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

Move request

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

Background

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

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

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

Argument and evidence in support of moving the page

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

New York State fails both WP:PRIMARYTOPIC criteria

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

There are two common criteria for this, and New York State fails both.

With respect to long-term significance, the primary topic is New York City. It is one of the most famous and important cities in the world, and according to the current lede of our article has been described as the cultural and financial capital of the world (see that page for the many references for this claim). New York State is, by way of contrast, just one of fifty states of the United States, most if not all of them with claims to particular significance.

With respect to usage, the position is less clear as to whether any topic is primary, but it is clear that it is not New York State. Depending on context, New York can refer to several things, but often refers to the city, as in An Englishman in New York, The Sidewalks of New York, the New York Stock Exchange or The New York Times. It is in general at least as likely that New York refers to the city as to the state, so there is no chance of the state passing the test of being highly likely—much more likely than any other topic, and more likely than all the other topics combined—to be the topic sought when a reader searches for that term.

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

New York is an ambiguous target for internal links

The ambiguity of "New York" as a name is well-attested in Wikipedia usage. Tens of thousands of wikilinks point to New York when editors wikified the city name without paying attention to the destination page (which is incidentally another proof that the state cannot be the primary topic). A manual survey of 147 random backlinks to New York conducted on 4 July 2016 counted 61 articles with links to New York meaning New York City, 67 meaning New York State and 19 with both kinds of links. Having either New York State or New York City at the base name perpetuates about half of internal links pointing to the wrong destination. This situation is detrimental to readers and to the integrity of the encyclopedia. Therefore New York should become a dab page and all existing internal links should be disambiguated. Robots can assist with the initial workload and subsequent enforcement: see initial efforts by BD2412bot and my proposal to correct frequent patterns. Note that links to New York with the city meaning must be fixed regardless of the eventual decision to move New York to New York (state) or keep the status quo, so that work on this part can safely start before the debate is settled. — JFG ^talk 13:37, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

Usage by the world and our readers, World > NYS

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

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

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

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

• The city is clearly primary topic based on these page view stats. I would not put much stock in the "I was a lifelong citizen of" type of argument. I grew up in Brooklyn. To Brooklynite, "New York" is that island across the East River. That is to say, it wasn't the city and wasn't the state. Gulangyu (talk) 09:46, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The case should be decided on its present merits

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

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

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

In the absence of other arguments, the status quo would of course prevail. But in this case, where all other considerations (including the desire for stability) point towards a move, the policy of preferring the status quo should not be applied to prevent it.

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

The damage of the current situation

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

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

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

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

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

The job is not too big, but is growing

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

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

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

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

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

From these measurements, I conclude that:

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

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

Opposite move would have no rationale

Imagine for a minute that the long-standing status quo dating from 2001 was different, i.e. that New York would be the dab page and New York (state) or New York State would be the state page. Would there be a clamor to change this and make New York the title of the state page? Proponents of such a move would have to argue that the state is either the overwhelmingly dominant meaning of New York (even in today's debate, nobody seriously claims that) or that the state has a longer-term significance than the city (quite hard a position to defend, as the state historically inherited its name from the city). Would people also complain that such a title arrangement "irreparably harms the encyclopedia"? No, the encyclopedia would serve readers well, especially considering that all internal links would be pointing to the right place. This little gedankenexperiment effectively counters the "if it ain't broke don't fix it" arguments: first we have many policy-based arguments that the current situation is indeed "broke", and second if the situation were reversed it would most certainly be defensible as "not broke". — JFG ^talk 11:12, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

Statistics on worldwide naming

Wikidata teaches us that New York City (d:Q60) has an article in 213 language wikis and New York (d:Q1384) in 179 wikis. Now, what are the article titles in all these languages?

