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This talk page is dedicated to archiving the request to replace New York with either New York City or New York (disambiguation). The move failed because of a lack of consensus. This archive is for historical reasons only; do not edit this page.

Hi there I have a proposition

When ever I think of the word New York, the city NYC instantly comes to my mind not the state so I propose that we make new york lead directly to the city or a disambiguation page, just an idea.:)Wannabe Wiki (talk) 07:17, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

That's a terrible idea. The current compromise (NYC at New York City and NY at New York) is logically elegant and works fine. Besides, it would make linking to New York (the state) from other articles unnecessarily awkward. Please do not raise silly ideas (your use of the phrase "just an idea" and an emoticon indicate that even you are not taking yourself seriously) unless you think them through first. This is an encyclopedia, not a blog or forum. See the trolling essay at WP:TROLL. Thank you for your attention. --Coolcaesar (talk) 13:22, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
Whoa whoa. Don't bite the newcomers. This wasn't trolling, especially considering how gingerly he proposed the idea.
Wannabe, I understand your thinking, but "New York" is ambiguous in any colloquial context. When context doesn't provide the difference "New York" can't be assumed to mean the city, especially given the location of all other state articles (cf. Oklahoma City\Oklahoma, Kansas City\Kansas).--Loodog (talk) 15:10, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
Better variation: Reverse this entry with New York State. Article here is clearly about STATE, unadorned term NEW YORK is "definitevely ambiguous." Move all content from here to the "New York " entry, and the "New York (disambuguation)" content to here. Change the "...(disambiguation)" page to just redirect to here.
Note: Disambig page should redirect here instead of the other way around because here is more likely to receive hits. The other entry only exists currently so that this page can link there for disambiguation, since there is no other page that serves the purpose. The new arrangement makes that unnecessary.
Purists will say the other states' entries are under their simple name, so NYS should be under its simple name. I hate it when purity gets in the way of practicality. NYC v. NYS is worse than the other cases, because 1) the city overshadows the state in general usage ("Get me a flight to New York"), which is not true in the other cases, and 2) NYC is not formally New York CITY, it is simply NEW YORK. The state and city names are identical. The current setup causes, I would guess, the majority of hits to NY (state) to have to search through the head notes to find the link to NY (city). A disambiguation page serves this purpose much better. Dovid (talk) 01:59, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
I definitely agree; New York should be a dab page (it should just be titled "New York"), as there is no primary topic between the city and the state. This page should then either move to New York (U.S. state) (as with Georgia (U.S. state)) or New York State (a common name for it). The bottom line is that a huge amount of readers will type in "New York" expecting to be redirected to the city, as the city does overshadow the state in common usage (especially internationally). So, it is unacceptable when these readers, who perhaps are a mjority of readers searching for "New York", are redirected to this page about the state; a dab page to ease the searching of readers is the best solution. Cheers, Rai•me 14:35, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
I came here because I searched for "New York" expecting to get to NYC and instead came to this article. I don't agree with making "New York" into a disambiguation page, because I think the vast majority of readers (both American and worldwide) typing in "New York" or "NY" would be looking for the city, not the state, nor any of the other uses of the name. So I think this title should be moved to New York State, with New York as a redirect to New York City. A short disambig hatnote at the top of the NYC article would be more than enough to aid people looking for the state article or one of the others.--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 10:26, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
Agree with Raime and Dovid. Disagree with Aervanath. The rule superseding all else is what "New York" should have at it. With 600,000 hits at New York City and 300,000 hits at New York, Primary meaning does not exist and so a dab page is prescribed.
Though conventions would indicate something like New York (U.S. state), we're in a bit of luck because common language usage has already provided a term used to clarify: New York State. Both I and google have heard it used for the state, whereas "Georgia State" mostly means the school in common usage. In the end, WP:NAME says, "The names of Wikipedia articles should be optimized for readers over editors, and for a general audience over specialists." which also indicates avoiding us using "New York (U.S. state)" just for the sake of editing consistency.
Propose: "New York" to dab page. This page moved to "New York State". And, of course, "New York (U.S. state)" redirects to New York State.--Loodog (talk) 15:00, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
I'm a little confused by your definition of "primary meaning". By your count of Google hits, 600,000 for NYC vs. 300,000 for NY State means that people are about twice as likely to be searching for NYC as for the state. That certainly qualifies as primary in my book. Why don't you agree?--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 17:11, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
Per WP:PRIMARYUSAGE: Primary meaning must be "much more used than any other" and that it is "significantly more commonly searched for". A 10:1 ratio qualifies; a 2:1 does not.--Loodog (talk) 17:24, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
Yes, but it does not specify a specific ratio. The full sentence is:

When there is a well known primary meaning for a term or phrase, much more used than any other (this may be indicated by a majority[my emphasis] of links in existing articles or by consensus of the editors of those articles that it will be significantly more commonly searched for and read than other meanings), then that topic may be used for the title of the main article, with a disambiguation link at the top.

In my mind, 2:1 is certainly a significant majority, and therefore qualifies. It seems to me that we agree on the language, but simply disagree on the numerical proportion necessary.
I would ask other editors to chime in here to establish a consensus as to what proportion constitutes a "significant majority".--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 23:15, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
I am generally opposed to making New York into a DAB page or moving the contents of "New York" to "New York State". I don't think we need to be concerned about the primary meaning here. There is already an established order of prominence in use on Wikipedia for places that share a name. It goes: Country -> Sub-national divisions -> Individual cities. For example, I'm sure the vast majority of users who search for the term "Georgia" are attempting to find the U.S. State; however, as Georgia is also a country, the country gets the article name without the qualifier. Same goes for a topic I'm more familiar with... "Washington" (the state) vs. "Washington, D.C." A quick Google search shows that Washington relates to the state and city in near-equal numbers, yet "Washington" rightly directs to the state because that follows the established order. I think the idea of making New York a dab page is relatively silly. I don't think it's a major hardship for people who are searching for "New York City" to click on the DAB link at the top of the article about New York state. Inserting a dab page doesn't save people time or confusion, it just creates an unneeded step. Best, epicAdam (talk) 03:10, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
A few corrections: the country of Georgia does not get the article name without a qualifier because "Georgia" has no primary usage. It is at Georgia (country). The country also gets more hits than the article for the state.
My apologies. I was going by my browser's autosearch... the term "wikipedia georgia" brings me directly to the country page; for whatever reason I didn't even notice the "(country)" qualifier. My mistake. epicAdam (talk) 05:00, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
I would argue that "Washington" is misplaced too so let's not use it for argument.
If this move is made, it's something that we would have to seriously consider changing as well. epicAdam (talk) 05:00, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
Yes, we have a convention now that is consistent for editors, but recall: primary usage supercedes other naming guidelines because: "The names of Wikipedia articles should be optimized for readers over editors, and for a general audience over specialists." When someone says "New York", it's an inherently ambiguous phrase. Wikipedia primary usage says the location of "New York" should be a dab because of this.--Loodog (talk) 03:25, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
Yes, I would agree that's it may be ambiguous for some users; however, what does a dab page accomplish? To me, it just seems like it adds an unnecessary step. Currently, if someone types "New York" meaning to find "New York City" and is mistakenly brought to the article on New York state, all they have to do is click on the dab link at the top. If we make everyone who searches for "New York" go to a dab page, then that's just an unnecessary added step. Having said that, though, if a change is going to be made I'm more in favor of inserting a dab page under "New York" than making it link directly to New York City. -epicAdam (talk) 05:00, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
I think your logic is a little curious, Epicadam. If our aim is to reduce the number of "unnecessary added steps" for our readers, then why would it make more sense to have a dab page which would add an unnecessary step to everyone, instead of having a redirect to New York city, which would remove the added steps for (according to Loodog's count) 2/3 of the readers?--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 06:27, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
Making "New York" link to "New York City" only makes sense if two out of every three people who searched for New York actually meant to find the article on NYC; I seriously doubt it's that many users. If 66% of people were being directed to an incorrect page I would imagine that users would be complaining left and right, which doesn't seem to be the case. Obviously, I'm not as concerned about the "number of clicks" it takes a user to get to an article; it's really just a technical point. I mostly object to "New York" directing to NYC just because of the significant number of users who are not trying to find the city when they correctly search for "New York". I mean, how many users are going to type "New York (U.S. State)" or "New York state" on the first instance? My guess is very few, especially when you consider that in common dialogue "New York state" almost always refers to just the part of the state that's not in NYC metro area. Hopefully that explanation makes sense... it's late. I need to get to sleep. Best, -epicAdam (talk) 09:08, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
Well, since there's obviously enough disagreement about this, it seems that there is no "primary meaning" per Wikipedia:Disambiguation, so I'll move this article to New York State and put a disambig page in its place.--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 09:58, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
....Or I would if it wasn't fully protected against moves. So:

{{editprotected}} Please move New York to New York State and move New York (disambiguation) to New York, per the above discussion. Thank you, --Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 10:05, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Done. Links will probably have to be updated. Cheers! lifebaka (talk - contribs) 12:01, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Nice work. I think the disambiguation page is a middle ground that everyone can be satisfied with, especially provided that "New York" is also the name of places in England in Texas. --Jleon (talk) 12:58, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

  • There are literally thousands of links to the dab page. However, it does seem using a random sampling (which I've tried to fix) that there are more links intended for the city than the state so this move, in the long run, is the right way to go. The bots will fix the existing links to the dab page in due time. --Polaron | Talk 14:38, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
  • I should clarify that I'm referrin to actual people using something like AWB to semi-automatically fix links rather than it being done automatically. --Polaron | Talk 15:44, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

This move needs to be undone

I'm sure that this was done in good faith in the best interests of Wikipedia, but the damage resulting from this needs to be undone. There are now several thousand articles pointing to this article under the assumption that "New York" means "New York State". For example, every single article for every place in New York State now links incorrectly to a disambiguation page. The article with the name of the state in Nassau County, New York points to the wrong article. Do we need to rename every one of these thousands of articles to Nassau County, New York State?

There is absolutely no reason that the "New York" article itself should be a disambiguation page. The hat notes that had existed on the NY and NYC articles addressed the problem; This only creates them, with no proposal as to how to address the problem. The revenge of unintended consequences strikes again.

If this move is ever going to be reconsidered in the future, it needs to be reviewed by a far larger group of editors than the handful who participated here. Alansohn (talk) 16:19, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Note that if you actually sample the incoming links to New York, you would find on average that more than half refer to the city rather than the state. So even in its previous state, there are thousands of articles pointing to "New York" under the assumptio that "New York" is "New York City". --Polaron | Talk 16:22, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
Please read the above discussion. Summarized: "New York" has no primary usage so it is a dab. The state would traditionally go to New York (U.S. state), but since common language has already provided New York State as a phrase, we're using it instead, with a redirect from New York (U.S. state). To address your concerns in particular: by random sampling, this fixed more links than it broke.--Loodog (talk) 16:23, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
And no, there no need to rename Albany, New York to Albany, New York State, because it is still pursuant to the City, State convention established. Just because "New York" could mean multiple things doesn't mean the state itself isn't called "New York".--Loodog (talk) 16:25, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
I go away for a week on business and I come back and someone has the New York/New York City article situation even more confused than it ALREADY is. I fully concur with Polaron. First of all, this move was an incredibly bad idea (and apparently the inspiration of trolls as I pointed out in March). Second, I'd like to point out that if a move was necessary, we should have moved to the official name (State of New York). --Coolcaesar (talk) 16:28, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
No one wants to link to a disambiguation page. By changing every link to "New York" to link to this page, it has broken every single one of those links. Not a single one has been fixed. The "solution" has created a far bigger problem than ever existed before. Alansohn (talk) 16:33, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
I acknowledge the move has created difficulties, but what we had before violated WP:PRIMARYUSAGE, even if it provided a working solution for editors.--Loodog (talk) 18:00, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
Yes. The point of PRIMARYUSAGE is that we're supposed to make things easier and more logical for the readers, even if it's somewhat inconvenient for editors.--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 18:16, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
WP:PRIMARYUSAGE is a guideline that should not be applied contrary to consensus. Consensus as I read it here is counter to the move that was done. No amount of quoting guidelines (vs. policy) is going to fix the fact that the move was ill conceived and flies in the face of current consensus. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 19:39, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

I believe strongly that this move needs to be undone. First, as per Ceyockey, there is no clear consensus for the move. Second, even if the discussion above displayed a consensus among the handful of editors involved, that would not be sufficient rationale for such a major move without a much more thorough discussion. Consider what we've gone through over where to place the article about New York City, and you'll see that this casual suggestion with a few comments is simply inadequate.

