Talk:New York (state)/July 2016 move request: Difference between revisions

Move request

This section is now open for editing, and will remain open until 22:00 18 July 2016 (UTC).

Background

Currently, New York is the title of the Wikipedia article about New York State; New York City is the title of the article about the city; and there is a disambiguation page at New York (disambiguation) that lists both the state, the city, and other topics that might commonly be referred to by the name "New York".

Some users have proposed moving the article about the State to a different title, such as New York (state). By default, this would create a redirect from the title New York to the moved article, but that could be changed (either by changing the target of the redirect, or by moving a different page to that title) based upon the results of this discussion.

The purpose of this discussion is to seek consensus about whether (a) the article about the State should be moved to a different title; and (b) if it is moved, whether to change the target of the redirect or to give either the article about the City or the disambiguation page the title New York.

Argument and evidence in support of moving the page

This section is now open for editing. Please place any arguments and evidence in support of the proposed move in this space.

New York State fails both WP:PRIMARYTOPIC criteria

The article on New York State should be at the base name New York if but only if the primary topic of New York is New York State.

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.

So in terms of Wikipedia policy and guidelines, the state should not be at the base name, and should be moved. Andrewa (talk) 09:45, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

New York is an ambiguous target for internal links

The ambiguity of "New York" as a name is well-attested in Wikipedia usage. Tens of thousands of wikilinks point 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 perpetuates about half of internal links pointing to the wrong destination. This situation is detrimental to readers and to the integrity of the encyclopedia. Therefore New York should become a dab page and all existing internal links should be disambiguated. Robots can assist with the initial workload and subsequent enforcement: see initial efforts by BD2412bot and my proposal to correct frequent patterns. Note that links to New York with the city meaning must be fixed regardless of the eventual decision to move New York to New York (state) or keep the status quo, so that work on this part can safely start before the debate is settled. — JFG ^talk 13:37, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

Usage by the world and our readers, World > NYS

As a lifelong citizen of Upstate New York, I can testify that the primary meaning of "New York" is indeed the city. While the city is a subset of the state, it's also true that whenever I tell someone from outside New York that I'm from "New York", they assume I mean the city and I must correct them. While the primary meaning of "New York" within New York itself may be an interesting thing to look at, New York is in fact a subset of the entire world, so the primary meaning of "New York" within the world should mean more than the primary meaning of "New York" within New York. (While this comment is largely intended to highlight the subjective nature of the opposing argument, it is also entirely true based on my personal experiences.) ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 22:52, 12 July 2016 (UTC)

Totally true. I live in upstate New York, and travel out of the country frequently. I find that most people in the world have no idea that New York State exists, and even less interest in this fact, just as most Americans have little knowledge of or interest in the counties of England or cantons of Switzerland. If I say that I live in New York State, foreigners generally ignore the (to them merely confusing) word "State" and assume I live in the city. I usually resort to saying that I live such and such a distance from New York (meaning th city).

I have a hard time imagining anyone from outside the USA advocating for the state being the default! Clean Copy (talk) 12:49, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

The international experience certainly leans heavily toward the city, but even the experience in nearby states leans toward the city. I've had most people in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland assume that I meant the city rather than the state. Hell, in a beer garden in Pennsylvania just two days ago, I mentioned I was from New York and someone asked me later in the conversation for the name of the building just west of the Port Authority. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 21:41, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

The proposed move would not harm the Wikiproject, and would improve Wikipedia

The integrity and reputation of Wikipedia is best preserved by adhering to our naming conventions unless there is strong evidence and/or consensus that they should change or should not apply, for example by adopting the higher-level jurisdiction criterion (HLJC) and therefore considering NYC to be a progeny article of NYS. While the HLJC has something to recommend it and discussion is ongoiing, there is little support for adopting it in Wikipedia so far.

The WikiProject name would not need to change, any more than WikiProject Washington has needed to change its name since the move of the article on that state. Andrewa (talk) 21:19, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

The city and the state are both known as "New York" (and also throw in Manhattan)

As a New York (City) resident whose family is Chinese immigrants, I can also be referred to a "New Yorker." In Chinese, we call the city 紐約 (New York).