For the city:

• 86 wikis (40%) call it New York City or a similar structure in their language
• 17 wikis (8%) call it New York (city) or a similar structure in their language
• 110 wikis (52%) call it just New York

For the state:

• 34 wikis (19%) call it New York State or a similar structure in their language
• 93 wikis (52%) call it New York (state) or a similar structure in their language
• 52 wikis (29%) call it just New York

Note that the language wikis placing the state article at the New York base name are a minority (29%); 71% have a qualifier for the state. Conversely, a slight majority (52%) have chosen to place the city article at the base name. Finally, 16% of the wikis that have an article about the city do not have one for the state at all (34/213). Again, this proves that there is no strong dominance of either the city or the state when considering the naming practice all over the world in 200+ languages, therefore the state is not the primary topic and the base name "New York" must be disambiguated. — JFG ^talk 00:39, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

Additional note: to avoid over-representation of low-usage wikis, when considering only the top 58 language wikis which have more than 100,000 articles, the results are even more compelling: only 10 out of 58 place the state at the base name (17%), 35 call it New York (state) (60%) and 13 call it New York State (22%). — JFG ^talk 01:18, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

Argument and evidence in opposition to moving the page

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

Usage by New Yorkers, NYS > NYC

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

Well fish are not good references of what is wet, and I actually doubt you. You are saying that if a resident of Manhattan says "I'm just sick of New York, I don't want to live in New York anymore" or whatever, that his hearers will understand that he means the the state and will reply "What, so like move to Kansas?" rather than "What, you want to move to like New Rochelle?" Even if this is true, nobody else talks like that. If you tell your neighbor in Kansas "We're taking a vacation to New York next month" they are a lot more likely to say "Oh, jealous, I want to see the Statue of Liberty!" rather than "Oooh, are you gonna visit the Rochester Museum and Science Center?". Right? Herostratus (talk) 03:14, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia would be irreparably harmed

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

The New York article would also be irreparably harmed

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

Common sense

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

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

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

@Diego Moya: I think you should create a discussion section below and ask Castncoot this question there. This is for proposals for why or why not the pages should be moved. Thanks for asking the question, though. Kylo Ren (talk) 22:39, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

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

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

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

The City of New York is fortuitously auto-disambiguated correctly

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A solution for an actual problem

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

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

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

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

As well as the Organization of American States, which covers the whole territory including North and South. Diego (talk) 09:06, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

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

Here are a handful of places where the HLJC "rule" doesn't apply: Leeds/City of Leeds. Honolulu/Honolulu County, Hawaii. Lhasa/Lhasa (prefecture-level city). Lima/Lima Province. Lagos/Lagos State. There's no doubt that HLJC applies in some instances - Mexico/State of Mexico/Mexico City is arguably a three level one - but in all cases where it applies, the top level jurisdiction would be the PTOPIC anyway, by the other criteria. HLJC appears to be a rule created specifically to make an exception of the NYC case and no other.  — Amakuru (talk) 10:12, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

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

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

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

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

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

Arguments concerning the alternatives for New York base name

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

Wikilinks to NYS were not created in error

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

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

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

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

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

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

Discussion

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

Support

1. Both policy and practicality support a move. According to article naming policy and guidelines, the NYS article should not be at the base name. The practical consequence of having it there is confusion both for editors and, because of the resulting mislinkings, for readers. There is also a needless overhead of correcting these mislinkings. See my detailed arguments above. Andrewa (talk) 01:46, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
2. All measures that we usually use to determine WP:PRIMARYTOPIC indicate that "New York City" is the primary topic or there is no primary topic. The vague feelings of editors that NYS should be the primary topic despite all evidence to the contrary contradicts our naming conventions and I certainly hope the close considers strength of arguments here. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 01:54, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

   If they just counted the votes, we'd have a problem, and set an interesting precedent where in practice the Wikiproject owns these pages. But I'm sure they won't do that. IMO our one problem under Wikipedia:Requested moves/Closing instructions#Determining consensus is the principle of preserving long-standing names, but that is only relevant if it's assessed that there is no consensus either way as to whether to move, and even then I've argued above that it should not apply in this case. We'll just have to see how it goes. Andrewa (talk) 22:06, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