I strongly recommend that no one invest any time in changing links unless and until it is clear that this move will stay. My guess is that it won't and that we will go back to the setup that lasted for years without significant complaint. JamesMLane t c 19:59, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

This move messed up everything. Templates are now being thrown off because of this. We might as well start moving every state that shares its name with something else. The naming conventions were never followed and i'm supporting a speedy move back to the original name. People never cease to amaze me. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 20:06, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

This better be done soon as a quick look above says that people are changing them now. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 20:08, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
The links should be fixed whether the move is upheld or reverted. As it stands, roughly 2/3 of the 50,000 or so incoming links refer to the city rather than the state. --Polaron | Talk 20:57, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

This has all been sorted out. Thanks to everyone who objected. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 20:36, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Sorry to everyone for bollocking this up royally, but I've fixed it now. If anyone wants a page move in the future of a move-protected page, please file a request at WP:RM instead of using a {{editprotected}} template, to avoid n00bs like myself messing these things up. Cheers, guys. lifebaka (talk - contribs) 20:42, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
Lifebaka, I apologize to you, as I placed the editprotected template. I had forgotten about WP:RM, and will use that in the future. *apologetic bow* --Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 20:58, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Redo the move

Unfortunately, this has not been "all sorted out". The move being undone, consensus is going to have to be re-evaluated, based on the opinions of those who supported the change and those who were influential in getting in moved back. I will reiterate the arguments in favor of having New York as a disambiguation page:
  1. a clear majority of incoming links (per Polaron, above) to New York are actually meant to be links to the city
  2. there is a clear 2:1 majority of Google hits for the City over the State
  3. my personal experience is that non-Americans generally have heard of New York City, but have never heard of New York State, and therefore are quite unlikely to search for information about it.

4. The phrase "New York" has no primary meaning.--Loodog (talk) 21:06, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

For me, these mean that New York should redirect to New York City, with a disambig hatnote at the top of New York City. However, consensus (the now-overridden consensus) was against that, so we compromised at making New York into a disambig page. Please add your arguments For or Against the move below. This is not a vote, but it is easier to analyze the debate when people clearly state their positions.--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 20:58, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Oppose any move that doesn't follow process. Please see Wikipedia:Requested moves#Requesting potentially controversial moves and follow the steps outlined there. (In light of the unique circumstances here, the notices called for by the normal process should probably be augmented by a notice at Talk:New York City.) In particular, it appears to me that there are more than just two alternatives that have some support, so any discussion of a proposed move should be fair to proponents of all such views, not just the status quo and one proposed move. JamesMLane t c 21:15, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Apologize, didn't mean to be disruptive.--Loodog (talk) 21:17, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Oppose anything that undoes the status quo of "New York" for the state / "New York City" for th city without a far broader consensus. Three guys discussing amongst themselves a change that affects thousands upon thousands of articles and results in readers being misdirected to a disambiguation page when looking for either the state or the city is not how we do business on Wikipedia. This issue needs to be presented and discussed broadly before any further disruptive changes are made. Alansohn (talk) 21:30, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Comment: from over here in the UK, "New York" is the city, the city is "New York". (Apologies to the residents of New York State!) I imagine that's the same for the vast majority of Wikipedia readers outside the USA. So I'd favour "New York" leading me straight to the page about the city, whether it's directly or via a redirect to "New York City". PamD (talk) 23:27, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

'Comment from over here in the US also, the question do you com from New York, has only one meaning. If someone from Albany answers yes, they'd be though POINTy. DGG (talk) 07:56, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Requested move

Apparently there's no consensus on this. To be honest, I didn't actually read the whole thing (it was enough work figuring out where it started) but in skimming the only place I saw people agreeing on anything was way at the bottom where you came to the realization that this got nowhere. If this is started up again, I'd suggest a subpage. Hersfold (t/a/c) 03:32, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
The following is an archived debate. Please do not modify it.

New York → New York State and New York City → New York— Proposing this move by the book this time. See the discussion above starting at #Hi there I have a proposition. Normally the move from New York City to New York would be discussed at Talk:New York City#Requested move, but because these issues are so entwined, I thought it best to have all discussion going on in one place. Thank you. — Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 04:22, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Survey 1

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's naming conventions.
  • Support rename of STATE, makes sense. (There are others also... like Mississippi... ) The associated category tree should also feature "State" or "(U.S. state)" - Oppose rename of CITY, as does not make sense. 70.51.9.81 (talk) 04:44, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Support both as nominator. For me, and I think most people outside of New York State, when I think of "New York", the city comes to mind, not the state. So for me the article for the state definitely does not belong here. Whether it belongs at State of New York or New York State or some other title is not important to me, but it doesn't belong here. What does belong here? Well, for me it is clear that the primary usage is the city, so I think that New York City should be moved here, or that at least New York should redirect to New York City. Should consensus be against that move, though, then I would support turning New York into a disambiguation page.--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 04:50, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Most of the people looking for the city would be likely to enter New York City (where the article is) or New York, New York (which redirects there). Anyone who enters simply "New York" will see a hatnote listing the city article, specifically, not just pointing to a dab page. By contrast, very few people would enter "New York State". Thus, the proposed moves would cause a net decrease in convenience to readers, and would break literally thousands of links. The current setup has been in place for years, and that should be taken into account, as well. JamesMLane t c 05:05, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Neutral (New York State) and Oppose (New York City): A page move of this magnitude requires evidence that users are significantly burdened or confused by the current naming convention. So far, most of the evidence presented is that "New York" is an ambiguous term and therefore requires a disambiguation page as there is no primary usage. What I have not seen is evidence of how many users are significantly affected by arriving at the article on New York state when they meant to locate New York City. I feel like if this were a major problem, there would be far more complaints about the situation over the years. I am, however, completely against redirecting all users to New York City as I do not believe that the city can claim dominant usage of the name "New York"; it's not like we're talking about Paris and Paris, Texas. -epicAdam (talk) 05:32, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Support move - My experience is that when people say "New York" alone, they mean the city not the state and say "New York State" if that's what they mean. My intuition is that the vast majority of non-editors who type "New York" into the search box are looking for the city. I'm speaking as an American but suspect this is even more true for non-Americans who often aren't even aware that New York is also a state. —D. Monack talk 05:48, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment I would add that I am taking the position I am because I know that at least I would type in New York State when looking for that article, and I would expect the New York City article to pop up when looking for New York. Per Monack, I expect that this is far more true outside the United States.--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 06:57, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Support - For me, and I think for most people outside the USA, "New York" is the city and the city is "New York". Apologies to the residents of the state, but it just isn't that well known to the rest of the world. I wouldn't object too strongly to the city being at "New York City", if that's where naming conventions say it should be, as long as "New York" redirects there, with a hatnote to point to the dab page. OK, a hatnote to point to the state and to the dab page. If (against my wishes) New York ends up as being a dab page, then please ensure that there are good prominent links to the city and the state right at the top, as near-primary usages, before we go into the detail of the other uses (as there were, briefly, after the now-reversed move). PamD (talk) 07:02, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Support Even in the US, anywhere in the country except the part of NYS outside NYC, do you come from Nw York ? has only one practical meaning. If someone from albany answered yes, he';d be though pretty peculiar. The only time it means NYS is where "state" is implied, as for Governor, or US Senator. The NYT is the paper of the city, not the state. the NY Yankees. and everything else. except where the context can only mean "state".DGG (talk) 08:01, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose. The current style on Wikipedia is to give precedence to the states over the cities, c.f. Washington. I agree with this, and think it should be maintained as the standard; we have 48 other articles in which the name of the state is the location of the article (exception being Georgia); I would suggest moving this would make it harder for readers who are looking for information, since it screws with the standards and expectations already in place. Furthermore, if it were moved, the article should be moved to "New York (U.S. state)", like Georgia. --[[User:Golbez|G
  • It may happen to be that states have precedence over cities, but (1) states have no actual guidelines on this (2) c.f. Georgia which already breaks this choice and (3) So far the discussion I've had over at Washington has been "Well, if New York gets moved, I'll support a move of this too."--Loodog (talk) 12:37, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
    • I don't think you understand why Georgia breaks it; not because there is a city named Georgia, but because there is a country named Georgia, and we put countries above states - except in the English-speaking world, where a state of a major English-speaking nation is accorded equal ranking. But either way, Georgia cannot be used as an example supporting or opposing this move; it has nothing to do with it. --Golbez (talk) 00:55, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
      • Beg to differ. None of these city-state-country hierarchies you're inventing are policy. Neither are any of them mentioned in the respective page's discussions as justification for their locations. Georgia is where it is because of the reason anything on wikipedia is: commonness of usage for the benefit of the reader. There is no primary usage for "Georgia" so it becomes a dab page. This is policy.--Loodog (talk) 01:45, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Support rename of STATE, Strong Oppose rename of CITY. I agree that New York typically refers to the city, not the state. But I do not want New York City moved to New York. Having it called New York City makes it clear you're in the right place in any language. Typing 纽约 (New York) into the Chinese Wikipedia redirects you to 紐約市 (New York City). Redirecting New York City back to an ambiguous name doesn't make sense to me --Jh12 (talk) 11:36, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Weak Oppose for State; Strong Oppose for City; Strongest Possible Oppose for making "New York" a disambiguation page. NYC leaves an unambiguous destination, as would NYS, though I question its utility. Leaving "New York", a fairly common link, as a disambiguation page solves no problems; at least use "New York" to link to one or the other with a hat note to redirect. If this disaster ever does go through, may I suggest that the moves be separated by a few weeks to allow adequate cleanup of links to "New York" to "New York State" or "New York City" and only after this is complete should "New York City" entries be moved to "New York". The way the most recent moves were done only created a situation where nearly every link to "New York" ended up pointing to a disambiguation page, breaking every single valid link to the state. The ramifications and logistics of making the move need to be addressed and were not properly considered when done this week. Alansohn (talk) 12:30, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose New York City -> New York. Much much prefer "New York" becomes dab because primary usage does not exist. Keep NYC where it is. Strong support for move from "New York" to "New York State" Guidelines indicate something like New York (U.S. State) like Georgia, except New York State is a preexisting common language term that's already all over the New York City page. Everything except the convenience of the editors supports it and naming is supposed to favor readers over editors.--Loodog (talk) 12:33, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment I would support leaving New York City where it is, but having "New York" redirect there, as per Jh12. That would address the concerns I have that people typing in "New York" are being misdirected to the state. I don't think it really matters what the article is called, per se, it matters that readers get to the article that they expect. See the principle of least astonishment.--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 13:31, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Let plain New York be the disambig page. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 16:31, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
    • I'd rather avoid that. From my point of view New York City is the primary usage so that's where New York should point to. I would almost prefer the status quo over a disambig page because then we wouldn't have to run around fixing links. However, I don't think that the amount of links that are broken should be a valid argument on this issues, since that's a burden put on us as the ones needed to fix it, not the readers who we're trying to benefit.--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 17:20, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
      • Disagree. New York City is the more common usage for New York, but that doesn't make it the primary usage Just using the hit counts, it's a 2:1 ratio which means neither is overwhelmingly dominant.--Loodog (talk) 17:24, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

-If the disambig page is voted down, then I think we need to go with your idea of leaving the name of the article as "New York City" and having "New York" redirect to it. Anyway, I still don't see what's wrong with the disambig page to begin with. --Jleon (talk) 17:26, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

