Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Proportionate Representation


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 19:15, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

Proportionate Representation

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 * Delete The content of this article is simply false. This article claims that "proportional representation" refers to the parties while the term "proportionate representation" refers to the regional divisions. But this is not true. In reality, the terms "proportional" and "proportionate" are synonymous terms. This article refers to the Canadian Constitution of 1867. However, this reference doesn't support the claim that the term "proportionate representation" refers to the regional divisions. The constitution says: "The Number of Members of the House of Commons may be from Time to Time increased by the Parliament of Canada, provided the proportionate Representation of the Provinces prescribed by this Act is not thereby disturbed." If the term "proportionate representation" always referred to the regional divisions, then the constitution would simply say "proportionate representation", but it wouldn't explicitly say "proportionate representation OF THE PROVINCES". Markus Schulze 21:59, 11 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 00:08, 12 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Social science-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 00:08, 12 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Canada-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 00:08, 12 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Comments: First, the above delete !vote is actually the nominator's reason for deletion.
 * The nominator's main claim ("The content of this article is simply false.") may be correct, but a lot of the detailed arguments for the claim seem either incorrect or overstated to me. "Proportional" and "proportionate" are not precisely synonyms. And in any case, what counts is the meaning of "proportional representation" and "proportionate representation." Proportional Representation is a well-known class of voting system. I'm not aware of "Proportionate Representation" functioning as an alternate name for "Proportional Representation" in that sense.
 * Surely when the 1867 Canadian Constitution uses the term "proportionate representation of the provinces" it is using "proportionate" in its usual sense as an adjective, not as a special technical voting term. Google scholar turns up lots of references to "proportionate representation of X" (eg, proportionate representation of minorities) that have nothing to do with regions or the mechanics of the voting system per se. So I agree with the nominator's conclusion that citing the 1867 Canadian Constitution does not, on its own, strongly support the content of the article. (But here again some of the nominator's reasoning is invalid: The constitution includes "of the provinces" because even if "proportionate representation" is understood to have the technical meaning described in the article, the term could still be ambiguous if "provinces" was not specified. So the inclusion of "of the provinces" proves nothing. Not to mention, the following could be true: the technical meaning described by the article is the present-day meaning of the term "proportionate representation," and that technical meaning had not yet arisen in 1867, but the term's plain-English usage in the 1867 CC is how the term came to have its current technical meaning.)
 * So... TLDR: Does anyone have any better evidence in support of the content of the article? Conversely, does anyone have evidence to support the nominator's claim that "Proportionate Representation" is routinely used as an alternate name for Proportional Representation voting systems in general? Gpc62 (talk) 05:56, 12 November 2017 (UTC)

Delete Most is copied, not factual. BeccaMcdougall (talk) 09:12, 14 November 2017 (UTC) 9:10, 14 November 2017 (GMT)
 * Nominator is actually misunderstanding what the article is trying to say. "Proportionate representation" is not a synonym for "proportional representation" in the sense of being a voting system, but a much older historical term for the general concept that electoral districts should be roughly equal in population size — and therefore, in turn, that each province should have an overall number of electoral districts that corresponds to its population as determined by the principle of keeping the districts roughly equal in population. I'm not convinced that we actually need a whole standalone article about the term, but it's not what the nominator appears to think it is. That said, I'm still down with the delete, because I don't see how the article could ever be much more than a WP:DICDEF of a term — the various geographic and political complications that prevent electoral districts from being strictly proportionate in all cases are better addressed in broader articles about the electoral politics of the individual jurisdictions that have districts than they are in a standalone article about "proportionate representation" as a topic in its own right. Bearcat (talk) 17:23, 12 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete this article is blatant violation of core Wikipedia policy of NO ORIGINAL RESEARCH and keeping it on Wikipedia can have costly consequence at the end because of the following reasons: The term is entirely sourced from one source, the IP user just saw the term and fascinated by it decided to create Wikipedia article on it. Google Scholar, Google news and search and JSTOR reveal no use of the term in the sense meant by the user. Also serch using "find" through PDF version of some constitutions and political science texts, revealed zero use of the term in the sense of this text, and twice use in the sense of Proportional Representation. The consequence of leaving this article is that once it pass here and with passing of time it can be quoted in press and the circular referencing will begin similar to earlier hoaxes on Wikipedia. There's no evidence that the constitution quoted used the term in this particular sense, and I so much agree with Gpc62 above, the term must be taken as used in normal adjective sense except if there's multiple Independent to prove otherwise, for which currently there's known. I am searching some print docs too, let us have other people's thoughts &thinsp;&mdash; Ammarpad (talk) 18:59, 12 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete - WP:NOR. No academic sources on this term have been cited, and I can't find any myself. Sounds like a fun topic to write a Master's thesis on. Until then (and some other publications later), it does not meet our inclusion criteria. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 04:27, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete - Original research. Carrite (talk) 02:50, 17 November 2017 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.