User:JFG/sandbox/New York Proposed move, May 2017

Proposed move, May 2017

 * New York (disambiguation) → New York
 * New York →

An August 2016 RfC has concluded that the State of New York cannot be the primary topic for the term "New York", due to the prominence of New York City being often called "New York", and to a lesser extent due to the existence of numerous other topics titled "New York", including songs, books, films, ships, sports teams, the New York metropolitan area, New York County, the historical Province of New York and a bunch of eponymous cities.

Consequently, the existing disambiguation page must be moved to the base title "New York", and the state article requires a qualifier to distinguish it from the city and other uses of the term. A July 2016 discussion on preferred qualifiers has shown overwhelming support for New York (state) vs New York State or State of New York as a destination title. The change will ease navigation and search for readers, and will bring consistency with similar cases such as Washington (state) vs Washington, D.C. and Georgia (U.S. state) vs Georgia (country).

New York State is not the primary topic for the term "New York"
Ever since the early days of Wikipedia, it has been repeatedly discussed whether New York State or New York City were dominant enough to claim the primary topic status for the term "New York". An August 2016 RfC concluded with an overwhelming majority that the state is definitely not a primary topic in the sense of Wikipedia guidelines, neither in terms of popularity nor in terms of long-term significance. Consequently, the current situation with the "New York" title pointing to the state article is untenable with regard to our WP:AT policy on article titles.

New York City cannot be considered primary topic either
While New York City receives roughly twice the traffic of New York State |New_York_City|New_York_(state) – adding the visits for "New York" and "New York (state)" which are currently synonyms – we cannot conclude either that it is much more likely than any other topic, and more likely than all the other topics combined, to be the topic sought when a reader searches for that term, as would be required to become primary topic under our WP:PTOPIC guideline. New York City and New York State are the top two dominant topics for the term "New York", and they are accordingly given top billing in the dab page.

Internal links to New York are ambiguous
Over 10+ years, the encyclopedia had accumulated hundreds of thousands of ambiguous or incorrect links to the ambiguous "New York" title. Since last summer, a gigantic collective effort has been underway to correct the wrong links and vindicate the right ones; this involved a combination of manual labour, bot programming and editorial discussions. The situation is not solved, and requires constant maintenance and patrolling (hat tip to bd2412 who has volunteered to maintain things, but this is unsustainable). If New York becomes a dab page, editors linking there will be warned and offered a choice between the potential meanings, and bots will assist in maintenance automatically, as they do for every ambiguous title in the project. Disambiguation of internal links has already helped people find directly the page they want to read instead of going through the New York state page, which is quite bulky.

Clarify search results and educate readers


A reader looking for New York State does not see it clearly appear when typing "new y…" in the Wikipedia search box, because the state article is the only item that does not have a full "New York something" title. Foreign readers may also wrongly infer from this list that "New York City" and "New York" are just two names for the same article, if they are unaware that there is a U.S. state called New York – therefore the new title contributes to the educational goal of Wikipedia. Results and page previews from external search engines will also be clearer with "New York (state)" appearing alongside "New York City"; see for example a search on Google.

New York is the official name of the state
Indeed it is, and this is why the proposed title is "New York (state)", not "New York State" or "State of New York". Besides, Wikipedia does not necessarily follow WP:OFFICIAL names, and even the state's official site – http://www.ny.gov/ – takes care to show a prominent "NEW YORK STATE" logo on every page, surely to avoid confusion with New York City. The mention of "city" or "state" in each article title is healthy for both city and state.

The move would harm the New York state article
It has been suggested in the 2016 discussion that the move would harm the visibility of the New York state article and reduce its page views; this has not been confirmed by experience when the move was performed in July 2016. Since then, the traffic to the state and city pages has been relatively stable when we add visits to the "New York" title with visits via the "New York (state)" redirect put in place to correct internal links. Traffic may indeed decrease a little after the move, but the only traffic the state page will "lose" is traffic that was meant for the city page or another one among the dab entries. With regard to visibility, a clear "New York (state)" title in the search box will indeed make the state article more visible to casual readers.

New York State contains New York City
It has been argued that New York had primacy as a higher-level jurisdiction than New York City. However, this consideration does not help readers, and the encyclopedia has several cases which go both ways. For example, Lagos (city) is primary topic against Lagos State although Lagos State is a higher-level jurisdiction; same for São Paulo vs São Paulo (state), although the Portuguese Wikipedia has them reversed, with the state considered primary São Paulo vs São Paulo (cidade).

Status quo is no problem
Some editors have argued that the long-standing status quo has proven stable and therefore should not be changed: "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". The reality is that:
 * The status quo actually creates many problems: wrong links, surprise effect, loading of a large page, hatnote invisible on mobile app, search box unclear, etc.
 * Arguing that several prior discussions have upheld the status quo is misleading: most of those discussions had identified the issues and the change was not enforced because there was no sufficient consensus or because there were too many possibilities to choose from.
 * We are facing an absurd historical situation – – of a non-primary topic occupying the subject name. "Old habits die hard: occupy New York!"

Survey on the proposed move
''Please indicate your Support or Oppose opinion with a brief rationale. Longer arguments should go to the section below.''

Discussion of the proposed move
Debate goes here.