3. I agree. WP has a clear convention that when there are several referents with comparable claims, a disambiguation page is in order. However, if the status quo is maintained, it will also serve adequately...this is not a huge issue. Clean Copy (talk) 03:01, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
4. There is a fundamental ambiguity here that is not well-served by the status quo. By most measures, the city is what is most commonly meant by an unmodified "New York". Arguments that the state is some sort of related super-entity over the city and thus readers getting to that are "sort of" getting "close" to what they want don't wash—at ~185,000 bytes (with multiple images and template transclusions) readers ARE significantly inconvenienced (at the very least) to arrive at the state article instead of the city article—especially if working on a mobile device or a slow connection. The disambiguation page comes in at ~5,000 bytes with minimal impact on loading regardless of platform or connection. Also, some have claimed the New York is the official name of the state—I suggest taking a close look at the "Official Website of New York State" where the state is generally referenced as "New York State" on first mention or as NYS in short hand. It is arrogance in the extreme to make faulty assumptions about what readers expect to see at "New York" and then inflict a rather large article on them. The number of links that need to be fixed is irrelevant as they will more readily be fixed by having a disambiguation page at the base rather than simply pretending that it doesn't really matter. older ≠ wiser 03:06, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
5. There is compelling evidence that the status quo is not serving us well: the 50% of incoming links that were wrongly targeted, and which will likely continue to appear in the future if the situation remains the same. The disambiguation guideline is crystal clear in how this case should be resolved: "If there is no primary topic, the term should be the title of a disambiguation page (or should redirect to a disambiguation page on which more than one term is disambiguated)". Diego (talk) 09:15, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
6. The evidence presented above, in favour of moving away from the state at the base name, is well written and compelling. Nobody, even those arguing against the move, really thinks that New York state satisfies the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC criteria: the state is *not* the most likely page sought (as page views during the period when it was moved show), it is *not* the primary topic by primary usage, particularly if usage around the world is taken into account, and the state does *not* enjoy greater long term significance than the city after which it was named. Other than the anecdotal and unsupported assertion that NYS > NYC, and the doomsday scenario that Wikipedia will be "irreparably harmed" by having a dab page here, the evidence against the move largely argues we should apply WP:IAR or WP:COMMONSENSE in maintaining the status quo. We really can't apply those though - IAR is fine and good for covering cases where everyone agrees that the rules are getting in the way; yet a large number of editors (and I'm one of them) feel the current situation is not right, and that PTOPIC is not a rule we should ignore here. Similarly, those editors feel that the common sense approach, and the one that will WP:ASTONISH the fewest readers is to have a dab page. Finally, I don't know how this MR is going to be closed, but I would urge the closer or panel of closers to remember the central point of WP:CONSENSUS - Decision-making involves an effort to incorporate all editors' legitimate concerns, while respecting Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. The current status quo does not respect Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, so even if "oppose" !votes outnumber "support" !votes here, a much stronger argument is needed by those in opposition, if they wish to retain the status quo. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 10:03, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

   This frequent meme of "only one side knows policy!" needs a response, especially with the "instruction to closers" included in this vote. Supporters of the move haven't really engaged with the arguments based around WP:COMMONNAME and WP:NATURAL, which go a long way toward understanding why the current set up makes sense. While the city may have greater significance and usage than the state per PTOPIC, the issue is moot unless it can be demonstrated that the most common method of referring to the city is an unadorned "New York" (per WP:COMMONNAME). The existence of over 125,000 backlinks to "New York City" suggests that it's quite WP:NATURAL for editors (and, presumably, readers) to use this term when seeking the city - I doubt these all started out as "New York" and were later corrected. Meanwhile, assuming half of the 120,000 links to New York are intended for the city (discussion here), that indicates that it is twice as likely for editors/readers to naturally append "City" for this topic. Evidence pointing to the state's most natural name being a plain "New York" includes the long-standing implementation of WP:USPLACE, for which ", New York" has been added to the titles for all locality articles within the state for disambiguation, and still no-one has offered why this aspect is not confusing. Antepenultimate (talk) 11:36, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

   That particular aspect is not confusing because locality articles usually provide the context of showing the [Name, Region] pattern; it is clear there that "New York" refers to a region where the locality is placed, thanks to the naming convention. That context doesn't exist for [Article title], which is the case being discussed here per WP:PRIMARYTOPIC.

   it's quite WP:NATURAL for editors (and, presumably, readers) That's quite an untenable logic leap. I find it easier to believe that editors writing about topics in the US will have on average a closer relation to the United States than people wanting to read about the city of New York, worldwide.

