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Talk:Arrow's impossibility theorem

first sentence
I don't get that first sentence at all: "demonstrates the non-existence a set of rules for social decision making that would meet all of a certain set of criteria." - eh? (Sorry if this was discussed already, don't have time to read it all now, nor rack my brains on trying to decipher that sentence.) --Kiwibird 3 July 2005 01:20 (UTC)
 * That was missing an "of", but maybe wasn't so clear even with that corrected. Is the new version clearer? Josh Cherry 3 July 2005 02:48 (UTC)

From Dr. I.D.A.MacIntyre
I make three comments. Firstly the statement of the theorem is careless. The set voters rank is NOT the set of outcomes. It is in fact the set of alternatives. Consider opposed preferences xPaPy for half the electorate and yPaPx for the other half. ('P' = 'is Preferred to'). The outcome is {x,a,y} under majority voting (MV) and Borda Count (BC). (BC allocates place scores, here 2, 1 and 0, to alternatives in each voter's list.) The voters precisely have not been asked their opinion of the OUTCOME {x,a,y} compared to, say, {x,y} and {a} - alternative outcomes for different voter preference patterns. All voters may prefer {a} to {x,a,y} because the result of the vote will be determined by a fair lottery on x, a and y. If all voters are risk averse they may find the certainty of a preferable to any prospect of their worst possibility being chosen. This difference is crucial for understanding why the theorem in its assumptions fails to represent properly the logic of voting. As I show in my Synthese article voters must vote strategically on the set of alternatives to secure the right indeed democratic outcome. Here aPxIy for all voters would do. ('I' = 'the voter is Indifferent between'). Indeed as I show in The MacIntyre Paradox (presently with Synthese) a singleton outcome evaluated from considering preferences can be beaten by another singleton when preferences on subsets (here the sets {x}, {x,y}, {a} etc) or preferences on orderings (here xPaPy, xIyPa, etc) are considered. Strategic voting is necessary because this difference between alternatives and outcomes returns for every given sort of alternative. (Subsets, subsets of the subsets etc). Another carelessness is in the symbolism. It is L(A) N times that F considers, not, as it is written, that L considers A N times. Brackests required. In a sense,and secondly, we could say then that the solution to the Arrow paradox is to allow strategic voting. It is the burden of Gibbard's theorem (for singleton outcomes - see Pattanaik for more complex cases) (reference below) that the Arrow assumptions are needed to PREVENT strategic voting. The solution to the Arrow problem is in effect shown in the paragraph above. For the given opposed preferences with {x,a,y} as outcome voters may instead all be risk loving prefering now {x,y} to {x,a,} and indeed {a}. This outcome is achieved by all voters voting xIyPa. But in terms of frameworks this is to say that for initial prferences xPaPy and yPaPx for half the electorate each, the outcome ought to be {a} or {x,y} depending on information the voting procedure doesn't have - voters' attitudes to risk. Thus Arrow's formalisation is a mistake in itself. The procedure here says aPxIy is the outcome sometime, sometimmes it is {a} and sometimes were voters all risk neutral it is{x,a,y}. These outcomes under given fixed procedures (BC and MV) voters achieve by strategic voting. We could say then that Gibbard and Satterthwaite show us the consequences of trying to prevent something we should allow whilst Arrow grieviously misrepresents the process he claims to analyse

Thirdly if you trace back the history of the uses that have been made of the Arrow - type ('Impossibility') theorems you will wonder at the effect their export to democracies the CIA disappoved of and dictatorships it approved of actually had. Meanwhile less technical paens of praise for democracy would have been directed to democracies the US approved of and dictatorships it didn't. All this not just in the US. I saw postgraduates from Iran in the year of the fall of Shah being taught the Arrow theorem without any resolution of it being offered. It must have been making a transition to majority voting in Iran just that bit more difficult. That the proper resolution of the paradox is not well known (and those offered above all on full analysis fail to resolve these Impossibilty Theorems and in fact take us away from the solution) allows unscrupulous governments to remain Janus faced on democracy. There certainly are countries that have been attacked for not implementing political systems that US academics and advisors have let them know are worthless.

--86.128.143.185

 * Moved from the article. --Gwern (contribs) 19:43 11 April 2007 (GMT)

From Dr. I. D. A. MacIntyre.

I am at a loss to understand why other editors are erasing my comments. Anyone who wishes to do so can make a PROFESSIONAL approach to Professor Pattanaik at UCR. He will forward to me any comments you have and, if you give him your email address I will explain further to you. Alternatively I am in the Leicester, England, phone book.

I repeat: the statement of the theorem is careless. For a given set of alternatives, {x,a,y} the possible outcomes must allow ties. Thus the possible outcomes are the SET of RANKINGS of {x,a,y}. The other editors cannot hide behind the single valued case of which two things can be said. Firstly Arrow allowed orders like xIyPa (x ties with y and both beat a). Secondly if only strict orders (P throughout) can be outcomes how can the theorem conceivably claim to represent exactly divided, even in size, societies where for half each xPaPy and yPaPx.

Thus compared with {x,a,y} we see that the possible outcomes include xIyPa, xIyIa and xIaIy. In fact for the voter profile suggested in the previous paragraph under majority voting and Borda count (a positional voting system where,here 2, 1 and 0 can be allocated to each alternative for each voter) the outcome will be xIaIy. The problem that the Arrow theorem cannot cope with is that we would not expect the outcome to be the same all the time for the same voter profile. For for the given profile, and anyway, voters may be risk loving, risk averse or risk neutral. If all exhibit the same attitude to risk then respectively they will find xIyPa, aPxIy and xIaIy the best outcome. (Some of this is explained fully in my Pareto Rule paper in Theory and Decision). But the Arrow Theorem insists that voters orderings uniquely determine the outcome. Thus the Arrow Theorem fails adequately to represent adequate voting procedures in its very framework.

To repeat the set of orderings in order (ie not xIyPa compared with xIaIy, aPxIy etc). Thus all voters may find zPaPw > aPxIy > xIaIy > xIyPa if they are risk averse. ({z,w} = {x,y} for each voter in the divided profile above). The plausible outcome xIaIy is thus Pareto inferior here to aPxIy. In fact any outcome can be PAreto inoptimal for this profile. (For the outcomes aPxIy, xIyPa and xIaIy the result will be {a}, and a fair lottery on {x,y} and {x,a,y} repsectiively. The loving voter for whom zPaPw prefers the fair lottery {x,y} compared with {a} and hence xIyPa to aPxIy.

The solution is to allow strategic voting so that in effect voters can express their preferences on rankings of alternatives. Under majority voting such strategic voting need never disadvantage a majority in terms of outcomes, and as we see here, can benefit all voters. (Several of my Theory and Decison papers discuss this).

We are very close to seeing the reasonableness of cycles. For 5 voters each voting aPbPc, bPcPa and cPaPb the outcome {aPbPc, bPcPa, cPaPb, xIaIy} seems reasonable. This is not an Arrow outcome but one acknowleding 4 possible final results. But then the truth is, taking alternatives in pairs that with probability 2/3 aPb as well as bPc and cPa. What else can this mean except that we should choose x from {x,y} in every case where xPy with 2/3 probability.

(In the divided society case above if all voters are risk loving the outcome {aPxIy} is preferred by all voters to some putative {xPaPy, yPaPx}. The possible outcomes for voting cycles are to be found in my Synthese article.)

I go no further. Except to make five further comments. Firstly those who like Arrow's theorem can continue so to do, as a piece of abstract mathematics, but not as a piece of social science, as which it is appallingly bad. Arrow focuses on cyclcical preferences and later commentators like Saari have fallen into the trap of thinking opposed preferences not a problem for the Arrow frame. In fact both sorts of preferences are a problem for the erroneous Arrow frame. That is the way round things are. The Arrow frame presents the problems. The preferences are NOT problematic.

Secondly I reiterate strategic voting, which is a necessary part of democracy, need never allow any majority to suffer (see my Synthese article for the cyclical voting case). Indeed majorities and even all voters can benefit. Majority voting with strategic voting could, then, be called consequentialist majoritarian.

Thirdly, and if this is what is getting up the other editos noses then leave just this out because it is most important that everyone stops being fooled about MAJORITY VOTING by Arrow's theorem and his Nobel driven prestige, anyone who thinks Arrow has a point has been led astray. If US academics and advisors believe he has then why do we bomb countries for not being demcracies? And if no one does then why was the theorem taught unanswered to Iranian students here in the UK during the year of the fall of the Shah? If Iran is not a demcracy to your liking, I am speaking to the other editors, a good part of the reason is the theorems you are protecting, I can assure you. No one can be Janus faced about this. paricualrly not by suppressing solutions to the Theorem in a dictatorial way.

Fourthly to restrict the theorem to linear orderings which Arrow does not do is pointlessly deceptive. For it hides the route to the solution (keeping 'experts' in pointless but lucrative employment?). For even in that case the set of strict orders on the set of alternatives is NOT what voters are invited to rank.

Lastly the hieroglyths above are wrong too. The function F acts on L(A) N times. L does not operate on A N times as the text above claims. Brackets required!

From Dr. I. MacIntyre : Of course any account of the Arrow Theorem and its ramifications is going to please some and displease others so I add this comment without criticism.

It seems to me that strategic behaviour in voting (and more generally) is such an important part of human behaviour that how various voting procedures cope with it will turn out to be the most useful way of distinguishing between them.

Indeed one could go so far as to say that strategic behaviour, properly understood and interpreted, also provides the key to resolving the Arrow 'Paradox'.

