Talk:New York (state)/Archive 4

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Climate

Sorry About the climate section, Isnt very good. Where i am it is 20:11 (8:11 PM) and I cant do much more. I have to be at school at 7:45 tomorrow. It has to improve. I will improve it ASAP! Please no one delete it it is just a baby-- a work in process. --RayquazaDialgaWeird2210 (talk) 00:13, 29 April 2008 (UTC) New york is very cold in the winter and warm in the summer.

Public Office

I was wondering - has anyone held all the offices of Mayor of New York, Governor of New York, and U.S. Senator from New York, or even two of the three? I can't think of any (recent), yet in most states, it is quite common for big city mayors to become governor, governors to become senators, and vice versa ...... - 121.208.89.99 (talk) 03:23, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

DeWitt Clinton - Don Argus jr (talk) 00:47, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Not one New York City mayor has gone on to higher office since the 1898 consolidation. (talk) 15 August 2008 —Preceding undated comment was added at 15:31, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Education (New York State is not the only state with two Ivy League schools)

New York Stae is NOT the only state with two Ivy League schools. Consider Boston, MA. The state is home for Harvard University and MIT. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.228.175.106 (talk) 19:48, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

• MIT is not in the Ivy League. --Orlady (talk) 19:52, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

IPA pronounciation of 'New York'

Would it not be best to add an alternative pronounciation, i'm quite sure their are a significant amount of people from New York who would pronounce it differently to how it is shown. 167.1.176.4 (talk) 07:11, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm fine with the whole thing /nuːˈjɔrk/, but what bugs me is the use of the trilled "r" when the majority of people use the approximant "ɹ" == /nuːˈjɔɹk/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by Deus911 (talk • contribs) 18:38, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Unattractive site for such a State as New York !

Check out Colorado ! or Florida, Montana Etc ! Come On New York has more pizazz than what we have here ! or is should I say Pizza Lol Somebody's help me out Let's Put New York (The Empire State) on the map !!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Praiseandworship (talk • contribs) 23:09, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm glad someone agrees with me! First I have to clean up Albany, New York before I tackle this one. I also would like people to understand there is no such place as New York State or New York City! There is New York and there is New York, New York. The US post service, a branch of the US Federal government does not recognize the New York City name as a valid destination. I am cleaning up this article and changing to New York and the city of New York where ever I see New York State and New York City. The only time New York State should have state capitalized is when referring to things that would have state capitalized if you are talking about another state; such as New York State Comptroller, he is the State Comptroller of New York such as the Missouri State Comptroller. State is not a part of a proper noun named New York State, it is an adjective describing a New York whatever. Camelbinky (talk) 02:23, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

"New York, New York" is not an appropriate substitution for "New York City," as it can refer to either the entire city or just Manhattan. It doesn't matter what the U.S. post office defines as "New York, New York;" New York City is common usage, and is thus the accepted usage for Wikipedia. "New York State" often needs to be stated for disambiguation purposes, as many (if not most) international readers are much more familiar with the city than the state, regardless of what the U.S. post office says ;) As evident by the past move proposals, disambiguation for "New York" and "New York, New York" is needed for the sake of readers. Also note that the official name of the state is the "State of New York," not simply "New York." Cheers, Rai•me 19:33, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

I believe the topic originator's point was that the article wasn't very high quality, not that it was misnamed. Although, I have tried to move this article to New York State, but was resoundingly defeated...--Loodog (talk) 20:26, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with File:BuffaloBandits.JPG

The image File:BuffaloBandits.JPG is used in this article under a claim of fair use, but it does not have an adequate explanation for why it meets the requirements for such images when used here. In particular, for each page the image is used on, it must have an explanation linking to that page which explains why it needs to be used on that page. Please check

• That there is a non-free use rationale on the image's description page for the use in this article.
• That this article is linked to from the image description page.

The following images also have this problem:

• File:Sabres.PNG

This is an automated notice by FairuseBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. --00:06, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

State symbols

This void needs to be filled. 71.146.25.98 (talk) 17:10, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Introduction

hi.. can someone put the order of states found/claimed on here please?!?!?!?!

The introduction needs a clean up. Particularly the part which says "Don't you think that's AMMMAAAZZZINNNGGG" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.29.95.46 (talk) 22:01, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

This place has a big population it would be so cool if I lived there unforchenetly im only dreaming :(

New York city doesnt have very good mayors they havnt had 1 sence 1898. and what is MIT any way B4N —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.105.243.14 (talk) 01:07, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

I'd like to see some standard info on here, such as the state flower. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.146.5.177 (talk) 13:47, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Newspaper History Inclusion

Curious that I see nothing in this article about New York newspapers, present and past. Not even a reference to the New York Times. Wasn't there a paper before the Times called the "New York Citizen"? Perhaps there were other competition papers?  ^{.`</sup>^) Paine<sup>diss`cuss} (^^`.  18:52, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Factual Error - "New York City, which is the largest city in the state..."

I'm unable to edit this page, but this error is in the 1st line of the 2nd paragraph on the page.

It would be more accurate to read, "New York City, which is the largest city in the state and most populous in the United States..."

The largest city in the US by geographic area is Jacksonville, FL.

R0cketm4n (talk) 04:51, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

You are correct. Jacksonville, FL has a much larger geographical area. I've made the change. --JBC3 (talk) 05:12, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm sure the original intent was to describe the city as the most populous in the state. "Largest" is commonly used to describe size-by-population, not just size-by-area, although the current wording is admittedly more clear. I question, though, whether it's necessary to discuss the city's land area (and is it absolutely true that it's the largest in the state by area, anyway?). Powers ^T 17:45, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

If it's the largest in the state by area, then I would say it is worthy of a mention. As to the factual nature of the statement... New York only has 62 cities, so someone could check quickly if they really wanted. I find it hard to believe that any city in New York has more area, though (but then again it wouldn't be the first time I was wrong)... --JBC3 (talk) 20:46, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

According to List of United States cities by area, it is the largest by area, but I still don't see how that's worth mentioning in this article. Powers ^T 20:07, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

[Unnecessary and possibly inappropriate reply redacted by author in accordance with WP:REDACT] --JBC3 (talk) 21:16, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

"Large" = "exceeding most other things of like kind especially in quantity or size" and "sizes" of cities are usually compared by population. In prose discussing cities, "largest" generally means "most populous". When talking about land area, the distinction is usually explicit (e.g. "Largest by land area" c.f. "Jacksonville has been the largest city in land area").--Loodog (talk) 00:53, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

{editsemiprotected} Pertaining to the Iroquois Confederation

Four of the Six Nations of The Iroquois Confederation, sided with the British, the Mohawk, the Onondaga, the Cayuga and the Seneca Indians. The two other nations, the Oneida and the Tuscarora fought for the Colonists deviding the great Iroquios Confedracy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mattim42 (talk • contribs) 00:21, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

New York United States Border

This section seems like a bit unnecessary and irrelevant. The first paragraph concerns the greater US-Canadian border, while the latter two seem more fit for the separate Niagara Falls article. Perhaps it ought to be done away with? I've looked at some of the other border state articles, which do not have sections solely dedicated towards the border. Ian Fahey (talk) 00:57, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

I think it could be part of another article, and then a link could be put in the see also. Is there such an article already out there? --JBC3 (talk) 01:15, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

The only one I could imagine is the Canada – United States border, though it seems as though the first paragraph was copied from that article's introduction. Same goes for the Niagara Falls paragraphs, and the border crossings list. Ian Fahey (talk) 02:01, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

I just added Canada – United States border as a wikilink in the intro. That article has a see also to the list of border crossings. I think, given the scope of this article and the others, it would be appropriate to delete the section. --JBC3 (talk) 02:22, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree, except I'd like to keep the border crossings list. Powers ^T 14:00, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps incorporate that into the Geography section, or just wikilink to the list of border crossings. Ian Fahey (talk) 23:26, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Upstate-Downstate map

Where are the sources supporting this?

This image provides information to readers, but is unsourced. Were the information provided by this map in text format, I'm certain it would be considered original research. In fact, the last paragraph of Geography is about Upstate-Downstate and is totally uncited. I'd like to see the map (and the paragraph) either sourced or removed, but an understanding of New York is incomplete without knowing something about Upstate. Thoughts? --JBC3 (talk) 16:26, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree. The map, though no doubt well intentioned and nicely rendered, does appear to be OR. I've removed it and rewritten the paragraph with cites from the Encyclopedia of New York State. Station1 (talk) 22:27, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Twin Cities

Most of pages of US cities and other famous cities of the world all have a 'Twin Cities' section, I think New York needs this section included as surely it has a lot of twins.

See: Chicago, IL, for example. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.36.239.159 (talk) 20:28, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

This article is about the state, not the city. The New York City article does have a sister cities section. Station1 (talk) 22:40, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

From dutch to english

I was always taught in school that the New York (New Amsterdam) colony was sold by the dutch. The article, in the opening states that it "fell" this implies conquering. Which is correct? 212.159.240.18 (talk) 07:03, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

It certainly was not sold. The articles on Treaty of Westminster (1674) and New Netherlands include most of the relevant details. Powers ^T 14:45, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Climate - need beter graph

A good example of how the climate should be presented: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Fransisco#Climate The structure of that kind of table is better, average temperatures are more usefel than high and low extremes and the temperature should be written in both Celcius and Fahrenheit (most people use Celcius). 193.190.253.147 (talk) 07:54, 10 April 2009 (UTC) Last I checked New York did not get as low as thirteen degrees Fahrenheit —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.190.223.43 (talk) 01:07, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

URL correction

{{editsemiprotected}}

Please change "http://http//www.ny.gov/" to "http://www.ny.gov/" in New York fact box on top right of page.

 Done AJCham 03:38, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Navy vessel section

While this section is interesting, I believe that it's definitely too detailed to follow WP:SUMMARY. The state of Virginia has an entire class of submarine named after it, but has no mention in its article. I would propose that this section be deleted entirely and either spun off as a separate article, or just accept that the state of New York will be mentioned in the respective vessels' articles. upstateNYer 15:42, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree wish UpstateNYer. Many states have Navy ships named after them but none have much more than a brief mention of the ships. Kraikk (talk) 04:30, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

the love in new york

New York is the best state and alot more people should move there scince it is the 3rd biggest state in the U.S.A and is the best State!

ahmed2014_2 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.205.134.71 (talk) 13:13, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

history without 9/11

I know it's relatively recent history and more associated with the city than the state, but it seems like Sep. 11 2001 is worth a mention considering its global impact. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Vonbondie3000 (talk • contribs) 22:34, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree with this. 82.1.157.16 (talk) 23:49, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Crime?

How is it possible this article doesnt even mentions the word crime not even once. It seems somewhat brochureish to me. Could someone please look it up--201.233.76.36 (talk) 21:17, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Articles about states don't generally mention crime because crime rates usually vary widely within a state - it would be difficult to say anything general and state-wide statistics would be largely useless. Some places in New York State probably have very high crime rates, and I think I read somewhere that Colonie often is featured as one of the safest places in the US. AlexiusHoratius 21:25, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

...although if someone wanted to add a brief mention about how the state-wide crime rate compares with the national average I suppose I wouldn't have a problem with that. AlexiusHoratius 21:33, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree with AlexiusHoratius, the state varies widely in crime see here. South Bay (talk) 01:00, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

What a mess!

This article is a total mess!! There are incorrectly formatted pictures and captions, a confusing mixture of formats for different sections, a sprinkling of unnecessary infoboxes and excessive pictures . . . I don't mean to be overly negative and then not do anything to help out, but it will take a while to tighten this article up! 24.20.200.67 (talk) 01:05, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree. I just did some work to clean it up. I did a lot of work a few months back, but it seems a few people have pretty much ruined my previous work. Hopefully it's a bit more readable now. upstateNYer 04:01, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Name

I think the article should be renamed New York State, or New York (US State) to avoid confusion with the city. 82.1.157.16 (talk) 23:51, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

There was a very long discussion about this in 2008, in this page's Archive 3. Station1 (talk) 01:07, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

"Empire State"

The empire state disambiguation page directs you here, but this article doesn't even mention the nickname, let alone explain the history behind it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.188.193.205 (talk) 23:14, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

It's mentioned in the infobox. Please feel free to add information about the nickname to the article. Powers ^T 12:56, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Haudenosaunee instead of Iroquois

Under the heading "History" the first sentence should refer to the Iroquois as Haudenosaunee with the name Iroquois after it in parenthesis. Jdr2860 (talk) 18:51, 30 March 2010 (UTC)JDR2860

Iroquois is the most common name used, so it's appropriate to use it in this article, with alternatives on it's page. ~DC _{Talk To Me} 23:58, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. upstateNYer 00:23, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Why is NYS known as the "Empire State"

Why is NYS known as the "Empire State" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.125.70.20 (talk • contribs) 13:05, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

pronunciation

Pronunciations are in generic English, not in "American". Please read the MOS. Of course, adding notable local pronunciations is encouraged, but is secondary. kwami (talk) 07:44, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

There is no such thing as generic english. ~DC _{Talk To Me} 07:48, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Please read WP:PRON, linked from the pronunciation section of the MOS. We don't transcribe things in local dialects unless we note them as such, and then normally as a secondary transcription to a generic one intended for our entire readership. This is not US Wikipedia, but English Wikipedia. You're telling our readers that the "New" in "New York" is pronounced differently than the "new" in "newspaper", which is clearly incorrect. It's not "Noo York". This might be forgiven if New York were some hick backwater that no-one had heard of, but it's an international city, known all over the world. The pronunciation we give is the pronunciation that's used, which is /nju: jɔrk/. (Note that that is not British pronunciation either, which would not have the /r/.) kwami (talk) 08:07, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

We have a very specific "diaphonemic" transcription system and being consistent is important, especially with words that have different pronunciations depending on dialect. There's nothing in the manual of style that says transcriptions housed within e.g. {{pron-en}} should make a US/UK distinction and the the WP page that the transcription links to (WP:IPA for English) assumes that the diaphonemic system is being used (i.e. that we shouldn't be making a US/UK distinction).

