Talk:New York City/Archive 2

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Naming (again)

I shall bring up once again the issue of the name of this article. While New York City may not be the official name, it is a much less awkward article title than New York, New York, which is rather silly in any case. Mexico City's official name translated would be "City of Mexico". Even more so, Guatemala City is not officially called that (the word "City" or "Ciudad" does not appear in the name of that city). So far as I am aware, the capital of Panama is simply Panama, but we call it "Panama City". By the standards of this article, the last two, at least, should be Guatemala, Guatemala and Panama, Panama. So why not New York City, again? john 08:47, 11 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Naming conventions of U.S. cities are different than that of foriegn cities. WhisperToMe 23:09, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Vote on the name? Fredrik 18:45, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Poll: Name of page

This is a poll on where to place the article. Currently, the article is located at New York, New York. There are five choices for the name:

• New York, New York
• New York City
• New York City, New York
• New York (city)
• New York, NY

There is discussion scattered throughout this Talk page on the subject. The poll opened May 1, 2004; the poll closes May 8, 2004. Please vote below. --Lowellian

What time? Midnight UTC? Or midnight EDT? –Hajor 22:23, 8 May 2004 (UTC)

The poll is now closed. Final results: 15/17/0/1/0. New York City has two more votes than New York, New York. So, what is to be done? Discuss below in Talk page. --Lowellian 19:09, May 9, 2004 (UTC)

New York, New York

1. RickK 00:07, 2 May 2004 (UTC) Standard for US cities is city, state. Shall we move Los Angeles, California, San Francisco, California, et. al.?
   • I don't see why not. Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, etc. are unique names, and there's no reason the main articles shouldn't be there. State should only be included if necessary for disambiguation. john 00:10, 2 May 2004 (UTC)
     • I wouldn't go that far; there's nothing wrong with LA and SF as they currently are. However, there is a problem with NYC because "New York, New York" looks confusing, and it keeps making me think of the song rather than the city. --Lowellian 00:13, May 2, 2004 (UTC)
       • There's nothing particularly wrong with it, but it is an example of a specific naming policy that completely, and for no compelling reason that I am aware of, goes against general wikipedia naming policy. I remember that the calls of a few of us to get Bertrand Russell moved to Bertrand Russell, 3rd Earl Russell a few months back were largely met with cries about the most common name rule. And this is true, and I understand why so many people were unwilling to go along with that. But I think there were some compelling reasons to use an "all peers go with their peerage title" rule, as well. I'm not sure what compelling reason there is to have the article at Chicago, Illinois rather than just Chicago. For one thing, such a move isn't even consistent, because it just means that US cities are named on a basis completely different from cities anywhere else in the world. It's not as though we have Melbourne, Victoria, or London, England. john 00:25, 2 May 2004 (UTC)
         • We should have Melbourne, Victoria. I can't say I'd object strenuiously to Bertrand Russell, 3rd Earl Russell either. ♥ «Charles A. L.» 05:19, May 4, 2004 (UTC)
2. It is U.S. city policy. Besides, "New York City" is not the actual name of the city - it is "New York". WhisperToMe 00:35, 2 May 2004 (UTC)
   • I don't see why the fact that there is a policy is any defense. Isn't that policy essentially a result of the bot that put in all the US city articles to begin with? Why should U.S. cities be named on a completely different basis from cities anywhere else in the world? john 00:42, 2 May 2004 (UTC)
     • No, the bot came along after the policy was made. RickK 00:50, 2 May 2004 (UTC)
   • Canada and Japan have their cities named on the same basis too. See, there are articles made for tons and tons of cities in the U.S., and many of them share the same name as other cities, so one has to disambiguate by putting the state in. Eventually, so much of this will happen that ALL of the cities will have to have the state name in. Come to think of it, this should happen in the U.K. too if more articles on towns are made. See, decisions like this are made on a country by country basis. There are way more U.S. city articles than there are articles for cities in, say, Sudan. Therefore, the USA, Canada, and Japan name it one way, and the others name it another way. This is why I am against moving this to "New York City" as it goes against what all other U.S. cities are named. Come to think of it, instead of picking on NYC, why not change naming conventions of cities of other countries with lots of cities made on that country, E.G. Australia and the UK? WhisperToMe 00:45, 2 May 2004 (UTC)
     • It's absolutely not the case that ALL of the cities will have to have the state name in. There is only one Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Austin, Jefferson City, Saint Louis, New Orleans, etc. etc. etc. of any importance. eIf there are other cities that share the name, you can have a disambiguation notice at the top. Only if there are numerous cities, none of them particularly more well known than another, should the main article be at a location to disambiguate. And I think the convention is wrong for Japan and Canada, too. Disambiguation should only be used if necessary. There is only one major Tokyo (not at Tokyo, Tokyo, by the way), one major Kyoto, one major Toronto, one major Montreal. The fact that these main pages already redirect to the longer title, rather than being disambiguation pages, shows that the main article should be there. john 00:55, 2 May 2004 (UTC)
       • There is not only one Detroit (There is a Detroit, Texas), Jefferson City (there are several others besides the one in Missouri), or Denver (I knew someone who lived in Denver, North Carolina!). I strongly feel that New York, New York] is in fact the proper place to put the article; I would favor including the state name in all articles on USA or Australina places (and the province name for Canadian ones). -- BRG 18:07, May 7, 2004 (UTC)
         • But you're missing the point that has been made many times already on this page: major cities like Detroit, Chicago, Denver ALREADY redirect to Detroit, Michigan, Chicago, Illinois, and Denver, Colorado, so the existence of other less well-known cities with the same name is irrelevant to this discussion. The argument is that if these well-known cities already redirect, why not simply place the actual article at the more common name? older≠wiser 18:27, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
       • John, there IS more than one Houston! See Houston (disambiguation)! - Tokyo is actually a "metropolitan area", not a city, and it has cities with itself. Japan is "in progress". And if so many cities have (CITY), (STATE), ALL of them should simply because its NICE and EVEN! WhisperToMe 00:58, 2 May 2004 (UTC)
         • There is only one Houston of any importance. This is already proved by the fact that Houston redirects to Houston, Texas, rather than being itself a disambiguation page. We could just as easily have the page at Houston and the same disambiguation notice, and the other articles at Houston, Pennsylvania, or whatever. As to Tokyo, I'll take your word for it, but I still think this is silliness. NICE and EVEN isn't a reason to have pages with longer titles than necessary.john 01:02, 2 May 2004 (UTC)
3. Strongly oppose move: We already have a specific naming convention on this at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (city names) and specific naming conventions counteract general ones (such as the common name one). In the U.S. we have a systematic way of naming cities and that is the standard by which we name things here in Wikipedia. --mav 01:49, 2 May 2004 (UTC)
   • But we deviate from that standard when it causes confusion, for example, Northampton, Fulton County, New York and Northampton, Suffolk County, New York. And "New York, New York" causes confusion. --Lowellian 05:10, May 2, 2004 (UTC)
     • Huh? Those cases require more disambiguation. So what? New York, New York does not cause confusion - having most U.S. cites in [City, State] format while the more famous ones in [City] format will cause a great deal of confusion since people follow the most visible examples. --mav
4. Strongly Object to Moving. Specific naming convention, as above. Why have a convention if no one is going to use it? No one is going to confuse New York, New York with the other New Yorks that dot the country, but wikipedia is all about neutral POV, saying tha NYC can be an exception to the rule indicates that NYC is somehow better or more important than the other cities that do have to follow the convention. Which may or may not be true, but indicating such would be violating the Neutral POV policy.Theon 02:09, May 2, 2004 (UTC)

   While there is a kind of attitude in NYC that it is "better" (no other city, country, people have this attitude), I strongly see this as a matter of common usage. People might ask for a hotel reservation to "Tokyo, Japan," or "London, England," or perhaps "New York, USA" or "New York City, USA" but would anyone say they are going to "New York, New York"? It's awkward--what about the Wikipdeia convention that article should be named by common usage. The article on President Clinton is Bill Clinton, not William Clinton," "William J. Clinton," or "William Jefferson Clinton." -- Cecropia

   It doesnt matter wether its bill or william or William J. or whatever No one would argue that naming the page any of those would be giving special treatment to that name, since presidents are listed by their names, and Bill is the name that this president went by. Saying william or bill does not violate any standardized presidential naming convention, and therefore does not violate neutral POV. If it was "bill clinton the great", everyone would object because it is clearly POV. Treating NYC differently from other cities clearly indicates it is somehow special.Theon 02:37, May 2, 2004 (UTC)

   New York, New York is better than anyplace else, but that's besides the point, [[City, State]] is the convention, and there's no compelling reason to violate it here. "Common usage" isn't compelling; no one's going to say "New York, New York? Where the hell is that?" Or at least, people who would wouldn't find any of the alternatives any clearer. ♥ «Charles A. L.» 05:19, May 4, 2004 (UTC)

