In this paper, we deal with the signed bad number and the negative decision number of graphs. We show that two upper bounds concerning these two parameters for bipartite graphs in papers [Discrete Math. Algorithms Appl. 3 (2011) 33–41] and [Australas. J. Combin. 41 (2008) 263–272] are not true as they stand. We correct them by presenting more general bounds for triangle-free graphs by using the classic theorem of Mantel from extremal graph theory and characterize all triangle-free graphs attaining these bounds.
