Talk:Condorcet winner

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Merge method and criterion

A Condorcet method is any method that satisfies the Condorcet criterion. There is no reason to discuss the methods collectively in a separate article from the criterion. Currently the Condorcet criterion article consists mainly of brief synopses of some of the methods which fail to satisfy the criterion. The little other information is duplicated in the current Condorcet method article. There is no such thing as "the Condorcet method". A previous merge discussion in 2004 petered out despite only one user (Daelin) expressing any reluctance to merge jnestorius(talk) 13:47, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

  • Neutral (changed below) - I dunno, it doesn't seem like it's worth the work. As Jnestorius points out, the current Condorcet criterion article is very boilerplate-driven, with a lot of prose dedicated to describing non-compliant methods, and only a short, unadorned bullet list describing compliant methods. While it's true that there is no such thing as "the Condorcet method", in my experience, it's common to describe a method that satisfies the Condorcet criterion as "a Condorcet method" (and this was pointed out in 2004). The current Condorcet method article is the older and longer article that gets 3-4x the traffic. Perhaps a baby step toward a merge would be to create a "Condorcet criterion" section in the Condorcet method article, which would be a summary-style section pointing to this Condorcet criterion article. Then, if/when all of the important information is duplicated, a merge could happen. -- RobLa (talk) 00:41, 8 August 2018 (UTC)
    I think the two couldn't be merged, but we could do a merge by breaking the material in this article into 2 separate things:
    1. An article on round-robin methods (e.g. ranked pairs, Schulze, Copeland) that choose a winner by looking only at the set of pairwise comparisons.
    2. An article on concatenated voting methods, which would include everything like Condorcet//*, Smith//*, and Landau//*.
    Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 23:28, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
Support merge on the grounds that a Condocet method is one while fulfill the Condorcet criterion, so the two concepts are intimately linked at are best discussed together. The material on the criterion page would be just as validly places on the other page. The proposed method of an intermediate step (to create a linked summary/main) seems unnecessarily complicated, and I think that its better to just get the job done in one step. Klbrain (talk) 21:17, 21 January 2019 (UTC)
  • Oppose - There certainly needs to be a page for the Condorcet criterion so that non-compliant methods can be discussed, as with other voting system criteria pages. If the pages were merged, they would have to be merged into the criterion page. I oppose this because all Condorcet methods pick the same winner in most elections, where there is a Condorcet winner, and there are enough commonalities between the procedures of all the methods that it makes sense to discuss them in one article. Thirsch7 (talk) 15:02, 21 February 2019 (UTC)
  • Oppose - I sympathise with the proposal without agreeing with it. I make a counterproposal on the Condorcet method talk page. Colin.champion (talk) 13:48, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Oppose - While it's arguable that "Condorcet method" is the wrong name for the article, and we need better organization, I don't think readers would be helped by merging "..method" and "..criterion". The "method" articles should describe the criteria that are met by the method. See also my remark below. -- RobLa (talk) 13:16, 5 February 2021 (UTC)


Requested move 5 February 2021

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Moved (non-admin closure) (t · c) buidhe 15:41, 12 February 2021 (UTC)


Condorcet criterion → Condorcet winner criterionCondorcet winner criterion – This article is already the target of the Condorcet winner redirect. The Condorcet loser criterion is different than the "Condorcet criterion", so having a generically named criterion can be confusing. Could we help make things a little clearer by renaming this article Condorcet winner criterion? If nothing else, the distinction from the Condorcet loser criterion should be better explained in this article. RobLa (talk) 13:16, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

  • Support. “Winner” is an essential element of the topic. Amongst the many criteria, “winner” is implied, but the title of an article has to stand alone. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 14:46, 5 February 2021 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


Requested move 9 November 2025

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Moved. ~ Jenson (SilverLocust 💬) 02:44, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

Condorcet winner criterion → Condorcet winner – WP:CONCISE – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 02:45, 8 November 2025 (UTC) This is a contested technical request (permalink). – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 20:26, 9 November 2025 (UTC) — Relisting. TarnishedPathtalk 00:57, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

