Talk:Proxy voting

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Contents 1 Merge with delegated voting? 2 Shareholder voting 3 Reasons why proxy voting is prohibited 4 Proxy voting vs. interactive representation 5 "Liquid Democracy?" 6 UNDUE weight ?

[edit] Merge with delegated voting?

The text says that proxy voting is essentially synonymous with delegated voting, and indeed there appears to be no difference in the meaning based on reading the two entries and on some outside reading. I propose that the current article proxy voting (referring to the participatory/representative hybrid of decision-making) be folded into the delegated voting article. Andropod (talk) 20:21, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

See http://nornia.org/tiki-index.php?page=Nornian+Democracy#Delegated_voting . It would appear in at least one instance that delegated voting refers to a transitive arrangement, which many applications of proxy voting (e.g. in most governmental elections) are not. https://financialcryptography.com/mt/archives/000530.html also mentions the potential to re-delegate. Is this an essential and distinguishing attribute of delegated voting vis-a-vis proxy voting as a whole? Thespian Seagull (talk) 19:18, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Delegated voting is the European name, used by Mikael Nordfors for what has been called, in the U.S., Delegable proxy. Delegable proxy has been deleted quite recently, apparently due to two things: insufficient RS, -- which normally shouldn't be grounds for deletion --, but, more seriously, as a neologism. Delegated voting, however did have more ghits than Delegable proxy. Further, reliable sources was just found, a published paper on delegated voting that is specifically delegable (i.e., is delegable proxy, or what Nordfors meant by delegated voting.) Nordfor's article was also just AfD.

Proxy voting doesn't cover this topic at all, unless something has been recently added. The effects of considering normal proxies as delegable seems to be a very new idea. Technically, standard proxies are delegable, normally. That is, a proxy can delegate the performance of a duty under the proxy to someone else. However, that's a far cry from massively considering proxies as delegable, routinely. Proxy voting is about voting, whereas delegable proxy is about representation, a subtle but important difference. This, of course, would be an argument for maintaining "delegable proxy" as the article; but the current view is that the neologism is not sufficiently established.

In any case, I'm opposed to the merger. There was certainly insufficient consensus expressed here to support it. In the topic of "proxy voting," which is a massive subject, "delegated voting" -- as with Demoex and Nordfor's ideas -- or "delegable proxy" -- as with mine, are blips on the radar, and cannot be adequately treated under that main subject.

I'm beginning to get a sense of a coherent effort to eradicate this concept from Wikipedia. I understood the AfD for Delegable proxy, the proposal WP:PRX called attention to it, and it was weakly sourced. However, Mikael Nordfors shortly followed, likewise Delegated voting is now to be "merged," which pretty much looks like, from the discussion here, to be "obliterated." Normally, with proposals in Wikipedia space, they are marked "Rejected" according to apparent consensus, not deleted. But there was an MfD for WP:PRX, closed as inappropriate by User:Kim Bruning, in spite of many Delete votes, with a Deletion Review -- very unusual for a non-delete close, normally the remedy is renomination -- closed inappropriately by Bruning, in that he was COI having closed the MfD -- but Bruning was right. Another admin closed the MfD as Keep as Rejected, same as Bruning. So, while it is being resisted by some administrators and others, there is the appearance of a strong effort to erase all traces of this idea. It's unfortunate, but the idea does not depend -- at all -- on these articles, and all that is happening is that it will be made more difficult for people who encounter these ideas outside Wikipedia, under whatever name, to find out what they mean. That's Liquid democracy, Delegable proxy, and Delegated voting. Liquid democracy was first created as an article here in 2003, and hit AfD in 2004 [1]. In 2005, as one of my first edits on Wikipedia, without any knowledge of the prior article, I recreated it, and so it sat until this year. I did not edit it again; others did. Later on, I became aware of WP:COI, and decided to consider myself COI, as the founder of the website [2]. However, I have enough distance from the Delegated voting article and what is in it that, absent some specific and clear determination, I'm not COI with it. And so I intend to advocate maintaining Delegated voting as a separate article; within it, as can be properly sourced, information about Liquid democracy and Delegable proxy can be placed. (I would leave that to others.) None of this is sufficiently notable in comparison to standard proxy voting to be covered in the Proxy voting article, in my opinion. But they are sufficiently notable to have an article of their own. (Alternatively, they can be covered in the Proxy voting article, but this could create problems, as have been noted, with undue weight. With a separate article, there can be a very brief mention of them here. --Abd (talk) 22:50, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Hanlon's Razor, my friend. There's no more of a conspiracy to get rid of this than there was to get rid of objection to the consideration of question. I think David Gerard's comment in that AFD was quite apropos and could be said about this as well. Obuibo Mbstpo (talk) 23:11, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

There's no need to spin off what amounts to a very minor – and very rarely-used – twist on the proxy voting concept into a separate article. Discussion of the topic is far better placed here, where it is likely more editors will see it and ensure that it is properly placed in context. I fear that placement in a separate article will lead to 'delegable proxy' becoming a POV fork, edited only by promoters of the concept (since virtually no one else has heard of it).