To that end, and anyway because of its importance I think it would be useful in this Wikipedia article to indicate, at least, the tight connection between the constraints Arrow imposes on voters in order to derive his theorem and what must be imposed on them to avoid the logical possibility of 'misrepresentation' or strategic behaviour. That is, the role of Arrow's assumptions in Gibbard's Theorem should, I think, be spelt out at least informally.

Many writers have suggested resolutions to the Theorem without paying any real attention to strategic voting. As a result they have missed what is certainly majority decision making's best (and I think decisive) defence. For under majority decision making strategic voting can benefit majorities, even all voters (sic!) (see my Pareto Rule paper in Theory and Decision) and no majority ever need suffer. No other rule (eg the Borda Count rule) defends its own constitutive principle in this way.

As a result of these omissions (of any acknowledgement of the ubiquity of strategic behaviour and of the Arrow - Gibbard connection) the technical literature in recent years has lost realism in its accounts of democratic behaviour and leaves its readers with the impression that democracy is best saved by abandoning majority voting. (As Borda Count does). Such an odd view of best voting practice is likely to encourage dictators and discourage even the strongest of democrats. Perhaps that is the intended effect. For one could argue that the way majority mandates have been de - legitimised is the worst legacy of the Arrow Theorem so that just redistribution has been thwarted in South Africa, Northern Ireland and elsewhere in localities better known by you readers than I.

I. MacIntyre n_mcntyr@yahoo.co.uk 27th April 2007

Arrow claiming that rated voting doesn't have normalization-based IIA failures?
User:Closed Limelike Curves, I am responding because you have reverted my changes twice now. Last time you added the following quote to the CES podcast reference:
 * So I think Approval Voting is a little too coarse. I think if you had three or four candidates the incentives for this would be much less if you had three or four classes. There would be a tendency to approve candidates you don’t think very well of just to avoid somebody you think is a real catastrophe.

This is in reply to Aaron Hamlin asking if Approval would encourage the growth of third parties. The quote seems to be more related to strategy than to normalization problems. If it were related to normalization problems, it could just as easily be read the other way: "There would be a tendency to approve candidates you don't think very well of just to avoid somebody you think is a real catastrophe", implying that if the real catastrophe hadn't run, you wouldn't be approving those candidates you don't think very well of, hence a change in ballots would occur due to irrelevant candidates dropping out. So I would like to ask where you consider the quote, or the podcast reference in general, to imply that Arrow doesn't think Sen-type IIA failures will occur, i.e. that he "reversed his opinion later in life, coming to agree that scoring methods provided more useful information that make it possible for such systems to evade his theorem".

That sufficiently fine-grained cardinal ballots with sufficiently many candidates provide more ways to vote (more information) is not in contention, nor is that some cardinal methods like Range pass IIA when that extra data is held fixed. Indeed, the former is the reason Sen uses the wider concept of an SWFL and not just a plain SWF. Nor does the original Social Choice and Individual Welfare reference assume that data is being held fixed: Arrow directly refers to von Neumann-Morgenstern utilities and their invariance to positive linear transformations. Wotwotwoot (talk) 23:05, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

 * "" –Maximum Limelihood Estimator 02:57, 20 April 2024 (UTC)
 * "" –Maximum Limelihood Estimator 02:57, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

 * Yes, Arrow does say that there is more information. That's why I said
 * That sufficiently fine-grained cardinal ballots with sufficiently many candidates provide more ways to vote (more information) is not in contention.
 * That much is clear. Sincere rated ballots based on vNM utilities give strength of preference, and ranks don't: that's the whole point. But he doesn't say nor does he imply that this invalidates Sen-type IIA.
 * We later have
 * But we have some idea how strongly people feel. In other words, you might do something like saying each voter does not just give a ranking. But says, this is good. And this is not good. Or this is very good.
 * Which implies again that there's a strength of preference ("not just give a ranking"), and that he sees a need for more ratings than just approve and disapprove, so that the voters may provide information about how strongly they feel about each candidate on some scale (good, very good, etc). But that is an orthogonal issue.
 * How fine-grained the rating resolution is doesn't itself validate or invalidate Sen-type IIA failure - unless you're thinking that Arrow, by using grade-like terms like "good" and "very good", is referring to Balinski and Laraki's MJ reasoning which is intended to reduce Sen-IIA type behavior. But that seems like somewhat of a reach. And were that the case, it's likely that he would have referred to MJ by name, given that he names Balinski elsewhere in the podcast.
 * In short, while the source shows that Arrow considers cardinal voting an improvement since such ballots can represent more information, Arrow does not specifically counter the point made in Social Choice and Individual Welfare. Wotwotwoot (talk) 17:31, 20 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I'm citing this to support the claim that Arrow, later in life, agreed cardinal voting is an improvement because it provides additional, meaningful information relative to ordinal ballots; and that this meaningful information allows such methods to evade his results. (Setting aside practical limitations like human psychology, which Balinski & Laraki take pains to minimize; I'll try and add your reference to their work back in.)
 * My issues with the previously-suggested edits:
 * 1. The sentence raises a technical point that can only be properly discussed in the body (not the lede). The result is also only indirectly related to Arrow's theorem (enough to warrant mention in the article, but not the lede). Discussing these results in the lede serves to reinforce the common misconception that Arrow's theorem (either directly or in an only slightly-modified form) applies to cardinal methods.
 * 2. The sentence makes it sound like the authors are proving another rigorous impossibility result, rather than raising a philosophical objection.
 * 3. The sentence seems redundant, given the already-existing sections covering limitations caused by human psychology and philosophical disagreements about interpersonal utility comparisons.
 * 4. The sentence makes it sound like rated methods are exempt under a technicality, or there's a similar result applying to rated methods under a different name (like how Satterthwaite technically doesn't apply to cardinal methods, but Gibbard's theorem proving only a slightly weaker result still does). Arrow, Vickrey, and Harsanyi would all disagree with the claim, and argue these kinds of numeric scores are meaningful in a way that allows score voting to avoid independence failures (up to practical failures). (Sen also might agree, since I've seen him argue elsewhere that interpersonal utility comparisons are possible.) Balinski and Laraki also showed cardinal utilities or grades proportional to aren't actually needed for IIA, so long as voters are allowed to rate candidates independently (median ratings only require ordinal information). –Maximum Limelihood Estimator 02:01, 21 April 2024 (UTC)
 * If you're using this citation to show that Arrow has changed his mind to that cardinal methods evade (i.e. aren't affected by) his own results, then it does not seem relevant to use this citation when discussing Sen's generalization. "Sen showed X, Arrow had an informal argument along these lines too, but later in life he changed his mind", makes it sound like the "later in life he changed his mind" part is relevant to the informal argument, which it isn't.
 * That's distinct from using the citation to reference that Arrow says that his own impossibility theorem does not apply to cardinal voting.
 * I now see you have removed the "informal argument" clause entirely, but I would like to restore it.
 * As for the rest, I've already given a summary above (under "Spoiler effects and IIA"), but I would like to add a few more points.
 * I am not proposing that the lead discuss the generalizations, only that it makes the reader aware that they exist. Actual discussion would take place in a separate section, not in the lead. If you'd like, we could add a contingency and say something like "generalizations exist that do apply to rated elections given additional assumptions".
 * My point is basically the converse of yours.
 * There are many places on Wikipedia where a footnote or caveat about rated voting says "the IIA result only holds if voters don't change their scales", or something to that effect. These exist because the consensus seems to be that some people do change their scales. The generalizations formalize the argument that if they do, then the broader election does fail IIA, giving a theoretical backing relevant to the theorem for what's being informally expressed in the caveats (as well as elsewhere, in Approval papers discussing how to vote, mean utility, etc.; or even right here on this page with CRGreathouse saying "I grant that there are normalization issues with cardinal voting systems").
 * So your concern is that discussing generalizations in the lead would risk people thinking that the standard Arrow's theorem applies to rated voting. Mine is that not doing so would risk them thinking that rated voting elections pass, just because the systems do when ratings are held fixed. The references to vNM utilities are intended to give a reasonably common theoretical model to explain such changes of scale. Responses could be dealt with in the section.
 * The reasons I gave under "Spoiler effects and IIA" give the theoretical relevance of the generalizations to Arrow's theorem. And the behavior seeming natural enough that there are caveats to this effect elsewhere indicate that it's practically relevant as well. Thus for two different reasons it deserves a more broad discussion than just a passing remark in the interpersonal comparison section. Wotwotwoot (talk) 11:17, 21 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I'd grant there's an issue here in that some voters normalize their ballots, much like how behavioral economics has shown voters use a wide variety of heuristics to make even ordinal judgments (see decoy effect). In that case, no Smith-independent method actually satisfies ISDA: it's possible to introduce a new, strongly-dominated candidate who nevertheless changes the way voters rank other outcomes.
 * If we want to say "well, the system satisfies this axiom, but some voters act in a way that violates it", we'd have to apply that to every voting system and voting property, and every article's lede will quickly get very, very messy. (Also, we could no longer say that Condorcet methods uniquely minimize the rate of IIA failures.) –Maximum Limelihood Estimator 18:42, 22 April 2024 (UTC)
 * If we want to say "well, the system satisfies this axiom, but some voters act in a way that violates it", we'd have to apply that to every voting system and voting property, and every article's lede will quickly get very, very messy. (Also, we could no longer say that Condorcet methods uniquely minimize the rate of IIA failures.) –Maximum Limelihood Estimator 18:42, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Strategic spoilers
@Wotwotwoot Do you happen to have citations on strategic spoiler effects? (It seems obviously correct, but I don't have a source.) –Sincerely, A Lime 23:18, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

Previous lede…
… wasn’t great, but it was better than what we have now.