Fast and correct orientation of readers
Looking at |New_York_City|New_York_(state) the long-term usage stats again, we can see that: Disambiguation of internal links has helped people find directly the page they want to read instead of going through the New York state page.
 * 1) In the first half of 2016, New York City was getting roughly 8,000 visit per day while New York had 4,500.
 * 2) When New York briefly became the dab page in July 2016, it received roughly 1,500 visits per day while New York (state) had 2,500.
 * 3) After gradually correcting all the internal links that pointed to the wrong place over one year, the visits for New York and New York (state) have converged to roughly 2,400 and 1,800, giving a total of 4,200 visits to the state article. Traffic to the city article has slightly increased to 8,200 average visits per day in the first half of 2017

Opposite move would have no rationale
Imagine for a minute that the long-standing status quo were different, i.e. that "New York" were the dab page and "New York (state)" were the state page. Would there be a clamor to change this and make New York the title of the state page? Proponents of such a move would have to argue that the state is the primary topic for the term "New York", and the August 2016 RfC has clearly established that it is not. This counters the "if it ain't broke don't fix it" arguments: first we have many policy-based arguments that the current situation is indeed "broke", and second if the situation were reversed it would most certainly be defensible as "not broke".

Circular reasoning
The situation after the move is arguably more stable. If the main argument in favor of the status quo is simply that it is the status quo, then the proposed move removes this argument, and any further challenge becomes baseless. In the absence of other arguments, the status quo would of course prevail. But in this case, where all other considerations (including the desire for stability) point towards a move, the policy of preferring the status quo should not be applied to prevent it.
 * Exactly. Dissenters should have something more constructive to say than "the status quo is fine because nobody ever gained consensus to change". This is a self-perpetuating argument. Let me quote from the last substantial debate in 2010:
 * Many of the arguments advanced today for disambiguating New York were already present in the 2008 and 2010 discussions. There was broad consensus that New York is an ambiguous term but change was opposed because a) we can live with hatnotes b) it's a long-standing status quo c) fixing links is hard work. Sorry, those rebuttals sound as thin today as they sounded six or eight years ago. We have real usability and consistency issues to face and we have laid out practical ways to address them, improving the quality of the encyclopedia for the benefit of our readers. See also . — JFG talk 00:12, 23 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Many of the arguments advanced today for disambiguating New York were already present in the 2008 and 2010 discussions. There was broad consensus that New York is an ambiguous term but change was opposed because a) we can live with hatnotes b) it's a long-standing status quo c) fixing links is hard work. Sorry, those rebuttals sound as thin today as they sounded six or eight years ago. We have real usability and consistency issues to face and we have laid out practical ways to address them, improving the quality of the encyclopedia for the benefit of our readers. See also . — JFG talk 00:12, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

New York is a special case
WP:IAR rationale. "Ignore rules that prevent you from improving the encyclopedia". If you believe that having "New York" as a dab page actually harms the encyclopedia, then by all means invoke IAR to keep the state there.

