Talk:Instant-runoff voting

Comment on POV tag removal

I'm using a Palm to write this, and if I attempt to edit the article, large chunks of text could disappear. But I can add new sections like this. The POV tag should remain. POV and political purpose are woven through the article in sometimes subtle ways. The very name IRV was a political device. By labelling a series of methods (forms of preferential voting with sometimes very substantial and significant differences in details), it can be claimed that, say, Robert's Rules describes "IRV" when, in fact, what is being proposed in many places is importantly different from what RR describes. *If* bylaws permit plurality victories -- which RR dislikes -- then, yes, what is described is "IRV," as it was described in the article.

The "Con" argument about negative campaigning has been put in this article -- with source! -- and deleted many times, by Rob Richie and by the sock puppets. We should, indeed, review the whole procedure for dealing with arguments, but the section is worded such that the needed level of proof is low, and, I would argue that the testimony of any editor that an argument is actually being made is prima facie evidence that it's being made, unless this is controverted. This, in fact, could be established as a general principle for "arguments." Yes, it is better if there are references. Similarly, the Pro argument about campaign expenses, I think I have seen. I think it's false and even silly, but ... if it is being made, it should be there. So it would reduce, in this case, to "who says so?" For simplicity, in this section, we are, I suggest, allowing arguments any of us recognize as actually being made to remain.

I'd recommend that Captain Zyrain study the history of this article and Talk on it to see what has been discussed. There has been specific discussion of the Con argument negating the "negative campaign" Pro argument. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Abd (talk • contribs) 14:32, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Verifiability says that unsourced information can be dealt with by deleting it or by adding the "fact" template. I probably am a little too impatient about giving people time to find sources for information they add. On the other hand, I think that this article is so susceptible to edit wars and challenges of the veracity of information that we should pretty much cite sources for everything at this point, preferably using the ref template, and using hidden comments if nothing else. (Hidden comments are the icon fourth from the right on that little toolbar that shows up when you're editing a page.) Plus I have nominated this article for peer review, as a prelude to a featured article nomination, and since we are entering that process I think we should raise the bar a bit, relative to how we would treat other articles. Once it gets posted to Wikipedia:Featured article candidates, reviewers will start nailing us on verifiability if that's a weak point. See Wikipedia:Featured article criteria. Captain Zyrain 16:04, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

You're welcome to dig through the history and find the sourced Con argument; I just didn't feel like doing it, partly because I'm not familiar with the history of this article and wouldn't know where to look in those ~1,500 edits. Captain Zyrain 18:10, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

The history I was referring to was Talk, and it was recent. And the word Con or the words Pro and Con is in the section title. Hard to miss. Abd 03:22, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

By the way, I understand and sympathize with your concern that IRV is a POV name. San Francisco chose to call it RCV for the very reason that the term IRV can be inaccurate, since the votes aren't necessarily retallied instantly. However, for the benefit of the reader we typically go with the more recognizable nomenclature. I would compare it to Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/BCE-CE Debate, for lack of a better example. Captain Zyrain 21:07, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

That's true for the U.S. This encyclopedia is for the world. IRV is not actually the name by which it is generally known, whatever "it" is.... Robert's Rules refers to "preferential voting." Why pick "IRV"? Certainly the article, if it is not titled "IRV," would nevertheless refer to it as a name by which it is known here, but one point I've made is that Bucklin is literally instant ... runoff .... voting. That is, it proceeds in rounds, like IRV, stops pulling in additional votes when a majority is found, like IRV, but *unlike* most implementations of IRV, it does not create a false majority by discarding exhausted ballots. It does not drop candidates. It is essentially Instant Runoff Approval.

And Bucklin saw substantial use in the U.S., and, I'm pretty sure, was dropped for the same reason that IRV was dropped from Ann Arbor and Proportional Representation from New York City. It was working. The election in Brown v. Smallwood was one where clearly the best winner was chosen. The Minnesota court reversed an election where the will of the people was manifest, and people had counted on the election method, or else they may have voted differently. It awarded the election to the plurality winner in the first round, based on totally spurious and even self-contradictory arguments. It was a corrupt decision. (And they would have tossed IRV as well, to believe otherwise you have to focus on one out of many arguments that they made, and you'd have to disregard the language of the second decision, where they reconsidered and refused to change their decision.)

My point is that the name is itself a piece of propaganda. It attempts to attach itself to precedent (runoff elections) in order to seem less strange. Further, using the same name for different variants leads to potential confusion: what exactly is it that Robert's Rules describes?

Turns out that, indeed, *some* proposed U.S. "IRV" implementations may follow the Robert's Rules procedure. The Vermont legislation that Mr. Bouricious wrote does, which may explain his difficulty understanding my objection. Why, it's obvious! Robert's Rules recommends "IRV!" His IRV. Not that of San Francisco or many other places.

There is political spin involved here, which is why having a balanced article is not as simple as making sure that the facts are correct. There is also the balance. How facts are presented can influence public impressions.

This is one reason why it was suggested here that we develop a template for election methods articles. What has happened is that proponents of a method have generally taken a large hand in structuring an article, and, in the case of this article, there was at least one paid staff member of FairVote involved, though I could only say for certain that this editor was mostly using reverts to keep criticism of IRV out. When I started editing this article less than a month ago, the Con IRV argument was pretty much "Some people are more comfortable with the status quo." There was no mention of alternate reforms. IRV was compared only with Plurality. Why? Robert's Rules, we were told in the introduction to the article, recommends IRV. Never mind that the method described in the article was not the same as what is described in Robert's Rules, that Robert's Rules recommends "preferential voting" and makes it clear that this is a whole set of methods (mostly defined by a ranked ballot), and it simply describes one way of doing it. And it also gives reasons why the method has problems. Why mention only the positive and not the negative?

Now, it's a *little* better now. Not a lot better. And some of what I objected to has come back. I'll be doing some edits tonight. I might even use a revert or two.

The introduction to the article is going to be very important to an advocacy organization. I attempted to move the Robert's Rules mention to the middle of the article, where it would be more proper to explain it in sufficient detail that the position of Robert's Rules on preferential voting was clear. It was moved back. Explanatory language that was *not* incorrect was removed as "too confusing." Yes, it is; if your goal is to convince people of something, extra detail can cause them to think too much.

