Arno Nymus

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Appreciation  Done

Thanks, Arno, for fixing my brain fart regarding the "typo" I "fixed" in the voting systems article. Chopbox

You're welcome. --Arno Nymus (talk) 22:14, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

 Done

ballot types  Done

please comment at Talk:Voting system. And thanks for your work there. Homunq (talk) 13:44, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

I added a comment there. Thx for the feedback. --Arno Nymus (talk) 16:53, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

 Done --Arno Nymus (talk) 18:54, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Which mathematical definition of later-no-harm are you referring to?  Done

Thanks for helping make the voting page accurate. Can you clarify for me which mathematical definition of later-no-harm you are referring to for which approval is exempt - i.e. not applicable? Is it Douglas Woodal's peer-reviewed publication, http://www.votingmatters.org.uk/ISSUE3/P5.HTM? Thanks for your assistance Filingpro (talk) 19:23, 13 April 2012 (UTC)filingpro

I added a comment there. Thx for the feedback.

 Done --Arno Nymus (talk) 07:57, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

New stub  Done

I made a stub for Fair majority voting. Thought you might be interested. Contributions welcome. I'll fill it out gradually as I have time, but it'll go faster if there are two of us. I alerted the person who helped fill out majority judgment, but they're an ip (apparently from Haifa), so they may not get the message. Homunq (talk) 13:10, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

 Done Thx for the info, I'll try to add some content over the days. --Arno Nymus (talk) 03:54, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Preferential voting

Hi, thanks for your recent edits to Preferential voting! I had a question about your removal of open list though. I think it should be replaced on the page with a caveat that not all systems are preferential ones because some are. Fleetham (talk) 17:24, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Or, at least, some allow voters to cast more than one preference vote. Fleetham (talk) 17:45, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Hi Fleetham, thx for your response. I removed the open list section because of the following reasons:

• As far as I know - the core variants of open list does contain preferential voting components. The only possibility, I see is a combination of both systems, but this would in fact mean that the preferential voting is not part of the open list system.
• There was no clue in either the article on open lists or the section, how this combination (or an open list system that contains preferential voting as internal part) is realized.
• Especially, the section claimed that the standard for open list is a preferential voting method without any hint anywhere where preferential voting is used in the open list methods.

However, if you add the information about where the preferential voting part can be found in open list (and maybe that open list is not a preferential voting method by default), I would be glad to read this information and would not object against it. If I am right, and there is only a "combination" of both systems, I think a section in the preferential voting-article called e.g. "Combination with open list" would be the best.

If on the other hand, there is an open list variant that inherently requires preferenital voting (so if it is not only some kind of combination that could be done in other ways), I would also like to see a section in the open list-article.

In both cases, I think, a description of where the preferential voting part is to be found in the open list system have to be part of the section. Best regards and sorry for this lengthy text, --Arno Nymus (talk) 21:05, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

A small addition to IRV and STV. I thought the link between the two would raise readers comprehension. This fact - you removed as uncited - is also stated several times in both, the instant-runoff voting and single transferable vote articles. But, if you don't want this connection between the two methods in the preferential voting article in the section about the different preferential systems, it's ok. Best regards, --Arno Nymus (talk) 21:30, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Sorry about removing the link between IRV and STV, but I don't see how they are any more alike than any two other preferential voting systems.

And in regards to open list, I don't really understand the combination argument. I think that it could be said that even open list systems that only allow 1 preference vote could be considered to be "preferential voting systems" because they allow voters to rank candidates on the ordinal scale. Even if they only allow 1 vote, that would mean voters rank all candidates on the ordinal scale: the chosen candidate is ranked at "1" and all the rest at "0", for example. Fleetham (talk) 23:55, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

• This point also holds for plurality voting. So, if you consider plurality voting a preferential voting system, then clearly open list is one, too. Technically, both is perfectly true. But I think that the reader would expect "real" preferential systems in the list, i.e. systems that actually give the voter the possibility to give more than one preference (that is the whole point of preferential voting, isn't it?) - and so adding these two systems (or system classes) in the list (plurality voting, open list) would confuse the reader. Nevertheless, if you have some information on how one open list system with "real" preferential voting is used, I would like to see it and that could be a good addition for the article.
• If you use STV to allocate only one seat, it is IRV. STV uses the same rule to eliminate candidates and redistribute their votes as IRV, if there is no candidate that has a full quota. This is not true for other preferential voting systems (cf. Beatpath/Schulze, Ranked Pairs, other Condorcet methods, Borda etc.).