  • Strong Oppose This is rather silly. Give precedence to the state, since it's the larger entity. All other U.S. states are named without the word 'state' in the name - New York should be no different. Dr. Cash (talk) 19:05, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment Georgia does not, and there are no guidelines on wikipedia linking physical size to precedence. By that logic America should direct to Americas since it's the largest entity.--Loodog (talk) 19:09, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
    • Georgia is not named "Georgia State". It is properly disambiguated. --Golbez (talk) 00:55, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
      • The primary usage of "Georgia State" is the university. The primary usage of "New York State" is the actual state. Dab guidelines allow placement of an article at another location that is nonconflicting if it is "equally clear", which "New York State" qualifies as. Parenthesis are not required.--Loodog (talk) 01:57, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Dr. Cash, but New York is different. It is the only instance where the name of a state is more commonly used to refer to a city. In that regard the city could be considered the larger "entity" if linguistic intent is used as a measuring stick. We need to make a rational decision for what is best in this particular instance, since there is no proper comparison with other states. --Jleon (talk) 19:58, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Support making New York a disambiguation page. Clearly there is no primary topic here. No matter what the final consensus is, there is really no perfect solution to this problem. I do fear the cleanup this will require, but that should not be a factor in making the right decision. Winding up with New York State and New York City is not really bad for the encyclopedia or for the readers. Vegaswikian (talk) 22:40, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Support making New York go to a disambiguation page. (But oppose taking New York straight to NYC, and, although it isn't a huge deal with me, I'd rather the state article be named something like New York (state) rather than New York State.) My primary concern here, as mentioned a few places earlier on, is that many Americans and nearly all foreigners mean the city when they say 'New York'. AlexiusHoratius (talk) 00:10, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose making New York a disambiguation page. To the wide world, "New York" is synonymous with the city, the term is only ambiguous because people would type 'New York' expecting to find one or other (and my guess is that the search ratio would be 85% for the city and 15% the state). I strongly support for the state article to be moved to New York State instead of just "New York". NYC would be an acceptable namespace for the city article, but I think it belongs in 'New York' for the reason I've stated. As for the state being the larger entity, so what, if it isn't what most people looking for New York want to search for. The extra mouse-click will affect a larger proportion of people, and can be very annoying for them. As for slavishly following convention, I would just say sod it!. User's comfort and expectation should take precedence. Ohconfucius (talk) 06:29, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Further comment:
There are 4 linked questions to be answered:
What is the title of the article about the state?
What is the title of the article about the city?
What is the title of the dab page?
What does the reader who types "New York" get to see? If the answer to one of the above question is "New York", then that answers it. If not, we need to decide to which of the three it redirects. WP is a service for readers, so this last question is perhaps the most important.
My inclination is to strongly support any solution which means that the reader who types "New York" gets to see the article about the city, whether directly (because the city article has that name) or via a redirect (because no article has that name), and to oppose any other solution.
But then there's then a fifth question: How do we clear up the mess of existing links, and take care of future links? I recommend looking at the "What links here" of the New York article! Apart from carefully-written articles on US historical or biographical topics, or locations thoroughly specified as "New York City, New York", I get the feeling that most links are actually aimed at the city (locations of tennis tournaments, place of birth of musicians, place of publication in references... just from the first few "A"s). This seems an argument in favour of using "New York" as the name of the dab page, because however many rules are carefully laid down, the mass of Wikipedia editors are going to continue to create links to "New York" for whatever seems logical to themselves: very often they'll mean the city, sometimes the state. If it goes to a dab page, their readers won't be led astray. If the dab page has good clear links at the top for the two near-primary sources, the readers will only be briefly inconvenienced, by reading a line or two before clicking. Whatever solution we adopt, there's need for a massive cleanup project.
Summarising: I'm torn between support for "New York" to be the title of the dab page, and for it to be the title of, or lead via a redirect to, the article on the city. I oppose continuing to use "New York" as the title of the article about the state, as I think this is the least helpful option for many readers, and that future editors will continue to make links which would (mis)-lead their readers to that page, even if we clean up all existing links. PamD (talk) 08:50, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Strongly Oppose New York is simply shorthand for the city, so I find this to be a terrible idea. It would be incredibly confusing, and would be very difficult to relink everything, etc. Noah03 (talk) 00:59, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
    • And that is based on what? I just happen to be from New York. Generally people correctly assume the state or they ask city or state. Occasionally they will think city. Clearly the use is ambiguous. I have not seen anyone present any facts to show that either the city or the state is the primary use. Vegaswikian (talk) 08:17, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Strongly Oppose. The proper name of the state is "New York". Now, because it's the name of a song, we all think it looks funny, but the proper name for the city using standard US postal form is "New York, New York". Now, I and many others think that "New York City" is a better name, so we can have the article there, but it "properly" should be at "New York, New York". It's difficult to compare the two entities--unlike Georgia vs. Georgia, where the two were completely separate, everything that the city of New York has the state also has, and more. (For instance, the state has far more money, people, influence, area, political power, etc. for the simple reason that it contains NYC). I'll just say it would be a shame to have a disambiguation page when there are only two major entities and one of them already has a perfectly suitable name. Therefore, given the choice between New York State/New York redirecting to NYC compared to the status quo, I'll take the status quo. Matt Yeager ♫ (Talk?) 07:08, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose. I am against moving New York to New York State and moving New York City to New York. I disagree with the opinion that most people associate "New York" with the city rather than the state. The state is the larger entity and that article should retain its current name. All links referring to the city will link to the correct article. Those who search for "New York" will see a link for the city's article at the top of the state's article. -- Zyxw (talk) 11:25, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose Hatnote at New York takes care of any confusion; unneeded disambiguation of correct state name implied by usage and in keeping with all other state article. For all those who have talked about New York, New York being synonymous with New York City, that is not correct. New York, New York refers to the County of New York, better known as Manhattan and excludes New York City's four other boroughs. I write this from the County of Kings, better known as Brooklyn, in the City of New York, in the State of New York.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 21:53, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Discussion 1

Any additional comments:
Comment on process: Part of my objection to the original move was that it was done by only a handful of editors, who seemed to underestimate the magnitude of the proposed change. For comparison purposes, look at Talk:New York City/Archive 2 (title of article) about the naming of the New York City article, and note the extensive discussion, with comments from at least 30 different editors. And that page is just part of the total of Wikipedia's discussion of the issue.
The point is that no one should be in any rush to declare this survey closed. We need to hear from a lot of people before reversing a prior decision that was so thoroughly considered. JamesMLane t c 07:27, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Maybe a more useful poll is what to do with each of the pages: the article about the state, the article about the city, the phrase "New York".--Loodog (talk) 16:35, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

  • Having New York be a disambiguation page is the worst possible outcome of this discussion, since a disambiguation page is a hurdle to getting to either article. New York' should go either to the state or the city, with a link to the other AND to a disabiguation page at the top. While inside the US, there might be some contention over which is the primary usage, OUTSIDE the US the most sought-after article would no doubt be the city -- since most people outside the US do not even know there is such a state by that name. It is less important that New York go to the city or the state, than that it go to at least ONE of them. --JimWae (talk) 18:38, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
    • Yeah, but the logical conclusion of that is for no pages to ever be DABed.--Loodog (talk) 18:47, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
    • Why? A dab page should only be encountered if you entered the name of the page directly. If you are in another article it should link to the correct article. As a dab page it would likely add workload to the disambiguation cleanup project who have to deal with sloppy editors which will probably describe most of us. In any case I'd think that many people are already using New York City since NYC is so well known. Also if the link is to the dab page any editor can quickly fix it since the context should be clear from the linking article. Vegaswikian (talk) 22:20, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
  • No, that is the EXTREME conclusion - not THE logical one. That is the conclusion IF you say "all similar cases are exactly the same." There can still be a page [[New York {disambiguation)]] --JimWae (talk) 18:55, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
  • If I may jump in, Loodog, his argument is correct when and only when we're talking about TWO main usages. For something like Flash, there are so many articles with very different meanings (and no one main meaning), a disamb is completely justified because we likely have a majority who would not arrive at their desired page if we just picked, say, Adobe Flash. With New York, where there are only two main meanings, we have a completely different story. Matt Yeager ♫ (Talk?) 03:39, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

New suggestion

  1. Move New York to New York State
  2. Leave New York City as it is
  3. Turn New York into a disambiguation page linking to both New York City and New York State
89.243.180.26 (talk) 14:32, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Strong support for all.

1. because "New York" is clearly not meant for the state in majority of cases. And dab guidelines allow for location of an article to be at another title to avoid conflicts if other title is "equally as clear". The parenthesis of (U.S. State) in this case is not needed and a bit artificial.

2. because it's the clearest, most obvious place to put NYC, citing same dab guidelines allowing location of an article to be moved to a nonconflicting location if "equally as clear", which it is.

3. because "New York" has no primary usage.

--Loodog (talk) 14:43, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

  • I'm ambivalent toward the notion of a move, although I would strongly prefer New York (U.S. state) to New York State. I find it preferable because it is consistent with existing naming schemes (Georgia (U.S. state), not Georgia State), and "New York State" is a colloquial reference and not indicative of an official name (the official name is "State of New York"). Furthermore, the use of the phrase "'State name' State" is often indicative of a state college or university - while this may not be the case with New York, I can see some room for confusion among those not familiar with the situation. Shereth 15:54, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
    • Right, but New York City isn't at the official name either. Guidelines favor colloquial usage if it's the clearest, and "New York State" is easily recognized by people (and Google) to be the state, whereas "Georgia State" does mean the school.--Loodog (talk) 16:00, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
      • I would have to agree with Shereth on this one. I don't think New York State is a proper term for the article. To me, the colloquial usage of New York State is somewhat synonymous with "Upstate New York". I mean, people usually say they're from "New York State" specifically to let people know they're not from the city. In that way, the colloquial usage doesn't mean the whole of the state of New York but rather a single part of it. I don't see a problem with making "New York State" redirect to "New York (U.S. State)" or "State of New York", but I don't think "New York State" would be the best official title. -epicAdam (talk) 16:08, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
        • My experience has been that "New York State" means the whole state. It's not that it means Upstate; it's that if you're not going Upstate, it becomes redundant to differentiate, so there's not much point to using it.--Loodog (talk) 16:20, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
Fine, New York City should be New York City, while the state can be New York (U.S. state), while New York can be a disambiguation page for the two, as long as it is all consistent with other naming conventions. 89.243.194.104 (talk) 17:04, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
In that vein, it follows naming conventions:

"When there is another term or more complete name that is equally clear, that should be used.. It also says "A disambiguating word or phrase can be added in parentheses." To me that reads as an endorsement for New York State over New York (U.S. State).--Loodog (talk) 17:11, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

A written use of the three-word phrase to refer to the entire state would more commonly be "New York state". When I see "New York State" (with the capital "S") it often refers specifically to the state government. Thus: Hillary lives in New York state; New York State brought suit against GE.
Anyway, I still oppose all this. Virtually everyone who wants to read the article about the state of New York would type in "New York". By contrast, many of the people looking for the article about the city would type in "New York City" or "New York, New York" or even "NYC". As a result, even if more readers overall want the city article, more of those who type "New York" want the state article. The unadorned "New York" does have the primary meaning of the state, given the unusual circumstance that there are other names for the city -- the most common name (New York City) and the one that follows Wikipedia naming conventions (New York, New York). -JamesMLane t c 17:50, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
"Virtually everyone who wants to read the article about the state of New York would type in "New York"" as would non-Americans who are looking for the city. The majority of "New York" links also go to the city. This is why "New York" has no primary usage.--Loodog (talk) 17:59, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, JamesMLane's maths doesn't work. If a% of readers want to find out about the city, and (100-a)% want to find out about the state, you say that most of the (100-a)% would type "New York". OK, for simplicity let's say they all do. And of the a% looking for the city, suppose that b% type "New York", hoping to find the city, while (100-b)% type "New York City" or "New York, New York", or something else which redirects to the city. So the people typing "New York", looking for the city, are (a x b/100)% (I started using "x%", you can see why I changed to "a%"). The total people who type "New York" are (100-a)+(a x b/100). You reckon that of this, the (100-a) are the majority. That's only so if 100 - a is greater than axb/100, which works out as b < 100(100-a)/a. I think (apologies to the residents of the state) that "a", the percentage of readers wanting the city not the state, is very high - but let's say it's a modest 75%. So the percentage we're looking at is 100x(100-75)/75, which I make 33: ie if 3/4 of people are looking for the city, and at least a third of those are typing "New York", then the majority of people typing "New York" are looking for the city. How many people world-wide have even heard of "New York" as a state? "New York" is the largest city in the USA, skyscrapers, Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, Broadway, Wall Street, etc, and not a state, to most of the population of the world and the potential readership of Wikipedia. PamD (talk) 18:28, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
I agree with JamesMLane. The proper naming convention is New York, for the state; New York, New York for the city; and New York (disambiguation), for including all options. The status quo is fine. But, if anything is changed, it should be New York City to New York, New York. --Evb-wiki (talk) 18:00, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure where these "proper naming conventions" for states are coming from since there are none.--Loodog (talk) 18:04, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
Not so. It clearly says, "Always write these out in full," as in New York. New York State is not the name of the state. --Evb-wiki (talk) 18:13, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
The point of that sentence was to keep people from using two-letter state abbreviations (NY), not to demand some sort of priority for states at conflicting locations. If that were true, Georgia (U.S. State) would be in the wrong place.--Loodog (talk) 18:17, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
Exactly what proof is there that New York is the name of the state? The official state seal says 'State of New York', some of the organizations use New York State. I suspect that you could show that the common name is 'New York' but clearly that is ambiguous and not a good choice for the location of the article. Vegaswikian (talk) 23:02, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
It's obvious that most people who want the article on the state would enter "New York", not "State of New York" or "New York State". Although one of the latter is probably the official name, that doesn't mean the article belongs there. The official name of the smallest state is "Rhode Island and Providence Plantations", which quite properly redirects to the common name. You're right that "New York" isn't perfectly unambiguous but I'm swayed by the existence of very common and unambiguous alternatives for the city. JamesMLane t c 09:49, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
My reference to naming conventions was in regard to the people looking for the city article. Someone who thinks of the city as just "New York", but who is familiar with Wikipedia's naming convention for U.S. cities, would type in "New York, New York" and be automatically redirected to the article at New York City. (Of course, some people are unfamiliar with the conventions and would type "New York" looking for the city. My point is that the number doing so is diminished by the existence of the convention on naming cities. This applies even though, for reasons unique to this situation, the decision was made to make an exception for New York City. The name called for by the convention still gets the reader to the right article.) JamesMLane t c 18:40, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
That discussion would belong on that article's talk page. --Evb-wiki (talk) 18:20, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
And they didn't come to any conclusion that gave states preference.--Loodog (talk) 18:36, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
I am sorry but I am tending to agree with Loodog here. The term "New York" is in no way more commonly used to refer to New York (State) than for New York (City) - at least outside the US anyway. When people say "New York", the general impression is the city. However, since there is no consensus on having one take preference of "New York", neither should, and the article should disambiguate to the two. 89.243.194.104 (talk) 18:29, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Refocusing

It seems like there are several different solutions floating around, with people supporting some aspects of the move but not others, so I thought I'd try to refocus here and clearly list the options that have been put on the table so far. First, I asked myself a few questions. Then, I formulated the options below. Please use the questions as a guide to which option you choose. If for some reason, I've left out a reasonable option, please let me know.