Now, DC, if you disagree with this policy, you ought to bring it up at Wikipedia talk:IPA for English (Kwami has even begun a discussion there specific to this). Simply insisting that this article should be treated differently goes against the overriding principle of a manual of style.

While we're talking about this, though, I wonder if there's any need to add an additional pronunciation. In addition to /njuː ˈjɔːrk/, there's also or [nuː ˈjɔrk] and [or [nuː ˈjɔk] but the latter two are completely predictable from the diaphonemic transcription or, as the MOS linked above states "...since such variation on the part of the speaker is automatic, it does not need to be spelled out..." — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 10:21, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

There were two local pronunciations, rhotic and non-rhotic, before the edit war started. Personally, I favor having the local pronunciations because US Americans tend to be put out by <j> for "y". That is, it's not so much predictability, but accessibility for a population poorly educated in the IPA, which barely has a toehold in local dictionaries. kwami (talk) 11:15, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

But wouldn't US Americans be put out by the <j> in york in either transcription? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 19:58, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, probably, though this editor didn't seem to mind.

I've added the New York dialect pronunciation. kwami (talk) 20:23, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Which editor? You? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 02:35, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

No, DC. He objected to the j in nju:, but not in jork. kwami (talk) 04:19, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't think DC's issue was with the confusion of j.

The New York dialect transcription you've recently added makes sense to me, but the General American one doesn't. Not yet at least. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 06:18, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Does nju rhyme with mew, few, hew, pew, queue, view, and you? For most people I know (except for those from Britain), new rhymes with sue and Sioux, due and dew, and Lou and loo--JimWae (talk) 04:45, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

You clearly don't know anyone from Ireland, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, India and many other countries (in fact, pretty much all English-speaking countries except the USA and Canada) who also pronounce it to rhyme with 'view'. 81.156.124.135 (talk) 18:24, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Even in the U.S., most people say nyoo. I think the pronunciation noo is restricted to a small region in the Northeast which includes New Jersey and the city of New York (or at least the Bronx). —Stephen (talk) 18:29, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes primarily to the second. AFAIK it rhymes with sue /sju:/, due /dju:/, and dew /dju:/ for just about everyone, so just pronounce it that way. This way it doesn't matter what your dialect happens to be. If you pronounce those words like Sioux, do, then that's how you say the others too. Click on the link if you'd like to know how the system works so that most people can use it for their own dialect. kwami (talk) 05:56, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

I live in a yod-coalescing territory. I've asked a couple of nonlinguists in the past whether a word like new (with yod-coalescence) rhymes with a word like few (without it). The heart of the issue is really whether the j element of /juː/ is part of the syllable nucleus or of the syllable onset: if it's the former, then the two words shouldn't rhyme and if it's the latter, then they should. I haven't gotten any concrete answers. However, if they don't rhyme in a yod-coalescing dialect like mine, then that means that new rhymes with few in some dialects and with boo in others. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 06:18, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

True. You need to know that /j/ doesn't occur after /n/ in your dialect, just as RP speakers need to know that /r/ doesn't occur before /k/ in their dialect. That's why these are given as examples in the intro to the IPA key.

Come to think of it, "New York" would be a good example for the key. kwami (talk) 07:25, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Look at this: "It is often possible to transcribe a word in a generic way that is not specific to any one accent." The j after the n in "New" is definitely specific to accents. It's not generic. It doesn't make sense to tell American speakers, "We're putting a Y sound after the N even though you don't say it that way. That makes sense to you right?" Are we living in denial here? Merriam Webster isn't. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/new

(nju) is specific to a few accents. It's not for all of us. Ejoty (talk) 17:51, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Should New York be a disam page

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

I read this whole page (all 156 k of it!) and don't see a consensus to move. Although there were more supports than opposes, I was swayed by the arguments of the multiple opposers that no huge advantage is gained by a move. --John (talk) 19:22, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

There was a debate on the New York city talk page here where several editors expressed support for a disam page to be at this location, as the state being the primary topic is not clear. As far as im concerned New York City is without doubt the primary article, especially for those internationally but i would say the same goes for most Americans too.

So a disam page seems fair, this was last debated a couple of years ago, so thoughts on this matter again now would be helpful and a serious debate on the matter if some object is required. Thanks BritishWatcher (talk) 16:51, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

• I supporting keeping as is. It's not that hard for people to type "city" after New York if that's what they're looking for. And there's a hatnote pointing to NYC at the top of this page, so making New York a disambiguation page would only serve to break all the pages that link to it. ~DC _{Let's Vent} 17:02, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

You are right that there would be a lot of links that will need to be redirected to the correct pages. However, how many of the present links to this page are actually meant to be the city rather than the state? i suspect there are quite a few anyway. The page view stats suggest that New York city is the primary article, 312,000 views for the state [1] compared to over 518,000 for the city [2] and of course a large number of the views for this page will be people looking for the city. BritishWatcher (talk) 17:40, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

For example Gary_Buseys article links to New York when it should link to New York City as the article on the film in question does. I bet there are tons of examples in the list like that. BritishWatcher (talk) 17:47, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Technically by trying to sell them in NYC isn't he also trying to sell them in NY State? On a more serious note I'd like to see what else people think of this. ~DC _{Let's Vent} 17:56, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

True it would still technically be in New York State, but it lists two other cities so NYC is more in line and its what the film article says. Another would be Bobby Charlton, in the table of about 2 dozen entries of cities or areas of a city, it links to here when it should be the city. BritishWatcher (talk) 21:22, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree 100% with DC, my user name be damned. While NYC may be the major article, NYS is the governing entity of NYC. And with the hatnote, all our bases are covered. It really doesn't take much effort to add "City" in a search box or link. upstateNYer 01:09, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

I support the disambig page. Most readers around the world aren't going to add "city" because they don't even know about the state. This is a similar to Sao Paolo, with most people outside Brazil not knowing it's also the name of a state. --Jleon (talk) 01:39, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Interestingly enough, The Portuguese Wikipedia does the same thing we do for New York. ~DC _{Let's Vent} 02:14, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

And they put New York City at the prime spot Nova Iorque and put the state at Nova Iorque (estado) (state). A quick hover over the different language New York articles shows many using the (state), not giving the state the primary spot. BritishWatcher (talk) 12:52, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

The French, Spanish and i think Arabic language wikis give New York City the prime spot, Dutch and German make the prime spot a disam. Every single one of the foreign language pages that has New York City with Good article/Featured article either gives it the prime spot or has the prime spot as a disam. BritishWatcher (talk) 13:05, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

DC can correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think his/her point was placement on foreign language wikis in a general sense, it was to point out that on the Portuguese wiki, Sao Paulo (the Portuguese being the real "owners" of the article) links to the state, not the city. upstateNYer 21:19, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Indeed. Who cares what the Portuguese wikipedia or any other language wikipedia says about New York? Locations in this article should obviously be based on standard usage in English, not in other languages. john k (talk) 21:48, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

The article has had this title for nine years. I think that this is an answer to a problem that doesn't exist.--Jojhutton (talk) 02:05, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Exactly. ~DC _{Let's Vent} 02:14, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Sadly the problem does exist. The page view stats make very very clear that the city is the primary topic and if we looked at some international sources to try and judge which is more notable it would be the city. Personally id rather the city have the prime spot, but a dab page is clearly justified. There are dozens of examples of places linking to New York when they should be linking to New York City. If we make this a dab page we can sort through all of this and check regularly to ensure that everything is linking to the correct locations. It is a problem. BritishWatcher (talk) 12:41, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

The worst outcome is New York becoming New York (disambiguation) (which already exists). Either the state or the city being primary is preferable to New York (disambiguation) being primary. At present, some readers get what they want in one attempt, and if readers want the other (NYC) they need only find the link in the hatnote and click on it. At New York (disambiguation) NOBODY gets what they want on the first attempt, and EVERYONE is presented with many more choices (30) among which they then need to find the one they want. Many readers do not read linearly - particularly not web pages, where often the first thing "read" (noticed) is the overall format -- in this case an extensive selection of choices, with the "main" choices 1>"hidden" up top, 2>NOT in list format, 3>in wrong order according to what people most commonly want. I do think that perhaps the hatnote at New York could be formatted better to make NYC more prominent--JimWae (talk) 19:04, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Well i think there is a strong case New York City is the primary article and deserving of the top spot. But i think disam would be better than the state being at the primary spot, when it clearly is not. The page views speak for themselves but it is also obvious, most people in the world know of the city New York, most will not know of the state. BritishWatcher (talk) 19:10, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

When I go to New York (disambiguation), its lede is the LAST thing I see on that page as it opens.--JimWae (talk) 19:11, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Agree with JimWae that going to disambig helps nobody. upstateNYer 21:24, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Support New York going to a disambiguation page. Always have and always will. Why? Because the title is ambiguous. See also. AlexiusHoratius 19:16, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

There is only one New York. The other is New York City or the City of New York, or whatever they want to call themselves. The alleged problem is superficial since the search box up above, gives several choices to the reader. By simply typing New, I automatically was given several choices. One of those choices was "New York City". If we create a disambiguation page for the simple title "New York", I'm guessing that we are going to piss a crap load of people off.--Jojhutton (talk) 21:29, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

There are two New Yorks. One is the State of New York, or New York state, or New York, or whatever they want to call themselves, and the other is New York City, or the City of New York, or New York, or whatever they want to call themselves. Hence the ambiguity. Of all the things readers are going to get angry over, I think being sent to a disambiguation page after entering an inherently ambiguous name is rather low on the scale. AlexiusHoratius 21:59, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Says you.--Jojhutton (talk) 22:36, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Yep, that's why my signature is behind it. AlexiusHoratius 01:23, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Our primary concern should be the convenience of the reader. I agree with JimWae that the readers, collectively, are best served by the current arrangement. If 500,000 want the city and 300,000 want the state, many of the 500,000 will type in "New York City" but few of the 300,000 will type in "New York State" or "New York (U.S. state)" or the like. JamesMLane t c 00:15, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

The problem is how many of those 300,000 that come to this state article are infact looking for the city? We may be forcing many thousands of people to enter a term, come here and then have to use a hat note to get to the correct article. There is a clear ambiguity problem at the very least,although theres evidence to suggest the primary article is in fact the city, a disam is the fairest thing. Ive only looked through a dozen of the WhatlinksHere, but ive already found 3 which state New York meaning the city rather than the state. BritishWatcher (talk) 00:26, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

What are the numbers of how many readers are going to the wrong page?--Jojhutton (talk) 00:42, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

I do not know, but there may be one way we could find out if others here support the idea of a little test. We could create a redirect to the city article and place it in the hatnote (rather than the direct link which is there at the moment). We will then be able to monitor how many people are using that redirect over the next few days. BritishWatcher (talk) 01:29, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't think it's possible to know how many people are taken to the wrong article, or read the article about the state when they think they are reading the article about the city. But for what it's worth, New York City gets twice as many views as New York (which we are being told is the primary topic). Also, someone better go fix the first sentence of the NYC article, being as there is only one New York. AlexiusHoratius 01:35, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Then if there are no statistics on how many readers are being directed to the wrong page, then how do we know that there is even a problem? I know that there is a problem with incorrect links, but that is a problem across wikipedia. We don't go creating disambiguation pages because of it.--Jojhutton (talk) 01:40, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

We know there is a problem because New York the city has over 200,000 more views a month than the State article despite it being at the prime spot. That suggests disam is justified. It is also just obvious the City is more known than the state. BritishWatcher (talk) 01:46, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

It is possible to see the number of people who use a redirect. So for example.. City of New York redirect has been used 1500 times this month [3] . All wed need to do is create a brand new redirect, put it in the hatnote on this article (and only this article) and we should (if im understanding how it works) be able to see how many are using that redirect. Not everyone who will use it will have been looking for the city right away, but the majority are likely to of been. BritishWatcher (talk) 01:42, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

That's a waste of resources and time (and quite frankly borderline POINTY). Plus, all your stats have proven is that New York City, New York is the most common usage of New York City. ~DC _{Let's Vent} 05:26, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Both are called New York and one article has over 200,000 more views a month despite not being in the prime spot. That is the reason for my suggested test, its not about being pointy, its about trying to get an idea of how many are incorrectly coming to this article because it has the primary spot. BritishWatcher (talk) 13:22, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Nope, one is called "New York City." And I'm not sure what you mean by "prime spot" because when you search for articles, it gives you a drop down list, and anyone looking for NYC can click on the one which says "City" at the end. And by the way, when you find mistakes in articles like Busey and Charlton, be productive for once and fix them. ~DC _{Let's Vent} 17:22, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

WP:PT, which this article clearly fails. But I'm done here, don't really care that much. Off to read about how the New York City Yankees are doing in the New York City Post. AlexiusHoratius 17:28, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Right. And I'm about to go to listen to Arthur's Theme, you know when you get "caught between the moon and New York City" ~DC _{Let's Vent} 17:43, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

You're probably right. When Tom Waits wailed "I'm gonna take you New York...", I suppose he could very well have been talking about Binghamton or Utica. AlexiusHoratius 20:59, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Do the Yankees represent, just New York City, or all of New York, like 6 other MLB teams?--Jojhutton (talk) 17:45, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Could be either one, which is kind of my point. (Do the Bills and Sabres represent the state as well?) AlexiusHoratius 20:59, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

I know I promised to leave, but just one final question: A resident of London is known as a Londoner, a resident of Boston is a Bostonian, and a resident of New York City is a...(hint: the wrong answer is "New Yorker", as this only applies to the state.) AlexiusHoratius 20:59, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't see how there's a problem here. New York City is at the perfectly reasonable title New York City, which leaves New York open to be occupied by the state. There's a hat note at the top to send people to the city. Where is the problem? john k (talk) 21:48, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Exactly. Making NY a disambiguation page doesn't fix the "problem" BW thinks exists, it just creates more by breaking links and inconveniencing people looking for this article. ~DC _{Let's Vent} 00:38, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

My main concern is international users. I think most Americans will know whether the article is about the state or city, but international ones 1)usually think of New York as referring to the city and 2) may get confused by the whole thing, thinking this article is about the city (as they are sent here after typing in "New York" and wouldn't know any better.) Also, while the post didn't add too much concerning article improvement, the author of the first topic on this page seems to have somehow missed the hatnote.

