A couple of comments:

Payout ratios can indeed be perplexing/misleading because, as the article says, there are so many ways in which they are calculated.

The most commonly used measure in the media is a ratio based on reported earnings. I believe that this is not a good metric because there can be so many non-cash puts and takes in reported earnings per IFRS.

Using a cash flow metric rather than one based on reported earnings is better in my opinion.  An enhancement this, for those entities that have a material DRIP participation, is to use distributions/dividends actually paid out in cash (i.e. declared distributions/dividends less the amount paid via the DRIP) as the numerator in the calculation rather than declared distributions/dividends.

An example of how misleading some reported numbers can be: This site shows a payout ratio for SRV.UN of 338% - shocking! would perhaps be one's reaction.

Cont.