More generally, the theorem isn’t limited to just voting theory and the lede completely misses that.  Volunteer Marek  07:26, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

 * Lede included, generally speaking, this article would be shorter if it was longer. I have a CS background, and I've come back to this article like several times to reference it. A lot of conversations about RCV die with this article, because someone says "hey, RCV has these draw backs" and links here, and then it's really not clear to me (or probably anyone in the discussion) what the drawbacks actually are. I'd really have to print this out and follow most of the wikilinks and probably read the source material and other sources if I really wanted to understand the implications here. A longer article with additions from someone who has domain expertise would really go a long way... and/or if I read it and really dig in to it, I'll maybe try to add some clarifying language and citation material where I struggled. - Scarpy (talk) 20:17, 15 May 2024 (UTC)
 * This is the longer article with clarifying language and citations written by a domain expert :) I overhauled it a month ago.
 * The new version clarifies the main drawback of IRV is it tends to have a lot of spoiler effects—more than Condorcet methods, at least. Graded voting systems don’t have any spoiler effect at all, but some people have philosophical objections to them. –Sincerely, A Lime 03:56, 21 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Is your main complaint that the latest version doesn't cover ML and voting classifiers? I'd be happy to see more material on those added, but I don't think the earlier versions of the article covered this topic either. –Sincerely, A Lime 16:57, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

This may or may not be relevant and non-obscure, but it certainly does not belong in the lede.  Volunteer Marek  23:43, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

 * I've modified the sentence to try and clarify the relevance, but further edits are welcome.
 * However, if your interest is in ML classifiers, I think the last sentence of the lede is probably the most relevant in the article. Arrow is offering an interpretation of his theorem as a proof that model averaging is better than using a voting classifier, because every voting classifier will violate Luce's choice axiom. –Sincerely, A Lime 00:15, 22 May 2024 (UTC)
 * No, that’s not the issue. The issue is that the lede is supposed to summarize the article and this doesn’t summarize anything in the article. Furthermore, the lede should be general and accessible rather than focusing on esoteric applications.  Volunteer Marek   06:41, 22 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I don't know what you're referring to, then. The article contains an extensive discussion on research and results on the meaningfulness of cardinal information.
 * I'm not sure how voting is more esoteric than the other applications of Arrow's theorem. The vast majority of the hits for Arrow's theorem on Google Scholar are referring to it in the context of social choice. I know it's occasionally discussed in other fields, but most people who come to this article come from other voting theory articles. –Sincerely, A Lime 17:01, 22 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Ok, first problem - and it is a *really big* problem is that this entire article is written as if Arrow’s theorem is just about voting. It’s not. It’s about social choice in general. At the moment it would require way too much effort to rewrite the article to put it in a suitable state.
 * Second, I didn’t say voting “is esoteric”. What I said is that putting applications to *rated* voting are a bit esoteric.
 * And to get to basic issue here is the version of the article when I removed that stuff from the lede. The section on “rated voting” is much smaller and does not contain all the original research. I see you NOW added it, AFTER I pointed out that the stuff in the lede wasn’t summarizing the article. So your statement of “I don’t know what you’re referring to” seems a bit off. At any rate, this seems backwards - add stuff to the lede, then when someone points out that it’s not summarizing anything in the main body, add it to the main body.   Volunteer Marek   00:30, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I think you missed this sub-subsection, in the previous version you linked, which still contains an extensive discussion on research and results on the meaningfulness of cardinal information. The links you provided show me adding a single paragraph referencing a relevant paper to this sub-subsection. –Sincerely, A Lime 03:01, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Can you also explain how the two sources given support the stated text that “”Arrow himself initially dismissed such systems on philosophical grounds, but later considered this a mistake, describing score voting as "probably the best" way to avoid his paradox.” The given quotes do not support this text. The second source is by someone else, about something else. The first source is Arrow but where exactly is he saying that “rated methods” are “probably the best way to avoid his paradox”?
 * (this seems to be rather the standard issue of ordinal vs cardinal preferences)  Volunteer Marek   06:46, 22 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I've added the exact quote in a separate reference –Sincerely, A Lime 20:28, 22 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Sigh, ok.
 * ”Arrow initially asserted the information provided by these systems was meaningless” - where is this in the quote/source provided? All that Arrow does here is describe how consumer choice theory approaches its subject. If I’m not mistaken the given source does not even mention the impossibility theorem. Arrow was a very versatile economist who wrote on a very wide range of topics and just because he said something about one thing - consumer theory - does not mean he said the same thing about another thing - social choice theory. And he didn’t even say it! There’s nothing here where he says “information provided by these systems is meaningless”. This is original research at best.
 * ”therefore could not prevent his paradox” - again nowhere in the quote (which isn’t even about the paradox) and not in the source. IF there is text somewhere else in the Binachi source which supports this, please provide it.
 * ”he would later recognize this as a mistake” - where is that in the quote and or source provided? All that he says is that there’s different ways of thinking about social choice. And calling it a “mistake” is kind of a give away that this is just OR. It’s a theorem. It has applications given by its assumptions. A “mistake” would be if there was a mathematical error in it. There isn’t.
 * ” describing score voting as "probably the best" way to avoid his theorem” - ok, you finally provided a source which is relevant (so the other two sources should be removed as they say nothing of the kind).
 * Except here is the actual quote:
 * ” Dr. Arrow: Well, I'm a little inclined to think that score systems where you categorize in maybe three or four classes probably (in spite of what I said about manipulation) is probably the best.”
 * He says he’s “a little inclined”. And he says it’s “probably the best” but NOT that it’s a way of “avoiding his theorem”. What he is saying here is basically that given that his theorem tells you can’t have a perfect system, then having to choose from among all the imperfect systems, scored voting might possibly kind of be the best. That’s a different thing entirely.  Volunteer Marek   00:30, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

The main problem with this article
… is that it presents the theorem as being exclusively about voting systems. But that’s neither how Arrow or standard texts on the subject characterize it. Arrow himself, in his famous paper, right of the bat mentions market exchange as an example of aggregation of individual preferences into social outcome. Look at how Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy approaches it. The word “voting” doesn’t appear until the fourth paragraph in the very specific context of Condorcet’s Paradox. The whole point - as SEoP makes abundantly clear - of the impossibility theorem is that it’s NOT JUST voting (specifically majority voting) that is subject to anomalies like that of Condorcet, but *social choice* in general.

Presenting this subject as just about voting is both misleading to the reader and does quite an injustice to a very important, even fundememtal, result.  Volunteer Marek  00:56, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

 * If you'd like to add more discussion of the social choice perspective, be my guest! There's a close relationship between voting and social choice—Arrow often referred to his theorem as being about either "social choice" or "voting" interchangeably—but I focused on voting because it's more concrete and easier to understand. –Sincerely, A Lime 18:22, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Voting is just one way that society can make choices. Market exchange is another. The point of the theorem is to treat social choice at a highly general level.
 * I appreciate that different folks come to this subject from different backgrounds. At the same time we need to be aware of that and not let these backgrounds skew the presentation of the subject. The current problem is that the present version is SOOOOO skewed towards a particular version that it would truly be a great task to rewrite it appropriately.  Volunteer Marek   04:57, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I think I've improved on this.
 * Although, thinking about it more, it seems to me like Arrow's theorem—unlike other theorems of social choice—is in practice limited to voting. Markets etc. rarely (if ever) rely on pure ranking data; there might be a few situations where monetary transfers are prohibited like organ-matching, but generally social choice involves comparisons of utility. –Sincerely, A Lime 16:39, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I think this article is much more clear for talking about voting in the lead instead of immediately plunging into the phrase "aggregation of individual preferences into social outcome". I am sympathetic to OP's view, but we must remember that Wikipedia has a pretty different readership than SEP. Mathwriter2718 (talk) 14:17, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Non-nullity defined incorrectly?
As described here, a null voting system would be one that has an a priori ordering of all candidates, and always returns that ordering regardless of the votes. But there are other voting systems that do not meet this definition but still obey IIA. Here's one: For a natural example of this, consider a voting system that always chooses the majority winner between the candidates from two major parties, and then lists the third parties in alphabetical order. There can be no spoilers, because they cannot affect the majority-vote tie-breaking system and nothing can affect the other comparisons. On the other hand, there are plenty of pairs of candidates for whom the voters are ignored. I think maybe the correct formulation of non-nullity is: for every two candidates, both outcomes are possible. —David Eppstein (talk) 08:58, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Use an a priori weak order of the candidates, in which (among the entire field of potential candidates) each candidate has at most one other candidate with whom they are tied.
 * Return a linear extension of this weak order, resolving ties between pairs of tied candidates by majority vote.

 * The redefinition you proposed seems to be Wilson's weakened form of the citizen sovereignty (onto) condition, which he drops in the last section, but I think your counterexample is correct (which means I'm missing a condition somewhere). Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 18:42, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Score voting
I am bothered by this article's blatant advocacy of score voting both in the lead and in the "Eliminating IIA failures: Rated voting" section, for three reasons: —David Eppstein (talk) 19:44, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
 * 1) it is off-topic.
 * 2) I am not convinced it is neutrally presented.
 * 3) In my personal experience (having seen this system in action in certain polarized committee votes) it is a very bad system, not because it can be gamed (all systems can be gamed) but because it is so blatantly obvious that it can be gamed as to put any honest participants at a severe disadvantage. Participants willing to game the system devolve to approval voting, honest participants spread their scores among different candidates, and the approval voters win. If you're going to enforce that voters spread their scores more uniformly you might as well just use Borda, and if you're going to allow approval voting then just use approval voting and put all voters on a more equal footing.
 * 4) Our coverage of this gaming issue dishonestly mixes the two by talking about it as a voting system but then using sources such as Harsanyi that talk about aggregating utility (without opportunity for voters to misprepresent their preferences) rather than scored voting.

