User:Certes/New York redirect

Proposed moves

 * New York →
 * Recreate New York as a primary redirect to New York City

New York City is the primary topic of the term New York, therefore New York should take the reader directly to the city article. The title of the state article, currently called New York, requires a qualifier such as New York (state). The change will ease navigation and bring consistency with similar pages.

Primary topic for the term New York
A recent RFC concluded that the state is not the primary topic for New York. The city is ahead of the state and all other meanings in both WP:PRIMARYTOPIC criteria: usage and long-term significance. The city is much better known than the state on a global scale, and the city's article receives two to three times as many views as the state's.

The RFC was inconclusive as to whether the city's lead is sufficient to make it the primary topic. This proposal takes the view that the city is the primary topic. The alternative view, which would lead to New York (disambiguation) being moved to New York, is not being proposed here.

Use of the title New York
The city topic is primary for more than one term. (For example, it is also the primary meaning of "New York City"). WP:PRIMARYREDIRECT says that when the topic is primary for more than one term ... the term should redirect to the article. WP:ATDAB says that If the topic is not primary, the ambiguous name cannot be used and so must be disambiguated. As the state is, by consensus, not the primary topic, this confirms that the state article cannot use the unqualified title New York.

A recent cleanup fixed about 20,000 links to New York which were intended for the city, despite the article being about the state. More such links are being added daily. Use of the title New York for the state article clearly confuses both readers and editors.

Sending readers who search for New York directly to the state article places WP:UNDUE emphasis on the state over the city which has been shown to be more important.

An alternative mechanism would be to move New York City to New York, leaving a redirect. That approach shares many of the advantages of this proposal and is certainly an improvement on the status quo. However, this proposal has two further benefits: it presents the redirected reader with an unambiguous page title, and it eases the technical process of improving misdirected wikilinks.

Title of the state article
WP:ATDAB suggests a number of ways to qualify the title of the state article. The best choice is a matter of opinion. This proposal suggests New York (state) for four reasons:
 * 1) retains the state's common name per WP:COMMONNAME, qualified as necessary
 * 2) consistency with Washington (state), Chihuahua (state), Rio de Janeiro (state) and many others
 * 3) clarity: New York (state) appears to be the most concise unambiguous title
 * 4) technical convenience: New York (state) is an existing redirect and is already used for most links to the state article

Counterarguments
The following arguments have been used to oppose previous proposals. Text in italics paraphrases editors' comments and is not direct quotation.
 * WP:COMMONNAME – The state is normally called "New York". So is New York (Morand book), an obscure title from 1930.  This does not necessarily make it the best topic for the title.
 * WP:DONOHARM – Keeping the status quo will break nothing. The thousands of misdirected links prove that something is already broken.  This proposal aims to mend it.
 * WP:ENGVAR – Nothing is really broken. Although the use of New York to mean the state seems to be more prevalent in the United States than in the rest of the world, the arguments above apply equally in any variant of English.
 * WP:IAR – We are not slaves to primary topic, and can ignore it when necessary. The arguments above show that ignoring policy and guidelines is neither necessary nor desirable in this case.
 * WP:NOCONSENSUS – This proposal should fail because there is no consensus for it. This is a circular argument. Deciding consensus is a matter for the closer, not for the supporters and opponents of a proposal which is still being discussed.  Consensus can change.