old version of the "Instant-runoff voting" article that @Closed Limelike Curves restored (rev 1246893366) or if the current revision (rev 1247569260 as of this writing) is fine. Since I came to understand the center squeeze effect many years ago, it completely changed my perception of IRV. It seems we do a disservice to readers by not even mentioning the term in this article, and it seems to me that not only should it be mentioned, but it deserves at least a small WP:SUMMARY-style section of the article with a hatnote link to "Center squeeze". I may come around in a week or two and add said section, but given that the 2009 Burlington mayoral election seems to be a prime real-world example of center squeeze (not to mention the semi-fictional Tennessee example used in many electoral system articles), it seems difficult to justify a failure to mention "center squeeze" in this article and provide an example that helps explain it. It seems funny that neither version of the article uses the term "center squeeze", though the older version has the examples that help describe the phenomenon. -- RobLa (talk) 22:58, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

@Affinepplan per this section, there was previously agreement among non-canvased talk page participants to discuss center squeeze in the lead. Could you give your reasons for opposing this? – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 22:07, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

1. I'd hardly say I was "canvassing" given that everybody pinged is already an active participant in this talk page and related articles
2. this topic is one editor without response so I'd hardly call that a positive "consensus"

but anyway, please do not put words in my mouth. I never protested the general idea of including comments about the possibility of center squeeze in the lead. I protested the POV manner in which you did so. To say that I am "opposing discussion of center squeeze" is just plain disingenuous. And you'll see in my latest diff that I did in fact leave the sentence intact "IRV also exhibits a kind of spoiler effect called a center squeeze"

What I am opposing is what you wrote to further go on and say that IRV somehow "favors extremists." While I understand why you think this is true --- largely based on evidence from IC models and spatial models --- that is quite a strong statement that demands a high bar of evidence. And I think given IRV's long history of widespread use, if such a statement is true then you need to provide evidence from *real* elections and *real* cultures rather than what is basically just Monte-Carlo-driven speculation.

And furthermore, you need to show that this is true in aggregate / average and not just cherry pick examples or single case studies. Just because a statement appears in a peer-reviewed work does NOT mean that it is scientific consensus. I have seen studies that suggest IRV disadvantages candidates near the middle of the policy spectrum, but I have also seen some suggesting that it succeeds in enabling candidates to cross-cut partisan cleavages and find new coalitions, and I have also seen some suggesting that it makes little difference in the outcomes of elections one way or the other.

Wikipedia should be 1. neutral 2. technical 3. not original research or opinion blogs. I understand that you have a bone to pick with IRV. I am not exactly its biggest fan either. But the lead of the Wiki article on IRV is not the right place to express those opinions. Affinepplan (talk) 22:18, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

And you'll see in my latest diff that I did in fact leave the sentence intact "IRV also exhibits a kind of spoiler effect called a center squeeze"

Thanks, I'd missed that.

While I understand why you think this is true --- largely based on evidence from IC models and spatial models --- that is quite a strong statement that demands a high bar of evidence. And I think given IRV's long history of widespread use, if such a statement is true then you need to provide evidence from *real* elections and *real* cultures rather than what is basically just Monte-Carlo-driven speculation.

I mean, the main reason I think that's consensus is just the median voter theorem. I think mathematical proof is quite strong evidence.

I understand that you have a bone to pick with IRV. I am not exactly its biggest fan either. But the lead of the Wiki article on IRV is not the right place to express those opinions.

I don't have very strong opinions about IRV. I just like explaining math and economics clearly, and this is the particular math/econ topic I've been working on recently. Prior to this, I did a lot of editing in statistics. (And once I'm satisfied with the quality of this corner of Wikipedia, chances I'll probably go back to that.) – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 00:39, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

> the main reason I think that's consensus is just the

median voter theorem

.

the median voter theorem doesn't imply "IRV favors extreme candidates" in any way shape or form, and that fact is emphatically

not

scientific consensus.