First question: When someone types New York into the search bar, where should it take them?

  1. New York (disambiguation)
  2. New York City
  3. New York State

Second question: Whatever you picked, do you think that

  1. "New York" should be a redirect to that article, or do you think that
  2. that article should be renamed "New York"?

Third question: If the article about the state of New York is moved, what title should it be moved to?

  1. New York State
  2. State of New York
  3. New York state
  4. New York (U.S. state)
  5. a different form

Possible options:

  1. Nothing happens. New York = State. New York City = City. New York (disambiguation) = Disambiguation.
  2. New York State (or other variant) = State. New York directs to New York City (or other variant).
  3. New York State (or other variant) = State. New York = City.
  4. New York State (or other variant) = State. New York City (or other variant) = City. New York = Disambiguation page, with the city and state given top billing, in bold italics, right up at the top.--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 21:58, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Survey 2

Please state which option you supporting, by number, in bold at the beginning of your comment. This is not a vote, but it can still be useful to see the raw numbers.

  • Option 4, or any variation on it with some variant article name like "New York (city)". (Joint second choice: options 2 and 3; last choice: option 1) PamD (talk) 22:28, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Option 4 Good arguments can be made, and have been made, both for New York being the city article or the state article. The fact of the matter is that the term 'New York' is ambiguous, hence the disambiguation page. AlexiusHoratius (talk) 23:15, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Option 2 - I don't think having the disambig page is suitable, because I'm pretty sure that the vast majority of readers are going to be looking for the city if they just type in "New York". So for me, that's the primary usage. So I think "New York" should redirect to "New York City", and then move "New York State" to some other title. (I don't care what the title ends up being.)--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 16:28, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Option 1 - Definitely. If New York is to be moved, we need to ensure that all existing links (including those generated by templates, such as {{city-state}} (or {{city+state}}, if moved) follow. Option 4 would be my next choice, (with the variant being New York (US State), by analogy with Georgia. Any option involving moving NYS would require comment at the naming convention page, as well as at these articles. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 02:03, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
  • How about the fact that we're deliberately sending the majority of readers to the wrong subject even though naming conventions should favor readers over editors?--Loodog (talk) 13:21, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Option 1 This choice is the worst of all possible options, except for 2, 3 and 4. They all have their flaws, but this is the least flawed. The option of making "New York" a disambiguation page is the least viable option, as it creates the substantial likelihood that one of the most common links will take a reader to neither the state nor the city. Alansohn (talk) 04:53, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Option 1 - anything but option 4 -- the ordinary name of the state IS New York, and New York City is ONE ordinary name of the city. Option 4 needlessly creates an impediment to users finding something (relevant in either of 2 main cases) on their first try. --JimWae (talk) 06:29, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
  • How are you defining "ordinary name"? "New York State" is a very commonly used, so how is it not ordinary? Overall, the official name of the city is the "City of New York" and the official name of the state is the "State of New York", so if "New York City" is ordinary then "New York State" is as well. Cheers, Rai•me 13:51, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Option 1. I disagree with the opinion that most people associate "New York" with the city rather than the state. The state is the larger entity and that article should retain its current name. All links referring to the city will link to the correct article. Those who search for "New York" will see a link for the city's article at the top of the state's article. -- Zyxw (talk) 11:29, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Option 1. I don't have much of a problem with option 4 either but prefer 1 and in the absence of compelling need think it's better to make no change. As far as I know it would be difficult to assess whether people who are looking up New York in Wikipedia would be more likely to be looking for the City or the State. I also think there is a generally accepted hierarchy of Country --> State --> City and readers will find our sticking to that convention helpful even if on one or two occasions they have to click on a hat note to get to the article they want. -- SiobhanHansa 12:07, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
Comment There is absolutely no precendent or guideline to award the basecase to the larger political division. If that were true, Georgia would direct to the country.--Loodog (talk) 13:21, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
ResponseAnd I think it's a shame it doesn't. I think we do our readers a disservice by not following outside convention more closely in some areas. It might make for a few more clicks initially for some readers but would give them a consistent way to find things after that. In this sort of case I think we should ignore our general guideline in favor of a solution that makes sense from a larger perspective. I believe it makes for a better encyclopedia. Guidelines and precedent are useful but need applying with good judgment, they are only there to help us build a better encyclopedia - they don't do it for us. -- SiobhanHansa 16:54, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
Note Just for the record, Georgia the state is twice the size of Georgia the country.
  • Note Retaining the status quo ("option 1") still requires links intended for the city to be fixed (roughly 30,000+). Moving "New York" to a dab page requires the most work of fixing links (essentially all 50,000 or so links) but will be the most beneficial if one thinks long term. Changing "New York" to either redirect to or be the article on the city will result in the least amount of link fixing needed (only 15,000+ links). --Polaron | Talk 12:32, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Option 4. There is no one absolute primary meaning, so per policy a dab page is the best option. However, I believe the city is more recognized as "New York" than the state, especially internationally, so I would also be fine with Option 2. Cheers, Rai•me 13:11, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Option 2 - changing my !vote based on the strong arguments of users below; the city seems to be the primary topic based on rough hit counts (at least 300,000 more than the state), but at the same time if we are trying to displace the fewest readers between two topics, a hatnote would work much better than a dab page. Cheers, Rai•me 17:05, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Option 4. I have seldom heard of "New York" expressed as primarily referring to the state. Granted, my experiences are slanted towards living in the southern United States and travels to Western Europe and East Asia. New York is the city full of symbols recognized worldwide; I'm pretty sure almost half the population of the state lives in NYC. So to me, keeping the status quo is not acceptable. Option 2 is my second choice. --Jh12 (talk) 16:43, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Option 4 is the solution that is consistent with WP:D. It might take months or even years to clean up the incoming links, but once the cleanup is done, this option is the easiest to maintain. Leaving the state occupying the undisambiguated space means having to go through thousands of links periodically to relink those intended for the city. --Polaron | Talk 17:06, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Option 1 by a mile, though if forced to choose another it would definitely be to move NYC to New York. I've argued this elsewhere on the page and agree with others who have stated their preferences for the status quo far more brilliantly than I did. JimWae especially. Matt Yeager ♫ (Talk?) 07:34, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Option 4 (or Option 3). As User:Jh12 notes above, for the majority of Wikipedia users who don't live in the city or state, "New York" primarily refers to the city. This becomes more pronounced the further away you get. This supposition supports Option 3 but, even if its wrong, there is clearly ambiguity which calls for Option 4. — AjaxSmack 05:48, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Discussion 2

Any discussion about how to improve this process and ensure we reach a lasting concensus can be placed here.

  • Actually all of the follow on discussions are not helping at this point. If you read the comments I think there is a developing consensus that New York should be a dab page. And this is enforced by the primary usage guideline. So that move needs to be made. After that the open issue would appear to be what to do with the state. I'd say move to to either choice and then we can have a further discussion. A second discussion would make because Washington has similar issues and both it and NYS probably need a common discussion to deal with naming. Vegaswikian (talk) 22:27, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
    • Well, deciding where to put New York (state) is necessary before making "New York" a dab page. We can't just put New York (state) in a hold page called "New York (purgatory)" until we decide what do name it! Or can we? -epicAdam (talk) 01:05, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
      • Actually yes and no. No matter what decision we make, we need need to address Washington and Georgia. Georgia is currently at Georgia (U.S. state) a form that would not get support for Washington or New York in my opinion. While 'Washington State' and 'New York State' read well, 'Georgia State' does not read well to me. If you add Mississippi, 'Mississippi State' would not be available since that is used almost exclusively for Mississippi State University. So at this point I don't think that it matters where the sate goes since that discussion is more complex. Trying to solve both issues here will make any kind of consensus impossible. However, making a good or a safe guess would be OK. Renaming all to 'Foo (state)' might be the most logical for one form that would work in all cases. But I suspect well reasoned objections from the 'New York State' and 'Washington State' supporters. Vegaswikian (talk) 08:34, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
    • I think "Mississippi" is a pretty big problem too, since the River is the most commonly referenced item, and the state is at the name... 70.55.84.60 (talk) 08:19, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
  • I don't see a concensus. I see opinions all over the place. --Evb-wiki (talk) 03:43, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Quick update: Using the options from above, I have employed my masterful skills to extrapolate standardized positions from the comments provided by users. The general breakdown is as follows:

Option 1: 9 users
Option 2: 5 users
Option 3: 2 users
Option 4: 9 users

Read into those numbers what you will. Not sure there's a consensus, but there is definitely a majority of users in favor of moving the article on the State of New York to another location. -epicAdam (talk) 04:41, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

What I can read into them is that there's at present a 8:7:9 split (ie total lack of consensus) between the 3 answers to your question 1 of "Where should "New York" get the reader?": dab:city:state (since option 2 and 3 have the same effect here)! PamD (talk) 07:32, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
Where on earth are you getting those figures from? The survey shows its:
Option 1: 2 users
Option 2: 1 user
Option 3: 0 users
Option 4: 4 users
Anyway, there appears to be a somewhat consensus for New York to be a disambiguation page for the state and the city.
The only thing to discuss now, is what format the names of the state and the city should take -
i.e. New York (State), New York, State, New York (U.S. State), State of New York, etc
and New York (City), New York, City, City of New York, etc
89.243.78.94 (talk) 10:51, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
The first tally includes everything from the start of the 'Requested Move' section above, not just the newer 'option' vote. AlexiusHoratius (talk) 11:52, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
That isn't the way things work. Everytime a new poll with new options is introduced, any previous votes of another user who voted for an option that also appears in the new poll, is not relevent, since there become more options available, and therefore, it is exhibiting a bias, since the users may have selected a differing option considering the new arrangement. 89.243.78.94 (talk) 12:57, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
I agree that it isn't ideal to have multiple polls with somewhat different choices, but it's still possible to get someone's opinion, in most cases, from the earlier polls. If someone clearly says they want the status quo, or some other option, then I don't think we should invalidate that opinion simply because their opinion wasn't entered in the most recent poll. AlexiusHoratius (talk) 13:15, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
The earlier opinions still carry weight. You can't just start a new poll and negate all previous discussions. And you cannot reach a consensus by attrition. --Evb-wiki (talk) 13:22, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Right, and we can't have a given option win due to opposing votes split in favor of other, similar options. For instance, it is worth considering the likelihood that those in support of Option 2 would probably be in favor of Option 4 if only given the choice between Options 1 and 4. --Jleon (talk) 14:29, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
    • Yes, but that's not an assumption we can make until we hear what they have to say if we take their options away. Right now, by anyone's calculations, Option 3 seems to be the least favored, so I think we can say that there's a consensus against option 3. So should we remove that as a possibiliy and see where those people move their support to?--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 16:32, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

This whole thing, consisting of at least three polls, is a mess, and the entire thing should be shut down for a few days, with a single poll then brought up, without any of this "we ignore earlier votes" stuff. --Golbez (talk) 21:28, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

I would agree that the whole thing is a mess; however, nothing is determined by polls anyway (see: Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a democracy and Wikipedia:Polling is not a substitute for discussion). Despite all the polling that's been performed, none of it means much if there is still significant opposition to a move (which there definitely is). Unless that opposition can be overcome through dialogue and persuasion the status quo prevails. -epicAdam (talk) 22:00, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
I have to agree that no real consensus seems forthcoming at this point - however, I believe this to be in large part due to the rapid and successive "polls" and "discussions". To call this discussion unfocused is oversimplifying things. That said, I think the issues need to be tackled one at a time if any kind of consensus is to emerge: first, decide whether the status quo is acceptable or if there ought to be some kind of change, and if that results in a motion to make some changes, then decide what should go where. Shereth 22:04, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

I absolutely agree with this. We need to go through this in steps. First step being "Should a change be made at all?". And, going from what I've read above, there appears to be no consensus yet for any page moves.