5. Keep it here. Not only do I dislike the idea of breaking the standard format but as I reread the previous discussion it seems that New York City is not an unambiguous term. Rmhermen 05:29, May 2, 2004 (UTC)
6. This seems to be the policy. Evercat 11:19, 2 May 2004 (UTC)
7. Keep. That's how we do U.S. cities. I have no problem with the others redirecting to [[New York, New York]], although I doubt [[New York (city)]] is really necessary. ♥ «Charles A. L.» 05:19, May 4, 2004 (UTC)
8. Keep here. We shouldn't break the good and useful City, State convention. There are REDIRs to pick up the strays. –Hajor 15:54, 4 May 2004 (UTC)
9. I was intending to vote to change to "New York City", but I find the arguments here compelling (especially as regards to not making it 'special'. Leave it where it is. --ALargeElk 16:08, 4 May 2004 (UTC)
10. Stick with the "standard" and use disambiguation pages and redirects. --Ram-Man 16:14, May 4, 2004 (UTC)
11. Consistency is massively important. If major cities do one thing and small cities do another, that's confusing to users because the question becomes, what is defined as major? OK, let's say we have this article at "New York City". It's a big city - makes sense, right? Chicago? Yeah, also big. San Jose? Nashville? Orlando? Fresno? OK, yeah, those are all pretty big, too. Shreveport? Tacoma? Flagstaff? Plano? Lincoln? Tempe? Columbus? Knoxville? Uh... Salem? Oops. We've got a couple big Salems, don't we? If we set two arbitrary rules (big cities, use city name, smaller cities, use city, state), we run into problems. Once people understand that the naming scheme is Salem, Oregon or Salem, Massachusetts, there are no problems with editing. The only reason a name by itself should be used (like Houston or Dallas) is for people who enter something in the site's search engine. Then they get the redirect and realize that the article is actually at Houston, Texas or Dallas, Texas. This way, when they go to search for Sugar Land or Richardson, they know to go to Sugar Land, Texas or Richardson, Texas. RADICALBENDER★ 16:20, 5 May 2004 (UTC)
    • This might be a valid concern if there weren't already articles on just about every notable municipality in the United States. Since there are, it is a question not of creating articles, but of managing the articles we have. Any time there is any genuine possibility of confusion, we should maintain the current system. But in situations where the article with the city name is already a redirect, I don't see what the confusion is. I'm not saying there should be different rules for big cities and small cities. I'm saying our rules should be flexible, and we should disambiguate only when necessary. Most cities it is necessary to disambiguate. But there are a substantial number where it is not, and I don't see why we should have awkward articles at Virginia Beach, Virginia, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, New York, New York, and so forth, when it's completely unnecessary. john 18:38, 5 May 2004 (UTC)
      • The rules shouldn't be flexible: that leads to needless confusion over what any random city article's title is. Is the article for Mesquite at Mesquite or Mesquite, Texas? Well, if I've been looking at articles titled Dallas, Chicago or Milwaukee, I might think "Mesquite", but that's about the plant. If we use city, state, then everyone knows what the article title will be. I think Mav called it preemptive disambiguation or something like that. Problem solved. RADICALBENDER★ 20:11, 5 May 2004 (UTC)
        • Who on earth is everyone? Nobody's heard of Mesquite, Texas, and there are other things called mesquite, so of course that should be disambiguated. Also, if I've been looking at articles called Paris, London, Sydney, Tehran, Munich, Vienna, Moscow, &c &c &c, I might also think that American cities should just be at city name. john 20:15, 5 May 2004 (UTC)
          • Balderdash. Mesquite is a city of 120,000 people. Just because you haven't heard of it, doesn't mean that no one has. Trying to pass off my argument as "nobody's heard of it" doesn't negate the argument: if someone searches for a small city, what is the article's title? You want to sow a seed of doubt when one goes to search for an article (is it Poughkeepsie or Poughkeepsie, New York?) and I don't want that. If this changes, where do we draw the line of moving articles? No one in support of this move has answered this question. And even if you do, it will be an arbitrary and pointless distinction (likely based on population of each U.S. city). Then when you're going to an article title, you have to know the name of the city and its population to land at the right place. Too, too confusing. RADICALBENDER★ 16:33, 6 May 2004 (UTC)
            • In an ideal world, if someone searches for a small city they should be able to enter either the city name only or City, State and get to the same place. Whether the actual article is at city name or City, State is simply not that relevant for the majority of small cities (IMO). At any given "city name", there should be one of the following: A) the actual article about the city (assuming that it is the only entity with that name); B) a redirect to the article at City, State (again assuming that it is the only entity with that name); C) a disambiguation page. For the majority of smaller cities, the standard should remain as City, State (simply because they are already created and there's little benefit to moving them). But for large, extremely well-known cities, there is no need to force awkward (and in the case of New York, New York, not entirely accurate) titles for articles where it is not needed. older≠wiser 17:01, 6 May 2004 (UTC)
              • Hey, somebody agrees with me, woo hoo! I'd note that while Mesquite would appear to be a sizeable suburb of Dallas, it is just that, a suburb of Dallas, and I think there's no expectation that people not from the Dallas metropolitan area will have heard of it. At any rate, BKonrad, if you read Ram-Man's contributions you'll realize that the real reason for the current standard is so that the Ram-Bot can update census information easily. The rest of it is a smokescreen. And no more on this from me.john 17:06, 6 May 2004 (UTC)
12. Leave it where it is. The 'pre-emptive disambuguation' of US city names is a good thing. It removes argument. It gives a clear, easy to follow standard and policy. It prevents perpetual edit wars about how city names should be disambiguated and who gets to use the bare city name. It also removes the tendency to bias Wikipedia in favor of US usage: many towns and cities in the United States are named after locations in Europe, and it is SERIOUS US bias to think that the American city is more important. As it is, the naming of US city articles is mostly a non-issue. Remove this policy, and things get chaotic. Removing a sensible standard just because it irritates a few users is not a good plan. Besides, I like to KNOW that if I link to City, State I'm linking to the right place and not hitting a redirect. —Morven 00:32, 6 May 2004 (UTC)
13. Keep to the convention. Matt 12:32, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
14. Stick with convention. The redirs, etc. seem to handle other uses fine. And if it helps the bots, so much more so. Niteowlneils 19:17, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
15. The current convention is (generally) unambiguous, and a Good Thing. James F. (talk) 23:38, 8 May 2004 (UTC)
    • What's the deal with "Good Thing" being capitalized? I've noticed this before. Is it part of some esoteric communication among the secret "Cabal" that really runs Wikipedia? ;) As to unambiguousness, see Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (city names) for a just realized example by me of a way in which the system is not unambiguous (basically, it is unclear if we are referring to municipalities or to post office zones, which are often different), but also the fact that in this article in particular, New York, New York is ambiguous, in that it might be thought to apply only to Manhattan (among other things). john 23:53, 8 May 2004 (UTC)
    • There is no cabal. Which is a Good Thing. Which is a reference to 1066 and All That. –Hajor 00:15, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

New York City

1. I'm going to quote from Evercat, since that user summed up my feelings perfectly: "Could this be moved to New York City? I spent 5 minutes thinking someone had cheekily moved the page on the city to the song title... :-) More pages link to New York City than here". Also, Wikipedia generally favors using the most common name for a place, and I think in common usage, New York City is used much more often than New York, New York. --Lowellian 23:56, May 1, 2004 (UTC)
2. The city, state rule for US cities is poor anyway. john 00:10, 2 May 2004 (UTC)
   • Why? It is common usage for the majority of cities by the majority of people in the US. Niteowlneils 19:34, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
     • Common usage in what sense? It's also common usage to say Los Angeles and Chicago. I've never heard anyone saying they're going on a trip to "Chicago, Illinois" or "San Francisco, California." I mean, yeah, sometimes the state is included, but certainly not always. john 22:39, 8 May 2004 (UTC)
3. Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Madrid, Madrid and Ottawa, Ontario all redirect to the the city name alone. Dublin, County Dublin doesn't even exist. - MykReeve 00:21, 2 May 2004 (UTC)
   • Actually, now I look at that, I've picked a whole load of capital cities to illustrate my point... but it applies to non-capitals too - e.g. Melbourne, Victoria, Sydney, New South Wales or Edinburgh, Scotland. Plus, as others have said, this seems like a case for the "'most common name rule". - MykReeve 00:39, 2 May 2004 (UTC)
4. Wik 00:29, May 2, 2004 (UTC)
5. Most common name. We even do this with little towns in Spain, when there is no ambiguity. Jmabel 00:47, 2 May 2004 (UTC)
6. older≠wiser 00:51, 2 May 2004 (UTC) By far the most familiar and least confusing option. As the vote on the Wikipedia:Naming policy poll shows, it doesn't matter what the actual name of a place is, the Wiki way is to use the name by which a place is most commonly known. Maybe we should use the Google Test to determine what to title this as the advocates in that other poll call for (speaking somewhat sarcastically). older≠wiser 00:51, 2 May 2004 (UTC)
7. Seth Ilys 01:07, 2 May 2004 (UTC). After all, that's what it's most commonly referred to as.
   • Narita International Airport was known as such for decades, yet before April 2004, its true name was "New Tokyo International Airport", but when I moved the article there from its unofficial name, nobody really cared. See, we still need to call cities in the U.S. by their official names. New York, New York is often called "New York City", but technically, that is not the city's name! In addition, if everyone calls urine "piss", would you move the urine article to "piss"? WhisperToMe 01:11, 2 May 2004 (UTC)
     • What a total straw man. And we absolutely don't need to call cities in the US by their official names, especially if cities in, say, Guatemala and Panama are not. john 01:25, 2 May 2004 (UTC)
8. Fredrik 02:04, 2 May 2004 (UTC)
9. New York City is common usage. It is also necessary to distinguish it from New York State. In other U.S. cities where you have a city with a name that is also a state, "City" is part of the name: Kansas City (Kansas or Missouri); Virginia City, Nevada. Also, it is a nuisance when linking because noone says (e.g.) "The Metropolitan Museum of Art is in New York, New York" so you have to type "The Metropolitan Museum of Art is in [[New York, New York|New York City]]".

