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

Move request

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: No consensus. This requested move was closed by administrator Newyorkbrad on 10 August 2016 and has been reviewed and endorsed. As a page mover and an involved editor, this is merely a procedural matter to archive this request and comply with the closing instructions that are applied to all requested moves. (non-admin closure)  Paine  ^u/c 00:33, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

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Background

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

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

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

The main debate is now closed pending evaluation by the panel.

Argument and evidence in support of moving the page

This section is now closed.

New York State fails both WP:PRIMARYTOPIC criteria

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

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

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

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

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

New York is an ambiguous target for internal links

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

Usage by the world and our readers, World > NYS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The case should be decided on its present merits

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

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

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

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

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

Exactly. Dissenters should have something more constructive to say than "the status quo is fine because nobody ever gained consensus to change". This is a self-perpetuating argument. Let me quote from the last substantial debate in 2010:

Who decides it "has worked just fine for years"? This discussion is as old as the current situation, so it probably always has annoyed and confused people (me for one), as much as it has worked for others...
— User:Joost 99 23 October 2010

Many of the arguments advanced today for disambiguating New York were already present in the 2008 and 2010 discussions. There was broad consensus that New York is an ambiguous term but change was opposed because a) we can live with hatnotes b) it's a long-standing status quo c) fixing links is hard work. Sorry, those rebuttals sound as thin today as they sounded six or eight years ago. We have real usability and consistency issues to face and we have laid out practical ways to address them, improving the quality of the encyclopedia for the benefit of our readers. See also #Opposite move would have no rationale. — JFG ^talk 00:12, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

The damage of the current situation

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

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

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

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

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

The job is not too big, but is growing

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

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

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

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

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

From these measurements, I conclude that:

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

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

Your specific conclusion is not valid as it relies heavily on correlation, rather than causation. However, you have indeed demonstrated the damage that the ill-fated trial move inflicted - namely to reduce the overall views to the City and State. The damage goes far beyond pageview statistics as well. It involves the integrity of an encyclopedia pandering for a primary topic based solely upon global fame as opposed to acknowledging the more mundane issues involving geography, plain and simple. Castncoot (talk) 04:16, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

This has already been decided, as it's how our guidelines have been crafted. WP:PRIMARYTOPIC relies upon amount of usage and long-term significance, not geographical prominence. The state does not overwhemly stand out in any of those metrics, which is what would be needed to be the primary topic.

You seem to consider that reducing the pageviews of the State article is some kind of damage, but that doesn't take into account that those visits were lost because that amount of readers weren't looking for that page at all. Diego (talk) 06:35, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

Opposite move would have no rationale

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

A dab page would be specifically undesirable as a death knell for real-page viewership, as we would lose readers from othe collective New York/New York City pair. Let's get readers to one page or the other in a manner that is not incorrect, and then redirect as necessary with a smart, crisp hatnote. Since New York City is already disambiguated as, well, "New York City", this has fortuitously left "New York" for the State, as editorial wisdom has recognized for well over a decade now. Castncoot (talk) 04:26, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

Statistics on worldwide naming

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

For the city:

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

For the state:

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

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

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

Again JFG, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a glamor or fame contest. The percentages you reveal contain certain margins of error and in any case are in reasonable ranges of each other rather than orders of magnitude; this in fact lends the State greater credibility being entitled "New York", given that it completely contains New York City, hundreds of other municipalities, over 11 million additional inhabitants outside the City, and 50,000 square miles of geographical features as well. Please understand JFG that this is anencyclopedia and should not bear WP:UNDUE bias toward global fame alone. And anyway, New York contains that famous city. Castncoot (talk) 04:36, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

Dear Castncoot, I spent hours counting the ways that New York is named in hundreds of languages and dozens of exotic scripts, precisely to gather more data and improve the encyclopedia. Feel free to count them yourself if you doubt the "margins of error"; this is indeed not a beauty contest or a political poll. Facts are not biased, only opinions are. In all my contributions to this debate, I am in no way playing down New York State's importance and relevance, please in turn do not play down New York City's prominence in the global consciousness; your doomsday scenarios make you sound very biased indeed. Neither the city nor the state should have undue weight, which is why I recommend disambiguation. — JFG ^talk 10:21, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

Not the case at all, JPG. To clarify in no uncertain terms, my primary interest here is that the term "New York" does in fact NOT lead to a primary disambiguation page, and for two primary reasons: 1) Both the City and the State would collectively lose thousands of pageviews daily, because once people get entrapped by a dab page, a (significant) proportion will lose interest and not pursue it any further. Their mind will wander, the phone will ring, they'll receive a text, they won't want to bother going into the weeds of the dab page, etc., etc., etc. Please tell me how this helps Wikipedia or either one of these articles. It's absolutely a lose-lose-lose situation! Unfortunately, many readers literally have to be spoon-fed!!! Meaning that many readers have to be whisked on a flying carpet right into either one of these real articles when they mindlessly type in the term "New York", I really don't care which one! Fortuitously, New York City is already disambiguated as "New York City", so this leaves "New York" to the State, and this has been a technically correct and perfectly sensible option all along. The State contains the City, and editorial wisdom over the past 14 or 15 years has firmly supported and maintained this logic. A clear, concise, and crisp hatnote is all that is necessary thereafter to lead them to the other article if necessary. And they're both closely linked, so there isn't a bona fide astonishment factor to be concerned about. Castncoot (talk) 15:55, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

The question is, how relevant is this issue? The real question is: To the average English speaker, what would "New York" mean? The fact that in Hebrew Wikipedia the name ניו יורק refers to the city has nothing to do with it. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 21:29, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

As there is a dispute over the New York name being more widely interpreted as the state or the city, and to avoid "what first comes to mind" bias, we are compiling factual evidence showing the relative weight of each understanding of the word New York: page views, incoming links, search results, cultural references, etc. Naming in other wikis is an interesting measurement because it shows the collective opinion of readers and editors worldwide. When 48 of the 58 largest wikipedia communities in the world have decided that New York needs to be disambiguated by a State qualifier, it is a compelling argument that the state cannot be considered the primary topic for this term. — JFG ^talk 22:29, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Educational value of changing the page title

Sample search results for New York by typing "new y…" in the search box on the English Wikipedia as an anonymous user on 20 July 2016
Don't you want to see "New York State" in there?

Some editors have argued that the current setup educates worldwide readers about the existence of a US state called New York. Such a goal would be in fact better served by moving the state page to New York (state) or New York State, because:

• New York as a dab page tells you about the state and the city immediately and prominently;
• Mutual hatnotes in the city and state articles can advertise each other's existence and distinctiveness;
• Wikipedia search box and Google results will display "New York (state)" and "New York City" as their first two choices when typing "New York" (or even just "new y…"), which is arguably more educational and helpful than seeing "New York City" and "New York" as the first two choices today. (see screenshots: Wikipedia illustrated here / Google Search hosted outside as 20 July anonymous search or link to new search)

Therefore, any ignorant readers would be instantly educated about the existence of New York State as distinct from New York City, even before completing their search. Readers could also pick the correct destination more reliably than with today's entries "New York" and "New York City" which can appear to be duplicates to a person unaware of the state. — JFG ^talk 13:24, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

Just another comment. I searched "New York" on Google, and the thing on the sidebar showed the summary for the city's wiki article, plus a map of NYC (same as the second image). And I'm sitting in a bookstore in the middle of Manhattan. So, yeah. Kylo Ren (talk) 20:05, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

While JFG's speculations are noble, the reality is that from a practical standpoint, to link "New York" immediately to a dab page would lose a significant proportion of readers to the numerous distractions that Wikipedia needs to compete against in this day and age (texts, pings, cell phone calls, etc.), and these readers would be lost from ever getting to either the City or State page, which would both also by the way need to collectively compete against the other dab topics on the already existing New York disambiguation page (the namesake novel, the magazine, etc.). The fact of the matter is that till eternity (or as long as Wikipedia survives as a medium), readers are going to instinctively type in the term "New York" without any forethought whatsoever (and they should have every right to do so). To then link the topic "New York" on a primary basis to a disambiguation page would be preposterous. Dab pages as a primary direct are meant to be reserved for low-key topics as Serafina, not for topics of the profound significance borne by "New York". Castncoot (talk) 04:08, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

Sorry Castncoot, your argument flies in the face of well-established and battle-tested naming conventions and usability guidelines of Wikipedia; no amount of repeating "but New York is so special" will change the facts of the matter. — JFG ^talk 04:55, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

New York is by no means special, but it is in fact distinguished by its high pageview volume to both the City and State articles. Therefore, even speaking conservatively, an even 20% volume drop in page views as a result of initial direction to a disambiguation page and the subsequent distractibility as outlined above would equate to the loss of over four thousand (4,000) page views per day collectively between the City and State articles. This drop is an extraordinary and totally unacceptable price to pay for a little extra specificity to make you feel good. What you're doing is to throw the baby out with the bath water by forcing everybody to jump over the hurdle of a dab page before loading a true article page, every single time someone enters "ny" or "new york" instinctively, without forethought. Castncoot (talk) 14:11, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

What drop in page views are you talking about? When the title was redirected to the DAB page for a few days, the total number of views in New York City remained constant; therefore, the new arrangement didn't hurt the people who wanted to reach their desired article; in fact it helped those who typed "New York" wanting to see the city (which I estimate as the difference in visits between "New York" before the change and "New York (state)" after it, or about 4.500 readers), as they didn't need to load a large unwanted article in addition to the article they looked for. We've already tried the proposed configuration, and your predicted doomsday didn't happen.

Dab pages as a primary direct are meant to be reserved for low-key topics - There's nothing in the Disambiguation policy suggesting that Dab pages are restricted in such way - in fact PRIMARYTOPIC states quite the contrary: when several pages have similar amount of visits, it mandates a Dab page no matter how low or high profile. Our experience at Washington, Big (ambiguous for the high-volume Big (film) and The Notorious B.I.G.) or Madonna suggest the same. Diego (talk) 14:43, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

So you admit that the collective total dropped for the two articles, especially as the State's page views plummeted, with a modest dip for NYC, proving that most people were in fact looking for the State article when they typed in "New York" in the first place and that primary dab-page links do indeed steal page views away from real articles! The terms "New York" and "NY' were then quickly directed out of the dab page and right back onto the State page, rescuing it by giving it a life preserver, and the numbers then crept back up toward the status quo. Especially so at a time of stagnant to declining Wikipedia viewership, putting the New York page and Wikipedia right back at risk for great harm is not acceptable. Please propose a more realistic idea if you are interested in change for the sake of change. Castncoot (talk) 17:18, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

It proves no such thing. The decrease in overall page views between the three pages can for the most part be attributed to links in articles being updated. Prior to June 18, many readers were clicking on a link in an article that went to the state article when it should have gone to the city article. Thus these readers were registering two page views in the total. From June 18 through July 7, many links to New York were updated to link to either New York (state) or New York City and as a result, readers clicking on one of these links are registering only one pageview rather than two (and were thus spared the misfortune of having to load a page they did not want in order to get to the page they actually wanted. There was negligible change in the pageviews for the disambiguation page. For the 90-day period, the total count ranged from a low of 20,294 on July 16 to a high of 29,955 on May 7. The median value was 23,912. For the period prior to June 18, fifteen days were below the median and 41 above. For the period June 18 to July 7, sixteen days were below the median and 4 were above the median. For the period after July 7, fourteen days were below the median and zero were above the median. This suggests there was no bounceback (or lifesaver effect), only a decrease in total pageview count—which is best accounted for by readers not having to view a page they did not want before getting to the page they actually wanted. older ≠ wiser 20:07, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

This is candy by the bushel to have the other side support all of my points for me! It's like kicking goals into your own net or throwing touchdowns into your own end zone. How often does that get to happen?! So you're admitting to a significant drop in State page views without a compensatory increase in City page views. Now as you still haven't answered my previous tripartite question – namely, how does this type of apoplectic lose-lose-lose scenario help 1) Wikipedia, 2) the New York article, or 3) the New York City article? It would constitute a damaging and reprehensibly unacceptable set-up. Castncoot (talk) 23:06, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

I think either you really don't understand what you're saying or you are ideologically committed to keeping the pageviews for the state article artificially inflated regardless of whether it is the page a reader actually wants. There is no point to answering such a nonsensical question that has no basis in reality. older ≠ wiser 23:17, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

Your answer is a good way to duck answering a difficult legitimate question. I have nothing more to state in this section at this time. Castncoot (talk) 01:26, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

It is not a difficult question, it is an unintelligible question. older ≠ wiser 01:45, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

A disambiguation page is the best target when there is no primary topic (or when primary topic is disputed)

Disambiguation pages are not something that must be avoided at all costs. They are precisely the correct solution for situations such as this where there is no primary topic. Few claim with any credibility that the state is the primary topic—by most accepted measures, the city should be the primary topic. Rather than forcing an arbitrary choice in such a case where there is no clear primary topic, it is far, far preferable to allow the reader to choose which article they want. Why force a significant proportion of readers to load a rather large page (~185,000 bytes with multiple images and transclusions that takes several seconds to load on my system with a relatively fast connection) that is not what they want? This is an issue, especially for mobile devices or users with slow connections (remember not all of our readers have the luxury of a fast connection). The argument that the state is some sort of super-entity over the city and that readers are sort of getting "close" to what they want simply doesn't wash. A person looking for the city will be unsatisfied by arriving at the state article. They may or may not be astonished, but they certainly did not find what they are looking for. I simply cannot fathom the objections raised to loading a light-weight disambiguation page rather than forcing an arbitrary (and for many a BAD) choice of a large article. Further, as already pointed out elsewhere, having a disambiguation page would allow for the correction of the numerous links that incorrectly lead to the state where the city is intended. Such is precisely the purpose of disambiguation pages. older ≠ wiser 16:28, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

Not the case at all in this specific situation, as I repeat in paragraph.To clarify in no uncertain terms, my primary interest here is that the term "New York" does in fact NOT lead to a primary disambiguation page, and for two primary reasons: 1) Both the City and the State would collectively lose thousands of pageviews daily, because once people get entrapped by a dab page, a (significant) proportion will lose interest and not pursue it any further. Their mind will wander, the phone will ring, they'll receive a text, they won't want to bother going into the weeds of the dab page, etc., etc., etc. Please tell me how this helps Wikipedia or either one of these articles. It's absolutely a lose-lose-lose situation! Unfortunately, many readers literally have to be spoon-fed!!! Meaning that many readers have to be whisked on a flying carpet right into either one of these real articles when they mindlessly type in the term "New York", I really don't care which one! Fortuitously, New York City is already disambiguated as "New York City", so this leaves "New York" to the State, and this has been a technically correct and perfectly sensible option all along. The State contains the City, and editorial wisdom over the past 14 or 15 years has firmly supported and maintained this logic. A clear, concise, and crisp hatnote is all that is necessary thereafter to lead them to the other article if necessary. And they're both closely linked, so there isn't a bona fide astonishment factor to be concerned about. Castncoot (talk) 15:55, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

You call this a clear, concise and crisp hatnote? Quoting from New York City as it stands today: "NYC" and "New York, New York" redirect here. For other uses, see New York City (disambiguation); NYC (disambiguation); and New York, New York (disambiguation). Heck, it doesn't even mention New York as a state! — JFG ^talk 19:21, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

(after ec) Castncoot, You've made you're opinion clear many times over, there's no need to repeat yourself over and over and over again. But IMO your arguments are bogus. Whatever pageview loss there might be is the result of readers getting to the page they want more quickly without having to load a gigantic page they do not want first and click in the hatnote to get to the article they actually want. It is far more frustrating and disruptive for readers to be forced to load a large article that they do not want than to load a lightweight disambiguation page that allows them to choose. While you might have a negative (although baseless) dislike of disambiguation pages, they are the best choice in cases where there is no primary topic (and even more so where the primary topic is closely disputed). There's no need to disparage readers as "mindlessly" typing in the term "New York" -- that is in fact the most perfectly normal course of action. It is making a faulty assumption that anyone entering "New York" needs to be (re-)educated to correct their ignorance that is the real problem. There is no need to force readers to load a huge page they do not want—that shows a lack of concern for readers. older ≠ wiser 19:29, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

The point here is that the reader should absolutely be entitled to type in "ny", instinctively, without any forethought - i.e., "mindlessly". I do that myself sometimes! There's nothing derogatory about that. It doesn't mean that the reader is uneducated. But we are in no position to judge the reader's level of education. We simply need to help the reader, Wikipedia, and the viewership at these two articles, non-judgmentally and unconditionally. And when that instinctive "ny" or "New York" search occurs, thousands of times per day, instinctively and inevitably, the last thing a reader in a hurry needs is to be funneled to a disambiguation page, where he or she needs now to tackle the weeds. Hmmm. Do I want the State? Do I want the City? Do I want New York, North Yorkshire? How about New York magazine? Or "New York" the novel? Gosh, so many choices, so little time. And in that little time, Wikipedia WILL lose many readers from the City and State articles. You still haven't answered my question as to how a dab page will stanch the lose-lose-lose apoplectic situation. Look at the New York page. Are you seriously telling me that between the hatnote and the lede, the reader wouldn't be able to get to the City page in a New York minute if he or she wanted? And yes, if I had to choose, I would any day prefer that a reader dwell on the State page than at a dab page before being distracted by a text, ping, or other form of new media that Wikipedia needs to compete with nowadays. Castncoot (talk) 02:17, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

OK, I'll take your explanation of "mindlessly" at face value, although it seems an odd word choice for the use you mean with connotations at odds with your intent. I simply cannot fathom the disdain you have for a disambiguation page. Surely it is better to load a simple disambiguation page than force a reader to load a large page that they do not want. A reader looking for the city would not pause to consider choices other than the city such as the novel or the place in North Yorkshire. That is grasping at straws. Most readers would not have to go past the first two entries on the disambiguation page (which for many users will have loaded and have clicked through before the New York State article has even finished loading to allow the possibility of clicking in the hatnote). I don't have any idea what you mean by the "lose-lose-lose apoplectic situation". older ≠ wiser 02:28, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

"Mindlessly" is exactly the word I mean - "without forethought". Searching mindlessly is a basic right for a reader such as myself, and not just a privilege. The onus on us as responsible editors, however, is not to torture the reader at a complicated disambiguation page where there are so many disambiguated topics and so many thousands of pageviews at stake, with a topic name carrying as much significance as "New York". Now you accuse me of having "disdain" for disambiguation pages. Next will it be commas? Dab pages as a primary direct certainly have their place, say at a relatively low-key topic title such as Serafina. But for "New York" to direct initially to a dab page would be nothing short of preposterous. And this brings us right back to the fact that New York City is anyway fortuitously auto-disambiguated by its common name, "New York City", at the risk of repeating myself multiple times. So in fact, this whole move to move is a "solution" in search of a phantom problem which doesn't even exist, unnecessarily consuming a fair amount of people's time and energy here simply to prevent a disaster from occurring. Castncoot (talk) 02:52, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Really not worth commenting on "mindlessly" any more, other than to note it has connotations that are quite at odds with what you say you mean. I fail to see how sending a reader to a simple, uncomplicated (and fast-loading) disambiguation page is in any way torture—and certainly is it far less torturous than sending so many readers to the WRONG page altogether—I completely reject the claim that because the city is in the state it is somehow OK to force them to load a huge page about something at best only tangentially related before they can get to the page they actually want. older ≠ wiser 03:02, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

What you might be forgetting is that "NY" is the official, legal postal abbreviation exclusively for New York State, as opposed to New York City. So if the reader is in fact looking for New York State significantly greater than than half of the time when typing in "ny", should the reader have to load a dab page EVERY SINGLE TIME he or she searches for the State by typing in "ny" ? And then have to load the State page on top of that anyway? Castncoot (talk) 03:17, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

What does "NY" have to do with anything? I have no issue with NY being a redirect to the article on the state and I'm not aware that anyone else has raised that as having any bearing on the current discussion. older ≠ wiser 03:27, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

And by the way, to call the City and State "at best only tangentially related" demonstrates a lack of topic experience, and I say that with no "disdain", but I believe that it is unhelpful to this process. Castncoot (talk) 03:22, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

If a person is looking for the article on the city, the state IS by any reasonable stretch of the imagination a tangential topic. It is NOT what they are looking for and we do readers a disservice by presuming that it is. older ≠ wiser 03:27, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

They're heavily related, just for your information. "New York", "NY", "new york", and "ny" are all members of the same family of terms and should continue to direct to the State, as they have for the past 14 or 15 years. We've come to an impasse here on the hierarchy relevant to prioritization. But in the meantime, before criticizing my indentation, please take a look at your most recent edits here. I have nothing more to add in this section at this time. Best, Castncoot (talk) 03:51, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Well, "that's the way we've always done it" really isn't much of a justification. There are a lot of things that are related but still not directly relevant to the current discussion. Also, I don't see any issue with my most recent edits here. older ≠ wiser 04:07, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

"That's the way the majority has always concluded after vetting it thoroughly every 5 or 6 years" is more like it. Castncoot (talk) 04:16, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

I took the trouble of reading the renaming debates of 2008 and 2010 (all 68 screenfuls of them), they went essentially like this: "we agree that New York is an ambiguous term but the status quo is fine because a) it's not really a problem, b) nobody agrees whether the city or the state is primary, and c) there would be too many links to fix", so after participants are exhausted the proposals are perennially closed as "no consensus". This attitude only perpetuates a random choice that was made by the earliest paleo-Wikipedians in 2001; now is the time to face the very real encyclopedic consistency and usability issues instead of ducking and hiding behind the "long-standing consensus". — JFG ^talk 05:11, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict) By "vetting it thoroughly every 5 or 6 years" you mean one discussion with 15 participants, one instance at which the move was performed (but later undone because it broke incoming links), and a discussion with more supports for the move than opposes which was closed as no consensus? Even though "it's always been this way" is a poor argument to maintain the status quo, it seems that the current situation happened by accident more than by any conscious community decision. Diego (talk) 05:20, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

A site called newyork.com

Doing a google search for "New York", the first hit which doesn't immediately include the word "City" and isn't for Wikipedia happens to be for a site called http://www.newyork.com - and this site refers interchangeably to New York and NYC, which is the area it refers to. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 04:08, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

It's a tourism site for NYC. Not exactly the best source for this naming dispute, because it is privately operated. I suggest ny.gov and nyc.gov, which are official websites. But I can see the confusion when one refers to both the state and city as "New York." Kylo Ren (talk) 03:35, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

It is somewhat telling that the header of ny.gov says "New York State" while the header of nyc.gov says "The official website of the City of New York". ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 04:22, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

I also find the fact that a tourism site for the city calls itself "NewYork.com" - and the fact that this came so high on the google search results page - to be relevant. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 20:20, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

The fact that the State's official website is ny.gov while the City's is nyc.gov says it all. The State gets "New York", while the City gets "New York City". Plain and simple. Now respecting that type of official, legal guidance is encyclopedic. Castncoot (talk) 03:25, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

And the site wa.gov belongs to Washington state, yet we disambiguate that. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 12:44, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

Washington, D.C. isn't contained within Washington State, and D.C.'s website isn't entitled, "wac.gov". Castncoot (talk) 15:29, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

It's dc.gov, actually. Kylo Ren (talk) 16:53, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

That's my point. Castncoot (talk) 17:09, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

@Castncoot: The sites you're citing use headers that call the state "New York State" and the city "New York". The city uses the acronym NYC usually to differentiate from the two-letter postal code for New York (NY), but that doesn't mean it has no claim to the name New York. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 21:33, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

Rob13, the City 's website has "NYC" emblazoned all over it as its logo; in fact, at this very moment, it states at the header, "Visit alpha.nyc.gov to help us test out new ideas for NYC's website." The bottom line is the url title corresponding to each website, versus the logo - "...ny.gov" for the State, and "...nyc.gov" for the City. Even those two entities have split their title roles amicably themselves. It's likewise time to put this charade of a debate to rest on Wikipedia and continue the longstanding status quo of sanity regarding the respective article titles on Wikipedia as well by reflecting reality rather than trying to redefine it. There's nothing wrong with referring to New York's statehood within its article, and there's nothing wrong with referring to the City as New York within its own article – I don't think that these were ever points of contention. Castncoot (talk) 22:09, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

As I explained in my message above, acronyms and full names can (and are, in this case) used differently. Where they type out the entire name, ny.gov uses "New York State" in their logo, and nyc.gov uses "The official website of the City of New York" rather than New York City. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 02:44, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

Mobile app users can't see hatnotes

You can't see that hatnote up top, mobile readers

First screenful of the New York article as rendered by the Wikipedia app on an iPhone 5

Second screenful of the New York article as rendered by the Wikipedia app on an iPhone 5

Third screenful of the New York article as rendered by the Wikipedia app on an iPhone 5 — Hatnote is displayed after lead section and before collapsed infobox.

Many opposers to the move contend that the hatnote sitting at the top of the New York state page does a good enough job of sending readers to the city page if that's where they wanted to go in the first place. One answer to this argument has been that loading the dab page is much lighter than loading the full New York State article. But there's another: when accessing Wikipedia from its mobile app, hatnotes are shown after the lead section, so in the case of New York as it stands today, you don't even see the hatnote until you scroll quite a bit (the article's lead section is two or three screenfuls long depending on the size of your phone). Given the high share of mobile readers these days, this is yet another reason to use a distinctive page title for the state article rather than relying on hatnotes. Also, mobile readers would rarely see the dab page, because upon typing "New Y" they would be presented immediately with top choices "New York State" and "New York City" instead of the ambiguous "New York" alongside "New York City". (See also #Educational value of changing the page title above.) — JFG ^talk 03:32, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

That's blatantly false. Calidum ¤ 03:45, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

Your screenshot is from a mobile browser, my remark was about the Wikipedia mobile app. Try it. Editing section title accordingly. — JFG ^talk 04:18, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

Seems like something that should be fixed in the app. ---- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 04:47, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

Well, this is a deliberate UX choice from the app designers to prioritize the top picture and the lead section as the first visible elements of an article. One may agree or disagree about that stance but it's not an error. — JFG ^talk 00:50, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

Argument and evidence in opposition to moving the page

This section is now closed.

