Talk:Ranked-choice voting in the United States

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Bloated
This article has become bloated with unnecessary details about every push and pull concerning RCV in the US. Plus, the leading graphic is out date. As a part of updating the graphic I'm going to simplify most of the information presented into table format to make it more easily digested unless there is strong opinion otherwise. Jasavina (talk) 02:07, 6 July 2023 (UTC)


 * As a part of this simplification I can spin off daughter articles if people think retaining the details on Wikipedia is necessary, but a lot of this stuff just isn't adding to the quality of the article. Jasavina (talk) 02:12, 6 July 2023 (UTC)
 * My plan for reorganizing is as follows:
 * After the introduction, the following sections will be, Current Use, Attempts to Install In Progress, Rejected Attempts to Install, Repealed Use, Legal Challenges
 * Each section will have an overview paragraph or two–describing the typical circumstances for each topic–and then a table with the relevant information. The narrative details of each individual event will be dropped from the article. Jasavina (talk) 05:15, 8 July 2023 (UTC)


 * This sounds to me like a worthwhile effort, as long as you spin off narrative that you think is excessive into a few separate articles.
 * As long as the narrative is supported by relevant references, I'd hate to lose that material. To support this thought, I feel a need to make two other points:
 * Since 2019-09-15 this article has averaged 242 views per day. Making the article more concise may attract a wider audience, but some of those visitors likely come looking for details that may be "bloat" for other readers. If those details are retained in separate articles, we could get the benefit of the concision you are volunteering to provide without losing details.
 * The guidelines on Article size suggests that over 8,000 words, "May need to be divided; likelihood goes up with size." Below 6,000 words, "Length alone does not justify division." Of course, that's only a guideline.  This article currently has 7,627 words. That's above 6,000 but less than 8,000 words.
 * Thanks for volunteering to do this. DavidMCEddy (talk) 06:29, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
 * @DavidMCEddy Yeah no problem, it's just the current state of the article reads like the author tried to include every detail they could possibly find. Most of my edits so far are just focused on improving the readability of the article without compromising on substance.
 * Because my overall plan is quite a major rearrangement of the information, I'm going to be staging all of it over on my user page. I'll continue to pop in here to do writing style improvements, but eventually (a month or more from now) I'll take the cleaned-up prose and fuse it with the tables and new sections.
 * My plan is to try and retain as much detail as possible. Hopefully I won't need to create any spin-off articles, but I will if it becomes clear that's a better way to organize the information. Jasavina (talk) 19:40, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
 * So, in trying to stage the reorganization of this page, I started a draft page with no intention of publishing it. That got deleted by an admin since they don't want people using draft pages that way. Is there any way to stage multiple changes to an article without implementing them? Is there a collaborative sandbox area that doesn't get written over constantly? There's no smooth way to transition the article to a new organization in little steps.
 * I'm sure Wikipedia is general against this kind of large scale change to an article, but the dang thing is just so poorly organized as-is. The information is very inaccessible and leaving it this way would be a shame. Jasavina (talk) 17:00, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
 * For now, I'm planning on just adding the section about bans and repeals, since doing so won't change the overall structure of the article much. Jasavina (talk) 17:25, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

What did you do that was reverted by an admin? Was this material in your own sandbox? If yes, how did it come to the attention of an admin?

And have you asked that admin what they suggest? You should not have to invent a goofy way to circumvent a strange rule like what I've understood from what you've said.

Beyond what I just said, there should be a way to do what you have suggested. A couple of thoughts come to mind:
 * 1) Is (are) there some substantial portion(s) of this article that could be spun off into separate article(s) and replaced with ~a single line and a reference to the new article(s)?
 * 2) Post a brief description / outline of the changes you'd like to see to this Talk page, make the changes in a word processor on your private computer, while posting them, e.g., to your sandbox to make sure you have the syntax correct but keep a master copy on your own computer.  If an admin deletes it again, you won't have lost much.  AND you can ask others on this Talk page for help in understanding the concerns of that admin.  DavidMCEddy (talk) 17:47, 17 July 2023 (UTC)


 * @DavidMCEddy I didn't realize I could access my sandbox from the app, so I had created a draft page as a way to setup an alternate space I could work in from the app. after the admin deleted the draft page we chatted and figured things out and we're all set.
 * Right now my re-write plan has stalled as I've worked on other things, but I do plan on finishing it. I have the the plan briefly outlined here, but no major changes will be introduced to this page without a through discussion of my final sandbox rewrite. Jasavina (talk) 18:59, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I've lost the enthusiasm for cleaning up this page. I've updated the map, but man, trying to rework this information into digestible form is just not something I'm excited about anymore. Maybe I'll come back to it eventually. Jasavina (talk) 05:38, 13 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I agree that this article should be more succinct. I plan to work on this gradually, as time permits, over a long period of time. Thiesen (talk) 18:52, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I've got the motivation again.
 * That "Use at the Local level" Section is absurdly long and detailed and the information is better presented in a table anyway. I'm going to start reworking most of it down in to a table while preserving as much information as possible. Any notable information that doesn't fit in a table will be preserved in text. Jasavina (talk) 19:05, 23 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I'm not giving up, but even just tackling this one section has reminded me why I lost enthusiasm the first time. This article is a fucking mess. It really needs to have better temporal organization and there's way too many pointless details that mostly amount to "elections continued to happen according to schedule" but with a bunch of extra words. If I were trying to make it harder to extract useful information from the article, this is how I would write it. I might split out a "repealed" section when I'm done, because they're currently mixed in with active elections. Jasavina (talk) 04:21, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
 * God damn that was a bitch to clean up, and it's *still* a total mess. Jasavina (talk) 05:21, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Pros and Cons of RCV
Besides eliminating some of the bloat I think there should be a section which spells out the pros and cons of RCV made in debates over the introduction of RCV. This section should also include references to the academic literature on empirical evidence for the effects of RCV.Blaze Droste1977 13:59, 13 May 2024 (UTC)


