Talk:New York

Requested move 7 July 2017

• New York (disambiguation) → New York
• New York → New York (state)

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

Consequently, the existing disambiguation page must be moved to the base title "New York", and the state article requires a qualifier to distinguish it from the city and other uses of the term. A July 2016 discussion on preferred qualifiers has shown overwhelming support for New York (state) vs New York State or State of New York as a destination title. The change will ease navigation and search for readers, and will bring consistency with similar cases such as Washington (state) vs Washington, D.C. and Georgia (U.S. state) vs Georgia (country).  — Amakuru (talk) 11:36, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

Arguments and evidence in favor of the proposed move

New York State is not the primary topic for the term "New York"

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

New York City cannot be considered primary topic either

While New York City receives roughly twice the traffic of New York State [1] – adding the visits for "New York" and "New York (state)" which are currently synonyms – we cannot conclude either that it is much more likely than any other topic, and more likely than all the other topics combined, to be the topic sought when a reader searches for that term, as would be required to become primary topic under our WP:PTOPIC guideline. New York City and New York State are the top two dominant topics for the term "New York", and they are accordingly given top billing in the dab page.

Internal links to New York are ambiguous

Over 10+ years, the encyclopedia had accumulated hundreds of thousands of ambiguous or incorrect links to the ambiguous "New York" title. Since last summer, a gigantic collective effort has been underway to correct the wrong links and vindicate the right ones; this involved a combination of manual labour, bot programming and editorial discussions. The situation is not solved, and requires constant maintenance and patrolling (hat tip to bd2412 who has volunteered to maintain things, but this is unsustainable).

When New York becomes a dab page, editors linking there will be warned and offered a choice between the potential meanings, and bots will assist in maintenance automatically, as they do for every ambiguous title in the project. Disambiguation of internal links has already helped people find directly the page they want to read instead of first going through the New York state page, which is quite bulky.

Clarify search results and educate readers

Sample search results for New York by typing "new y…" in the search box on the English Wikipedia.
We can't readily find the State of New York because it's just called "New York"; it would be clearer to see "New York (state)" among the other listed items.

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

Results and page previews from external search engines will also be clearer with "New York (state)" appearing alongside "New York City"; see for example a search on Google.

Arguments and evidence against the proposed move

New York is the official name of the state

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

The move would harm the New York state article

It has been suggested in the 2016 discussion that this change would harm the visibility of the New York state article and reduce its page views; this has not been confirmed by experience when the move was performed in July 2016. Since then, the traffic to the state and city pages has been relatively stable when we add visits to the "New York" title with visits via the "New York (state)" redirect put in place to correct internal links.[2]

Traffic may indeed decrease a little after the move, but the only traffic the state page will "lose" is traffic that was meant for the city page or another one among the dab entries. With regard to visibility, a clear "New York (state)" title in the search box will indeed make the state article more visible to casual readers.

New York State contains New York City

It has been argued that New York should have primacy over New York City as a higher-level jurisdiction. However, this consideration does not help readers, and the encyclopedia has several cases which go both ways. For example, Lagos (city) is primary topic against Lagos State although Lagos State is a higher-level jurisdiction; same for São Paulo vs São Paulo (state) in English, although we have the opposite situation in Portuguese, with the state considered primary pt:São Paulo vs pt:São Paulo (cidade).

Status quo is no problem

Some editors have argued that the long-standing status quo has proven stable and therefore should not be changed: "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". The reality is that:

• The status quo actually creates many problems: wrong links, surprise effect, loading of a large page, hatnote invisible on mobile app, search box unclear, etc.
• Arguing that several prior discussions have upheld the status quo is misleading: most of those discussions had identified substantive issues, and the change was not enforced because there was no sufficient consensus or because there were too many possibilities to choose from.
• We are facing an absurd historical situation – dating from 2001 – of a non-primary topic occupying the subject name. "Old habits die hard: occupy New York!"

This proposal makes a reasonable case that consensus can change; improvement to the encyclopedia should not be blocked by status quo stonewalling.

Title choice for the state article

WP:ATDAB suggests a number of ways to qualify the title of the state article. The best choice is a matter of opinion. This proposal suggests New York (state) for five reasons:

1. retains the state's common name per WP:COMMONNAME, qualified as necessary
2. consistency with Washington (state), Chihuahua (state), Rio de Janeiro (state) and many others
3. clarity: New York (state) appears to be the most concise unambiguous title
4. technical convenience: New York (state) is an existing redirect and is already used for most links to the state article
5. strong consensus in a prior discussion about the preferred title in case the New York article is moved

Survey on the proposed move

Please indicate your Support or Oppose opinion with a brief rationale. Longer arguments should go to the #Discussion of the proposed move section below.

• Comment - I launched this move request following extensive discussions with numerous editors at Talk:New York/Proposed move. The main author of the above nomination text was not me, but User:JFG, so I am the nominator because I pushed the final launch button. I am in full support of the above rationale, however. If possible, I would like to request that this RM be closed by an uninvolved administrator rather than a page mover or non-admin, due to the contentious nature of this request and the history of RMs on this topic. Thanks!  — Amakuru (talk) 11:45, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

  I have notified the following WikiProjects: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject New York · Wikipedia talk:WikiProject New York City · Wikipedia talk:WikiProject United States · Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Disambiguation · Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Geography. If anyone can think of other groups or projects that may be interested in this, please consider notifying them so we get as wide a response as possible.  — Amakuru (talk) 12:01, 7 July 2017 (UTC) – Notified Talk:New York City on your behalf; hope you don't mind my impersonating you, it's for a good cause.

Support

Please indicate support in this section, with a brief statement explaining your position. Please take care not to break the numbering of the section. Extended discussion, including responses to opinions noted here, should occur in the "discussion" section below. Editors may move improperly placed materials to that section, with an appropriate subhead.