 * I've improved the lead, and will work on improving the rated voting section later. –Sincerely, A Lime 01:29, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

ArXiv Pre-prints are not Reliable Sources
Currently FN10: is a link to this arXiv page which does not show a publication. This cannot be considered a reliable source as anyone can post there. Czarking0 (talk) 00:12, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

 * Per WP:ARXIV, Arxiv reprints are allowed/considered reliable if published by subject matter experts. That said you can also find a publication here:
 * https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10602-022-09383-9 Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 14:18, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

Statement of the theorem, NPOV, and sourcing
I am concerned about how the theorem is stated.

1. The lead says that:
 * No rank-based procedure for collective decision-making can behave rationally or coherently. Specifically, any such rule violates independence of irrelevant alternatives.

This is highly problematic because a) one might not think that IAA is required for rationality or coherentness, b) there are other assumptions in the theorem statement besides IAA. It would be much more accurate to say that ranked-choice collective decision-making procedures cannot simultaneously satisfy several axioms that we intuitively think fair systems should satisfy. We ought to be careful to take an WP:NPOV and avoid making a definitive judgement about whether IAA is required for "rationality" or "coherentness".

2. The theorem statement in this article appears to say:
 * Total ordering + non-dictatorship + IAA implies contradiction.

It cites Wilson to support this. However, Wilson's paper does not support this!!! The assumptions are different.

3. The section "Intuitive argument (voting)" uses one source, Iain McLean's paper, to support several claims. However, these claims are more hyperbolic than they have a right to be. For example, it says "many authors" take a certain stance, and cites only that McLean takes this stance. It also says:
 * Given these assumptions, the existence of the voting paradox is enough to show the impossibility of rational behavior for ranked-choice voting.

which I again believe is an NPOV problem.

I think these problems must be resolved before this article can be considered a Good Article. Mathwriter2718 (talk) 14:10, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

 * So, I'll first mention on the topic of rationality/coherence that in decision and social choice theory, these have a specific meaning, given by the von Neumann–Morgenstern axioms (including IIA); I've tried making that more clear by linking to them. IIA is considered a requirement for rationality because violating it implies your behavior will be self-contradictory (see spoiler effect) and opens you up to Dutch books.
 * On Wilson, could you explain to me how I've been misunderstanding him? I thought I was missing something but the paper says he drops the assumption that the function is onto. Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 17:58, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
 * 1. You probably know more about this than I do, but my impression is that the von Neumann-Morgenstern independence axiom should not be thought of as "equivalent to" the IIA axiom. If nothing else, the von Neumann–Morgenstern axioms are about individuals, and IIA is about societal aggregation. Even if the idea is the same, the mathematical content and context are quite different, no? There could be other analogues of von Neumann-Morgenstern independence that also seem reasonable to require. For example, the relevant SEP page (linked below) has more than one non-equivalent formulation of IIA. Now, when I read IIA, it seems like a really strong assumption compared to von Neumann-Morgenstern independence. My impression is that some authors resolve the Arrow dilemma by rejecting that IIA is required for rationality, but I've never heard of someone rejecting von Neumann-Morgenstern independence. (To be clear, I'm not endorsing or rejecting this view, I'm just saying what I believe to be the case in the field.) For some evidence besides just my impression, the relevant SEP page ([]) discusses IIA as if it needs justification. For example:
 * Gerry Mackie (2003) argues that there has been equivocation on the notion of irrelevance. It is true that we often take nonfeasible alternatives to be irrelevant. That presumably is why, in elections, we do not ordinarily put the names of dead people on ballots, along with those of the live candidates. But [IIA] also excludes from consideration information on preferences for alternatives that, in an ordinary sense, are relevant. An example illustrates Mackie’s point. George W. Bush, Al Gore, and Ralph Nader ran in the United States presidential election of 2000. Say we want to know whether there was a social preference for Gore above Bush. [IIA] requires that this question be answerable independently of whether the people preferred either of them to, say, Abraham Lincoln, or preferred George Washington to Lincoln. This seems right. Neither Lincoln nor Washington ran for President that year. They were, intuitively, irrelevant alternatives. But [IIA] also requires that the ranking of Gore with respect to Bush should be independent of voters’ preferences for Nader, and this does not seem right because he was on the ballot and, in the ordinary sense, he was a relevant alternative to them. Certainly Arrow’s observability criterion does not rule out using information on preferences for Nader. They were as observable as any in that election.
 * 2. Maybe I'm the one misunderstanding, so I'll explain my reading of Wilson and we can discuss. I assume the theorem you are referencing is Theorem 3: Every social welfare function is either null or dictatorial. Take any set $$S$$ and call the set of preferences on $$S$$ (complete and transitive binary relations) $$\Pi$$. Then to Wilson, a "social welfare function" is any map $$f : \Pi^n \to \Pi$$ satisfying two axioms:
 * I (IIA). If $$R, R' \in \Pi^n$$ agree on a subset, then $$f(R), f(R')$$ also agree on that subset.
 * II. If $$x, y \in S$$, there exists $$R \in \Pi^n$$ such that $$x f(R) y$$.
 * To summarize, my reading is this: the section Arrow's_impossibility_theorem says
 * IIA + non-dictatorship $$\implies$$ contradiction
 * but Wilson says
 * IIA + II + non-null + non-dictatorship $$\implies$$ contradiction.
 * Mathwriter2718 (talk) 18:56, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
 * To be clear, I'm not inherently against using the word "rational" or "coherent" to refer to principles such as von Neumann Morgenstern independence that it is widely accepted a rational agent must obey. Instead, I am questioning whether it is really widely-accepted that any social aggregation function violating IIA is incoherent or irrational. Mathwriter2718 (talk) 19:07, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
 * There's some ambiguity here in what we mean by "rejecting IIA". First, for every widely-accepted axiom there's some fringe philosopher willing to argue against it (same for VNM's IIA).
 * Second, if it's impossible to behave completely rationally (because you don't have cardinal information), violating IIA becomes second-best and therefore "rational" in a sense. (Assuming you care about >1 person's welfare). If you decide you want to reconstruct the utility function from the orderings, you have to give up IIA. e.g. if you have two ballots, with the first ranking A > 24 candidates > Z, and the second ranking A > Z > 24 candidates, we can't logically prove the 1st prefers A > Z more strongly than the 2nd, but we could reasonably infer it by looking at all of the "irrelevant" alternatives sandwiched between A and Z in the first one. But it would still be better to have the actual utilities for each candidate, so we don't have to use heuristics like that. David Pearce has a wonderful discussion here. Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 20:50, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
 * I found Pearce's discussion of Gorgias's "On Nonexistence" very amusing. Anyway, by this point maybe we could just find a reputable citation about whether or not IIA is viewed as a necessary condition for coherence/fairness, or just as a possible condition for coherence/fairness one might reject. (To be honest, I find the use of "rational" to refer to a social aggregation function and not an agent a bit strange.)
 * I am interested to know if you agree or disagree with my reading of this article and of Wilson. Mathwriter2718 (talk) 22:19, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
 * I believe Wilson says in Section (not theorem) 3 that he drops the assumption of citizen sovereignty (that the SCF is onto), but I'm actually a bit confused, because I'm not sure what he replaces it with. Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 22:51, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
 * I looked pretty hard at the article again today. I found new discrepancies. A) Wilson talks of complete and transitive binary relations (which he calls preferences and Wikipedia calls total preorders), but the article talks of total orders, which are antisymmetric total preorders. B) Wilson's requirement of non-dictatorship also requires that there is no "inverse dictator" whose preferences are always the exact opposite of those of the function. C) Wilson is extremely fussy about exactly what assumptions imply exactly what conclusions. The article theorem says that stuff implies IIA is violated, but neither Wilson nor the arguments on this page take that logical path. Wilson himself takes the path of IIA and surjectivity implies either null or dictator.
 * Wilson says in the abstract quite clearly that he drops surjectivity and still proves Arrow's theorem. However, his only relevant theorem (Theorem 5) is simply not the promised result. Perhaps if you do WP:OR, you can see how Theorem 5 gets you the desired result. But I think the prudent thing to do is to not say in this article that you can drop surjectivity. Mathwriter2718 (talk) 13:30, 19 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Speaking of WP:OR, the proofs of Arrow's result on this page are apparently "simplified versions" of proofs in the literature. I'm not sure if this "simplification" is OR or not. Mathwriter2718 (talk) 13:33, 19 July 2024 (UTC)
 * @Closed Limelike Curves I agree with many of the changes in your recent edit. But there are some I disagree with, including some reverts you made of my edits.
 * The Arrow quote in the lead: I removed the link to Condorcet paradox because there is already a link to it only a few sentences ago, and it's not clear to me that Arrow was even talking about the Condorcet paradox. Seems more likely he was talking about IIA violations.
 * Removing Voting paradox from See also: this is just a redirect to Condorcet paradox, which is already in the See also.
 * Neutrality does not imply Non-imposition: the null voting method that is indifferent between all alternatives is neutral but not surjective.
 * I am not so sure about calling neutrality a "free and fair election". To me, "free and fair election" means more about how the election is administered, whether or not some candidates are arrested, whether or not everyone in society is allowed to vote, etc. The lead for free and fair elections supports this view:
 * A free and fair election is defined by political scientist Robert Dahl as an election in which "coercion is comparatively uncommon". A free and fair election involves political freedoms and fair processes leading up to the vote, a fair count of eligible voters who cast a ballot, a lack of electoral fraud or voter suppression, and acceptance of election results by all parties. An election may partially meet international standards for free and fair elections, or may meet some standards but not others.
 * A social choice function on the other hand doesn't even need to be an election. I feel less sure about calling anonymity "one vote, one value". The slogan "one vote, one value" seems to me to imply that anonymity is somehow counting up votes, when it really just requires the function to treat each voter the same, and the function a priori might not have a natural interpretation in terms of voting. But the page for one man, one vote says it is about "equal representation", which feels right on point with what anonymity is.
 * It looks from that edit like you agreed with me that it is prudent to not drop surjectivity. In that case, I think I should add the surjectivity requirement to the formal statement (it is the only requirement in the Non-degenerate systems section that is not in the formal statement). Mathwriter2718 (talk) 13:32, 20 July 2024 (UTC)
 * On the name of the surjectivity requirement: is there a source in the literature that calls this "Non-imposition"? As I'm sure you already know, Wilson just calls this a "weaker version of Arrow's condition of Citizen's Sovereignty", which is not super helpful. I would really like to not come up with our own name for this, but it seems like we have to. I feel like "weak Citizen's Sovereignty" or "surjectivity" are both names that are minimally new, so those are the ones I support at this moment. Mathwriter2718 (talk) 13:39, 20 July 2024 (UTC)
 * One last concern similar to the one for "non-imposition": is there a source in the literature that defines the term "non-degenerate ranked choice voting systems" as ones satisfying every Arrow hypothesis except for IIA? I couldn't find this term in Wilson or Arrow. I worry it may be an invention of Wikipedia. Mathwriter2718 (talk) 14:02, 20 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Sorry for the large volume of posts, but one last thing I just spotted: non-imposition/weak Citizen's Sovereignty/surjectivity is currently defined as "it is possible for any candidate to win", but this is a weaker statement than surjectivity. Mathwriter2718 (talk) 14:07, 20 July 2024 (UTC)
 * I very much agree with these NPOV concerns. The suggested edit in #1, or something along those lines, seems good to me. Gumshoe2 (talk) 18:47, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:Arrow's impossibility theorem