There is no consensus to move the New York page

Moving the longstanding New York page requires consensus, barring a supervote on the part of the closers. As everyone can plainly see, there is absolutely no consensus whatsoever to move the New York page; and at the time of this writing, more people oppose a proposed move than support it. Therefore, a move cannot occur, barring a supervote by the closers, which would compromise Wikipedia's integrity, plain and simple. Thus it appears that the misguided proposal to move this page is already dead. Supporters of a proposal to move can try again in 2022, consistent with the typical 6-year cycles thus far. Discussion 2 here would only be applicable contingent upon a successful move request, which will not happen barring a supervote. Castncoot (talk) 04:25, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

Not for you to judge. Also, your idea of consensus sounds misguided; please read WP:CON and WP:CLOSE afresh. — JFG ^talk 11:45, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

It's also not for me to judge; however, as of right now, the opposers are only 2 more than the supporters - so even if we did do a head count (WP:CLOSE#Consensus says that "Consensus is not determined by counting heads"), it;s quite plausible that by the time the discussion is cosed, there will be consensus for moving the page. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 12:18, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

Of course I'm not one of the closers! But I do have the right to call it as I see it. Given that there are NINETEEN people expressing opposition to this misguided move proposal at the time of this writing (with seventeen for), how can one actually keep a straight face and claim consensus for a move, regardless of his or her viewpoint or perception of the arguments? You can say that there is indeed support for a move, but there is no consensus for the move per se, given the volume of opposition. Castncoot (talk) 15:10, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

Firstly, it's not out of thew question that there will be 5 more supporters and no more opposers by the time of closure; and anyone who currently has an oppose vote could certainly change their mind. Secondly, the fact that 14 of the support votes have no comments made to them by other voters, and only 7 of the oppose votes have no such comments, would seem to indicate to me that many of the oppose votes are, in general, weaker than the support votes. (Of course, the closer(s) will need to take a close look at each of these responses, and at any reaction to them, and not just judge on the presence of these responses.) עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 20:39, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

And likewise, current supporters could change their minds to opposing. The bottom line is that those who oppose it ultimately oppose it. But why would you espouse this argument when you yourself have acknowledged that consensus doesn't reflect a vote count (and I say this while being on the side that currently has a higher vote count at the time of this writing)? On the other hand, many of the oppose responses are very strong in their convictions, and to move a longstanding article after 14 or 15 years requires a very strong consensus to move, which I don't believe that any rational person would state that the support side currently has to surpass such a high threshold. Castncoot (talk) 22:07, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

Support is actually growing over time. My vote brought the supports up to 13, and at the time there were 17 opposes. We're now up to 21:20. Later votes tend, in borderline cases, to be "worth more" than earlier votes, since the voters would have based their votes on more recent claims. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 06:54, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

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

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

The fact that the State's official website is ny.gov while the City's is nyc.gov says it all. The State gets "New York", while the City gets "New York City". Plain and simple. Now respecting that type of official, legal guidance is encyclopedic. Castncoot (talk) 03:30, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

Per WP:Official names, this isn't how we decide on article titles. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 03:38, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

The state's official web site sports a prominent "NEW YORK STATE" logo on every page; guess they didn't want to risk confusion with New York City… — JFG ^talk 12:21, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

Usage by New Yorkers, NYS > NYC

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

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

I'm referring to the Wikipedia pageviews statistics. They are within the same order of magnitude.And regardless, this is an encyclopedia, not a popularity contest. Are you insinuating that the Empire State Building or even New York City is not located in New York? Castncoot (talk) 04:13, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

I'm a native New Yorker (Long Island) and we refer to both the state and city as "New York". We also refer to Manhattan as "the city", even though there are four other boroughs. Our colloquialisms don't make for good naming conventions in this case. – Muboshgu (talk) 16:49, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia would be irreparably harmed

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

It would be disruptive to the universe and open a rent in the space-time contimuum... =/ relaxing a bit, any of the proposed solutions are reasonable and definsible. But I am skeptical that "Usage for the State and City articles is within the same order of magnitude" outside the United States and even in it. Try this thought experiment. Imaging yourself in front of room of people, in Marseilles, in Mumbai, in Lancaster, in Pretoria, in Mexico City, in Adelaide, etc. and even in Billings Montana or Bakersfield California... Now imagine you say "I'm from New York, who can tell me one thing about New York?" Are you mostly going to get "Statue of Liberty!" "Empire State Building!" "9/11 Ground Zero!" or are you mostly going to get "Finger Lakes!" "Niagara Falls!" "Rochester Institute of Technology!". What do you think. I know what I think. It's impossible to know for sure, and maybe this is a sterile avenue. At any rate ""Usage for the State and City articles is within the same order of magnitude" is very difficult to prove (print use does not necessarily reflect what our readers think and say and expect, for one thing) and strikes me as rather dubious. Herostratus (talk) 03:35, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

Again, are you insinuating that the Empire State Building or even New York City is not located in New York? Castncoot (talk) 01:37, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

The New York Giants and the New York Jets do not play in the state of New York. Technically they're not in NYC either, within the city limits, but clearly they're affiliated to the city, and that's what their team name means. It does not mean they're Jets and Giants from the state of New York.  — Amakuru (talk) 15:30, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

They are in the New York metropolitan area, yet another geographical area often referred to casually as New York. Clean Copy^talk 15:37, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

Ummm, Amakuru, were you aware that the Giants used to play at the old Yankee Stadium in the Bronx for years and that the Jets used to play at the old Shea Stadium in Queens for years, before both teams moved to New Jersey? They retained their locational names for a variety of reasons, I'm sure one being the cachet that the name "New York" arguably carries versus "New Jersey", while still remaining in the New York metro area, which is not a single legal jurisdiction. Citing a private example is irrelevant to this discussion, and both the Bronx and Queens were in New York State, the last time I checked. Castncoot (talk) 15:53, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

The New York article would also be irreparably harmed

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

A bot could probably deal with these geographic features relatively well; there would be a small number of them where human attention would be likely to be needed. And forget about the millions of people from NY state; only a small number of them have articles. The overall links to the article come from 83 templates and 61103 articles - and many of these articles either are geographical features and other easily bot-handlable groups (e.g stae Democratic primary, 2016 articles), or the only links are from the templates. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 13:08, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

@Od Mishehu: Good to know. Which tool gives you those stats? The "What links here" page does not show which links are coming from templates, and that would be great to see (not just for this case). — JFG ^talk 17:24, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

I have no precise numbers here for how to group the article links - I did use the "What links here" page, checking by namespace. Note that I didn't give any exact numbers for that. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 20:37, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

@Od Mishehu: It's easy enough to count the 83 templates but how do you count the 61,103 linked articles? The tool has a "Hide transclusions" option which may be intended to hide links coming from templates, but it doesn't change displayed results apparently. — JFG ^talk 20:52, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Going though them 5000 at a time, getting to 60,000 isn't to difficult. After that, I simply took smaller numbers until I got to the exact number. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 21:16, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Common sense

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

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

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

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

I think the question is pertinent here, since Castncoot is using "capturing eyeballs" and "getting hung up and distracted at disambiguation pages" as an argument to maintain the status quo. Diego (talk) 06:27, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

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

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

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

The City of New York is fortuitously auto-disambiguated correctly

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Readers are not likely to get astonished in this case, Diego. Losing readers at a disambiguation page, on the other hand, is a death knell to viewership, given the human predilection for distraction, of which there are too many today, further undermining Wikipedia viewership. We have one chance to get them to the State page using the term "New York". If they subsequently want the City page, a clear and concise hatnote will lead them there, and in a positively beneficial way, they may grasp a quick overview of the State and actually come to understand that the State in fact contains the City. So the status quo actually accomplishes several beneficial features for Wikipedia as well as the global populace. Editorial wisdom has maintained the status quo firmly for over a decade, and there must be a reason why - simply put, the status quo, while perhaps not perfect, has performed well, and the reality is that the risks of any move significantly outweigh any potential benefits. Castncoot (talk) 04:50, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

@Castncoot: You sound determined to teaching the world that New York is also a state. A noble endeavour, but Wikipedia is not a tool to Right Great Wrongs or be New York State's soapbox. And anyway, this goal will be well-served by the move, because: a) New York as a dab page tells you about the state and the city immediately and prominently; b) mutual hatnotes in the city and state articles can advertise each other's existence and distinctiveness; c) Wikipedia search box and Google results will display "New York (state)" and "New York City" as their first two choices when typing "New York" (or even just at "New Y…"), which is arguably more educational and helpful than seeing "New York" and "New York City" today. — JFG ^talk 09:56, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

Not the case at all, JPG. To clarify in no uncertain terms, my primary interest here is that the term "New York" does in fact NOT lead to a primary disambiguation page, and for two primary reasons: 1) Both the City and the State would collectively lose thousands of pageviews daily, because once people get entrapped by a dab page, a (significant) proportion will lose interest and not pursue it any further. Their mind will wander, the phone will ring, they'll receive a text, they won't want to bother going into the weeds of the dab page, etc., etc., etc. Please tell me how this helps Wikipedia or either one of these articles. It's absolutely a lose-lose-lose situation! Unfortunately, many readers literally have to be spoon-fed!!! Meaning that many readers have to be whisked on a flying carpet right into either one of these real articles when they mindlessly enter the term "New York", and I really don't care which one! The State contains the City, and editorial wisdom over the past 14 or 15 years has firmly supported and maintained this logic. A clear, concise, and crisp hatnote is all that is necessary thereafter to lead them to the other article if necessary. And they're both closely linked, so there isn't a bona fide astonishment factor to be concerned about. Castncoot (talk) 15:48, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

You're telling us with a straight face that you believe that a disambiguation page is easier to miss out when distracted than a "if you were looking for..." hatnote in the middle of a busy page? Our hat notes are well known for being notoriously hard to read. Diego (talk) 17:55, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

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

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

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

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

A solution for an actual problem

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The problem with the Rochester, New York claim is tat we have the same thing with Albany, Georgia and Fife, Washington - both in states which we do use dismabiguation for. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 03:32, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

Note that I am not actually calling for any change in this article/category titling convention, for New York or for the other topics you mention. This is just a response to all those who claim they simply can't (or won't) parse "New York" as meaning the state. The fact that no-one is actually clamoring for a change in these article names and category titles suggests to me that claims of confusion or worldwide ignorance of the subject are overstated - I can only conclude by taking some at their word that they must interpret "Rochester, New York" as being within NYC, or "Category:People from New York" as being only about people from NYC (those folks are categorized by borough, two sub-cats below). And yet, that doesn't seem to be what happens. When the rubber hits the road, it turns out no-one is confused at all. Antepenultimate (talk) 14:38, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

If this proposal succeeds, than the article Rochester, New York will stay at its current title; Category:People from New York will be renamed to Category:People from New York (state) and the current name will probably end up as a disambiguation category - just like Category:People from Georgia. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 20:44, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

Antepenultimate, much of what you say is true, but the last sentence is not, and does not logically follow... rather, it overgeneralises. If people were not confused (in the sense of being misled) then we would not have the vast number of mislinkings. And these mislinkings are confusing and highly undesirable. Andrewa (talk) 02:07, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

Arguments concerning the alternatives for New York base name

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

Wikilinks to NYS were not created in error

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

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

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

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

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

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

Discussion

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

---

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

Support

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

7. This may have already been mentioned. There is a type of systemic bias in the way this article has been titled – the local-to-national view of "New York" vs. the worldwide view. It's not always easy to see or understand; however, more attention by those opposed to this page move should be paid to Diego's argument of the expectations of readers around the world, the "global" expectations that "New York" refers to the city, whether it be the more likely Manhattan and other bureaus or the less likely entire metropolitan area. The title of this article, then, should be either "New York State" or, for those who argue that "State" is not a "real part of the name", then "New York (state)" should be at the very TOP. The present title, that is, the bare "New York" would best serve the global community as (1st choice) either an ambiguous redirect that targets "New York City", (2nd choice) an ambiguous redirect that targets "New York (disambiguation)" or (3rd choice) the actual title of that disambiguation page. I am fairly neutral in regard to where the "New York" page title is dispositioned – any one of the three would serve readers worldwide; however, this article definitely needs to be moved preferably to "New York (state)".  Wikipedian Sign Language Paine  13:19, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
8. From a global perspective, New York is the city. In most of the U.S., "I'm going to New York this weekend" means the city. Page traffic for the city is much higher and a lot of the "New York" traffic is looking for the city (see above for details). The harm of the current situation is that a) readers are not getting where they want and b) a lot of wikilinks are misdirected. Normally, I wouldn't care about b) so much but it's an important issue on this scale. —  AjaxSmack  21:36, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
9. Support moving this page. I am a New York City resident and I still get confused when people say "I live in New York" (maybe they live in NYC, in which case hooray I live in Queens, or else they live upstate, in which case it's a little harder to sympathize). Anyway, it is ambiguous what "New York" means in many cases, so you can either have New York redirect to the state page or have it be a disambiguation/general-concept page. In other wikis, like fr.wiki, "New York" refers to the city, for instance. Kylo Ren (talk) 22:42, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
10. Support I don't see any evidence that the state is the primary topic. The city gets substantially more page views in spite of being at a less concise title. There are many incoming links to "New York" that intend the city and need to be disambiguated. Mistargeted links will get fixed if New York becomes a dab page (thanks in advance BD2412). I'm not quite sure how many readers arrive at the two articles by Wikipedia's search function. There are certainly some who are arriving at the wrong article from mistargeted links. I'd use Google to search if I wanted to read a Wikipedia article on "New York", and that search gives me the state as the first result, the city as the second, and a prominent Knowledge Graph for the city. Move the article on the state, make New York a dab page, and fix the incoming links. None of this will hinder readers from finding the article they want from external searches, but we won't be force people to be loading a long article on the state from a undisambiguated link that should be going to the city.Plantdrew (talk) 02:55, 20 July 2016 (UTC)
11. Support I've lived there, I've lived elsewhere longer. When living there, the 'city' was Manhattan. The state was "those *** apple farmers". When living elsewhere, "New York" has always meant the city to *everyone* I've talked to. The preponderance of searchers will indeed expect to reach NYC. The gravity of identification for "New York" is so weighted towards NYC it _should_ be inarguable. I'm simply astonished y'all will argue elsewise, set theory containment and all! Please direct your attention and efforts towards America with similar arguments and be greeted with derision. (And that last is really the whole point - what do users expect? Not whether it is 'correct' politically/hierarchically/numerically/demographically/etc.) Shenme (talk) 03:57, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

    There's a reason our article on the Land of E Pluribus Unum is at United States of America, not America. I'm actually arguing that our article on the City that Never Sleeps should remain at New York City, not the wider and ambiguous New York - I think you have this analogy backward.--Pharos (talk) 04:49, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

    Technically the U.S.'s article is located at United States. Kylo Ren (talk) 19:59, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

12. Support. Worldwide, "New York" invariably means the city so this should become the primary topic and the state should move to "New York (state)". And I suspect relatively few people have even heard of the state, sorry to say. And to suggest Wikipedia will collapse as a result of this move is surely a leg-pull! Bermicourt (talk) 06:23, 20 July 2016 (UTC)
13. Strong support, as generally "New York" would, to non-Americans, refer to the city, not the state. Note, for example, that "many of these [links] are mislinkings intended for NYC, almost as many are intended for NYS". Very likely, these statistics were taken after many other links were fixed from the NY article to the NYC article; it's quite likely that if the links to New York were monitored in real time, there would be many more links to the city. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 12:45, 21 July 2016 (UTC)
14. Support – I find the pro-move arguments to be much more thoughtful, compelling, and policy-based than the arguments in opposition to it. AgnosticAphid talk 22:15, 21 July 2016 (UTC)
15. Support The many good arguments above show that the state is not the primary topic. Landing at the state page when seeking the city is a confusing surprise. A reader needing statistics for the city may well skip to the state infobox, without reading the lead, and copy the state numbers believing them to apply to the city. Certes (talk) 11:15, 22 July 2016 (UTC)
16. Support. For a start, most of the arguments against are singularly unconvincing. Irreparable harm? Aside from that, the policy-based support arguments that the state is not the primary topic and is astonishing are extremely convincing. There've been a lot of anecdotes thrown around about it, and while it's hard to say confidently what the local picture of usage is, in wider domestic usage, and unarguably in international usage, the primary topic is the city. As cities go, the city is globally significant, and globally recognisable. If the state has any similar claims to notability, I am unaware of them, which I feel itself says something anecdotally for primary topics. The only times I can think of where I've seen "New York" without a suffix refer to the state are where the context already implies are being discussed. CMD (talk) 14:08, 22 July 2016 (UTC)
17. Support. The state simply doesn't meet the primary topic criteria. The title is inherently ambiguous. Arguments against are primarily emotional and unpersuasive. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 09:39, 23 July 2016 (UTC)
18. Support. State is not the primary topic, at best it's not clear. Coming into this RM, my view was that worldwide and outside of New York state, the primary topic of New York is usually the city. The support arguments in the section above the !vote simply reinforce this with facts like pageviews and generally well-thought arguments. On the other hand, the oppose arguments directly below those arguments are unfounded claims of irreparable damage to the project if the state isn't the primary topic, insulting anyone who doesn't support the state as the primary topic as lacking commons sense, and claims of higher level jurisdictions taking precedence that has been shown to be useless because of how often it would suggest promoting non-primary topic political divisions over lower-level and obvious primary topics. A fix to the hatnote would direct readers to the state perfectly fine. ---- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 02:41, 25 July 2016 (UTC)
19. Support. I've been watching this debate from the sidelines, and I got swayed by arguments for the move. While I generally advocate the "don't fix if ain't broken" philosophy (and have been on Wikipedia for a while), the mere June/July pageview statistics and mislinking data have convinced me that something is broken. I'm still not 100% sure what should be at the New York title, but the arguments so far indicate that it should be a disambiguation page indeed, however unpopular that might be (and I don't like them too much either). No such user (talk) 15:15, 25 July 2016 (UTC)
20. Support – The state does not meet the primary topic criteria in any sense. RGloucester — ☎ 21:57, 25 July 2016 (UTC)
21. Support. With two very well known uses, neither term is primary topic, so this should be disambiguated. kennethaw88 • talk 04:53, 26 July 2016 (UTC)
22. Support. Somewhat reluctantly, but the evidence is pretty compelling that the state isn't the primary topic worldwide. oknazevad (talk) 17:39, 26 July 2016 (UTC)
23. Support – From arguments developed in numerous contributions above, the only logical, reader-friendly and policy-supported conclusion is to execute this long-overdue change to a fortuitous status quo. Arguments against the move sound particularly weak and irrational. (forgot to !vote earlier) — JFG ^talk 01:10, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

Oppose

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

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

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

   @SmokeyJoe: If you believe that the astonished reader should welcome and appreciate the education, you should actually support the move; see #Educational value of changing the page title. — JFG ^talk 17:12, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

2. I believe the state is the primary topic for "New York", whereas the city belongs at "New York City". This is the cleanest way to handle this, without any unnecessary disambiguators. – Muboshgu (talk) 01:45, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
3. The hatnote and prominent mention of NYC make for an instant fix for anyone directed wrongly, don't seek out a solution where a problem doesn't exist, or provide evidence that it does. ɱ (talk) · vbm · coi) 01:51, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
4. If the state was officially called "New York State", I'd agree with the proposal—but it's officially called merely New York, so it should remain at that title. New York City is sometimes called New York, sure, but the "City" disambiguates it for us. No need to change a thing here. — Crumpled Fire • contribs • 01:51, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

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

   Hi Rob 13. I think you may be oversimplifying a bit? For example, Myocardial infarction is the title for what is commonly called a heart attack. Columbidae is the title for what is commonly called a pigeon. We often use the common name, but we take into consideration any official names and, in the case of living people, the subject's identification preferences. --MZMcBride (talk) 14:49, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

   Myocardial infarction is tricky because "heart attack" is the layperson common name while "myocardial infarction" is the common name used within the medical profession. Since the article is medical in nature, it seems sensible to use the common name within that profession; those interested in medicine are presumably the main readers of that article. It's an edge case, for sure. Columbidae is a family of birds, and it includes doves as well as pigeons, so its name is unambiguously correct as-is. The Rock dove (or "rock pigeon") is the bird most conventionally referred to as simply "the pigeon", and we do indeed use one of the common names rather than the tedious "Columba livia" scientific name for that article. There are certainly gray areas in what constitutes a common name, especially when many different subjects have the same or similar names, and we generally go with names that promote the least confusion when that happens. There is no "Pigeon" article because it's ambiguous to what constitutes a pigeon. Instead, we redirect to "Columbidae". I would consider a similar situation here (with "New York (state)" the target of a redirect at "New York" and "New York City" identified in a hatnote) to be an improvement, although still not optimal given how interchangeable "New York City" is with just "New York". ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 15:03, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

5. I feel that an unqualified "New York" primarily refers to the state, not the city. Primary topic aside, I think the issues created by moving this page isn't worth the massive editor attention that would be required: "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." -- Tavix ^(talk) 02:01, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

6. I think redirecting is not going to stop people from typing New York when they meant New York City. If New York redirects to New York City, the same will be true in that people will type New York thinking it links to the New York state. I'm amazed how strongly people feel about this page title and the effort put into the arguments above... Frankly I'm a bit neutral, and am mostly taking the WP:ENGVAR mindset that nothing is really broken and no matter what people are going to find their way to what they're looking for quite easily — MusikAnimal ^talk 02:22, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

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

7. SmokeyJoe sums up my thoughts perfectly; I'd copy and paste it if that were acceptable. We are not slaves to primary topic, and can ignore it when necessary. Calidum ¤ 02:30, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
8. Oppose a move in general, based on my argument above (and SmokeyJoe's much more succinct and elegant way of expressing a similar sentiment in this section). Also, Strong Oppose placing New York City at the base name, as it is clear that this will not solve, and would in fact exacerbate, the "mis-link" problems described above (to my mind, the only legitimate issue that I can see with the current arrangement). Mis-linking will still take place, except now links intended for the state will lead to the astonishingly wrong article for the city. Contrast this with having links intended for the city leading to an article that covers the city as one of the state's constituent parts (a much less wrong and confusing result for readers). A dab page at the base title would at least bring about some good (instant highlighting of lazy links), even if I don't think the problem rises to the level of action at this scale. Antepenultimate (talk) 03:06, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
9. No. New York has a greater population than NYC (even subtracting NYC's large population) and is greatly important. There is a natural disambiguator for the city, none for the state that isn't awkward. This signifies to me that New York housing the state's article is the best option. It's not astonishing, it's not an obscure place, and it's the most natural setup. Taylor Trescott - ^{my talk} + _{my edits} 05:50, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

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

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

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

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

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

10. I oppose the proposed move, for the reasons cogently stated by Pharos, Castncoot, and SmokeyJoe. --Coolcaesar (talk) 16:32, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
11. (edit conflict)To me it makes the most encyclopedic sense for New York to be at the base title and New York City to be where it is. There's no way that NYC will ever be straight up New York, so this current setup handles things cleanly... it's still the same amount of clicks to get to the city as it would be on a disambiguation page, it's not astonishing to end up here, and New York has no natural amendment to its title like NYC does. Nohomersryan (talk) 16:43, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

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

    It's not in the least astonishing if you're at all familiar with New York City, it's the most ordinary thing in the world, and the reader learning that these are both jurisdictions is very important to understanding the area - I would say what you had in 2006 was a positively educational experience, and that's exactly our goal here.--Pharos (talk) 04:09, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

    If the goal is making readers aware that the term refers both to the city and the state, the disambiguation page is the most efficient way to achieve that. Diego (talk) 06:39, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

12. I strongly oppose of this move. I was the one who originally requested a move for New York to be renamed New York (state). However, many users have provided evidence that New York (state) is the primary topic of New York. Higher-level jurisdictions have primary topic, such as the country of Georgia over the U.S. state. Leave the set-up the way it is, it works great. New York City is natural and is commonly refer to with "City" in the name, among American citizens. Worldwide, New York (the city) is most popular, but a hat note solves the problem. ✉cookiemonster✉ ^𝚨755𝛀 19:22, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

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

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

13. New York State is much larger and is entirely inclusive of New York City. And local usage in an English-speaking region of 20 million people should count for something - would we do the same with Australian toponyms, ignoring what local governments and citizens call their own localities, in favor of Hollywood nicknames? Despite myself being a proud citizen of New York City, I certainly recognize that the state (which has more than double the city's population) is clearly the more major topic.--Pharos (talk) 22:44, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

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

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

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

14. The city is currently at New York City because that's the name. "City" is not a form of disambiguation, at least not in the Wikipedia sense of the word. For example, Britannica uses "New York City" even though their software allows them to have more than one article at the same title. As there is no title clash, there is no primary topic issue to adjudicate. Editors are not SEO specialists and should not be trying to optimize navigation. The page view analysis above shows that the views for the city remained constant even as the article on the state was moved around. So the claim that moving the article on the state will help readers find the city article is unproven. Gulangyu (talk) 03:14, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

    We can't expect our readers to throw their hands up in the air and jump off a cliff when they reach the wrong page; they just have to put in extra effort to find the right one. This is inconvenient and should be minimized. Previously, the path the New York City article would have been typing in New York, getting the wrong article, and then finding the right one. When the article was moved, the path was just typing in New York and clicking on the right article. Each equals one page view for New York City (i.e. no page view change) but the latter equals less page views for New York (state). This is exactly what we see in the page view statistics, proving that there are a substantial number of people who previously reached New York (state) but didn't intend to go there. Unless you're arguing that we should take a complacent attitude when it comes to convenience and getting them where they want to go without erroneously sending them to a different article, this is as strong as proof could possibly be that a change is needed. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 04:00, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

    If the same number of readers went to the city article before as after, then the claim that one setup is more convenient than the other is entirely subjective. I take it that when New York led to the state, some 45 percent of readers used the hatnote to get to the city. Just one click and they are there. What's the problem? Gulangyu (talk) 06:22, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

    The analysis shows a significant number of readers did not have to load a ~185,000 byte article that they did not want. I'd say that's a problem. older ≠ wiser 10:22, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