Although New York City is technically still "New York"—NYC residents get NY State license plates, tax forms, etc.—it is incorrect to assume that "New York" only refers to the state (see #New York is an ambiguous target for internal links and #New York State fails both WP:PRIMARYTOPIC criteria). The term "New York" can refer to the state, as in "New York: The Empire State." Also to the city as in New York Post, New York Times, New York Daily News, etc. It can finally refer to Manhattan, as in addresses, as in "350 5th Ave, New York, NY 10118". (I grew up in Queens and I never got any mail to "New York, NY," so "New York" isn't necessarily the whole city.

Point is, when people outside the US think of "New York", they think of the city. And when they think of the city, they think of Manhattan. But in the US, "New York" can be either the city or the state. New York State's official website proclaims the state as "New York" but the city's website says "City of New York". This situation is similar to the State of São Paulo vs. the City of São Paulo. Kylo Ren (talk) 22:55, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

• Also, while I can see why "New York" can be referred to as the state as a primary topic, I think that living in NYC can distort that perception—I know that firsthand. Kylo Ren (talk) 22:58, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

The case should be decided on its present merits

The one valid argument yet advanced for keeping the NYS page at the base name is that it is the long-standing name, and therefore, if consensus cannot be achieved, no move should occur. This is supported by Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Is there a primary topic?, Wikipedia:Consensus#No consensus and Wikipedia:Requested moves/Closing instructions#Determining consensus, which refer to each other and all say much the same thing.

Why is default to the status quo the policy? In my opinion, the purpose is to reduce the time wasted on such moves and the related discussions, and encourage stability. Stability is desirable for many reasons, including but not only the risk of breaking wikilinks when pages are renamed.

However, in this case the more stable situation is the one that will be produced by a move. If the main or only argument in favour of the status quo is simply that it is the status quo, then the proposed move removes this argument, and any further challenge then becomes baseless. WP:IAR therefore becomes relevant to the current discussion, because the policy of preferring the long-standing name is, in this case, unhelpful.

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.

Or in other words, the naming conventions are quite correct in this case, as they generally are... that's why we have them. The ongoing damage of not following them is described in other sections. Andrewa (talk) 17:37, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

The damage of the current situation

It is in a sense correct that the current situation is not in itself confusing to readers. Readers do not in general care about our naming conventions. They just want to get to the information they want. As long as the article titles make some sort of sense, that's OK. It's no big deal.

So assuming the existing wrongly targeted wikilinks (or mislinkings) are all fixed (no small job, but one that needs doing anyway) few readers will be confused, and hatnotes can quickly resolve any confusion.

The current situation is however confusing to editors, and particularly new editors, and to page movers. This has been amply demonstrated by this series of discussions. The guidelines are very clear, but the current situation makes a mockery of them. The guidelines are designed to make linking easy and natural, but the current situation sets a booby trap for editors who wikilink to New York, and those who fall into it will continue to create mislinkings (as have others in the past, this is how the existing mislinkings have come about).

These mislinkings are confusing to readers, and fixing them is an ongoing and unnecessary task for somebody.

This is confusing and discouraging to new editors, who cannot be expected to understand why this situation is allowed. I don't understand it myself! Andrewa (talk) 05:17, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

The job is not too big, but is growing

There are an enormous number of links to New York. Some of these intend NYC and others NYS. Fixing them is an enormous job regardless of the outcome of this proposed move.

The first steps in tackling this in an efficient manner are to identify whether there is a primary meaning of New York, and if so what it is, and to implement that decision. Delay simply means more links to check, and more wrong links to fix. Andrewa (talk) 21:28, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

Readership statistics while New York was moved to New York (state)

An interesting outcome of this long-winded debate so far is that we had a few weeks to test the effects of moving New York to New York (state) and having a redirect at the New York base name. Please look at this graph (and turn off log scale). We can clearly distinguish three periods:

1. Initial situation, until June 17: New York City clocks on average roughly 15,000 views per day, versus 9,000 for New York (which at that point is the state page)
2. Page moved, from June 18 to July 7: New York (state) quickly grows in traffic, until reaching its natural peak of 5,000 views a day, while New York City traffic is stable and New York (now a redirect) decreases to around 2,700 views a day.
3. Status quo ante, since July 8: New York (back to being the state) grows to roughly 6,000 views a day while New York (state) goes down to 1,500; New York City goes down a little, but we don't have enough data to assess whether this is a significant change (it happened over a weekend).