Users who appear to prefer the status quo: Alansohn; Dr. Cash; Golbez; JamesMLane; JPG-GR; Matt Yeager; Mattisse; Noah03; Septentrionalis; Shereth; Evb-wiki.

Users who appear to favor some type of change: Aervanath; AlexiusHoratius; D Monack; DGG; Eugene van der Pijll; Jh12; Jleon; Loodog; Ohconfucius; PamD; Vegaswikian; Voidvector.

To me, this is a pretty clear split, and certainly not a consensus. -epicAdam (talk) 22:17, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

"If there is extended discussion involving multiple parties about which article truly is the primary topic, that may be a sign that there is in fact no primary topic." I think this qualifies as extended discussion.--Loodog (talk) 22:45, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
Don't confuse a discussion over primary usage with a discussion over whether or not any change should be made. If we were all in agreement that a change should be made, but we were unable to determine what change to make, then we would possibly be able to invoke that nice quotation from WP:PRIMARYUSAGE. However, we are nowhere near that point yet. As a general rule, if there's no consensus on even making a change to begin with, then the status quo wins by default. -epicAdam (talk) 22:51, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
The discussion over primary usage is integral to whether to make any change. As such it's directly applicable to the subset of the discussion we're having as further evidence that the status quo is inadequate.--Loodog (talk) 22:58, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
Providing evidence does not necessarily equate with forming a consensus. Achieving Wikipedia consensus is like having a jury trial. Both sides present evidence and then the Wikipedia jury (as it were) must come to a single agreement. If no agreement can be reached, then nothing happens (like a hung jury). You can choose to bring the topic up again in the future or keep trying to change user's opinions for as long as you'd like. However, the users listed above who prefer the status quo have taken a look at the evidence and still respectfully disagree that any change should be made. For better or for worse, that's how the system works. -epicAdam (talk) 23:05, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
I'm not trying to bypass consensus. I'm making a policy-based argument to the wikipedia "jury". On the issue of whether "New York" should be dabbed, it's pretty clear there's no consensus, so whatever people feel about the location of the state and city articles, New York itself should obviously be dabbed.--Loodog (talk) 23:15, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
That may very well be the case but those users will point out that WP:PRIMARYUSAGE is a guideline, WP:CONSENSUS is the policy. Nothing is going to change as long as there is a significant number of users who are opposed to the move. That's just the way it is. -epicAdam (talk) 23:20, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
And I'm arguing to influence said consensus. I'm not trying to bypass consensus.--Loodog (talk) 23:26, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for clarifying. It seemed you were arguing that, because no consensus on making a change could be reached, a change must be made. --Evb-wiki (talk) 00:01, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia is not a democracy, and if in the case that a minority feels their view is correct, but not going ahead simply due to numbers (which are irrelevent), then they can request mediation. I suggest this is done. 78.151.125.7 (talk) 08:21, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
Yes, we're not a democracy, but all that means is that issues are not decided by pure majority vote. We decide things based on consensus, which means we discuss it rationally until almost everyone is in agreement. If rationality fails, then mediation can step in. So far, everyone here at this discussion is behaving pretty rationally, so I don't think it's necessary yet.--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 15:17, 1 August 2008 (UTC)


What about doing an analysis by argument type? Here's what I've seen.

Arguments for New York to NOT be a dab
  1. States are given preference over cities because they're bigger/there's a country-state-city hierarchy.
  2. A dab makes more work for anyone trying to get to either article.
  3. No compelling need to violate status quo.
  4. New York is regular name for state, New York City is regular name for city.
  5. Link logistics.

Respectively:

  1. No such precedence or hierarchy has ever been stated or imposed. e.g. Georgia (country) did not take precedence over Georgia (U.S. State). Americas is the largest America but America doesn't go there. The proper metric for hierarchy is what's most beneficial to the reader, because that's what's maintained everywhere else in wikipedia.
  2. By this argument, dab's should never exist. They have their purpose, which is to clarify ambiguous search phrases, in which case they have more benefit than cost. Lack of primary usage always necessitates a dab page. Besides, arbitrarily picking one to point to is hardly guideline pursuant.
  3. The majority of links to New York are the city, even though New York is the location of the state article. Foreigners typing in "New York" are finding themselves in some US political subdivision.
  4. City of New York is the "regular" name for the city; State of New York is the regular name for the state. Doesn't matter. Most common usage (to the benefit of the reader) is the preference. New York City is the most used name for the city that is unambigious. New York State or New York state is the most used name for the state that is unambiguous and there is no risk of confusion with a university here.
  5. Again, the majority of links to New York are the city, even though New York is the location of the state, so even the logistics are worse now.

--Loodog (talk) 14:43, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

I think 3, 4, and 5 are the main reasons I think New York should redirect to New York City, actually. For me, the issue is clear enough that we don't need the disambig page. Which I'm sure anyone reading this already knew from all my comments up above. But, hey, I didn't become I teacher because I hated the sound of my own voice. :) --Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 15:23, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
I would be more willing to tolerate that than the status quo, which is just wrong by every "benefit of the reader" guideline.--Loodog (talk) 15:35, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
The claim that more incoming links to New York are intended for the city is patently false - where is this coming from? There are approximately 52,200 links to New York (not counting redirect pages and transclusions). I did a survey of 100 of these links using a script to randomly select among them, so as to avoid any kind of user bias. For the purposes of the survey, I erred in the favor of NYC when it was ambiguous - for example, anywhere that used something like "Bronx, New York, USA", I assumed this to mean NYC even though it is ambiguous. Even with this generous method of interpretation, the survey resulted in 59 links explicitly referring to New York the state, and 41 links referring to NYC either explicitly or implicitly. For the sake of transparency, a list of the article surveyed is at User:Shereth/NYLinks. In any case, a 59% of the articles very clearly intended to link the reader to the state, not the city. While this may not be a huge majority, it's a far cry from the claim that "most" links to New York intend to lead the reader to the city. Shereth 16:02, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
That's a neat script, Shereth! But I think actual point here is that we don't know what users are expecting to find when they type "New York" into the search bar. "New York" received 261,238 in June 2008, but I think it'd be near-impossible to tell how many of those people arrived there by searching for the name and how many people arrived there by accident, attempting to find New York City. That's really the most important question here, but one I don't think can be definitively answered. -epicAdam (talk) 16:15, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
I was mainly looking to refute the argument above that The majority of links to New York are the city, and I believe this assertion to be demonstrably false. With regards to the intent of the reader when they type "New York" into the search bar, there is no reliable method to know which destination was their intent. Anyone claiming to know this answer because "Most foreigners would search for the city!" or something to that effect are relying on personal interpretation andn ot fact. Barring some kind of authoritative survey of users (which I don't see happening), this question is, as you say, unable to be definitively answered. Shereth 16:19, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
Right. But, just for fun, I did a few searches through Google and although this is completely non-scientific, the term "New York" without a qualifier (i.e. not New York State or New York City), pretty clearly referenced the city. In articles dealing with the markets and finance, the term "New York" overwhelmingly referred to the city as in "At the close of trading in New York...". And, oddly enough, I noticed that many State of New York websites, specifically refer to themselves as "New York State" such as: http://www.state.ny.us/, which titles itself as "New York State"; http://www.dec.ny.gov/, "New York State Dept of Environment"; http://assembly.state.ny.us/ "New York State Assembly", etc. So it seems that there is some realization, at least on government websites, that they needed to differentiate themselves from New York City. Again, not sure this all matters since its totally non-official, but just food for thought. -epicAdam (talk) 16:43, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
That's a very good point: it shows (1) governments acknowledging need for differentiation, and (2) use of "New York State" in an official government site. And just to pile on examples ny.gov uses "New York State".--Loodog (talk) 17:17, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
And the Arizona Legislature says "Arizona State Legislature" [1]. So does California [2]. So does Washington [3]. So does Illinios [4]. So what? The use of Foo State Legislature and Foo State Department of Bar is neither unique nor important. It can also be argued that these websites are almost certainly designed by a contracted company and we shouldn't be interpreting the wording on the website as being any kind of official "endorsement" of the title "New York State". If the point you are trying to make is that some level of ambiguity exists, no one is disputing that. Shereth 17:30, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
The "state" is subsumed as a part of "state legislature" as a phrase, not a part of the state name. If you consult any of the .gov sites of the examples you gave — az, il, ca, wa — none call themselves Foo State.--Loodog (talk) 17:46, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
The official name of the state is "The State of New York". This is set out in the state constitution. A heading on a web page does not alter this fact. Please, tell me what point you are trying to prove with the "New York State" bit on the website. Shereth 17:52, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
Ok. Well then. Since this is going nowhere fast. I'd like to point out that I think "New York State" should be a redirect to wherever the article on the State of New York ends up. I much prefer to keep the states consistent and use the qualifier "New York (U.S. State)". Reason being is that if New York moves, then there will probably be a strong move for Washington to move as well. And since "Washington State" is a dab page already because of the university, Washington would probably be moved to "Washington (U.S. State)" so that those states would reflect some sort of order initialized by Georgia (U.S. State). -epicAdam (talk) 17:56, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
I agree with the above statement 100%. Shereth 17:58, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
And, to make it clear, I was addressing Loodog in trying to clear up why s/he is pressing the issue of the "New York State" bit in the website. That wasn't directed at you. Shereth 18:00, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
But New York State is common usage, and New York (U.S. state) is not. I think that at the very least it should be New York (state); the only reason that Georgia has the "U.S." qualifier is because "state" can also refer to a nation, so the title Georgia (state) was still somewhat ambiguous between the country and the U.S. state. Cheers, Rai•me 18:05, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
Thanks so much. My sentiments exactly. There's no need to invent names for articles when common language had already provided. WP:NAME says that the parenthesis can be used, but that if a common usage other name is "equally as clear", that should be used. New York State is exceedingly clear and common. This article should be at New York State for the same reason the city should be at New York City.
For Washington, since common usage hasn't made anything, the (U.S. state) distinction makes sense for it.--Loodog (talk) 18:14, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
Also, there are about 1500 links to "New York State" already.--Loodog (talk) 18:26, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
I disagree, but again we are putting the horse before the cart - unless there is demonstrable consensus to move these articles, the ultimate name that this article resides at is a moot point. This entire talk page is fast becoming a mess because the discussion keeps veering off onto tangents without resolving the primary issues. Shereth 18:31, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
There is certainly some level of ambiguity - even at a 59-41 split it is fairly evident there are a large number of inbound links that are looking for NYC. This is why, while I am fairly ambivalent toward some kind of move (I don't really see it as necessary but don't see the harm in it), I am strongly opposed to moving NYC to [[New York]]. If a move is performed, this title should become a disambiguation page. Shereth 16:51, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
I began fixing dab links a few days ago. I don't remeber the exact count but my guess is around 50 links. From that roughly 3/5 were to the city and 2/5 to the state. I just did another sampling of 100 links in the "What links here" list starting from the 5000th. 49% were for the state, 46% were for the city, and 5% were not counted (not in main article space). The incoming links are probably closer to a an even split between city and state. What this means though is that a dab page is the best long term solution for this page. --Polaron | Talk 16:59, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
So half of links to New York mean the city and half mean the state. If NY links to the state (as it does now) the half looking for the state have found the article and the half looking for the state are one click away via a hat note. The same percentages would apply if NY pointed to teh city, with half finding their target page and half one click away. If NY becomes a disambiguation page, then 100% of readers will be directed to the wrong page. Why would we take one of the most valuable page names in Wikipedia and make it a disambiguation page? Alansohn (talk) 18:29, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Second attempt at refocusing

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

This survey didn't really accomplish anything, as "New York" is clearly ambiguous and the question this was asking was based on my incorrect assumption that if one agrees that the state is not the primary usage aone must also agree that the state needs to be moved. The question I was intending is now being discussed with Survey 5. --Rai•me 17:17, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

As Shereth mentioned above, this talk page is quickly becoming a mess without ever answering up the main question: is the state of New York the primary usage of "New York"? If consensus determines that it is, then the status quo should remain. If consensus determines that it is not the primary usage, only then should we discuss what article(s) to move and what name(s) to move to. -- Rai•me 18:48, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Survey 3

This survey is just related to whether or not the state of New York is the primary usage for New York. A support vote means that the U.S. state is the primary meaning of "New York", and thus the status quo should remain. An oppose vote means that the U.S. state is not the primary meaning of “New York”, so some change that is as of yet unspecified needs to occur. but does not necessarily endorse a move. Cheers, Rai•me 18:48, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