15. Strongly oppose a move. Strongly oppose direction of the term "New York" to a primary disambiguation page as well. Wikipedia, New York, and New York City would all be irreparably harmed, and corresponding Wikiproject and Category pages would be undermined. The consequences would have reverberating, devastating consequences all around. The status quo, while perhaps not perfect, has been maintained firmly now for over a decade by editorial wisdom, after extensive vetting every 5 or 6 years, for this very reason, and has functioned quite well. Older may not always equate to being wiser, but I believe that in this particular case, history has indeed gotten the correct answer already. Also please note my more specific, detailed arguments above to oppose this move unequivocally. The overriding principle should be to DO NO HARM. Castncoot (talk) 01:33, 23 July 2016 (UTC)
16. Oppose: New York, New York is not a stutter, they have even written songs about it. It's actually Wikipedia's purpose to educate, not debate. The longstanding convention (having an NYC article and an NY article) is a sign of a long standing consensus, and none of the evidence provided forces a change under WP:NAME. So, the change position has failed its burden. The longstanding NYC usage also goes well with "encyclopedic register" [2], as WP:Name defers to, and because it does, NY is perfectly apporiate under all name criteria as it is the commonname for the state. This entire RfC fits well within NAMES: 'debating titles is often unproductive, and there are many other ways to help improve Wikipedia.' Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:54, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

    So using a term ambiguously fits well with an "encyclopedic register"? That's quite interesting. older ≠ wiser 21:05, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

    It's just plainly untrue that to call the state New York is ambiguous, it's done by millions, upon millions every day, and as NYC is common for NYC, and encyclopedic, than that article belongs there. It's natural. Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:21, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

    It is obvious that the term "New York" is ambiguous in that it is commonly used to refer to both the city or the state. It is also clear that the state fails the criteria for primary topic (at the very least based on usage test and arguably on the long-term notability test as well). It is also "natural" for millions of people across the world (and including both New York State and New York City) to refer to the city as New York. older ≠ wiser 21:50, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

    It's obvious that a decade and more of Wikipedians have found such arguments and assertions to be both unsupported and unpersuasive. The context in which it is used is unambiguous and has been since the article was begun. It fails nothing of the sort - your statement that it is common to refer to the state as New York is unassailable, but the rest is bluster, there is no other primary target for the encyclopedic topic New York City, the commonname New York for New York therefore best naturally meets all the criteria. Alanscottwalker (talk) 23:49, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

    It's obvious that a decade and more of contested discussions about the name shows at least some significant number of Wikipedians don't agree with your conclusion. The context in which it is used included both typing "New York" into the search box and clicking on links that should go to the city but are mislinked because editors assumed differently than you about what New York means. "New York State" is also as much a common and natural name for the state as "New York City" is for the city. There has been no convincing evidence provided whatsoever that the state is the primary topic. That's not bluster, just a statement of fact. older ≠ wiser 01:24, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

    No. Typing it in the box gives the natural, common NYC and NY. Your second argument is that some editors don't pay attention and are sloppy in checking when they edit, how bad for Wikipedia - it's worse to coddle it - your argument promotes not understanding topics editors are writing about. This all goes along, in that the common sense world beyond Wikipedia has told us that NYC is in NY - no other major US city has the commoname, natural C - this arrangement is more educative and informative and sensibly disambiguates. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:12, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

    Huh? A person who is looking for the city may well type or paste "New York" into to search box and would end up at the state article unless they happened to notice some other options before completing the search. Yes, there are many many such editors that make such links and with the current setup they are effectively ignored. (Besides, the mere fact that so many editors make links to New York intending the city is pretty strong evidence that something is wrong with the current arrangement. With a disambiguation page such mistaken links would be rapidly and easily fixed. To leave the situation as it is shows an inexcusable disregard for readers. older ≠ wiser 13:38, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

    No. Paste it in gives New York City and New York, typing in just "New" gives New Zealand and NYC, no problem, whatsoever. No, editors are not ignored, they are educated to do it right. It's the same problem and solution with every link in every article, check what you are doing, learn what you are doing. Our readers are not disserved except by the careless but that is always true, and here any real misdirection is often not true -- if someone is born in New York City, they are born in New York, if something takes place in NYC, it takes place in NY, on top of which the reader easily find there way. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:58, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

    Not sure what search box you are using, but if you type or paste in "New York" and press Enter, you get the state article. This business of (re-)education of editors smacks of totalitarianism. Wikipedia reflects real world usage, not what some self-appointed authorities deem is correct usage. We best serve our readers by making it easier to edit rather than complicating things by righting great wrongs. older ≠ wiser 14:22, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

    Don't jump the shark, it's as if your statement has no idea what it's discussing, a sterile rerun of a lost argument having nothing to do with "totalitarianism". Seriously. As for Wikipedia's purpose not being to educate, we will have to disagree. The real world gave us NYC and NY. That is reflective of the real world. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:29, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

    Ignoring the blather about sharks and sterility—there are many approaches to education. Forcing readers to go to load a giant page that they did not want in order to get to the page they actually want seems an extremely blunt approach to education. A fast-loading disambiguation page would have the exact same effect in letting readers know New York is ambiguous and commonly refers to both the city and the state. And would have the additional benefit of easily allowing mistaken links to be fixed. Maintaining the status quo effectively means endorsing that mistaken links should be ignored. older ≠ wiser 14:40, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

    Oh, you want people to ignore your ridiculous and embarrassing comments about totalitarianism. Understood. As for forcing someone, no one is forced to do anything, learn and teach is good, though. As for reruns of sterile debates, it says right in NAME policy they are a waste. Have not you had your say in my section, yet. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:50, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

    Not at all. I chose to ignore your comments as doing nothing to further civil discourse. I stand by my comments that this attitude of "educating" editors to stop doing what is perfectly natural and common to do smacks of a totalitarian, top-down sense of authority. I think such a mentality is ultimately counter-productive. As for forcing, yes, a reader who clicks on a link that should go to the city article but instead goes to the state article is in effect forced to do this. An editor entering New York in the search box expecting the term to go to the city and instead going to the state is in effect forced to do this. I don't know what NAME policy you mean. WP:AT doesn't mention any variant of sterile. Neither does WP:NCPLACE. older ≠ wiser 14:55, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

    You find it uncivil but you're the one who comments ridiculously and embarrassingly about totalitarianism. Now, that's plain senseless or hypocritical. I mentioned the section of NAMES policy in my original comment - it implies this is a sterile exercise by saying find something better to do. More importantly, it's perfectly natural, indeed most desirable, under policy and common sense, to want and have educated editors about what they are writing and doing -- it's plain nonsense to argue that is somehow wrong. ENGVAR, as well as core policies, and other policies actually do desire it, very much. And common sense: know what you are writing and doing when writing an encyclopedia is unassailable. Perhaps, you should do the civil thing and stop bludgeoning my section. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:15, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

    Perhaps it is embarrassing for you—I find nothing ridiculous, embarrassing, senseless, or hypcritical about pointing out totalitarian tendencies. I'll grant that debating controversial titles is often unproductive—but then again, when the status quo (IMO) so plainly disregards the readership, I think that is a debate worth having and five years after the last major discussion consensus can change. I'll respect whatever decision comes out of this, but if it is for keeping the status quo (which in essence boils down to telling readers and editors to stop doing what is natural and commonplace—and NOT even incorrect by any standard usage), I can pretty much guarantee that someone somewhere down the line will question it again and I'll likely make the same arguments then. Also, I didn't realize that you owned this section. older ≠ wiser 15:43, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

    I don't, but that does not make your bludgeoning of the oppose civil. It is not. That you are not embarrassed by your ridiculous and bizarre reference to totalitarianism is more shame on your argument or suggests an unbelievably and easily misused word, given what it actually means, or you do not know what you are discussing and where you are discussing it. Or since your comment is so bizarre and over-the-top, for this debate, you say you want, it is possible that it was not made in good-faith, and thus heaps incivility upon incivility. That you appear hypocritical was your reference to civility, while you violate it. In no sense, under policy or in real life is valuing encyclopedia editors knowing what they are writing and doing have anything to do with totalitarian tendencies.

    Actually, this just boils down to having just an NYC and an NY article, which makes perfect sense to the world, and has for a long time. The future will take care of itself and if it is raised again in another five years then the policy advice against such sterile discussion will again be relevant -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:37, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

    It appears we've reached a point where more discussion is pointless. older ≠ wiser 17:03, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

    Exactly this. If there was such a strong consensus for the name, it wouldn't keep coming up again and again at RM. A large number of people feel the current situation is wrong. Now I don't have a WP:CRYSTALBALL, but I predict that as and when this move eventually gets made, nobody will ever come back and try to reassert New York for the state. You'd never propose such a move if it wasn't already in place. We've seen that at Washington as well. The state was the primary topic for some years, until eventually in 2010 a disambig page was put there instead. Nobody has ever proposed moving the state back there since.  — Amakuru (talk) 13:16, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

    Sure, it's clear that editors informed opinions don't suit your arguments. It's been what, more than half a decade since anyone has engaged in this sterile exercise to no avail. Otherwise, why bludgeon the oppose section. Editors set it up this way because it's quite sensible and natural, whether some like it or not. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:33, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

17. It makes the most sense to keep the largest political subdivision that carries the name as the primary topic. New York City is a part of New York, and it only makes sense to have our article naming structured to reflect that. Monty₈₄₅ 01:46, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

    See here for numerous examples where this has not been the best solution. Clean Copy^talk 14:43, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

18. As much as I would love New York City to be the primary topic I believe moving and changing names is only going to cause more harm and confusion than good, There's currently a hatnote so anyone wanting the city will find the city..., –Davey2010^Talk 19:15, 21 July 2016 (UTC)
19. There are two uses of New York that *tower* over the rest: New York (state), and New York City. I'm hugely in favor of one of them being at "New York" and the other linked via Hatnote, because this is what readers want a huge amount of the time. While the alternate universe where NYC was chosen as the base of "New York" would be okay, there are certain nice effects to having the state be here, like "New York, New York" working like "Springfield, Ohio" would elsewhere. There's also simple inertia: one of them needs to win, in this case the state won, let it be, it's not worth re-tossing the coin and causing churn even if the decision is arbitrary. Having a disambiguation page be the base page is terrible; it forces an extra click and uglier disambiguation links for no particular reason. So NY (state) @ New York > NYC @ New York >>>>> NY (disambig) @ New York. SnowFire (talk) 02:43, 24 July 2016 (UTC)
    • "New York, New York" would still work like "Springfield, Ohio", just like "Seattle, Washington" and "Atlanta, Georgia" do right now. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 03:11, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

    • When a city requires disambiguation, that matters for that one city and none other. When a state requires disambiguation, it applies to every single city & town in it. (Of course, strictly speaking, the example address will go to New York County aka Manhattan no matter where NYC ends up, so you're not actually correct even if your move succeeds...) Obviously, sometimes there is no choice for the likes of Washington (state), but it's nice to avoid it. SnowFire (talk) 03:20, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

    The disambiguation doesn't apply to all cities and towns - we would just leave those where they are, just like we have articles called Fife, Washington and Albany, Georgia. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 17:20, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

20. No such move! No such change! No no no no, no! Very much opposing this very very bad and insulting idea! Such a move would be insulting and disrupting to the more than 1 billion people of Africa. African children are studying in the schooling systems that New York is a state in America like the state of California or the state of Illinois and that New York City is a city like Chicago and Los Angeles. Wikipedia cannot simply ignore Africa!!! What, then we will have to be changing to teaching that New York has now actually become a city and is no longer a state, and the state name has now been changed to New York (state)? Is somebody crazy? Does he not realise that Wikipedia will be bearing the responsibility for confusing more than one billion Africans, and even worse, be corrupting our childrens' education? No!!! MazabukaBloke (talk) 21:30, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

    How we use a disambiguator doesn't change the name of the state. You'll have to teach them that New York City is sometimes called New York, which can mean both the city and the state. Same as you'd have to teach them that Georgia can be a state or a country. I don't think the fact that sometimes two things have the same name will surprise even a child, and it isn't like we're making up the names here; we're going by what these things are called in the real world. The "how am I going to explain this to my kids!" argument didn't work for gay marriage, so I'd be amazed if it worked here. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 02:23, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

    Your words would be more compelling and less blusterous if they were supported by news sources. When I was in Africa (many years ago), any mention of New York referred to the city, so if that has changed or is changing, then that is a good thing. However, just to say it has changed would not compel me to believe it out of hand. Can you cite any sources to back up what you say?  Wikipedian Sign Language Paine  18:49, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

21. There are similar ambiguities with the U.S. states of Washington and Georgia. In the case of New York, I don't find the arguments against having New York for the state and New York City very convincing. I appreciate all the time and energy that users have devoted to this discussion, but personally I still don't see a problem in need of fixing. --MZMcBride (talk) 14:54, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

    What is your proposed solution to the problem of a high number incoming links to New York that were intended for the city? If you don't find that problematic, you must have in mind a simple way to handle them before they cause confusion to our readers. Diego (talk) 16:40, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

    Yes, there are similar, though not exactly the same, ambiguities with regard to the American states of Washington and Georgia. And, lo and behold, the state of Washington is at Washington (state) and the state of Georgia is at Georgia (U.S. state). No topics can claim primary topic status for the terms Georgia or Washington, and hence disambiguation is required. Likewise, in this case. Therefore, your argument doesn't make any sense. Shouldn't you support a resolution to the present problem of the state of New York taking primary topic status for New York, despite not meeting the primary topic criteria, along the lines of what is done for Georgia and Washington? RGloucester — ☎ 17:16, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

    Hi RGloucester. Of course we have a redirect at New York (state) that works perfectly well. If there were a country named New York, as there is with Georgia, that would be a different matter. I don't see it as problematic that we have New York for the state and New York City for the city. It seems like a pretty clean solution to the ambiguity. As I said below, users mistakenly linking certainly happens, but it's hardly exclusive to this case. --MZMcBride (talk) 17:27, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

    Again, what you're saying doesn't make any sense. Having a redirect doesn't 'work' in line with the disambiguation guidelines. This article should be at that title, or a similar one, disambiguated, as it does not have primary topic status, just as with the states of Georgia and Washington, both of which are at disambiguated titles. The present situation is not a clean solution to the ambiguity, as 'New York' does not unambiguously refer to the state. I honestly just don't understand what you're trying to say. RGloucester — ☎ 18:27, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

    Hi Diego Moya. I'm not sure how the linking situation for New York would be different than what we deal with when linking to Georgia or Washington. The problem that I think you're describing—users linking to the wrong target—isn't really specific to New York, as far as I can tell. A slightly different case that I often encounter comes from misspellings. People will create links such as Alanis Morisette and because that's a blue (or purple) link, it's difficult to immediately notice that the intended target/spelling is Alanis Morissette. If you're really interested in fixing the New York link issue, I can likely work with you to develop some reports or tools so that we can clear out the backlog of mistaken links. (We already have Linked misspellings (configuration) for the similar case I mentioned.) --MZMcBride (talk) 17:20, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

    I think the present problem of about half the links that go to "New York" should go to the city is already being worked on. What supporters are trying to do here is to try to keep future linking errors from happening. It does little good to fix existing links if the problem that caused them is not also fixed. You say you don't see a problem in the present naming. Is not this problem enough? Is the fact that the rest of the world and also many of those who live in New York, whether the state or the city, consider any mention of "New York" as referring to the city, not the state, not something that you would consider a significant systemic bias problem? Or do you simply close your eyes to this?  Wikipedian Sign Language Paine  18:10, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

    @MZMcBride: The obvious difference is that Washington and Georgia link to disambiguation pages, so an editor linking to those names will get a warning instructing them to fix the link to the intended article; while New York currently links to the state article, so links intended for the city will silently fail with no obvious way to detect the mistake. The problem is not the current backlog of wrong links, which could be fixed with a sprint of volunteers; the main problem is how we could detect and fix all the links that will be created in the future. The current status quo will require us to repeat such springs every once in a while. Diego (talk) 19:12, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

22. Weak oppose. I have always referred to the state as New York and the city as New York City, and it always seems odd to me when I hear the city referred to as simply "New York" or the state as "New York State". pʰeːnuːmuː →‎ pʰiːnyːmyː → ‎ɸinimi → ‎fiɲimi 18:53, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

Discussion 2: If there is consensus to change the current name of this page, what should the New York page contain?

Support for New York City as primary topic

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

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

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

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

   Yes, but New York state/colony was named after the city, it could not have been vice versa because the colony boundaries were in the decision invented, not derived from the preceding New Netherland boundaries. So, in terms of long term significance, the city has historical precedence. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:50, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

   This is I think incorrect, the English province and city were created at the same time, and the province's borders were basically the same as those of New Netherland (they only split off New Jersey as a separate province later).--Pharos (talk) 04:04, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

2. Weak support. I believe that this should and will be the eventual result in any case, once the smoke clears from these discussions. But there is a definite short-term benefit to having the DAB at the base name while the links are cleaned up, and little downside even if this becomes permanent. The third option, of a broad concept page, has relatively little benefit (there is a little, but the DAB is far preferable) and was only proposed because it seemed to me to address all of the concerns of those strongly supporting the HLJC. This now seems not to be the case, I still don't see why not, but there you are. Andrewa (talk) 01:58, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
3. It would have to be this one. With so many people searching for "New York," we should at least make some people happy by taking them somewhere they're looking for, instead of a disambiguation page that helps no one. -- Tavix ^(talk) 02:03, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
4. The city can claim primary topic status as it gets nearly 16,000 views a day compared to 8,000 for the state.[3] I concur with Tavix. We don't want to disappoint readers by sending them to a disambiguation page. I hope I am not voting for a title change. I think the city should stay at New York City. Gulangyu (talk) 10:11, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
5. Weak support per Tavix and Gulanyu. I believe the city should remain at New York City, but a disambiguation page will not really be helpful to any of our readers.--Pharos (talk) 22:20, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
6. Weak support as per Tavix. (I have changed my mind due to the relative page view numbers.) Redirect to the most frequently accessed page would be the simplest solution for most users and would be no harder for those looking for the state page than passing through a dab page. Clean Copy^talk 12:50, 21 July 2016 (UTC)
7. Support. City is primary topic worldwide. Why force all readers to a DAB page when we can direct them to what most of them are looking for and have a hatnote in case they were looking for the state? ---- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 02:45, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

Support for the disambiguation page at this title

1. Enough people will search for both at the "New York" title that it's worth having the disambiguation. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 01:54, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
2. While I do agree that more people expect to find the city at "New York" than the state, the numbers are not so overwhelming as to negate the fundamental ambiguity. older ≠ wiser 03:12, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
3. If a move must take place, then this is the only move that would bring about a positive result for readers, as incoming links to the dab page could be periodically checked and specified to their intended destination. With NYC at the base, links intended for the state that instead point to the city would be difficult to detect and incredibly misleading for readers. "New York" links intended for the state will continue to be added, even after a temporary dab period (as suggested by Andrewa) is over - especially given how "New York" is the natural suffix accepted by adhering to WP:USPLACE article title guidelines for localities within the state. Also note that many infoboxes (especially Geoboxes) have fields for "State" and the likelihood that someone would type "New York (state)" in such a field is next to zero. Antepenultimate (talk) 03:25, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
4. I oppose a move, but if one has to happen New York needs to be a disambiguation page. There isn't a primary topic for the city being NY and I'm really not sure if you call it the WP:COMMONNAME either. Taylor Trescott - ^{my talk} + _{my edits} 05:53, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
5. This is by far the safest option. While it could be argued that people are more likely to be looking for the city (as shown by the readership statistics linked above), a direct link to that article might have the same ambiguity problems, and wrong incoming links would be equally difficult to fix. Disambiguation pages are a great resource as they allow readers to navigate to the article they (not WP editors) have in mind, let's use them for good. Diego (talk) 09:31, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
6. It is clear to me that if either of the two concepts is PTOPIC then it is the city, not the state. The city is number one in most measures for global city status, and is more highly viewed than the state. That said, the state is not unimportant either, with its share of readers, and at this time I think dab page serves better than a WP:PRIMARYREDIRECT or moving NYC here.  — Amakuru (talk) 11:23, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
7. Sorry, but if you do the NY - NY (state) move, you're going to have a whole lot of state mislinks based on changing the status quo that's been in place for a very long time. Pointing NY at a different non-disambiguation page? Sounds like a nightmare. NY being a disambiguation page makes the most sense if it happens. (Can I ask what is exactly accomplished by redirecting "New York" to the disambiguated state as I've seen talked about above?) Nohomersryan (talk) 16:43, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

   @Nohomersryan: The benefit is to buy some time in order to disambiguate internal links to New York without temporarily disrupting the encyclopedia. This is the main reason why the 2008 move was promptly reverted. Learning from that lesson, the 2016 move was cleaner, the disambig work started well and we saw positive results, then the move was overturned and here we are debating, hopefully for the last time. As soon as a large enough chunk of New York links are fixed, New York can safely become the dab page; this process was estimated to last a few weeks, tops. — JFG ^talk 17:39, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

8. Reluctantly. I think there'd be a big clean up effort to disambiguate all of those links — MusikAnimal ^talk 18:05, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
   • I would note that such an effort is needed anyway, as there are a substantial proportion of incorrect links. bd2412 T 18:08, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
9. Any move of "New York" to the NYC page, while unpreferred, would be much more hazardous than moving to a disambig page. People linking "New York" in many articles would expect it to direct to the state, especially if writing "The town of [[XXX]], [[New York]]". ɱ (talk) · vbm · coi) 19:32, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

   @Ɱ: Not a big deal: most links to US settlements are in the form [[Town, State]], not [[Town]], [[State]] (which in many cases has Town ambiguous so would need to be written [[Town, State|Town]], [[State]] if people wanted a separate link to the state, a practice discouraged by MOS:OVERLINK). See relevant titling and linking guidelines at WP:USPLACE. Irrespective of the move decision, replacing current links to [[Town]], [[New York]] with [[Town, New York]] is an easily automated task. — JFG ^talk 11:59, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

   Given the number of people above who state plainly that they don't believe hardly anyone has heard of the state, or that no-one thinks of the state when presented with the words "New York" (no matter how many times WP:NWFCTM is linked), invoking MOS:OVERLINK to remove links to "New York" (referring to the state) doesn't seem applicable. OVERLINK discourages links for "Everyday words understood by most readers in context" and "The names of major geographic features, locations..." (emphasis original). Clearly "New York" is not understood by many commenting here to mean the state, with some commenting that they've never heard of the state, and so such links are apparently sorely needed; others are arguing against the state having international significance, so it doesn't seem to be a "major" location to some readers (I disagree, of course). And yet, still no-one thinks that the term "New York" is so ambiguous that we should change such article titles as "Place, New York", or New York-related categories, with it being stated that it is 'understood in context' apparently (which seems to support a WP:NATURAL argument for the state at the base name). I don't see how these various arguments and viewpoints are consistent with each other - is the state so major of a topic that it should not be linked or disambiguated within titles, or is it an insignificant obscurity that should move to make way for the city article? (I know you are not arguing both of these viewpoints, I just want to make sure that the volume of incompatible reasoning presented above isn't mistaken for consensus.)