   BTW, FWIW, the corporate name of the City is "City of New York", and the city seal bears the inscription Sigillum Civitatis Novi Eboraci, meaning Seal of the City of New York. The [NYC website] uses "New York City" throughout. Cecropia 02:20, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

10. New York, New York is New York County and does not include the rest of the boroughs. Brooklyn, New York is also part of New York City as is Staten Island, New York, Queens County, New York and Bronx, New York. Keeping New York, New York as the name for New York City is incorrect because it marginalizes those of us who spend time in the other four boroughs. Prospect Park, Brooklyn, New York is in New York City, it is not in New York, New York. MOMA is now located in Long Island City (also part of New York City in Queens County). There are many former villages in Queens that still use such names and are part of the City of New York. — © Alex756 16:49, 3 May 2004 (UTC)

    Doh!! That's correct! I didn't even think of that. "New York, New York" is only Manhattan Island (and a little piece of the Bronx). Calling the greater city "New York, New York" reinforces the Manhattan-centric attitude of the very people who think New York is "special." Put another way, "New York, New York" encompasses about 2 million people. "New York City" encompasses 8 million. -- Cecropia 17:07, 3 May 2004 (UTC)

    Guess this Brooklynite should stop relying on the NYPD and Fire Dept. of NY, and stop trying to vote for Mayor of New York. ♥ «Charles A. L.» 05:19, May 4, 2004 (UTC)

    OK, address a letter to "257 Broadway, New York, New York" meaning Broadway in Brooklyn (or Fulton Street, or Lexington Avenue, or Park Avenue, etc. etc.) and see where it ends up. :D -- Cecropia 14:27, 4 May 2004 (UTC)

    If it has thr gright ZIP Code, it shoud end up in the right place ;-) Theon 16:04, May 4, 2004 (UTC)

11. Proteus (Talk) 13:48, 4 May 2004 (UTC)

    I was unfair; I wasn't responding to Cecropia, but to something someone else said in a completely different forum five years ago or so. All the same, we're not doing entries for post offices here. "New York, New York" means (or should mean) the whole thing, except to letter carriers. ♥ «Charles A. L.» 19:55, May 4, 2004 (UTC)

12. Giving a British persepctive, if I came to Wiki wanting to know about Manhattan Island, I would search for New York. As it currently stands I arrive at a page which recommends New York City which I would then also click on. That worked well for me. However, if more than one faction can "win" the argument with skillful use of redirects and disambiguation, then that would seem the way to go.--bodnotbod 15:36, May 4, 2004 (UTC)
13. Support, Around the world the term New York is nearly always used in association with the city, G-Man 12:25, 5 May 2004 (UTC)
14. Nohat 17:41, 2004 May 5 (UTC) "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds". New York City is arguably the most important city in the world (and I say that as a native Californian), and it should reside on the page with the name by which it is most commonly and unambiguously called. "New York, New York" is bad because some people might interpret that as only being Manhattan.
15. Sekicho 02:18, May 6, 2004 (UTC) - I'm in a New York state of mind, not a New York New York state of mind.
16. seav 16:20, May 6, 2004 (UTC) - Naming the article on New York City as "New York, New York" is a minor pet peeve of mine. While consistency is to be admired, I don't find the argument that consistency is useful when searching/linking to an article very convincing. I doubt that anyone searching for the article on New York City would complain: "Hey, I expected the article to be at New York, New York but instead it redirected me to New York City!"
17. Put it in the most likely place for a casual reader. Growing up in the midwest, even though I lived in the NYC area later, we always called it New York City, to distinguish from New York state. The WIKI standard of city, state should yield to a higher standard of use most common name. I don't expect to look for [[Paris, France]] just Paris. But, I do expect to see Paris, Texas. FWIW Lou I 22:07, 8 May 2004 (UTC)

• • Actually, the specific standards (e.g. naming of U.S. standards) beats out general standards, including in the case of NYC. WhisperToMe 22:17, 8 May 2004 (UTC)

New York City, New York

1. My vote is for this, however, there seem to be strong objections against it (and no strong objections against New York, New York), so I think the article should stay there for the moment. anthony (see warning)

New York (city)

1. I would not have any objection to this, either, although I think New York City is simpler, and, in spite of what Rmhermen may say (on the basis of, what, questions about boroughs?), completely unambiguous. john 07:13, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

New York, NY

Comments

Is there anywhere that would be a good location to bring up the whole question of this kind of issue for city names? Because I think the current policy for American, Canadian, and apparently Japanese, cities is deeply mistaken. john 01:12, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

The current policy originated from many smaller cities sharing names in those three countries. One way that the policy may have occurred was, "Gah, let's just use this convention for all cities, since it is tiresome to choose which city to lengthen the title of over and over again" - and in the U.S., this was often the case. WhisperToMe 01:15, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

Well, I think in most instances, where none of the cities is very well known, they should all just include the state. Springfield, for instance. But for cities where the main article is already redirecting to one city, it's pretty clear which one is the most famous. john 01:23, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

Why not look at what other encyclopedias are doing? BTW, while Encarta follows similar logic as you do, it uses New York (city), not New York City. "City" is not part of the actual city's name. WhisperToMe 01:27, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

Britannica has Los Angeles and New York City. Columbia has New York and Los Angeles. I would be fine with New York (city), as well, if you'd prefer that, but only so long as the state is moved to New York (state). john 01:32, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

If naming conventions for the three countries change in favor of simpler entries, then I would be in favor of that. WhisperToMe 01:44, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

The standard in the U.S. for naming cities is the [City, State] format - this is the standard that the US Postal service uses as well as just about everybody else in the US (so much so that many of us refer to Paris as Paris, France). The reason why this is needed is due to the fact that city names in the U.S. are not at all unique - there are literally dozens of cities and towns with just about any U.S. city name you can think of - thus we preemptively disambiguate them all. The name of this city is New York, and to distinguish it from other things called New York we use this standard as well. I see no reason why this U.S. city should have special treatment and all the other 35,000+ should be be in the standard format. We have also already gone over this at great length well over a year ago on the mailing list and developed Wikipedia:Naming conventions (city names) as a result. Other names, especially non-federal ones, do not have such a severe naming conflict issue as to require a naturally (outside of Wikipedia)-developed standard for disambiguation. We should follow outside standards like this whenever they solve real issues we have here. --mav 02:03, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

The standard that the US postal service uses? What kind of bogus nonsense is that? People call Chicago Chicago, people call Los Angeles Los Angeles, people call Boston Boston (although the English city of that name complicates that), people call Miami Miami. Yeah, the state is sometimes included, but not always. And, as I said before, and nobody has refuted, if the Miami article already redirects to Miami, Florida, then there's no need for the article to be at a disambiguating location. john 17:53, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

National standards are not bogus - esp one that is external to Wikipedia that works for nearly all U.S. cities. The only ones it does not work with are the few cases where there is a city, Census Designated Place and/or a town all with the same name in the same state. Then we have to add the county name in between. People call Napoleon Napoleon or Napoleon Bonaparte, yet our article on the one most people mean is at Napoleon I of France. The Peerage system and the standard way to name U.S. cities are very similar in this regard. Boston is a great example where the [City] format breaks down. Having all U.S. cities in the same format makes naming and linking predictable. Again, we should follow systematic naming standards whenever the great majority of results will be exactly what the common name would be anyway. That is the case for well over 30,000 cities in the U.S. - only about a half dozen are famous enough to have the [City] version of the name redirected to that article. But those half dozen control the standard for all the others since people follow notable examples. Thus they should follow they same standard as all the others. --mav

Okay, your second to last sentence, which seems to be the crux of the entire argument, is utterly incomprehensible. Why can't we simply have those few well known cities at the proper location, and have the other cities as they are now? A huge percentage of US cities have articles already, anyway, so I'm not sure how this is going to influence naming of future articles. As to a half dozen, there's a lot more than half a dozen

New York City
Boston
New Haven
Yonkers
Jersey City
Philadelphia
Pittsburgh
Baltimore
Annapolis
Virginia Beach (okay, I just made that one because there was no article there at all)
Charlottesville
Charlotte
Winston-Salem
Spartanburg
Atlanta
Jacksonville
Miami
Tallahassee
Pensacola
Fort Lauderdale
Sarasota
West Palm Beach
Nashville
Knoxville
Chattanooga
Biloxi
Louisville
Cincinnati
Detroit
Battle Creek
Ann Arbor
Indianapolis
Chicago
Milwaukee
Minneapolis
Des Moines
Little Rock
Baton Rouge
New Orleans
Shreveport
Houston
Galveston
Dallas
Fort Worth
Amarillo
Oklahoma City
Tulsa
Fargo
Sioux Falls
Denver
Colorado Springs
Tucson
Salt Lake City
Las Vegas
Carson City
Los Angeles
San Diego
San Francisco
Santa Barbara
San Luis Obispo
Sacramento
Seattle
Eugene
Fairbanks
Juneau
Sitka
Honolulu
Hilo.

In Canada you have Toronto
Montreal
Vancouver
Winnipeg
Calgary
Edmonton
Quebec City (which, by the way, is no more the name of that city than New York City is the name of New York)
Ottawa (which is, anomalously, the location of the main article)

Let me also note that, from my search for all these things, I notice that a) there has not been an aggressive attempt to make sure that the basic city names have articles or redirects at them, leading to some places not having articles at all, and me creating them (as I did with Virginia Beach) or, in some cases, to articles being created at those locations about cities with that name in other locations, or to other things called that, without any reference to the location (see Nome). Now, I'm not sure what this means. But this kind of sloppy "oh, there's only half a dozen famous enough to do that" is clearly nonsense. There's a lot of cities like that. I don't know that all of them ought to be moved - Eugene probably shouldn't even redirect to Eugene, Oregon. But I'll reassert that this absolutely isn't a policy which creates consistency. It's a policy which creates inconsistency. City names should just be at the city name, unless there is a need for disambiguation. john 06:11, 3 May 2004 (UTC)

The crux of the issue is that city names in the U.S. are not at all unique except for rare cases. When 99% of a set of items are named in a certain way that creates a standard in itself that should be followed for consistency. Nearly every single U.S. city article is at the [City, State] format already - any not in that format should be moved to conform to the pattern set by the others. Their location can be surmised very easily when they are all named following a very widespread standard outside of Wikipedia. Just about every example you give above have many different cities in the U.S. that share the same name. Ideally there should be disambiguation pages at the ambiguous names, but we often use redirects and create (disambiguation)-titled pages instead as needed depending on how much disambiguation work the editors of those articles feel like doing. In the U.S. we have a convention to add the state name after the city name - treating it almost like a last name (not unlike the 'of {kingdom}' format in peerage). The vast number of cases require this, thus the more famous cases come along for the ride (and it is very important that they serve as examples of the convention). Having to require on different people's interpretation of what is the most important city of a certain name (something that will come up constantly for U.S. cities) will only create inconsistency and move wars. We should follow one standard for U.S. cities - other nations may have their own conventions or none at all (thus defaulting to general rules of disambiguation). In this case we do have a widespread standard - we should continue to use that. --mav

Mav, the thing is, we've already decided "what is the most important city" for all those cities that I listed above. As far as I am aware, there have not been any edit wars about this. There are almost certainly other cities where deciding this could be very easily done. Santa Fe, for instance. So, to be honest, I don't understand. What possible problem would be created by having Chicago, Illinois redirect to Chicago instead of vice versa? For Chicago, at least as far as our disambiguation page goes, there aren't even any other cities of that name. There isn't even a disambiguation page for Los Angeles. So I still wonder what purpose is being served by this, but why on earth are the ordinary rules of disambiguation inappropriate for US cities? Where is the evidence that this would lead to massive revert wars? john 17:43, 3 May 2004 (UTC)

