User:Andrewa/New York post RM 2016

Please see User talk:Andrewa/New York post RM 2016 before editing this page. TIA

The story so far

The 2016 RM was opened as Requested move 9 June 2016. There had been several previous RMs on much the same basis going back twelve years or so.

A summary of the arguments against

Actually not a summary at all... these are just the arguments and !votes from two sections of this version of Talk:New York/July 2016 move request with the sigs and discussion omitted. So this is the actual text, not a paraphrase, and this can be easily verified by following the permalink.

The validity of these arguments can be discussed on the talk page.

Argument and evidence in opposition to moving the page

There is no consensus to move the New York page

Moving the longstanding New York page requires consensus, barring a supervote on the part of the closers. As everyone can plainly see, there is absolutely no consensus whatsoever to move the New York page; and at the time of this writing, more people oppose a proposed move than support it. Therefore, a move cannot occur, barring a supervote by the closers, which would compromise Wikipedia's integrity, plain and simple. Thus it appears that the misguided proposal to move this page is already dead. Supporters of a proposal to move can try again in 2022, consistent with the typical 6-year cycles thus far. Discussion 2 here would only be applicable contingent upon a successful move request, which will not happen barring a supervote.

The official websites of the State and the City support the longstanding status quo in Wikipedia

Official logo of New York State's web site, ny.gov

The fact that the State's official website is ny.gov while the City's is nyc.gov says it all. The State gets "New York", while the City gets "New York City". Plain and simple. Now respecting that type of official, legal guidance is encyclopedic.

Usage by New Yorkers, NYS > NYC

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

Wikipedia would be irreparably harmed

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

The New York article would also be irreparably harmed

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

Common sense

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

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

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

The City of New York is fortuitously auto-disambiguated correctly

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

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

If the title of the State article gets undermined, then by default one would unintendedly be altering the dynamics of the City article title as well, by default – and this would then have to be addressed.This would deal another disastrous blow to Wikipedia and to the City article.