1. Support based on evidence and rationale given in the nom. It's pretty clear that there is no overwhelming primary topic for the undisambiguated name, so pointing it to the disambiguation page is the most logical target. Meanwhile, the article on the state needs disambiguation, and the "(state)" form is a) consistent with other similar cases and b) has a technical advantage regarding piping of links. oknazevad (talk) 12:23, 7 July 2017 (UTC)
2. Support. All I would add to the above at this point are two observations: first, to note that for nearly a year now, I have been fixing incoming links to "New York" pursuant to the consensus in discussion at Talk:New York#Proposed action to resolve incorrect incoming links, consistently finding that 20-30% of new links being made clearly intend the city (with about 1% of new links being made intending something else entirely, most commonly the magazine). Second, a person born in "New York City" in 1665 could have lived there until he was 108, without ever being in the state of New York, because although the city existed during that period, the state did not - which crops up as an issue from time to time with links referencing New York prior to the American Revolution. bd2412 T 12:33, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

   There was a Province of New York, though. It was created and named as such in 1664, the same time the city was renamed. epicgenius (talk) 16:44, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

   Indeed, and sometimes links are made that specifically intend the Province, not the state. bd2412 T 17:36, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

3. Support per nom. For the reader typing in New York, the disambiguation page provides the best destination, consistent with the several policies quoted and with other ambiguous titles in Wikipedia. It's good that editors are constantly mending links, but much better for everyone if they don't need to. Certes (talk) 12:54, 7 July 2017 (UTC)
4. Support per nom. To be frank, I'd also support the city being the primary topic, but I think this is the best solution as both are significant topics in their own right. --Bermicourt (talk) 12:59, 7 July 2017 (UTC)
5. Support per the reasons given in the nomination. The only reasons I can think of why people are against are because it is a change to the current state, and that it may make it inconsistencies with other states and cities. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 13:04, 7 July 2017 (UTC)
6. Support per nom and the preceding comments. User:BD2412 identifies a common problem when there's no clear WP:PRIMARYTOPIC - bad links are created and no-one notices, which is bad both for the encyclopaedia and for its readers. As a similar example, Vinyl was recently converted from a redirect to Vinyl group into a DAB page. The change was unquestionably correct. It broke over 700 links - of which only about 50 related to the original target. Narky Blert (talk) 13:48, 7 July 2017 (UTC)
7. Support. The question right now is not whether New York City is primary topic, but that New York State clearly is not. From a global perspective, New York Metropolitan Area may also have a claim, and serves at least as a spoiler for the New York City article which is currently scoped to the five boroughs. But the question here is just whether this RM will improve Wikipedia, and it clearly will, both with respect to reader experience and also with respect to compliance to policies and guidelines... which is not unexpected and just as well, as these policies and guidelines represent wide community consensus on the best way to produce good reader experience. Andrewa (talk) 13:49, 7 July 2017 (UTC)
8. Support. For all the reasons stated in nom, but especially the reduction in creation of new links to "New York" that are not disambiguated by editors. Loopy30 (talk) 15:41, 7 July 2017 (UTC)
9. Support. Community consensus has waited a long time for these page renames. Both the Wikipedia:Article titles#Disambiguation policy and the Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Is there a primary topic? guideline, together with the August 2016 Request for Comment all show beyond any shadow of doubt that the consensus of the community is to make these page moves. There have been no strong policy/guideline-based reasons given to keep these pages at their present titles in any previous discussion.  Paine Ellsworth  ^put'r there  16:15, 7 July 2017 (UTC)
10. Support, since any new links to New York are already being disambiguated. This would just make it easier to distinguish these links. I still think NY State is the primary topic, though. Like Mexico vs. Mexico City or Oklahoma vs. Oklahoma City, but disambiguation will help even more than the status quo. epicgenius (talk) 16:33, 7 July 2017 (UTC)
11. Support. I'm persuaded by the excellent rationale, and I'd like to thank the nominators for taking the time to draft it. Mackensen (talk) 17:15, 7 July 2017 (UTC)
12. Support. The term "New York" is unquestionably ambiguous. Even the state government website disambiguates to clarify which is meant. older ≠ wiser 17:17, 7 July 2017 (UTC)
13. Support It is standard practice that when a term is ambiguous, we create a disambiguation page. "New York" is clearly so. Not a fan of "New York (state)" instead of "New York State" per WP:NATURALDIS, but it's still better than the current setup. – Train2104 (t • c) 22:49, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

    In what way is it better? Who is helped by this? Nobody gets anywhere faster. Srnec (talk) 00:32, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

    A few billion people with slow or expensive data connections will indeed get there faster, by loading a 5-kilobyte dab page and reading its first two lines, rather than waiting for a 2.3-megabyte state page with images. They may even miss the light-grey hatnote, which is displayed after 3 or 4 screenfuls of the lead section when using Wikipedia's mobile app. See Talk:New York/July 2016 move request#Mobile app users can't see hatnotes. — JFG ^talk 01:36, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

    We should not decide page titles based on flawed app design. The hatnote appears at the top on the mobile version. And as Station1 has shown below, it is not as if most users get to the city article by using Wikipedia's search function. Certainly we are not talking about billions of people here. Srnec (talk) 01:43, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

    We should decide page titles based on all available data, all the facts, and of course on the consensus of the Wikipedia community, particularly the article titles policy and most particularly WP:ATDIS, which is a strong community consensus that supports these page renames.  Paine Ellsworth  ^put'r there  02:54, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

    This RM cannot solve the readers' current problem by changing the app, but it can solve it by moving the DAB. (And not convinced that the app design is flawed in any case... the results are not good but there may be constraints on the design which we have not considered. In my experience it's a sound principle of software support to fix the problem you understand, and the problems you don't understand often then just go away as a result.) Andrewa (talk) 14:09, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

Oppose

Please indicate opposition in this section, with a brief statement explaining your position. Please take care not to break the numbering of the section. Extended discussion, including responses to opinions noted here, should occur in the "discussion" section below. Editors may move improperly placed materials to that section, with an appropriate subhead.