If a discussion of delegable proxies were to take up a substantial fraction of this article, or if this main article were already an unwieldy size, it might be appropriate to look at splitting off subtopics. At this time, there seems no need to take such steps. I trust that the many editors of this article are capable of keeping an eye on it, and addressing any questions of undue weight should they arise. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 23:31, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Delegated voting is widely-used in the sense that investment managers, for instance, will delegate voting on a proxy to one of their staff members. While your factual knowledge on the question of delegated voting's popularity may have been faulty, we are deeply indebted for your consistent efforts to contribute the fruits of your erudition on delegable proxy-related topics over the past weeks in various Wikipedia processes. It's become apparent that you're obviously much more expert on this subject than Abd and I. And I don't know what we would have done without your hard work to merge the relevant content from delegated voting over to this article. Some people would have just taken the lazy route and thrown #redirect [[proxy voting]] on the delegated voting article and left the rest for someone else to do. Give this guy the barnstar of diligence! Obuibo Mbstpo (talk) 00:09, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

But as you well know, 'delegated voting' is not widely used in the way it was being described in delegated voting—that is, as a novel approach to democratizing political or economic movements and organizations. Indeed, the delegable proxy/delegated voting/liquid democracy/what-have-you concept is only actually in use in a few organizations that have been cited here: an online forum or two; a Swedish municipal fringe political party; a bank that does not yet exist except as a web site. The 'widely-used' sense that you mention now – in the context of an investment manager, for example – is a clear, direct, minor twist on conventional proxy voting, and fits easily within this article.

Care should be taken not to conflate or confuse these two very different meanings of 'delegated voting'. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 01:10, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Isn't this an argument not to merge? If we merge, aren't we "conflat[ing] or confus[ing] these two very different meanings of 'delegated voting'"? --Abd (talk) 04:41, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

(dedent) I reverted the merge, but TenOfAllTrades reverted me,[3] with the summary being: (rv to Lovelac7 - no comments were made on talk per previous revert; several editors agree that this merge is appropriate).

Contrary to this summary, comment was made on Talk above, explaining why I opposed the merge. Proxy voting is a large topic, and proxy voting is in common use, and is often a common law right where property is involved. The kind of delegated voting described in Delegated voting and likewise involved in Delegable proxy and Liquid democracy is a very specific technique, recently developed as far as we know (except for a precursor in the work of Lewis Carroll, in the 1880s) involving more than simple proxy voting, and it is clearly recognizable as distinct. For example, just after the AfD for Delegable proxy went through, Mbstpo found [4], a source apparently meeting WP:RS, which calls it "delegated democracy." From all signs, this is a totally independent invention of the concept, we know of a half-dozen or more.

TenOfAllTrades likewise states that "several editors agree that this merge is appropriate." Well, the original merge tag was placed by TenOfAllTrades on Feb. 29.[5]. A merge had previously been suggested on Talk for Proxy voting on December 26 by Andropod.[6], but he was suggesting a merge into the Delegated voting article, which would have been even less correct. In spite of TenOfAllTrades standard "Discuss" link pointing to Talk:Proxy voting, he did not comment here on the merge. So I was surprised to see the actual merge performed by Lovelac7, today.[7], an editor who has not commented here, before or since, giving us no clue as to the reasons.

Other editors who have participated here are myself, and Mbstpo (prior incarnations of Mbstpo being Thespian Seagull, Sarsaparilla, and Ron Duvall), plus, of course, TenOfAllTrades. TenOfAllTrades has, himself, not actually stated that the merge is appropriate, only that "several editors agree." Weird. I don't even see that TenOfAllTrades argued for the merge, he merely proposed it, based on what we do not know, and no other editor has argued for this merge. So on what basis was it merged, with such a strong "consensus" that TenOfAllTrades would revert my objection? (i.e., my reversion of the Merge as not based on consensus.[8]

