Talk:Later-no-harm criterion

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This article needs serious revision

I added "Multiple Issues" for a reason

this article, among many other "voting system" (to use the native term) related articles on Wikipedia, have been written by amateurs with a very poor understanding of social choice theory.

I understand you think I just have an agenda, or am trying to insult the author. I am not trying to insult the author. It's simply a fact that this article does not meet the quality standards for wikipedia. Affinepplan (talk) 04:11, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

I think I agree with this (would not go as far as saying "very poor understanding of social choice theory" though). However, a lot of articles seem to be riddled with citations to not really reasonable articles or websites, or people trying to insert their ``favourite" voting rules/criticism of their least ``favourite" voting rule and not very scientific language. Jannikp97 (talk) 16:00, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

I'm happy to help add better citations, and I think the article could be improved for sure. I'm currently writing a fuller article on center-squeeze, which should have better citations for a lot of these claims, at which point I can copy them here. –Sincerely, A Lime 01:30, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

stop undoing the changes. Jannikp97 is a professional social choice researchers and helped correct the article a bit as a courtesy. your writing is less accurate and less relevant to the subject. 47.230.61.20 (talk) 01:44, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

wikipedia articles are not a place to soap-box about your personal opinions on various algorithmic mechanisms Affinepplan (talk) 01:46, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

Hi Lime,

even though I sometimes disagree with things you write, you were not meant with that criticism :) Jannikp97 (talk) 07:36, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

Edit war

Hi everyone,

I am just writing this to let editors know that edit warring is strictly against Wikipedia policy as it is unconstructive and goes against the five pillars of Wikipedia. Any contentious material must not be added without reliable citations. I am going to revert this page back to the last good revision before this edit war took place. Engaging in edit warring can lead to sanctions being imposed by community consensus including topic bans and blocks. In future, adding to or removing information from articles that might be classified as contentious should be discussed on the article's talk page first. Aydoh8 (talk | contribs) 03:55, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

Remove politically-motivated and untechnical commentary

this passage in the introduction

Voting systems that fail the later-no-harm criterion can sometimes be vulnerable to the tactical voting strategies called bullet voting and burying, which can deny victory to a sincere Condorcet winner. However, both strategies can also be successful in criteria that pass later-no-harm (including instant runoff voting), and cardinal voting systems seem to be more resistant to these strategies in practice. Moreover, the fact that all cardinal voting methods can fail the later-no-harm criterion in theory is essential to their favoring consensus options (broad, moderate support) over pluralitarian options (narrow, strong support); voting systems that pass later-no-harm are unable to consider weak (secondary) preferences when evaluating candidates. As a result, many social choice theorists question whether the criterion is even desirable in the first place

does not meet Wikipedia quality standards. It is

• imprecise --- this is a technical article! but the language here is not at all technical
• politically motivated --- presumably the author is a "cardinal voting advocate" who wishes to push rhetoric favoring "broad moderate support"
• off-topic --- even if true (which it's not), this kind of content would belong on a page for `Bullet Voting Strategy` or `Voting Rule Philosophy` or others
• lacks appropriate citations --- the links here are to political organizations' commentaries about their political rivals. which is quite clearly inappropriate for a technical article
• makes vague appeals to unspecific "social choice theorists." as someone who frequents a lot of fora on voting rules and election reform, I can say with near-certainty that the "theorists" the author had in mind when writing this are a community of politically-motivated amateurs with zero formal academic training in the field

Affinepplan (talk) 13:14, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

@Ayodoh8 I think it doesn't take much speculation to say that @Closed Limelike Curves are not going to reach consensus here. so what happens next, is there a vote or something? who has the final say as to whether this misinformation gets to remain in the article? Affinepplan (talk) 13:16, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

> Any contentious material must not be added without reliable citations. I am going to revert this page back to the last good revision

this material is already in the article. the revision you reverted back to REINSTATED this contentious material after my removal Affinepplan (talk) 13:56, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

@Closed Limelike Curves what's the plan here? I was told changes must be discussed on the Talk page before being made. This is that.