Basically, this is what I'm saying. The term New York is ambiguous. Sometimes people say New York State or New York City, but this isn't always the case. I know that people use the term New York City, but the city is just as often referred to as New York, especially outside the US. If someone said they were from New York, I would personally either assume they meant the city or I would ask them if they meant the city or state. This is why we have disambiguation pages (which are never confused with articles) - to say "which one did you mean" if someone types in an ambiguous term (again, like Georgia). One could argue that nearly all terms in English could be ambiguous (Rome is either a city or a radio host) but in most cases one term is by far the most used. But not in this case. AlexiusHoratius 22:05, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

There is a hatnote at the top. It should redirect people looking for the city to the proper article. Beyond that, if someone misses that, and reads a whole article about the state without realizing it is not the article about the city, I'm not sure what one can do about that. john k (talk) 01:49, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Such will be the fate of all dab pages, I suppose. With a one-line hatnote at the top of an article that we hoped (possibly) the reader was looking for. AlexiusHoratius 04:47, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

If people using the hatnote is not a problem and takes only a few seconds, why can people looking for the state not use it when they arrive here if the city had the primary spot? "New York (State)" or even "New York State" would be acceptable. Would anyone object to having the little experiment done to see how many people are using that hatnote link to NYC? If it turns out only a small number are then ill drop this, but if it shows large numbers are coming here and having to use the hatnote this articles justification for the prime spot is even more questionable. We already know the City article has 200,000 more views a month despite not being in the prime spot. BritishWatcher (talk) 09:54, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

We prefer natural disambiguation to unnatural. New York City is very commonly used; "New York state" is sometimes used, but "state" is not part of the proper noun in the way "city" is in NYC. New York and New York State seems weird, because "New York State" is an odd way to refer the state, especially if the city is at New York. In addition - even if a lot of people are using the hatnote, so what? A lot of people would be using the hatnote your way, too, and there's almost no way to know which results in more people getting to the wrong spot. john k (talk) 16:56, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

If we create a new redirect and replace the New York City link in the hatnote for a week, we could see how many people are coming to this article then using the hatnote to get to new york city. If its not that many then it does not matter, but if its a lot of people coming here then having to go to the other page it is more justification for changing the present setup. There are two New Yorks, one of them has clearly the most page views yet it is given a secondary position to the state. If this was a disam page, then it could just be New York (state) rather than New York State BritishWatcher (talk) 09:37, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

It wouldn't be much of a justification, because we don't know how many people would be using the hatnote if it was the other way around. Moving New York (disambiguation) here is a terrible idea. If anything is likely to confuse people, it is that. And New York (state) is bad because we should avoid parenthetical disambiguation when at all possible. `john k (talk) 13:46, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Well we know that over 200,000 more people view the city page than this state page despite it being at the primary spot. There is clear justification for a disam at this page, but i guess that as often happens the status quo wins the day. BritishWatcher (talk) 13:56, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Just to clarify for any uninvolved users, those stats refer to the total first 3 weeks or so of August. And also, a redirect in the hatnore wouldn't account for people who read through this article, then click on it for info on NYC (since it's the easiest link to find); students doing reports could easily do that, and it would throw off the stats. ~DC _{Let's Vent} 02:59, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Be it known - this was semi-recently mulled over at Talk:New York (state)/Archive3. Matt Yeager ♫ (Talk?) 05:15, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't think I've ever seen a debate that long, in length or time. It looks like the same arguments being used now were used then too by both sides (I must admit I only skimmed it). ~DC _{Let's Vent} 14:28, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Bronx RFC

There is currently an RFC regarding the name of the "Bronx" article. It is listed here. ~DC ^{We Can Work It Out} 20:56, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Here we go again! Vote, please. But this one's less controversial.

OK, so the debate over state/city, disambiguation, and primacy has rekindled, raged, and flickered once more. When summarized from the current discussion and the Archive3 discussion, we get no consensus -- 11 for moving to a DAB or making NYC primary, and 10 for status quo. Those for the status quo seem split between "purists" who believe that New York State should be the name, period, and pragmatists who would be agnostic, but due to concerns about unintended consequences such as broken links, do not want a change.

I propose something close to the status quo. I would like the content of this article renamed under either "State of New York" or "New York State," with the plain "New York" article redirecting there. Hatnotes are fine for what they are, but the title should be a unambiguous as possible. "New York State" (or something similar) is unambiguous. Plain "New York," whether it should mean NYS or not, is still ambiguous to some. So let's have the article title unambiguous. Nothing lost, no broken links, because the redirect takes care of it.

Those who voted for New York to be the DAB would (I think) clearly favor this, and the "unintended consequences" voters should find no concern. If that's the case, we would have a consensus. Some pursists might take offense, I don't know, but I'm guessing that will be a minority viewpoint.

So tally up, folks!

Prior vote tallies:

Dovid (talk) 17:44, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose New York should stay here. Your proposal does nothing but create a pointless redirect. ~DC ^{We Can Work It Out} 20:32, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
  • In fact to use a Wiki-cliche, it's a solution in search of a problem. ~DC ^{We Can Work It Out} 15:41, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose Agree with DC. The first sentence of this article is "New York is a state...", which follows the hatnote of "This article is about the U.S. state...". A map is above the fold, which clearly shows a massive area that could not be a city by itself. Can't really get much clearer. upstateNYer 00:48, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose. There's no obvious point to the proposed change if New York were to continue to redirect here, except to change the top of the page to something less correct: the state's name is New York, not New York State. What is likely to happen in reality, though, is a tug of war as to where the New York redirect should point, probably ending in a dab page. Although not the proposer's intent, this change would likely represent an end run around the discussion that resulted in keeping the status quo. --And I don't think it's the best idea to count votes in discussions like this. Station1 (talk) 02:52, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
• Support: New York -> New York State, as per all my previous arguments. It can hardly be contested that the state is NOT the WP:PRIMARYUSAGE of the phrase "New York", and in fact it's more likely that the primary usage for "New York" is the city, if there is a primary usage at all. In the absence of a clear primary usage, guidelines dictate that: (1) the ambiguous search phrase be a dab and (2) any articles with ambiguity issues should be relocated to the shortest clear name, in this case "New York State", a common phrase in the English language which evolved expressly for this purpose. The "number of clicks" argument used many times before has no founding in wikipedia guidelines and actually has many contradictions, in fact, every time a dab page is used at all.--Louiedog (talk) 15:52, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
  • What's unclear about the hatnote which says this article is about the state and you can find the city at NYC? ~DC ^{We Can Work It Out} 16:10, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Those arguments may or may not be correct, but they have nothing to do with the proposal at hand, which is that New York would continue to redirect to New York State, not be turned into a dab page. Station1 (talk) 18:58, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
• Support - I still think New York should be a disam page or the city rather than a redirect but this sounds like a reasonable compromise to address the problem with the present title. BritishWatcher (talk) 16:35, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

• Comment - Perhaps it would be helpful to try and get some more opinions on this latest request. Maybe it should be mentioned at WP:USA WP:New york and Wikipedia:WikiProject New York City ? BritishWatcher (talk) 16:42, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose Why should we change the name of an article just to accommodate the rest of the world that incorrectly and ignorantly misuses? New York is NOT New York City. The article should be kept as is. The American people know the difference between New York and New York City and the rest of the world should respect our naming conventions. I cannot tell you how many times a foreigner I have talked to have told me that they have or is planning to visit "New York". And I reply... Oh really... which one? the state or the city? Obviously due to their own stupidity, they were referring to New York City. Throughout my 42 years of existence, I have never referred to New York City as New York in common speech. Why? Because it is wrong just as it is completely wrong to refer to Washington D.C. simply as Washington. If anybody told me that they lived or were visiting Washington, I would ask them which one-- the state or the city? New York City is not New York. New York City is merely a part of New York. The only way I would support a move is if there was a set up like the article Washington. IF New York re-directs to New York City then I would abhorrently not support the move because it is factually wrong. And just because the rest of the world thinks the phrase New York is New York City does not make it right. That is due to their own ignorance. Yoganate79 (talk) 03:22, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
  • I am of the opinion that this last comment should be ignored unless the user comes up with a less "they're stupid, I'm not" reason. Can't even take the damn thing seriously... upstateNYer 05:44, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Titles should be recognizable, natural, precise, concise, and consistent and should be the name which is most commonly used, whenever possible. Note that neither of these two guidelines says anything about "correctness" because Wikipedia is not a prescriptivist encyclopedia - it is our obligation to document how language is commonly used, not to assert correctness of one form over another. This explains why Bill Clinton is not located at William Jefferson Clinton, even though the latter is the correct form of his name.--Louiedog (talk) 22:31, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

chris i —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.78.160.154 (talk) 18:03, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Requested move

New York → New York (U.S. state) — The State of New York should not necessarily be the primary topic. After reading the closing admin's comments on Talk:Washington (U.S. state)#Requested move, I believe that those same principles apply here as well, and thus nothing really presents a case that there is a primary topic. First. it seems that many who have opposed such a move in the past discussions have also claimed that there is no need because this is the only place that just uses "New York". But again, that reason is not correct since the state is officially called the "State of New York". Secondly, like the closing admin in the Washington discussion, I sampled TV news and TV sports over the past few days, and in almost every case when reporters said things like "From New York", "To New York", "In New York" or "our New York studios", it was for New York City and not necessarily the state. Thirdly, I also consulted the AP Stylebook as a third party reliable source, and it's style rules for "New York" are also similar to those for "Washington". Specifically, it says, "Use 'New York State' when a distinction must be made'" and "Use 'New York' in datelines [when referring to the city]". Therefore, with the influence of the media and other third party sources, there is no clear primary topic. Zzyzx11 (talk) 07:15, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

• New York (disambiguation) → New York

I'd also like to make some rebuttals to some of the other common past objections:

• First, there is the argument that making New York a disambiguation page would only serve to break all the pages that link to it. However, this reason should not prevent a page move, since we have plenty of resources such as those listed on Wikipedia:Disambiguation pages with links to deal with that issue.
• Secondly, there is the claim that the state should be the primary topic since a sub-national unit such as a U.S. State should take precedence over a city. But as the discussions on Georgia (U.S. state) and Washington (U.S. state) show, that reason is irrelevant under WP:PRIMARYTOPIC; only the topic that is highly likely to be searched the most should be the main factor.
• Thirdly, there is the objection that a disambiguation page makes more work for anyone trying to get to either article, whether navigating to the page or finding it on the dab list. But again, like the current Georgia and Washington dab lists, this is the standard Wikipedia guideline when there is no primary topic, and so the New York pages should generally not have an exception if consensus does determine that there is no a primary topic.
• Fourth, there is the argument that "the majority of links to New York are to the state" anyway. However, with a page setup that has stayed the same for about nine years, and with the work of the bots and users on WP:DPL, that is what they are suppose to do, but that still doesn't make it right regarding the overall primary topic issue.
• Fifth, another objection I've seen recently on other similar dab discussions refers to the Ajax suggestion script for the search box, which displays several choices to the reader when they type something in (e.g. simply typing "New" automatically displays "New York City" and several other choices). But you should not expect every single user to have compatible web browsers as per WP:ACCESS#Users with limited CSS/JavaScript support, or have the feature enabled on the "Search options" of Special:Preferences.
• And lastly, there is the "it ain't broke, don't fix it" argument about this nine-year status quo. However, consensus can change (just like what happened with the Washington pages earlier this year), which is why I'm posting this on WP:RM to determine if there is a current, wider community consensus.

Thanks. Zzyzx11 (talk) 07:15, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

General discussion

• Certainly seems to me that the state is not the primary topic. Unless someone can come up with a good reason why we should vary our normal rules in this particular case, I'm supporting.--Kotniski (talk) 08:03, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

• Support certainly, NYstate is not what most people would be thinking when you mention NY. The categories also need to be renamed to match the "(U.S. state)" convention. 76.66.200.95 (talk) 09:17, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
• Support - New York State is not the primary topic, if there is a primary topic it is without any doubt the City. But a disam page may be the fairest resolution to this issue. BritishWatcher (talk) 09:23, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
• Support I would claim the city was the primary topic, but disambiguation is most probably the best way to solve this. New York City is a world city, a place probably billions of people of heard of, and referred to exclusively as "New York" internationally. The state is exceptionally unknown abroad, and even in the US the term New York most often refers to the city rather than the state. Arsenikk ^(talk) 11:46, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

• Comment If this page is moved, it should be moved to State of New York. That's its formal name, and the phrasing people use when they need to dab (State of NY vs. NYC). [I think State of Washington should also be our title (Georgia is more problematic, as Sakartvelo is also a state called Georgia), but Washington can follow this move if we decide on it. "NY State" / "Washington State" / "Georgia State" has the disadvantage of being associated with universities and football teams.] I would oppose the current proposal for the simple reason that the name is clumsy; otherwise I'd tend to support it as the primary meaning. — kwami (talk) 12:06, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

If that is the formal name, it is awfully careless of official websites to so prominently use "New York State" [4] [5]. Wikipedia articles should be titled to reflect common usage. older ≠ wiser 12:16, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

(ec) Isn't "New York State" the phrasing people use? (Being British, I may well be wrong.) We don't really do official names in article titles, though - if we did, we would presumably have "City of New York" rather than New York City.--Kotniski (talk) 12:18, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Both are used. Take a look at "The Great Seal of the State of New York" in the info box. That phrasing doesn't have other connotations the way "New York State" does.

We do frequently use formal titles when the informal name is taken by another topic.