1. Oppose. (a) New York covers the entire history of New York, including the 150+ years before it became a state in 1776, so proposed title is less accurate.

   (b) Proposed title is less natural, less concise, and less consistent than current title (policy at WP:AT).

   (c) No one wants to land on a dab page. Only roughly 2.5% of readers landing on New York actually want New York City (based on 2010 hatnote experiment). Making New York a dab page does not benefit them (they have to click through either way), while inconveniencing those who really do want New York. Station1 (talk) 15:37, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

   @Station1: Would you care to share a link to this 2010 hatnote experiment? Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 15:53, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

   Please see last few paragraphs of next to last section of Talk:New York/Archive 4. - Station1 (talk) 16:10, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

   @Station1: 2010 is too distant in the past. Can you find similar data with 2016?? Georgia guy (talk) 17:34, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

   Unfortunately, no. The experiment would have to be re-run. There's no reason to expect the results would be grossly different, though. Station1 (talk) 17:47, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

   One of the arguments made in the previous discussion was that moving the disambiguation page to the base title would be a good way to assess how popular is each article nowadays (without the distortion introduced by having one of them at the base name), giving us real recent data of readers' expectations.

   And if I remember correctly, during the previous move discussion there was a brief period while the disambiguation page was placed at New York; and it showed a large percentage of readers searching for the city, not the state. Could someone find those statistics and post them at the Discuss section below? Diego (talk) 18:13, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

   (edit conflict) There's no question that New York City gets significantly more pageviews than New York. Those numbers are easily obtainable[3]. The question is how the current set-up distorts those numbers and the answer is it raises New York's pageviews by a small percentage. Further discussion below. Station1 (talk) 18:41, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

   I've started a couple of subsections below for these discussions. Certes (talk) 18:37, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

   • (Discussion previously below this point moved to "WP:AT" subsection under Discussion. bd2412 T 21:18, 7 July 2017 (UTC))
2. Oppose - This is a solution looking for a problem. This is nothing wrong with the status quo. which serves our readers well. Beyond My Ken (talk) 16:48, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

   There is plenty wrong with the status quo! The status quo actually creates many problems: wrong links, surprise effect, loading of a large page, hatnote invisible on mobile app, search box unclear, etc. All this has been explained in the above proposal rationale. Please take the blinders off your race horse.  Paine Ellsworth  ^put'r there  20:14, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

   If you're attempting to get me to reconsider my opinion, insulting me is unlikely to achieve your goal, nor is treating me as if I'm a simpleton who can't properly evaluate a proposal. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:55, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

   I know you are no simpleton, believe me. I have a good, healthy respect for you, BMK, please believe that also. That's why I thought it better to insult your horse.  Paine Ellsworth  ^put'r there  23:07, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

   @Beyond My Ken: In the 2010 debate, you supported exactly what is being proposed now, writing: *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).[4] Why do you now think status quo is better? — JFG ^talk 22:13, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

   Now, you see, that's a good way to get someone to reconsider! Very good question, JFG, one I'll have to ponder a bit. Thanks for bringing my previous opinion to my attention. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:55, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

   Further discussion moved to #Should New York City be primary instead? below.

3. Oppose per BMK. We also have a very clear policy based reason to not disambiguate: New York City has the wonderful natural disambiguator of City. The State is the primary topic here, just as Quebec, Mexico, and Oklahoma are. TonyBallioni (talk) 17:18, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

   Just want to point out my change of opinion (if not change of !vote) above. Also, the reason that Quebec, Oklahoma, and Mexico are not good parallels to New York is that Quebec City, Oklahoma City, and Mexico City simply do not have the same world status that New York City does. (Of them, Mexico City comes closest, but I don't believe I've ever heard the city referred to as just "Mexico" in the way that New York City is very frequently referred to as "New York".) Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:49, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

   Beyond My Ken, thanks for the reply. I've struck my per. I think Quebec is analogous because it is referred to solely by that name. I'd agree with you on no other similarly patterned city having the world status of NYC, but I still think there is a case from consistency here. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:27, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

   Further discussion moved to #Consistency or lack thereof below.

4. Oppose. I do not think this will improve reader experience. I would prefer swapping the city for the state as primary topic to making a dab page primary. Our dab pages are ugly and often filled with articles that only a tiny proportion of users are looking for. This dab page will be among the worst for that, crowded with items when almost all its visitors are looking for one of two. The hatnote does the work much better and nobody (readers) loses. The problems with bad links are internal ones that should be fixed out of sight. Srnec (talk) 18:40, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

   Probably won't change your mind, Srnec, and yet I'm willing to try: Yes, this will improve reader experience. As an avid reader of Wikipedia myself, I can tell you that I'd much rather land on a useful, relatively short dab page than to land on a long, slow loading page that turns out to be the wrong page. The NYC page might very well be the primary topic, and that would be a useful discussion for a future Rfc or even RM. For now, all we know is that there is a strong community consensus that the state page is not the primary topic, so the policy's community consensus at WP:ATDIS supports titling the dab page with the raw NY title. The NY dab page does have several links, and all of them should be to the many notable things that may also be referred to as just "New York". Yet take note that the two articles that are most wanted by readers are right there at the top of the dab page. So it takes much less time to find what you want on the 5,190-byte dab page than it does on the 167,607-byte state page. I just noticed that the state page is 32.3 times as long as the dab page. Also, the problems with the bad links are definitely internal ones; however, thus far the only way to fix them is to monitor them almost daily. These page moves will fix those internal problems, so unless you have a better solution, then please support these page moves!  Paine Ellsworth  ^put'r there  20:44, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