From these measurements, I conclude that:

• Natural demand by readers for New York City is stable at roughly 14–15'000 views per day
• Natural demand by readers for New York State is measured at roughly 5,000 views per day (one third of the city demand)
• Over just three weeks, many ambiguous links to New York were corrected by editors (see for example the remarkable work by Niceguyedc and others at the DAB Challenge leaderboard), yielding a remaining 1,500 views per day now reaching the state article via New York (state).
• Fixing ambiguous links has reduced the overall number of page views (21,500 now vs. 24,000 earlier), as more people find directly the page they wanted to read instead of going through the New York state page (in a random sample I detected that about half of Wikipedia internal links to New York were meant for the city).

This little experiment proves that making this move permanent would indeed improve the situation for readers, and would not harm the encyclopedia at all. Disambiguation of internal links would likely proceed quickly, further improving overall quality. — JFG ^talk 21:59, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

Argument and evidence in opposition to moving the page

This section is now open for editing. Please place any arguments and evidence in opposition to the proposed move in this space.

Usage by New Yorkers, NYS > NYC

As a lifelong and 5th-generation at least citizen of New York City, I can testify that the primary meaning of "New York" is indeed the state. This shouldn't really need saying, but the population, economy, and culture of New York State is rather larger even than New York City, because the city is of course a subset of the state.--Pharos (talk) 22:34, 12 July 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia would be irreparably harmed

The very foundation of Wikipedia as an encyclopedia itself would be fractured by such a move. The State carries WP:PRIMARYTOPIC over the City as the New York City article is a progeny article of the New York parent article, being forked to it in section from the parent State article and being classified according to Wikipedia (even noted underneath the infobox on the NYC article) as one of the Regions of New York. Usage for the State and City articles is within the same order of magnitude and is non-diagnostic, ceding to other determinants of primary status. There is also the Wikipedic delineation of the fundamental Wikipedia:WikiProject New York and Wikipedia:WikiProject New York City pages and numerous Category pages that clearly refer to the State as New York and to the City as New York City, and the integrity of these basic Wikipedia pages cannot be undermined.This rationale explains why such a move would be disruptive and destructive to Wikipedia. Castncoot (talk) 00:54, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

The New York article would also be irreparably harmed

Such a misguided move would also be devastating to the New York article itself, in addition to the Wikipedia project. There are roughly 50,000 square miles of geographic features and 11+ million additional people in New York outside of New York City, and Wikipedia is not just about global fame and/or human impact – geography is also an extremely important feature. The State is also a singular, legal higher-level jurisdiction (HLJ) with respect to the City, which is totally contained as an individual municipality within the State. I realize that this last constructive point, regarding higher-level jurisdiction, needs consensus and codification, but there is a higher likelihood of this happening than the State article ever being moved by consensus, as evidenced by the recent failed move request which encountered overwhelming and vociferous opposition. Castncoot (talk) 00:54, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

Common sense

The move supporters abjectly refuse to look at basic common sense here. They blatantly turn a blind eye regarding practicality. At a time of stagnant to declining Wikipedia viewership, we want to capture every possible eyeball to our wonderful article pages rather than getting hung up at disambiguation pages, which are essentially a death knell to viewership; given the human predilection to get hung up and distracted at disambiguation pages, thousands of daily viewers would be lost from the New York article at a dab page. A clear hatnote and lede are the only smart features needed to direct to the City article as needed. Come on guys, let's be smart here! Is there any harm if a reader learns a little bit about New York on the way to learning about its largest contained city? Isn't it a GOOD thing for the reader to gain a little extra knowledge he or she may not have had? This whole proposal to move is actually a "solution" in search of a problem. Castncoot (talk) 00:54, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

If we send a reader to an article they didn't intend to see, how does that help the readership, and how is that helping us keep their eyeballs?