text:
Oakville, Ontario

Oakville is a town and lower-tier municipality in Halton Region, Ontario, Canada. It is located on Lake Ontario between Toronto and Hamilton. At its 2021 census the town had a population of 213,759, with an estimated 233,700 people as of 2024, making it Ontario's largest town. Oakville is part of the Greater Toronto Area and one of the most densely populated areas of Canada. According to the town about 36% do not have English as their mother tongue and that land available for culture and recreation is over 1000000 ft.

History
In 1793, Dundas Street was surveyed for a military road. In 1805, the Legislative Assembly of Upper Canada bought the lands between Etobicoke and Hamilton from the indigenous Mississaugas people, except for the land at the mouths of Twelve Mile Creek (Bronte Creek), Sixteen Mile Creek, and along the Credit River. In 1807, British immigrants settled the area surrounding Dundas Street as well as on the shore of Lake Ontario.

In 1820, the Crown bought the area surrounding the waterways. The area around the creeks, 960 acres, ceded to the Crown by the Mississaugas, was auctioned off to William Chisholm in 1827. He left the development of the area to his son, Robert Kerr Chisholm, and his brother-in-law, Merrick Thomas. Chisholm also formed shipbuilding business in Oakville Navy Street and Sixteen Mile Creek and lasted until 1842, but shipbuilding in Oakville lasted into the late 20th century.

The population in 1846 was 1,500. The community shipped large quantities of wheat and lumber via schooners and the railway. There were three churches, a grist mill and saw mill, and various small companies making threshing machines, wagons, watches, saddles, and metal goods. There were also tradesmen of various types. Oakville's industries also included shipbuilding. In the 1850s, there was an economic recession and the foundry, the most important industry in town, was closed. Basket-making became a major industry in the town, and the Grand Trunk Railway was built through it. In 1869, the population was 2,000. The community was served by the Great Western Railway and it was a port on Lake Ontario.

The town eventually became industrialized with the opening of Cities Service Canada (later BP Canada, and now Petro Canada) and Shell Canada oil refineries (both now closed), the Procor factory (no longer manufacturing), and, most importantly, the Ford Motor Company's Canadian headquarters and plant, all close to the Canadian National Railway and the Queen Elizabeth Way highway between Toronto and Fort Erie (Buffalo).

In 1962, the town of Oakville merged with its neighbouring villages (Bronte, Palermo, Sheridan, and the remainder of Trafalgar Township) to become the new Town of Oakville, reaching northwards to Steeles Avenue in Milton. In 1973, the restructuring of Halton County into Halton Region brought the northern border southwards to just north of the future Highway 407.

Neighbourhoods
Oakville's Planning Department divides the town into communities. These are based on traditional neighbourhoods.

Climate
Like much of Southern Ontario, Oakville has a Humid continental climate straddling Dfa/Dfb classifications, with cold winters with frequent snowfall, and warm summers. Like most lakeside municipalities on the Great Lakes, there are varying temperatures within town boundaries, generally warmer days further from the lake, the exception being on the colder days in winter.

Demographics
In the 2021 Canadian census conducted by Statistics Canada, Oakville had a population of 213,759 living in 73,558 of its 76,179 total private dwellings, a change of NaN% from its 2016 population of 193,832. With a land area of 138.94 km2, it had a population density of in 2021.

According to the 2021 census, the median age in the town is 41.6 years. 18% of the population is under 15 years of age, 66.3% is between 15 and 64 years, and 15.7% is 65 and over.

In 2016, immigrants made up 35.9% of the population. The top 10 places of birth of the immigrant population were the United Kingdom (11%), China (9.3%), India (7.6%), Pakistan (4.2%), Poland (3.8%), Philippines (3.7%), the United States (3.4%), Portugal (3.3%), Egypt (3.1%), and South Korea (2.9%).

Language
The most common mother tongues among the population in 2021 were English (57.4%), Mandarin (7.0%), Arabic (3.5%), Spanish (2.3%), and Urdu (2.2%).

Ethnicity
The 2016 census found the most reported ethnocultural background to be White (68.5%), followed by South Asian (8.9%), Chinese (7%), Arab (3.2%), Black (2.9%), Filipino (1.9%), Latin American (1.9%), Korean (1.6%), West Asian (1.1%), and other backgrounds. Aboriginals make up 0.7% the population: 0.4% First Nations and 0.3% Métis.

Religion
According to the 2011 census, 70.1% of the population identify as Christians, with Catholics (37.9%) making up the largest denomination, followed by Anglican (7.6%), United Church (7.3%), and other denominations. Others identify as Muslims (4%), Hindus (2.1%), Sikhs (1.4%), Buddhists (0.8%), Jewish (0.5%) and with other religions, and 20.6% of the population report no religious affiliation.

Economy
The top employers in Oakville include:

Employers
Sagen MI Canada (TSX:MIC), Algonquin Power & Utilities, Canadian Tire Financial Services, Cameron's Brewing Company, Equirex, Pelmorex, and Rockstar Toronto are based in Oakville, while Siemens, The Ford Motor Company, and MADD Canada have their head Canadian offices in the town. Many Oakville residents work in advanced manufacturing at large facilities operated by UTC Aerospace Systems and General Electric.

Many Oakville companies fall under the life science umbrella, with an emphasis on pharmaceuticals and elder care. There are also a number of retirement homes in the city.

As Oakville is considered part of the Greater Toronto Area it is common for residents to commute to jobs in Toronto.

Oakville Centre for the Performing Arts
The Oakville Centre for the Performing Arts houses several performances by local and international artists. It is also the performing venue for the Oakville Symphony Orchestra, the Oakville Children's Choir and the Oakville Ballet Company. The Oakville Arts Council provides further artistic talents in the town showcasing films, literary figures and visual arts.

The Oakville Children's Choir
The Oakville Children's Choir has been in business since 1994.

Oakville Galleries
Oakville Galleries is a not-for-profit art museum that exhibits contemporary art, cares for a permanent collection and delivers public programming. Its exhibition spaces are located on two sites: Gairloch Gardens and Centennial Square.

Downtown Oakville Jazz Festival
The Downtown Oakville Jazz Festival is an annual summer jazz festival established in 1992. The event includes performances at a number of stages along Lakeshore Road in downtown Oakville. The event is free to the public.

Waterfront Festival
Beginning in 1982, Oakville's Coronation Park played host to the annual Oakville Waterfront Festival. Among a range of events, the festival included small amusement park rides, arts and crafts, food and drinks, free concerts headlined by Canadian bands, and nightly fireworks displays. The Waterfront Festival took place in late June of each year until 2010, when it was cancelled due to financial difficulties, despite having annual attendance of up to 100,000 visitors. It returned in August 2013, which was the most recent festival to date.

Kerrfest
The Kerrfest is an annual outdoor music festival that takes place in early September in Oakville. Having begun in 2014, the event includes free performances and is open to the public, located at Westwood Park.