Paine Ellsworth draft
Various arguments that included policies and guidelines were used in the past to support the qualification/disambiguation of the title of the article on the state of New York. Note that while a page move is necessary to qualify the article title, the title itself remains the same, i.e., "New York". The qualifier in parentheses, "(state)", is the only difference proposed to that page. These two page moves are supported by:
 * WP:PRIMARYTOPIC – There are two common criteria for this, and New York State fails both.
 * With respect to long-term significance, the primary topic is New York City. It is one of the most famous and important cities in the world, and according to the current lede of our article has been described as the cultural and financial capital of the world (see that page for the many references for this claim). New York State is, by way of contrast, just one of fifty states of the United States, most if not all of them with claims to particular significance.
 * With respect to usage, the position is less clear as to whether any topic is primary, but it is clear that it is not New York State. Depending on context, New York can refer to several things, but often refers to the city, as in An Englishman in New York, The Sidewalks of New York, the New York Stock Exchange or The New York Times. It is in general at least as likely that New York refers to the city as to the state, so there is no chance of the state passing the test of being highly likely—much more likely than any other topic, and more likely than all the other topics combined—to be the topic sought when a reader searches for that term.
 * WP:IAR – As in many discussions where a strong guideline or policy argument exists, users will attempt to discount it with the idea that "We are not slaves to primary topic, and can ignore it when necessary." I agree with this; however, all those broken links that needed to be disambiguated, plus all the future ones that will need to be fixed if we don't make these page moves, should be ample evidence that the necessity not to ignore primary topic is crystal clear.
 * WP:PARENDIS – The ambiguity of "New York" as a name is well-attested in Wikipedia usage. Tens of thousands of wikilinks pointed to New York when editors wikified the city name without paying attention to the destination page (which is incidentally another proof that the state cannot be the primary topic). A manual survey of 147 random backlinks to New York conducted on 4 July 2016 counted 61 articles with links to New York meaning New York City, 67 meaning New York State and 19 with both kinds of links. Having either New York State or New York City at the base name perpetuated about half of internal links pointing to the wrong destination. This situation was detrimental to readers and to the integrity of the encyclopedia. Therefore New York should become a dab page and all existing internal links should remain disambiguated. There is one way and one way only to be able to ensure that future internal links will not once again require a great deal of work to check that the links actually go where readers intended, and that is to title the disambiguation page with the bare "New York" page title and to title the state article with the "(state)" qualifier.  This effectively counters the perennial argument to maintain the status quo "because it has been that way for a long, long time".  The longer the present situation remains as it is, the more the links will need to be checked and fixed – again.
 * WP:UNDUE – Some editors seem to think that Wikipedia should be dumbed down for readers, even if it means not following policies and guidelines. To quote one, "...many readers literally have to be spoon-fed!!!"  That was used to justify not moving the bare "New York" title to the disambiguation page.  Are Wikipedia readers so stupid or afraid that they would see a dab page and quiver and sweat? – unlikely at best, imho.  If that were true, then we may as well stop making dab pages and delete the ones we have.  My goodness, just think how many more than the present average of more than 24 million daily page views our Main Page would get if we'd just quit scaring off so many readers with all of those durn-burned dabbies!!!  Having the bare "New York" title on the state page gives far too much undue weight to the state of New York.  Comments were also made in regard to global vs. local weight, as well as the existence of systemic bias in the status quo.  These last two may have been seen as too subjective to be relevant.
 * WP:CCC – Since there have been several page-move proposals over the years, we should acknowledge that either the consensus has been to maintain the status quo or there has been no consensus to change the status quo. Consensus can change (ccc) (and of course, so can "no consensus").  Our purpose here is to use policies, guidelines, logic and, of course, AGF to garner a consensus and make "New York" clearer to our readers who may find the bare title quite ambiguous.  Our gentle readers come first.
 * It might also be important to note what arguments used in the past against moving New York either do not apply to this proposal or actually favor these page moves:
 * WP:COMMONNAME applies only to article titles, not to disambiguations, so since the actual article title "New York" does not change, the state article will continue to retain its common name "New York". The sole difference will be the addition of the qualifier, "(state)", as a much-needed disambiguator.
 * WP:NATURALDIS has also been discussed, such as for "New York State" or the "State of New York". Such titles, though possible alternatives, are not a part of this proposal, because most editors appear to agree that "New York" is a far superior title for the state article (as long as "state" accompanies it in parentheses as a qualifier). Having the base page name as a disambiguation page and the state name at New York (state) would be consistent with other entities for which the state is not the primary topic, such as Washington (state) (moved largely because the state of Washington is ambiguous with the famous city of Washington, D.C.), and Georgia (U.S. state) (which requires further qualification because another meaning is Georgia (country), a state in the international sense). Other entities with similar qualifications include Chihuahua (state), Hidalgo (state), Paraná (state), Rio de Janeiro (state), and São Paulo (state).
 * WP:ENGVAR with the "mindset that nothing is really broken" – Those unsung volunteer editors who pitched in to disambiguate an unambiguously high number of broken internal links might take issue with that concept.
 * WP:DONOHARM (cited without link) – This is an important essay that brings out the necessity in WP:BLP articles on Wikipedia. In a way, the New York articles are about a state and city populated by a large number of people, so this essay is not really off the mark.  The "harm" that continues to be done, however, is to readers of this encyclopedia, who may want to read about the city, a sports team or any number of other titles that congregate under the ambiguous "New York" title.  Our readers come first, and they should not be made to waste their time landing on pages they hadn't intended to read.  So if anything, this essay actually favors these page moves.

Thank you Paine for taking the time to compile an excellent argument. I'm struggling to improve it but there's one thing I'd change: Are Wikipedia readers so stupid or afraid that they would see a dab page and quiver and sweat? – unlikely at best, imho. If that were true, then we may as well stop making dab pages and delete the ones we have. I've tried reductio ad absurdum in past New York debates, but it moved the discussion onto a tangent of demolishing my straw man. I'm afraid that the phrasing above risks clogging the page with unhelpful counter-arguments as to why we shouldn't delete all our dab pages. Certes (talk) 08:59, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
 * First impression: some valid arguments here, thanks. The rationales are a bit too involved, however; we must aim for short and clear "no-nonsense" reasons to apply the move. Also we should avoid legalese as much as possible: refer to policies and guidelines after making the case, not as a premise. I'll be working on simplifying the wording. — JFG talk 12:40, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, please, JFG, I still have some other places to look, and it's getting too long and involved to "go live". Anything that can be done to simplify, even if you feel part of it isn't needed at all, please modify or delete.  I would be very grateful for your help!  You also, Certes!   Paine Ellsworth   put'r there  15:43, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
 * If we need to cut this down then I think the gist of the argument is:
 * New York has no primary topic (proof: RFC) ( added later : but beware that the RFC leaves open the possibility that the city is primary)
 * Titles with no primary topic should have a dab page (proof: WP:ATDAB; also WP:Disambiguation hints strongly at this without spelling it out)
 * New York should be the title of a dab page (a simple deduction from 1 and 2)
 * The state article needs a different title (obvious, given 3)
 * New York (state) is the best choice for that new title (WP:PARENDIS, but I doubt anyone who accepts 1-4 will disagree and if someone can find a better title, that's great)
 * Most of the rest is about refuting possible counter arguments, and it may be better simply to whack those moles as and when they appear. Certes (talk) 23:27, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

Certes draft

 * New York (disambiguation) → New York
 * New York →

The term New York has no primary topic, therefore New York should be the title of a disambiguation page. 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. To minimize disruption for readers and editors, this proposal takes the view that there is no primary topic. The alternative view, which would lead to New York becoming the title of (or a primary redirect to) the New York City article, is not being proposed here.

Use of the title New York
WP:Disambiguation says that If there is no primary topic, the term should be the title of a disambiguation page. Therefore, New York should be the title of the page which is currently at New York (disambiguation). 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 is at least as important.

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 the city.  That is why there is no primary topic, and neither article can use the title without a qualifier.
 * 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.

Comments by Newyorkbrad
I have carefully reviewed all the input on this page. I thank everyone who participated in the discussion.