   By the way JFG, even if we disagree on the need for this change, I just would like to mention that I really appreciate that you are one of the few bringing actual hard evidence to this discussion (particularly your analysis of titles at international Wikipedias). I think you've espoused a clear argument for a dab page at the base title, I still just don't think the problem rises to a level necessitating the effort and disruption this change would bring, though I don't think a dab solution would actually be a bad outcome, here. Antepenultimate (talk) 13:59, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

   The policy is independent of the fame or obscurity of the larger geographical context. Clean Copy^talk 14:44, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

   Thanks for your kind words, Antepenultimate; I think we need to put all imaginable arguments on the table once and for all; I'm definitely not looking forward to rehashing this debate in 2022! To your point: MOS:OVERLINK, while debatable, is not the only issue at play here. When writing about the fine city of Rochester, New York, suppose an editor "mindlessly" types [[Rochester]], [[New York]], the software will warn him that [[Rochester]] is ambiguous. Now there are two ways to solve this, and the simplest one is to combine the links into [[Rochester, New York]], the other being to spit out the lengthy and typo-prone [[Rochester, New York|Rochester]], [[New York]], which I would argue only experienced editors will choose, and then only if they intend to make a point of linking to the state in addition to the city. When mentioning a city in prose, you are rarely talking about the state per se; rather the state name acts as a precision qualifier for the city name, both to disambiguate and to direct the reader's mind towards a particular region where your city is located. Compare Rochester, New York hosts a fabulous collection of vintage astronomical instruments in its science museum. with For decades, Rochester has been the third most populated city in New York. — the second sentence begs for a link to the state (because it talks about the city and the state) whereas the first one is better served by linking the city only (because it only talks about the city and its science museum). So the most natural action is to combine both words into a single link to the disambiguated city name; it happens to be clear and convenient for readers too, and I suspect those considerations played a role in shaping the WP:USPLACE naming policy. If New York points to a dab page, the proverbial mindless editor will get two warnings instead of one, and will be even more likely to follow the USPLACE convention instead of going to the trouble of creating two convoluted piped links. All in all, things should look fine and dandy… — JFG ^talk 16:44, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

   Thanks for the reply. I am having trouble finding the guidance for constructing links in WP:USPLACE, which seems to focus solely on article titles, not links in prose. As one of those editors who does take the time to create as many piped links as necessary to link to relevant topics in prose, I am interested if I am really going against policy when linking the state for a locality article. I always thought that not including a separate link for the state for simple constructions (i.e. "Example County, New York") was out of laziness (i.e., as you mention, to avoid pipes in simple "Place, State" links), since whenever a subjects spans (for instance) two counties, the state is separated from the piped county links and is invariably linked. Also, for all the background noise of removing OVERLINKS that occurs on my watchlist, I have never seen a state link removed. This is relevant as it may be artificially deflating the number of incoming links for the state article, unless they truly are OVERLINKS, which I am genuinely interested in determining. I don't believe they are, any more than a link to NYC is in an article about a location within that city. Antepenultimate (talk) 14:11, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

   You're right, the USPLACE guideline doesn't make a specific recommendation about link style in prose, however it's fairly obvious that the endorsed "Town, State" convention allows easy linking to the town by including the state's name in the link anchor. Editors are naturally free to just link the town's full name or take the trouble of adding an extra link for the state. In my opinion the writer should ask themselves: what am I talking about? and link accordingly, as in my Rochester examples above. And yes we're drifting off-topic but this is a pleasureable and rewarding conversation. — JFG ^talk 03:52, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

   • with it being stated that it is 'understood in context' apparently (which seems to support a WP:NATURAL argument for the state at the base name - I'm afraid you have a fairly strong contradiction right there, Antepenultimate. That something feels natural when it is in context doesn't imply that it will work the same when you remove its context, as it happens when you use it as an article's base name. Diego (talk) 18:02, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

   This isn't a contradiction, you and I disagree about what is understood without the context. I think it's plainly understandable in simple prose (though somewhat ambiguous, hence my support for a dab page if a move must happen), others state it isn't. Somehow, having a word and a comma before the state name in an article title, or its use in a category title, suddenly clears up the confusion for people who claim they only think of the city when they hear "New York" - I don't see how that magically makes everything clear, but there you go. My theory is that it isn't confusing either with or without such extremely thin context. Not a contradiction, but a disagreement. Antepenultimate (talk) 14:11, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

   It's an interesting and original argument but I don't think it will wash (and seems to be in the wrong section, it's mainly about whether or not to move, but IMO it's not worth moving the discussion now). As I understand it, you're saying that all the arguments supporting a move on the grounds that people naturally link to New York when they mean New York City (and this would include most if not all of the discussion about primary topic, as well as all evidence relating to mislinking) should be discounted because the policy is that we shouldn't wikilink New York meaning New York City at all, regardless of context. For example, all links of the form [[New York City|New York]] would be banned by this interpretation of the policy. No, I think that's a stretch. Andrewa (talk) 21:20, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

   I'm not advocating for anything such as you suggest at the end of your comment. To make it as plain as possible: I am simply bringing evidence that a bare "New York" is frequently and naturally used to refer to the state, by highlighting its widespread and uncontroversial use per WP:USPLACE. I feel this is on par with others bringing evidence such as "newyork.com" to argue the other direction. That NYC is a more frequently sought topic is important, but moot if it cannot be shown that "New York" is the most natural and frequently used way to refer to the city, over "New York City", its current title (in specific terms of whether NYC should be at the base title; I think most actual evidence points to the term being ambiguous enough to consider a dab at the base title if change must happen). Its not meant to be a slam dunk but just one bit of evidence, certainly not trying to control people's preferred piping style. And I do sincerely apologize for going so off-topic in this section. Antepenultimate (talk) 14:11, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

10. It can go either way. Most of the links for "New York" mean the state, but a large minority mean the city. A dab page is the best way to weed out these links. Also, both are very important topics, though the city may seem more so, but it's not like one article has 10 daily views and the other has ten thousand. Kylo Ren (talk) 22:58, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
11. There are many links intending the city that are currently pointing to "New York". Make "New York" a dab page so everything get sent to the intended article. Plantdrew (talk) 02:56, 20 July 2016 (UTC)
12. If the state article is moved. I'm not really decided on whether the state article should be moved (I can see good arguments either way), so I'm not taking a stand on that issue. But if the decision is to move it, please don't put the city article here. Too much ambiguity. Let the disambiguation page sit here if the state does not. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 05:13, 20 July 2016 (UTC)
13. To Americans, "New York" refers to the state. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 12:46, 21 July 2016 (UTC)
14. Weak support. I think the city is the primary topic but many do not. In practical terms, bad links to the wrong New York will be easier to find if they point to a dab. Let's reconsider pointing New York directly to the city once existing links are fixed and we have experience from the dab page. Certes (talk) 11:19, 22 July 2016 (UTC)
15. There is no primary topic. Period. Some people first think of the state when they hear "New York", some people first think of the City. Whatever. There's no way you can convince me that either of those topics is significantly more likely than the other to be intended when a random user types "New York" into the search bar. It could be either one, and any attempt by editors to presume one over the other would be introducing our personal biases into the encyclopedia. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 09:43, 23 July 2016 (UTC)
16. There is no clear primary topic, and our guidelines and policies suggest that a disambiguation page is the appropriate solution in a case such as this. RGloucester — ☎ 21:58, 25 July 2016 (UTC)
17. With two very well known uses, neither term is primary topic, so this should be disambiguated. kennethaw88 • talk 04:54, 26 July 2016 (UTC)
18. The flip side of the state not being the primary topic worldwide is that there is no clear primary topic, making disambiguation the only acceptable solution. Plus, with no clear primary topic, I strongly oppose any future proposal to move the city article away from the naturally disambiguated "New York City", so strongly think the base title should be a disambiguation page. oknazevad (talk) 17:41, 26 July 2016 (UTC)
19. The city definitely does not seem to me to be the primary topic. pʰeːnuːmuː →‎ pʰiːnyːmyː → ‎ɸinimi → ‎fiɲimi 18:53, 26 July 2016 (UTC)
20. From arguments developed in numerous contributions above, the only logical, reader-friendly and policy-supported conclusion is a dab page (forgot to !vote earlier) — JFG ^talk 01:10, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

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

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

   Kind of like Ireland? ✉cookiemonster✉ ^𝚨755𝛀 18:12, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

   Yes. But more so, because boundaries of New York colony/state less non-varying as are the boundaries of the island. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:01, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

• Comment: As stated above, I proposed a BCA as an alternative only because it seemed to address all of the concerns of those who wanted an article that included the state in its scope at the base name New York, and who feel that irreparable harm will result otherwise. If you look at the arguments opposing the move, they're all basically of this form or varieties of the it ain't broke, hasn't killed anyone yet line... an example of passion and indifference coexisting that might be at least part of a PhD in psych for someone, someday. A BCA seemed a good way to address these passionate concerns while not completely ignoring the article title conventions. Anyway, point being, I was totally wrong in thinking that these contributors would think a BCA a better idea than a DAB (I'm quite intrigued at this) and so I'm surprised that it even gets one vote. Andrewa (talk) 02:38, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

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

Discussion 3: If there is consensus to change the current name of this page, what should be the state's new title?

In case the page is moved, New York (state) has ample consensus as the new title. — JFG ^talk 10:15, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

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

---

In this debate and in previous move discussions, several potential names have been put forward for the page talking about New York as a state. If the current discussion results in a page move, it would be nice to agree on which name serves readers best. Naturally, all these variants will redirect to the main title chosen.

This should be a larger discussion, as there should be a standard for all states. At the moment there are two other states with names that need clarification in the title:

• The state of Georgia is at Georgia (U.S. state)
• Washington state is at Washington (state)

These two should be reconciled and NY, if it moves, placed in the same category. Clean Copy^talk 11:46, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

@Clean Copy: There is a standard for page titles of US states: it's the plain unadorned state name. Georgia, Washington and New York are exceptions, each for different reasons, so I don't think there's any urge to standardize the exceptions to the standard among themselves. We should use what works best for each case. — JFG ^talk 07:25, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

I agree with JFG as Georgia (U.S. state) is qualified with respect to another country, while Washington (state) is qualified with respect to a district within the same country, so there is a need here to mark the exceptions with the best possible qualifier. In the case of New York, that would be New York (state). This should by no means infer that Georgia (U.S. state) should be requalified as Georgia (state), because in the case of the title "Georgia", a modifier of (state) would be an incomplete disambiguation.  Wikipedian Sign Language Paine  18:28, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

OK -- that makes sense. Thanks. Clean Copy^talk 11:54, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

Pleasure! Paine  

Rename to New York (state)

1. Support. The name of the state is clearly "New York", and yet New York City is globally the primary topic, so the "state" qualifier is needed in the title of this article. Since the name of the state is not really "New York State", then New York (state) will best serve gentle readers. "(U.S. state)" may also serve readers well as the disambiguator; however, IMHO "(state)" is the optimal choice.  Wikipedian Sign Language Paine  07:18, 25 July 2016 (UTC)
2. Support to prevent confusion that the actual state is officially named "New York State". I think the arguments for "New York State" are reasonable, but it has some serious potential to confuse. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 22:06, 25 July 2016 (UTC)
3. Support to follow our usual convention. We would have named the state article "New York" but that title is already in use for a different page, so add a disambiguator as with "Washington (state)". Note: this logic does not extend automatically to Georgia. "Georgia (state)" would not disambiguate, because Georgia (country) is also a state, specifically a state (polity) and a sovereign state. A more precise disambiguator such as Georgia (U.S. state) remains necessary. Certes (talk) 00:42, 26 July 2016 (UTC)
4. Support to ease future links to the state via the pipe trick. There's something to be said for "New York State", but a) in most usages the "S" is not capitalized because it is not treated as part of a proper name and b) the technical benefits of allowing pipe trick outweigh other considerations. oknazevad (talk) 17:46, 26 July 2016 (UTC)
5. Support if the page has to be moved. We have "Washington (state)" instead of "Washington State", which is used in similar contexts to "New York State". pʰeːnuːmuː →‎ pʰiːnyːmyː → ‎ɸinimi → ‎fiɲimi 18:53, 26 July 2016 (UTC)
6. Support as there are already many (>20,000) direct links to this page, currently a redirect. Clean Copy^talk 04:50, 27 July 2016 (UTC)
7. Support as the standard method of disambiguation by type - e.g Category:Conductors (music), Washington (state), Mercury (planet). And no need for th US, as no other entity called New York is plausibly a state. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 05:59, 27 July 2016 (UTC)
8. Support. No ambiguity with other state-level entities. older ≠ wiser 10:48, 27 July 2016 (UTC)
9. Support. Some people internationally, and indeed the state's own website,[4] do say "New York State", but I think it's clear that the WP:COMMONNAME for the state is simply "New York", and as with Washington (state) and Georgia (U.S. state), a parenthesized disambiguator seems best.  — Amakuru (talk) 12:53, 27 July 2016 (UTC)
10. Support for disambiguation consistency. ("State of New York" potentially makes more sense than "New York State" imo) — Andy W. (talk · ctb) 22:54, 27 July 2016 (UTC)
11. Support per consistency. However, if the city remains at the current title of New York City, than I would support New York State. That is, if the state New York is not primary topic. ^Ḉɱ̍ 2nd anniv. 02:47, 28 July 2016 (UTC)
12. Support while I'm undecided if the page should be moved at all, this would definitely be the best choice as it matches the format of "Washington (state)" as Od Mishehu and Phinumu point out. Snuggums (talk / edits) 04:00, 28 July 2016 (UTC)
13. Support as simplest and least potential for confusion. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 21:44, 28 July 2016 (UTC)
14. Support, consistent with other similar articles, and does not make it look like the state's official name is "New York State", which it isn't. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 02:26, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

    The city's official name is not "New York City", and no one writes "New York (state)". See WP:NATURAL and WP:NATURALNESS. I'm not sure why there is a landslide of support in favour of a proposal that directly contravenes our policies and guidelines, and really doesn't make sense when New York City is at New York City, and when the state's own website uses "New York State" exclusively. RGloucester — ☎ 14:27, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

    Nor does Georgia (U.S. state) or Bob Smith (Australian politician) use these as part of their titles, but some differentiation is necessary when there are multiple entities with the same name. Clean Copy^talk 15:02, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

    The difference is WP:NATURAL. No one ever refers to the American state of Georgia as "Georgia State". Per WP:NATURAL, when "an alternative name that the subject is also commonly called in English reliable sources, albeit not as commonly as the preferred-but-ambiguous title" is available, we use that as the title, in preference to parenthetical disambiguation. As such, "New York State" makes the most sense. There is no reason to use the un-natural parenthetical disambiguator here when a WP:NATURAL one is available. That's why New York City is at New York City and not New York (city). The idea that the "officialness" of either the "State" or "City" appendages comes into play does not align with our guidelines and policies, and, furthermore, the idea that people are defending "New York City", whilst saying that "New York State" is not official doesn't make any sense, as neither is official: both represent a form of WP:NATURAL disambiguation. RGloucester — ☎ 16:59, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

15. Support. Sorry this is so late, I was not intending to vote on the question of this new name at all, but just realised that Ohio State and several other similar names commonly refer to US universities, so New York State should be avoided as confusing. This is probably not a problem to US readers, but we cater to all English speakers, not just US or even all native English speakers, but all English speakers however little English they may speak. Andrewa (talk) 04:00, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

    Actually, people here in the UK are more likely to say "New York State" probably than Americans are, for the simple reason that for us, "New York" unadorned always means the city. Therefore much as many in the US say "New York City" to clarify that they don't mean the state, many here say "New York State" to clarify that they don't mean the city (and they are correspondingly less likely than Americans to say "New York City" for the city). Although I've voted for "(state)" myself, mainly for consistency with Washington and Georgia, I don't think "New York State" would be a terrible title either. And as RGloucester points out, it would be consistent with the "New York City" naming already in place.  — Amakuru (talk) 08:43, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

    As a Briton who has had experience living in the New York metropolitan area, but outside New York State, I can say with absolute certainty that "New York" does not by default mean the state in general American usage, anymore than it does in British usage. There is a wide range of potential permutations that are formulated on the basis of proximity and familiarity, and the only consistency amongst them is that meaning is determined by context. In an encylopaedia, where such context is not inherent, disambiguation in such a case should always be provided. Regardless, the relevant state university in New York State is called SUNY, not "New York State", quite possibly because of the fact that "New York State" is the usual name of the state when disambiguation is required. Likewise with CUNY, which serves New York City. RGloucester — ☎ 14:26, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

    I did a survey, see User:Andrewa/US States, of what's currently at the various names of the form (US state name) State (such as Idaho State), and the results surprised even me. Yes, NYS is the exception... it's the only one that points directly to the state. There are 13 redlinks, and two DABS, one of which points to the state and some universities, the other (Nevada) is a two-way of two universities and (I find this fascinating) does not currently even mention the state. So I guess you could say that there are two that point to the state, one (Washington) through a DAB, but even then only two. All the rest are redirs to the relevant State University. That seems to support the idea that (US state name) State transformationally means a university to most people, and only that, to the point that where there is no such university, nobody has even thought to fix the redlink to make it point to the state (someone may do it now and maybe it's not a bad idea, but the point is made). I knew of Ohio State because it's so prominent in some past research interests of mine, and it is never called anything else in that context AFAIK. But the results of my survey surprised even me, and should I think count against New York State as an article title. It is seriously ambiguous for many English speakers. Andrewa (talk) 15:25, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

    Maybe, but I think New York and Washington actually are exceptions, because both share their name with a major city, and it's the city that comes to mind when you hear the name. Noboydy would say "Ohio State" because it would be redundant - Ohio is already meaning the state in almost all contexts. Similarly nobody says "Los Angeles City" but they do say "New York City" because the latter is ambiguous.  — Amakuru (talk) 15:31, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

    That argument doesn't make any sense to me. Just because "Ohio State" is ambiguous, doesn't mean that "New York State" is. If "New York State" isn't ambiguous, which it isn't, as nothing else is called "New York State", then "New York State" should be the title in line with WP:NATURAL and WP:UCN. If the government of New York State hasn't a problem with using it, neither should we. It has been proven to be the common name of the state when disambiguated, and we all know that no one writes "New York (state)". We don't assume an ambiguity on the basis of a clash that does not exist, we only disambiguate when there is one in actual fact. If a "New York State University" existed, and it was commonly called "New York State", and there was no "New York City", then your argument would make sense. However, this is not a situation that exists, and is hence irrelevant. There is no advantage to adding parentheses to a title that does not need them. It is unnatural, unconcise, against our policies, and doesn't do anything but create a title that one is less likely to type in the search box. These types of arguments often prevail in Wikipedia, but they are really very strange. I don't know why Wikipedia has to exist in a vacuum. Common usage is pretty clear on this matter. RGloucester — ☎ 15:39, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

    Agree it's all a bit speculative, that's why I appealed to transformational grammar. Agree that there are some strange arguments. The appeal to the no consensus clause, for example, is essentially a circular argument, is it not? It is applied above to prove there is no consensus, but it assumes that there is no consensus, because otherwise the clause is inapplicable. Unfortunately there is a similar circularity in any attempt to argue against it, as the guideline now stands. When the smoke clears we may try to clarify this. Andrewa (talk) 15:57, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

    Correction... I missed California State, which does point to California. It's almost 2am here... Andrewa (talk) 15:42, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

16. Support. "New York State" is extremely rare, outside the US at least, and sounds like it could be a university, sports team, building, who knows what. Adding "US" to "(state)" is surely unnecessary. Johnbod (talk) 17:34, 3 August 2016 (UTC)
17. This proposal will give consistency like Washington (state), so I support it. epicgenius (talk) 03:03, 6 August 2016 (UTC)

Rename to New York (U.S. state)

Rename to New York State

1. New York State – Clearest choice when appearing alongside New York City and other search results. — JFG ^talk 04:14, 25 July 2016 (UTC)
2. Support per WP:NATURAL – No reason to use parenthetical disambiguation. The permutation 'New York State' is in common usage in both New Yorks (state and city). Why wouldn't it be? It is easy, it matches New York City, and it eliminates any potential ambiguity. RGloucester — ☎ 21:59, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

   There's nothing wrong with this title, and it's my second choice after New York (state); it is used commonly enough that it shouldn't confuse anyone. (While the other two options are just awkward and artificial.) We certainly wouldn't break the Internet if we chose this title. :-) R'n'B (call me Russ) 15:18, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

3. Second choice. This is natural language disambiguation and is how the offical state website refers to the state. older ≠ wiser 10:49, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

Rename to State of New York

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

Process

Advertisement of discussion

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

Closing panel

Closing panel members

Following nominations and discussion below, the closing panel is composed of:

• Future Perfect at Sunrise
• Niceguyedc
• Newyorkbrad

Thanks in advance for your service, and thanks to the other volunteers as well. — JFG ^talk 01:20, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

Nominations and discussion

This discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
As suggested by some editors in the move review, it would seem wise to appoint a 3-person closing panel in order to reach a solid outcome and avoid accusations of supervoting. I would suggest picking 2 uninvolved admins and 1 uninvolved page mover, at random among any volunteers. Volunteers can list themselves here. — JFG talk 02:14, 20 July 2016 (UTC) I agree with you on that JFG. I would like to nominate Epicgenius, to be a part of the panel. He is an uninvolved user and edits extensively not New York related topics. A great editor to help with the job! ✉cookiemonster✉ 𝚨755𝛀 17:02, 20 July 2016 (UTC) I am going to ask Newyorkbrad. His past ArbCom service is widely lauded, and I think his judgment on the matter would be beyond question. bd2412 T 17:36, 20 July 2016 (UTC) I like Epicgenius as well, but unfortunately, he is not uninvolved. He is now registered as Kylo Ren (talk) and has involved himself on this page above and is therefore not eligible. Castncoot (talk) 19:05, 20 July 2016 (UTC) Darn. How unfortunate. Well at least we have Newyorkbrad, a great contributor! ✉cookiemonster✉ 𝚨755𝛀 19:23, 20 July 2016 (UTC) This is redundant, but I am hereby recusing myself. I will instead support Newyorkbrad as one of the three closers for this closing panel. —Kylo Ren (talk) 19:56, 20 July 2016 (UTC) I also support Newyorkbrad as a member of the closing panel. ✉cookiemonster✉ 𝚨755𝛀 23:25, 20 July 2016 (UTC) I asked two diplomatic admins and some trusted page movers whether they'd be willing to sit on the panel. — JFG talk 21:17, 20 July 2016 (UTC) I really appreciate the offer, but I'm afraid that I may not be available in the coming days to help decide this complicated (and very weighty) move issue. However, I do heartily support the admins and other pagemovers mentioned above, and trust their judgment. GABgab 23:04, 20 July 2016 (UTC) @JFG: RGloucester is blocked indefinitely right now, so I'm not sure he can serve, since he can't post here. Kylo Ren (talk) 23:39, 20 July 2016 (UTC) Oops, look like RGlocester already saw that and replied to JFG's post. Kylo Ren (talk) 23:43, 20 July 2016 (UTC) I suppose I could volunteer. - jc37 23:54, 20 July 2016 (UTC) @Jc37: That is excellent. Now we need two more non-involved editors, at least one of which is an administrator, and the other of which is a page mover, to volunteer for this panel to adjudicate this discussion. Thanks! Kylo Ren (talk) 23:57, 20 July 2016 (UTC) How about my lovely friend and helpful admin, MelanieN. She is a great woman for the job. ✉cookiemonster✉ 𝚨755𝛀 01:54, 21 July 2016 (UTC) Thanks for the nomination and the kind words, CookieMonster, but I am going to be out of town all next week and I have no experience with New York issues. I'll have to decline. --MelanieN (talk) 14:31, 21 July 2016 (UTC) I believe that it would be critical to have at least one panelist with significant New York topic experience. I will be the fourth person in this section to support the nomination of Newyorkbrad. Castncoot (talk) 03:38, 21 July 2016 (UTC) Somebody asked me if I'd be available; I would be. Fut.Perf. ☼ 04:56, 21 July 2016 (UTC) If still required, I could be available as a page mover, but wholeheartedly support the names listed here, including Fut.Perf. above -- samtar talk or stalk 12:40, 21 July 2016 (UTC) Note: @Newyorkbrad: hasn't actually said "yes" to this point. bd2412 T 16:27, 21 July 2016 (UTC) I'll accept the nomination if I'm still needed on the Closing Panel. Just let me know; I'll be more than happy to help. :-) ~Oshwah~(talk) (contribs) 23:52, 25 July 2016 (UTC) A closing panel should be selected via a neutral advertisement. Anyone with an opinion on the matter may inadvertently encourage appointment of closers who share their unconscious biases. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:20, 21 July 2016 (UTC) I'm not sure why page movers in particular are being touted for the job. Non-admins with significant RM experience would be fine and welcome, but being a page mover is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for that. If we're having Newyorkbrad, then maybe a non-US admin would be good too, to cover both the New York local and the worldwide views.  — Amakuru (talk) 14:47, 21 July 2016 (UTC) As a page mover, I would be honored to participate in the closing of this discussion were I not already involved as a supporter for the rename. Any page mover would be, I think, so honored; however (did you see that coming? ), the closing panel should consist only of admins who have been vetted by the community. That is not to say that there are not able page movers or even non-admin, non-page-mover editors who would be a boon to the closing panel; that is only to say that by asking and accepting only vetted admins, we would nip in the bud any future discussions about the closure being tainted by a member who has not been vetted by the community and thereby trusted with the really hard decisions, as this one appears to be.  Wikipedian Sign Language Paine  15:54, 21 July 2016 (UTC) Yes, some non-US users would be nice for the closing panel. ✉cookiemonster✉ 𝚨755𝛀 16:03, 21 July 2016 (UTC) But at least one (preferably two) admin(s) with New York topic experience is a must. Would you want someone with no medical experience treating you for a medical problem? Castncoot (talk) 16:48, 21 July 2016 (UTC) (edit conflict) Page movers are neither better nor worse than admins; they just happen to be a recent constituency of 52 people, many of them very experienced editors, who have shown an interest and an active participation in move debates, and therefore are inclined to see this particular discussion with a fresh perspective, illuminated by current policy and best practices. Of course admins can do this too but not all admins are specialized in article titling discussions. For balance, I re-iterate my earlier proposal of selecting two admins and one page mover for the closing panel. And as suggested above, it would be good that at least one of them be a New York specialist and at least one of them be a non-US resident or national. Within those parameters, let many volunteers come forward; we have probably a week or more of discussion ahead before moving to the close phase. By the way, any suggestions on an appropriate timing? — JFG talk 16:54, 21 July 2016 (UTC) Yes, I fully agree with you JFG. We already have a New York topic user, Newyorkbrad. We need a non-US user, who would like to be apart of the panel. ✉cookiemonster✉ 𝚨755𝛀 17:41, 21 July 2016 (UTC) I would like to nominate my lovely friend Davey2010, a wonderful friend and Wikipedian who is very experience at what he does. He is active at WP:RM and he is a Wikipedia:File mover, which I believe he would be qualified for a seat in the panel. He is also a resident of the United Kingdom, so I nominate him as the non-US panel member. I don't know if he has any New York related experience, but even if he does or does not, I believe he is qualified for this position on the panel. I hope he accepts this nomination and others support as well. ✉cookiemonster✉ 𝚨755𝛀 17:49, 21 July 2016 (UTC) Sorry CookieMonster755 but I'm afraid I'll have to decline - I plan on !voting later but not only that I believe there's far more experienced people here that could and would do a much better job than me, Sorry, it was extremely kind of you to nominate it and I appreciate it alot tho, Thanks, –Davey2010Talk 19:01, 21 July 2016 (UTC) Okay Davey, I understand. I guess I am done with nominating people, but I will support others nominations :) ✉cookiemonster✉ 𝚨755𝛀 19:03, 21 July 2016 (UTC) We should preferably choose impartial admins/page movers who know enough about New York issues to close this topic uncontroversially, but not too involved that they feel the need to vote (thus invalidating their positions). This should be carefully considered. Kylo Ren (talk) 20:58, 21 July 2016 (UTC) I'm somewhat confused. Afaik, you requested 3 closers instead of the regular 1 (which occurs from time to time). From what I can tell, you now have 4 people willing to close (5 if the generally universally respected NYB joins in). Is there some further hold up, that I'm unaware of? - jc37 02:46, 22 July 2016 (UTC) @Jc37: The more uninvolved closers, the better, but since there are 4 uninvolved senior editors (or 5, including NYB) who are willing to close this discussion, I think it will be fine to make an exception if everyone else agrees with this change to 5 people on the closing panel. Kylo Ren (talk) 00:55, 23 July 2016 (UTC) 5 seems a reasonable number. Castncoot (talk) 01:43, 23 July 2016 (UTC) 3,4, or 5 wasn't what I was asking. I was asking why we were waiting. I read the above and even though you have more than 3 volunteers, people were still looking for closers... So I guess my question now is: Are we ready to start? - jc37 11:50, 23 July 2016 (UTC) Not yet, we should let the discussion unfold a bit longer + wait for responses of all prospective closers + pick 3 (I think 5 is overkill). What about advertising an "end of discussion" date for next Saturday, July 30? @BD2412: You handled the discussion setup, what do you recommend as next steps of the decision process? — JFG talk 13:29, 23 July 2016 (UTC) Requested moves have procedures already in place. The discussion runs for seven days, so until 00:50, 26 July 2016 (UTC); if any person feels additional time is needed, they can relist the discussion for an additional seven days. I suppose a consensus could be developed to deviate from that procedure, bit I wouldn't bother. Is there really anything new that will be gained in an additional week from this already lengthy well-publicized discussion? bd2412 T 13:47, 23 July 2016 (UTC) Sounds good. That leaves us 3 days to select panelists. Looks like we don't have a New Yorker among the current 4 volunteers; care to nudge Newyorkbrad or hunt for somebody else for this slot? — JFG talk 16:53, 23 July 2016 (UTC) I have nudged; per his talk page, he is apparently away until Monday, but seems willing so long as no one intends to object. bd2412 T 17:23, 23 July 2016 (UTC) Confirmed (see the last thread on my talk). Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 16:46, 25 July 2016 (UTC) My inclination would be a panel of Future Perfect at Sunrise, Niceguyedc, Newyorkbrad, based on their immense collective experience. bd2412 T 01:06, 26 July 2016 (UTC) User:BD2412, you appear to be playing the role of independent facilitator for this discussion? Excellent! --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:14, 26 July 2016 (UTC) This isn't because I wasn't in the selected "list" (because all you're doing is saving me from doing work : ) - But I've never heard of a discussion where they could cherry-pick their closers. Consensus, that is not. And I keep looking at the requests for a New Yorker, and am wondering if the intent is to specifically have New York bias. Must one be a New Yorker to close a discussion? No more than one needs to be Indonesian, or an Ancient Greek to close such discussions. This is starting to sound like a walled garden... (And with that, I leave you to your regularly scheduled broadcast...) - jc37 06:28, 26 July 2016 (UTC) @Jc37: Per the discussion above and JFG's comment below, we have a panel consisting of one New Yorker, and two editors far removed from New York. Thus, all perspectives are included. bd2412 T 13:16, 26 July 2016 (UTC) We agreed up front that there would be a panel of closers, unlike a regular RM in which any admin or experienced non-admin could drive by and close it. The panel chosen seems reasonable and balanced, so I'm not quite sure where the issue is here.  — Amakuru (talk) 14:02, 26 July 2016 (UTC) To clarify: I've been a closer on multiple closer discussions before. Requesting more than one closer from the outset is fine. Specifying types of closers, is not. And asking for 3 and getting 5 means you let the closers decide whether they are going to recuse, or whether just to have 5 closers. You don't decide for them. I've never seen a situation where cherry-picking closers is seen as appropriate. Not ever. I understand that you see this as important and potentially divisive, but this is no less true than other such discussions, like RFCs on WP:V, or on "the troubles", or any number of other contentious discussions. Cherry-picking is contrary to policy, that's a fact, not an interpretation. One that shouldn't require me to remind you all, as I think you all know better than to do this. And for the record, my intent was to do what I've done in the past: Since there were more than 3 volunteers, once more than 3 were confirmed to be active (not just agreeing to close, but actually participating - in case the number fell to less-than-3, which has also happened in the past), I was going to bow out and let them have the fun of closing. I mention this, because this isn't a debate, and this is merely a clarification. Anyway, as I said, I leave you all to it. - jc37 19:50, 26 July 2016 (UTC) Speaking of which, unless there is a proposal to relist, I am going to hat this discussion and pass it off to the panel in about another 20 hours. I don't want to stop it right now because there are still exchanges going on, but it's been advertised for more than a full week, so wrap it up, people. bd2412 T 03:20, 26 July 2016 (UTC) Due to the facts that this is a gnarly problem and that, as you say, there are still discussions and new weighing ins, this RM should be relisted.  Wikipedian Sign Language Paine  19:03, 26 July 2016 (UTC) we have been discussing this non-stop for about a month now, with the original RM, the move review and now this. I don't see any likelihood that significant new arguments will come out of the woodwork in another week of discussion. I supported relisting the original close to give everyone a say, but they've had that chance now, its time to put this to bed one way or the other.  — Amakuru (talk) 22:15, 26 July 2016 (UTC) Looking at the selection criteria discussed earlier, we have a New Yorker admin (Newyorkbrad), a foreigner admin (Future Perfect at Sunrise, impressively polyglot too) and a page mover (Niceguyedc) who happens to be neither from New York nor from a foreign country (his user page says Seattle), all very experienced and of stellar reputation, so I think that's a fair panel. — JFG talk 06:56, 26 July 2016 (UTC) I am very concerned about having someone from Seattle, however; no offense whatsoever to Niceguyedc. There is the issue of the Washington disambiguation. That is not applicable here, as New York City is contained within New York State, while Washington, D.C. is entirely separate from Washington State. However, I am indeed very concerned that someone from that U.S. state could be biased toward finding a move or a primary disambiguation page "acceptable". Castncoot (talk) 21:39, 26 July 2016 (UTC) Just above you were advocating choosing people based on their having links to the subject under discussion. It is strange to then turn around and worry about someone who is more distant from the situation. It is also very wrong and extremely strange to class everyone from Washington as people with potentially unacceptable opinions, due to technical decisions regarding the name of their state's wikipedia page. I am sure these people have far more important things to base their thoughts on. CMD (talk) 22:53, 26 July 2016 (UTC) I see no reason for concern. Niceguyedc is a seasoned editor who I would consider to be very unlikely to biased in this matter, and frankly I doubt any experienced editor from Washington (or Georgia) would be at all influenced by how their own state is presented in Wikipedia. bd2412 T 23:03, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

