Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Simple majority 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 Redirected to Plurality voting system. Non-admin closure. --Blanchardb- Me MyEars MyMouth -timed 23:54, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Simple majority voting

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Nonsense. Original research. May's theorem doesn't say that the plurality method was the unique form of voting that satisfies certain conditions. May's theorem rather says that when there are only two options then the plurality method is the unique form of voting with certain conditions. Thus May's theorem is not about a concrete voting method; it is about a concept of majority.

POV. This article contains too many weasel words ("straightforward form of voting", "intuitively the most obvious example of democratic procedures"). Many parts of this article are complete nonsense. For example:


 * Manipulability by voters is as such unobservable, but doesn't constitute a problem with simple majority voting, since in a two option case, it is impossible to manipulate the result by voting strategically. May states that, since group choice must depend only upon individual preferences concerning the alternatives in a set, a pattern of group choice may be built up if we know the group preference for each pair of alternatives. However, manipulability in a more options case is not as simple as it sounds.

So the author claims that, as the plurality method is strategy-proof in the two-option case, manipulation of the plurality method is also difficult in the multi-option case. This is complete nonsense as almost every voting method is identical to the plurality method in the two-option case. Therefore, the claim that May's theorem supports the plurality method is nonsense (original research at best). Yellowbeard (talk) 11:31, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Please read our Deletion policy. If an article is non-neutral or contains original research, then you should edit it, sources in hand, to make it verifiable, neutral, and free from original research.  Deletion is only the option when no sources exist for doing this.  Given that a quick Google Books search turns up over 100 books that discuss simple majority voting, including game theoretic analyses of it, it is clear that this article can be cleaned up.  Both the sources and the talk page comment from 2004 state that this is simply another name for the plurality voting system.  So how to clean the article up, per our deletion policy, seems pretty clear.  AFD is not cleanup. Uncle G (talk) 13:19, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Dear Uncle G, you wrote: "Given that a quick Google Books search turns up over 100 books that discuss simple majority voting, including game theoretic analyses of it, it is clear that this article can be cleaned up." As we already have articles on May's theorem and on the plurality voting system, there is no need to clean up this article. I don't question the notability of May's theorem or the plurality voting system. However, the sole purpose of this article is to spread the claim that May's theorem said that the plurality voting system was the best single-winner voting system. This claim is original research. If we remove this claim from the "simple majority voting" article then this article doesn't contain anything that isn't already included in the articles on May's theorem and the plurality voting system. So the contents of this article should be deleted and then this article should be changed into a redirect to the "plurality voting system" article. Yellowbeard (talk) 13:47, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Deletion is not required. You have all of the tools necessary to do the things that you say you want to do.  Once again: AFD is not cleanup.  Please read our deletion policy, as I've already asked you to do.  Furthermore:  Merger and redirection do not involve AFD, deletion, or the use of administrator tools, at any stage. Uncle G (talk) 14:00, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Okay. I have replaced the "simple majority voting" article by a redirect to the "plurality voting system" article as nothing in this article could be kept. Yellowbeard (talk) 14:58, 11 December 2007 (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.