There is a standard way to depict city names in the U.S. That standard is [City, State]. Names like Santa Fe are ambiguous as are most city names in the U.S. There are in fact 5 cities in the U.S. named Sante Fe (with the one in Texas about as famous as the one in New Mexico). The city I live in Sacramento, California shares a name with four other cities in the U.S. (and a couple places outside of the U.S. as well). Down the road the city of Auburn, California shares its name 18 other cities in the U.S. Richmond, California in the SF Bay area also shares its name with 18 U.S. cities and a couple of ones in Canada as well. When I think of Richmond or Auburn, however, the first cities that come to mind are the ones in California - not the others. So we disambiguate all U.S. cities in a standard format that is fair and naturally developed outside of Wikipedia and is enforced by the US Post Office. Evidence of a move war is already brewing right here for this city. --mav

All kinds of things that have article titles are ambiguous. Now, Auburn should certainly be a disambiguation page - no city called Auburn is famous enough to be the entire article. And Richmond ought to be a disambiguator, too, if only for the existence of the English location of that name. But Santa Fe is nonsense. Santa Fe, Texas has less than 10,000 inhabitants, and seems to be an utterly insignificant town near Galveston. It is nowhere near as famous as Santa Fe, New Mexico, which is a state capital and one of the oldest cities in the United States. And whether or not you think of the city in California is irrelevant. It is what most people think of. And that's pretty clear. I mean, I'm from the Washington DC area, and when people say Vienna, I may think of the town in Virginia. But that doesn't mean that the Austrian city isn't the most famous. I assume that the people from the ten or so American cities named Paris think of those cities as well, but that doesn't mean that the French city isn't by far the most famous. Since we use judgment in those cases to determine when a disambiguator is necessary, why on earth can't we use similar judgment for US cities? Sure, there's 12 US cities named Nashville. But if you just say "I'm going to Nashville", except in the context of someone in a location close to one of the smaller cities, it will be generally understood that the one in Tennessee is meant. If a "move war" were to develop for this city, it is only because of you and those who support the current policy. It is not because there are different people who think that different places called New York are equally famous, and are arguing about which one the main article should be at. So, what's your evidence that this would cause chaos? For other countries, no chaos is caused. No chaos is caused by the fact that like fifty US city names currently redirect to the city, state format, even though many of them share their name with other, smaller cities. This is, once again, an example of the fetishizing of a pedantic consistency (mandated by the US Postal Service!) with no reason behind it other than dark hints that without the rule, we would somehow find ourselves in a Hobbesian state of nature, where wikipedians will battle over the locations of city names, where only the strong shall survive, or something. But yet there's no evidence for this, and the existence of redirects at the city pages for many large cities, with no particular evidence of edit wars, when, if your theory is correct, these pages should be alternating between being redirects for different cities of that name, suggests that this view is completely wrong. I shall conclude with the statement that any policy which results in the page for New York City being located at New York, New York ought not to be held as holy gospel. john 05:39, 4 May 2004 (UTC)

Not gospel but a very widespread neutral standard that exists outside of Wikipedia for naming a large set of similar items. Its all about following standards where they exist. That's why we have standardized on the Peerage system even though their probably is a bunch of examples that really don't need it. But they are still part of a set of similar items that happens to have a standard for naming those things - thus we follow the standard. It makes naming simple and easy to predict. --mav

But on the peerage it was widely agreed, after a lengthy vote, that we do not want to use the peerage title in an utterly consistent manner. Bertrand Russell, Harold Macmillan, and Robert Walpole remain where they are. Although I argued against this at the time, I've come around to thinking that this is probably best (and I gradually came to that position during the debate on the subject, so I'm not just changing my position because it's convenient to the position on a different subject that I'm taking, although perhaps there's some of that). But I'd still say that using highest peerage title in all cases presents advantages that are not present in this case. One problem with people who became peers is that it's frequently hard to say what they're most commonly known as. They're known as different things for different parts of their lives. So to say "put them at highest peerage title" gets you out of that difficulty. This isn't the case with city names at all. With these city names we have two basic options - city or city, state. The city is known as city, normally, and only city, state when it's necessary to disambiguate. So use of the state is entirely a disambiguator. The noble title is a disambiguator, but it's also a part of the name which, in most cases, is actually used. Using the peerage title provides advantages beyond just disambiguating, while use of the state is only worthwhile for disambiguating. If you're not using the main page as a disambiguator, anyway, I don't see what advantage it has. john 06:31, 4 May 2004 (UTC)

New York is a special problem no matter how you slice it. There are three New Yorks in the U.S., state, city and county. City is in state, and county is in city. The entry for New York (county) redirects to Manhattan, but that's not exactly right. Manhattan is a [Political subdivisions of New York State|Borough|borough] of New York City; New York (county) is a subdivision of the state. Of course, county doesn't mean much in the context of NYC—e.g., there is no county executive, but there are still certain county functions—there is a sheriff, there is a county clerk who registers businesses, and so on. Cecropia 03:46, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

New York, New York has five counties, but those five counties have less power than those outside of New York, New York. Still, we shouldn't call New York, New York a county. WhisperToMe 04:33, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

All I'm saying is that there is also a New York County which is not the same thing as either New York City, New York State, or Manhattan. Cecropia 04:39, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

Where was the recent discussion on this issue where a group of people tried and failed to resolve this issue via consensus finding and talk? Without such a discussion this vote is nothnig but a non-binding straw poll as far as I am concerned. Voting is something you do to resolve impasses - not something you do to stifle reasoned discussion. See Wikipedia:Dispute resolution and Wikipedia:Current polls. --mav 03:20, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

There has been discussion, a long one months ago that brought up relevant issues. Look above on this Talk page. And that discussion basically left things unresolved. The problem is that it's hard to get people to discuss a topic without using a poll, and it's also hard to see how many people are standing on which side of the issue. And you cannot say there was no attempt to start a discussion, because there was. John Kenney tried to revive the discussion from months ago, but it was a week before WhisperToMe responded, and no one else responded. After a month had passed, Fredrik suggested a poll, and still no one responded. Two months have passed since Fredrik's suggestion, and I started a poll. And then people started to respond. --Lowellian 05:00, May 2, 2004 (UTC)

The reason why polls spark interest is in the possible finality of the result. A lack of talk otherwise should be an indication that the status quo is fine. But yes, I remembered incorrectly about where the previous talk had gone. It doesn't much matter since there is no consensus (80%+) to change the name yet. --mav

Where are you getting the 80% figure from? Is there a page where that is listed? --Lowellian 08:59, May 2, 2004 (UTC)

See Consensus - Consensus is not possible with majority or even a supermajority. At one time this was at Wikipedia:Current polls but I see somebody has removed it. Either way it is also what we use for Votes for Deletion, Admin promotion, Steward elections, and also policy and naming convention changes. The 3-revert rule passed as a policy due to a greater than 80% vote. --mav

As to polls, I think this is a serious issue. When a policy is agreed to, people who are involved in that decision feel that it is final, and then basically ignore any comments from those who disagree. As when I questioned the article's location before, and was essentially ignored. At least the poll has caused this stuff to be discussed. And I'd note that you're only discussing it here, where there's a poll. I invite everyone to discuss the current naming standard for US cities with me at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (city names). john 17:53, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

I just want to add that "New York, New York" is also the name of a hotel-casino in Las Vegas, a song, a musical, and a film, whereas "New York City" is unambiguously the city. The article title should contain the word "city" to disambiguate the fact that the article is about the city, and not about any of these other things. "New York, New York" really should be a disambiguation page. Being consistent with all the other US cities is not as important as being clear about what the article is about. Nohat 17:51, 2004 May 5 (UTC)

All those things are named after the city, and the various people who chose those names for those things chose it intentionally to evoke that particular city. They weren't wrong: the fact that things named for the city are named "New York, New York" should really give people who think that it's odd to refer to the city in that way considerable pause. -- Nunh-huh 06:16, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

No, the musical, film, and song were all named the same thing, because they were related, as far as I am aware. I'd imagine the hotel-casino is likely named after the song. At any rate, nobody is saying that the name "New York, New York" is never used, just that it's a very awkward place for an article on one of the largest cities in the world. "New York City" is much more commonly used, less ambiguous as an article title, and less awkward. The only argument against it is that it violates an incredibly inflexible naming standard. john 06:42, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

It's actually (at least) three songs, unrelated. (+ the film named for one of them.) I don't believe there's ever been a theatrical musical by the name. I'm fine with "New York, New York" or "New York City": I really do think we should avoid making up our own name ("New York City, New York", "New York (city)" etc.) - Nunh-huh 06:48, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

The hotel-casino is shaped like a faux New York City skyline, so I'd say it's named for the city, not the song. We should have articles on this and other major Vegas casinos; when we do, whatever ends up at "New York, New York" should disambiguate "New York-New York (casino)." Now I know why the casino name uses a hyphen, not a comma -- they wanted to make sure their eventual Wikipedia article would be unambiguous.  :) JamesMLane 07:53, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

Hear hear! -- Cecropia 18:03, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

Then move it to New York City, New York. That is unambiguous, used more often than New York, New York, and still conforms to the [City, State] convention. --mav 06:08, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

"New York, New York" gets about 3 million Google hits; "New York City, New York" gets about 600,000. Without reflecting on its utility to Wikipedia, the latter term is not more frequently used. - Nunh-huh 06:16, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

I stand corrected then. --mav

FWIW, "New York City" gets over 9,000,000 hits on Google (even though I think the Google Test is dubious, except as a *very* rough indicator). older≠wiser 12:30, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

Closing the Poll, and what to do next

Is the poll closed? If so, what are we to make of the results? 17-15 in favor of moving isn't anywhere near a consensus. Especially with the number of people who strenuously feel that the page should stay where it is... john 00:27, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

Looks like the lack of consensus means to leave things the way they are. RickK 00:38, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