--Arno Nymus (talk) 02:20, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

To your second point, I think there are many preferential voting systems redistribute votes other than AV. The Coombs method/rule, for instance. So to say that AV is "STV for single-member districts" may be a bit hasty, and I don't think it's something that can be cited. My real concern for including the sentence is that some in the US want to implement alternative vote, and I don't want people to be easily able to promote the success of STV as a reason to adopt AV.

As to your first point, I think it can be difficult to draw a line between what can and cannot be considered preferential voting. I was able to quickly find several academic sources that deal with the issue, and I've pasted relevant quotes below.

Preferential Voting: Definition and Classification "Most European researchers, when talking about preferential voting, refer in an approximate way to systems in which the voter, when casting a vote for one of the party lists, also expresses his preference for one of the candidates of this same party."

The Global Spread of Preferential Voting: Australian Institutional Imperialism? "To further complicate matters, the term ‘preferential voting’ is also sometimes used by some scholars to refer to the kind of open-list voting in proportional systems common in continental Europe, most of which give voters some choice as to the ordering of candidates within a party list but without any facility for rank-ordering". Fleetham (talk) 03:45, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

• Coombs is also an elimination/redistrubution rule, but it uses another elimination rule than STV - while IRV and STV use the same rule. Also, it is not difficult to find cites for this easy fact (e.g. "Consider Election 1 above, with the votes counted by STV (or, rather, by the Alternative Vote (AV), which is the rule to which STV reduces in a single-seat election)." by Douglas Woodall, [1]). But, I accept your point that AV should not benefit from STV, since STV is the more general rule (and obviously all "proportional" properties of STV are lost if only one seat is allocated). Thus, it is okay for me, if the sentence stays out of the article.
• So, the second quote says that preferential voting has two distinct meanings, the one described in the article (rank-ordering) and a completely distinct second one, that is connected to the name "preference vote" and essentially describes open list and has his name from the fact that with open list, within the list candidates are ordered in respect of their votes. Then, the best solution would be to add some disambiguation message at the top of the page like "The term 'preferenital voting' is ambiguous. This article describes the class of rank-ordering voting methods. For the open list voting system, sometimes referred as 'preferential voting', see open list". --Arno Nymus (talk) 18:10, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

I would suggest a closer reading of the texts before we jump to conclusions. As the first text has a much more authoritative title, I am more apt to believe that one. Is the author really referring to "what the Europeans mean" as separate from and not included in what his article is about? And I believe in that text it states that the broadest interpretation of "preferential voting" does include plurality voting, which would mean open list, too. For me, I think it really comes down to whether or not some open list systems allow you two or more "rankings". If you are able to rank candidates in a hierarchy that includes at least three levels, that's preferential voting as far as I'm concerned. I know some systems do allow more than one "preference vote" but the real question is do they allow more than one preference vote on the same list. For instance, maybe you get four preference votes, but you have to vote for five lists, and you can't use more than preference vote per list. Fleetham (talk) 18:32, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

• As mentioned before, if you want to add open lists to the methods list because it is "preferential voting" in the same way as FPTP is, you also have to add FPTP to the methods list.
• I looked into the second link before my previous answer. Your cite is the only part where open-lists are mentioned. And the purpose of that whole section is to show that "terminology is a problem in this field". The rest of the article is mostly about IRV/AV and STV, nothing else about open-lists.
• However, I think a quote from the first link says the right thing:

The first and most obvious idea would be to abandon the use of the ambiguous term 'preferential voting' to denote so many different electoral systems and groups of systems. After all, they all have alternative, well-defined, even exact names, such as 'single-transferable-vote, 'alternative vote', 'ranked methods', 'open-list PR', 'flexible-list PR'. If nothing else, the difference in the degree of exactness of the term 'preferential voting' on one hand and these terms on the other, should discourage researchers from using 'preferential voting' as a synonym for any of these methods. Hard as it may be to achieve, this might be the easiest way to achieve unification of the electoral systems terminology: simply quit using 'preferential voting' when we can use another term with a broadly accepted definition.