Either one, though, would be preferable IMO to the awkward "New York (US state)". — kwami (talk) 12:21, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

• Support. The phrase "New York" alone is quite obviously ambiguous. older ≠ wiser 12:16, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose This is just a solution in search of a problem. As I and others expressed above, this would break all incoming links. New York City is at a perfectly reasonable title, and people mistakenly coming here looking for NYC can use the hatnote. DC T•C 04:19, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
• Support, many times I've heard the state called New York State & the NYC called 'New York'. Thus, having New York as a disambiguous page, is a good idea. GoodDay (talk) 15:21, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose, as Zzyzx11 predicted, per "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". There's no evidence consensus has changed over the last nine years, and there's just no need to create a tremendous amount of work in rewriting all the links to [[New York]] for really no significant benefit. Moreover, I'm thoroughly unconvinced by the claims that the state is not the primary topic of the term "New York". If someone tells me he's from New York, I'm liable to say "What city?", not "Which borough?", but maybe that's because I lived for 7 years in Rochester and for 5 years in Ithaca, and I've never lived in NYC. Nevertheless, if we do end up changing the name of the article about the state, my preference is for either New York State (the most commonly used unambiguous name) or New York (state) (easiest to do the pipe trick on, and if New York becomes a disambig, we're going to have thousands upon thousands of links we'll have to change). New York (U.S. state) isn't necessary because there's no other country with a state called New York. (Georgia (U.S. state) is necessary because of the semantic ambiguity of the word "state", but that's not an issue here, as there's also no sovereign nation-state called New York.) —Angr (talk) 18:13, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose for several reasons. (1) Most importantly, no one who searches for or links to New York wants to land on a dab page. Almost everyone who searches for or links to New York wants either the article about the city or about the state. So by pointing New York to one of those two, you satisfy at least a good portion of readers, with the rest clicking on a hatnote, as opposed to satisfying no one with a dab page. In other words, no one will get to either article quicker through a dab page than through a hatnote, so the change benefits only the few who want something other than the city or state. (2) If the article were to be moved it should be to New York State. The proposer quotes the AP style book as saying "Use 'New York State' when a distinction must be made". There's no reason to make up a qualifier when an alternative common name exists. In any case, the "U.S." is clearly unnecessary. (3) The claim that "the state is officially called the 'State of New York'" but the city is "New York" is incorrect. Both are named, both commonly and officially, simply and identically, "New York". (4) The claim that there is no primary topic is mistaken imo. Surely either New York City is the primary topic or the city and state are "dual" primary topics. Nothing else comes close. Station1 (talk) 19:00, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
• Support. There is clearly no primary topic (the notion of a "dual primary topic" in the comment above does not exist), as both the state and the city are plausible meanings. I just looked through a random selection of links to New York, and there is a substantial number that either clearly refer to the city or could conceivably refer to either. By making New York a dab page, we force people to make clear which meaning they use in an article. We have no way to guess what a reader who searches for "New York" means (though I would think such a reader would more likely be searching for the city), and we shouldn't be making that decision for them. (I will volunteer to clean up at least some of the dab links that will appear when we move this page.) Ucucha 19:22, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Your logic here doesn't make sense. Making New York a dab will not "force people to make clear which meaning they use in an article". How does changing the page itself affect anything? If the editor was too lazy, n00b, ignorant, or absent-minded to think that New York brings different connotations to any person's mind, then changing the destination page won't have a single effect on that. upstateNYer 21:45, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

It will, because the page will have a link to a dab page, which will presumably get fixed at one time or another, and not a link to a non-dab page that will never be checked. Ucucha 21:49, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Okay, that makes more sense (that's not how your original post reads). However you don't resolve the issue, as you brought up, of guessing what the editor intended if it's an ambiguous use. upstateNYer 22:03, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

I am sorry if I was unclear. Even in ambiguous cases, we have {{dn}} and people looking through the links to ensure they go to the right target. Making New York a dab page will make it more likely that these ambiguities are resolved. Ucucha 22:13, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

• Addendum: I don't care much about the precise title we move this article too (New York State; New York (state); New York (U.S. state); State of New York; or perhaps something else). "New York (U.S. state)" makes sense by analogy with Washington (U.S. state); on the other hand, "New York State" (unlike "Washington State") does not commonly refer to a university and it fits nicely with "New York City". Ucucha 19:26, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
• I made my comment about a primary topic because New York City is getting almost double the pageviews (505,000 this month) of New York (273,000, at the undisambiguated name) and 2/3 more pageviews than all other articles combined (309,000). So not only is New York City more sought than all other topics combined, but the city and state together account for over 95% of pageviews. I think that indicates a primary topic. Station1 (talk) 19:53, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

But there can't be two primary topics. If we have to choose one, the city is the primary topic; then why are you supporting keeping the article on the state at New York? Ucucha 19:55, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't necessarily support keeping the article on the state at New York; I'm just opposed to making it a dab page. If 95% of readers want either the city or state, New York should point to one of them. If it's not pointing to the city (62%), the state is clearly second best (34%). Less than 5% will benefit from a dab page. Station1 (talk) 20:12, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose as in earlier discussion; I agree with most of the reasons cited by User:Station1. Also, User:Angr's comment should be taken to heart. If someone tells you they are from New York, you will almost always ask for clarification. Whether you respond with city? or where in New York?, you are showing obvious bias toward the state. Just something to chew on. upstateNYer 21:51, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Here (Cambridge, MA) people tend to mean the city when they say they are from New York. People from elsewhere in the state tend to say they are from "upstate New York" or "Long Island". Ucucha 22:02, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

I have family in upstate New York, but whenever someone says "I'm from New York", I assume they mean the city. Otherwise they would specify that they don't mean the city. — kwami (talk) 23:16, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

In my experience, being from Upstate and having attended college in DC, was that city residents typically claim they're from the city. Other well-known areas of the state also lead to people saying, "I'm from Long Island", "I'm from Westchester", or "I'm from Yonkers". Non-New Yorkers seem to respond to those places and know their separation from the city. The rest of the regions in the state, however, are not as well-known outside the state (i.e. I'm from the Capital District, but for the most part only New Yorkers, Vermonters, and Bay Staters would recognize that term), so, consequently, New Yorkers typically say they are simply from New York (and, less often, Upstate New York). Oh, and obviously if you're in New York State and someone says they're from New York, they mean the city. upstateNYer 23:30, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

(e/c) Just the fact that you say they tend to mean the city adds credence to the thought. Also, more than half the population of New York lives outside the city. People from the city typically say they're from New York City, meaning those that say they're from "New York" probably mean the state (i.e., New Yorkers rarely say "I'm from New York State", however the other New Yorkers—idiomatically speaking—have no problem saying "I'm from New York City"). Otherwise, why be ambiguous and lead to the inevitable response: "city?"? upstateNYer 23:22, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose and I am a NYer who says I am from NY and I currently live in Missouri and no, no one out here thinks I mean "New York the city" the name of the state is New York and people know that, even when I was in the Netherlands and Spain they knew, Europeans are not stupid, they know about the state of NY, it is arrogant downstaters who assume everyone must only think of them when thinking of the term NY, everyone in the country knows Buffalo has the only NY football team and Buffalo is almost as far from the City as you can get. The name of the city is New York, New York. Just ask the USPS, they'll tell you New York City does not exist. And it does not and never has, there is no city named New York City, there is no state named New York State. In fact the reason for those misguided "names" is from a time before parenthesis were common for writing and authors needed to disambiguate the two, they would write New York city and New York state (notice the lowercase) and over time morons started capitalizing the city or state and making it as if that was the name. Context in a sentence is just fine for knowing which we are talking about and the use of "the city of New York" or "the state of New York" is what should be done, and in fact whenever I see New York State I change it to "state of New York" and same with New York City. New York State should NEVER EVER EVER be used in Wikipedia, ever whether as a title or when writing in any article. Bad form and incorrect use of grammar. This is a perennial proposal and needs to stop, we cant keep having people put this up over and over until they get what they want. If they ever do get their way we'll just have the other side continue to bring it up until THEY win.Camelbinky (talk) 22:23, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Then why does the state seal say "State of New York"? — kwami (talk) 23:16, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Uh, ok, do you know what you are asking? You are assuming that State of New York is interchangeable with "New York State". You are incorrect and I don't know how someone could come to that conclusion.Camelbinky (talk) 23:42, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

No, I'm not assuming that. As I said above, I advocate "State of New York". But choosing between those is a separate issue from moving the article in the first place. — kwami (talk) 00:51, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I know how somebody could come to that conclusion (Exhibit A and Exhibit B). AlexiusHoratius 23:59, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Ok, in that case I guess I can count on your support to move Pennsylvania to Pennsylvania Commonwealth and Nebraska to Nebraska State. In fact, there's a Texas City, Nebraska City, and Iowa City; I expect all supports here to be supporting moving Texas, Nebraska, and Iowa. If you find my suggestion silly, then so is yours, look in the mirror kettle. And no, the argument that the city is the primary subject for New York is based on nothing more than downstate ego, as upstateNYer pointed out- more than half the state lives outside the city, vote how you want here, but statewide the non-city people outnumber the city, the votes have already been counted; the state is the primary topic. I'd be happy to point out the numerous instances in which the biggest, first, or whatever in the entire state occured OUTSIDE the city of NY. Here's two- the very first railroad in the state was between Schenectady and Albany and had nothing to do with NYC; the largest harbor crane in the entire state is NOT in NY harbor, it is at the Port of Albany-Rensselaer. There's much more.Camelbinky (talk) 00:11, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Nobody calls Nebraska City "Nebraska", Texas City "Texas" or Iowa City "Iowa". (The only time I've heard Kansas City called "Kansas" was a rather humorous BBC sports report concerning the Kansas Chiefs.) The Pennsylvania example doesn't even make sense. If population was an issue, Perth, Georgia, and Washington wouldn't be dab pages. I've spent a whole three months in NYC and two in Albany, so I'm not sure how big my downstate ego is. What I do know is that outside the state, where most Wikipedians live, the term is ambiguous. AlexiusHoratius 01:16, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I now live outside the state and dont see that it is ambiguous seeing as how everyone outside the tri-state area says "New York City" when talking about the City, but New York if talking about the state. At least in Missouri, downstate Illinois, and Tennessee the three states I spend most of my time in now-a-days. This is all personal experience when talking about "what the rest of the world" thinks and is very unscientific and frankly wish we'd all drop that language and stop trying to use it to support or oppose. As far as your comment that Pennsylvania makes no sense... do you realize that Pennsylvania, Virginia, Kentucky, and Massachusetts are Commonwealths, not states when it comes to their official names? Perhaps if you didnt realize that maybe you should ask yourself if you should then defer your opinion on "what the rest of the world thinks" to others who have greater historical and geographical knowledge...Camelbinky (talk) 01:28, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

The Pennsylvania example makes no sense because it has nothing to do with the issues here (in other words, "Pennsylvania" refers to Pennsylvania all of the time). If you have knowledge to share as far as commonwealths go, be my guest at Massachusetts (I've been in a bit of a rut trying to get that article to GA status). AlexiusHoratius 01:36, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

As to "what the rest of the world thinks", while I'd agree it's an unscientific method, the names of this article on the German, Spanish, Italian, and French Wikipedias are telling. AlexiusHoratius 01:45, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

The only official name for the state (and city) is New York. Even Province of New York is a misnomer because the colony was always known as the province/colony of New York or New York province/colony; nothing special, it just happened to be a province/colony with the name of New York. Same goes for when it became a state. The word state, used before or after New York, is more of a qualifier than anything, and has, over the years, been included almost like it's part of a title, but it's not; it's just there to clarify that we're not talking about the city (same reason NYC is NYC). Hence the ambiguity between your Exhibits A and B. The great seal says "State of New York", as does the constitution, however the state website says "New York State" (also note that the state has ny.gov—and not nys.gov; the city gets nyc.gov). I've read numerous histories on NY and nowhere has somebody sat down and tried to explain this. However, each one of them has explicitly stated something along the lines of "In honor of the Duke of York, both the colony and city were named New York". They were not named "The Province Of New York" and "The City Of New York". Unlike usage of "State of New York", it is actually appropriate and acceptable to refer to any municipality as "XXX of <name>"; for example, City of Albany, Town of Niskayuna, Village of Altamont. You also see in legal documents in NY that these governments will be referred to as "The Town has determined...". The capitalization is now a formality (i.e., unlike when referring to the President of the United States, you say, "President Obama walked the dog", but you don't say "The President walked the dog"; with legal municipalities, you do still capitalize the titles). The state's own ambiguity to its own name should be evidence enough that we can't make that decision for them. The only correct name for the state is New York, both by common language and (actual) official usage. The city, on the other hand, is commonly known as New York City (or, New York, New York); even calling the city City of New York is more correct than throwing state either before or after the name of that entity. upstateNYer 03:13, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

• Support The are two entities commonly called "New York". (First result for an image search on Google for "New York". I'm not saying that closes the case, but don't tell me it doesn't mean anything.) AlexiusHoratius 22:58, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

PS, I'd prefer New York (state) to New York State, but either is better than the status quo. AlexiusHoratius 00:05, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose. The status quo seems acceptable, with New York state on the main title and New York City hatnoted. No reason to change. SchuminWeb (Talk) 02:02, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose. A solution in search of a problem. There's nothing wrong with the status quo. In this case we have two uses that so far outweigh the other possible uses that it's absurd to make people click through a disambiguation page. WP:IAR was made for cases like this, because our naming rules can't possibly cover every possible situation. Powers ^T 02:32, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

• Comment we fixed Washington due to this State problem earlier. I don't see why we shouldn't fix New York as well. 76.66.198.128 (talk) 04:01, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Because change is bad, New York's situation is completely different than Washington's, and clicking a mouse is really difficult. AlexiusHoratius 04:21, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