That doesn't seem quite fair, either, though, does it? I mean, that means that to stay where it is, all you need is a sizeable minority, but to move it you need to get nearly everybody on board. I dunno. How about a vote?!? john 00:49, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

Consensus certainly makes sense for things like deletion and featured articles, where there is a clear default option (don't delete, don't feature) but it doesn't make much sense for the location of an article, because there's no "default" place for an article to be (especially here, where the two policies of "most common name" and "City, State for US places" are contradictory). If more people want the article to be at a particular place, it should be there, regardless of where it is at the moment. (Otherwise we'd have loads of people putting articles at stupid titles, calling for votes and then claiming that lack of consensus [which is of course very hard to define] means that they should stay where they are.) Proteus (Talk) 09:12, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

Yes, that's my instinct as well. The problem is, the vote is currently so close that I could see us moving it, and then a bunch of people not previously involved coming and saying that it should have stayed, and shifting the balance, and then so on, with no stability at all. I'm not sure how to deal with this. john 09:43, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

There don't seem to be any major objections to New York, New York, so I'd say that does have consensus, despite a minority support. anthony (see warning)

Naming -- Recasting the Discussion

I did some research, encouraged by the many good comments. A big objection is that "New York, New York," in spite of the fact that it is awkward (especially for linking) and no one calls it that. But it is also incorrect. The corporate name of the City is neither "New York" nor "New York City." It is "City of New York." This is especially important since 1898, when "New York" no longer consisted only of New York County but became the City of Greater New York. Calling it New York, New York is both incorrect and POV, because most of the City's population (over 75%) lives outside Manhattan.

A secondary objection is that it makes New York too "special." Well, New York is unusual both in its size and its long term position in the world--it is possibly the most famous city in the world--at least there is none more famus. But especially I note the comment "it is SERIOUS US bias to think that the American city is more important." Well why is it not SERIOUS EUROPEAN bias that London, Birmingham and Paris have no qualifier at all, not even county? Why do we have Birmingham in England as the many entry, but Birmingham, Alabama is a disambiguation. The US city is athe largest city in Alabama, the most important industrial city in the US south, is famous in both good and bad history, and its Metro area is almost as large as Birmingham, England.

So, we should reconsider. I propose that NYC be listed under its corporate name, which is unambiguous, and a lot less so that London, Birmingham and Paris. Cecropia

Well, lovely, the American Birmingham's 'metropolitan area' has a population less than the population of Birmingham city itself, and one third the size of it's 'metropolitan county' (2.5 million).

James F. (talk) 16:01, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

That's not the point. Birmingham in the US is an old and important city, but we're told that New York City isn't "special." What makes Birmingham, England, so special that there is not even a disambiguation page or a country name. This is European snootiness that their cities are the "original" and therefore don't even need a country name. And while we're considering this, look at the "original" city of York (pop. 123,126). No disambiguation or even country name. But we can't make New York (pop. 8,000,000) too important. Can you name another New York, anywhere? Cecropia | Talk 16:12, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

Err, yes: New York, the state. That's why we're in this problem in the first place.

And, for the record, there are hundreds of places with the same name in the UK alone ('Ford' is a very common one, for example). Disambiguation where it's needed, but also when otherwise it just looks odd - I, as an evil snotty snobbish bastard of a European, have heard it refered to as "New York, New York", but not the "City of New York" or "City of Greater New York" or whatever.

In the end, with our wonderful technology of redirects, it doesn't /really/ matter where the article is located. Which is nice.

James F. (talk) 16:24, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

Now, now, let's not go to overstatement. I do not specify evil, and I have no opinion whatsoever on legitimacy of parentage, but I stand by snobbish and snooty for those who complain that it is US-centric to consider New York City "special" while everyone "knows" that Birmingham, Rome, New Delhi (and Berlin and Cairo), etc. are the "right" ones.-- Cecropia | Talk 16:32, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

Mild sarcasm, at most. And I am a bastard (parents married when I was 10 or so). But never mind, this is rather off-topic.

James F. (talk) 17:08, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

My, you English certainly are proper. In my neck of the woods marriage seems to be strictly optional. ;-) -- Cecropia | Talk 17:32, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

Tax purposes.

Yes, I know. ;-)

James F. (talk) 17:48, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

As far as I'm aware, the "US-centric" comment was made by Morven, who lives in the US. Proteus (Talk) 16:38, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

Erm, why would we want another poll exactly? We've already had one, and the majority of people want it at New York City (an option I see isn't even in this poll). Discussing whether a small majority should cause the page to be moved seems like a much more productive use of our time than having another poll. Proteus (Talk) 16:34, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

I agree, but I am addressing the arguments of those who think New York, New York is correct or proper. Cecropia | Talk 16:40, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

OK, I surrender. I see there is no pointing in rehashing this again. -- Cecropia | Talk 16:46, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

Give it a few months. Seems like few things are ever permanently settled. People's interest comes and goes. For the moment, the Consistency police have the upper hand over the Common Usage folks and the Accuracy in Titles contingent are a definite minority. older≠wiser 18:54, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

Ah. I see. The vote doesn't go the way you want it to, so you decide to keep re-voting, over and over again, until you get it the way you want it. RickK 20:15, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

Huh, it looks to me as though the vote didn't go the way you wanted it to, but I guess I was only counting to see which option got more votes. john 20:34, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

Hardly. If I tried to delete something listed on the VfD page on the basis of a 17-15 vote in favor of deletion, I'd have people trying to take my sysop access away on the grounds that I violated consensus. Consensus is all at Wikipedia, and 17-15 is not consensus. RickK 21:11, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

But, as Proteus pointed out, this is not the same thing as deletion or adminship, where there's a clear default if consensus is not reached - don't delete, don't make into an admin. I was not aware that the titling of pages was subject to similar constraint. Either location is perfectly reasonable, so I see no basis why the current location should be accepted when a majority of those who voted feel that it should be at the other location. What if somebody had moved the page before the poll was called, and we had the same results (or opposite results, with 17-15 in favor of moving to New York, New York)? Would there be a lack of consensus requiring us to keep it there. Consensus makes sense for article content disputes, because that's not a zero sum game. It also makes sense for things like deletion and adminship, where there's a clear default position not to do anything. But on something totally zero sum like an article title, which anybody is allowed to move, anyway, I don't understand how anything beyond a majority can possibly be required - the page has to be one place or another, and I don't understand why the fact that it's currently here should have any particular bearing. john 21:47, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

Because it's here because it was decided at some time in the past that it should be here. It's here because that's what Americans call it. It's here because we don't want to keep moving things back and forth depending on the winds of whim. It's here because that's where it should be. RickK 22:18, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

I really wish I could just leave this alone, but...RickK is incorrect to claim "that's what Americans call it" -- most would call it New York City. Most would likely enough recognize New York, New York as meaning NYC, but in conversations about the city, the vast majority would more likely refer to it as NYC than NY,NY. If this vote was merely about what it is most commonly known as, NYC would have won hands down. However, this vote was about whether there should be an exception to the specific naming standard for U.S. cities.

However, I agree that a simple majority is not sufficient to move the article. But I would argue that the standard for consensus should be somewhat lower for this type of decision than for other types of votes (VfD or adminship). Perhaps 60% or so. older≠wiser 22:49, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

Well I disagree that there's any policy about what to do in cases like this, so I went ahead and moved the article to New York City. Hooray for sensibility. Nohat 23:03, 2004 May 9 (UTC)

Bkonrad is sensible, I think. Nohat, while I understand the sentiment, there's no point in getting into a move war over this. john 23:15, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

What was that about no need for a move war again? This whole impasse convinces me further that the beast must be fought at its source - the US City naming policy itself! john 23:23, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

The article was originally at New York City. There is no consensus about whether it should be moved, therefore it should return to its original title. Nohat 23:48, 2004 May 9 (UTC)

No, other way around - no consensus to move is to keep it at New York, New York. I am frankly not too happy over this... WhisperToMe 00:01, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

The page was originally moved from New York City to New York, New York. Then there was discussion about what the title should be. The poll resulted in no consensus, so the article should return to its default and original title, which was New York City. Nohat 00:07, 2004 May 10 (UTC)

Nonsense. The name has been at New York, New York for quite a while, if not forever. The naming convention has been to make US cities city, state since at least as long as I've been here, if not longer. Please point to when the location was at New York City before you moved it. RickK 01:45, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

The city, state naming convention is not accepted by consensus and your forcing it on this page is unacceptable. The evidence seems to point at City of New York being the original name. See [1] I will move the page there until this debate can be settled. Nohat 02:13, 2004 May 10 (UTC)

This page must stay at City of New York, the original name until the naming debate can be settled. Expect to be reverted if you move this page. Nohat 02:29, 2004 May 10 (UTC)

When was this move made? It was more than a year ago, wasn't it? I'm not sure this is valid. At the same time, the idea that there has to be a consensus in such an instance seems dubious to me. I do think there needs to be a consensus as to what the results of the poll mean, which there is not as yet. john 00:48, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

I'm not going to get involved in "move warring" since in addition to the usual dumbness of edit warring it seems likely to lead to erroneous deletion of something important, but IMO when consensus can't be achieved we should go with whatever seems most "standard" for Wikipedia - which would be the New York, New York title, since there are so many other cities with that format. Bryan 02:28, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

The whole point of this debate is that there is no "standard". Furthermore, the only naming policy that is supported by consensus is Use Common Names, which in this case is "New York City". Nohat 02:29, 2004 May 10 (UTC)

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. New York City now conforms to the form of virtually every other major city in the world. No one feels the need to disambiguate London, England from London, Ontario, or Rome, Italy from Rome, New York. -- Cecropia | Talk 02:33, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

Well, we're getting nowhere. I'm having a hard time with this because I have no real sense of what the proper thing to do is. I'm deeply confused. I think Rick's view that page location is equivalent to VfD or a Featured Page or whatever, and that thus no page can be moved unless there is an 80% or whatever consensus to do so, is too pat, and too convenient to his own position. On the other hand, I'm not sure that moving the page is valid in this case either. So I have no idea. john 03:01, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