I'll be putting the POV tag bag. It was premature to request peer review of the article, at a point where a consensus of the editors had not developed. We had an edit war going here, and it never did really end. Abd 03:22, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Jeff Dahl that someone needs to create an outline from scratch and then move the text around to fit the outline, so that it will fit together as a well-organized article. Maybe sometime I will set a day aside to do that. Captain Zyrain 11:24, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

COMMENT on United States Category and edits

Someone has removed my sourced edit on IRV in North Carolina. I live in North Carolina, I watched the legislation go through 7 revisions, and I provided independent links to the the state legislature's reference for the NC IRV law, and to a news article that had not been there before.

Now someone has come in and replaced my independent links (to the legislative code and to a news article) with other wikipedia links.

I think it weakens an article to replace all independent links with either other wikipedia articles as reference, or only Fair Vote links as reference.

It looks like the article has been diluted.

Here is what I am adding back to the article and I ask that it be protected from further edits:

• North Carolina adopted a pilot program for instant runoff voting for certain judicial vacancies and municipal pilot programs starting in 2007. "The State Board of Elections shall closely monitor the pilot program established in this section and report its findings and recommendations to the 2007 General Assembly." [1] The city of Cary [2] will use IRV for mayor and city council elections in October 2007,[3] and the city of Hendersonville will use IRV for city council elections in November 2007.[4]

--Ask10questions 00:52, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

COMMENT. My bad. I apologize, please disregard above talk I posted.

I see that the link format has been grossly changed, but apparently is correct.  

Here is what I added back to the IRV in North Carolina segment under United States: "The State Board of Elections shall closely monitor the pilot program established in this section and report its findings and recommendations to the 2007 General Assembly."

--Ask10questions 01:01, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Given that the North Carolina legislature meets in January, I would think that this report to the 2007 General Assembly has already been made? Captain Zyrain —Preceding comment was added at 01:17, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Opposition to instant-runoff voting

I think that it will be beneficial to expand the article which I have created, opposition to instant-runoff voting. This can be a place for opponents to expound on their arguments in more detail without having to worry so much about the need to balance pro and con arguments. The major arguments, having been fleshed out and put in polished form at that page, can then be summarized at instant-runoff voting. Captain Zyrain 12:22, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

We might move the page to criticism of instant-runoff voting or arguments against instant-runoff voting. 66.208.12.125 12:31, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

The new article would be better placed in this article because it is not a separate concept but criticism of an existing concept. If you look at any other article, they will invariably include criticism sections rather than having separate articles. Green Giant 12:40, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Please see rationale at Talk:Opposition to instant-runoff voting. Captain Zyrain 13:04, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Rationale seen, comment added and agreement reached. :) Green Giant 13:22, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

In accordance with Abd's suggestion, it has been moved to Controversies regarding instant-runoff voting. Captain Zyrain 02:00, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. That title is longer than it need be... I'd suggest Instant runoff voting: controversy. Presenting only one side in an article without equally presenting the other side is not balanced and will not help readers to understand the issues. Abd 14:03, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Probably, a brief summary of arguments should remain on this page, but the exact text of this is tricky. Again, I do propose a basic standard: the article should settle in such a condition that all three classes of editors generally agree that it is fair and balanced, not just two out of the three classes. The three classes are pro-IRV editors, anti-IRV editors, and neutral editors. In this case, two out of three does not indicate a consensus, because the pro and con editors will tend to be more informed about the issue than someone who is outside the arguments. Neutral editors may easily be unaware of the political nuances of arguments and presentation, and are more likely to focus on technical issues that they can easily and quickly understand. Is a statement sourced? Is it presented in a POV way *in itself*? But questions of balance will be much more difficult for such an editor, and balance is important to NPOV as well as factual accuracy.

Given that the history of this article has largely driven away anti-IRV editors, who have found it thoroughly frustrating to try to insert even NPOV content that is disliked by pro-IRV editors, and I must say that I've had a similar experience and it is continuing, it will take some time before enough of these editors to return to allow a genuine consensus to appear. Until then, I'm acting, in a sense, as an informal proxy for them, and I can assure the other editors that when I present an argument here in Talk, there are others who agree with it. But I have *not* attempted to recruit meat puppets to come here to support my actions. Frankly, some of the people who would respond to such a call might be so highly POV against IRV in their edits that it would be distracting and could delay our process; but others will be fair-minded and will come to consensus readily, they are not fanatics.

Where we have trouble agreeing on balance, we can recruit examination by outside groups that are not controlled by either pro or con IRV activists, but which include members who are knowledgeable about the debate, and we need not limit ourselves to one single such forum.

I do believe we can do it, we can put together an article that is informative, interesting, and thoroughly neutral in both fact and balance. The more editors we have here who are willing to participate in such a process, setting aside political agenda -- which they will still use in a helpful way because of the sensitivity it creates in them over nuances -- the faster this process will be. (Note that there are very few election methods experts who are truly "neutral" on this topic, that is, they have opinions and conclusions that they have drawn from their study!)

I've started working on the Controversies regarding instant-runoff voting page, and I edited the links in this article to point to that for now. Abd 14:03, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Robert's Rules of Order, Newly "Revisited" :-)

Last time I started a section with this title, which is a play on "Revised," the actual name of the most recent revision, someone edited the title to correct it. I guess I omitted the smiley face! This is *Talk,* folks, where it is a bit rude to edit someone else's contribution. Errors are allowed here! (It's even a tad rude to edit one's *own* contributions here, if someone has responded to them as-is ... but that's just my opinion. I'm certainly not in charge.)

The article as, as I write this, has the following in the introduction:

Robert's Rules of Order describes how to implement IRV on p. 411-414, stating that in situations such as voting by mail in which it is impractical to repeat balloting until one candidate receives a majority, "it makes possible a more representative result than under a rule that a plurality shall elect"[2].

Being placed in the introduction, it has prominence, and it is quite understandable that advocates for IRV would be pleased at this placement and attached to it. On the other hand, opponents of IRV won't like this. Now, I agree that there is a significant fact behind this, and that mention of that fact belongs in the article, but ... if it is in the introduction, it must be brief. Going into nuances is not something that belongs in a short introduction. And without nuance, the mention is not balanced.