  • Oppose – In my opinion, the state is not the primary meaning. Cheers, Rai•me 18:48, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
  • I have no strong opinion on this question. I do believe that there is a slight majority in terms of the use of "New York" to refer to the state, and thus by that strict interpretation of what constitutes "primary use" the answer is yes. It is pretty close to even, however. As I have said before, I have a slight preference toward maintaining the status quo, but am not strictly opposed to making a move so that a disambiguation page can reside at this title. Shereth 18:53, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose WP:PRIMARYUSAGE uses phrases like "much more used" and "significantly more commonly searched for". Simply majority does not qualify even if we can establish it. The basic metric is "What do you think of when a stranger of the English-speaking variety says, 'New York'?" I say, "Did you mean the city or the state?" I've lived in and visited often New York State and visited New York City many times and this is how it is.--Loodog (talk) 18:57, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose - I'm with Shereth on this one. I don't think a move need be undertaken, but strictly speaking I don't think the state has the monopoly on the term "New York". -epicAdam (talk) 19:12, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose Easy call for me; New York's primary usage is the city, no question. --Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 19:20, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose: primary usage of "New York" is the city; many people outside the US have scarcely heard of the similarly-named state, and would certainly never think of it in response to "What is New York?". PamD (talk) 22:40, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Support "New York" can mean either the state or the city or New York County (i.e., Manhattan), but when "New York" is used without a modifier, the simplest interpretation is that it means the state. Also, there are many contexts such as "Buffalo, New York" and "New York Senator Hillary Clinton" where it refers to the state. When "New York" is used to refer to the city, it is almost always with the awareness of the potential for ambiguity, such that NYC residents usually describe themselves as living in "the City" (as if there weren't any other city in the world) or in a particular borough (e.g., "Queens") or neighborhood (e.g., "upper East Side"). (A disambiguation link on top of the New York article should be sufficient for people who go to that article expecting to find the city.) --Orlady (talk) 22:45, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose. No one has presented any facts in this discussion to say that there is a primary topic here. If anyone is taking the position that there is a primary topic, please help the rest of us with some actual facts that support that position. Vegaswikian (talk) 00:14, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
  • I dunno, I suppose I support, but it depends on how exactly you define "primary usage". It's certainly not overwhelming in any case. The arguments in favor of maintaining the status quo, I believe, stand on merits other than this. The only reason we even have this discussion is because NY doesn't clearly mean the state. Matt Yeager ♫ (Talk?) 07:04, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Discussion 3

I'm not going to alter my statement from above, but I was re-reading some of the earlier discussion and found the argument made by User:Alansohn to be rather compelling: right now roughly half of the inbound links to New York wind up where they expect to (the state) and half do not (the city). Changing to a disambiguation page means none of the links wind up where they expect - and you have to wonder if that is really worth the price. Also, I'm finding the structure of the question posed by this current "survey" to be slightly suspect - it is asking us if we believe New York (the state) to be the primary use of the phrase. I have to caution against the compelling logical fallacy that would arise in assuming that, just because someone agrees that the state does not have a monopoly on the use of the term (resulting in an "oppose" statement), it logically follows that said person supports moving the article. Shereth 22:57, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

It should logically follow - if something is not the clear primary meaning for a title, then why should it be located at that title? It may be true that dab pages cause no links to "wind up where they expect", but ndevertheless that is the policy per WP:DAB - disambiguation pages are used for topics that do not have one, unambiguous primary meaning, and "unambiguous article titles must be used for each of these topics". Per that policy, it would be "unacceptable" (sorry, can't think of a more appropriate term ;-) ) to leave the state of New York at "New York" if consensus determined that it was not the primary topic. This is why San Jose, Mercury, Portland, Lancaster, etc. are dab pages and not redirects. Cheers, Rai•me 23:15, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
"if something is not the clear primary meaning for a title, then why should it be located at that title?" Because the world is a strange and mysterious place and sometimes things don't work out how you'd expect. The way the articles are currently set up seems to work just fine. There's a clear dab link at the top of the article on the state. If we were to have a debate as to whether New York should link directly to the city, then that's an entirely separate argument. In the end, I just don't see how making New York into a dab page will better help people find the information they're searching for. -epicAdam (talk) 23:30, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
But WP:DAB is a guideline, not a policy as you say. As such it is open to both interpretation and exception - and if there are a significant number of people who feel that the article should not be moved in spite of not qualifying as a "primary topic" per the disambiguation guidelines, then we have an exceptional circumstance. That is why one cannot make the logical assumption that someone agreeing this is not a primary topic implicitly agrees that it should be moved. Given the vociferous reaction to the previous move, I would argue that this is very much a case where there are people who feel circumstances other than those described in the disambiguation guidelines should be considered prior to making this move. Shereth 23:32, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
Okay, my mistake about the policy. I guess we should then start a 4th survey asking the question whether or not this article should remain as is or be moved. Cheers, Rai•me 23:38, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
Just because the world is a mysterious place that doesn't follow commonsense doesn't mean WP can't. Above, as I said in #2:
By this argument, dab's at basecases should never exist. They have their purpose, which is to clarify ambiguous search phrases, in which case they have more benefit than cost. Lack of primary usage always necessitates a dab page.
Also, prior discussion does not need be the end all and be all. Consensus can change and we also need not assume the previous discussion was considering the guidelines properly. If the editors of the previous discussion are here they are free to add their arguments and you can reiterate those arguments, but "previous discussion" isn't intrinsically a content-based argument.--Loodog (talk) 01:00, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Slow down folks, I'm not trying to start another firestorm here :) I was merely pointing out that we cannot use the results of the "question at hand" to infer that people do or do not want the page moves to go forward. That question should be tackled explicitly. Shereth 01:05, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
I have reworded the "question at hand" to state that an "oppose" !vote doesn't necessarily endorse a move. But now a 4th survey is definitely needed to determine whether or not there is consensus to actually move this page. Cheers, Rai•me 01:23, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Lack of primary topic does NOT necessitate a disambiguation page

Loodog has pointed out several times the belief that if we can prove that the state (or the city, for that matter) is not the clear primary meaning for New York, we must make that page a disambiguation page. If I may jump in, that argument is flawed... things are different when and only when we're talking about TWO main usages. For a title like Flash, there are so many articles that have a logical argument to be placed at that name, each with very different meanings (and no one main meaning), a disambiguation page is completely justified because we likely have a majority who would not arrive at their desired page if we just picked, say, Adobe Flash. With New York, where there are only two main meanings, we have a completely different story. Let me give an example. For simplicity, let's say 50% of New York visitors want the city, and 50% the state; also, 30% of Flash viewers want Adobe Flash, 30% want Flash (photography), 20% want the comic book hero, and 20% want one of a plethora of other choices (like the city in England):

  • New York as disambiguation: 100% have to make 2 clicks. (One to arrive at New York, one to get to their destination.)
  • New York as the state with a header on top offering an instant link to the city: 50% make one click, 50% make two.
  • New York as the city with a header on top offering an instant link to the state: 50% make one click, 50% make two.

Versus:

  • Flash as disambiguation: 100% have to make 2 clicks.
  • Flash as Adobe Flash, with a link to the disambiguation page (for all the lesser meanings) as well as to the photography flash: 30% make one click, 30% make two, 40% make THREE clicks.
  • Flash as photographic flash, with a link to the disambiguation page (for all the lesser meanings) as well as to Adobe Flash: 30% make one click, 30% make two, 40% make THREE clicks.

There is a fundamental difference here. In this example, a disambiguation page at Flash serves the reader best by helping more readers than it hurts. By contrast, a disambiguation page at New York helps no one (except for the tiny percentage looking for something other than the state or the city) and hurts those looking for whichever topic we would have placed at New York. Does this make sense? Matt Yeager ♫ (Talk?) 07:24, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

The "number of clicks" argument isn't based on any guideline or guiding principle and results in the conclusion that there should be a complete listing of every possible meaning of a phrase at the top of every article.--Loodog (talk) 13:52, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Actually, Loodog, I have to disagree with you on this point. The "number of clicks" argument is a rather compelling one for me. It is based on the guiding principle that Wikipedia exists for the convenience of its users, which is in fact the guiding principle behind theWikipedia:Disambiguation guideline, and the whole reason we are having this debate. Matt Yeager's point was that the situation with TWO main usages, which dominate all others and are approximately equal in usage, is somewhat different than if there are three or more usages, of which none are dominant. In this particluar case, I disagree with the percentages he is using, (as I believe that New York City would be somewhat more than 50%, and New York State somewhat less), but if the situation were an almost 50/50 split between New York City/New York State, then it would be completely logical to NOT have a disambiguation page.--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 16:33, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
I also agree with Matt Yeager and Aervanath. To me, there has to be a compelling reason to make such a monumental change. While I agree that there may be no primary usage, no one has provided any evidence that the current set up is detrimental to users or that turning "New York" into a dab page will better help readers find information. Change for the sake of making a change just doesn't make much sense to me. Best, epicAdam (talk) 16:43, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Survey 4

We all seem to agree there's no primary usage for New York. If one of these were to be chosen, what would be the least ambiguous common phrase that can be used to identify the state with the least astonishment to the reader?--Loodog (talk) 14:59, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

  1. New York
  2. New York State
  3. New York state
  4. New York (state)
  5. New York (U.S. State)
  6. State of New York

Discussion 4

No opinion, but this is clearly the wrong question. The correct question is, if one of these were chosen, which name would cause the least confusion (including confusion in having multiple parallel disambiguation policies)? Which is the most common name for the state may not be entirely relevant. The most common name of Georgia (U.S. state) is, of course, "Georgia". — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:09, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

And "Georgia (U.S. state)" is probably used one or two times in the world outside of Wikipedia.... maybe. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:15, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps the principle of least surprise should be invoked? — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:16, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Very well, I've rephrased as hypothetical. Of course, you're right with Georgia, but I would argue (without jumping back into that deep end) that that choice would have been avoided if a common term like "Georgia State" had unambiguously existed for the state, but the unfortunate parenthesis surfaced as a worst-case contigency.--Loodog (talk) 15:16, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Shouldn't we have a survey asking whether or not one agrees with moving New York in the first place, before we get into hypothetical renaming? That is what I meant Survey 3 to be, but as Shereth explained the question was assuming that if one agrees that the state is not the primary usage aone must also agree that the state needs to be moved, and there is certainly not a consensus on that point. Cheers, Rai•me 16:12, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Absolutely. That's precisely why things have gotten messy before, and this really isn't helping now. This question is a moot point until the issue of whether or not to move the page at all is resolved, and I'd prefer to see this "survey" archived or put on hold until the first, more pressing matter, is resolved. Shereth 16:27, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Agreed; We should also archive Survey 3, as it is now obvious that very few people feel that the term "New York" is unambiguous, and the survey itself didn't really accomplish anything due to my incorrect assumption behind the wording of the question. Cheers, Rai•me 16:32, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Not to mention this question is loaded. We should not be trying to word the question in a manner that encourages people to answer in the way we want. The question should be straightforward: "Which name should the article have?" Again, the naming conventions are guidelines, not policies. Shereth 16:31, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

I also agree that this is the wrong question, but State of New York seems the most appropriate of any. Matt Yeager ♫ (Talk?) 05:33, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Yet another survey: should this article be renamed in the first place?

Before we get into hypothetical renaming as discussed above in Survey 4, one important question needs to be cleared up: should this article be renamed in the first place?

