Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Majority alternative

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 Merge to Condorcet criterion and keep as a redirect. Note that this is a special form of "keep". Note also that merges and redirects are editorial matters, an AfD may recommend but not mandate them, and future editors may undo them or move the redirect elsewhere (although consensus should usually be sought first, as the AfD indicates a degree of consensus for the merge and redirect. In this particular case some of the key information is unsourced and may be OR, so I will be placing it on Talk:Condorcet criterion so that it may be incorporated when and if sourced. DES ^(talk) 20:49, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Majority alternative

Majority alternative (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

Delete. This article is superfluous and misleading.

This article is superfluous, because the term "majority alternative" is only a new term for "Condorcet winner". But Wikipedia already has articles on the Condorcet criterion and on Condorcet methods. (Wikipedia also has an article on Condorcet winners, but that article is only a redirect to the Condorcet criterion.)

This article is misleading. The article says: "An alternative (e.g. a candidate) which, if compared with each of the other alternatives, in each case is preferred by a majority of voters is called the majority alternative (or majority winner)." Therefore, it seems that the sole purpose of this article is to establish the term "majority winner" for "Condorcet winner". This is a violation of WP:OR, WP:POV, and WP:NEO. Yellowbeard 13:23, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

• Redirect to Condorcet criterion. Possibly a candidate for traswiki to Wiktionary but would need a re-write first. CitiCat 13:41, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

The term "majority winner" usually refers to the majority criterion rather than to the Condorcet criterion. Therefore, I would prefer a redirect to the majority criterion. Yellowbeard 21:12, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

• The article is not superfluous because it poses other questions and delivers other - quite interesting - results.

Whereas "condorcet criterion" deals with the problem of aggregating individual preferences, "majority alternative" argues with a - still very simple - model of the real voting process, including for instance assumptions about voters' behaviour as maximizing their utilities.

If one would merge both articles, for the reader it would be difficult to grasp the fact, that both approaches answer quite different questions.

Eberhard Wesche 15:51, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

This article doesn't contain anything that cannot be incorporated into the Condorcet criterion article. I guess that there are millions of possible motivations / heuristics / interpretations / approaches for the Condorcet criterion; but I don't think that each of them needs its own Wikipedia article. Yellowbeard 21:12, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

• Delete. This article seems to be trying to make a point that might be valid, but the wording is unclear, ambiguous, and abstract, and the article introduces what appears to be an unneeded theorem. I'm in favor of eliminating the article and hoping that the contributor can add to either of the Condorcet articles a better-worded paragraph that clarifies the point. VoteFair 19:12, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

• Could you please tell me which words are unclear and ambiguous? You say that the theorem is unneeded. In my opinion it shows, that some elaborated methods of voting are unneeded, when - if combined strategic voting is possible - they all have the same outcome: the majority alternative as the only point of stable equilibrium in the cooperative game of voting according to majority rule.Eberhard Wesche 22:00, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

• Redirect and merge The article contains some new information that is not in the Condorcet criterion article. The idea about coalitions, for example. Redirect to Condorcet criterion and integrate the information. doxTxob \ ^talk 00:29, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I propose to create a new article „Condorcet winner“ and to have a Redirect to it from „majority alternative“ (or vice versa).

A merging of “majority alternative” with the existing “Condorcet criterion” or “Condorcet method” is not recommended as shown by the following example.

In “Condorcet criterion” plurality voting is classified as not complying with the Condorcet criterion.

In contrast to this, the outcome of plurality voting is an existing Condorcet winner, when coalitions are allowed and each voter acts rationally. Eberhard Wesche 08:08, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

So you say that plurality voting always chooses the Condorcet winner "when coalitions are allowed and each voter acts rationally". Even if your assertion was true, it can be incorporated into the Condorcet criterion article or the Condorcet method article and doesn't need its own Wikipedia article. Yellowbeard 09:54, 14 June 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.