Originally, the mention was more blatant: "Robert's Rules recommends IRV for voting by mail," or something like that. Now, when I changed that to something more accurate, the edit was reverted. When I revised the edit to reflect some of the criticism of my edit, that was reverted. When I moved the mention to the middle of the article and added, again, more detail to make the facts clear, considering what had been said, that too was reverted, and an edit war started over this. I was careful about 3RR, but one of the reverters and persistent editors was a sock puppet, originally BenB4, but BenB4 was tossed in the laundry by Wikipedia admin and was replaced by Acct4. Then an SPA appeared and immediately filed a 3RR complaint against me. When an admin looked at this, the admin was pretty clearly angry about what had been going on and banned almost everyone in sight. But not me, the administrator made it clear that I had been defending the article from socks and anonymous reverts.

So there is history behind this. There were extensive discussions of what was actually in Robert's Rules, under descriptive section headers, just now archived.

I edited the mention to be accurate. Now, more slowly, (the socks and anonymous editor -- Rob Richie of FairVote, known by IP -- could no longer access the article to edit it, the mention has slipped back toward what it had originally been. It was placed back in the introduction. The explanation of what was *different* about "IRV" as described by Robert's Rules and what IRV is described as in the article was removed. It is now almost as POV as was the original. That is, it is a biased interpretation of the facts, prominently placed. And we have been over and over the facts. I'd suggest that anyone who wants to work on this particular problem read what came before, and then Talk about it here. I understand that this means a lot of reading, and I apologize for that; however, I certainly cannot demand this of anyone. Nevertheless, until we have an agreement on how Robert's Rules is going to be mentioned, I'm taking it out entirely, and I will defend this position against any attempt to put it back, unless what is put in is accurate *and* balanced.

I see no justification for allowing it to be in the article if we cannot agree on its language. It is not essential or necessary to the article. Not everything relevant or interesting must be in an article, and particularly not in the introduction. And I have put too much effort already into trying to find exact language that was acceptable to the pro-IRV editors. (And I am not claiming that all editors who have effectively reversed my edits on this are pro-IRV; but the view of these editors of the context hasbeen, in my opinion, as yet insufficient for these editors to recognize easily all the implications.)

What do I mean by balanced? Well, suppose there was a resume from a candidate for employment, and it quoted from a termination letter from a previous employer. The quote says that the employee did a good job making sure that certain responsibilities were fulfilled. The quote might be true, accurate, and sourced. Is that balanced? Well, it depends on the rest of what is in the report!

Robert's Rules dislikes the use of "preferential voting," in general. However, it is a manual that reflects actual practice. There are conditions where an organization may consider it impractical to hold a runoff election or other further process. (RRONR dislikes top-two runoffs, by the way, for reasons apparent to anyone who understands election methods: frequently the top two excludes the most broadly acceptable candidate, the one who would beat either of the others in a one-on-one contest). *Given* that further process is considered difficult or impossible, RRONR suggests "preferential voting" *as a possibility.* Now, there are many forms of preferential voting, with different characteristics. Some organizations, for example, use a Condorcet method, which would always select as winner a candidate like the one just mentioned, who would beat all others in pairwise elections, and it is clear that on these grounds, RRONR would prefer this. But the editors are constrained by actual practice, and the use of Condorcet methods is still relatively rare. So they do describe a "preferential voting" method, as an example, that clearly resembles IRV, so clearly that many observers, including myself, when first looking at it, have thought that it *was* "IRV." Was it? That depends on details.

Unless the bylaws specifically allow it, RRONR disallows election by a plurality. Where voters are free to vote as they choose, any ballot submitted by an eligible voter is part of the denominator when considering the fraction that have voted for a candidate, even if the ballot is spoiled; spoiled ballots can be considered No votes on all the candidates, in this sense, and a candidate must get a majority Yes to be elected. What STV (IRV is single-winner STV) allows is vote substitution, that is, you may vote for A, but if A is being eliminated by the IRV process, and you have cast a lower rank vote for B, then B may be substituted for B. In other words, if you rank a candidate, you are voting for that candidate, against all others with lower rank on your ballot, as well as against all candidates you have not ranked at all. This is, indeed, why some voters would dislike ranking all candidates, for a requirement that they do so requires that they vote *for* such a candidate, making it appear, possibly, that a majority supports that candidate when, in fact, this is not the case, the majority might actually prefer that the office remain vacant. The only way to vote, clearly, *against* a candidate if full ranking is required is to rank the candidate last, and if one wishes to so vote against more than one candidate, full ranking does not allow it.

The ballot-counting procedure described in RRONR that resembles IRV is the equivalent of sequential-elimination IRV in every respect except the final step: that procedure does not terminate unless there is a true majority, including all spoiled or exhausted ballots. Because the description was not completely explicit about this, but this understanding is clear if one understands how RRONR uses terms and considers to be valid votes, one editor claimed that my commentary on this was wrong. That was User:Tbouricius; however, when the rules in the recently proposed "IRV" legislation in Vermont were brought here, he backed up and claimed he had never argued against the basic point about "majority." Why was this an effective argument? Well, he wrote that legislation, and, I think, another commentary on FairVote saying practically the same thing. In Vermont, if there is no majority winner, the election goes to the Assembly, which votes by secret ballot to choose between the top three. How the "top three" are defined, by the way, is utterly unclear to me.... and the ballot instructions in that legislation are incorrect ... but that's another matter.

Until I started to work on this, the article seems to have assumed that there was only one form of IRV. However, batch-elimination IRV and sequential elimination IRV behave differently, and the number of ranks allowed also have major effects, and likewise this question of the majority. Lumping these all together as "IRV" is politically useful, for, then, the "IRV" movement can claim "momentum," each time we get something that is one of these forms.

A mature article will clearly delineate the various forms in use and being proposed, and, to the extent that instances of use are mentioned, the specific form used will be mentioned. Robert's Rules of order "describes" (not "recommends") a method which is IRV-sequential elimination, with no restrictions on ranking -- it can be complete, or not, as the voter chooses -- with a majority election requirement unless the bylaws otherwise specify (which it does *not* recommend, it would, in fact, discourage). What Mr. Bouricius proposed in the Vermont legislature is, I agree, what Robert's Rules describes, but most IRV implementations in the U.S. aren't like that, and IRV is being sold as "guarantees a majority winner," which is utterly untrue unless we define "majority" to exclude inconvenient votes; but this fact is easily obscure to someone who is not aware of the details.