Survey 5

A support vote means that one agrees that this article about the state of New York should be renamed, with the "new" name being chosen in the future should there be consensus to go ahead with a move. An oppose vote means that one agrees with the status quo, with no change in this article's title occurring. Cheers, Rai•me 16:42, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

  • Support rename of this article, as the state is not the primary usage. Even if we don't create a dab page, it would make much more sense to redirect "New York" to New York City with a dab link there linking to this article, as that article gets roughly 600,000 hits per month, whereas the state's article gets only about 280,000 hits per month (with many of these hits being directed toward the city in the first place, given how many of the New York links intend to direct a reader to the city's article). Cheers, Rai•me 16:48, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose, slightly. While I agree that the current use is not necessarily primary, I do not see how moving this will result in a net positive. Shereth 16:53, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose - No proposed "solution" will result in a significant improvement in navigation for Wikipedia's readers. --Evb-wiki (talk) 18:03, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
    • Any improvement would be beneficial, and as it seems fairly likely that at least a slight majority of readers are looking for the city instead of the state when typing in "New York", the "solution" to redirect "New York" would very likely improve navigation. Cheers, Rai•me 18:25, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose - Per Evb-wiki's comments. I don't think moving the article to New York State and making this page into a dab will improve navigation. -epicAdam (talk) 18:11, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
    • Note that this proposal is not to reach consensus whether or not "New York" should be a dab page, only to determine if the state article should be moved. Cheers, Rai•me 18:25, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
      • Quite true. If all we agree to is a move of this article, "New York" would redirect to New York State by default. Even this, I feel would be an improvement over the current situation.--Loodog (talk) 18:28, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
    • So you are actually saying that sending a rather large number of readers to the WRONG page is a good thing? Clearly this does more harm then good, and I believe that is against policy. Vegaswikian (talk) 19:38, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Support - I can see strong arguments for "New York" to be the title of a dab page , or of the city page (or a redirect to the city page), but not the state page. The list at Special:WhatLinksHere/New_York influences my thinking - even if we tidy everything up now, editors will continue to make links to "New York" intending the city, and it's better for those to reach a dab page than a wrong page (the state). PamD (talk) 18:19, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Strong support for all the reasons given. Summarizing: (1) no primary usage for New York, (2) New York State as a term exists for the same reason as New York City, which is located there by popular consensus with good reason, (3) common usage in news for "New York" to mean city, (4) common usage at ny.gov and all affiliated government websites for "New York State", (5) Raime's argument (and my belief) that it is probable "New York" is more often intended for the city, (6) personal experience from living in and out of the state.--Loodog (talk) 18:16, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Strong support. No evidence that there is a primary usage so we really should follow WP:PRIMARYUSAGE and WP:D. Clearly exceptions can be made where there is consensus to do so, oblivious not the case here. Or there is some other justification that is so strong that it would force the change. But that would require consensus so again we have no consensus for the status quo. If the closer of this discussion reads this far and they have not decided to move this article, the one on the state if anyone forgot, then I suggest that they start a new nomination for the sole purpose of moving this to allow for a redirect to the dab page to meet WP:PRIMARYUSAGE and WP:D. Vegaswikian (talk) 19:32, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Strong Support --Jleon (talk) 20:14, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose, but I also believe strongly that this survey is not the right approach. There are more than two alternatives that have strong support. In such a situation, resolving the dispute through successive pairwise comparisons is advantageous to the alternatives introduced later in the process, and disadvantageous to those introduced earlier. See the example of preference allocations among alternatives A, B, and C at Arrow's impossibility theorem#Interpretations of the theorem. That example might well be close to the preferences here, if "A" is the status quo, "B" is for New York to be a dab page, and "C" is for New York to be the city article. Even if this "Survey 5" produces a majority for change, that doesn't eliminate the status quo from consideration, given that any particular change might well be deemed inferior to the status quo by a majority of those responding. Then, of course, we have the additional complication that this isn't exactly a vote in the form described in the article I linked. JamesMLane t c 22:20, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
    • The majority of those responding favor change over status quo, even if it isn't theirs.--Loodog (talk) 22:28, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
      • I'm afraid that your comment completely misses the point of my objection (even if we assume the correctness of your assertion about majority preferences). Consider the example I linked to, paraphrased here for convenience: Supppose that voters cast ballots as follows: 7 votes for A > B > C, 6 votes for B > C > A, and 5 votes for C > A > B. Suppose further that "A" is the status quo. Your argument is that the majority of voters (6+5) prefer some change, which is true. But if Change B were proposed, it could be pointed out that a majority of voters (7+5) would prefer the status quo, and similarly for Change C. Beginning with a vote in which one of the three alternatives is matched up against the combination of the other two is unfair to the one thus singled out, and gives an advantage to the ones that are grouped together. This is an illustration of the more general point that the method of successive pairwise comparisons is helpful to whichever alternative is introduced later in the process. For example, we could just as easily begin with "Should the change we consider be making New York a dab page or making it the city article?" We could then take the proposed change that was preferred in that poll and match it against the status quo, and we might well find that the status quo would be preferred. JamesMLane t c 23:07, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
        • That still makes assumptions about user's secondary preferences. My preferences, in order are: (A) New York to dab, state to New York State (preferred) or other label, (B) New York to city, state to New York State or other label, (C) status quo.--Loodog (talk) 23:16, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
          • I didn't make an assumption. I said "if". I was concerned that a majority (however slim) favoring some change (of whatever nature) would be taken as mandating some change, with the status quo no longer in the running, regardless of each editor's secondary preferences. User Raime, who began this survey, has now clarified that the intention is the more limited one of seeing whether there's a consensus for some kind of move. If the survey reveals an absence of such consensus, as is currently the case, then perhaps we can conclude that there's no point in continuing to expend time and energy on this issue. JamesMLane t c 01:56, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Strong Support --Jh12 (talk) 23:44, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose as per above. Matt Yeager ♫ (Talk?) 05:35, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Support. Yes, it should be moved because, at a minimum, "New York" is ambiguous. — AjaxSmack 05:51, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Weak Oppose. I'm getting tired, but moving the article should require tracking down the thousands of links to it and redirecting them, as the article New York is likely to change to be other than a redirect to the article on the state of New York. If the proposers will commit to checking each and every on of the links to ensure it points to the right place, change to Neutral, but it's not going to happen. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 07:15, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
    • Comment - Even leaving things as they are, the status quo, also calls for a major cleanup project as there appear to be so many New York links (eg as place of publication in references) which ought not to be pointing to the state. Estimates vary, but it looks as if perhaps a third to a half of them may be wrong at present. (And if the outcome is anything other than a dab page at New York, the cleanup project will not be a one-off but will be ongoing!) PamD (talk) 07:56, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Suppport it is the sensible thing to do, since the state is not clearly primary 70.55.203.50 (talk) 04:12, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Discussion 5

In response to Shereth's oppose: With the city article averaging at least 300,000 more readers a month, wouldn't it make more sense to have "New York" redirect there? It would be a net positive if the least amount of readers are displaced, and given that the city seems to be the primary usage, especially internationally, I think that redirecting "New York" to the city would do just that. Cheers, Rai•me 17:00, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

  • I have to respectfully disagree, as I prefer not to try and make any inferences based upon page hits. Shereth 17:06, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
    • I definitely understand your qualms about making such inferences, but in this case I thought it may be appropriate due to the fact that roughly 50% of the incoming links to New York are intended for the city. Here is my reasoning, make of it what you will: we can assume (yes, I know, bad, but in this case it is all we have to work with) that a good portion of hits for the New York article come from wikilinks in other articles. What percentage is anyone's guess, but it is reasonable to believe that it is significant. Well, if half of those links are intended for the city, that alone is a significant decrease in the state article's 280,000 hit count. Then we have to look at the readers who are displaced not by links, but just by typing in "New York" and expecting to find the city; it is logical that this will happen to most international readers (a global city takes prominence over a national subdivision, at least outside of the U.S. and Canada) and even to many Americans, as the city is generally referred to as New York alone; I live in Rhode Island, 3 hours away from the state and the city, and I am certain that if one was to ask people here the question of "what is New York", one will mostly receive the answer "the city"; the state seems to always carry the "State" or "Upstate" qualifier. Yes, I realize this is all based on my assumptions, so feel free to disregard it. It is just my two cents... But all signs seem to point that a majority of readers, however slight, would be intending to find the city when typing in "New York" - a Google search, hit counts, number of links, personal experiences, etc., so it seems that redirecting "New York" to the city would result in a net positive. Cheers, Rai•me 17:41, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

It occurs to me that it is a bit inane to have a "survey" section distinct from a "discussion" section if every person who responds to the survey with some variation of opposition is going to have their response called in to question. Either let people speak their peace and save the rebuttals for the discussion section, or the whole thing should just be one big discussion - not both ways. Shereth 23:20, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Enough already

  • I'm actually not sure that this whole process is getting us anywhere. It's been almost a week since the original abortive move, and as this is the fifth survey, it's pretty clear to me that consensus has not been achieved on any of the points above. I don't think any more polls or link statistics are going to help us reach a consensus on this matter, either, since people are pretty entrenched in their chosen positions at this point. I vote we close the discussion, archive it to a talk page, and remove the requested move templates. We can re-open the discussion in the future, if someone feels that consensus has changed.--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 17:12, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
    • I disagree; the only reason we have so many surveys is that the right question, now in Survey 5, wasn't asked from the start. We can archive the rest (particularly 3 and 4), but at least this discussion should be left open, IMO. Cheers, Rai•me 17:20, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
      • For the reasons I stated in my response to Survey 5, I strongly disagree with the position that this is "the right question" that should have been asked from the start. JamesMLane t c 22:21, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
        • The point of Survey 5 is not to determine whether there is consensus to move the article, but more to determine if there is any point in discussing things further if there is a majority of users who would prefer the status quo no matter what. If there is no consensus to begin with for any type of move (which seems somewhat likely at this point), then obviously we don't need to discuss this hypothetical move further at present. Cheers, Rai•me 23:33, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
  • I agree with Aervanath, but I believe declaring "no consensus" at this point is definitely premature. There's no harm in waiting a few days for more !votes to filter in (though clearly if current !voting trends persist you are correct in saying we'll have to call it no consensus). I'd say by about the 5th of August we should know. Matt Yeager ♫ (Talk?) 06:54, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Also, for the record, survey 2 (which is still technically "active") has an option that is, essentially, an "oppose" vote, that being option #1. Several users have indicated they prefer this option who have not subsequently "voted" in this survey, but their opinions should not be discounted. Shereth 23:53, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Discuss

I just have to say one thing about this nonsense, why does the cow jump over the moon???Nissanaltima (talk) 07:43, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
The dab cleanup crew does cleanup links to dab pages since they should not exist. If the problem is articles, then we are on our own. Maybe this alone is a good reason to clear out the article from here so that the new links get cleaned up by editors with a good set of tools. Vegaswikian (talk) 21:51, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
So what have we concluded?

Seeing as how the ambiguity of "New York" is agreed upon, a dab is the only choice IMO. As for what this article should be moved to, I've heard arguments that "New York State" isn't official or that we should use parenthesis to be consistent with Georgia (U.S. State). Look at New York City. That is neither the official name in any way, nor is it consistent with any other cities (Chicago city, anyone?), yet we (correctly) placed the city article there because it's the least ambiguous common term. The term "New York State" exists for the same reason "New York City" does. Neither is official, but both are very common unambiguous phrases, that even evolved naturally into the language for this very purpose.

Again:

  1. link logistics are moot because they have to be fixed anyway
  2. hierarchies on geographical size or country-state-city are invented and not followed on WP
  3. consistency with other states is moot because (a) we already have an exception and (b) there are no guidelines to keep states consistent any more than there are to keep elements consistent (see: Mercury)

Thoughts, anyone?--Loodog (talk) 01:46, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

  • My thought is that this is intentionally trying to steer the discussion in a desired direction. I do not agree that "seeing as how the ambiguity of "New York" is agreed upon, a dab is the only choice". I do not see anything approaching consensus to make any kind of move or change here. Shereth 02:01, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
  • I agree with Shereth. No consensus to make a change of title or move this article has been reached. --Evb-wiki (talk) 02:40, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
I'm only trying to steer this towards some conclusion. I think everyone's views are crystalized enough for us to decide what to do with this.--Loodog (talk) 02:41, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
If there is no consensus, the only conclusion is do nothing. Shereth 02:44, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
Yup. See my comments above at #Enough already.--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 03:09, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

And what is the argument that ambiguous use should NOT result in a dab?--Loodog (talk) 15:03, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Haven't we had this conversation? Please see above. --Evb-wiki (talk) 15:07, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
I only see the "number of clicks" argument above, which I've responded to.--Loodog (talk) 15:19, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
Just because you responded to it, doesn't mean you've refuted it. You have not built a consensus. --Evb-wiki (talk) 15:24, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
And just because it's been stated doesn't mean it has any validity. The logical conclusion of the number of clicks argument is to place every possible meaning of a phrase at the top of EVERY page.--Loodog (talk) 15:30, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
Ah, yes. We have had this conversation before. --Evb-wiki (talk) 15:40, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