For the Love of the Arts Festival
The For the Love of the Arts Festival is an annual event taking place in the late spring in Oakville. Inaugurated in 2002, the event is hosted by CommUnity Arts Space (originally known as Music and Art Shared Space who initiated the festival), a local umbrella group advocating for shared physical space for Oakville's arts and cultural groups. Currently the only such multi-disciplinary community festival of its kind in Oakville, the event serves to showcase local talent, skills, crafts, literary art, dance performances, theatre groups and music performances. The event is intended as a symbolic presentation of a "shared space" and is entirely sponsored by local corporate and private donations.

Shopping
The Oakville Place Shopping Centre is an indoor shopping mall in Oakville that opened in 1981. The mall is approximately 42000 m2.

Athletics
The Oakville Half Marathon is an annual half marathon event held in Shell Park, with sub-events in 10K, 5K, and 2K Fun Run/Walk.

Golf
Glen Abbey Golf Course is located in Oakville. Designed by Jack Nicklaus, the course has hosted 30 Canadian Open championships since it opened in 1977, and both Golf Canada and the Canadian Golf Hall of Fame are located there. In 2018, the owner, Clublink, planned to demolish the golf course in order to build residential and commercial properties. In 2021, following objections from the community and municipal government, Clublink withdrew its development plan and stated it would continue operating Glen Abbey as a golf course.

Soccer
The Blue Devils FC of League1 Ontario is a professional soccer team. The Blue Devils are affiliated with the Oakville Soccer Club, which is the largest soccer club in Canada. Oakville boasts over 60 soccer fields and a Soccer Club Facility with a two-star, full-size, FIFA-Certified indoor soccer pitch.

Lacrosse
Oakville is home to the headquarters and practice facilities of the Toronto Rock professional box lacrosse team competing in the National Lacrosse League. Oakville is also home to the 3rd largest minor lacrosse association in Ontario: The Oakville Minor Lacrosse Association has more than 1,500 players and competes in multiple classes and multiple divisions. The town also has the Oakville Buzz, a Junior "A" lacrosse team who won the Founders Cup in 2006. The current rep lacrosse team is the Oakville Hawks.

Hockey
The Oakville Blades is a Tier II Junior "A" franchise since 1966, and a "AAA" hockey system. The current rep hockey team for boys in Oakville is the Oakville Rangers. For girls, there is the Oakville Hornets.

Skating
Skate Oakville, which is headquartered at Oakville's Sixteen Mile Creek Sports Complex, was recently the largest skating club in Canada, providing learn to skate lessons, recreational figure skating programs, competitive training, and 10 synchronized skating teams.

Baseball
Baseball is represented in Oakville by two organizations: Oakville Little League and the OMBA (Oakville Minor Baseball Association).

Oakville Little League is the largest Little League organization in Canada. In 2018, there were over 1,150 young people playing across eight divisions and over 90 teams, including seven All-Star teams. Oakville Little League also fields six All-Star (Rep) teams, known as the Oakville Whitecaps. The 12U and 14U Whitecaps teams compete annually to play in the Little League World Series and Junior League World Series, respectively.

The OMBA (Oakville Minor Baseball Association) was established in 1963. It offers three levels of baseball to children and youth in Oakville: House League, Select and Rep. OMBA runs the Oakville A's, the official Town Rep baseball playing in the Central Ontario Baseball Association (COBA) system.

Canoeing
Burloak Canoe Club is located in Oakville. Three Olympians, Adam van Koeverden, Mark Oldershaw and Larry Cain, trained at the club.

Swimming
Oakville Aquatic Club is a competitive swim club, catering to every level of swimmer, from novice swim lessons to high performance coaching since 1968.

Municipal and regional
At the municipal level, the governing body is the Oakville Town Council consisting of a mayor (currently Rob Burton) and fourteen councillors. The town is divided into seven wards, with two councillors elected by residents of each ward.

In each ward, one councillor represents the ward solely on the Oakville Town Council, and the other is a member of the 21-member governing council of the Regional Municipality of Halton, in addition to being a member of the 14-member Town Council.

Provincial
Two provincial ridings are situated in Oakville, which use the same boundaries as the federal ridings and are currently represented provincially by:

 * Oakville: Stephen Crawford (Conservative)
 * Oakville North-Burlington: Effie Triantafilopoulos (Conservative)

Federal
Two federal ridings are situated in Oakville, which are currently represented by:

 * Oakville: Anita Anand (Liberal)
 * Oakville North-Burlington: Pam Damoff (Liberal)

Public Transit
Local bus service is provided by Oakville Transit with some bus lines extending as far as Highway 407 & Dundas Carpool Lot in Burlington and South Common Centre in Mississauga. Its bus services are focused on servicing passengers using the Lakeshore West line from four different GO stations within or near Oakville. GO Transit commuter rail and bus service operate from Bronte GO and Oakville GO stations. Via Rail services along the line between Windsor and Quebec corridor, and operates from Oakville station.

Roads and highways
Several major roads and highways go through Oakville:

 * The Queen Elizabeth Way and Ontario Highway 403 run concurrently throughout most of Oakville.
 * (Bronte Road)
 * Dundas Street
 * Lakeshore Road (West/East)
 * Trafalgar Road
 * Dorval Drive
 * Neyagawa Boulevard
 * Winston Churchill Boulevard (Boundary with the City of Mississauga & Peel Region)
 * Burloak Drive (Boundary with the City of Burlington)
 * William Halton Parkway
 * Section of new road between Third Line and Neyagawa Boulevard is currently under construction.
 * Burloak Drive (Boundary with the City of Burlington)
 * William Halton Parkway
 * Section of new road between Third Line and Neyagawa Boulevard is currently under construction.

Emergency services
Law enforcement in Oakville is performed by the Halton Regional Police Service.

Fire service is provided by the Oakville Fire Department with its nine fire stations.

The Town of Oakville's Waters Air Rescue Force is a volunteer organization that provides marine search and rescue service in Western Lake Ontario. It was founded in 1954 and was a charter member of the Canadian Coast Guard Auxiliary.

Education

Elementary schools and high schools in Oakville are a mix of private and public schools, with one of the highest ratios of private schools to student population in the country. Oakville is covered by the Halton District School Board, Halton Catholic District School Board, Conseil scolaire Viamonde, and Conseil scolaire catholique MonAvenir. St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Secondary School (Oakville) and White Oaks Secondary School both offer the International Baccalaureate Program.

The town is home to Appleby College, a private school for grades seven to twelve, established in 1911 as well as St. Mildred's-Lightbourn School, an independent all-girls school. Oakville is also home to the Trafalgar Campus of Sheridan College, primarily an arts and business studies institute, and Oakville's only higher education facility.

Media
Oakville is primarily served by media based in Toronto with markets in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) that cover most of the news in the GTA. One regional newspaper, the Oakville Beaver, is published once weekly. The monthly magazines Neighbours of Joshua Creek, Neighbours of Glen Abbey and Neighbours of Olde Oakville serve three key neighbourhoods. The town is also served by Oakvillenews.org, a locally owned online daily newsletter and website.

The town also has two specialty radio stations: AM 1250 CJYE, a Christian music station and AM 1320 CJMR, a Multicultural station.

The following national cable television station also broadcast from Oakville:

 * The Weather Network has broadcast nationally from Oakville since 2005.
 * The Hamilton-based television station CHCH-DT serves Hamilton, the regional municipalities of Halton and Niagara, thus including Oakville. CHCH recently closed its Halton Bureau (due to budget considerations) which was located in downtown Oakville.
 * YourTV from the studio in the Cogeco headquarters at Harvester Road & Burloak Drive, just inside of Burlington.

Sister cities
Oakville is twinned with the following cities:

 * Dorval, Quebec, Canada (1957)
 * Dorval Drive in Oakville named after this city.
 * Neyagawa, Osaka, Japan (April 6, 1984)
 * Neyagawa Boulevard in Oakville named after this city.
 * Apartment complex in Neyagawa named after Oakville.
 * Huai'an, Jiangsu, China (June, 2015)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Oakville, Ontario


text:
Talk:Argumentum ad baculum

Instead of writing phrase we could write term. Sebastian 04:06 Feb 7, 2003 (UTC)

A related fallacy is the claim that...

How is this a related fallacy? It seems the same to me...

Logical vs Non-logical arguments
I attempted a rewrite of the article to address the alleged claim that appeal by force is not a logical fallacy. I am of the opinion that when defined in a specific way, it is necessarily a logical fallacy, resulting in the edit. Shawnc 00:31, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

I changed the phrase "violent consequences" to "dire consequences," hopefully broadening the definition to cover more than just the threat of punishment. If I'm not mistaken, Simon Blackburn defines it the same way in the Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy.--WadeMcR 06:33, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

I rewrote the bulk of the non-logical section. It's true that the example is not a logical argument, but the reasons were mostly incorrect. Logic is perfectly capable of addressing 'should' (Inductive reasoning). I tried to eliminate terms that aren't commonly defined (e.g. 'quasi-logical'). The assertion that the argument addresses holding a belief in P 'even if P is logically false' isn't why the conclusion is non-logical, so it's removed. This section still needs work, or needs to be scrapped entirely; an article on a logical fallacy needs to address the logical fallacy - not some poorly-worded non-logical variant of it. Tofof 07:29, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

this still needs work. take the following example: Employee: I do not think the company should invest its money into this project. Employer: Be quiet or you will be fired. this is not strictly a fallacy, as i understand it, because it's not pretending to prove a truth claim. it merely has the same effect by suppressing the opposition (which of course has a long and honorable tradition within religion). I would suggest that it becomes a proper baculum fallacy if the employer responds (with a pointed stare): "that opinion is so poor that expressing it will lose you your job". the subsequent job loss is intended to prove, if push comes to shove, the sufficiency of the poverty. i guess i'll make this change, and anybody who wants to establish that a fallacy doesn't need to be an attempt at an argument, or that hitting someone is a type of argument, is welcome to revert the change — Preceding unsigned comment added by 110.175.57.184 (talk) 14:26, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

A better (or at least funnier) example

 * If not P, then I will beat you up.
 * Therefore P.