Absent a response, I plan to re-remove the offending section on Wednesday, May 15 Affinepplan (talk) 13:07, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Affinepplan. The concerns you just raised had been addressed in other edits, which you preceded to revert. Notably:

1. The citation for later-no-harm is referring to Michael Dummett (who is quoted later in the article). This had been properly cited prior to your reversions.
2. No partisan or political organizations are quoted here from what I can tell. However, prior to your reversions, the claims had been properly cited with a reference to a paper by Douglass Woodall (of the ERS, a pro-STV advocacy group), who noted objections from peer-reviewers to the property.
3. The description of how LNH systems tend to by further describing that the text to was referring to center-squeeze effects (which I'm in the process of writing a further article on).

   Later-no-harm systems are unable to consider weak (secondary) preferences when comparing candidates early on, leading to a phenomenon called center squeeze.

4. Prior to your reversions, the claim about approval's greater bullet-voting resistance had been removed (as it appears likely to be incorrect). However, the claim that LNH does not prevent bullet voting is correctly sourced, relevant (addresses a common misconception about LNH), and makes a mathematically-verifiable claim that any reader can verify by reading the example given in the citation.

However, I agree this content could be made more precise with a description of how later-no-harm is incompatible with the median voter property.

–Sincerely, A Lime 16:08, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

@Aydoh8 given the concerns raised here were addressed by my later edits, I'd like to request a revert to this version. –Sincerely, A Lime 16:25, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

my concerns were absolutely not addressed. this version still contains a reference to https://electionscience.org/library/later-no-harm-criterion/ which is politically motivated, and this version inappropriate describes CES as "social choice theorists." similarly the Graham-Squire and McCune paper cited, while a good academic citation in isolation, does not support the statement in the passage.

all the commentary about "tend to favor consensus options (broad, moderate support) over pluralitarian ones (narrow, strong support)" repeated multiple times is common amateur rhetoric in this space. Even if there are seeds of truth in it, it needs to be stated much more formally to be appropriate for a technical article. Otherwise it is just lazy speculation. Affinepplan (talk) 16:33, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

G-S and McCune state:

Truncation Paradox: An election demonstrates a truncation paradox if there exists a set of voters such that the voters could create a more desirable electoral outcome by ranking fewer candidates on their ballots; i.e., when these voters express less information on their ballots then a candidate whom they prefer more wins the election than if the voters expressed more information. The most extreme version of this paradox is a no-show paradox, which occurs when there exists a set of voters such that removing their ballots from the election creates a more desirable electoral outcome for those voters (removing the ballots altogether is the most extreme form of ballot truncation).

If you think the commentary needs to be made more rigorous, I'll make sure to improve it after restoring it. Thanks! –Sincerely, A Lime 23:43, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

that quote from G-S and McCune is just a random definition? I don't see at all how it's relevant to this discussion Affinepplan (talk) 02:11, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

It's listed under problems of instant-runoff, which is an LNH system. Graham-Squire and McCune also show that such a scenario, where full-truncation is incentivized, occurred in Alaska in 2022. –Sincerely, A Lime 02:54, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

yeah I'm familiar with the Truncation paradox, and I'm familiar with the Alaskan special election. what I'm saying is that this not any kind of proof of, nor has much relevance to, the claim in the article:

> "tend to favor consensus options (broad, moderate support) over pluralitarian ones (narrow, strong support)"

at absolute best it's a single anecdote. Wikipedia should not be making broad speculative statements like this until more conclusive research has been provided?

I repeat: this claim is politically motivated and often-repeated by those who want to see various "cardinal voting systems" enacted. Affinepplan (talk) 02:59, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

McCune and Graham-Squire is cited in support of the statement that LNH does not imply resistance to truncation and bullet-voting. I believe this provides sufficient attestation for the statement.

The new version should contain more than enough sources to verify the statement that later-no-harm systems tend to elect candidates further from the median voter. –Sincerely, A Lime 03:07, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

> the new version should contain more than enough sources to verify the statement

these are conclusions drawn from Monte-Carlo simulations. surely a reader might presume that such statements are founded on actual observed behavior and real research? Also

also CES is still being listed as a "Social Choice Theorist," which they are not

these quotes you have added STILL do not substantiate the statement. they only serve to describe the Center Squeeze effect. but the mere possibility of this phenomenon does not support the existence of bias as described in

> This tends to favor candidates with strong (but narrow) support over candidates closer to the center of public opinion

moreover, I have no doubt I could equally many (or likely more) articles commenting on how IRV finds "compromise" candidates. thus as worded this article violates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view

moreover, I won't be finding the above, because whether or not there is bias towards the median voter, or squeezes are frequent, or whatever, it is not relevant to a technical article on Later No Harm! It is just soap-boxing about subjective philosophy of election rules and has no place in this article!