Discussion by panelists

Comments by Newyorkbrad

I have carefully reviewed all the input on this page. I thank everyone who participated in the discussion.

The supporters of a move have presented several sound arguments for a move based on policy and evidence, their most important point being the straightforward one that a reader searching for "New York" seems to be more likely to be seeking the city than the state.

The opposers have also presented valid arguments, including the length of time the articles have been at the existing titles without problems, and the relative ease of getting from one article to the other.

The tone and quality of the discussion was generally appropriate. A few editors engaged in unreasonable rhetorical hyperbole (such as claims that a pagemove would case "irreparable harm" to Wikipedia, New York State, and New York City, or would "be confusing to one billion Africans and corrupt our children's education"), but fortunately this was atypical. There is no evidence of sockpuppetry, biased canvassing, or other misconduct that would detract from the consensus-seeking process.

I've thought hard about this discussion for the past two days. The move supporters have made a reasonable, although not an unanswerable, case. If this discussion were taking place in 2002 rather than in 2016, they might well have prevailed, because several of the opposers' rationales are based on what they consider the undesirability of changing the status quo after 15 years. But I don't see a policy basis for rejecting "keep the status quo absent a need to change" as one legitimate argument to be considered in a move review, even though several editors have opined that it shouldn't be dispositive.

The numerical result is 23 supporting a pagemove and 22 opposed, virtually a tie. At the end of the day, to declare a consensus from a discussion with that result, one would need to conclude that one side has presented not merely better arguments, but far better arguments, or that the other side's arguments are not grounded in policy or logic at all. That conclusion I cannot reach. Therefore, although I admit this would be an anticlimactic outcome after the efforts spent on this discussion, my tentative conclusion is that there is NO CONSENSUS either for or against a move.

(Although I did not consider this in my closing, it occurs to me that this may be a Condorcet voting paradox situation. If outcome A is that [[New York]] should be the article about the state, outcome B is that it should be the article about the city, and outcome C is it that should be a disambiguation page, it may well be that A>B, B>C, and C>A. But I digress.)

I look forward to the other closers' views and my opinion here is tentative until I read them. Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:29, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

Comments by Niceguyedc

I would also like to thank the participants in the discussion(s). Aside from the previously noted hyperbole, the discussion was mostly on point.

My initial take on the discussion is that the consensus for a move of the state article away from New York is clear.

The proponents of the move have the backing of multiple policy arguments, most notably that the state is not the primary topic of "New York" by any Wikipedia definition.

The opponents of the move argue that the status quo is fine (that there is no harm in the current arrangement of article titles), or that the state is the primary topic because it is larger or a higher-level jurisdiction (an argument that has no basis in policy or guidelines that I can find, and was shown by many participants not to hold up in the many other similar situations in Wikipedia). For me, keeping the status quo does not outweigh the policy arguments made by the proponents.

As to the mentioned "harm", I note that there is harm, as mentioned by Bkonrad (the "older ≠ wiser" comments above), for a 185,000 byte article to be loaded instead of a 5,000 byte article for users that don't want the article on the state. Our mobile users and our users on slower connections are harmed by loading a large article that they aren't looking for.

I look forward to further discussion with my learned colleagues. -Niceguyedc ^{Go Huskies!} 23:19, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

Comments by Fut.Perf.

First: my renewed apologies for taking so long to find the time to finally review the arguments and make up my mind here. This has been a difficult task for me, since, personally, I find myself spontaneously very much on the side of those who find it evident that the state can't count as the primary topic. As many have observed, there seems to be a difference between local and global naming habits and associated perceptions, and just like many of the !voters on both sides, who evidently voted on the basis of these subjective perceptions, I myself am also unavoidably guided by my own perceptions in assessing this issue. So, to be frank: for me, as a non-local, non-American (and non-native speaker of English), the city beats the state as the primary topic of the name "New York" by a thousand miles. To me, anything but having the plain title redirect to the city (and in fact not mrerely a dabpage) feels like a very blatant violation of the "principle of least astonishment" that is at the heart of our disambiguation and naming policies. That said, however, it becomes all the more crucial and all the more difficult for me to critically assess my perception of the merits of the arguments brought forward, to avoid the danger of a mere "supervote". As the numerical distribution is so even at 23:22, a call in favour of moving can only be justified if it can be shown that the arguments in favour are overwhelmingly more cogent and systematically better based in policy. Now, personally, I would indeed feel that this is the case. To me, none of the arguments against the move appear convincing in the least: the "education" argument ("those readers who don't know that NY can refer to the state should be grateful for being taught") seems downright cynical to me (we inform readers by offering them information, not by punishing them through forcing pages upon them they didn't want to read!); the argument that even readers who end up at the wrong page don't suffer any harm falls flat confronted with the observation that this means unnecessary loading of a very large page and that for some readers the disambiguation note might not even be visible; the argument that the state is somehow the objectively more important and logical superordinate topic based on its size etc. feels devoid of merit to me, since disambiguation is not about objective priority but purely about efficiency in directing readers where they want to go; the argument that the primary appellation of the city is actually not "NY" but "NYC" is beside the point, because a topic can very well still be the primary topic of an appellation that isn't its only or its official one (the issue is not how often people say "NY" when they mean the city, but how often people mean the city when they say "NY"); the argument that the existence of numerous "NYC" wikilinks proves that somehow that naming convention comes natural to editors (and hence, readers) is utterly unconvincing because so far "NYC" was the only available way of linking to the city (in contrast, the converse argument, about the large number of wrong links to "NY", is indeed logically cogent.) Added to these arguments are some votes by people who overtly voted simply based on their subjective perception ("I'm from New York and I've always heard it this way" etc.) – All these arguments, in short, are quite unconvincing to me. Am I then justified in calling them disconnected from policy and to be ignored in my assessment of consensus? I was very much tempted to, but on reflection I feel I can't do this. Given the fact that so many apparently good-faith and experienced Wikipedians have found these arguments convincing, and that the conclusions of my colleagues on the closing panel are also divided, the feeling of this being a "supervote" would be too strong to make this a convincing close. So, with something of a bleeding heart (because I do feel this RfC thus becomes a missed chance to rectify a glaring and damaging error in Wikipedia's treatment of the issue), I can't help but delaring a no consensus to move.

That said, I'm somewhat disappointed by the objective, empirical basis assembled for this discussion. A good move debate ought to be based on objectifiable, quantifiable observations of reader interest. Maybe that's particularly difficult in the case of such a high-profile and high-frequency search issue, but still I feel there's a real lack of this in all of the arguments above. Some people have tried to make assessments on the basis of wikilink counts and changes of page hits in connection with the moves, but all of that is a poor substitute for what could have been the real clincher here: real corpus counts, and/or real click counts. In a representative collection of texts out there, when the term "NY" is used, how often does it refer to the city and how often to the state? And as for click counts, a good and easy method of measurement would have been this: for a limited trial period, make "NY" a dab page. Then, pipe the two main links from there to the two contender articles through a pair of custom-made redirects used only for this purpose (like: [[New York City (redirect)|New York City]]). Then, count the pageviews for these two redirects only. That would give you the exact distribution of what readers actually want to see when they have typed "New York" in the searchbox, unaffected by other wikilinks etc. That, in the end, is the only criterion that really counts here. But this, unfortunately, is probably water under the bridge now. Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:34, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

Post-discussion potential move considerations

Consequences of the decision are discussed at Talk:New York/July 2016 move consequences.

An appropriate action plan is being developed for each possible outcome of the debate closure. — JFG ^talk 17:40, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

Assessment of panelists' comments

Niceguyedc

This discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I respectfully requests User:Niceguyedc's comments to be invalidated immediately as comments from being admissible in the determination of the outcome of this move request. I am going to explain my rationale in forthcoming text, but the bottom line is that his determination that "the consensus for a move of the state article away from New York is clear" is blatantly false. I also believe, as I had clearly expressed very significant concern about his qualification to be an impartial candidate for this particular forum apriori, that he has been ineligible all along to be a panelist to determine the outcome of this hefty move request. Castncoot (talk) 19:10, 30 July 2016 (UTC) During the process of nominating panelists, I had expressed my very strong reservations about this editor serving on the all-important panel, in terms of his ability to serve entirely impartially on this issue, and my concerns have been borne out in their prophecies. First of all, his signature screams WP:POV in favor of an college athletic team of the U.S. state of Washington. His User page likewise screams "Seattle" and he is listed among several Seattle categories. One would have to doubt that he as a torchbearer of one of the few U.S. states (Washington) whose name directs to a primary disambiguation page could truly perform impartially here and not have a likely inherent bias toward feeling that such primary disambiguation would be acceptable. Niceguyedc is not an administrator, as far as I can tell, and I believe that his analysis, besides being technically incorrect, is amateurish, doesn't hold water, and smacks of a bona fide SUPERVOTE. Regardless of one's viewpoint or perception of the arguments, an impartial closer must weigh both the volume and the heft of both sides of the argument presented. Instead of acknowleding the virtual tie in the number of supporting and opposing votes, Niceguyedc turns a blatantly blind eye regarding this fact. There is in fact NO CONSENSUS to move this longstanding article, where in fact, a strong consensus would be needed to move!!! Instead, Niceguyedc claims that there is a "clear" consensus to move. That is an outright falsity. For the reasons above, taking an oath of good faith, despite my obvious opposition to this misguided proposed move, I strongly object to the credibility and validity of Niceguyedc's comments above and request that his analysis and nomination to this particular panel, analyzing this particular topic, be dismissed. Respectfully, Castncoot (talk) 19:46, 30 July 2016 (UTC) Now you're overdoing it. Diego (talk) 19:58, 30 July 2016 (UTC) Well, now that you mention it, I remembered I saw the name "Niceguyedc" before on this page, so I searched for it, and that User's work is most certainly praised in an argument in support of the move - assuming that's him, it does make sense to have someone else with no involvement. (BTW, consensus most certainly does mean agreement of the participants, not the closer, so they should address the encyclopedic sources, and that NYC would not exist without NY, in law and in fact. The oppose did not reject the support argument including PT for no reason - and PT says right in it, it is solely a matter for consensus (agreement in the discussion). It also appears disrespectful of the community of 15 years standing to argue or find, they had no reason, to do what made perfect sense to them and is sourced). Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:48, 30 July 2016 (UTC) I see no relevance to any of this. The fact that someone lives in Seattle, which is on the opposite side of the United States from New York, has no bearing on their neutrality. The fact that the editor has been praised for doing the gnome-work of link fixing is not "involvement" on their part on the question at issue. The ability for experienced editors to weigh different perspectives is exactly why we have a panel rather than a single closer in a circumstance like this. Wait until the panel finishes its work. If there is an objection to be made, that will be the time for it. bd2412 T 22:49, 30 July 2016 (UTC) I agree that there is good reason to doubt this admin's neutrality in certain college athletic matches. What good fortune that these are not in question in this discussion! Clean Copytalk 23:59, 30 July 2016 (UTC) (e/c)First of all, no, it would be poor form not to raise the objection as early as possible. Second, this discussion is packed full with speculation about why and how people link, and that is exactly what the support claims his involvement to be in this very issue - and it was not characterized as just a gnome like he fixed a single spelling error, it was characterized as extensively "heroic" by one side of the debate - so yes, he is previously involved in this issue. Heroic though he may be, passing it off to someone else is no knock on him, even if he totally believes he can be impartial despite appearance. Involvement is construed broadly, but one does not even have to go broad, here. Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:17, 31 July 2016 (UTC) I agree with bd2412. Stay calm while the editing gets hot. Ḉɱ̍ 2nd anniv. 00:12, 31 July 2016 (UTC) The issue is calmly explained. Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:20, 31 July 2016 (UTC) It's hard to see how the fact that a user fixed many links that were going to a dab page implies any commitments to or against an eventual page move. It's even harder to see how the WP title of what might be his present or past home state would have any influence on the title of a different page, unless there is evidence that he at some point influenced the page title. I was also, however, puzzled by the suggestion that there is a clear consensus, given the roughly equal number of voices on each side. However, any complaints about objectivity should have been lodged before the user's comments, as it now gives the appearance of an attempt to shout down a view you disagree with. Clean Copytalk 00:48, 31 July 2016 (UTC) Given this debate it should not be hard to see, when one is praised by a side for editing concerning that side's points then the involvement is apparent. But, now you say it should be raised earlier but bd2412 said it should be raised later. Both can't be right and both are incorrect. It's raised, now, and appropriately, as I became aware of it and saw it - the facts of the involvement are not going to change. And, no it's just his involvement no one else's. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 02:33, 31 July 2016 (UTC) @Clean Copy: 1) I did - during the nomination process. All of that discussion has been collapsed but can be viewed. 2) I'm not sure he's an admin, simply to clarify in regards to your comment above - not that it's dispositive. 3) Most importantly, however, as you have also noted, Niceguyedc in his assessment has imposed a phantom (i.e., non-existent) "clear" consensus for a move among the discussants - which, again, is brazenly false. What's the use of having a sham closure process for a move request? Castncoot (talk) 01:10, 31 July 2016 (UTC) It's not blatantly false. By a simple head count, the supporters are more than the opposers. And Niceguyedc explicitly stated that the supporter's claims are stronger (backed up by a policy) than the opposers (status quo, higher-level jurisdiction - neither of which is backed up by policy); and the claim of harm is actually stronger in favor of moving than against it. And I certainly doubt that being from Washington or Georgia makes one be less able to be neutral about New York. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 02:40, 31 July 2016 (UTC) The claim of harm is based on only speculation about what others think - and even then they are not consistent with some saying they are thinking of Manhattan not NYC - and NAME policy is clear that the titles are chosen by those "familiar" with the subjects (not by those ignorant of them) and it actively discourages such rearranging of long-standing titles by saying 'find something better to do.' Alanscottwalker (talk) 02:55, 31 July 2016 (UTC) This section should be collapsed immediately and not reopened until after the agreed-upon panel of three closers have finished making their comments. People really should wait until the determinate third opinion is clearly stated before thrashing any panelist who does not agree with their position. We all want the very same thing: to improve this reference work. That doesn't always go our way; however, it must always go Wikipedia's way or what's the ... point?  Temporal Sunshine Paine  08:44, 31 July 2016 (UTC) I quite agree. The above conversation is a blatant attempt to subvert the process before it's even concluded. BD, our neutral referee , has said how the process works, and for now we just wait. The above are only tentative first opinions by the panel anyway. They will disclose their final verdict jointly in due course.  — Amakuru (talk) 09:03, 31 July 2016 (UTC) We have a New Yorker, a non-NY American (with experience of city/state confusion) and an international view. There is some evidence that the term "New York" carries different nuances in those three zones, and our panel covers them neatly. Together, I'm sure they'll find the best solution. Certes (talk) 10:21, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

Now that the panel have each given their preliminary thoughts

@BD2412: what happens next? Do they go away and reconcile their thoughts in private? Or do we just add them together? At face value, No consensus + Consensus to move + No consensus = Narrow consensus to move. Certainly none of the three has called it a consensus not to move. This is different from the Talk:Hillary_Rodham_Clinton/April_2015_move_request case, though, because we didn't get any individual thoughts from the panellists there, just a united decision.  — Amakuru (talk) 20:59, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

• I believe that this constitutes a seriatim opinion of no consensus to move. I assume that User:Future Perfect at Sunrise read the opinions of the other panelists when writing his own. I would ask that @Newyorkbrad and Niceguyedc: review the opinions coming after theirs, and indicate whether they concur that this is indeed the result of this discussion as a whole. Cheers! bd2412 T 21:13, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

  But the leaning of the panel is clearly in favour of moving. (0 + 1 + 0) / 3 = 0.3333333333. Nobody said there was a consensus *not* to move.  — Amakuru (talk) 21:20, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

  • There is clearly no consensus about whether there is consensus to move. In that case, I would say that, since no consensus defaults to the least changing outcome, there is no consensus to move, and thus this will not be moved. Pppery (talk) 21:25, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

  Yes Amakuru, your logic here is flawed as no consensus to move always keeps the status quo, and it's not a mathematical equation, it's a 2:1 decision. If the US Supreme Court operated like you say, a 6:3 decision against would give .333. So? And the "leaning of the panel" is in fact against the decision in that case or towards no consensus in this one. ɱ (talk) · vbm · coi) 21:35, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

  See Wikipedia:Consensus#No consensus. Absent consensus for a proposed change, the status quo ante prevails. bd2412 T 21:38, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

  But see WP:PRIMARYTOPIC - in cases relating disambiguation, if there is no primary topic, the term should be the title of a disambiguation page. This case is not as much of a WP:TITLECHANGE of a topic (the state is still suggested to be named "New York", just with some parenthetical disambiguation added) as it is about the correct application of disambiguation among several articles. Diego (talk) 22:08, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

Please give me a day or two to review and think about the others' detailed comments, and then I'll weigh in here. Thanks, Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:21, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

• I feel I am restating this too often, but the no consensus clause is only relevant if there is no consensus (surely!). To state that there is no consensus when the only argument opposing is this clause itself is a classic circular argument, it assumes that there is no consensus in order to prove that there is no consensus. In hindsight perhaps I should have expressed it this way at #The case should be decided on its present merits above.

  Am I missing something here? It seems to me to completely demolish what little case there is opposing the move. Andrewa (talk) 18:51, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

• This certainly is a delicate case and sort of a Catch 22 in terms of policy, because with "No consensus to move" result, guidelines point to keep the status quo, but with "No consensus that there is a primary topic" the WP:DAB guideline says that there should be a disambiguation page.

In terms of precedent mentioned by Newyorkbrad I'd like to accentuate the argument made by several editors that I don't see reflected in their preliminary statements: in other similar cases such as Washington and Georgia, the result of a lack of strong consensus for a primary topic has been a disambiguation page. In general the recent tendency has been to move to a DAB such longstanding articles that were created near the origins of the project when no other article disputed the name (see move discussions for Big, All That Jazz or Brand New for a few of which I'm aware). If the long standing of the article title is to be used as an argument with some weight, the outcomes of similar cases where that argument was also used should be taken into account.