So I can understand at least some of Mr. Bouricius' frustration with me. Since what he proposed in Vermont *was* what is described in Robert's Rules, how could I claim that it was different? But what he proposed there was *not* what was described in this article as "IRV"! Indeed, the description of sequential elimination that was here (and I think it's been taken back to that) referred only to "majority" of the ballots remaining, not of all the ballots cast by eligible voters.

(Legal voting systems may generally not count true spoiled ballots, unlike RRONR, in determining the majority, but I see no way to exclude ballots with a lawful vote from the base for "majority," unless the IRV legislation trumps a majority requirement in law that is therefore removed. Some have argued here that "IRV is like runoff elections,' but that is actually an argument of no legal force, entirely aside from being defective in another way: in a real runoff, a voter who expressed no opinion on the pair involved now has the option of expressing one, whereas "instant runoff" does not allow the voter that option.) Abd 17:30, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

In cases when you say something and then think better of it after someone has already responded, you can strike out your original comments.. On second thought, it's probably better just to avoid saying something dumb to begin with. Captain Zyrain 17:35, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Quite possibly not. By sticking my foot in my mouth, I learn far more rapidly than if I hang back, censoring what I say because it might be wrong.... Yes, caution is good, but only to a point. Using strikeout is an excellent idea. It preserves the record and makes clear that the writer no longer supports what he or she wrote. Cool. Abd 19:34, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

True, you learn more from your failures than your successes, but the mistakes sure can be painful! Fortunately, making a regrettable comment on Wikipedia ranks pretty low on the scale compared to other ill-advised life mistakes (e.g. switching majors to philosophy). Captain Zyrain 19:41, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Images

Here are a couple images generously contributed by Bouricius:

These are actually from an STV election, so I'm not sure whether they could find use here, but I thought I'd post the links FYI. Captain Zyrain 19:53, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

There'd be quite a few on Australian articles too as we've used a similar method at both federal and state elections for most of our post-Federation history. Most would be GFDL as they've been snapped by members of the public who've uploaded them here. Orderinchaos 22:41, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Go ahead and post them then, please. StrengthOfNations 06:40, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Does the American Political Science Association "use" Instant Runoff Voting?

Unless some cogent reason appears here to the contrary, I intend to remove, once again, the mention in the Introduction to this article, of APSA and its alleged use of IRV. I took this out once before, because it was unsourced (other than to FairVote, which is not generally a reliable source for Wikipedia, being an advocacy organization). However, then, a pointer was given to the APSA constitution which does describe a preferential voting procedure to be used if there are more than two candidates for the office. So I did not object when it was replaced.

However, turns out, APSA elections for President-Elect (they elect a new President-elect every year, who becomes President the next year) are not, as far as the records on-line are concerned, the last four years, contested elections, and I was informed by a correspondent that this has long been the case. There have not been *two* candidates, let alone the three required to trigger the preferential voting clause in the APSA constitution.

I have not verified that this is absolutely true, but it looks like APSA has *never* used IRV. The APSA Council is not elected by STV as one might think, but by standard multimember plurality. The Nominating Committee nominates all officers, and if there are no additional nominations by petition, the nominated officers are, in practice, elected at the annual meeting. No officer elections have been contested in the four years shown on-line, but there are eight Council seats. There have been, each year, one or two additional nominations by petition, and sometimes these win in lieu of the Committee nominees. In 2007, the additional nomination by petition won with a substantial margin over all others, and thus one of the Nominating Committee nominees was not elected. The election statement of that candidate is here: [5], and I found this from it to be remarkable: "I am running for the APSA Council in order to promote methodological pluralism and democratic representation in the association. If elected, I will work to further the following goals: .... 3. Selection of association officers through competitive elections to increase the representation and participation of all groups and interests in the profession."

Further, APSA now uses internet and email voting, so multiple balloting as is recommended by Robert's Rules could be practical.... Given the strong statement of that new Council member, we might soon see some changes in the APSA constitution. Or we might not....

Because information in the Introduction should be impeccable and not complex, the mention of APSA should be removed. Comments? --Abd 16:54, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

There being no comment in five days, I'm pulling the reference from the introduction. --Abd 03:14, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

The fact is that the APSA decided to incorporate IRV into their constitution, and did so. Whether there happen to be enough candidates to trigger its usage is not the interesting point. I have changed "uses" IRV to "has adopted" to remove any ambiguity.

Tbouricius 15:49, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

The problem is that the fact is no longer truly notable. This is in the *introduction*. Introductions should be short and quite clear, and only the clearest and most important aspects of a topic should be mentioned in them. If we are going to say that APSA "adopted" IRV, we'd need a source. Yes, it is in the Constitution of the organization, that can be cited, so at *some* time they "adopted" it. But apparently it has *never* been used, if it has, references would be of interest. When was it put in? Mr. Bouricius pretty clearly wants this in because it lends cachet to IRV. After all, if "political scientists" "use" IRV, then it must be a good method, right? But if it hasn't been used, and if APSA is not even running contested elections (let alone elections with three candidates), it could be a wheel that does not squeak because it isn't turning. Note that the huge controversy in APSA right now seems to be the idea of having contested elections *at all*!

Particularly interesting is that there *are* contested elections with APSA. The 8-member Council is elected. As with the President and other officers, the Nominating Committee names 8 nominees, but others can be nominated by petition, and, in the last years there have been, typically, one or two such nominees. So: multiwinner elections, do they use STV? If APSA is notable, is it notable that they *don't* use STV but merely use Plurality, voters can vote for up to eight candidates? In any case, the mention does not belong in the introduction, if it belongs in the article at all. The language edited in by Tbouricius is slightly better, but still biased to make it appear that the fact is a recommendation. I'm taking it out of the Introduction. I might put it somewhere else.

