Talk:Proportional representation: Difference between revisions
→Usage: Added link to Shugart & Li's paper on Seat Product Model.
(→Addition of specific systems: "...which get high PR.". Could you explain what you mean by that, User:Dr. Edmonds?) |
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: "''...which get high PR.''". Could you explain what you mean by that? -- [[User:RobLa|RobLa]] ([[User talk:RobLa|talk]]) 02:57, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
:: This is a tangent to my point but sure. The first line of this page states "Proportional Representation (PR) is a measure of the outcome of an election where there are multiple parties and multiple members are elected." A measure is a calculated value or metric and this page explains that in the very first section by giving examples. So PR is a number which is calculated after an election. Systems are not PR even though it is common for lay people to talk about "PR systems". The sections "Proportional Representation Criteria" and "Proportional Systems" explain how there is no possible consistent criteria for what could be used to do this. All this implies that when you talk about systems you should talk about a relative metric. Systems which get relatively high PR under one definition will get high PR under all other definitions. Maybe this seems pedantic but I would rather not be on record talking like a layperson. --[[User:Dr. Edmonds|Dr. Edmonds]] ([[User talk:Dr. Edmonds|talk]]) 03:14, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
::: I'd like to converge with the English Wikipedia counterpart to this article (here: [[wikipedia:Proportional representation]]), which lists all of these systems. It may be that we ''really'' need to trim back what I added, but generally, we need this article (and the Wikipedia counterpart) to be accessible to the layperson. In particular, it should ''specifically'' be accessible to the type of layperson who has just read the Wikipedia counterpart, and who talks about "PR systems" (like me). I disagree with your assertion that "''when you talk about systems you should talk about a relative metric''"; I think that's way too far in the weeds for most people learning about election methods. The systems that I added from Wikipedia with "high PR" (as you describe the metric) are what laypeople general refer to as "proportional representation systems".
::: I suppose the descriptions for the systems that I just added should be more concise, and that ''maybe'' we should switch away from [[Wikipedia:Summary style]] to a bulleted list to catalog some of the "high PR" systems that are "notable" by [[English Wikipedia]] standards (because they're already in use in large public elections). I want to make sure we don't deviate too strongly from the structure of the English Wikipedia in this regard. Since the English Wikipedia article "[[Wikipedia:Proportional representation|Proportional representation]]" links to "[[Wikipedia:Party-list proportional representation|Party-list proportional representation]]", I'd like to make sure that electowiki's "[[Proportional representation]]" article clearly links to "[[Party-list proportional representation]]" as well. Assuming there are "100s of systems" worth noting on [[electowiki]], we can solve that problem when have 100s of articles describing said systems. I'll also note that you may have inspired me to rewrite the first line of the article. :-) -- [[User:RobLa|RobLa]] ([[User talk:RobLa|talk]]) 04:56, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
:::: I agree with most of what you have said but there are a few points that I strongly disagree with. The main reason for that is that English Wikipedia counterpart is of very very low quality. My understanding of the purpose of electowiki was to provide more depth and rigor to the pages than is allowed on wikipedia. If that is not the case then I am really missing something. I think using [[Wikipedia:Summary style]] for the major classes like party list and then listing the variants would be useful. The 100s of existing systems are largely comprised of variants and experts can disagree on what is a new system and what is a variant. There are only few dozen or so truly distinct methods. These classes however are complicated by the fact thatthey tend to come with their own version of PR and they overlap with eachother. I have written a fair bit of the existing page and would be sad to see a wilful effort to simplify it to the point of it being incorrect. I think it is possible to be both correct and simple and that balance is quite good at the moment. To this end I have made an attempt to talk more about PR than about the systems which achieve it. For example, the section "Non-Partisan Definitions" the options are discussed and 9 example systems are given. These system are just there to be put in the taxonomy of the types of PR. The depth and rigour I would like this page to have which the English Wikipedia counterpart will never have is a fair discussions of all the varying and conflicting definitions of PR. --[[User:Dr. Edmonds|Dr. Edmonds]] ([[User talk:Dr. Edmonds|talk]]) 05:24, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
::::: Your credibility in my eyes goes way down when you call an article on English Wikipedia "''very very low quality''" without a clear effort to fix the [[English Wikipedia]] article. Wikipedia is much more popular than electowiki, because they allow anyone to fix the problems. It does a much better job of educating the "layperson" than electowiki does because laypeople are considered peers. It's not clear that you consider laypeople like me to be your peers. (Sidenote: you're misusing the word "comprised", which I also used to do. Most Wikipedia-editing veterans know better, possibly thanks to [https://www.geekwire.com/2015/meet-man-ridding-wikipedia-comprised-one-edit-time/ Bryan Henderson]'s work). Regardless, electowiki is not meant as a replacement for Wikipedia; it's meant to be complementary. It's partially meant to be a staging ground for articles that are maybe not quite "notable" yet, because they ''yet'' become mainstream. But all information on electowiki is striving to be notable enough to include on Wikipedia, and that doesn't work if we try to create our own definition of "proportional representation" not used by a significant plurality of the 7 billion people on this planet.