A solution for an actual problem

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

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

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

Oppose

1. While there is no PrimaryTopic for "New York", or if there is it is the naturally disambiguated New York City, the status quo is not problematic, as no reader should be astonished, because the two topics are connected, knowledge of one implies knowledge of the other, or at least the astonished reader should welcome and appreciate the education.
2. I believe the state is the primary topic for "New York", whereas the city belongs at "New York City". This is the cleanest way to handle this, without any unnecessary disambiguators.
3. The hatnote and prominent mention of NYC make for an instant fix for anyone directed wrongly, don't seek out a solution where a problem doesn't exist, or provide evidence that it does.
4. If the state was officially called "New York State", I'd agree with the proposal—but it's officially called merely New York, so it should remain at that title. New York City is sometimes called New York, sure, but the "City" disambiguates it for us. No need to change a thing here.
5. I feel that an unqualified "New York" primarily refers to the state, not the city. Primary topic aside, I think the issues created by moving this page isn't worth the massive editor attention that would be required: "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."
6. I think redirecting is not going to stop people from typing New York when they meant New York City. If New York redirects to New York City, the same will be true in that people will type New York thinking it links to the New York state. I'm amazed how strongly people feel about this page title and the effort put into the arguments above... Frankly I'm a bit neutral, and am mostly taking the WP:ENGVAR mindset that nothing is really broken and no matter what people are going to find their way to what they're looking for quite easily
7. SmokeyJoe sums up my thoughts perfectly; I'd copy and paste it if that were acceptable. We are not slaves to primary topic, and can ignore it when necessary.
8. Oppose a move in general, based on my argument above (and SmokeyJoe's much more succinct and elegant way of expressing a similar sentiment in this section). Also, Strong Oppose placing New York City at the base name, as it is clear that this will not solve, and would in fact exacerbate, the "mis-link" problems described above (to my mind, the only legitimate issue that I can see with the current arrangement). Mis-linking will still take place, except now links intended for the state will lead to the astonishingly wrong article for the city. Contrast this with having links intended for the city leading to an article that covers the city as one of the state's constituent parts (a much less wrong and confusing result for readers). A dab page at the base title would at least bring about some good (instant highlighting of lazy links), even if I don't think the problem rises to the level of action at this scale.
9. No. New York has a greater population than NYC (even subtracting NYC's large population) and is greatly important. There is a natural disambiguator for the city, none for the state that isn't awkward. This signifies to me that New York housing the state's article is the best option. It's not astonishing, it's not an obscure place, and it's the most natural setup.
10. I oppose the proposed move, for the reasons cogently stated by Pharos, Castncoot, and SmokeyJoe.
11. To me it makes the most encyclopedic sense for New York to be at the base title and New York City to be where it is. There's no way that NYC will ever be straight up New York, so this current setup handles things cleanly... it's still the same amount of clicks to get to the city as it would be on a disambiguation page, it's not astonishing to end up here, and New York has no natural amendment to its title like NYC does.
12. I strongly oppose of this move. I was the one who originally requested a move for New York to be renamed New York (state). However, many users have provided evidence that New York (state) is the primary topic of New York. Higher-level jurisdictions have primary topic, such as the country of Georgia over the U.S. state. Leave the set-up the way it is, it works great. New York City is natural and is commonly refer to with "City" in the name, among American citizens. Worldwide, New York (the city) is most popular, but a hat note solves the problem.
13. New York State is much larger and is entirely inclusive of New York City. And local usage in an English-speaking region of 20 million people should count for something - would we do the same with Australian toponyms, ignoring what local governments and citizens call their own localities, in favor of Hollywood nicknames? Despite myself being a proud citizen of New York City, I certainly recognize that the state (which has more than double the city's population) is clearly the more major topic.
14. The city is currently at New York City because that's the name. "City" is not a form of disambiguation, at least not in the Wikipedia sense of the word. For example, Britannica uses "New York City" even though their software allows them to have more than one article at the same title. As there is no title clash, there is no primary topic issue to adjudicate. Editors are not SEO specialists and should not be trying to optimize navigation. The page view analysis above shows that the views for the city remained constant even as the article on the state was moved around. So the claim that moving the article on the state will help readers find the city article is unproven.
15. Strongly oppose a move. Strongly oppose direction of the term "New York" to a primary disambiguation page as well. Wikipedia, New York, and New York City would all be irreparably harmed, and corresponding Wikiproject and Category pages would be undermined. The consequences would have reverberating, devastating consequences all around. The status quo, while perhaps not perfect, has been maintained firmly now for over a decade by editorial wisdom, after extensive vetting every 5 or 6 years, for this very reason, and has functioned quite well. Older may not always equate to being wiser, but I believe that in this particular case, history has indeed gotten the correct answer already. Also please note my more specific, detailed arguments above to oppose this move unequivocally. The overriding principle should be to DO NO HARM.
16. Oppose: New York, New York is not a stutter, they have even written songs about it. It's actually Wikipedia's purpose to educate, not debate. The longstanding convention (having an NYC article and an NY article) is a sign of a long standing consensus, and none of the evidence provided forces a change under WP:NAME. So, the change position has failed its burden. The longstanding NYC usage also goes well with "encyclopedic register" [1], as WP:Name defers to, and because it does, NY is perfectly apporiate under all name criteria as it is the commonname for the state. This entire RfC fits well within NAMES: 'debating titles is often unproductive, and there are many other ways to help improve Wikipedia.'
17. It makes the most sense to keep the largest political subdivision that carries the name as the primary topic. New York City is a part of New York, and it only makes sense to have our article naming structured to reflect that.
18. As much as I would love New York City to be the primary topic I believe moving and changing names is only going to cause more harm and confusion than good, There's currently a hatnote so anyone wanting the city will find the city.
19. There are two uses of New York that *tower* over the rest: New York (state), and New York City. I'm hugely in favor of one of them being at "New York" and the other linked via Hatnote, because this is what readers want a huge amount of the time. While the alternate universe where NYC was chosen as the base of "New York" would be okay, there are certain nice effects to having the state be here, like "New York, New York" working like "Springfield, Ohio" would elsewhere. There's also simple inertia: one of them needs to win, in this case the state won, let it be, it's not worth re-tossing the coin and causing churn even if the decision is arbitrary. Having a disambiguation page be the base page is terrible; it forces an extra click and uglier disambiguation links for no particular reason. So NY (state) @ New York > NYC @ New York >>>>> NY (disambig) @ New York.
20. No such move! No such change! No no no no, no! Very much opposing this very very bad and insulting idea! Such a move would be insulting and disrupting to the more than 1 billion people of Africa. African children are studying in the schooling systems that New York is a state in America like the state of California or the state of Illinois and that New York City is a city like Chicago and Los Angeles. Wikipedia cannot simply ignore Africa!!! What, then we will have to be changing to teaching that New York has now actually become a city and is no longer a state, and the state name has now been changed to New York (state)? Is somebody crazy? Does he not realise that Wikipedia will be bearing the responsibility for confusing more than one billion Africans, and even worse, be corrupting our childrens' education? No!!!
21. There are similar ambiguities with the U.S. states of Washington and Georgia. In the case of New York, I don't find the arguments against having New York for the state and New York City very convincing. I appreciate all the time and energy that users have devoted to this discussion, but personally I still don't see a problem in need of fixing.
22. Weak oppose. I have always referred to the state as New York and the city as New York City, and it always seems odd to me when I hear the city referred to as simply "New York" or the state as "New York State".

See also

• User:Andrewa/New York New York New York New York