How does APSA *actually* choose its President? Deliberatively, in the Nominating Committee. I don't know the specific rules, but they certainly wouldn't be using IRV! --Abd 01:02, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

I just noticed that there is another article, History and use of instant-runoff voting. Detailed information about history and usage really belongs in that article, with only the briefest summary here. I would also argue that the other article should be about "preferential voting," not "instant run-off voting," but that's a topic for another day.

One more point. Tbouricius is a COI editor, clearly affiliated with FairVote, and, with this and with many other disputes which have arisen, he is attempting to keep "promotional information" in the article; "promotional information" is fact, often presented narrowly, and clearly presented because it carries some implication desired by the editor. Wikipeida articles clearly should not be promotional. I do believe that it is important that the POV of FairVote be represented in the editorial process here, which is why I suggested that the block of Tbouricius could be lifted, but he seems to have taken that lift as some kind of "exoneration" indicating that there were no problems at all with his work here. In this particular case, it is desired that the APSA mention be in the introduction, precisely because it seems to convey the idea that "political scientists" support IRV, after all, they chose it, didn't they? Actually, we don't know who chose it and when. How long has it been in the APSA constitution? APSA was founded in 1903, and preferential voting was the rage at that time. Now, as anyone familiar with Robert's Rules on voting methods would know, the kind of preferential voting that IRV represents, with sequential dropping, is *not* recommended by Robert's Rules if multiple balloting is possible, because of the well-known possible failure to select an obvious compromise, instead electing a candidate who would lose, even by a large margin, paired off with that compromise. *If* APSA were to start running contested elections, my guess is that they would drop IRV. They allow internet voting and email voting. It's no longer time-consuming or expensive to hold a real runoff, or even multiple balloting. Maybe we will find out. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Abd (talk • contribs) 01:26, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

RFC

Removed claims sourced with FairVote

I removed the following claims, because they are sourced with FairVote. Anyone is welcome to put back properly sourced information. I wish we could create "reliable sources" by doing a research paper and putting it up on an advocacy site. But we can't. See WP:RELIABLE FairVote is fine as a source for opinion, but not for fact, except as to facts about FairVote itself.

• Dozens of American colleges and universities use IRV, including as of November 2006 more than half of the 30 universities rated most highly by U. S. News and World Report.

--Abd 03:29, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I restored the link to the list of 32 universities and colleges that use IRV. While the fact about the number that are on the 'U.S. News and World Report' list is also accurate, I removed it as a compromise. Many of the colleges on the list on the FairVote cite are in turn linked to articles, student government constitutions, or other sources. FairVote is a widely respected and reliable clearing house of information about preferential voting that is an acceptable source. Countless scholarly articles cite FairVote, as do countless news stories. Because of the sheer volume of material on the FairVote web site it is inevitable that there must be a few out-of-date, or inaccurate statements, but the site is exceptionally reliable.

Tbouricius 15:57, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

I've been spending the last few weeks researching Wikipedia standards, reviewing Arbcomm decisions, etc. Please reread what I wrote above, and, in particular, consider whether an advocacy web site, which is certainly not a peer-reviewed publication, nor an edited and responsible news source, and which is known for presenting one side of an issue, definitely POV, and for framing quotations of outside sources with "helpful explanations," can be used as a reference for a statement of fact in the article. The answer is pretty clear. No. I agree that FairVote is commonly cited. Indeed, I've been doing my own research to uncover primary sources and it's difficult. FairVote is often the sole source, at least the sole source that is easy to find. and the browser will come back with hundreds of hits that are exact quotes of FairVote (that is, the specific wording from the FairVote page). Now, who did the research? If it was FairVote, that's "original research," and not permitted as a source for facts. If it was somewhere else, then "somewhere else" can be cited here *if* it was published in a "reliable source." So ... I'm going to remove material that has not been properly sourced. I'm willing, personally, to compromise on material that is essentially well-known *and* important to the article; beyond that, bring the sources! --Abd 21:51, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

To continue this, I was looking at the following claim in the article that Ferndale, Michigan, had passed IRV in 2004. I tried to verify the claim, to find an original source, such as a newspaper account from Ferndale. So far, I haven't found it, but what I did find was many, many hits quoting an firv.org press release, or a FairVote press release or article. What actually happened in Ferndale? I don't know yet, but I do know what has happened with all these references: FairVote established itself as a source of information, and few, apparently, bother to look for original sources, since FairVote has conveniently placed all the information one might ever need, at our fingertips. It would seem. This information, however, has been filtered. What was actually passed? According to Ferndale IRV, "The actual text of Proposal B reads as follows":

Proposal B

Proposed Amendment to Ferndale City Charter Chapter IV, Section 17

This amendment provides for the election of mayor and council members by majority vote using an instant run-off voting procedure of counting votes as soon as the City acquires voting machine equipment, approved by the City Election Commission, to implement this amendment. Voters shall designate first preferences and subsequent preferences; if no candidate receives a majority, the candidate with fewest first preferences is eliminated and the secondary preferences for that candidate are recounted until a candidate receives a majority who shall be elected to office.

Shall the Ferndale charter, Chapter IV, Section 17 be amended as proposed?

Yes:______ No:______

(1) Ferndale may not yet be holding IRV elections. Did they get the equipment? (2) This is an inadequate description of IRV election rules. Anyone familiar with the edit warring on our article would realize that "majority" could be unclear. If a true majority is needed -- which would seem to be the intention -- then there can be election failure. I'd say this amendment is an invitation to legal action, if it is ever implemented and anyone cares, i.e., a candidate did receive a majority of votes *if not eliminated in the first round.* In small towns, legal defects can exist for a long time before anyone really cares.... The problem here is that election by "majority vote" is described, and that would make the proposal more popular, it would be important in its passing. IRV with a majority vote requirement is a substantially better method than without it (this is the default Robert's Rules example); but, of course, there might then be a (rare) election failure, a need for further election process, which would need to be in the rules.