=^_^= - ∅  ( ∅ ),

Thanks for presenting this as if it were a genuine logical argument. It's both completely valid content and most definitely silly. Excellent. --Kizor 10:29, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Examples vs. Non-examples
The Chewbacca, 3PO reference is pointless and innaccurate. It doesn't represent an example of logical fallacy. It represents an example of threat being used to advise someone to willingly lose a contest. If Han Solo had instead argued "Wookies are known to pull the arms off people when they lose, therefore he is winning." or if instead of playing chess, they were having a philosophical debate, where a logical argument was in question and threat was used to settle that argument, it would be an example of Argumentum ad baculum.

Moral Relativism
I notice that this page seems to heavily endorse moral relativism. I would consider this to be very biased.

Name convention?
Is there a naming convention on using the Latin vs. English terms for logical fallacies?

English main, Latin redirects
 * Argument from fallacy/argumentum ad logicam
 * Begging the question/circular logic/petitio principii
 * Correlation does not imply causation/cum hoc ergo propter hoc
 * Appeal to consequences/argumentum ad consequentiam
 * Argument from ignorance/argumentum ad ignorantiam
 * Appeal to tradition/argumentum ad antiquitatem

Latin main, English redirects
 * Argumentum ad baculum/ad baculum/appeal to force
 * Post hoc ergo propter hoc/coincidental correlation
 * Ignoratio elenchi/irrelevant conclusion   (I think this is Greek, not Latin, but same principle)
 * Argumentum ad populum/appeal to the majority

Okay, after compiling that list, this article doesn't stand out so badly. Still, it doesn't seem like there's a pattern. It seems likely to me that 'appeal to force' could be more well-known, at least now, than 'argumentum ad baculum'. If this is named in the Latin for historical reasons, then shouldn't 'cum hoc ergo propter hoc' certainly also be a main title, for example?

If there's a more appropriate and/or more general place to discuss this convention, please let me know and I'll move it. Tofof 06:46, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Questionable Example
The following example cited: "You should believe in God, because if you do not, you will go to Hell." Does not seem, to me, to be rightly classified as a logical fallacy. Following the form for this sort of argument,

If x does not accept P as true, then Q.   Q is a punishment on x.    Therefore, P is true.

The cited example certainly fulfills the two premises; however, the conclusion "that God exists is true" is not intended to follow from the premises.

Someone can make the assertion that "If you don't believe in God you will go to Hell." They may be convinced that this is true for many reasons (unspoken presupposition that "God does exist."). And they may sincerely believe that those who don't follow Him will be punished. However, the threat of the punishment, in my experience, is never offered as proof that the initial premise is true.

Therefore, I recommend removing this example from the "logical argument" section, with the possibility of relocating it to the "rhetorical argument" section. Vanwatts 15:55, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

 * They you are assuming that either God could exist and not believing would be fine, or that He/She might not exist, and believing would be fine! It is absolutely clear that when they ask you to believe it goes implied that it is because it exists, and conversely, God existing and you not believing is "unacceptable". I know, the argument does not say "If God doesn't exist, you will go to hell", but it is a circular argument involving that, as God exists, there is hell, and non-believers will be punished. Then, if you do not believe, you will go to hell. Then, since if you do not believe you will go to hell, it means that there is a God who made hell in first place, and will punish you if you do not believe. It is absolutely implied that you will be punished because God does exist (and, circularly, that God exists because you will be punished), so, to me it is a valid example. Look at it this way: the conclusion "Therefore, P is true" is for all means equivalent to "Therefore, x should accept P as true" (which is implied in "If you don't believe in God you will go to Hell"). — Isilanes 16:42, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

The correct form as far as I can see would be a change to "You should believe in my God because if you don't and he is real, you will go to hell". Using inductive reasoning we can see that the point " you should believe in my" implies that that person's concept of God would indeed punish you with hell. But just stating that if you don't believe in God you will go to hell is illogical as you could believe there was no God and be wrong, but that deity was not predisposed to send you to hell for whatever reason. Just stating that if there is a God you will go hell is incorrect because of the countless number of different theoretical God's. But stating that if you don't except my God and he is real, you will go to hell is correct. Because if that person's conception of God is in fact real and you don't believe in him which is a prerequisite of salvation than he will in fact punish you with hell, if that paricular concept of a God does in fact exist. Colin 8 17:17, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

 * I agree with your first amendment, but I do not like the "my God" expresion, and propose to use "God X" instead. The fact that God X punishes non-believers is implied. However, I disagree with the "if he's real" part, as it takes the fallacy away. Notice that the implied argument (ad baculum) is that God X exists because She'll send you to Hell if you do not accept that She exists! Yes, it is ridiculous, but that's the bottom line of the argument (that's why it's a fallacy). As I point above, the argument is circular (as She exists, She'll punish you. As She'll punish you, She must exist). It is completely implied that God X existing forces you believing in Her inherently, and also that not believing would bring punishment (these are "safe" assumptions in that context). — Isilanes 13:47, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Maybe I'm a bit thick, but I fail to see how this argument does not more properly fall into the category of the subsequent section in the article, as listed below. It seems to fit exactly into this form.:

A similar but non-logical argument has roughly the following form:

If x does not accept P as true, then Q.       {If you don't believe in God you will go to Hell} Q is a punishment on x.       {Implied: Hell is a punishment on you} Therefore, x should accept P to avoid Q.       {Therefore, you should believe God (to avoid Hell)}

 * No, you are quite right. However, I must be a bit thick myself, because I actually see little difference between the "logical" and "non-logical" arguments... The difference seems to be "it is true" vs. "you should accept it". However, it goes implied that when sb tells you to accept something, it means that this something is true. Otherwise they are openly forcing you to be a hypocrite. In the example of $GOD and Hell, is it obvious that when they tell you that you should believe in $GOD, they imply that She exists. It wouldn't make much sense a preacher saying: "Brothers and sisters, believe in $GOD (even though She doesn't exist), because it's better for you". Anyway, if they are two different arguments (logical and non-logical), the Hell example seems to belong in the latter, as you say. — Isilanes 08:42, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Bad Example
If you commit the thought crime of not believing in Jesus Christ, you will go to hell. Therefore, Jesus Christ is God.

This seems like a bad example to me, because following the formula listed, it should read, "If you do not believe that Jesus Christ is God...", not "If you [do not believe] in Jesus Christ." Also, I think that the term thought crime isn't helpful to this example. First of all, the explicit referencing of 1984 in an example that is specifically about Christianity seems fairly biased to me. It's easy enough to avoid this possible bias in such a simple example! Secondly, the addition of thought crime is irrelevant and doesn't even add anything to the example; it doesn't clarify or make it easier to understand. Valkotukka (talk) 00:00, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

It seems like a bad example to me too. If Jesus Christ weren't God, a failure to believe that he is would not result in hell, since no-one would execute that punishment. Doesn't a true ad baculum require that the stick be applied whether or not the proposition is true? Mr gronk (talk) 03:04, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Does this an example of Argumentum ad baculum
If you don't own a computer, you will lose your competitive edge a lot. Therefore, owning a computer is a must. Joe2008 (talk) 04:02, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Need a fallacious example
The only example given in the article is a non-fallacious one. I think we need a fallacious one. Either of the examples given above would be ok with me, but if you don't like those I suggest this: CEO: We are going to invest in electrical cars Manager: but every company that has tried this has failed... CEO: Stop interrupting me or you won't get raised Manager: Ok or on a more controversial tone: US president: Irak has WMD, we're going to invade Iraq Congressman: but we have no proof President: you're either with me or against me Congressman: let's invade Iraq --Yitscar (talk) 09:55, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
 * The first example is not a fallacy because no wrong conclusions have been drawn, and it is even questionably if it is an argumentum ad baculum since, ehm, no arguments have been made, just simple statements.
 * The same goes for the second example. It seems that all the presented, supposed instances of argumentum ad baculum as being a logical fallacy are not valid because no one actually draws any (wrong) conclusions, and only if this would happen one could speak of fallacy. --62.226.12.183 (talk) 18:38, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

"The Non-fallacious Ad Baculum"
The current example is not an Ad Baculum at all.

 * If you drive while drunk, you will be put in jail.
 * You want to avoid going to jail.
 * Therefore you should not drive while drunk.

It is a simple Modus tollens (called here earlier contraposition). It would be Ad Baculum if it said:

 * If you believe that drunk driving is harmless, I will punish you.
 * Drunk driving is harmful.

The given example, however, does not state that a proposition is true or false because of force-related consequences. The original example would only fit the Ad Baculum pattern given in the article if its first line was "If you drive while drunk, someone will be put in jail." and the second was "You will be that someone". Indeed, as someone mentioned earlier on this discussion page, the first two lines can be simplified into one. Anyways, the second line in the "non-fallacious ad Baculum" makes it a modus tollens rather than Ad Baculum.

--JudelFoir (talk) 00:34, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

"The Non-fallacious Ad Baculum"
I am not convinced that The Non-fallacious Ad Baculum is not a fallacy. As a related addendum, I am convinced that legal systems that apply punishments for crimes may very well be based on this fallacy whenever punishments are applied without consideration.