::::: Feel free to make changes to what I inserted. If you delete everything I added, I'm likely to be annoyed, and I might just revert you. However, if you trim what I've added down (per my prior comment), and make incremental improvements that also ought to be made to the [https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/what-open-source-upstream upstream] article (to [[wikipedia:Proportional representation]], that is), then I will probably welcome your changes. I may even try to get the changes accepted upstream. -- [[User:RobLa|RobLa]] ([[User talk:RobLa|talk]]) 06:21, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
:::::: If your goal was to have electowiki to have lower quality content than Wikipedia then congratulations. The current opening line is the worst definition of PR I have ever seen. It is wrong in several ways which are counterproductive to the reform effort. It would be better if it was nonsense than what it is now because it reinforces a common misconception. I don't understand why you always turn to personal attacks when challenged. I do not care what you think of me. I think I have a very different concept of knowledge than you. I do not care about the source of knowledge and basically consider all people my peers. The purpose of any collection of knowledge is to correct misconceptions and/or propaganda. Truth exists and the goal would be to record it when found. The two places where these are most problematic are when the topic is complex or contentious. Proportional Representation is both. It is complex because there cannot be a clean definition. It is contentious because it is political. I have spent a fair bit of time fixing wikipedia pages, even the Proportional Representation page. I swore it off years ago when somebody kept putting in a common science fiction notion into the quantum field theory page. I would fix it and then the next day somebody would change it back. If the goal is to store the average person's understanding of topics you are not going to have a very good source of knowledge. For the most part, wikipedia is great but it is susceptible to the issue you are promoting. You refer to the standard definition which has existed for decades as "our own definition" as if the experts definition is somehow inferior to the misconceptions of the masses. You are now proposing that I start incrementally correcting the page. Look at the revision history BetterVotingAdvocacy and myself have spent years tuning this page and now you are going to revert everything and tell us to start over. I have read many papers and books to make sure this page was as high quality as it could be. One of the reasons I got into the topic of electoral reform was the issue of widespread misinformation and propaganda, especially on wikipedia.
:::::: Also, I hope the irony of [[User:RobLa|RobLa]] correcting my grammar error on a widely used but incorrect phrase in a push for preferring definitions which are widely used over those which are technically correct is not missed by people reading this. --[[User:Dr. Edmonds|Dr. Edmonds]] ([[User talk:Dr. Edmonds|talk]]) 22:23, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
::::::: My comments were not intended as personal attacks against you, and I'm trying to give you the benefit of the doubt, and assume that your messages weren't intended as personal attacks against me (despite the very personal accusations you made in your last comment). But it also doesn't seem productive to continue this conversation, since I'm finding it difficult to endorse your relentless attacks of the quality of Wikipedia content here on electowiki, given the lack of evidence that you've tried to make the corrections on Wikipedia. Instead, I'm planning to continue the work that I started last night. Your objections to my changes last night are noted (and you'll note that I eliminated the first line that I copied from Simple Wikipedia last night, and I may try fixing https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional_representation too) -- [[User:RobLa|RobLa]] ([[User talk:RobLa|talk]]) 23:40, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
== Usage ==
I am pretty sure India does not use Proportional Representation. I recall mentioning Duverger's Law to Matthew Shugart when I introduced myself to him while he was at UCSD, and he mentioned India as a counterexample. I believe its multi-party system is better explained by a larger assembly size per Shugart and Taagapera's [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0261379415001845 Seat Product Model]. ChatGPT also says India does not use ProRep but some states within it, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, use STV. It names Germany as the largest country using ProRep, which seems right to me. --[[User:PerfectlyGoodInk|PerfectlyGoodInk]] ([[User talk:PerfectlyGoodInk|talk]]) 19:30, 2 March 2023 (UTC)
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