Affinepplan (talk) 00:45, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

Fully agreed here. The median voter theorem (i) does not tell us anything about IRV and (ii) is not evidence for any behaviour in real world elections as preferences are not typically single-peaked. To go from that to "IRV favors extreme candidates" seems like quite a stretch. Jannikp97 (talk) 06:31, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

Preferences are typically "single-peaked enough". (All models are wrong, but...) – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 23:41, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

I think one of the reasons there's a lot of pushback for the specific phrasing is that extremist is quite a strong label, and would fall under "value-laden" or "contentious" under our style guide (MOS:CONTROVERSIAL). I would recommend against using it unless there is clear consensus in reliable sources to use the exact term. It's also not very well defined. Like, how extreme is extremist?

Obviously, that depends on the number of candidates, but in a three-competitive-candidate race, after eliminations, the minimum proportion of highest-remaining-preferences after transfers to squeeze a candidate out is 26%, when the electorate is divided 26-25-49 and the first two candidates form a mutual majority. Candidate 1 might be more extreme than candidate 3 or 2 in this case (candidate 2 being the moderate candidate winning 25%, and candidate 3 being a more clearly partisan candidate on the other side) but can we really label candidate 1 extremist when they won 26% support, and also a signifcant portion of candidate 2's next preferences? Alpha3031 (t • c) 07:45, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

TBF I think the Nazis got ~⅓ of the vote in the last somewhat-fair Weimar elections. The term "extremist" is common in the literature, but I agree with your general point that there's probably some better word we could find, that makes it clear we're speaking in relative terms. – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 23:29, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

The informal mathematical claim that IRV favors extremists seems like a fair summary of various well established results. On the other hand, I have not seen evidence that there is consensus on the frequency of changes in election outcomes due to this or on the correspondence between political and mathematical definitions of extremist. It also seems odd to mention center squeeze without mentioning that other election methods are also susceptible. This makes it seem like at least a controversial claim in political science.

Can we say "Like some other commonly-used systems, IRV also exhibits a kind of spoiler effect called a center squeeze, which can prevent the election of a Condorcet winner"? This seems like it correctly summarizes the mathematical result without making empirical claims. McYeee (talk) 05:54, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

I think that's a good phrasing for it. Alpha3031 (t • c) 07:33, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

> seems like a fair summary of various well established results.

no it does not. Affinepplan (talk) 13:04, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

I like the general idea, but I'd suggest two changes—

1. "Like some other commonly-used systems" should be specific about exactly which systems are meant ("Like plurality & two-round").
2. The reference to a "Condorcet winner" adds an unfamiliar technical term into the lead, and also removes the reference to ideology. While a social choice theorist might be able to pick up on how this relates to the median voter theorem, most people probably won't. This one's a bit trickier to resolve, but one possibility would be to replace "extremist" with a term that's more clearly relative, e.g. talking about "more-extreme candidates".

– Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 23:08, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

Removing the reference to ideology seems like a good thing to me, unless we have sources saying that ideology correlates with voting patterns in the way you imply. McYeee (talk) 02:08, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

I'm a bit confused what you mean by voting patterns here, could you clarify? I think all the papers discussing this issue do actually refer to the winners as "extreme", "extremist", etc., but I don't think we have to adopt some exact wording just because all the sources use it. I think the main issue with "extremist" is it doesn't clearly specify that it means "more extreme than other candidates, relative to the center of public opinion". – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 03:54, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Would "more-polarizing" candidates be a better alternative? – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 17:06, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

> "more-polarizing" candidates be a better alternative?

absolutely not. because polarization and partisanship in elections is

1. something that is studied frequently, in many contexts from many angles, by many scholars, across many types of elections and demographics and
2. said studies have not whatsoever conclusively found that the use of IRV is associated with an increase in polarization and partisanship

Affinepplan (talk) 17:27, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Increase relative to what? It's been studied a ton, you're right. Generally, the finding (in the American context) has been little-to-no difference from FPP or two-round, like we discussed in the section on empirical research. (i.e. It has roughly the same polarizing effects as those rules.) – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 18:57, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

> Generally, the finding (in the American context) has been

I'm aware of only one study on partisanship of electoral outcomes under IRV in the US. Maybe you are referring to the same one? I certainly wouldn't conclude "generally" the finding has been. I think the only thing that is fair to say that has been "generally" found is that more research is needed. Affinepplan (talk) 19:20, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

problems with IRV article

IRV is not pluralitarian - its whole goal is to see majority choice elected, even if tht majorty choice has to based on vote tallies after votes are transferred from first choices.