The supporters of a move have presented several sound arguments for a move based on policy and evidence, their most important point being the straightforward one that a reader searching for "New York" seems to be more likely to be seeking the city than the state.

The opposers have also presented valid arguments, including the length of time the articles have been at the existing titles without problems, and the relative ease of getting from one article to the other.

The tone and quality of the discussion was generally appropriate. A few editors engaged in unreasonable rhetorical hyperbole (such as claims that a pagemove would case "irreparable harm" to Wikipedia, New York State, and New York City, or would "be confusing to one billion Africans and corrupt our children's education"), but fortunately this was atypical. There is no evidence of sockpuppetry, biased canvassing, or other misconduct that would detract from the consensus-seeking process.

I've thought hard about this discussion for the past two days. The move supporters have made a reasonable, although not an unanswerable, case. If this discussion were taking place in 2002 rather than in 2016, they might well have prevailed, because several of the opposers' rationales are based on what they consider the undesirability of changing the status quo after 15 years. But I don't see a policy basis for rejecting "keep the status quo absent a need to change" as one legitimate argument to be considered in a move review, even though several editors have opined that it shouldn't be dispositive.

The numerical result is 23 supporting a pagemove and 22 opposed, virtually a tie. At the end of the day, to declare a consensus from a discussion with that result, one would need to conclude that one side has presented not merely better arguments, but far better arguments, or that the other side's arguments are not grounded in policy or logic at all. That conclusion I cannot reach. Therefore, although I admit this would be an anticlimactic outcome after the efforts spent on this discussion, my tentative conclusion is that there is NO CONSENSUS either for or against a move.

(Although I did not consider this in my closing, it occurs to me that this may be a Condorcet voting paradox situation. If outcome A is that New York should be the article about the state, outcome B is that it should be the article about the city, and outcome C is it that should be a disambiguation page, it may well be that A>B, B>C, and C>A. But I digress.)

I look forward to the other closers' views and my opinion here is tentative until I read them. Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:29, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

Comments by Niceguyedc
I would also like to thank the participants in the discussion(s). Aside from the previously noted hyperbole, the discussion was mostly on point.

My initial take on the discussion is that the consensus for a move of the state article away from New York is clear.

The proponents of the move have the backing of multiple policy arguments, most notably that the state is not the primary topic of "New York" by any Wikipedia definition.

The opponents of the move argue that the status quo is fine (that there is no harm in the current arrangement of article titles), or that the state is the primary topic because it is larger or a higher-level jurisdiction (an argument that has no basis in policy or guidelines that I can find, and was shown by many participants not to hold up in the many other similar situations in Wikipedia). For me, keeping the status quo does not outweigh the policy arguments made by the proponents.

As to the mentioned "harm", I note that there is harm, as mentioned by Bkonrad (the "older ≠ wiser" comments above), for a 185,000 byte article to be loaded instead of a 5,000 byte article for users that don't want the article on the state. Our mobile users and our users on slower connections are harmed by loading a large article that they aren't looking for.

I look forward to further discussion with my learned colleagues. -Niceguyedc Go Huskies! 23:19, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

Comments by Fut.Perf.
First: my renewed apologies for taking so long to find the time to finally review the arguments and make up my mind here. This has been a difficult task for me, since, personally, I find myself spontaneously very much on the side of those who find it evident that the state can't count as the primary topic. As many have observed, there seems to be a difference between local and global naming habits and associated perceptions, and just like many of the !voters on both sides, who evidently voted on the basis of these subjective perceptions, I myself am also unavoidably guided by my own perceptions in assessing this issue. So, to be frank: for me, as a non-local, non-American (and non-native speaker of English), the city beats the state as the primary topic of the name "New York" by a thousand miles. To me, anything but having the plain title redirect to the city (and in fact not mrerely a dabpage) feels like a very blatant violation of the "principle of least astonishment" that is at the heart of our disambiguation and naming policies. That said, however, it becomes all the more crucial and all the more difficult for me to critically assess my perception of the merits of the arguments brought forward, to avoid the danger of a mere "supervote". As the numerical distribution is so even at 23:22, a call in favour of moving can only be justified if it can be shown that the arguments in favour are overwhelmingly more cogent and systematically better based in policy. Now, personally, I would indeed feel that this is the case. To me, none of the arguments against the move appear convincing in the least: the "education" argument ("those readers who don't know that NY can refer to the state should be grateful for being taught") seems downright cynical to me (we inform readers by offering them information, not by punishing them through forcing pages upon them they didn't want to read!); the argument that even readers who end up at the wrong page don't suffer any harm falls flat confronted with the observation that this means unnecessary loading of a very large page and that for some readers the disambiguation note might not even be visible; the argument that the state is somehow the objectively more important and logical superordinate topic based on its size etc. feels devoid of merit to me, since disambiguation is not about objective priority but purely about efficiency in directing readers where they want to go; the argument that the primary appellation of the city is actually not "NY" but "NYC" is beside the point, because a topic can very well still be the primary topic of an appellation that isn't its only or its official one (the issue is not how often people say "NY" when they mean the city, but how often people mean the city when they say "NY"); the argument that the existence of numerous "NYC" wikilinks proves that somehow that naming convention comes natural to editors (and hence, readers) is utterly unconvincing because so far "NYC" was the only available way of linking to the city (in contrast, the converse argument, about the large number of wrong links to "NY", is indeed logically cogent.) Added to these arguments are some votes by people who overtly voted simply based on their subjective perception ("I'm from New York and I've always heard it this way" etc.) – All these arguments, in short, are quite unconvincing to me. Am I then justified in calling them disconnected from policy and to be ignored in my assessment of consensus? I was very much tempted to, but on reflection I feel I can't do this. Given the fact that so many apparently good-faith and experienced Wikipedians have found these arguments convincing, and that the conclusions of my colleagues on the closing panel are also divided, the feeling of this being a "supervote" would be too strong to make this a convincing close. So, with something of a bleeding heart (because I do feel this RfC thus becomes a missed chance to rectify a glaring and damaging error in Wikipedia's treatment of the issue), I can't help but delaring a no consensus to move.