5. Oppose. Why is this under discussion? The reams of July 2016 discussion appear clear enough that the (endorsed!) conclusion was "no consensus for move". That was a year ago, and a much less frequented discussion the next month says there is no primary topic? Note that I didn't participate in either, and that I find the larger discussion's endorsement of the status quo much more palatable than the smaller, follow-up pretense for this double jeopardy. With no new evidence/rationale since last year's discussion, I don't see what there is to discuss. I don't think our naming precedent should be set by new links to New York backtraced and tallied to the authors' intentions. "New York" in sources can be contextual, but when something is from "New York", it more often refers to the larger locale—the same as Luxembourg and Luxembourg City. The state, by its common name, is the primary topic for "New York". Further, on reader experience, if we are concerned about visitors to New York who indeed seek New York City, the hatnote atop the state article performs the same function as moving the dab to the primary topic (with the added benefit of the state page being far more informative on the main uses of "New York" than a cluttered dab page). So while it's only my opinion that I see no material benefit from this proposal, the undertones of crusade in this proposal are incontrovertible. It's misleading to have this discussion on this talk page rather than the other more populated page (like every prior discussion...), so we miss out on its (collapsed) FAQ and the nine previous move discussions it mentions. It's time to make that FAQ crystal clear, add a prominent {{Round in circles}} like the one at Talk:Sega Genesis, and "stop changing it".  czar 05:46, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

   This is under discussion, czar, because it would be better to discuss it rather than just to go ahead and do the right thing and rename the pages sans discussion. So here we are, discussing it. It's okay for you to see this as some sort of pipe dream on the part of supporters – that is certainly a valid opinion; however, it's also okay to propose these page moves as little as six months after a "no consensus" decision, and this proposal waited a year. Are you unaware of those facts? Our naming precedent should be set by the facts, all the facts, and the fact that thousands and thousands of links were malplaced and therefore misled readers is an important fact among several other facts as depicted in the proposal rationale above. Whether the state or the city is the primary topic has been debated at length – these page moves have the very real potential to settle that argument. This talk page was chosen over the NY talk page so that all participating editors will not have to deal with the many other discussions that appear there. The notice left there by the bot suffices to let involved editors know about this proposal, doesn't it? Yes, it is most definitely time to stop going 'round in circles and finally, after sixteen years, finally do the right thing. Please help by being part of the solution.  Paine Ellsworth  ^put'r there  06:52, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

   The "right thing" has already been done. No, I don't think it's useful to relitigate a well-attended discussion without new evidence/rationale—not in a year, not in ten. No, I don't find the proposal compelling. czar 06:57, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

   If the previous RM had been closed as "don't move" then I could agree with Czar. However, it was never closed in the usual way, and what passed for closure had the panel split between "move" and "no consensus". No one saw a consensus for keeping the status quo. In these circumstances, I believe it is fair to revisit the matter a year later. Certes (talk) 08:38, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

   Czar, there is new evidence. There is the August 2016 RfC which found that New York State is not the primary topic. This information was not available to the closers of the second 2016 RM, two of whom were clearly in doubt as to this (the third found consensus to move but was outvoted it seems). Andrewa (talk) 09:36, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

   Sorry, but it smells like sour grapes to this outsider. The August "discussion" didn't have anywhere near the circulation as the behemoth July move discussion, and I had already expressed my views of its flaws in my original post above. It has no "new" information but instead attempts to circumvent the validity of the "no consensus" July close through a smaller, proxy discussion (indeed, look at how it was started). "No consensus" isn't something that needs to be fixed—it's a valid expression of will. I'm not surprised that the same editors in opposition to the current setup have continued to make opportunities to revisit the same discussion, the same way that I'm not surprised at the incorrigible tenaciousness of each oppose-pester thread on any divided discussion, the same arguments recurring endlessly, but that means it's up to the rest of us non-page-watching, occasional RfC participants to reiterate how the treatment is worse than the cure and reaffirm our less-imperfect-than-maligned status quo. I don't see anything further to discuss, but if need be, please split to a specific topical discussion below. czar 14:43, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

6. Oppose a biased poll. I'll elaborate on my position on the title when I actually have time, but I'd like to note that this vote is far biased by only presenting one viewpoint and bashing the other. I thought Wikipedians knew about objective and fair voting/consensus? Also, the first lines have inaccuracies, the votes mostly ended with no consensus/status quo. I highly object to such a slanted vote. Imagine if the US ballot sheets slandered Clinton and glorified Trump for all voters... ɱ (talk) · vbm · coi) 12:38, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

   This is a RM and doesn't need to be neutrally worded like an RFC. Indeed, one would expect the person nominating a page for a move to present the argument for the move in the first place. oknazevad (talk) 13:16, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

Discussion of the proposed move

Debate goes here.

• Comment - I've created Talk:New York (disambiguation)/Meta, a sub-page for ongoing off-topic discussions that don't directly address the merits for or against the move. I request all editors that if a discussion goes on a tangent you continue it there, and keep this discussion centered around the move request itself. Diego (talk) 12:10, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

2010 hatnote experiment

An experiment documented near the end of Talk:New York/Archive 4#Perplexed counted clicks on the hatnote at the top of New York which links to New York City. During the only day when the experiment ran for the full 24 hours, New York had 13,586 views, New York City 22,750 and the hatnote link just 473.

We don't know how many of the state's 13,586 views came as a result of a search for the term New York and how many from a wikilink or external link deliberately targeted at the state. We also don't know how many readers beyond those 473 wanted the city but failed to click the hatnote for some reason, especially on the mobile site where hatnotes are less prominent.

Passing this RM would allow a similar experiment on links from the dab page which could provide more useful information. Certes (talk) 18:35, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

The experiment actually ran two full days, 12 and 13 Nov. It's not really relevant where the views came from, the experiment was to show how many people were on the wrong page. It's true some people mistakenly on New York might not have clicked on the hatnote for some reason, but it's safe to assume they were an even smaller number than those who did click (and I'm not sure the mobile site even existed in 2010). It's also true some people might have clicked the hatnote just to get to NYC even though they were on the right page.