(Not to mention that at least one of the Oppose !votes was clearly a sarcastic parody, or maybe even two of them - but that second case I have in mind may be an application of Poe's law). Diego (talk) 21:55, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

This doesn't apply because we didn't directly vote on what the primary topic is, we just voted whether the page should be moved or not, and there wasn't much consensus there. That can't be applied to mean half the people think the state is primary and half the city, there are other options and other reasonings behind the support and oppose votes. So you can't just say there wasn't a consensus on primary topic. We didn't vote to pick a primary topic here. ɱ (talk) · vbm · coi) 22:29, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

Technically discussions are not based on votes, that's why comments are called "not-votes" (that's what the ! in "!vote" means), so we didn't vote on moving the page either - we opined about it, with different strengths of arguments. We also very much opined about whether there is a primary topic of not (you can see plenty of comments about this, several of which directly supporting an editor's opinion about the move). If we haven't been able to determine which of the articles is THE primary topic, I say that's clear evidence there's no consensus about having one. Diego (talk) 22:41, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

• Slow down, please. So far, the panelists have only provided their initial assessments, and it's not up to us discussion participants to declare an outcome. Leave panelists some time to discuss their findings among themselves and provide a common opinion, like any jury does. — JFG ^talk 00:29, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Justification of outcome

Regardless of the eventual discussion outcome as determined by the panel, I think it would be fair to ask the panelists for a written and detailed justification of their decision. At the minimum, I would like to see a panel assessment weighing each argument for and against the move against policy and editor support, e.g. assessing individually the merits of the 15 arguments pro and the 11 arguments contra, and then assigning due weight to each !vote depending on the soundness of arguments invoked. — JFG ^talk 01:18, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

I'm sure you're not really proposing 15+11*3=78 different arguments to analyze. The bottom line is that there is NO CONSENSUS to move, and the status quo ante must remain. What you're proposing to do is akin to a revote on Brexit. And I should remind everyone that this is actually the second move request in recent weeks to arrive at a destination of NO CONSENSUS to move, and the fourth or fifth over the past 14 or 15 years. It's time to move on. Absent consensus to move, Discussions 2 and 3 above are null and void. Please respect this fact rather than trying to bulldoze the opinions of the substantial numbers of us who do not want ANY type of move, PARTICULARLY to a disambiguation page, because we believe it would indeed be harmful to the project in one way or another. Do you realize what many of us who have opposed this misguided move proposal would have had to endure while watching the move supporters wallow in Discussions 2 and 3 and yet holding ourselves back from commenting? It seemed unfair and bias-provoking all along (as I had mentioned apriori) to even hold those two discussions, absent a decision to move in the first place. Castncoot (talk) 04:55, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

A technical point: this process has not yet arrived at any destination. Certes (talk) 13:38, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Again the gun is jumped – there is no "bottom line" yet – we must still wait for the final decision. And while the third opinion given above was awaited with bated breath by all, I didn't read "no consensus" until the very end. It was just as strongly an argument to move this page as given by any supporter in the debate. This page should be moved, and two of three of the panelists strongly agree that this page should be moved. If it is not moved, then it will continue to be a bane to this great reference work. Which is greater? the state of New York? or Wikipedia?  Temporal Sunshine Paine  15:11, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

First of all, the "opinion" by panelist Niceguyedc was a sham opinion which should be deemed inadmissible in a New York minute. This does not constitute an assessment of Niceguyedc's Wikipedic competence on the whole. Rather than performing the functions of a true closer, he was inserting himself largely as a discussant, unlike the two admins, who I must admit rendered very professionally articulated opinions, even if I may not have been in agreement with all of their statements. Both of them recognized, regardless of their personal opinions about moving, that there is NO CONSENSUS to move. You, Paine Ellsworth, must also recognize the difference between the role of a closer versus the role of a discussant. What the three panelists believe and opine personally about the move is irrelevant. Castncoot (talk) 17:19, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

I think everybody here is getting used to your overreactions to the point that they are no longer stunned by your words. And as a move closer of several years, I do recognize that a closer, no matter what their personal opinion, must go with what they see in a discussion as consensus or lack thereof. What is interesting is the described opinion of the weighty and policy/guideline-filled support rationales versus those feather-weight oppose rationales. NYB's "no consensus for or against a move" is different from "no consensus to move", so the outcome's still up in the air. This is not a time for keeping the status quo just because there may not be a consensus. This is a time to do the right thing for Wikipedia, even if it's not what you personally want.  Temporal Sunshine Paine  01:53, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

I fail to see how No consensus for or against a move is not just a more verbose way of saying No consensus to move. Pppery (talk) 01:58, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

Actually, as most page movers know, "no consensus" means "no consensus" no matter what comes after or before it. The idea to thrash about either now or later, then, is whether a biased pagename–article association that is the "status quo" should remain in Wikipedia even under a "no consensus" close. Such a discussion might be for a different venue.  Temporal Sunshine Paine  02:13, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

Beware of systemic bias towards status quo

The New York case has been a perennial question and similar arguments were made in previous move debates over the years. Status quo has always prevailed despite a general agreement that there was no primary topic (see the debates of 2008 and 2010, plus the recent move and its review). As mentioned in the discussion, this is a self-perpetuating argument which should not be given undue weight compared with prevailing policies and guidelines. There is indeed a systemic bias towards stability in Wikipedia, which is usually a Good Thing but in this case has a disproportionate impact on the conversation. Ask yourselves what we should do if the fortuitous 2001 title arrangement were reversed? (see #Opposite move would have no rationale) I see two panelists bending over backwards to avoid changing the status quo despite acknowledging strong policy reasons to perform the change. A decision for or against change should not be overly based on the "change is bad" argument; if the decision is to keep the current title arrangement, this titling should be proven to stand on its own merits, not just on history. — JFG ^talk 01:32, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

It is worth considering that this article has some 75,000 incoming links. While it is true that those will have to be addressed one way or the other, it is a consideration in deciding whether to change the status quo. bd2412 T 02:04, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Think about it, JFG - if the status quo sticks in Wikipedia, there must be a legitimate reason put forth by reasonable editors. Castncoot (talk) 05:35, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Apart from "it's just fine the way it's always been", I'm still waiting to read a legitimate reason put forth by reasonable editors, as you say. Fearmongering about irreparable harm and barking at everyone who disagrees with you are neither legitimate nor reasonable. — JFG ^talk 18:56, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

I see. So 22 editors with clearly less insightful opinions on this go-around and 13 editors (not mutually exclusively) just a few weeks ago, not to mention scores of discussants in past years, had not one single legitimate reason to oppose the move of a longstanding U.S. state article with a reasonable and crisp hat-note to whisk a reader to the City article with a single click. Got it. Castncoot (talk) 00:06, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

Regardless of the outcome I think it would now be good to look at the policy and guidelines that support no consensus, no move. In this case they have led to reasoning that is seriously circular. The clause is only invoked if there is no consensus, but the only thing preventing there being a strong consensus is this clause itself. But two of our three panelists have supported this thinking, so we must admit it as a possible reading, and I think we need to clarify it. And it would be valid to cite this series of RMs as a horrible example of why the policy and guidelines need tweaking... even if the result of this discussion were somehow to be a move. Andrewa (talk) 07:35, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

I think "no consensus" is a valid close if there are genuinely good reasons cited in equal measure on both sides of the argument, or indeed no good arguments at all on either side, which cancel each other out. I don't think it's valid if the reasoning on one side is stronger than the other, and it's only the !votes themselves cancel out. "No consensus" should not be simply a get out clause because it's the easiest path to take to avoid people getting annoyed. Probably making WP:RMCI clearer in that regard would be a good forward step. But anyway, this MR isn't itself closed yet. I would like the panel to confer amongst themselves, preferably off-wiki, and then come back to us with a single well-reasoned decision with an explanation as to why that decision was reached. And if it's no consensus, then why was the evidence against the move compelling enough. "I don't want to supervote, therefore it's no consensus" is not a valid reason IMHO, because the whole point of convening a panel was to allow them to examine the arguments and evidence without fear of being accused of anything. Thanks!  — Amakuru (talk) 09:10, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Point taken that the RM (it's not an MR, it's a new RM, and I am the proposer, technically) is not yet closed. I'm also hoping for a joint statement agreed to by the panel, and I have been at a UCA meeting in which consensus decision-making (which is something of an article of faith in the UCA) saw an initial 120 to 4 vote reversed to unanimous support for the four (I was abstaining at first, but was won over by the arguments of the four). So anything is still possible. Andrewa (talk) 11:32, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

PS if the whole point of convening a panel was to allow them to examine the arguments and evidence without fear of being accused of anything then, at the risk of stating the obvious, it did not succeed! I was about to find a diff to demonstrate this but then I thought, the sky is blue... (;-> Andrewa (talk) 08:09, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

Systemic bias is not an easy thing to change, especially when the status quo has become so deeply engrained as with this article title. It sometimes takes several years and two or three long, contentious discussions to eliminate systemic bias. Oh! it actually has been many years and there have been long discussions about essentially the systemic bias of this particular status-quo title–article association. Shall we do this again in a year or so? or shall we get rid of the bias now?  Temporal Sunshine Paine  02:04, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

I'm not sure I'll be involved in another RM if this one fails (I may be), but I'm quite sure that there will be one, it's just a matter of when. I could be wrong of course. Andrewa (talk) 08:09, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

Is it done?

Is this discussion done? It is very hard to follow. The closers appear to be on track to "no consensus"? If "no consensus" will the be a moratorium? I note there is a default moratorium of 2 months for a "no consensus" close, unless the closer(s) say otherwise. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:02, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Assuming that the close is no consensus, no move, I do not intend to move a review, or another RM for some time... probably a year. But I do still think it would be good to fix this at some stage. It's a minor thing in some ways, but it's also a festering wound, in my opinion. There are other things that can be done in the meantime to get a better result next time around, and it is inevitable IMO that there will be a next time around eventually, even if all the current proponents were to give up.

We have made progress. I think we finally have an acknowledged and irrefutable consensus that NYS is not the primary meaning of New York. That was disputed up until now... it's still not unanimous, of course, and probably never will be! Andrewa (talk) 07:47, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Whatever the outcome of Discussions 1-3, I would welcome an opinion from the closers on what consensus, if any, exists about the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC for New York. Certes (talk) 13:51, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

No Andrewa, please don't count me and certainly numerous other editors as part of your self-imposed consensus. I and undoubtedly many others continue to believe that NYS is the primary topic for New York. Castncoot (talk) 14:55, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Apologies, I certainly did not mean to count you. I do not believe that you support this consensus, or that you ever will - or that your disruption (as discussed on your talk page) or personal attacks will cease. Nor do I doubt that you and many others seriously believe that NYS is the primary topic, as Wikipedia defines it.

I do however still think that the policy is clear, but obviously not clear enough, and that once we clarify this to avoid the circular argument of "there is no consensus, therefore there is no consensus" that there will then be no problem in assessing a long-standing consensus that NYS is not primary. It is not a case of there being arguments both ways, and the stronger arguments not being quite strong enough. It is a case of there being no valid arguments at all supporting the primacy of NYS. But as I said, the policy and guidelines are not clear enough on this, obviously.

Anyway, is it now clear that I did not intend to count you? Andrewa (talk) 19:14, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Please alter your tone and stick to content and WP:AGF rather than being accusatory. The circularity of your argument stems from your seeking consensus among those who agree with your viewpoint, as multiple opposers of the proposed misguided move have implicitly or explicitly expressed their sentiment that NYS is the primary topic, although that has been just one argument. Anyway, the primary topic issue is moot at this time, given no consensus to move in the first place. I don't think I need to follow up this comment in this section at this time. Best, Castncoot (talk) 23:55, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

The primary topic issue is not moot. It forms a fundamental part of arguments used by both sides in the unresolved issue of whether the page should be moved. Certes (talk) 00:36, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

I'm afraid I think my tone is quite restrained. And what you describe does not appear to be a circular argument at all, but nor is it what I or anyone else is arguing in any case, as far as I can see, so it seems simply irrelevant. As for primary topic, most of those opposed to this move have (wisely) not mentioned this issue. To say that they have implicitly... expressed their sentiment that NYS is the primary topic is a bit of a stretch, IMO. Andrewa (talk) 08:29, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

Well maybe they should have addressed the issue with some more strength, since being the primary topic is the only reason (other than "ignore all rules") that allows having an article at the base name when two or more topics share the same name, per disambiguation guidelines. If there is no strong consensus that the state is the primary topic, the current status quo is against policy. And consensus is not determined only with those participating in the discussion; the concerns of those who wrote the policies and guidelines also need to be taken into account, since they reflect community-wide consensus on how disambiguation should be handled. Diego (talk) 09:14, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

Diego (and anyone else interested), kindly look at WP:STATUSQUO. It's the burden of those interested in moving a longstanding page who need to generate the very strong consensus required to move that page. And for that, yes, you need discussants to generate that kind of very strong consensus during the move request concerning a specific topic. The policy you're grasping for about the guidelines for dab-page primary directs carries on its best day much less fundamentality and heft than WP:STATUSQUO. Clearly that kind of very strong consensus is non-existent for a move proposal here. Please remember that every case is different and that we are far too intelligent to be using cookie-cutter algorithms to perform functions that we think should operate in a certain way. That's exactly why we had a move request, along with a protracted discussion; and out of that discussion, no consensus was achieved to move, let along the strong consensus required to move, let along the even stronger consensus required for such a hefty move proposal of such a longstanding article. Otherwise why even bother with the procedure we've just endured?— Preceding unsigned comment added by Castncoot (talk • contribs) 19:29, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

@Castncoot:, you are citing a paragraph from an essay about reverting, which is unrelated to such a complex discussion, and you claim this should have more weight than well-established Wikipedia policy and guidelines? Well… I guess you are entitled to your opinion. Oh, I fixed your indenting, btw. — JFG ^talk 19:42, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

A move is an edit - a very big and consequential one. Thanks for fixing my indentation, by the way. I guess I'll go through my entire Wikipedia life without ever knowing or understanding how to indent properly, lol! Castncoot (talk) 00:21, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

(Replying to User:Certes, the stringing above is again a bit strange): I would also welcome this. It does seem clear to me and to one of the closers, on the initial comments, but the others don't seem to have said, either way. And it is obviously still debated, particularly by User:Castncoot of course. Andrewa (talk) 19:29, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

On Wikipedia, one can truly say that it's never done, SmokeyJoe. Just as with the finding of scientific fact that begins to open the eyes of (mostly) the very young scientists, we may have to wait for the next generation of Wikipedians, and for many of this generation to die off, for this deeply engrained page-title association to be changed. Fortunately, TIND.  Temporal Sunshine Paine  15:29, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

By "it", I mean the discussion referred to from Talk:New_York#Requested_move_19_July_2016. It is unclear whether the closers have closed the discussion. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:58, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

I know what you meant – I was just waxing prophetic.  Temporal Sunshine Paine  01:35, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

Further comments by closers

Having reviewed everything again, I remain of the opinion that no consensus was reached in this discussion. I recommend that there be no further move requests for a reasonable period of time. If there is another move request at some point in the future, I suggest that editors be given three options to !vote for: (1) New York State as the "New York" article (i.e., no change), (2) New York City as the "New York" article, or (3) a disambiguation page. This may produce a clearer outcome than the discussion just held in which the comments/!voting on whether to move the page were separated from the comments/!voting on what to move to. Newyorkbrad (talk) 20:43, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

Newyorkbrad, may I ask you how you determine consensus? Is it by counting the number of editors supporting each position, or are you taking into account how well the guidelines quoted by the participants (guidelines that document the long-term community-wide consensus) do describe the situation?

If there must be another RFC, I think the most productive would be to ask "Is there a primary topic?", rather than repeating the very same discussion again and again. It has been a major theme from both sides in the discussion, but some editors think that the question hasn't been addressed as deeply as it merits. Solving that question would provide much better basis for consensus-building than asking one more time about the opinions of individual editors regarding the convenience of a move. Diego (talk) 21:21, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

Note that Newyorkbrad gave more extensive comments in his initial assessment of the discussion. As to the question of whether there is a primary topic, I think that this is what is inherently addressed in question one of the move proposal set forth here. bd2412 T 22:02, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

Interesting... and what's the answer, in your opinion? Andrewa (talk) 22:23, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

On the discussion, I agree that there is an absence of consensus to change the status quo. On the merits, I am troubled by the number of links indenting the city that need fixing right now. bd2412 T 02:37, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

But does that imply absence of consensus on the issue of primary topic too? Deciding this might have been the intention, but at least one of those voting oppose in question 1 explicitly said that NYS was not the primary topic, in their view. Andrewa (talk) 13:02, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Agree. The question of primary topic seems relatively simple, as it suffers none of the complications regarding how strong a consensus is required... a normal, policy-based consensus is all that is required. It has long seemed to me that we already have an easily assessed consensus on this point, but this is still disputed.

I think it is inevitable that there will be further discussion. The outcome need not be an eventual move, but if not we must change our policies and guidelines, perhaps to make NYS/NYC a clear (and probably explicit) exception. Or we could adopt the HLJC of course, that would solve things quite neatly for NYS/NYC, but at some cost to other articles... in fact the consequences could be quite staggering.

But it seems to me that we need to clarify our policies and guidelines in any case. Andrewa (talk) 22:44, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

I support a moratorium on further moves and RMs, and suggest 12 months. However, during this time we should encourage discussion on whether the no consensus, no move guideline should be clarified in view of this case. Part of that discussion may well be whether NYS is the primary topic of New York under current guidelines, which still seems disputed, and should be relatively easily decided. Andrewa (talk) 22:23, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

I think that one viable solution to put this discussion to rest for the future would be to adopt the HLJC as a completely viable option. In other words, not mandate it, but make it a legitimate option. This would avoid exerting unintended domino effects upon other articles. I'll mention this idea on the applicable text and talk pages there. Castncoot (talk) 00:36, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Oh, HLJC. What if somebody says "I'm flying to New York tomorrow to watch the New York Giants play the New York Jets"? Under HLJC, shouldn't the metro area be the subject discussed at the "New York City" title?Plantdrew (talk) 04:09, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

It only applies to singular, legal geopolitical jurisdictions, of which the metro area is not one. Castncoot (talk) 04:46, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

HLJC applies to nothing, it's not policy and will never be. It's just some idea that an editor came up with to appease another one, and that failed miserably. That draft should be deleted. — JFG ^talk 16:03, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Closure decision

Rather than more comments, would it be too much to ask for this discussion to be closed? There are only three possible outcomes, so I earnestly call for the three closers to come up with a final decision and put this to rest for a few months! And when it comes to "no consensus", especially interesting at that link above is the indented second paragraph under that heading.  Temporal Sunshine Paine  23:39, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

Let me be more specific: What I call for here is a clear decision either to move or not move this page title. As a page mover, it is clear to me that there is consensus to move this title, and just as clear are the comments made by two of three of the closers in regard to the weighted policy/guideline-based support rationales as compared with the feather-weight oppose rationales. So having this clarity suggests that any thought of ending this discussion with anything other than "move" or "not move" will probably result in another move review and would be questionable, arguable and highly anticlimactic. Thank you for listening!  Temporal Sunshine Paine  23:58, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

You may be a page mover in another setting, but here you are a discussant and a declared move supporter. For you to now state that "as a page mover, it is clear to me that there is consensus to move this title" - well, how does one even respond to that? I'm sorry, but I couldn't help laughing, no disrespect intended, but the incredulity was just a spontaneous reaction. Just to clarify the facts, two of the three closers (and in my opinion the only two legitimately rendered opinions) have declared no consensus to move. I express significant concern about your other page moves that you don't allow your personal opinions about whatever move you're evaluating to sway your objective decision-making. Otherwise, you would create the same SUPERVOTE situation that we've encountered with one of our panelists here. Castncoot (talk) 02:05, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

How does one respond? My recommendation would be to respond with respect of another's viewpoint. It's an entirely appropriate comment; If anything is laughable, it's your reaction to it, but I think it's rather sad actually.

Page movers, like admins, are persons who have shown interest, experience and judgement that justify trusting them (us) with some extra powers. That's why, for example, non-admins have always been cautioned about closing the more difficult RMs although they may have all the powers necessary to do so, and why page movers and admins were preferred for the panel. It's no big deal but it does count for something. I find it as bit strange that I even need to point that out.Andrewa (talk) 01:59, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Again, a thoroughly hypocritical statement from someone who, along with most sharing his viewpoint, has not respected the viewpoint of the substantial number of editors who over the past 14 or 15 years have bitterly opposed this misguided move proposal. Castncoot (talk) 02:11, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

I have been trying to disagree respectfully, and I'm genuinely sorry that you feel I have not succeeded but I think that says more about you than about me, frankly, as does this second allegation that I am a hypocrite.

So far as the substantial number of editors who over the past 14 or 15 years have bitterly opposed this misguided move proposal, I mean no disrespect for them either. But consensus can change, and I, respectfully, believe it has, and that eventually we'll acknowledge that. We're not there yet. We may be soon. Andrewa (talk) 02:34, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

It's a pleasure, Castncoot, to give you amusement! It's good to know that I've been able to return the favor.  Temporal Sunshine Paine  02:37, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for adding some levity to the discussion, and I'm glad I've been able to do the same for you, Paine! Castncoot (talk) 02:41, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Here is more levity if you can stand it – out of 22 oppose rationales there were no policies cited and only one guideline, WP:ENGVAR, cited to support the status quo. So if you have a mo', perhaps you would like to find and cite an appropriate policy or guideline that firmly clarifies that the status quo should remain in place? Perhaps it will help the closing panel to know that there is at least one policy or guideline that steadfastly applies here.  Temporal Sunshine Paine  02:58, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

To keep things buoyant, I didn't really mean to put you on the spot like that, Castncoot. Besides, if you could find an applicable p or g, you would've already done so, so please disregard my above request.  Temporal Sunshine Paine  05:15, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Beautifully expressed, Paine. Andrewa (talk) 02:50, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Thank you!  Paine  03:03, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

WP:STATUSQUO and WP:CONSENSUS. Trump all others. Castncoot (talk) 05:15, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Yes, those do apply – and yet the first is an essay and the second is a policy that applies to closing a debate, not to individual rationale requirements. In other words, neither of your cites would be used in an individual support or oppose rationale to move or not to move a page. We're looking for a p or g that could have been used in your oppose rationale, but again, you may disregard my above request, because if you could cite an appropriate p or g, you would have already done so.  Temporal Sunshine Paine  05:23, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

You are incorrect about that. These are exceptionally broad and seminal principles which have applied since the founding of Wikipedia. And again, a move is but a very consequential edit. Castncoot (talk) 10:54, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

What, the WP:STATUSQUO essay? It has no more weight than WP:BRD, namely that it has always had significant opposition and thus has never been adopted as a guideline. The broad and seminal principle is WP:CONSENSUS, which amounts to "do what most people think is the best course of action". Under that principle, the advice provided by policies and guidelines counts as outcomes approved by a high amount of editors, as they are backed up by the community at large; that's why comments quoting policy hold more weight that those which refer only to the editor's opinion. A lack of consensus is not defined as "some people disagree with the proposed action". Diego (talk) 12:23, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

I confess that I was a bit surprised to see my RM at Talk:New York#Requested move 19 July 2016 apparently closed while this discussion continued, and the more I think about it the wronger that seems. I fear that the bot may then have removed it from current discussions at RM, if so depriving us of the very thing we most needed, which was fresh input from uninvolved contributors. But that's water under the bridge now. A point for next time perhaps.

The thing now is, the process for closing this discussion seems less clear as a result of that RM being closed. But I guess the panel will update that RM, and that's when it will finally be (genuinely) closed. Andrewa (talk) 02:34, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

I hatted both discussions at the same time. bd2412 T 02:38, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

So you did! So we were on the RM page when it mattered. Good news. Andrewa (talk) 02:53, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

No news. No consensus, no move. Castncoot (talk) 05:15, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

• Unfortunately, this is going to go to move review no matter what, in all reality. If it closes as move, obviously there's a specific editor who we all know will take it to review. If it closes as not move, it absolutely should be taken to review, as one of the closing editors has stated that they've considered argument strength based purely on policies/guidelines, determined that one side has substantially stronger arguments, and then elected to discard that based on the numbers. That's exactly what consensus isn't. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 03:06, 11 August 2016 (UTC)
  • My strong feeling is that if it closes as no consensus, no move that we should leave it for a while... but if it does go to MR, I guess it does. The only new argument I've noticed since the discussion closed has been my restating #The case should be decided on its present merits to explicitly characterise no consensus, therefore the no consensus clause applies, therefore no consensus as a circular argument. It's a bit subtle either way, but maybe that's a better way of expressing the weakness of the oppose case. Maybe. I'm intrigued by some of the comments of two closers suggesting that the arguments are finely balanced between the two cases. But I think we need to take them as proof that, as the policies and guidelines now stand, it's not sufficiently clear what the limits are on the use of the no consensus clause... even if they were to now form a consensus among themselves to move. And in that case, I'd give MR even less chance of succeeding, but I think you're right, it would probably be tried. Andrewa (talk) 04:18, 11 August 2016 (UTC)
  • (edit conflict) While I would tend to reluctantly concur with BU Rob13's prediction, we shouldn't speculate whether some editor or another will feel justified in opening a move review about the panel closure of this debate. We are here because the previous close by SSTflyer was overturned in a recent move review over essentially the same arguments: proponents of the move make a stronger policy-supported case but opponents assert that the status quo is fine, therefore no consensus can ever be reached. For now, the onus is on the closing panel to come up with a common statement on their decision and the rationale thereof. Panel, please act! — JFG ^talk 04:41, 11 August 2016 (UTC)
    • Yes, talk of a move review is premature, and I hope it doesn't influence the close. It shouldn't, since it's inevitable no matter what the close is, in my opinion. It's a sunk cost, if you will. I'm more just noting my frustration that it's become plainly clear that certain editors are going to contest this no matter what, forever, despite having no arguments against a move beyond parroting the fable of Chicken Little. If we're going to accept the premise that "It's always been that way." is a valid argument against changing something, then we should just shut the project down. No need for future changes, right? ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 04:47, 11 August 2016 (UTC)
      • Wrong. If you have 80 editors supporting a move and 20 opposed with the same arguments put forth as above, I would tend to agree that there is a strong enough consensus to move. The way it stands, there is no consensus to move, and the burden to garner consensus to move rests entirely upon those who wish to move. Can you get that kind of result? Right now two of three closers and the only two closers who rendered legitimate opinions have deemed no consensus to move. Thus, the status quo ante must remain. Castncoot (talk) 05:03, 11 August 2016 (UTC)
        • You do like to jump that gun, don't you... Wikipedia is not a democracy, Castncoot – this encyclopedia project is policy- and guideline-driven. And the supporters of this page move have adhered to that by furnishing policies and guidelines that expose the systemic bias and other negative aspects of this page-title–article-content association, while the opposers have absolutely no policy nor guideline on which to stand! A "no consensus" close would be unconscionable, and if this project is to remain "not a democracy", unacceptable!  Temporal Sunshine Paine  05:34, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

I'd also like to point out that a page move from "New York" to "New York (state)" is not a "rename". This article would still be named "New York" – the only difference would be that this article's title would have a "qualifier" of "state" in parentheses. It is hoped that this can be seen as a viable compromise of sorts. It's a page move, and yet it is not technically a rename of the page.  Temporal Sunshine Paine  05:55, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Now, what to do with the bare "New York" title? That can be determined by an RfC devoted only to that question. Should it:

a. ambiguously redirect to New York (state)?

b. ambiguously redirect to New York City?

c. ambiguously redirect to New York (disambiguation)?

d. become the new name of New York (disambiguation)? – the only option that would require a second page move

e. become a broad-concept article?