This seems sensible and I have no objection. The last RM had only two participants and the main concern was including "winner" in the title. @Closed Limelike Curves would you suggest also moving Condorcet loser criterion to Condorcet loser for consistency? There may be a good reason for a discrepancy, not sure. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 02:07, 13 November 2025 (UTC)
I think we could/should do that move, but I'm guessing that article should just be merged as a brief section of this one. The concept is symmetric to the Condorcet winner, and I'm not sure it satisfies our bar for notability. – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 05:35, 13 November 2025 (UTC)
Support move to Condorcet winner per nom. No opinion on potential merger. I think the titles should be consistent if the other article is kept but I would not necessarily hold up this move. If this is closed as moved, Condorcet loser criterion can be moved to Condorcet loser via a separate RM after this closes, supported by the argument for WP:CONSISTENCY, or if there has been no prior discussion it could be moved boldly or via WP:RMTR with this discussion as support. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 18:39, 13 November 2025 (UTC)
Is your support for that merge reflecting thinking of Winner and loser culture. I don’t think it applies at all. Nobody runs an election to see who comes last; the loser interest is on who comes second. SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:25, 14 November 2025 (UTC)
I've notified Talk:Condorcet loser criterion of this discussion. Rotideypoc41352 (talk · contribs) 16:26, 13 November 2025 (UTC)
Oppose. WP:CONCISE can be taken too far. Concise and brief are not the same thing. Many god things are unnecessary. Obsessing over pushing titling criteria to their extreme limits deviates from what best serves the readers.
Is the title wordy, or unreasonable long? Is it even long enough to cause the title to word-wrap to two lines? No. This proposal is motivated from obsessiveness, not improvement of Wikipedia for a reader.
“The condorcet winner criterion” is frequently mentioned in academic contexts and sometimes in election reform. Until it is widely implemented, “criterion” indicates its academic nature. If widely implements, it devolves to “winner”. In the meantime, it is an academic technical thing, and a three word title much better reflects the topic than a two word title that mis-implies it’s acceptance.
Some note notability concerns for related topic. Condorcet loser criterion, for example, is an academic extreme oddity of no real world relevance. Creating an article titled “Condorcet Loser” would be an absurdity. If your process for improving Wikipedia creates absurdities, reconsider your process. SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:16, 14 November 2025 (UTC)
@SmokeyJoe "Condorcet loser criterion, for example, is an academic extreme oddity of no real world relevance."
→ The mathematics of voting systems is a well-established research field. The notion of Condorcet loser is a natural and somewhat important notion in that field (>1000 hits in Google Scholar). In fact, even I, working in a different field — namely, probability theory — can remember hearing about it in a college course and reading about it in popular science magazines when I was a student. So I disagree with your assessment.
Also, the fact that this notion has no real-world relevance is, of course, completely irrelevant. Most of math is not "real-world relevant". Malparti (talk) 14:35, 20 November 2025 (UTC)
Comment. Per Google ngrams, "Condorcet winner" also seems to be the WP:COMMONNAME (50-100 times more common than "Condorcet winner criterion"). – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 18:59, 17 November 2025 (UTC)
You are comparing two words to three words. Not a valid way to compare. SmokeyJoe (talk) 19:24, 17 November 2025 (UTC)
Especially when the two-word phrase is part of the three-word phrase. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 19:26, 17 November 2025 (UTC)
That makes sense for a small difference, but the two-word phrase isn't just slightly more common: about 99% of references are to the short version. – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 22:22, 17 November 2025 (UTC)
As long as a shorter phrase is a sufficiently precise and natural identifier for a subject, I suppose we would always conclude that a shorter phrase is a better title than a longer one that includes it (regardless of the ratio). —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 00:59, 18 November 2025 (UTC)
For a more one-to-one comparison of two-word phrases, "Condorcet winner" also seems to be much more common than "Condorcet criterion". – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 18:02, 20 November 2025 (UTC)
Note: WikiProject Elections and Referendums and WikiProject Mathematics have been notified of this discussion. TarnishedPathtalk 00:59, 20 November 2025 (UTC)
Support:
  • The article start with "A Condorcet winner (French: [kɔ̃dɔʁsɛ], English: /kɒndɔːrˈseɪ/) is a candidate who would receive the support of more than half of the electorate in a one-on-one race against any one of their opponents", so "Condorcet winner seems like a logical name;
  • What follows is anecdotal and may rightly be rejected as an appeal to authority; but I'm a researcher in different-but-related field, and as a result I've attended a few research seminar on voting systems. I recall hearing the phrases "Condorcet winner" and "Condorcet criterion", but not "Condorcet winner criterion";
  • Google Books Ngram Viewer, Google search and Google Scholar all suggest that:
    • the phrase Condorcet winner <not criterion> is way more common than Condorcet winner criterion
    • the phrase Condorcet criterion is slightly more common than Condorcet winner criterion (and has always been)
As result, I support the move.
I have not taken the time to form an opinion on the merge with Condorcet loser criterion, but I lean towards opposing it. I do however support the renaming of that article, for consistency.
Malparti (talk) 14:21, 20 November 2025 (UTC)
  • My experience agrees with Malparti's: I think the criterion is usually called the "Condorcet criterion" (and indeed this happens in the body of this article at least once). The article content is a bit more focused on the criterion than the winner, but I think either Condorcet winner or Condorcet criterion would be a reasonable title. I mildly support the proposed merge. --JBL (talk) 18:41, 20 November 2025 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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