Ferndale is a pretty small town. Is this notable? Should the article have a laundry list of every jurisdiction that decides to (perhaps only theoretically) use IRV? There is another article, History and use of instant-runoff voting. --Abd 02:12, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

It gets a bit weirder. I looked at the town charter.[6] (Charter, Chapter IV, Section 17). The language inserted into the charter is substantially more complex than what was claimed to be the actual text of Proposal B by firv.org... is something funny going on? --Abd 02:44, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

About Takoma Park and Universities using IRV

I edited the Takoma Park usage of IRV to note information taken from the source, indicating that the runoff system did not come into play. Since User:Tbouricius undid that, moving the source back to FairVote, I once again did the research to find primary sources, and this time, I got the actual election results instead of the newspaper account. Takoma Park does not appear to have contested elections, normally. The mayoral election was uncontested, so the original comment that the mayoral election was won with a majority of votes was an understatement, I think it was about 800 for the mayor to 100 write-ins. Of the six ward seats, five were uncontested. One was contested with only two candidates, and, again, a handful of write-in votes. So the runoff provisions were not only unused, they were not even *close* to being needed. Why did Takoma Park adopt IRV? This is a small town, small towns often have unopposed elections, in small towns where I've lived, I haven't seen more than two candidates, and two were actually unusual. Let's see ... does anyone on FairVote staff live in Takoma Park? Sounds familiar to me.... I'd think that getting a few more small towns to adopt IRV would help FairVote to keep their statistics up, to show one more success. Even if it is a fish bicycle there.

I think we will likely move all these small town instances out of the article, to the History and Usage article, and ones like this, I'd think, shouldn't even be there. This article is not a place for FairVote to trumpet its "successes." Significant implementations are quite relevant.

Meanwhile, I've again removed the reference to FairVote for universities using IRV. I think it would be reasonable to reference a few, but, let me repeat this, the FairVote site cannot ordinarily be used for reference. That page, as User:Tbouricius noted in his revert of my previous removal, does have a few references, but many more simple claims without references, and a great deal of promotion, using language that would not be permitted here. FairVote is not a "reliable source," per WP:RELIABLE, it is an *advocacy* organization. That various authors have relied upon it (poor scholarship! -- like relying on a press release from a company for a newspaper article about the company's products) doesn't make it reliable here. Did I mention that FairVote is not a reliable source?

While someone could put back in a few universities, particularly prominent ones, all these usage details, except for very few, really should move to the main article for History and use of instant-runoff voting

By the way, try to find a source for the claim that the "inventor of IRV" was William Robert Ware that isn't FairVote or obviously copied from FairVote or Wikipedia. Not easy. Ware did apparently write a letter to Hare (of STV fame) suggesting the use of the STV technique, single-winner. However, an old source I've looked at discounted Ware's suggestion as not being new, plus as being defective, for reasons one would have a hard time finding in this article yet. I haven't found a copy of Ware's letter yet, but it's available. --Abd 04:28, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

I am restoring the link to the list of 32 colleges and Universities that use IRV. It is more useful to Wikipedia readers to have access to this entire list, rather than to just pick a one or a few to mention by name in the article.

Tbouricius 15:39, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Depending on response to my action today, I may start the dispute resolution process. I'm sure that what I've done looks arbitrary and anti-IRV to Tbouricius, but, based on my review of *many* article conflicts and resolutions, it's not. The question is not access to the list. That access is available through the FairVote link under advocacy organizations, and it's also possible to put it in the article, properly framed. The question is Wikipedia standards for sourcing. The fact of usage of IRV by universities and colleges can certainly be in the article, but it must be properly sourced from a *neutral* source. That's easy to do for a few universities, and, it must be asked: why is it important to have a long list of universities using it? And if a university *stops* using it, would this likewise be important? If the answer to the first question is yes and the second is no, why the distinction? However, sourcing standards are *not* negotiable, it appears. While there can be exceptions, and articles can be given some time to find acceptable references before material is deleted, there appears to be no effort to provide such references. With many instances of improper referencing, over the last few days, I've done the work to find the actual acceptable references. Here, since I don't consider the mention that important, I'm not. But I would certainly not, at this point, try to take out any reference to actual university usage, properly sourced. In any case, I have edited the mention to make it, in my opinion, acceptable. And, of course, as part of the process, I found more relevant information, which I'm putting in as well. A list of usages of IRV, with the appearance that all these represent active use, is promotional, particularly if looking at the original sources reveals that it was moot that the election was IRV.

For future reference, if needed, this is the core dispute: can an advocacy organization, not a neutral party, be used as a source for statements of fact in the article? The organization in question here is FairVote, but if FairVote is allowed, what about [rangevoting.org Center for Range Voting] which contains a lot of information about Instant-runoff voting, plus advocacy material, like FairVote? --Abd 16:56, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

I've now done the editing, and have continued to add brief election details about the actual usage of IRV in election listed under "usage." I did *not* select the examples to show the irrelevance of IRV; rather, I just went down and picked some prominent examples from the FairVote site. If we are going to have usage examples, it's important to have information about *usage*! What I've been finding is that in some places, IRV has been implemented quite obviously not because there were problems with elections, but, likely, as a political statement. I have found this in in every example I've researched over the last few days. And where IRV is actually being used, and the rounds are pulling in additional votes, majority failure seems pretty common (with lots of exhausted ballots). Note that it is possible, in some cases -- and the election results I've seen give us little information -- that a majority-favored candidate existed (i.e., one who actually did receive majority support over the plurality winner -- but that candidate was eliminated because of not getting enough first-round votes. --Abd 17:36, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Those are the same universities mentioned in History and use of instant-runoff voting in the United States. StrengthOfNations (talk) 02:02, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Anti-IRV Selective Election Details Showing POV Being Inserted

Abd has been selectively inserting election details in the list of places that have adopted IRV in the United States. He never inserts examples where IRV saved the cost of a separate runoff, or found a majority winner after the IRV tally, but only examples that might lead one to question the value of IRV. Each fact he has inserted may be "true" and sourced, but the pattern of selection reveals an intense POV goal of his. Lists of places adopting IRV, should be simple and short with links to the source for those who want to learn more about them. Such lists are not the place to try and selectively put IRV in a poor light. Tbouricius 16:03, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

It is unfortunate that Tbouricius is choosing to take this as some sort of attack on IRV. As to his claims:

"Selective." I've been systematically removing references to FairVote as a source, and, instead of taking the easy route of deleting or flagging unsourced material, I've been replacing the original, non-qualified source, with qualified, neutral sources. In doing that, the facts of the elections become exposed to me, and I've been placing very brief details in the article, taken from the qualified sources. These details are indeed relevant to controversies over IRV; however, I have not "selected" the facts, rather I have placed them as I did the research. If we are going to have examples of usage, we should have basic *details* of usage. Not extensive election results, but very summarized ones, as I inserted. There was no selection..