   One more time, as a foreigner I can tell you that "New York" is orders of magnitude more natural for me than "New York City", since my cultural knowledge comes primarily from works such as New York, New York (On the Town), New York, New York (1977 film) and its main theme, 2 Days in New York, and travel agencies selling tickets to New York (not New York City) and New York Airport. I'm not aware of any such influential works which are dedicated to New York referring to the state.

   I see that a significant portion of editors opposing the move are registered as living in the US, maybe our gut reactions for this topic are aligned to the place we come from? Diego (talk) 12:14, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

   That's highly likely, yes. In countries other than the US, New York overwhelmingly means the city. I would think that many people who know the city haven't even heard of the state. From what I can gather, in the US itself, it's maybe 50/50 between whether someone would associate the term with the state or the city. In upstate NY and NYC, perhaps the term more often means the state, but even then, with New York Times, New York Giants, Humans of New York, all that sort of thing, I'm sure those people don't think it means the state. Overall, New York is a WP:COMMONNAME for the city.  — Amakuru (talk) 14:06, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

7. This may have already been mentioned. There is a type of systemic bias in the way this article has been titled – the local-to-national view of "New York" vs. the worldwide view. It's not always easy to see or understand; however, more attention by those opposed to this page move should be paid to Diego's argument of the expectations of readers around the world, the "global" expectations that "New York" refers to the city, whether it be the more likely Manhattan and other bureaus or the less likely entire metropolitan area. The title of this article, then, should be either "New York State" or, for those who argue that "State" is not a "real part of the name", then "New York (state)" should be at the very TOP. The present title, that is, the bare "New York" would best serve the global community as (1st choice) either an ambiguous redirect that targets "New York City", (2nd choice) an ambiguous redirect that targets "New York (disambiguation)" or (3rd choice) the actual title of that disambiguation page. I am fairly neutral in regard to where the "New York" page title is dispositioned – any one of the three would serve readers worldwide; however, this article definitely needs to be moved preferably to "New York (state)".  Wikipedian Sign Language Paine  13:19, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
8. From a global perspective, New York is the city. In most of the U.S., "I'm going to New York this weekend" means the city. Page traffic for the city is much higher and a lot of the "New York" traffic is looking for the city (see above for details). The harm of the current situation is that a) readers are not getting where they want and b) a lot of wikilinks are misdirected. Normally, I wouldn't care about b) so much but it's an important issue on this scale. —  AjaxSmack  21:36, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
9. Support moving this page. I am a New York City resident and I still get confused when people say "I live in New York" (maybe they live in NYC, in which case hooray I live in Queens, or else they live upstate, in which case it's a little harder to sympathize). Anyway, it is ambiguous what "New York" means in many cases, so you can either have New York redirect to the state page or have it be a disambiguation/general-concept page. In other wikis, like fr.wiki, "New York" refers to the city, for instance. Kylo Ren (talk) 22:42, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
10. Support I don't see any evidence that the state is the primary topic. The city gets substantially more page views in spite of being at a less concise title. There are many incoming links to "New York" that intend the city and need to be disambiguated. Mistargeted links will get fixed if New York becomes a dab page (thanks in advance BD2412). I'm not quite sure how many readers arrive at the two articles by Wikipedia's search function. There are certainly some who are arriving at the wrong article from mistargeted links. I'd use Google to search if I wanted to read a Wikipedia article on "New York", and that search gives me the state as the first result, the city as the second, and a prominent Knowledge Graph for the city. Move the article on the state, make New York a dab page, and fix the incoming links. None of this will hinder readers from finding the article they want from external searches, but we won't be force people to be loading a long article on the state from a undisambiguated link that should be going to the city.Plantdrew (talk) 02:55, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

Oppose

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

   "Knowledge of one implies knowledge of the other". As a foreigner to the US, I can guarantee through personal experience that such thing is not true. The city has world-wide fame, while the state does not. Diego (talk) 09:20, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

   In which case, you should appreciate being informed that "New York" is the name of both the city and the state, as continued ignorance of one while dealing with the other will lead you into trouble. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:28, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