That said, I'm somewhat disappointed by the objective, empirical basis assembled for this discussion. A good move debate ought to be based on objectifiable, quantifiable observations of reader interest. Maybe that's particularly difficult in the case of such a high-profile and high-frequency search issue, but still I feel there's a real lack of this in all of the arguments above. Some people have tried to make assessments on the basis of wikilink counts and changes of page hits in connection with the moves, but all of that is a poor substitute for what could have been the real clincher here: real corpus counts, and/or real click counts. In a representative collection of texts out there, when the term "NY" is used, how often does it refer to the city and how often to the state? And as for click counts, a good and easy method of measurement would have been this: for a limited trial period, make "NY" a dab page. Then, pipe the two main links from there to the two contender articles through a pair of custom-made redirects used only for this purpose (like: New York City ). Then, count the pageviews for these two redirects only. That would give you the exact distribution of what readers actually want to see when they have typed "New York" in the searchbox, unaffected by other wikilinks etc. That, in the end, is the only criterion that really counts here. But this, unfortunately, is probably water under the bridge now. Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:34, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

August 2016 RfC on state as primary topic
Is New York State the primary topic for the term "New York"? — JFG talk 10:15, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Several long-wided discussions have taken place over 11 years to ascertain whether New York City or New York State should be titled "New York", or whether this should be a disambiguation page. The most recent debate has seen extensive participation and the appointed three-person panel has not delivered a common closing statement more than a month after the discussion was hatted. The question of primary topic was one of several arguments in the discussion, however it has not been answered conclusively: editors are divided on whether there is indeed a primary topic for the "New York" term, and if there is one, whether it is the state or the city. The goal of this RFC is to settle this question.

Feel free to refer to any argument previously developed, or dig out new ones, however please focus your answer on the question asked, Is New York State the primary topic for the term "New York"?, answering Yes or No. This poll will hopefully bring extra information to facilitate the closing of the titling debate or fuel further discussions on the issue. — JFG talk 10:15, 28 August 2016 (UTC)


 * Notified Talk:New York City, Talk:New York (disambiguation), Wikipedia talk:WikiProject New York, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject New York City and Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation. — JFG talk 10:32, 28 August 2016 (UTC)


 * Procedural request: Given the recent and ongoing discussions about this issue, I strongly recommend that after the 30-day comment period runs out, this RFC should be closed by a totally uninvolved administrator who has not participated as discussant or as closer in any of the 2016 debates regarding the titling structure of New York-related articles (debates which started with Talk:New York). — JFG talk 08:16, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