I would gladly accept a lack of consensus on the issue if valid reasons were given, as opposed to "I just disagree and therefore there's no consensus."--Loodog (talk) 15:46, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Your disagreeing with a reason does not make it invalid. -- SiobhanHansa 16:05, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
We can play this forever, fruitlessly. Your statement that the reason is not made invalid does not make it valid.
Again, I would gladly accept a lack of consensus if reasons were given but at this point it just seems like filibustering.--Loodog (talk) 16:11, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
There doesn't have to be a "reason" per se for a lack of consensus. The fact that a significant number of users oppose the move is enough... no admin would even think about making this change with the number of users opposed to it, and when it comes right down to it, that's really what matters. -epicAdam (talk) 16:17, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
Of course reasons don't have to be given for any discussion of anything on a talk page. It would make the case more compelling to keep things as is. Without it, this is just status quo by filibuster.--Loodog (talk) 16:21, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
What I think you're missing, Loodog, is that this is a subject on which reasonable Wikipedians can differ. Sometimes, when all sides make their arguments and the issue is thoroughly discussed, differences of opinion remain. You certainly have the right to persist in your opinion, but it's discourteous to imply that people haven't given reasons, when what you really mean is that you personally find their reasons unpersuasive. JamesMLane t c 16:41, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
I don't mean to be discourteous, but the only justification I've seen so far is the "number of clicks" argument, which holds no water when run it to its conclusion.--Loodog (talk) 16:47, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
It does seem arbitrary having New York as the state since the city is arguably just as valid as a base name (and more so imo). Unfortunately, it's also apparent there will be no consensus for a move. --Jh12 (talk) 16:59, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
It does seem to me that people who are for maintaining the status quo haven't really articulated their reasons for doing so very well. Yes, it is true that in the short term, moving the state article away from the "New York" title would result in more work. However, once that initial work of sorting out incoming links is done, it would be a much easier task of maintaining a disambiguation page rather than an article page. Let's say there are 50,000 incoming links to "New York" with half for the state and half for the city. If we do nothing as some people want, we would need to check the 50,000 links to "New York" and relink 25,000 that are meant for the city. Then after that initial task is done, we would have to constantly comb through the 25,000 links to "New York" and check that new links are indeed meant for the state. If "New York" becomes a disambiguation page, we would need to check the 50,000 incoming links and relink all 50,000 to where they're meant to go. However, once that initial task is done, you would have 0 incoming links to the disambiguation page and you can easily check any new links added and quickly direct them to the appropriate link. It is much easier to comb through a list of ~0 links than it is to go through ~25,000 links. In the long term, the disambiguation page makes more sense. --Polaron | Talk 18:02, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
I think I have articulated my reasons for maintaining the status quo rather well, though I think I may have done a better job with addressing why all of the proposed options are worse than what we have now. Status quo or not, the cleanup task of misdirected links to the "New York" article needs to be done. Regardless of the new title that might be chosen, any new links will need to be addressed and cleaned up over time. The bigger issue is for readers. If half of those typing "New York" mean the city and half mean the state, then half those linking to "New York" will have found their article and half will need one more link via hat note. A disambiguation page will mean that 100% of all readers will be on the wrong page. Whatever its use, the "New York" article is a valuable article that should most certainly not be wasted as a disambiguation page. The goal here should be to make it easier for readers to get to the article they're looking for, not to simplify a maintenance task for us editors. Alansohn (talk) 20:11, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
That is not consistent with how things like Mercury and Georgia are addressed. Why is it that we simply don't choose one meaning over the other? What makes "New York" different from those two? --Polaron | Talk 20:59, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
Also, if we really followed through consistently a naming policy that rearranged the position of articles according to their "real estate value", we'd have one fucked up encyclopedia resulting.--Loodog (talk) 21:07, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Although there is no overwhelming consensus, there are clearly more people favoring some form of move over the status quo. Therefore, I believe the best thing to do would be to redirect "New York" to the disambig page. --Jleon (talk) 17:41, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
It's hard to make definitive assertions about the breakdown of opinions, given that there've been so many surveys (let alone comments), but I think there are more people against making New York a dab page. The majority appears to want a reader who types in "New York" to get to an actual article. For the reasons I explained above, your conclusion and mine are not inconsistent; there's a good chance that any particular alternative will find a majority opposing it. JamesMLane t c 18:24, 5 August 2008 (UTC)


Survey 6:dab?

Given that we've agreed "New York" is ambiguous, should "New York" become a dab? A support vote supports a dab page.--Loodog (talk) 18:36, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

If we're going to have yet another survey, let's at least make it a little easier to keep track of the weight of opinion, by numbering responses. Loodog, I won't presume to move your response, but I invite you to be #1 in the "Support" side.

The question is whether New York should be a dab page ("support" this poll), or whether it should lead the reader to a substantive article ("oppose" this poll). JamesMLane t c 18:34, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Clarify: Support is a vote to send "New York" to a dab page. Oppose is a vote to have "New York" send to either the city article or the state article.--Loodog (talk) 18:56, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Support

  1. --Loodog (talk) 18:36, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
  2. Jleon (talk) 01:39, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Oppose

  1. JamesMLane t c 18:34, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
  2. It should redirect to the city. 70.55.203.50 (talk) 04:23, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Other

  1. Conditional support. If this article on the State of New York is to be moved, then New York should be a disambiguation page (or a redirect to New York (disambiguation)). I'm opposed to the move, so I don't want my !vote counted as support for the move. Reasons given above. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 18:45, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Discussion

Since no consensus was reached in survey 5, i.e., should "this article about the state of New York should be renamed," this survey #6 is meaningless. --Evb-wiki (talk) 19:00, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Arising in argument from JamesMLane was how many people would support a dab page. Survey 5 is therefore being partially argued by the results of survey 6.--Loodog (talk) 19:03, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
There is already a dab page. Unless a consensus to move this page is reached, this survey is moot. --Evb-wiki (talk) 19:14, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
You're missing the point. This survey is intended for evidence in the discussion of survey 5.--Loodog (talk) 19:21, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
A survey for evidence that the survey is moot? --Evb-wiki (talk) 19:26, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
A survey for evidence for the survey that isn't moot.--Loodog (talk) 19:28, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
Survey 5 and its discussion (as well as discussions in the previous surveys) is evidence enough. Having this survey is misleading, because it presupposes a change. --Evb-wiki (talk) 19:37, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
Just to clarify, I'm not in favor of another survey and my comment wasn't intended to prompt one. JamesMLane t c 19:10, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Enough already take 2

So, I've engaged in a little !vote counting here. Going from all the way at the top of the page, I've come up 22 users in favor of keeping the status quo, versus 22 users in favor of some sort of change. Of the 22 in favor of change, 10 thought New York should lead to NYC (either by moving NYC to New York or by redirecting New York to NYC), 11 thought New York should be a disambig page, and 1 was in favor of generally moving the state article.

  • Users for status quo: Coolcaesar, epicAdam, Alansohn, Ceyockey, JamesMLane, Kevin Rutherford, Golbez, Matisse, Septentrionalis, Dr. Cash, Shereth, JPG-GR, Noah03, Matt Yeager, (unnamed), Fuhgettaboutit, Jonathunder, Evb-wiki, Arthur Rubin, SiobhanHonsa, Deor, Orlady
  • Users who have expressed support for New York leading to NYC: Wannabe Wiki, Aervanath, Dovid, 70.55.84.60, DGG, D. Monack, Eugene van de Pijll, Ohconfucius, JimWae, Raime
  • Users who have expressed support for New York leading to a disambiguation page: Loodog, Ajax Smack, Jleon, Polaron, Jh12, Anthony Appleyard, AlexiusHoratius, Voidvector, 89.243.180.26, PamD
  • 70.51.9.81 !voted to move the article about the state to another title, without further specification

There is clearly no consensus for moving anything anywhere. Unless someone comes up with some blindingly brilliant arguments that can sway the "pro-status quo" editors to supporting some sort of move, there is no point in continuing this discussion.--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 20:14, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Although I support the dab page option, I agree that there isn't much agreement on what to do even if there were a change. I do have another proposal, though, I think it's sort of a tweak to the status quo. To appease some of us who feel that sending (at least) half of the 'New York' searchers to the wrong article isn't the right thing to do, could we perhaps put the This article is about the state note in bold? I know this isn't normally done, but I think we can at least all agree that this is an unusual case. AlexiusHoratius (talk) 21:03, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
I agree that there is no consensus now and none forthcoming. Belaboring this discussion further is probably doing more harm than good in the overall. If I were an uninvolved admin, I'd probably close all of the above discussions, archive them, and suggest the topic be left alone for a while. Perhaps the discussion can be reopened in the future to gauge whether or not consensus has changed, but right now there is simply no consensus and no reason for continuing with yet more surveys. Shereth 21:27, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
Who is going to set up the wikiproject of examining all current New York links and correcting those which are intended for the city? And, is there any way to get a periodic list of newly-created New York links in future, so that these too can be checked? Otherwise, there will be thousands of city links ending up on the state page forever. PamD (talk) 21:57, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
There has to be a way to do this without manually going through every link. What would be really helpful is if any editor here knew how to use Wikipedia's search to look through the Wiki markup, not just the text. Most of the problems I've had over at Washington, D.C. with internal links is when editors separate the two terms in the Wiki markup, like "[[Washington]], [[D.C.]]", which results in two incorrect links. Being able to search for those would do a lot to fix internal links short of manually searching each page. Best, epicAdam (talk) 23:06, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
I just looked at the "what links here" list for some examples of the problem. The first instance of an incorrect link that that I found was a article in which the city of publication for several books in the References list was linked to "New York" instead of "New York City." I would not be surprised if that's typical of many of these erroneous links -- it would be nice to correct those errors (and it should be possible to catch many of them by automated searches), but Wikipedia is not seriously harmed by errors in those links. --Orlady (talk) 16:31, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
Aervanath, many thanks for undertaking the drudgework of categorizing and counting responses. I especially appreciate your work, given that your honest reporting of the results cuts against the option you favor. JamesMLane t c 22:12, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
Thank you, but I felt we had to look at the larger picture. This debate is taking up way too much of everyone's time and isn't getting anywhere. That ultimately hurts Wikipedia by taking away our attention from more productive editing tasks. I haven't de-orphaned an article in days! I've been bold and bolded the disambig hatnote per AlexiusHoratius, because (I hope that) it is an innocuous change that people aren't going to object to. Obviously, if someone does object, please feel free to revert it, and we can have another 165kb of debate about that. (just kidding, I hope) Cheers, Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 01:58, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

I hate to chime in because it's always sketchy when someone who supports the status quo says this, but I've seen a ton of move requests, and I can very safely say this is nowhere near a consensus. It's been five+ days since Survey 2 began. I suggest someone relatively impartial close this baby up (I don't want to do it myself, for obvious reasons). Matt Yeager ♫ (Talk?) 06:13, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes. The only thing we may have achieved consensus on is that there is no consensus. Thanks for fixing the hatnote, by the way. Not sure why I thought New York was a redirect...that's what I get for editing on only 3 hours of sleep. :) Cheers, Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 06:37, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
It might make sense to ask an uninvolved admin to come take a look and see if they agree that the debate should be filed for the time being. Perhaps WP:AN to get someone's attention. Shereth 13:58, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
I just did so. And you're welcome, Aervanath... that's one of my pet peeves, too-long hatnotes, so it was my pleasure. Matt Yeager ♫ (Talk?) 01:18, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Don't make New York redirect to New York City.

It's wrong in my opinion. Sure, New York is often to refer to the city, but it's more official name of the state. New York City is New York City, not just New York. Changing New York into redirecting to this page would be wrong. I also oppose redirecting New York to the dab page since it's most officially used to refer to the U.S. State. TheBlazikenMaster (talk) 13:52, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Ancestral makeup

Reposting this because it got burried amidst all the discussion of moving the page around: Do we have a verifiable source for the numbers of "African Americans?" The citation is just some fact page that someone put together. The Census Bureau fact sheet doesn't list "African American" among all the other groups. This image indicates Italian is the largest group, not African American, and claims to be using census data. Archons (talk) 14:58, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

On the census bureau page, at the top, if you click on "Demographics" it has the number of African Americans at 3,167,786 compared to 2,833,825 claiming Italian ancestry. Best, epicAdam (talk) 15:06, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
The demographics data is on race, not ancestry. So, this shows that there are more people of "Black or African American" race than of Italian ancestry. Is that the same thing as saying African American ancestry outnumbers Italian ancestry? Maybe that's a dumb question, but I would have also thought the data would be presented that way if it were the case. Archons (talk) 19:15, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
As a general rule, I would say that "Black or African American" race can be construed as ancestry for these purposes. However, "ancestry" is rather subjective since it relies completely on people bothering to fill out. The ACS also allows respondents to check off multiple categories and have them counted twice. From the ACS methodology report:

If a person reported a multiple ancestry such as “French Danish,” that response was counted twice in the tabulations--once in the French category and again in the Danish category. Thus, the sum of the counts in this type of presentation is not the total population but the total of all responses.

Even then, the census was only able to estimate 14.7 million responses, despite there being 19.3 million New Yorkers. There are also 758,739 who checked off the catch-all "American" ancestry group, which could really be anybody (there are only 60,000 recorded Native Americans). The problem for African Americans is that besides Africa, few know they're actual national origins. In fact, given how rife with problems that category response is (especially in that it counts the total number of responses, not people) I think the information should be removed altogether. Best, epicAdam (talk) 01:15, 16 August 2008 (UTC)
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