It occurs to me that TenOfAllTrades may have read some comments above from Thespian Seagull as supporting the merge. I don't think that was intended. That's Mbstpo, who obliquely hinted that the merge proposal, or the merge itself, was based on ignorance. I'll say it openly. What was called "delegated voting" by Nordfors, and which was the basis of the Delegated voting article, and which is the same as what is in the article cited above on "delegated democracy," is a new concept, not simply Proxy voting. Mbstpo, I'm afraid, said this sarcastically, above. While it is true that standard proxies are delegable, the delegation is close, i.e., an attorney might delegate the signing of a document on behalf of a client to a secretary or other employee. This bears almost no resemblance to the system Nordfors proposed, I proposed, the Common Good Bank proposed, James Armytage-Green proposed, and that many others have proposed as Liquid democracy or under other names. Indeed, it is not in common use. Neither are many other topics on which we have articles. From my point of view, Delegable proxy was of marginal notability. It's being fairly widely discussed, on the internet. The sources involved with Common Good Bank were marginal. It's a real project, it has collected about half the funds needed to start up the actual bank, and it has some third-party notice (investment reviews), which were mentioned in the AfD for Delegable proxy. The published paper on delegated democracy, though, was previously unknown to us. Want to call it "Delegated democracy"? Fine with me. I suppose we'll do it, until some papers are published on "Delegated voting" or "Delegable proxy." --Abd (talk) 04:34, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

The point is that neither definition of delegable proxy requires its own article at this time. In the sense of an investment banker sending his assistant to vote his proxies at an annual shareholders meeting, it's a footnote (conceptually) on the standard concept of proxy voting, and certainly belongs under the roof of this article.

In the sense of 'delegable proxy' as scheme for improving democratic processes, Wikipedia has decided on at least two occasions that the time is not ripe for a separate article, as the concept is rarely discussed and even less frequently implemented. Wikipedia just isn't the place to promote or enact the scheme, being neither soapbox nor experiment in democracy. The community has soundly and emphatically rejected Wikipedia:Delegable proxy as a policy proposal, and has confirmed that 'delegable proxy' under two different names, now, doesn't need an article. First as Liquid Democracy in 2004, then as delegable proxy last month. See

• Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Liquid Democracy
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Delegable proxy

In both cases the community consensus was to delete the articles, not to move them to another title. This is not a problem of semantics, but of a very small group of editors (perhaps as few as two) who would very much like to grant a fringe idea broad exposure through the vehicle of Wikipedia. While I commend them for their enthusiasm and am sympathetic to their goals, that's not what we're here for. Demonstrate notability and significance in the outside world first, then we'll write the article here. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:15, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Actually, as one of that cabal of two (there are other supporters, but no attempt by us, as yet, to connect them), I'll say that there is no idea on my part to promote Delegable Proxy through the Wikipedia articles. We don't need that. People search with Google anyway, andthey'll get plenty of hits, including a fine article by James Armytage-Green. I've concluded that Mbstpo is correct. We don't need a separate article at this time. The merge with this article was suggested in the AfD, So we can simply put what is notable in this article. Have a nice day.--Abd (talk) 16:58, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

(I think it's cool that you uphold Wikipedia principles in spite of your own personal views. In one sense, that's a good thing to do because it prevents edit wars. On the other hand, present consensus is partly determined by the willingness of editors to allow or make deviances from prior decisions. If no one reverts, then for all practical purposes, consensus has changed. However, as I'll expound on later, I think it's too early to be bold about doing that just yet.)

My thought is that WP:PAPER, and therefore we could have tolerated keeping the delegable proxy there, or perhaps at liquid democracy or delegated voting, with the existing sources. Obviously a lot of people have written about it on blogs and such, to the extent that it's probably about as notable and reliably-sourced as the Wyoming Rule, and perhaps more so, with the addition of studies/papers such as http://demoex.net/files/Ottesensuppsats.pdf and http://www.waset.org/ijhss/v1/v1-2-19.pdf . But this is partially an argument from the perspective of WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. I think it's a borderline case, and had there not been all the distraction of WP:PRX and surrounding events, it might have gone a different way. Lesson learned.

Anyway, I think it's best to wait awhile before attempting to break this off into another article, due to the recent AFD. Right now, the only reliably sourced content on delegated voting is a couple paragraphs anyway, so it's not a big deal whether we keep it here or as a stub elsewhere. As long as there is a direct from those other names over to the pertinent section of proxy voting, we should be all right.

Obviously, Wikipedia consensus is shifting toward removal of content that doesn't have sources meeting WP:RS criteria. That probably accounts for the deletion after months or years of it being there. I'm not going to get too bent out of shape over it. Everything has been reposted at Electorama, although it needs to be reformatted, since they don't have the same system of citations. Obuibo Mbstpo (talk) 15:40, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Shareholder voting

I am planning to write an article on shareholder voting, which is widely, if imprecisely, known as proxy voting. (At least the first 50 hits for "proxy voting" on Google are about shareholder voting.) It seems that "proxy voting" should land on a page about shareholder voting and a disambiguation should lead to a page about proxy voting in the sense of delegated voting. Andropod (talk) 20:21, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Reasons why proxy voting is prohibited

Can anyone provide more information on rationales for prohibiting proxy voting? 129.174.54.189 (talk) 22:21, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Proxy voting vs. interactive representation

I added to the article:

In 1912, the People's Power League proposed an amendment to the Oregon Constitution to allow each legislator to cast a number of votes equal to the number of votes he received in the last election. Thus, a legislator who received 25,000 votes would have had more voting power than two legislators who received 12,000 votes apiece. A majority of all the votes cast at the preceding election would have been required to pass a law. This proposal would have abolished the Oregon Senate and placed the state's legislative power in a single assembly of sixty members serving four-year terms. The Governor of Oregon and his defeated rivals would have been ex officio members of the Assembly representing voters whose candidate was defeated. If a Socialist legislative candidate were defeated, for instance, then the votes of his supporters would have been cast in the Assembly by the Socialist candidate for Governor.^[1]

Is this really a form of proxy voting, or could this better be described as interactive representation? (See Bill Redpath's description of the latter at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/liveonline/01/metro/metro_redpath101201.htm ) Ron Duvall (talk) 23:45, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "Liquid Democracy?"

Should there be some mention of the thoughts behind "liquid democracy" as it relates to proxy voting? Liquid Democracy redirects here, and in quotations (as liquid democracy occurring together) it gets over one thousands hits on google. I think the word should at least be mentioned in the article as another term that has gained current use. Nagelfar (talk) 06:22, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

What is the difference between liquid democracy and delegated voting? --Explodicle (talk) 15:44, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

They are one and the same. Chin Chill-A Eat Mor Rodents (talk) 23:34, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] UNDUE weight ?

Does this article give UNDUE weight to Riddick? There are many other parliamentary and organizational behaviorist sources that have commentary on best practices for proxy voting. -- Low Sea (talk) 16:12, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, there are several similar sources already cited, and they all pretty much say the same thing anyway, in reference to the general concepts of proxy voting (i.e. only use it in corporations). As to procedure, most of them don't go into it in depth, with the exceptions of Demeter's Manual and Henry M. Robert's Parliamentary Law. Chin Chill-A Eat Mor Rodents (talk) 16:48, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

The Riddick information (all if not almost all) was added by a currently banned user operating under different sockpuppets (and apparently still operating that way <smile>.) The information provided is mostly, if not all correct, but it is from Riddick's popular book and not from Riddick's more extensive and formal congressional works. I think your question about undue weight is valid, at least in the current state of the article.

A larger issues is that the use of proxies with parliamentary procedure in deliberative assemblies is discouraged (sometimes very strongly) when its use conflicts with the deliberative nature of such meetings. [just as Chin Chill-A Eat Mor...'s comment about corporations suggests -- by-the-way some people show great creativity with their Wiki names <still smiling>]. Rather than sprinkle citations from parliamentary authorities throughout the article (which implies that proxy voting is supported by parliamentary authorities), it would be better to have a section on proxy voting as applied in parliamentary procedure and let Riddick and others rule there. That would provide a more balanced and valuable addition to the article. I had not started that edit here as I had been leaning towards creating an article on proxies and parliamentary procedure as part of the WikiProject Parliamentary Procedure. That (future) article would complement this article and could be crossed reference, but it would be focused on parliamentary procedure. ~ Parlirules (talk) 18:09, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Interesting, I hadn't thought of splitting them into separate articles. The way I see it, we have (A) proxy voting in parliamentary procedure, which includes its use by legislators (e.g. members of Parliament of certain countries who are excused from attendance) and the occasional (discouraged) use by private organizations. Then we have (B) proxy voting in the corporate world, which is really a whole separate animal because of all the different regulations and procedures involved when you're dealing with stock ownership. And then we have (C) proxy voting by the electorate of countries. E.g., in the UK, a lot of jurisdictions allow citizens to designate a proxy to cast their vote for their elected officials. And somewhere, delegated voting/liquid democracy needs to fit in. Perhaps it would remain in the main proxy voting article. Chin Chill-A Eat Mor Rodents (talk) 18:35, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I certainly appreciate your energy in editing, Mr. Chinchilla! -- but I am motivated to provide some feedback because I still experience an underlying bias/POV in this article even after your recent edits. It is not that I disagree with that POV but I have a difficulty finding credibiity in the current presentation of the material. Here are a few of my concerns in the misnamed "Nonprofit organization setting" section: unsupported assumptions--"who is basically the same as a proxy"; the reference to missing three meetings doesn't make sense in this context; quoted material supporting using proxies in stock corporations should come from reference material concerned with stock corportions, not parliamentary books that are making the arguments against proxies and are not presenting themselves as an authority on stock corportions; and using one person's musings on a blob, "some people favor requiring members...." as a supporting reference is, well, just plain weak. It also doesn't help that most of this material is from one person writing under mulitple user names across numerous editing sessions. [Yes, I understand the rationalization of why that is being done, but it has the (unintended?) side effect of making it appear that multiple editors of this article have the same viewpoint.] I think a major rewrite is still needed. (I might try but not at this moment.) ~ Parlirules (talk) 21:15, 28 April 2008 (UTC)