• Support enthusiastically: Although it may not meet the black/white, either/or dichotomy of abstractly ideal disambiguation policies, this looks to me to be by far the best solution. It's not taking sides in the contentious (and basically indeterminable) question of a reader's intent in typing "New York" (I think it's more often the city, but since there are some contexts where it's more likely to be the state, I don't think it's useful to argue over.) "New York City", "Economy of New York City", etc. will remain where and as they are, so they won't mislead someone looking for the parks, economy, culture, etc. of New York State as a whole. By renaming "New York" to "New York State" (or "New York state"), it just makes it much clearer what (say) "History of New York" or "Demographics of New York" is discussing. The two main articles (NYC and NYS) are both long enough that if a browser or connection is slow, making either page into a virtual disambiguation page via a hatnote on "New York" can cause a perceptible nuisance to someone looking for the other article. —— Shakescene (talk) 04:59, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Yet the hatnote does the same job of a dab page if you're only looking for NYC; so for 95% of users that want something called "New York", you'll either get it, or you'll be one click away. In fact, it does a better job of making it clear. I agree with this post from a while back: for some reason my eyes skip right over the first three lines of the dab page and send me to the places section. upstateNYer 12:13, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Although I disagree with the notion that the hatnote is sufficient and less confusing (if that were the case, we wouldn't have dab pages as targets for stuff like "Georgia"), I'm not going to argue about that for now. After the last mega-discussion on this (a couple of years ago), the hatnote on this article was bolded as something of a compromise. Although this usually isn't done, I think we can at least all agree that this situation is more problematic than most "other uses" ones. It got un-bolded after a bit as some sort of stylistic fix or something, but I think it worked well for those of us supporting the move but realizing it probably won't happen for whatever reason. Would re-bolding the hatnote be an option? AlexiusHoratius 12:29, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't see the need. Unbolded hatnotes are sufficient for every other use on Wikipedia; what's unique about New York (say that five times fast) that requires non-standard formatting? I would, however, be amenable to adjusting the wording and sequence of the hatnotes. I would suggest that perhaps the New York City link should be on top, on its own line, with the other two lines following, but other configurations may work better. Powers ^T 15:04, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I think the size and content of this talk page and its archives are evidence of what is unique about this article's title. I don't see any move discussions at the talk pages of Arizona or Kentucky. Here they happen every few months or so, and I'd say that that at least suggests there is a unique issue here regarding the article's title. My question would be, if the article isn't moved, what's wrong with bolding the hatnote. Is this not, as you suggested earlier, a good case for WP:IAR? (I'm speaking for myself here, but I generally ignore normally styled hatnotes when going to articles - I'm not really convinced of the "current hatnote is fine" line of thought when the title is a major issue, like it is here.) AlexiusHoratius 15:47, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

But it's not just other U.S. states that don't use bolding in hatnotes; it's every other article on the site. I would prefer to start with less radical measures that have worked with success elsewhere, such as adjusting the sequence of articles linked in the hatnote. Powers ^T 19:16, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I'd say China (which features an intro with bullet points and wee flags) goes a good deal further than bolding the hatnote. I'm not talking about doubling the font size and putting it in flashing lights. Just this instead of this. I don't think it's all that radical, and if it's hard to miss, all the better. Like I said before, I, and probably many general readers, typically ignore hatnotes. We don't even have to bold the entire thing, maybe just the "U.S. state of New York" part. AlexiusHoratius 20:28, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Bolding a hatnote is far from "radical". I don't see any reason why we can't do that. I also don't have a problem switching the order of the hatnotes, if that's a preference too. upstateNYer 19:53, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

• Support: especially from an international perspective, New York is used for the city. Joost 99 (talk) 20:33, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
  • And someone can get to the city article with one click, same as if it were a disambiguation page. How does making New York a disambiguation page improve the situation for anyone? Powers ^T 23:13, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
    • Dab pages aren't potentially confusing, and an article might be. It's not a perfect example, but say a search for "London" went not to the greater London that most Americans think of but instead to City of London. Can you see why saying "there's a hatnote there, it's cool" doesn't really work? Another point I'd like to touch on is that here we have a European essentially saying, to many Europeans at least, the term isn't even ambiguous. It means the city. (I read some similar comments during the "Washington" debate.) And now we're sending them all to the article on the state. AlexiusHoratius 23:32, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
      • If London redirected to City of London, there would no doubt be a much clearer hatnote on the article than what's there currently. So, no, I don't see why a hatnote wouldn't be sufficient. Powers ^T 13:17, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
        • If a clearer hatnote would obviously be needed there, why not here? AlexiusHoratius 14:52, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
          • I don't know why not. I suggested precisely that course of action above. Powers ^T 19:44, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
            • I'm talking about the bolded text, which you objected to, not switching around the wording. AlexiusHoratius 20:59, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
              • My opposition to that is not (necessarily) because I don't think more clarity is needed, but because I don't think more clarity will be needed once the hatnote is changed. The hatnote currently on City of London is much terser and only works because the article's title is already disambiguated. Powers ^T 01:32, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Arriving on the NY state page and having to find out were the city is, is much more confusing because it is not what most people outside the US will expect when typing in New York, and don't know of the state. And people unfamiliar with all wikipedia's quircks will have more trouble finding the city article. A disambiguation page makes things clear strait away. I feel most opposing people are from the USA, and ignore the world wide view. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Joost 99 (talk • contribs) 10:57, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
• Comment I don't feel qualified to vote either way in this debate but it might be useful for other editors to note that New York City is a Vital Article. To quote WP:PRIMARYTOPIC

"If there is no primary topic, the term should be the title of a disambiguation page (or redirect to a different disambiguation page, if more than one term is combined on one page).

An exception may be appropriate if only one of the ambiguous topics is a vital article. In such a case, consensus may determine that the vital article should be treated as the primary topic regardless of whether it is the article most sought by users." Blakkandekka (talk) 13:21, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

• Support - The term "New York" is ambiguous between New York City and New York State. Many readers searching for "New York" may be looking for the city rather than the state, and may be misled by the fact that the title "New York" covers the state as a whole. While i support moving this article to New York (U.S. state), another possible new article title may be New York State as that is often the wording used to refer to the state of New York as a whole. Dough4872 16:07, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Ah, and the fact that the first successful steam-powered passenger railroad in the entire United States was in the state of NY and NOT in the city of NY makes the state article not vital at all... Im pretty sure for a thorough understanding of American and world history an article on the state as a whole is quite vital equal to that of the City of NY. Oldest settlement in the state is not in the City, first white child born in the state was not within the City, the Erie Canal was not in the City (and NO it was not built for the purpose of helping the City, it was built by-and-large for the benefit of Albany in COMPETITION against NYC because that city believed it would be closer to future markets and natural resources and therefore would grow to overtake NYC, at the time Albany was in the top 10 largest cities in US after all). Can we PLEASE stop thinking the City is so much more important than the state.

I'm not saying that the state is not as important as the city, I am just saying that the term "New York" is ambiguous as it can refer to either the city or the state. The first page of Google results for New York reveals a mixture of links pertaining both to the city and the state. As a matter of fact, there are actually more links referring to the city than the state as a whole. Dough4872 18:18, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

• Comment- why is it ok to continue to put forth this proposal over and over constantly in hopes of eventually getting the consensus one wants? After the third time it should have been forced to stop. This is not fair to those who oppose as they get disheartened and forced out to give-up giving the supporters an edge that if they continue enough times eventually they'll have the numbers. And then I'm sure if the opposers try to start doing the same thing the supporters of the current move will say "oh, we already got consensus, too late now" and shut us up. We've had this discussion many times before, no move was ever made. Can we please have this one removed and have a semi-permanent ban on the topic for some specified time period?Camelbinky (talk) 16:32, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

• Editorial standards for the State University of New York (appropriate since we are talking about NY) states to consult for cities and states etc- "Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (selected cities and place names listed throughout the dictionary), the National Geographic Atlas of the World, the U.S. Postal Service Directory of Post Offices, geographical sections of other dictionaries or atlases." The USPS uses New York, New York for the city and specifically states that New York City is UNACCEPTABLE (their term) and does not recognize New York State as being a state name when used in conjunction with ANY city. National Geographic atlas places NY the state as New York not New York State, shows the city as New York City, not as New York. Webster's Collegiate Dictionary lists New York with three listings 1- the state; 2- the city; and 3- the borough in NYC in that order. So excuse me but supporters of a move- where is your proof that all these people everywhere are always assuming the city is the primary or main or vital topic? I have a part of the Federal Government, a respected magazine, and a respected dictionary stating that people are not looking for New York State or getting confused by NY meaning the state and New York City meaning the city.Camelbinky (talk) 16:52, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Sure. The OED says for "New York": "Designating things originating in, characteristic of, or associated with the city or (less frequently) state of New York." (also lists some minor meanings that are not relevant here). Ucucha 17:00, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
    • My copy of OED doesn't say that. It lists the state first, city second. upstateNYer 17:10, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
  • You had better get on the horn and let the census bureau know that the New York metropolitan area seems to exclude most of New York for some reason. We can go back and forth like this all day. X calls it this, Y calls it that. Locations of the birth of the first white baby aside (look up a bit, if others are scratching their heads), the fact of the matter is that the article fails WP:Primary topic, as does Washington and Georgia. Those are dab pages, still not sure why this one isn't. AlexiusHoratius 17:11, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

NY metropolitan area is not an official name of anything. The census bureau knows that what you are referring to goes into other states and that is why in the official name the state abbreviations of NJ, CT, and PA are listed right there in the title, along with the city names of Newark and others I cant recall at this moment.Camelbinky (talk) 17:19, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

For what it's worth, the official names of the MSA and CSA both omit the term "New York City", which is strange, as "New York" alone can only refer to the state. AlexiusHoratius 17:54, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Camelblinky, you might want to let the folks at NY state government know that they shouldn't be using "New York State". [6] [7] older ≠ wiser 17:47, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

But, but, how can this be? New York always refers to the state; the term "New York State" is both incorrect and never employed... I'd say if the government of the state feels the need to disambiguate, so should we. AlexiusHoratius 18:00, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

No one is saying it always refers to the state. Powers ^T 19:44, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

To quote: "the name of the state is New York and people know that, even when I was in the Netherlands and Spain they knew, Europeans are not stupid, they know about the state of NY, it is arrogant downstaters who assume everyone must only think of them when thinking of the term NY, everyone in the country knows Buffalo has the only NY football team and Buffalo is almost as far from the City as you can get. The name of the city is New York, New York. Just ask the USPS, they'll tell you New York City does not exist. And it does not and never has, there is no city named New York City, there is no state named New York State". Seems to me to be saying that the only people who think of the city as "New York" are arrogant downstaters. (Plus South Dakotans, in my case). AlexiusHoratius 20:56, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

No, I believe the section you quoted was pointing out just the opposite: that there is no such entity as "New York City" and that the city is legally just "New York". "New York City" is used as it's title on Wikipedia because it's aesthetically superior to New York (city). Powers ^T 01:32, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Also: "I now live outside the state and dont see that it is ambiguous seeing as how everyone outside the tri-state area says "New York City" when talking about the City, but New York if talking about the state". That's actually my main problem with this whole thing - the idea that New York is always understood to mean the state and New York City is always used for the city. AlexiusHoratius 21:10, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't think that's the case at all. Both are frequently referred to as just "New York", but obviously that produces as conflict. Sending people to a disambiguation page is silly, though, since we know with near-certainty they're looking for one or the other. Powers ^T 01:32, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

I disagree that a dab page is silly. 98% of readers looking for a Queen Elizabeth are either looking for the English I or II; that doesn't mean we send them to one of them and either hope it's right or that they can navigate their way out of the article. We send them to a simple page saying "which one?". Same with Georgia. Same with hundreds of other examples of ambiguous terms. But here they all get sent to the state, and why? "It's always been like that?" "Albany has larger cranes?" "The population is higher?". During my four years or so here, this is something I've never understood. It's not really all that big of a deal for me - I mean, let's face it, the article itself sucks. (Not one but two illustrations of Ellis Island! Doppler radar! an astounding 49 references!) But as Jagger said, "you can't always get what you want, but sometimes, you might find, you get what you need". I think what I need to do is get this C-grade article off my watchlist. Have a good time. AlexiusHoratius 02:20, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Lest it be taken the wrong way, that last comment wasn't personally directed to LtPowers, just letting off a bit of steam in general. I'm a bit drunk, the Yankees are about to get bounced, you know...AlexiusHoratius 02:28, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

While the quality of the article has no bearing on this argument, I will make it known that I've been working on a rewrite of this article for a couple weeks now. It will probably take a month or two to bring live, but I can assure you it will be of high quality and offer as little bias as possible. upstateNYer 03:53, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

If you live in California (as I did for 26 years), you almost always have to say in ordinary conversation which Washington you're referring to, unless the context is obvious (even "those Washington politicians" can be ambiguous.) Similarly, when it's unclear if they're talking about a state or a city (much of the time), non-New Yorkers have to say, and are used to saying, which New York they mean. It's natural, common and very frequent. I know "Pennsylvania" refers to a state and "Philadelphia" to a city; nothing tells me what "New York" means, and when I have to guess I'm far more likely to be right guessing the City. That doesn't mean I want "New York" to be the new title of the article now called New York City but it does mean that I've never found a persuasive argument (other than Upstate loyalism) for the status quo. Turning "New York" into a disambiguation page doesn't mean you're conceding that "New York" means the City; it just reflects the inherent ambiguity. (And saying the official name of the state is "New York" resolves nothing; the official name of the city, and for that matter the county, is also "New York".)—— Shakescene (talk) 21:25, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