I've been running through the talk history[[2]] and, unless I missed something somewhere, can't find anything like a formal vote and consensus to have made this New York, New York instead of the more sensible and accurate City of New York in the first place. So saying we need a supermajority to change it back to its original name doesn't make sense. -- Cecropia | Talk 03:23, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

What was the point of having this vote when you were just going to go off and do what you wanted to do in the first place? And the discussion was at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (city names). And note that the date on that discussion is 20 Sep 2002. RickK 03:30, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

Technically, Nohat did what he wanted to do while John called for the vote. WhisperToMe 03:33, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

Actually, I believe Lowellian and Fredrik called for the vote. Ga. This has become an impossible situation. I agree that having the page at City of New York makes no sense. john 03:40, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

[[3]] on the vote here, it was 4 yes to 2 no for the U.S. naming convention. 66% yes to 33% no. WhisperToMe 05:03, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

4 to 2? That's an intensely small number of votes, and it was taken two years ago. I think this decision ought to be revisited. john 05:06, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

I assume there were not that many people on WP back then. WhisperToMe 05:18, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

One would assume. Given the number of people who've raised concerns with the policy recently, I think a new vote is absolutely in order - as I said at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (city names), I think this would be beneficial no matter how the vote turns out - I don't see a policy decided two years ago by four people as having any particular validity when more than four people are currently objecting to it. If a new vote showed solid support for this policy, I think it would be much harder for me and others to argue against it. john 05:34, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

I agree: 4 to 2 seems more like an opinion in an ad hoc discussion group than any kind of consensus. Still in all, even if [City, State} is appropriate in most cases (as disambiguation), this seems foolish for well-known places. To state it yet again again, London, Rome, Berlin, and on and on, don't even have country names attached, even though there are other Londons, Romes and Berlins around the world. -- Cecropia | Talk 05:39, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

To state yet again, specific naming policies override general ones. And in addition, there are cities out there which some would consider a world city, and that others wouldn't. WhisperToMe 05:49, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles are not among these. At any rate, to state yet again, this "specific naming policy" is based on the votes of four people two years ago. It ought to be revisited. john 05:53, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

Maybe not, but what about Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania? Should it recieve special treatment? WhisperToMe 05:56, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

There is no other notable city named Pittsburgh. It should be at Pittsburgh. Philadelphia, Detroit, Cincinnati, San Francisco, San Diego, Dallas, Houston, Miami, Virginia Beach, Oklahoma City, Topeka, Santa Fe, and so on and so forth, have no particular reason not to be at those locations, either. I'd say that Boston and Cleveland, Ohio, which are named for places in England, have probably sufficiently outstripped their namesakes to warrant this treatment as well, although I'm ready to be convinced otherwise. I mean, I'd say that a city should have to either be a state capital or have more than 100,000 people or so to be considered for not having to be disambiguated. Once you get to that point, you should have to use normal disambiguation rules - are there other cities of that name? Is the largest city of that name sufficiently better known than the others to deserve the main article space? And so on. I see no reason to think this will cause any particular problems - it has not done so with the many cities in other world countries that we have articles on. john 06:04, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

This is really not rocket science. Cases where disambiguation is needed are fairly obvious. Example: Kansas City, MO or KS. And it might be useful in very small locales or those with seconary meaning (or both): Intercourse, PA. -- Cecropia | Talk 06:12, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

Or places named after people - Bismarck, North Dakota, Saint Louis, Missouri, King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. I'd say that most of the 30,000 articles on US municipalities are almost certainly fine where they are. john 06:20, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

Again, what constitutes as an "important city", and what doesn't? There are obvious ones, yes. But there are also not-so-obvious ones. This is a bit closer to rocket science than one thought... WhisperToMe 06:23, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

I said state capitals and cities with populations of over 100,000 probably qualify as important. These should not be disambiguated unless a) there are multiple cities where it's hard to say that one is particularly more famous than the other; or b) the city has a secondary meaning deserving of its own encyclopedia article. When in doubt, disambiguate. john 06:29, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

And when there's no reasonable doubt, don't! Like ... erm ... New York City! :) -- Cecropia | Talk 06:32, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

But some people will not like seeing NYC get special preference in opposition to other cities, e.g. Los Angeles. Either way, this is a no-win issue. WhisperToMe 06:35, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

Huh? We're saying do the same thing for Los Angeles, Chicago, etc. as for New York. We can address the question of, say, Tempe, when we get there. (assuming that people decide to revise the current policy). But perhaps this should all go at the Naming conventions page. I'm going to copy this discussion over there. john 06:37, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

I didn't vote before because I'm OK with "New York, New York" (following the convention for city names) and I'm also OK with "New York City" (use the most common name). I think "City of New York" is terrible, though. It violates both those policies. Our article on Rhode Island is under that name, and includes the minor detail that "the official name is the 'State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations . . . .'" That seems sensible to me. The article on this city can mention in passing that its official name is "City of New York." Putting the article under that heading, though, would make about as much sense as having Rhode Island redirect to Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. In each case, there should be a redirect from the technically "accurate" name to where the article actually is. JamesMLane 06:53, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

My assumption is that Nohat put it here so that it would be at a neutral location that nobody particularly likes until we hash out whether it should be at New York, New York or New York City. john 07:07, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

While I could live with either New York, New York or New York City, in a vote I would be for the former. But then, I would prefer London, England, Paris, France, and such, despite the angry reaction this gets from Europeans. Anyone whe has ever sent a letter to someone in New York City has probably addressed it to "New York, NY" at the very least. And the song would not be called "New York, New York" if the city hadn't been first. (Plus, there are songs called "Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania" [a chart hit in 1952!] and "Gary, Indiana" [in the play "The Music Man"], and even one called "Wilkes-Barre, PA" [but you can say that that one is not "Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania"!]) One problem I have with votes is that not everyone who might be interested even knows a vote is being taken. There was one about Durham which made a decision that I oppose, but I never even heard of the vote till long after it took place -- BRG 14:49, May 10, 2004 (UTC)

Who cares who you address a letter to? An encyclopedia is not a post office. But Gary, Indiana is a town normally known as that. Very rarely does anyone say one is going to New York, New York. And one would further note that some parts of New York City cannot be reached by writing a letter to New York, New York - you have to write to Bronx, New York or Queens, New York or Brooklyn, New York. At any rate, as somebody or other said, what is so special about the state that a city is in that this, above all other things about the city, deserves to be in the article title? john 15:03, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

Just for the record, one does not address a letter to "Queens, NY". For historical reasons, the letter is addressed to one of the post offices that comprise the Borough of Queens ("Long Island City, NY," "Jamaica, NY," "Flushing, NY,' etc., or the individual community name within those post offices: "Ridgewood, NY," "Glendale, NY," "Queens Village, NY," etc. but all these are within New York City and none of them are "New York, New York." -- Cecropia | Talk 15:25, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

For the record, I am probably more aware than most Wikipedians that the postal address "New York, NY" is not coterminous with the city: it is not coterminous with the county either! For many years I lived in Marble Hill, and went from being in "New York 63, N. Y." to being in "Bronx 63, N. Y." when the Bronx post office was established (some time after 1960), and eventually to "Bronx, NY 10463." My point was NOT to confound the two but to point out that the linguistic construct "New York, New York" is in regular use all the time and not as bizarre as some people seem to think. -- BRG 18:30, May 13, 2004 (UTC)

Oh, and as for the official name being "City of New York," is there any city in the USA whose official name is not "City of <something>"? -- BRG 14:55, May 10, 2004 (UTC)

Yes, I agree that City of New York is a silly location. john 15:03, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia works on consensus and there was no consensus to move this page from where it has been for nearly two years. There certainly was little to no support to move it to its "official title" - Wikipedia generally doesn't follow that. I will move this page back to where it has been for the longest amount of time in one day. --mav

"Longest amount of time" is just a criterion you have invented just now to support putting the article back at New York, New York. There has never been any policy supporting settling disputes based on how things have been for the longest time, but there IS policy supporting settling disputes by keeping things as the original author wrote them. Furthermore, I want to point out that I moved the article to City of New York because that was its original title, not because it's the "official title".

The poll was on "where to place the article", not "whether the article should be moved". This distinction is important because lack of consensus in the results of the poll does not mean that no action should be taken. The move to City of New York is supported by the policy supporting settling disputes as a last resort by keeping things as the original author wrote them. This is obviously only a temporary solution until consensus can be reached about where the article should be located. Since there is no consensus yet, moving the article to New York, New York or New York City would be inappropriate.

I think the most sensible solution is to name the article New York City, which follows the consensus-supported policy of using common names, which was most recently overwhelmingly supported at Wikipedia:Naming policy poll. The policy of locating all US cities at city, state is not supported by consensus, but is the way that most articles are named merely because that is how Rambot created them. In fact it is a bad policy becaue it violates the principle of naming articles only as specifically as necessary to avoid ambiguity without any discernibly valid reasons for doing so other than "consistency". The principle of consistency has time and again been dismissed as a valid criterion for naming articles, for exactly the reasons demonstrated by this very article: consistency can lead to ambiguity and ridiculous redundancies, like, for example this article and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

Leaving this article where it is now is the best temporary solution because it is a compromise that is entirely satisfactory to nobody. It should stay there until a policy is accepted by consensus about where the article should be. It is clear from the poll that happened on this page that there is no consensus about where this article in particular should be located, and moving it to New York, New York will only agitate people and not be conducive to improving the situation or helping to find consensus. Perhaps instead of causing further aggravation, you can participate in the newly-reopened discussion at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (city names). Nohat 00:09, 2004 May 11 (UTC)~

I'm not the one causing aggravation on both sides by choosing a name that hardly anybody uses. This article was fine at New York, New York for nearly two years and the recent vote did not show a consensus to move. Thus minus a consensus to move the article stays where it was stable for nearly two years. That was the status quo and the new vote was not enough to overcome that since the vote was about making a change and that change was not approved. And where is is this policy about leaving things where the original author had them? Nor can anybody say just where this article was originally since this article was created back in the UseMod days. I will move the page back in 12 hours. --mav