While the above is being discussed at RfC, the bare "New York" title can be soft-redirected to "New York (state)", with links to both "New York City" and "New York (disambiguation), until the disposition of the bare "New York" title is fleshed out. Leaving it a soft redirect (with links) either to "New York (state)" or to "New York City" would be options "f" and "g". Wouldn't this be an acceptable compromise?  Temporal Sunshine Paine  06:24, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

I very much like that proposal, even with a hard redirect. It's an elegant solution to the problem of all the future wrong incoming links to New York, as it increases the chances that the editor creating the link notices the wrong target and fixes the link right there. Diego (talk) 08:23, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

This is not a compromise that you are proposing. It is a new move request. This move has been requested and debated ad nauseum and appears to have failed (yet again) secondary to no consensus, although the official word needs to be given. What are you then proposing to do to Western New York and all of the like? The status quo ante remains. Castncoot (talk) 11:03, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

A move to New York (state) that leaves a redirect at New York has not been largely discussed, it's a new proposal. It maintains the status quo, since anyone looking for New York will nevertheless arrive at the article of the state which is what you want, isn't it? While at the same time alleviating the most egregious problem of the current situation. I don't see why you would be opposed to such compromise. Diego (talk) 12:16, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

It does seem like a move to New York (state) with a hard redirect from New York would effectively keep the status quo (New York would go to the page it currently does) while opening up options for the future. I'm not sure if this is not the right option at the wrong time, however -- a little late for the process. Clean Copy^talk 12:22, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Then ignore the process, and do the right thing. If the reviewers are still reading this, they could still use this idea in their close as an compromise that is acceptable right now from both sides, if they truly consider that there's no consensus for the original proposal. Diego (talk) 12:30, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Because it represents an attempt to sneak something in through the back door in light of an impending failed move request. What do you propose to do to Western New York and the like which are part of the overall New York project, Diego? Paine? Or is this even your concern? You want to have your way over one aspect of one issue and then conveniently skip out of town without dealing with the aftermath, correct? Submit a new move request in 2022. There's no significant problem with the current situation. Castncoot (talk) 12:28, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

So you object to a potential compromise on the basis of process, and not because of benefits or drawbacks of the result? Western New York is not a title which is ambiguous between several articles, there's no need to apply disambiguation there so there's nothing to do; I don't see how it's relevant at all to the discussion. And the 75.000^ ambiguous incoming links that in a high proportion link to the incorrect article are a severe problem, even if you bury our head in the sand and don't want to see it. Diego (talk) 12:32, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

I'm shocked, Diego - what a hypocritical statement from someone who crows about WP:PRIMARY TOPIC and then disavows any relevance when it's presented to him on a platter. Castncoot (talk) 12:42, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

I only understood your comment up to the point where you called me a hypocrite. What??!?!? Diego (talk) 13:01, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

This is not a "new" move request, Castncoot, please see here. This is merely to show that the pagename that has been supported the most in this entire discussion, "New York (state)", has all along been a compromise that absolutely does not change the name of the article – this article will still be titled with the same old title it has always had, "New York". the only difference will be the "state" qualifier in parentheses. There are tens of thousands of examples in this reference work of articles (sometimes several articles) that have exactly the same title with the sole difference that they have qualifiers in parentheses. It's common practice when a title is ambiguous as is the bare "New York" title without a qualifier. And parenthetical qualifiers are absolutely not and never considered a part of the actual article title. They are just there to make the article titles non-ambiguous, that is all. As for the Western New York article, that is merely a more "natural" disambiguation of the bare "New York" title by the word "western". I beg you please, Castncoot, try to understand that my words spring only from a burning desire to do what's right and to adhere to the often-cited policies and guidelines in this discussion. This is a way to finally rid this encyclopedia of a long-standing systemic bias, which may even make it easier to deal with that bias in other articles and titles. This could be the beginning of the end of a great deal of systemic bias on Wikipedia.  Temporal Sunshine Paine  13:15, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

I do not believe that it is constructive to continue this discussion here while awaiting the final closure from the panel. I will say, however, that we do not redirect "Foo" titles to disambiguated titles because of WP:CONCISE, and we do not redirect "Foo" titles to their own "Foo (disambiguation)" titles because of WP:MALPLACED. bd2412 T 13:43, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

I suppose that's mybad and pretty much eliminates a, b, and c. What do we think about temporary soft redirects? If I'm not mistaken, permanent soft redirects in this type of situation are rare, but not nonexistent?  Temporal Sunshine Paine  13:52, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

WP:MALPLACED is an WP:ADVICEPAGE though, not a guideline, thus a "local consensus that is no binding on editors". If we largely agree that such redirect is an improvement that solves the problems with the current layout, your option a) may still be used. Diego (talk) 14:12, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

WP:MALPLACED merely applies WP:CONCISE to disambiguation pages, with the additional observation that having the disambiguation page at a "Foo (disambiguation)" title when the "Foo" title is available encourages errors because it creates an impression that "Foo" is a primary topic title. bd2412 T 14:16, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Option a) above is a redirect to New York (state), not (disambiguation). WP:CONCISE is complemented by WP:PRECISION which states "titles should be precise enough to unambiguously define the topical scope of the article, but no more precise than that". The term "New York" definitely doesn't have such quality of being unambiguous, as the size of this discussion shows. Diego (talk) 15:08, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

And we'd never make an exception to these rules, any more than we'd ignore WP:PTOPIC. It would cause irreparable harm both to Wikipedia and to the article. (;-> Andrewa (talk) 14:50, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Let's not beat about the bush, we all know what the options eventually must be: Either follow the rules or change them. There's no likelihood of changing the rules enough to allow NYS to stay at the base name, and for some good reasons, so that leaves one option. It may take a few more years to happen, but eventually NYS will lose its silly Wikipedian glory, much to the distress of some who rather like it. It's just a matter of minimising the distress to others in the meantime. Andrewa (talk) 14:28, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Andrewa, please put away your ideology. There is no issue of "glory", if that's what makes you simmer. Did it ever occur to you that something as geographically basic and fundamental as Western New York, home to millions, describes the Western part of the State, rather than the West Side of Manhattan? Of course the State is the WP:PTOPIC! But that has never been the primary argument of opposers, who are far more concerned about the destructive effects that such a misguided move proposal would have, both upon integrity of the State project and on Wikipedia, not to mention collateral damage upon the City article. Such a hefty and longstanding status quo supported by a substantial number of editors can be overturned only by a very strong consensus for any type of move, which simply doesn't exist for the move supporters. Please be willing to let go and move on.Castncoot (talk) 15:57, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Castncoot, this discussion is exclusively about the page that should be placed at the link New York, it doesn't affect in any way how any other page in the New York wikiproject should be named. This is because we have two articles for topics which are called "New York". Other links like Western New York don't have the problem of having multiple articles that could be located under the same name, so they are unaffected by the disambiguation policy. Your reflections about those other cases are unmerited since those other links are not under discussion, and if your opposition is based on how this move would affect those other articles, then your concerns are misplaced - it should not affect those at all. Diego (talk) 16:09, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Your "some who rather like it" just begs for a Link. And Castncoot? You must love colons as much as I hate commas! And please furnish a policy or guideline for your above statement: Such a hefty and longstanding status quo supported by a substantial number of editors can be overturned only by a very strong consensus for any type of move, which simply doesn't exist for the move supporters. The supporters in this debate have provided just such a policy/guideline-based very strong consensus for a page move (not a page rename) to "New York (state)". No amount of denial will invalidate that.  Temporal Sunshine Paine  16:12, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Nobody but a move supporter would try to claim that there is even any consensus for this misguided proposal, much less the very strong consensus required to move. And those who aren't concerned about the New York project obviously wouldn't be concerned about the domino effects such a move would have upon the entire State project; move supporters are tunnel-visioned upon one single aspect of one issue, and that is WP:UNDUE. Castncoot (talk) 16:23, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Castncoot, can you please explain why do you hold such belief that this move would have a domino effect upon any other article title? There's nothing in our policies or guidelines suggesting that such thing could happen. Diego (talk) 16:38, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Diego, I can actually see one good possibility of a domino effect in terms of the systemic bias of the bare and ambiguous "New York" that titles this article. If editors decide to rid this very high profile article of said bias, then this might lead to ridding dozens, perhaps hundreds and more articles of SB-plagued problems/challenges! That would be a different type of domino effect, though, as it would be a "good" one.  Temporal Sunshine Paine  17:05, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

While I disagree with much of Castncoot's argument, I think you are actually applying systemic bias backwards here. CSB is what supports us having the article at Mumbai instead of Bombay, and it should be what supports us having the article at New York City rather than New York. CSB is about respecting local knowledge, rather than just accepting common misconceptions popular in other parts of the world.--Pharos (talk) 17:26, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

That objection could be addressed in the closing statement. Moving this page would be primarily because of the disambiguation policy; so the closers could say in the closing arguments that this doesn't set a precedent for other changes from New York to New York (state) which are not based on collision of article titles. Diego (talk) 09:02, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

This move's success or failure will have literally zero impact on the functioning of the state wikiproject. It is not even likely to lead to changes in the prose of the articles themselves. CMD (talk) 16:40, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Castncoot, you may or may not be correct; however, if you are unable to back up the things you say when asked for p's and g's, then you may as well be spittin' into the wind.  Temporal Sunshine Paine  17:10, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

For the nth time, in order of least important to most: 5) WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, 4) WP:UNDUE, 3) WP:CONSENSUS, 2) WP:STATUSQUO (interpreted liberally, per the spirit of its guidelines), but most importantly, 1) plain old COMMON SENSE. Leave well enough alone. I agree with bd2412 that this discussion created and propagated by the perhaps desperate move supporters is unconstructive and going around in circles, to no avail, and should be closed pending the final closure decision. I don't really have anything more to add here at this time. Castncoot (talk) 17:58, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Castncoot, it's usually not enough to point out the shortcut of the policies that you think are relevant; you have to explain as well how do you think they apply to your desired outcome. The arguments for the state being a WP:PRIMARYTOPIC have been contested, and your mention of WP:UNDUE is particularly cryptic - since that policy describes how to handle article content, not article titles. Diego (talk) 09:02, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for explaining your thinking on this, Castncoot, I think it clarifies things a great deal. Two questions:

Firstly, how did you decide what is plain old COMMON SENSE? Is it what Wikipedia:Closing discussions#Consensus calls personal opinion only, or does it have some basis I'm missing?

Secondly, if we were instead to take the order from that page, which suggests that personal opinions are very low in relevance indeed, would we then have a valid case for a move?

The aim of this discussion is not to win a debate (if it were I might well be perhaps desperate) but to build consensus, and I'm hoping that if you consider these two questions carefully, there may be some hope of that. Best. Andrewa (talk) 13:34, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

Appeal for specificity

It would be helpful to see specific analysis of which opposes rely on policies/guidelines and how those balance against the supports. Not only will that make things transparent, but it will also make a move review less likely (and endorsement a virtual guarantee if one does occur). Thanks. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 16:43, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

It would indeed!

Note that the policy at Wikipedia:Consensus#Determining consensus reads Consensus is ascertained by the quality of the arguments given on the various sides of an issue, as viewed through the lens of Wikipedia policy. Not the slightest hint there of counting heads.

This is better explained in the (far less authoritative but consistent) information page at Wikipedia:Closing discussions#Consensus which reads in part Consensus is not determined by counting heads, but neither is it determined by the closer's own views about what is the most appropriate policy. The closer is there to judge the consensus of the community, after discarding irrelevant arguments: those that flatly contradict established policy, those based on personal opinion only, those that are logically fallacious, those that show no understanding of the matter of issue. (my emphasis)

Running those criteria over the arguments at #Argument and evidence in opposition to moving the page or the !votes at #Oppose above, there seem to be few survivors. There may even be none! It is hard to imagine a stronger consensus than that. Andrewa (talk) 19:33, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

"Those based on personal opinion only" seems particularly relevant. In any event, my message was intended to be neutral in the sense that I'd like such an analysis regardless of the outcome. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 23:26, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Understood and agree 100%.

Even if the result is move, it's going to have been close and should not have been. We need to look at making the guidelines and policies clearer, and it would be a big help to know just what made it so close in the eyes of the closers, rather than having to guess.

We can't get a lot of help from the oppose camp, as they have generally avoided quoting policies and guidelines, preferring commonsense, irreparable damage, and similar appeals.

I'm most interested in those that are logically fallacious as it applies to #There is no consensus to move the New York page. This is in the section discussing whether or not to move the page, that is, whether or not to move the page is exactly what is being discussed, so it's clearly circular reasoning. But circular reasoning is extremely common, and most people don't seem to recognise it easily. If we can somehow explain clearly just why this specific argument is inappropriate in that specific section, then perhaps we can then address the similar but more subtle circular reasoning that lies behind most if not all of the no consensus therefore no move arguments as they have been expressed so far.

And if you remove that argument and all the statements of pure opinion, there's not much left, if anything. And some of the arguments and !votes fall foul of other criteria for discarding as well, but so what, this is one of the situations in which you can't get less than nothing. Andrewa (talk) 01:02, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

Mmmm....what you conveniently forgot to mention was the initial portion of the description of the meaning and significance of consensus in Wikipedia:Closing discussions#Consensus, which reads, "Consensus can be most easily defined as agreement. The closing editor/administrator will determine if consensus exists, and if so, what it is. To do this, the closing editor/administrator must read the arguments presented."

"The desired standard is rough consensus, not perfect consensus. Please also note that closing admins are expected and required to exercise their judgment to ensure the decision complies with the spirit of Wikipedia policy and with the project goal. A good admin will transparently explain how the decision was reached."

So the operative word in determining the existence of consensus is...with bated breath...AGREEMENT. The passage even allows for a rough consensus, rather than demanding unanimity. Only then does it go on to detail that consensus is not determined by counting heads (something which I have noted before, by the way), etc., etc.

Therefore, there can be NO CONSENSUS WITHOUT A DECENT LEVEL OF AGREEMENT! It doesn't take a rocket scientist to note that this has been one of the most polarized discussions ever noted on Wikipedia, with no significant level of agreement between two camps which are so distantly remote from each other philosophically. The crystal clarity of this very premise obliterates the above "circular argument" argument. It is absolutely the move supporters' burden to generate significant consensus to move. This article, which has been maintained in its present form despite multiple attempts to move it, has in the process over many years "earned" a higher threshold requirement with regards to strength of consensus to move. But in this case, discussants haven't even approached ANY decent level of agreement to claim consensus! Under these circumstances, the admins indeed have very broad latitude to find that NO CONSENSUS has been reached, and that is in fact exactly what the the two admin panelists found. Castncoot (talk) 02:07, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

"Consensus is not determined by counting heads" is as clear a statement as you can get, but the section on challenging closes goes on to make this even more clear, saying "closures will rarely be changed by either the closing editor or a closure review: ... if the poll was close or even favored an outcome opposite the closure, if the closure was made on the basis of policy. Policies and guidelines are usually followed in the absence of a compelling reason otherwise, or an overwhelming consensus otherwise, and can only be changed by amending the policy itself." It does not get any clearer than that. Consensus is agreement of a sort, but it's agreement among those who are supporting their position with rationale arguments based on policies and guidelines. Arguments that are based on subjective ILIKEIT criteria should (must, even) be discarded. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 02:22, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

Agree with much of what you say there, User:Castncoot, but not The crystal clarity of this very premise obliterates the above "circular argument" argument. To call a spade a spade, that seems to be nonsense. I could be wrong, I'm not even sure what you mean by premise there.

But I certainly didn't conveniently forget that passage. It seems to me to back up what I'm saying.

Yes, consensus is agreement. But the point of the lens of policy is, that agreement is not just among the participants. If there is one editor who is in complete agreement with policy (and therefore with those who wrote and agreed on it) against twenty or so who want to throw the policy out the window in favour of their own hobbyhorse, that's a consensus against the twenty, and should be assessed as that. It's most unlikely to come to that in practice but it's quite possible in theory.

The twenty should instead seek consensus to change the policy. That's the theory, anyway, and it normally works surprisingly well.

So to suggest that we can't have a strong consensus just because the votes are roughly equal numerically is nonsense, and putting it in capital letters doesn't change that. Andrewa (talk) 02:44, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

As your premise is entirely incorrect, it must be rejected. You don't like how the oppose interprets and applies policy, obviously the oppose does think it is correct - on policy and facts of the topics - and thinks your application or interpretation for these topics is wrong and harmful. Application and interpretation is done by editors not algorithm, and the encyclopedic topics we cover are to be served by policy -- our topics do not exist to serve policy. NAME policy is plain that titles are chosen by those familiar with the topic, and not chosen on the supports' inconsistent speculation about what those unfamiliar or ignorant of the topics may be thinking . . .and we could go through everything all again, etc. etc. Perhaps it would help, if you really honestly asked yourself, why it's been done this way all these years - and it's not because those Wikipedians' were crazy. But going through everything all again is doubling or tripling down on what NAMES policy already says it is against: 'find something better to do.' Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:31, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

Agree with most of this, but disagree on the relevant key points... probably all of them.

Because it's not at all clear to me what premise is entirely incorrect, so I can't really reply to that. Can you (or anyone else) clarify?

Why has it been done this way all these years? Yes, good question, and one I do ask. But the answer is not necessarily because it will always be the best way, as you seem to be arguing here. No, as I have said before consensus can change, and if you wish to reverse that policy, please discuss on the relevant talk page.

If you succeed there, it will certainly save a lot of work in the future! And the change would be irreversible of course, under the new policy. I like it. Good luck. (;-> Andrewa (talk) 15:16, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

Your prior premise appeared to be the oppose was without reason, and that is entirely incorrect. Your argument that we have to change policy to suit you is the usual useless argument: no - policy is fine just the oppose surmises it would be much better, in this matter, were the support to apply it as the oppose does. As for consensus change (really think about, consensus change), that does not mean change for change sake and not when it's fine (indeed, desirable) the way it is, as many people think it is and have for a long time. Perspective, perspective, perspective. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:45, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

I'm very disappointed that I've given the impression that I was taking the oppose was without reason as a premise. Agree that would be a terrible error. I have presented it as a conclusion, certainly, and I'm aware that not everyone agrees with it. (I feel a bit strange having to point that out.)

And I'm not proposing that we change the policy so much as clarify it (at the risk of splitting hairs), in view of the widely differing views on what it currently says. I think it supports one view, very strongly, you the opposite, equally strongly. That to me indicates a problem.

As far as I can see, nobody has proposed change for change sake. Andrewa (talk) 16:18, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

Well, the only thing you should be disappointed in is missing the forest for the trees. Your premise, on which you based your statements may be conclusory or not as you claim, it is still wrong (and as you note, it is without consensus, so this continuing debate is waste, upon waste). And you have, in the view of many proposed change for change sake (ie., it's most definitely not worth the candle) - and somehow you missed the 'fine, even desirable' the way it is - that you disagree with that should tell you something. Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:27, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

All you seem to have said here is that you disagree with me, and that it's all my fault that you do. Andrewa (talk) 21:45, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

No. I did not. Read it again. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:46, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

Did. (;-> Andrewa (talk) 20:29, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

As for the larger issue you discuss about clashing interpretation and application of policy - that is going to happen virtually no matter what policy says. Policy is not applied in the abstract, it is applied to an instance (particular material, facts, circumstances, sources, etc.) In another instance, we could easily come to agreement on how to apply and interpret - may that be the case, in the future. Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:46, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

Agree 100% with the various points made here, all that puzzles me is what any of this has to do with anything I've been trying to discuss.

Are you perhaps proposing stability for stability's sake? (;-> Andrewa (talk) 21:45, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

You are the one who took issue with there being clashing application and interpretations of policy and I responded to why that is often the case. As for the rest, whatever your interpretation, it's just not consensus, here, if that causes you difficulty, it's just the nature of the project. Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:46, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

I'm willing to step up and say this: The oppose rationales are without merit. Many of the opposing editors agree that New York City is the primary topic or acknowledge the state isn't, at the very least. No-one has advanced an objective rationale for New York State being the primary topic, only "I think of New York State" or "The state is large than the city, so it's primary." The former is obviously subjective, and the latter has no basis in policy. It's so far outside the realm of policy, in fact, that people have proposed policy to try to make it so and then tried to cite their proposal as a reason for opposing. Obviously, this is putting the cart before the horse. Can you cite a single objective fact based in policy/guidelines that supports New York State as the primary topic? No-one has done so thus far, and so yes, the argument is completely without merit. Many have argued that there is no primary topic but New York State should be placed at New York (read: treated as primary) anyway as an exception to the rules. WP:IAR is a policy, but one cannot invoke it to strengthen your argument; ignore all rules is meant to be invoked when something uncontroversially betters the encyclopedia, not to support an argument against other opinions that are well based in policies/guidelines. And the "many people agree, ergo it has merit" is obviously false. That's counting heads, not analyzing arguments in the light of our policies and guidelines, which is explicitly not what consensus is as per WP:Consensus (a policy, for the record). I'll happily strike this comment if you can identify a single opposing rationale which provides objective evidence that is based in policies and guidelines which support New York State as the primary topic, and therefore the page that should be located at New York. I invite you to advance such an argument, since it has been sorely lacking thus far. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 23:46, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

This has already been done. NYC would not exist in law or in fact without NY. Per policy, it is important actually be familiar with your topics (not unfamiliar nor ignorant of them) and NYC and NY do so in referring to these topics in an encyclopedic manner. Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:20, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

Boston would not exist without Boston, Lincolnshire, but that doesn't make the English town the primary topic. (Lest anyone call WP:OTHERSTUFF, my point is that the Boston article SHOULD exist rather than that it DOES exist.) Certes (talk) 01:01, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

And your point is that you disagree? What a shocker, just showing that this needs to be closed as no consensus. At any rate, you have not refuted anything. And if I know anything about English law, you are wrong. NY would not exist in law or and fact without NY. You should read WP:Primary Topic, it very much supports using this relevant law and fact, here. Alanscottwalker (talk) 01:45, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

What are you talking about? English law has nothing to do with determination of WP:PTOPIC on Wikipedia. — JFG ^talk 09:44, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

(e/c) What are you talking about? The comment I responded to discussed an English town, so English law is relevant to that. And yes jurisdictional law for a place matters to significance. Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:28, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

My point is that, if [[Title]] refers ambiguously to place A or place B, the fact that place A would not exist without place B is not a sufficient reason to point [[Title]] at place B. Dismissing that argument may lead to a consensus to point [[Title]] at place A or at a dab page. English law is ultra vires here. Certes (talk) 11:25, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

You're the one who brought up an English town, there is noting ultra vires about that to that town. Sure, your point is that you disagree, and that your argument, which others do not accept is the only right one but that's not the way it is according to the policy ("There is no single criterion for defining a primary topic."). Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:47, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

Refocus

In the walls of text above (some of them mine perhaps) it's easy to lose sight of the request to the panel for more explanation.

It's been suggested that they deal with each argument. I think that's overkill.

But what I would personally like is that they deal with the question of whether or not NYS is the primary topic of New York, in addition to the practical question of the move. As the formal proposer of this particular RM, I consider this the core of the move rationale.

I don't think it's transparently obvious that a decision on the move implies a decision on primary topic. There are other considerations in the decision of whether to move.

Does that seem a reasonable request? Andrewa (talk) 22:20, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

And then close

If an assessment of consensus on primary topic could be done, and if the three panelists all feel that no stronger consensus among them is possible, then I would be comfortable (not happy, obviously, but comfortable) to see this close as a majority decision against the proposed move, and thank the panelists and User:BD2412 for their time and trouble.

(I might also note here that the page is now large enough to cause Download as PDF to crash when I last tried it, and I expect some browsers will have similar problems with it soon, if they haven't already. So we need to do something.)

I hope I am not speaking out of turn here, but again note I am the proposer of record. Andrewa (talk) 03:22, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

Hopefully final comments

Some editors above have suggested they find the outcome of this discussion unclear. I don't think it really is unclear. Two of three panelists (Future Perfect at Sunrise and I) have concluded that there is no consensus either for against a pagemove, albeit for somewhat different reasons. I don't think that leaves much uncertainty that that "no consensus" is the outcome of the discussion—as disappointing to some or anti-climactic as that may be.

The challenge to Niceguyedc's neutrality and participation in the panel is completely unpersuasive, and I respect his view that consensus support does exist for a move. However, his analysis does not change my own opinion. While there are strong arguments in favor of a move, and some of the opposers' arguments are weak, the opposers did also make legitimate arguments, including but not limited to the undesirability of moving such a prominent page if it is not necessary to do so ("status quo" is not the only factor to be considered in a discussion like this one, but it certainly is one factor that may be considered), the ease of navigating from New York (the state article) to New York (the city article) if a reader of one wants the other, as well as the undesirability of having a disambiguation page at such a prominent location.

I also remain concerned—this goes beyond this discussion—that the way we frame move requests may skew results or lead to unclear consensus. This is what I alluded to earlier in my "Condorcet" comment that no one picked up on, but let me make it clearer. Suppose hypothetically that one-third of editors believe, with reasonable grounds, that the [[New York]] article should be about New York State, one-third that it should be about New York City, and one third that it should be a disambiguation page. If [[New York]] is about New York State and the question is posed, "should we move the page?" (without specifying to what), then two-thirds of the editors will !vote yes. If [[New York]] is about New York City and the question is posed, "should we move the page?", then two-thirds of the editors will !vote yes. But if [[New York]] is set up as the disambiguation page and the question is then posed, "should we move that page?", again two-thirds of the !voters would vote yes. Although the real numbers and strengths of comment are different from those I've hypothesized, I think the implications of the hypothetical should be considered in advance of any further move discussions about this article, if it is decided that we someday have to have one. Newyorkbrad (talk) 14:59, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

Thanks - (on the matter of Niceguyedc and his participation, your comments don't address directly the circumstances, -- I understand why you just assert, but we will have to agree to disagree (at least on the propriety - it's the circumstances not the person) and there is little point in dragging it out). Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:06, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

Are you going to assess whether or not we have consensus as to whether NYS is the primary topic of New York? This was a key point made by Niceguyedc in their initial comments, and the key point made by the proponents of the move IMO. It would be good to know whether you and/or the panel as a whole also see no consensus on this, or whether you just think that other considerations outweigh this (claimed) consensus. Andrewa (talk) 15:39, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

And as a logician by trade and training, I'm very interested in the suggestion of a Condorcet paradox. Perhaps discuss elsewhere? Andrewa (talk) 22:37, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

A line-by-line analysis of why every single oppose should be weighted less heavily

In order, my friends. Quotes are summaries, not direct quotes. Writing this mostly for the move review which is inevitable.

1. SmokeyJoe: "The status quo is not problematic." This is not based in any policy or guideline, obviously, and consensus can change. Most suboptimal things aren't problematic on wiki, but we try to build the best encyclopedia, which is why "problematic" has no bearing in any of our policies/guidelines beyond blocking, protection, copyright, or libel. Further, many editors have pointed out, unrefuted, that loading a large page is harm.