I respect your well-thought out response Shakescene, but again that argument is hearsay, it wouldnt hold up as testimony in any court of law and while this is much less important than the smallest small claims civil case our standards should still be higher than "where I'm from no one knows which you are talking about". I'm in Missouri, I spend alot of time in Illinois and Tennessee and the people in those states do know when I say NY I dont mean the city unless I say New York City. Everyone I have ever come across knows you only mean the city if you clarify with the whole phrase New York City. Are my life experiences any less valid than yours and how would we prove either of us is telling the truth anyways?! Show me a map where the state is labeled as anything more than New York, and I'll show you the worst map ever made and that is contrary to any almanac, encyclopedia, history textbook or any other RS we allow on Wikipedia. And that is what it comes down to, the city is always labeled New York City, the state as just New York; that's how we've had it for quite a long time around here despite numerous attempts to change. Why change now, and where does it end? Is it not clear that Timeline of town creation in Central New York refers to the state? Is someone going to think it refers to Midtown Manhattan? What about Timeline of town creation in New York's North Country, perhaps some think that's about the 5 former towns that made Bronx County prior to the 1890s...? (for those see Timeline of town creation in Downstate New York). List of incorporated places in New York's Capital District and Culture in New York's Capital District must be about some district in New York City right? Some may say that's ridiculous but oh some of you have to admit someone (many actually) will come along and at least ask why dont we add state to those titles since the state article shows that title.Camelbinky (talk) 23:13, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Actually, as I point out above, municipalities do have the option of being called "City of X" with that still being official. The state does not. Therefore, "City of New York" and "County of New York" are completely appropriate (and still legal) terms. upstateNYer 01:18, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose No change is necessary, any more than it ever has been; least of all to this long and clumsy form. The move of Washington was a poor call, one of the reasons we do not abide by precedent: it is not helpful to the encyclopedia and has no clear consensus. But there is no good solution to that one short of a time machine to bribe the Senate to pass some unambiguous name for the state; I expect to see requests to move it back within three months. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:15, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
• Questions for those that support a move- do you realy think there are people putting into the search bar "New York" looking for the city? Cant you seriously agree that if someone is looking for an article on the city they are typing in its most common name of New York City. And if someone is looking for the state, ok, perhaps they are typing New York State, but they are getting redirected here... ok, that's not an inconvenience. So really.. what is this move about? It's not really about convenience for the non-editor passerby doing a search, its about some people not liking the state having the New York article and thinking the city is "more important" or "as important" and therefore if the city cant have it, no one can, so make it a dab page. Let us close out this discussion and work solely on the hatenote. Can I have an amen?Camelbinky (talk) 05:58, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Answer to your question: of course. I suspect you are a US citizen. Outside the US, people often only know the city as "New York", and don't even know there is something as a New York State. Joost 99 (talk) 11:02, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

See, I didnt realize that, I learned something new. Because the one time I was in the Netherlands and the two times I was in Spain everyone I talked to seemed to understand the difference and not only knew New York (state) but also knew of my hometown at the time Albany, New York and I was quite impressed of the general public's knowledge of the Empire State Plaza in that city (among the population there that is old enough to remember it being built, so anyone over 40 basically). My personal experience has always been that Europeans tend to be more educated on geography than Americans. Do you think they have never heard of Buffalo, New York or Rochester, New York; headquarters to huge multi-national Forbes 500 companies? Or Albany now the headquarters of the international semiconductor consortium Sematech comprised of companies from throughout the US, Japan, and Europe? Do you not think educated people throughout the world hear of these cities with their state names attached and therefore have some inkling that there is a state as well as a city? The argument down below in the next section includes that NY state is a minor internal division... well NYC is an even more MINOR division within this "minor division" of a nation... the state INCLUDES the city, it is not like going to the state article would be much of a disappointment or be off the mark by that much; it isnt like looking for St Louis looking for the city St Louis, Missouri and getting St Louis County, Missouri instead (the city is not within the county for those that dont know).Camelbinky (talk) 16:26, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Well whichever way round we do it, it's not going to be off the mark by much (and importance isn't a function of size, so I don't really understand the argument about the state INCLUDING the city). I think educated people round the world do know that New York is the name of the state; but they know it's the name of the city too, so why is that an argument in one direction or the other? But by keeping the present setup, against Wikipedia convention, we not only inconvenience readers slightly (by making most of them do an extra step of navigation), but also risk implying falsehoods, such as the implication that when Americans say "New York" they usually mean the state rather than the city (which a European could well believe, though the evidence I've seen seems to point the other way).--Kotniski (talk) 16:43, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Kotniski. I said often, not all people. It was to make a point against people here ignoring the world wide perspective of Wikipedia (even though NY lies in the US, I know ;-) I have no idea how many people are aware of the state, but I do think that almost everyone outside North America using the words "New" and "York" in the same sentence, will mean the city.Joost 99 (talk) 17:13, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

What "evidence" has been presented that most people around the world say New York when referring to only the city? Other than "in my experience" crap; oh, is MY experience less valid than others? I didnt realize that. Saying the AP and newspapers around the world do this or that is not a valid argument for what PEOPLE do or say and I dont see how you can prove one way or another unless someone has actually done a legitimate large scale poll world-wide on what they refer to the city as. As much as I hate the incorrect term New York City it IS the most popular way to refer to the city, regardless if you live in the City, Upstate NY, BFE Nebraska, or Turkmenistan. The city is the name that is most commonly disambiguated through the use of a qualifier, so doing so on Wikipedia is the way it should be done as well. The only evidence supplied by the supporters of the move is the AP style, which I have successfully countered with the SUNY preferred style which relies on a dictionary, professional maps, and other sources all of which put the STATE as the primary or first listing and with no qualifier and the CITY as second and with the qualifier of the name City in the name. If NYC is labeled as such then that is how it should be labeled here, the state is NEVER labeled on professional maps with the qualifier of state. Obviously the fact that map makers feel no need to do so shows that people are not getting confused.Camelbinky (talk) 17:23, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

That people round the world mean the city rather than the state is something so obvious as not to require evidence. Possibly it's not true in the U.S., but as I say, I looked at some US newspaper sites and found the same to be true there. (Taking my atlas off the shelf, it see that it marks the city as "New York" as well, as I would expect, since atlases don't need to do disambiguation like we do.)--Kotniski (talk) 17:39, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Really? Ok, then you are saying I'm a liar and not AGF with me when I have said MULTIPLE TIMES that I have been to other countries and I have never had a problem nor have I have experienced that huge numbers of people out THERE in the world consider New York to mean the City. Again- I require proof because no it is not obvious. Such an argument, if used by the closing admin is invalid in my opinion because no proof has been brought forth on that point. New York City is the common name used by millions (if not perhaps half a billion considering that would still be a realistic percentage of the over 6 billion in the world). We have a perfectly acceptable name for that city's article. Why move the state? Putting the City at this title would be terrible and cause more confussion than having the state article here.Camelbinky (talk) 23:14, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose, for the reasons that have been brought up many times. Parenthetical disambiguators are ugly; let's avoid them when possible and just settle for a really long hatnote if we must. What exactly "New York" means depends entirely on context, but I doubt people will complain if they get the state + a hatnote that lets them get to all of NYC / just Manhattan / etc. SnowFire (talk) 02:40, 24 October 2010 (UTC)
• Comment I would say that for many Americans, New York is the City first, not the State. So this argument about outside of the US would even apply inside the US. Many times in the US in print, in television, in film, in radio, New York is meant to be NYC, not NYstate. When you say New York - Los Angeles, it is the city, when you say NYLon, it is the city, when you say "Live from New York, it's Saturday Night!", that's also the City. The "Mayor of New York" is a common term frequently found in the US press, and it means the City. When Conan O'Brien commented on his move from New York to Los Angeles, it was about the City. Upstate New York has low visibility, Metropolitan area New York City tristate region (NY, NJ, Conn.) has a much higher visibility. 76.66.199.238 (talk) 05:29, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

And again- in many movies the qualifier of "New York City" is used, thereby showing that the City is the one that is used with the qualifier whereas the state is rarely disamb'd. As for including the "Mayor of New York" in your statement- wow, that's terrible because there is only ONE mayor of ANY New York, and that of course would be the city and even on CNN they say "Mayor of New York City" alot. There is no other mayor of New York anywhere in the world, let alone in the state; what does that have to do with this discussion? New York is the name of the city, but it is also the name of the state. Upstate NY has low visibility? Oh, that must be why GlobalFoundries is building its newest chipfab semiconductor plant upstate and nowhere else in the United States, why Sematech is located there, why Pepsi, IBM, and Eastman Kodak are headquartered there, why General Electric, American Locomotive Company, American Express and International Paper were all founded in Upstate NY, and why the Erie Canal and the first passenger railroad in the US is located there, why the Olympics has been located in Upstate NY TWICE, yes, because it has low visibility... Please learn some history on the region before commenting! The ONLY part of that post that had any redeeming value to this discussion was the point about "Live from New York, it's Saturday Night!", only legitimate point since the airline routes part was useless as well since that is ALWAYS going to be about cities and never any higher division, it is explicitly known to be only cities, no qualifier needed; you might as well make the same argument for Portland, Oregon to be changed to just Portland for that reason.Camelbinky (talk) 06:52, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

You could have reacted a lot friendlier; assume good faith, especially with newcomers. Joost 99 (talk) 08:58, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Mr 76 isn't a newcomer, but still, Camelbinky, you do seem to be getting excessively emotional about this question, to the extent that it seems to be clouding your judgment. Everyone who lives anywhere in the world except (possibly) upstate New York knows what the unqualified phrase "New York" most commonly refers to. To the extent that the article title matters at all, Wikipedia ought to follow its normal practice and send people to the primary topic when they type in the name. It's inconvenient and potentially misleading to readers to deviate from our normal practice for no apparent reason.--Kotniski (talk) 10:20, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

And THAT is exactly WHY I'm getting frustrated, I'm sick of hearing "everyone knows the unqualified New York means the City". Show evidence or please stop saying it as that is calling me a liar because I have said from my experience I do not see that. Yes, in YOUR experience you see that it is that way, but we don't go on personal experience. I do apologize for my response to the IP/newcomer, I am getting frustrated. So please, show your evidence to back up what you say. Because that entire position of NY is the primary topic me and others have shown is NOT backed up by the published material of maps and dictionaries as per the SUNY naming conventions which is better than anything presented by the supporting of a move; which that entire position is based on "I believe" and "Well everyone just knows" which is so subjective it isnt a valid point per guidelines on reaching a consensus which spells out quite clearly what a !vote should be weighed in closing based on what is presented.Camelbinky (talk) 16:14, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Well do what I did, choose some newspaper sites, type "New York" into the search box, and see what proportion of the first few hits (obviously disregarding any where "New York" is part of a longer phrase with State or City) refer to the city, and what proportion to the state. Maybe you'll get different results than I did, but for Los Angeles Times and Washington Post the city was the clear winner. In British English I can assure you there isn't any doubt about it, but you can check some British, Australian etc. sites too if you don't believe me. New York is simply too famous a city for the state (important an entity though it no doubt seems to those who live there) to be a serious rival for primary topichood.--Kotniski (talk) 18:12, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

• Support - Late to the party. Sorry. I've now thought about this for a couple of days and have come to the conclusion that, internationally, the term 'New York' is overwhelmingly used in relation to the city. Also, repeating my comment from way up above, New York City is a Vital Article. To quote WP:PRIMARYTOPIC

"If there is no primary topic, the term should be the title of a disambiguation page (or redirect to a different disambiguation page, if more than one term is combined on one page).

An exception may be appropriate if only one of the ambiguous topics is a vital article. In such a case, consensus may determine that the vital article should be treated as the primary topic regardless of whether it is the article most sought by users." Blakkandekka (talk) 15:39, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

That seems to be an argument in support of making New York City the primary topic, not an argument supporting the proposition that there is no primary topic and therefore New York should be a dab page. Station1 (talk) 19:16, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose - I agree that mostly "new York" = "NYC", but I really hate the idea of having New York as a dab page. Most readers will reach the page expecting either the state or city and not jumbo mumbo list of everything NY. Renata (talk) 14:01, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
• Strong Support, though I suggest New York (state) over New York (U.S. state), as state is sufficient precision to disambiguate from other uses, and U.S. state is more than necessary. No one seriously argues that the state is the primary topic - there is clearly no primary topic for "New York". WP:PRIMARYTOPIC is quite clear about what should happen here: "If there is no primary topic, the term should be the title of a disambiguation page ". I'm all for ignoring rules like this when there is a good reason, but "I really hate the idea" is not a good reason. --Born2cycle (talk) 21:11, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

After thinking about it, I think we should just follow the most common and natural form, New York State, because that's what people are most likely to enter and wiki-link to, just as New York City is the most familiar form for the city. Adding anything in parentheses where they don't already exist [as in Lieutenant (junior grade) or Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist)] is unnatural and counter-intuitive. There are very strong, validly-based, objections to calling either the city or the state anything but "New York", but given New York's inherent ambiguity, common usage should prevail (even though my own personal preference and usage is to distinguish name and form in "Washington state" and "New York state"). In addition, it would vastly simplify what I also want to do, which is make instantly clear what is meant by the currently-ambiguous Geography of New York, Politics of New York, Economy of New York, etc. Politics of New York (state) or Politics of New York (U.S. state), rather than Politics of New York State, is as awkward as if we'd called the city New York (city) and made people enter Politics of New York (city) or Mayor of New York (city). ¶ On the other hand, I don't want the main issue yet once again to become the victim of a secondary issue, what to call the state. —— Shakescene (talk) 05:07, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

A side effect of the convention to usually use the most common name of a topic as the article title is that the title conveys the name of the topic to the reader. New York City works because that is the name given to the city; both New York State and New York state would incorrectly convey the name of the state as being anything other than just "New York". Putting additional information in parenthesis simply disambiguates that topic from other uses of that same name. Some of your examples miss that point, or how it works. Geography of New York, for example, is not ambiguous nor needs any disambiguation because there is only one article with a topic that has that name. Politics of New York (state) would not be a good choice because that would imply that "Politics of New York" is a state; in that case Politics of New York state would not be problematic because that title does not wrongly convey the name of the topic of that article. But, again, unless there was more than one article about "Politics of New York", there is no need to disambiguate that at all. Adding parenthesis may seem unnatural and counter-intuitive, but it is the only way to disambiguate titles without also compromising correctly conveying the topic name. Parenthesis allow for clear delineation between the part of the title that is the name, from any additional information needed for disambiguation. --Born2cycle (talk) 14:07, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Usage by state government publications seem to indicate the New York State is both common and a natural language usage. There's no reason to prefer an artificial convention when there is a natural language usage. older ≠ wiser 01:01, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

[8] [9]

An additional point about one-click redirection/disambiguation

It just struck me that so long as New York is an article rather than a disambiguation page, those entering "New York" in search of some use other than New York City have to make at least two more clicks, first to New York (disambiguation) and then to the specific page they really want. Putting all those choices in New York's hatnote is of course rather impractical, but those who enter "New York" now in search of, say, New York magazine or a book, film or song called "New York" have to load up the state page just to be sent not where they want but to an intermediate page. This is of course is the exact opposite of the motive for avoiding disambiguations where there are only two choices: to save unnecessary clicks by making the more-common alternative take the place of a disambiguation page. —— Shakescene (talk) 18:24, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