• So, both sources you presented confirm that the meaning of "preferential voting" that is connected to "open-list" is another meaning than the meaning the WP article describes. Obviously, the wikipedia article is about "Preferential voting or rank voting", so we shall at least not mix up the other four meanings with that one. --Arno Nymus (talk) 22:30, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I don't follow your logic. How do both articles reject open list as a type of preferential voting when the first includes open list in a, ahem, "list" of preferential voting systems? The above quote does not state, "preferential voting does not include open list"; it just cautions against saying "preferential voting" when referring to only one of those on the list. It wants to " discourage researchers from using 'preferential voting' as a synonym"--nothing more. In fact, it firmly places open list as one of many systems the umbrella term "preferential voting" refers to. Fleetham (talk) 01:03, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

No, both sources say that the term "preferential voting" is used for several distinct meanings, that is something totally different than saying that the distinct meanings are types of it. That "list" describes "preferential voting" as Homonyms, not as one Hypernym. It is like a "bat". "bat" has distinct meanings like the animal and the beating wood from sports. However, obviously the animal and the beating wood are not two "types" of bats, and especially, you wouldn't make a section in the article of the animal about types of that animal and add the beating wood as one type.

The wikipedia article describes only one of the meanings: "ranked voting methods". Both sources say that "open-list" is another meaning the term "preferential voting" is used for. None of them say something like "open-list is a type of ranked voting". --Arno Nymus (talk) 16:27, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure the person in the quote is making the point that those systems on the list are not synonymous and so the phrase "preferential voting" is in danger of becoming a homonym.

He's saying, "make sure you know there are other preferential voting systems in existence, researchers, because you often call the only one you're familiar with 'the' preferential voting system." He just means that there is no "the' preferential voting system" but instead several systems that can be called "a preferential voting system".

And I'm not sure that quote supports removal of open list from the page, as it does include it in a list of preferential voting systems. Yes, all these systems are different from one another in some respect, but they all are preferential voting systems. Fleetham (talk) 18:11, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Again, I strongly feel this source supports the term "preferential voting" as an umbrella term (or hypernym) that encompasses all systems which allow voters to rank outcomes on a hierarchy on the ordinal scale; and, yes, the broadest interpretation of this could include plurality voting. (just as this source states) Fleetham (talk) 18:15, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

I don't think it's our place to determine what is or is not a system of preferential voting especially since the above article certainly has not made a definitive judgement on that point. I don't think the article advocates for "umbrella term" usage in the conclusion, but I think the best way to resolve the issue would be to lay out this article's argument on the page itself. Say something like, "the one thing that surely includes all the below systems in this category is the fact that they are all referred to as preferential voting systems". Mention the fact that the most broad definition does, strictly, include FPTP, but that it's never referred to as a preferential voting system. Fleetham (talk) 18:38, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

I don't agree with the first four paragraphs (18:11, 18:15) due to reasons described above.

However, I agree with the first sentence of the fifth paragraph. I think the proper way would be to move the current article "preferential voting" to "ranked voting systems" and to create a disambiguation page for "preferential voting", that links to its distinct meanings (obviously only subjects, that are referred to directly by "'the' preferential voting" like ranked voting systems, instant-runoff voting, open list). --Arno Nymus (talk) 20:29, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

I just don't think we have sufficient cited sources to support that, sorry. Fleetham (talk) 21:07, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

I would agree to breaking the article up completely into its component parts, but no "ranked voting system" page because that's just us making a decision about a definition. The source we do have does advocate that the term "preferential voting" to be deprecated, so making it into a disambig page would seem agreeable. Fleetham (talk) 21:28, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Talking above sources, nearly the whole section "references" is made of "advertising folders" and there are five "ref groups" that are not described to the reader (for the reader, the cites just start again by 1). It is a total mess. But that's another point, we can correct later. This is just a "TODO"-reminder.