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. – Muboshgu (talk) 01:45, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
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. ɱ (talk) · vbm · coi) 01:51, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
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. — Crumpled Fire • contribs • 01:51, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

   See WP:COMMONNAME; we use common names, not "official" names. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 01:54, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

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." -- Tavix ^(talk) 02:01, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

   Note: With respect to the cleanup, I don't consider that an issue that should weigh into the discussion one way or another. I will take care of it myself. It would take me a few weeks, tops. bd2412 T 02:31, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

   But that's still a few weeks you could spend doing other, more important things. I agree that it's a minor issue, but SmokeyJoe already stole my other thoughts on the matter, so I thought I'd bring it up. -- Tavix ^(talk) 02:34, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

   You have to weight in also the effort to fix all the wrong links that will be created in the future pointing to the state when they meant the city. If those pointed to a disambiguation page instead, they'll be corrected by our standard disambiguation processes (most likely, self-corrected thanks to the bot warning to the editor that created the link). Diego (talk) 09:18, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

   If a person says that she is traveling to New York, virtually everyone is going to assume that the city is meant. No one interprets the bumper stickers that say, "I love New York," to refer to the state. The unqualified "New York" nearly invariably refers to the city... (There is one important exception, however: when those from upstate New York use the term.) Clean Copy (talk) 13:53, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

   I'm from upstate New York. It's still the city up here, in my experience. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 22:10, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

   Per the New York Department of Economic Development: "Created by Milton Glaser in 1977, the purpose of the I LOVE NY mark was to promote tourism to New York State." Also, it would be nice if we could avoid these sorts of "what first comes to mind" arguments as they are specifically discounted by WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. Antepenultimate (talk) 22:56, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

   Right, sorry. This page view analysis is more objective: NYC is simply the more frequently sought page, by far. (The ratio ranges from 2:1 to 3:1 over time, it appears.) Clean Copy (talk) 23:06, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

   That does prove that the city is a more widely read subject than the state. It does not prove that the specific term "New York" is more frequently used to refer to the city, which is what this move is about, and (correct me if I'm wrong) what you were arguing above. Antepenultimate (talk) 23:15, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

   @Antepenultimate: No, this move is about accepting that the term "New York" can not be assumed to overwhelmingly refer to the state, nor to the city (although the city does get more traffic, it is not strongly dominant), therefore the name should be disambiguated. — JFG ^talk 00:49, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

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 — MusikAnimal ^talk 02:22, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

   @MusikAnimal: Would you mind commenting on your opinions on a disambiguation page (either here or below)? You've analyzed each of the primary topic possibilities, but not the disambiguation possibility which seems like it has the most support in the second question. Thanks. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 16:19, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

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. Calidum ¤ 02:30, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
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. Antepenultimate (talk) 03:06, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
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. Taylor Trescott - ^{my talk} + _{my edits} 05:50, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

   Actually, by some measures your population assertion is wrong. If we don't just limit ourselves to the five NYC boroughs, but consider the global city as comprising the entire New York metropolitan area (including Newark, Liberty airport, Jersey city, the Giants and Jets stadium etc.), it has a population of 23,723,696, while the New York state has a population of just 19,795,791. Strange but true.  — Amakuru (talk) 11:26, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

   @Amakuru: Yeah, but that definition would include so many places including and like the tiny villages Buchanan and Ardsley, which can never in any way be justified as anything remotely like or part of New York City. NYC is far smaller in population than the state, accept it. ɱ (talk) · vbm · coi) 13:24, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

   The country of Georgia has a population of 3.7 million while the state of Georgia has a population of 10.2 million. And yet we have a disambiguation page at Georgia with repeated requested moves showing consensus to keep things that way. There's no policy, guideline, or precedent that suggests the population count of a place has any bearing on WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. In fact, there's significant precedent suggesting this is not the case. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 16:17, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

   The Georgias are a country and a state. This is a city that's literally part of the state that's more populated sans it. I'd say it's far more relevant here than it is there. (I don't think there is a primary topic for Georgia, lest I be accused of bias.) Nohomersryan (talk) 16:43, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