That's another good point. There are multiple other meanings of "New York" other than the city and the state. That increases the need to have New York as a dab page. Dough4872 18:26, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

But fewer than 5% of readers are looking for something other than the city or state. That's why I mentioned above that this proposal will benefit those 5% by saving them a click, but disadvantage 34% by adding a click. So net loss. Besides, few people searching for the magazine would be astonished that they don't get there directly by typing simply "New York". Station1 (talk) 19:42, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Completely agree. This issue is about New York and New York City, nothing else. upstateNYer 01:21, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) But the two uses being debated are, by far, the most likely targets. So the principle described in WP:PRIMARYTOPIC (that taking a majority of people directly to the article they want is worth making a minority of readers click twice) still applies, even if the exact wording does not. But since we have two uses at the top echelon, we can simultaneously apply the two-uses-disambiguation via hatnotes. It's a solution that is elegant, perfectly fits the spirit (if not the letter) of our conventions, and has worked just fine for years. Powers ^T 19:43, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Who decides it "has worked just fine for years". This discussion is as old as the current situation, so it probably always has annoyed and confused people (me for one), as much as it has worked for others... Joost 99 (talk)

(ec) Yes, I suppose. But it should be the city that people land on, rather than the state, because that's the primary topic. By deviating from our normal practice for apparently no better reason than "we've had it like that for a long time", we confuse people into thinking that (Wikipedia really belives that) the state is the primary meaning of "New York" - that when people mention "New York" in the English language they are more likely, or at least not significantly less likely, to be referring to the state than the city. (Unless that really is true in American English - perhaps it is, but that seems to be the main point to be discussing.) --Kotniski (talk) 11:23, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't think it's a deviation. When faced with the two possibilities which will be linked via hatnotes, WP:PRIMARYTOPIC isn't the last word on which article gets the base name. If one of the articles has an easy, recognizable, natural, unambiguous title (New York City), then it makes sense to use it and let the other have the disambiguated title. This applies regardless of which article would be considered the primary topic, about which there is significant disagreement. Powers ^T 14:55, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

The other big problem I would have with switching which article has the New York title is that "New York City" is more common and more frequently used than "New York State", even adjusting for the fact that there might be more references to the city total than to the state. So currently we have both articles at frequently-used names for their subjects, while if we switch them, the city would be at a slightly-more-frequently-used name but the state would be at a much-less-frequently-used name. Powers ^T 14:59, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Once again, the supposedly "much-less-frequently-used name" for the state IS exactly the name used by official state government agencies. There is no question whatsoever in my mind at least that "New York" is ambiguous. It is commonly used to refer to both the city and the state. In my experience, if someone says they're from "New York", without any further qualification, the assumption is they mean the city or the metropolitan area. While the hatnote kludge sort of works, it makes systematic repairing ambiguous links next to impossible. older ≠ wiser 15:12, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

So you seem to agree that the city is the primary topic? In that situation, it's standard practice to make the phrase in question ("New York") either the title of the primary topic article, or a redirect to it. I really don't see what's different about these two articles that warrants any different treatment than the many other cases where the same situation arises. We're talking about our article on the world's most famous city, compared with one on a local administrative area. There's no need to use a "much less frequently used name" for either of them - if we want to call the state "New York", we can still do so, but with a normal Wikipedia disambiguator "(U.S. state)" as would be consistent with the other two states that aren't primary topics for their names. But if someone types "New York" into the search box, they expect to get to the article on that New York, and I don't see any reason why they shouldn't. --Kotniski (talk) 16:06, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

The most I can agree with is that the term is ambiguous. In my experience, the city would be more the more likely target, but that is only anecdotal evidence. Having "New York" redirect to the city would be my second choice. Having it be a disambiguation page in my opinion would be better for fixing mistaken links. older ≠ wiser 16:23, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

And I must say that doing searches for "New York" on US newspaper sites seems to bring up many more hits where the phrase refers to the city than to the state. (I found "New York governor", where the context clearly indicates a state, but generally speaking if someone or something is referred to as living in or coming from or happening in New York, they mean the city, as we on the other side of the pond would.) --Kotniski (talk) 11:46, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

• Support - "New York" should be a dab page, the state should be "New York (U.S. state)" and the city should be "New York City" Beyond My Ken (talk) 18:58, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Belated comment on the AP Stylebook

Just an aside on the AP Stylebook that I hadn't realized before (but should have). As mentioned in the move request, the AP says to use "New York" to refer to the city in datelines. This isn't evidence that NYC is the primary topic because datelines (at least in the U.S.) are always cities, and never states. DC T•C 15:06, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Moving "Plymouth" to a disambiguation page

[Although this aside isn't related to the AP Stylebook, it's also tangential.] Other editors might be interested in the current discussion at Talk:Plymouth#Proposed Move. Some of the issues are familiar, although others are quite different (for example, there's no famous "New York" automobile). —— Shakescene (talk) 20:51, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

¶ There are a host of simultaneous discussions on these related topics, scattered over all sorts of different places (WikiProjects, Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (geographic names), individual cities', states' and regions' article talk pages, etc., etc.) Currently, the biggest and broadest seems to be taking place at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 80#Why are British places generally not disambiguated. "You've got to dis-am-bigu-ate the homonyms, amal-ga-mate the synonyms, re-popu-late the demonyms, and don't mess with Mr. In-Between!" —— Shakescene (talk) 17:27, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Why we're talking past each other

It finally dawned on my dim mind a couple of days ago why the debates about renaming and moving "New York" seem like the irresistible force smashing into the immovable object. It just depends on one's point of view.

What many of us can't accept is that the state should be the primary topic of "New York"; to us, the primary meaning is either New York City or none. Since the article is nearly as long (94,000 bytes) as the New York City article (141,000), using it as a stand-in for the disambiguation page can be a real nuisance if your browser, computer, memory or connection takes a long time to load.

What I think is the real concern of those who wish to retain the status quo is that there seems to be no good alternative name. The proposed renaming to New York (U.S. state) to match Washington (U.S. state) is clumsy and non-intuitive; no one new to Wikipedia or New York topics will type that in as a first attempt (as they might for New York City, New York State or New York state). It would also be a real nuisance, once you know the title, to have to type that in every time you want to reach the state article. Redirects would help; but in that case why not use the title from which you're being redirected for the article title, rather than New York (U.S. state)? Fortunately, the State University of New York is never (for obvious reasons) called "New York State" the way that Washington State University is commonly known as "Washington State", so apart from consistency, there's no very good reason to match the exact form of Washington (U.S. state).

I understand the objections to calling the state "New York State" or "New York state" when the state's name is really just "New York". If Wikipedia calls it "New York State" for convenience (or for the least inconvenience), then the fear is that Wikipedia will be believed or cited as an Authoritative Source on the question. However, all those arguments can be made with just as much force for removing "City" from New York City. This is one of those areas where following printed sources really doesn't help that much. A printed dictionary or encyclopedia can make it very clear what's included in the name by just making that the bold-faced title at the beginning. If the first entry you see for New York begins "City in New York state...", then you just run your eye down the columns until you hit "New York. State in the Northeastern United States" and before you reach "New York. Weekly magazine founded and edited by Clay Felker". Wikipedia doesn't have the luxury of being able to use the same name two or three times; the article titles have to be unique.

I'm putting this up more to make the discussion more productive and mutually-comprehensible (for example when I wrote "Support enthusiastically" above, that enthusiastic support applied only to making "New York" into a disambiguation page, not to changing New York to New York (U.S. state)), rather than to push a particular view. Given the choices (over which those half-dozen options in Talk:New York (state)/Archive 3 spends so much space), I'd go for either New York State (most likely to be entered) or New York state (makes clearer that state is not actually part of the name). —— Shakescene (talk) 19:42, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Very insightful and I think from past experience with Kotniski that he would agree with me that we all wish for this to get back on track and that your observations are good ones to point out. I personally have a question about how article titles work when you use the search- what difference would occur between having New York state and New York State if one were to put a search in for the other? It is (under my limited understanding of the search bar) that if the article is New York State and one were to type in New York state or New york state or new york state it would automatically go to the capitalized version without the need for someone to create the New York state title as a redirect; but that would not work the other way around for typing into the fully capitalized version in and getting to the New York state article without having to create a redirect page. Does this affect anything in this discussion? I'm just curious as to how title names and capitalization works as I havent had to worry about it before.Camelbinky (talk) 20:07, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

That's a very good question. For the life of me, I've wondered why so much of Wikipedia's search function (unlike Google's or almost anyone else's) is case-sensitive; it's put all of us through untold grief, especially in creating and seeking internal links (try finding New York City Mayoral elections or Economy of New York city). I just can't see how whatever advantages case-sensitivity may have can counterbalance all the missed articles and what must amount to dozens of people-years it has cost. However, I don't think it makes so much difference in the search-box, although like you I'm not really sure. —— Shakescene (talk) 20:15, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

When you type in New York City Mayoral Elections, it takes you to New York City mayoral elections, so the search is case-insensitive. (More precisely, I think it first tries to take you to the precise title you typed in, and if that title didn't exist, it tries a title that is different in case.) Ucucha 20:20, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

That is when you type New York City Mayoral Elections into the search box. When I just clicked Ucucha's red-linked New York City Mayoral Elections, I got "no such article; would you like to create one?". —— Shakescene (talk) 20:28, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I was talking about the search box. Then again, I'm not sure what the relevance is; surely if we move this article to New York state, we can make New York State a redirect to that page. Ucucha 20:31, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

I generally agree. There have been lot a requested moves recently, but apparently they opposed it. If we support the move from New York to New York (U.S. State), the name would be like Georgia (U.S. State) and Washington (U.S. State). JJ98 (Talk) 07:20, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

The search box is case-insensistive (if you type "New York state" or "NeW yORk stATE" you ought to get to New York State even if no redirect from that particular capitalization exists, except when you come from a different project, like when I'm in Polish Wikipedia and I enter "en:new york state" I won't get to the article unless there's a redirect specifically from "New york state", but that's just an aside). Wikilinks, of course, are case-sensitive (so a link New York state will only work if someone's created a redirect from that capitalization. But all of this is entirely irrelevant to this discussion - any likely capitalizations of anything can have redirects set up, so it really isn't a problem. The only issue seems to be... OK there are three issues:

1. Where should someone entering "New York" in the search box be sent to? (a) the article on the city, (b) the article on the state, (c) a dab page.
2. What should the state article be called? (and that depends purely on how good the respective titles are as titles, not on how easy they are to find or anything like that, except that if the answer to 1. is not (b) then plain "New York" is not available).
3. What should the city article be called? (Similar considerations as in 2.)

I still don't really see any reason why the answer to 1. shouldn't be "obviously (a)", since we have a clear primary topic, and all of the reasons for treating primary topics in the way we do seem to apply here as much as anywhere else.--Kotniski (talk) 09:01, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

No, you never do see why an idiomatic and natural distinction should be kept.

Nice to see that the first sentence to address to me since your recent block for incivility is a personal attack. Some things never change.--Kotniski (talk) 08:14, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Not at all uncivil, except to those to whom the facts have an unfortunate uncivil bias; when has Kotniski "seen" any actual idiom? But the spurious use of WP:CIVIL will be with us forever. Septentrionalis PMAnderson

When have I seen any actual idiom??? Are you seriously suggesting that I have no familiarity with English idiom? Presumably not? So why do you say such nonsense, consistently, whenever you and I happen to be on opposite sides of a discussion? Is it not possible for you to disagree with someone without being unpleasant to them? (Well yes, it is possible, since you appear to manage it with most other people, so I presume I must be honoured in some way - I'll continue to take it as a compliment, implying that my arguments are too strong to be dealt with by the more straightforward means of counterargument.)--Kotniski (talk) 18:03, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Not too strong, but too weak. Kotniski's "arguments" consist, here and elsewhere, of assertions that he "doesn't see" this, that, or the other.

It is quite true that no answer is possible to these; they are a variant of WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:22, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

There are several pairs which are natural in distinguishing the city and the state:

• New York City/New York
• New York City/New York State
• City of New York/State of New York.

These have various advantages and disadvantages; but none of them are the present proposal. The first has the advantage (which is why we use it, I believe) that New York City and New York are idiomatic when not in contrast with each other; New York State by itself is somewhat archaic; both City of New York and State of New York are legalese. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:38, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Everyone's experience is different, of course, but if disambiguation (which is, for various reasons, what I strongly favor) is not the target of New York, then the pair which seems most natural to me is, rather:

• New York/New York State

—— Shakescene (talk) 22:58, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Can not accept New York being the city, a dab page is the only thing that I would ever ever EVER consider possibly accepting. Putting New York City at this page makes no obvious sense regardless of some people saying it is the primary topic when consensus (and I think at least one guideline/policy out there) states that when one topic has a naturally commonly used name that already disambs the topic then it should be at THAT name regardless of being the primary topic for the other name. People doing a search would put New York City to find New York City, not just New York. So (and a BIG IF) this page becomes a disamb then the state should go to New York (US state) and the city remain at its present location. Comparing the issue at hand in the Washington (state) case is not the same as here, there is not a famous US President who's often referred to as just New York as there is for Washington, and the term Washington as synonomous with Federal government; there was more at issue in that case than just Washington state versus Washington, DC as a city (if it had been just that issue I think we wouldve seen a different outcome). Same with Georgia, it was a not that important US state versus a not that important nation-state... nation-state no matter how minor is going to trump a US state with very few exceptions. WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS is not an argument, especially when the circumstances of other consensuses makes it an apples/oranges affair.Camelbinky (talk) 23:22, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Again, I think you are simply wrong about real world usage. Out here, people call the city "New York", and that's what they'd most likely type if they were looking for it. (I thought it might be different in the U.S., but the evidence we've seen implies that it isn't.) There certainly isn't the consensus you describe in the second sentence - standard treatment is to give the primary topic its common name (or at least make it redirect there), and disambiguate any other topics with the same name. I understand why some people think "New York/New York City" is a neat solution, but I don't see that it's that neat as to justify sending hundreds of thousands of readers to the wrong article (and doubtless misleading a few of them as to what the most common usage of "New York" is).--Kotniski (talk) 08:11, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

There we go again ;-). Kotniski, even though I agree with you, can't we agree there will be NO consensus on primary topic and focus on wether or not disambiguation. Continuing this way will certainly end up in the whole discussion being ignored once again.

