Toby Bartels a �crit:

...

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.

__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Movies - Buy advance tickets for 'Shrek 2' http://movies.yahoo.com/showtimes/movie?mid=1808405861