I did not consent to your revisions, and I thought the point of this talk page was to find consensus. so I will be reverting them. Affinepplan (talk) 03:20, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

actually, I'll just reinstate the "issues" tag. it looks like you made multiple revisions and I don't know how to roll back to the version this morning. I don't want to just "undo" them all as apparently that goes against the Wikipedia code of conduct. Affinepplan (talk) 03:24, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

as I said before, I find it highly unlikely that @Closed Limelike Curves and I will come to "consensus" via this Talk page. Who or what process has the final authority to resolve disputes like this? Not all differences can be talked through. Affinepplan (talk) 16:35, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

The final authority is WP:Consensus. –Sincerely, A Lime 23:25, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

?

that can't be right. what if someone decides to just never consent to any edit on any page?

I didn't consent to the original writing contained in this article; why should there be a higher standard for edits than for original content? Affinepplan (talk) 02:10, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

Please read WP:Consensus. –Sincerely, A Lime 02:54, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

Stop Removing the Multiple Issues Labels Without Addressing Issues

@Closed Limelike Curves I see you have once again removed my `Multiple Issues` tag and edited the article to your liking. I have stated multiple times that I do not find the writing appropriately technical, accurate, unbiased, free of political motivation, and well-cited to be suitable for Wikipedia.

Making these edits without resolving this issues on the Talk Page is what I've been informed is the process on Wikipedia, and it appears you are violating that policy.

@EdJohnston could you possibly restore the "multiple issues" tag removed in the latest edit, and lock this page from changes from @Closed Limelike Curves until the editing dispute is resolved? Affinepplan (talk) 16:36, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

The tag "Multiple issues" expresses the view of one editor, that is, yourself. Do you think anyone besides yourself favors it being restoredl? In any case it is not an issue for admins. EdJohnston (talk) 16:46, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

let's ask @Jannikp97 if he endorses the restoration of the Multiple Issues tag; I trust his verdict on the question as unlike myself and unlike @Closed Limelike Curves, he is a trained professional on this subject.

I understand the contents of the article are not an admin question, but I was under the impression that no further edits should be made while the contents were disputed on this talk page. Nonetheless, @Closed Limelike Curves continued to make further edits beginning at 02:40 on May 11 after the article was locked per the edit war. Wishing not to continue to violate the policy (and frankly, being exhausted), I was satisfied with just adding the `Multiple Issues` tag and leaving it alone. But then @Closed Limelike Curves has returned later to remove this tag and make yet more edits. In that context, shouldn't the state of the article be reverted to the last revision by @Aydoh8 ?

I'm obviously very new in trying to edit Wikipedia, but in general terms, I'm extremely disappointed in how difficult and bureaucratic it is to remove misinformation, but how seemingly trivial it is to add it. This type of content comes from an amateur community of election reform enthusiasts with very little academic training and with very strongly-worded but misinformed opinions. Most of their content remains confined on https://electowiki.org/ , but as in the case with this article and a few others, some of the content has leaked onto English Wikipedia. Affinepplan (talk) 17:02, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

I don't believe any other editors think the article needs to be tagged with multiple issues, but if any editors with experience on Wikipedia would like to add the tag back, I'd be happy to add it back. Right now I'm seeing a request from one particular user who created a brand-new account, immediately jumped into an edit war, and then had to be warned for violating WP:SOCK. –Sincerely, A Lime 19:51, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

> Right now I'm seeing a request from one particular user who created a brand-new account, immediately jumped into an edit war, and then had to be warned for violating WP:SOCK.

this comment is rude and completely irrelevant to the issue at hand, which is the quality and accuracy of the content of the article. Affinepplan (talk) 20:07, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

@Affinepplan I did not intend to be rude or disparaging when I made my previous comments, and I apologize if you felt like they were hostile. However, the limited focus on one article, use of IP edits, persistence over several weeks, and threats are not usually good signs in new editors. It's possible we've made a mistake in identifying these as signs of potential problematic behavior, that these are honest mistakes, or that these are simply part of your learning process as a new editor on Wikipedia. If so, and you'd like to continue helping us build an encyclopedia, I would suggest working on making substantial constructive edits to other parts of Wikipedia, which will help you build a reputation for high-quality editing. You can also sign up for a WP:MENTOR if you'd like help learning how to handle this. –Sincerely, A Lime 22:10, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

> Tendentious editing is a pattern of editing that is partisan, biased, skewed, and does not maintain an editorially neutral point of view

This is exactly the content I am trying to remove, that you keep adding.