@Camelbinky: I can only argument it from a European perspective. Historically the name New York came into use in ?foreign languages long before people even knew any English, let alone the use of New York City. People natively speaking languages that use New York for the city are much more likely to type in "New York" than "New York City" (that's an very educated guess). French, Italian and many other European language Wiki's have New York as name of the article about the city (Dutch and German have NYC, but use NY in most everyday media). (btw, this is not to support a primary topic, I support disambiguation). Joost 99 (talk) 09:17, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure how these two questions are different - primary topic and disambiguation page are two mutually exclusive alternatives, so if we can't have consensus on one, we automatically don't have consensus on the other. Am I missing something? --Kotniski (talk) 09:28, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Practically, because everyone agrees on multiple use of "New York". Wanting to name a primary topic only adds an extra discussion which complicates things imo. Joost 99 (talk) 09:43, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

I dont think this could be closed on consensus because even those who agree that there should be a change cant all agree on WHAT the change should be. And I understand there is a whole wide-world out there that doesnt speak English, BUT this is a city in the US whose name is in English and this is English Wikipedia, (and frankly I dont think non-English languages ever knew the phrase "New York" prior to the city and state being named such in 1664... it would be quite a coincidence). In my personal experience I did not see nor hear New York as the City in the Netherlands or twice in Spain, nor here in the US, especially on TV (Pace salsa commercial says "made in NEW YORK CITY?!" and laugh or spit at the northerner eating that salsa). I'm curious- for nations with a city of the same name, is there this controversy? Mexico City and Mexico for example, and there are more I am sure though Guatamala and Guatamala City and Andorra and Andorra la Vella are the only other ones I can think of off the top of my head (for the sake of my point I hope there are more!).Camelbinky (talk) 15:24, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Are you really saying you've never (only rarely?) heard New York City referred to as "New York" in the U.S.? How English treats other cities will be different, of course - we can't force the language to be as consistent as we might like (though it's fairly clear that the importance of a whole country relative to its main city will typically be greater than that of an administrative division of a country).--Kotniski (talk) 18:28, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

¶ The situation is slightly different from the others (in fact, every situation is slightly different from all the others; see all the U.S. vs British place-name debates, e.g. Talk:Plymouth referred to above this section). While talk page discussions don't need the kind of documentation that articles do, a balance of relatively-reliable sources is a better hint at what our "average" reader than personal impressions and experiences. And I don't rate Camelbinky's experiences any lower than anyone else's. That said, let me say how a couple of points look to me.

1. "New York" generally refers more often to the city than to the state, e.g. "The Sidewalks of New York" (for many more such examples, see List of songs about New York City.)
2. Just as people have been used for over a century to calling the city "New York City", they've been ready to call the state "New York State" (as in a "New York State of Mind"). It may not be the most elegant or most accurate or most precise name, and many people realize that technically the formal name is "New York", but in contexts where ambiguity is possible, few people have qualms about calling her "New York State" or "New York state"; those who do have such qualms work around them by calling her "The Empire State" or "The State of New York" (just as they might avoid using "New York City" by calling her "Gotham" or "The City of New York").
3. We therefore don't have the problem caused to other states' names by the existence of Washington State University and Georgia State University. If we call her New York State, as many people do, few readers will be unpleasantly surprised by not finding SUNY. We can also avoid the clumsy, ugly and non-intuitive New York (U.S. state).
4. "City of New York" and "State of New York" have come to mean, more often than not, the governments of those places. However, that construction is favored in names such as the Museum of the City of New York, the Association of the Bar of the City of New York (now tellingly and more tersely renamed the New York City Bar Association), The Board of Elections in the City of New York—which is what the board, as opposed to Wikipedia, calls itself—and the State University of New York. But see also the Encyclopedia of New York City and the New York State Thruway. It's hard to tell with state agencies because it might mean the State Agency for New York (as in the Massachusetts State Police and Pennsylvania State University, both organs of commonwealths rather than states), although I think "State" has migrated in meaning back to the geographical entity as well as forwards to the agency. Ditto for "New York City [something] Agency"
5. "New York" can mean the state in sentences like "While President Obama can be sure of carrying New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania look far more doubtful" and the city in sentences like "New York is on the road between Boston and Philadelphia". It's less clear in a sentence like "To get from Massachusetts to Pennsylvania, you first have to drive through New York", which is why people usually say "through New York State" or "through New York City" (or, sometimes, "through the City").
6. My conclusion (of course open to discussion): The argument that the existence of a common name (New York City) for what would be the candidate for Primary Topic also means that the alternative Primary Topic (and primary target) of "New York" should be the state fails because "New York State" or "New York state" is a perfectly natural and acceptable, if imperfect, name for the "secondary primary topic" for Wikipedia's purposes only, not necessarily for the title of a book, a thesis or a legal document. Therefore rename this article either "New York State" or "New York state" and make New York into a disambiguation page, preferably after redirecting as many as possible existing links to New York that do in fact refer to the state rather than the city. —— Shakescene (talk) 19:55, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Some responses to your comments above. Generally speaking, I found it humerous that I could use most of what you said to make a case for keeping New York as it is currently.

1. Your examples all contain context. If you know the context of the use of "New York" in any passage on this encyclopedia, then this discussion is moot.
2. New York State of Mind is a Billy Joel song that connects the name "New York" with the idiom "state of mind"; state in this sense has nothing to do with a municipal entity. That being said, the lyrics of the song offer the necessary context: he is clearly talking about the city.
3. Agree that this argument has no place here because it is not applicable, therefore it's... not applicable.
4. Agree that "State of" and "City of" refer to the governments; good call. Which adds to the point that "State of" isn't necessary to refer to the state (in fact, it's not legally representative of it). City of New York, on the other hand, is legal, as is the title of any NY municipality in the state coming before its name.
5. You're tossing in context to each of those sentences. So when you group states, you assume the state of NY. When you group cities, you assume NYC; you don't have to drive through NYC to get from Boston to Philly, so if you want to say you drove thru NYC, you'd clarify that. However, the context would make one assume you're talking about driving through NYC. Also, I'll point out, if you're in NY and are talking about the city, it is most common to hear NYC referred to as "the City". Just piggy-backing on your point about that reference.
6. If you're trying to make the logical statement of IF 1 thru 5 THEN 6, it doesn't compute because I can make the counter argument just as easily. Context is usually provided with the names in natural discussion and the term "City" is much more natural to put after New York than "State" (i.e., people don't introduce themselves and say "I'm from New York State", but they would say "I'm from New York City"). Plus, you usually qualify the reference anyway, by either tossing in "Upstate" or "Downstate", or for that matter, you might refer to actual places like "Long Island" or "Westchester" or "Yonkers" or "Buffalo", etc. This is the English Wikipedia, so what other languages do really shouldn't weigh much. The arguments of AP style, headlines, etc, they all have context. This, I'm realizing, is all about context, and when there is no context, one rightly should disambiguate the city rather than the state (because only the city legally can have the name of the municipality in its name). WRT the "Live from New York, it's Saturday night", the context is the introduction with views of NYC all over the place (including the other boroughs; don't forget that Manhattan Island is NEW YORK County). A little common sense tells you they mean NYC; is Rockefeller Center in NYS? Yes, but that's not the intention of the quote at all and it would lead to the most useless argument on semantics in human history. :) Anyway, your thoughts are wise for the most part, but in no way do items 1-5 in your discussion prove 6. In fact, many of them are completely neutral, being able to be used on my side of the fence as well. upstateNYer 02:13, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

I think this is all being a bit overcomplicated. It seems to me a no-brainer by now that the city is the primary topic here (and 1000% definite that the state is not the primary topic). So accordingly to our normal principles, the current setup is entirely unjustifiable; the only question is - are we to make an exception? and if so, specifically why? If we can identify the reasons for making an exception, and agree that they make sense, then they should perhaps be recorded in the primary topic guideline (whose wording is perpetually under discussion anyway), since they almost certainly apply to more cases than just this one.--Kotniski (talk) 05:01, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

1000% definite, huh? Well, I say it's over 9000% definite it is the primary topic, and that's more than nine times more definite than your claim! =) Powers ^T 14:38, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Which proves me right, since the maximum possible real definiteness is 100%, so you're over 9 times wronger than... oh never mind, but I trust you're not serious in claiming that the state could possibly be the primary topic? --Kotniski (talk) 15:07, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Of course, everything proves Kotniski right. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:22, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

You know I was joking, right? (Oh, maybe you were too, this time.) Do we all agree, then, that the state is certainly not the primary topic, but that there may be a case for making an exception to our normal rules about primary topics, based on the relative attractiveness of the available titles? Might this exception apply in other cases than this one? (I'm thinking the two presidents George Bush, for example, which seem to be in a situation similar to that of the two New Yorks.)--Kotniski (talk) 08:08, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Reluctantly, yes, I will agree with that. Though I think the disparity in primary topic-ness is much less than others believe, and I strongly support the status quo because of the much more natural New York City title being available. Powers ^T 12:24, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm surprised to see you take this position, Lt Powers. Primary topic determination has nothing to do with whether the other "competing" uses have reasonable names. One topic might be primary for several terms. For example, the article at Richard Nixon is the primary topic for not only Richard Nixon, but also Nixon, Dick Nixon, I'm not a crook, Nixon, Richard M., President Nixon, Tricky Dick Nixon, etc.

Being at a certain title does not reduce a topic's "claim" to being the primary or competing use for another name used to refer to it. Being at New York City does not reduce the use of New York to refer to the city; it remains the same, significant enough to prevent any other use, including the state, from being the primary topic. --Born2cycle (talk) 21:30, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Elegance ought to take precedence over blind rule-following. Two articles named "New York" and "New York City" is more elegant than two articles named "New York (state)" and "New York", IMO. Powers ^T 02:19, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Perplexed

Is anyone else as perplexed by this decision as I am? --Born2cycle (talk) 19:41, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

I was asked to give a longer rationale as Born2cycle points out. I weighed all the arguments and there were many good ones on both sides. I was mindful of WP:PRIMARYTOPIC in making the close, but it also weighed on me the argument that the suggested move would lead to a lot of changes and unwieldy piped links. As neither the state nor the city is overwhelmingly the primary topic, and as both are called New York, it might seem that having New York (city) and New York (state), with New York becoming a disambiguation page would best fit with our policies, and a number of editors expressed this view. However, New York as a unique world city is perfectly entitled to make its own rules, the existing titles have been stable for a good while, and I couldn't see any overwhelming benefit in the move. It's not like evidence was apparent that the status quo was actually seriously inconveniencing anybody. So I swung behind the dozen or so editors who made statements like this and judged there to be no consensus for the move. --John (talk) 20:18, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, John. I must say that I don't think the lack of a "huge advantage" in moving, the absence of "overwhelming benefit" to moving, or the lack of status quo "actually seriously inconveniencing anybody" is very often (ever?) used as a justification for not moving, yet this reasoning seems so relevant to you here that you repeat it multiple times.

Also, I apparently give more weight to the inherent value of following guidelines like WP:PRIMARYTOPIC than you, and look for overwhelming reason to ignore, not overwhelming reason to not ignore (as you apparently sought), especially when deciding against the view held by the majority of those participating.

The harm done by such a decision is not immediately obvious and so easy to overlook, because it's not about the articles directly affected here. What is at stake here for the rest of Wikipedia is the precedence effect of this decision about a prominent article. Instead of being the example of how important it is to follow WP:PT guidance it could have been had the majority opinion prevailed, it sits as an exception, surely to be used as an excuse to ignore WP:PT in countless decisions to come. --Born2cycle (talk) 21:33, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

A "no consensus" result should never be held up as precedent. Powers ^T 10:58, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Another stunning close to a RM despite a majority being in support of a change. If there is no clear primary topic, this should be a disam page. I do not believe there is no primary topic, without any doubt the place known as New York to most of the world is the city, not the state, it is blatantly obvious that is the case. And the City article gets far more views than this page does A change would create a lot of work, many links would have to be fixed, but that implies everything is fine at the moment, A quick look at what links to this page would find dozens of examples of an article linking to New York, when it really means New York City.

Perhaps we could conduct a little experiment? If we change the link at the top of the New York page which directs people to New York City to a completely new link like New York City.(which redirects to New York City still), we could see how many people are coming to this page accidentally and then having to click the link to get to the city page. If its a tiny number then the case for no change would be strengthened, but id expect there to be quite a large number of people clicking that link. When i first typed New York i was looking for the city not the state. BritishWatcher (talk) 23:12, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Results: The redirect New York City. existed in the hatnote for two full days, Nov 12 and 13. During those two days, it was clicked 808 times,[10] out of approximately 43,700 pageviews[11] of New York City, indicating approximately 1.8% of viewers of New York City got there after landing on New York. - Station1 (talk) 05:35, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

That's not really the statistic we wanted - we want to know what percentage of people coming to New York from typing "New York" into the search box were actually looking for the city. Short of replacing every existing link to the state with a piped New York (state)), I don't see how we can get at that information. (Also remember that people who arrived at the state article looking for the city might not proceed via the link in the hatnote, but via a link in the text.)--Kotniski (talk) 11:09, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Rewrite of New York under way; your help would be appreciated

I'm currently rewriting the New York article at User:UpstateNYer/New York. I planned on doing this myself, in the same way I rewrote Albany, New York, but it would be much faster if some users here could take on a section or two of the article. I'd ask that you stay away from the history section until I finish it, then you can have at it (it will need a good peer reviewer to trim it). The state symbols section is complete, and most of the geography section is done. If you need help finding sources, you might want to start at Bibliography of New York. If you want to help, please see the talk page of the rewrite and indicate your interest there. (Quick tip: since the 2010 census numbers are not out yet for the state level, you might want to hold off on the Demographics section until after those numbers are available.) It would be great if we could get this to FA level in 6 or so months (or less). upstateNYer 18:48, 22 December 2010 (UTC)