And where do you get that such thing as a "human predilection to get hung up and distracted at disambiguation pages" does even exist? Diego (talk) 16:41, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

Let the actual editors of these pages state if there's a problem for them editing

I find it particularly bizarre and hypocritical that an editor supporting the move side has described a "booby trap for editors" above when I don't believe he has ever (at least recently) edited these (New York or New York City) pages. As a major editor of these pages, I have never found a problem with the current nomenclature. Castncoot (talk) 00:54, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

I'm very sorry to have to say this, but I am guessing that this expresses very well why we have such a controversy. It does not seem to have occurred to you that I meant editors of other articles, rather than editors of the NYC and NYS articles. Editors of other articles are the ones who have created the many mislinkings, and will continue to do so until this is fixed. I hope I have clarified this now, [1] but I think it should have been clear enough as I first wrote it. Andrewa (talk) 17:26, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

The City of New York is fortuitously auto-disambiguated correctly

New York City is commonly known as "New York City", and this title has suited the City beautifully since the inception of Wikipedia. Therefore, by process of elimination, "New York" has gotten assigned to New York, the State.This arrangement has fortuitously worked out, and accurately so – it's certainly not incorrect, as any reasonable person would have to acknowledge. Castncoot (talk) 00:54, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

Equally, New York State is commonly known as just that, and is thus not yet auto-disambiguated correctly. Moving this to the full title would solve this.

As remarked above, for 99% of the world, New York without a further qualifier definitely means the city. Clean Copy (talk) 12:36, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

What we want is for a reader to be able to enter "New York" mindlessly (as thousands daily will, inevitably) and have him/her not be directed to a dab page where we would lose the reader's attention span and potentially thousands of daily readers from a "real" (i.e., not dab) page. Clear hatnotes can direct as needed thereafter. We can't afford to lose any more readers from Wikipedia's stagnating to declining viewership. Castncoot (talk) 15:49, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

Where there is such fundamental ambiguity (the vastly exaggerated claims of harm suggest just how weak the claims actually are), it is preferable to allow the READER to determine what their desired target is rather than make faulty assumptions. older ≠ wiser 16:08, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

^^^This. If there's something we know about internet users, is that they know how to follow links appearing in the results page of a search. New York (disambiguation) prominently places the links to the state and the city right at the top, and therefore the readers will be able to find the particular page they were looking for.

Conversely, interaction research tells us that landing at a wrong information page, which looks like the page we're expecting but is not the right one, can be a disorienting experience, which takes several seconds to recover from. That's why WP:PRIMARYTOPIC poses a fairly high bar in terms of user expectation for placing an article at the base name of an ambiguous term, and why WP:ASTONISH is an accepted principle. If there are doubts as to what page is the one that readers are expecting when they follow a link or search for the name of New York, the disambiguation page is the safest option that will best serve our readers. Diego (talk) 16:38, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

What we don't know is what that 'mindless' (really?) reader has in mind, the city or the state. It could equally well be either. This leaves us in an impossible situation. If only there was something like a disambiguation page available on Wikipedia... Clean Copy (talk) 00:14, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

The New York City article would also be irreparably harmed de facto

If the title of the State article gets undermined, then by default one would unintendedly be altering the dynamics of the City article title as well, by default – and this would then have to be addressed.This would deal another disastrous blow to Wikipedia and to the City article. Castncoot (talk) 00:54, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

Great argument, but a quick question: how? You haven't explained what this "harm" is in any of your half dozen or so sections here. You're saying "This is bad" but not explaining why, making the argument useless. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 21:34, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

And just imagine what effect all this would have on Niagara Falls. Clean Copy (talk)

A solution for an actual problem

A nice essay page has been started by Andrewa (talk) evaluating codification of the higher-level jurisdiction criterion (HLJC). Perhaps building a consensus for this instead would constitute far more constructive an endeavor. Castncoot (talk) 00:54, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

Do you realize that if the HLJC were to be adopted, America should be moved again to the continent? Diego (talk) 08:52, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

No, since HLJC would apply only to singular, legal, geopolitical jurisdictions - of which a continent is not one. Castncoot (talk) 15:42, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

The North American Free Trade Agreement disagrees with you. That's a legal agreement on trade within the geopolitical area of North America. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 21:35, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

Perhaps holding to the existing article naming conventions, rather than trying to promote a standard in direct conflict with these, would constitute far more constructive an endeavor. Clean Copy (talk) 00:07, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

The long-standing status quo does not result in confusion for readers

I'll admit up-front that supporters of the move have simple policy interpretation on their side, here. So why is it that such an apparently egregious error has survived for so long, with so many supporting the status quo? I would argue that it is because the current set-up does not lead to confusion for everyday readers, and would therefor not be worth the rather severe effort needed to "correct" the issue.