I'm focusing on one article because it's the first edit I tried to make... apparently it's bureaucratically impossible to correct things, so why should I take up the challenge of arguing with multiple people on multiple articles when I can't even resolve one singular edit.

again, your comments are condescending and have nothing to do with the content you've edited into this article, which as I've repeated multiple times, attempted to add issue tags for, and not seen any appropriate citations to the contrary for, is vague, unacademic and politically motivated. Affinepplan (talk) 13:12, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

@Closed Limelike Curves please revert your edits or, as before, I will be referring the matter to the administrative notice board for violation of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Consensus Affinepplan (talk) 20:10, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

PROPOSAL: Remove Monotonicity Failure Example in LNH Article

I propose removing the example given below because it is an example of a Monotonicity criterion failure, not Later-No-Harm:

"For example, say a group of voters ranks Alice 2^nd and Bob 6^th, and Alice wins the election. In the next election, Bob focuses on expanding his appeal with this group of voters, but does not manage to defeat Alice—Bob's rating increases from 6^th-place to 3^rd. Later-no-harm says that this increased support from Alice's voters should not allow Bob to win."

Filingpro (talk) 19:28, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

PROPOSAL: Revert LNH Definition to 2020 Version

I propose reverting the definition of LNH, at the opening of the article, to the text below, for reasons listed further below:

The later-no-harm criterion is a voting system criterion formulated by Douglas Woodall. The criterion is satisfied if, in any election, a voter giving an additional ranking or positive rating to a less-preferred candidate can not cause a more-preferred candidate to lose.

Existing text:

Later-no-harm is a property of some ranked-choice voting systems, first described by Douglas Woodall. In later-no-harm systems, increasing the rating or rank of a candidate ranked below the winner of an election cannot cause this higher-ranked candidate to lose.

REASONS:

1. Not satisfying (i.e. failing) Later-No-Harm is just as much a property as satisfying.
2. We have consistently applied LNH to cardinal systems, in our existing article, as do cardinal system advocates here: see for Center For Election Science and STAR Voting.
3. LNH is categorically not about "increasing" a rating or rank, but "adding" as specified in Woodall's definition.
4. "Adding" a ranking requires a subject, namely, a voter.

Filingpro (talk) 20:45, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

If you haven't already done so, I'd say go on ahead. 180 Degree Open Angedre (talk) 15:22, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

RfC: Should this sentence be in the article?

This tends to favor candidates with strong (but narrow) support over candidates closer to the center of public opinion, which can lead to a phenomenon known as center-squeeze. Rated and Condorcet methods, by contrast, tend to select candidates whose ideology is a closer match to that of the median voter. This has led many social choice theorists to question whether the property is desirable in the first place or should instead be seen as a negative property.

I am not familiar with voting literature, but this looks well-sourced and fine to me. @Affinepplan: what is the basis for your removing this? jp×g🗯️ 16:17, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

it should not be in the article. the Woodall and the Hillinger citations do not contain any conclusions matching the text, so these are WP:Fictitious references. The only one plausibly relevant is the Merrill paper, but this is not strong enough analysis to support a statement like this as being any kind of unconditional scientific consensus.

That paper is based entirely on Monte-Carlo simulations of a simplified statistical culture, and does not contain any empirical outcome data of real elections whatsoever.

And furthermore the text "many social choice theorists to question whether the property is desirable in the first place" appears to be referring to the post by Center for Election Science, but contrary to the organization name CES are mostly not "theorists" and instead are mostly amateur volunteers. Affinepplan (talk) 18:46, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

I plan to remove this again in 3 days time if you or another author are not able to make this appropriately neutral and remove OR and add legitimate citations. Affinepplan (talk) 21:49, 28 November 2024 (UTC)