it should not be lumped into same family of systems as FPTP. for one thing in FPTP votes are never transferred so the article is clearly wrong when it says that FPTP is like IRV for that reason.

not all IRV vote counts proceed to where there are only two candidates. they do proceed to point where one candidate has amasssed majority of votes (or majoierty of vots still in play at that point) no matter how many other candidates are still in running. therefore IRV is majoritarian, not pluralitarian.

yes eliminations are based on relative vote tallies - the least-popular, no matter how many votes he or she, has is eliminated, but that hardly makes it same as FPTP.

the imporatance of the elimination of the least-popular is that their votes are transferred but that is not mentioned in first paragraph when eliminations are introduced.

edits (quickly reverted) performed on October 16 tried to make these changes.

68.150.205.46 (talk) 05:10, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Unfortunately, that line of reasoning has a problem because it can be reduced to absurdity. Consider a version of IRV where the process stops if anybody has more than 67% of the first preference votes, or otherwise keeps going until every candidate but one has been eliminated, at which point the remaining candidate has 100% of the first preferences. The threshold for that method is a 2/3 supermajority. But it seems absurd to say that the method ensures a 2/3 supermajority winner. 2A01:799:1511:E300:D6E9:1083:E302:8CF3 (talk) 11:39, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

You just described why it is not majoritarian and why pluralitarian is a correct word for it.

-What is the elimination based on? plurality (imagine every round as a snapshot of single non transferable vote - yes votes are transfered in between, but that is still first-preference plurality since you don't look at the excluded candidate)

-It doesn't matter if it doesn't go until there are two candidates. That is just making counting quicker. It's a simplification by maths. The 50% is not a meaningful quota like in STV. If it was 40%, that would be another case, but then it would even more so not be majoritarian

-IRV does not fulfil the majority rule of social choice theory

-the fact that it goes to 2 candidates only means it won't elect a majority loser, but that is not the same as electing a majority winner

-it is based on later-no-harm, therefore primacy of first-preferences. This also makes it closer to simple plurality than many other systems.

-nobody said it is the same as FPTP

+the word majoritarian is misleading anyway - people incorrectly use it for plurality, winner-take-all and single winner district based systems. Rankedchoicevoter (talk) 13:24, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

@180 Degree Open Angedre: I'm restoring the prior version for now; if you disagree, you can discuss this here. It seems like the majority opinion on this topic is that A) RCV is best described as non-majoritarian, and B) removing discussion of batch elimination is less likely to confuse people. In particular, there doesn't seem to be any reason not to postpone the discussion of early stopping or batch elimination to later in the article, since RCV can be perfectly well-defined without any mention of it.

(There's also no rule against linking to stubs on Wikipedia, but I've removed the link anyways while I expand the article.) – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 16:16, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

I agree that generally speaking a description of batch elimination is not really necessary for the intro. That is really just an implementation option. However, is there currently or has there ever been any jurisdiction that used instant runoff that would not immediately elect the candidate that had amassed a majority of the valid (non-spoiled, non-exhausted) top-preference votes, and instead just keep on going? If you can find one counterexample, then sure, but otherwise it would just appear to me that what you call "early stopping" is just a part of the method.

Also primaries and runoffs are not the same thing. At best there is a superficial similarity between a very specific type of primary (the nonpartisan jungle primaries) and a runoff system, but even you should not be dropping in partisan or regular open primaries into comparison, and especially not into the opening paragraph. That's just misleading.180 Degree Open Angedre (talk) 16:28, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Alaska uses this variant. An example can be found here from the 2020 Democratic primary in Alaska.