 * In general this should probably be over at instant-runoff voting. –Sincerely, A Lime 06:43, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

Template:Undisclosed paid
I see no reason for the use of the "Undisclosed paid" template here. The Wikipedia page for this template says that when the "Undisclosed paid" template is used, the "Connected contributor (paid)" template should be added to the article talk page. This has not been done. I will delete the "undisclosed paid" warning a week from today unless someone has explained by then why it was added. Thiesen (talk) 18:40, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
 * agreed - thanks Superb Owl (talk) 23:06, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I saw the COI discussion that lead to the template being added, so I've added the "Connected contributor (paid)" template that matches what the editor who added the "Undisclosed paid" template believed. I suspect that isn't quite the right way to do it because the CEO of a company isn't classified as a "paid editor" for that company, but I'll leave that for others to figure out. --Brilliand (talk) 03:04, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
 * thanks for noting - looks like there may be excessive FairVote citations. Have you spotted any issues with the content? Superb Owl (talk) 07:28, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Based on comments by others in a Discord server, I think the article as currently written makes an effort to report every example that would reflect positively on RCV, while avoiding mention of things that would reflect badly on RCV. Someone commented that the page at https://ballotpedia.org/Ranked-choice_voting_(RCV) (another encyclopedic source) provides a more neutral coverage of the same general topic.  --Brilliand (talk) 12:26, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
 * @Brilliand - I will take a look - at first glance this looks more like a list article and doesn't seem to get into the pros and cons of IRV/Ranked-choice voting Superb Owl (talk) 13:53, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
 * FairVote wants to give the impression that RCV has lots of momentum and isn't facing any serious obstacles. So this article has largely turned into a list of all the momentum RCV has... but it shouldn't be that; it should be something like what Ballotpedia has - an overview that describes all the various ways RCV is treated throughout the country, and gives context so the reader can tell how big a deal those are. --Brilliand (talk) 18:06, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
 * (It's in the "attracting investors" [by saying the company is doing well] category of company promotion, rather than the "attracting customers" [by saying the product is good] category of company promotion.) --Brilliand (talk) 18:12, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
 * See my other comment on the talk page but I'm going to reduce some wall of text into tables to make them more digestible, That will incidentally make it "less impressive." Jasavina (talk) 19:08, 23 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I'm a big fan of this idea - seems to be excessive detail and multiple sources should be needed to expound upon a particular election Superb Owl (talk) 20:30, 23 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Checked up more on the article. It seems like there's a lot of suspicious IP edits from Silver Springs, Maryland (where the FairVote headquarters is located), all connected to FairVote initiatives. Here's an example. Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 23:58, 23 June 2024 (UTC)
 * @Closed Limelike Curves Well that was a big headache, and I still think a lot of the other sections need work, but do you guys think we should remove the undisclosed payments tag to that section, now that I've completely reworked it? Jasavina (talk) 05:23, 4 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes, but given other sections are apparently affected, I’d put one at the top of the page. I think there’s probably bigger fish to fry than this article, though, which is just a list of places IRV has been adopted. Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 15:59, 4 July 2024 (UTC)
 * @Closed Limelike Curves, sorry I went ahead and removed it since I only noticed that one section but flagged some issues in some others, including when FairVote was cited Superb Owl (talk) 16:43, 4 July 2024 (UTC)
 * I applaud the alert editors who noticed possible COI problems with this article, but is the "Undisclosed paid" template accurate? I haven't seen any evidence that anybody was paid for contributing to this article. It appears that RRichie has been paid by FairVote, but was he paid for editing this article? And is there a COI? "Conflict of interest (COI) editing involves contributing to Wikipedia about yourself, family, friends, clients, employers, or your financial and other relationships." I don't think the situation here matches anything listed in the previous sentence. I see RRitchie as a subject matter expert who has a strong opinion on the subject but whose edits generally reflect a neutral POV. I remain in favor of removing the "Undisclosed paid" template. What do other editors think? Thiesen (talk) 04:41, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
 * FairVote was his employer but I am in favor of removing the template unless someone can point to specific problematic edits, and even then, I much prefer a section flag or an in-line flag to clean those up than to also flag the other 94% of the article he hasn't touched (he only authored 6% of the current version)Here are some of the major edits he made: https://xtools.wmcloud.org/topedits/en.wikipedia.org/RRichie/0/Ranked-choice%20voting%20in%20the%20United%20States Superb Owl (talk) 05:03, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
 * RRichie was employed not just at FairVote, but as a lobbyist and campaign advisor on many of these ranked-choice ballot initiatives. In other words, this page is effectively free advertising for him ("look at how successful all of my campaigns have been!"), which covers why this is a substantial COI.
 * More importantly, RRichie was not the only paid contributor here. After checking the IP edits, a large chunk of them come from FairVote's headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland. (Although I'm not sure how substantial these edits are when put together.) A single person working on their own time might be able to make an argument about being a "subject matter expert". However, given there are many contributions, coming from many different IPs and accounts, coming from the FairVote headquarters during working hours, I think it's clear this was a flagrant and intentional violation of Wikipedia's policies on paid editing, likely involving multiple employees making edits on paid company time. Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 18:03, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Can you list the IP addresses here so we can see if they still show up in the authorship statistics? There doesn't appear to be significant authorship by any IP addresses Superb Owl (talk) 18:13, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank you. You have convinced me that there apparently was some paid editing. Like Superb Owl, I would like to know if the posts appearing to come from FairVote, aggregated together, represent major contributions to this article. Thiesen (talk) 22:50, 8 July 2024 (UTC)