   Lagos is a part of Lagos State, and clearly Lagos State has a higher population than Lagos. That's rather self evident when one things contains another. But that doesn't mean the higher level entity is a primary topic. In the case of Lagos and New York, it's the city that's much more widely referred to and long term significant than the containing states.  — Amakuru (talk) 17:06, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

10. I oppose the proposed move, for the reasons cogently stated by Pharos, Castncoot, and SmokeyJoe. --Coolcaesar (talk) 16:32, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
11. (edit conflict)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. Nohomersryan (talk) 16:43, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

    You're wrong about one thing - it is astonishing to end up at the state when you type "New York". I first came across this in 2006, and believe me, I was astonished. I dare say many millions of other readers are too. That's why the current situation is so odd and needs rectifying.  — Amakuru (talk) 17:07, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

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. ✉cookiemonster✉ ^𝚨755𝛀 19:22, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

    Sorry? Click on Georgia and you'll find yourself at a disambiguation page, making this a perfect counter-example. Yes, the country is bigger, but no, it is not the case that most people looking up Georgia on an English-language encyclopedia want to find the country rather than the state. Clean Copy (talk) 21:52, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

    Sorry if my comment does not make since, chief. ✉cookiemonster✉ ^𝚨755𝛀 21:55, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

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.--Pharos (talk) 22:44, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

    Yes, but the "local usage" of at least half of that population of 20 million--those who live in the NY metropolitan area, sorry, I mean the NYC metropolitan area--either refers to the city by default or is highly ambiguous. Clean Copy (talk) 23:03, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

    As a lifelong Brooklynite, I can tell you that the local municipal usage here is very much "New York City", not "New York". This is not everyone's experience, but it is certainly mine.--Pharos (talk) 01:07, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

    As a lifelong Queensite, I second that. Kylo Ren (talk) 01:22, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

14. The city is currently at "New York City" because that's the name, not to disambiguate it from the state. 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 between the articles on the city and the state, 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 article was moved around. So the claim that moving the article on the state will help readers find the city article is unproven. Gulangyu (talk) 03:14, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

Discussion 2: If there is consensus to change the current name of this page, how should this be changed?

Support for New York City as primary topic

1. New York City is, if any, the primarytopic because it was named and became famous before there was a state, or colony, of New York. New York (city) was in New Netherland, which is not synonymous with early New York State. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:10, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

   This is actually historically wrong, the city was named after the state (or rather, the larger English province that existed at the time).--Pharos (talk) 22:20, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

   Do you have a reference for that? The city existed before the province as Dutch city. The English acquired both the city and surrounding area in the same campaign and from what I can tell renamed both city and administrative province at the same time -- although at that point in time, the city was practically synonymous with the province as the principal center of commerce with some farming and timber villages out in the provnce. [User:Bkonrad|older]] ≠ wiser 22:29, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

   Actually, the city and state were both named "New York" at the same time, in 1664. (See Province of New York.) The city was originally named New Amsterdam, though. Kylo Ren (talk) 00:47, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

2. Weak support. I believe that this should and will be the eventual result in any case, once the smoke clears from these discussions. But there is a definite short-term benefit to having the DAB at the base name while the links are cleaned up, and little downside even if this becomes permanent. The third option, of a broad concept page, has relatively little benefit (there is a little, but the DAB is far preferable) and was only proposed because it seemed to me to address all of the concerns of those strongly supporting the HLJC. This now seems not to be the case, I still don't see why not, but there you are. Andrewa (talk) 01:58, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
3. It would have to be this one. With so many people searching for "New York," we should at least make some people happy by taking them somewhere they're looking for, instead of a disambiguation page that helps no one. -- Tavix ^(talk) 02:03, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
4. The city can claim primary topic status as it gets nearly 16,000 views a day compared to 8,000 for the state.[2] I concur with Tavix. We don't want to disappoint readers by sending them to a disambiguation page. I hope I am not voting for a title change. I think the city should stay at New York City. Gulangyu (talk) 10:11, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
5. Weak support per Tavix and Gulanyu. I believe the city should remain at New York City, but a disambiguation page will not really be helpful to any of our readers.--Pharos (talk) 22:20, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

