Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Satisfaction approval voting


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus. Davewild (talk) 14:37, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Satisfaction approval voting

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Delete. Original research. This article can come back when this method has actually been adopted somewhere or been published in a peer-reviewed journal. Markus Schulze 06:53, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Keep. This article has references, and while they may not be from a peer reviewed journal, they are from reputable sources (New York University and the University of Valladolid). As such this is not 'original research'. The requirement for peer reviewed references seems a somewhat high bar that is not required for many other topics, and does not seem relevant in this case, as no statements requiring of peer review (mathematical conclusions or assertions regarding the method's efficacy or fairness) have been made, simply a rather easily verifiable point about being able to add up the results easily. Felixaldonso (talk) 10:09, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Also, after a brief search, these may in fact be peer reviewed papers (not sure how to verify that, or where you would want to see the references in the article, but hopefully this should demonstrate that the method is worthy of an article):
 * http://arxiv.org/abs/1407.8269
 * S. J. Brams, D. M. Kilgour, and M. R. Sanver. Mathematics and democracy: Designing better voting and fair-division procedures. In How to elect a representative committee using approval balloting, pages 83--96. Springer, 2006.
 * S. J. Brams and D. M. Kilgour. Satisfaction approval voting. In Voting Power and Procedures, Studies in Choice and Welfare, pages 323--346. Springer, 2014.

Felixaldonso (talk) 10:26, 18 June 2015 (UTC)


 * The second paper doesn't mention satisfaction approval voting. Markus Schulze 11:18, 18 June 2015 (UTC)


 * A fair point, and well made. The other two articles however do, which I think is still more than sufficient. Felixaldonso (talk) 11:40, 18 June 2015 (UTC)


 * I don't think it's clear that the articles are talking about this specific SAV. Kitfoxxe (talk) 14:51, 18 June 2015 (UTC)


 * I am not sure how you have reached this conclusion - the arxiv paper specifically references 'Brams & Kilgour, 2014', and the other paper is written by Brams and Kilgour, so I find it highly unlikely that they would have defined two separate systems and chosen to refer to them by the same name. In addition, the definition sum(|W∩Ai| / |Ai|) in the arxiv paper is fairly unambiguously the definition "sum over all voters of voter's successful candidates over total votes cast by voter". Perhaps the article could be edited to make this clearer, but this is an argument for improvement not deletion. Felixaldonso (talk) 16:33, 18 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Delete It was hard to decide. The article is certainly reasonable, but it is really about a proposed idea and I don't think that meets WP standards for notability.  Not exactly "made up in a day" since it must have taken longer and the people who made it up have some qualifications.  Another clue for me is that it seems like no one has published any objections to it.Kitfoxxe (talk) 14:46, 18 June 2015 (UTC)


 * As one of only about 3 (that I am aware of) multiple-winner cardinal voting systems, I would say that it is fairly notable. Especially when compared with the sheer number of condorcet voting methods that have an article such as Dodgson's method.  Ultimately, this is not an article giving a D-list celebrity an ego boost - it is a serious article about an interesting, mathematically grounded proposal, with references to respected academics.  Its presence on Wikipedia is not (unlike a D-list celebrity promotion piece) going to bring Wikipedia into ill repute, and so the relentless drive to cull it may be somewhat misplaced. I would also like to add that I have no relation to Brams, Kilgour et al, and have no particular vested interest in this particular system - it just seems an omission from Wikipedia to have such thorough coverage of so many fairly niche voting methods, but to not include this rather unusual one. Felixaldonso (talk) 16:33, 18 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 15:52, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Social science-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 15:52, 18 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Keep. While the first three references are primary sources, the last two are secondary sources comparing various voting systems. The editor doesn't know how to format references with links to the published versions, but that doesn't matter in evaluating the article. The comments at the deletion discussion for a related article, Articles for deletion/Proportional approval voting (3rd nomination), are also relevant here. StarryGrandma (talk) 20:16, 19 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Comment. I criticize that this article contains undefined euphemisms ("satisfaction"), weasel words ("SAV aims to maximise the electorate's satisfaction.") and sentences that make absolutely no sense ("A voter's satisfaction gained for each elected candidate is independent of how many of their choices have been elected, making satisfaction additive."). Every election method tries to "maximise the electorate's satisfaction"; they only differ in how they determine the maximum satisfaction. The proposed method is a trivial modification of approval voting without any theoretic justification. Markus Schulze 14:47, 23 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Comment I'm not sure how 'satisfaction' can be as an 'undefined euphemism' given that it's defined in the article ("satisfaction ... is equal to 1/n where n is..."). Your criticisms of the method and it's name may well be correct, but are irrelevant to whether it should be deleted under WP:N. FPTP is a terrible voting system, but that doesn't stop it being notable :). As for that sentence, it's not best phrased but the meaning seems obvious enough (it's saying that under that definition of satisfaction, if two of your choices are elected (i.e. in a multi-winner election) you get twice as much satisfaction as if one was) -- I'm sure you could phrase it better, so go ahead. -- simxp (talk) 20:01, 23 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Comment. Well, in this article on elections in Nauru a similar election method is described without the need of euphemisms. At least, the term "satisfaction" should be replace by "points" in the satisfaction approval voting article. Markus Schulze 20:16, 23 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Comment If the word used in the literature is "satisfaction", then we should use "satisfaction". It is not a weasel word or euphemism in this context since it is well defined. A bit like how "monster" is not pejorative when talking about the monster group. In that context, "maximizing electorat satisfaction" is just like saying "maximizing f(x)" when you have defined a function f. "Independent" in the sentence you quote is in a very standard mathematical sense of "does not affect", and additive is totally clear in that context. Sure, you may disagree with the notation or terminology. I personally find using kernel for a function to integrate against, or in the context of an OS downright misleading, but it doesn't mean I get to go change it on Wikipedia. Happy Squirrel (talk) 02:35, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, slakr  \ talk / 07:53, 28 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Keep The method has been the subject of some papers, not all by the people who thought of it. Seems like a well-written, if short article. The references currently in the article are not peer-rviewed per say, but Springer is a very respected publisher and conference proceedings from reputable conferences are also pretty good sources in math. Happy Squirrel (talk) 19:41, 2 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Delete It is not getting much attention in US national news or magazines although it seems like a great idea for our dysfunctional democracy. Article is well-written, nice diagrams, wonder if material could be kept in another article on voting methods, such as Approval voting (Brams is covered rather extensively there). If and when this topic gets coverage, we should bring it back, but until then it looks like original research unfortunately.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 23:56, 3 July 2015 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.