It's not necessary to pass this RM to conduct a similar experiment. That could be done whether or not this RM passes. Station1 (talk) 18:56, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

2016 page move experiment

A further experiment is recorded at Talk:New York/July 2016 move request#Readership statistics while New York was moved to New York (state). Note that the linked graph shows sixty days up to today. Change the date range to something like 6/1/2016 - 8/1/2016 to make it relevant to the text. Certes (talk) 18:35, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

New York covers the entire history of New York

New York covers the entire history of New York, including the 150+ years before it became a state in 1776, so proposed title is less accurate. Not really, the topic of the current New York article is the State. We could rescope the New York article to a BCA and then create a new article on the state, but it's far less trouble and causes less disruption to the article history to do this move and convert the DAB if that is the intention. Andrewa (talk) 20:48, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

New York is already a broad-concept article, covering its entire history (including its pre-statehood history) and entire territory (including NYC). That's another reason its title should retain the broadest possible meaning. Station1 (talk) 21:17, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

A broad-concept article is about a general topic, and the state of New York article is specifically about the state, its history, its contents, everything that is known and can be included in an article that is so much longer than any broad-concept article. Writing a broad-concept article and titling it with the bare "New York" name was discussed in the 2016 requested move, but nobody seemed to like the idea. I seem to remember one editor stating that the state article had served well as an "impromptu" broad-concept article, but that was soundly rebutted. Broad-concept articles are general and concise, and the state article is neither.  Paine Ellsworth  ^put'r there  23:38, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

Proposed title is less natural, less concise, and less consistent than current title (policy at WP:AT)

Reply: That is not the spirit or intention of WP:AT. I suppose it could be similarly argued that any disambiguator makes the title less natural, less concise. Andrewa (talk) 20:43, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

Yes, any parenthetical disambiguator is less natural and less concise. That's why they should be used only when necessary. In this case it's not necessary. Station1 (talk) 20:59, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

It is necessary because the current title is ambiguous and so cannot be used for the article on the state. This clear policy is of course supported by the practical considerations... as one would hope. The guidelines are normally correct, and surely the onus of proof is on those who wish an exception to continue to be made. Andrewa (talk) 21:32, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

"Continue to be made". Why should the onus be on those who want the longstanding status quo? Doesn't the fact of its existence and longstanding show that, at the very least, there is consensus that the cited policy does not apply here and never did? The onus is on those who need to show that after all these years strictly applying the primary topic policy will improve the encyclopedia. Srnec (talk) 01:47, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

I think you're right in this case, that the onus is on all of us who want to improve this encyclopedia, not just on those who oppose this proposal. The status quo has not served Wikipedia well. There were thousands and thousands of malplaced links, links editors made to "New York" but they should have gone to the city article or some other "New York" – thousands and thousands of malplaced links over the last sixteen years or so. This is not even close to what can be called acceptable, especially when the malplaced links continue to be made. At least after this proposal passes consensus muster, DPL bot will notify users to fix their malplaced links so they won't have to be fixed by bd2412, as is happening right now, usually everyday. And those of us with dab scripts (mine turns links to dab pages the color orange) will find it easy to fix malplaced links that don't get fixed otherwise. There is no excuse to let this situation continue the way it is when it can be so easily fixed by these page renames!  Paine Ellsworth  ^put'r there  02:20, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

All those malplaced links would have been equally malplaced under the current setup and equally inconvenienced readers. I do not believe a change like this should happen in order to make it easier on editors to fix mistakes. What's more, making the city primary would also fix the problem. How does a dab page fix anything? It just makes one task easier for editors. That's not putting readers first. Srnec (talk) 03:43, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

All those malplaced links actually were malplaced under the current setup! The current setup is what caused the problem and continues to do so. And this is not a case of "Hey, let's make it easier on editors." All those malplaced links meant that READERS who wanted to read about the city or the sports team clicked on "New York" and landed on the wrong article, the article about the state! And if bd2412 weren't still fixing malplaced New York links on an almost daily basis, READERS would still be landing on the state page instead of on the article they really want to read! What's more, making the city the PT at this point would only make the problem worse. bd2412 has found that of the 15–20 new links to "New York" checked each day, about 2/3 (10–13) are meant for the state article and about 1/3 (5–7) are meant for the city (a small few of that 1/3 are meant for other things "New York"). So at this point in time, if NYC is made the PT, instead of having to fix 5–7 malplaced links everyday, twice that many would need to be fixed, because 2/3 of the links would take readers to the city article when they actually wanted to read about the state. The only thing that fixes this for the readers is to title the dab page with the bare NY title. Then DPL bot will take over the task of notifying editors who make a "New York" dab link to fix it.  Paine Ellsworth  ^put'r there  05:29, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

See also #WP:AT discussion below. Andrewa (talk) 21:36, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

I think this is a good place to note that a change of page names from "New York" to "New York (state)" is not actually a title change. The state article will still be titled "New York" – the sole difference is that it will be disambiguated by the "(state)" qualifier. The title doesn't change, just the ambiguity, which is eliminated.  Paine Ellsworth  ^put'r there  02:48, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

No trouble found

This is a solution looking for a problem. This is nothing wrong with the status quo. which serves our readers well: This !vote should simply be discarded in terms of wp:closing as offering no valid rationale. Both practicality and policy support the move. Andrewa (talk) 20:55, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

"Serving our readers well" sounds like the best possible rationale to me. Station1 (talk) 21:21, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

Yes... if the claim had any basis, it would be a good argument. Andrewa (talk) 22:25, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

@Andrewa: Please do not go into tangents about which opinions should be valid or discarded: this is the prerogative of the eventual closer of the discussion. This particular "nothing wrong" objection is addressed in the move rationale, it should be sufficient to point this out and ask for a refutation of said rationale. — JFG ^talk 22:19, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

Good point. Apologies. That bit struck out. Andrewa (talk) 22:25, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

WP:AT discussion

The following was moved from below Station1's !vote in the Oppose section. bd2412 T 21:19, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