Right now, there seems to be somewhat of a "cease-fire" while the article stays at City of New York, which no one wants. Why not just leave it there until it can be agreed upon where the article should be? Also, the poll clearly says "This is a poll on where to place the article", not "This is a poll about whether or not where the article is placed should be changed". The policy I was referring to about leaving things where the original author had them is this sentence from Wikipedia:Manual of style: "If all else fails, consider following the spelling style preferred by the first major contributor (i.e., not a stub) to the article who used a word with variant spellings in the article or the title." While admittedly "variant spellings" doesn't strictly apply to "New York, New York" vs. "New York City", I still the spirit of the guideline applies, certainly more than your made-up policy about where the article was "stable" for the longest time. Finally, the oldest available evidence shows that the article was at City of New York. Perhaps it was elsewhere previously, but we have no way of knowing, so we should just assume that the oldest available evidence is where the article was originally. Nohat 19:21, 2004 May 12 (UTC)

The Brit vs U.S. spelling style issue is an odd policy which was constructed solely to prevent religious wars over spelling and a possible fork of the project. I don't see how that could be applied to this case since this case deals with what an article should be named not how to spell the words in that article. Where the article was originally is an arbitrary issue since that involved the input of just one person - the person who created the article in the first place. Where it was for the longest amount of time is not arbitrary since a great many people have seen this article in that time and any one of them could have moved it. Yet they did not. However, it may turn out that New York, New York is an ambiguous title after all since it could be interpreted as Manhattan. I will ponder this for a while. --mav 06:18, 13 May 2004 (UTC)

moved from Wikipedia:Requests for review of admin actions

RickK

User:RickK moved New York City to New York, New York without discussing it first on the talk page and against the wishes of the majority of the votes in the poll. Nohat 23:16, 2004 May 9 (UTC)

This is just silly. john 23:26, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

Learn what consensus means. RickK 23:41, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

Learn how to be less rude. --Cantus 04:03, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

Learn what consensus means, RickK. There is no consensus to keep this page where it is, and there is no policy in favor of current locations, which are entirely arbitrary at the whim of whatever hare-brained user picked the current name. --Delirium 10:18, May 12, 2004 (UTC)

Nohat

User:Nohat moved New York, New York to New York City, even though there was no clear consensus to make the move. In fact, the vote to make the move was only 17-15 in favor, far from a consensus. RickK 23:11, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

How is this an abuse of admin authority? Any user could do this. john 23:25, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

Deletion of New York City in order to make the move was inappropriate. RickK 23:40, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

Did this cause a loss of page history of the main article? If not, I think it's irrelevant. silsor 23:48, May 9, 2004 (UTC)

Not at all irrelevant, as it was in direct violation of the results of the so-called vote on the subject. Since the vote didn't go his way, he went and did it anyway, so why bother having the vote? RickK 23:53, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

I simply returned the page to its original title, since there was no consensus about what it should be called. I would like to note that the poll ended in favor of the article being at New York City, which is where I moved it to. Nohat 00:04, 2004 May 10 (UTC)

The article was never at New York City until you moved it. The vote was 17-15 in favor, which is not a consensus. RickK 02:27, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

Especially since "City of New York" was both the original title, and the correct corporate name of the City, where is the citation that we needed consensus, instead of a simple majority, to change it back? Citing also the "Use Common Names" policy. -- Cecropia | Talk 02:57, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

I also think it is in appropriate for this to be in the "admin actions" review section. -- Cecropia | Talk 02:57, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

Please prove that the title was originally City of New York. Not since the decision that the standard for all US cities is city, state. RickK 03:01, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

A link was provided to archive.org to show it was City of New York. But if you're saying since the new [City, State] convention, can you point to something which shows this convention circumvents Use Common Names? -- Cecropia | Talk 03:26, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

Looking at the deleted edits the article was located at City of New York from 13 Dec 2001 until 2 Apr 2002 when Brion made it into a redirect to New York, New York. I don't know where the page was before that though, as the first edit comment is (corrected), and the article was quite large at that point. Perhaps a better wikiarcheologist than I can discover this? fabiform | talk 03:32, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

Nohat has now moved the article to City of New York, for which there was never a vote. RickK 02:27, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

I moved the article to its oldest name [4] until the debate about the name can be settled. Nohat 02:32, 2004 May 10 (UTC)

By the way, if you're going to have a move war, please correct the double redirects you leave in your wake. fabiform | talk 03:32, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

---

A New Yorker's two cents

Folks, I'm viewing this for the first time, so as a 15 year veteran of living in New York City, or NY, NY, or City of New York, here's a proposal. First, folks do indeed use New York, New York. We write it on our envelopes or when filling out order forms for online purchases, so it is not the rare beast some have made it out to be. However, this is usually used to refer to Manhattan addresses, so it can be confusing. The most common usage in non-postal application domains is New York City, which is the most succinct way of referring to living in one of the five boroughs. One hardly ever uses "City of New York" unless it's historical documentation or the full title of Columbia University. (In fact, it's even a joke for the comedy-troupe Columbia Marching Band to refer to NYC with the full "City of New York" title.)

Can we use Occam's Razor and have the main article at "New York City" (the same way we have Rome, London, Beijing) with redirects for "New York, New York" and "City of New York"? Fuzheado 18:02, 11 May 2004 (UTC)

It's only at City of New York because that was the apparent original location, and there's been no consensus as to whether it should be at "New York, New York" or "New York City". I agree with what you say. john 18:32, 11 May 2004 (UTC)

With the proper redirects in place, why are folks are getting so bent out of shape over this? New York City had more votes. People looking for New York, New York will still find it by that name, as will people looking for Beijing, China or London, England find the proper pages. I've never met a New Yorker (city person) who would object to seeing their home labeled as "New York City." Let's opt for commonsense and obviousness. Fuzheado 00:25, 12 May 2004 (UTC)

Mav and RickK are because they want the article to fit the US cities convention. And so do I. WhisperToMe 00:54, 12 May 2004 (UTC)

And the rest of us want the article at New York City because it fits the use common names convention, because New York, New York is ambiguous and wrong, and because the US cities convention is a bad policy that isn't supported by consensus. Nohat 00:58, 2004 May 12 (UTC)

"Wrong" is POV, and New York, New York is not ambigous with any other cities, and the no. 1 definition is New York, New York.

Nohat, until the US Convention policy is overturned, I suggest you follow it.

The reason for keeping this article at New York, New York, is so that one will automatically know the "real location" of an article, and to make it easy for bots to edit it. In addition, the city's official name is "New York", sans the "city of". WhisperToMe 01:15, 12 May 2004 (UTC)

Bots can easily follow redirects, and the "official name" is irrelevant according to the common names policy. Even knowing the "real location" is not a very good reason, as that would require using City, State, Country (and would be required for places outside the United States as well). In fact, I'd guess that there are virually no people in the world who would know automatically where "New York, New York" was but not where "New York City" was. I really don't see any legitimate reason to use New York, New York other than longstanding practice. There isn't even a policy, as far as I can tell, and if there is one it's invalid as there is no consensus for it.

Maybe we should just move it all to msg:NewYork and point to that from both titles. Then both titles can exist equally.

anthony (see warning) 01:34, 12 May 2004 (UTC) [comment modified after reply]

Anthony, 66% can be interpreted as consensus. The vote back in 2002 was 4 to 2. 66% is needed to overturn the possibility of veto in the U.S. Congress. WhisperToMe 01:55, 12 May 2004 (UTC)

66% is a twisted interpretation of the term consensus. I suspect you would have an extremely hard time finding someone outside of Wikipedia who would agree with that interpretation. anthony (see warning) 10:09, 12 May 2004 (UTC)

I won't go so far as Nohat to say that the "US cities convention is a bad policy", because I *VERY* much appreciate it when dealing with miniscule villages and townships in rural areas--it is absolutely essential for maintaining sanity to be able to quickly tell what state these buggers are in. But I also think a slavish devotion to the consistency idealized in the policy is also misguided. For large and well-known entities, there is no good reason to require the state name with the city. I do not find the argument that it makes it easier for bots to update the data persuasive. For one, MANY of the existing articles created by the bot were given very awkward names to eliminate ambiguity, which have had to be manually renamed to a more "normal" name. Any future updates made by a bot will still need a huge amount of manual intervention no matter what the naming policy. Besides, if City,State redirects to Cityname, it should be easy enough to program the bot to deal with such situations. older≠wiser 01:37, 12 May 2004 (UTC) PS I wrote this before Anthony's message above which confirms my speculation about bot behavior.

I'd say the policy, if indeed it is a policy (I'd call it a convention) is horrible. Yes, in the case of miniscule villages and townships added automatically by a bot it might make sense, but the proposal is to take it much further. But that's not what's terrible, what is terrible is that it is only to be done for two parts of the world, the United States and Canada, while the rest of the world gets to call their cities by their city names. San Francisco, California makes at least as much sense as London, England. To have a policy differentiating the two is anti-American.

As a side note, I wonder if we should start changing all the Iraq cities to Cityname, Iraq, in anticipation for it to be a territory of the United States. I checked, and apparently we already do so with Hagåtña, Guam and San Juan, Puerto Rico.

anthony (see warning) 01:58, 12 May 2004 (UTC)

Anthony, Iraq is only occupied by the United States. It is not an insular area. WhisperToMe 03:41, 12 May 2004 (UTC)

Not yet... -anthony

Having standardized naming of US cities and towns is good for Wikipedia editors/contributors/builders because:

It means you can make a direct link to any city in the country without having to check to see if you correctly guessed what form the name is in. (I would argue that Occam's Razor supports this because it is simplest.)

It helps bots. For example, I, or someone else, may decide to add "<city name>, <two letter postal code>" redirects for every city. Or weather stations. Or area codes. Or landmarks. Or...

Having standardized naming of US cities and towns is basically a non-issue for people who simply use Wikipedia as a reference, because the redirects get them to the article regardless of what they type. If users do notice the standard, it's good because standardization instills more trust. Niteowlneils 01:25, 24 May 2004 (UTC)

Consensus-building poll?

A major sticking point in the debate above seems to be that that 17-15 vote was insufficient to some users to warrant a page move, whereas 15-17 was deemed sufficient for to move it back. This exposes the technological flaw that "consensus building" and bare either-or votes are incompatibile.

