Imran and I have discussed this. It seems that most people who have spoken out are opposed to First Past the Post as our voting system. We selected this because it seemed the easiest for everyone to understand and implement, and with the understanding that there will be opposition. In fact, I believe that no matter what voting system is chosen, there will be opposition to it.

We will need to compromise on a system to achieve consensus. The effects of the voting system (which make people hate FPTP) are important, but so are the need of the administrators (Danny and Imran in this case) for a simple system. I'm highly suspicious of any argument that Wikipedians, who have learned how to use apostrophes and brackets to mark up text, can't learn to rank candidates in order as IRV and Condorcet methods require. However, I'm sympathetic to the greater work that Danny and Imran would have.

On the other hand, we are willing to consider other methods. Imran will be posting on this later. Without having a huge vote on how we should vote, I would like to invite people on this list to propose alternative methods. I will also pose this same question to the candidates themselves.

I believe that approval voting ([[en:Approval voting]] has good coverage) is very easy to implement and, while not an ideal system in my opinion, is far and away better than FPTP while being quite nearly as easy to do. It's the sort of thing that one might expect as a compromise between fans of IRV (my fave), fans of Condorcet (often strongly principled), and the people who have to run the vote (who hate this complicated stuff). So while I'd prefer either IRV ''or'' Condorcet if Danny and Imran will do it, starting with Approval may yield a quick resolution to the issue. (We shall see if somebody objects to it!)

This is not a commitment to change the current system--only to examine other options. Your comments are welcome either here or at WikiElections@aol.com, where they will be accessible to Imran and me only.

I hope that people will discuss things on the mailing list, where a call for opinions has been given out (just now by Danny). Shunting discussion to an unidentified meta page will spread it out, and mails to the AOL address above won't be any good for discussion. (Of course if somebody feels the need for confidentiality, then that's another matter.)

-- Toby

Danny wrote:

Imran and I have discussed this. It seems that most people who have spoken out are opposed to First Past the Post as our voting system. We selected this because it seemed the easiest for everyone to understand and implement, and with the understanding that there will be opposition. In fact, I believe that no matter what voting system is chosen, there will be opposition to it.

On the other hand, we are willing to consider other methods. Imran will be posting on this later. Without having a huge vote on how we should vote, I would like to invite people on this list to propose alternative methods. I will also pose this same question to the candidates themselves.

Simplicity was a much stronger argument when we were talking about doing the vote on a meta page. Now I'm writing custom voting software. I don't mind which voting method you choose, I'm sure I'll be able to code it before the end of the month.

Condorcet's method has some nice mathematical properties, but does have the significant criticism that it is prone to electing incompetent candidates merely because they are in the middle of the political spectrum. Critics of IRV point out that changes in preferences can have unexpected results. Although I'm not an expert, I have to admit a preference towards IRV.

For people who think there is no strategic voting in Condorcet's method, have a look at:

http://condorcet.org/rp/strategy.shtml

I have to admit that the use of the FPTP method factored strongly in my decision not to stand, since I didn't want to steal votes from those candidates most similar to myself.

-- Tim Starling