It is worthy to note that the policy you cite, WP:AT, has a section about disambiguation that shows that the community consensus represented by the "Article titles" policy fully supports these page renames. "No one wants to land on a dab page." All it takes is one reader to disprove this statement. I am an avid reader of Wikipedia, and I would prefer to land on a dab page rather than the wrong page!  Paine Ellsworth  ^put'r there  20:07, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

Do you really want to land on a dab page, or would you rather land on the correct article? The proposed move would force some people who land on the correct page for them (New York) to wind up on a dab page instead, with no countervailing benefit to those landing on the incorrect article. Station1 (talk) 20:34, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

Do you really want to land on a dab page, or would you rather land on the correct article? I would greatly prefer landing on a dab page rather than a ~167,000 byte or ~323,000 byte (not counting images and transclusions) WRONG article. older ≠ wiser 20:43, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I understand you would rather land on a dab page than the wrong article, but the move would force some people to land on the dab page rather than the right article. Why are they less important? Station1 (talk) 20:49, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

Interesting perspective; however please think again about that. Because what you're saying is that it's okay to make a significant number of readers land on a 167,000+ byte wrong page, but it's not okay to make another significant number of readers land on the dab page that will get them to the page they seek with just one click.  Paine Ellsworth  ^put'r there  21:10, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

Neither number is significant, relatively. Please see below. Station1 (talk) 21:42, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

Yes, of course readers would rather land on the correct article over a dab page. The problem here has been a problem with a lot of article titles on Wikipedia: they were all too ambiguous and might apply to other things, so there were a significant number of readers who would land on the wrong page. That is so easily fixed by following the community consensuses at WP:ATDIS and WP:PTOPIC. An ambiguous title like "New York", which can refer to so many different things, really should be the title of the dab page.  Paine Ellsworth  ^put'r there  20:59, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

We agree on the theory but not how it applies to this article. You say "the problem here..." is that there are "a significant number of readers who would land on the wrong page." I say 3% is not significant when we consider the downside of people who really want New York being forced to a dab page. Station1 (talk) 21:07, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

Glad we can agree. Don't know what you mean by "3%" when it has already been established that the city article gets about twice as many page views as the state?  Paine Ellsworth  ^put'r there  21:14, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

3% is the very approximate number of people who land on New York who really want to be on New York City instead. Station1 (talk) 21:42, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

Forgive me, but that's incredible. What that means is that of the twice as many readers who view the city article, fully 97% landed on that city page without first having to view the state page. Since in view of the fact that about 2/3 of the links that editors make to "New York" are actually meant for the state article, and about 1/3 of those links are malplaced and must be fixed, because their context reveals that they were meant to link to the city article, perhaps you would show where that 3% figure comes from? How was it derived?  Paine Ellsworth  ^put'r there  22:36, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

Incredible but true! Yes, 97% of readers of New York City get there without first viewing New York, and that won't change whatever the outcome of this proposal. That's one reason why this move is so unimportant. It will only adversely affect viewers of New York, while helping no viewers of New York City. The methodology is explained in the "2010 hatnote experiment" section above. The large majority of readers get to the right article through search engines and other external links. A smaller number get to articles from the search box and its dropdown menu. Those people, who want the city, would have to type "New York" and enter before the dropdown menu appears in order to wind up on the wrong article. Wikilinks to New York but that intended NYC might be the least likely method to get to the wrong page. Just as I know what London, Paris, and even Melbourne are without clicking on a wikilink, relatively few people will click on a link to New York because they already know what NYC is. New York City is probably one of the most WP:OVERLINKED places on WP. Station1 (talk) 23:52, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

And this is all based on a 2-day experiment that was made 7 years ago? Don't change, we love you as you are.  Paine Ellsworth  ^put'r there  00:09, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

Do you have some reason to believe the results would be significantly different if a longer experiment were done today? Double, triple, or even quadruple the results if you like. The point still holds. Station1 (talk) 00:29, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

I do find it intriguing. While I have no reason to believe the results would be different, there is also no reason to believe they might not be significantly more than 3%. Seven years is a significant period of time, and two days hardly seems long enough to yield conclusive results.  Paine Ellsworth  ^put'r there  01:02, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

I believe the results may be significantly different if we conducted a different experiment, to count clicks from the dab page New York to the state and city pages. Certes (talk) 01:05, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

Side note: I've been fixing incoming links to New York for nearly a year now. Over the course of that time, I have fixed over 20,000 links clearly intended to point to the city. bd2412 T 21:15, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

@Station1: I for one really want to land on a dab page when I don't know what may exist. I happened to know that there is a state called New York besides this city but I didn't know there was a state called São Paulo besides that city. A dab page educates me in 1/10th of a second, whereas a content page which has a 50/50 chance of not being what I want is disappointing at best, misleading at worst. If I read Wikipedia on a recycled 5-year-old phone over my metered, pay-by-the-kilobyte-with-a-scratch-card Internet access in upstate Lagos, I really really do want to load a 5k dab page rather than a 2.3-megabyte article about New York state (that's how much it weighs including pictures). Think of the 5 billion people who do not have the luxury of a fast or cheap data connection: we must do our best to help all readers. — JFG ^talk 22:36, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

See also #Proposed title is less natural, less concise, and less consistent than current title (policy at WP:AT) above. Andrewa (talk) 21:37, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

Consistency or lack thereof

Discussion ensuing from the Oppose !vote of TonyBallioni

(Reminder) Oppose per BMK. We also have a very clear policy based reason to not disambiguate: New York City has the wonderful natural disambiguator of City. The State is the primary topic here, just as Quebec, Mexico, and Oklahoma are. TonyBallioni (talk) 17:18, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

We have a particularly recent consensus establishing that the state is not the primary topic for this title, as explained first thing in the nomination. The WP:Disambiguation requires not only that other articles have a different title, but that they are much less likely to be named with the ambiguous name; and "New York" is quite often used to refer to the city.

