Talk:Disapproval voting

Pardon my mention of the French wikipedia mess, but it's appropriate as they seem to be disapproving of a rather lot of people, although perhaps without much voting.

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I have deleted this non-article. It was, in fact, a disjoint list of ways in which disapproval could be registered in voting systems.

Some of which are formalized, e.g. representative recall, executive veto[?], and of course the various ways to do it in tactical voting.

This is not an article.

Then fix it, or add a note that these various ways of indicating some disapproval aren't studied enough and are more part of pop culture. But don't deny that the topic exists, nor that they aren't popular (e.g. reality game show implementations).

The only references to "disapproval voting" I could find were to a system of voting functionally equivalent to approval voting whereby instead of voting for candidates, you cross unacceptable candidates off the list.

Then you didn't look very hard. And no the two systems are only somewhat "functionally equivalent" because there are very significant and well-known psychological differences between approval and disapproval actions. They are not symmetrical, and thus the two must be discussed in different ways.

This should be added to the approval voting page. DanKeshet 04:12 Jan 23, 2003 (UTC)

You didn't do that either. Are you trying to censor discussion of this topic? (this and other inline responses from 142)

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Responses below, because I don't like inline mode for comments.

What I was saying is that the non-article that was here was not about a particular thing called "disapproval voting", it was about registering disapproval in voting systems and other decision-making processes[?].

Much of it is about that, yes, and that section is now clearly marked. But there are also 'arguments for formal disapproval' and the many examples of 'popular use' of systems that are in fact formal disapproval systems, as on the game shows. All the article now lacks is an example like the others.

Whether the methods of registering disapproval are formal or informal makes no difference to their germanity in an article about disapproval voting.

?!?? Voting systems are necessarily and only about formalizing things that were previously informal, e.g. replacing street warfare with elections. If there is lots of informal disapproval going on, and if it's interfering with other signals, those are arguments that disapproval itself is becoming formalized. If you like, make this two articles, one that is a straightforward presentation of the 'exclusion voting' systems as used on the game shows, and another that discusses 'choice versus disapproval' in voting itself. But one article on all these things seems quite adequate.

You say that I must not have looked very hard to not find no other uses of the term "disapproval voting", so I ask you: please help me by pointing me to one or more reproducible references to somebody referring to something else as "disapproval voting". I will not re-write the page to say that the topic needs to be discussed more; that's an editorial comment that does not belong in wikipedia.

The page now says that the topic is there in pop culture and is part of the dialogue about, and rationale for use of, other voting systems. It lists three examples of disapproval which don't have approval equivalents.

Regarding the system of crossing out names: yes, there are psychological differences between this and voting for candidates in approval voting. That's why I said they're functionally equivalent rather than "the same".

That observation is preserved.

Mathematically equivalent perhaps would've been a better choice of words.

No, the mathematics one would have to apply to the choices of a negative versus positive choice are different. See Dembo/Freeman "Seeing Tomorrow", 1998. Simply using the same equations inverted is just not correct... it is more correct to say that disapproval voting is mathematically equivalent not to approval voting, but to runoff voting, with only the least popular candidate knocked off, or mandatory preference voting (Australian), where ranking someone last constitutes disapproving of them relative to others, and only one candidate is knocked off per round.

As to why I haven't included this bit about this system and it's uses, it's because I haven't found anything more than passing references.

What other name would you assign to the reality game show systems of voting?

I'm embarrassed to add that random factoid in an article without at least knowing which countries use(d) it when and for which offices.

Why must a 'country' use it for an 'office'? A voting system can exist without being applied at the federal level for selecting people for office. Most voting systems are about measures to be taken, not people to trust... there is already a great bias towards representative democracy in the voting system entries - giving short shift to more direct means of making decisions.

If you know this information, please add it. DanKeshet 21:01 Jan 31, 2003 (UTC)

most uses of disapproval are for representative recall (of incumbents) and ratification veto (of appointed officials presented for office by executives). For measures, there are the executive veto or line-item veto, which are not about choosing candidates at all.

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There is now a separate article on formal disapproval which is mostly a disambiguator - for formal protest[?] (like diplomatic letters), abstention frmo voting (sometimes called an election boycott), and recall measures.

The section on 'expressions of disapproval in other voting systems' might reasonably be moved to that article.

The intro, on psychological differences, and the 'popular use', would have to be retained and an example provided, plus some of hte comments noted as above.

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This artificial idea that a 'voting system' must be about selecting officers in a representative democratic structure, has to be vetted from existing articles - a voting system is a means of expressing some tolerances or preferences or both, and it can be used by electors, representatives within a legislature, executives, citizens after an election, etc. - it is not simply a construct of use in 'elect a dictator' type pseudo-democracies.