   WP:TITLECHANGES. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:49, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

   Sorry, this is circular logic again. Let me quote from WP:TITLECHANGES (with emphasis on the operative qualification): If an article title has been stable for a long time, and there is no good reason to change it, it should not be changed. Quoting this policy as the reason why nothing should move is just another variation of WP:DONTFIXIT. Proponents of the move made a multi-faceted case that there are indeed plenty of valid reasons to change the title; opponents can not simply assert that there is no problem. They should cogently refute the arguments for the move, but at best they said "it's not such a big deal" or "I like it that way". Previous move requests were inconclusive due to the same flawed logic. See #The case should be decided on its present merits. — JFG ^talk 10:09, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

   Except that it is not that simple, not that you are making it sound simple. WP:TITLECHANGES means that if there is not a good reason to make the change, don't. Post discussion assertions that my argument was not based on policy is both rude and unhelpful, and it certainly is not going to change the result. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:32, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

   I didn't mean to be rude, sorry. I would gladly agree to the contra side if they managed to prove that there is not a good reason to make the change indeed, say by calmly refuting every good reason to make the change that was expressed. As things stand, that case hasn't been made, and I suspect this is what motivated BU_Rob13 to dive into this lengthy analysis of the Oppose votes. Granted, it's not his job, but we have seen people on the opposing side acting as prosecutor, judge, jury, clerk and executioner (and pretty rude as well), so I believe that a cool-headed discussion of the merits is not outrageously out of place. — JFG ^talk 10:45, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

   I do agree with that for sure. No one requires one side to agree with the other, and in the end if one side is not convinced by the other, then it is "no consensus" by a very straight reading of the meaning of consensus. No consensus means that the consensus building exercise is incomplete, and cool-headed discussion is the way to move forward. However, a pause, a break from the just-closed (I think it is closed?) discussion is the best way to return to cool-headed discussions. When it gets started, I suggest the first thing to do is a more concise summary of the arguments that motivated different sides. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:03, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

   Thank you, SmokeyJoe. (And to be very clear, this is not sarcastic; I mean this sincerely.) This is the first time, to my knowledge, that someone on the opposing side has advanced an argument and backed it up with policy when challenged. I don't agree with it (since I think there's been good reasons advanced for why we should make the change), but I can certainly respect your position. This discussion has been incredibly frustrating for me and many others because of the hyperbole and subjective arguments from many opposing editors, so it is genuinely nice to see an argument that at least has some foundation to it. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 04:24, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

   Thank you Rob. Indeed, there has been hyperbole. With the passage of time, and a calm restart, it is easier to see the thinness of over-inflated arguments. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:45, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

2. Muboshgu: "I believe the state is primary topic." No explanation and no refutation of the multiple explanations why the state is not the primary topic, ergo not a strong argument. Saying "X is true." does not make it so. As this is a discussion, not a vote, WP:Consensus (a policy) dictates that arguments which are well supported and backed up by facts are weighted heavier than those who just place a vote, which is what this is.
3. ɱ: "The status quo is not problematic." Still not a policy/guideline based rationale.
4. Crumpled Fire: "New York is the official name of the state, so it should be at New York." A discussion of official names is explicitly contradicted by WP:COMMONNAME, a policy. No policy or guideline is provided to back up this vote.
5. Tavix: A combination of an unqualified "I believe the state is primary topic." and "The status quo is not problematic." Both are still not based in policies or guidelines, and no evidence is supplied to demonstrate the state is the primary topic.
6. MusikAnimal: "Frankly I'm a bit neutral" (direct quote), so a fairly weak opinion, but in any event the opinion fails to consider the disambiguation option. When specifically asked and mentioned that this was the preferred method of not directing anyone to a page they don't wish to go, they failed to respond and defend their opinion.
7. Calidum: The first policy-based rationale! Unfortunately, it's WP:IAR, which never supports the weight of an opinion. Saying "my argument is against policies/guidelines, but I'm just going to ignore those because they aren't convenient." doesn't make your argument any better.
8. Antepenultimate: "The status quo is not problematic." Again, not based on any policy or guideline.
9. Taylor Trescott: "New York has a greater population." There is no policy based on this idea, and it's an inherently subjective criteria. There's precedent suggesting we don't do that (the oft-mentioned and never-refuted Georgia sitaution). The opposing side even acknowledges this isn't a policy/guideline-based argument for opposing by proposing this as a new policy or guideline in an essay. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 00:13, 13 August 2016 (UTC)
10. Coolcaesar: "As per others". Fortunately, we're refuting all the others, so we'll get to this too.
11. Nohomersryan: "It's not encyclopedic." Specifically an argument to avoid. No basis in policies or guidelines.
12. Cookiemonster755: "Higher-level jurisdictions have primary topic, such as the country of Georgia over the U.S. state." Except that Georgia doesn't, in fact; it has a disambiguation page. This oppose is based on verifiably incorrect information. When this was pointed out, the response was "Sorry if my comment does not make since, chief.", which makes no attempt to defend the oppose.
13. Pharos: "I think this is primary." Zero evidence. ILIKEIT.
14. Gulangyu: "We shouldn't try to optimize navigation." blatantly contradicts our naming conventions, which explicitly say we should try to optimize navigation (i.e. primary topics). "New York City is called New York City, so New York State should be at New York." Ignores all possibility of redirecting or disambiguation, which are major supporting arguments. Fails to refute any supporting argument or advance any policy or guideline supporting this idea.
15. Castncoot: "The sky is falling." I won't even comment on the threat of imminent harm foreshadowed by Castncoot. No policy or guideline based arguments.
16. Alanscottwalker: "New York is appropriate as-is." No explanation of why. No analysis of the supporting arguments demonstrating that they're incorrect. Cites existing consensus, but consensus can change (a policy), so this is not a rationale for continuing as we always have.
17. Monty845: "Largest subdivision". Simply not a policy or guideline.
18. Davey2010: "I believe New York City is primary, but..." End of, our policies say move it. That's the policy-based argument.
19. SnowFire: "This is how it's always been, no need to change." Already addressed.
20. MazabukaBloke: "We will disadvantage the African children who have been taught (incorrectly) that New York can only refer to the state, thereby depriving them of their right to be ignorant of common usage in the United States." Pretty much sums up why this one has got to be discounted.
21. MZMcBride: "Don't see a problem that needs fixing" aka "This is how it's always been." Fails to say why the supports are unconvincing, no discussion, just a !vote. But consensus is not a vote.
22. Phinumu: "I've done it this way, ergo everyone must." aka ILIKEIT. Not policy or guideline based.

Can a closer tell me which one I've analyzed incorrectly before we get to move review, because this is just shocking. I did not find a single policy or guideline that supports any opposing argument in there. This isn't a matter of "I think a policy/guideline indicates A but others think it indicates B", where no consensus would be the right outcome. This is a case of "I think a policy/guideline indicates A, but others think that policy/guideline can go flush itself down a toilet because they want B." This is not a vote. It's a discussion. No-one has refuted a single policy/guideline-based supporting argument with another policy/guideline, but opposing arguments were repeatedly refuted. The closest we came to a policy-based rationale on the opposing side was WP:IAR. How is this no consensus, exactly? Where have I gone wrong? This, by the way, is why I want a line-by-line analysis from the closers, as I don't think they can defend their position if they provide one. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 00:13, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

Since you make-up quotations in misrepresentation, no one can even begin to take your so-called analysis seriously. Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:32, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

Please, tell me which quote you believe isn't a summary of the main point of the argument and I will happily revisit. I made the decision to summarize instead of directly quote to keep this already long wall at least somewhat brief. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 00:47, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

All of them are misrepresentations. No one said those quotes. The actual shocking thing is that you would do that. It's not at all appropriate for someone claiming to want to write an encyclopedia, let alone, it is unfair, unreasonable and impolite. Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:49, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

Please read the notice at the top of my post ("Quotes are summaries, not direct quotes.") and tell me how I've attempted to mislead. If you think summarizing is unfair to those being summarized, you may want to add WP:Summary style to your list of policies and guidelines to change, since it's the basis for every single article in the encyclopedia. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 01:17, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

"Your "notice" does not relieve you of your misrepresentations. Your presentation is just one long misrepresentation, constructed to be read as if people said those things. No where in policy does it allow you to make up quotes. That you would suggest it does is more shocking. The policy is fine - that you misrepresent it, is evident. And that you don't understand what you have done is impolite is just very sad. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 01:53, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

I agree entirely with Alanscottwalker that nobody will begin to take you seriously with inexact quotes and incomplete representations of people's thoughts and that what is actually shocking is that you would quotationally misrepresent other editors in this way under the guise of such "notice". I myself am offended that you've neglected to note that I have in fact invoked WP:STATUSQUO liberally in its intended spirit as well as WP:CONSENSUS, which are both far more powerful than the narrow and nit-picky policies the support side has called upon, and that my examples have ultimately received at least some degree of affirmation of legitimacy by respected longtime admins. What were you actually expecting to accomplish with something like this? If I were in your shoes, I would issue a separate apology to each of the above editors whom you've misquoted (on their respective talk pages) and then save a fresh retry for a move in 2022. Castncoot (talk) 02:03, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

Ah, actual claims of how I've misrepresented people. Thank you, because this allows me to actually respond to something other than unspecified allegations of misconduct. My analysis was based on how your arguments invoked policies and guidelines. STATUSQUO is an essay, meaning it holds no status. CONSENSUS is policy, but you can't support a position just by saying "My position has consensus"; you have to actually advance stronger arguments to build the consensus. Quoting an essay and shouting "I have consensus!" do not support your position with policies or guidelines. I didn't realize you believed they did, but thank you for correcting me so I could point out that they do not. If you can point out a single inaccuracy in my analysis of how your individual arguments fit in (or don't, actually) with policies and guidelines, I'll happily correct the mistake, but I have no intention of apologizing for engaging you in a discussion of the merits of your arguments. You are, of course, welcome to do the same regarding my arguments. That's how you build a consensus. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 02:21, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

No. Consensus is not built by your making-up quotes people never said. It's entirely contrary to the concept of consensus. As is your unwillingness to apologize for making such things up. That is not an unspecified claim against you - that is precisely what you have done - misrepresented others by putting words in people's mouths they never said.Alanscottwalker (talk) 02:33, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

I think it is a bit problematic to write summaries, as if the closers and other interested parties are unable to read the discussion for themselves and comprehend what is or is not being proposed. bd2412 T 02:38, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

Alan, I've made nothing up. Do you object to the little quotation marks around the words, despite the fact that I explicitly stated that they were not quotes? They were a formatting tool to separate a summary of the main argument from my commentary on how it relates to relevant policies and guidelines. It's incredibly disingenuous to dismiss the entire argument that not a single oppose was properly based in a policy or guideline just because of a few of these: "". I explicitly stated those were not words people said, but you're claiming repeatedly that I did. You're putting words in my mouth, but I won't hold out for an apology. bd2412, I'm summarizing how I see the oppose section in the hopes that someone, anyone, will actually engage in a discussion here instead of a vote. It hasn't happened yet. The closers have thus far declined to explain why the opposes constitute valid policy/guideline-based arguments. It appear they never will, as one of them has already declared the discussion over with his final remarks before even posting a closing statement. Large portions of the opposition to the move have declined to answer questions about their position or respond to outright falsehoods in things they've claimed in their statements here. I'm a firm believer that the best way to better understand and work with other editors is to lay out both sides and try to bridge the gap. I've laid out my side of how I see the oppose section. I'm hoping others lay out theirs or discuss some of these opposes with me because I can't currently see any universe in which these relate to policies and guidelines. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 03:02, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

Unbelievable. That you extensively put quotes as if people said them and then say they a mere formatting tool is the height of irresponsibility and totally false. Unless, you apologize, and redact, you cannot be taken seriously in anything, least of all, discussion. You engage in falsehood and your spin, and you expect others to discuss that with you. They will, they will tell you to learn how to treat others with respect and honesty.Alanscottwalker (talk) 03:17, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

I respectfully request that you strike out this comment, Alanscottwalker. As Rob13 has (repeatedly) explicitly stated that they didn't "put quotes as if people said them", your assertion that they did is a personal attack. It was abundantly clear that those sentences were not quotes, because of the initial disclaimer and because Rob13 explicitly indicated which ones of those were direct quotes. Any attempt to read it otherwise even after Rob's clarification cannot be seen as in good faith. Diego (talk) 05:46, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

Absolutely not. The dishonest disclaimer has already been addressed. And the repeated denials in the face of what was done with the quotes ring hollow. It is dishonest. Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:10, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

Addressed how, exactly? What on earth makes it dishonest? It was entirely true. You pretending I was trying to mislead doesn't make it so. I made it very clear that I was not directly quoting people. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 22:14, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

I take it that's a rhetorical question and no I am not pretending. I take nothing back, and I take no joy in having to make those comments but it appears we are at an impasse. That being the case, perhaps the only thing left is to ask that you seriously rethink this kind of thing, and refrain. Find another way. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:27, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

Rob, rather than placing quotation marks, you could have simply summarized your interpretations of people's statements. Instead, you chose to misquote people in a way which clearly came off as intending to appear denigrating and insulting, and nobody with any decent sense of intelligence would believe that was by accident. Alanscottwalker is spot on. Castncoot (talk) 04:20, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

If a simple summary of your position appears to be denigrating and insulting, then perhaps the fault lies in the position itself. If you believe I was unfair in my summary, you are welcome to explain how, as I have invited you and Alan to do several times. Perhaps, in doing so, we can get back to the point of posting this, which was to discuss the strength of the opposes (which is extraordinarily relevant to the close). ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 04:45, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

Oh, that's easy. Remove the quotation marks from everything that wasn't actually said verbatim, apologize for misquoting people despite the bogus "notice", and then summarize your interpretations, line by line. Up to it? I don't think most opposers would mind your representing what they actually said. I certainly wouldn't mind your representing me accurately, because then you'd be strongly reinforcing the winning argument to oppose the move based upon the spirit of Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. But then you also have to read and represent everything people ultimately said in all of their arguments on this page. Of course, the panelists can read the entire discussion anyway, so your actions were questionable to begin with. Anyway, I'm done wasting my energy at this discussion at this time. Castncoot (talk) 05:14, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

I've been resisting buying into this, but I do note that one of the listed uses of quotation marks in our article on them is Scare quotes used to mean "so-called" or to express irony (my emphasis).

I can't see how they could be interpreted in any other way, even without the explicit disclaimer that said so. Did you really think that he was claiming that you had said the sky is falling? Do you really think anyone else was deceived into thinking you had literally said that? It is irony. Andrewa (talk) 21:27, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

My post below is replying to the earlier post, not the outdent. Andrewa (talk) 21:27, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

I still hope it won't go to MR at this stage. The strength of the case for a move is so overwhelming, on both policy and practical grounds, that anything less than a 3:0 result for a move tells me that something else is busted too. So let's have a go at fixing that first, rather than just repeating a polarising discussion that doesn't seem to be building consensus. Andrewa (talk) 04:01, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

I have no doubt that WP:MR would be buckets of cold water poured on the nominator. While the discussion at first glance resembles an ugly big mess, there is no case that it was done improperly or that the closers failed to do their job. Seriously? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:59, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

I hope you are right, and tend to agree. Andrewa (talk) 05:09, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

I do think there's something incorrect about a closer saying "Side A has the clearly stronger arguments based on policies and guidelines, but Side B has about the same number of editors, so no consensus." That's not how consensus works. I praise that closer for noticing that he agreed with one side too strongly to be neutral, but at that point he should have stepped back from closing, most likely. Instead, he (appropriately) noted his bias and (inappropriately) decided against the bias to avoid the appearance of a supervote rather than based on actual strength of arguments. This isn't nit-picking; it's an actual issue in the way consensus was determined, in my opinion. (Note that I heavily sympathize with the desire to not close as consensus in a close discussion due to the likelihood that someone will scream "SUPERVOTE" (oh no, I used those quotes again) and drag you to a noticeboard. But often part of the job of a closer is to be the punching bag of those who have no clue how consensus is determined and are upset you closed against their opinion.) ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 05:16, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

I think my essay, Wikipedia:Renominating for deletion, applies very similarly to to RMs like this as well. Don't be petulant. Take your time. Make a better nomination next time. I don't think the nomination statement this time was very good. TL;DR before it even got to the point. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:18, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

At the risk of being rude, you're not the only one who has said, in effect, "You might be right, but you haven't said it well enough, so...". This is not supposed to be a debate, with winners and losers. It's supposed to be seeking consensus. Our common goal... all of us... is supposed to be to improve Wikipedia. I'm sure I could have said it better. Probably I could say this better. But do I need to? Andrewa (talk) 12:19, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

Well, I do not know who said what to you, but if you have not convinced half then surely that means you have not convinced half with your argument. Regardless of saying it well enough, it's just not been an argument that convinces in a manner that results in consensus. Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:46, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

So it appears. Or at least, not a strong enough one to sway the panel, on their initial comments. Andrewa (talk) 14:21, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

I think I know what you might mean by 'sway the panel', but just so we are clear, the actual task was to persuade your fellow editors. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:53, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

Ideally, yes, that was part of the task. But the panel assesses arguments rather than just counting !votes, discarding those that do not meet the standards set out in wp:consensus and further explained in wp:closing discussions. I'm afraid there was never any chance of convincing some of the opponents to the move, regardless of the strength of argument or how well it was expressed, but these policies and practices allow for such things.

So an important part of the task was to provide the panel with arguments to assess.

Convincing my fellow editors (or them convincing me) would make it a lot easier for the panel, but should not affect the result. Andrewa (talk) 15:58, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

No, on the last part. If it were that way, we would not have RfC's, we would have an editor-in-chief who dictates the 'one true way.' We would not have policy to apply, we would have law to follow. (Certainly least on this issue, with these policies - this is not something like issues such as 'should we slander someone' or 'should we encourage unlawful conduct'). Your fellow editors get and got to assess your arguments and policy (and your response might well be that they are unreasonable people or worse) but it is still their judgement that affects the due reception of the argument and the result. While it is not a vote, it's also not a process of denying others' autonomy, faculty, and editorial judgement. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:37, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

I think I see what you mean, but if so it's a gross oversimplification. That would be a democracy. Assessing consensus, as practiced here, is a lot trickier than that. Andrewa (talk) 21:27, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

Hm, and I thought it was your statement, with automatonic-like denial of the effect of editor' editorial-judgement that was grossly oversimplifying. At any rate, we have seen each other. Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:20, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

Sort of. I have no idea what automatonic-like denial of the effect of editor' editorial-judgement means, so it's hard to tell.

At the risk of being offensive, I have the same problem with my church when it talks about inerrancy of scripture. Inerrancy, like begotten, is a word I only ever hear in church, so it's hard, often even impossible, to be sure what it means. To the point that I often get the nasty feeling that this is its main attraction for those who use it. Andrewa (talk) 22:51, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

Renewed appeal to panel for a proper closure

As one of the people who suggested to appoint a closing panel for this debate after we experienced a contested move and move review, I feel justified in respectfully asking panelists to please develop and publish a common statement in order to bring closure to this debate (at least for 2016). The current situation is still uncertain, as evidenced by the voluminous discussion that keeps unfolding. The events so far:

• Newyorkbrad and Niceguyedc made their initial assessments, one seeing no consensus, one seeing consensus to move.
• Future Perfect at Sunrise assessed that policy largely supported the move and refuted opponents' arguments, but concluded a lack of consensus to avoid the impression of a supervote.
• A raging discussion among editors ensued, each trying to bend the panelists' comments towards their side of the conclusion.
• Several editors asked for a joint statement from panelists and for a more specific justification of their decision, notably by assessing individual arguments in the lens of policy and guidelines.
• Only Newyorkbrad provided further comments, confirming his prior assessment (but not going so far as to evaluate the merits of each argument).
• There is no visible discussion among panelists to compare their points of view towards drafting a common position.
• This lack of a clear statement leaves a vacuum that fuels conflicting interpretations and tangential discussions.

WP:Closing discussions#Consensus says: A good admin will transparently explain how the decision was reached. You all accepted this task, knowing that this was a longstanding, complex and sometimes emotional case. I think it's not too much to ask for a common closing statement and rationale. If panel members can't find agreement among themselves, two of them could write a majority opinion with another writing a dissent, like in US Supreme Court cases. As it stands now, we don't have a panel closure, we have three separate opinions on how each panelist would close the discussion themselves. That is not enough to bring this debate to a halt. Thank you for your time and attention. — JFG ^talk 11:06, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

"Future Perfect at Sunrise assessed that policy largely supported the move and refuted opponents' arguments, but concluded a lack of consensus to avoid the impression of a supervote"? Now who's "trying to bend the panelists' comments towards their side of the conclusion"? Fut Perf ultimately called it as he saw the aggregate conclusion of all discussants. Castncoot (talk) 14:11, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

Please stop, all of you. You are arguing in circles at this point. There was a well-publicized discussion with a set time frame. We have a closing panel that collectively represents a massive amount of administrator and page-mover experience in these matters. How about we wait and see what the final outcome is, rather than endlessly relitigating the question after the discussion under examination has closed. bd2412 T 14:18, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

@BD2412: The thing that I believe has some people upset, myself included, is that "Hopefully final comments" as a section title sounds like the discussion has been closed (sans closing statement). If I'm wrong about that, I'll be glad. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 14:21, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Seeing the debate endlessly re-ignite is exactly why I opened this section. Bringing this to a close is the panel's collective job. — JFG ^talk 14:27, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

At this point, it would be necessary even a simple reassurance that Newyorkbrad, Niceguyedc and Future Perfect at Sunrise are working on a coordinated "final outcome" where they are debating how to express a single position that represents the outcome of the whole thing; because I think they're not doing it even if people think that they do. Rob13 seems right, the Discussion by panelists lookls like that is intended as their final saying, although the other editors though they were preliminary assessments that should be later reflected in a final, single formal closure. Since the process followed does not look at all like the one delineated in Wikipedia:Closing discussions#Closure procedure, that got all us confused.

I think the best course of action right now is to take the "#Hopefully final comments" by Newyorkbrad as the "formal closure", so that we can all move to a Discussion Review where we can tear down to pieces the whole process (given that we can't come to agreement even with respect to how to proceed, not to speak of what should be done with the article). Diego (talk) 15:26, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

Agree with most of the above! Additional comments:

• Patience, please. While there was a deadline set for our discussions (subject to relisting I suppose, like any RM, but that did not occur and should not be done now IMO), I don't think there is one now for the panelists' final closure. Give them all the time they need. I'm sure they will not prolong things unnecessarily. But they do have real lives too.
• Yes, I raised the point of transparency above in #Refocus. But I don't think it's reasonable to demand that they (individually or jointly) comment on each argument and !vote individually. I do think it's reasonable to expect a specific assessment (either three assessments or a joint assessment) of consensus or lack of it on a few key arguments, and think theses need to include:
  • Primary topic, and particularly whether or not it's NYS (being the hobbyhorse of those supporting).
  • The HLJC (being the hobbyhorse of those opposing).
  • The no consensus, no move clause (I think we have two clear statements on that one already, but include it for completeness as it's a hobbyhorse on both sides, and it wouldn't hurt to restate it).
  • Any other issue that the panel or any member of it consider to be key to their decision.
• #And then close. In their own time.

If you got this far in all of that, thanks for your patience! (;-> Andrewa (talk) 15:58, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

Of course there is no deadline for the panelist to produce a "final closure" (that would be dreadful, give the size of the whole thing), what we don't know is that they are preparing one, nor that it would include the points you mention. For all we know, their final closure was the fact that they posted their reflections in the section above. AFAIK they never stated that they would be releasing anything else beyond that. Which is unfortunate, since that closure consists of two "no consensus" and one "clear consensus to move". Diego (talk) 16:11, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

Agree. Andrewa (talk) 16:26, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

BTW this page is now so long it is occasionally crashing my browser (Google Chrome under Windows 10 on an HP subnotebook with 2 gig RAM) as well as being unexportable, so pity the mobile users! May I suggest that User:BD2412 might create a new page at Talk:New York/July 2016 move request closure or similar? Andrewa (talk) 16:26, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

I think any editor could take that step. bd2412 T 16:39, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

Done. Andrewa (talk) 19:03, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

Close it out

Truth be told, I believe that BD2412 holds the fully justified jurisdiction at this point to simply close out the move request at this very instant for no consensus. Castncoot (talk) 16:36, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

I don't know what "fully justified jurisdiction" means, but I would rather give the panel more time to take such an act, if they so intend. bd2412 T 16:39, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

(I re-ordered your statements chronologically, as you had replied above me.) You're the independent mediator here; you were the one who arranged the panel and the discussion, including its format; and per the above discussion, you found no consensus; I believe everybody would agree that there's no consensus to move among the three panelists themselves. This move request simply has to be closed for no-consensus-to-move at this point, and by default, that task falls to you. Castncoot (talk) 16:45, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Wouldn't us "giving them more time" depend on us knowing for a fact that they, indeed, have such intention? Diego (talk) 16:48, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

On the other hand, I don't mind waiting till this topic resurfaces in 2022 or so anyway, like (almost) clockwork. Castncoot (talk) 16:56, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

First of all, a "preliminary" is just that, so none of the three preliminary opinions of the closers represent, nor can they be combined to represent, their final decision. This is still not a vote nor a democracy, so the three closers should be expected to put their heads together as one mind and close this discussion. If this is difficult, and yes, of course it is difficult, then imagine being a senator or a congressman – it's time to actually reach a consensus as defined by Wikipedia, which just means that just as "no choice" is a type of choice, "no consensus" is a type of consensus. So I agree that all this extra discussion is pointless, because the closers should only consider the initial !votes and rationales to come to their joint decision. Please good people on both sides of this issue, please cease, desist and be patient. Allow the one mind of the closing panel to appear.  Rules of enpagement Paine  17:37, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

Talk:New York/July 2016 move request closure

See Talk:New York/July 2016 move request closure. Andrewa (talk) 19:06, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

I note with thanks that one of the panel has already made a brief comment there. Andrewa (talk) 22:34, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.