WP:Consensus can change in this respect of course, but this would require that roughly all the strong arguments in this discussion favored seeing the state as the primary topic; given how recently we dediced the opposite, it doesn't seem likely. Diego (talk) 18:06, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

We also have a very clear policy based reason to not disambiguate:

Yet you fail to cite that "policy"! Please point us to that policy that you say is a reason to not disambiguate.  Paine Ellsworth  ^put'r there  20:18, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

As observed by others, this !vote is simply based on an untruth. Andrewa (talk) 21:01, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

Please see WP:NATURAL for one policy based reason: New York City is naturally disambiguated. WP:CONSISTENCY would have us keep the highest jurisdiction at the primary topic title (see the examples above). TonyBallioni (talk) 21:41, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

WP:NATURAL has nothing to do with these page moves. Yes "City" is a natural disambiguator; however, "New York" has no disambiguation, natural or otherwise. If the proposed move were to "New York State" (which is not the actual name of the state) or to the "State of New York", that would be covered by WP:NATURAL. This proposed move is covered by WP:PARENDIS and WP:ATDIS.

WP:CONSISTENCY? That doesn't seem to say anything at all about keeping the highest jurisdiction at the primary topic title. And even if it did, a 2016 RfC has already shown strong community consensus that the state is not the primary topic. The argument for "highest jurisdiction" is explained and rebutted above.  Paine Ellsworth  ^put'r there  23:02, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

I doubt we will agree on this, but responding to clarify for the closer and anyone else who wishes to read: CONSISTENCY would apply because we consistently keep the higher jurisdiction without disambiguation when there is a city with the same name. Foo would be the state/province/country and Foo City the city. I've linked to several examples above and I think this pattern is best and I don't see a convincing reason to change it from the stable title when the hat note seems to be working fine. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:23, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

@TonyBallioni: Your premise is wrong: as pointed out in the nomination rationale, we have Lagos (city) primary vs Lagos State, São Paulo (city) primary vs São Paulo (state), Moscow (city) primary to Moscow Oblast and Zürich (city) primary to Zürich (canton). In the opposite arrangement, we have indeed Mexico (country) primary to Mexico City, Québec (province) primary to Québec (ville) and Oklahoma (state) primary to Oklahoma City, although I doubt that anybody who says "I live in Oklahoma" ever means the city. The most mind-boggling case I ever encountered is Luxembourg (country) which is primary to Luxembourg City (most often called simply Luxembourg), which itself belongs to Luxembourg (canton) embedded in Luxembourg District, all of those not to be confused with the neighboring Luxembourg province of Belgium. You're welcome. There is no overarching consistency; each case must be evaluated separately. — JFG ^talk 01:14, 8 July 2017 (UTC) French speakers tend to disambiguate Luxembourg with a case of verbal WP:SMALLDETAILS: Je vais au Luxembourg = I'm going to the country, vs. Je vais à Luxembourg = I'm going to the city. Nobody ever goes to Belgian Luxembourg . Aren't languages swell? — JFG ^talk 01:43, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

You're probably right about us agreeing. All I'm asking is that you please consider agreeing with the community consensuses described in the nomination rationale above. That's all I'm asking.  Paine Ellsworth  ^put'r there  02:34, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

I confess I'm confused by the above, TonyBallioni... You are still of the opinion that New York State is the primary topic of New York I understand. And that's fine. But we have now had an RfC that decided that it's not. We should not ignore that, surely? The discussion here can and should assume that the state is not the primary topic. Andrewa (talk) 14:22, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

Should New York City be primary instead?

Discussion ensuing from the Oppose !vote of Beyond My Ken

(Reminder) Oppose - This is a solution looking for a problem. This is nothing wrong with the status quo. which serves our readers well. Beyond My Ken (talk) 16:48, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

@Beyond My Ken: In the 2010 debate, you supported exactly what is being proposed now, writing: *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).[5] Why do you now think status quo is better? — JFG ^talk 22:13, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

My thanks again to JFG for bringing the disparity in my opinions to my attention. I've now had a good hard think about it, and I believe that I was incorrect both in 2010 and now. Let me explain.

I've had decades of experience working in 6 7 countries outside the United States and 26 states outside of New York, and I am completely convinced -- based also on extensive instances in the reading I've done -- that in the vast majority of cases, when someone says "New York", they are referring to New York City, and not to New York State. I'd venture to say that outside of the U.S., the very existence of New York State is known to only a a relatively small segment of the population. If I say to a French person "I live in New York", they will take away that I live in the city -- if I want to convey that I live elsewhere in the state, I would need to say "I live outside of New York City", or "I live in upstate New York", or "I live in Buffalo, in New York State" or something of that sort. If I don't specify, the city is presumed. This is the case I've found in my reading as well -- unless the subject under discussion is clearly the state, any mention of "New York" almost always means the city.

Now, one could say that I'm biased, because I've lived in New York City for 40 years, but, on the other hand, I've lived in New York State my entire 62 years, so I think that balances out. I have almost entirely no horse in this race. (OK, that's not completely true -- the idea of New York City splitting off from the state to become the 51st U.S. state intrigues me, as I believe the city has suffered economically, socially and politically from not having complete Home Rule, and the state legislature, which is controlled by upstate politicians, is more concerned with the less than half of the state's population who live outside the city then they are with the more than half that lives in the city.) However, I've tried to put that aside and simply think about what I've heard and experienced and read, and it's abundantly clear to me: the primary topic of "New York" should be the city. That, of course, means that I continue to oppose the proposed move, but for somewhat different reasons.

Is my "evidence" WP:OR? Of course it is, but I'm not writing an article, I'm giving you the reasoning behind my opinion. You can disagree with me about "New York" being the proper primary topic, of course, but if you disagree that to the wider world "New York" means New York City -- well, not to put too fine a point on it, you'd be wrong. That's not hubris, that's 40+ years of experience.

