Unfortunately the two conventions are contradictory. As originally defined by Étienne-Louis Malus in 1811, the plane of polarization coincided (although this was not known at the time) with the plane containing the direction of propagation and the magnetic vector. In modern literature, the term plane of polarization, if it is used at all, is likely to mean the plane containing the direction of propagation and the electric vector, because the electric field has the greater propensity to interact with matter.