At this time, the article describes only one meaning: ranked voting systems, so no "breaking up into component parts" is necessary or possible. It has a clear topic (ranked voting systems). The only question is where to move the current article when creating a disambig page at "preferential voting". If you think, that "ranked voting systems" is not sufficiently enough cited (although it is already used as the second name in the article), what title do you suggest for the article about ranked voting systems? --Arno Nymus (talk) 20:57, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

I found an academic source that states, "Ranked voting [is] when voters select and rank more than one candidate with order of preference"*, so the name change seems fine, but I don't think that answers the question of open list. Because aren't some open list systems also ranked voting systems? Specifically those that allow the voter to cast two or more preference votes.

• A method for discriminating efficient candidates with ranked voting data. European Journal of Operational Research, Volume 151, Issue 1, 16 November 2003, Pages 233-237. Tsuneshi Obata, Hiroaki Ishii

Fleetham (talk) 22:34, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm glad that we agree about moving the article and making a disambig page.

I know a variety of open list systems, but I don't know open list systems with ranks and in the article "open list" there is nothing about ranked votes. So, do you have an example for such an open list system with ranks? How does it work? --Arno Nymus (talk) 19:17, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Well, why do some open list systems have more than one "preference vote" if they're not using them to rank candidates? Are they all one-preference-vote-per-list systems that have voters vote for more than one list? It's certainly plausible, but IDK if that's the case. The simplest thing to do, unless you want to research the above and find out, is to destroy the "preferential voting" page (viz. make it into a disambig page) and not recreate it anywhere. There seems to be some difficulty in categorizing voting systems, so let's leave taxonomy to the taxonomists and just concentrate on pages for the individual voting systems themselves. Fleetham (talk) 20:11, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

The system I know with more than one preference vote is not to rank candidates, but to split the vote between candidates (see Cumulative_voting). This means, you have for example five votes and you can give all of them to one candidate or one to each of five candidates and so on. So, you just split your vote into five parts. Obviously, this is nothing like ranking, where you say "A is the best, B is second, C is the worst". So, obviously this kind of open list system has nothing to do with ranked voting systems.

But, if you know other open list systems that work in a different way (maybe I and the "open list"-article missed a variant), I would like to hear about them. --Arno Nymus (talk) 02:14, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

No, I don't know anything about open list systems except that some allow more than one vote, but I assumed that they allowed ranking because they were called preferential voting systems. Sorry I didn't really believe you and gave you a hassle about it! Fleetham (talk) 03:50, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

I did what you suggested and changed "preferential voting" into a disambig page, moving the content of that page to Ranked voting systems. I will soon remove all mention of open list from the latter. Thanks for being persistent. And I apologize again for being so stubborn! I really don't know much about voting systems and so, likewise, am not a good judge of how well informed others are. Fleetham (talk) 04:13, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Most important is that we came to a good consensus, thx. However, next time, please use the "move"-function for moving a page: Wikipedia:Moving a page. This way the article history and its talk page stays with the article and older changes can be seen after the move. Now, we have to do that manually.

I moved the talk page of preferential voting to ranked voting systems, but I think to get the history moved, you have to speak with an administrator. Best wishes, --Arno Nymus (talk) 15:48, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

I replaced each occurence of "preferential voting" in the article by "ranked voting systems" or some modification of that (depending on the very sentence). If you could please rework the section "Use by polities", it would be most helpful. Thx, --Arno Nymus (talk) 16:29, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Pirate party list creation

The German Pirate Party will soon be making their national list. I think that MJ, aside from being a good system overall, has certain legal advantages. If you'd like me to help put you in touch with some of the people involved, use the "email this user" link in the toolbox to the left of my talk page. Homunq (talk) 12:30, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

WP essay for your comment

I would appreciate any comments you might have on User:Homunq/WP_voting_systems. Homunq (talk) 13:24, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! If I ever make a "voting barnstar", you'll be first on my list to get one. Homunq (talk) 16:23, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

I added a "Tennessee example" to the essay, with graphical tiebreakers: User:Homunq/WP_voting_systems#Standard_example. Comments welcome. Homunq (talk) 15:21, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Favorite betrayal criterion

You may be interested in Wikipedia:Deletion_review/Log/2014_March_19#Favorite_betrayal_criterion, as you have commented in prior deletion discussions related to this article. Homunq (࿓) 02:06, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

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