So, my !vote remains "Oppose". Do I think there's going to be a groundswell of support to make New York City the primary topic? No, I don't. Am I going to yell and pout and scream if this RM passes? No, of course not. (And I would suggest that some of the proponents of the move might like to take a step back and chill a bit -- this is not an earth-shattering issue, and hardly worth losing your cool over.) Can I live with the status quo, sure, I can live with anything -- except my ex-wife. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:39, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

I know you probably don't want to hear from the horse insulter again, but here's the thing. Those of us who actually think that NYC might be the PT would like to see this request pass the consensus muster. If the raw NY title is placed on the dab page, then after a few months we think we'll have a much better handle on whether or not NYC is the PT. And if it is, then more baby steps can be taken to make things "right" as concerns these articles. Hope you'll forgive any perceived bad-boy stuff on my part, because sincerely, none was meant.  Paine Ellsworth  ^put'r there  00:03, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

No forgiveness necessary, it's water under the bridge

That's an interesting way of going about things and, given the way the RM is going, you might have the chance to try it. However, I've noted that when an RM or RfC is passed, people generally don't want to revisit the subject again even after a number of months. Why didn't folks just go about it in a straight-forward manner? I think there's all sorts of real-world data that could be brought to the table showing that the city should be the primary topic. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:15, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

Those of us who participated in the pre-move discussion agonized over whether or not to include NYC as the primary topic in this new RM. Through lots of discussion, I think we all eventually agreed to take "baby steps", since just the idea of any page move that takes the NY bare title away from the state article appears to be too unsettling for some. And some of us just didn't see a lot of community support for NYC as the PT. We also agreed to try this proposal to title the dab page with the bare title and then try to accumulate data that might incontrovertably show either that NYC is definitely the PT, or not the PT. I don't think any of us want this RM to be the very last step; however, many of us agree that it should be an important first step to make things right.  Paine Ellsworth  ^put'r there  00:33, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

Another reason has to do with the malplaced links. Presently, bd2412 is checking new links to NY and fixing those that were meant for NYC. bd2412 has found that about 2/3 of the new links are meant for the state, and about 1/3 are meant for the city. So if presently we either rename NYC to NY or redirect the NY title to the city article, all we will do is to compound the malplaced links challenge, in fact it would be twice as bad. So when this RM proposal is accepted, then we will have time to educate editors, so when and if the time comes to consider NYC as the PT, the malplaced links challenge would no longer exist.  Paine Ellsworth  ^put'r there  00:55, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

It's unclear whether the city is the PT. We would be better informed after a period with New York as a dab, because we could see where readers go from that page. I see the proposal here as a less drastic step than making New York a primary redirect to NYC but I would welcome a further RM on that step after a suitable period. Certes (talk) 01:11, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

Likewise. I was until recently convinced that the primary topic was NYC. Now I'm not so sure. But I am convinced that whether or not that is the case, this move as proposed will improve Wikipedia and so should go ahead. There are several reasons for not proposing the other move, to make the destination of New York the article on the city, at this point in time. One is that globally, New York doesn't mean the state, but neither does it mean just the five boroughs. Metlife Stadium is in New York so far as many of us are concerned. Another is that from a practical point of view, this move seems to give writers and those who clean up after them the most immediate help, and they seem to need it! And yet another is that even if it is later decided that the city is the primary topic, this move followed by a further RM to decide that gives a good route to that result. Andrewa (talk) 08:02, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

@Beyond My Ken: Thanks for your detailed rationale. In last year's debate, we have indeed collected many snippets of anecdotal evidence which tend to corroborate your own lifetime experience: New Yorkers usually call their state "New York", other Americans have varying habits depending on their personal circumstances, and the rest of the world sees "New York" as the skyscraper city, barely knowing the state even exists. As Wikipedia addresses a worldwide audience, we must take all points of view into account, and strive to educate the sizable fraction of readers who are unaware of New York as a state. The proposed move delivers on these two goals: the dab page addresses the intractable ambiguity of the name without making assumptions about where each reader comes from, while the search box improvement makes readers aware of a "New York" thing that is a state, distinct from the famous city. — JFG ^talk 02:16, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

For a chuckle, I refer you to the eternal words of Herostratus in response to Pharos when discussing naming habits in the 2016 debate:

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)

Personal experiences and feelings on New York are aggregated in the collective footprints of web wanderers lost in hypertext, and fortunately we can measure this dispassionately. Visitor stats of the English Wikipeida articles show a consistent 2:1 ratio for the city vs the state, all other meanings being way below their level. Google Trends paints a similar picture when we compare search trends for "New York City" vs "New York" + "state": the city attracts about twice as many searches as the state. However, that is not enough to declare the city primary topic; our guidelines state that the primary topic must be 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 (emphasis mine).

With years of experience at move requests, I have never seen a 2:1 ratio of reader interest be enough justification by itself for grabbing the primary topic crown. Quite the opposite: such a small ratio strongly points to a "this term has no primary topic" situation, so let's disambiguate it. Were the ratio 10:1, the primary topic would be obvious, at 5:1 it could be discussed, at 2:1 the numeric argument is far from sufficient, and we should examine the second criterion of WP:PTOPIC, viz. a topic enjoying substantially greater enduring notability and educational value than any other topic associated with that term. It has been demonstrated that New York City does not trump New York state or province in this respect either.

For an extreme case of page view ratio, check out Talk:Fingering (music)#Requested move 30 October 2015, where even a crushing ratio of 107'000 to 7'000 views per day failed to grant primary topic status to Fingering (sexual act): the ambiguous term was disambiguated, and this situation was upheld in a further move request six months later. See also Andrewa's excellent essay The Problem With Page Views. — JFG ^talk 03:01, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

The question of whether NYC is the primary topic remains open. The question of whether NYS is the primary topic has been decided and we should move on. Based on that and practical considerations, this proposed move will improve Wikipedia. Andrewa (talk) 14:30, 8 July 2017 (UTC)