Opinions
Please answer Yes or No with a short rationale in this section.
 * No NYC is the primary topic for the term, but I believe that the state article could be easily retitled as New York (State). Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 11:23, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes New York City's name is New York City, so there isn't a name conflict at all and thus no primary topic issue to decide. P p p er y  (talk) 11:48, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
 * WP:COMMONNAME directly contradicts the idea that only official names count for potential article titles. ~ Rob 13 Talk 14:02, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment below. Andrewa (talk) 16:09, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
 * The official name of New York City is 'City of New York', not 'New York City'. Likewise, the official name of New York State is 'State of New York'. This argument makes no sense. RGloucester  — ☎ 22:12, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
 * No. It seems likely the primary topic issue will be punted on at the move request. Since we name articles based on primary topic, we should establish this before the next move request. Given the arguments at the move request, it's obvious New York State isn't primary. I don't think the city is either. ~ Rob 13 Talk 14:01, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
 * No. It simply and obviously fails both PT criteria, evidence and policy have both been cited to support this, and there has been no serious, evidence or policy-based suggestion otherwise. Andrewa (talk) 16:00, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
 * No. For many English speakers, "New York" refers to the city. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 19:14, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
 * No. NYC is the primary topic for NY.  --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:01, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Why? P p p er y  (talk) 01:48, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Long-term, wide-ranging significance. New York was a city before the colony bounded as we know it existed.  New York was a world-significant city before the the colonies even unified to consider independence.  New York has for hundreds of years been the most important entry point into the New World.  There is more economic and social significant to whether you are a true New Yorker or a commuter from New Jersey, than if you are in upstate New York or across the border in Pennsylvania.  US state borders have an academic federal political topicality, but in nearly every other respect the world's megacities are far more important subjects. That said, the reason the status quo is not a problem is because New York State and New York City are not independent of each other.  --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:10, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
 * For an article to be the primary topic, is not enough that it is highly important or significant; it needs to be much more important than other topics competing for the title. Do you consider New York city to be much more historically significant than New York state? Diego (talk) 04:26, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes, because the name of the state is derivative of the city. That makes the city the default primary topic, and I don't think the state overcomes the significance of the city considering so many aspects. If the two topics were independent, neither derivative on the other, then there would be no primary topic. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:57, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment below. Andrewa (talk) 06:39, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
 * No – There is no primary topic. Both the city and state are called New York, one merely the 'City of New York', and the other the 'State of New York'. The significance of the city internationally is far too great to allow the state to take primary topic status. RGloucester  — ☎ 22:11, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
 * No. City has greater global importance and slightly more incoming links (even counting for State the links to New York that were meant for the city and the Doe was born in Anytown, New York  state links that are rarely followed).  Probably no primary topic; if there is one it's the city. Certes (talk) 23:38, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes Recognizing that TITLE policy requires that those choosing a title be familiar with the subject, and that Primary Topic states: "[t]here is no single criterion for defining a primary topic," New York has greater population and area than any other competing topic it is thus vastly more significant in real metrics (not feeling metrics) under ptopic.  New York City would not exist in law or in fact without New York, and the present city was created  on January 1, 1898, under the laws of New York, and its area and people are more than encompassed by New York all making it more significant in law and in fact, under ptopic.  Past discussions have shown that those who think of The City are thinking of New York County (aka, Manhattan) not New York City, thus New York City is less significant in their eyes, than New York County.  Compare that, like Hillary Clinton, who may be the next president of the United States, was the junior Senator of New York, not the city, the electors of New York will select the President, not the city, thus again much more significant. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:17, 30 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment below. Andrewa (talk) 21:59, 30 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Excuse me, but where does WP:TITLE make such a thing as "requiring that those choosing a title be familiar with the subject"? The policy is very clear that the decision process is to be made by consensus, with a basis on how reliable sources discuss the topic; there's nothing in it limiting the characteristics of editors that may participate in the decision. If you're talking either about the Recognizability or WP:CONCISE criteria, in both cases they're talking about what is familiar to readers, not the editors making the decision. And I might say, the current title makes a poor work at fulfilling the naming criteria, as familiar readers will have problems determining which is the topic from the ambiguous name, which fails to have enough WP:PRECISION for that. Diego (talk) 22:20, 30 August 2016 (UTC)
 * […Pointless discussion removed…]
 * Yes, the city is New York City, and is just one (albeit big) component of New York State. There's much more to the State than the City. Peter Flass (talk) 10:43, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
 * And there's much more to the city (specific culture, etc.) than the general characteristics of the state. All information at a New York City article is clearly not a subset of information that would be presented at a New York State article, which is what your argument seems to be implying by considering the city as a subset of the state. ~ Rob 13 Talk 15:21, 3 September 2016 (UTC)
 * You're absolutely correct, Rob. Thanks for batting for our team in this good-natured softball game with that comment. That's the whole point here - would the CEO of a company ever micromanage? No, he would delegate the pesky details to his subordinates. And you'll find the same relationship between the New York State and United States articles. Castncoot (talk) 16:15, 3 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Agree that put it very well, but what he says in no way supports your team. Andrewa (talk) 21:13, 10 September 2016 (UTC)
 * No. The state is not significantly more likely to be the sought topic "than all the other topics combined" (nor "much more likely" than the city), and its historic and educational relevance is comparable to that of New York City, which is also commonly referred to as "New York". Therefore it remains ambiguous what is the intended target when people link to or search for the term "New York". The opinions defending that the state is the primary topic for the term are largely a rehash of the Higher-Level Jurisdiction Criterion proposal, a suggested extension of WP:PTOPIC which didn't get traction. Diego (talk) 12:45, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
 * No city has greater global importance BlueSalix (talk) 00:01, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
 * No. As I stated in the move request, the topics are either of equal primacy, or perhaps NYC is even primary over the state. New York City is the world's number one global city, seat of the United Nations, foremost financial centre of the foremost economy in the world etc. etc. The state, on the other hand, is just a state. A big one, and an important one, but not *the* biggest or *the* most important in particular. That the city is in the state is incidental to this. The state doesn't acquire magical additional importance as an encyclopedic topic just because of that. See also Lima / Lima Province and Lagos / Lagos State for similar cases where the importance of a city supersedes or equals that of its containing province/state of the same name. &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 11:42, 9 September 2016 (UTC)
 * No The City is eponymous for the State. Not the other way around. It almost never is in cases like this. Gerard von Hebel (talk) 18:54, 10 September 2016 (UTC)
 * No – Usage of the term "New York" is divided between the state and the city; this fact is widely documented and was acknowledged by both proponents and of the move request. Some editors argue that the city is primary but data does not support this view: for example, natural traffic to the city article oscillates between 13,000 and 15,000 views a day while traffic to the state article stands between 6,000 and 8,000 views a day.|New_York|New_York_(state) Even taking into account that the state traffic is artificially boosted by virtue of standing at the ambiguous "New York" title and being the target of links intended for the city, we still cannot say that the city is overwhelmingly dominant in reader interest. In terms of long-term significance, neither the city nor the state can be considered dominant either, as  (although the modern worldwide angle would tilt this criterion towards the city). Therefore the inescapable conclusion is that the term "New York" does not have a primary topic. According to policy, it should be a disambiguation page, but the wikipedian community might also decide that the state article should stay here per WP:IAR. That is the subject for another debate. — JFG talk 08:49, 11 September 2016 (UTC)
 * No. In my experience, the term "New York" almost invariably refers to the city, to the point that the term "New York State" is employed when writers want to refer to the state rather than the city, the only exception being when specific locales in the state are being referred to, as in, for example, "Troy, New York" or "Albany, New York". Gatoclass (talk) 14:17, 11 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I agree somewhat, but I propose a question to you. What does New York, New York ; or NY, NY refer to? Does it refer to the county in the city, i.e. Manhattan, or does it refer to the city in the state, i.e NYC? Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 14:33, 11 September 2016 (UTC)
 * , why would you refer to Manhattan, New York as New York, New York? The name of the place is Manhattan. I have always understood "New York, New York" to mean "New York City in New York State", if it's used for anything else, that is news to me. And indeed, it turns out that New York, New York redirects to New York City. Gatoclass (talk) 14:52, 11 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Manhattan is the County of New York. This is recognised by the New York, New York (disambiguation) page. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 14:54, 11 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes,, I can see that, but note that the dab page refers to this very much as a secondary meaning, the most widely understood meaning of the term "New York, New York" is New York City in New York State. Regardless, I'm not sure what point you are trying to make. Gatoclass (talk) 15:01, 11 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I think he's refering to the fact that "New York, NY", as a mailing address, refers only to Manhattan (that is, New York County). The other boroughs have other mailing addresses, either the borough name (i.e. "Bronx, NY") or neighborhood (i.e. "Flushing, NY"). In that regard, "New York, NY" is not a reference to the city as a whole. But unless you're sending a letter (or bill) to someone in the city, that's not a major deal. oknazevad (talk) 16:05, 11 September 2016 (UTC)