"Put IRV in a poor light." I'm shining light on IRV, using sourced information, with regard to facts already mentioned in the article. I did not select these examples. Rather, I was simply beginning to clean up the sourcing, so I looked over the references and looked only at items sourced with FairVote (or other advocacy organizations). That it happens to be true that in nearly every example seen, fitting those conditions, IRV was not actually being "used," is not "putting IRV in a poor light." It's just making relevant facts clear. Relevant to what? *To the topic of the article.* No *argument* has been inserted. It's true that this, to some degree, defuses the power of the claim of FairVote that IRV is being widely adopted, and this is naturally of concern to those associated with FairVote, and *this* is a Conflict of Interest, see WP:COI. By the standards I've seen used in the past, COI is blatant here, it is not marginal.

Tbouricius was blocked indefinitely a while back for his apparent association with the cabal of anonymous editors (including the Director of FairVote), sock puppets, and SPA, COI editors, one of whom would be him. Specifically, he registered an account and immediately dove into "protecting" this article, as the cabal was losing power from the imminent blocking or actual block of one of the sock puppets. We can speculate that this was a coincidence, but

At that time, I argued that the block should be lifted, because I thought his participation would be useful for the article. My consent to the unblock was cited in the review and apparently carried weight, for the blocking administrator was adamant that the block should remain; the block was lifted.

It would *not* have been useful *to me* if my motive were promoting some anti-IRV agenda. My concern did, indeed, originally come from outside observation of FairVote, but when that led me to look at this article, I found it full of propaganda for IRV, and criticism was strangely absent. It wasn't strange when I looked at the edit history. Criticism was absent because reverts were being liberally used to keep it out, even when sourced, NPOV, and properly inserted (how about 6RR? -- by the Director). The POV was woven thoroughly through the article, and it was maintained by the cabal. Note that the article still has a POV tag. I didn't put that tag there!

Someone else has set up an RFC over the issue of using FairVote as a "reliable source." The issue here, though, is the removal of sourced facts that are seen as damaging to the subject of the article by a COI editor. I'm hoping that further process won't be necessary to resolve this, for policy is pretty clear on it. Rather, I would prefer to see the cooperation of

Tbouricius in the making of this article into one which could be Featured.

I find it odd that elaborate and extensively explained theoretical examples of the usage of IRV seem to be fine, but real-world results are to be kept out. If what I've presented is "selective," then the remedy would be to balance it out, not to remove it. Results from San Francisco, for example (overall, i.e., how many elections used additional rounds, and was a majority obtained? -- all of which would take a sentence or two), would be very interesting. It's more work, though! Instead of entering into a revert war, how about *improving* the article!

Another approach would be to eliminate non-notable usages from the list of places "using" IRV. A purely theoretical adoption of IRV is good news for advocates, even if it's a fish bicycle for the jurisdiction adopting it; keeping out such non-notable examples would make some more room for notable ones. And election details (i.e., how the method is working) are certainly relevant!

A list of "adoptions" is mere promotion: part of the FairVote plan is to constantly assert "political momentum," so every adoption is treated as big news. If we look at the source on FairVote for "colleges and universities" using IRV, we will find that a certain elementary school used IRV in a mock election. Interesting, perhaps, but probably says more about the politics of the parents or staff in that particular school than about IRV as such. On the other hand, given that only a miniscule number of elections in the U.S. are currently held with IRV or IRV-like methods, it *is* notable in terms of gauging the success of the IRV movement. However, it would similarly be relevant, then, to put in examples of the failure of IRV initiatives, or the removal of IRV by initiative, as happened in Ann Arbor.

That *balancing* facts were consistently kept out of the article is why the article deserved, and continues to deserve, a POV tag. Tbouricius is, at this point, blocking the balancing of the article, and, as a COI editor, he should know that policy requires him to tread lightly, see WP:COI. ---- Abd (talk) 18:34, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

I have placed a 3RR warning on the Talk page for Tbouricius. He has made five reverts, removing sourced material, arguably relevant, not vandalism, within 24 hours, which is a violation of WP:3RR and which can result in blocking, temporary or otherwise. I do not personally plan, at this point, to file a complaint; I am not attempting to get this user blocked. But if this continues, if this COI editor continues to "defend" the IRV article from material he considers negative, I may change my mind, and, at any time, any other editor could file such a complaint based on the warning which has now been provided and failure to respond as necessary. (From the history of this user, it's possible that a warning would not be necessary, but, assuming that he has merely inadvertently violated 3RR, I consider the warning warranted.) ---- Abd (talk) 18:41, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Removal of controversial items

I've now taken out two of the claims in the Instant-runoff_voting#History_and_current_use section.

The first is the APSA mention. The problem with this fact, as it is, is that this section is mostly about current use (and if we want to make it about history in the U.S., it will get *much* longer), whereas APSA is not, as shown by what I had placed in the article, not currently using IRV, and, quite possibly, *never* used IRV since it was founded in 1903. (Until I started fixing this, the article read that APSA "uses" IRV.) Given the context, removing the claim is probably a better edit than qualifying it to make it NPOV. "Adopted," the language inserted by another editor when the problem was pointed out is language intended to create the same impression in the reader: that political scientists favor IRV and are using it. And that is promotional and misleading.

The second is the university claim. There was nothing wrong with what I had placed in it, and I had compromised by wording the claim so that FairVote could be used as a source. (I.e., it was made into an attributed claim, not stated as a fact. That, in itself, could be questioned, but probably not by me.) However, all these claims of usage have not been verified, and the only ones I had yet researched turned out to be elections where IRV was not relevant, i.e., elections where simple Plurality would have produced the same result. The elections I looked at were major universities, and it turned out that IRV was being used, i.e., the ballots are IRV, but that the extra ballot information was moot. Therefore I don't consider these examples important to the article. The fact that IRV is being used by student associations (that's what it is, mostly) can certainly be in the article, but it should not be one-sided and misleading, overstating the importance of IRV in those elections. So I took it out for now, since my compromise language was not accepted by the reverting editor.