Let us assume that one who drives while drunk is otherwise reasonable and submissive to logical and reasonable arguments. If through a reasonable argument, the driver realises the hazards and social problems with drunk driving and abandons their driving while drunk behaviour, then going to jail cannot further demonstrate the issues with this behaviour. If on the other hand the driver is unreasonable, then neither reason nor jail can demonstrate to the driver the hazards and social problems with drunk driving, but jail may be a useful physical constraint that prevents the driver from driving while drunk.

In both cases, the threat of jail as the reason for not driving while drunk is still a fallacy.

Runestone1 (talk) 07:23, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

 * I agree. While the conclusion is true - that you should not drink and drive - kidnapping someone and locking them in a cage to get them to support that conclusion is still an Ad Baculum fallacy.  A non-fallacious argument against drinking in driving might go as follows, "If you drink, your judgement is impaired and your reflexes will be delayed.  That drastically increases your chances of an accident.  Such accidents have been known to kill people.  You probably don't want to kill anyone.  Ergo, you should give me your keys and let me drive."  It is fallacious to threaten someone with jail for them to support your conclusion.  Furthermore, I don't think there even is a non-fallacious example of Ad Baculum.

85.237.211.110 (talk) 00:27, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Prudential reasons to take action
"A distinction should be made, however, between rational reasons and prudential reasons. No fallacy, the Appeal to Force included, can give rational reasons to believe a conclusion. This one, however, might give prudential reasons for action. If the threat is credible and bad enough, it might provide reason to act as if you believed it." - from the About.com article. Alatari (talk) 03:43, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

The Fallacious Ad Baculum
The current example of a non-fallacious ad baculum is:

 * If you drive while drunk, you will be put in jail.
 * You want to avoid going to jail.
 * Therefore you should not drive while drunk.

The current example of a fallacious ad baculum is, in effect:

 * If you drive while drunk, you will be put in jail.
 * You want to avoid going to jail.
 * Therefore you will not drive while drunk.

I don't think this is a fallacious ad baculum argument. It's just a non-sequitur. It's a prediction about the future whose 100% certainty is not warranted by the stated premises.

A better example to use would be:

 * If you drive while drunk, you will be put in jail.
 * Therefore, it is wrong to drive while drunk.

Here, the coercion of the state is a fallacious ad baculum argument in favor of the stated conclusion.

In fact, I'd also suggest changing the non-fallacious example by simplifying it, so it better contrasts with the proposed fallacious example:

 * If you drive while drunk, you will be put in jail.
 * Therefore, you should not drive while drunk.

Do we really need to state the obvious - that we don't want to go to jail?

--Chuck Messenger (talk) 10:42, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Distinguish the "might makes right fallacy"
Argumentum ad baculum is not accurately representative of the "might makes right" fallacy. Argumentum ad baculum should be emphasized as a rhetorical device referring to a specific exchange representing threat rather than reason. "Might makes right" is usually applied to broader moral justifications like 'social Darwinism' and other circumstances where it is claimed that an entity has "the right" to do something if they have the "might" to do it, regardless of harm done to others, laws broken or any other sound moral considerations being violated. The might makes right comment should be a "see also" rather than a direct association as they are distinct.

title: Talk:Argumentum ad baculum


text:
Term

Term may refer to:

Language

 * Terminology, context-specific nouns or compound words
 * Technical term (or term of art), used by specialists in a field
 * Scientific terminology, used by scientists
 * Term (argumentation), part of an argument in debate theory

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 * Credit repayment terms
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 * Term life insurance

Lengths of time

 * Academic term, part of a year at school or university
 * Term of office, a set period a person serves in an elected office
 * Term of patent, the period of enforcement of patent rights
 * Term of a pregnancy
 * Prison sentence

Mathematics and physics

 * Term (logic), a component of a logical or mathematical expression (not to be confused with term logic, or Aristotelian logic)
 * Ground term, a term with no variables
 * Addend, or term, an operand to the addition operator
 * Term of a summation, a polynomial, or a series, a special case of a summand
 * Term algebra, a freely generated algebraic structure
 * Term logic, an approach to logic that began with Aristotle and that was dominant until the advent of modern predicate logic
 * Term symbol, a concept in quantum mechanics

Other uses

 * Term (architecture) or terminal form, a human head and bust that continues as a square tapering pillar-like form
 * Term (computers) or terminal emulator, a program that emulates a video terminal
 * Term, Iran, a village in Mazandaran Province, Iran
 * Telecom Enforcement Resource and Monitoring, an agency of the Indian Department of Telecommunications

title: Term


text:
Talk:Hanoi Jane

Untitled
Why isn't this information included in Jane Fonda, instead of having a separate page here? -- Zoe —Preceding undated comment added by Zoe (talk • contribs) 04:08, 7 February 2003 (UTC)

If you can find a good way to combine it, then cool. The two articles just didn't seem Right together. One was devoted to her acting career with no mention of this, the other was devoted to her as "Hanoi Jane".. (BTW this just grew out of the Tokyo Rose stuff I wrote). If you think its better combined, I don't object...just it needs like ... a transition or something. - Reboot —Preceding undated comment added by Reboot (talk • contribs) 13:49, 7 February 2003 (UTC)

title: Talk:Hanoi Jane


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Moana (1926 film)

Moana is a 1926 American silent documentary film, or more strictly a work of docufiction, which was directed by Robert J. Flaherty, creator of Nanook of the North (1922).

Description

Moana was filmed in Samoa (then under the Western Samoa Trust Territory) in the villages of Safune district on the island of Savai'i. The name of the lead male character, Moana, means 'deep sea, deep water' in the Samoan language. In making the film, Flaherty lived with his wife and collaborator Frances H. Flaherty and their three daughters in Samoa for more than a year. They arrived in Samoa in April 1923 and stayed until December 1924, with the film being completed in December 1925.

Hoping that Flaherty could repeat the success of Nanook, Paramount Pictures sent him to Samoa to capture the traditional life of the Polynesians on film. Flaherty reportedly arrived with 16 tons of filmmaking equipment. This included both a regular movie camera and a Prizma color camera, as Flaherty hoped to film some footage in that color process, but the Prizmacolor camera malfunctioned.

Moana is thought to be the first feature film made with panchromatic black-and-white film rather than the orthochromatic film commonly used at the time in Hollywood feature films. Flaherty developed his film as he went along, in a cave on Savai'i. In the process, he inadvertently poisoned himself and required treatment after he drank water from the cave that contained silver nitrate, which washed off the film stock. The silver nitrate also caused spots to form on the negative.

As in the earlier Nanook (and his later film, Man of Aran), Flaherty went well beyond recording the life of the people of Samoa as it happened. He followed his usual procedure of "casting" locals whom he considered potentially photogenic performers into "roles", including creating fictitious family relationships.

He also, as in the other films, on occasion set up scenes in which exotic earlier practices were re-enacted as if still current. In Nanook and Man of Aran, it included setting up anachronistic hunting sequences. In Moana, at a time when Samoans were typically wearing modern Western-style clothing under the influence of Christian missionaries, Flaherty persuaded his performers to don traditional tapa cloth costumes (made from the bark of the paper mulberry tree, in a process shown in some detail in the film); the "maidens" went topless.

He also staged a coming-into-manhood ritual in which the young male lead underwent a painful traditional Samoan tattoo, for which the young man required a generous compensation. Those devices have led to Flaherty's films sometimes being categorized as "docufiction".

Still, it emerged that living off the land and the ocean in Samoa was comparatively easy, leaving limited scope for Flaherty to draw on his favored theme of "Man against Nature" as he had in Nanook and was to again in Man of Aran. Thus, although the film was visually stunning and drew critical praise at the time, it lacked the raw drama of Nanook, which may have contributed to its failure at the box office. (Bruce Posner, the film's restorer, commented: "God knows what Paramount expected. It was just poorly released. They tried to shift it into a love story of the South Seas, which it is, but not a conventional one.")

The word documentary was first applied in a cinematic context in a review of this movie written by "The Moviegoer", a pen name for John Grierson, in the New York Sun on February 8, 1926.

Restoration
The youngest of the children Robert and Frances Flaherty brought with them to Samoa was their then-three-year-old daughter Monica. In 1975, Monica Flaherty returned to Savai'i to create a soundtrack for her parents' hitherto-silent film, including recording ambient sounds of village life, dubbed Samoan dialogue and traditional singing. The resulting "Moana with Sound" was completed in 1980, with help from filmmakers Jean Renoir and Richard Leacock, and first shown publicly in Paris in 1981. At that stage, however, with the original negative no longer in existence, the visual quality of Monica Flaherty's 16 mm print (a copy of a copy of her father's original 35 mm nitrate film) left much to be desired, and it was to suffer further degradation with time. The 1981 version was not distributed, partly because of its visual flaws and partly because Monica Flaherty did not reach an agreement with Paramount over the proceeds.

More recently, preservationist and curator Bruce Posner and Finnish filmmaker Sami van Ingen, a great-grandson of the Flahertys, drew on the best surviving 35 mm copies of the film to prepare, with the assistance of restorer Thomas Bakels, a digitally restored print. This was matched by sound expert Lee Dichter to Monica Flaherty’s soundtrack. The restored "Moana with Sound" was shown at the New York Film Festival on September 30, 2014, and has also appeared, among other showings, at the National Archives in Washington DC (January 2015). The program for the New York Film Festival describes the restored version as "absolutely wondrous".

title: Moana (1926 film)