If other users are game, I suggest a voting style that was trialed over at Talk:English national football team and appeared to work well. Each potential option is listed. Then there is a list of people to whom this option is acceptable and to whom it is unacceptable. Each user may well find several options acceptable; it they have a favourite option they should highlight their name in bold. This approach is less adversial than the either/or approach.

Before beginning a poll, it is probably worth allowing time to lodge a complaint that another poll is not necessary because it is so soon after the last one, but I am of the opinion that that poll is dead in the water.

Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 09:13, 12 May 2004 (UTC)

That voting style may have been better, but I don't think it's time for another vote just yet. The issue is divided enough that I don't think we're going to reach consensus through voting. I'd like to hear people's main sticking points. Not why one solution is better than another, but why one solution or another is unacceptable. Then maybe we could come up with a way to satisfy both parties. I'm sure it could be done. anthony (see warning)

Statements of fact

If anyone has a factual basis to disagree with the following statements, please so indicate in sections following this. If there are further demonstrable facts, please expand the list so we can identify the facts which are generally accepted. Jamesday 11:42, 12 May 2004 (UTC)

• New York, New York is the proper name for the County of New York, which means essentially Manhattan.
• The name used for the whole city on its official web site nyc.gov is New York City.
• The official, formal name for the city is City of New York.
• Google searches return the following counts:
  • "New York City": 8,590,000
  • "New York, New York": 3,340,000
  • "City of New York": 838,000
• Most postal addresses in the city are not someplace, New York, NY zip code but someplace, postal town, NY zip code. For example, someplace, Flushing, NY zip code is the form for those in the Flushing part of the borough of Queens.
• Those living in the city generally call it New York City.
• Expand below this please.

I have only one correction and one nitpick. The correction is that New York City is not the official name. The official name (the name used on the city seal and paperwork with legal meaning) is City of New York. New York City is the common name used on the official website and elsewhere.

The nitpick is that those living in the City, if asked where they live, will most commonly cite the borough (e.g, Manhattan, or Brooklyn). If meeting someone from out of town who one thinks is not familiar with the boroughs, you may then say "New York," or "New York City." Speaking internally, if you live in one of the boroughs (more than 75% do), and are asked where you are going to shop, and you mean Manhattan, you simply reply "The City."

All the above notwithstanding, "New York City", without qualifier (NYC, NY) is the best common usage. -- Cecropia | Talk 14:44, 12 May 2004 (UTC)

I've incorporated the seal piece into the list - thanks for reminding me of that. Yes, I agree that within the city those in it will tend to give their borough or part of the borough (I'd generally use something like Flushing rather than Queens, since Flushing is more specific and locals will know where it is) - that's what I do if discussing my location with someone within the city. I don't recall hearing anyone but LIRR train announcers using "The City" to mean Manhattan and that bugs me when living in the city because my destination is generally one of the stops not in Manhattan.:) Jamesday 02:05, 24 May 2004 (UTC)

Oil on fire

Why not move the article about the city to New York and have the state at New York (state) ? Morwen 19:01, May 12, 2004 (UTC)

At a guess, it would suggest that the whole of NY state is less 'important' (whatever that means) than the conurbation.

James F. (talk) 19:32, 12 May 2004 (UTC)

60% of New York State population is outside the City. The City already thinks it is the entire state, we don't have to encourage it. -- Cecropia | Talk 21:34, 12 May 2004 (UTC)

Well, on the other hand, if someone says "I'm going to New York" you generally mean the city, and not the state. john 21:55, 12 May 2004 (UTC)

While it is imprecise to say New York meaning the city, the statement is still correct since the city is still in the state. Disambiguation of New York (the state) is therefore not needed (and very likely to offend). --mav 06:06, 13 May 2004 (UTC)

I'd say the state is at least as likely to be sought at by the term "New York" as the city. If you're going to do that, move the city to New York (city) and the state to New York (state). Then make New York a disambig page. Of course, better would be to put the city at New York City and the state at New York State. anthony (see warning)

From the recent comments here, it seems that the British opinion seems to be that the city is more significant than the state but the American opinion treats them roughly equally. I guess this fact reflects that the city is globally important, whereas the state (even though it contains the city!) isn't? Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 08:21, 13 May 2004 (UTC)

Well, I'm not sure that significance is exactly the question. It's more a question of "If someone types 'New York' into the search box, what article do they expect?" I'd say even if the number isn't roughly equal, both articles are likely enough to justify equal disambiguation. Personally I rarely refer to New York City as "New York", unless I'm using it in a context where it is unambiguous. Of course, I generally call it "Manhattan". So if I searched for "New York", I'd probably be looking for the state. Otherwise I'd search for NYC, because hey that's easier to type anyway :). By the way, according to Wikipedia:disambiguation, primary topic disambiguation is only supposed to be used "if one meaning is clearly predominant," which I don't think is at all the case wrt New York.

Perhaps a better way to think about it is to imagine you're in charge of a reference desk. If someone came to you and said "I need to do a report on 'New York', would you tell them about the state, tell them about the city, or ask them which one they meant?" anthony (see warning)

That seems to me like a pretty compelling argument (one of your best, Anthony ;-) ) for a disambiguation page at New York. We currently have the state article there. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 10:45, 13 May 2004 (UTC)

There's much merit in this argument. If someone says that they are going to New York it's almost certain that they mean the city rather than the state, whether they are a US or non-US person, just as someone who says they are going to Washington will generally mean the city rather than the state unless they happen to be close to the state. With apologies to those in the rest of the state, as a British person, when I thought of New York prior to living within the state, I was invariably thinking of the city, not the state. The state was at that time a comparative nonentity as far as I was concerned, though of course that changed once I was within it and discovered more than the famous city.:) Jamesday 02:05, 24 May 2004 (UTC)

Yet More Oil on fire!

Yes, I have heard complaints that New York, New York shouldn't be used because the postal system uses that for mail to Manhattan only.

But that doesn't hold up! If one looks here, http://www.littletongov.org/maps/zipcodes.asp, mail addressed to "Littleton, Colorado" may not necessairly actually be going to Littleton. As a matter of fact, Columbine High School is not in Littleton! The postal system's "cities" and the actual cities are different. WhisperToMe 03:21, 14 May 2004 (UTC)

True indeed. Which is why the fact that using city, state conforms to postal usage is not a very good reason that we should use it. john 05:01, 14 May 2004 (UTC)

Not necessairly. "New York, New York" in postal refers to New York City, because at the time it was first established, it only had Manhattan.

• The Bronx was annexed: the southern part in 1874, and the northern in 1895.

Then in 1898, the new government was established, which additionally covers Brooklyn, Staten Island, and the neighborhoods of Queens.

In 1914, Brooklyn was separated from New York County, which is more evidence that the "New York, New York" refers to the city. WhisperToMe 05:14, 14 May 2004 (UTC) WhisperToMe 05:11, 14 May 2004 (UTC)

Huh? When the postal name was created, New York City was only Manhattan. But that postal name continued to refer to only Manhattan, even after the city itself was enlarged to include the outer boroughs. john 05:22, 14 May 2004 (UTC)

Actually, the postal name included the Bronx until some time in the 1960s. I remember when that happened. -- BRG 15:02, May 14, 2004 (UTC)

Huh, interesting. Well, clearly the situation is extremely complicated. So, basically. New York City=Manhattan=New York County=New York postal name up to the 1870s. From the 1870s to the 1890s New York City, New York County, and the New York postal name were expanded to include the Bronx. In 1898, New York City expanded to include Richmond County, King's County, and Queen's County. In 1914, Bronx County was split off from New York County, but remained part of the New York postal address until the 1960s... Is that accurate? john 17:29, 14 May 2004 (UTC)

Here is what I sent earlier to WhisperToMe. The only thing is I don't remember the Bronx still being New York, New York P.O. until the 1960s. It's not too complicated if you follow the timeline. And BTW, the Marble Hill anomoly is because of the digging of the Harlem River Boat Ship Canal:

I hope I'm not telling you what you already know, but:

• New York, Kings and Queens counties are original counties of New York Colony, predating the revolution. New York County was Manhattan Island, Kings County same as today, Queens County was approximately (since there's even now some dispute as to the exact border) the rest of Long Island that was originally part of New Netherlands colony. The originally English (never Dutch) part of Long Island is Suffolk County, also predating the revolution.
• When New York City began to annex parts of Westchester County in the 19th century, these were incorporated into New York County.
• When "consolidation" created the City of Greater New York on January 1, 1898, New York City annexed Richmond, Kings and part of Queens County. A year later, the unannexed part of Queens County became Nassau County. So now NYC consisted of the totality of four counties, but five boroughs.

There's actually even more behind the convoluted postal names. At the time of the 1898 consolidation what's now Kings County/Borough of Brooklyn was the City of Brooklyn. Queens, on the other hand, was not a city unto itself but rather, was home to many smaller villages towns and municipalities. That's why, to this day, Brooklynites from all neighborhoods recieve mail addressed to "Bklyn, NY" while Queens residents will always give addresses that reflect their neighborhoods' historical status: "Astoria, NY" and "Flushing, NY" for example.

• In 1914 "the other shoe" dropped and the Borough of The Bronx became Bronx County, so all was nice and neat: five counties = five boroughs. Except for Marble Hill. Oh, well. -- Cecropia | Talk 15:37, 14 May 2004 (UTC)

Is Marble Hill part of Bronx County and the Borough of Manhattan, or part of the Borough of the Bronx and New York County? john 22:32, 14 May 2004 (UTC)

None of the above (wouldn't you know?). Marble Hill is in the Borough of Manhattan and New York County. It has always (at least in historic times) been in New York County (and Manhattan Borough since 1898). Marble Hill didn't move, the Harlem River moved. Most legal proceedings (county clerk, tax lots) are handled in Manhattan/NY County. However, Marble Hill receives its services from the Bronx and its community board is in the Bronx. -- Cecropia | Talk 23:06, 14 May 2004 (UTC)

Even that isn't quite complete. When my mother died a few years ago, I went to New York County Surrogate's Court (the NYS name for what is usually called "Probate Court") only to find out that the case was being handled by the Bronx County Surrogate -- so while most legal proceedings are handled in Manhattan/NY County, some are handled in the Bronx. -- BRG 18:02, May 24, 2004 (UTC)