Support for the disambiguation page at this title

1. Enough people will search for both at the "New York" title that it's worth having the disambiguation. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 01:54, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
2. While I do agree that more people expect to find the city at "New York" than the state, the numbers are not so overwhelming as to negate the fundamental ambiguity. older ≠ wiser 03:12, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
3. If a move must take place, then this is the only move that would bring about a positive result for readers, as incoming links to the dab page could be periodically checked and specified to their intended destination. With NYC at the base, links intended for the state that instead point to the city would be difficult to detect and incredibly misleading for readers. "New York" links intended for the state will continue to be added, even after a temporary dab period (as suggested by Andrewa) is over - especially given how "New York" is the natural suffix accepted by adhering to WP:USPLACE article title guidelines for localities within the state. Also note that many infoboxes (especially Geoboxes) have fields for "State" and the likelihood that someone would type "New York (state)" in such a field is next to zero. Antepenultimate (talk) 03:25, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
4. I oppose a move, but if one has to happen New York needs to be a disambiguation page. There isn't a primary topic for the city being NY and I'm really not sure if you call it the WP:COMMONNAME either. Taylor Trescott - ^{my talk} + _{my edits} 05:53, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
5. This is by far the safest option. While it could be argued that people are more likely to be looking for the city (as shown by the readership statistics linked above), a direct link to that article might have the same ambiguity problems, and wrong incoming links would be equally difficult to fix. Disambiguation pages are a great resource as they allow readers to navigate to the article they (not WP editors) have in mind, let's use them for good. Diego (talk) 09:31, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
6. It is clear to me that if either of the two concepts is PTOPIC then it is the city, not the state. The city is number one in most measures for global city status, and is more highly viewed than the state. That said, the state is not unimportant either, with its share of readers, and at this time I think dab page serves better than a WP:PRIMARYREDIRECT or moving NYC here.  — Amakuru (talk) 11:23, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
7. Sorry, but if you do the NY - NY (state) move, you're going to have a whole lot of state mislinks based on changing the status quo that's been in place for a very long time. Pointing NY at a different non-disambiguation page? Sounds like a nightmare. NY being a disambiguation page makes the most sense if it happens. (Can I ask what is exactly accomplished by redirecting "New York" to the disambiguated state as I've seen talked about above?) Nohomersryan (talk) 16:43, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
8. Reluctantly. I think there'd be a big clean up effort to disambiguate all of those links — MusikAnimal ^talk 18:05, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
   • I would note that such an effort is needed anyway, as there are a substantial proportion of incorrect links. bd2412 T 18:08, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
9. Any move of "New York" to the NYC page, while unpreferred, would be much more hazardous than moving to a disambig page. People linking "New York" in many articles would expect it to direct to the state, especially if writing "The town of [[XXX]], [[New York]]". ɱ (talk) · vbm · coi) 19:32, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
10. Seems like the best alternative. It is not as if New York State is completely dwarfed in significance -- or, as others have pointed out, in Wikilinks. Clean Copy (talk) 21:55, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
11. It can go either way. Most of the links for "New York" mean the state, but a large minority mean the city. A dab page is the best way to weed out these links. Also, both are very important topics, though the city may seem more so, but it's not like one article has 10 daily views and the other has ten thousand. Kylo Ren (talk) 22:58, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
12. There are many links intending the city that are currently pointing to "New York". Make "New York" a dab page so everything get sent to the intended article. Plantdrew (talk) 02:56, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

Support for a broad concept page on geographic uses of "New York" at this title

1. No, instead prefer a broad concept page on history of uses of "New York" at this title. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:12, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

Process

Advertisement of discussion

• FYI I have advertised the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject United States, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Geography, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cities, Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (geographic names) and Wikipedia talk:Article titles; it was already advertised at the New York and New York City wikiprojects and at Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation. — JFG ^talk 02:14, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

Closing panel

As suggested by some editors in the move review, it would seem wise to appoint a 3-person closing panel in order to reach a solid outcome and avoid accusations of supervoting. I would suggest picking 2 uninvolved admins and 1 uninvolved page mover, at random among any volunteers. Volunteers can list themselves here. — JFG ^talk 02:14, 20 July 2016 (UTC)