I'm continuing to research the actual elections being run. I'd have added a better reference for Cary, but so far I haven't found official results. A week after the election, it was still in dispute. This election *did* use the additional ranks, all three (but from preliminary results, it seems that the third rank added nothing to the votes). If I had official results, I'd put a very brief summary of how the method performed in the article, the same as I did for other elections. I'm not cherry-picking what I find for some polemic effect.

An editor has raised the question of why I have not mentioned the money saved by avoiding runoffs. So far, I haven't seen any. San Francisco may show such, but I haven't researched San Francisco yet. But the matter of saving money spent in runoffs is questionable. If, for example, we had IRV for major public offices, where party affiliation is important, it's a two-party system, and, let's say, there is a requirement for a majority, and then we have an election, and it goes into the second round, was a runoff saved? Maybe, maybe not. If IRV is the method, then we will see third party supporters voting sincerely, instead of making, before voting, the nearly inevitable compromise that is reflected by the dropping of their candidate in the first rounds and their votes's reduction to their second choice. The effect here was not that a runoff was avoided, necessarily, but that the voters were able to vote sincerely. So, what we can tell from the IRV results is not whether or not a runoff was avoided, though it is possible. What *is* relevant and important, in my opinion, is:

(1) Was the election decided in the first round, i.e., all the other choices were moot? (2) If not, by what percentage of *total* votes did the winner prevail? and, sometimes (3) Are the elections contested? If contested, are there more than two candidates? If the answer to either of these questions is No, then IRV is a complication without a justification.

It could be argued that it's still good to have the system in place, just in case it's needed. But, believe it or not, I'm not arguing about IRV here. I'm just doing research and editing for an encyclopedia, happening to have some knowledge and interest in the subject.

If the article says that the additional ranks were used (as with Cary), and if the facts support it, though, any reader could see that a runoff was avoided. Whether or not it was avoided would depend on the specific rules for runoffs in place. Additional ranks might be used but not change the result that would have come to pass anyway. My intention would be to succinctly report the election results (or a series of election results) so that what the reader would need to know about runoffs would be included, or would be readily accessible.

Whether or not a runoff was avoided is a *conclusion* that would probably require original research, which we cannot do for insertion here unless we can get it published in a reliable source. So, unless it were so blatantly obvious that it essentially is not controversial, or it is published in a reliable source, I couldn't write what the complaining editor seems to want me to write, even if I thought it true. ---- Abd (talk) 21:33, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Information removed from article, for work

The following information shows elements of the article edited out or reverted out by User:Tbouricius. Typically this editor removed actual election information. Diffs are referenced before each block quote

[7]

• Burlington, VT held its first mayoral election using IRV in 2006 after voters approved it in 2005. Bob Kiss was elected with 48.6% of the vote, 10.6% of the valid ballots being exhausted.

[8]

• The American Political Science Association, in its constitution, provides for instant-runoff voting for the office of President-Elect, if there are three or more candidates nominated. In all years for which records are provided on the Association's web site, there was no more than one candidate nominated, so the instant runoff provision has not been used.

[9]

• Takoma Park, MD adopted instant runoff voting for city council and mayoral elections in 2006. It held its first IRV election to fill a city council vacancy in January 2007 and its second use in November, 2007. In that November election, the mayor ran unopposed, and, out of six ward seats, only one was contested. As write-in votes were less than 11% in any race, and the single contested seat was won with 66% of the vote, the runoff provisions were not exercised.

[10]

[* According to the advocacy organization FairVote, 31 American colleges and universities use IRV in some election or other. For example, the University of California at Davis used IRV in their 2007 elections for the Associated Students Presidential slate; the winning slate won in the first round with 66% of the vote, so additional preferences were moot. At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for the Undergraduate Association, IRV is used; in 2003 through 2006, all elections were decided by the first round. (In some elections, because there was a failure to reach a majority, additional rounds were counted, but they did not change the result, and there was still a failure to reach a majority of valid votes cast).]

For the above, the editor, User:Tbouricius wrote as his reason for the edit: "removed ridiculous amount of selective election result details inserted in university entry to advance anti-IRV POV". What might be seen about the material is that the general reference to FairVote has been left in; however, anyone checking the sources will likely find what I found: actual election information is not cited on the FairVote site, just the fact of adoption or usage. To find more takes quite a bit of digging. And what I've found, so far, is that, with all the hoopla about "adoption" of IRV, it isn't really being *used* very much. There are exceptions, I'm sure, I just haven't found any yet that I could cite; I started with examples that were sourced only on FairVote.

If any editor thinks that I have cherry-picked the examples, I'd invite the inclusion here or in the article of examples showing different results. I'm sure that San Francisco, with many contested elections with numerous candidates, would be generating some interesting statistics. Is IRV a "great success" or a "flop"? I certainly can't tell from what I've found -- though you'll find the former on the FairVote site -- but, even if I could tell, I couldn't state it in the article, and I'd probably be reluctant to state it here. That would be POV! --Abd (talk) 01:47, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

• I think he's trying to tell you something along the lines of "facts have a well-known liberal bias". - McCart42 (talk) 04:12, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps. He is correct that selective presentation of facts can be POV; however what he seems to miss is that selecting a whole series of facts to make it appear that IRV is having ongoing success, with no mention of either problems or simple irrelevancy of the decision to implement IRV in some cases, is itself POV. This article has a POV tag largely because it was, and still is to some degree, such as with this list of adoptions, a compilation of facts and claims about IRV without balance. I have *not* selected elections that happen to make IRV look useless. I was quite surprised by what I've found. All I haven't done is to do the research for San Francisco. If my facts are out of balance, the remedy would be to balance them, not to delete them. The section is titled "History and Usage." Not "Places which have decided to adopt IRV." What I'm doing is adding usage information, highly condensed, with sources.... In any case, if User:McCart42 thinks the information should go back, I'd appreciate some help with that. I don't want to push the 3RR limit! Part of the whole purpose behind 3RR is to prevent some editor with strong opinions from controlling an article, it's a very rough form of "vote," pending consensus or other resolution. I may do a couple of reverts. --Abd (talk) 05:24, 17 November 2007 (UTC)