[Foundation-l] voting systems

Wed May 12 05:44:58 UTC 2004

Toby Bartels a écrit:
>>I very strongly urge an adoption of Instant Runoff
>>Voting-Single Transferable Vote (similar to the
method
>>used to elect the President of Ireland).
> 
> 
> If we're not careful, then we'll get into big
religious wars
> about what is the best method of voting in this
situation.
> Many people think that IRV is unnecessarily complex,
> while agreeing that FPTP is still indefensibly
simple.
> 
> Although I'm personally a big fan of transferable
vote systems,
> if we really want to get a clear consensus to do
away with FPTP,
> then it may be best if all of the FPTP opponents
agree up front
> that any voting system chosen from instant runoff,
approval voting,
> and Condorcet (with any specified method for
resolving Condorcet ties)
> is an acceptable, consensus-building voting system,
while FPTP is not.
> 
> 
> -- Toby

The current voting system chosen has certainly the
benefit of simplicity.

However, I think it is a bad choice for several
reasons. In particular, it leads potential candidates
to decide not to participate, to avoid dividing votes
and to preserve chances of candidates they approve
themselves. I think it highly problematic.

I think many wikipedians regularly participate to
votes, which do not rely in fptp. Just thinking
quickly, I can't even see a topic where we vote with
fptp on Wikipedia. At a minimum, we spontaneously use
approval voting, because it naturally allow us to
express opposition.

Given that we will be voting for a "representant", I
think that the ability to express "opposition" is just
as important that ability to express "support". In
terms of representation, I would say that it is best
to have a final choice with which every one (or most)
feels confortable with, rather than a final choice
which half of wikimedia thinks absolutely great, while
the other half thinks absolutely disastrous.

fptp does not allow to express opposition. I think it
highly problematic.

Wikipedians are also used to sligtly more complicated
methods, and they do so, not thinking in terms of
voting methods. They just do it sponteneously. In
front of 4 propositions, they will often write :
option 1 : strong opposition, this is ugly !!!!
option 2 : well, that could do it
option 3 : same, acceptable
option 4 : yes, best, I love it !

Now, if you begin to ask participants "would you
prefer borda method or condorcet method or approval
voting or plain fptp" (in particular to non-english,
who will have to gather from english article what
these methods are), you won't have much success :-)

Ihmo, simple approval voting is not the best choice in
this case, because it does not allow to express
subtelty of positions. I do not think it best to have
to qualify people in terms of
1 (yes) : this candidate is good
0 (no) : this candidate is bad
No one is ever all white or all black. Just asking
people to qualify candidate this way is forcing them
to take/consider a extrem position, not suitable in
case the candidate is finally elected. It is never
good to push someone from a position of "I do not
really approve this person" to "I am plain opposed to
this person". 

Il ne faut pas radicaliser les gens :-)

Any ranking method, or ranging method with more than 2
choices will be acceptable to me. I have some
preferences, but I can live with all choices.

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