Wikipedia:WikiProject Voting systems
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First, an important note for everyone to remember:
A few Wikipedians have gotten together to make some suggestions about how we might organize data in articles about Voting systems. These are only suggestions, things to give us focus and to get us going, and you shouldn't feel obligated in the least to follow them. But if you don't know what to write or where to begin, following the below guidelines may be helpful. Mainly, we just want you to write articles!
For info on voting systems used by wikipedia, see wikipedia:vote
Contents |
Title
WikiProject Voting Systems
Scope
This WikiProject aims primarily to ...
- Define a standard format for editing pages on individual voting systems
- Edit information about voting systems not specific to any one voting system, especially criteria for evaluating voting systems
- Import and edit the large amount of public domain information that exists on the internet on voting systems and criteria for evaluating them
Issues to consider
Voting systems is a domain that has been analyzed from sharply different and contrasting disciplines: game theory, sociology, political science, decision science, cognitive science and economics. Our articles should give a clear summary of the analysis from as many of these domains as we can get, without overly relying on jargon from either. Where there is jargon, explain it in another article, e.g. tolerances versus preferences. In those articles the different schemas and terms of art should be explained when necessary.
A note on English
In general, avoid using terms that are ambiguous when it comes to describing a voting system. The Australian English term elector, for example, should be replaced with the more general voter so it is not confused with special "electors" such as the electoral college or the electors of the Holy Roman Empire. Similarly, prefer the term tactical voting to strategic voting, as this makes it more distinct from the concept of strategic nomination - also note that we have a tactical voting article.
Similar Wikiprojects
The Electowiki has fantastic, detailed information on voting systems, both new, old, and obscure. Be aware, however, that much of the content on electowiki is either POV or original research, which are not appropriate for Wikipedia. Electowiki uses the GFDL like Wikipedia does, however, so when you see some worthy content there that can be made into an encylopedic context feel free to copy it.
Participants
- DanKeshet
- 142, if DanKeshet will cease reverting articles he has not discussed.
- Martin, if I can help
- LDan, just rewrote Coombs method article according to template, so I guess that counts as joining.
- Xeroc - I've written multiple articles and am interested in helping out!
- Tom Ruen
- User:Rspeer - I'm joining in, working on NPOV and making the articles correspond to Wikipedia style. Most of these articles were written in one burst by a bunch of users of the election-methods mailing list. This is a list where people are used to driving home a point in very POV arguments, and not used to writing in Wikipedia style.
- User:Scott Ritchie - I've been doing a lot of this work without knowing this project even exists! I'll be working on making Single Transferable Vote as perfect as I can, as a start.
- McCart42 (talk) - Added several of the criteria from ElectoralMethods.org a while back, looking forward to continuing to contribute in the hopes that we might find out that Arrow was wrong (ha!). That reminds me, I also added the first version of the voting criteria table at Voting system, from material at ElectionMethods.org. Most of those criteria were judged original research and removed from the table, but I'm glad it spurred discussion.
- KVenzke
- Hermitage - I'm not sure what is the status of the WikiProject, but I'm happy to help improve the voting theory category of wikipedia.
- RobLa - I thought I "joined" a long time ago, but hey, I suppose its not too late
- Jdhowens90
- Daelin—I've mostly been nursing Condorcet method, and I'd like to improve its organization to be more consistent with other articles.
Structure
There will be an overview of the study of voting systems at Voting system. This page will discuss the different types of voting systems, the history of voting systems, the history of the study of voting systems. It will stick to the formal political / legal context, with considerations for other forms of decision making marked clearly.
It will briefly describe voting systems and link to longer articles on each voting systems. Similarly, it will briefly describe criteria for evaluating voting systems, and link to longer articles on each criterion. See also: List of voting systems topics.
Notable articles to be inspired by
Featured Articles:
If you wish for good inspiration, use these articles as a guide. Remember, however, that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, so minor specific details about the mechanics of counting or obscure criteria may need to be moved to a secondary page split off from the main article in favor of more general information about history and current usage once the article gets too long.
Try to make mentions of prominent places where the system is used. In general, avoid comparisons with other systems (and POV advocacy, in particular), however contrasting notable differences to similar systems and clarifying names is usually ok.
Try and describe how a voter interacts with the system, and what ballots look like - what the voter expresses (e.g. approval, disapproval, a ranked preference per candidate) and what they are told the mark means. Also describe how the winners are determined. Give one or more examples if the help, and feel free to copy sample data from articles such as Instant runoff - for single-winner systems, the example using the state of Tennesee and this map can be used quite effectively. Examples should strive to demonstrate possibilities for tactical voting, to be explained in the section below. They should also strive to demonstrate differences in outcomes between this system and other, similar systems, as well as unusual rules for the system.
A section on controversy, issues, and advocacy is usually appropriate. This may be related to other sections, in particular information about tactical voting, the effect on factions, candidates, and the jurisdiction, as well as information on the voting system criteria the method passes and fails. Tactical voting can usually be explained fairly well in a short section.
See Wikipedia:WikiProject Voting systems/Included methods and criteria for a discussion of criteria to use. In general, criteria worthy of mentioning on wikipedia are likely worthy of mentioning in a voting system article, however they may best be moved into a sub article if the voting system article becomes too long.