• The purpose of the primary topic guideline is to reduce reader confusion and astonishment. Focusing simply on "which meaning is used more" somewhat misses the point, especially given the unique relationship these two topics have. Per the primary topic guideline, while There are no absolute rules for determining whether a primary topic exists and what it is, suggested methods for determining a primary topic include evaluating Usage, to determine if [a topic] is 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. This and other guidance, I believe, are most often intended for subjects that share a name, but are not otherwise significantly related. However, "New York" can mean the state, it can mean the city, it can mean the county, it can mean the metropolitan area, it can mean just Manhattan. It can mean all of these things at once, and often does. Only one article covers all of these topics - that being the article about the state*. Hence, it has functioned quite well as an impromptu broad-concept article - which is why few people are confused when following links or searching for the term, regardless of their specific interest, and regardless of what first comes to mind. *The state article does exclude some portions of adjoining states if someone is specifically referring to the metropolitan area, but they should probably just start linking to Mega-City One anyhow

• Perhaps the best evidence that an unadorned "New York" can refer to the state without confusing readers is its policy-prescribed use to naturally disambiguate article titles for locations within the state, per WP:USPLACE (for example, Rochester, New York). I admit I haven't been following discussions much for the past week but I don't believe it has been explained why this natural disambiguation is acceptable, while having the state article at the base name is not acceptable - I suggest that it is because it has not been confusing for readers. See also any New York-related category tree. Supporters of the move need to explain why these titles and categories are fine as-is, or be prepared to make the massive changes necessary to clear this up (again, I don't think it is unclear at all, hence why the status quo has remained for so long).

Supporters of the move need to clearly describe the harm that the current set-up is causing for readers, in addition to citing policy. For such a major change, a clear demonstration of need is required. I suspect that if we could rewind to 2002 to do it all over again, the current arrangement would not be chosen; if change occurs, it should be to place a dab page at the base title, as it would at least catch lazily inserted wikilinks that were likely intended to have greater specificity. But the current desire to move the page is a solution in search of a problem. Antepenultimate (talk) 00:17, 16 July 2016 (UTC)

Arguments concerning the alternatives for New York base name

Apologies for starting a new section so late in the process, but it only just occurred to me that this is probably the best place for what I want to say, and that it should be said before the RM opens, to be used in the second discussion, currently still scheduled to open with the first. Andrewa (talk) 19:02, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

Wikilinks to NYS were not created in error

It has been observed that many Wikilinks have been created pointing to New York, and that while many of these are mislinkings intended for NYC, almost as many are intended for NYS.

It is correctly reasoned that many editors naively assumed that wikilinking New York would lead to a link to NYC, and will continue to do so.

But the existence of the (correct but undesirable) wikilinks intended for NYS doesn't really tell us anything, because the same reasoning does not apply to the wikilinks intended for NYS. These wikilinks were, at the time of their creation, correct.

The creation of those links intended for NYC was in error, but the creation of those intended for NYS was not.

It may be that we will see mislinkings intended for the state if the base name points to NYC, but we cannot know for sure. It may also be that we will not, and it is reasonable to conclude that they will at least be fewer in number than the previous mislinkings intended for NYC. Andrewa (talk) 19:12, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

• Just noting that the ideal solution to this is for "New York" to be a disambiguation page, since then the disambiguation bots, etc., would alert editors whenever they link to the "possibly NYC, possibly NYS" name. This ensures that all links are correct. The few links where editors ignore the talk page notice from a bot could be swiftly taken care of by those who routinely fix links to disambiguation pages. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 21:32, 18 July 2016 (UTC)
  • Agree. While I think the eventual result will be to move the NYC article to the base name New York, there are several advantages to having the DAB there, for the moment at the very least, and possibly permanently. Andrewa (talk) 21:36, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

Discussion

Discussion 1: Should this current name of this page be changed?

Oppose

1. While there is no PrimaryTopic for "New York", or if there is it is the naturally disambiguated New York City, the status quo is not problematic, as no reader should be astonished, because the two topics are connected, knowledge of one implies knowledge of the other, or at least the astonished reader should welcome and appreciate the education. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:07, 19 July 2016 (UTC)