 * No (neither the state nor the city is the primary topic) I prefer a disambiguation page for New York or failing that keep as it is. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 07:43, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
 * No Most uses of the term "New York" refer to "New York City". For that reason, a search in Wikipedia for "New York" should not go directly to New York state. It might lead to either New York City, which is the usual meaning of the term, or to a disambiguation page. If I had to guess, I would expect that the use of the term "New York" refers to the state less than 1% of the time.  Blue Rasberry   (talk)  17:59, 19 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Do you have any evidence for that? Because as noted throughout the extensive discussion here, it's no where near as one sided as that. oknazevad (talk) 20:25, 19 September 2016 (UTC)
 * And, as also apparent from the discussion, some of us find the evidence already presented at least that one-sided. There is no doubt that some (perhaps even most) New-York-etc-ers have strong opinions as to what New York means, to the point that we can't even call them New Yorkers, and just as little doubt that to the rest of the English-speaking world it means something else. Andrewa (talk) 22:31, 19 September 2016 (UTC)
 * To be absolutely blunt, I grow tired of the attitude apparent in your comments that somehow the people that live in the area are ignorant about the true meaning of the name; it is utterly arrogant and insulting. Simple logic dictates that they are more knowledgeable about the relationships and details than someone who lives on the other side of the world. The idea that the state government and boundaries are so minor as to be dismissed, which has been stated before, is an ignorant position. Knock it off, it doesn't help your arguments at all. oknazevad (talk) 15:41, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
 * No The primary topic for "New York" is New York County (Manhattan), NOT the 5 boroughs combined. If you were going to Brooklyn or Queens, or Staten Island, you would say so. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 02:05, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Largely true only within the city itself. Outside of the metro, Manhattan is never called "New York" except on postal envelopes. Powers T 15:25, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Perhaps just outside of the metro but in the US still. Manhattan is often referred to New York. I've heard people think Staten Island and Long Island are amusement parks.Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 15:32, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I am not sure if Richard is completely right, but he is probably at least 90% right. NYC (which means the five boroughs) is the PT of NY as I said above, from far away where the topic of boroughs is not at issue.  Someone from Staten Island is not being incorrect or misleading to say they are from NY, but yes, Manhattan Island competes strongly with NYC for PT for NY from a local perspective.  I don't think it is a necessary distinction, but if push comes to shove I would give it to Richard.  --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:50, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
 * No. I've avoided posting here because I felt this specific matter was well-discussed at the recent Move Request and I would still encourage anyone tasked with assessing consensus to review the arguments made by editors at that discussion, of which this RFC is a direct continuation. That said, this is a change from my previously stated position (not that I expect anyone to be keeping track), and it is a change based on the actual evidence presented. Particularly compelling was the breakdown of naming convention on other wikis, which did not demonstrate any clear dominance of either the city, nor the state, for an unqualified "New York". has outlined a nice breakdown of traffic and linking patterns, demonstrating no clear PT at the base name, above. Additionally, in the course of fixing mis-links,  has presented a detailed analysis of their journey through many thousands of links, and their findings reveal that both the city and state have long-term significance, and that neither is overwhelmingly likely to be the intended meaning in any given situation. So, by no evidence-based standard is New York State the PT for "New York", but let's be clear: Neither is New York City (evidence for which has largely consisted of uncited assertions about what "most people" intend when they say "New York", which is barely better than discussing what they themselves first think of when they hear "New York"). - Antepenultimate (talk) 01:19, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
 * No. The names should specify New York State or New York City and also put New York on the disambiguation page. The state and city are different political entities, and I think it is best to specify which entity is being referenced in an encyclopedia.  The words New York are vague, and could be interpreted with different meanings, so I think it best to be specific.CuriousMind01 (talk) 12:04, 22 September 2016 (UTC)
 * No. "New York" refers to the city in most cases, and it is likely the term that most users want. Tom29739 [ talk ] 16:12, 22 September 2016 (UTC)
 * No. I just realized I haven't formally entered my opinion here, despite my extensive participation in this discussion. To make it clear without having to hunt the page: The state is not the primary topic. Neither is the city. There is no primary topic; they're about equal, as seen in the evidence gathered on this page and the prior move discussion. No one can actually properly say what most people want. The base title should be a disambiguation page. Not the state. Not the city. (The city article should not move at all.) oknazevad (talk) 16:28, 22 September 2016 (UTC)
 * No. Somehow this RFC slipped my notice until now. IMO, there is no primary topic or if there is one it is the city or perhaps the city's metropolitan area. older ≠ wiser 21:40, 22 September 2016 (UTC)