I understand you may still disagree with this, but for now the majority view seems to be otherwise. There's also a lot of sources disputing or disagreeing with the idea that RCV represents some kind of majoritarianism, so I'd advise against another revert or it may be counted as edit warring. – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 02:38, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

Why do you think that your view is the "majority" view? It does not appear so to me. You should probably try to convince, if not me, then the other editors, rather than just assume that everyone else agrees with you. 180 Degree Open Angedre (talk) 12:56, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

Because, in this thread, there are 3 or 4 editors who agree with this change and 1 who disagrees without having been canvased. – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 15:08, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

Which change specifically? Your edits are so large in scope that there are multiple portions that I take issue with. Like referring to instant runoff as being similar to a primary. Or grouping it under a brand new pluralitarian family article that is based on one source entirely. Amongst many others. If you did your edits in a more organized fashion it would be more productive to discuss, but you've made a lot of significant, misleading changes, many of them in the lede of the article, often within a single edit that it's difficult to keep track of all of the issues in a single discussion. I doubt that you have a real majority for all of them. 180 Degree Open Angedre (talk) 17:01, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

Over at the Talk:Two-round system there was already a discussion about whether to merge two-round runoffs and primaries, and at least there, the result was that there was no consensus on this. So, it appears that no, a majority of editors do not agree with your opinion, for at least that part. 180 Degree Open Angedre (talk) 19:02, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm talking, specifically, about describing RCV as pluralitarian or plurality-rule style.

To a lesser extent, I'm also talking about describing it as going down to 1 candidate, which I think @Rankedchoicevoter and @2A01:799:1511:E300:D6E9:1083:E302:8CF3 seemed to agree with (with both describing the 50% bar as an implementation detail and a special case of batch-elimination, rather than a real threshold). Your comment here suggests the same:

However, is there currently or has there ever been any jurisdiction that used instant runoff that would not immediately elect the candidate that had amassed a majority of the valid (non-spoiled, non-exhausted) top-preference votes, and instead just keep on going? If you can find one counterexample, then sure,

but you seem to have ignored the counterexample I provided. – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 19:30, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

@Rankedchoicevoter and @2A01:799:1511:E300:D6E9:1083:E302:8CF3—can you verify that I've interpreted your arguments correctly? i.e. the first paragraph should avoid discussing early stopping or batch-elimination (which should be moved to the second section)? – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 19:12, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

It looks like you're conflating their hypothetical argument for why instant run-off isn't majoritarian, which is a separate debate, with yours that the method should not include "early stopping", which is a part of the method, but which you seem to have some sort of issue with including in the description for some reason. 180 Degree Open Angedre (talk) 19:23, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

I also forgot to add, some of the information that you're adding in the lede that is already covered later on in the article. Copy and pasting it back into the lede is just making the article redundant 180 Degree Open Angedre (talk) 17:15, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia policy on this, which is that the lead follows the information in the body. Often this results in overlap between material in the body and in the header. I agree exact duplication isn't ideal, but the discussion I placed in the lead is already written in a summary format; it should instead be expanded in the body. – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 19:37, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

If the lede follows the body, then what you're trying to do is exactly backwards. Expand what is covered in the body first before summarizing, instead of copy and pasting. 180 Degree Open Angedre (talk) 19:25, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

I don't think there's any requirement for information in the to be written differently from, and in fact Wikipedia explicitly maintains a transclusion feature for including the same text multiple times in an article. – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 19:45, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

I think you should try reading over that page again. It seems to me that you've misread it. It refers generally to content appearing multiple times in different pages, templates or references. For Help:Transclusion#Repetition within a page, it makes reference to articles that are already very repetitive, such as ones with lists, and recommends the creation of a template to have the repeating text. I don't think that applies in this context. 180 Degree Open Angedre (talk) 20:01, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you think I've misread here. My point is just that, because the lead is a summary of the body, the lead may sometimes repeat text found in the body, and Wikipedia does actually allow for repeating the same text within a page. I don't think there's any issue with editing it to avoid that repetition, but cutting all the information about empirical research on RCV from the lead isn't the right way to do that. – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 21:40, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Is it even correct to use the word "majoritarian" to describe a single-winner system? I'm used to hearing it contrasted with, for example, proportional representation. McYeee (talk) 19:38, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

"Majoritarian" is sometimes used as a synonym for winner-take-all representation, particularly in political science. In social choice, "majoritarianism", "majority-rule", or a "majority winner" generally refers to Condorcet's majority-rule principle—someone is a majority-preferred candidate if most voters prefer them to each one of their opponents. – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 03:11, 29 October 2024 (UTC)