Talk:Single Transferable Vote

SIngle Transferable Vote is ALWAYS capitalised and treated as a proper noun. Similarly, when linked with proportional representation and spoken of as Proportional Representation through a Single Transferable Vote, the term is used as a proper noun. JTD 20:25 Feb 12, 2003 (UTC)

I'm sceptical, it's not a proper noun in the usual meaning of the term. It's similar to party-list proportional representation and similar articles, which are not capitalised according to Wikipedia naming conventions. ( 23:59 Mar 22, 2003 (UTC)

I agree. A Google search also indicates that this term is often not capitalized and our rule is that unless a term is either a proper noun or always capitalized then the term should be in the lower case. I'll move the article myself. --mav

It is capitalised when referring to the system. It is not capitalised when referring to the methodology. It is appreviated as PR.STV never pr.stv. (If that is done in an essay by a student of political science, they invariably get a right bollocking and are told to learn the basics of political science.)

A google search is absolutely useless because you cannot tell in which context it is being used in each article on it. (Not that google searches are a particularly reliable source of anything. It doesn't rely on trustworthy sources but any sources, from the best available to sheer garbage. All it takes is for a lot of sources to feed some wrong fact off each other and hey presto we have the Gospel of Google. Google suggests that we should have an article on William Gladstone. But do a search of proper academic sources and you find he should be (as every student of British politics and history knows) William E Gladstone or William Ewart Gladstone, never William Gladstone. When that sort of standard was applied, and not merely a google search, the page was renamed with a full consensus.

Another example: According to a google search:

Charles Windsor: 393,000
Charles Mountbatten-Windsor: 352

Yet his name is not Charles Windsor and 393,000 references are wrong. His name is Charles Mountbatten-Windsor - sources: his own office, Buckingham Palace press office, banns posted at his marriage. So on this and so many other issues, google is complete and utter crap.

So please Mav, stop relying on google. It is in many many many cases absolutely unreliable rubbish. STÓD/ÉÍRE 00:27 Mar 23, 2003 (UTC)

Thus I said "indicated." We are also not talking about a fact here but usage by English speakers. Therefore Google is a useful external tool to consider that doesn't rely on our own POV. The fact does still remain that the term in question is not a proper noun and is not always capitalized (and this article should cover both the system and methodology). I wasn't the one who moved the article BTW; paren beat me to it. ---mav

If it is describing the system, it generally is. If it is describing merely the methodology, it isn't. The article on wiki is describing the system known and referred to in political science textbooks as Single Transferable Vote (STV). Or when used with proportional representation, it is called PT-STV or PR.STV. Only where textbooks describe a vote outcome through a single transferable vote is it not capitalised. Usage depends on context, and in this context, it is generally capitalised. In fact failure to capitalise it in an exam context where it was being used as in the article would see student docked marks because in political science faculties it would be seen as simply and factually wrong, as wrong as writing the 'princess of Wales' when you are talking about a specific Princess of Wales and not all princesses of Wales. I know I sound a bit petantic here, but I know if university students read a page about the specific voting system written as 'single transferable vote' they are not going to take wiki as a serious sourcebook, thinking that if wiki can't even get the name of the system correctly, how on earth can they trust the article's contents?

Simply look at the opening line of the article. It talks about STV being a voting system, so it is explicitly and unambiguously talking about the system, not merely a description of a methodology. It is patently absurd, grammatically ludicrous and amateurish in the extreme to get something as basic as a voting system's name wrong. I know my professor would be roaring with laughter at seeing an encyclopædia getting the name of an internationally used electoral system wrong. I certainly hopes he never looks at that page with its almighty clanger in the title. STÓD/ÉÍRE 01:35 Mar 23, 2003 (UTC)

Then can we at least agree to disagree and move on? This was a borderline case to begin with due to the majority capitalization usage so it isn't something worth arguing much about - I have more important things to do with my time like adding content to Wikipedia. Do what you think is best for this article. --mav

I have treble-checked in political science textbooks, websites and election coverage books. The vast majority capitalise Single Transferable Vote. Indeed wikipedia stands out in having lower case for some references to STV. I've put together a list of just some of the titles, using the exact words used by them.

• BBC|Proportional Representation|Single Transferable Vote (http://www.news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/slideshow/proportional_representation/slide6.stml)
• Model Election by Single Transferable Vote (http://www.cix.co.uk/~rosenstiel/stvrules/model.htm)
• STV - Single Transferable Vote (http://www.wahlrecht.de/lexikon/stv)
• Preference Voting - Single Transferable Vote (http://www.mich.com/~donald/instant)
• Axioms and STV (Single Transferable Vote) (http://www.ijs.co.nz/ifpp.htm)
• How to conduct an election by the Single Transferable Vote (http://www.syl.helsinki.fi/asiakirjat/muistiot/stv-index.htm)
• Proportional Representation and the Single Transferable Vote (http://.www.dur.ac.uk/HildBedeSRC/stv.htm)
• The Single Transferable Vote (http://www.aceproject.org/main/english/es/esf04.htm)
• Yahoo Groups : single-transferable-vote The Single Transferable Vote method (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/single-transferable-vote/)
• Single Transferable Vote hand count (http://www.barnsdle.demon.co.uk/vote/minSTV)

Constitution Debate: Single Transferable Vote and electoral . . . (http://spynx_jd.tripod.com/debates/STV)

As the evidence is so utterly overwhelming, with wikipedia standing out on the page on the net as one of a small minority not to capitalise a page dealing with the voting system (as opposed to methodology, where lower is sometimes used) I am changing the title back to the capitalised version. STÓD/ÉÍRE 02:26 Mar 23, 2003 (UTC)