 * No. It is plain to any objective eye that the title "New York" is an imprecise title that has no primary topic – not the state, not the city, not any part of the city such as Manhattan nor the Bronx, not the entire metropolitan area, although any one of these may be thought of as "New York" by some or many people, both locally and globally.  If any one of these were to come even close to being the primary topic, it would be the city, not the state nor any of the others – the city.  However I see no need to modify the city's article title, which is naturally disambiguated by "City".  I see no need to do that because even the city, which is thought of by many in the world as simply "New York", is not the primary topic.  So no, the state is not the primary topic.  The imprecise title, "New York", does not have a primary topic and should be the title of the New York (disambiguation) page.  Anything else goes strongly against this encyclopedia's policies and guidelines as set forth and described in several previous page-move discussions.  And we have yet to see any policies or guidelines that support any other choice.   Paine   u/ c  13:16, 23 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes. New York State is the primary topic.
 * Repeating from below, the State contains 50,000 square miles of settlements (including NYC and its people!) and roads, mountains and waterfalls, lakes and rivers, and forests and farms, all of which are WP:NOTABLE. NYC contains its 469 square miles. Geography covers both landscape and human impact. Demographics covers only human impact, a situation which could prompt delving into more subjective ("squishy," as you put it) metrics such as "fame", "importance", and  "iconic value" if Demographics routinely superseded Geography (which you'll almost never see on Wikipedia, probably because that would defy the flow of naturally occurring human thought process); if that were the case (which it is not), one might make an argument that NYC could in fact be the primary topic. Castncoot (talk) 17:47, 24 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Repeating from below, therefore, even though on the surface, on a purely quantitative basis, NYC has a 2: or 3: to 1 ratio per the usage metric, if one scratches beneath that superficial surface, one finds that on a qualitative basis, the State has more compelling evidence, again by purely encyclopedically driven, Wikipedia-based technical metrics, to be awarded primary topic status. Again, the caveat being that the move-oppose side isn't even looking at primary topic as the sine qua non criterion against moving. With a yawn, as a discussant, I reaffirm that there is no consensus that New York State is not the primary topic. Castncoot (talk) 17:47, 24 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Where has HLJC been "acknowledged" and when will you be starting the move discussion to move the article on North/South America to America? ~ Rob 13 Talk 18:04, 24 September 2016 (UTC)
 * On its talk page. By two of your compadres. And time must have passed me by when North/South America became a single legal jurisdiction. Castncoot (talk) 19:03, 24 September 2016 (UTC)
 * What merger proposal? That's not even an issue. This New York topic article naturally covers all the people and all the places, history, and on and on, of New York. That is not an article merger - that's just the New York topic. Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:26, 24 September 2016 (UTC)
 * As it was pointed below, the five points at the left of the table all refer to the same criterion (namely that the larger region should take precedence) and are not separate points. Since a primary topic needs to be (per policy) much more likely to be sought, historically or educationally significant than all the other alternatives combined, the table does not show that the state is primary. Diego (talk) 00:01, 27 September 2016 (UTC)
 * First of all you misrepresent the chart. The first and third points are that the New York article covers New York City, not because it is larger (compare, Texas and Alaska are larger) but because it is in the topic. The second point has nothing to do with larger, it has to do with an on Wikipedia organization that recognizes the fact that New York City is in New York.  The Fourth point is a statement of geography and demographics, and according to it is has to do with qualitative issues.  The fifth is some essay they have apparently written.  These things do have to do with significance of New York, just as in the English language the primary definition in reliable source dictionaries is New York, yes the state, and in reliable source encyclopedia the the topic of New York is under the title New York, yes the state. To be a reliable source, one should follow them, according to policy. As for your eliding of ptopic into a mish-mash, the policy very much values such evidence. Alanscottwalker (talk) 23:35, 27 September 2016 (UTC)


 * No. I'm of the opinion that NYC is the primary topic for "New York", but it's clear that the state is not the primary topic unless you use the convoluted criteria of higher-level jurisdiction, which has been shown to repeatedly break down and lead to absurd results in cases like this where the lower-level jurisdiction is more prominent/important in a global/historical context. Patar knight - chat/contributions 18:43, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I just want to quote you the lead of the criteria of higher-level jurisdiction, a proposed criterion that may help to determine a primary topic. It is both on a proposal and a possible helping tool, not a definitive criterion. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 19:49, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I am firmly of the opinion that HLJC is only useful in cases where the the two jurisdictions involved are run-of-the-mill and otherwise not particularly notable. -- Patar knight - chat/contributions 20:41, 28 September 2016 (UTC)


 * No. Globally, among English speakers, New York refers to the city. WP:BIAS does not change that. SST  flyer  10:21, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

Message to drafters
@all: I have attempted a full draft of the move request with concise arguments, largely following Certes' logical progression, and picking the strongest points made here or in prior discussions. Feedback and tweaks welcome. — JFG talk 12:31, 19 May 2017 (UTC)